Bad days.

If it swims in the ocean it must not be trusted. This rule applies to “man-eating” sharks, to rapist dolphins, to sneaky stingrays, heartless jellyfish and crusty, grumpy, mean-spirited surfers. Jerky, rude, foul surfers.

Sea lions too.

And I’ve always been very wary of the aquatic pitbulls. They don’t look nice, that’s for certain, but a tourist in Western Australia felt differently after locals told her that region’s sea lions were gentle creatures.

Well, as one does in Western Australia, she went swimming in a pack of them with her friend. It was such a wonderful pleasure she returned and repeated the activity for a second day. Even better than the first and so back for a third when a savage beast turned on her and…

“…all of a sudden, all I saw was a sea lion in front of me, and when I turned my back, he bit me.

“It was on the back of my right leg, and straight away I could see he had drawn blood.”

The tourists didn’t think the animals were dangerous, or that a tour guide was needed to swim in the area.

“Locals had told us that the sea lions were friendly, and that many went there without a tour guide or anything like that,” she said.

“It was an amazing experience, as they liked to dance with us, playing and jumping out of the water.”

But when a sea lion decided to have a taste of the backpacker, she was in a state of shock.

“The pain was shock – I couldn’t really feel thanks to the adrenaline, but I couldn’t swim to get out of the water.”

Thankfully Ms. Precillia was with her friend who took her to a hospital which charged her nearly $5000 dollars because sea lions contain a rare bacteria in their mouths very bad for human beings.

The moral of this story?

Exactly.

We're here. We surf. We're in your face!

But have you ever tried to surf San Francisco’s Ocean Beach? That stretch of sand and tired arms and swell line after swell line after swell line just hammering and hammering and hammering?

I haven’t but have stood in the parking lot there, alongside local and Maverick charger Taylor Paul, thinking, “How in the world do people do that? Put themselves on such a paddlewheel, multiple 100s of duck dives paddlewheel? For what? For why?”

So didn’t paddle out.

But God bless the San Francisco surfer. Bless her fortitude. Bless his pluck.

It is a proper hell out there and these same surfers, or at least some of them, presumably, tried to attend the caustic, surf hating rally of Democratic frontrunning candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s San Francisco. Were they welcomed with open arms? Thanked for being personally progressive and also likely slamming their heads into Ocean Beach’s unrelenting negativism? An apt metaphor for current American politics if ever there was one.

Yes?

No?

And we must turn to the New York Post for more.

Two queer activists unhappy with Pete Buttigieg’s “middle of the road” politics were kicked out of his San Francisco fundraiser Friday after interrupting him on stage with shouted questions, a report said.

The protesters peppered Buttigieg with questions at San Francisco’s National LGBTQ Center for the Arts, immediately drawing boos from supporters of the former South Bend, Indiana mayor, according to The Guardian.

“I respect your activism, but this is a gathering for supporters of our campaign and I just got a question about my husband and I’m really excited to answer it,” Buttigieg said in response to the activists, the report said.

After the event, a Buttigieg supporter confronted the activists.

“You’re homophobes, that’s what you all are, you’re homophobes!” the supporter yelled.

“We’re all gay!” a protester responded.

And we are.

Truly are. Surfers and Mayor Pete must not, should not forget that however much he hates us and Hillary Clinton hates us that we will not be silenced.

Is this our political moment?

Awakening?

More as the story develops.

A Surfing Life.

It’s impossible not to love Jonah Hill. The actor, a very funny man, first popped onto my horizon starring alongside Martin Starr, Seth Rogan, Michael Cerra etc. in Superbad. From there it was Moneyball, 21 Jump Street, The Wolf of Wallstreet, on and on.

The only dog, maybe, was Get Him to the Greek alongside Russell Brand but I only say such critical things because I watched it on an airplane and was possibly not in the right mood.

In any case, six shorts months ago Jonah Hill faced his fears and went surfing. Via Instagram he declared:

Been terrified to surf my whole life . Totally random fear and at the same time always been a secret dream of mine. Turned out to be one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had. Not only was it so fun and challenging but more so I’m like “damn, at 35 you can start doing shit you’ve always wanted to do.” Thanks @patmillin and Franco for taking me and @88surfboards.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0ybtWPA-Js/?utm_source=ig_embed

Well, if you believe you can achieve and Jonah Hill just went out and slayed Malibu.

Don’t believe?

Per celebrities-in-the-wild website TMZ;

Jonah hit the sand with his surfboard just before 10 AM Friday near the famous Gladstones restaurant in Malibu.

Pretty impressive … considering the waves there can be pretty intense.

Whoa!

Click here for many pictures of where six months of training can take a purpose-driven VAL.

But, quickly, does it surprise you that James Franco (above) rides a wax-free Tomo much taller than he?

It does me for some reason but should it?

Haute cuisine!

To my eyes, climate change is like a glass half filled. Oh, I know the trendy take is to call that same glass half empty and bemoan the various troubles, calamities, signs of the apocalypse etc. but where is the anti-depression in that?

No, climate change is a gift, a beautiful bounty and some lucky New Zealand surfers were just feted at a Michelin-starred beach with a mega-serving of  moules-frites as 500,000 mussels became cooked to death on a beach thanks increasing ocean temperatures and hotter skies.

Shall we fasten our bibs around our necks and travel there ourselves, digitally? I can almost smell that delicate white wine sauce now.

New Zealand resident Brandon Ferguson posted a video on Facebook from Maunganui Bluff Beach, located on the country’s North Island, showing hundreds-of-thousands of dead mussels that had washed up on the shore.

“I’m local to the area so I’m always out on ‘the coast’ gathering food for the family,” he said. “That day I was out with friends and family while they were fishing. We waited for the tide to turn so we could gather mussels.”

But instead, Ferguson saw hundreds of thousands of green-lipped mussels that had turned up dead.

“It smelled like dead rotting seafood,” Ferguson said. “Some of the mussels were empty, some of them were dead … Some were just floating around in the tide.”

“There were well over 500,000 mussels and shells littering the coastline.”

A 2019 report from the New Zealand government supports Ferguson’s theory — climate change has been warming sea temperatures, devastating the country’s native marine plants, animals and habitats.

World going to hell etc. but, really, my problem here is Mr. Ferguson criticized nature’s effort at a difficult Belgian classic with the whole “smelled like dead and rotting seafood” line. I imagine that he was poorly raised and never learned the “if you don’t have anything nice to say…” good manners.

In another note, one-time professional surfer Carissa Moore credits moules-frites for helping her “surf like a goddess.”

Small world.