A touch of thrill in the air!

Hours ago, the World Surf League issued a “yellow alert” for its inaugural final’s day there in the shadow of a decommissioned nuclear power plant.

“Yellow” apparently meaning a “probable start within 24 hours.”

Commissioner Jessi Miley-Cyrus delivered the news whilst standing on Lower Trestles’ famous cobbled stone.

As you can see she is wearing a nice hat not entirely dissimilar to the one worn by Curious George’s deuteragonist.

Did you know “The Man in the Yellow Hat’s” real name is Ted Shackleford?

I didn’t but it stands to reason. Very “explore-ish.”

In any case, why the World Surf League has turned to color coding is not entirely clear and I can’t imagine that answers will be forthcoming.

Filipe Toledo has still not be seen after last week’s “huge scuffle.”

Do you think he will muster the courage to paddle out for his heat or do you think he will be too worried that the hot, young sponsored junior is hiding in the bushes off the bike path ready to pounce?

Exciting, in any case.

Justice delayed.

The California legislature voted its final approval, Thursday night, on a bill that would return a chunk of Manhattan Beach stolen from a black family in 1924 back to descendants of the original owners.

Bruce’s Beach, as it came to be called, was purchased by Willa and Charles Bruce in 1912. The couple built a resort for black families on the land during the Jim Crow era. Racist neighbors, fearing the resort would drive down land prices, used dirty tricks to first condemn the property then seized it using eminent domain. Manhattan Beach then passed a law forbidding the Bruce’s from moving their resort anywhere within its borders.

The structures were razed and, years later, the property eventually became a park.

The bill now only needs a signature from embattled governor Gavin Newsom, who was once my mortal enemy, and then back it goes.

Duane Shepard, a Bruce descendant and family historian, told the Southern California News Group, “I’m elated, walking on water right now. This is one of the greatest things in American history right now.”

A happy story and it must be wondered if increasingly frustrated Kauaians aren’t peeking over Mark Zuckerberg’s Garden Isle fence thinking about getting those 1300 acres returned too.

Cracks etc.

Hot for teacher.

Jonah Hill, Hollywood funnyman and heir to Miki Dora’s Malibu throne, has just pulled the ultimate power move wooing and winning the heart of his surf instructor.

The Wolf of Wall Street star went Instagram official, hours ago, with Sarah Brady sweetly captioning the post “Grateful for you.”

Brady, whose website declares that she is currently an undergraduate at UC San Diego studying the Anthropology of Climate Change, hails from a line of surfers three generations deep and learned, herself, to slide at three-years-old. She has a smooth longboardy style, as evidenced on her own Instagram, and if I was Commish of the Longboard World Tour, like Devon Howard, I would proffer her a slot post haste.

And, actually, I couldn’t find any reference to her being a “surf instructor.” Yahoo! reported that bit but let’s assume it is true and let us all doff our jaunty beanies Hill’s way because if Van Halen taught us anything at all, it is that wooing and winning teacher is boss.

Order and progress.

But do you feel the tension? The fission? Strange days, yes, but also exciting ones to be alive and a fan of professional surfing. What is being described as a “substantial swell,” or in Surfline-speak “la bomba nuclear,” is currently making its way to Lower Trestles, home of Filipe Toledo’s “huge scuffle,” for the inaugural Final’s Day and wow just wow.

World Surf League CEO Erik Logan, Vans so clean he can see his own reflection in them, is certainly patting himself on the waxed back right now, congratulating himself for his foresight, his bold maneuvering, Gabriel Medina be damed.

And we will all be there, watching on computers and phones, cursing ourselves for loving it, cursing ourselves for wanting the aforementioned Gabriel Medina to both win and lose.

According to an overheard conversation between three Brazilian filmers on the path to Lower Trestles this very morning, however, the entire sovereign nation of Brazil is planning to be there, each man woman and child, on the beach.

“I got the best shots of Italo… It’s either Monday or Tuesday… The entire country is going to be down there.”

Wow.

Operation Neptune, which has come to be known as D Day, saw 24,000 Allied troops land on French beaches on June 6, 1944. Until now, it has been the largest seaborne invasion in history.

Brazil has a population of north of 213,000,000.

The Marines, at nearby Camp Pendleton, won’t stand a chance.

More as the story develops.