David Lee Scales has it coming.

Ooooooooooh I don’t get hopping mad much, red in the face, curses bubbling up from deep inside before expectorating out* but on Thursday just past I almost leapt my second coffee table and almost danced with David Lee Scales.

It all happened so quickly.

There we, per the usual, at the finest surf shop San Clemente has to offer, chatting about my pivot from hardened cynic to a bubbling fount of anti-depressive joy (buy here), Jonah Hill being a total pussy, Dave Chappelle delivering a masterpiece etc. when Scales brought up the recent, tragic, surfboard rack fire there in Waikiki and began spouting off on what an abomination Oahu’s crown jewel is.

“I was scared to walk out of my Airbnb because prostitutes were coming up and down the stairs, homeless drug addicts everywhere, big gaudy Chanel stores, blah blah blah it was horrible.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Waikiki has, truly, been on of my very favorite places on earth for decades now. I love everything about it from its history to its architecture to its high-end shopping to its hotels, tourists, Hawaiiana, Roy Yamaguchi’s Hawaiian fusion fare.

Everything.

I could spend the rest of my days waltzing up and down Kalakaua Avenue, never wanting for nothing, and to hear David Lee besmirch it so set my heart pounding, blood boiling.

(WHOOP numbers forthcoming.)

I dished out a stream of truths, allowing him to escape physical violence as he is just about to have a baby any day now, but, later, wondered what you think about Waikiki.

Abomination or gem?

Be careful how you respond.

Listen here for more on Jonah Hill being a complete pussy.

Also, Punch-Drunk Love is one of the greatest movies ever made.

No?

Continue being careful.

*Upon further reflection, I get hopping mad, red in the face, expectorating etc. often.

Get WHOOPed.

I am back from that beautiful gem in California’s much-maligned Central Valley with a new hunger for our sport of kings. A reinvigorated passion to learn, improve, to be the best surfer in the water not by having the most fun, no never, but, rather, by surfing the best. Opening shoulders during turns, bending at the knees not the waist, etc.

It was at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch that I learned, for the first time, that fitness actually enhances surfing. Thigh muscles necessary, a torso that can twist, but how to build the platform and build quick all while measuring progress with WHOOP, the very latest in fitness tracking excellence?

Prison.

If Hollywood has taught me anything, it is that Robert De Niro looked peak best in Cape Fear, Steve McQueen in Papillon, Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke all lean and well-muscled. They looked like they would have each a fine wrapping cutback and I should attempt to become prison fit like them but how?

Ahhhh, Cousin Danny.

My own flesh and blood is currently serving yet another stint inside after going on yet another bank robbery spree after getting out of prison for going on a bank robbery spree and nearing legendary status.

A stone’s throw from being the most prolific bank robber in United States history.

The book, featuring Cousin Danny’s run, releases this Spring (Blessed are the Bank Robbers: The True Adventures of an Evangelical Outlaw, pre-order here etc.) and you can learn much about how to rob banks for yourself but we had never discussed fitness and so I asked him forthwith.

“How can I get prison fit?”

He responded mercifully quickly.

“10x pushups, 10x squats, ten times. 9x pushups, 9x squats, nine times. 8x pushups, 8x squats, eight times all the way down to one and then back up to ten.”

Visions of pig dogged tube rides danced in my head as marched out to the backyard cedar paneled yoga room, the closest approximation to cement box I currently have, and began.

I finished after 160 pushups, 160 squats, not even 3/10 of the way through the program. Shoulders on fire, especially reconstructed one. Thighs unable to take anymore. Sweating more profusely than after running three miles, than surfing Surf Ranch for an hour plus twenty minutes.

WHOOP strap, never not affixed, registered the strain as a 12.9.

A fine number, more than running three miles, and I felt well on my way to a powerful down carve so went surfing immediately.

I was too tired to do much, barely able to pop to feet, but did do one turn in my short 45 min session that felt powerful-adjacent and I knew I was on the right path.

Hardening up.

The surfing, itself, still did not register as an “activity.”

But silver lining?

Two weeks ago, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser published a damning report fingering surf great Kelly Slater along with other oceanfront homeowners there on Oahu’s North Shore who have installed illegal devices on the sand in order to protect their investments from an increasingly violent sea.

The makeshift seawalls and sand bag thingers, called burritos, were temporarily allowed for some homeowners in 2018 with the promise that they would be removed. Robust beach erosion followed, as “hardening” the shoreline causes beaches to disappear, sand getting sucked away etc.

Oahu, per the report, has already lost 25% of its beaches and scientists declare that number is on its way to 40% with the hardening but the Hawaiian government has remained quiet… until now.

The Department of Land and Natural Resources, reacting to frustration from the island’s non-rich residents, has admitted that the structures have “led to obvious degradation of the public beach resource” and shall henceforth send letters to the homeowners detailing their “alleged noncompliance.”

Zing.

According to ProPublica:

Under state law, officials can fine property owners $15,000 a day for unauthorized structures that remain on the beach, though they have yet to take that step against homeowners with expired permits. Nevertheless, the uptick in oversight represents a stark shift in approach for Hawaii’s coastal officials.

As the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica reported last year, temporary sandbags and burrito systems are rarely removed from public beaches when their permissions are set to expire, in large part because state officials have repeatedly granted homeowners extensions or don’t enforce their own deadlines. In addition, the state has often granted after-the-fact approval for structures that were built illegally.

In at least one case where coastal officials rejected an illegal barrier, they did not force its removal. In 2018, Kelly Slater, an 11-time world surfing champion who lives on Ehukai Beach by the world-famous Banzai Pipeline surf break, illegally installed a barrier made out of thick fabric. He was fined just $2,000. DLNR told the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica this month that “unauthorized land uses continue to exist” in front of Slater’s property and the department is “attempting to get the landowner to comply.” Slater, who did not respond to a request for comment, previously told the news organizations that without the sandbags people “would have lost properties outright.”

Asked why authorities hadn’t yet forced North Shore homeowners to remove the burritos with expired permits, OCCL said that many of the homes remain imminently threatened and that property owners have a right to due process. Officials have also said that they’re concerned about potential public safety hazards created by homes that could fall into the ocean.

Wait.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

Slater’s collapsed, ocean-drowned home becoming a new reef that rivals the Banzai Pipeline?

That’s so Kelly!

Inventor of professional surfing Randy Rarick is also interviewed in the report and tells homeowners to kick rocks.