VAL beware.

Last week, or maybe the one before, a “nightmare” washed up on southern California’s most well-known bigger wave nude beaches. The angler fish, which is found in very very deep waters, has wicked looking teeth, is covered with spikes and looks extremely scary.

Now yesterday, or maybe the one before, a notoriously cannibalistic, sharp fanged hermaphrodite lancetfish, which also resides in deep waters, has followed it to shore just south of Blacks.

The Scripps Institute of Oceanography tweeted, “Another deep-sea curiosity washed up at La Jolla Shores: a 4-foot #lancetfish, a species that inhabits the open ocean from the surface to about 6,000 feet deep.”

The species also eats its own, has sharp fangs and is a hermaphrodite.

If, and why, lancetfish are cannibals is a great mystery to scientists but according to San Diego’s local NBC affiliate:

It’s true, according to Dr. Elan Portner, a post-doctoral fellow at SIO’s Choy Lab. Portner and a team of scientists under UC San Diego assistant professor Dr. Anela Choy have been studying the stomach contents of lancetfish.

What they found was that lancetfish appear to enjoy the taste of their own species. It might be a maturity thing, though, similar to some humans and green vegetables. Choy’s team found lancetfish gravitate to their own once they reach about 3 feet long.

Why they wait is a mystery, as are many other aspects of the lancetfish’s life.

The one on San Diego’s sand was four feet long, certainly having tasted its own flesh. Locals hope the combination of terrors, angler and lancet, will be enough to scare off hordes of VALs certain to descend from adjacent communities after Santa leaves Ben Gravy soft tops under Christmas trees.

Fingers crossed etc.

"There’s nothing wrong with any sexual perversion, as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody, physically hurt anybody," says Alice Cooper.

A three-year-old video of shock-rocker Alice Cooper singing the world’s shortest birthday song to Kelly Slater’s older brother, Sean, has resurfaced. 

It’s a moment, as Sean, four years older than Kelly and also a shredder, points out is a moment worth re-sharing. 

“Happy birthday buddy,” says Cooper before singing, “This is your birthday song, it isn’t very long.”

Kelly who perhaps didn’t hear the lyric appears briefly confused before the joke sinks in.

 

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A post shared by Sean Slater (@captainseanslater)

“Not my birthday this was almost 3 years ago but I liked it,” writes Sean. “Nobody read the post so they think it’s my birthday. Mine is Jan 4.” 

Described by Rolling Stone as the Marquis de Sade of rock n roll, at his peak in the nineteen-seventies Cooper would chop up baby dolls onstage and stage his own execution via guillotine. 

“All death is sexual,” Cooper told Rolling Stone. “And when Alice does something onstage, he has to be punished for it. He always gets killed in the end. Just like the movies… I have sex with mannequins in ‘I Love the Dead.’ As long as sex doesn’t hurt anybody, what’s wrong with it? There’s nothing wrong with any sexual perversion, as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody, physically hurt anybody, although on some levels some people like to be hurt sexually.”

In 1998, Cooper, still doing the suicide schtick, this time with a hangman’s noose, almost died when thick piano wire that was keeping him from actually being asphyxiated snapped.

“I pretty much blackd out,” he said. 

Watch! 

Head-butts surfer, knocks out two front teeth… 

Only eight days after a free-diver filmed a fifteen-foot Great White swimming towards him off the coast of Hawaii’s Big Island, a surfer has reportedly had been hit by a White while surfing Banyans, one of the most popular breaks in the Kailua-Kona area.

Details are scant at the mo but we’re told the surfer has identified the shark as a Great White and said it came at him with its mouth open and hit him so hard in the head it knocked out two of his teeth.

The White dragged the surfer under and, for whatever reason, let him go.

Another surfer paddled the man in.

He is reportedly “deeply traumatised.”

Although Great Whites in Hawaii are rare-ish enough, mostly its Tigers doing the damage (see: Bethany Hamilton), free-diver Deron Verbeck shot some pretty wild vision of a fifteen-foot White swimming up at him from a hundred feet below while driving off Kona on November 26.

“It just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and I was like, ‘that is for sure 100% a Great White,” Verbeck told KHON2.

In an IG post, the president of the Marine Conservation Science Institute Michael Domeier said “this beautiful female is from the Central California Tribe or Pt. Conception Tribe” of Great Whites, adding, “This shark was spotted literally right in front of my house! This is the stuff that gets me out of bed in the morning with a smile!”

 

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A post shared by Marine Conservation Science In (@marinecsiorg)

More on the attack as it comes etc.

Brazil beware.

The men’s portion of the Michelob ULTRA Pure Gold Haleiwa Challenger has just wrapped and John John Florence, returning from knee injury to the World Surf League stage, smashed the field.

Kanoa Igarashi was in the final, along with a just-qualified Sammy Pupo. Neither Jack Robinson nor The Ultimate Surfer Zeke Lau were.

Florence looked like a proper Championship Tour threat in wonky scary-adjacent Haleiwa, scoring a ten during his domination.

Joe Turpel called the action alongside Makua Rothman, who very much threatened to overshadow the Silk Soy Milk.

Turpel, possibly, worried.

More as the story develops.

Tis the season.

Days ago, I was very surprised to discover a flyer for Kelly Slater’s sustainable outerwear brand Outerknown hiding in my mailbox. It was full color, on a heavy card stock, and featured pictures of cozy St. Bernards and warm smiles beaming from underneath “Reimagine Cashmere” hats.

All very cute though it did make me think that mass mailing full color, heavy card stock “wish list” brochures to people was probably not the most environmentally friendly move as I dropped it into the trash can.

Well, I soon forgot about Kelly Slater and his unique brand of ecology altogether until our wonderful New Jersey friend messaged me, hours ago, with a picture featuring the very same Outerknown flyer that had been inside my mailbox, writing, “Look what arrived in my mailbox today over here in New Jersey! I’ve never ever bought a thing from Outerknown nor have I even ever gone on the website or its social media platforms… never ever got anything in the mail ’til this. He must be tracking who’s commenting on BeachGrit and the recent story ‘sustainable gift guides.’ Maybe I’ll DM him and ask if BeachGrit readers/commenters get a discount.”

What pure joy.

BeachGrit made an unwilling, though jolly, participant in trimming the rainforests with festive holiday cheer.

Trimming, mulching, repurposing into heavy card stock, coloring, flying, stuffing into mailboxes, getting dropped into trash cans, gracing landfills.

It’s like when someone donates money to Save the Whales in lieu of a gift for you.

Thoughtful.

Tis the season.