"Passionate."

Professional surfing has turned a gorgeous shade of green and yellow, over the past decade, with much order and progress following. Fit surfers doing much workout on Instagram. Mind-bending airs that could not have even been dreamt ten years ago.

The future is Brazil made even more certain, yesterday, when Santa Monica’s World Surf League inked a stunning two-year deal with TV Globo, the largest commercial television network in Latin America and the second largest in the world, thereby shocking media watchers.

To be quite frank, I do not know if the two-year deal was “stunning” nor if media watchers were “shocked” but I do think it is worth reading the press release in full without skipping one jot or corp-tittle.

Today the World Surf League (WSL) announced that, beginning in 2022, Globo will be the official media partner in Brazil. The new three-year media deal will be effective from 2022 through 2024, providing multi-platform coverage that will be amplified on Globo TV, Globoplay, ge.com, and Canal OFF. This new media deal will give the passionate Brazilian audience the opportunity to watch the world’s best surfers in action, including all of the Brazilian athletes that are on the forefront of competitive surfing.

In addition to full coverage of the Championship Tour (CT), the agreement also includes linear broadcast rights to the Challenger Series (CS), the path to the elite tour, as well as Longboard and Big Wave events. Globo will also have distribution access to original content series and documentaries produced by the WSL. As the home of professional surfing, the WSL will continue to broadcast all WSL competitions on its own digital platforms, its free app as well as its YouTube channel.

“For the WSL, being part of Globo’s multi-platform coverage, which speaks to millions of people every day, is something that will increase the sport’s current visibility, both in the availability of surfing content and the opportunity to become even more familiar with all the athletes who are part of the current generation of champions, as well as the up-and-coming generations, which are also exciting and very promising,” said Ivan Martinho, General Manager of WSL Latin America.

“The market has shown that surfing is already amongst the most loved sports in the country and has the highest number of active surfers in Brazil. The fact that it is now among the select group of sports that Globo chooses as part of its platform is a source of great pride for the WSL. I am sure that the increase in visibility to surfing will be very important in the construction of today’s surfing idols while providing a springboard for the idols of tomorrow,” concluded Martinho.

While providing greater visibility of professional surfing to a larger audience on free-to-air, premium, internet and streaming platforms, the Globo Group will use all of its experience by supplying broad coverage across all its platforms to bring a unique perspective and outreach to the sport of surfing and to the Brazilian athletes, who are a vital part of the WSL surfing elite.

Isn’t calling the Brazilian fanbase “passionate” a racist dog whistle?

I’m 99% sure it is.

Shame on Santa Monica.

But was it all a dream?

The much beloved actor Dick Van Dyke turned 96 years young, yesterday, and wow. Van Dyke made a name for himself in musical theater before gracing the silver screen, playing unforgettable characters like the chimney sweep in Disney’s Mary Poppins and Dick Van Dyke on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

Wonderful and in honor of his birthday, delightful stories from the past near century are being unearthed including this one:

While chatting with Craig Ferguson on The Late Late Show in 2010, Van Dyke, then 85, said he’d once enjoyed surfing. But when Ferguson asked if he still caught waves at that point, Van Dyke told him, “No, not anymore.”

He said he used to paddle out on a 10-foot longboard and had a preference for the cold waters of the east coast — specifically Virginia Beach.

“I went out once and I fell asleep on that board,” he shared. “I did! And I woke up out of sight of land.”

But the story gets even more incredible. Van Dyke said, “I looked around and I started paddling with the swells, and I start seeing fins swimming around me. And I thought, you know, ‘I’m dead.’”

“They turned out to be porpoises,” he concluded. “They pushed me all the way to shore. I’m not kidding.”

Well I have never heard anything so surreal. Have you? Also, have you ever fallen asleep on a surfboard? In cold water?

Incredible.

Surfers are the best!

Somebody had to say it, amirite? But of course it was Jonah Hill, our champion, the face of modern surfing. We, each of us grumpy locals here, were shocked when Carrie Bradshaw’s husband, Mr. Big, died of a heart attack, post Peloton workout, on the premier episode of new Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That…

And we mourned, sure, tears streaking cheeks, but also watched the workout bicycle’s stock plummet then wished that John James Preston was straddling a longboard, at time of demise, instead of a stationary crotch rocket.

Or standing upon a SUP.

In any case, Hill, heir to Miki Dora’s Malibu throne, took to Instagram, furious, demanding to know why Mrs. Preston didn’t call 911, the U.S. emergency number, instead of doing whatever she did (I haven’t watched so don’t know).

A star-studded high five followed but leave it to one of us, cutting to the quick, getting to the heart of the matte (no pun intended), prioritizing.

Surfers are the best.

But have you ever called 911, 000, 112 or whatever emergency number exists in your country?

Prank?

That’s why you are NOT the face of modern surfing.

Jerk.

What would Jonah do?

A question that should be perpetually in your consciousness.