Scary times.

Last year, the World Surf League introduced a brand-new format to competitive professional surfing, The Final 5, wherein the top five male and female surfers travel to Lower Trestles’ cobbled stone and go against each other for the the title fulfilling the classic old adage “if it is broken fix the part that isn’t.”

For those who need a refresher, number five goes up against number four, the winner goes up against number three, the winner goes up against number two, the winner goes up against number one, the winner is the winner.

Exciting and this year, on the male’s side, we have Kanoa Igarashi going up against Italo Ferreira first.

Igarashi, who was born in Huntington Beach, California to Japanese parents has grown into a “global superstar” over the past two years, slingshotted into the stratosphere when surfing was introduced into the 2020 summer Olympics in Japan where the Surf City boy surfed for his parents’ home country.

Orange County would have certainly been hurt but maybe also understood the opportunities, for the handsome young man, associated with competing with the home nation’s flag on his tracksuit.

Now, though, that “Final’s Day” is here, and that it is in San Clemente, Orange County is laying full claim with the county’s official organ, The Orange County Register, releasing a most provocative issue today, headline screaming “OC SURFER IGARASHI EARNS SPOT FOR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS AT TRESTLES; CONOLOGUE WINS BIG IN TAHITI”

Yikes.

Japan has, thus far, remained quiet but experts in international relations worry that a response is being crafted in the Yakusuni Shrine to punish California’s third most populous county for such insolence.

What might it be?

Fu-Go bombs floated in early September?

A Manchurian Candidate-esque plot wherein a SUP enthusiast from Oklahoma is secretly groomed to be installed at the very pinnacle of professional surfing power?

Scary times.

Shame on us but mostly you.

We are, each of us, jerks. You, of course, but every blue moon me too. Though can we return, once more, to the just-wrapped Outerknown Tahiti Pro which provided fireworks, superlatives, moments that will be etched in our shared history forever and ever and ever? I see no reason not to as it is grey and sad in Southern California today and memories of impossibly green hills rising from impossibly blue waters are better than gloom.

Fantastic.

A fantastic show though you should feel very terrible about your response to Filipe Toledo’s first round heat against world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater and Slater’s employee Nathan Hedge. The waves were terrifyingly good, that heat, emphasis on terrifying with Slater and Hedge trading bombs while the current best surfer in the world bobbed out the back simply terrified.

Oh, you applauded Slater and Hedge but spent most your time challenging Toledo, wondering about his courage, his prizing self-protection over glory.

Me too, lightly, in a moment of weakness, I’ll admit.

Well, we should all be ashamed of ourselves, most more than I, because, in an act of synchronicity, surf inspiration Jonah Hill released a statement at the very same time that Toledo wasn’t paddling that declared he, also, was choosing to bob out the back, metaphorically, and will no longer promote his films, publicly, because it is anxiety inducing.

Unlike you, me and our unhealthiness, our fun making, Hill was universally praised for his bold self-protection stance. Per industry publication Deadline:

Jonah Hill has received plaudits for sharing recently his decision to step back from promoting his films in order to protect his mental health.

After the Superbad star opened up in a public letter he shared on Deadline, saying he had suffered for 20 years from anxiety attacks, which were exacerbated by media appearances and public-facing events, two psychologists told the BBC of the importance of his message for the wider audience.

Dr Sandra Wheatley told the BBC that “somebody who has so much to lose is actually prepared to step back” should be admired.

She said that celebrities were performing constantly whenever they were out in public. “But when they’re offstage, they go back to who they really are. So celebrities have to remember this persona in the media is an impersonation that you have, not you as an individual and that can be hard to balance.”

Consultant psychologist Dr Elena Bailey agreed that celebrities were “very vulnerable” in the public eye, and that stepping back as Hill has done is “self-protective behaviour.”

“This is because the type of attention and feedback and commentary on your life can have a very big impact on your mental health, causing a lot of anxiety, negative thoughts, symptoms of depression,” she said.

Really, shame on you.

Deep shame.

A little on me too but just a dab.