Damn it feels good to be a gangsta.

The World Surf League exciting final’s day opens its window in days with forecasting partner Surfline calling for likely head-high surf which should excite all but current number one Filipe Toledo. Rosy, rosy, rosy sun shining bright on everyone. And, so, you can imagine the absolute shock when thunderclouds rolled over the aforementioned Surfline’s Huntington Beach offices and rained pink slips on disbelieving employees.

Per initial whispers from sources who have been chopped, the advertising, content, design, and data science departments suffered heavy casualties along with the entire brand team.

The shock made all the greater seeing that just over two years ago, Surfline was juiced with $30 million from investment and advisory firm The Chernin Group.

At the time, Mike Kerns, Chernin Group co-founder and partner, declared, “Surfline has established itself as one of the largest and most respected surf brands in the world through a decades-long commitment to serving its global community. At TCG, we achieve growth by partnering with passionate teams, engaged entrepreneurs who build out of love, and world class management. With Surfline, we have that combination in Jeff, Kyle and the entire team.”

Troubling wave calls have plagued the 2022 World Surf League’s Championship Tour, reaching peak absurdity with “cartoonish” nuttiness at the most recent Outerknown Tahiti Pro, but enough for a gutting?

Equity, I suppose, works in mysterious ways.

More as the story develops.

But silver lining?

Climate change is, apparently, here to stay and really throwing wrenches into the works, or spanners, depending on whether your climate speaks the Queen’s English or in American vernacular. While violent wave-causing storms are said to be on the increase, iconic surf breaks will also be threatened due sea level rise and Surfrider Foundation just released a troubling list of the ten most vulnerable in the United States or United States-ish.

In order from worst to bad:

HAWAIʻI—THE NORTH SHORE, OʻAHU

CALIFORNIA—SURFERS POINT

CALIFORNIA—TRESTLES

FLORIDA—COCOA BEACH

NORTH CAROLINA—CAROLINA BEACH

PUERTO RICO—TRES PALMAS

NEW YORK—THE ROCKAWAYS

TEXAS—CORPUS CHRISTI

MAINE–HIGGINS BEACH

WASHINGTON–WESTPORT

As it happens, the world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater makes his home in three of the top four (North Shore, San Clemente and Cocoa Beach) though has released a luxury watch with Swiss manufacturer Breitling that may help stem the tide, as it were, or at least take some plastics out of the hurting oceans and transforming them into sleek bands.

Every thorn has its rose, though, and forward-thinking surfers may be thinking about which breaks might benefit from a little extra water. I’d like to think my childhood hometown of Coos Bay, Oregon might benefit. There was a cove, there, that had a nice setup with shallow rock reef tapering impressively from point to sand. It was often too shallow but maybe in a decade could host the World Surf League’s championship day.

There is currently an oceanfront home on the market for $599,000.

A new next gen Volcom House all your own?

Fortune favors the bold.

Like fine sourdough.

James Brolin, father of Josh, star of The Amityville Horror, longtime husband of Barbara Streisand would seem, from the outside, to have it all. Rugged good looks, financial security, Josh, Amityville, Babs but something just wasn’t right. The 82-year-old was feeling his age, unhappy, cranky. As fate would have it, one night, he was dragged to a dinner party where the world’s greatest surfer Laird Hamilton and his wife Gabby Reese also happened to be.

Hamilton took one look at Brolin and, according to the actor, said, “Why don’t you come on up to the pool and work out with us on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday?”

Well, rolled over the creepy offer until one day deciding to give in to love and go hop in Hamilton’s pool.

“His deal is, ‘Oh, do you want to breathe?'” he told People Magazine. ‘”You have to get to the top.’ I said, ‘But I got the weights. I can’t.’ He said, ‘Yeah, no, you have to take the weights with you.'”

“Once you get used to 10 lbs., then we move you to 15 lbs. Then we move you to 20 lbs. and it’s a jumping exercise to start. Then next, they’ve got you swimming the length of the pool with a weight.”

“I started to change. Everything started to change. I just started to look better. Body, face, eyes, thinking and therefore proving the old, boring thing that exercise really works.”

Sexy.

Brolin later tells the magazine that he eats a whole loaf of sourdough bread, from time to time, when Streisand tells him he deserves a little treat.

That bit turned my stomach for some reason. Oh, it’s not that I dislike sourdough, just, I don’t know, a whole loaf seems excessive.

Read the rest here.