Uh oh.

The power of surf fans, and their mass candle lightings, has suddenly taken on new intrigue. Rumors are currently breaking across TikTok that Tom Brady’s uncharacteristic performance struggles are directly related to his estranged wife, Gisele Bündchen and her various sagings plus visits to spiritual healers.

A hexing?

Brady, the greatest football player of all-time, has fallen hard of late, an embarrassing 21 – 3 loss to the lowly Carolina Panthers the most recent in a season-long string of bummer.

No touchdowns.

Much sad.

One-time coach and respected analyst Rex Ryan declared afterward, “This team is searching like crazy. At least they’re trying, they’re searching, but Tom Brady looks like a shell of himself. You look at him even physically. His personal life, obviously, is having an effect too. I get it. I don’t want to minimize this. It’s a factor. Obviously it’s something. This looks like there’s no answer because there’s no speed on the field.”

While Bündchen is taking most of the heat, surf fans are turning inward, wondering if the mass candle lightings undergone in a hoped-for reunion between the Brazilian supermodel and her beau from 2005 through 2006, Kelly Slater, are, in fact, to blame.

As you know, the two formed up the most powerful surf couple during those years, Bündchen at the height of her model powers, powers that have made her vastly richer than her current husband. Slater bagging two of eleven world titles.

As you may not know, candle lighting is essential to occultic practices.

Oh, I’ve never wanted you, us, to travel that dangerous path. I have encouraged purchasing various pumpkin spice offerings from Yankee Candle, but maybe you got lazy?

Maybe you accidentally bought candles from the witch down the street?

It’s one thing for us to hope for a grand romantic reunion. Quite another for us to curse a generational talent.

Driftwood, jasmine, raw coconut.

Yikes.

Maybe check your stock?

Do better, please.

The VAL, or vulnerable adult learner, invasion is well and truly upon us, a proper war between the aforementioned and grouchy locals who began their surfing experience somewhere between 1970 and 2000. Lineups cluttered with soft top. Going left on rights, or vice versa, a proper new “move.”

Oh we are out there, you and I, fighting the good fight and maybe, sometimes, imagining that we are winning this grand conflict. I, personally, have yelled at least three Covid babies near tears over the last three months, others, braver, have picked up rocks and bashed away but, alas, it appears as if it is not enough.

For a new just-released study published by Roxy Davis, a qualified surf coach and registered psychological counselor currently completing a PhD in surf therapy, the battlefield is “cultivating self-esteem” amongst beginners.

Per healthline.com:

Never thought you’d be able to stand up on a surfboard and ride a wave? Trying activities you once considered “impossible” may help you:

cultivate self-esteem

trust yourself more easily

feel more confident in your own abilities

Davis says she’s noticed, over the past 2 decades, that learning to surf seems to foster self-esteem among her participants.

“Say you’re a child who’s come from a school where, maybe, you’re not the top of anything in academics or sport, and your coach says to you that your goal is to stand up. When you stand up and ride the wave, you feel like, ‘Wow, if I can do that, I can do anything,’” she says.

A small 2021 studyTrusted Source with nine Australian teenagers found that an 8-week surf therapy program seemed to improve their self-esteem and resilience.

Shit.

Do better, please.

"The first thing he did was take my shirt out of my pants and start tickling my stomach.”

The odd pairing of the iconic comedian Bill Murray and his wonderful friend, surf great Kelly Slater, is one of the more endearing. Murray doesn’t seem like a surfer, though was there at the founding of the legendary G-Land camp. Slater doesn’t seem funny, though provides more honest laughs than most.

The two golf together, smile together, look fantastic together. The only cloud floating across their shared sky, a recent spate of re-surfaced complaints against Murray.

Days ago we learned that Seth Green, an actor from yesteryear, had accused the Saturday Night Live alum of dropping him into a trashcan for failing to get off the couch. Whilst it seemed very much deserved, to me, mainstream opinion seemed to go very much against Murray.

And now we have an old Arsenio Hall interview come back to life wherein Murray does unwanted touching to co-star Geena Davis.

Per Variety:

Geena Davis’ uncomfortable experiences with Bill Murray extended beyond the set of their 1990 crime comedy “Quick Change.” Davis has already spoken about her “bad” audition for the film, which allegedly included Murray trying to use a massage device on her, but in a new interview with i magazine she addressed a press tour interview the two did in which Murray took down her dress strap and repeatedly touched her arm. The actors were on “The Arsenio Hall Show” to promote “Quick Change.”

“Oh, you saw?” Davis asked the reporter who brought up the Arsenio Hall interview, which is still available to view online. “Isn’t it stunning? It’s awful.”

During the interview, Murray touched Davis’ arm as Davis told Hall, “I did have to audition. It was a lot like this in fact.”

“He touched you a lot in the audition?” Hall asked Davis.

“Yeah, I swear,” Davis responded. “The first thing he did was take my shirt out of my pants and start tickling my stomach.”

Davis told this story to Hall with a light attitude and a smile on her face, but reflecting back on it she now said, “I forgot that. Telling it that way, just as a humorous anecdote, I must have thought, ‘Well, it’s ultimately funny, or makes a good story,’ when in fact it was so devastating.”

Not a very flattering portrait under the lens of modern times but, also, not even flattering under the lens of Arsenio Hall heydays.

Murray has yet to respond but do you think the Life Aquatic star will be able to come out, career unscathed thanks to the support of his friend Kelly Slater or do you think Slater will jump ship, as it were?

You can read, and watch, a beautiful exchange between the two here.

Tough days.