Matt Picarelli (pictured) suffering. Photo: gofundme
Matt Picarelli (pictured) suffering. Photo: gofundme

Surfer maliciously violated by shark plagued with lurid “mature audiences only” nightmares in aftermath!

Wildly rude.

None of us here, no not one, would actually choose to be attacked by a shark whilst surfing but the aftermath, once flesh and bone were healed, might be cool-ish. Imagine being at a party, word spreading that you had been nibbled by a sea monster and survived to tell the tale. That you still surf and are so brave and handsome and dashing. The best of humanity. The sort of tough that history has mostly forgotten.

Well, apparently it is not all that it is cracked up to be, or at least according to recent victim Matt Picarelli.

The 36-year-old Floridian was enjoying a surf at Florida’s Pepper Park Beach on March 12th when all hell broke loose.

“It was a big animal next to me coming towards me and then, once it bit me, it took a chomp out of my foot and it just immediately left and just flew away, like so quick,” Picarelli told local WPTV. “Everything happening so quickly, it didn’t feel real at all. It felt very surreal.”

He described the sensation as “a car hitting me with a machete blade at the end of it.”

Picarelli managed to make it to the beach where bystanders gave him water and kept pressure on the wound before a friend drove him to a local hospital.

“Fifty stitches, broken tendon, chipped the bone. Yeah, it was – didn’t look good,” he added.

But the worse part? Maybe not pain or upcoming rehabilitation, no, but rather lurid, horrifying dreams.

“Every night, I’ve been having nightmares about it,” the handsome brunette continued. “I’m having sharks, whether I’m in the water or even in a room, coming towards me and biting my leg, biting my arm, biting my side, biting something, and attacking me.”

The biting “something” particularly ominous.

Horribly rude even.

Picarelli, though, displaying the aforementioned almost forgotten tough vows to return to the waters, saying, “I’ve surfed my entire life. I love the ocean. So, I don’t see myself not going back in after this.”

Brave.

Help him on his way here.

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Tom Sandoval (pictured) with another worrier. Photo: Vanderpump Rules.
Tom Sandoval (pictured) with another worrier. Photo: Vanderpump Rules.

Tom Sandoval, mustachioed rake at heart of Vanderpump Rules cheating scandal, admits to worrying about potential “obsession” with surfing in just-uncovered interview!

Tea leaves.

Days ago, it was revealed here that Mr. Pipeline may have been at the center of the scandal currently rocking Hollywood. Oh, all financial institutions may be imminently collapsing, World War III is quickly heating up but headlines have only had room for Tom Sandoval, Ariana Madix and their exploded relationship.

Both stars of the Bravo reality program Vanderpump Rules, the two had been dating for nine-ish years before Madix found naughty FaceTime videos on Sandoval’s phone featuring another Vanderpump Rules castmate, Raquel Leviss, and all hell broke loose.

While Sandoval, who I think fronts a cover band named Tom Sandoval and the Most Extras, apologized via Instagram, he and Leviss continued to wear the Lightning Bolt surfboard logo as symbols to each other.

Well, new information has come to light that the man responsible for “Scandoval” has long worried about a potential obsession with surfing.

Per a just-uncovered five-year-old Bravo interview, Tom declares, “I just know that if I started planning a wedding (to Madix), it would consume my whole life for like 2 years. I’d want like the ‘November Rain’ situation,” he said. “I’d want my train to be just as long as Ariana’s, so it’s almost like I’d rather not even bother. It’s like, I love snowboarding and people are like, ‘You should try surfing.’ And I’m like, ‘I could see myself getting too obsessed with it, so I’m not going to start.”

Boom.

Now, I see your eyes rolling. The thought “what does this have to do with anything” flitting across your lobes. But you should be thanking me. This “Scandoval” is, truly, the only thing being covered in the world right now and I have both made you aware of it and taught you about its reason, the main characters etc.

You can thank me when you head to the bank tomorrow, find zero dollars in there and are forced to strike up a conversation with the manager who will undoubtedly ask, “Team Sandoval or Team Ariana?”

You’re welcome.

Though while you’re here. Cover bands. Yay or nay?

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Cool Hand Luke (pictured) hating Hermosa Beach. Photo: Cool Hand Luke
Cool Hand Luke (pictured) hating Hermosa Beach. Photo: Cool Hand Luke

South Bay surfers explode in rage as Hermosa Beach City Council propose early parking meter enforcement!

Unchill.

Nothing but nothing causes aggravation, furious rage like parking enforcement. A mild mannered friend of mine, not prone to outburst, once threw packets of butter at a meter maid as she ticketed a car. But you have felt the same impulse, certainly, when coming back from a satisfying surf only to find your time expired and an expensive slap tucked underneath your windshield wiper.

Arghhhh.

Well, South Bay surfers exploded in bitterness, days ago, when Hermosa Beach City Council proposed moving parking meter enforcement from 10 am, where it sits now, down to 8 am.

You will likely recognize “Hermosa Beach” as next door to World Surf League Chief of Executives Erik Logan’s Manhattan Beach.

According to the Easy Reader, Mayor Raymond Jackson spoke in favor of the earlier enforcement, declaring, “Visitors who come early to our city to jog on The Strand, walk their dogs, and play volleyball should be paying.”

Councilmember Rob Saeman concurred with the mayor.

Dean Francois and Mike Detoy, also councilmembers, opposed the measure, citing the 10 am window as a good time for drunkards from the night before to find their cars.

The two against two gridlock meant the motion neither passed nor failed.

But.

One councilmember was not present for the vote and will swing the deciding hammer at next week’s gathering. One Jason Massey, who just so happens to be a surfer.

Do you imagine the 10 am time will remain safe or do you think that the powerful 8 am lobby will get into Massey’s ear and/or pocket, twisting the outcome?

Currently more questions than answers.

In other Hermosa Beach news, Mayor Jackson informed the local Little League team could no longer use the city’s insignia.

Sounds like a real buzz kill.

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Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli in the 1982 high school flick, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Shoe being belted against Spicoli's stoned skull is the Vans Off the Wall slip-on. Sales of the style soared after movie became a hit. | Photo: Fast Times at Ridgemont High

In bombshell moment of candour, president of multi-billion dollar shoe empire Vans Kevin Bailey says iconic maker of canvas slip-ons has “lost its edge”

“Have we hit a bump in the road? Yes. How much of this was our causing? Nearly all of it."

Only a few months after a dismal December quarter that saw Vans drop nine percent in sales and subsequently pull its sponsorship of the US Open and peel open the back door for some employees, its prez Kevin Bailey has shocked the market revealing “the brand has lost its grip on its image, as well as creative practices.”

“Have we hit a bump in the road? Yes. How much of this was our causing? Nearly all of it,” Bailey told Footwear News. “Our consumer said we want more style and versatility, but we kept pumping out Classics. When I wasn’t involved with Vans, I saw how much we spent on product development dwindle to places where no one spends that little.”

He ain’t wrong. 

Y’don’t have to trawl too deep into a surfer or skater’s wardrobe to find a dirty ol pair of Off the Walls or Authentics, shoes unchanged in almost fifty years.

It’s a brand with legacy, literally defining the word Authentic.

“Vans is one of the greatest legacy companies not only in skateboarding, but in the worldwide community of action sports,” says Stacey Peralta.

You’ll remember Pauly Van Doren, the legendary founder of  Vans, who was born just as the Great Depression was kicking into gear, died a couple of years back, aged ninety. 

Van Doren, a high-school drop-out, whose nickname was Dutch the Clutch, created the Van Doren Rubber Co in 1966 with his little brother, James, who died in 2011, and their pals Gordon, Ryan Emmert and Serge D’Elia. 

The first store, in Anaheim, California, sold American-made shoes direct to the public with the slogan, “Canvas Shoes for the Entire Family” at prices between two and four dollars a pair. 

On opening day, Pauly forgot to put cash into the register. 

“It was so stupid,” he said, telling customers to come back with the exact cash. “We sold something like 22 pairs of shoes that first day, and the remarkable thing is every single person came back and paid. Treat people like you would want to be treated.”

 

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Taylor Swift (pictured) under siege. Photo: A music video
Taylor Swift (pictured) under siege. Photo: A music video

World Surf League Chief Erik Logan likely ultra peeved as arch-nemesis Taylor Swift launches mega stadium tour: “I’m watching you violate what you allegedly stand for. You’re the real bully!”

She's "the bad guy."

Yesterday, leading pop star Taylor Swift launched a mega tour to promote her new album Midnights and also others. The “Eras Show,” which launched in Rick Kane’s backyard, was dubbed a phenomenal success by the international press. Variety penned, “The three-hour, 44-song epic left them wanting more.” The Atlantic crooned, “Breaking: Taylor Swift is not simply a voice in our ears or an abstract concept to argue over at parties, but a flesh-and-blood being with a taste for sparkling pajamas and the stamina of a ram. All concerts are conjurings, turning the audience’s idea of a performer into a real thing, but last night’s kickoff of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour in Glendale, Arizona, heightened the amazement with Houdini-escapes-handcuffs physicality. After years of having their inner lives shaped by Swift’s highly mediated virtual output, 63,000 individuals can now attest to the vibrancy of Taylor Swift the person. Somehow, seeing her up close made her seem more superhuman.”

One person, though, was not pleased, no not pleased at all, and likely stomping about his Manhattan Beach digs, arms crossed, muttering words like “darn” and “flick.”

Yes, the World Surf League Chief of Executives Erik Logan has been on a wild ride, of late, attending hipster festivals to pat himself and his Chief of Sport on the back in front of a coffee urn audience, simple jacking crowd estimates from the recently wrapped MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal.

THE MOMENTUM IS REAL.

All perfect, or, rather, almost perfect.

For the aforementioned Swift, momentum actually real, is his arch nemesis and everyone knows how much it stinker-doodles to have an arch nemesis soar.

But don’t you recall four years ago when the then World Surf League President of Content, Media, Studios (since shuttered) adult male Erik Logan lashed out at the twenty-something-year-old girl and calling her a “bully.”

The row was over music rights, or some such. Swift’s music catalog had been sold to one Scooter Braun whom she, apparently, did not like and let it be known.

Logan was quick to pounce on the frail blonde, declaring publicly, “For someone who draws such power from being the ‘voice’ and against all the things you talk about, I’m watching you violate what you allegedly stand for. You’re the real bully.”

Ouch?

So how, do you think, is this powerful man on the rise plotting his revenge on “the bad guy?”

More questions than answers.

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