"I don't need that _____."

The saga of Erik Logan has taken more twists, more turns in the past few months than even the most avid surf industry watcher could have imagined. The World Surf League CEO was, on June 23, 2023, riding a wave of success.* A regional Australian ladder company had re-signed for yet another year of sponsorship and bushes planted on the bluffs overlooking Bells Beach had saved the environment.

The momentum of professional surfing, real.

Then, like that, he was gone.

Logan had traveled to Brazil for the Vivo Rio Pro, sharing behind-the-scenes peeks on his much-loved Instagram. Rubbing shoulders with Joe Turpel and silly goosing it up, one moment, beheaded the next.

With zero warning, surf fans woke up to the most terse line in corporate history from the World Surf League.

“Erik Logan is no longer with the company.”

His replacement CEOs, the Chief of Legal and Chief of PR, gave the distinct impression that Logan had made a “boo boo,” which was, more or less, confirmed.

Logan himself, however, had vanished.

Until last night.

For last night, the great John John Florence rolled into Logan’s hometown of Manhattan Beach for a meet & greet wherein he would “hang & talk story.”

And Logan was there.

An eagle-eye’d People™ spotted the Oklahoman with a magical wetsuit of armor milling about, smile on face, mostly talking story with Florence’s wife, overhearing him mutter, “I don’t need that shit,” at one point.

Don’t need that shit?

What shit?

The plot very much thickens.

More as the story develops.

Welcome to the pet cemetery.

Surf fans, earlier, were bracing for a civil war between fans of the World Surf League and its former Chief Executive Erik Logan after news leaked that the former was moving to the latter’s backyard after putting its spacious Santa Monica offices up for sale signaling financial weakness and sorrow.

The South Bay.

Logan had made suburban the Los Angeles region famous, even gracing the cover of southbay magazine. The World Surf League, firing him in the most terse sentence ever penned, then unashamedly paddling his point pure and unadulterated provocation.

The South Bay.

Though exactly where in the South Bay remained a guarded mystery… until minutes ago.

For minutes ago, a crack sneak has declared “The new WSL HQ will be at 2201 Rosecrans, El Segundo, CA 90245. It is only taking up a portion of the building. Move-in date should be December.”

And there we have it.

But who will be sharing space with “the global home of surfing?”

An animal urgent care facility.

And the headquarters for the National Veterinary Associates, inc.

Pet cemetery.

Yikes.

Back to the civil war, though, have you decided which side you’ll take yet?

Clock is ticking.

Will you fight?

Yesterday a stirring video dropped, out of nowhere, detailing how one Erik Logan was responsible for saving a bawdy talk radio show thereby becoming a hero to free speech, waving a middle finger at “the man.” Gregg “Opie” Hughes, one half of the program Opie and Anthony, shared how the XM satellite network wanted to kick them off the air for being rude and provocative only to be saved by Logan who brokered a sweetheart deal where they only had to vacate microphones for one month and get paid whilst doing.

Surf fans were shocked.

The last we had seen Logan, he was sitting atop the vast World Surf League as its Chief Executive, wielding his power like a cudgel. He seemed to be untouchable, spinning corporate nonsense talk faster than it could be digested, sucking the breath out of professional surfers, wearing their skin. He did not appear to be a savior, rather a demon sent to torment and molest.

Molest, as in bother maybe, he did just too much as the World Surf League fired him in the most ruthless way possible, lopping his increasingly handsome head right off when he was on a business trip to Brazil, eulogizing him in one mean sentence.

“Erik Logan is no longer with the company.”

Back to yesterday’s arousing video, though, and its seemingly out of nowhere-ness, might it have been the first salvo in a just-over-the-horizon civil war?

For, just over the weekend, it was reported that the World Surf League was moving its vast Santa Monica offices in a sure sign of financial distress. The property offered for purchase or lease. Further reporting for the AI enhanced Surfer revealed that the World Surf League was not self-immolating, yet, but moving to “refurbished” offices in the South Bay.

(Ominous music).

The same South Bay made famous by Erik Logan.

When the Oklahoman with the magical wetsuit of armor first crashed onto our scene it was with a paddle in hand, gently sweeping Manhattan Beach’s seas. The South Bay, also home to El Segundo, Torrance, Hermosa and Redondo, has no good waves and wild women patrolling the beach with knives, but Logan made it his own, branding it, living it, loving it.

The World Surf League’s move a direct assault.

Opie’s aforementioned video, a rallying cry for enlistment.

Will you fight at Brother’s Burritos? Two Guns Espresso? Rock ‘N Fish?

On the shore of El Porto?

But whose banner will you carry?

Me?

This one.