A nasty equation.

Those who call the Golden State home know that autumn is one of the better times of year. Summer crowds gone, warm weather lingering, surf finding its way to many corners. In a word, glorious. But authorities fear this weekend might be too glorious in the Bay Area where a heat wave is combining with a large swell event leading to potential yikes as hordes of VALs, or vulnerable adult learners, snatch Wavestorms and head to the beach.

San Francisco’s ABC affiliate is ominously warning:

People heading to the beach to beat the heat in the Bay Area over the next few days are being warned about dangerous surf conditions that will coincide with rising temperatures.

A Heat Advisory will be in effect for the South Bay and Santa Cruz Mountains, and under sunny skies highs will range from the mid 70s to the mid 90s.

A Beach Hazard Statement is in effect along the coast for increased risk of rip currents and sneaker waves.

Those dastardly sneaker waves.

The scientific formula is simple.

This:

Plus this:

Equals this:

Plus this:

A nasty equation.

Kelly Slater jealous.

Surf fans far and wide thrilled when, five months ago, the it was reported that Nicolas Cage was set to star in a film with our surfing at its very center. The world was a different place then, more genteel with just one main war burning hot and Jada Pinkett-Smith only emasculating her husband Will privately.

The Hollywood Reporter, back then, reported:

In The Surfer, when a man (Cage) returns to his beachside hometown in Australia, many years since building a life for himself in the U.S., he is humiliated in front of his teenage son by a local gang of surfers who claim strict ownership over the secluded beach of his childhood. Wounded, “The Surfer” decides to remain at the beach, declaring war against those in control of the bay. But as the conflict escalates, the stakes spin wildly out of control, taking “The Surfer” to the edge of his sanity.

Grumpy local revenge porn.

And young grumpy locals thrilled even more, two months ago, when a casting call went out for them in Western Australia, where the picture was set to be made. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation noted, “We are looking for kids who are really confident with a bit of ‘attitude’ … we see them riding their BMXs delivering beer and generally causing trouble around town.”

Well, here we are, Cage is there delighting grumpy locals by purchasing expensive octopus and, drum roll, living in Taj Burrow’s home!

But does anything scream “Western Australia” more than Taj Burrow? Certainly not. The 45-year-old, who famously qualified for the Association of Surfing Professionals Championship Tour at 18 but turned it down so he could hone his skill, was a mainstay at the very top of the rankings for his decade plus in the big show. He won rookie of the year in 1998 and multiple stops including J-Bay, the Pipeline, the crown jewel Lower Trestles though never the World Title.

Surfing’s perpetual bridesmaid.

Unlike Kelly Slater, Burrow retired appropriately and now has the sweet joy of bunking with Nicolas Cage.

Yallingup’s first son always doing it right.

Winning-adjacent.

Do you think the two, Cage and Burrow, will get up to any housemate high jinx, though?

What would you recommend?

The "definitive voice of surfing" goes attack mode.

There are few things as reliable, on this ever-changing earth, than The Inertia gettin’ goofy. Founded in 2010 by Virginia Beach local Zach Weisberg who “was inspired to launch what would become the template for the vulnerable adult learner tsunami following a talk by the Huff Post’s Arianna Huffington in 2010,” the “definitive voice of surf and the outdoors” has risen to the very peak of unintentional parody.

The Inertia’s editorial voice, described as paternalism mixed with dismissiveness ladled with passive-aggression and served warm with the emotional seasoning of a college campus safe space genre, is employed to accidentally clown all manner of surf-adjacent business, from beach wagons to the correct pronunciation of Teahupo’o, was, yesterday, formed into a weapon and used to injure the beloved actress Jennifer Lawrence.

You will certainly recall the Academy Award winner from star turns in Silver Linings Playbook, The Hunger Games and American Hustle to name but a very few. Her new picture, No Hard Feelings, is set in the seaside town of Montauk and follows Maddie, played by Lawrence, who “on the brink of losing her home, finds an intriguing job listing: helicopter parents looking for someone to bring their introverted 19-year-old son out of his shell before college. She has one summer to make him a man or die trying.”

The Inertia, anyhow, lights right in, savaging the film for its inaccurate portrayal of the surf lifestyle.

Surfers and surfboards are placed strategically from scene to scene. Brand new, unwaxed, leashless shortboards are shown stored in the bright sunlight in a board rack on the front lawn of Maddie’s house. Does Maddie surf? She never talks about surfing, drives a sedan without board racks, and beelines it to a flat beach when she takes Percy (her love interest) to the ocean.

Even worse, one of the main characters, Jim, is supposed to be a surfer, played by believably surfy-looking Scott MacArthur. Points given that he drives a van, but points redacted for there being nothing in the van. No wax, no leashes, no wetsuits, no tubs to soak booties… nothing.

The piece is titled Why Can’t Hollywood Get Surfing Right?” which echoes surf Buddha, and The Inertia contributor, Sam George’s declarative film Hollywood Don’t Surf.

Back to the issues at hand. Are sedans with board racks and vans with bootie-soaking tubs what truly marks a surfer?

What about a really kitted out beach wagon?

What does “surfer” look like to you?