"Siren Crews" are stalking the Land of the Long White Cloud, making dawn patrol exceedingly difficult.

As any true surfer knows, the early morning is often the best time for waves. The embryonic bird catches the worm, as the saying goes, and so surfers are often up before the sun, waxing boards, loading them into Toyota Hilux SR5 Cruisers and heading to the beach for to make surfing. The winds are often nice, or at least right, in the early morning. The crowds light.

Now, it is difficult to rise and shine in the best of times. Warm beds are like bad partners. They cling and beg, promise and whine even after a full eight hours of sleep. Less than eight hours, they scream and curse. Demanding fulfillment. The true surfer must harness all of his power and fight to leave lest he becomes trapped and abused like Will Smith.

New Zealand surfers, these days, are in the midst of a brutal one.

For the Land of the Long White Cloud is currently experiencing a Celine Dion epidemic. Though are you aware of New Zealand’s “siren battles?” According to reports, rival factions are going to war by attaching the biggest, throatiest loudspeakers to cars and blasting music at full volume all through the night in order to wear the crown of “siren king.”

Celine Dion sinks surfers

The Canadian songstress’s tunes are particularly popular according to NZ site The Spinoff because “siren king” songs must feature treble rather than bass.

Anita Baker, the mayor of a Porirua, a small town near Wellington, said, “They love Dion because they like anyone with a high pitch and great tone in their voice.”

Surfers, staring at bedside clocks at 2:00 am, knowing they will soon strike 5:30 while Dion belts about her heart going on, sick to stomachs.

Except might the aforementioned surfers find grace in their ongoing hearts for the siren crews? “Basically everyone has a hobby and while our hobby can be quite disturbing and we understand how disturbing it can be,” Paul Lesoa of the S.W.A.T. Team said. “We just want our own proper, safe space away from people to do it.”

Maybe we aren’t so different after all.

If our World Surf League heroes decided to become professional sirens, who do you think would win?

Filipe Toledo still?

Smart money.

Truth in the time of dengue fever.

Yesterday, the surf world came together in order to mourn the untimely passing of Matthew Perry. The 54-year-old most famous for playing Chandler Bing on Friends had, earlier, roiled that same community. In his recently published memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry had excoriated surf hero Keanu Reeves. Even wishing death upon him.

“Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us?” Perry seethed.

Reeves, of course, originated the role of Johnny Utah in Point Break, the greatest surf film ever, and surf fans took the slur seriously.

United in rage against Matthew Perry.

Perry, feeling the heat, quickly pivoted in an apology and removed the reference from his best-seller. “I pulled his name because I live on the same street,” he said. “I’ve apologized publicly to him. Any future versions of the book will not have his name in it.”

United in forgiveness of Matthew Perry

And united in aching over Matthew Perry’s demise until details of his last moments began leaking. TMZ initially reported that no drugs had been found near the hot tub where he died after coming home from a pickleball session. Perry had, of course, a long history with addiction. He was in therapy fifteen times and allegedly spent over $7 million on sobriety.

So no drugs.

Except then his wonderful Friend’s co-star Lisa Kudrow speculated via a friend, “Although no one wants to believe it was medication – prescribed or not – of course that is a thought in their minds. They are thinking he must have taken something that did not mix with the warm water.”

So drugs?

The surf world immediately broke into two camps. One believing that personal matters should stay personal and not ruling out dengue fever. The other believing that honesty serves the greater good and an honest reflection of a life truly lived is art.

Deeply divided and reflecting past surf world traumas.

The last drop.

“You’ve got your GoPro out. You got a good selfie, and you feel good about yourself."

Masses starving for insight often look to the wildly rich. Last week, Reddit’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian attempted to provide. The 40-year-old delivered a keynote address at his alma mater Virginia University. The audience was likely packed with dreamers and rubes. Those hoping to get a leg up in this modern world by following in the path of the tech rich.

Ohanian, worth $70 million, gazed upon their upturned faces, their innocent eyes, and gifted a critically debunked way forward.

“The Surfer Mindset”

“There’s a really good analogy about life and business and surfing … Some waves come by, and you rip them perfect, and you are just killing it,” he said. “You’ve got your GoPro out. You got a good selfie, and you feel good about yourself. Afterward, you might paddle back out … and wait five hours for another good wave.”

The “waiting five hours” apparently the key.

“That mindset is the right mindset for a life well-lived,” he continued. “If you spent all your time on that board, just being anxious about the wave you just missed, you’re going to miss the next one. If you spend it just daydreaming and trying to relive that one amazing wave you just had, you might miss the next one.”

The Reddit maestro continued to share about “catching Ls” and bouncing back. Attendees, no doubt, taking furious notes.

Social scientists everywhere shaking their heads.

They proved, long ago, that the “surfer mindset” is actually a feral and stilted state. A small, selfish path reducing its practitioner to a life poorly lived.

An unbroken string of “Ls.”

A Reddit Ruse

Ohanian’s attempt to kneecap future competition should have been apparent with the “good selfie” and “GoPro” references. Alas, it is now a VAL world. We are just living in it.

It is a shame the rich man did not gift actual advice. He married the greatest ever athlete Serena Williams and imagine the game he played there. The baseline hammers, net charges, power serves. Etc.

I suppose he will keep the secrets of the “tennis mindset” all to himself.