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?

"A brash young rebel inspires a fight for freedom."

Our surfing is many different things to many different people. Therapy, an escape, form of exercise, meditative, a cheap thrill, bit of masochism etc. For Count Nikolai of Denmark, it is a weapon of social war. A cudgel that can be lifted high in the air and brought screaming down into the face of an adversary.

But certainly you are aware of the title fight brewing in the happiest country on earth. Yes, Denmark, and all it’s various perfections, its Nomas and Tivolis, also has a royal row that makes England’s Prince Harry business seem positively genteel. Last September, you already know, Queen Margrethe II decided to strip the titles of four of her grandchildren. Her youngest son, Prince Joachim, had his four children, Prince Nikolai, Prince Felix, Prence Henrik and Princess Athena lose royal status and, instead, relegated to being mere Counts and Countesses.

Ouch.

The move was done in the name of modernization, though Princess Marie, Prince Joachim’s second wife, angrily spat, “There’s nothing modern about hurting children’s feelings.”

While that notion may be disputed, the whole nasty business has simmered and, yesterday, broke back into the open when instead of attending his royal cousin Prince Christian’s 18th birthday party, Count Nikolai, 24, went surfing in Australia.

Boom.

The handsome young man, a model studying at Sydney’s University of Technology, posted a photo of the affair to his Instagram account and received much praise.

While the press, including surfing’s “bad dog” BeachGrit, was quick to see the move as a heavy swipe, Count Nikolai later took to Instagram to wish his cousin a happy day, writing, “Funny how time flies… Happy 18th Christian! Hope everyone celebrates you just as you deserve.”

Nice.

“Celebrate you just as you deserve” has a bit of a sting, though, no?

In any case, Prince Christian’s birthday in Copenhagen was very well attended. According to the Daily Mail:

The lavish event saw royals from across Europe travel to Christianborg Palace in Copenhagen where striking image shared on Instagram shows the future heads of monarchies from around Europe posing for a rare photograph together.

Dressed to the nines, future Queens Princess Estelle of Sweden, 11, Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway, 19, Princess Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands, 19, and Princess Elisabeth of Belgium, 21, smiled for the camera next to Christian.

The aforementioned Prince Joachim and his aggrieved wife Princess Marie even made an appearance. Royal watchers took it to be an olive branch in the wake of some ugliness.

What do you think?

Peace in our time or further victims over the horizon?