"Now THAT'S surfing!"

There was a time, and not terribly long ago, when surfers sat upon the apex of Mt. Cool. Oakley Razorblades around eyes, Webz on hands, Gotcha jams covering thighs and Flojo sandals on toes. Everyone wanting to be them, nobody able to imitate. Sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, dickheads all clamoring for some of that surfer spice. Surfers starred as desirable studs and stud-ettes in top rated sitcoms, ruled the sand and the sea.

A seemingly infinite Hot Summer Night.

Alas, nothing is forever and surfers fell hard from the perch into the desert where pickleballers once roamed and there they have been ever since.

Hope springs that someday a surfer will come along who’s rad, once again, but until then, we are all forced to watch a 36-year-old quarterback steal the shine once ours by going Swag Surfin. The song, released in 2009, has become an anthem for many professional football teams including Atlanta’s Falcons and, after their stunning overtime win last evening, midwesterner Kirk Cousins Swag Surfed along with the crowd.

Announcers declaring, “Now THAT’S surfing!”

Watch here.

But how long, do you imagine, will this desolation stretch on? Will we see another cool surfer in our lifetimes?

Caitlin Simmers, we turn our lonely eyes to you.

"When you're doing a breathing class with Wim Hof on #FridayThe13th under a #NewMoon and Mercury is heavily in #Retrograde and you pass out..."

It might not be so trendy, today, but a few years back ice bath plunges and wild holding breath business was entirely all the rage. Cold was the key to eternal youth. Lack of breathing, or some derivation thereof, the secret to perfect health. And Wim Hof, a 65-year-old Dutchman, was at the very forefront of it all.

Hof, known as “The Iceman” wowed the fitness-conscious by breaking the Guinness Book of World Records records for swimming under ice, laying upon ice and running a half marathon, barefoot, upon, you guessed it, ice. Hof developed a whole system around cold, lack of breathing and perpetual adolescents, naming it the Wim Hof Method that was practiced enthusiastically by professional surf icons like Laird Hamilton and Kelly Slater.

The best of the best.

Eight years ago, you may recall when the 11x world champ became knocked right out doing a Wim Hof Method. Afterward, Slater penned, “When you’re doing a breathing class with #WimHof (@iceman_hof) on #FridayThe13th under a #NewMoon and Mercury is heavily in #Retrograde and you pass out and fall on your face, start dreaming and wake up wondering where tf you are and why does your face feel like you just got tackled on the football field and somebody was filming it all…but you think it’s funny.”

“You knocked yourself out,” Hof responded.

Well, in a turn nobody saw coming, The Iceman has just come under heavy fire for alleged abuse. A report published in the Netherlands’ de Volkskrant newspaper over the weekend claimed Hof had “subjected his former partner, their son and her two children from a previous marriage to physical and verbal abuse over a period of 13 years.”

Hof vociferously denies the charges and vows to fight them in the court of Dutch law, but a possible casualty is his biopic which is currently in the works and starring Shakespeare in Love heartthrob Joseph Fiennes.

The production company for the film released a statement declaring, “Genesius Pictures can confirm that due to the severity of the allegations, this production, which was in development only and had not begun filming, is on hold.”

Big bummer for those who enjoy their films as cold as their beverages.

There will, certainly, be more as this story develops.

"He's an angel walking. He is the hero of Indian Rocks Beach now."

America’s eastern seaboard has had a real doozy of a hurricane season, thus far. Currently Kirk is whipping itself into a Category 3 storm in the Atlantic and though not predicated to make landfall, is sounding alarms for unruly swell and dangerous rip currents. He comes right on the heels of Hurricane Helene who caused widespread damage and death after blasting through Florida’s gulf and drowning the Carolinas.

In the darkness, though, a bright surfer light shone. Marty Thomas, from Indian Rocks, Florida, paddled out into the wrath and rescued 12 people and pets using only his surfboard.

Anne McIntosh, a 27-year resident of Indian Rocks, was in her home when the flood waters came in. “The beds were floating. The couch was floating. My brother and his wife were on the counters,” she says. “I was walking around in the back unit just thinking, ‘what am I going to do?’ And all of a sudden I hear a voice, and he’s saying, ‘We’ll get you. We’ll get you.'”

The voice of Marty Thomas.

The brave surfer pried the doors to McIntosh’s house open and paddled her and her giant St. Bernard to safety before heading right back out into the maelstrom to save many others.

The grateful woman and Thomas reunited, days ago, with McIntosh telling him, “He’s an angel walking. He is the hero of Indian Rocks Beach now. And you do it so gracefully. Thank you. And I love you for it. And you deserve all the good things in life.”

Thomas, ever chill, responded, “Thank you. I appreciate that. You’re pretty awesome yourself.”

The handsome silver-ish fox appeared to do his heroics on a SUP as a high-performance shortboard would not have been up for the task. I trust that you will hold space in your heart for our stand-up brothers and sisters for Marty Thomas’ sake.

At least for five days.