"I don’t know if I want to have a beer with somebody who wouldn’t have pardoned Hunter Biden...”

There are only three fictional surf characters ever created that matter. Johnny Utah, Matt Johnson and Jeff Spicoli. The latter featured in the coming-of-age masterpiece Fast Times at Ridgemont High and was brought lovingly to life by Sean Penn. The nepo-baby was 22-years-old at time of filming and history has it he so immersed himself in the role that he refused to be recognized by his real name, forcing cast and crew to refer to him as Jeff Spicoli 100% of the time.

Penn went on to become a leading man, starring in such classics as Flag Day, Daddio and The Angry Birds Movie, though also developed a taste for progressive politics. As such, the diminutive 64-year-old is allowed to breathe rarified legislative air, rubs shoulders with the likes of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and counts President Joe Biden’s son Hunter as a close and personal friend.

The troubled first boy has been in the news, of late, thanks to the sweeping pardon he received from his father, absolving him of any and all crimes he may have and did commit during a ten year period.

Whilst Republicans feigned outrage at ill-gotten gain, forgetting dear Jared Kushner et. al. and Democrats clutched their pearls, Penn boldly defended the Hunter, declaring, “Any father that didn’t do that would have been remiss. I don’t know if I want to have a beer with somebody who wouldn’t have pardoned Hunter Biden, being their son.”

He added, “In part because I am close with (Hunter), I have studied the case. And while there are technicalities within one of the cases that are associated with illegality, there is almost no precedent at all for the aggression with which he was charged.”

Hunter Biden, it must be noted, made $11 million during five of those forgiven years by sitting on the board of “a Ukrainian firm accused of bribery and his work with a Chinese businessman now accused of fraud,” according to NBC.

Technicalities associated with illegality, I suppose.

Ultra-hard surf candy.

Aoooogah, aooooogah!

Only just yesterday, Fox News host Jesse Watters was decrying the fact that there is not more right-leaning female “eye candy” out there what with Kelly Slater confidant RFK Jr. sucking the oxygen out of the room what with a variety of shirtless selfies and sultry shower videos.

Watters, sitting as part of a panel discussion, burnished his heterosexual bonafides by declaring, “I just think it’s unfair that you had to get to see this (RFK Jr. being hot) and we don’t get to see any of the female members of the cabinet. I’d like to see maybe Linda McMahon doing yoga. Tulsi surfing? Charlie and I need to see some eye candy too.”

While Gabbard did not immediately grant his wish nor Linda McMahon, who is near 80, the 46-year-old father of four did not have to wait long for some oculus confection. First daughter-elect Ivanka Trump, continuing a proud tradition of participating in surf-adjacency, hopped on a FlowRider and put on a show.

The Hindustan Times describing thusly:

The 43-year-old was seen holding onto a rope while balancing on a yellow surfboard in her video, which was later reposted on the social media platform by a fan page. Ivanka, who was a former advisor to the future president, stunned in a tight swimwear, defying the social norms as a mother of three.

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Aoooogah, aooooogah!

I, myself, have FlowRidden once in my life. It was in Dubai some two decades ago, and the operators of the standing wave told my friends and I that we were not allowed to stand up. We told them that we were almost famous surf explorers, having just completed the first ever surf exploration of Yemen’s coast, and knew what we were doing. They relented and I recall quickly becoming sucked over the falls and slammed upon the bottom.

Defying social norms.

Hubba hubba!

Donald J. Trump has now been president-elect for almost one month and what an almost one month it has been. Tariff threats roiling markets, date nights with Elon Musk and cabinet picks that the left finds “troubling.” One of the early stars, of course, is Hawaii’s Tulsi Gabbard who Trump has tapped to lead the Department of National Intelligence.

The 43-year-old, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, was once a democratic congresswoman though left the party in 2022, describing it as, “under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers.”

Though she was proven wrong, yesterday, by President Joe Biden’s populist and peaceful pardon of his son Hunter, Gabbard will soon be behind the levers of America’s spy machine, pending confirmation of course.

Jesse Watters, popular Fox News host who replaced Tucker Carlson on the network, is very excitado by the prospect of four Gabbard years though wants to see… more. Speaking to a panel, the raven-haired Watters became lightly frustrated that there were so many thirst trap posts of Trump’s heath czar RFK Jr. making the rounds but far fewer of the women in Trump’s orbit.

“I just think it’s unfair that you had to get to see this and we don’t get to see any of the female members of the cabinet,” Watters sighed. “I’d like to see maybe Linda McMahon doing yoga. Tulsi surfing? Charlie and I need to see some eye candy too.”

Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Education, is 76-years-young.

And while not new, Watters can enjoy this Gabbard surfing clip from three years ago.

I would warn him off re-visiting Gabbard’s The Inertia address, though.

Nothing cools the engines quite like Zach Weisberg and co.

"This next song is about when somebody gets scared when someone goes too deep and they kind of back off and it's like you've been ghosted."

The rise of the surf instructor will certainly be one of 2024’s defining marks as this year of the wood dragon draws to a close. Yes, it is wild to think we have less than thirty days until the beginning of 2025, which will be filled with its very own storylines, but we are not there yet and so back to surf instructors we go.

Folk continued the learn-to-surf craze, first popularized in 2020, hiring many and varied surf instructors across the globe, industry legends like Jamie O’Brien got into the game, launching eponymous learn-to-surf schools and famous chanteuses fell head over heels in love with hunky instructors.

Hot for teacher.

But all daisies and tulips?

Maybe not, according to English singer/songwriter Ellie Goulding. The 37-year-old was recently playing a show in Austria when she declared, “This next song is about when somebody gets scared when someone goes too deep and they kind of back off and it’s like you’ve been ghosted. Has anyone been ghosted? Who has been ghosted? What the [expletive]. Sorry for the kids! I’m so sorry, What the duck, which is what I say around my child. What the ducking duck. So this song is more relevant than ever.”

Attention immediately turned to the Costa Rican surf instructor hunk Armando Perez who had been linked to Goulding for months.

It must also be noted that Perez taught surfing to Shakira as well.

Anyhow, the toothsome twenty-something apparently stopped returning texts and calls though still appears to be open for business, as it were. His website reading:

Hello my name is Armando and I have been surfing since I was a child. The waves of Playa Hermosa are my home and I am a very good host. As a surf instructor I will lead you step by step to the line-up and guarantee you at least one “wave of the day”. Together we read the sea until you understand it for yourself.

(Book here).

Back to the question at hand, though, has anyone, here, been ghosted?

Who has been ghosted?

Anyone?