"Maybe they robbed the wrong person at the wrong time..."

Logan Dulien needs no introduction here. The Southern California filmmaker behind the ultra-popular Snapt film series has been defining what high-performance surfing looks like for the better part of a decade, grinding tirelessly away. In a Covid-era interview with What Youth, the dusty blonde explained, “I don’t expect a good surf movie to fall in my lap. I’m just trying to not pay attention to the hype, put my head down, and work as hard as I can until the curtain goes up.”

Tenacious.

Well, a ring of dirty bandits had not accounted for Dulien’s Liam Neeson-like drive but learned of it the hard way. David Lee Scales had told me this story, before, how Dulien had been robbed whilst out for a surf right after his mother died and how he fought back. Now his tale appears in the Los Angeles Times for those who dislike podcasts.

In short, Dulien’s mother, from whom he had been estranged, had just died after a battle with Parkinson’s. He was there, in the hospital, when she breathed her last and in order to clear head before funeral planning, he went for a surf at his beloved River Jetties. “That’s my temple,” Dulien told the broadsheet. “That’s my religion. That’s everything for me. That’s my sanity.”

After his rinse, Dulien discovered that someone had nipped his keys from his apartment and stolen his wallet and phone. He texted his number from a friend’s phone and the thief responded that he would return all for $1000 cold hard cash. Dulien agreed but the stinky liar never showed. And that’s when the auteur found out that he had been bilked $150,000.

While this would have broken most men, Dulien simply felt the bile rising, declaring, “Maybe they robbed the wrong person at the wrong time because, hey, I’ve got the surveillance (footage of robber). I have the resources. And I’m pissed off.”

What follows is a must-read-to-believe tale that ends with the crumbling of an organized crime ring that targeted surfers. “It makes sense, they know (surfers) are going into the ocean and a lot of them hide their keys,” Dulien explained. “They’re gone for at least 20 minutes to 3 hours. So at that point it became more personal. Because surfing, look, everyone doesn’t get along but we are still a tribe.”

Read the full account of vigilante surf justice here.

Ocean-inspired.

It’s been a rough few months for left-leaning environmentalists on the wealthier side. There was, up until recently, a very simple way to show and share both green bonafides plus good taste. Namely, drive a Tesla sedan or SUV (not a Cybertruck). The electronic vehicle, perfectly minimalist, said everything that might be uncomfortable to actually voice out loud. Namely, “I’m better than you.”

Well, we have all followed along as Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk first supported the divisive U.S. president Trump vocally, then financially and finally becoming his bureaucratic executioner as head hatchet man at the Dept. of Government Efficiency.

Tesla sedan and SUV drivers, horrified they now drive a “swasticar,” are slapping socially-distancing stickers on bumpers whilst looking jealously across “The Pond.”

For it is the UK that the Chinese EV maker BYD is releasing its The Dolphin Surf – which follows in the sea-themed naming sequence the brand’s Ocean Series cars – for an unbelievable sub-£15,000 price tag.

According to This is Money:

Dolphin Surf will come with a significantly uprated 175bhp powertrain, the Chinese model’s 74bhp motor offers enough power to accelerate from 0-62mph in 13 seconds and a top speed of 81mph. And the interior is set to be a more polished version of the ocean-inspired interior of the Chinese variant, which comes with a 12.8-inch touchscreen, wireless charging and voice control.

BYD is planning on opening many showrooms across Great Britain, though none in America. This nation’s ecologically-minded leftists unable to support the brave workers’ paradise known as the People’s Republic of China. Forced into either Polestars or Rivians.

Dark days.

"My real point is that voting for Trump is as bad if not worse than supporting Tate."

It is difficult to say where Stab Magazine’s headquarters is today. Once based in Bondi, Australia before moving to Venice, California before moving to Oceanside, also California, chasing that very-difficult-to-grab “cool” perpetually five-to-seven years too late. Online is, anyhow, where the subscription surf website finds itself today and online is where the trouble arises.

After a series of failed big-for-britches editors writing in Stab’s “royal we” vernacular, the blog landed on one Mikey “Michael” Ciaramella, the pocket-sized pal who declares “creating small fires and putting them out, one day at a time” as current job description on LinkedIn.

Well, small fire lit, though not put out today after the diminutive fella went on a wild anti-Trump pro-Andrew Tate screed in his very own comment section. The unfortunate turn occurred in a pompous “exclusive’ interview probing superstar surfboard shaper Matt Biolos’s lawsuit against hideous actress Lady Gaga’s use of the word “Mayhem.”

Readers might have been less-than-completely-interested as some questioned why Lost team rider Cole Houshmand’s recent celebration of self-proclaimed woman hater Andrew Tate was not, at the very least, brought up.

“In what universe is a mid-pack CT surfer taking a picture with some internet troll more interesting than Matt Biolos suing Lady fucking Gaga (and potentially winning)?” Ciaramella penned after an apparently misguided below-the-line critic dared ask why the story wasn’t covered.

Though he wasn’t done, continuing after a few more light barbs directed his way:

You do know who a majority of Americans voted into office last year, right?

26 sexual assault accusations against Trump, 34 felony charges, and he’s big fan of Epstein — “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

San Clemente is a Republican town, and several past and current CT surfers have come out publicly as Trump supporters. I’d imagine more of them lean that way quietly as well.

That, to me, is far more condemning (and interesting) than a thoughtless IG story post. And yet it’s not something we cover because 1. politics aren’t our lane and 2. supporting a predator doesn’t necessarily make you one too.

After general confusion over the li’l buddy’s pronouncement delivered from a very tall horse, Ciaramella continued:

My real point is that voting for Trump is as bad if not worse than supporting Tate. Yet somehow, voting for Trump seems to be broadly accepted in the surf world, while posting an IG story with Tate has people up in arms.

I personally find both Trump and Tate despicable. Maybe Cole loves both of them (or not). You’re more than welcome to be upset about what he posted, but this doesn’t make it a story for Stab.

Ummm.

Wait. What’s not a story for Stab?