According to several websites, a paparazzo trying to take shots of Matthew McConaughey was attacked by a roving pack of surfers. Okay not roving. But it sounds much scarier that way. It’s hard to make surfers sound threatening, and that’s really the only way I can explain this story. The photographer was assaulted, and his presumably expensive camera was thrown into the ocean. Matthew McConaughey had nothing to do with the attack. Unless he surreptitiously summoned the surfers with some kind of signal.

A paparazzo trying to photograph Matthew McConaughey at the beach told police he was attacked by a mob of surfers who threw his camera in the ocean. The 29-year-old photojournalist told sheriff’s deputies that a large group of surfers near Paradise Cove in Malibu approached him and other paparazzi about 2 p.m. Saturday and demanded the group stop taking pictures and filming.

The celebrity Web site TMZ.com posted a video Sunday showing about a dozen young men in swimsuits approaching what appears to be a group of paparazzi and yelling and swearing at them. A scuffle breaks out after one of the photographers exchanges insults with the group and at first refuses their orders to leave.

“I’ll give you a thousand bucks if you leave right now,” one of the young men in swimsuits tells the photographers. Another shoves a photographer filming the scene, and still another says, “We’ll draw a line in the beach, and we’ll fight for the beach. If you guys win, you can have the beach.”

When one member of the group shouts at a photographer, “Get a … real job,” the photographer replies, “This is a real job. What do you do?” The man replies: “I just drink beer and party.”

[From the Huffington Post]

I just laughed my ass off. “We’ll draw a line in the beach, and we’ll fight for the beach?” Then we’ll have a dance-off, and whoever loses has to burn their leather jacket, and can never dance again! A line in the beach? I love that it’s not a line in the sand. Which would have been MUCH better. I had no idea surfers were so protective of their kind. Matthew McConaughey clearly has some really great friends. Anyone who would have a beach-off is someone worthy of adding to your entourage, my friend.

Note by Celebitchy: TMZ has the video, and you can see a pack of a dozen or so surfers walking over to the paps. They say “get a real f’ing jog” and start arguing. One guy says he called the cops, and you can hear the photographers shouting back in British and Scottish accents. One Scottish photographer says “This is public property. This is a job, what do you do?” Toward the end you can see a guy hitting a photographer with what looks like a baseball bat. The man gets up and staggers away and the video ends.

Matthew McConaughey is shown out surfing with friends on Saturday, thanks to Splash News.