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Friday, June 26, 2009

Things That Chap My Ass About The Beach

Jim is on vacation in the Florida Panhandle, he has sand in his shorts and a small mean crab that looked like Sarah Palin bit his toe…
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You know, I’ve never been a big fan of the beach.

I’ve just never given much of crap about getting a tan or baking in the sun. I don’t like volleyball or those stupid looking sun visors, and the smell of coconut oil does not fill me with either joy or nostalgia.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, I’m spending time on the gulf coast of Florida’s panhandle. This area is famous for Lite beer, boiled peanuts, white sandy beaches, and its somewhat particular denizens – hence the coast’s unofficial moniker, The Redneck Riviera.

We spent yesterday smack in the middle of it all, at Navarre Beach.

And it was there that I remembered all of the things I purely hate about going to the beach.

Like the sea, for example. Oh sure, I spent most of my life as a Sailor on the ocean, and I have a deep and abiding respect for it. There are days that I truly miss it and miss sailing upon it. But I miss the Ocean, the Deep Blue Sea, the Atlantic and the Pacific and the Indian and the Arctic. The Gulf? The Gulf is full of weird green water, the kind of green that comes from the outflow pipe of a Russian nuclear power plant or a combination of algae, lukewarm temperatures, and water that is at least 20% urine. Hey, it’s not just kids who pee in the pool, fish and whales and dolphins and sharks and sea urchins piss there too. So do jellyfish, just saying. Honestly, what did you think that smell was? Swimming in the Gulf is like bathing in warm whiz. And when fish aren’t relieving themselves, they’re busy biting at the hair on your legs like retarded piranhas.

Then there’s the Gulf Coast sun. Seriously, who dreamed this up? Slather yourself in oil like a red snapper fillet and slide into the ol’ skin cancer broiler. And speaking of such things, here’s something I don’t get – Tanning Shops. Yes, tanning shops here in Florida, there’s one in every strip mall. How does that work? You pay people to get a tan? In Florida? You pay people to get a tan. In Florida. I’m thinking of opening a sauna, if people in Florida will pay for ersatz sunshine they’ll cough up major beer money for artificial heat and humidity too. I won't even need a salon, they pay me and I'll swing by their house and turn off their air conditioner, that'll be $19.95, Bubba. No checks, cash only.

And sand, once you’re covered in saltwater and oil there’s nothing better than a nice coating of grit. Pack your ass crack full and take some home. You know what’s fun? Watching a baby with a slobber covered cookie sitting in the sand while his mother is talking on a cell phone and not paying attention. Sometimes they find extra stuff to put in their mouth while digging in the sand for the cookie they dropped. Cigarette butts are my favorite.

The Redneck Riviera has certain features not found on other beaches, like, oh, Rednecks. You really haven’t lived until you get to watch a sunburned bearded potbellied 24 year old Alabaman with a mullet and a beer helmet attempting to surf on a My Little Pony boogyboard while taking video of himself with a cell phone camera in an attempt to get on America's Funniest Retarded Videos. No you really haven’t lived until you’ve seen that, or until you’ve seen the waves yank the rear of his Dale Earnhardt commemorative swim trunks down around his ankles – then you wish you didn’t live at all.

While mullethead is out there in the surf shouting, “Dahamination ya’ll! Ah got salt water in my Bud Lite! Bitch! Beer me!” his relatives on the beach are laughing drunkenly at his antics, lighting one Marlboro off the other and shouting helpful suggestions. If you’re really lucky Bitty Lou is decked out in a thong - kind’ve like Jabba The Hut wrapped in a rubber band and a couple of Sponge Bob Squarepants BandAids – and when she bends over to bury the baby’s dirty diaper in the sand like secret pirate treasure, well, let’s just say that view of her special tattoo is a sight that will stay with you for a while.

It is inevitable that there will be at least one weird kid. Now I’m not talking good weird, I’m talking weird weird. I talking brain damaged devil monkey weird. Jeffry “I’d like mine rare” Dahmer weird. You know him. He’s the teenager who stands waist deep in the waves about three feet behind you and makes those odd manic noises. When you look at him, he grins and says something quaint and colloquial like “Mexican food makes my butt feel funny!” His hands are out of sight underwater near his swim trunks and he’s grinning madly and you hope he’s being poisoned by a jellyfish and not doing what you think he’s doing. Don’t make eye contact or he’ll be your new best friend and you’ll have to take him home with you.

Weird Kids grow up, get married to Bizarro Girls, and somehow nobody ever manages to tell them that they are just plain fucking weird and that their behavior isn’t acceptable – so they eventually become Lecherous Old Bastards. They wander down the beach in Bermuda shorts with their bellies hanging to their knees like a bloated dead walrus and giant mats of multi-colored hair clinging to their backs like a balding mange-ridden gorilla. And they haven’t changed, they’re still making those weird noises and talking to invisible friends. They stop three feet away and stare at your wife’s bikini clad bottom and talk to themselves like Bill Murray in Caddyshack, “aaaaah Mrs. Rabbit you nasty bunny, aaaah! I love Mexican food!, aaaaah! My butt feels funny!” and their hands are hidden under their bellies near their shorts and you hope they aren’t really doing what you think they’re doing. And when you give them the eye and encourage them to move the fuck along, well, they go about three feet and then pull out a camera. “Ahhhhh Mrs. Rabbit! Just something to remember me for! Aahhhh!”

But I guess what really chaps my ass is this:
























Navarre Beach is sandbar. Literally, it is a sandbar and nothing more. There are no rocks, no trees, no soil. It’s a fucking sandbar, about half a mile wide. You get there by taking a bridge over the inland waterway. Now, see that hotel marked with the red arrow? Prior to Ivan that was the only hotel on the beach. During Ivan that hotel got raped, literally, by 200 mile per hour winds and a storm surge that washed completely over the island in a wave 20 feet high. When we saw it right after the hurricane, that hotel was nothing but a concrete slab and a 3D line drawing of steel girders. Everything else, walls, ceilings, beds, desks, restaurant, fishing pier, and the all-you-can-eat catfish buffet ended up in the inland waterway a mile away on the other side of the sandbar.

What did we learn from this?

Well, it’s simple really – FEMA funds will build us a new hotel, plus a half dozen more even bigger ones, plus a couple of multimillion-dollar high-rise condos, on the same strip of sand (strip of sand, not strip of land, strip of sand).

And what’s really cool is that when the next hurricane hits, well the US taxpayers will get to fund their replacement too!

Ain’t life on the Riviera just grand?

16 comments:

  1. You know, I don't like the beach either. I like to dive, I like to be at sea, but the beach?

    Meh.

    I'm so pale that every moment spent in the sun is an invitation to melanoma, but really? I don't like the sand.

    Yuck.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unless you've put your hotel on a barrier island in North Carolina with the expectation that the government will bail you out when Mother Nature runs over it, in which case, well, you're probably screwed. ;) North Carolina has it right with their barrier island management. They make no effort to make the sands stay still.

    (Or at least had; it's been a decade since I lived there.)

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  3. We're all glad to hear your having such a good time. Maybe you'll get a little bout of food poisoning to make everything perfect!

    :D

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  4. I can't imagine baking myself on purpose like that, breaded in sand and other people's funk - I like the ocean, beaches not so much.

    I also can't imagine Jim in a Borat thong, but if they can build a multiplex on a sandbar, anything is possible...

    Great, now I need an eye bleaching O.o

    ReplyDelete
  5. Food poisoning is always a possibility. A Borat thong is not.

    Adjust your expectations accordingly.

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  6. but if they can build a multiplex on a sandbar,

    *cough* Long Beach CA *cough*

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ah, there's nothing like the beach at the north breakwater where Portage Lake meets Lake Superior in the U.P.

    80degF water in the Portage. 55degF water in Superior.

    My... brisk.

    Dr. Phil

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  8. You have to be a hell of a man to swim in Lake Superior - that water is just short of liquid nitrogen temperatures. Great place to look for Petoskey Stones though.

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  9. I don't understand this strange desire to be in the sun.

    The sun is hot.
    It makes you sweaty and sticky.
    It gives you sun burn.
    It gives you cancer.

    You want me I'll be sitting over here in the shade. And then in the air conditioning.

    ReplyDelete
  10. OK, I'll confess, I LOVE the beach. One of my goals is to be a beach bum. Kinda on hold at this point in my life, I haven't even seen a beach in, um, nearly 10 years. This from a person who used to hit a beach 3 or 4 times a year. Usually SE Coast (NC, SC, GA), but more recently the Gulf.

    Now Jim, you're in one of the Touron hell areas of RR. Just east of you, between Destin & Panama City is a lovely series of small beach towns. Seaside is the one that comes first. No massive hotels, only a handful of low level condo developments, the rest is mostly private rental houses available by the weekend, week or month, all within walking distance to the beach.

    A bunch of us used to go down several times a year. We discovered if we booked the week before or after the season we got dirt cheap rates, decent weather and no crowds!! Only locals at the fabulous seafood eateries.

    So we'd get the biggest house they had available for the dates we wanted, and for about $100 each plus food & beverage money, have the time of our lives with a week-long party. Rented a duplex one time that held 20 people. Even had a pool, so when it was too windy to be on the beach, we'd hang by the pool.
    Real difficult routine... eat, drink, nap at beach/pool, drink, eat, drink, nap, drink, play games, drink, eat, drink, sleep.

    So, I say to you my friend...
    U R not doin' it right, Wright.

    GAWD am I jealous! That is all.

    WendyB_09

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  11. retarded piranhas...now i've heard everything. Bet you can't wait for 7th grade to start.

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  12. the retarded piranhas was a most excellent quip!

    But I always thought the Redneck Riviera was Myrtle Beach SC... not the FL Panhandle. Of course, if I did not know any better, you described both equally well!

    SP

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  13. I said "retarded" and offended somebody. Must be a republican.

    Sarah, is that you?

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  14. I like the beach just fine. It's the people at the beach I can't stand.

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  15. SP - Googled it just to be sure on my geography reference -
    Redneck Riviera is usually considered to be the stretch of Gulf Coast from Panama City Beach to Pensacola. Some sources go as far west as the Gulf Shores area in LA*.

    WendyB_09

    *LA = Lower Alabama

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  16. I love the beach too. Reading, snorkeling, open water swimming, sailing, kayaking... I wouldn't live far from water, preferably salt water, by choice anymore.

    Yes, I have high risk skin cancer skin - still, slather on the serious SPF and have at it anyway.

    ReplyDelete

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