On Seen And Heard At A New Jersey Beach Club This Past Weekend
@C_Webb @hockeymom Webb, I think you hit it pretty well-on, at least in terms of social demographics. The ones in New Jersey are primarily located in Sea Bright, a small strip of barrier island located at the very top of the shore, just south of Sandy Hook and within sight of the skyline. This town sold off beach frontage rights instead of leaving the beach open to the public (there's a small football-field length strip free to the public, mostly a surfing/sun-bathing spot).
Each of these clubs, with maybe 150 yards of frontage and no more than 3 acres of total land, maintains their own battalion of lifeguards (almost all the middle-teen ruggers and LAX boys of member families. A few token pretty girls) who endlessly sweep the boarded paths leading down to the beach and manage the parking lot as if they're flaggers on the JFK taxiways. All of them have walkie-talkies on which they communicate in a way that makes it seem as if the work they're doing is absolutely critical to some larger mission, and not just keeping pampered feet sand-free. They also have a fleet of three or so 4x4s, because god forbid they walk the 300 yards to the water.
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On Seen And Heard At A New Jersey Beach Club This Past Weekend
Mine, from a trip "home" of which I'm still in the regrettable midst:
"Their mom is an idiot. I mean, she's just STUPID. Their mom, by which I mean my wife. My wife is an IDIOT."
There was an aged semi-preppy Dad Band playing next to the wooden spaceship and castle for a few hours. Watching the gray-haired, baby-blue-polo'd bassist passive-aggressively ask his drooping-but-still-bikini'd wife why she didn't get him a drink or stick around for their set was a bit beyond crushing.
The band's name was quintessential Jerz: 'Exit 135'. They started with what I suppose were originals. The first one said 'fuck'; the second, 'shit'. Mind you, this was in front of the little children's playground things and their entire audience consisted of single-digitally-aged kinder. They then switched to covers, which I guess was better.
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On Comic Hero Fanboys Make Terrible Comic Hero Movies
@allyzay I thought it was a porno reference...
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On The NHL's Goal Horns, In Order
When I flipped through this in my Google Reader, I misskimmed the title as 'The NHL's Goat Horns, In Order' and thought it some sort of commentary on the intersection of hockey and metal. Listicle of players' metal-band-worthy mullets? I guess, if played properly, this list is pretty metal.
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On Taste Has Never Met Shame: I Love You, Conor Oberst!
The people who got above a 9 for a new album, that is. The other 16 records with 9.0+ scores are reishes. I don't quite know what, if anything this has to do with your comment (since 'Pinkerton' or 'Disintegration' hardly fall into the experimental or challenging bins either). Just another aspect of p4k raising hurrahs for safe choices while pretending to champion something more subcultural. They've begun to cover less mainstream-indie stuff lately, but those records almost always get good (if somewhat shallow) writeups, but middling scores and never a 'Best New Music'.
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On Taste Has Never Met Shame: I Love You, Conor Oberst!
This article is proof that at least one member of the hip city literati didn't read Freedom all the way through. God, I hated those scenes at the Bright Eyes concert.
That being said, 'Fevers & Mirrors' was one of my favorite albums in high school, and still remains rewarding. Could never really get into his later stuff though. Desaparecidos are great, but then I have a big soft spot of anthemic Midwestern emo.
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On A Terrible Goalie Looks Back
I was in a similar situation in my rec league soccer, except I was in some sort of offensive position. One year, I scored the team's one goal for the entire season. Yeah, we were that bad. Our coach was not as fun-loving, however. He was an (as best as I can tell now a decade later) alcoholic Irishman who wanted us to play some 'real serious football'.
Little League was even worse, though, since my father kept signing me up through middle school, and maybe even into the first year of high school. At this end, I was getting cheers for not swinging at balls wildly out of the strikezone and not flinching at balls within it, and received standing ovations from the dugout for walking.
Oh, sports.
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On Seen And Heard At A New Jersey Beach Club This Past Weekend
@John McGarry Forgot the more interesting one: My father noted that our club's lifeguards had thrown up the Yellow flag, indicating Caution, Semi-dangerous waters, while the neighboring clubs remained all-clear Green. I responded, "Well, they've always been pretty liberal with their use of the caution flag, if I remember correctly." Père: "No, that'd be a conservative use, because it's playing it safe." Me: "No, no, no. We're not using political spectrum stereotypes here. Liberal use, as in 'They liberally applied cream cheese spread to this bagel [waving Dunkin' Donuts bagel]' Conservative, in this situation, indicates reserving resources– conserving, one might say— until things get really bad." Père: "..."
[N.B.— the beach club clientele are strongly conservative in the self-earned well-off biz-man of the suburbs way. My copy of Harper's got strong stares from the family next to mine, especially when the patriarch spied the cover story on Obama and his generals (... I know I'm behind). Most of the reading done on the beach is actual beach-reading, pulpy mass-market paperbacks, Baldacci, etc.]