Wildwood – Page 3 – The Burning Platform

WHEN LIGHTENING STRIKES ON THE ROAR TO THE SHORE

Last week was one of those weeks that drives you to drink. The absence of a boss at work for going on seven months has created uncertainty, disarray, confusion, back stabbing and power plays. By Friday I was fed up. I hate office politics. I attempt to help my superiors make the best decisions for my organization by providing them accurate data and interpreting that data in a way that provides direction and guidance based on facts. When I see hidden agendas, egos, and power plays overwhelming the facts, I begin to question my purpose in an organization. I’ve been down that road before and I don’t like it. The meeting on the following Tuesday was going to be a doozy.

I was happy to escape my office on Friday at 5:30. I was actually looking forward to the horrific Friday night commute. This was the first weekend we haven’t had renters in Wildwood all summer. But, we couldn’t head down until Saturday night because we had a family reunion picnic on Saturday afternoon. We decided to go down for one night of fun at the Shamrock and come home on Sunday afternoon. Little did we know how surreal the next 24 hours would be.

What I didn’t know until a couple days before, was this was biker weekend at the shore. They call it Roar to the Shore. We had always rented this weekend out, so I didn’t know what to expect. I had a suspicion it might be loud.

While we were at the family reunion it began to downpour, but then it let up. I checked the radar when we got home and it showed nothing in Wildwood. We hit the road at 6:00 pm which would get us to Wildwood just past 8:00 pm. We could settle in and then head over to the Shamrock at 9:30 when Billy Jack would start playing. Traffic was light. The rain was light. We were making excellent time. As we approached Ocean City I saw really dark foreboding clouds in the distance. Before long it was clear we were headed directly into a mammoth thunderstorm. I began to see flashes of lightning in the distance. I told Avalon to get her phone out and snap some cool pictures. Here are a few of the shots through our windshield:

At first it was just a pretty show in the sky. Then the torrential rains began to fall, or actually whip sideways with 50 mph winds. Luckily I was driving an itsy bitsy Honda Hybrid that handles like a tricycle in the rain. I had the wipers on max speed and could still barely see the highway. Then we got to a construction zone near Wildwood where the rain didn’t drain. My mini-machine was practically floating as I tried to maneuver the final five miles of our journey. Avalon was oblivious to my fear, as I could barely see the road.

While my knuckles were white from holding the steering wheel so tight, Avalon was happily snapping pictures and telling me she got a good one. Finally we reached the Wildwood exit on the Garden State Parkway and entered Wildwood. It was really weird, as the storms had somehow managed to miss Wildwood. You could see lightning flashing to the north and to the south, but not a drop of rain had fallen in Wildwood, as if it had a force-field protecting it. Maybe these bikers had super powers.

We arrived at the condo and settled in. I was ready to shed the baggage of a shitty week by listening to tunes from our buddy Billy Jack and getting plastered at the Shamrock with our new best friend Jim (aka Gravedigger). As we left the condo to walk to the Shamrock, the roar of motorcycle engines could be heard all over town. There were people partying on all the condo decks. Then we turned onto Atlantic Avenue and I was amazed to see hundreds of motorcycles parked on both sides of the street. We were walking into an alien world of leather jackets, tattoos, biker chicks, and scary looking dudes. I tend not to fit in with Pagans and Hells Angels and felt slightly uncomfortable as we tried to make our way to the Shamrock. Note the Rusty Rudder Buffet Restaurant in the picture. It comes into play later in this story.

We were confused to see hundreds of people just sitting in chairs along the sidewalk. The biker crowd seemed to be waiting for something to happen. I was moving at a brisk pace to get through the gauntlet of tattoos, nose rings, muscles, bald heads, piercings, leather, chains, and bike helmets as quickly as possible. Avalon, as usual, was curious and wanted to know what was going on so she stopped and started asking questions. I rolled my eyes and acted supportive. It seems bikers just like to sit on the curb and watch other bikers drive by. They are a simple people. I know I’m generalizing, but tattoos seem to be a requirement if you want to be a real biker or real biker chick. It also appeared that being fat might be a requirement to be a biker chick.

We survived our trek through biker hell to reach the Shamrock as our man Billy Jack started playing. One small problem. There were a bunch of bikers in the bar taking up our seats. I thought about telling them to get out of our seats, but decided I wanted to live for a few more years. Eventually the bikers left and I got my usual seat to observe the festivities and craziness at my favorite bar.

It wasn’t long before I noticed the chick directly across the bar with a blinking red light on her head. She was also wearing a sash that said BACHELORETTE. Her friends brought her to the Shamrock for her bachelorette party. She didn’t seem to be having much fun, but at least she wouldn’t be hit by any low flying planes.

Then things really started to get interesting. When you think of a romantic marriage proposal at the beach, you picture this scene:

What you don’t picture is Billy Jack clearing away some of his equipment on stage and some dude kneeling down amidst empty beer bottles, with bartenders pouring shots, a crowd of tattooed bikers sitting around the bar, and proposing to his girlfriend at the Shamrock. But that’s what happened. We were so stunned, we forgot to take a picture. So now we’ve seen a wedding reception and a proposal at the Shamrock in the same season. The happy couple departed the stage and Billy Jack resumed playing tunes.

We met up with Jim/Gravedigger and proceeded to drink at a healthy clip. Before long another couple we know showed up. Avalon and the other lady proceeded to the dance floor and began dancing. I protected our seats from the biker hoard. I could see Avalon had made some more friends on the dance floor, which wasn’t unusual for her. What was unusual was the discussion that was taking place. I didn’t get the sordid details for another half hour.

There were three women dancing together near my wife and she asked if they were on a girls weekend. They just laughed and said no. They then proceeded to inform my shocked wife and her friend that they were swingers and went into the lurid details of how it works. They were all there with dudes, but they were all looking to go home with someone other than their spouse. They seemed to take a hankering to Avalon and she skedaddled back over to our side of the bar.

After getting an eyeful of the women swingers when Avalon pointed them out to me, I can understand why their men wanted to swing. They looked like they had done some hard livin. You can see the terrified look in Avalon’s eyes as she hid behind me from the swingers.

You would have thought the evening was coming to an end by now, but it wasn’t. Jim was not only a former driver of the monster truck – Grave Digger, but he is also an electrical engineer and an extremely outgoing friendly person who seems to know just about every person in Wildwood. His condo was actually rented out to bikers for the weekend, but he was staying for free at the motel across the street from our condo. He has befriended the owner of the motel and does all kinds of electrical work for the guy.

The motel owner isn’t just any guy. He’s Tony – a character out of a Quentin Tarantino movie. He actually owns three different hotels within a two block radius of our condo. They are not exactly five star establishments. They are more like two star hotels frequented mostly by bikers, teenagers, and members of the FSA. Tony is a character. He is of Eastern European descent and looks like a cross between Donald Trump and Steve Martin’s wild and crazy guy character from SNL, as a 60 year old. But he is a wealthy Wildwood slumlord. Gravedigger Jim can essentially eat, drink and sleep at any of Tony’s establishments for free because of his electrical abilities and willingness to help out Tony.

Even though we were having fun at the Shamrock, Jim convinced us to depart and head for one of Tony’s hotel bars where we could drink for free. Luckily the rain had finally arrived in Wildwood and we got soaked walking to the new bar while dodging bikers along the way. There was a band playing metal rock and a sparse crowd at the new bar, but the beers were free. We noticed a section of the ceiling was falling in and Jim mentioned that the hotel pool was directly overhead and had begun to sink over the winter and had to be reinforced before it collapsed into the bar. That gave me a comforting feeling as I sat in this dark bar. As usual, Avalon made some new friends and was again dancing when we decided it was time for pizza back at Romeo’s, across from the Shamrock. It took a while to get her to leave.

It was still raining as we doubled back to the Shamrock. Billy Jack was still playing, so we went back in and enjoyed the tunes. We didn’t want to go home. We ended up staying until the end. Billy Jack finished up with Avalon’s favorite end of the night song – Good Riddance, and we headed to Romeo’s for a slice at 2:30.

After eating our slices we staggered home through the rain, but in our drunken stupor we made a dreadful mistake and agreed to meet Gravedigger at 9:30 and hit Tony’s Rusty Rudder all you can eat breakfast buffet. We were still dead to the world when 9:30 arrived and he texted us. Ugh. We both had headaches and were not in the mood for a breakfast buffet at a two star hotel restaurant with dozens of bikers. But we crawled out of bed and met up with Jim at around 10:30 and headed over.

SSS would have been a happy camper. The buffet breakfast bar had bacon out the yazoo. I piled a stack on my plate and drank a couple of cups of coffee. The breakfast of drunken champions. And the best part – it was all free. I did buy most of the drinks for Gravedigger the night before, so things have a way of evening out.

The biker festivities were winding down, but this was still the scene outside the restaurant:

They were selling shirts for half price and me being a sport, I bought Avalon the “adorable” Roar to the Shore shirt that caught her eye. She’ll need to get a couple of tattoos to complete the look. We continued our walk back to the condo, but then we came to another of Tony’s hotels. There was a huge Wildwood cop talking to some people in the parking lot. Of course Gravedigger knew him and began a conversation. He introduced us and we shook hands. The cop then regaled us with the stories of what had happened the previous night in that hotel. Two families got into a fight and someone was stabbed. Another drunken woman had fallen down the stairs and cracked her head open. There were a total of 6 incidents at Tony’s hotels the previous night.

As we finally turned down our block and were saying goodbye to Jim, who comes sauntering down the street but Tony, in his white pants and shirt with the top three buttons undone. He greeted us and joked with Jim about all the incidents at his hotels. They talked about his overheating electronic sign and the cop pulled up in his car and joked that he would have to arrest Tony. That is highly unlikely. Tony is dumb like a fox. He hires off duty Wildwood police during prom nights and during senior week as extra security. You don’t become a slumlord millionaire by pissing off the authorities.

We finally got back to the condo and a short while later decided to take a walk on the boardwalk. Having previously posted about the ridiculous signs attempting to keep people safe on jetties and the beach, I found it ironic to see hundreds of motorcycles parade on the boardwalk for 30 minutes, driving within feet of people walking on the boardwalk. It was pretty cool, but the continuous roar got old after awhile.

We hit the Star Diner on the way out of Wildwood in time for the early bird special. My mom would be proud. Where else can you get a basket of rolls, entree, salad, drink, desert and coffee for $11?

On the previous Friday I was irritable and angry about what was going on at work. By Sunday night I had let it all go. Life is too short. I spent Monday focused on helping the person who was going to be ambushed at the Tuesday meeting by preparing her for every attack she could receive. On Tuesday at noon I was told I was now in the meeting at 3:00 pm. I prepared my data and geared for battle. My colleague was happy to see me enter the room. She had an ally. It was an intense 90 minute meeting with the sides clearly demarcated. Myself and a faculty member provided the facts and the rationale for our side. I felt it was my duty to confront some powerful people in the room with facts and the truth. When we left the meeting, I thought we had lost.

I was pleasantly surprised on Thursday to find out our arguments and facts had won the day. The person I had helped win called me to thank me for my support, recommendations, and willingness to go to the mat on her behalf. Sometimes the good guys do win. I felt a lot better this Friday.

Only two weeks until our next weekend in Wildwood. I hope it is a little less eventful.

WILDWOOD IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES

You never know what you’re gonna get. It was another beautiful 80 degree day at the beach yesterday. We went to the beach early and planned to leave by 2:30 so we could take advantage of the Ocean Oasis After 3:00 pm special pricing, along with our buy one get one free coupon. We love spending three hours in the heated adults only hot tub/pool with swim up bar.

The ocean was 73 degrees with huge waves generated by Hurricane Bertha far out at sea. Bertha is a perfect name for some of the land whales strolling the beaches of Wildwood in their bikinis. We stayed in the water for about an hour then headed back to the condo and then onto Ocean Oasis.

We bought our first drinks and settled into the pool. The acoustic guitar singer was playing songs from the 1980’s and 1990’s that we liked.

As you can see from the picture, it is a tiny pool and only 2.5 feet deep. But for some ridiculous reason there are always two lifeguards required to be on duty. At least they aren’t on lazy river duty.

For awhile we pretty much had the pool to ourselves. Then a bunch of people started to get in. A hugely obese woman with a walker got into the pool using her walker. We were distracted by her almost as obese friend’s enormous back mole. And she kept her back facing us the whole time. Doesn’t she have family to tell her that needs to be looked at? I was reminded of the mole scene in Uncle Buck.

Then a bunch of tattooed guidos made their way into the pool. Avalon and I then had a long discussion about what psychological need is satisfied by mutilating your body in order to draw attention to yourself. The guidos were loud and obnoxious, but they were on the other said of the pool.

Two other normal looking guys got in the pool next to where we were sitting. Avalon had to use the restroom and I was alone to fend for myself. The one guy was splashing around and acting goofy. As I was minding my own business, I hear a whistle blow and then a huge splash as the lifeguard leaped into the pool. It seems the goofy dude was playing dead man’s float and the lifeguard actually thought he was drowning in 2.5 feet of water. The goofy guy stood up and was shocked by the overreaction. The guidos started laughing hysterically. The lifeguard was embarrassed and scrambled back to his seat. The great Ocean Oasis Adult Pool Rescue of 2014 came to its dramatic conclusion.

I’m sure the hillbilly mayor of Wildwood, Ernie Troiano, will be awarding the medal of honor to the foreign lifeguard shipped here from Bulgaria to save goofballs in the adult pool.

And Avalon missed the whole scene because she had to go pee pee. Her loss. It was a truly memorable moment in Wildwood drunk history. But it didn’t end there. I went up to the bar to close out our bill and the two goofball brothers started to chat up Avalon. She told the drowning victim she was glad he survived. The conversation turned to where we were from and what we did for a living. The drowning survivor was a male nurse and it wasn’t long before we were in a deep discussion about Obamacare and our clusterfuck healthcare system.

He is an ER nurse and he said they get 300 patients per shift, with only 30 of them insured, even after the hoopla about Obamacare success. These people know they will be treated with or without insurance. Nothing has changed. Of the 30 million uninsured people before Obamacare, 26 million are still uninsured. What a resounding success. He thought insurance companies kept doctors from ordering unnecessary tests and were beneficial to the process. I challenged him and said we didn’t need massive corporate middlemen sucking billions from the people and the government. I think he heard the name Ron Paul for the first time in his life. His brother wanted to go on a slide, so we parted ways. Another normal day in Wildwood.

HELL MOTHERF#@KING YEA!!!!!

The last few years in Wildwood I haven’t gone to the beach much. I was content to sit on the deck, read a book, and watch the sights go by. But Joyce and Mike upgraded their Section 8 Estate in the off season by installing a storm door, so they could keep their door open all day long and allow their two yappy dogs to bark at anyone and everyone on the porch. So, the lesser of two evils is now to spend a few hours on the beach among the tattooed, pierced, obese, ignorant land whales.

Don’t get me wrong. There are your fair share of hotties in bikinis, but they are astronomically outnumbered by the morbidly obese diverse masses speaking foreign languages who find it funny to feed the seagulls with no concern for those around them on the beach. The ignorance and lack of acceptable social skills is breathtaking to behold. How 250 pound women think they can or should wear a bikini on a beach is beyond my limited comprehension. I need sunglasses to prevent my eyeballs from burning at the sight of some of these people.

I was surrounded by thousands of Obama voting, EBT using, future SSDI recipients. I find it amusing that the morbidly obese have absolutely no shame regarding their appearance. They are entitled to go to the beach, but if I was as big as these people, I would wear clothing that didn’t accentuate my sloth. I also find it amusing that these people reproduce at a greater rate than normal looking people. They are usually surrounded by a horde of mixed race unruly obese cherubs running across people’s blankets (Avalon was not happy getting sand kicked in her face).

The slovenly ignorant masses also seem to have enough Obama cash to smoke a few packs a day as they sit on the beach relaxing from their hard week of not working, puffing away and enjoying nature. The vast majority are day trippers who pile into their government financed GM SUVs and head to the shore. Somehow these “poor” can afford to spend $10 a pack for their cigarette habit and drive $40,000 automobiles, while sucking off the American taxpayer teat. The only thing that could arouse them from their funnel cake and fried oreo induced beach blanket stupor was the call of the Fudgy Wudgy man pushing his cart of ice cream treats. I’ve never seen the obese masses move so fast. Like a flash they surrounded the guy dishing out $4 for a 25 cent fudgy wudgy. It would hold them over until they hit Dunkin Donuts for some Munchkins on the way back from the beach. I thought it was fitting that the American flag was flying proudly over the obese beach land whales.

The first day we were on the beach we all settled into our chairs and I started to read a book. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something hovering in the sky to my left. I looked up and to my surprise saw my first real drone. It hovered above us as if it knew I was a dissident that needed to be watched. It stayed above us for about three minutes, then moved on down the beach. About ten minutes later it came back past our spot on the beach. I was half expecting a tiny missile to be launched in my direction. I really think the task of this DHS drone was to try and find a thin person on the Wildwood beach. Mission Un-accomplished.

The truth is that the government is slowly but surely desensitizing the ignorant masses to being under constant surveillance. I looked around the beach to see if anyone else even noticed the flying surveillance vehicle “keeping them safe from terrorists”. The masses were oblivious. They were too busy chowing down on their choco-taco ice cream bars. I’m sure the vast majority of people on that beach think drones are cool and don’t have the critical thinking skills or desire to think about the long term implications of unmanned surveillance vehicles protecting the shit out of them.

Avalon did a little research and found that the New Jersey Institute of Technology is being funded by the Department of Homeland Security and is conducting a “TEST” with drones to “protect” the good citizens of New Jersey from catastrophic weather emergencies. Yeah right. The Orwellian Federal Government funds local governments, who partner with educational institutions to keep you under control and monitored 24/7. They are using your money to spy on you. This isn’t conspiracy theory. This is truth.

During the Saturday night fireworks there it was again. It hovered high above the display on the beach. I was hoping for a misfire that would take it out. It was not to be.

After this eventful day, we went back into the water the next day. Poor Avalon. I don’t even know how to take a picture with my flip phone. She settled down on the blanket to read her book and then it appeared, like Godzilla from the depths of the sea. I glanced to my right and there before my very eyes was confirmation of everything I’ve been writing about. Some people think I’m exaggerating the degradation and ignorance of the masses. The land whale in the picture below was the mother of a horde of obese welfare recipients frolicking in the waves. She was proudly taking pictures with her $300 iPhone.

I made Avalon take the picture so I could prove how far humanity has fallen. You can’t see the front of the shirt where is has HELL in huge capital letters. But you can clearly see the Motherfucking Yea!!!!!!! on the back. This is a mother alright. If a grown middle aged woman would wear this shirt in public, how do you think her hoard of welfare babies by different daddies are going to turn out? She’s an Obama voter. She believes you owe her. She deserves to be supported by you working suckers.

It is clear to me that I will be a minority in this country in the very near future. There are just too many ignorant people in this country. Their entitlement mentality, lack of intelligence, and ability to be manipulated by consumerism propaganda will keep them enslaved in debt and ignorance. And if that starts to fail, you have the Orwellian Federal government arming local police departments with military weapons and widening their surveillance state with unassuming little drones watching everything you do.

Welcome to the machine. Off to the waterpark. I can’t wait to see what happens there.

STRICTLY PROHIBITED

We spent the past weekend in Wildwood cleaning up after out first tenant and looking forward to enjoying our nice cool condo with our new $4,400 air conditioner. I turned it on and it proceeded to run for 8 hours without cooling the condo below 73 degrees. It was 71 degrees outside. To say I wasn’t a happy camper is putting it mildly. I left two extremely sarcastic angry voicemails on the emergency line of the air conditioner company. They finally called me back just as we were headed to the Shamrock to see Billy Jack. I told them to come first thing in the morning. They arrived at 1:30 in the afternoon. It seems the installer didn’t add refrigerant to the air conditioner. That really gives me a feeling of comfort about my new unit. But it seems to be working now.

On Monday, Avalon and I hopped on our bikes and rode down to the rocks where the Hazardous Area/Keep Off signs warn people of the tremendous danger. As we sat on the bench, two little female joggers came jogging down the beach, approached the rocks, trotted across the rocks in front of the signs and sauntered off the rocks back onto the beach. They must not have realized how much danger they were in. The idiocy of these signs was never more evident.

Next we moved onto the Hereford Lighthouse and their beautiful gardens where the old ladies who run the place don’t want anyone to chase the butterflies.

They aren’t too fond of kids either. Running and playing outside on grass is frowned upon. We wouldn’t want little kids to be curious or rambunctious. They might damage the grass or a bush. No fun allowed.

Later in the day we headed for the beach for a little relaxation by the sea. As we entered the beach we were confronted by the largest list of things we couldn’t do I’ve ever seen. They forgot ball playing. The lifeguards will whistle you down if you try to throw a football around. This list is enough to drive you to drink, but it’s not allowed. Feeding the seagulls may be prohibited, but it didn’t stop that 4 year old brat next to us from creating a frenzy of flying rats from descending upon us by throwing food to them. Little brats and their loud mouthed mothers should be prohibited. We always seem to be sitting next to the loud family.

I love the no diving sign, with a picture in case you can’t read. How exactly can you dive from a flat beach? Sometime the idiocy of the governmental drones is too vast to comprehend. Wildwood has cornered the market on politicians and bureaucrats who couldn’t manage their way out of wet paper bag. They run the town like morons and hillbillies. How you could have one of the nicest beaches on the East Coast and manage to fuck it up, is beyond me. Questioning their authority and wisdom is strictly prohibited.

PUSSIES & BUTTERFLY CHASERS

While in Wildwood for Memorial Day weekend we witnessed the usual obese tattooed pierced masses aplenty. The foul mouthed multitude of morons were out in force consuming vast quantities of fried oreos, boardwalk fries, Mac’s pizza, Kohr’s ice cream, and Laura’s fudge, before drinking themselves into a stupor. Meanwhile, the air conditioner in my money pit condo was throwing in the towel after 13 years. What was another $4,400 for a new air conditioner for my underwater “investment” property?

But at least we had our bikes, the boardwalk and the ocean. Avalon and I went on our usual early morning trek to “the rocks” at 2nd & JFK Boulevard. The rocks were the jetty that has been there for decades. When I was a kid we would walk our dogs down to the rocks every night. My Dad taught me how to fish from those rocks. I inherited my Dad’s patience. I could stand on those rocks for hours, casting my line into the glistening ocean and waiting for a flounder, blue or weakie to take the bait.

I never fell off those rocks. I never saw anyone ever fall off those rocks. If I had fallen, my Dad would have called me a dumbass and told me to get up. The jetty was always wet from the ocean spray. Slippery green moss grew abundantly. It’s called nature. In the America I grew up in, if you fell down, you got up. You didn’t sue someone because you were an idiot who couldn’t keep their balance. The jetty was created to protect the beaches from erosion and has been used by Dads teaching their kids to fish since the 1960’s.

You can’t stand on those rocks anymore. According to the control freak government drones, it’s now a crime to step foot on those rocks. They threaten to fine you and throw you in jail for stepping foot on some rocks that have been stood upon without incident for fifty years. The picture below captures the pure utter idiocy of a government gone wild. What a pathetic joke this country has become. Some politician listens to some lawyer, who thinks city insurance rates will be lower if they put up some ridiculous danger sign to keep citizens from enjoying themselves and carrying on a tradition of fathers teaching sons how to fish. I wonder if those two four year old girls realized how much peril they were in.

Does that two foot drop from the jetty strike you as life threatening? This is what passes for high risk in this nation of pussies. But the government drones didn’t think one ridiculous sign was enough. They had to cement in a second sign to provide the exact same message. Sometimes I wonder how low the IQs of the government drones must be. It almost as if they are incapable of using their brains.

After escaping this perilous landscape, we hopped back on our bikes, taking our lives into our hands by not wearing helmets like Obama, and rode another quarter mile to the Hereford Lighthouse to take in some more scenic views. The lighthouse is surrounded by lovely well kept flowering gardens. The gardens are well manicured and weeded by meticulous Boomers. These old folks look down upon visitors with children. They love rules and regulations. Avalon and I had to laugh and shake our heads when we saw the sign below. These control freaks actually think butterflies care about kids chasing them. They think they can stop this butterfly abuse with a sign.

What is it with control freaks and signs? There are a vast swath of people in governmental positions of authority who don’t think you can make rational decisions without their rules and regulations. They don’t trust you to live your own life. They want to control every aspect of your daily existence. Every law, regulation, directive, bylaw, rule, edict, decree and command imposed upon our lives by sociopathic, unintelligent, controlling government apparatchiks takes away freedoms, liberties and our right to live our lives as we see fit. Years of indoctrination in government run schools and being inundated with decades of propaganda preaching “government knows best” has brainwashed the masses to accept and embrace the ridiculous notion that these control freaks make us safer, improve our lives, and act in our best interests.

Will we ever come to our senses, take personal responsibility for our own lives, and shake off the yoke of authoritarian government control? I keep looking for signs.

WEST PHILLY – WILDWOOD CONUNDRUM

While walking down the street in Wildwood yesterday I noticed something that most people would find highly unusual. There was a gang of teenagers coming towards me and I wasn’t scared. It was because they were all Asian and dressed in blue Morey’s Piers work shirts. They were headed to their jobs on the boardwalk. I had previously passed a gaggle of Eastern Europeans in blue Morey’s work shirts while riding my bike on the boardwalk. This is not a recent development. Morey’s has been employing foreign students for years to man their rides and concession booths.

The Morey family essentially runs the Wildwood Boardwalk. They operate the three amusement piers and many of the game and food booths. They have been model citizens and have done many good things for the town and the people. They have been the major player in Wildwood for decades.

They employ 1,500 people every summer and half of them are foreign students. They come from China, Thailand, Bulgaria, Egypt, Ireland and other Eastern European countries. This fact has always had me scratching my head. Morey’s pays them $7.50 to $8.00 per hour. They provide housing and transportation. They feed them lunch and dinner. The foreign workers are pleasant, efficient, and competent. They are clean cut and show up every day for work. They appear to be loving the experience.

You might be wondering how foreigners can come to the U.S. over the summer and get jobs when our real unemployment rate is north of 20%. It seems there is a Federal government program called the Summer Work Travel Program, run by the State Department. It was created in 1961 to bolster diplomatic ties with other countries by way of cultural exchange. As a reminder, Federal programs NEVER die. They just get bigger. The primary purpose of the program is to acquaint foreign students with the culture and life of modern America and the distribution of other cultures among its inhabitants. I guess taking ride tickets and selling fried oreos to obese tattooed Americans is really acquainting them with our culture. Approximately 120,000 foreign university students are shipped over for three or four months every year to work low level tourist industry jobs.

The foreign students actually end up paying $2,000 to just get over here to work. Would-be participants typically first make contact with a recruiter in their home country. From there, they are connected with one of dozens of private “sponsors,” who are tasked by the State Department with overseeing the visa program. The sponsors acquire visas for students and connect them with employers or, at times, another company before they are granted entrance into the United States. Those who gain entry into the program typically spend more than $2,000 in travel expenses and fees to recruiters and sponsors, but some pay much, much more. “With recruiters, you don’t know how much they might be charging. We found someone who was charging $10,000,” said Allan Smith, chief executive officer at American Camp And Work Experience, the sole New Jersey-based Summer Work Travel sponsor. “On the other side,” Smith said, “you have employers who house kids, charging them over $100 a week. At the end of the summer, they end up owing the company money. When you get stuff like that, it hurts everybody.”

Morey’s does not treat their employees badly. But this program is not really a cultural immersion program. It’s a cheap labor program for American companies. Federal taxes are waived for participants in the program. That means Morey’s does not have to pay their 7.65% portion into the Social Security fund. But at the end of the day, I believe Morey’s when they say they can’t fill the positions locally. I do not believe Morey’s are racists, but there are very few African American or Hispanic workers on their piers. This is interesting since 31% of the local population is Hispanic and 12% is African American. The total local population is only 5,500, with only 500 or so residents between 18 and 24 years old. It makes sense that they would need teenagers from outside of Wildwood to fill their needs.

This brings me to West Philly and how the welfare state policies of this country are the reason the Morey family has to seek out good teenage workers from across the globe. My Section 8 neighbors have a 17 year old son living in the condo. He lives 50 yards from the Wildwood boardwalk between two Morey’s amusement piers. He does not work. Morey’s is going through a lot of effort to ship in teenagers from foreign countries. The people living next door have not interest in working. If they earned money working at a real job, they would lose some of their free shit. That kid has no interest in working on the Boardwalk. He has learned already that not working is easier and more profitable than working.

This entitlement attitude extends into West Philly. Philadelphia is 90 miles from Wildwood. There are 205,000 18 to 24 year olds living in Philadelphia. The true youth unemployment rate in Philadelphia is in excess of 50%. The black unemployment rate is north of 70%. How screwed up is our country that Morey’s couldn’t find 750 teenagers in Philadelphia to collect ride tickets and sell funnel cake? Any normal teenager would love to spend the summer at a shore house with an easy night time job. I blame the 45 years of welfare state policies for this ridiculous situation. The teenagers in West Philly have been raised with an entitlement mindset. Working would reduce their government freebies. Most of these teenagers have never had an example of two parents working hard at jobs. Many don’t even know their fathers. They have no concept of personal responsibility or getting ahead in life. They know their family EBT cards will be recharged on the 1st of the month. They aren’t capable of adding, subtracting, using correct grammar or dressing like a normal human being. The kids from China have a better grasp of the English language than kids in West Philly.

It is a sad reflection on our government run educational system, entitlement plantation mentality instilled by liberal do-gooder politicians, and complete lack of parental responsibility within the urban ghettos, that employers have to seek workers from 7,000 miles away when there are 200,000 teenagers only ninety miles away. Do you blame Morey’s for not hiring these Philadelphia teenagers?

SECTION 8 STILL DOING GREAT

With the kids on Spring Break, we took a three day weekend in Wildwood. Today was beautiful. It was nice enough to ride our bikes to the lighthouse and take a nice four mile hike on the boardwalk. Easter Sunday’s weather was dreary so we did some bowling at the Wildwood Bowl and almost won a trivia competition at Owens Pub in North Wildwood while watching the Flyers make a dramatic comeback to keep their playoff hopes alive. Our four year ordeal regarding our defectively built deck is over. The new deck is awesome. There was virtually no noticeable damage from Sandy in Wildwood. I hope the deck work and Sandy didn’t inconvenience my Section 8 next door neighbors. They seem to be in good spirits. For newbies, these previous articles will bring you up to speed.

http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=32788

http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=18085

I have nothing personal against these people. They are fairly quiet. They did move my deck chairs into my garage before Sandy hit. They are there all year and keep an eye on the place. I do have a big problem with the asshole owner of the unit -Fat Pete. I’ve given him the name Fat Pete because he is a 350 pound scumbag that isn’t capable of climbing the steps to his unit.

Pete bought 3 of the 7 units in our condo pre-construction in 2002. He flipped two (one of them to me) at a nice profit and kept one for friends and family to use. He fancied himself a real estate mogul because his daddy owned one of the biggest blueberry farms in NJ and provided plenty of opportunity for Fat Pete. One problem. Petey found himself with 8 properties in Wildwood when the housing market collapsed. He mistook a bubble for intelligence and real estate savvy. After a couple years without being able to sell any of his properties he somehow managed to get the condo next door to me approved for Section 8 housing. It boggles my mind that a condo in a resort town, located 50 yards from the beach, can qualify for Section 8 housing.

Not only did Fat Pete single-handidly bring down the value of every condo in the complex with his brilliant strategic move, but he then rented it to white trash drug dealers who harassed our tenants all summer. After a number of us threatened him with bodily harm, he gave these tenants the boot and replaced them with the family unit that currently occupy the unit. We have a perfectly able mid fifties man who is not legally employed. He drives a nice pickup truck and appears to do some landscaping work for cash payments under the table. We have his rotund loud mouthed wife who tips the scales at about 275, and drives a newer model SUV with a handicap sticker. We have an ancient artifact grandmother with a walker, who likes to chat with us, but we can’t understand one word she says. There is also a slow-witted teenager who hardly ever leaves the condo. Then there are various “relatives” or acquaintances that come and go.

And now for the best part. Fat Pete, even though he’s been getting a monthly check from the Federal government for the last three years, hasn’t made his condo fee payment for the last four years. He is $7,000 in arrears. The other six owners had to pony up $3,000 apiece to cover the difference in the insurance payment for our deck repairs and the amount owed to the contractor. Fat Pete is taking $2,500 out of our pockets by not paying his fair share. I’ve tried to embarass his fatass with a sarcastic email copied to all the owners. He makes excuses for why he hasn’t paid. I don’t care. If this asshole ever shows up at the condo, I’ll stick my foot up his enormous ass.

As I said previously, I don’t personally have anything against my Section 8 neighbors. What I do have are questions. Questions that aren’t allowed to be asked in polite politically correct company. So I’ll ask them here:

How can the Federal government subsidize Section 8 housing in resort communities?
How much do the Obamanistas pay to Fat Pete and how much do the tenants pay?
How many people in the condo are receiving SSDI payments?
Is the 1st of the month their favorite day?
When did being extremely fat qualify someone for handicap parking and SSDI?
Did everyone in the condo vote for Obama in 2012?
Would anyone in the condo ever seek a real wage paying job if it meant their welfare checks would stop?
How does a family that can’t afford to rent an apartment, with no one working, afford two vehicles, cable TV, internet service, and cell phones?
Do these people feel any shame and will they ever attempt to get off the dole?
Does the able bodied man pay taxes on the cash payments he receives for doing landscaping?
How long can this country subsidize such behavior on such a large scale?
What will happen when the millions of entitlement recipients have their cashflow cut off when the system collapses?

In the meantime, Section 8 continues to do great.

FRANKENSTORM BEARS DOWN ON ADMIN’S CONDO

It looks like my underwater Wildwood condo could be really underwater in the next few days. This storm is projected to make a direct hit on Wildwood. The last time a storm of this magnitude hit Wildwood was in 1962, exactly 50 years ago. It looks like we are going to have a helluva 50 year anniversary party. This storm is bigger than the 1962 storm. It is going to hit during a full moon. It is predicted to last for 36 hours. Wildwood is an island. When it rains heavily, the streets flood because the storm drains leading to the ocean cannot drain fast enough. In 1962 West Wildwood was virtually wiped off the map, as the back bay met the ocean. Here are a few pictures of the devastation:

Explaining The Shore Impact From Sandy

Sandy doesn’t have that same ‘tropical’ look that it had yesterday. Don’t be fooled by the look though. An approaching cool front and mid atmospheric trough will infuse additional energy into the storm over the coming days, with the result being a strong storm that will impact much of the East Coast.

Another post around midday from Kevin Wagner will outline the wind, rain, water impacts for the region. Track does matter to a point but since the system will be evolving away from a purely tropical storm into a nontropical entity there are some things that this storm will have that will not be in your “usual” tropical system. The wind field will be larger geographically — and not necessarily stronger to the north of the storm either. Some wind gusts in the southwest quadrant of the storm may be stronger due to baroclinic influence. Whether the storm comes ashore in New Jersey or Maryland does not matter in the grand scheme of things for someone in Pottstown or Philadelphia — it will be windy for inland regions.

At the Shore, track does matter more. Modeling does suggest a window from the Delmava to Long Island, with the very, very consistent European computer model continuing to suggest that Sandy’s low pressure center comes ashore over the Delmarva.

In terms of coastal impacts, the Euro landfall is arguably the worst case scenario for Delaware and South Jersey coastlines. The combination of east winds and monthly high tides that will occur on Monday will cause rather nasty coastal flooding for Jersey and Delaware coastlines and the interior side of the back bays. Given the size of the storm, impacts will still be noticeable up the coast into New York City and Long Island as winds will be from the east, gusty, and pushing water onshore. Coastal flooding impacts will be widespread over a larger swath of real estate. East winds that could gust to hurricane force will do a number of the beaches and on Shore properties if the Euro’s scenario plays out.

If a landfall farther up the coast takes place…and this is an unlikely scenario, the impacts are different. If the center comes ashore over Long Island (as an example), the strongest winds and onshore flow will be over the Hamptons and Southern New England while an offshore wind is pushing water out into the Atlantic over New Jersey and Delaware. There would be some flooding from the back bays along the barrier islands in New Jersey once the storm center moved east of your location. However, in terms of coastal flooding and beach erosion the impacts would not be as bad in this scenario since the storm would move onshore to our north. Still bad since we would have to go through Sunday night and Monday with an east wind…just not as bad since the storm would track a little bit farther out to sea. Odds don’t favor this scenario (at least as far as a Long Island landfall) playing out though. However, it’s important to point out that with Sandy, despite its large size, the location where the storm comes ashore will matter for coastal residents in terms of how long the east winds last and how much coastal flooding takes place.

One of the differences between this storm and Irene is that Irene was faster moving whereas Sandy will be moving at nearly half of Irene’s forward momentum (ten miles per hour or so versus Irene which moved at nearly twenty) as it comes ashore. Irene’s worst impacts were in a six to eight hour window on Saturday evening until the dryslot moved in — Sandy’s brunt will be felt across the region for a longer stretch of time.

Posted by Tom at 10/26/2012 08:36:00 AM 0 Comments