Makin’ Waves in Ocean City, MD
All contrived titles aside, back in June, this is seriously how this trip was planned:
Thursday: “We should go to the Ocean City this summer.”
Sunday: “We’re going to Ocean City Tomorrow.”
Monday: “Well, we’re in Ocean City now.”
Kevin thought that it would be a good idea for us to go to Ocean City, MD at some point in the summer. “Oh wouldn’t it be nice?” asked the Beach Boys on the tape we listened to on the way. “Yes, Brian Wilson, that would be nice,” we replied. Ocean City has always been part of our summer agenda but last year it didn’t work out. We usually stay at Kevin’s Aunt and Uncle’s beach house (THEIR NAME IS ALSO BEACH, ISN’T THAT FUCKING SPECIAL?) but last summer was fraught with… err… “not-going-theres”. Ocean City has many wonderful things to offer. Like mini golf, overpriced less-than-Jersey-good pizza, slightly worse than Seaside Heights and Wildwood arcades, Senior Week (more on this later), and, oh yeah… like the name might imply: AN OCEAN!
So on Sunday I IMed Andy and James asking if they’d be down for going to the Beach the next day. We then tricked Kevin into using his car to get there by paying for his gas, the tolls, and by promising that the EPA would increase the size of containment areas to span the dillution rates of Class 3 Chemicals across the water table. It was this third part which sold him and it was off to the beach! We departed at 7 in the AMs and it was a smooth sailing along the highway of love (Route 50) to the Ocean.
James, Andy, Kevin and I cruised in Kevin’s 1996 Cavalier that had questionable air conditioning, two cup holders for four people, a pencil I left in there like four years ago, and a tape player. We picked some great tunes to jam to. “Soundtrack Smashes of the 80’s” which would lead me to believe that the only 80’s movies are Miami Vice Beverly Hills Cop 1 and 2 and Weird Science. A little Beach Boys, as picked by James, foreshadowed things to come:
Let me go home
Why don’t they let me go home
This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on
Most normal people would listen to the advice of “Sloop John B”, but we’re dedicated and realized that it’s only a tape and music made up a long time ago and not really applicable to everyday life and we’re not that stupid (looks to Kevin for another adjective) and dumb.
Andy picked out a tape that had the Eagles and Billy Joel on it… or so we thought! This tape was actually used by me when I was little. Apparently I had a tape recorder and this was the tape that I used as my blank. When we put on the Eagles side we heard from Blazing Saddles “LePetomaine Through-Way? Now what’ll that asshole think of next? Does anybody gotta dime? Somebody’s gotta go back and get a shitload of dimes!” Next was Matt Groening yelling “Get outa my office!” and firing a shotgun. Next was Chris Rock from the 199X MTV Video Awards talkin’ about white people being from hell.
We figured this was the last of the weird shit as it moved back into the Eagles. EN-CONTRAIRE!!! Side 2 begins with a little private Bobby jam session on a Casio keyboard using only sound effects. The horrible screeching was soon silenced by the words of evil, vile, foul, festering childhood rants of racism and aborted comedic timing. It was basically me acting as if I were the message on an answering machine… except doing a horrible Mexican caricature. “I’m not hoooome right neow! But leeeave a message and after I’m feeenished eating tacos I’ll geeet back to you!” This segues into some sort of Chinese song in which I sing “Ching Chang chong chingy-changy-chong-chang!!! Would you like some Kung-Pow Chikkeeeennn?!?” These horrible utterings were fortunately aleviated by the song stylings of Mr. Joel. We’re thinking about turning it into a concept album. If John Cage can make his bullshit we certainly can market this!
But between awful tapes and touching one’s self, there are many interesting things that pave the road of entertainment to the destination of fun-u-tainment. For example, we came across the location of the Virtual Fools building and plan on moving our offices there next month.
Or you can take a walk on the wild side. We tailed car BOBBOB1 to a skanky little road known as…
what’s that?
That sounds… FAB-U-LOUSSSSS!!!! Well, sounded, at least. Unfortunately for article-purposes it’s really a way hetero street. BORING!!! NEEXXXXXXXXXXTTTTTT!!!
A quick bout of pricematching betwixt the various pizza-confectionaries landed us at Piezano’s, a gleefully generic little place with nice service and BLAND pizza. It was filling, which was the order of the day. A point of comparison must be made with the superior pizza to be found in New Jersey. Pizza can be rated on a thrity point, cross-referencing web that combines color-coded data with complex lines. It comes down to a few basic things, though. Quality/Value/Convienience (much like the television station that bears the same name). Well, more like 5…Q/V/C/Taste and Size. Seasside Heights, NJ has pizza that trumps the size card. Three Brothers Pizza, a local chain with a few places on the boardwalk has HULKING slices that, while slightly pricey, are the juggernauts of the boardwalk pizza world. There is a little place in Wildwood, NJ who’s name escapes us at the moment that wins the value struggle hands down. Their slices, as of our last visit, were 90 cents for cheese or just over a dollar for one topping. This place also had Zeppoli (which are little dumplings of fried dough, dipped in powdered sugar and served in a bag) at six for a dollar, which is probably the cheapest carbs-per-unit snack in all of boardwalkdom. Ocean City pizza seems to all be pricey, as the cheapest slices were at just under $2 for cheese with little better than lackluster taste. There was still a healthy dose of good-ol’-fashioned boardwalk ‘za to be had a Piezano’s, but the critical eye can never cease, not even when hungry.
Jimmy suggested that we eat our pizza as quickly as humanly possible and then jump immediately into the ocean to start a serious session of flailing about and yelling which could only result in horrible cramps, nausua, arrest, or all of the above. The water proved cool, the wind stiff, the sand especially nice for a public beach and the times good. We had a nagging suspicion that something was wrong. That something was…
Jimmy stares menacingly into this senior’s soul. Note the ‘free beads’ for seniors in the background.
SENIOR WEEK!! Ocean City was an utter mess with high school seniors. Call me old fashioned, but when I graduated from high school, an increasingly distant flicker of a memory, it was called Beach Week. We made no pretenses as to what would happen. It was not a week in honor of the fact that we were seniors…rather, it was a week entirely devoted to the one place that suburban Northern Virginia was not. It was a time to celebrate the sand, a time to let go, a time to drink a little bit and keep the buzz going for the next two years, a time to kill. No, that last one is a book, but don’t tell anybody. Ocean City seemed to have rolled out the red carpet for these kids. There were specials at hotels, banners hanging across main roads, messages on shop signs and groups of roving teens as far as the horizon. This fostered an undoubtedly interesting dynamic: on the one had, the City was encouraging responsible partying and trying to keep the kids in line…on the other, every fucking store was selling beer bongs, shot glasses that comemorated the occasion and t-shirts that bastardedized every recognizable beer logo. College kids like us know that the city is probably fighting a losing battle.
Our first direct taste of Senior Week came from the huge groups of graduates that were near us on the beach. We came back from the water to lay down/drip dry and knew immediately that any rest would be impossible with them nearby. This A.D.D. culture of ours was made lucidly manifest by what they did: some were digging frantically in the sand with a huge shovel, a few were throwing two different footballs in seemingly patternless patterns, most were smoking, all were talking, none would really relaxing.
BUT WHAT IS THIS? One of them decided that they ALL needed to play volleyball. “THANK GOD” exclaimed VF. Most of the toolshed (small groups of tools are toolboxes, large groups like this are toolsheds) went off to play, but one of the lovelies loudly exclaimed “I CAN’T PLAY VOLLEYBALL WITHOUT MY AVIATORS. I NEED TO GO BACK TO THE HOUSE TO GET MY AVIATORS!” Apparently you need them to play volleyball. Maybe they have a feature that prevents the viewer seeing the toolish qualities in their peers. I suppose I should try judging them some other time when I’m wearing a pair of my own. Until then, I pronounce thee ‘King of the Toolboxs’ of the ‘Jerkoff Kingdom’. Speaking of kingdoms…
