Cold water, wind can’t stop the action

PANAMA CITY BEACH — Lots of stuff is happening as the new year gets to a running start, though the Gulf water may still be cold and the sky can’t decide if it wants to be rainy or sunny. Here are a few things in the past week you might have seen:

Nick Alexander (Photo: Tony Johnson)

Mr. Surf’s annual “Cold Water Classic” surfing contest last Saturday was a huge success, according to shop owner and organizer Tony Johnson.

“The waves were really good, the weather was perfect — sunny and in the mid/upper 70s — and we had a huge crowd on the beach,” he said. “Finals were incredible.”

The Open Elite class, with a $600 cash purse on the line, came down to 1 point difference between surfers “Killer C” and “Sticky Nicky Alexander.” Johnson said Killer C thought he had the contest sewn up when Alexander “stuck a bomb, got completely barreled and rode the longest tube all the way across the beach right in front of Killer C, who threw up his hands in disbelief. You had to be there to see it.”

I imagine that’s so, because I’m not sure what any of that means. Check out Mr. Surf’s Surf Shop on Facebook to see photos of the event.

Behind the Scenes

Filming began at 7 a.m. Sunday for “East Side Story,” the independent dance movie being shot on locations all over Panama City Beach. The first shots filmed were set poolside at the Shores of Panama resort and featured the leads actors/dancers, Witney Carson and Chehon Wespi-Tschopp, as well as many local extras decked in bikinis and board shorts.

Bay County Film Commissioner Julie Gordon said the day’s work went well, though “it was a wee bit chilly and a lot windy.”

A kitchen scene was filmed at Edgewater Beach Resort on Monday, again using local extras as waiters, and more locals were cast as butlers in a scene filmed Wednesday evening. Be patient with the audience when you go to see the finished movie, as there’s sure to be lots of fingers pointing at the big screen and whispers of “I know that guy!”

Luke Bryan @ Spinnaker 2012

Spring Break is just around the corner, believe it or not, and a country music star who has made the event a regular part of his tour schedule for the past five years has already announced two free concerts.

Luke Bryan, the son of a Georgia peanut farmer, knows that “going to the beach” means Panama City Beach, and he will be celebrating the rites of spring at Spinnaker Beach Club, 8795 Thomas Drive. His free, all-ages, general admission concerts will be at 4 p.m. March 12 and 13. Arrive early to stake out get a good spot.

Spinnaker already has announced a few more events for the spring, including a free concert by Rodney Atkins at 4 p.m. March 8, and a string of daytime concerts by up-and-coming Nashville singer/songwriter Casey Jamerson.

Be sure to check in at PanamaCity.com for all your Spring Break related coverage, including updated events, videos and slideshows.

This is my Undercurrents column for Friday's paper.

Spring Break's Beauty and the Beast

PANAMA CITY BEACH — One was young, fresh of face and light of locks. The other is eligible for AARP, darker, rougher, rounder in different places and — let’s be honest — raunchier.

One is just entering the prime of her life, recently voted the Sexiest Woman Alive by Esquire readers. The other is on the far side of his prime and probably best known for all the on-camera sex he’s had.

Both were in town last week to promote products to the Spring Break crowd.

I spent a couple of minutes last Thursday in the company of Katrina Bowden, a 23-year-old who has appeared in movies (“American Reunion”) and TV shows (“30 Rock”). As the cover model for Maxim magazine’s February issue, she was on the beach to represent the magazine and promo the new Nintendo Wii game “Just Dance 3.”

Bowden judged dance-offs on a beachside stage in the afternoon sun behind Boardwalk Beach Resort and later at Hammerhead Fred’s foam party. She also spent time under a small cabana with a group of professional “Just Dance” dancers practicing the game’s moves. (See the full article here.)

Her handlers jealously guarded her time, allowing her to speak for only a few minutes and putting the kibosh on any video of the interview. (I tend to use the video function on my camera to record interviews these days; the handlers were nice enough to allow me to point the camera away from Bowden but hold it near enough that her voice was picked up.)

She seemed very sweet.

After the story appeared, I was asked to remove from the online version of the story a reference to the film “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil,” in which she played the female lead. I enjoyed that movie, and she said it was fun to make. But that wasn’t her reason for being here, apparently, and has been relegated to her imdb.com entry.

>>Here is video from the day, despite her handlers' best efforts.<<

I spent a much longer time talking with former adult film star Ron Jeremy the next day under a tent in sprinkling rain. The 59-year-old was in town to promote a new rum label that bears his name and likeness, Ron de Jeremy rum. (He had no handlers and no stipulations about video, but after the run-in with Bowden’s folks, I went prepared with a notepad and pen.)

(See the full article here.)

Over a two-day stay, Jeremy spent hours in beach locations including Kwiker Liquor, Ms. Newby’s, Pineapple Willy’s and Coyote Ugly, signing bottles, posters, books, DVDs and body parts for fans. He took the time with each one to pose for photos, listen to their stories and share jokes. He played his harmonica (and that’s not a euphemism).

He seemed to enjoy meeting all these strangers, and he laughed a lot. Nothing was off-limits for the interview.

>>Here is video from the day.<<

Say what you like about beauty vs. the beast: Our Facebook post about Bowden got nine likes and one comment over the weekend; the one about Jeremy got 13 likes and 11 comments. Bowden’s story was picked up by newspapers and websites around the world, and the short video of her dancing received more than 13,600 plays in the first four days.

It’s a tale as old as time

Peace.


This is my column, more or less, that appeared in today's paper and online at this link.

Spring is breaking out all over

That noise you hear is springtime breaking out all over as March arrives like a lion.

On Monday, I joined a reporter and photographer at Rock’It Lanes to interview Spring Break early risers who had walked from their condos and hotel rooms to get a free breakfast. Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers cooked pancakes while Christian college students with “Beach Reach” staffed the buffet line and worked the tables.

A “Macarena” video played on the projection screen in the background as we interviewed visitors and volunteers. A few gave us wary looks; after all, just who were these older guys walking through the venue with cameras? Creep much?

For the record, we did not eat pancakes — but only because the line was so long.

The dull roar of Monday morning built to a scream on Tuesday afternoon, when Panama City Beach hosted a Guinness Book of World Records official, gathered thousands of onlookers on the sand and registered 450 young women to walk a mile in their two-piece beachwear. They passed the time before the walk by dancing the “Dougie.”

I asked News Herald writer Pat Kelly, who covered the event, if being in that crowd had made him feel old or young. He said, basically, that either one is a state of mind and he never feels old unless he lets himself. I figured that’s an enlightened state of being, right there.

I wasn’t on the beach that day. Instead, as the parade moved from Harpoon Harry’s to the pier and back again, I was a few miles away at the Panama City Beach Library. A couple dozen men and women with a few more decades (and considerably more clothing) on them than the paraders were gathered to hear about changes to the newspaper industry since the beginning of the Internet Age.

Here, the sound of spring was shushed for library patrons. Even so, the session was not so much about swapping “back in my day” stories as you might think. “Right Here, Right Now” played on a video we watched, and the group questioned me about everything from delivery systems to filtering the massive amount of information we have to absorb today.

Having reviewed my entire career (mentally, if not aloud) during the course of that talk, I stopped by Zen Garden for a moment of peace. The chief sound effect was of a water fountain in the backyard pond and breeze through the trees.

Once again centered, I talked briefly to Tony Johnson at Mr. Surf’s about the upcoming Skim Jam, then spoke with a public relations woman about a former adult film star who is coming to the beach this week to use Spring Break crowds to spread the word about his new rum label.

These are strange days, indeed, and the question occurs to me — I wonder what ides sound like? Check back here on the 15th; maybe, a little older and wiser, we’ll have the answer.

Peace.
(This is my column for March 8.)

Don't feed the animals at the Spring Break zoo

Maybe you haven’t heard of the primitive Jarawa tribe or the controversy involving them.

The last 403 Jarawa inhabit the tropical forests of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of India. They are protected by law from outside influences, as they are susceptible to diseases carried by more “modern” people and their culture is dying out. It is illegal to photograph them or otherwise come into contact with them.

However, several unscrupulous tourist companies, working with a local police officer, have ferried visitors to the island so they can photograph the tribeswomen dancing and singing — most of them topless — in exchange for food. Video of one encounter is posted at the Guardian UK newspaper website; you can see and hear the women and children asking for food while an off-camera voice tells them they already got their food and should share it.

(A police officer responded that locals had not taken advantage of the tribe; it obviously was a British journalist who had broken the law by videotaping the Jarawa.)

You ask, “What has this got to do with Panama City?”

And I respond, “Have you ever been here during Spring Break?”

Just last night, as I write this, I saw a TV show called “40 Greatest Fails” (or something like that) which consisted of videos gathered from YouTube. One of the video clips was of a bikini contest in Panama City Beach during Spring Break that showed a young woman slip and face-plant while strutting across a plastic stage over a swimming pool.

Then I read in the next day’s paper that the TDC is planning to challenge a Guinness world record for the largest bikini parade during the upcoming Spring Break season. You can be sure the video cameras will be in abundance that day, and the footage will be online. Let’s just hope they wear sensible footwear on slippery surfaces.

Obviously, the Jarawa and the ’breakers are very different from one another, but the two situations set the old brain to thinking.

The big difference between what happens in the Andaman Islands and what happens along Panama City Beach is that the perspectives are reversed. That is, rather than the locals dancing half-naked for tourists to photograph in exchange for solid food, the locals here generally try to steer clear of where the tourists are dancing half-naked for each other to photograph while imbibing liquids.

PCB during Spring Break is less of a “human zoo” and more of a free range you might drive through very slowly with your windows rolled up.

Peace.

(This was my Undercurrents column for Jan. 12, 2012.)