Moron Madness

Jim Quinn / The Burning Platform

We’re back from our vacation in Wildwood. I hoped for more relaxation, but it wasn’t to be. I rode my bike most mornings. I walked miles on the boardwalk with my wife and kids. We played the Cape May par 3 golf course. I went deep sea fishing with my youngest son. I made it to the beach twice. We made it to the Shamrock a few times, but we had more fun on the outdoor deck at Westy’s Pub. Watching an 85 year old couple who were barely 4 feet tall dancing like they did in the 1950’s to current pop hits was worth the price of admission. The scene brought a smile to the faces of anyone in the vicinity.

I ate more pieces of white pizza from Mack’s than I can remember.

How I resisted getting more than one cup of peanut butter ice cream with chocolate jimmies at Kohr’s, I’ll never know.

We saw two outstanding displays of fireworks while we were there. The weekly fireworks are launched on the beach at my street, so we just need to go to the top deck or stand in the street to see the colorful display. The wind was blowing from the ocean, so the debris and ash floated onto our deck.

I always have mixed feelings about Wildwood. I love sitting on the deck early in the morning drinking my coffee and listening to the seagulls squawking. It is peaceful and relaxing sometimes. The weekends tend to be loud, with obnoxious day trippers invading. The paintball game on the boardwalk a block from my house perfectly describes the sights on the Wildwood boardwalk. Moron Madness (you shoot at a guy dressed up as Osama bin Laden) is an apt description for the Wildwood boardwalk.

It is tough to generalize about the thousands upon thousands of people walking/waddling on the Wildwood boardwalk. In the early morning hours, before 9:00 am, you see joggers, bikers, and mostly in-shape people on the boardwalk. This is the time when I find the boardwalk to be enjoyable. It’s quiet. The sun is coming up over the ocean. The dozens of tattoo parlors haven’t opened for business yet, and the freaks are at a minimum.

By 11:00 am the obese, tattooed, pierced, XXXL bathing suit wearing land whales have disconnected from their CPAP machines to hunt for donuts, soda and breakfast sandwiches.

No one is safe as the thundering herd shuffles along, blocking bikers and joggers, as they grapple for position in front of the Dunkin Donuts on the boardwalk at my block. As they breathlessly anticipate the enjoyment of inhaling a dozen chocolate donuts with sprinkles, the incessant Mr. Softee music from next door is whispering to them – come buy a triple fudge sundae for lunch. It’s only $3.49. How can you pass up that deal?

This is just the beginning of temptation for the thousands of morbidly obese blobs straining the wooden structure known as the Wildwood boardwalk. The boardwalk is a veritable smorgasbord of funnel cake, fried oreos, fried cheesecake, tornado fries, lemonade, curly fries, corn dogs, zeppolis, fudge, cotton candy, salt water taffy, ice cream waffles, churros, pizza topped with cheese fries, triple fudge sundaes, and of course a large diet coke. How can 300 pound women in bikinis pass up the opportunity to do some carbohydrate binging?

The funniest “upscale” purveyor of toxic junk food is Wildwood’s only French establishment – La Bakerie. Where else could you find a Nutella Crepe, S’mores Crepe, Fried Snickers, Fried Twix, or Fried Nutter Butter? It’s like you’re actually in Paris.

I can’t help it that I’m an observer. I observe businesses, vehicles, street signs, clothing choices, and the people wandering the vast swaths of ‘Murrica. Liberals, progressives, Obama lovers, and control freaks have a problem with my observations because they don’t believe any behavior, clothing choice, or life choice should be judged, scorned or ridiculed. What we have here is a failure to communicate. I see ignorant, stupid, obese people who make bad life choices every day. They reveal themselves by their actions and their appearance. They stand out like a sore obese thumb in Wildwood. As I’ve noted earlier, there are many normal people in Wildwood, but it appears abnormalcy is winning. The dichotomy is most apparent on the weekends and holidays.

The reason for this is quite simple. It costs $1,500 to $2,500 to rent a condo for a week in Wildwood. Only families with one or two working parents can afford to spend a week in Wildwood. This virtually eliminates black people. First off, there are few black two parent families. Secondly, there are even fewer black families with parents that work for a living. Therefore, you only see middle aged white parents and their kids strolling the streets and boardwalk during the week. When the weekend arrives Wildwood is inundated by day tripper white and black trash. Wildwood is the only free beach below Atlantic City. Stone Harbor, Sea Isle, Avalon, and Ocean City charge $5 or $6 per day per person to access their beaches. The Free Shit Army doesn’t like to pay, so they gravitate to Wildwood. Luckily, SNAP cards are not accepted at the food joints on the boardwalk, or Wildwood would look like West Philly.

I actually enjoy taking a jaunt on the boards during the weekend to make note of the freaks, land whales, rapper wannabes, and the ignorant unemployable tattooed masses. I don’t have to exaggerate one iota regarding the sights that threatened to burn my corneas. My wife and kids can confirm all of my observations. Why do 250 pound girls think they can pull off wearing a bikini? Is there no shame? You shouldn’t be banned from the beach because you’ve eaten yourself to the size of a hippo, but for christ sake wear a one piece bathing suit and a moo moo. Why are so many poor black people so fat? The number of waddling morbidly obese black women and their uncontrollable horde of bastard children is mind boggling. And why do these people find it amusing to feed seagulls on the boardwalk creating havoc and a bird shit attack on innocent bystanders? Do they have no sense of decorum or civility? Anyone who feeds a seagull on the boardwalk is an outright idiot.

Idiots abound during the weekends in Wildwood. Moron madness sums it up nicely. The proliferation of tattoos amongst the ignorant is astounding. I certainly can understand soldiers getting a tattoo on their arm representing their unit or service as a form of comradeship. I understand motorcycle club members identifying themselves by a distinct common tattoo. But young girls with multiple tattoos on their legs, arms, necks, and backs is revolting and stupid. We saw an attractive young girl at the Shamrock bar with a full leg tattoo. When my wife saw it close up while in the restroom, she noticed it was faces of ghouls and vampires. What happened in her childhood to lead her to deform herself in such a manner?

I’m baffled as to why so many people feel the need to mutilate their bodies. These are lower class people with limited financial resources. Some of them have thousands of dollars worth of ink deforming their bodies. The combination of ignorance, illiteracy, mathematical incompetence, and no self respect is a toxic mixture destined to keep these people trapped in poverty and unemployable. I have a theory about why the poor feel the need to tattoo themselves. We live in an egocentric facebook culture where everyone is competing to be noticed. People are desperate for attention. The rich don’t get tattoos. They drive BMWs. They wear Rolex watches. They wear Armani suits. They live in McMansions. The poor can’t afford bling, real estate, or luxury cars. But they can finance tattoos with their credit card. The easily led, ignorant, lemming like masses are just following the lead of the other ignorant masses. You can’t teach stupid.

The funniest aspect of the boardwalk is the tramcar – I hear “watch the tramcar please” in my sleep. After wolfing down a few fried oreos, washed down by a 32 oz lemonade, the tattooed masses hail down the tramcar to drive them the ten blocks to their motel rooms. They are too ignorant to understand the irony of being transported on something called the Boardwalk. 

There is nothing particularly wrong with the people enjoying themselves on the Wildwood boardwalk. They aren’t bad people. They aren’t committing crimes. They are spending money and keeping the economy going. But, I can pretty much guarantee you that not one of these people has ever visited The Burning Platform or would even understand the issues we debate every day. They are willfully ignorant. They don’t want to think about hard stuff. They have been dumbed down by our public education system. They have become obese by eating the toxic frankenfood peddled by mega-corporations. I noticed one heifer with one of those ugly Apple iWatches on her immense wrist. Where do these supposedly poor people find $500 to waste on an egocentric useless bauble. Ignorant Americans are addicted to status symbols because their lives are so shallow and their intellects are deficient. True self worth comes from within, not from what you wear, drive, or paint on your body.

They have been brainwashed by their government with decades worth of propaganda that has sedated them, made them fearful of phantom terrorists, and supportive of blowing up people in foreign countries without a declaration of war. They actually believe the armed police forces roaming our streets kept us safe from a terrorist attack on the 4th of July. Their pea sized brains are unable to process the fact that more people have died in bathtub accidents since 9/11 then have died at the hands of terrorists. They don’t question, think or care about future generations. They don’t understand the long term financial implications of a country with $200 trillion of unfunded liabilities. They don’t even understand the term liability. It’s almost enough to make a man go to the Boardwalk Chapel and pray for the souls of the ignorant masses.

At least the merchants on the boardwalk are creative and retain a sense of humor. I’m sure some progressive politician from Washington D.C. would be offended by being told to grab a wiener. Or maybe in our new gay America, this joint would be celebrated by the LGBT community.

Coincidence or not? You decide.

Some boardwalk stores actually provide some hope. Teaching the masses on the boardwalk to disobey might take more than a shirt. I would estimate that 75% of the people strolling along the Wildwood boardwalk have never heard of Edward Snowden, let alone what he did. And of those who have heard of him, most buy the government storyline that he is a traitor. But 99.9% of these morons know the courageous story of Bruce Jenner’s transformation into a freak called Caitlyn. They are oblivious to the military industrial surveillance state they occupy. The militarization of local police forces doesn’t reach their radar screens. Miley Cyrus twerking videos are more important.

They have no worries about the fact that Obama and the captured corrupt politician snakes slithering around the halls of Congress have added $7.6 trillion to the national debt since 2009, a 75% increase in six years. They care not that their president uses drones to murder people in foreign countries. They think having troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and dozens of other countries around the world is keeping them safe. They are happily unaware that the American empire overthrows governments on a regular basis if they don’t do what we tell them to do.

It seems that everyone on the Wildwood boardwalk embraces the surveillance state. They all have tracking devices attached to their hands. Vacation used to mean leaving the office, disconnecting, relaxing, and recharging your batteries. With the proliferation of iGadgets, the masses have been trained by the Bernaysian propagandists to have the attention span of gnats. Rather than enjoying themselves on vacation, they have to prove to the world they are having fun. They “need” to check-in on Facebook. They must post selfies from the bar. They have to take a picture of their meal and tweet it to the world. The vacuous multitude are gloriously distracted from reality by their technological chains. The State is ecstatic, as the plebs wallow in bread and circuses (funnel cake & roller-coaster rides), and provide an electronic tracking signal for the NSA to exploit when necessary. The willfully ignorant masses will not disobey en-mass until they are no longer getting monthly government transfers, ATM machines stop spitting out $20 bills, and their credit cards come back declined.

After observing for too long, I needed a break. We had one particularly enjoyable walk that we captured in a few pictures. As you walk down the boardwalk towards North Wildwood the rides and games fade into the distance. It gets quieter and less congested. When we reached the end of the boardwalk we decided to keep going for another 15 blocks to The Rocks at 2nd & JFK Boulevard. There was no one on the path with us. It became quiet and peaceful. The moon was full and reflecting on the rippling waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

The sun was setting in the West providing an orange glow over the lighthouse and the bay in the distance.

The scene couldn’t have been more breathtaking. No people. No technological distractions. No noise pollution. Just the sea, the wildlife, the sand dunes, and a shining orb in the sky.

But then we had to walk back to reality. That is the dichotomy you experience in Wildwood. There is much to enjoy and savor, but it is overwhelmed by moron madness. I’ve come to believe that Aldous Huxley’s fears have been manifested on the boardwalk of Wildwood and across our entire nation. The masses don’t read books. We are inundated with so much useless information, we have been reduced to passivity and egotism. The truth is buried in a sea of irrelevance and our culture is based upon triviality. Our almost infinite desire for distractions and pleasure have produced a profoundly abnormal society. The ignorant masses are acting normally only in the context of living in a sick, demented, abnormal society.

“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. “Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.” They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

 After depressing you, watch some fireworks to rejuvenate your spirit.