10th Street East 4 July 2012

Has it already been three years since Folly Beach’s infamous 4^th of July fiasco?  You know, when busloads of “patriotic” vulgarians descended Attila-the-Hun-like on 10th Street East to stage a Jersey-shore-like shitshow, trashing the strand, tussling with police, resisting arrest, chanting USA! USA! USA!

Fortunately, I was up in Baltimore sampling Natty-Bos at the One-Eyed Cat and missed the carnage, but as all Lowcountry residents know, after the 10^th Street Conflagration of 2012, Folly Beach City Council outlawed alcohol on the beach, which sent shivers of dread up and down the curved spines of dedicated hedonists from Awendaw to Edisto, from South Battery to Pimlico.

OMG, what’s next? No smoking on the beach, “a no shirt, no service” sign at Bert’s, the renaming of Arctic Avenue to Ronald Reagan Boulevard?

Well, I’m happy to report that despite the alcohol ban Folly remains Folly, a safe haven for sybarites of all stripes, for grannies with tattooed palm trees rising in wrinkles from their bikini bottoms, for aspiring white hip hop stars weighing in at 204 kb[1], or for those methadone clinic alums taking it one day at a time. In other words, for my fellow misfits, my out-of-step brothers and sisters.

Yesterday, for example, Judy Birdsong and I rode bikes down to Chico Feo to check out their annual 4^th of July hotdog eating contest. As a matter of fact, yesterday was a historic day in the annals of hotdog eating contests. Legendary frankfurter swallower Joey Chestnut, the King of the Hotdog Inhalers, was upset up at Coney Island by Matt “the Megatoad” Stonie to end 8 straight years of triumph.

They sure do things in a hurry up North.  Here’s a hotdog eating contest on Folly Time:

Now that’s what a call gentility and an affirmation of the wisdom of ragwatercat’s brilliant socio-cultural study Dealing with Yankees for Dummies.

Actually, I don’t find hotdog eating contests all that captivating, especially the Folly variety, which has all of the excitement of televised fishing.  No, I’d rather stake that corner of the bar where the breezes always blow and watch a true master at work, Charlie, the best bartender in the Charleston area now that Steve Smoak has hung up his bar rag.

Groove on, Master, groove on to the dulcet tones of the Screaming J’s.

.[1] Damn right, I’ve gone metric; that’s 450 lbs. for you Medieval measurers