Make next year’s reservations now.

Latest headline:

Three shootings in 8 hours. Eight wounded. Some tourists say they won’t be back.

Others, however – bikers, boozers, gunnies – are beginning to think their usual vacation spot – Panama City Beach – lacks the je ne sais quoi of the pride of South Carolina.

Ladies, UD can’t think of a more perfect synergy than taking your semesters at rape-friendly Baylor (located in biker-friendly Waco) and your semester breaks at pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-POPPIN’!!! (watch that way-viral video NOW – start at 1:44 to go RIGHT to the fun stuff – for the amazing spray of bullets!) Myrtle Beach.

Or you could skip the long trip and just attend Coastal Carolina University.

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“We’re gonna send a message to do everything that’s humanly possible to stop this violence in our city,” [the city’s Mayor] said.

But you’re not going to, are you? Because the simple stuff you have to do in order to stop attracting large numbers of violent criminals to your beach involves getting merchants to stop pandering to them. But this is America, and we don’t fuck with the free market.

“[A] multitude of ads [in Myrtle Beach] tout the excitement of shooting machine guns in nearby Conway…”

The thing you do, which is turn the city into a police state during the warm months, doesn’t seem to be interrupting the flow of bullets.

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WOW! Myrtle Beach managed to find time to squeeze in a fourth shooting on Sunday night!

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SUPER wow! A fifth one!!

After a fifth shooting Monday night, Gov. Henry McMaster also asked State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel to meet with local law enforcement and address the spate of violence.

With five, you get a concerned governor thrown in.

Here’s a bit of video from the boardwalk at Ocean City, Maryland, where, faithful readers know, UD has deep roots.

The only thing separating Ocean City, at this point, from Beach Blanket Bloodbath Myrtle Beach, SC, is that for some reason no one at this latest event has a gun. Someone always has a gun during brawls in Myrtle Beach.

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The reason these particular beaches are singled out for gang violence? Too simple. If you build it, they will come. Look at the sorts of commercial establishments that dominate these towns. And there’s too much money and political power on the line to change that. Note that no police appear at any point in the video.

… beachy municipalities with wall to wall bars and little law enforcement attract really big vicious crowds. As one traditional spring break town after another says enough to the carnage, larger and larger groups of drunk fucks concentrate in smaller and smaller spaces, to the point where South Beach, and the handful of other still-certified SB locations, are absolutely choked with traffic jams police stops drugs guns fights biker gangs and open-air rapes for as long as two months. Residents seem to think this isn’t the best way to welcome in the spring, and even the merchants who in the past haven’t minded the grossness because it brings in so much cash have begun to respond to the city council’s pleas that they close up early or stop feeding infinite liquor to everyone who shows up or whatever.

UD wonders, though. Bestiality will have its way, and our enterprising country should be able to produce one or two cities/towns willing to make a name for themselves as crapulous destinations of last resort. I’m putting my money on Myrtle Beach.

According to Mark Kruea, Myrtle Beach’s public information officer, no shooting deaths occurred this year [there were three shooting deaths last year] and only one person was injured in a shooting …

Kruea said three motorcyclists and one moped rider died in traffic accidents. Other riders filled local emergency rooms to capacity with non-fatal injuries. Several crimes occurred, including robberies and kidnappings.

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Bikers are pissed with all the security measures.

Alonzo Pritchard, a Memphis tire shop manager who attended Bikefest for the 18th consecutive year, said the city had sapped the life out of the gathering… Sean Robinson said he would not be returning [to] Myrtle Beach until officials got rid of the traffic loop, did away with the barricades and let motorcyclists travel without major impediments. As far as he was concerned, he would rather spend his money somewhere more hospitable to riders.

Little by little, even America’s most dissolute locations are refusing to host spring breaks and bikefests. So where’s the American city enterprising and sketchy enough to become the go-to hospitable place for all of this country’s frats and bike clubs?

UD’s putting her money on Reno.

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Note to moped riders: Do what everyone else who lives anywhere near Myrtle Beach does during Memorial Day weekend: FLEE.

Tom O’Dare and Michael Smith, myhorrynews.com:

Myrtle Beach police said in a statement that Reginald Rivers, 23, of Charleston struck a North Carolina man riding a moped on North Kings Highway at 6:42 a.m. Sunday.

According to police, Rivers was driving at a high rate of speed when he struck Brandon Brinson, 21, of Magnolia, N.C. Brinson died from injuries sustained in the crash.

Rivers was charged with felony DUI resulting in death and hit and run resulting in death, along with driving under suspension, possession of a firearm by a felon and five counts of threatening the life of a public official.

At a 6 p.m. Sunday bond hearing, Myrtle Beach chief municipal judge Jennifer Wilson said she couldn’t set bond on the felony DUI and hit and run charges because Rivers was already out on bond on an armed robbery charge in Charleston.

A circuit court judge will have to hold a bond hearing on those charges.

Wilson did set a $50,000 bond on the five threatening the life of a public official charge, $20,000 on the possession of a firearm by a felon and $544 on the DUS charge.
Rivers told the judge that he couldn’t be charged with the DUS “because I don’t even have a license.”

When Rivers was brought into the city courtroom, he was very unsteady on his feet and continuously talking to which Wilson admonished him a number of times to remain quiet.

After several rambling conversations, Wilson tacked on a 30-day contempt of court charge because Rivers would not be quiet and follow the judge’s instructions.

For the city charges, Rivers faces a court date of June 10.

No date was set for a bond hearing for the charges of felony DUI and hit and run.

Wilson appointed a public defender for Rivers though he told the judge that he already had a public defender in Charleston on his other charges pending there.

He asked Wilson how long it would take to get a bond hearing in General Sessions court because he was afraid it may take a long time.

“I have no idea,” Wilson said. “Mr. Rivers looking at your record, you should know how the court system works.”

… a place where her family has roots starting in 1911. Like Myrtle Beach, OC has allowed itself (for stupid short-sighted commercial reasons) to be taken over by anarchic and/or criminal elements; and now that it’s a guns/booze/street fights/muscle car wasteland, there’s not much it can do about it. It’s hard to walk back the destruction of civic life.

The mayor, for instance, outlawed a major car rally for this year, after it spent last year trashing the city and “terrorizing” residents. But the rally guys said fuck you we’re coming anyway. They’re in OC right now, and will stay for a few more days.

In the language of a desperate, last-minute law the city got through the General Assembly, these are the actions that can trigger a $1,000 fine and/or sixty days in jail.

• Excessive or abrupt acceleration or deceleration.
• Skidding, squealing, burning or smoking tires.
• Swerving or swaying a vehicle.
• Producing an unreasonably loud engine noise.
• Grinding gears.
• Wheels losing contact with the ground.
• Transporting a passenger on the hood or roof.

Weren’t you smart to buy a condo in Ocean City?

… is appalling. Keep in mind while reading this short chronicle of the last few days that the city has itself to blame for the escalating violence. (It’s sheer dumb luck no guns have been involved; but that luck will certainly run out.) It has done little to make the place unattractive to violent people. No curfews; plenty of late-night bars with cheap booze; insufficient police patrols.

Boardwalk violence used to be about crowds of drunk frat boys (see my posts about OC sister-city Myrtle Beach); but while that of course still goes on, the really scary stuff now is about gangs.

Around 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, June 7, the OCPD responded to a fight involving multiple people on the Boardwalk between 6^th Street and 7^th Street. During that incident, one unnamed individual was stabbed and was taken to Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury. The victim’s status in unknown.

Last Tuesday, OCPD officers responded to two simultaneous serious assaults on the Boardwalk, one at 11^th Street and another at 15^th Street. Around 11:20 p.m., OCPD officers responded to a reported stabbing that had just occurred. The victim was transported to PRMC for treatment and severity of the victim’s injuries are not known.

Just after midnight last Wednesday, the three-day spree reached a crescendo when a fight broke out on the Boardwalk between large groups of young adults. At least one young man was punched repeatedly in the face while sitting on a Boardwalk bench to the point it appeared he fell unconscious. Other skirmishes broke out during the larger altercation which carried over to the beach area. A video of the incident captured by a witness and posted on social media went viral and left many in the community with more questions than answers…

Just after 5 p.m. last Thursday, two individuals entered a West Ocean City restaurant and were asked by employees to leave because they were not wearing masks or face coverings in violation of state COVID-19 directives. The individuals did leave as directed, but returned a short time later with a third individual and allegedly confronted employees and threw bottles and other items around the restaurant before fleeing on foot. One individual, identified as Roger Ja’Mil Brown, 19, of Severn, Md., was arrested a short time later and was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and disturbing the peace.

Around the same time last Thursday, another man was reportedly attacked randomly while shopping at the outlets in West Ocean City. The victim and his girlfriend were allegedly attacked from behind by five unknown assailants in broad daylight. The victim reportedly suffered multiple facial fractures including a broken cheek and a broken eye socket.

Back in Ocean City, the violence erupted again on Friday night with multiple altercations up and down the Boardwalk throughout the night. The situation reached a crescendo on Friday when law enforcement was forced to deploy pepper spray or a tear gas-like substance to break up the crowds.

On Sunday around 2 a.m., police broke up a fight among a group and apprehended at last two suspects on the Boardwalk.

On Sunday afternoon, the Alaska Stand on 9^th Street announced on social media it was closing its doors early due to customer problems. Additionally, some other downtown businesses, such as the Crabcake Factory Poolside, did not even open Sunday due to concerns over safety.

In its social media message, the Alaska Stand wrote, “We are closed! … we have had more than enough this weekend dealing with a whole new level of disrespect to our staff, our business and our town and we are tired of being the brunt of undeserved verbal abuse by the public when ordering and picking up … we will regroup and try again … get it together OC … we apologize to our beloved and well mannered customers, we cherish and appreciate you to no end.”

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By some measures, Ocean City has for some time been the most dangerous place to live in Maryland. Fixing the problem will make the place feel even less carefree and vacation-like: Extreme police presence; curfews; huge numbers of new rules; a general air of suspicion and threat. It’s sort of like what has happened to soccer (feast your eyes) in certain European countries: Organized gangs were allowed to proliferate, and now the game setting is one hundred percent male (women and families have abandoned the arenas; it’s only police and young male fans now) and way violent. Ocean City is getting there.

… reminds ol’ UD to talk about a trend among prospective students and faculty at our country’s universities.

Krugman points out that

our madness over guns [is] just one aspect of the drive to turn us into what Thomas Hobbes described long ago: a society “wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them.” And Hobbes famously told us what life in such a society is like: “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

There are larger and larger areas of this country where

[people regard any] public action for the public good, no matter how justified, as part of a conspiracy to destroy our freedom.

This paranoia strikes both deep and wide. Does anyone remember George Will declaring that liberals like trains, not because they make sense for urban transport, but because they serve the “goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism”? And it goes along with basically infantile fantasies about individual action — the “good guy with a gun” — taking the place of such fundamentally public functions as policing.

Anyway, this political faction is doing all it can to push us toward becoming a society in which individuals can’t count on the community to provide them with even the most basic guarantees of security — [including] security from crazed gunmen…

We’re beginning to see evidence of some faculty leaving, and some students not applying, to universities in these frontier settings. Bullets, rapists, and riots, oh my…

Many such locations are already cultural wastelands; some are also beginning to look like shooting galleries.

Why, for instance, would anyone with a choice want to live – even for a few years – in Waco, Texas, home of armed cults, armed motorcycle gangs, and Baylor University? Why would a non-Hobbesian want to work there, live there, go to school there, teach there? It’s not as if there’s any cultural compensation to living in the Wild West. It’s guns and strip malls and megachurches where you beg divine protection.

Why would you go to Hammond, Louisiana and attend Southeastern Louisiana University, famous for being the last school in America willing to take Jonathan Taylor? Can anyone be surprised that at 3 AM yesterday a fight broke out on campus and a bunch of people got shot?

These schools are part of America’s Hobbesian wastelands, where you grabs your AR-15 and you takes your chances. The idea that a university could thrive under these conditions is hilarious.

Trying to teach or learn in these settings is like deciding to take your family vacation in Beach Blanket Bloodbath Myrtle Beach. Why? Unless you’re a Hobbesian and you enjoy that sort of thing?

UD anticipates a militarization of certain campuses – having been abandoned by civilization, they will become weedy tracts patrolled by open-carry paranoids offering Active Shooter Response seminars.

If you’re in the wasteland, and you can leave, you should. Get out while the getting’s good.

Off it goes, an unsecured gun in the Myrtle Beach Cracker Barrel.

“Yeah, all day today we’ve been showing off the bullet hole to customers, they’ve enjoyed the story, so at the end of the day everyone was okay and our customers are getting a kick out of it.”

I’m not gonna do that thing where I say They started as monasteries and other religious-type entities and look how far they’ve fallen! I’m not gonna say universities – much less American universities – must continue to represent a higher, purer, realm of activity than, say, Myrtle Beach Bike Week.

No, no, let it rip. Let sex-scandal-soaked University of Minnesota produce as a finalist for regent a football player with exposure issues. Let UMN’s current regents grumble about having been left out of the hiring and compensation decisions around their incoming multimillionaire football coach (background on him here). Let the probable upcoming scandal and massive buyout of this guy’s contract also weigh heavily on the pointless dithering trustees. Fine. Fine.

Go ahead and make universities places where highly paid employees routinely injure students so badly they have to be hospitalized. Where brainwork means concussions. Football players with exposure issues are part of the grand legacy of American universities, as are sadistic-training hospitalizations. As are – at some of our highest profile schools – child rape, gang rape, and woman battering.

But consider this:

I don’t want to scare you, but more and more people are talking about a fundamental change in the higher education of this country. More and more people are talking about a minor league for football.

And American universities had better watch out, or it’s ave atque vale Richie Incognito, Johnny Manziel, and Peyton Manning. These guys are not merely the heroes of schools like Nebraska and Tennessee – they’re the trustees of the future. Their ethos is the school ethos. All the money and the passion and the very identity of the university follow them. What happens when American teenagers are able to go directly into a minor league system and bypass the university?

UD‘s friend David Ridpath is all excited.

For anyone that loves football at all levels and wants college football in a more educational setting along with providing more talent for the NFL, it is simply a no brainer.

A lot of people are excited. But if you’re a university, ask yourself: What happens to the trillion dollars you’ve already invested in new stadiums and all that shit? You’re already looking at seriously declining attendance at the games, and serious resistance to paying vaster and vaster student athletic fees. Much more fundamentally, you are football. Nebraska, Penn State, a hundred others – What happens when a few grade-conscious pussies tiptoe out on the field for you? As Mrs Dalloway put it – the death of the soul…

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UD thanks Charlie.

Ah, America. The head of the Myrtle Beach Merchants Association, gearing up for this year’s Memorial Day crowd, touches delicately on last year, when “three people died and seven were injured in eight shootings.” … And still those little things remain…

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Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. The Spinnaker Club in Panama City Beach. These places, and whatever place this year’s melees in Myrtle Beach will choose, are emerging as icons of a peculiar form of capitalism — the form you get when you combine a society of the spectacle with guns and a totally unhinged profit motive.

It’s odd. The rhetoric of these massive motorcycle rallies is one of personal freedom, yet the events instantly turn their locales into police states. Read the details of the security presence and restriction of movement in Myrtle Beach.

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People are starting to notice the same thing at university football games. Because the drunken crowd is so nasty, everyone’s under heavy surveillance.

Only in America.

The all-American beach town speaks.