Another Lame Money-Making Scheme at the Expense of Mother Nature

What better topic with which to knock the dust off my neglected blog than bronzed beach beauties. Hermosa Beach this past weekend was at mid-summer form with a a bevy of toned booties not to mention the high, mostly cloudless sky of azure that hypnotized me through my faux designer shades. Because, you know, things break at the beach. There's the surf, an occasional bone as the pier rats bludgeon each other or a hapless tourist who ventures down the wrong alley.
And on Saturday, my heart.
I was heading down the strand with friends at approximately 8:30 a.m. to play in a volleyball tournament when we noted a metal eyesore of a center stage with surrounding courts on the sand. It was a few weeks too late for the AVP Ugly Plastic Shoes (aka Crocs) Hermosa Open or for that matter its red-headed, abused stepbrothers and sisters the EVP, or the Extreme Volleyball Professionals, tour. But it certainly looked like some sort of professionally laughable beach promotion.
Then I read the sign: the SoCal Series Slam.
That could mean anything. An MMA match, a raucous game of Beer Pong. Either of those would be awesome. Tennis was the furthest thing from my mind.
But there it was, the seventh stop on the BeachTennisUSA 2008 Tour. Never mind that Phil Whitesell and Chris Henderson of Charleston, S.C. defeated Mike Edison and Brett Johnson from Clearwater, Fla., to win their first major tour event since the 2006 National Championship. Or that those zaney Maloney sisters Laura and Lisa from San Diego remained undefeated this season by dropping neighbors Joslynn Burkett and Lee Whitwell of La Jolla.
I know, how you missed it on SportsCenter is any one's guess.
My question was, "Beach tennis? Really?" As my friends and I headed back up the strand following a fun albeit failed run at emerging out of pool play, the shtick at the beach tennis court was right out of the AVP's playbook the fulsome and plain stupid. There was the myelitis-inducing techno, an obnoxiously ranting emcee and those God-awful inflatable thunder clappers. And those stupid pre-game activities that pit fat, pasty white fans against each other in blindfolds stumbling and bumbling along searching for a Wii. Or those pumps that launch T-shirts into the crowd.
Don't get me wrong: pro beach volleyball players are skilled studs, and several are very cool people. I don't mean to trash them at all. But if I have to attend another manufactured sporting event with sunburned fans/tourists waving and hitting themselves silly like clown cavemen, I'm going to puke out my spleen. Or open fire on each and every one of those oversized yellow inflatable dildos with a B-B gun.
And I might just miss on purpose. You don't need two eyes; just look how successful Stuart Scott is.
This beach tennis thing amounted to yet another example of some wannabe-smooth promoter without a clue trying to cash in oh a half-baked scheme. "Hey, if it works for the AVP, why not me?" I can just imagine this reject saying. The beach has become rife with them.
Not only has the AVP single-handedly ruined a great game by turning it into a circus, when at one time it rang of a counter-cultural party (and I might add it still can be if you know the right people), now we're seeing other "sports" like BeachTennisUSA making shit up by biting off of the same piece of crap as the last guy. What's next? The national beach snow board finals?
Hell if I know, the king of sleaze himself Leonard Armato might be behind this one as well. Looking at BeachTennisUSA's schedule and scheduled stops, you have to wonder as it comes damn close to mimicking the AVP. They're both one and the same. In one word: Lame.
Hey, I rhymed. Maybe I can entertain the beach crowd at the next stupid event some idiot concocts.