South Coast Shellfishing Ban

You might want to skip the clams tonight, player,

The state’s Division of Marine Fisheries has banned the harvesting of shellfish in the west side of Buzzards Bay and in Mount Hope Bay until further notice.

The ban is due to an outbreak of toxic algae. The algae is a form of phytoplankton known as Pseudo Nitzschia. If Pseudo Nitzschia doesn't kill you, it will make you stronger.... and a nihilist.

Pseudo Nitzschia leads to the development of Domoic Acid. Domoic Acid can cause Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning, which gives the person who suffers from it vomiting, cramps, diarrhea and incapacitating headaches followed by confusion, disorientation, permanent loss of short-term memory, and in severe cases, seizures and coma. Other than that.... no probba!

Harvesting or collecting shellfish from the affected areas is now prohibited. Towns with the ban include Bourne, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Falmouth, Gosnold, Marion, Mattapoisett, New Bedford, Swansea, Wareham and Westport.

I had Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning once, but I forget what happened.

Plymouth Yeti Gets Political

A lot of people know who they are going to vote for to be President right when that person declares, others know at some point in the primaries, others decide during the debates and some even make up their mind while staring at the ballot.

Not me.

I make up my mother-loving mind only when I know how the Lawn Yeti is voting.

Granted, you should cast your vote for who you like best. However, if the Yeti doesn't like the R or the D... it's time to go Third Party, folks. Yeti (I'm assuming that the singular is the plural here, I've never seen two together in any Bigfoot stories) have been around for an eternity, and may have been America's first residents. They have a sort of Fey wisdom that regular, non-hairy primates lose once we start building cities and losing touch with Mother Nature.

That's not a problem the Lawn Yeti has. He's as American as a bald eagle landing on Mount Rushmore. When I saw that he had gone political, I immediately pulled the Cranberry County Magazine Mobile News Car over to see WTF was up with all this.

I don't speak Yeti and he is a reticent Sasquatch, but he was able to communicate his basic platform to me.

He's very pro-Bigfoot, as you can imagine. Much of his platform included Yeti-related planks, especially relating to fur, deer poaching, urban sprawl and privacy issues (his life was Hell after the Patterson tape went public). As you can see, Fur figures heavily into his advertising.

For someone with fur, he sure spent a lot of money on that suit. I checked... Armani. He's still waiting for his hairpiece to come in. He's not wearing pants, but he's shaggy enough that your kids won't be ruined for life if he visits their school for a photo op.

His suit is in no way an endorsement of Trump, and it is no dig at Bill Clinton's wife. "They don't make pantsuits in my size, he intimated.

Yeti are frightening creatures just by their stature and appearance, and sometimes Yeti Method involves scaring off someone who wanders into his stalking-about territory. Other than that, he's not bothering you unless you bother him.

Humans have a low bone-to-meat ratio, and are too large and unwieldy for even a Sasquatch to eat in a manner that a human might eat chicken wings or baby back ribs. We also tend to be high-sodium. It's the same reason that most shark attacks are mistakes on the part of the shark.

Either way, he's happy to see you. He prefers that you just drive by and wave, as things like honking or stopping the vehicle in his yard are frowned upon... unless you're a heavy hitter media type like a Cranberry County Magazine sandwich artist.

Otherwise, it sort of screws up the peace and quiet of the neighborhood. That makes the Lawn Yeti angry, and you don't want him angry with you. He can tear off your arm and beat your momma with it. Remember that people and Bigfoots (feet?) move into deep southern Plymouth for the peace and quiet, and resent intrusive outsiders.

His extreme pro-Yeti stance means that only he can represent himself. He runs his campaign with some human help from his Long Pond Road complex. He has no First Yeti as of yet(i), but he's single and ready to mingle.

In the small print of those Wikileak articles, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was very intent on there being no Lawn Yeti presence in the debates."He'd rip off Trump's head in the first round of questioning. After that... well, he's been in the forest a while, and Hillary would be the first female he could reach..... He may be where discarded Feel The Bern people go..... He'd make a great Mr. Palin upgrade."

I'm pretty much All In as far as it goes with Team Yeti. Sure, there are flaws with electing a Missing Link to lead the Free World. However, there are advantages as well. A leader with an exclusive fur and primate platform is never going to launch an oil war, pick a fight with Indochine, insure 15 million slackers, dump a Pontiac into the Chappaquiddick River... You can do worse than electing a Lawn Yeti.

Send In The Clowns

from ABC

Massachusetts is now in the full grip of Creepy Clown hysteria.  You don't have to go on Facebook very long to see that there is most likely a clown working your area. It's only October 4th, so it's probably going to get creepier and creepier until Halloween.

Reports of clowns, some of which are hoaxes, are turning up in New Bedford, Brockton, Wareham, Rehoboth (RPD is denying it), Agawam, Weymouth, Plymouth and God knows where else. Merrimack College was actually locked down after a report (that later turned out to be false) concerning an armed clown roaming the campus. There are too many sightings, too far apart, for it to be the work of one clown.

It speaks of a Clown-spiracy.

Clowns run the gamut from friendly ones like Bozo to sad ones like Pagliacci to scary fictional ones like Pennywise to outright IRL serial killers like John Wayne Gacy. You could bump into WWE personality Doink the Clown, although I think the wrestler who played him is dead. They can even be a Juggalo, who are followers of the Insane Clown Posse. You have no way of knowing which type you're meeting, although if you meet one on a side street at 1 AM, he's probably not out looking for Mayor McCheese.

Clowns scare us in ways that other circus performers don't. I have seen not one report of, say, an acrobat or a lion tamer roaming the streets of Brockton. Maybe it's the face paint, maybe it's the capering, maybe it's the frozen deathly rictus... either way, I'm down with the clown like the guy in Repo Man felt about cops... "I ain't got nothin' against no cop.. I just like it better when they aren't around."

Folklorist/cryptozoologist Loren Coleman is largely responsible for both publicizing the 1981 cases in Massachusetts where clowns tried to lure children into cars, and for keeping the concept of RL creepy clowns in the public eye. He's been saying that the phenomena is coming back, and everyone laughed.... but the only one laughing now is Loren Coleman.

Keep in mind that many of these clown sightings are going down in the Bridgewater Triangle, which is another theory of Coleman's.

So, it's just early October, and the creepy clowns are out in full force. The clown craze is already larger than life, so it's not going away. That leaves you with the question of "Well, what can I do about it?"

Here are some tips that just may save you from a ghastly death at the gloved hands of a Killer Clown.

- Dress like a clown. I say this because I'm using Zombie Apocalypse Logic... you never see Zombies fighting each other. They have some instinct that makes one walk right past the other. Maybe clowns are like that... or maybe you and Pennywise can have a turf dispute. OK, maybe this idea sucks.

- Watch out for little cars. Clowns like to pack themselves into small cars like hybrids or VW Beetles. There's no comic value to fitting 12 clowns into a H2 or a Chevy Suburban. Sh*t, I've done that a few times. If you're on a dark side street and hear laughter or bicycle horns coming from a Toyota Yarris... well, you're probably already dead.

- If a clown chases you, try to run in areas with narrow paths. Clowns tend to wear big shoes, you see... there's no shame in surviving a clown chase only because Ronald got his foot snagged under a tree limb. You'd think that a guy with size 16 feet would have better Huge Shoes jokes, but I'm a bit under the weather this morning and have very little in the tank.

- In the Six Day War, the Israelis gained a war-winning advantage by staging a pre-emptive assault on the rival nation's air forces. Before the war was an hour old, the Sons of David owned the skies, and Syria/Egypt/Jordan/whoever suffered mightily for it. Do not be afraid of launching a pre-emptive strike against the clowns. Make-up stores, joke shops, even a circus.... you just have to know what to look for, and not be afraid to kill.

- Clown weaponry tends to lean towards the absurd. You notice that The Joker rarely kills with a gun. In fact, if a clown pulls a gun on you, it will most likely have that little BANG! flag pop out of it. At worst, it shoots out a boxing glove. Also be wary of lapel flowers that spray acid, 30000 volt electric joy buzzer handshakes, crowbars, and weapons that have "guaranteed to level Gotham City" written on the box.

- Girl clowns are always sexy, but the sex appeal is just a clown trick. Girl clowns may act like they love you, but their heart belongs to whatever clown first got them to put on the make-up. Harley Quinn always goes back to the Joker, even though Batman is worth a billion dollars and is built like a Greek God. Harley usually tries to do Batman in, rather than do Batman up.

- Every police department in town is going to issue warnings that the Clown Fear is just mass hysteria and that you shouldn't worry yourself over it. Don't believe them. Many of these warnings will actually be put out by the clowns themselves, in order to lure innocents into Fairhaven or Rehoboth or wherever the cops say "Don't Worry" the most. It's a lot like Thoreau once wrote... "The more vehemently that he spoke of his honor, the more closely that I watched the silverware."  I only half-remember the quote, but the point is what matters.

- If you do decide to kill a clown without a trial, don't forget to Double Tap them. I can't tell you how many horror movies I've seen where someone knocks over Michael Myers, thinks he's dead, and then gets an axe to the dome about one murderer sit-up later. Don't go out like a sucker.

 - In the same vein, remember that- should you take out a gun- a clown who runs is definitely an evil clown. A clown who begs for his life is a really sneaky evil clown.

- With "clown" sure to be among the top Hallowen costumes this year, it will be very easy for true Evil Clowns to mix in among the trick-or-treaters. Always know how many kids are in your trick-or-treating groups, and if you come up with one extra when you count heads, be wary. Also, if you go out with 4 little children and- at some point- the kid who was dressed as a Minion is now dressed as an evil clown... well, you're probably already dead. These odds go up if the clown-child is the newly-discovered fifth kid, and he's now six foot four.

- Legend has it that once a man kills while dressed as a clown, he can never get the make-up off. It's sort of what happened to Lady MacBeth. Killer Clowns can only look human again by taking out even more make-up. So, if you see an otherwise normal person with a touch of pure white on his skin, you should probably kill him first and wonder if he just ate a powdered sugar donut later.

- There are no Black, Asian or Latino clowns. Clownery (?) is like hockey to these people. If you see a black guy dressed as a clown, he's probably Canadian and doesn't count.

South Shore Saturday Storm Surf Shots

We had a steady East wind yesterday, so we took to the road to see how local beaches were looking. This decision was greatly influenced by me having nothing to do.

We started off in Scituate, because.. well, why not Scituate? I know people who say that you shouldn't start anywhere but Scituate. I wanted to be in Scituate before high tide, be in Marshfield for high tide, and then just move back towards Cape Cod until the wave pics started to get weak.

My girl has taken a few waves to the face, I'm sure. Having your house look like the front bow of a ship is pure New England Coastal, player. I lack the skills as a writer to tell you how cool this guy's house is.

The wind wasn't too bad, and the surf is nothing worthy of a George Clooney movie. Like I said, I had some free time.

Anyone who grew up on a beach knows that this is an incoming wave that got smacked up by a wave ahead of it that was rebounding off of the seawall. I was in Marshfield by this point, and it was high tide. I was very pleased to see that I still have the instinct where I know when a wave will throw water over the wall, and managed to get behind the car door before this wave soaked everyone who was watching it with me.

Marshfield was fun, as there was some splashover happening. It was a change, being soaked by the waves instead of the rain. I had to change clothes not once but twice getting the pics for this article, but that's how I roll, people. If you're the family who came around the corner of the Pavilion while I was changing at Duxbury Beach.... the giant nude guy says "Sorry." I also apologize to the commenter on a previous article who noted that I tend to tilt the horizon on my shots. I've been working on that, but sometimes the wind wins.

There were no lifeguards on duty at Duxbury Beach yesterday. I did hook the seagull up with some of my turkey sandwich, just in case you think that I don't compensate my models. I don't think that Green harbor was that foggy, I was having a lot of trouble getting even one shot off without the camera lens getting spotted up by the rain. I have a rotten camera, and the lifeguard chair shouldn't be looking that good when the housing behind it looks that bad.

Duxbury has to do this to the seawall boat-ramp opening because the ocean smashed through 6 inch thick hardwood planks when they used to use those. If they don't put that iron plate there, this opening births an ocean river flowing into a residential neighborhood.

I usually shoot the residential part of Duxbury Beach, but I really didn't feel like getting out of the car if I could avoid it. I was soaked. I went to the Bath House, but I ended up having to get out of the car anyhow. As you have probably guessed, I got soaked.

What happens if you assume a bad Cuban accent and yell "Hey, Pelican!!" at a heron over and over.... at least that's what happens on Duxbury 's marshes. 

Plymouth, Cedarville to be precise, was our next stop. I poached my way into the White Hills Country Club for some above-the-fray shooting. This is from around where their 18th hole is,  That rock structure is called a Groyne.

Even small waves erode the heck out of those sand cliffs. That's why they are willing to risk the goofing that comes with installing a Groyne. 

Cape Cod Canal... this is a jetty, not a groyne.

Sagamore gets maximum barrier beach protection from Cape Cod.

Sandwich looked pretty calm from where I was standing. Time to wrap it up.

October Surprise? East Coast Tropical Storm Late Next Week?

Now, we're more than a week away from when we'd need to be worrying about this, but we don't like to have anything sneak up on our readers.

Tropical Storm Matthew formed just east of the Windward Islands today. He's already a very powerful storm, at around 60 MPH. He should blow through the islands tonight and tomorrow, and then move between Hispaniola and South America over the weekend.

The water in this area is very warm, and Matthew should intensify. What he does after that is a bit of a mystery.

The European models drag it into either Florida or the Gulf of Mexico. Not our problem. The GFS model puts it on a run up the Eastern Seaboard. That can be a problem.

It's a problem that looks like this:

Now, we're dealing with a system that is over a week away, and there is a lot of disagreement among the geeks as to what happens to where and when.

There is also this weekend's rainstorm in Massachusetts, which could serve to drag Matthew up here as it pulls away from us.

Even if the storm takes a run up the East Coast, it could hit any Confederate coast state, the DelMarva area or even New Jersey. All of them are more likely to get it than us.

October hurricanes, while unusual, are not without precedent. The Halloween Gale, aka the Perfect Storm, hit at the end of the month.

If it does target us, the due date would be Thursday/Friday.

Here are the zillion spaghetti charts:

Hillary/Trump Debate Drinking Game

Donald vs Hillary! Debate time!

Will the former First Lady bury Donald in a blizzard of Wonk? Will Donald's world-swallowing charisma be too much to overcome?

Either way, this website encourages you to view this as a playoff game. You should be heavily into the firewater well before the opening salvo is fired.

You'll need that booze, because it's time to play the Debate Drinking Game!

I used to play Love Boat when I was in high school. Everyone gets a character, and you drink every time your character is on the screen. Everyone drinks if either A) they show the boat, or B) Issac is on the screen. This game, as awesome as it is, won't work for a two person debate.

The debate drinking game is ideally played between two ideological opposites. Both the liberal and the conservative should be able to drink as much as the other. However, you can play it with two libbers, or two rednecks.

Simply put, you each choose a side, and you have to drink when certain keywords come up, or when certain conditions are met, or when certain incidents occur. It might actually be fun for the liberal to choose Donald Trump or vice versa with the conservative and Killary.

I'm using beers and shots, with the shots reserved for special conditions. If you don't drink and favor THC, you can use bong hits and dabs, saving the dabs for the more serious transgressions. If you're a straight-edge fan of this column, try some BDSM thing with cuffs, whips and the strapper.

Either way, we're going to score it with alcohol. Here are the criteria:

* Hillary comes out in a pantsuit, one sip for the liberal

* Donald's tie is red, white or blue, one sip for the con

* Donald declines on saying "Madame Secretary," and refers to her by her first name... one sip, con

* Hillary says "The Donald.".. one sip for the lib.

* Hill'ry suffers a Katniss-style fall as she walks out... one shot for the lib

* Donald declines a pre-debate handshake.... one shot for the con

* Bill Clinton is attending, and he's sitting with a young woman who isn't Chelsea... one sip, lib

* Donald's wife is shown, and her dress shows cleavage... one sip for the con

* Donald dodges a tough question by insulting the moderator... one sip, con

* Hillary tries a joke, and it bombs like the Enola Gay... one sip, lib

* Which comes first, a "Crooked Hillary" or a "Deplorable?"... CH, one sip con, D, one sip lib

* Who gets brought up first, George Bush II or Monica Lewinsky? GB/lib, ML/con

* Donald slips and utters a racial slur.. one shot, con

* Hillary faints on stage... one shot. lib

* Who gets heckled by someone in the crowd first? Trump, one shot lib... Hillary, one shot con

* You see a black Trump supporter in the crowd... one sip, con

* You see a woman in Islamic dress with a Hillary sign. one sip, lib

* Trump throws a joke at Hillary, and she bests it with a comeback... one sip, Con

* Hillary infers that Trump is wearing a wig... one sip, lib

* Someone in the crowd is dressed as a wall... one shot, con

* Donald says "You're not even your husband's first choice"... one shot, lib

* Hillary points out that Donald has 5 kids from 3 wives... one shot, con

* Donald makes a cigar reference... one shot, lib

* Hillary dodges an email question... one shot, lib

* Donald shows that he's not 100% sure where Syria is... one shot, con

* Hillary has a coughing fit... one shot, lib

* Donald claims that managing a wrestler at Wrestlemania makes him qualified to lead our military... one shot, con

* Donald makes the moderator laugh... one sip, lib

* Donald has to be corrected by the moderator... one shot, con

* Who interrupts who first? Trump, one sip con... HC, one sip lib

* Hillary claims credit for killing Osama bin Laden... one sip, lib

* Hillary utters the words "game show"... one sip, con

* Hillary mentions Liz Warren... one sip, con

* Donald answers it with a Fake Indian line... one sip, lib

* What comes up first, Hillary's email or Trump University? Email, one sip lib,,, scam U, one sip con

* Donald infers that Hillary is killing people who get in her way... one sip, con

* Hillary says Donald's tie is made in China, Trump turns it over, and it says MADE IN USA.. one sip, lib

* Hillary bombs with a Donald Duck reference... one sip, lib

* Trump says "Killary."... one sip, con

* Hillary does a Trump impression, one sip, con

* Trump does a Bill Clinton impression... one sip, lib

* Hillary promises free college for all... one shot, lib

* Donald talks about his dick... one shot, con

* What comes up first, Trump Steaks or Vince Foster? TS, one shot con, VF, one shot, lib

* Hillary promises a minimum wage hike...one shot, lib

* Donald promises a land war in Asia... one shot, con

* Who gets called a rapist first... Bill Clinton or Julian Assange? BC, one shot lib, JA, one shot con

* First celebrity reference? HC, one sip lib.. Trump, one sip con

* Who gets booed first? HC, lib, DT, con

* Anytime the flag is shown full-screen, both opponents drink to the health of the other.

The Messiah Cometh?

Gimme a T! Gimme a second T!

The New England Patriots have one game to play before Tom Brady comes back. They have two other QBs, but they both have suffered Injury and can not play. They may trot one out and risk permanent injury, or they can pursue other options.

Matt Cassell used to play for us, but he's backing up Marcus Mariota in Tennessee. Ryan "MC" Mallett is serving a similar role in Baltimore. Neither team is going to bail us out by cutting one of these men so that he can help win a game for a conference rival.

I'm not keen on playing Julian Edelman at QB, as there seems to be a Madden Curse/Foxboro Triangle effect on those who would replace Tom Brady. We need him catching passes and being tackled by little cornerbacks, not throwing passes and being hit by 340 pound Danny Shelton.

There is this one guy, he played some QB back in the day. He played for Belichick before, and he knows the Josh McDaniels offense. He is a phenomenal athlete and a model citizen, so we don't have to worry about him showing up with a beer gut or a cocaine hangover after killing someone. I'm sure that the New York Mets won't mind him freelancing a bit. He's not the best QB in the world, but neither is Julian Edelman, with the difference being that I couldn't tolerate seeing Edelman get hurt playing QB. He won the only NFL playoff game he took part in, against the Steelers, too. Most importantly, he has plenty of free time.

If you took his very famous name off of the jersey, would you NOT want an experienced QB, familiar with the offense, used to throwing at Gronk and Edelman, who you know is in top shape? You don't even have to worry about hurting his feelings when you cut him the instant that Tom Brady is street-legal again. He'd know he was in it for one game.

There's really no other choice. God himself commands it.

They have to call Tim Tebow.