Author: Goatman

A sequel to the 2006 cult classic “Snakes on a Plane” is set to film major portions of the movie on the Outer Banks. Director J.J. Abrams described the new movie as a “historical fiction” piece that imagines what would have happened if a shipment of dangerous snakes had gotten loose from the baggage compartment of the Wright Flyer during Orville Wright’s famous first powered flight. Samuel L. Jackson plays Orville Wright and is joined by an all-star cast of actors he has worked with in past films. The OBX Report caught up with Abrams and Jackson while the two were scouting locations in Dare County for the film.

OBXR: Thank you for speaking with us. J.J., a lot of attention on the Outer Banks from Hollywood lately. Spielberg and Hanks are doing a special for HBO about the Wright Flight…

J.J.: Who?

OBXR: Right. Samuel L., you are reunited with a number of stars you’ve worked with in the past. Tim Robbins will be playing Wilbur to your Orville. You two made quite a team in Shawshank Redemption, do you think–

Jackson: That wasn’t me. That was Morgan Freeman.

OBXR: Oh, right. Well how about Bill Paxton playing the part of John T. Daniel, the man who snapped the famous picture? You and he appeared together in Independence Day and –

Jackson: Dude? Seriously? That was Will Smith. Come on.

OBXR: Yes, sorry! You’re in so many action films, I get a little mixed up. Now, Richard Gere is playing Adam Etheridge, one of the men working at the Kill Devil Hills Lifesaving Station. You guys haven’t worked together since Officer and a Gentleman and I wondered if you–

Jackson: Are you f—–g kidding me? Lou Gossett is like my grandpa! I’m out of here.

OBXR: No, I’m so sorry! Please one more question. We’ve heard a rumor that Eddie Murphy is going to play Will Dough.

Jackson: Yeah? Eddie’s great. Look forward to working with him.

OBXR: So you two were comedy gold in 48 Hours when you played the cop character and he was–

Jackson: G——n it! Is Kutcher hiding in a closet? You’re f—-g with me right? That was Nick Nolte, man. Do your homework.

Jackson left the interview at that point. We asked J.J. Abrams what he felt was going to be the biggest challenge making this movie, besides his prima donna leading man.

J.J.: Well, from a storytelling point, it’s going to be tough. Orville’s flight lasted 12 seconds and that’s not much time for backstory and tension building before the snakes make their escape. Actually, I’m thinking we might change things up and have the snakes break loose during the fourth flight. Wilbur flew nearly a minute. Gives us a lot more time to get the audience engage and have a climatic showdown with the snakes. Sam will be disappointed, but he is a pro. He didn’t want his character to die in Turner and Hooch, but he realized that artistically, it was the only way for that flick to end.

OBXR: Wait? Who’d he play in that one?

J.J.: Hooch.

OBXR: Wasn’t Hooch the dog?

J.J.: Oh, snap. Yeah.

OBXR: It’s okay. Sam’s been in a lot of mother effing movies. Easy to get confused.

 

Nags Head – Arnold Clarkson knew from the moment he booked a beach vacation this was a possibility. He cursed himself silently. “I knew we should have gone camping instead,” he muttered to himself.

“Dad!” his daughter cried loudly, “Mom said it’s your turn to take me into the water.”

“Well, here we go,” he said despondently, “I’m really sorry you all have to see this.” With that he slowly removed his shirt, revealing love handles, a spare tire, and a beer gut. His dark chest hair was everywhere and even looked liked it had grown to his shoulders and arms. He let out a defeated sigh, and escorted his daughter to the water.

Manteo – In a move that local business leaders call long overdue, permits have been issued to open three Wings stores in Manteo over the next ten months. They will be the first of several stores, with plans to eventually space them so that, as attorney Donald Harlotte recites from the jingle, “from every single Wings store, you should see one more.”
The first is scheduled to open by Thanksgiving on the site of the former Duke of Dare Motor Lodge. Developers of the prime location on Highway 64/264 will soon raze the outdated fifties-style motel and replace it with the bright yellow and white structure that tourists have come to expect from the chain.
The second location, a Super Wings, should begin construction at the beginning of December at the location formerly occupied by The Weeping Radish restaurant. States Harlotte: “What better way to celebrate the season than by welcoming our second Roanoke Island store next to an Outer Banks holiday institution, the Christmas Shop? Plus, we will also offer a selection of discount Christmas ornaments and merchandise at that location.”
The third store, slated to open by May 2017, has generated some controversy, as it will replace the historic courthouse building in downtown Manteo. “Of course, we respect the history of Dare County as much as the next guy, but we believe that construction is what drives the economy of this town, this state, and this nation. The jobs that this store will bring will be far more important to the citizens of Manteo than an old pile of bricks could ever be, and the art gallery housed in the current structure simply cannot attract the customer traffic the way a Wings can.”
Harlotte praises the local government for acting in the best interest of the people: “For years, it was almost impossible to tear down anything in this county, and even harder to bring in the strong chain stores that people want and need here. I think that we can all be grateful that the more business-friendly elected officials in local and state government finally understanding that it is the job-creators that keep food on our tables, that it is profit that drives progress, and that greed is good.”
Blues and Coastal Edge are currently awaiting permit approval for locations on Roanoke Island, and it is rumored that the long-awaited Super Target is scouting locations on the north end.

Duck – From the “life imitates art” files, local inventor Dr. Emmett Braun has taken the shoe phone concept popularized by Don Brown’s “Get Smart” character and added a beach themed twist. His Flip Flop Phone are being worn by approximately 100 volunteers throughout Dare County to test range, durability, water resistance and foot fungus exposure.

“Flip phones are making a comeback,” Dr. Braun explained to the OBX Report. “And flip flops are the most popular footwear on the beach. It’s a natural pairing.

“When you are at the beach your hands are full of chairs, towels and those stupid inflatable dolphins nobody ever plays with. If you are a woman in a bikini or one of those Euro wannabes wearing a man thong  you don’t have pockets and so where better to carry your phone than on your foot?”

According to Dr. Braun, testers have reported a few issues that will require some tweaking before the phones are made available to the general public. When set to “vibrate” the flip flop phone creates a tickling sensation which has caused several people to fall to the ground with uncontrolled laughing. Several wearers have inadvertently “heel dialed” random people and at least one tester accidentally took over 700 pictures of the arch of his foot before realizing the camera function had been activated.

But the main drawback to the flip flop phone seems to be the perpetually cracked screens caused by wearers repeatedly stepping on the phone. Dr. Braun admits technology has a ways to go to catch up with his genius and until a more durable screen material is invented, the phones may never leave the beta testing stage.

“I guess you could wear a phone on your wrist, but that seems a little silly,” said Dr. Braun. “You’d have to hold it up to your ear to hear it then everybody would think you were checking to see if your watch was broken. If you are holding a flip flop to your ear you are obviously talking on a cool new flip flop phone or trying to hear the ocean.”

Hatteras – Trixie Blaine, vacationing on Hatteras Island this week with her family, excitedly related the surprising changes in her husband since arriving on the coast of North Carolina.

Ms. Blaine explains, “For the last seven months, I have been after Duane to dig up a row of dead shrubs out behind our house in White Pass, Virginia. Every weekend he promises to get the shovel out and take care of them, but I always find him later sitting on the couch, drinking Keystone Light and binge-watching Saved By The Bell. Says digging hurts an old football injury in his back, like he ever got off the bench.”

At this, Ms. Blaine sighs, refills her wine glass from a box of pink zinfandel, and takes an exasperated sip before continuing, “Well, we get here on Sunday, unpack the car, and carry our beach chairs, and collapsible cabana, and bocce set, and jumbo Yeti cooler, and boogie boards, and Bluetooth speaker, and our three dogs, and Frisbees, and cornhole boards, and 27” water-resistant Bluetooth television set (Saved By The Bell again), and the kids down to the beach. So Duane gets it in his head that we need a fire pit. He gets a shovel out of our duffel bag–oh, yeah, I forgot to mention the duffel–and starts digging.”

Surprisingly, Ms. Blaine again pauses to refill her glass with the lurid pink wine, seems to have lost her train of thought for a moment, belches softly, then continues, “Of course, I thought he would take about two shovelfuls and collapse like back home, but no! He just keeps on digging and digging and digging. He must have spent three hours with that shovel. And he only had six Keystone Lights the whole time. I don’t know what to call that other than a miracle.”

Duane Blaine ended up digging a hole that was eight feet across and six feet deep before he finally struggled out of the hole and stared at the hole for another two hours as if it somehow contained the meaning of life. From his wife’s statement, he appeared to be a changed man after the experience.

When asked about his miraculous conversion, he stated only, “Um. I don’t know. Tomorrow, though, I’m going to carry heavy boxes up stairs. And clean the gutters. And it isn’t even my house!”

An unfortunate footnote to the story–That night, a young couple walking along the beach in the dark swerved to avoid the skeleton of the Blaines’ cabana and stumbled into the miracle hole, which Duane had neglected to refill. They sustained a broken arm, a dislocated shoulder, a torn ACL, and suffered multiple sea turtle bites from a turtle who also had become trapped in the hole.

Kill Devil Hills – There was a packed house at Monday’s meeting of the Kill Devil Hills Board of Wise Masters. On the agenda was a rule that would allow Talisa Westerling to open up a chain of Hirudotherapy Boutiques, otherwise known as “Leech Boutiques”. Leech Boutiques are the latest fad in New Age healing centers. They specialize in using leeches to alleviate medical conditions ranging from blood clots to bad humors. Westerling appeared before the Board to open a new store, “The Beach Leech” next to “R.B.’s Bait and Tackle” in the Dare Centre.

Kevin Federline, the president of the American Association of Leeches, spoke on behalf of Westerling at the meeting.

“They important role leeches play in medicine has almost been lost in time and to insurance companies. Leeches are magical creatures that can drain bad energies in the blood for a very reasonable remuneration.”

Westerling appeared before the board wearing a veil, which she dramatically lifted to show her face covered with leeches. The purpose of the demonstration was to show the harmless nature of leeches, but after Wise Master Fidgett jumped from his seat and screaming “Cthulhu Returns!” then bolted from the building, she replaced the veil.

The stunt worked against Westerling as Wise Master Fidgett was generally perceived as being one of the council members open to Leech Boutiques. In his absence the Wise Masters quickly held a vote and were deadlocked 2-2, meaning the motion to allow leeches on the beach failed to carry.

During public comment, Ramzie Boltin, owner of R.B’s Bait and Tackle, offered to purchase any inventory Westerling had stocked up that she would now not be able to use.

Kill Devil Hills – Dr. Prudence Lemmon, Director of Feminist Litigation for the American Civil Liberties Union, appeared at a news conference today to bring attention to what she calls “a disturbing gender bias in double-entendres used by local businesses.” The news conference, held in the First Flight High School auditorium, was attended by around fifty local feminists and representatives of both Hampton Roads and Greenville media outlets.

“While I personally find many of these salacious slogans and logos in very poor taste, I think that it is even more disturbing that they are all male-oriented. ‘Dirty Dick’s  is barely even a double-entendre for male parts, ‘I Got Your Crabs’ sounds like a juvenile male boast, the Spanky’s logo is quite suggestive of, well, you know what, and even the grocery store boasts that ‘You Can’t Beat Our Meat!'”

At this point, Dr. Lemmon had to pause in her statement, clearly flustered by the gender imbalance that she was describing. When she had collected herself, she continued, “Even the Lone Cedar restaurant got into the patriarchal act a few years ago when they offered T-shirts with the logo ‘Fastest Erection on the Beach’ to boast about the alacrity with which their building was constructed, which is similar to the one sold at the Brew Station that says ‘Largest Erection on the beach.'”

“Now, what do all of these naughty, suggestive words and pictures have in common?” asked Dr. Lemmon, fanning herself with her hand and pursing her lips sternly. “They each allude to male sexuality. Not a single slogan or logo referencing females in a sex-positive way anywhere in Dare County. What message is this sending to our daughters?”

In response to a reporter question about the Kitty Hawk Hooters restaurant, Dr. Lemmon scowled sourly and snapped back “Yes, and it went out of business, didn’t it? Evidently, on the Outer Banks if one wishes to be successful in business, one may refer leeringly only to the male apparatus. It is quite disconcerting!”

Dr. Lemmon finished by calling on all liberal feminists and any men who are not too blinded by their own testosterone to boycott all businesses with gender-specific double-entendres. She urged local business owners to be creative with gender-neutral or female empowering innuendos. She even suggested several herself, but none of these slogans will be appropriate to publish publicly until they appear on signs outside local businesses, but please feel free to leave your own suggestions in the comments.

Two merchant vessels lost to U-boat

Elizabeth II heroes hailed as heroes

Manteo – Young John Moore noticed the strange object cutting through the water about 200 yards west of the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse just after 8:00 p.m. The setting sun cast a long shadow behind what seemed to be an innocuous submerged steel pipe moving northwest at about 10 knots. Then Johnny realized that was no pipe.

“It were a periscope!” Moore told the OBX Report in an exclusive interview. “Just like in Call of Duty: Battleship! And I knew that could be meanin’ only one thing: Nazis.”

That “pipe” young Johnny spotted turned out to be a prelude to the most epic Throwback Thursday event the Outer Banks has ever witnessed. The Nazi U-boat, U-1055, presumed lost since April 23, 1945, had apparently been wandering the Atlantic for the past 70 years. A faulty radio on the sub had left the crew unaware of Germany’s surrender, and they’d continued to operate in the western part of the North Atlantic, sinking shipping in the area commonly referred to as the “Bermuda Triangle”.

As Johnny rushed to change the white over blue “Rain Warning” flag at the Manteo Weather Station to the black and red striped “Nazi Warning Flag,” U-1055 struck. Two torpedoes slammed into the starboard side of the Coy Mistress, a 35-ton pleasure craft, rupturing a spare gas can and sinking her with all hands on board. When reached for comment later, Penny Manfred, wife of the owner of the boat said “Good riddance to that bastard. I hope his hussy was right there with him.”

The U-boat changed course to intercept the Mighty Harry, a 2000 ton yacht hauling billionaires out of Tribeca. Captain Phil Oak gamely dodged the U-boat’s first salvo, but the second caught the Mighty Harry amidships, nearly tearing the vessel in half and sending it straight to the bottom of the Albemarle Sound.

U-1055, it’s torpedoes spent, surfaced to engage the sightseeing vessel Crystal Sunset with its deck gun, but by that time Johnny Moore’s Nazi warning flag had been spotted by the lookout of the Elizabeth II, a Victorian-era three master on a shakedown cruise with performers from the Lost Colony. Captain Stewart Parque ordered all sails set and moved to intercept at flank speed while the crew scrambled to load the Elizabeth II’s six 32 pound cannons.  

A student of history, Captain Clark said later that the fate of the USS Cumberland when she faced off against the CSS Virginia was very much on him mind. But Captain Parque, also a film student, was also keenly aware of a design flaw in the Type VIIC U-boat, where a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port, led directly to the reactor system.

“I knew a direct hit would disable the U-boat, possibly even causing it to explode in a magnificent fireball,” said Captain Parque.

With the German sub closing fast on the unarmed Crystal Sunset, Captarin Parque steered the Elizabeth II into an optimal firing position. He ordered a broadside fusillade and the last 32 pounder found its mark, scoring a direct hit on the sub’s thermal exhaust port. The subsequent chain reaction indeed caused the U-1055’s reactor to detonate, sending pieces of the sub flying as far away as Manns Harbor.

With the danger past, the Elizabeth II immediately began lifesaving efforts to rescue passengers and crew of the stricken vessels who had not yet realized they could stand up and walk to shore.

At the next Manteo Town Council Meeting, the Mayor will present Certificates of Sincere and Everlasting Appreciation to Captain Parque and his crew, as well as the sharp-eyed Johnny Moore.

Wanchese – Trevor Davis is in a bit of a conundrum. Being a local is probably the coolest thing about him. It is the reason he gets up in the morning, and the first line he goes to when he’s talking to a girl at the bar. Unfortunately for him, showing off your localness has become fashionable, and every one is doing it.

“I got nothing wrong with someone saying they are a local,” Trever declared to his friends at the bar, “but if you reppin’ Local as it Gets, you better not be born in Virginia, Steve.”

“I think your missing the point Trevor, it’s more a lifestyle thing. You know if you are wearing Ralph Lauren, Polo, or Tommy Bahama, you don’t have to be Ralph Lauren, play polo, or be from the Bahamas,” said no one to his face, because they didn’t want to get into it.

Not deterred by his friends lack of interest in the conversation, he went on, “I mean if your last name isn’t one of the local ones, how can you say you are as local as it gets? It doesn’t say ‘I’m a local, but my family moved here in the seventies,’ Darrel, no it says local as it gets.”

“Don’t think about it so technically,” Sharron interrupted from down the bar, “I grew up down here, and got a job in Richmond. I like the brand and what it represents.”

“What the fuck!,” Trevor exclaimed, “If you don’t live here? How can you be a local? That don’t make any sense. Dumbass. I bet you even got a Local sticker on your car with Virgina tags, don’t you.”

“What I can’t say I’m local cause I don’t live here anymore?” she asked.

“If you don’t live here, you ain’t from around here,” he replied patronizingly, “Next thing you know we will have people from Currituck saying they are local!” at this point he started yelling to the bar, “Is that what you want? We got people like Jimmy over here, who’s parents are from New Jersey, calling himself as local as it gets. Nah dude, my grandpa’s grandpa was friends with Blackbeard. My great great uncle fought in the Civil War here. My grandpa has been fishing these waters since before your family bought a cottage here. My mom was in the first production of the Lost Colony. My cousin, Terry, punched the guy who made the OBX sticker How you gonna say you as local as it gets?”

“I’m sure they are all so proud of how you turned out,” someone said  sarcastically.

At that point everyone felt bad for him, and decided to let him have his local pride since that is probably the only thing he has going for him.

 

Nags Head – Surprising everyone including himself, this past Wednesday Dick from Dirty Dick’s Crab House not only passed,  but aced the ServSafe exam. The ServSafe certification teachers employees proper food handling for restaurants.

“I have to admit, none of us thought he had a chance,” Exam proctor Debra Seather professed, “I mean with his name and all.”

“I’ve been to the restaurant. It was clean and the food was well kept. I just assumed they didn’t let him touch anything,” said health inspector Jessica Faber.

“I knew he was a poser,” local dirtbag and Collington resident Fred Williams exclaimed, “He just pretends to be dirty to sell crabs. Real dirt is a lifestyle.”

When asked how it felt to pass the exam, Dick rambled out some unintelligible sentences in his Southern Louisiana dialect as he nodded his head.