Pier Speculation
Two scientific principles are being demonstrated here this weekend.
Principle No. 1: Gravity’s a funny thing.
Principle No. 2: A man will remove his shirt in public at the slightest provocation, no matter what the status of his physique.
The first principle is being demonstrated by a death-defying air show high above the fifth annual Pierfest.
The second principle is being demonstrated by a large number of those 300,000 people attending the weekend-long event, which began in 1992 as a way of celebrating the city pier’s reopening.
(Actually, many shirtless, flabby men are doing a pretty fair job of demonstrating the first principle, too.)
The downtown festival--running from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. --also features a classic-car show, a 1950s sock hop (with Hula Hoop and limbo contests) and assorted children’s carnival games.
Arts and craft shows, dunking tanks and sundry musical entertainment compete for the crowd’s attention with the National In-Line Skating Championships, which whirls around the city beach parking lot, just south of Main Street.
But the most eye-catching attraction, and the most ubiquitous, is flesh. Only here can you see half-naked men strolling along, puffing on cigars. Only here can you see half-naked women scowling at the half-naked men puffing on cigars. Only here can you see tattoos more intricate and interconnected than a Rand-McNally road map.
As the sun soars above a perfect end-of-summer day, the half-dressed masses meander along the pier, turning their faces toward the turquoise sky. Some hope to soak up a few rays; others long to witness a few loop-de-loops.
High above, daredevil Wayne Handley puts his plane into a hair-raising nose-dive, falling toward the earth while streamers of ominous smoke spew from his engine. Throughout the self-induced dive, Handley calmly broadcasts to the people on the pier, his voice scarcely betraying the enormous physical forces being exerted on his body.
At the last minute, just seconds from a nose-first crash into the Pacific Ocean, he pulls up and roars off into the wild blue yonder.
Betty Megli, meanwhile, keeps one eye trained on the ground and waits breathlessly for everyone to leave. The retired Huntington Beach resident has a new metal detector she’s anxious to wave over the hidden treasures inadvertently deposited beneath the pier through all these holy pockets.
“You can find $3 to $7,” she confides, “depending on how ambitious you are.”
Over there, near Megli, is 26-year-old Vinnie Sexton, of Orange, one of the few men wearing both shirt and pants. In fact, the trifecta: shoes, too!
Still, Sexton’s T-shirt seems to be drawing more notice than the feats of derring-do overhead.
“THIS AIN’T NO BEER BELLY,” the shirt proclaims in bold black letters. “IT’S A GAS TANK FOR A SEX MACHINE.”
“Everybody’s looking at my shirt,” the unemployed broadcast journalism student boasts, “and not at the air show!”
Meet two young women who are definitely not looking at Sexton: Stephanie Howard, 25, and Lisa Louis, 26.
Decked out in designer shoes and serious sunglasses, the San Fernando Valley residents are waaay too appalled by the countless fashion faux pas--not to mention the tons of flopping flab--to notice Sexton. Nor do they notice the droning, whining, sputtering aircraft in the sky.
Women with less-than-perfect posteriors should not wear G-strings, Louis announces flatly.
And the air show?
BOR-ing, the women say.
“We’ve seen the best of the worst today,” Louis tells her friend.
When Howard signaled her total agreement, the two women throw back their hair and step off the pier, only to be enveloped by the ever-growing crowd.