August 01, 2016
Brian Hickey/PhillyVoice
Alexa Brunetti, who won the Miss Teen New Jersey USA pageant in 2009, will appear on the VH1 program 'Dating Naked' in August 2016. The Brigantine resident worries how people in her small hometown will react when they see the show, but is 'comfortable in my own skin.'
Into August we go, and it shan’t be long until the darkness of winter.
Let us savor these times we have with access to hot weather, rad waves and sweet cotton candy accessible to us all on the Jersey Shore.
In this week’s Jersey Shore Town Power Rankings (JSTPR), we see instances of people caring about others, both living and dead, and a person belittling others, both living and dead.
Yes, we live in a crazy mixed-up world, but at the shore, serenity can be found and embraced, if only for two days of the week.
Let's see what the past week had to say about all 16 shore towns, shall we?
16. North Wildwood (-2)
15. Wildwood (-5)
14. Atlantic City (+2)
13. Longport (-4)
12. Cape May Point (even)
11. Cape May (+4)
10. Ventnor (-3)
9. Wildwood Crest (-6)
8. Brigantine (-2)
7. Stone Harbor (-6)
6. Avalon (-2)
5. Margate (+2)
4. Strathmere (+1)
3. Long Beach Island (+9)
2. Ocean City (+8)
1. Sea Isle City (+1)
16. Atlantic City (-2) Donald Trump continued to disgust much of the nation and world this week. Donald Trump is closely associated — even if in name only — with Atlantic City (see here, here, here and here). None of the other towns offended the JSTPR algorithm to a comparable extent, thus necessitating a plummet to the 16th position. Ergo, AC did. Sorry, good people there. You know who to blame.
15. Sea Isle City (-14) “According to a Facebook post by the Sea Isle City Police Department, three suspects … tied up the victim, whose age and identity wasn’t given, and produced a handgun before they ‘ransacked’ the home.” The moral of the story? Home invasion scenarios will hurt a shore town's standing, but not as much as Trump does.
14. North Wildwood (+2) This rise in the rankings was merely a reflection of troubles in other municipalities. The shore-ranking program predicts a drop when the looming tax bill backlash comes to pass. Dirty laundry will be aired. It will be ugly. Prepare.
13. Cape May Point (-1) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
12. Ocean City (-10) Proximity to the gnarly “dog poop beach” cost Ocean City dearly this week.
11. Wildwood (+4) When you hit a trick shot, dropping 110-feet at 60 miles per hour, it’s not a two-point play. It’s not a 3-point play. That jawn’s worth four. You can thank Bull Bullard of the Harlem Globetrotters, Wildwood.
Harlem Globetrotter Bull Bullard attempts a trick basketball shot while on the Sky Coaster ride at Morey's Pier in Wildwood.
10. Strathmere (-6) Keep the dag gum lights on, yo.
9. Margate (-4) It’s a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world, and it doesn’t look like much of anything happened in Margate this past week.
8. Longport (+5) In these tension-filled times, it’s always refreshing to hear about people who still care about their fellow man and woman. With its involvement in the Choose Your Cover skin cancer checking campaign, Longport proved an example of that, even if it’s as close to that gnarly “dog beach” as Ocean City is. Please, readers, get checked, even if you weren’t in Longport this weekend.
7. Stone Harbor (even)
6. Avalon (even)
5. Ventnor (+5) Kudos to the Ventnor City Beach Patrol, aka the repeat champions of the Ocean City Women’s Lifeguard Race. Who runs the world? Well, in the summer down the shore, committed lifeguards do. (Also, top-notch surfers who visit their grandmothers are A-OK in my book).
4. Cape May (+7) Despite earlier opposition to dueling Shore Town rankings, Cape May gets a bump this week for being recognized for its beach quality. This comes after a half-summer of suffering through inferior placement thanks to anonymous Spout Off postings by its residents or visitors. Keep it up, CM.
3. Long Beach Island (even) In previous JSTPR calculations, the presence or proximity of sharks cost shore towns some standing. But, yo, by reeling in a 200-point, 7-foot shark while surfcasting on LBI, 13-year-old Gianni Mandile broke that trend. Bad ass, kid. Hardcore.
Gianni Mandile, 13, reeled in a 200-pound shark off the beach on Long Beach Island.
2. Wildwood Crest (+7) We should always honor our fallen troops and their families (see A.C.’s entry). This week, that means remembering Patrick Corcoran, who died in a U.S. Navy training accident off Vietnam in 1969. (If that name sounds familiar, it’s because of that whole stolen-flag mess in unsavory North Wildwood.) As his family fights to get his name etched on Wildwood’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, let’s rally around their cause.
1. Brigantine (+7) Did you miss last week’s story about Alexa Brunetti, the former Miss Teen New Jersey USA who will bare her flesh on VH1’s “Dating Naked”? If so, you should check it out. If not, give it another read! Bravery of that caliber warrants a ratings bump for her hometown. (Check her out on the show on Aug. 10, too. We’ll have a follow-up story with her reaction.)
