You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Threat
It was a busy summer for Cape Cod shark sightings and accompanying histrionic media reports. The Boston Globe’s entry into the field: “Video shows huge shark swimming off coast of Martha’s Vineyard,” the tale of a twenty-five-foot shark that “seemed like it was sizing…up” a boat. The location: forty miles offshore. The beast: a plankton-eating basking shark.
Nope, Still Gonna Need a Bigger Threat
Local TV station WHDH breathlessly reported that a man caught a brown shark – a popular game fish – on Chappaquiddick, then released it back into the water.
Okay, You’re Gonna Need to Stop Now
An actual, caught-on-tape dorsal fin sighting caused lifeguards to clear South Beach. Experts say the fin may have belonged to a hammerhead...or a sunfish. In the following days, panic-stricken Island beachgoers reported a suspicious-looking lobster buoy and...another sunfish.
Gonna Need Some Hotter Air
After months of advance publicity, not all of it positive, and hundreds of tickets sold by the The Trustees of Reservations, a mirrored, inflatable hot-air-balloon art installation at Long Point Beach in West Tisbury fell victim to a steady sea breeze and failed to launch.
Gonna Need a Firmer Flamingo
Oak Bluffs fire and police patrol rescued two teens off Inkwell Beach when the inflatable paisley flamingo they were floating on began to drift a half mile out to sea and lose air.
Gonna Need a Better Excuse
After crashing his taxi into a tree in broad daylight on a Tuesday morning, a driver for the Your Taxi company told police he was distracted by a bug in his face.
Gonna Need a New Cliché
Martha’s Vineyard Magazine henceforth banishes forever the gratuitous “gonna need a bigger” Jaws reference in headlines.
