Tag: shark

Shark Attack!

Our annual summer vacations in San Diego have become a little more adventurous because of an increase in shark activity off the coast of California. I enjoy body surfing, but the thought of a pair of big, hungry jaws beneath the water’s surface gets my heart a-pounding. So imagine my shock when I really did have an encounter with a baby shark. Er, make those letters capitals. I meant to say “Baby Shark”.

My adorable two-year old granddaughter is just beginning to take off with her vocabulary.  She can say “Mama”, “Dada”, and even “Chop! Chop!” when she wants us to hurry up.  She also says “Bayba Shawk”… constantly, because she wants an adult to play the song for the forty-thousandth time.  After three weeks on repeat I can’t get the darned thing out of my head.  I need brain surgery.

My granddaughter’s finger puppets

“Baby Shark” is the story of a little family of sharks hunting for fish.  The fish get away and… that’s it.  It’s not so much a story as an excuse to sing a verse about each family member: Baby, Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, and Grandpa.  The first time I heard it (forty thousand time ago) I wondered, Why doesn’t Baby Shark have siblings?  Where are his (her?) other grandparents?  Aunts?  Uncles?

Of course, it’s not really Baby Shark’s family that make the tune so addicting.  It’s the “doo’s”… as in doo doo doo-doo doo-doo.  You sing those six “doo’s” in every verse and that’s the part that gets into your head.  Add in the accompanying up-and-down arm dance (imitating the jaws of a shark) and you somehow have a hit.  More like a worldwide phenomenon.

If a children’s sing-song doesn’t get your attention, consider this.  “Baby Shark” is the most-watched YouTube video of all time.  I said of all time.  If your guess would’ve been something by Ed Sheeran or Katy Perry or Maroon 5 you would’ve also landed in the Top Thirty, but nowhere near the top of the list.  “Baby Shark” has been viewed over 16 billion times, more than twice the number as the runner-up.  And that’s only for the version from South Korea’s Pingfong.  The one by Cocomelon (a children’s YouTube channel) lands in twenty-third place with another four billion views.

The “Baby Shark Dance”

“Baby Shark” has been around longer than you might think.  It showed up somewhere in the late 1990’s in the public domain.  Then Pinkfong got ahold of it, created the 2016 video with cute little Korean kids, and the rest continues to be history.  Coincidentally, a lawsuit was settled just this month where an American songwriter claimed rights to “Baby Shark”.  He lost, but only because the song was still in the public domain when he created his version.  You can’t blame him for trying; “Baby Shark” has generated over $150M in revenue in the last ten years.

Of course, all that revenue comes from more than just a YouTube video (hence the “worldwide phenomenon”).  “Baby Shark” is showing up in places and with people that seem downright ridiculous.  There’s a children’s book and a television series.  There’s a video game.  It’s part of a tourism promotion for Singapore.  It’s used by certain professional baseball players as they walk up to the plate.  Or certain politicians as they walk up to the podium.  Finally, it’s the subject of a Kellogg’s breakfast cereal, a berry version of Fruit Loops with little marshmallows posing as sharks.  “Yum?”

My favorite use of “Baby Shark” comes out of West Palm Beach, FL.  Local authorities were desperate to clear a lakeside pavilion of homeless people, so they played the song over and over on loudspeakers until everyone left (running and screaming for the hills, no doubt).  If I’m inclined to run and scream myself, I can drive a couple hours north of here to see a production of Baby Shark Live, a 75-minute stage musical.  I’m not inclined.

The whole time I’ve been typing this post I’ve had doo doo doo-doo doo-doo on loop in my head.  If my hands and arms weren’t busy on the keyboard they’d be doing the Baby Shark Dance instead.  It’s maddening, and makes me want to body surf again with hopes I’ll be eaten by a real shark.  Instead, I’ll just hope I find another blog topic next week that consumes me more than “Baby Shark”.  I leave you with the video.  Guard your sanity.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Seaweed Sarge

With the U.S. Memorial Day holiday in the rear view mirror, the 2023 summer season is officially upon us. According to surveys from American Express Travel, sun-and-fun seekers prefer New York City, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles this year. Las Vegas raises an eyebrow (after all, summer in Sin City is broiler-setting hot) but notice something else: Florida didn’t make the top three. Maybe – no, probably – it’s because Seaweed Sarge is already wreaking havoc on the Sunshine State’s beaches.

Miami Beach

If you don’t know Seaweed Sarge, it’s because 1) you deliberately avoid the news these days – an increasingly popular trend – or 2) like me, you need a more creative label for sargassum, because it’s a weird name for the seaweed intent on taking over the world.  Sarge is a little intimidating, if only for his size.  Picture him as a belt of algae 5,000 miles long (I can’t picture anything 5,000 miles long, can you?)  Now consider: Sarge will double in size by July, the peak of his “bloom season”.

Sargassum

Sargassum is a particularly annoying form of seaweed.  It’s rootless, which means it can reproduce while simply floating around on the ocean’s surface.  Its rapid growth is bolstered by nutrients leached into rivers and oceans from land-based agriculture.  Once it makes shore sargassum rots immediately, releasing irritating hydrogen sulfide and the stench of rotten eggs.  And trying to remove countless tons of seaweed begs the question: where the heck do you put it all?

Florida’s gonna have to figure out the answer to that last question, and fast.  Sarge is already littering beaches from Ft. Lauderdale to Key West and we’re just getting started.  Come July and August it’ll be virtually impossible to walk along the shoreline.

Ft. Lauderdale

My own visits to the beach have been blissfully Sarge-free.  Most of my sun-and-fun takes place in San Diego, far from Sarge’s primary Atlantic Ocean residence.  The only real nuisances on San Diego beaches are the occasional jellyfish or stingray, and a once-in-a-blue-moon shark sighting (which stirs up more anxiety than actual sightings).  Admittedly, Sarge washes ashore in San Diego as well, but mostly just here and there as a remnant of off-shore harvesting.  Seaweed does have its upsides, in foods, medicines, and fertilizers.

Ironically, I have fond memories of Sarge as a kid.  He’s built with giant flappy leaves reminiscent of a mermaid’s fishtail.  He’s got countless air sacs to keep him afloat, which make a popping sound as satisfying as squeezing bubble wrap.  If I’d thought to take pictures back in the day, I could show you Sarge as an adornment to many a childhood sand castle.

It’s time for robots

An army of beach tractors could work all summer in South Florida and barely make a dent in Sarge.  The seasonal maintenance of the single half-mile beach in Key West alone is in the millions of dollars.  But a better solution may be in play.  A prototype robot has been designed to do battle at sea.  “AlgaRay” cruises slowly through the water, hooking tons of Sarge’s strands in a single pass.  Once at capacity, AlgaRay drags Sarge underwater to a depth where all of those air sacs explode.  No longer buoyant, Sarge sinks to the ocean floor; a “watery grave” if you will.  AlgaRay has been likened to a weed-eating Pac-Man or a vacuuming Roomba.  Either image works for me.

Let’s have one more look at those tourist surveys.  One in ten say they’d cancel or reschedule a trip to Florida if they knew Sarge was coming ashore.  Maybe that explains why landlocked Las Vegas ranked #2 on this summer’s most popular U.S. destinations.  Not that Vegas doesn’t have its own threats.  Three years ago a swarm of locusts descended on the Strip, blotting out casino windows and streetlights.  An annual migration of tarantulas passes by in the surrounding desert.  So take your pick: hordes of flying/crawling bugs or a giant mass of inanimate algae.  Maybe Sarge isn’t so bad after all.

Some content sourced from the NPR.org article, “Giant blobs of seaweed are hitting Florida…”