chamber of comedy honcho preparing

Chamber of Comedy Honcho Preparing Annual Excuse List

Former restaurant manager and current Myrtle Beach Chamber of Comedy

nabob, Saint Bradley Dean, is reported to be frantically burning the

midnight oil compiling his annual roster of excuses for why tourism

numbers in the Myrtle Beach area have not increased.

During the tenure of Saint Bradley's predecessor, Ashby "Mr. Myrtle

Beach" Ward, Myrtle Beach routinely enjoyed double-digit annual

tourism increases. Since Mr. Ward's passing, with Dean at the helm,

tourism, occupancy rates and ADR's (average daily rate) have

languished with pathetic 2-4% increases, while the area's room

inventory has dramatically increased. By way of comparison, despite

high gas prices and numerous hurricanes, Florida (since Dean has been

at the helm of the Chamber of Comedy) has consistently posted double

digit increases in tourism, with 2006 increases surpassing 20%.

This year Dean is in a far greater panic than ever before, because

this year he has lost his patented excuse for his usual miserable

performance, which has always been, "We're being outspent by our

competition."

The cause of Saint Bradley's current hysteria comes from a group of

hoteliers and business leaders, calling themselves Myrtle Beach

Forward, who were fed-up with Dean's "not enough money" mantra, and

stepped-up and created a self-imposed $1 per rented room night fee to

be used for marketing Myrtle Beach. They've put their money where

Dean's mouth is, and according to the local fish wrapper those funds

will increase Myrtle Beach's marketing funds "five-fold" this year,

and therein lies Dean's desperation. Who's he going to blame when he

bombs AGAIN?

Early signs indicate that Saint Bradley is counting heavily on the

high gasoline prices as his primary excuse if the dramatic tourism

increases expected from the massive "five fold" increase in marketing

funds don't materialize.

It's also rumored that he's also hoping for a bunch of hurricane

scares, because they've always been great vehicles for Dean to cite

when trying to cover up for his litany of failures.

Saint Bradley will also be relying heavily on the area's leading

purveyor of numerical bovine excrement, Gary "Cook the Books" Loftus,

to assist him with his damage control. Rumor has it that in

preparation for his next hand of statistical three card monte, Loftus

has been spending a lot of time at the Charleston County jail, getting

pointers on "how to fool all the people all the time" from his

disgraced and incarcerated hero and rotund role model, Al "Howdy

Suckers" Parish.

The most amazing ploy, which Dean is already rolling out to cover his

ass is, "Hey, five times more marketing money is great, but (Now get

this) it's not enough."