DOROTHY PARKER WAS A Jersey girl by birth. By the time the renowned critic, playwright, and poet was born in 1893, her native Long Branch was a well-established seaside resort that prided itself on playing host to Presidents and robber baron royalty.

But “Dottie” Parker was very much a Jersey girl by nature, too – irreverent, sophisticated, fiercely intelligent, and plain funny as hell with it all. Upon learning that Calvin Coolidge, the notoriously reticent 30th President of the United States, had departed this mortal coil, the grand dame of American letters famously quipped, “How can they tell?”

Like Parker, Beach Badge, so informed by its nature, is salty and spirited, and not beyond self-deprecation. Indeed, this modest, uncalled-for celebration of the Jersey Shore knows a good time when it sees one, but doesn’t punch down, and never forgets where it came from. Nor does it suffer sacred cows gladly, citing what I believe Parker herself, a century on, would still recognize as just cause.

“The cure for boredom,” she noted, “is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”

I don’t know what Dorothy Parker herself would have made of Beach Badge. But love it or hate it, you can be sure that her thoughts would be, in no uncertain terms, memorable.

William Patrick Tandy
Editor & Publisher
January 2025