What’s that saying, there is no such thing as bad publicity, but jeeez...
Homemade video shot on American River exposes raft of wild behavior
By Ed Fletcher - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:39 am PST Tuesday, January 9, 2007
For the last two summers, Sacramento County officials have been working to stamp out the idea that the lower American River is the place to get buck wild.
A new video spends 60 minutes celebrating it.
The video, in the mode of the semi-pornographic "Girls Gone Wild" videos, depicts young bikini-clad women exposing their breasts and mud wrestling.
A local first-time moviemaker says he shot the video at the American River Parkway on weekends over the last two summers using a home video camera.
The $10 video is for sale at a handful of local stores, and a short clip of it can be found at myspace.com and youtube.com.
Slow, meandering rafting trips between Sunrise Boulevard and Goethe Park have long been a summer ritual for families and young adults alike.
But recent events have been alarming.
County officials say fights, nudity, littering and drunkenness have become far too common on summer holiday weekends, and the alcohol-drenched floating parties are attracting young people from Chico to Los Angeles.
The past two summers saw melees that resulted in hospitalizations and arrests on July Fourth weekends.
Sacramento County's supervisors responded by first closing a popular stopping point -- a small island near Hagen Park that young people call Gilligan's Island -- on holiday weekends.
Last summer, the supervisors banned open containers and alcohol consumption along the banks of the American River Parkway on holiday weekends.
