Tag Archives: Blacktip Island

September 2, 2016 · 7:16 am

Blacktip Island Health Officials Launch Dump Eco-Tours

dump tours

Blacktip Island’s Department of Public Health has made it’s newly-created reflecting pool the centerpiece of it’s wildlife eco-tours through the small Caribbean island’s garbage dump.

Blacktip Island’s cash-strapped Department of Public Health began offering guided tours of the island’s dump Thursday to showcase the site’s biodiversity and value to the community.

“Locals’ve been coming here for years for spare parts and what have you,” DPH chief Clete Horn said. “We noticed more and more tourists stopping by for a look, too. That was our ‘a-ha moment.’”

“Folks come to Blacktip from all over the world, and spend thousand to look at fish,” Horn said. “Well, there’s just as many critters above the water, especially at the dump. Our safaris’ll spotlight that, and the fees’ll cover payroll and dump upkeep.”

Local wildlife experts say the idea isn’t as outlandish as it sounds.

“There is a great deal of biodiversity at the landfill,” Island Wildlife Research Center chief Goby Graysby said. “That’s where the food and water is, so that’s where the wildlife is.

“People laugh about glowing dump chickens, but the place is home to rats, feral cats, land crabs, even iguanas,” Graysby said. “That’s the Big Five, and the way those DPH guys know the terrain, they’ll get you and your Nikon right in the feeding frenzy. It’s brilliant, really.”

Safari guests will tour in the health department’s refuse collection vehicles.

“End of the day, we hose the trucks out real good, put plywood viewing platform in the back and take folks through all the honey holes,” Horn said. “It adds realism. Plus, the critters here are used to the trucks, so they don’t run.

“The highlight’s the reflecting pool,” Horn said. “There’s nothing quite like coming around those scrap-metal mountains, seeing the sunset across the water and the feral cats and chickens drinking together in peace. You should hear all the ‘ooh’s and ‘ah’s and ‘Oh, it’s just like in The Jungle Book.’”

Some Blacktip residents, though, worry the tours are changing the island.

“Used to be, we could make a day of a dump trip. It was family time,” said resident Paloma Fairlead. “We’d bring a picnic, let the kids play hide-and-seek and chase the chickens. And the little ones so loved to pick out some castaway treasure for themselves.

“Now we have to pay for admission, and you can’t take anything without paying,” Fairlead said. “And once you’re in, you can’t get out without going through the gift shop. I never thought Blacktip would turn so crass and commercial.”

Others, though, have embraced the eco tours.

“This shows the dump’s not just good for the community, it’s good for the environment,” island mayor Jack Cobia said. “The dump is the future, the new island order. And these ‘Blacktip Island Dump Safari’ t-shirts are so comfortable.”

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August 19, 2016 · 7:31 am

Blacktip Island Physicists Discover Blacktip Boson

Blacktip boson

Particle physicists Ginny Wrasse, left, and Leah Shore inspect the sensor housing at the Blacktip Island Gravitational Laser Interferometer Detection array outside the CrabbiLab laboratory Thursday. Laboratory physicists claim to have discovered a subatomic particle capable of generating short-lived, localized gravitational fields. (Photo courtesy of Tila Monto)

In a paper published Thursday in the international science journal Creation, Blacktip Island scientists claim to have discovered a subatomic particle dubbed, ‘the Blacktip boson,’ that can create an extremely localized gravity well for a split second.

“People’ve noticed the phenomena for years,” lead author and particle physicist Barry Bottoms said. “Locals call them ‘gravity storms,’ where a person or object will fall for no apparent reason, with nearby objects not affected.

“You’d see it late Friday and Saturday nights, usually in bars, though, so it got passed off as alcohol induced,” Bottoms said. “Then we noticed it happening to tourists on bikes in the middle of the day, and that got us wondering.”

Bottoms and his colleagues at the Caribbean island’s Crabbilab Accelerator Laboratory built a device to isolate the phenomenon.

“We spring-boarded off Caltech’s gravity wave research to make an array to detect gravitational anomalies,” said article co-author Leah Shore. “It’s a small island with limited resources, but we were able to find some cement conduit, and we scrounged an old laser interferometer fom the dump.

“We’d barely activated the sensors when we got confirmation,” Shore said. “There was a massive gamma radiation spike, then – BAM! – Barry toppled over. With no alcohol involved – we tested his blood.”

The scientists were cautious in assessing the discovery’s importance.

“All we can say for certain is we detected a boson that, under the right conditions, can exert a massless spin-2 field – the Blacktip Field – to create micro-instants of increased gravity,” Bottoms said. “Could that blow the doors open on string theory? Sure. But we have more pressing concerns.

“What triggers the field and why is it so prevalent here?” Bottoms said. “Our theory is Blacktip Fields are the result of interplay between Blacktip’s unique combination solar radiation, booby pond fumes and the numerous ley lines crossing the island.”

Local reaction the discovery was less reserved.

“This tells the world Blacktip’s not such a backwater,” mayor Jack Cobia said. “Visitors joke about Blacktip being the island of sloppy drunks. Now, to find out it’s a sub-atomic whaddyacallit, well, Barry and his gang deserve a medal.”

Others echoed Cobia’s sentiment.

“Science-wise, it’s great to finally smack down St. Kitts and Nevis,” resident Antonio Fletcher said. “Those punks’ve been rubbing our noses in it ever since they found that wobble in Uranus’ orbit. Plus, my Daddy was a bosun’s mate, so I’m doubly proud.”

Other locals were eager to put the Blacktip Field to use.

“They keep saying there’s no practical application for this thing,” the former-Reverend Jerrod Ephesians said. “But how great would it be to harness it, to give extra mass to stuff that needs it? Like the mixed drinks at the Last Ballyhoo.”

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August 7, 2016 · 7:43 am

Blacktip Island Author Unveils Cover For Forthcoming Novel

Blacktip Island cover

Local author Tim W. Jackson gave readers an early glimpse of his forthcoming novel Saturday when he unveiled the book’s cover on his website.

Titled, appropriately, Blacktip Island, the novel follows an inadvertent embezzler who high-tails it to the Caribbean, a step ahead of the Feds and desperate to start life over as an anonymous divemaster in paradise. On Blacktip Island, though, he quickly discovers ‘tropics’ doesn’t mean ‘paradise,’ and rookie boat hands stick out like a reef at low tide.

“It’s a whackadoodle adventure,” Jackson said. “If Don’t Stop the Carnival and Northern Exposure had a love child, they’d call it Blacktip Island.”

Early reviewers praised the novel.

The San Francisco Book Review says, “Blacktip Island will make you laugh and keep you guessing. The story gets readers hooked, and the characters add laughter, suspense, romance and everything in between to take this book to another level.”

Blacktip Island will be published in early September.

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July 15, 2016 · 7:45 am

Blacktip Island Divemasters Launch Underwater Jenga League

Jenga

One of the last parking chocks still above water on Blacktip Island, with an underwater giant Jenga team’s lift bag and mallet, in the Blacktip Haven resort parking lot.

Members of a newly-formed underwater giant Jenga league have illegally cleared Blacktip Island’s parking lots of cement parking chocks for use as game blocks, island authorities said Friday.

In conventional Jenga, players take turns removing one wooden block at a time from a tower of blocks, then balance that block on top of the stack to create a progressively taller but less stable structure.

“It started with bored divemasters and a load of sunken chocks that fell overboard out from the public dock,” Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. “Next thing you know, they’re dragging chocks from resort parking lots and chucking them into the sea.

“After a YouTube video, it really took off,” Marquette said “Now they’ve hauled off every parking bumper that’s not bolted down so they can make a regulation 54-block set. I’d arrest them all, but there’s no proof who committed the actual thefts.”

Players preferred to focus on the intricacies of the game.

“It’s giant Jenga, only with more adrenalin,” said divemaster Alison Diesel. “Each block weighs, like, 200 pounds. Two-person teams use lift bags to make a block neutrally buoyant, then tap it out of the pile with rubber mallets.

“Both people have to be in synch, or things get ugly,” Diesel said. “Personal buoyancy control’s a biggie, too. You’re down in the sand when a six-foot tower crashes down, you’re crab food.”

League organizers brushed aside talk of the game’s illegality.

“We’ve done nothing wrong and no one stole anything,” de facto league president Jerrod Ephesians said. “The blocks were underwater debris. We’re simply using them. And we never have matches when the barge is due. That’d create a navigational hazard.

“The only problem we’ve had is a couple of ugly incidents involving husband-and-wife teams,” Ephesians said. “Kitty Smarr swore she dumped her lift bag by accident, and that she was yelling for help, but Mickey damn-near got crushed, and it sure sounded like Kitty was laughing through her regulator.”

Police, meanwhile, are concerned the missing bumpers imperil public safety.

“There’s not a single chock in any of the island’s car parks,” Marquette said. “That creates a dangerous situation. I can seize the ones that’ve been sunk, but I have no way to get them out of the water. Meantime, motorists are damaging vehicles, buildings and themselves without chocks to stop the cars.”

One local business owner is using the Jenga matches to cover the cost of new parking bumpers at his resort.

“We put in underwater cameras at Diddley’s Landing,” said Rich Skerritt, owner of Eagle Ray Cove resort. “We’re charging folks to watch the live feed at the bar. That, and the alcohol sales, should recoup the cost of chocks. And when we get new ones, we’re gonna pound them in place with five, six feet of rebar so these scuba hippies can’t steal them.”

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May 13, 2016 · 10:01 am

Blessing of the Regulators Returns To Blacktip Island

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Scuba diving regulators of all types and ages will be prayed for at Blacktip Island’s Blessing of the Regulators Sunday. (photo courtesy of Jerrod Ephesians)

The Our Lady of Blacktip cathedral will host the Caribbean island’s annual Blessing of the Regulators Sunday morning, safeguarding scuba divers and their equipment for the busy summer diving season.

“It’s a non-denominational ceremony open to all divers, regardless of religious beliefs, or lack thereof,” said the former-Reverend Jerrod Ephesians. “We do it on behalf of St. Dervil, Blacktip Island’s patron saint, who blessed the island’s first divers back in the 1550s.

“The ceremony’s totally inclusive,” Ephesians said. “We welcome single- and double-hose regs as well as rebreathers, Spare Airs and even snorkels.”

As ever, local divers are excited about the ceremony.

“I trust my training and all, but I’ll take any backup I can get,” said Eagle Ray Divers divemaster Alison Diesel. “‘God’s my alternate air source,’ you know? Whichever god’ll listen.

“Using Dervil’s original Canticle for Regultors is what makes the Blessing stick,” Diesel said. “The whole ‘Bless me that I may not so much breathe, as to continue to breathe’ thing. And sprinkling us with rum.”

Others questioned the ceremony’s efficacy.

“There’s no proven cause-and-effect relationship between praying over your regulator and diving safely,” said long-time resident B.C. Flote. “Folks want this superstitious shtick, let ‘em do it on their own time. This’s a religious ceremony and the bars can’t open until it’s over.”

Church officials take a pragmatic view of the service.

“Hand of the Divine or self-fulfilling belief, it amounts to the same thing,” Ephesians said. “We administer the Blessing. People have safe dives. Boom. Done.

“We ran a couple of double-blind test Blessings a few years back, but the results were inconclusive,” Ephesians said. “It’s metaphorical, anyway. The Blessing covers not just regs, but all scuba gear. Except dive knives. That’d be inappropriate, since Dervil was hacked to death by Norse raiders.”

Island business leaders have embraced the Blessing for more secular reasons.

“The resort’s chock-a-block full this weekend, and we’re selling Blessing t-shirts like crazy,” Eagle Ray Cove owner Rich Skerritt said. “Mumbo jumbo or not, it fills our bank account every year. That’s a result you can measure.”

The Blessing will be administered en masse rather than individually to avoid the scuffles that marred last year’s ceremony.

“There was a rumor the regs that got blessed first got more oomph than the later ones,” Ephesians said. “Next thing we knew, divers at the back of the line were about killing each other to get to the front. We had to replace a bunch of pews and three stained-glass windows.”

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April 29, 2016 · 6:53 am

Back Breaker Integrated Weight Tourney Comes to Blacktip Island

back breaker

One of the Back Breaker competitor’s gear, rigged with a 30-year-old brass regulator to add extra weight to his rig. (photo courtesy of Catalina Luxfer)

Blacktip Island this week will host the five-day Back Breaker 2016 Integrated Weight Throwdown, with anonymous competitors vying to maim divemasters across the small Caribbean island. The winner will be determined by the number of divemasters injured and severity of those injuries.

“It’s like a traveling Fight Club for out of shape, passive-aggressive scuba divers,” Back Breaker organizer Catalina Luxfer said. “Divemasters are always telling us to dive with less weight. It’s so judgemental.

“This is payback,” Luxfer said. “We dive with however much weight we want, and we won’t be shamed into wearing less. They hurt our feelings; we hurt their backs.”

Back Breaker contestants say strategy is simple.

“The trick’s to make the BC look light, but still pack it chock-full of lead,” competitor Virgil Cracken said. “Then you tell the DM you just had surgery, and could they please lift your gear out of the water for you.

“You should see their eyes bug out when they start the lift,” Cracken said. “I tore up three backs and two elbows in the last tourney. I use my old Dacor 900 first stage just to add another eight pounds to my gear.”

Per Throwdown rules, divemasters are not told the competition is taking place until the end of the final day. Competitors will dive one day at each resort to allow equal access to all divemasters.

Injured dive staff will be examined by physicians and given x-rays and M.R.I.s to determine extent of injuries so points can be awarded accordingly.

“You score if one of your weight pockets slips out and crushes a divemaster’s toes, too,” Luxfer said. “Eighteen to 20 pounds per pocket’s a good target. Any heavier, it’s tough to disguise the bulk.”

Contestants will be disqualified if they drop below 100 feet/30 meters of depth.

“We can’t have a repeat of last year’s cock-up in Palau,” Luxfer said. “A guy with 32 pounds had a BCD inflator valve failure. He was just, WOOSH! Straight down the wall before anyone could say ‘boo.’”

Blacktip Island dive staff, alerted to the clandestine tournament, were unconcerned.

“Honestly, these bozos’ll be hard to tell from our regular guests,” Eagle Ray Divers divemaster Alison Diesel said. “I mean, everybody wears 16, 18 pounds these days. Some dude last week had 22. And he was skinny, with no wetsuit.”

An award ceremony for contestants and divemasters is slated for Friday evening. Winners receive a dive flag tattoo. Injured dive staff receive free drinks, Percocet prescriptions and titanium spinal implants.

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April 22, 2016 · 7:23 am

Blacktip Islanders To Choose, Punish Community Scapegoat Saturday

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Blacktip Island’s annual scapegoat will be buried chest deep on the Eagle Ray Cove beach Saturday to atone for the collective misdeeds of the island’s residents. (photo courtesy Ginger Bass)

Blacktip Island residents will celebrate William Shakespeare’s birthday Saturday with the annual Choosing of the Scapegoat festival on the Eagle Ray Cove beach.

The scapegoat, chosen for offenses against fellow residents during the past year, will be buried up to the chest, recreating the final scene in Shakespeare’s ‘Titus Andronicus,’ where Aaron is partially buried as punishment for his crimes.

“When the island was first populated, the bickering settlers about killed each other,” island historian Smithson Altschul said. “‘Titus’ was a popular play at the time, and locals used the ending as a model for how to maintain social order throughout the year.

“They’d let bygones be bygones until Shakespeare’s birthday, then half-bury the biggest troublemaker and let the land crabs pick at him,” Altschul said. “The rest got a fresh start, transgression-wise. It was barbaric, but it held the community together.”

The contemporary scapegoating is nowhere near as brutal, organizers said.

“Back in the day, they left the scapegoat planted for days,” said the former-Reverend Jerrod Ephesians, festival chair. “Now we just leave them in a few hours, laugh at them and call all our sins absolved. And we cut out the crabs.

“We bury the ‘goat chest deep on the beach and wait for the tide to come in,” Ephesians said. “It’s kind of a time-out corner to think about what we’ve done. The ‘goat’s there for us all.”

The Choosing has become a family event on the island.

“It’s a teaching moment for the kids,” island resident Chrissy Graysby said. “It shows them what happens when you gossip and lie and cheat and steal. Now, those are the traditional island pastimes, but the Choosing gets all that negativity out of the community. It’s catharsis, you know. We’re sipping rum, but we can feel the pain.”

“No one knows who the scapegoat is until the final vote. If there’s a tie, both, or all, get buried,” resident Lee Helm said. “April on Blacktip’s a bit like, Yuletide what with everyone being overly nice to make up for the rest of the year.

“The land crabs still cause problems, but Jerrod has small children there to shoo them away,” Helm said. “For the most part. Dermott Bottoms lost an eyebrow to a crab last year, but he had it coming.”

Island youngsters are also kept busy with multiple rounds of Pin the Moustache on the Scapegoat. Other family-friendly activities include a Shakespearean sonnet contest, a Hamlet soliloquy hip-hop off, crab jugglers and stalls selling codlings, carbonadoes, cakes and ales.

As ever, there is intense unofficial wagering about who the scapegoat will be.

“My money’s on Dermott in a repeat,” Graysby said. “Though, as rough of a year as it’s been, people just might vote Jack Cobia in since he’s the mayor.”

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April 1, 2016 · 5:36 am

Blacktip Island Resort Launches Virtual Reality Scuba Diving

virtual reality

A virtual hawksbill turtle swims across the virtual Blacktip Island hardpan during an Eagle Ray Divers virtual reality scuba dive on Thursday. (Photo courtesy Leah Shore)

 

Blacktip Island’s Eagle Ray Cove resort this week unveiled a new virtual reality scuba program for guests who are unable to swim or are afraid of the water.

“We stick them in a V.R. suit, strap them in a harness and hang them in the conference room on bungee cords,” Eagle Ray Divers operations manager Ger Latner said. “They can kick and flail and bounce around just like our regular divers.

“We pipe in sounds of regulators, bubbles, pistol shrimp and boat propellers to add to the realism,” Latner said. “We have a divemaster to tell bad jokes between dives, too, and give virtual fire coral and jellyfish stings when needed.”

Local underwater videographers have been hired to provide a variety of reef scenes.

“What each diver sees totally depends on what they do while they’re hanging,” said local cameraperson Leah Shore. “We’re shooting non-stop so there’s as many options as possible.

“Anything you’d run into on a real dive, you get in the V.R. room,” Shore said. “A current could kick up, a shark could chase you, the viz could go to hell, you name it. A guest freaked yesterday when she hit a downwelling and dropped 50 feet down the wall.”

Critics object to the program’s pricing as well as its secondary use as punishment for scuba divers who damage the reef with poor diving practices.

“They’re hanging folks on rubber bands and charging them the same as if they were on a boat,” dive tour organizer Kelly Cottonwick said. “That’s not right. Neither is making divers dangle in a cubicle if they bump the coral a few times.”

Eagle Ray Divers defended both practices.

“Those V.R. suits aren’t cheap,” Latner said. “And we have staffing costs to cover. Bottom line, we’re not forcing anyone to do anything. Except coral-crashing yahoos.

“Reef conservation’s a bonus,” Latner said. “Blacktip Island’s reefs are so healthy because we protect them. Reef trashers get two warnings, then they hang in the conference room and think about what they’ve done. It’s in the waiver they sign.

“If they can demonstrate improved buoyancy, they’re welcome back on the dive boat,” Latner said. “We’ve been selling buoyancy classes like crazy this week.”

Guests, meanwhile, rave about the experience’s authenticity.

“There was a ton of virtual surge today,” virtual diver Buddy Brunnez said. “The divemaster had to bring buckets for a couple of us to barf in. And a guy yesterday was complaining about decompression sickness.”

Latner said the resort will soon offer virtual reality specialty courses in night diving, navigation and nitrox.

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March 18, 2016 · 5:53 am

Lionfish Shortage Sparks Blacktip Island Captive Breeding Program

Common Lionfish

An invasive Indo-Pacific lionfish rests on the bottom of Blacktip Island’s new captive breeding pond Thursday afternoon. (photo courtesy of Daniel Dietrich)

 

A lionfish scarcity on Blacktip Island reefs has spurred local entrepreneurs to start a lionfish captive breeding program to supply the island’s restaurants. The facility, unveiled Thursday, is the first aquaculture program of its kind in the Caribbean.

“For years we’ve culled the hell out of lionfish to save the reef,” said Jay Valve, the program’s creator. “Local chefs put lionfish on their menus to encourage culling. Lionfish fingers, tacos, soufflés, you name it. It’s become an island staple.

“The cullers were so good, though, now there’s not enough lionfish to go around,” Valve said. “Both restaurants were going to have to take lionfish off their menus, or use dodgy substitutes.”

Island authorities say the shortage caused a public health risk.

“There’s a cutthroat black market for lionfish meat – real and fake,” Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. “Yobbos are selling parrotfish, day-old land crab, you name it, as lionfish. The clinic’s full of sick tourists. A supply of farm-raised fish should put an end to that.”

To create a suitable facility, Valve enlisted the aid of local marine biologists.

“We’re using an abandoned 20,000-gallon cistern out back of Sandy Bottoms Beach Resort,” said lead scientist Peachy Bottoms. “It’s the only place on Blacktip big enough. We tried doing it in the resort pool, but there were a couple of ugly incidents with small children. And a cat.

“The real trick was getting them to breed,” Bottoms said. “They’re nocturnal pelagic spawners, so we had to set up mirrors and video screens to simulate the open ocean. And a disco ball to simulate a full moon.”

Animal welfare groups, however, oppose the farm.

“These genetically-modified fish are raised in crowded, filthy conditions,” said Harry Pickett, president of Blacktip’s People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals chapter. “Instead of the natural joys of seeing coral or hunting their own prey, they spend their lives in total confinement from the moment they hatch until the instant they’re slaughtered.”

The program’s creators say the fish are better off than their wild counterparts.

“Our lionfish have it made,” Valve said. “They have no predators, besides us, and we raise them free of ocean pollutants. We don’t use hormones or antibiotics or free-radical gluten like other fish farms, either.

“They get a nutrient-rich diet of wet and dry cat food,” Valve said. “And Oreos. It speeds their growth and gives the flesh a fresh, sweet flavor.”

Local businesses are jumping on the aquaculture bandwagon despite the P.E.T.A. protests.

“We’re building an interactive theme park around the place,” said resort owner Sandy Bottoms. “Calling it ‘Lionfish World.’ Gonna have lionfish feeding pools, lionfish petting pools, Kevlar glove rentals and the chance to pick out which fish you want speared for dinner.”

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March 11, 2016 · 6:08 am

Eagle Ray Divers Starts Depth-Based Loyalty Points Program

depth program

Eagle Ray Divers scuba diving guests like Kenny and Connie Chromis, pictured, now have the opportunity to earn free dives or better seats on dive boats based on how many feet they accumulate while diving with the Blacktip Island dive operation. (photo courtesy of noblejoanie)

 

Blackip Island’s Eagle Ray Divers has instituted a frequent diver rewards program, similar to airlines’ mileage rewards programs, based on the cumulative depths their scuba diving guests accrue during dive vacations.

“We call them ‘frequent-diver feet,” said Eagle Ray Divers operations manager Ger Latner. “Log enough depth points on our boats, you’re eligible for an upgrade. Twenty-five thousand feet gets you a free dive or a seat on the bow. Fifty thousand, you can talk to the boat captain. If you don’t ask any stupid questions.

“Your average dive guest racks up 1,000-1,200 feet per week of diving,” Latner said. “More if they night dive. That kind of thing ads up.”

The program is proving popular with the resort’s guests.

“We just signed up, so we don’t have many points yet,” said Eagle Ray Divers guest Kenny Chromis. “But I guarantee we’ll be doing all our diving with E.R.D from now on. Just today I racked up 220 feet on three dives. Our buddies diving with Club Scuba Doo are majorly jealous.”

Critics, however, say the plan will result in divers going unreasonably deep solely to earn reward points.

“This is gonna get divers hurt,” said Club Scuba Doo dive manager Finn Kiick. “Our guests already add 10 feet to every profile we give them. Ger’s divers’ll be going 150, 200 feet just for the points.

“What’s next, people doing two-hour dives to earn frequent diver minutes?” Kiick said.

Eagle Ray Divers management bristled at that criticism.

“Our divers’ll lose a point for every foot beyond the profile they go,” Latner said. “And they don’t get credit for their depth unless they show their gauges to one of our divemasters.

“Finn’s just muddying the water, blabbing about dive time points,” Latner said. “That’d be crazy. We’d never get back in time for lunch. Or by the time the bar opens.”

The Eagle Ray Divers dive staff, meanwhile, has embraced the plan.

“We’ve got a system to keep our wallies in line,” said Eagle Ray Divers divemaster Alison Diesel. “They lose double points if they go into deco. They lose all their points if we have to break out the O2, the defib or send them to the chamber.

“We dock points for wearing a Speedo, too,” Diesel said. “We’re not gonna encourage that sort of thing.”

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