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Weather: Mostly cloudy in the morning, then clearing. Highs in the lower 70s. West winds 5 to 10 mph. Friday Night: Clear. Lows in the mid 40s. West winds around 5 mph. See the daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
Today at a Glance:
Free For All Fridays with Host David Ayres, an hour-long public affairs radio show featuring local newsmakers, personalities, public health updates and the occasional surprise guest, starts a little after 9 a.m. after FlaglerLive Editor Pierre Tristam’s Reality Check. Today’s guests: Flagler Beach Commissioner Rick Belhumeur and Flagler Beach Police Chief Matt Doughney, who will talk about all the changes in the city–construction, pier, road repairs. See previous podcasts here. On WNZF at 94.9 FM and 1550 AM.
The Blue 24 Forum, a discussion group organized by local Democrats, meets at 12:15 p.m. at the Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE. Come and add your voice to local, state and national political issues.
First Friday in Flagler Beach, the monthly festival of music, food and leisure, is scheduled for this evening at Downtown’s Veterans Park, 105 South 2nd Street, from 5 to 9 p.m. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) will attend to provide information about construction of a buried seawall expected to begin in February. It is the first of two seawalls the agency plans to build to protect State Road A1A. The FDOT will have a looping video about the secant wall construction and project handouts providing a construction update. District Five Secretary John Tyler and members of the project team will be in attendance to answer questions. See FDOT’s flier on the project here.
In Coming Days:
Saturday, Feb. 3: Invincible: A Glorious Tribute to Michael Jackson, 7 p.m. at Flagler Auditorium, 5500 State Road 100, Palm Coast. The tribute show typically features a performer or a group of performers who impersonate Michael Jackson, capturing his signature dance moves, vocal style, and stage presence. They often wear costumes reminiscent of Jackson’s famous outfits and perform his most popular hits, including songs like “Thriller,” “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” and many others. The show strives to create an immersive experience for fans of Michael Jackson, allowing them to relive his music and experience his captivating live performances. The show may incorporate multimedia elements, elaborate choreography, and special effects to recreate the atmosphere of a Michael Jackson concert. Tickets $64 to $74. Book here.
Notably: It’s a bit of a shock to the system, a good shock, so they say in Flagler Beach (I’ll take their word for it), when you drive over the Flagler Beach bridge from the west and take that first dip into oceanside and what used to be an open vista to the ocean, only to see a regimented forest of steel beams and concrete pillars and spikes of all sorts and that immense crane–not the natural kind–lording it over what used to be the empty field before Veterans Park, at least since 1972 or so, when what used to be the Flagler Beach hotel there was demolished. Now the future Margaritaville Hotel is going up, rapidly, and filling out that block with a thickness very unlike Flagler Beach. But we’ll just have to get used to it. They seem to love it down there. They can’t wait until the hotel opens, until its various bars become the place to be if you are to look over to that ocean and you’re not too inclined to want to brave the brutes and drunkards of Finn’s across the way. It’s a bit unfortunate that the hotel is taking its name from a Buffet song, a Buffettism that adds to that mass of bills in Tallahassee that seek to capitalize on “honoring” the late Buffett, but it’s not as if, in this age of simulacra, Flagler Beach Hotel would have cut it, poetic though the look back to 1972 might have been. So take a drive for yourself–First Friday is tonight–and have a look at the new skyline. The old one is already gone, and the new one is gestating noisily, a few thousand tons of concrete and steel past the point of no return.
Now this: Tom Hanks’s Commencement Address, Harvard, 2023
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The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
January 2026
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Second Saturday Plant Sale at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park
American Association of University Women (AAUW) Meeting
‘Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,’ the Billie Holiday Story, at City Rep Theatre
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
“Turtle Trail Artists of Flagler County,” at Expressions Art Gallery
Al-Anon Family Groups
‘Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,’ the Billie Holiday Story, at City Rep Theatre
For the full calendar, go here.
Eric Gill once said that it was a sin to eat inferior ice cream, and he was serious when he said it. If the statement shocks us, or strikes us as the remark of a man given to silliness as a form of self-advertisement, it is partly because we have ceased to believe in sin and partly because we have ceased to believe in ice cream. Mr. Gill was being strict about both.
–From Walter Kerr’s The Decline of Pleasure (1962).
Jan says
Beg to differ – it’s not a “good” shock. But, it is a shock. Instead of coming over that bridge and seeing the glistening, beautiful water, your eye gets drawn to the hotel. Sad.
I Just Love Flagler Beach says
Totally agree on the Margaritaville Hotel. It’s going to be a massive blot on our little downtown. And you’re right, one that can’t be undone. What a shame. Progress . . .
Pogo says
@In days to come
the future Margaritaville Hotel may well make a formidable hazard to navigation for whatever species remain — not drowned, poisoned, harvested, killed for amusement, blasted, suicided, or otherwise removed from existence.
James says
I don’t know why… but Allen Lowe and Jimmy Buffett seem to fit together.
At least in my opinion for some vexing reason.
James says
Oops, I meant… “Alan Lowe.”
You would think that after all the times he’s run for office here in Palm Coast I’d at least get his name right.
Even voted for him once… btw, don’t get your hopes up Lowe that that’ll happen again. It was only foolish, dangerous experiment on my part to prove something (to myself) about the “power” situation here.
This time around it might matter.
Just an observation.
James says
“Wast’n-a-way in Margaritaville… search’n for my lost shaker of salt. … Some people claim it’s a woman to blame… But I know, it’s my own damn fault. …”
Just humm’n.
Ray W. says
I commonly update FlaglerLive readers with news from the international energy marketplace.
Several years ago, Aramco, the Saudi energy company, announced plans to gradually build up the infrastructure necessary for it to produce up to 13 million barrels of crude oil per day by 2027. At the time, and today, the company has had the infrastructure to produce up to 12 million barrels per day. While Aramco has the capacity, it has voluntarily cut its overall output on a number of occasions. Right now, Aramco is producing nine million barrels of crude oil per day.
The Times is reporting that Aramco has scaled back its plans. It no longer intends to scale up its capacity. This decision, according to the Times, should have no effect on current international crude oil prices. The Saudi government did not offer an explanation for the decision to call off the expansion.