SANTA MARIA!

Ever had one of those days when it seems that the walls of the world were closing in, and you feel that maybe the human race should be quarantined? That sense of living-in-Mordor started as I watched the Michael Jackson forensic rodeo getting underway around the Santa Maria courthouse just down along the coast, with fans singing that song about Tom Sneddon, lawyers assembling like a mob summit, and locals selling twenty dollar hotdogs to the minions of the world media.
But I’ve already had my say on the Jackson matter in the current LA CityBeat, so, for the moment, you can check that out while I rest my case.
Meanwhile I could only marvel at the story out of Dutchtown, Louisiana, where two high school kids, Adam Sinclair and Chris Levins were arrested on charges of felony terrorism. Hardcore Trenchcoat Mafia, and fans of Klebold and Harris of Columbine fame, the boys were ratted out as potentially dangerous by a bunch of cheerleader-looking classmates and their parents. (The cry of Maud Flanders is heard throughout the land.) When the cops busted down the door, they supposedly found clear and present evidence of incipient terrorism in the writings of drawings of the pair.
My first though was of a recent edition of Sixty Minutes when a high school girl described how her school was put on “full lockdown” and each student was sniffed over by a police dog for “contact with marijuana”. Do we really expect the youth to remain sane on the face of the Thought Police?
I also recalled when I was fourteen. Fuckin’ hell (as we used to say), if they’d seen my writing and drawings, I probably would have been summarily executed, not to mention the .22 revolver with the broken hammer and the unexploded WW II, P-AT anti-tank rocket that was hidden behind the record player, until my stepfather stumbled across it and called the Army.
And as I conclude, fear stalks Hollywood that the collagen for those big Angelina Jolie lips may be Mad Cow contaminated.