Lights, Camera, Action
Attention Laguna Beach residents. This is your casting call for video fame. Your 15 minutes of stardom has arrived. The police department is testing staff mounted cameras. I’m excited. I’ve begun casing different places to secure my infamy. James Dean said it best. “Die young and have a good looking corpse.” Oops, won’t work for me now. Amend that to “Die old and have a corpse that confuses ‘CSI’.” I can hear the episode now. “We have a male, 62 years of age. Liver is 214 years of age. Enlarged heart is 256 years old. Spleen and pancreas are of indeterminable age. Brain mass is 6 months of age. Ship him to the Smithsonian Institute’s Department of General Surgeon Warnings. Put him next to the Marlboro Man. No, he won’t need a cowboy hat. We don’t have it in the budget.”
I can’t say where I’m going to make my last stand on the advice of my attorneys, ‘Billem, Billem & More.’ Under California law, if my attorneys know beforehand that a crime is going to occur, then they are held accountable, as well. That’s why they don’t tell clients like me about lawyer business days being 48 hours long and billable compared to my ability to pay for them days of 24 hours. Crime does pay. I don’t care. I’ll pay anything to be famous.
Of course, I’d rather make a big score and be famous and not get caught. I yearn for a bad boy reputation. Women like bad boys. Up until now, women find me predictable and boring. “Honey, look at the speed sign monitor. I’m doing 38 miles per hour in the 40 mile per hour speed limit zone. What? You’re leaving me. Remember to tuck and roll.” Now is my opportunity to break out and become irresistible to the fairer sex.
Here’s my full proof scheme. Don’t tell the cops. I’m going to hit the Susi Q Center. I’ve cased the joint. They have a bench out front where they store their shoes. A few well-placed tacks and no octogenarian will be able to chase me down. I’m going to hit them where it hurts. Everywhere. I’m going to steal their schedule of events. They’ll be relieved when I give them back a revised schedule that requires their participation to acquire surfing gear from all the stores in town. Nobody will stop grandpas and grandmas from hanging 10 on a board or two.
Plus we know the soft spot of the new police surveillance. The police are tall. Grandparents are short. Any captured surveillance will be shot too high for identification. Let’s rock n’ roll seniors. We’ll sell the maritime swag on EBay because we be old, but we be EBad.
Say cheese. Catch us if you can, coppers.
Mark is a transplant to Laguna from Chicago. He occasionally writes the guest column “Pet Peeves.” His recently deceased Border Collie, Pokey, is his muse and ghostwriter.
