California is in CRISIS (whoop! whoop! whoop!) and omfg, we're not gonna have any more government at all, forever, and there won't even be any more fire departmentsssssss!!!!! It's doomsday!!!!!! (I carefully counted the number of exclamation points in those sentences, to ensure that I had used the correct number.)
So let's have a look at Senator Fran Pavley's May newsletter, sent to constituents before the doomsday election that ruined everything. Do click on that link and take a look at the thing yourself, because it's funnier that way. Pavley, who represents Team Cherkis-Bray World Headquarters in the state legislature, starts off with a bunch of amazing true facts about state finances, detailing the government's somber burdens and responsibilities. Money is tight, you see, and it's all spent very carefully and responsibly.
And then comes the rest of the newsletter: Senator Pavley was personally responsible for winning $350,000 in state funding to help restore a beachside "marble-tiled pool where the Hollywood glitterati once frolicked." You can buy special lawn mowers from a government agency "at a deep discount," to save the earth. Caltrans "held an official groundbreaking May 8 for a $1 billion project to add a northbound carpool lane on a 10-mile stretch of 405 between the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10) and the Ventura Freeway (U.S. 101)." (Ten miles, one lane: one billion dollars.) And Pavley herself "joined a group of my fellow lawmakers for a helicopter tour of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta." Woo hoo, free helicopter rides!
We're so desperately poor and broke and there won't even be any more firefighters 'cause we have to lay them all off -- wanna ride my helicopter to the marble-tiled pool? If California government gets hit any harder, you'll have to buy your own lawnmower. For full price! At a, like, lawnmower store!
So then tonight I'm looking through the City of West Hollywood's Recreation Services Brochure, twenty-eight pages of government-sponsored recreation events, and I learn that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will be staging a teen production of, I am not making this up, "A Tribute to Grease." Contact Deputy Sean Ruiz at the West Hollywood station for details. ("Watch commander, how may I help you? [short pause] Negative, ma'am, the part of Sally Bowles has already been cast. Would you be interested in our spring production of Equus? We're using all kindergartners for the horse roles.")
Without a permanent sales tax increase, ladies and gentlemen, Deputy Sean Ruiz will be forced to shop the sheriff's script revisions to non-union talent. The major narcotics teams will have to mount Jesus Christ Superstar without glitter and glow sticks. And the K-9 deputies will just totally not even be reimagining Brigadoon, which, okay, they had this whole amazing thing worked out with dry ice and a bunch of mountain goats, your mouth would have just been, like, hanging open, and then bam: first dance number!
We'll survive.
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