THE LOCAL NORM: ON GETTING SERVED, GETTING SHOVED AND GETTIN’ SOME LOVE

Richardson a Little Short This Month

U.S. Representative Laura Richardson said she could reverse her second-place finish in last week’s congressional primary election and avoid eviction from the House if she could only talk to a live person at the bank. “I’ve been calling them for a week, but their voice mail system is ridiculous,” Richardson said. “I’ve got the money right here in a drawer somewhere, but it’s like the bank just doesn’t want to get paid, and if they don’t want to get paid, how can I pay them?”

Richardson said the House is in a highly-sought neighborhood in central Washington, D.C., and that it took her months of shopping around in Long Beach and Sacramento before she finally found it.

“It’s my Home, and I love it there, but sometimes the mail person doesn’t deliver my bills,” Richardson said. “And I can’t pay my bills if I don’t get my bills.”

However, U.S. Rep. Janice Hahn served notice last week of Richardson’s probable removal from the House by outpolling the former Long Beach councilwoman comfortably in their primary contest.

But Richardson charged that Hahn took unfair advantage by campaigning late in May. “Who has cash at the end of the month?” Richardson asked. She also pointed to critical events that restricted her ability to fight effectively for the House.

“It doesn’t take a genius to know the gas company won’t reconnect your gas unless you pay them first, so you have to pay them first,” Richardson said. “You don’t want to be around me if I don’t have hot water!”

Although Richardson staffers were on a helicopter tour of the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and could not be reached to confirm details, Richardson said she was still in negotiations with the water department.

“Of course I didn’t pay them what they said I owed, because they sent me a bill for way more than we agreed I owe them!” Richardson said. “That Kandi in customer service is a liar.”

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Public Official Uses ‘Fighting Words’ to Keep His Love Alive

Cerritos Mayor Pro Tem Bruce Barrows insulted a city resident and pushed him last week, saying this schoolyard style of conflict resolution is appropriate for elected officials like himself who are unaware that words can be used to make shit up.

Barrows was accused of ending a heated verbal exchange with local politician Jim Gray by giving him a “push on the shoulder” after Gray said words that suggested he and Barrow’s wife were having an affair.

“When I called him an —hole, (Gray) said ‘Not according to your wife,” Barrows told the Press-Telegram. “When you bring my family into this—I have to defend my wife.Those are fighting words.”

The next day, protesters quickly descended on Cerritos City Hall, demanding to know just how much Barrows loves his wife.

“Guy says the dude insulted his wife, so he gives him a half-assed push on the shoulder? That’s it?” asked one protester. “Has she filed for divorce yet?”

Another protester said, “Wait a minute: Barrows called him an —hole first?”

Arriving at a hastily arranged news conference at City Hall, Barrows denied claims that he pushed Gray because the man is an annoying crackpot who might like to make shit up to provoke people into behaving inappropriately. “But you weren’t there, you don’t understand,” Barrows replied. “He said it like he really meant it.”

However, before reaching the conclusion that his shoulder-pushing skills were required, Barrows also pondered the precise wording of Gray’s claim.

“He said, ‘Not according to your wife,’ which is kind of an ambiguous way to say he was having sex with my wife, but if you think about it, that would be exactly what someone who was having sex with my wife would say, if he didn’t really want me to know about it but still wanted to tell me,” Barrows said. “You’ll notice that he didn’t say ‘I’m having sex with your wife,’ because no one who is having an affair would ever say such a thing. That would be ridiculous.”

To underscore the gravity of the threat Gray posed, Barrows distributed copies of “Bruce Barrows’s Fighting Words,” a booklet of phrases certain to provoke the physical wrath of the Cerritos elected official. On the list, right below “I know you are but what am I?” and just above a stanza of “I see Paris, I see France,” are the fateful words that Jim Gray spoke that dark night.

The word “—hole” is also on the list, but with a hastily drawn line through it.

“And just to be clear, that wasn’t just any old half-assed push on his shoulder,” Barrows said. “Last time I pushed a man exactly like that, he lost his balance, fell over, hit his head on a rock and died. Just so you know.”

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City Not a Little Old Place Where We Can Get Together

Long Beach officials have finally come to grips with the reality that the only credible explanation for President Barack Obama’s repeated snubbing of the city is that U.S. Rep. Laura Richardson is his longtime mistress.

Local Washington analysts have been at a loss to fully explain why Obama—who seems to visit Southern California as often as he trims his nails—can’t just come by once in awhile, maybe have a bite to eat and say hello, spend some time socializing, even though everyone knows he has a really important job back east that keeps him busy, so no one felt like bothering him about it.

“At first, we thought he didn’t want to come to Long Beach and be seen or photographed with Richardson because she is an ethical monstrosity of the first order with a snarling, calculating venality born from the fetid, unholy union of Putrescent Dishonesty and Mercenary Corruption,” said a local campaign strategist.

“But that theory goes out the window if it turns out that he gets kind of goofy and excited whenever he’s around Laura, because then Michelle would know.”