Ludecadia, California - (May 7) - Not since the so-called "summer of love" in 1967 or so, when hundreds of thousands of drug-addled, sex-crazed, tie-dye&bell-bottom-wearing "hippies" flocked to San Francisco to take free drugs, listen to free music and partake of free sex, has an American town had a "summer of" any thing at all.

This really unfortunate state of affairs is about to end, if San Diego mayor, Susan Golddig, has anything to say about it.

Following hard on (as it were) the heels or lead (or whatever) of the recent Heaven's Gate mass suicide in the North County San Diego town of Rancho Sante Fe, and yesterday's 2 additional Heaven's Gate suicides, just north of San Diego, in Leucadia, Mayor Golddig, has decided to go with the, you know, karmic flow, and proclaimed that "From May 15 to September 15, 1997, 'The Summer of Suicide' will be in full bloom or bursting out, or whatever, all over San Diego and San Diego County."

San Diego, California, despite being, like, the 5th or 6th largest city in the US, and despite hosting last year's Republican convention and first or second Presidential debate, and despite even having sent a team to the fucking Super Bowl, a few years ago, is still best known for its many fucking airhead loonies and also as the undisputed crystal meth capital of the entire fucking world. [See, with this permanently warm weather, majestic sunsets, Pacific Ocean lapping at your feet, and everybody nude sunbathing on the streets, everywhere you go, it's, you know, kinda hard to get, like, motivated to do any work, sometimes -- If ya know what I mean...]

"Every major city needs a unique identity," said Mayor Golddig, licking a few stray flecks of crystal meth off her fingertips, "And San Diego's been struggling to come up with one for a long time -- but somehow, no matter what we do, nobody seems, like, motivated enough to really make it work."

"Like, we tried being 'America's Finest City' for a while," she said, "But our, you know, finest artists misspelled "finest" on all the signs they put up -- and our finest management team somehow didn't catch the error -- and the finest committee we set up to try to determine how the mistake was made, came back saying they had no fucking idea whatsoever how the sign painters could have possibly mistaken the letters 'F-I-N-E' and written 'L-A-M-E,' instead. So, whether it's by choice or by design -- whatever that means -- San Diego has obviously, or obliviously, been chosen to be the mass suicide capital of the world. I guess you could say this whole Heaven's Gate thing has been kind of a (cough) godsend."

The mayor then cracked up laughing so hard over the clever little pun she'd just made, that she had to finally be carried off the stage in a strait-jacket. (After having, of course, kindly offered up her home as a place where people could "come and kill [themselves] whenever the fuck they felt like it.")

Meanwhile, with or without the Mayor's endorsement or proclamations, the "San Diego Summer of Suicide" concept has already spread around the world, and taken root in chat rooms and message boards all over the internet, where the hot topics are, like, "what're you gonna wear to San Diego this summer?" along with the logistics chatter of people setting up car pools from the east coast and charter flights from Europe and Asia, as hundreds of thousands of drug-addled, sex-crazed, Brady-Bunch-watching, Gen-Xers flock to San Diego, California, this summer, stars in their eyes, knapsacks stuffed with 4 oz. boxes of Jello, and little airplane size bottles of Stoli, and a couplea boxes of Glad Bags, and a spoon to mix it all together with.

There's even been a smash hit ballad recorded that's already racing up the charts with a bullet: "If You're Going to San Diego, Be Sure to Wear a Plastic Bag Over Your Head."

And Mayor Golddig's Office has announced that a commemorative book will be issued in August to, you know, commemorate the event. Working title -- "San Diego: A Sleeping Giant Wakes Up .... And Commits Suicide."