As I mentioned in my previous post, the city of Los Angeles, County of Santa Barbara, and the State of California are spending money that we don't have - we're starting to issue IOUS that you can cash in October (if the banks will honor them) to pay our bills - to pay for crowd control measures in the streets of LA and Santa Ynez where Michael Jackson's fans are gathering en masse. 

While the local vendors in the sleepy town of Los Olivos and the enterprising t-shirt sellers and food truck owners that are lining the road to Neverland are putting some coin in their coffers, it is the rest of us that are paying for the police presence to keep them in line and keep them off the neatly manicured lawns of Neverland.  Like hordes of Huns at an ancient city wall, they are ready to breakdown the fences and start taking souvenirs.  I envision them pulling off shingles and ripping creepy statues of dancing children out of the ground just to "have something to remember Michael by" if our boys in blue weren't firmly parked outside.

Last night AEG announced the plans for the much anticipated memorial service.  When there were rumors that Jackson's body would be available for viewing at Neverland (think Evita in a glass coffin), people who let their obsession with Jackson get the better of them started flying in from all over the world.  Great for the travel industry and the handful of hotels in the Santa Ynez valley, and more money spent by California to monitor the sideshow.

Now the mourners gathered at Neverland are going to be making their way south to Los Angeles, to meet with the mourners landing at LAX and those already lined up outside the Jackson family compound in Encino and gather in the streets outside of Staples Center. AEG anticipates as many as 750,000 mourners and there is only available seating for 20,000 with only 11,000 "free" tickets available to the public.  Can you say mob scene? Panic in the streets? Cluster fuck?

Angelenos recently  gathered after the Laker's win started to riot outside of Staples, I can only imagine what this number of people grieving like they knew him personally -grieving for someone they've only ever seen on a TV screen or from 10,000 yards in a football stadium - are going to do when they are thrown together  with T-shirt sellers, food vendors and ticket scalpers.

While AEG might be footing the bill for the function at LA Live and the Staples Center - it is the City of Los Angeles that will have to pay for the LAPD presence - not to mention all the additional officers that will no doubt be called in from all over the state to supplement the numbers because we already don't have enough police in Los Angeles.

I hope Mayor Antonion Villaraigosa has the chutzpah to send a bill to AEG and the Jackson family when this funeral is finally over.   LA County is going to have to spend enough tax dollars hearing all the custody and probate motions and legal cat fights that settling Jackson's will are going create.  And you know, just like Howard Hughes, secret wills written on paperbags and cocktail napkins are going to start surfacing any moment.