Diary of a Mad County

Sunday, APRIL 4. Exhausted, God knocks off.

Monday, APRIL 5. Swimming in shit? It's bad. Comparing surfers in North OC with their well-muscled counterparts in Santa Cruz, UC Irvineresearchers found our boys almost twice as sick as theirs, exhibiting such symptoms as (please read this without pausing for commas, sotto voce) "fever, nausea, stomach pain and diarrhea" and "sore throat, eye redness and skin infection." The Irvine researchers say they studied North OC because "its watershed is in one of the most developed areas in the world and generates highly polluted runoff, which discharges primarily through the Santa Ana River." They chose Santa Cruz because of the availability there of high-grade pot and cheap, multicolored Rasta beanies.