12 Days 'Til Halloween: WEHO Still Haunted By THE "L" Witch ET AL

(ATT PATCH Editors: I own the painting by Rohitash Rao featured and grant PATCH to use in context of this story ONLY.)

I have been a TV Producer for most of my life and have experienced the full menu of bad breaks that haven't been setbacks as much as career ending anomalies that almost always have occurred out of nowhere, and within moments of a live broadcast, it's impossible to fathom how routinely this happens only to me and my closest friends, who are producers also, and we keep our cursed luck confidential amongst ourselves...the competition is ruthless enough, it's amazing we survive even without the added adversity of fate.

It was a first time for me, however, when days before the launch of the last network series I produced, when my comedian/actor host was arrested for conduct unbecoming of a law abiding citizen, and what made it especially unusual, it had been the same week a second series he was hosting, was scheduled to premiere also. Both shows received enormous advance press, and he is more famous than both of them combined, so it came as no surprise this incident made news in the national press...from Times to tabloids...and as a continuing saga before it finally went away. I am not a psychologist, but I always have played one as a TV Producer, and it seemed inconceivable this had not been an act of self-sabotage at whatever level of cognition...the timing was more egregious than the actual transgression.

I was reminded of what a celebrated pioneer in the arena of comedy once said about male comedians of a certain era, that they often were guys who over-compensated for issues of self-image, our culture made their problems, at an age when good looks mean more to young girls and boys than do books, and was her explanation of those class clowns who get no closer to generating animal magnetism than an Animal House.

It is a well known fact that people who have experienced extreme deprivation and/or post-traumatic stress often exhibit anti-social behavior such as kleptomania, and many victims, we describe as "survivors" of the Holocaust, are riddled with such issues and/or hoarding for the rest of their lives.

When the very first contestant to win "Survivor" in the United States was a gay man, who became even more famous for being convicted of tax fraud the same year he had won the most famous million dollars in the history of the planet, I couldn't help but wonder, no one makes this type of mistake by any garden variety accident nor intention.

One of the leading gay doctors in Los Angeles at the forefront of the AIDS crisis, was a national hero, and had been appointed by President Clinton as one of his closest advisors about AIDS, was accused by the Medical Board of California of sexual abuse at his own medical clinic and was compelled to resign in disgrace.

Valerie Terrigno was the first Mayor of West Hollywood, a lesbian who became as much a symbol of West Hollywood as one more historic rite of passage in the LGBTQ movement, as she was its first municipal leader, and among her most publicized acts as Weho's new head honcho, was to march into Barney's Beanery with a group of her new constituents, and demand the owner remove the infamous sign that hung over the bar, that said: "Fagots Stay Out."

I won't diminish Terrigno's crime nor the embarrassment it caused for Weho and the entire LBGTQ Community. According to the L.A. Times, prior to being appointed Mayor,

"She had diverted to her personal bank accounts $7,000 in federal funds from a Hollywood job-referral agency with a large gay clientele. Two years after she had taken over Crossroads Employment and Job Counseling Services, Terrigno had run it aground... She was sentenced to 60 days in prison or in a halfway house, five years' probation, restitution and 1,000 hours of community service."

"Her crime was hardly subtle," the Times noted and that is exactly my point, it seems not unlike the crimes committed by other victims who belong to groups of such radically historic diminishment, it makes me wonder, separate and distinct from asking, isn't it time for her to receive some redemption for the efforts and accomplishments she has made? Aren't we all guilty of crimes we elude, while we watch others pay?

It seems as if this had been the point of the movie "Psycho," one of the most celebrated Halloween classics of all time, when the character played by Janet Leigh makes the most uncharacteristic decision that changes her life forever and we are led to believe she regrets it, as one may believe had Terrigno, in moments when she expressed discomfort with being treated as too much of a hero. According to film historian, Lesley Brill, Janet Leigh's character is deprived of "the humble treasures of love, marriage, home and family", which Hitchcock considers elements of human happiness.

HALLOWEEN WARNING:

BEWARE SINGLE WHITE FEMALE WHO COULD POSE FOR BI OR STRAIGHT BUT DOESN'T... SHE'S NO GRACE KELLY, BUT SHE IS AN ABSCONDER, NOT THE SAME AS HILLARY CLINTON WITH THE WHITE HOUSE CHINA...AND SHE'S NO JARED KUSHNER, NOR EVEN MICHAEL COHEN... NEVER HAS BEEN BULLIED AS MUCH AS MELANIA TRUMP... DIAGNOSED A "PSYCHO" BY THE LEGENDARY EXPERT IN THE FIELD OF PSYCHO ANALYSIS.