Mutt

I had computer problems all day and night so I just started reading/viewing the news about this disturbed 22 year old college kid's killing spree. When I saw the video of the kid, read about the showbiz parents, saw his Facebook photos of the pampered spoiled lifestyle and that the locale was Santa Barbara something rang a bell in me.

About 3 or 4 years ago as I was looking for modeling prospects on Model Mayhem I came across a new profile, she was an extremely cute 19 year old brunette by the name of Courtney if I recall correctly, from either Santa Barbara or Isla Vista. She had a handful of photos in her portfolio, bikini mostly if not all, and had checked off 'Nudes' as a yes, she was an 'A' caliber modeling prospect so I was all over it like a fat kid on a Mars bar. Messaged her about modeling, gave her the usual details and she replied, seemed pretty interested. I wanted to see more photos of her to get a better idea of her potential or lack thereof so asked if she had Facebook albums I could check out. She gave me her Facebook and I went and took a look - there were years of photos, from probably 15 years old on, she was adorable in all the photos past to present. I started reading her message feed, looking at the people who were in her feed, and became intrigued as a voyeur taking a peek inside what looked like this very social world of hers in a community I knew little about. As I went through her photos, I noted to myself 'damn these kids are all good looking', which they were, the boys as attractive as the girls - surfer boys, jocks or carefully groomed emo boys. As I looked at all these photos I thought what a life these kids are living, you're young, good looking, popular and oh by the way we all live by the beach. Teenagers across the world dream of this kind of this kind of upbringing.

There was one boy sending her lots of messages, there was something going on between them, they weren't dating but there were hints in the messages that they had a past. I went and looked at his Facebook where there were lots of older photos of them together, it was obvious they were boyfriend and girlfriend in high school, probably each other's first. In my head I was now starting to write the treatment of a TV series based on what I'd seen. The boy was obviously still in love with her, she seemed very fond of him still, almost like brother and sister, but for the time being it looked as if she had a lot of living and partying to do. In my TV series, they are destined to be together but it will take until the last episode of Season 5 for it to all fall in place.

Anyway, I messaged her again on MM trying to get things moving, after seeing her real life via FB I had decided that while I didn't doubt she'd do nude modeling that she was a real long shot, much too busy, already had a ton of attention and not poor enough. She and all of her friends seemed to be self absorbed attention whores very much aware that they were the cool kids. In retrospect now that I've done some reading about Santa Barbara and Isla Vista, I think she and her crowd are the townies, not rich, not poor. This girl and her friends seemed to be going to the community college not UC Santa Barbara. Whatever school was in the photos the student housing sure didn't look like student housing, it looked like beach side apartment/motel living. Nirvana at 19.

I messaged her again, she got back to me that she was still interested in shooting but I knew it wasn't going to go anywhere, noticing that after a month or so on MM she'd not shot with any local photogs. So I left her alone as far as modeling went but I really was intrigued by her whole scene so went back to her FB. This time everything on her FB revolved around that huge rave called Electric Daisy Carnival in Vegas. She was posting photos of her epic road trip to EDC, of course all with the hipster vintage Polaroid effect filter. There were pics taken in the car with her and the friends, mostly male, drinking, smoking weed and I thought other drugs. What I'd noticed the previous couple of times I'd been on her FB was that her parents AND grandparents were posting on her FB as much as her friends were. Grandpa and Grandma were seeing all the comments and photos related to the drugged out debauchery and they're all 'Have a wonderful time sweetie!'. The dad and mom were the same and I had noticed the same thing on other friends of hers pages, parents right in the mix posting all the time - I got the feeling this is how it is in this town, parents aren't really parents, they're 40-50 year old friends with their kids.

The last visit I ever made to her FB was the eye opener. I had been kind of envious of these kids' lives. I began reading, tragedy had struck, her feed and message wall was filled with it. Two of her friends, boys, had been cruising in a Jeep down a residential street where their local high school was located beyond a curve in the road, the Jeep lost control, went through the the high school property and out the back of the school and down an embankment, where it crashed, the gas tank exploded and the two boys died. Alcohol was involved. As I was reading the outpouring of shock and grief from these kids l I picked up on something else, in this group of 18-19 year olds there had been others who died recently, many others. Somebody posted a link to the local newspaper story about the crash. SEVEN kids had died in the past year or so from this girl's social group, presumably one or two high school graduating classes. That is insane. Most of us lose maybe 1 friend by 19, and usually it's a car accident. From what I read the other deaths were drug and alcohol related.

When I was taking this all in I remember thinking to myself - that city/town would be a nightmare place to live and go to school in if you weren't one of the attractive popular kids. Not easy in any town but this place would make it seem all the more hopeless, too many pretty girls with too many pretty boys, too many beaches and too many parties.

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