Listen Here, Barbara--You May Be Sitting Pretty but You Ain’t No Saint

I am so ticked off at that stuck up, hoity-toity Santa Barbara. As soon as I get my finger out of my nose, I’ve got half a mind to kick-start my hard-tail Harley and zoom up and punch it in its nose.

Or, as I told my husband (who, since we live in Ventura, also happens to be my second cousin), “Rev up the swamp cooler, honey. I’m in a lather.”

Now, in case you, like me, were attending the Tri-State Bowling Conference and Tractor Pull last month in El Monte and missed the latest news, here’s a short wrap-up: Some sociology professor at UC Santa Barbara actually managed to get a bunch of grant money from the U. S. Department of Interior, with which he then conducted a three-year in-depth study that arrives at this stop-the-presses conclusion: Santa Barbara is prettier than Ventura.

Or, as Santa Barbara News-Press columnist Barney Brantingham put it, “One turned out plain--ugly some might say--while the other became rich, beautiful and world famous, treated like a queen.”

Ventura, he said, “went to bed with the oil industry while Santa Barbara donned a chastity belt.”

Well, pull up your knickers, you Ventura hussies, you.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ll sleep better tonight knowing that the tax dollars of my fellow plain and ugly Venturans and me helped to underwrite a vanity press edition of “Why I’m the Prettiest One of All.”

I’m thinking it was either my mother or Shakespeare who said, “Kindness, not beauteous looks shall win my love.”

It’s pretty clear that Brantingham believes otherwise. Whatever is in the ink pot he’s dipping his pen in would suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.

“And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,

Awaits alike the inevitable hour:

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”

But shoot, I’m just kidding. Brantingham is right--Santa Barbara IS more beautiful than we are, which doesn’t leave much of a reason to live, I guess. Although I have to admit, I hadn’t thought of my hometown as quite such a dog as Mr. Brantingham thinks it is: “The ‘Oil Patch,’ sprouting industrial shops, tacky trailer parks and bars like ‘The Derrick Room.’ ” Come on. Our trailer parks aren’t that tacky.

By quite a big coincidence, in my in basket today were the conclusions of a similar comparative study conducted in downtown Ventura on the corner of Chestnut and Main by instructors at Rayette’s Beauty College and Bait Shop, between 3:07 and 3:11 p.m. at no cost to taxpayers. Their conclusions:

* Even with all those cutesy restaurants in Santa Barbara, you still can’t get a decent side of tater tots.

* Santa Barbara has a trailer park shortage; Ventura has just the right amount.

* Santa Barbara actually lets unsightly cars park on its pier. Venturans would never do that--they know the pier might collapse.

* Santa Barbara has a shortage of refrigerators on its front porches. Excuse me, fake porticoes. Ventura has just the right amount.

* In Ventura you can come as you are. In Santa Barbara you have to come as someone better.

* Ventura’s nickname is The Big Lemon. Santa Barbara’s is The Big Head.

Ventura has no famous residents. Santa Barbara has Fess Parker, which truly does leave Venturans no reason to live.

Unless . . . unless . . . all of us pitiful, homely Venturans could move up there to Santa Barbara with all the beautiful people. Think of it--volleyball on the beach! More cappuccino cafes! More beige Mercedes-Benzes! More inherited money!

Shopping malls that look like Italy! More boutiques than you can shake a stick at . . .

My husband and I are heading up just as soon as we can siphon some gas from the Harley and tie the mattress down on the Nova. A word to the wise, though: Those low overhangs in the Paseo Nuevo garage make parking the John Deere touch and go.