WHAT’S SO FUNNY:Life after the MTV show craze

There was a paragraph in the paper recently about a woman who threatened to shoot another woman over a parking space in downtown Laguna.

Woman No. 1 clearly hadn’t thought it out “” I mean, you might get the space that way, but the ticket’s going to be a whopper.

Her action, however, does call attention to the salient point of our Laguna summers. Every year we try to squeeze ten tons of people into a five-ton bag.

It’s good for the people with the parking concessions; there’s a guy down by the Sawdust Festival who tells you to park in the back, and if you park in the front he says go park somewhere else.

When demand exceeds supply, the customer is no longer right.

It’s a competitive, desperate situation, and it seems we all get a little testier about it every summer.

But there could be some spaces opening up.

For the past few years we’ve been attracting extra tourists to town because of the MTV reality show “Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County.”

People have come to Laguna looking for the cast. People have come to Laguna to get their pictures taken in front of the Laguna Beach High School.

We were crowded before; lately we’ve been overstuffed.

But we’re not the real Orange County anymore.

Due to declining ratings, MTV is taking its cameras up the coast to Newport Beach, where an MTV spokesman now says the best kids and the best stories are.

The new show will be called “Newport Beach: The Real Orange County.”

With superior kids suddenly appearing 20 minutes up the road, MTV and its millions of viewers will be concentrating elsewhere next year.

We’re has-beens.

It’s sad, of course, when they swing the spotlight over to your neighbor and leave you in darkness.

But life in Laguna Beach after “Laguna Beach” will have its points.

One thing about being washed up is you get more privacy, and all those fans flocking to Newport should open up a few parking spaces down here.

Maybe someday we’ll be sorry we’re not on TV anymore, but for now I think it’s going to be a relief.

And I think we’ll survive cancellation. After all, Beverly Hills got along after “90210,” Miami after “Vice,” and Dallas after “Dallas.”

Newport, you can have the demographic. We’ll take the space.