Jack Grimshaw, the Weekly's eagle-eyed proofreader, just whipped up this diddy. Imagine disgraced, prison-bound, ex-Sheriff Mike Carona singing the following to his future minimum security federal pen inmates to the tune of Johnny Cash's “I Walk the Line”:
I keep a close watch on my cellmate Spike,
I know the kind of ass that he would like,
He wants to ride me like a 10-speed bike,
I need a guard, I walk the yard.
I find it very, very difficult to sleep,
There are guys in here can make a grown man weep,
I'm learning fast that what you sow, you reap,
I need a guard, I walk the yard.
As sure as psychos rule here day and night,
I get nervous when the guards turn out the light,
I may rewrite the meaning of “white flight,”
I need a guard, I walk the yard.
They got their way and put me here inside,
They say I took a fortune and I lied,
Now all my plans are screwed, my prospects fried,
I need a guard, I walk the yard.
I miss that Russian gal, my Debbies too,
While I'm in here my fist will have to do,
Six months from now a bar of soap I'll screw,
I need a guard, I walk the yard.
I know the kind of ass that he would like,
He wants to ride me like a 10-speed bike,
I need a guard, I walk the yard.
I find it very, very difficult to sleep,
There are guys in here can make a grown man weep,
I'm learning fast that what you sow, you reap,
I need a guard, I walk the yard.
As sure as psychos rule here day and night,
I get nervous when the guards turn out the light,
I may rewrite the meaning of “white flight,”
I need a guard, I walk the yard.
They got their way and put me here inside,
They say I took a fortune and I lied,
Now all my plans are screwed, my prospects fried,
I need a guard, I walk the yard.
I miss that Russian gal, my Debbies too,
While I'm in here my fist will have to do,
Six months from now a bar of soap I'll screw,
I need a guard, I walk the yard.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.