SUICIDE IS NOT PAINLESS... Be advised, Squid does not mean to mock another soul''s sadness or despair. The purpose of relaying the following passage serves merely to share recent printed material that set Squid back a few steps on Monday morning. Please note this item from the police blotter of another local publication: "A young lady was found at the beach in Moss Landing, wet from the waist down. She stated she wanted to kill herself by drowning, but found that the water was too cold."

REBAR IS NOT TRAGIC...Squid has ears all over town and one set was wrinkled in utter revulsion at the intellectual slop being splattered to and fro at a recent Monterey Planning Commission meeting. On the agenda was the Ocean View Plaza project, a reincarnation of the Cannery Row Marketplace that got rejected by the City Council a few years back. Well, earlier this year the redo got dinged too, but as there''s a pantload of cash on the line, the applicants asked the commission to consider yet another set of modified plans. It wasn''t anything about the development that made Squid nauseous, it was the breathless dramatization of the vacant Cannery Row building site. During the public comment period, citizens stood up and spoke of the old cannery site and parking lots as if they were bombed-out ruins of a shameful war. One man said he''d grown up having to confront the "debris" on Cannery Row, that his daughter had also been forced to confront the "debris" there, and if the city doesn''t act, his unborn grandson will also be emotionally mangled by all that crumbled concrete and gnarled re-bar. Wake-up call from Squid: this "debris" was a fish factory, not a prison camp. The hand-wringer wasn''t alone. Another speaker pleaded for more opportunities for shopping and eating where there''s now nothing to buy or eat. Monterey and America deserve better. "The world deserves better," the over-wrought citizen whined. Time to call the UN.

SUMMER CAN BE A DRAG...It has come to Squid''s attention that some readers were baffled by the Weekly''s cover two weeks ago. The May 23 "Summer Fun" issue featured a fetching foursome on the cover caught in the act of having a hootenanny and a picnic. They were satirically identified as the Weekly''s editorial staff, but readers were left to ponder which names went with which faces.

Squid''s informant lets on that people were perplexed.

"Does Jessica Lyons have blonde hair?" some readers queried. "Which one is Andrew Scutro?" Several readers, driven to the brink of madness by the mystery, stumbled out into traffic with messed-up hair and assaulted motorists through their open windows. "For the love of God, tell me who''s who!" one was heard sobbing.

Squid is terribly disappointed by this news because it suggests a) that these people did not actually finish the story, since the truth about the pretty faces is revealed at the end; b) that the Weekly''s readers are in desperate need of real lives; and c) that Squid must be chopped liver, since no one bothered to ask, "And where was Squid?"

For the record, Squid was otherwise engaged.

And Squid demands a correction; it was Squid, not Scutro, who sent the Yoo-Hoo to accompany the gourmet meal. .

The truth about the cover is, they all went in drag for the photo; boys as girls and girls as boys. The key is as follows: Jessica Lyons is the one with the great quadruceps who''s playing the accordion, Traci Hukill of the chiseled chin is on guitar, lovely Eric Johnson is in the pink sundress and Andrew Scutro is in that kicky little blue and green halter number. And sorry, kids-they''re all taken, so no love letters, please. It embarrasses them.

-Tell Squid a sad story: squid@coastweekly.com