Spring is here unleashing blossoms, showers and madness. Yes, it’s that pit in my year, that hole in my stomach. Just one irritant can cause me this grade of distress.

On the prowl for customers, the ice cream man trolls the neighborhood. A dissonant soundtrack over a cheap speaker heralds his arrival. Children rush to him to like he’s Michael Jackson before the sex change. My history with the ice cream man goes way back. As mentioned last year, I don’t like ice cream. Perhaps I also mentioned that I really don’t like ice cream?

Hatred aside, it seems this year that one bitter man ice cream barrista went too far. In San Diego a child, probably not unlike many, made fun of the vendor and his silly hat. Poor boy should have checked the calendar. It wasn’t pick on bitter ice cream man day.

Following a harrowing high speed chase, the ice cream man went postal, called the kid a fat tub of goo, and punched him in the face.

For me, ice cream men are the clowns under the bed. There’s just something not right about men in little white trucks cruising for children. And why are there no female ice cream vendors? I’ve yet to meet a girl that didn’t have a higher standard of hygiene than the average male. Perhaps the absence of women in that biz suggests that the conditions on those trucks are repugnant. If it’s so nasty that a girl won’t step on board, why the hell do we let the youth of America eat what’s served off those trucks?

I can’t believe it. After years of allegations, lawsuits and a circus of a court case, Michael Jackson might actually be bankrupt. Today the National Enquirer has a story on the secret sale of Neverland, Michael’s fantasy world “compound”.

What’s puzzled me most about his predicament is that even if he never sold another album, played a concert, or hung out with Corey Feldman, the Gloved One was covered financially in this life and the next, thanks to his control of the publishing rights to the Beatles music. Despite the deca-millions the catalog generates in royalties every year, first he sold one half to Sony, then borrowed against the other half. Which might not have been a disaster except he racked up debts in excess of the assets.

I don’t know how one spends hundreds of millions. Then again, not sure how one makes hundreds of millions either.

What I do know: guilty or not, allegations of pedophilia are hell on sales. Somewhere in this great nation is a milk carton with a picture of Michael Jackson. A caption below reads – have you seen this man’s career? Missing since 1993.