MONDAY, APRIL 25 The week begins with a flurry of activity in the criminal trial of Michael Jackson, that three-ring circus of lurid allegations, unclean witnesses, and pajama bottoms which today paused long enough for Jackson's defense team to announce its abrupt dismissal of longtime Jackson Family Attorney® Brian Oxman. Some background: Along with Thomas Olmstead, the Old Testament-citing defender of Micah Painter's gay bashers, Oxman is Last Days' favorite idiot attorney, having earned a permanent place in our esteem with a breathtakingly ridiculous appearance on a Jackson-related TV special, featuring the guilelessly guile-packed Oxman pointing his perfectly contained face at the camera to defend Michael Jackson's infamous dangling of his infant son off a fourth-floor balcony in Berlin. Claiming Jacko's jittery baby dangle as an ancient African tradition, Oxman cited the famous hoisting of the baby Simba in The Lion King, and accused all who criticized Jackson's actions of being culturally insensitive racists. The week to come will bring further twists in the endlessly twisted saga of Michael Jackson, including a freaky about-face by Debbie Rowe, Jackson's former nurse, ex-wife, and two-time babymama, who foiled the prosecution's expectations by abandoning claims she'd been strong-armed into making a pro-Jacko rebuttal video, before praising Jackson as a great businessman, humanitarian, friend, and father--albeit one who hasn't accepted a personal phone call from her in four years and has repeatedly reneged on promises to let Rowe see her two children. Still, today belongs to Sir Brian Oxman, who despite his unceremonious and unexplained dismissal, is a lawyer brilliant enough to cite a Walt Disney cartoon as African history in defense of a still-mind-boggling instance of child endangerment without imploding from soullessness, and the latest rat to escape the sinking ship of Jackson.


TUESDAY, APRIL 26 Meanwhile in Bremerton: Neighbors rejoiced today after a pair of racist pigs who've allegedly terrorized their 19th Street and North Rainier Avenue neighborhood for years were jailed on felony hate crime charges. The incident in question took place Monday night, when a 21-year-old African-American man called police to report two drunk neighbors who threatened to lynch him, screaming "White power!" while setting their driveway on fire with paint thinner. It gets better: KING 5 News reports that the suspects responded to arriving police officers by threatening to shoot them, but were eventually arrested and ordered held on $100,000 and $150,000 bail.


WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27 As that big box in the upper-right corner of this page reports, today was the Dance Battle of the Century, featuring the original '80s dance duo Fankick! against the unruly upstarts of Streetbeat in a public dance-off par excellence. Meeting on the sunlit brick of Westlake Plaza, Fankick! and Streetbeat--along with ringside showgirls the Atomic Bombshells, clusters of color-coded team supporters, and a few thousand gawking onlookers--dished out the goods in a three-round dance battle, which pitted Fankick!'s fierce '80s verisimilitude against Streetbeat's shame-free showmanship. Despite a stunning secret weapon deployed by Fankick!--an instantly assembled army of two dozen backup dancers grooving in unison to "She Works Hard for the Money"--the tie-breaking Scream-O-Meter® favored, by the slimmest of shrieking margins, Streetbeat, earning the guys the title and trophy, and driving fans of Fankick! to scream, hilariously, "Shame! Shame! SHAME!" All in all, it was a most glorious night of congregated goofiness. Deep thanks to the charming freaks of Fankick! and Streetbeat for making it possible, and for being totally fucking awesome.


THURSDAY, APRIL 28 Speaking of self-serving navel-gazing: Today brought the publication of a new Stranger, featuring Last Days' call for any and all dirt on local Pastor Ken Hutcherson, the Bible-thumping pulpit-buster who recently confirmed his stature, in my opinion, as Washington's preeminent bigot-bully by scaring Microsoft into withdrawing support for the state's gay civil rights bill. Our call for Hutcherson dirt drew a number of responses, from the basic (like many limited men, Hutcherson likes guns and rottweilers) to the far-too-libelous-to-repeat-here. But Last Days' favorite response came from Hot Tipper "Sally," who wrote: "Ken Hutcherson? OMG! It's been decades since I've heard that name! When I was a kid, our school--in clear violation of the separation of church and state--had him come give a talk about the Seahawks, pro sports, and GOD! We all brought pens and paper, so we could get autographs, but he wouldn't sign any. Instead, he did ONE autograph, and had the office mimeograph it for everyone. I still have that autograph somewhere."


FRIDAY, APRIL 29 The week continues with the klutzily tragic saga of Dennie Trujillo, the 35-year-old Seattle man who set himself on the road to suicide at 3:30 this morning, when he pitched himself off West Seattle's First Avenue South bridge. After surviving his first jump, Trujillo climbed back up and tried again. Soon the police arrived, inspiring Trujillo to hide in some brush, and leading an armed officer in after him. Earlier that morning, the Seattle Times reports, Trujillo told a female friend he wanted to be shot by police, and during the struggle in the brush, Trujillo got his wish. According to police reports, Trujillo was fatally shot after grabbing the investigating officer's service pistol, which then discharged. "We don't know who pulled the trigger," said Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, after Trujillo was pronounced dead-by-gunshot-wound at Harborview Medical Center.


SATURDAY, APRIL 30 Today brought reports of not one but two kooky brides. The first: Georgia's disappearing debutante Jennifer Wilbanks, found dusty and befuddled on a stretch of New Mexico road, bringing to a close the frantic national hunt for Wilbanks/Wilbanks' corpse, and forcing authorities to explain her bizarre and potentially criminal faux kidnapping as a case of cold feet gone horribly wrong, and perhaps a little crazy. Meanwhile in Washington, Entertainment Tonight's own bride-to-be Mary Kay Letourneau made fresh headlines by returning to the small south King County town where she'd resided with her husband and four children before spending seven years in prison for child rape. This time, Letourneau is renting a beachfront home in south Normandy Park with her 22-year-old former student/rape victim/two-time babydaddy Vili Fualaau. With her Normandy Park return, Letourneau joins the three-square-mile city's burgeoning roster of celebrity residents, reported by the Seattle Times to include a Boeing executive, an astronaut, and at least one member of Paul Revere and the Raiders. Add a convicted child rapist and her still-willing victim, and Normandy Park blossoms into Washington State's own Beverly Hills.


SUNDAY, MAY 1 The week ends with a thrilling showdown at Pastor Ken Hutcherson's Sunday church service, where today a few dozen of the gay and gay-friendly carried out a "peaceful visitation" at Hutcherson's Antioch Bible Church service in Kirkland. To everyone's credit, no punches were thrown, no pulpits toppled, no pepper sprayed.

•• Speaking of homosexuals going where they're not wanted: Tonight brought the CBS broadcast of Riding the Bus with My Sister, the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie starring Rosie O'Donnell as a retarded woman. To Last Days' horrified delight, O'Donnell plunged into her role with gusto, vibrating with retarded life from the tips of her curly perm down to her mismatched pastel-sneaker-clad pigeon toes. To make everything weirder, after CBS's broadcast of Riding the Bus with My Sister came HBO's airing of Exit to Eden, featuring Rosie O'Donnell in the only role weirder than an instructional tard: an undercover reporter trapped on an S&M fantasy island with Dan Aykroyd.

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