Wednesday, Nov. 16 Irvine-based Allergan, the folks who brought you Botox—botulism in a bottle!—offers $3.2 billion for breast-implant maker Inamed Corp. of Santa Barbara. Now, $3.2 billion will buy you a lot of breasts—ask Donald Trump—and it just goes to show how booming breasts have become. Boobs go bust? Hardly. In fact, Allergan’s bid shows they believe that fake sweater meat has real staying power—that and Americans are the unhappiest people on earth, having spent $12.5 billion on cosmetic procedures last year (12.5 billion, coincidentally, being how many spam e-mails regarding penile enlargement I’ve received this month). Americans hate the skin on their faces and the eyes in their heads and the fun bags on their chests. How we got to feel this way is a mystery, though a clue may be found in the fact that Allergan, if successful in its bid for Inamed, will reportedly launch a massive media campaign titled “You’re flat-chested and wrinkled. No wonder your parents got divorced.” Analysts say Allergan’s foray into augmenting women’s hooters, bouncy castles, dirty pillows and chubbas shows it would like to position itself as a one-stop shop for self-hatred and obsession. They also think those jeans make you look fat. (Tits.)
Thursday, Nov. 17 In its bid to become to higher education what “Family Circus” is to fine art, Chapman University gets some more carny-type attention this week as KROQ morning DJs Kevin and Bean discuss the phenomenon of Chapman’s shirtless guy, who is more than just a guy who walks around campus without a shirt; he’s a guy who walks around campus without a shirt and paints his nipples black. No one is exactly sure why film student Jacob Authier goes without his shirt or why people are noticing—I went to Long Beach State, where guys without shirts taught theology—but it’s certainly not to protest the misdeeds of capitalism as it relates to the manufacture of clothes, since he’s selling space on his body for advertising. Kevin and Bean take calls from Chapman students about Authier, who is variously described as “gross” and “ewwwww.” The fact that this street theater doesn’t seem to have a point besides making money and getting a little attention may say nothing about Chapman; what does is that Kevin and Bean keep referring to it as “Chapman High.”
Friday, Nov. 18 Something called a Talan Torriero is getting married to Kimberly Stewart, daughter of the late Rod Stewart. Torriero is one of the lifelike “people” on Laguna Beach: The Real OC, the show that proves money can’t buy you happiness or anything interesting to say. Torriero is 19 and Stewart is 26, but lest you think they haven’t thought this thing through, Talan’s publicist—yes, Talan has a publicist—says the pair have been dating for “several weeks.” Like, almost a month! Family friend Cheryl Woodcock—heh-heh, Cheryl—said that Stewart’s engagement ring is a five-carat diamond worth around $300,000; and someone else has just come to the realization that there is no God. There’s really not much more to say about the pair except that Mr. Torriero has a website and online “store” devoted to him and is everything wrong with the current sinkhole that passes for a culture. As for his wife-to-be, she isn’t just famous for being the daughter of the late Rod Stewart, but for being the daughter of the late Rod Stewart who fell off a motorcycle while getting her picture taken. Oh, yes, these two should start procreating immediately.
Saturday, Nov. 19 Shopping for some clothes for my son today. It’s 85 degrees, and the Santa Anas are whipping every spare speck of dust, dirt and cancer into my nasal cavity. I’m more miserable than 16 bitches on a bitch boat (thank you, Aqua Teen Hunger Force). Amidst this maelstrom and lack of decent parking, what better to greet you upon entering your local mall than, yes, Christmas carols. I believe that’s “Here Comes Santa Claus” I’m hearing right now, and, yes, Santa Claus is coming—in a month and a half. My kids are still eating their Halloween candy, and I just took down my Veterans Day mortar-shell garland; malls have already set up their Yuletide decorations and Santa’s Villages and pushed the repeat button on “White Christmas” so people can be enchanted as they attempt to pull out their hair. What is it with you people? Death not coming soon enough? Just want to skip right through as many days as possible to get to the worms and disappointment? Or perhaps you’re concerned that somehow in the never-ending loop of A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Pottery Barn holiday fantasy catalogs we’ll forget Christmas? Or could it be that our lives are so bereft of meaning that we’re left waiting for manufactured tradition and love to fill the gaps between news of Talan and Kimberly?
Sunday, Nov. 20 Seriously, the Santa Anas? I don’t see them as either charming or cute. Actually, I perceive them as pedantic and unnecessarily obtuse. I’m chafing.
Monday, Nov. 21 Mission Viejo and Lake Forest are ranked among the nation’s Top 10 safest cities, according to the annual reference book City Crime Rankings. The rankings, compiled by Morgan Quitno Press of Lawrence, Kansas—where “danger comes at the business end of a cob”—suggest that residents of the two cities are among the least likely to become victims of serious crime or have a conversation about African-American literature. The book’s most-dangerous list includes Camden, New Jersey, followed by Detroit, St. Louis and Anywhere Near Robert Blake.
Tuesday, Nov. 22 Not really here.
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