Irvine Mayor Christina Shea wants to make her megaplanned burg ssssssexy. She's forming an all-female panel (because, she says, women are “more 'right-brain' than most men”) to suggest ways to make Irvine more romantic. It apparently sticks in Madame Mayor's craw that Irvine was ranked the nation's fourth “best city for women” in the November issue of Ladies' Home Journal but didn't make the list of most romantic cities.
Excuse us, but what the hell does Shea expect? This is Irvine, fer chrissake. We assume she's been there, being the mayor and all. Must we spell it out? Perverse blandness. Fascist homeowners associations. An excitement quotient that barely edges out a doctor's waiting room.
You've got to pity former mayor Larry Agran. This shit would have him spinning in his grave if he were dead. Agran used his bully pulpit to ban ozone-depleting chemicals, declare a nuclear-free zone and support gay rights. But instead of erecting statues of the guy, they branded him a liberal nut. The gay-rights deal proved so divisive that Agran lost a close re-election bid in 1990 and became a total recluse-unless you count boisterous campaigns for U.S. president, against the proposed El Toro International Airport, and a successful run for the Irvine City Council this past November. Agran now sits a few seats away from Shea, who helped lead the successful 1989 campaign to repeal his gay plank in the city's anti-discrimination law and spell the beginning of the end of his mayoral career.
So when Shea's up there on the dais, talking about wanting to make the city sssssssexy, Agran must be thinking, “I was Mayor Goofball?”
But if Irvine must be transformed into a melting sexpot, why expend city time, effort and resources empowering a panel? Why not turn the job over to a riveting newspaper column desperate to fill space every week?
Resolved: Clockwork graciously offers to solve this romantic municipal quagmire.
We must first define “romantic.” For some, it's nuzzling before a stunning sunset. To others, it's a bouquet of roses for no reason at all. And then there are those who can't even get in the mood until stiletto heels are pressed firmly against their scrotums. Let's put it this way, Chrissie: it's easier to say no to the Irvine Co. than it is to define romance.
Resolved: A multilayered strategy will be employed to deal with Irvine's sexual dysfunction.
Gotta lose the name. There's nothing sexy about “Irvine.” It sounds too much like “Irving.” Do you know a sexy Irving? Of course not; there aren't any. Irving R. Levine? Not sexy!
Resolved:Irvine's out; Luberville's in.
Paris has got to be the world's most romantic city. Heck, if a nebbish like Woody Allen could woo a total babe like Goldie Hawn along the Seine in Everyone Says I Love You, then . . .
Resolved:Irvine will crib heavily from Paris-and a river shall now cut the town in two. The challenge is preventing the Irvine Ranch Water District from dumping treated sewage into said river.
For more answers, we went to a higher source: the Internet. In a chat-room listing for France-wouldn't you know it?-everything's in freakin' French. But one has the word amour, and flashing back to our junior high French class, we believe amour has something to do with love. We enter and plea for a hint as to what makes Paris so damn sexy, but-being one of the few in here submitting phrases in English-we're impolitely ignored (remember, these are the French). Finally, someone lets it slip: Paris is sexy “because the peoples.”
Resolved: Everyone in Irvine and Paris should trade places.
At a Web site called Jeff N Kris' Sex Booth, we found an article by a gent named Hanns titled “Swinging Observations by a European.” This passage deals with the sophisticated nature of a Parisian swingers' club, but it also gives a blueprint for a ssssssexy Irvine: “The methods are normal but sexy attire, excellent kitchen and bar, chic restaurant atmosphere, sexual activity allowed practically anywhere (under the dinner table, on the pool table, in dark corners or side rooms, fully dressed, half-dressed or even in the nude).”
Resolved:Yeah, baby!
Finally, we came to this useful insider info in a travel column titled “City of Lights, City of Love, City of Romance. Oh, How I Love Paris” in MetroG (“A Gay Guide to LA and Orange County”): “Gay life in Paris is very acceptable. . . . There are dance clubs, Levi's-and-leather clubs, sex clubs, health clubs and lots of gay-friendly restaurants.”
Resolved: Bring back Agran's gay-rights law.
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.