Occupy Philadelphia was supposed to evacuate its OnePercenterville by 5 PM EST Sunday. On the opposite coast, Occupy LA was supposed to tear down its camp Monday at 12 AM PST lest their tents turn into pumpkins, and their protest footwear turn into Nike child-labor shoes. But as we type this, both Occupies are still occupyin'.
We're down to the last L.A. episode of the season, since the two-part final will be held back in the Big Apple. So we can all just imagine Billy Joel singing "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" during tonight's episode.
Antonio Villaraigosa, the absentee publicity whore mayor of Los Angeles, will not be heading to Washington. Villaraigosa was up on stage behind Barack Obama during last month's introduction of the magic economy-fixing team of advisors, for reasons that were utterly unclear (the man's financial expertise begins and ends with his ability to leverage an ineffective mayoralty into political superstardom). According to Antonio, he totally had a serious conversation with the president-elect about a possible appointment, but (once again according to Antonio) he turned Obama down.
Antonio Villaraigosa, the first Latino Mayor of Los Angeles, is a Democratic party darling. Lots of observers think he has a nice career ahead of him in California state politics or maybe even national office. He shows up on TV a lot, delivered the Spanish-language response to the 2006 State of the Union, and hey, there he is lined up with Larry Summers and Robert Reich in Obama's Economic Superfriends Advisors Meetup Party! Oh, good for him. God, let's hope that his role in the Obama Administration is limited to that photo-op, because his success thus far is due mostly to how much the LA press sucks and the fact that no one out east pays attention to left coast politics. Did you hear about his sexy Telemundo Affair? Maybe you did, and forgot about it, or forgot the details, because who cares about what the mayor of Los Angeles does? The Los Angeles Times doesn't even care what the mayor of Los Angeles does! Their political reporters had the story of the end of Villaraigosa's marriage, and they put it on page B-4. They also, oddly, left out the reason for the split, which surely they could've found out with a couple minutes of reporting—Villaraigosa was sleeping with a hot political reporter from Telemundo! The Times did get to the story eventually, but no one outside of LA noticed or really cared about Villaraigosa's infidelities. America is sort of beyond that, you know? The Republicans just ran a dude who married his mistress, and Newt Gingrich is looking good in 2012 (hah). What none of that changes is the fact that Villaraigosa is precisely the kind of telegenic useless Democrat who can get David Hasselhoff and Natalie Cole to play his mayoral inauguration and who then spends his term gallivanting around the world building recognition and support for his causes without having any causes beyond promoting himself. As the LA Weekly put it a couple months ago, "the mayor spends most of his working day flying in and out of town, holding staged press conferences, attending banquets, ceremonies and parties, raising political money and providing face time to high-powered special interest groups in a position to help his political advancement." So yes, of course it makes perfect sense that Villaraigosa was standing up there with President-elect Obama, because there were a shit-load of cameras there. But what the hell did he have to add to the discussion on the current economic crisis? Guys, let's not let this useless hack become an important new face of the Democrats in charge of the country, ok?
Via Glitterati Magazine, we bring you this photo of a visibly delighted Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa taking in one of the female bodybuilders featured in the Martin Schoeller photography exhibition at the ACE Gallery in Beverly Hills. (We recommend not clicking on the thumbnails while eating, or having pleasant thoughts about the female body). Beyond just demonstrating an appreciation for their tank-like derrieres and rock-solid muscle-racks, that ear-to-ear grin on the Mayor's face was also a telling sign of the optimism he feels about his bold and controversial new citywide initiative, in which these living she-beasts will be placed on the front lines of the seemingly unwinnable L.A. gang wars.
Mickey Kaus takes a break from his endless agitation against the immigration bill to examine the case of L.A.'s reporter-fucking mayor. While Kaus suggests that this is only the tip of the iceberg, we offer Mayor Villaraigosa this bit of encouragement: Rudy Giuliani's second wife was also a member of the media. You're only one wife away from being a viable presidential candidate! [Kausfiles]
· Add "corpses" to the list of fun things the Sunset Tan people will bronze, right below "grade-school girls with crazy moms." (And in an amusing side note, our tipster found this clip while searching YouTube for clips of "hot blondes" doing stuff.)
· Mayor Villaraigosa is separating from his wife. Our knee-jerk reaction to this news is the blame this photo of him posing with Paris Hilton.
·A South Park promo puts an unnamed network's "balls policy" to the test.
·Brad Whitford has made peace with Studio 60's demise. We just hope that Tom Jeter's brother gets out of Iraq alive.
