This Week: Manhole Covers, Disappointed Evilists and Handjobs in the Bushes

Tues | MAY 6 Bad news for beer bums when Joe Jost’s drops Pabst from the roster because of cost. Edging out Listerine and Pruno as a replacement is Busch, which has slightly lower alcohol content and dramatically lower poser appeal. (High Life will also now be served only at state funerals.) In unrelated news, the Los Angeles Times reports on a rash of manhole banditry on the west side, where one man’s open sewer is another man’s pipeline to financial freedom. The stolen manhole covers go for pennies on the pound on the scrap-metal circuit, but the Times links the thefts to an increasingly resource-hungry China, whose factories—like those of the Hunan Timelion Composite Materials Co.—need raw materials to manufacture new “burglar-proof” manhole covers. In depressingly unrelated news, the Times also reports that Chinese companies are now outsourcing to America, where life is finally cheap enough to attract foreign investors: “They don’t want to miss this opportunity to bottom-fish in the U.S.,” a Chinese government economist explained. (“Obey,” he added.)

Wed | MAY 7 Senator John McCain comes out against “evil” during a speech in Michigan, an unexpected reversal in a consistently pro-evil political career, highlighted recently by his votes against a ban on waterboarding and his public fantasizing about a million-year occupation of Iraq, as well as his minor surf-rock hit “Bomb Iran.” Disappointed evilists scuttle toward Ron Paul, whose current followers plan to leverage their lifetimes of experience in embarrassing themselves into what the Los Angeles Times describes as “an embarrassing public revolt” against McCain at the Republican convention in September if they can finish moving into the freshman dorms by then.

Thurs | MAY 8 LA starts its development backslide as downtown’s Chapman Flats complex—which held its debut sales events last summer—abandons hope of actually selling anything and begins offering units for rent starting at $1,400. In Long Beach that’ll get you two bedrooms somewhere the sidewalk isn’t slick with urine. A project spokesman blamed “current economic conditions, real estate market downturn and [a] tightening mortgage market,” none of which have affected plans to construct hundreds and hundreds of luxury live-work lofts in Long Beach, and to put those new residents to work replacing hundreds and hundreds of stolen manhole covers.

Fri | MAY 9 A House resolution honoring the contributions of America’s mothers, who “rise to the challenge of raising their families with love, understanding, and compassion, while overcoming the challenges of modern society,” is voted against by 177 House Republicans hoping to compensate for Sen. McCain’s change of heart and reinforce the GOP’s unwavering commitment to evil. Among the anti-mother voters is of course Dana Rohrabacher, who thanks to obscenely contorted electoral districting gets to represent Long Beach whether Long Beach likes it or not. Rohrabacher is a longtime family hater, running barefoot from his house to yell at protesting parents of American soldiers and telling a House subcommittee that objected to torturing innocent people, “I hope it’s your families that suffer the consequences.” At press time, The District was too ashamed to contact anyone.

Sat | MAY 10 Renovations on the caved-in Bixby Park Bandshell—which started when someone spray-painted FIX THIS SUJA on the side—are completed today despite funding difficulties from FEMA, which won’t even touch a project unless there are already bodies in the water. Though the bandshell isn’t technically a bandshell—a distinction noted by the Los Angeles Times, which also complained that the adjacent beach isn’t really that long—it’s a loved local landmark for park regulars and the out-of-town visitors hoping to interest them in a handjob in the bushes.

Sun | MAY 11 As predicted in Control Z, your source for the worst of all possible futures, coyotes are moving into the suburbs, where a rise in scavenger attacks is puzzling animal control authorities. Chino Hills and Lake Arrowhead residents complain of coyotes sleeping in their yards, eating their garbage and routinely biting their children “in the buttocks,” according to an Associated Press article that would be three paragraphs shorter if the reporters could just say “ass.” Authorities aren’t sure why normally timid coyotes are now prowling backyards looking for baby butts to bite, but one frank wildlife official warned that what coyote wants, coyote gets: “If they see a young child and they have a chance, yeah, they’ll take it,” state biologist Kevin Brennan said. In related news, Riverside and San Bernardino counties are considering a ban on sex offenders driving ice cream trucks. State biologist Kevin Brennan was not asked to comment.

Mon | MAY 12 Yeah, they’ll take it.

Tags: Bixby Park, coyotes, dana rohrabacher, handjobs, joe jost's, john mccain, pabst