Yesterday's News Today!
The great, snoring LA Times, based in what's probably the plastic surgery capital of the universe, finally discovers vaginal rejuvenation surgery! Today's date: March 13, 2006.
Too bad they didn't have Sandy Kobrin on staff, who published a story on this on November 11, 2004.
It does give me a better understanding of why they continue to refuse to run my column, despite all the emails I get forwarded from people who write to head features editor John Montorio asking to see it in the paper. (That's John.Montorio@latimes.com, if you're among those who'd like to read me locally.)
Perish forbid they'd run a feature by somebody who questions the societal status quo or would tell LA Times readers something they don't already know!
Here's what the judges wrote when I beat then LA Times editorial page editor Michael Kinsley for first place for "Signed Commentary" in the most recent LA Press Club awards -- and for an advice column:
SIGNED COMMENTARY
Daily/Weekly Newspapers Over 100,000 Circulation
AMY ALKON - Creators Syndicate. "Ask the Advice Goddess."
Comments: Funny, engaging, insightful, entertaining and, as befits signed commentary, charged with high-voltage personality. Also thought-provoking and well-researched, although the commentary/advice rings with honesty that appears to have welled from within.
"Funny, engaging, high-voltage personality"? Naw, they prefer to run writing a little more along these lines -- just one example of the many dreadful Thursday Calendar "Getting Personal" pieces.
I know one of the women quoted in the re-do your labia piece and I'm so embarrassed for her. Who actually compares her anything to that of a porn star? Eeewwww....
The Times hates you because you're not cringing enough. To be a columnist there you have to really dislike your life.
KateCOe at March 13, 2006 2:37 PM
Well, that's certainly the antithesis of the way I look at my life. I'm reminded of a woman and man I saw on a date at the Main Street/Santa Monica Starbucks last week. They were both tiny and quite old. He was a Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivor, and pretty much blind, I later found out, which is probably why he knocked over his coffee onto the floor. Well, the woman reacted, not by going to summon a Starbucks employee with a mop, but by getting newspapers, putting them down on the floor, and then...doing a little dance on them to mop up the liquid...à la Snoopy in the old Peanuts cartoons.
She just gets it about life -- in a way so few people do. I told her so, which is why I got to know the two of them a little.
All in all, it turned out to be a great day, and just because some little old man spilled a cup of coffee.
Amy Alkon at March 13, 2006 2:46 PM
That's a movie moment! (But no, I don't want to see Shirley MacLaine do that exact thing, okay?)
So who in Hollywood is most likely to get her vulva nosed and decked?
KateCoe at March 13, 2006 3:32 PM
Well, you're probably best equipped (because you''ve interviewed some of them) to speculate on that. So...speculate away!
Amy Alkon at March 13, 2006 4:21 PM
Hey, my story on that same subject ran in the Boston Globe in mid-1999 or thereabouts. I remember the headline was "Designer Vagina." It really helps to read it with a Boston accent: Designah Vaginer. (I also remember thinking, yeow and ick and why oh why when I was reporting the piece.)
Lynda at March 13, 2006 10:13 PM
Okay, the "Getting Personal" piece was just so...vapid. It made my brain hurt, and I have no idea what she was talking about. Or maybe I just don't care what she was talking about. Obviously they don't want you over there. You'd stick out like a sore thumb.
My legs are still crossed because of the rejuvenation story, by the way. Ouch, ouch, ouch, no, no, no.
Kimberly at March 14, 2006 1:47 AM
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