Miami next month hitting the Sunbelt part of the tour. Let’s hook up for some food, a good porterhouse for me, and a nice big helping of rabbit food for you. In the meantime, I’m gonna send you the website details for this insemination project. Think about it.
— Jesus . . . Dad . . . as you say, you
are
my father!
— That’s parental prerogative, honey, as you’ll hopefully soon know when you succumb to the force. Gotta go, angel. Love you!
— Love you, I tell him, with
I think
, reverberating in my head as the line goes dead. That man is beyond real.
My cal count is low today so I fix myself some tofu and couscous (around 450 cal), then do a routine of hand weights. After working up a decent sweat, I take a shower, before settling down in front of the TV. I try not to let it get to me, but it sucks not having cable, if only for the sports channels. The network news channels bug me, even if there’s nothing on me or the twins. It’s just that missing kid, Carla Riaz. She looks so small, frail, and angelic in that picture. I hope she’s okay. There are some evil motherfuckers out there.
I drive up to North Miami Beach. The TV studios are situated in a three-story concrete building. As I go through automatic doors, I instantly sweat under the blast of cold air conditioning as my body recalibrates. I’m feeling gross as a doorman escorts me to a sterile reception area. Valerie is waiting, her own forehead reassuringly beading. We get a black coffee and exchange bland pleasantries. Soon the producer appears, a late-thirties blonde, with the inevitable Botoxed android half-smile, thinly plucked brows, and pass clipped to her tan jacket, which she sports with matching slacks. Hooped earrings hang at her caked face like satellites over a desert planet, and a dangling necklace droops into a pushed-up rack of silicone. She intros herself as Waleena Hinkle. As she leads us through security doors, I catch her sneak a fearful glance at the young receptionist, the fresher meat who will soon replace her in the corporate sandwich. We follow Waleena, along with the string of inanities spilling from her mouth, down a corridor and into a boardroom.
We sit for a spell, with more talk about the weather. It’s just getting unbearable, when Thelma ceases her power play and deigns to join us. I know through Lieb’s time-management books that if somebody is late for a meeting they are either 1) an incompetent asshole (62 percent), or 2) trying to make some power statement (31 percent), and seldom, if ever, 3) fighting fires at some emergency (7 percent), as Thelma pathetically tries to make out now. B-fucking-S: I’ve got her number.
After some small talk about the flash flood I’ve had from press, camera crews, and photographers (thankfully done now, surely), Waleena springs into some sort of animation, flagging up a presentational display on video, explaining to me the concept of the show (I still haven’t opened the email attachments). It seems that they’ve moved on from the simple makeover premise. — We feel that your profile and Miami as a location allow us to be more adventurous, Waleena gushes. — The show is now tentatively entitled
Shape Up or Ship Out.
It will take place on a boat, a cruise liner, which sails from Miami around the Caribbean for the duration of one series. But this luxurious boat will also have two gyms and be a floating torture chamber. As we go around the islands, we ditch various failures at differing ports—Nassau, Kingston, Port of Spain, etc. — all the way back to Miami. — It’s essentially
The Biggest Loser
at sea, Waleena explains, — hopefully with a hint of
The Love Boat
thrown in. We’ll have a plank-walking ceremony at the end of each show, the plank also being a scale that tips the fattest contestant into a secured area of the sea.
I burst out into loud laughter, unable to contain myself. From their expressionless faces, it’s impossible to tell whether it’s the Botox
— Jesus . . . Dad . . . as you say, you
are
my father!
— That’s parental prerogative, honey, as you’ll hopefully soon know when you succumb to the force. Gotta go, angel. Love you!
— Love you, I tell him, with
I think
, reverberating in my head as the line goes dead. That man is beyond real.
My cal count is low today so I fix myself some tofu and couscous (around 450 cal), then do a routine of hand weights. After working up a decent sweat, I take a shower, before settling down in front of the TV. I try not to let it get to me, but it sucks not having cable, if only for the sports channels. The network news channels bug me, even if there’s nothing on me or the twins. It’s just that missing kid, Carla Riaz. She looks so small, frail, and angelic in that picture. I hope she’s okay. There are some evil motherfuckers out there.
I drive up to North Miami Beach. The TV studios are situated in a three-story concrete building. As I go through automatic doors, I instantly sweat under the blast of cold air conditioning as my body recalibrates. I’m feeling gross as a doorman escorts me to a sterile reception area. Valerie is waiting, her own forehead reassuringly beading. We get a black coffee and exchange bland pleasantries. Soon the producer appears, a late-thirties blonde, with the inevitable Botoxed android half-smile, thinly plucked brows, and pass clipped to her tan jacket, which she sports with matching slacks. Hooped earrings hang at her caked face like satellites over a desert planet, and a dangling necklace droops into a pushed-up rack of silicone. She intros herself as Waleena Hinkle. As she leads us through security doors, I catch her sneak a fearful glance at the young receptionist, the fresher meat who will soon replace her in the corporate sandwich. We follow Waleena, along with the string of inanities spilling from her mouth, down a corridor and into a boardroom.
We sit for a spell, with more talk about the weather. It’s just getting unbearable, when Thelma ceases her power play and deigns to join us. I know through Lieb’s time-management books that if somebody is late for a meeting they are either 1) an incompetent asshole (62 percent), or 2) trying to make some power statement (31 percent), and seldom, if ever, 3) fighting fires at some emergency (7 percent), as Thelma pathetically tries to make out now. B-fucking-S: I’ve got her number.
After some small talk about the flash flood I’ve had from press, camera crews, and photographers (thankfully done now, surely), Waleena springs into some sort of animation, flagging up a presentational display on video, explaining to me the concept of the show (I still haven’t opened the email attachments). It seems that they’ve moved on from the simple makeover premise. — We feel that your profile and Miami as a location allow us to be more adventurous, Waleena gushes. — The show is now tentatively entitled
Shape Up or Ship Out.
It will take place on a boat, a cruise liner, which sails from Miami around the Caribbean for the duration of one series. But this luxurious boat will also have two gyms and be a floating torture chamber. As we go around the islands, we ditch various failures at differing ports—Nassau, Kingston, Port of Spain, etc. — all the way back to Miami. — It’s essentially
The Biggest Loser
at sea, Waleena explains, — hopefully with a hint of
The Love Boat
thrown in. We’ll have a plank-walking ceremony at the end of each show, the plank also being a scale that tips the fattest contestant into a secured area of the sea.
I burst out into loud laughter, unable to contain myself. From their expressionless faces, it’s impossible to tell whether it’s the Botox
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