You used to be able to buy wine jellies at the market down the road from here but the market got shut down because the owners of the shopping center wanted to "redevelop" the site. This translates into "we've got five jeans companies who each want to lease space at an exquisitely astronomical fee so they can tell everyone that they have a flagship store in Malibu." with the upshot being that people living here have a near-infinite number of opportunities to purchase >$200 designer jeans but we have to drive an additional 7 miles to buy half-and-half to put in our coffee. Or we can go to the Starbucks in the same shopping center that the new jeans emporia will be welcomed to soon but even that's problematic because the place is usually so thick with tourists looking to gawk celebrities that the fucking paparazzi can't even get in there. The jokes on all of 'em because the only "celebrities" who stop in there are people who are key grips or orchestrators who fill in the chords for the overpriced soundtrack composers. Oh sure, you occasionally see some star who's on the way down that they need to strut in front of the photographers and the dry cleaners from Des Moines so that they can make sure that people know they're still alive and vital but really, do you really want to see Pam Anderson that early in the morning when she's not made up and all?
Really, I mean like, it'd probably make a good story for your buddies at the 19th hole at the A.H. Blank Golf Course to say, "hey, so I was sitting there with my cup of black drip coffee from the urn at the fuckin' Malibu Trancas Starbucks (non of that foo-foo "half-caff, non-fat soy latte with a shot of tangerine syrup stuff that Streisand and her lib pals go for) when Pam Anderson comes in. I tell ya, I don't know what Tommy Lee saw in her, she's kinda trashy but in a real seductive way. Maybe it's the tattoos that they airbrush out of the pictures or something but let me tell you something, she's not what she once was but she's still something. Made the drive to the coast worthwhile, y'know?"
There are rumors that they're going to shut Starbucks down for a little while and redecorate it to include a wine bar. That'd be okay (hell, the Des Moines fellas are okay drinking Sterling or Edna Valley Chardonnay (allegedly they'll also have the largest allocation of Rombauer Chardonnay's new "Cougar Juice Vineyard" bottling because well, it is Trancas) while they gawk Gary Busey reliving the good times he had making "The Buddy Holly Story" or Mel Gibson beating the shit out of some poor barista because she put full decaf instead of half-caff in his half-caff, non-fat soy latte with a shot of tangerine syrup breakfast). It'll be the largest Starbucks ever, seeing as how they'll add groceries and hardware items to the inventory. The lines will be interminable but it'll still be better than having to drive over to Thousand Oaks to hit Target and get the same crap. I think you can even get Starbucks coffee at Target these days, completing the circle. There's something vaguely Buddhist or zen-like about the whole thing, but I'll check it out with my friends at Polished (the local nail salon) because they're all tranquil and into that sort of mantra-chanting stuff that would probably be good for me. But even Polished is like 7 miles away. Between here and there I can get my cat's nails trimmed, buy surfboards, get gas at $4.89 a gallon and will soon be able to drop mega-bux on a pair of blue jeans that will be über-stylish yet ultra painful to wear, what with creasing certain parts of the anatomy so I can better keep up with the Kardashians in every way but revenue streams. But what sucks is that I can't buy a goddamn pork chop within about 15 minutes driving. And I can't even get there quickly because the goddamn LA County Sheriff has decided to use that particular stretch of road to generate Kardashianesque revenue through the issuance of speeding tickets. I ask you, is it fair to be cited for going 57 mph in a 55 mph zone? It's like a $450 ticket, and even if you fight it it'll still cost you $250 in non-refundable fees. Is this a world anyone wants to live in? I think not. I may be forced to jump off the Herman Cain bandwagon and vote for Ron Paul instead. Besides, "Ron Paul" sounds like the name of someone who'd be successful making high-quality hair care products, while I can't help but think that "Herman Cain" would be the protagonist in a Stephen King novel about some acne-scarred assistant manager in a pizza joint dreaming about rising to a level of world domination and all the pussy he could handle. It wouldn't be one of King's better books, but it might serve to get him out of a bad publishing contract or maybe to sell to The Onion or Andy Borowitz for syndication.
I'm thinking that my best option now would be to get into some sort of legal domestic relationship with Pam Anderson (who's from Canada) or Mel Gibson (who's from Australia IIRC) or Gary Busey (he's from Mars) and we can move back to any of their respective countries (or planets) until Jerry Brown comes to his senses and orders the replacement of the jeans shops with a proper supermarket and that Starbucks has to get rid of non-coffee related merchandise and stick to what they know best, which is probably tea and high-fat cold coffee drinks. Maybe they could share the space with Peet's and cover all the bases, or even better, split their site with an In 'n' Out Burger franchise. Everybody wins that way, because what's better than a burger and a half-caff, non-fat soy latte with a shot of tangerine syrup? The tourists will love it and the paparazzi will grow rich with all their pictures of real celebrities (I'm talkin' Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton level at least) dripping cheese oozing from their Double-Doubles down into their decolletages where it'll mingle with the grilled onions.
-Eden (I'd buy the Enquirer to see that for sure)
