COMMENTS & CURIOSITIES:

Are you there? I’m not. I’m somewhere far, far away. I’ve been there for a while, but I’ll be back shortly. Not like you were worried.

But thanks to the miracle of cyber-space Internet stuff, I can keep up with what’s going on in the Newport-Mesa land, sort of.

There was an open casting call for “Survivor” at the new CarMax in Costa Mesa this week, which is not something you see every day.

Next week is Irrelevant Week XXXIII — Irrelevant Week 33 for those of you who are not Roman — which is impossible to describe if you haven’t been there, but needs to go on your bucket list if it isn’t there yet.

Oh, and Newport Beach may be lowering its jail fees from $200 to $183, which is good news for those who get arrested a lot. Go ahead and laugh, but $17 is four gallons of gas, almost, assuming you fill up in the next four hours.

What is “Survivor,” and what was it doing in Costa Mesa? I’m at a real disadvantage here. I’ve tried to watch reality TV a few times. I really have.

But I have yet to make it to the first commercial before I remember that I forgot to do something, anything, and that it has to be done immediately. It must be just me. America loves these things.

“Survivor,” which has been around since the early ’90s, is apparently the father of reality TV — not something I would brag about.

Every season they drop two teams of cranky, unpleasant people in places that only exist on the pages of National Geographic and make them do really hard stuff and eat unspeakable things that taste like chicken, assuming you’ve never tasted chicken, with little more than the clothes on their back.

At the end of each episode, the losing team votes a member off who cries or rails or both then goes back to Indiana but not before making a statement about how they can’t believe they got voted off after they trusted these people like their own family only to get stabbed in the heart by them, and they hope all of them are eaten by whatever has been making that noise in the woods.

When the number of survivors is down to 10, the teams are gone and it’s every man and woman for his or her nasty self. When every slippery footbridge has been fallen off and every squiggly thing has been forced down, the last person standing is the winner and gets a zillion dollars.

On Thursday, about 700 people from far and wide started lining up at CarMax in Costa Mesa at 0500, which is really dark, to try to convince the “Survivor” makers that they can fall off stuff and eat things that most people wouldn’t be in the same room with as though it were nothing.

At least one contestant believed that being chased by things that growl and gagging down non-edible items was his destiny.

“Virtually everybody I know says I belong on the show,” said Doug Carey of Covina.

Exactly how does that work, Doug? I would worry if virtually everyone I knew said they had been watching me closely and thought I belonged on a remote island eating worms.

For my taste, I would go with Irrelevant Week XXXIII. It’s hard to believe that Paul Salata’s wacky, off-center creation is 33 years old, but I guess it’s true.

Irrelevant Week has grown to a nationally recognized event, with a full week of partying, dining, roasting, special events and a golf tournament — all honoring the last college football player picked in the annual NFL draft and all done to benefit nonprofits in Newport-Mesa.

Monday night is the kick-off arrival party at the Dunes at 5 p.m., where Mr. Irrelevant 2008 will be showered with both praise, sort of, and swag.

Mr. Irrelevant XXXIII is David Vobora, a linebacker from the University of Idaho who was drafted No. 252 — dead last — by the St. Louis Rams, who used to be the Los Angeles Rams, but that’s when we liked them.

At Wednesday night’s All-Star Lowsman Trophy Banquet and Rams Reunion — they’re working on a shorter title — at the Newport Beach Marriott, Mr. Irrelevant will be presented with the traditional Lowsman trophy — the Salata-fied equivalent of the Heisman Trophy.

If you crave more information click your way to www.irrelevantweek.com. If you want to audition for “Survivor,” you’re on your own. Make sure you eat something first though.

I gotta go.

PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached at [email protected].