Letters

Contact us via e-mail (letters@ocweekly.com), regular mail (Letters to the Editor, OC Weekly, P.O. Box 10788, Costa Mesa, CA 92627) or fax (714-708-8410). Letters will be edited for clarity and length. All correspondence must include your home city and a daytime phone number.

'IGNORANUS'

I hope Chris Ziegler isn't your idea of a music reviewer ("The Hostage Situation," Dec. 15). The way this idiot writes destroys the OC Weekly's credibility. I understand that everyone has their own opinions and can say whatever, but if you say something completely ignoranus, people won't take you for a grain of salt. He can dress up his writing as much as he wants, but the truth shines even stronger. He knows nothing of writing or punk, except what he learned from his little library of Learn How to Write and Talk Like a Punk. What does he think: Pumped-up beach kids spitting on urinals is tough punk or something? Did these kids drive up to Hollywood in their woodys with their surfboards strapped onto the top? The bullshit he fills your paper with sounds like it was taken from insecurities that fill his pitiful surfer life. He would do great reviews of the Offspring, Green Day, Britney Spears and surfer bands. He writes great about the Stitches in "What's a Rock & Roll Nihilist to Do?" (Jan. 5-11)—I'll give him that, but it sounds like he was sitting on his surfboard by a bed of roses on the beach and throwing his hair back in the wind while he wrote the article. Don't mix Chris' surfing "lifestyle" with punk! Leave the real punk reviews for someone who knows what they're talking about, and drop your surfer-dude, wannabe-punk, so-called writer, or put him in the back office where he will do great jobs under a desk. Underground punk doesn't need your support! The bands he talks shit about can only take his trash as compliments. Real PUNK was not meant for everyone!!!

Ely Santos
Zurich, Switzerland Chris Ziegler responds: Sweet, nutty Jesus! And I thought the Swiss were supposed to be neutral! Bizarre anti-surfer temper tantrum aside (I'm not the only one in this Letters column with pitiful insecurities, I think), doesn't anyone remember that the Urinals to which I referred were a punk band, not just an objet d'art? Page 127 in Learn How to Write and Talk Like a Punk, Ely. See you at the beach, brah!

BUGGER THY NEIGHBOR

Poor Anthony Pignataro: he can't ever seem to get things quite right about El Toro. In his latest rip ("Flack Attack," Jan. 26), he says, "The county has at last dropped the gloves." "At last"? I say it's about time somebody on the pro-airport side dropped the gloves. ETRPA (that rump coalition of South County cities without authority or responsibility) has had the gloves off for a long time, with its inflammatory full-page ads and slick, misleading brochures. His evidence that the county has dropped the gloves? Supervisors "approved a monster $1.5 million" to push the Federal Aviation Administration and the Navy. Pignataro doesn't know what monster is. The city of Irvine alone will spend $4.7 million taxpayer dollars this year trying to turn the public against the county's El Toro International Airport plans. And no one knows how many millions of dollars ETRPA is spending on its propaganda campaign. And his claim that the county's goal is to get "commercial flights to begin immediately"? Where does he get that nonsense? I only wish it were so. Commercial flights from El Toro are a long way off—whether or not the county controls the former Marine base. County control will, however, do one thing: make it more difficult for the city of Irvine to annex the property and unilaterally determine the future of El Toro. The bottom line is Orange County needs a civil airport at El Toro more with each passing day and, anti-airport propaganda notwithstanding, can have one there that is functional, compatible with the surrounding community, and—unlike any non-aviation use of the site—won't cost the taxpayer one red cent.

Norm Ewers
Irvine Anthony Pignataro responds: Numbers are dangerous in the hands of an amateur, as Norm Ewers proves. First, he tries to suggest that Irvine will outspend the county by something like 4-1 this year; in fact, the county's total budget for airport spending—not just PR, but lobbying and PR—is many millions more than Irvine will spend this year on all airport activities. And why shouldn't the city spend as much as it can to defend itself against an airport its residents—except the credulous Mr. Ewers—clearly don't want? Sounds like democracy to me. And why would it be so terrible for Irvine to annex the base? Irvine surrounds the base on three sides, and part of the base is already within city limits. Were it not for his line about the free airport (check your facts, Norm: it has already cost taxpayers more than $50 million), the funniest part of the letter is his unquestioning belief that El Toro can be made "compatible with the surrounding community." Tell it to the people who live near John Wayne Airport, who, as we speak, are bankrolling the effort to close that airport and bugger their neighbors in the South County.