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Ska Band The Skeletones Are Not Too Old To Out-Skank You

During the 1990s, the Skeletones used to play every friggin' show from the Inland Empire to Orange County. After search the Internet, you might assume that the 10-piece ska group from Riverside still maintains a busy schedule.But look closer and you'll notice that a few newer bands have also taken t ... More >>

Testament May Have Black Hearts, But They Still Bleed

Most of us are trained to think of thrash metal as pure, self-indulgent destruction in sonic form. Whether we're absorbing deafening, indecipherable screams, relentless guitar shredding, or the savagery of Tommy-gun drum fills, the objective is an all-out assault on your ears. So it's clear a band s ... More >>

Ex-Orange County State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore Writes Book Celebrating Conservative Lone Star State Principles

Former Orange County Republican state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore has today published a new book--"The Texas Model: Prosperity in the Lone Star State and Lessons for America"--that compares Texas government policies with other large states.Spoiler alert: Texas has a superior climate because its politic ... More >>

Octomom Nadya Suleman Not Only Wants You to Buy Her a House But Furnish It, Too!

Among the comments to our post about Octomom Nadya Suleman soliciting $150,000 from "fans" online so she can buy a new home (following foreclosure of the La Habra abode the single mom shares with her 14 kids) was one from vsimp.Vsimp discovered that Natalie also set up an Amazon wish list so saps co ... More >>

Calling All Bibliofolk: Resist the Transformers, Save UCI's Bookstore, and Take Back the University, Too.

This week, Mr. Bib happily shares a rant-analysis-thought piece by a fellow scholar-activist who takes on the dismal decision-making at our shared alma mater and place of employment. My biblio-pal Michelle Chihara is a PhD candidate, an MFA, a creative writer and sometime journalist, and knows how t ... More >>

3hree Things: On Meshuggah's New Album, Koloss

Watch out for 3hree Things every Tuesday, where Riley Breckenridge, drummer of Orange County's favorite local alt-rock band Thrice, gives his take on life in Southern California as an OC native.​ If I were to have made a Most Anticipated Albums of 2012, Meshuggah's Koloss would have ... More >>

Make Michael Jackson's Sweet Potato Pie, Liberace's Sticky Buns With The Dead Celebrity Cookbook

​You can tell a lot about a person by what they cooked for themselves and their families, so for Hollywood buffs, this cookbook is a gem. The irreverently-named Dead Celebrity Cookbook is a collection of 145 recipes from actors, musicians and other famous figures who've passed. Did you know Kathar ... More >>

The Beatles' 1 album Is Available As Ringtones...Why Now?

​File this under "if everybody else is doing it, we may as well be doing it as well." After years of resistance, the Beatles have finally given into the temptation (or have adapted to the times) and have allowed the songs of their #1 album to be sold as ring tones. Though this would have been in n ... More >>

McDonald's Giving Out Books Instead Of Toys in UK Happy Meals

Amazon.com​Ronald McDonald: champion for literacy? Well at least in the UK, he is. From now until February 7th, the fast-food giant long-criticized for being purveyors of unhealthiness and ruiner of children's nutrition is promoting one good habit even as it continues to peddle a bad one: It's giv ... More >>

Anthony Bourdain's Comic Book Now On Pre-Order! Yes, I Said Comic Book.

Amazon.com​Anthony Bourdain. Chef. Author. Travel show host. Novelist. And now a comic book creator?! The man who seems to say everything and do everything (His new show The Layover premiered a month ago) has written a graphic novel about "a renegade and ruthless sushi chef, known to decapitate pa ... More >>

Holiday Gift Guide: Six Great Food-Related Gifts From The 99-Cent-Only Store

Edwin Goei​You don't know how hard it is for me to keep a straight face as I write this, because, c'mon, I'm sure you're also chortling at the very idea of buying your loved ones (or even your not-so-loved-ones) gifts from the 99-Cent-Only Store.I could justify such a list as you're about to read ... More >>

Soy Nail Polish Remover Allows You to Say 'Adiós' to Acetone

[Trendzilla] Kaia House, Priti NYC and Karma Organics offer options

WeedMaps Unveils New Amazon-Friendly Android App

​General Cannabis, the Newport Beach company that owns WeedMaps, is celebrating the official launch of a new marijuana-club locating phone application. While WeedMaps has already released I-Tunes and Google Android apps, this latest version is specially designed to work for Amazon-platform Android ... More >>

Debt Ceiling, Schmebt Ceiling: Let's Eliminate Money

​While the debt-ceiling crisis was averted today, even President Barack Obama indicated that much more work needs to be done in a Washington, D.C., that's split between those who do not want to tax the super rich and those who do not want to cut services to the very poor.Perhaps everyone is focuse ... More >>

Summer of Hair

[Trendzilla] Dry shampoo, texturing creams and all the other items you'll need to make your mane marvelous!

Lazy-Deputy Cases Keep Stalling

[Moxley Confidential] Two mistrials save a sheriff's deputy from charges she falsified official reports

Amazon.com Buries Another OC Bookstore

Autopsy result? Death by Kindle​Inside the Borders bookstore at The District in Tustin on Sunday afternoon, the excited middle-aged customer pointed at what he wanted to buy.But it wasn't a best-seller or a magazine or DVDs.The man told a store clerk he wanted to purchase two rows of massive ... More >>

Oliver Stone Bases Film on Laguna Beach Crime Thriller

Hayek​It seems Hollywood can't get enough of Laguna Beach, our county's best seaside town.Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone is building a cast for a crime thriller film based Don Winslow's Savages novel about two Laguna Beach marijuana growers who piss off a Mexican drug cartel. According t ... More >>

Local Record Review: Her Voice Remains

​Her Voice RemainsFifty FathomsOCR RecordsWhen Her Voice Remains appear this Sunday opening for Peter Murphy at the Galaxy Concert Theatre, on the one hand it'll be an expected enough spot for a SoCal night out: local band with a taste for darker clothing and musical moods appearing on a bill feat ... More >>

Local Record Review: Her Voice Remains

​Her Voice RemainsFifty FathomsOCR RecordsWhen Her Voice Remains appear this Sunday opening for Peter Murphy at the Galaxy Concert Theatre, on the one hand it'll be an expected enough spot for a SoCal night out: local band with a taste for darker clothing and musical moods appearing on a bill feat ... More >>

Konad Nailed It!

[Trendzilla] It's the latest nail-art trend

Local Record Review: Roosterhead's 'Yo (What's Up?)' From Huntington Beach

Beat Blvd. is Heard Mentality's weekly review of local releases. If you're an OC musician or band with something new to offer--vinyl single, full-length album, CD, cassette--we want to hear from you! Send copies, along with any photos and PR material, to Beat Blvd., c/o OC Weekly, 2975 Red Hill Ave. ... More >>

BB Cream: Your Makeup Kit In One Tube

[Trendzilla] The Asian skincare sensation that's sweeping the nation

Did You Hear About The $625 Cookbook?

​$625 is the retail price of this book, a 2,200-page tome on how to cook as if you were a mad scientist, written by the former chief technology officer of Microsoft, Nathan Myhrvold, who you may have guessed is as geeky as any man alive. He holds more than 18 U.S. patents. This cooking thing? ... More >>

Housewarming Gifts to Avoid: Electric Chip and Dip Set

So you're at a lovely summer barbecue and you spy a plate of scrumptious chips and hot dip. Not wanting to be that person--the one who dives into the untouched sections of chips when there are a few left in the section that's already been started--you reach in to get the last couple of chips, your f ... More >>

Giant Tuna Sells For Record Price in Japan Auction; But How Does It Compare to Other Expensive Foods?

Getty ImagesThere were some big headlines about the sale of a giant bluefin tuna at the Tsukiji fish market in Japan yesterday.  The 513 pound fish was sold to the highest bidder for $177,000. A princely sum indeed, no doubt fetching the price as stocks of the fish in the wild are thoug ... More >>

Because You're Ugly: BlackFriday.info--All Black Friday, All the Time!

​If you're like us and your serious case of misanthropy is keeping you from lining up outside Target at 4 a.m. for the last Zhu Zhu Pet in the country, then you're in luck.​BlackFriday.info is your one stop place for all Black Friday sale links and print ads... on one, convenient website. There ... More >>

Prepare For The Untold Disasters In South County's Future

The St. Regis adopts policy banning bailed-out banker parties: Are you ready for this South County disaster?​Do your best to imagine the following:The year is 2010. I Love Bagels has run out of shmear. Golden Spoon only offers gummy bears as topping. Lauren Conrad L.A. Candy has fallen off of the ... More >>

Five Ways To Survive the Current Economic Crisis

BY COLE HADDONThese are tough economic times, what with the depression that's being driven by the housing crash, and skyrocketing unemployment. It's damn near impossible in such a climate to enjoy or even splurge on our hobbies and passions. Who can afford those New Kids on the Block tickets or iPod ... More >>

The Sad Literary State of the Californios

As part of my research into the disputed story of Juan Flores, I bought a copy of Cosas de California, reminisces by one Antonio Coronel (pictured, in the Joe Louis-at-Caesar's-Palace-phase of his life) where he touches briefly on Orange County's original dirty Mexican. I thought it was going to be ... More >>

[¡Ask a Mexican!] 'Is There a Turnstile at the Border Tallying Up Illegals?'

Orange County: A Personal History (Reconquista Canto XXVII)

Peep the Trailer for Beck's 'Modern Guilt'

The video trailer for Beck's Modern Guilt (out July 8 on DGC) is up now on Amazon.com's site. The clip's stylized B&W starkness pays homage to Warhol and Truffault, while the peppy, urgent retro-surf pop shimmying recalls B-52's, with unexpected tangents into analog-electronic tomfoolery and clipp ... More >>

Vinyl Considered Groovy—Again

An employee at a Fred Meyer store in Portland, Oregon mistakenly ordered vinyl LPs of R.E.M.'s latest album, Accelerate, instead of the CD-DVD version, and a funny thing happened: 20 of the vinyl copies sold the first day they were put on the shelves. Now this retailer is going to stock the format t ... More >>

Chuck Devore Book Selling Super, Super-Cheap!

A couple of nights ago, I had a reading in San Diego so decided to visit the maniacal genius known as Dr. William Nericcio, head of the English department at San Diego State and keeper of the insane Tex(t)-Mex blog. Before knocking back drinks with him at some Mean Streets-esque bar, I headed to SDS ... More >>

Smashing Pumpkins Sue Virgin, World Sheds Most Insincere Crocodile Tears Ever

Here's a case where one only hopes both parties lose. Whom do you root for: the whiniest, most annoyingly precious recording artiste extant or a huge record label (now owned by the cuddly Capitol Music Group) that is flailing for its existence in a dismal economic climate? Gosh, I'm torn, even if Vi ... More >>

¡Ask a Mexican!®

Three-question special

MP3 the Easy Way

Indie music retail gains momentum online

Gustavo Pulls Up to Haruki Murakami, Stuart Woods

Ponder this: Just behind world-famous authors Haruki Murakami and Stuart Woods and ahead of nonfiction giants Greg Palast and John Stossel is OC Weekly's own Gustavo Arellano. Yesterday, Scribner published Gustavo's Ask a Mexican, and a mere day later, Amazon.com is ranking the book No. 81 in natio ... More >>

Congrats to Gustavo

At 8 p.m. tonight--after only a single day in release, Gustavo Arellano's Ask A Mexican reached #165 in nationwide book sales on Amazon.com. What will the number fall to after Gustavo--who appeared on CNN with Paula Zahn this afternoon--ends his national TV, radio and bookstore tour? Could it reac ... More >>

Let the Mexican-Reviewing Begin

Your favorite wab invades bookstores nationwide on May 1 with the hardcover version of ¡Ask a Mexican! (pre-order your copy on Amazon now). What can you expect? Here's Publisher's Weekly take on it: In Arellano's popular Orange County Weekly column "¡Ask a Mexican!" now widely syndicate ... More >>

This Week in Grape Juicethe Good Kind

Love is Blind

Performance Anxiety

Whats great sex when everybodys having great sex?

Video Killed the Video Star

DVD spotlights that music-channel rarity: the music video

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

Ego Tripped

Bad blood nearly derailed End of the Century: the Story of the Ramones

Coffee Table Books for the Hip

By Any Means Necessary

Finding new, free music without Napster

Embracing Amazon

Why one indie bookseller loves the online giant

It's a Buy.com Market!

Eyes are on Aliso Viejo company