Subject: Blogs and Blogging

• Jubollocks, Part II

  I need to clarify one point in Will Swaim's previous post about Matt Cunningham finally coming out of the Jubal closet, and Cunningham's disingenuous defense of the uses he was making of his secret identity. It's easy to confuse which version of Cunningham is which sometimes (it could have been even more confusing if I had included in the story the other pseudonyms Cunningham publishes under on the internet– one of which, it probably won't surprise you to learn, has also been singled out f

  April 27, 2006

• Night of the Living Election

  Tonight we're going to be blogging like it's 1984! Check back here and check back often for new blog posts as we'll have reporters out in the field, in front of the tube and under wherever it is upskirt camera shots are taken. Consider yourself duly warned.

  November 7, 2006

• Punishing Prevatt, Flailing Fleischman

  Chris Prevatt is a local blogger, an employee of the County Health Care Agency, and a man without a computer. The County took Prevatt's computer as part of an investigation as to whether he used county time to post a blog entry on TheLiberalOC. The post in question displayed a photoshopped image of Supervisor Chris Norby as "Darth Norby", wielding a light-saber and garbed in the robes of a Sith Lord. The investigation is ridiculous—Prevatt has already explained how he wrote the post in h

  November 27, 2006

• Uni Cycles

  A question I often get asked is, "How come you have so many right-wing friends?" I don't have that many, but since almost all of them are bloggers and media folk, the ones I do have are quite visible. The short answer is that I decided whether or not to like them long before I knew their voting preferences. The long answer invariably comes back to Cathy Seipp. Seipp, who recently lost her long battle with lung cancer, was a member of the Los Angeles Press Club, and a frequent organizer of gathe

  May 30, 2007

• Hugh Hewitt and His Conflict-of-Interest Conflicts

  Meet Shine Like Stars, an Irvine-based Christian-rock band that jams the Divine fantastic at Irvine Presbyterian Church, specifically in its Veritas form of service. They're playing this Wednesday at San Clemente Presbyterian Church in anticipation of a small Pacific Coast tour. Good for them, seriously. But here's the rub: Recently, Shine Likes Stars received major promotion gracias to OC's own Hugh Hewitt, blogger extraordinaire, nationally syndicated radio host and successful author. Hewitt

  June 4, 2007

• Read the lies in real time

  This blogger is keeping up on the limp-dicked questioning of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his wiretaps. Oh, and while you have to be sworn in for fucking jury duty, the rat bastards who represent YOU won't even swear in Gonzales (like that would stop someone from this Administration from lying anyway).

  February 6, 2006

• Want Some Onion with That Whine?

  Check this out: a pro-life blogger goes off on something she believed was real on The Onion. Among the quotes in the article "I'm Totally Psyched About This Abortion!" that Pete fell for was this: "I just know it's going to be the best non-anesthetized invasive uterine surgery ever!" Ah, ain't home schooling great!

  July 13, 2006

• Comic-Con is coming!

  To get an idea of the kind of coverage we'll be doing, we've just added a new slideshow of photos taken by and of me from the last two years. However, here's the difference -- in 2005 and 2006 I was blogging strictly for my own readership, with no wireless access. This year, I'm going completely equipped, so the coverage will be better...if I can just find which one of my moving boxes I put the digital camera in! The action begins Wednesday night.

  July 24, 2007

• LYT in USA Today

  Weekly investigative reporter extraordinaire Scott Moxley just informed me that our fab Comic-Con blogger - LYT - made today's edition of USA Today. His rainbow 'do is apparently a camera magnet. That's not too surprising. Couldn't help snapping a few of him myself. And Luke was sitting at Hall H for hours on end...an easy target. Photo via USA Today. The article's titled "It's Good to be a Geek at Comic-Con."

  July 30, 2007

• About that nose picker from the OC Reg...

  It was all so beautiful: Register reporter on his way out sticks his finger up his nose in the face of The Man and is caught on camera, then noticed by LA Observed and broadcast throughout the blogosphere, his message forever preserved in cyberspace... Too bad it's NOT TRUE. CP Smith was apparently accidentally caught in the momentous nose picking moment, according to OC Register editor Ken Brusic. It wasn't a statement. 'Twas just, well, bad manners.

  August 10, 2007

• Blog Him To Congress

  LA's City Beat breaks the story today about Orange County's own blogger/candidate for Congress, Ron Shepston. The Vietnam vet and avionics engineer was urged to run for Congress by a group of like-minded Southern California bloggers when they noticed no one was running against Republican incumbent Gary Miller in the 42nd Congressional District. Miller ran unapposed last year despite corruption allegations (he's currently under investigation by the FBI) for tax evasion. Shepston accepted the in

  August 16, 2007

• Monday's Headlines

  Inmate icon: God-fearing, government-loathing 86-year-old ex-con Marie Kolasinski has a fan base behind bars. Is that name familiar? OC Weekly's R. Scott Moxley profiled her two years ago. Another sad LAT article about the blogosphere: Earlier on, the Times ran a head-scratching piece about the Drudge Report. And yesterday, a poorly put together Op-Ed bashing political blogs. Kevin Roderick at LA Observed has the lowdown...as usual. Paving over their past: The Juaneño Band of Mission Indian

  August 20, 2007

• Orange Juice Makes Weekly Look Smart

  A couple of weeks ago, this paper named the SanTana-leaning Orange Juice the county's best blog because it represents the best qualities of the blogosphere: scoops, jocularity, personality, with a bit of libel and bad graphics thrown in. And some paranoid arrogance, we thought, after bloggers Sean Mill and Art Pedroza began insinuating that SanTana City Hall forces were conspiring to throw them off the Planning and Housing and Redevelopment Commissions, respectively, because of their hell-raisin

  October 1, 2007

• Why is the Register Slowly Killing Its Food Section?

  Just a year ago, the Orange County Register's food section was amongst the best in California, with multiple recipes and general features, food reviews published on Thursdays and Fridays, an end-of-the-week dining guide and a "Wine of the Week" column by longtime Register investigative reporter Chris Knap. But the section has weathered too many hits in the past 12 months, starting with the departure of Tenny Tatusian earlier this year and the elimination of the Friday food review and dining guid

  November 26, 2007

• Morey's Morons Begging for Comments

  You know a blog is lame when it begs readers to leave comments, and that's exactly what the bloggers at Irvine's Faith Community Church, the domain of resume-stretching Islam "expert" Robert Morey, are doing. Earlier this month, one Stephen Macasil sported the holiest of hard-ons for FCC's blog, Biblical Thought Dot Com (yep, that's the name), warning heathens it was coming to "a town near you with fistfuls of Bible, prepared to destroy arguments that are void of biblical basis." But before th

  December 14, 2007

• Best OC Media Battle of 2007...

  ...isn't the everlasting battle between the Weekly and Orange County Register, Register staff and the new publisher, or even the Hatfield-McCoy madness that happened at this rag earlier this year and still persists (read a coming Hey You! for further details!) but the fight between two of our favorite local blogs: The Liberal OC and Orange Juice!. Late last year, The Liberal OC stole South County Democratic stalwart Gila Jones from Orange Juice!; this week, they swooped in and offered SanTana ac

  December 16, 2007

• Because Youre Ugly: Wardrobe Remix

  January 7, 2008

• "We Do Gentrification Right!"

  The Measure D gap has shrunk--a tiny amount, but shrunk. The No on Measure D crowd are getting more optimistic. They have no other choice. "We already saw the bulldozers driving up Flower Street," Orange Juice blogger Thomas Anthony Gordon cracks. I tell them to pray hard, or to at least move to Anaheim. "We do gentrification right!" I offer, which the semi-drunk Measure D folks think is the funniest thing in the world. "We should put that on a bumper sticker with Curt Pringle's face on it!" Go

  February 5, 2008

• Jubal's Lack of Humility

  One of my favorite college experiences happened at Orange Coast in the late 1990s, when my Bible as Lit professor told us there was no way Moses wrote the Pentateuch as tradition maintained for millenia because of Deuteronomy 34:10. The passage stated, "No prophet ever again arose" like Moses, a boast that flew in the face of his documented humility in the Bible. "If Moses really was humble, he wouldn't have written that," the professor stated. I share the above anecdote as a roundabout way of

  March 3, 2008

• Crystal Antlers and Banana Hammocks

  The problem with blogging SXSW is that every second spent blogging is a second spent not seeing something that you might want to blog about. Having arrived late Wednesday night, while the festival was already in partial swing, and trying (unsuccessfully) to catch up on some lost travel sleep Thursday morning, this is literally the first time I have been able to stop to catch my breath and reflect on what I have seen. Some argue that the festival is suffering from its own success: that its imme

  March 14, 2008

• A Year Without Cathy Seipp

  It wasn't long after I moved to OC that I got the news that Cathy Seipp had died. I got it almost instantaneously -- Cathy was so hooked into the blogosphere that her last moments, much like many of her days, were obsessively chronicled online by friends and colleagues. That was a year ago today. Born in Canada but raised in OC (Los Alamitos, to be precise), Cathy was a conservative pundit of sorts, but not the predictable kind. Yes, she wrote for National Review Online, but also L.A. CityBeat

  March 21, 2008

• The Reg-O-Meter© -- Week Ending April 26

  MONDAY, APRIL 21: ●What’s the big news today from the Reggie’s crack team of community reporters? In Yorba Linda, “A 4- to 6-month old black puppy was found on Arroyo Street the afternoon of April 15.” Ummm . . . any sleazy goings-on out in Rancho Santa Margarita? “A local homeowners association is holding a royal tea party.” Okaaayyy . . . how about over in scandal-a-minute Newport Beach—there’s gotta be something there in OC’s most Republican ‘burg, right? Naaah . . . �

  April 26, 2008

• Our Busty Bustamante Gift to Readers!

  For more than 13 years, the OC Weekly has proudly served as a county watchdog, giving those in power hell and comforting those that need comfort. It's a responsibility we treat with all the seriousness it deserves. In that vein, we offer readers, bloggers, campaign consultants, and any other interested parties the following picture of SanTana councilmember Carlos "Busty" Bustamante:

  July 13, 2008

• Art Pedroza: An Appreciation

  For those of you Luddites who still rely solely on dead trees for news, the top three political blogs (in no order) are OC Blog, The Liberal OC, and Orange Juice!. Each roughly correspond to a local newspaper--OC Blog is conservative like the Orange County Register (except much more hackingly so), the Liberal OC is much more liberal than the Los Angeles Times, while the Orange Juice! is usually very much like the Weekly: unpredictable, hell-raising, and oftentimes jes' plain weird. Has to be in

  August 8, 2008

• The Food Reconquista Begins...

  Hola, readers, and welcome to the Weekly's latest Internet endeavor: a food blog! Expect the same gourmand insanity I have brought ustedes for the past six years as food editor and Edwin Goei has in his year-and-a-half as my classier half: Where's the great local grub, the great personalities, but also the great failures, great insanities and other great greatness (can you tell I need to stop writing?). And something new for our vigorously provincial coverage: national affairs (but always throug

  September 3, 2008

• Visit Our New Food Blog!

  Stolen from our new food blog... "Hola, readers, and welcome to the Weekly's latest Internet endeavor: a food blog! Expect the same gourmand insanity I have brought ustedes for the past six years as food editor and Edwin Goei has in his year-and-a-half as my classier half: Where's the great local grub, the great personalities, but also the great failures, great insanities and other great greatness (can you tell I need to stop writing?). And something new for our vigorously provincial coverage:

  September 5, 2008

• Gustavo KPFK Show, Part III--Preview and Review

  Part I at 4 p.m.: Downtown Los Angeles walking tour of lynch spots! Interview with the man behind this ultimate tourist trap, Scripps College Professor Ken Gonzales-Day.Part II at 4:20 p.m.: Southern California ethnic news aggregator LA Beez.Part II at 4:40 p.m.: Your calls regarding your favorite Southern California news sources--blogs, radio shows, newspapers, random guys walking down the street. Full list on this blog tomorrow!

  December 30, 2008

• Drunken, Disgruntled Plastic Surgeon Picks On Reporters

  A supporter or two of Brian West--the plastic surgeon whose ups and (mostly) downs, involving his drinking problem and former patients, I've covered in these pages--has now taken to trying to sully mine and Sacramento CBS television reporter Kurtis Ming's names with a comical new blog experiment. Ming has covered the story involving West since it began to unfold in Sacramento several years ago, and before West moved down south and began practicing in Long Beach, Huntington Beach and LA.The new b

  March 2, 2009

• Local Political Bloggers Dangerous? You Don't Say.

  gorriti / Flickr / Creative CommonsThe Associated Press put out an item to the national wires last Friday about the mayor of Salisbury, Maryland who took some time from his state-of-the-city address to carp about the bloggers and gadflies whose antics have placed their city "under siege": Daily, I run into citizens who are weary of the 'gotcha' mentality on the part of a few citizens and City Council members...This is simply mean-spirited constant intimidation. Combined with the lies and innuend

  March 17, 2009

• Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. Has a Website!

  A couple of months ago, my pal, religious-right funder extraordinaire Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr., responded to my offer of blogging for Navel Gazing with the exciting news that he and his company, Fieldstead & Co., would soon launch a website complete with blog. A couple of days ago, under the headline "The Notorious Fieldstead Website," Ahmanson sent me this email:I just discovered that the Fieldstead website, fieldstead.com, has been open for business since November 1st! Anything on it is pub

  March 18, 2009

• Tom Daly Gets Unanticipated Support in Supervisor Bid

  Orange County GOP insider and former state Sen. John Lewis' early endorsement of Democrat and current Orange County Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly in the race to replace Chris Norby as the Fourth District county supervisor has got some local Republicans fuming. But there is one high-profile, controversial, Republican endorsement of Anaheim's former Mayor Daly that has escaped similar criticism. And it is such a shocking revelation that Tony Bushala felt compelled to post in not only on 

  April 1, 2009

• OC Register's Fast Food Maven Takes Week Off

  And that's news? Yes, because it's an enforced week off, i.e. a furlough, thanks to the rough patch the newspaper industry is going through. But good ol' Nancy Luna is looking on the bright side, saying she needs the break anyway and will spend it with her family. Enjoy your vacation, Nancy, safe in the knowledge that over here, at the OC Weekly, we'll be eating, drinking and blogging away as usual.

  April 13, 2009

• Lykke Li

  February 12, 2009

• A Fresh Wave of Globally Minded Music Websites Will Broaden Your Horizons

  September 4, 2008

• Super Blogalicious

  Seen and Heard on Super Tuesday

  February 7, 2008

• Who Is 'Jubal'?

  April 13, 2006

• It's Finally Kogi Korean-Barbecue Taco Truck Season in OC

  May 14, 2009

• L.A. Weekly Starts Their Own Food Blog

  Our sister paper, L.A. Weekly, debuted their very own food blog last week. Called Squid Ink, it features the return on Ask Mr. Gold, where resident Pulitzer-prize winning critic, Jonathan Gold, reprises his popular food advice column.We welcome the esteemed Mr. Gold and crew to the food bloggin' foray, but this gives me an idea...an idea to steal the idea! (Hey, SF Weekly's SFoodie flattered me by cribbing my Wacky Snacks idea once). So here's my proposal: Why not an O.C. food advice col

  April 10, 2009

• New York Magazine Blogger Rips Off OC Weekly Contributor

  Lin, at left, with his alter ego... Whenever food critics, whether in newspapers or blogs, argue about who first wrote about a restaurant or rail against those who followed their "discovery," I remember the The Simpsons episode when Gabbo knocks Krusty off the air. Gabbo makes a crank phone call to Krusty, Bart accuses the ventriloquist dummy of plagiarism, and Lisa reminds her brother that Krusty stole the bit from Steve Allen. Then, Krusty answers the phone, gets punked, and yells at Gabb

  July 23, 2009

• This Week In Food

   As the mercury soared, SAFII got all hot and bothered. In the last five days, we:Whinged about the lengthy menu at Mustard's.Ranted about how New York magazine grub blogger Hadley Tomicki seemingly ripped off Fullerton food critic Eddie Lin.Seethed and fumed about Padma Lakshmi, who has apparently been given the green light for her own NBC sitcom. The horror!Begged the Coolhaus ice cream van to head our way. This has Edwin's obsession with the kogi truck written all over it. Talking of whi

  July 24, 2009

• Orlando Sentinel: Julie in Julie & Julia Skewered By Food Bloggers

  ​Speaking of Julie & Julia, I ran across this enlightening article written by Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel which compiles the less than enthusiastic reactions that the movie is having among food bloggers.  Mainly the article points out that the snipes are about the fellow food blogger at the center of the film, not so much the film itself.  I've no opinion on the matter (I haven't seen the film, only the trailers), but is it just me or does it seem that Amy Adam

  August 7, 2009

• Open Mic

  August 13, 2009

• Tonight: Hellogoodbye and Limbeck at Chain Reaction

  Huntington Beach's Hellogoodbye​Two local emoish, popish, quirky sorta-legends (sorta) of this decade return to Chain Reaction tonight. To celebrate, we present you with fun facts!

  August 19, 2009

• Why Won't Loretta Sanchez Return a Blogger's Phone Call?

  It's fascinating to see the double standard that Orange County politicians employ with bloggers in these days of a flat media landscape. While blogs such as Red County and The Liberal OC are virtual megaphones for, respectively, conservative and liberal operatives and politicians (some even contribute articles), independent-minded blogs frequently find themselves in the same corner as the Weekly: when they ask for a quote or interview, ignorance. Dana and Don Papi Pulido: return our calls one da

  June 3, 2009

• Borderline Blogosphere Zaniness

  A story that appeared in the OC Weekly a few weeks ago called "On the Borderline" has caused quite a stir in the past week in the blogosphere, resulting in several local blog contributors calling for the removal of Santa Ana Library Board member Lupe Moreno. According to the bloggers, who cited my article as a source, Moreno referred to illegal aliens as—gasp!—"subhuman, pod people." How could Moreno make such a ghastly comment, you ask? Well, she didn't. I did. Let's scrutinize the pas

  July 10, 2007

• Foodbuzz Nominates Local Foodies For Blog Awards

  ​The food blog network Foodbuzz has come out with the nominations for The Foodbuzz Blog Awards and it's as if the Oscars were actually smart enough to nominate The Dark Knight for Best Picture -- something I can get behind.

  October 7, 2009

• Dishney: Disney Launches Official Theme Parks Blog

  Courtesy of Disney Parks Blog​Perhaps in an effort to curb all the crazy rumor mongering (heh) being slung around by the squillion Disney fan blogs out there, the House of Mouse has decided to launch an official blog to document all the latest (official) happenings at their theme parks. The blog will cover Disneyland Resort, Disney World Resort, the cruise line and the Disney "vacation experiences worldwide." Chief blogger and social media director Thomas Smith promises readers exclusive behin

  September 28, 2009

• Social Media Rock Star Chris Brogan Blog Rolls Into Town

  Chris Brogan​A "social media rock star" is giving a free lecture in Orange County Tuesday evening.Chris Brogan, who Chapman University bills as "one of the new media industry's brightest stars," is scheduled to talk about why blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Digg and probably some stuff you haven't heard of matter. One of the world's top 50 bloggers, Brogan advises businesses and individuals on how to use social media and networks to build influence, improve reputation and earn trust.One of his recen

  September 28, 2009

• Deep End Dining's Eddie Lin's First Book Out In Stores Today

  Photo Courtesy of Eddie Lin​You may have seen, heard, or read Eddie Lin before. That was him you saw chomping pig's ear and nibbling crickets with the jolly-Buddha-meets-cueball Travel Channel host Andrew Zimmern on the Los Angeles episode of Bizarre Foods. That was him you heard regaling NPR listeners on "the pleasures and perils" of eating brain on last Saturday on Evan Kleinman's Good Food show on KCRW. And that was him you read on the pages of our humble rag a few years ago, where he st

  October 23, 2009

• WTF? Files: "Anti-Violence" Website "Hit the Bitch" Smacked Down

  www.hitthebitch.dk"Hit the Bitch" suffers a black eye.​The furor over "Hit the Bitch" now prevents you from visiting the supposed "anti-violence website" out of Denmark that allows a mouse-powered (and male-looking) hand to repeatedly smack and slap a young woman.

  November 20, 2009