Subject: Palm Springs

• Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

  Like most people over the age of 14, I was pleasantly surprised when Fox canceled "The OC." But I must say, I was downright shocked to discover that desert residents are genuinely excited about the new Palm Springs-based, teeny-bopper television soap opera "Hidden Palms." The Desert Sun newspaper wrote a little dilly about the new show debuting tonight, and how it is generating a positive buzz around the community - despite it's admittance that Palm Springs is a shit hole. "'Hidden Palms,' t

  May 30, 2007

• Look Out Below!

  Mark Taggatz, who identifies himself as the president of a company called Aquentium, Inc., has invited the Weekly to Palm Springs at the end of this month for Media Day-Housing Invention for Disaster Relief. "We will be unveiling our newly developed housing solution for disasters," Taggatz writes. "Our patented technology is a re-deployable house utilizing a 20-foot shipping container. The unit offers over 450 square feet of space, complete with a living room, 2 bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, and

  January 17, 2006

• Got HIV/AIDS? Kick Hillary Clinton

  Perhaps preoccupied by the GOP man-boy love case in the lower house, the U.S. Senate over the weekend failed to reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act and with it about $6 million annually that helps Orange County deal with a growing HIV population and increasing number of AIDS cases, alerts the AIDS Services Foundation of Orange County. The foundation notes that federal funding patterns typically show Orange County getting less dollars as more is diverted to regions with higher HIV/AIDS rates. Ext

  October 3, 2006

• The Really - Really - Really - Real - This - Time - We - Mean - It OC Recap

  Holy shit. I watched the premiere episode of Newport Harbor: The Real OC on MTV last night and boy do I have piles of nifty information to report back to our readers who aren't lame enough to watch this crap on television themselves. Lets start with a breakdown of the characters to make this easier, shall we? The lead character and narrator is Chrissy who looks like Denise Richards' bastard twin. She's an only child with an overly-concerned father who calls her every five minutes to check in

  August 16, 2007

• Coachella, Day 2

  Recovering from yesterday’s illness forced me to miss 120 Days, MGMT, Little Brother and Boys Noize. Bah. But I arrived in time to see some Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks. Their loose rock jams slash sea shanties were adorned with much proggy filigree. It was nice big-sky music for a big-sky setting. “It’s time to go fucking Jack Johnson on your ass,” Malkmus announced later, strapping on an acoustic. That was my cue to bolt. I strode over to the Sahara tent to catch Erol Alkan spinning

  April 27, 2008

• Famous Food

  March 18, 1999

• Balboa Trailer Park Weekend Manager

  June 1, 2000

• Coachella Rumblings

  January 25, 2001

• Workingmen Are Pissed!

  November 20, 2003

• Massacre at Agua Caliente

  April 15, 2004

• Gay Marriage, Rick Warren, and Chinigchinich

  October 31, 2008

• Looking Back at 2008: The Celeb-Reality Edition

  It was Oliver Wendell Holmes who opined that a new truth is better than an old celebrity-tinged news item, or at least he would have opined that had he lived in our celeb-obsessed times. So it is in that spirit these 15 Orange County brushes with famous folks in '08 are unveiled.   1) Newport Beach city officials revealed in January they were trying to acquire the statue of their adopted Favorite Son, John Wayne, that moseys in front of the Larry Flynt building in Los Angeles. Back when

  January 2, 2009

• It's a Quick Read 11

  Orange County Register: Former Rams kicker Tony Zendejas was found not guilty of raping and sodomizing a woman in a hotel room after allegedly drugging her at his San Dimas restaurant. . . . OC Watchdog has the scoop on Orange County's 14 lawmakers in the State Legislature receiving nearly $20,000 in gifts last year, most from special-interest groups such as The Irvine Co., the Walt Disney Co. and the California Building Industry Association. . . . Ferrari vs. light pole. Lig

  March 11, 2009

• Political Nepotism Alive and Well in Orange County

  Patrick McGreevy writes in today's LA Times about friends and family members of office-holders getting state jobs. Among them is Marisela Villar, daughter of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who state taxpayers pay $68,000 annually to work out of a Santa Ana state office for Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, pictured together. Villar, whose father is a former Assembly speaker, was hired by one of Villaraigosa's friends, then-Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, in 2006 to arrange community meeti

  March 27, 2009

• [Pucker Up] Desire In the Desert: Tristan Goes to a Unique BDSM Event

  June 19, 2008

• Just a Random Female

  Robbin Brandley’s confessed killer sits on death row. So why don’t her parents consider the case closed?

  November 22, 2007

• What's Up With the Guy at the Beauty Salon?

  March 6, 2003

• Freak No-Show?!

  April 22, 1999

• Heard Mentality: Gone Coachella-in'!

  Oh yes. We're road tripping out early in the morn' to the beautiful (sure, why not?) Empire Polo Field for Coachella. I'll be there all three days; my blogging brethren Spencer Kornhaber and Nate Jackson are also hitting the event for a couple days and just might share their thoughts.You won't be able to shut me up, however, so keep an eye both on this blog and on our Twitter page for (nearly) constant updates. Except when I'm driving, that's probably a bad idea. Motel 6 in Palm Springs, I hope

  April 16, 2009

• [Sound Guy] The Indio Index: Coachella By the Numbers

  April 23, 2009

• Jim Morrison at Midlife

  November 16, 2006

• It's a Living

  June 1, 2006

• Trendzilla

  April 13, 2006

• Stink-o-rama

  April 13, 2006

• Commie Girl

  January 5, 2006

• Grass or Ass

  November 17, 2005

• Santa Ana

  October 20, 2005

• Skate and Destroy

  June 9, 2005

• Sexy Stumps . . .

  February 3, 2005

• Best of OC 2004: Part 3

  October 21, 2004

• Whos Abusing the Kids?

  May 20, 2004

• You Paid for Tony Rackauckas Mexican Vacation

  April 3, 2003

• Southern-Fried Trash

  November 14, 2002

• Breasts, DJs, Breasts, Hot Chicks, House, Trance and Breasts

  July 4, 2002

• Diary of a Mad County

  May 2, 2002

• Alternative Groove

  July 26, 2001

• Theyre From the Salton Sea!

  June 1, 2000

• Chill With Hill

  May 11, 2000

• This weeks featured playoff game: Miami Dolphins (9-7) vs. Seattle Seahawks (9-7)

  January 13, 2000

• Vacation, Baby

  October 21, 1999

• Namesnakes

  September 9, 1999

• Yo Quiero Mocha Java

  December 3, 1998

• Live(ish) from Coachella: Final Friday Thoughts!

  About to head out to take on another day. Whee! Beth Stirnaman is here in OC Weekly Central (Motel 6 in Palm Springs) uploading pics, so soon you'll have some stuff to look at instead of just these awesome plain text posts. Heard Mentality blogger Nate Jackson is here, too. Say hi, Nate!Before shoving off for Coachella: Part Deux, let's put Monday to bed with some thoughts:- Franz Ferdinand nailed it. Nice little one-hour set drawing on all three of their albums. "Do You Want To," "Take Me Out,"

  April 18, 2009

• Late Coachella Sets = Big Time Fines?

  Here's something interesting from the OC Register's Soundcheck blog via Palm Springs local news station KESQ: Apparently, Coachella promoters Goldenvoice are liable to be fined $1,000 PER MINUTE for every minute sets went past midnight this past weekend. Yipes.Sure, there's a reason why shows, especially giant, outdoor ones like this, have a certain curfew. Call me naive, but I would ever guess that said curfews could be enforced with such stiff penalties. I decried that the Cure getting cut off

  April 21, 2009

• KFC Lays On Free Grilled Chicken Just For Us! (Hurry: One Deal Applies Today--Tomorrow It's El Pollo Loco)

  Yes, that's right. Not only is the whole country being offered a free piece of Kentucky Grilled Chicken today (Monday, April 27, aka UNFry Day), but Southern Californians are also benefitting from a further deal: buy an eight-piece or larger KFC meal from May 4 to May 31 and you'll receive four free KGC pieces (drumsticks/thighs). That's a lot of bird.The deals come at a tricky time for the company. Last week, Yum Brands, which owns KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, announced a 14 per cent drop in p

  April 27, 2009

• Filmmakers Pitch Their Wares at NBFF Director Party

  Photos by Justin ViegaDrake Doremus works the crowd.A crowd estimated at 100-125 filmgoers, filmmakers and film presenters took over one side of Mesa restaurant in Costa Mesa Tuesday night for "An Evening With the Directors," a benefit that precedes the 10th annual Newport Beach Film Festival opening Thursday and continuing through April 30.Guests paid $60 each, with proceeds going to NBFF and Irvine Barclay Theatre's young professionals' booster group NEXT@theBarclay, to hear indie directors Sa

  April 22, 2009

• Orange County LGBT Pride Festival "Revival" Starts Small

  Sasha Baron Cohen's comedy has nothing to do with OC pride festivals. We just can't find photos from past fests. ​Orange County's first-ever gay and lesbian pride festival was held in Santa Ana's Centennial Park in 1988, when angry Christian conservatives showed up not because they'd finally come out of the closet (knew it!) but to fling urine-filled balloons, taunt attendees with chants of "Go back to your closet," and cheer on an airplane they'd hired to fly over the event with a banner read

  July 29, 2009

• Trabuco Canyon's Lila Rizk Guilty in Massive Real Estate Fraud

  ​A federal jury this afternoon convicted a licensed real estate appraiser from Trabuco Canyon of conspiracy, bank fraud and numerous loan fraud charges related to a massive mortgage fraud scheme that caused more than $40 million in losses to federally insured banks, the FBI announced.Lila Rizk, 42, had stood trial for five weeks alongside prominent Beverly Hills real estate agent Kyle Grasso,

  August 12, 2009

• Bishop Brown and His Priests to Party in Palm Springs Next Week

  Scene to be seen?When I was studying for my Confirmation at St. Boniface Church in Anaheim in the late 1990s, I remember that we took a weekend retreat to some nun's convent in Los Angeles--can't remember the name, but it was within the city. We slept in same-sex dorms, and it was a humbling experience that taught us about the importance of the Nazarene's message. And there was Danishes (the pastry, not the people)! Two years ago, St. Boniface's finances were in such dire straits due to Diocese

  May 26, 2009

• The Other Side of the Health-Care Debate Strikes Back

  The other side of the health-care debate (think opposite of Fox News' town hall criers) has come out swinging of late.California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee just issued a statement with the provocative title, "California's Real Death Panels: Insurers Deny 21% of Claims." The CNA/NNOC has compiled data that shows one in five requests for medical claims for insured patients, even when recommended by a patient's physician, are rejected by California's largest private in

  September 2, 2009