I once did an internet search on a musician I was considering doing a project with, and I found intense chat-room volleys discussing him, with one side insisting he was the worst asshole in the music business, while others argued with equal vehemence that he was merely one of the worst. You don’t find that […]
RIP, Queen Aretha: Exhibit A for Proof of the Human Soul
For a nation that fought a bloody war of independence to toss the notion of royalty onto the trash heap of history, we sure do love royals. Consider our British friends: Most of the Brits I know regard their royal family as inbred, blood-engorged ticks sucking on their necks, while we here fawn over the […]
Lost In OC: How to Spend Your Summer Non-Vacation
It’s August, and even the squirrels and coyotes are catching on that summer won’t last forever. The “Back to School Sale” signs are going up (it was always creepy and dissonant to see “Back to School Sale” right below the “Grant’s for Guns” sign on that now-shuttered Costa Mesa sporting-goods store). Next, there’ll be the […]
Lost In OC: Considering Suicide? Please Reconsider That Jerky Move
Did you make it through July 4 okay? I haven’t checked the news yet, so I don’t know how many palm tree fires or riots may have resulted. OC has a long history of holiday riots. How do they start? At least two in the 1980s—one in HB, one on the Balboa Peninsula—ignited after a […]
Democracy In Action: How OC Voters Fared in the June 5 Primary Election
Such a momentous little election. Usually a primary in a non-presidential year elicits less interest than a CHiPS marathon on MeTV. This year is different, since Il Douche in the White House is becoming increasingly unhinged and autocratic by the day (He’s above the law because he IS the fountainhead of the law, see?) and […]
Uncle Jim’s Last-Minute Voting Guide: Vote Like your Ass Depends on it!
“Why should I vote in this dumb election?” you may be asking yourself. It’s a primary for chrissakes; there’s not even one president in it. And there are more damn people running for governor than there are superheroes in Avengers, Infinitely Good Crumbling Riddance to the Damned Lot of You. (Spoiler Alert: You just read […]
Lost In OC: The Desert, a Dead Musician and a Disappeared Comedian
Is it a sign of age that I really don’t care anymore where my toenail clippings land? Or if they’re still where they landed a month later? Just this morning, I found a large clipping on my office rug, so I naturally tried using it for a guitar pick and managed to drop it in […]
Lost In OC: Deep-Throating Tide Pods and Other Life Mistakes
I have never, intentionally at least, snorted a condom up my nose. I have yet to ingest a Tide Pod, though it can’t be worse than the sea urchin I ate in Laguna Beach in 1987. I got on a plane, flew two states away and still couldn’t get the taste out of my mouth. […]
Lost In OC: How High Will You Be When the Big One Hits?
Even if you haven’t been in California long enough to experience one of our deluxe earthquakes, you’re already shook, I suspect. As a human, below our conscious minds, we have oodles of neurons devoted to the flee-or-fight instincts we relied upon during the epochs before we had iPhones and Jiffy Pop to sustain us. So […]
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This Carnage Stops Now—Except for Real Carnage [Lost In OC]
I hate to think I’m prone to racial profiling, but when I hear a mass shooting announced on TV, they might as well have a stock photo of an angry white guy because that’s who it’s going to be. Angry, pimply, teenaged white guy shooting up an Arby’s or a classroom. Old, angry white guy […]
Still Lost in OC: Once-Old Weekling Is Still Old, Still Protesting
“Tonight, I shall make the moon disappear!” If I were Donald Trump’s speechwriter, that would have been the sole promise of his State of the Union speech, followed by 80 minutes of Kentucky Fried Chicken farts, to keep his base happy until they were cowering at his might under the smudgy Super Blue Blood Moon. […]
El Viaje de Portola: Rich OC White Guys on Horseback
Editor’s note: In our efforts to sloooooowly digitize the Weekly’s old archives, we’re publishing articles from our past every week until this reclamation project is complete in 2132. Enjoy! Originally published April 17, 1997 The other weekend, Orange County observed an annual rite, the 34th Viaje de Portola, in which 210 horsebound hombres rode off into […]
James Intveld: A Shadow Returns to OC
James Intveld sings probably the world's most rousing version of Rodney Crowell's “Standing on a Rock,” and to all outward appearances he is that steadying rock. In aid of other musicians, he's the guy who plays more benefit shows than most guys do paying gigs; who drives friends to their chemo treatments; who can fill […]
Pat Quilter's OC Company May Be the Best Thing for Guitar Players Since Leo Fender
“Pat can't come to the phone right now. He's in the middle of an experiment.” It is so reassuring hearing a receptionist say that. It means someone in America is Doing Something, and so much the better it's Pat Quilter in his Costa Mesa lab, trying to create a widget that wasn't there before. Maybe […]
Love Is Dead
Suppose you'd been one of Jesus' disciples. Even hipped in advance to the resurrection, wouldn't you have been a little uneasy around the guy once he was out of the hole, what with him having recently been a lank cadaver and all? That's how I felt about Love front man Arthur Lee, not deeply but always, […]
Stompin' at the Barclay
Have modern, digitally produced, slap-yer-brain summer entertainments left you feeling a bit benumbed? Then it's possible you don't even realize how much you need the New World Flamenco Festival, which begins its fifth annual foray this Friday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. Employing little more than heads, hands and feet—to sing, strum and stomp—performers of […]
Dem Bones
Ever since Ronald Reagan's Teflon reign, it seems like nothing sticks to Republicans. Does anyone even remember, for example, when G.W. Bush's brother Neil admitted under oath in 2003 to banging different hookers every night for weeks, hookers that were sent to him by a Chinese firm owned by Red Army brass, a payoff, along […]
Bonkers for Yablonka
Someday I really must write at length about the great music coming out of Laguna Beach, which I'm dubbing the Laguna Renaissance, if only because it sounds better than “Stuff Mike Boehm Wrote About 15 Years Ago.” The LA Timescritic has been gushing over such artists as Honk alum Richard Stekol for more than a […]
Immigration? We've Got Bigger Problems
There are several reasons I would not want to be president. There are, for example, aspects of the Zapruder film that do not appeal to me. And then there are those tricky issues leaders are faced with that demand action but defy an easy, just solution. Like immigration. In Congress, Republicans are busily attempting to […]
The Kevlar Anniversary
What do you give a war on its third anniversary? According to etiquette guides, third anniversaries should be celebrated with leather, which is great if you're Tom of Finland. But for our troops? How about Kevlar, or a plane trip home? Last week, Donald Rumsfeld said that if civil war breaks out in Iraq—like that […]
Hello Django Kitty!
Everyone has a first cherished childhood memory of Disneyland: meeting Mickey, realizing your parents lied about your great steering on the Autopia, barfing spaceburger chunks into the starry void of Space Mountain. For Tommy Davy, though, it was being 2 years old and hearing John Jorgenson and Raul Reynoso playing Gypsy-style jazz at the faux New […]