![Handshaker [Hey, You!]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/hey-you-handout-credit-Bob-Aul-348x180.jpg)
Handshakes mean established trust, from longstanding relationships or following even a few words of introduction. Which is why I just kind of stared when you walked up out of the blue and wordlessly put your hand out, interrupting a conversation I was having with my fellow musician while on break from a gig we were […]
![Pole Position [Hey, You!]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/hey-you-speedometer-credit-Bob-Aul-1-348x180.jpg)
Pole Position [Hey, You!]
You were the idiot speeding southbound down the 101 freeway during fast-moving Memorial Day traffic. You were probably moving at about 100 mph, expertly weaving in and out of lanes, Pole Position-style. Thing is: Your sports car was emitting a thick, white smoke that almost immediately fogged up all four lanes of traffic to the […]
![Spider Hunter [Hey, You!]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/hey-you-wasp-credit-Bob-Aul-348x180.jpg)
Spider Hunter [Hey, You!]
You are the rather busy-looking bug that has twice visited my front yard in the past few years. The first time my son spotted you frantically wandering around in the decomposed granite, he was excited because you were so big and so striking, with rust-colored wings and a dark-blue body. I took a photo of […]
How an Orange County School Official Ended Up In the Shrubs Outside His Opponent’s Home
On April 5, Mari Barke’s morning routine was interrupted when a neighbor called to report “a very creepy guy” in a BMW had been parked outside Barke’s Los Alamitos home. When Barke looked, the car was gone. The next morning, Barke’s husband, Jeff, went out to retrieve his newspaper. There, he says, he encountered a […]
How an OC Murder Is Connected to a Shadowy Nationwide Neo-Nazi Group With Troubling Ties to the U.S. Military
Produced by journalists with ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative news operation, and Frontline, the PBS documentary series, this report focuses on Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi group with a direct link to Orange County. County prosecutors have charged Atomwaffen member Samuel Woodward, 20, with the January murder of Blaze Bernstein, 19, a gay Jewish college student whose […]
![Parking-Lot Play Date [Hey, You!]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/hey-you-coffee-klatch-credit-Bob-Aul-348x180.jpg)
Parking-Lot Play Date [Hey, You!]
To the ladies who decided to have a little play date near my car in the school drop-off zone: Are you serious? Mom 1 left both doors on the driver’s side open while she and her two youngest visited with Mom 2 beside my rear bumper, and then Mom 3 pulled up, blocking me in […]
![Wind It Up [Hey, You!]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/hey-you-ZEPHYR-credit-Bob-Aul-348x180.jpg)
Wind It Up [Hey, You!]
You are the wind, and I’m sick of you. It’s been weeks now of flying umbrellas and palm fronds of doom. All that blowing us off the beach and upturning the water so it’s still at wintertime temps in May. Stop the gusts that shove my light automobile into the next lane on the freeway. […]
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 […]
Marty’s on Newport Aims to Turn a Tustin Dive Bar into a Destination for Live Music
As I walk into Marty’s Bar and Grill on a Sunday evening, the night air in Tustin is decidedly stale. My arrival prompts the only two men in the bar to wrap up their conversation and leave, as though their secret watering hole had been discovered by an outsider. I order a rum and coke […]
![Shoo, Shingles, Shoo! [Hey, You!]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/hey-you-shingles-credit-Bob-Aul-1-348x180.jpg)
Shoo, Shingles, Shoo! [Hey, You!]
You are the quarter-shaped lesion that appeared on my forehead a few weeks ago out of nowhere. At first, I thought you were skin cancer, but when I treated you to a dose of Neosporin—which, out of an abundance of caution, I smeared all over my forehead—I awoke the next morning with raging blisters across […]
![Barftender [Hey, You!]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/hey-you-Double-Dip-credit-Bob-Aul-1-348x180.jpg)
Barftender [Hey, You!]
I am the customer who should have known when to quit. You are the bartender who took advantage of that. After I thought I settled the bill, you walked back over with the receipt and said, “If you mean to tip 20 percent, it should be this amount.” You then pointed to a number you […]
Coachella By The Minute: Weekend 2
Friday, April 20 2:45 p.m. Almost hit a girl with my car as she darts through stop-and-go traffic to run into the bushes to pee off Avenue 52. She didn’t even look up as she locked eyes with the otherside of the street (aka the toilet). Never had someone else’s desire to piss cause me […]
![A Lotto B.O. [Hey, You!]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/hey-you-credit-Bob-Aul-348x180.jpg)
A Lotto B.O. [Hey, You!]
You were holding up the line at the liquor store. You had on giant, Coke-bottle-thick glasses and a Marine haircut. You insisted on standing at the counter, scraping Scratcher after Scratcher, determined to win a million dollars before you walked out the door. Meanwhile, the cloud of hot mugginess around you was the opposite of […]
Coachella By The Minute: Weekend 1
Friday, April 13 4:35 p.m. Coachanimal spotted in near the Outdoor Theater wearing a rainbow-colored fur cape and a pink, sparkly, full-body banana hammock unitard. Comfort means different things to different people at Coachella. (Niyaz Pirani) 5:02 Rolling into the parking lot and within a minute I roll past a girl in a sparkly […]
![Oink! [Hey, You!]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/hey-you-Twenty-Pigs-credit-Bob-Aul-348x180.jpg)
Oink! [Hey, You!]
Wearing an Army cap, but long AWOL on diet and fitness, you are the overweight, puffy, out-of-shape heart attack in waiting. I am sitting across the aisle from you with a plateful of morbid fascination as you contentedly shovel sliced franks with mustard over Sloppy Joes, pieces of bacon and corned beef hash into your […]
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. […]
Did ’70s Sci-Fi Cinema Nail Our Looming Brave New World?
In the 1970s, Hollywood was hell-bent on scaring the bejesus out of audiences with futuristic dystopias, churning out iconic, outrageous, science-fiction stories that imagined—and warned of—horrific “things to come.” But just how accurate were these filmmakers’ visions, most of which were believed far too insane to ever come to pass? Hold our Moscow mule! ROLLERBALL […]
![Lizard Hair [Hey, You!]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/hey-you-Lizzard-Hair-credit-Bob-Aul-348x180.jpg)
Lizard Hair [Hey, You!]
You were the lady with the Amy Winehouse bouffant driving a midnight-blue Rambler Classic down Coast Highway near Don the Beachcomber. I caught up next to you to see if you had thick eyeliner that disappeared into your black hair, and that’s when I saw it. A lizard was perched atop your magnificent ’do. Wonders never […]
A Look At the Most Memorable Music DJs in Film
In the roughly 112 years that Hollywood has been churning out feature-length films, radio disc jockeys have made for some interesting, if not iconic, cinematic characters. Record spinners really started appearing onscreen in the 1970s—back when DJs were still able to pick their own music—and here are some of the best. Stevie Wayne, The Fog […]
![Tattoo Fail [Hey, You!]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/hey-you-lost-ink-credit-Bob-Aul-348x180.jpg)
Tattoo Fail [Hey, You!]
I stood for a couple of minutes at an empty appointment desk while you, the guy who was sitting there for the longest time before I came up, was now standing off to the side. We even made eye contact, but you didn’t seem to care enough that the couple of hundred bucks I was […]
![Finger Pointer [Hey, You!]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/hey-you-on-the-way-to-work-credit-Bob-Aul-348x180.jpg)
Finger Pointer [Hey, You!]
You were the driver with eyeglasses, black hair and a backward black ballcap featuring a bird-crap-shaped silver logo. A silver Acura began to drift into your lane—yes, that was fucked-up—and you totally overreacted. After that driver course corrected, you stepped on the gas, changed lanes to position your white Honda Accord in front of the […]