While the city of Denver is filled with over 60,000 beer lovers attending the Great American Beer Festival, an underground ballroom at a lower downtown hotel is jammed with 293 beer judges working their way through 8,864 beers in 102 categories. The newest style that was added saw the largest number of entries: 391 Hazy […]
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Sexual Assaults of Vietnamese American Kids Earns Severe Punishment
A 68-year-old Florida businessman accused of sexually molesting his Vietnamese American girlfriend’s two minor children in Orange County’s Little Saigon area was sentenced today to spend 108 years in a California prison. Gary Lee Beavers represented himself during his 2017 trial and argued he’d been framed by his jealous, money-hungry Garden Grove companion seeking revenge […]
What the Ale! Off-Flavored Beer? Gross!
At the CA Craft Beer Summit in Sacramento, one of the seminars blew my taste buds as much as my mind: off flavors. We’ve all had a beer in the past that we just couldn’t get through, but the question is why? Master cicerone Pat Fahey led us down a bumpy road of vurp-inducing liquids […]
Ex-CHP Cop Wants Graphic Online Chats with Girls Banned From Lewd Conduct Trial
After a federal appellate panel overturned his attempted lewd act on a minor conviction, a former high-ranking member of the California Highway Patrol (CHP) is arguing that jurors at his new trial should not see intensely graphic internet chats he conducted with individuals he believed to be middle-school girls. Law enforcement officials working with Perverted […]
Six Reasons to Rediscover California Repertory Co.
This illustrious publication once had a fruitful relationship with California Repertory Co., the professional theater troupe that was the graduate-level arm of Cal State Long Beach’s (CSULB) theater department. In our mere infancy, we profiled the praised and reviled critic, director and playwright Charles Marowitz, who had recently been hired as dramaturg. A few years […]
Long Beach’s Legendary World Famous VIP Records Launches a Center for the Streets
For 40 years, the World Famous VIP Records and Tapes was central Long Beach’s cornerstone. Not only was it the mecca of G-funk, but it also provided a cool place to pass the time while shielded from the ills of street life on Pacific Coast Highway and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. For those who […]
Fullerton’s Hunt Branch Library Awaits Its Next Chapter
Imagine reading alongside a Rembrandt, researching in the shadow of sculptures by Rodin, and paying fines beside a Picasso. Such scenes were commonplace along Fullerton’s Commonwealth Avenue in the 1960s. The Hunt Branch Library in Fullerton served not only as a library, but also as a community center and fine-art museum thanks to a generous […]
Sleuth Episode Airs Fight Over What’s Not Appropriate to Say About a Crime Victim
The fourth installment of Sleuth, an iHeartRadio original true-crime podcast exposing controversies in a 2010 Orange County double homicide, begins with Linda Sawyer hosting a mini-debate about whether a crime victim’s own dark past is fair game for journalistic discussion. An indignant Steve Herr, whose son Sam was lost in the crime, did not appreciate […]
Higo Sushi’s Chef Opens Peruvian Restaurant Higo Chicken in La Habra
It was Saturday night at Higo Chicken. The small dining room was at capacity; the wait list, a half-dozen deep. As I stood there twiddling my thumbs, I saw one of the cooks at the stove. Flicking his wrist, he tossed ingredients around in his wok as flames erupted in bursts. And as he coaxed […]
Surgeon/Reality TV Dater and Girlfriend Allegedly Drugged and Raped Women
A Newport Beach orthopaedic surgeon, who appeared on the Bravo reality show Online Dating Rituals of the American Male, had a dating ritual with his girlfriend that involved finding a second woman and drugging and raping her, according to authorities with fears there may be 1,000 victims. Dr. Grant William Robicheaux, 38, of Newport Beach, is charged […]
Disneyland Resort Hotel Workers Reach Agreement Lifting Base Pay to $15 an Hour
The Disneyland Resort came closer to ending a long contract fight with its hotel workers by reaching a tentative agreement early this morning. Represented by Unite Here Local 11, members will vote this weekend on whether to approve a contract raising starting pay from $13.25 to $15 an hour on Jan. 31, 2019. Ahead of […]
The Bookman Used Book Store in Orange’s Move Delayed, but Will Happen, Folks!
We’ve got a state-of-the-Bookman Book Store update hot off the old Gutenberg for you, bookworms! The beloved used bookstore which has supplied Orange County with a bevy of books of all flavors and tastes since the days of the first Bush administration has moved from it’s original location on Tustin Avenue in Orange after falling […]
Pizza Press at Orange Village, Our Beers of the Week!
Real talk: I’ve been to many Pizza Press locations throughout Orange County, and always thought the tap list was meh at best. They either have an overwhelming amount of faux-craft, such as their Anaheim location, or whatever the distributor sales guy tells the manager is good. Chances are, if a tap list looks like the “craft beer” […]
It’s an Eat Dog Eat World, Starring Dana Rohrabacher
Softball question to a sitting member of the House of Representatives from a Voice of America (VOA) China interviewer: “So Chinese New Year is just around the corner; is there any message you want to say to our audience in China?” Answer from Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Putin’s Concubine): “Well let me just note … uh […]
OCDA Cuts Deal to Thwart Public Hearing into Jail Phone Surveillance Scandal
Days after OC Weekly’s August revelation that ethical issues tied to jailhouse telephone surveillance by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) for two years had stalled the severe pending punishment of a defendant, prosecutors quietly gave a sweetheart deal rather than surrender subpoenaed records and undergo public hearings into potential law enforcement perjury. As a result […]
Vote, Damn It
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 […]
Elizabeth Turk’s Art Takes Flight at Orange Coast College’s ‘ThinkLab LIVE .002: Extinct Bird Cages’
It’s Elizabeth Turk’s first day at her open studio at Orange Coast College’s Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion. One wall is covered with dozens of silhouettes of extinct birds; there’s a video of her at work setting up sketches and preparatory drawings, and then at play, rolling around the gallery in a desk chair; there […]
Flor Edwards Survived the Notorious Children of God Doomsday Cult, Turning Her Pain Into a Poignant Book About Healing
The year was 2010. The setting was my intermediate print-journalism class at Cal State Fullerton. Flor Edwards, one of my students, was part of my “Love, Sex and Romance” mock press conference. Three volunteer female student panelists stood before the class taking questions from their male classmates about all things love, sex and romance. Then, […]
Cambodia Town Film Festival Returns for a Sixth Year of Amazing Programming
Over the past six years, the Cambodia Town Film Festival has established itself as a celebration of Khmer culture by sharing a wide scope of films either made in Cambodia, focused on Cambodian issues or made by Cambodian filmmakers. Set in Long Beach, the hub for the Cambodian community, this year’s cinematic span offers indie, […]
Chef Ryan Adams’ Parallel Pizzeria Offers a Slice of Haven
Parallel Pizzeria’s pies are different from any other I’ve had in Orange County, and that’s a good thing. First, there’s the shape: They’re more oval than round. Second, they’re not sliced into triangular wedges. Instead, the cuts are made in, yes, parallel lines so that the pieces are rectangular, like at Little Caesar’s. Parallel’s pizzas […]
Hardball California Republican Strategist Jimmy Camp Takes on the President
For decades, Orange County’s Jimmy Camp has served as a prized political consultant not only for California’s conservatives, but also for the likes of Utah Senator Orrin Hatch and the National Republican Congressional Committee. Camp’s Democrat counterparts see him as a triple threat: inexhaustible, creative and fearless. He once donned a chicken outfit to publicly […]