SATURDAY, May 4 Dr. Evil calls to inform us that his friends at TRW's Capistrano Test Site successfully tested a new [HOLD BOTH HANDS TO YOUR CHEST AND MAKE QUOTE MARKS WITH YOUR FINGERS] “laser”for the Air Force's Airborne Laser team, the first step toward worldwide domination in the sky. The high-powered [HOLD BOTH HANDS TO YOUR CHEST AND MAKE QUOTE MARKS WITH YOUR FINGERS] “laser” can zap a basketball-sized hole through a missile's skin hundreds of miles away, so you can imagine what it'd do to even the most leathery human skin, like Robert Redford's. Speaking of beaming, that's what Polaroids-wearing military officials did at local test firings where the new [HOLD BOTH HANDS TO YOUR CHEST AND MAKE QUOTE MARKS WITH YOUR FINGERS] “laser” put out significantly more power than expected. More burn for the buck! Last we checked, the new toy was being disassembled and moved to Edwards Air Force Base for flight tests before it goes on to a smorgasbord of soon-to-be-hotter geopolitical hot spots.
SUNDAY, May 5 Israeli security officials arrest physician Riad Abdelkarim of Orange on suspicion of terrorism. He gets picked up at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airportas he's about to catch a flight home from a fact-finding trip on medical needs in Palestinian territories. In Israel's version of [HOLD BOTH HANDS TO YOUR CHEST AND MAKE QUOTE MARKS WITH YOUR FINGERS] “due process,” specifics about the charges are kept from the public. Family members fill in the blanks by suggesting that 34-year-old Abdelkarim, who was born here and practices in Anaheim Hills, is essentially being detained for being MII—Muslim in Israel.
MONDAY, May 6 Scott Beardon, “one of the management people” for seminal OC punk band the Adolescents, calls wanting a retraction from this spiky wristbanded timepiece. Before we can transfer him to the 1-800 line we created to handle the massive number of such calls, he explains that while we reported that Slayer and Suicidal Tendencies played at Vans Skate Park's recent Dogtown and Z-Boys premiere party at the Block at Orange, it was actually the Adolescents, not Slayer, on the bill. We stand retracted. But when Beardon said, “And could you mention that the Adolescents are playing 20th-anniversary showsall over right now?” that was going too far. We don't do plugs. Sorry. Not even for the Adolescents would we mention their May 17 show with Pennywise at the Long Beach Arena.
TUESDAY, May 7 About 15 baseball fans are injured during a mad rush out the Edison Field exits. As we're getting ready to bang out some rapid-fire insults against our beloved Anaheim Angels—like, “It was only the third inning,” or “That'll never happen going into an Angels game,” or “Who let Roseanne sing the anthem again?”—we discover that a faulty escalator is the cause. As fans are filing out following a tough loss, the people mover suddenly speeds up, launching bodies at the end of the line into a big pile of human flesh—a true Simpsons moment. Despite this loss, the Halos are among the hottest teams in baseball. Of course, we've endured far too many late-season swoons to get reeled in just yet. Check back with us in September, boys.
WEDNESDAY, May 8 Mark Bailey, the former owner of Captain Creamstrip club in Lake Forest, is convicted in federal court of tax evasion. Authorities say he skimmed $700,000 in cash from dancers' tips between 1992 and 1994. That the girls allowed him to hold their hard-earned gratuities sounds ditsy only to someone who has never jiggled naked while trying to keep 700,000 singles from falling out of assorted crevices. Trust us, we know.
THURSDAY, May 9 Anaheim city officials force Richard Johnson of that town's, um, eclectic AAA Electra 99 Co-op Art Gallery, Museum N Performance Space to remove artwork they'd asked him to display inside City Hall. Everyone seemed to love the roundish piece covered with famous news photos that Johnson had set up in the lobby. Then someone took a closer look and discovered the images were affixed to a male mannequin's butt. (Which begs the question: How does a butt reveal a mannequin's gender? Is there fake hair on it?) As Johnson is pulling out the installation, city staffers come by offering condolences and telling him how much they liked the asswork. Their bosses request something more tasteful, so Johnson foists upon them the blandest thing he can find (see photos below). Which begs another question: Is it more offensive to display good, provocative art or crappy, blas art? We say as long as there's a little girl with big, sad eyes holding a sunflower next to a puppy on a deserted Paris street corner at night, it's fine by us. We may not know art, but we know what we like to look at when we pull a building permit for a patio cover.
FRIDAY, May 10 RideHome, a membership service offering prepaid rides to teens and young adults, kicks off in Southern California just in time for the busy DUI season. With proms, grad-nite parties, clubbing off fake IDs, keggers courtesy of parental vacations, Catholic youth retreats and so much more going on, it's good to know the good people at RideHome care enough to get you home safely—for a fee. We won't plug, but we will direct young boozers to their free info line (1-866-331-7433) and website (www.ridehome.net). And please try not to puke on the seat.
SATURDAY, May 11 A study by environmental research group Informsays that Americans will soon be discarding about 130 million cell phones per year, creating 65,000 tons of trash filled with toxic metals and other hazardous stuff. The typical cell phone is now being replaced, discarded into a drawer and eventually tossed into the garbage every 18 months. But there is something you can do with unwanted cell phones other than further filling and polluting our landfills. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence collects wireless phones, programs them to only dial 911, and hands them out free to domestic-violence victims. If we were the type to plug, we'd tell you to go to www.wirelessfoundation.org.
Illustration by Bob Aul
SUNDAY, May 12 Organizers of Haute Dogs on the Beachencounter some problems in staging their Mother's Day doggy show in Belmont Shores. The event features awards for the oldest mother dog, the oldest human mother accompanying a pooch, and the smallest canine who's carried a litter. But previously announced contests for the ma dog who has birthed the most puppies and the one in attendance with the most offspring in tow cause zero-pet-population promoters to bark so loudly they're nixed in favor of an award to the human mother who has adopted the most dogs from shelters and rescue groups. With crisis averted, we go on to celebrate Mother's Day with our own bitch.
Shoot!
THURSDAY, May 9: Which art is more offensive?
Photos of Richard Johnson's artwork by Jack Gould
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.