Orange County's Leading Source Of News, Culture And Entertainment
Orange County's Leading Source Of News, Culture And Entertainment
When most people are looking to seriously launch a new project of any kind–a business, a team, a band–they aim to snag the best, most experienced, most reliable talent around. But guitarist/vocalist Erik “Ripley” Johnson took an entirely different tack when putting together Wooden Shjips in the early 2000s. Inspired by the Velvet Underground's use …
Continue reading “Wooden Shjips Ignore Musicianship. It's Worked Out Pretty Well”
There's been many a bizarre crime at Taco Bells over the course of this column's history, but this one may be a first: victims of a robbery claim they had gone to a Taco Bell parking lot to practice their medieval swordplay. Then, it turns out these errant knights were actually there to sell pot …
Continue reading “Taco Bell Crime of the Week: Medieval Sword Fight Turns into Drug Deal Gone Bad”
From the moment the memo came out confirming news we had broken earlier in the morning–that the Orange County Register was laying off dozens of veterans, including longtime editor Ken Brusic, and putting deputy editor of local news Rob Curley in charge–the emails started coming in from the private (and made-up!) accounts of Reg folks, …
Continue reading “Why is New OC Register Editor Rob Curley Already So Loathed in the Newsroom?”
On Halloween 2012, Alan Douglas Bluck got drunk. After he passed out next to an empty bottle of vodka, Anaheim police arrested the homeless man for public intoxication. Early the following morning, a guard found Bluck unresponsive in the city jail and doctors later pronounced him dead at a nearby hospital. As is customary by …
Continue reading “OC DA Sees No Harm, No Foul by Anaheim Police in Custodial Death of Homeless Man”
Given the popularity of AMC's The Walking Dead (as well as the graphic novel series that preceded it), you didn't have to be a brain surgeon/slurper to figure UC Irvine's massive open online course (MOOC) themed after the show would be a big hit with students. But the MOOC turned out to be so huge–attracting …
At 19, Jonny Lang encountered what he calls the “craziest experience I've ever had.” It was 1999, and the father of the Los Ange-les-based musician's then-girlfriend/now wife, Haylie, was on his deathbed. Lang was sitting with Haylie in her back yard, and the word Jesus inexplicably came out of his mouth, and he began shaking …
I know, I know: where the hell does a born-and-bred Mexican from California get off telling the rest of the world about the glories of Tex-Mex cuisine? But hear me out, world: I am Tex-Mex's most arduous non-Texan defender. I've crisscrossed most of the state doing research for my Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered …
Orly Taitz, the Rancho Santa Margarita-based Queen of the Birfers, has lately taken to calling out the “black racist regime” of Barack Obama and Eric Holder, with her “demand” for “impeachment hearings” for the country's attorney general based on “evidence” from a white supremacist website. Taitz's latest online rant came before Fourth District Court of …
Update, Jan. 16, 2013: Well, we're gonna have to add a “Just Kidding!” to this blog post now. Shortly after UCI announced that they would allow e-cigs and chewing tobacco on campus, the statement was retracted. UCI now joins all of the other California Universities in having a completely smoke, tobacco, and nicotine free campus. …
Continue reading “UCI Defies UC Ban on Smoking, Allows E-Cigarettes on Campus: Update”
Special patrols by deputies hoping to remove from the streets drivers who have been over-boozing and/or -drugging blanket Lake Forest, Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita tonight, the Orange County Sheriff's Department announced. These saturation patrols are scheduled to run from 7 p.m. through 3 a.m. Saturday on roadways with frequent DUI arrests, collisions or …
Neurosis The Observatory 12/28/13 Oakland based psychedelic stoner doom metal pioneers Neurosis played one of the final shows of 2013 on Saturday night to a packed house at the Observatory in Santa Ana. Hundreds of diehard followers of this cult band shared mysticism and rage with guitarists and vocalists Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till, …
Continue reading “Neurosis – The Observatory – December 28, 2013”
A Little Saigon doctor with hefty California Republican Party connections isn’t celebrating these holidays at home with family and friends. Vietnam War refugee, Tuan Duc Tran–CEO of Fountain Valley Healthcare Center and the eldest son of a once high-ranking South Vietnamese Army officer–is now living in a federal prison in Kern County. After being indicted …
Continue reading “Little Saigon Doctor Who Ran Huge Medicare Scam Relocates To A Federal Prison”