BITE ME!
The Orange County Register blatantly steals ideas from other publications!

Not that that's too shocking--the Reggie has been lifting from the Weekly for years without giving us credit, and the rare times they have, it usually takes the form of some vague "other media outlets" brushoff.

But now they’ve gone and ripped off the New York Times, fer chrissakes!

Granted, the thieves aren’t working at the Reggie itself, but instead, the Reggie-owned glossy magazine Coast. Never heard of Coast? Well, unless you live in the perpetually monied communities of Newport Beach, Corona del Mar, Laguna Beach, Coto de
Caza, etc.—‘hoods where the thing primarily circulates—you can be excused. Also: the average yearly income of a typical Coast reader is $233,846, according to their own stats. (And hey, why does OC have so many publications catering to people who can afford to wipe their stinky bits with $100 bills? We’re looking at you, Riviera, Orange Coast, and the worthless-if-you-make-under-$40,000-a-year “business lifestyle” rag OC Metro.)

The product which Coast deemed so valuable? A photograph from the New York Times’ style-centric T Living magazine, which appeared on their Spring 2007 cover. Coast swiped it for the cover of their latest edition. Now, it’s one thing to casually “borrow” an idea from another source, like the way De La Soul “borrowed” from Steely Dan. But it’s quite another thing to flat-out steal, and in so much detail that what results could practically pass for a color Xerox. Just compare those two images: Coast has purloined the same blonde chick, the same red lipstick and nail polish, the same gaudy rings, the same white napkin, the same char marks on the sandwich, and the same tomato/lettuce fixins inside the sandwich—all that’s missing is the bacon.

Oh, and just so you know, we stole the idea for this blurb from LA Observed . . .

MEMO TO: FRANK MICKADEIT, REGISTER COLUMNIST
Heeey Frank! Just wanted to say congrats on being named OC’s Best Columnist in Orange Coast’s Best of OC issue and all. But y’know what? That title would probably hold a lot more water if you didn’t subsequently go and waste a seemingly endless amount of ink scribbling about the fucking Real Desperate Housewives of Orange County just a week later. Because nobody but you cares, Frank. I suggest you roll those sleeves back down . . .

FUN WITH BLIND ITEMS!
What OC journalist has been accepting free clothes from stores she then does stories on?

What OC media org recently made an appearance at a Republican party function, and not because they were covering it, but because they, you know, wanted to party?

What veteran OC reporter recently resigned from his new gig because the news content kept shrinking and shrinking?

What local talking head returned a day early from vacation because he/she was so threatened by the professionalism of his/her fill-ins?

What reporter happened upon an OC police chase when he was working on another story some months back, and, as police officers’ guns were drawn on the suspect, the reporter proceeded to get in the cops’ way, and then, once the suspect was in the back of the squad car, the reporter actually opened the car door to see if the suspect would talk to him?

What OC news anchorman STILL has his name misspelled on his own stations’ web site? (Free answer: Pete Weitzner. Of course.)

Maybe—or at least help steer OC’s 34-year-old glossy monthly magazine away from what had been a frothy, puff-piece-packed publication that featured interviews and profiles with former owner Ruth Ko’s friends, and B- (sometimes C)-grade celebrities adorning its covers who often had nothing whatsoever to do with Orange County.

So by putting a close-up photo of a sweet, delicious Balboa Bar on the cover of their July “Best of Orange County” issue—the debut of a newly re-launched and revamped Orange Coast—returning editor Martin J. Smith is clearly making a statement: no more cover shots of celebs who’ve never even heard of the magazine.

Still, this transition into what I hope will become a regional magazine that’s rich with literary nonfiction and every bit as good as Texas Monthly or Los Angeles (the latter which also underwent a new-and-improved rejiggering a few years ago, also, like Orange Coast, after it was purchased by Indiana-based Emmis Communications) may be a slow one. There are still some remnants of the old Orange Coast that may or may not stick around—old standbys like party photos of rich folks grinning plasticized grins into the camera at various benefits, which pubs like the Register and the billionaire-loving Riviera already do. (How many Ed Arnold pictures can one person possibly stomach?) And there are still tons of ads for medical groups and jewelry stores, but we won’t begrudge Orange Coast for those—you gotta pay the rent somehow.

This issue also marks the launch of myriad new features, some which hit better than others. Chris Epting’s “OC Answer Man,” where Epting thinks up questions himself and then answers them for your alleged fun and amusement, could be more creative—howzabout an e-mail address to take missives from actual readers? Roy Rivenburg should actually make an effort at being funny with his “News From the Future,” because he doesn’t come close.

A real estate feature, “On the Market,” is just obscene, with photos and capsule descriptions of lavish OC properties, the cheapest one costing a mere $3.9 million. Jason Lee gets kinda-sorta profiled in “Ex-Pat,” a short piece highlighting an OC-er who’s made it big. Lee apparently wouldn’t talk to Orange Coast, though (hell, he wouldn’t talk to the Weekly either when we tried for an interview last year), so all Lee’s quotes are culled from other sources.

The old Orange Coast always left you feeling that it catered to the super-rich, and you won’t shake that feeling when you eyeball the $1,275 shoulder bag featured in the “OC Style” section, or the $895 Stella McCartney floral print blouse that looks like someone vomited up a fruit platter.

Then there’s the meat of the issue: “The Best of Orange County.” It’s not nearly as extensive as the Weekly’s Best Of issue, and not as eye-rollingly awful as the Register’s (will Olive Garden win Best Italian Restaurant again? Of course it will), with just seven or so blurbs for each category, but you know, when you’re reading Orange Coast in the waiting room of your dentist’s office, where the mag always winds up, sometimes you just want the quick rundown. And I’ll leave it to the Weekly’s food guys to argue if the Sapphire Pantry is indeed the county’s best cheese shop, or if 50 Forks is truly OC’s best dining value.

And, as part of its Best Of ish, there are profiles of what Orange Coast calls “Certified OC Originals,” one of whom is Register columnist Frank Mickadeit, who’s photographed with a rather constipated look on his face as he’s actually rolling up his sleeves. Because, y’know, Frank’s badass-tough, and he won’t take shit from anybody, and he gets out into the streets, etc. etc. Still, when I read the quote from former Mickadeit colleague Jean Pasco in the Martin J. Smith-penned piece—the one about Mickadeit “smoking stogies with GOP power couple Mike and Susan Schroeder,” it’s pretty hard not to also read that as, “I’ll never write anything bad about my cigar-sucking GOP power couple friends ever never never.”

Elsewhere: Patrick J. Kiger’s feature on a supposed surge of interest in Richard Nixon was fine, but the gardening feature on Nixon’s old La Casa Pacifica stomping grounds in San Clemente was a little too much Dick for me. Then there’s their restaurant guide: just one noteworthy joint in all of Aliso Viejo? The Weekly’s website lists 17. Just one in Cypress? We’ve got 10. Only 7 in Huntington Beach? We’ve got 45.

But like I said, change can be a slow-churning process . . .

One thing you can say about Orange Coast, OC's thick, glossy-covered regional monthly magazine—they know how to throw some good parties. And the mag's grand re-launching party last night was pretty great—tasty hors d'oerves, free martinis and assorted other booze, lots of Beautiful Newport Beach People, and great views of the county from the penthouse suite of . . . well, I forget the building, but it's right near the Taco Bell skyscraper in Irvine.

(It wasn't even a real penthouse, actually—way too much exposed aluminum foil insulation and concrete flooring, but I'm sure it'll look bitchen for some corporate mucky-muck once construction is completed someday.)

Also: free valet service, provided by Class Act Valet, which, as it said on the invite, is “Orange Coast's Official Valet Service.” (Memo to Ted: When will the Weekly get our own official valet service, dammit?!?) And the Reggie's Frank Mickadeit was there, too, but he doesn't have enough name/face recognition with me yet, which is fine . . .

Then there was the goodie bag, packed with trinkets: An extra-large T-shirt which would turn the wearer into a walking billboard for a Jaguar/Land Rover dealership; high-end hair care product samples; sandal-shaped soaps; a mini-facial kit; a mint tin from Flemings Steakhouse, with wine-bottle-shaped mints; and, of course, a copy of the new Orange Coast.

Which, under returning editor Martin J. Smith, looks to be an improvement over the glitzy glam-rag/B-list celebrity asskiss/Chapman University Prez Jim Doti PR vehicle it was under previous owner Ruth Ko.

(Full disclosure: I wrote several Smith-edited pieces for Orange Coast during his previous tenure back in the late-'90s. Even more full disclosure: I unfortunately contributed to some of that Jim Doti PR in a puff piece I penned about Chapman's law school, but I was much younger then, and I really, really needed the money because I was a big 'ol freelance-writing whore.)

Ko sold Orange Coast last year to Emmis Communications, which also owns such regional mags as Los Angeles (also much-improved under Emmis ownership), and what may be the country's best such pub, Texas Monthly.

So I've got high expectations for it, especially since they slapped a photo of a Balboa Bar on their cover instead of, say, Mike Carona, like they did when that whole "America's Sheriff" dogshit was happening...

Coming tomorrow in this space: Digging deep into the new Orange Coast...

Interpreting Register publisher Terry Horne’s Page 2 Tuesday letter to Reg readers, the same day the paper introduced a new slimmed-down format—all pages reduced by a one-inch width to save on the cost of newsprint. (You can just call it shrinkage.) Warning: Horne uses the word “exciting” twice in his letter—in our book, a coded phrase that means more layoffs and buyouts are a-comin’ . . .

A MESSAGE FROM THE REGISTER’S PUBLISHER

"The Register is making a notable change starting Tuesday morning, followed by exciting updates to many of our 24 community newspapers this week.

The Register is narrowing the width of the newspaper page by one inch. [Narrowing even further will be the worldview of editorial scribbler Steven Greenhut.] This is a decision driven purely by economics. [We’re cheap fuckers.] Recent price increases in newsprint would impact our business by more than $6 million if we continued to print at the same size and quantities we did last year. [Think how much more we could’ve saved if we had never launched those catastrophic Squeeze OC and OC Post failures.]

You may not even notice a difference. [Gordon Dillow’s incredibly huge forehead? Still the same size.] It’s important to note we are not eliminating any of your favorite columns or features by moving to a slightly smaller frame. Type size in the paper remains the same and so does the height of the pages. [Readers will still have plenty of room in our letters column to rant about Obama being a wild-eyed, bloodthirsty Muslim.] (You might notice slight narrowing of text in comics, some Marketplace graphics and some tabular sports results – and temporary narrowing of type on the Weather page and daily TV grids.) [Because we know what really matters to you, loyal TV-loving 800-pound Register subscriber who hasn’t been able to leave her house since the first Clinton administration.]

The Register’s award-winning news coverage, photography, graphics and advertisements [We won a Pulitzer back in . . . umm, been so long I don’t remember.] have the same presentation and color you’ve come to expect each day.

Virtually every daily metropolitan newspaper in the United States has moved or soon will move to this new size. Some are going even smaller. [Eventually our entire daily issue will be printed on a handy card you can slip into your wallet.]

Many readers in other markets prefer the narrower format, as it is easier to handle [Because that extra inch had thousands of people constantly bumbling and dropping the paper--least that's what Marketing tells me, so it must be true.] in a coffee shop, airplane or other close quarters [such as Dillow’s vice-tight anus].

We are living in a time of rapid change, so we must consider new ways to publish our newspapers. It’s exciting to see how our journalists and sales force have sharpened their focus on what we do best — delivering relevant local news and information. [Like our scintillating My Incredibly Cute Baby and That Darn Cat! contests.] Hopefully you will notice the steps we’ve taken in that regard.

One way we’ve done this is by expanding our community coverage on ocregister.com. We now update our city-by-city news more frequently on the Web, and you can see the fruits of this work by pulling up your city in a drop-down menu within a blue Local News banner on the ocregister.com home page. [We’ll get around to doing it eventually, because even we can’t figure out our garish, confusing site.]

Another big part of our plans to publish more hyper-local content occurs this week, when we introduce a new look and feel in our community newspapers. [New color covers, same old dogshit.] Articles in each community newspaper will adopt a quick-read format with more photos, graphics and color. [We’ve dumbed them down more in the hopes that even inanimate objects will want to subscribe.]

We launched this new format in Irvine and San Clemente earlier this year, and readers have told us they like it. [If Martin Wisckol did the polling, this means we asked 11, maybe 12 readers.] We also researched this format extensively prior to our launch of [I’ll say it just once more, but I’ll wince] OC Post a few years ago, a product driven by readers’ calling for a quick-read paper that fits their busy lifestyles. [Apparently they didn’t call loudly or often enough.]

Our community newspapers will be more accessible as well. In addition to our distribution inside the Register to subscribers [If you can find it, since we’ll fold it up inside the classifieds and the real estate ads] we are adding nearly 700 news racks across the county to expand free distribution to nonsubscribers. [Gotta fill those OC Post and Squeeze OC racks with something] Four community newspapers are adding a second distribution day — the Saddleback Valley News, Anaheim Hills News, Yorba Linda Star and Placentia News Times. [Gotta keep those college kids we hire at $22,000 a year busy.] We’re also adding distribution in more than 200 retail locations in those four geographic areas. [So go fuck yourself, Stanton!]

As always, we appreciate your feedback on these endeavors and how we’re doing. Thank you for your support." [Okay, done—where’s my bonus?]

Terry Horne
President and publisher
Orange County Register Communications

So how did the Blade, the self-proclaimed "connection to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendred community" for Orange County and Long Beach, cover Tuesday's gay marriage extravaganza?

Ummmm....

Well, judging by the Blade's web site, it appears that the mucky-mucks at the Laguna Beach-based mag haven't yet heard that the California state supreme court voted last month to legally recognize same-sex marriage -- only the most ground-breaking, Earth-shaking moment in the history of the gay-rights movement, like, ever. (Note highly ironic headline on the cover of their current issue: "Breaking News.") Tuesday was the first day the new law became effective, and pantsloads of media coverage ensued. At the OC clerk/recorder's office in the old courthouse in Santa Ana, there were reporters and photographers from the Weekly, the Register, at least one Spanish-language TV station, KNBC-4, and a horde of others.

And where was the Blade?

Ummmm....

Okay, it's entirely possible there was someone there from the Blade covering it for their next monthly print issue, which should be hitting the stands any day now. Maybe they sent a team of reporters to the South County clerk's office where marriages were also being performed and licenses were being handed out. But really -- shouldn't the Blade be breaking just a little bit of this huge, huge story on their web site?

You'd think.

And then you remember our own R. Scott Moxley's kick-ass coverage of how the Blade wrote nothing about one of their biggest advertisers, Steven Kooshian, a Southern California AIDS doctor, who secretly injected his patients with water and multivitamins instead of life-saving drugs...and, sadly, you just gotta shrug and say "It figures."