Orange County News Blog

Orange County Register: It's all cars, all the time! The driver killed in the early morning Newport Beach crash that severed and mangled a $140,000 '04 Ferrari is identified as "Mask," Huntington Beach's 45-year-old mixed-martial arts promoter and TapouT clothing company founder Charles Lewis Jr. Police arrested the driver of a '77 Porsche, 51-year-old Jeff David Kirby of Costa Mesa, on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter. . . . Another crash, this time in Anaheim and involving a new gray BMW 530i and a Mazda Navajo, left a 69-year-old man seriously injured. No arrests were made. . . . Viken Keuylian, 45 of Laguna Hills, the owner of Lamborghini Orange County, formerly the world's largest Lamborghini dealership, has agreed to plead guilty to federal criminal fraud for bilking $12 million from the finance company that fronted him money to sell the luxury cars. . . . A Los Alamitos resident has filed a $5,000 lawsuit against the city, a construction company and a portable toilet provider in connection with an arson fire in a port-a-potty that destroyed his '97 Isuzu Rodeo. . . . An early morning fire caused an estimated $1.5 million damage to a Fullerton auto-body shop. Burning cars and chemicals made it a bitch for the 48 firefighters who responded.

 

Los Angeles Times: The state's intragency Climate Action Team issued a report telling Californians how to deal with coming floods, erosion and rising sea levels spurred by global warming. . . . Irvine-based Fisker Automotive says its plug-in hybrids will run on a Canadian battery. . . . Low-level exposure to ozone -- you know, the nasty stuff in the air huffed particularly by folks in LA, the IE and OC's most-inland communities -- is deadly over time, reports the New England Journal of Medicine. . . . Ducks GM Bob Murray gave coach Randy Carlyle a vote of confidence after Anaheim's latest win. . . .  Cal State Fullerton guard Josh Akognon dropped 37 on UC Riverside in the Titans' first-round Big West tournament win.

Orange County Register: Former Rams kicker Tony Zendejas was found not guilty of raping and sodomizing a woman in a hotel room after allegedly drugging her at his San Dimas restaurant. . . . OC Watchdog has the scoop on Orange County's 14 lawmakers in the State Legislature receiving nearly $20,000 in gifts last year, most from special-interest groups such as The Irvine Co., the Walt Disney Co. and the California Building Industry Association. . . . Ferrari vs. light pole. Light pole wins. . . . Three OC-based Mexican food chains are in danger of defaulting on their debts, according to Moody's. They are Del Taco, El Pollo Loco and Real Mex Restaurants (Chevys, Acapulco, Las Brisas, El Torito and El Torito Grill). . . . Mater Dei basketball's "dream season" is over.

Los Angeles Times: A court-martial begins at Camp Pendleton today for the last defendant in the November 2005 deaths of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq. Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich is charged with voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault and dereliction of duty in the deaths of two women and five children. . . . An 84-year-old Huntington Beach woman may lose her home to foreclosure due to her live-in caretaker having allegedly taken out fraudulent loans in her name, bilking her out of about $200,000. . . . A Costa Mesa travel firm has killed upcoming spring break trips to Baja due to Mexico's crime spree. Actually, the owner of Summer Winter Action Tours maintains such travel is safe, blaming the media for overblowing crime south of the border. Partiers are being re-routed to Palm Springs. . . . Plaschke: For Angels' Mike Scioscia, the halo definitely fits. . . . Arellano: Read Gustavo's latest opinion piece. Read it now.

In "Breach of Trust: FBI Wants It Both Ways," the editorial board of UC Irvine's New University student newspaper takes issue with the indictment of a Muslim resident of Tustin and the use of a controversial government informant. (Background is here and here.) The case is bound to have a chilling effect, according to the editorial.

This incident is alarming to the American Muslim community in Orange County, who had been working hard to establish and maintain good relations with the FBI, according to the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and sets the already tender relationship back to square one. So was sending in an undercover informant (and possibly more) to spy on community members and instigate violent rhetoric in mosques while supposedly working diligently to develop a "partnership" with that same community on the surface really the best approach? We beg to differ.

The editorial expresses the board's problems with the informant's criminal past, the methods for gathering information and what little appears to have been gained by spying on mosques. "The FBI should redouble efforts to maintain honest communication with the affected Muslim community," writes the board, which includes this quote from MPAC senior advisor Maher Hathout: "People cannot be suspects and partners at the same time." 

Former Weekly contributor Dan Tsang looks back "at the good old days of the Los Angeles Times Orange County edition" with two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Reyes on the latest Subversity on KUCI. (You can listen here.)

Reyes, who took a buyout in September after 29 years of service to the Times, says it is doubtful but not impossible for his former colleagues to win more of journalism's top prizes. But obstacles include shrinking newsroom staffs and budgets. There were 1,100 total employees--reporters, pressmen, office workers, etc.--when Reyes first came to the Sunflower Avenue office in 1979. Since Tribune took ownership of the Times in 2000, the newsroom staff has been cut 10 percent every year, from more than 900 employees to about 550 now. Reyes recalls when there were 39 metro reporters in the Orange County office--that's not counting the sports, Calendar and photography staffers. Now he estimates there are 10 or less. 

Tsang smartly points out that the Times beat its retreat just as Orange County was becoming more populous and ethnically diverse, which one would think would benefit readership of a metro like the Times versus lilly-white suburbia's Orange County Register. But Reyes notes the Times was strongest on the OC's coast, while the Register always had a lock on inland communities. By the time South County exploded, the Times discovered the Register was already there, leaving no place for California's largest paper to go for growth, according to Reyes. He credits the Reg for being much smarter when it came to marketing.

Orange County Register: The top viewed story on the Reg website as my knuckles drag across the keyboard? Octuplets' mom reportedly moving to La Habra. That should shut up anyone who whines the media should stop covering Nadya Suleman so she'll slither back into obscurity. It's not like journos are being deluged by people demanding, "Give us more Ben Bernanke!" But I had to laugh while watching a morning news reporter on the teevee sticking his microphone into the faces of Suleman's future La Habra neighbors, asking if they are fine with Octomom living amongst them given the inconvenience of media trucks taking up permanent residence in the cul-de-sac. Two said they are happy she got a bigger place for her 14 kids, but upset with the media presence, hint-hint, asswipe. The irony was lost on the tele-reporter, naturally, as is the irony of me reporting on the reporter reporting about the over-reporting. . . . Is that 4 lbs. of cocaine strapped to your legs or are you happy to see me? John Wayne Airport security arrested a 22-year-old man about to bound a plane for Philadelphia after it was discovered he had that much blow strapped to his leg.

Los Angeles Times: In these troubled times, as more people are forced out of their cars, leave it to OCTA to cut bus service. . . . In more wheeled woe, RV maker Fleetwood has filed for bankruptcy. The company was founded in 1950 by the late John Crean of Santa Ana Heights. . . . A group of Walt Disney Co. shareholders want a say on wages and benefits to executives. . . . The sale of a Long Beach site of a former Boeing Co. airplane factory fell out of escrow, jeopardizing plans for a $500-million movie studio there.    

Like scores of others in the print media business (we know who we are), Orange County Register employees are reeling from diminished 401Ks, a freeze on raises and increased workloads brought on by a company initiative to boost its web presence. They were not exactly cheered up last week when publisher Terry Horne (pictured) informed employees that "sometimes, life isn't fair" as he revealed the cost-cutting strategies would remain for at least another year.

Horne let that drop right after telling reporters their "hits" on ocregister.com are up 100 percent from last year--but that they need 250 percent more hits per scribe. The implication was everyone needs to work harder for no more money or comp time while they are watching their retirement savings plunge. Thus, you can imagine how some Regerinos took just after seeing this posted on the company intranet:

Feb. 6 - OCRC associates held a Celebration of Success breakfast today at the Pelican Hill Resort in Newport Coast for the Advertising Sales and Sales Operations divisions. Associates were recognized for performance in 2008; those that exemplified outstanding achievements in the following categories: customer service, teamwork, high performance, sales goal achievement, accuracy and innovation.

Winners were honored with the following distinctions: Champion's Club, Publisher's Club 100 and Publisher's Council. Champion's Club winners received gift cards and certificates, while Club 100 winners received a commemorative gift. Those who achieved Publisher's Council status are invited on a trip to Maui at the Hyatt Regency Resort and Spa in May.

The message went on to name the advertising employees who made the Champion's Club and Publisher's Club 100, as well as the lucky 18 Publisher's Council honorees heading to Maui. Besides the indignity of reading this in light of what editorial employees had just been were later told, the Grand Avenue gremlin who passed this along was miffed at the tony Newport Coast resort setting for the ad-travaganza, coupled with the costs of Hawaiian airfares and lodging, mere weeks after other staffers were told there would be no company Christmas party.

Orange County Register: 700 lbs. tires were flipped, hunks of steel were moved and a U-Haul truck was upended at Main Beach in Huntington Beach on Saturday. No, it was not another joy-riding HBPD cop. It was Southern California's Strongest Man competition. . . . Mexican immigrants are returning home because of the shitty economy. Look for the CCIR to get into the foreclosure/failing bank/insurance giant collapse/disappearing financial services firms/Ponzi scheme industry. . . . Mater Dei High School, which boasted the No. 1 boys basketball team in the nation, suffered its first loss of the season, in the CIF Southern Section Division I-AA title game. The Monarchs are still alive in the hunt for the state championship, which they won the previous two seasons after also losing in CIF Southern Section title game. . . . The organic food business is growing, albeit more slowly, it was agreed at the Natural Products Expo West in the Anaheim Convention Center over the weekend. . . . Dillow: O'Reilly has his No-Spin Zone, Gordo's got his No-Cussing Zone.

Los Angeles Times: A story about lavish gifts and trips given by lobbyists to state legislators amid the budget lockdown mentions that state Sens. Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar) and Tom Harman (R-Huntington Beach) received hundreds of dollars in tickets to Disneyland from Walt Disney Co. . . . Hoping to put behind past problems that have plagued UC Irvine Medical Center, a new $556-million facility opens in Orange this week. . . .  Cal State Fullerton's Irvine campus has been kicked out of the Great Park. Officials are scrambling to find a new home for their 2,000 students. . . . A math teacher at a private academy in Anaheim won a prize. . . . Angels starter Ervin Santana injured his elbow and will start the season on the DL. No timetable was set for his return.   

Orange County Register: The man who shot himself to death inside Crystal Cathedral two weeks ago thought he was a prophet of God and heard the voices of demons inside his head. Wait, there's more than one of us? The Reg also has video of the dude. . . . A Costa Mesa Police officer and another from neighboring Huntington Beach were cleared by the district attorney in the shooting of a man armed with a screwdriver. This only would have been news in Orange County had our DA not justified the shooting. The twist here is it was San Bernardino County's DA who made the ruling. . . . Chico the bulldog went missing from his Victorville home four years ago. He was just found 80 miles away in Santa Ana, living under the name Rosco. Wait, there's more than one of us? The Reg also has video of the pooch. . . The Angels have rolled out a new line of ball caps for sale at its Tempe, Arizona, baseball field. I want one that shows a bat with a slash through it and the words, "I paid 26.99 for this hat and all the Angels got was another light-hitting lineup."

Los Angeles Times: Yesterday you were told there was but one, lonely new story when you clicked the O.C. tab on the California page. Today's is on a tiny Latino neighborhood that is resistant to incorporation into Anaheim-zzzzz. Huh? What? Was someone talking? . . . You can find more O.C. news on the Times' L.A. Now blog. But O.C. isn't in L.A., you may be asking yourself. It is when viewed from Chicago. On L.A. Now: a man fled his own fraud trial in Santa Ana during a bathroom break, and Orange County is getting $13.7 million from the feds to combat homelessness.  

Orange County Register: Danger on Mexican streets will force captains and crews in the annual Newport Beach to Ensenada yacht race to remain on their ships. But who'll get ripped off by the Hussong's mariachis? . . . I went to a Laguna Woods Village board meeting and a UFC Smackdown broke out. . . . Sounds like a certain granny needs to put down the water bottle and grab a certain medicinal herb. While you can draw sanctions for traveling 20 mph the wrong direction in the fast lane leaving Laguna Woods, the DMV does now say it won't pull the driving licenses of medical-marijuana users. Coming next: black-light eye charts. . . . The 43rd annual Patriots Day Parade descends on downtown Laguna Beach on Saturday, and judging by the Reg's promotional photo, you'd better get down there before there are no more patriots to watch parading. Whoa, who just tossed that red, white and blue water bottle at me? . . . Speaking of patriots, Mickadeit's is bigger than Jim Gilchrist's. Allegedly.

Los Angeles Times: There is only one new Orange County story when you click the O.C. tab on the online California page. Sigh. Christine Hanley's piece is about the capture of an ex-Santa Ana gang member who broke out of juvie in 1990. (The Register had it first. Double-sigh.) . . . Craigslist is getting sued for its sex ads. How about suing 'em for destroying print media's classified ad business? . . . Helene Elliott: "The Ducks' trades said they want to make the playoffs now. If they miss, which is likely, they have restocked enough talent and promise to rightly feel optimistic. They don't have to rebuild from the ground up." So we've got that going for us, which is nice.
 

Orange County Register: Mickadeit: He peels off a classic on the squabble between Donna Crean's kids over her fate. . . . Did you feel the window-rattling jolt about 9:15 last night? I did. I figured it was a small earthquake, although it was very quick, like a sonic boom. It violently shook my back patio sliding glass window for about half a second. Hundreds of people all across Orange County experienced this also--and they informed "Science Dude" Gary Robbins, who checked and ruled out an earthquake, a weather event, a passing asteroid and a space shuttle landing. Camp Pendleton was firing off explosives Tuesday, but if felt at all it would have been strongest in the very southern part of the county, and a base official who lives in San Clemente told Robbins he didn't feel anything. Weird. Again, for the second straight day, it must be asked: What did you gays do to piss off God now? . . .  Perhaps the answer is their being at the center of a cop's discrimination lawsuit against Newport Beach PD, which did not go well for the officer Tuesday. . . . Or the whole Prop. 8 thing. . . . Or this.

Los Angeles Times: With the new housing industry reeling, thieves have taken to breaking into abandoned developments and ripping out copper and other materials they can re-sell. Among the companies whose ghost towns are being victimized is Miami-based developer Lennar Corp., not at Irvine's Great Park but the "Platinum Triangle" near Anaheim Stadium, and Irvine-based SunCal Cos., which has stalled projects in Oakland, Sacramento and San Clemente. . . . . STOP THE PRESSES! A mysterious middle-aged woman has scammed two Newport Beach clinics out of Botox treatments. . . . DON'T FIRE UP THOSE PRESSES YET! "Actress" Tawny Kitaen, who probably knows her way around a Botox needle (hmmm...), has listed her Newport Beach home at $3.45 million.  

Orange County Register: Four earthquakes have shook North Orange County in a week. Jeez, gay people, what have you done to piss off God now? . . . OC banruptcies jumped 57 percent in January. So you've got to love Southern California Edison's timing in these fucked-up financial times: included from yet another rate increase is $100 million set aside for bonuses to top execs and employees. . . . Mano-a-Nano: a group of young men beat, stabbed and robbed a man of his iPod in Santa Ana Monday night. . . . Joan Irvine Smith, the granddaughter of Irvine Co. founder James Irvine, and Donald Bren, chairman of the Irvine Co., are among the Times of London's list of the world's top 100 "eco-barons"--members of the filthy rich who spend their dollars on green projects. Here's what I love: I've contacted the Irvine Co. more times than I can remember over the years trying to get a comment from Bren on the company's assorted misdeeds, but he never replies. But call him an eco-baron and you get shit outta his mouth like this: "Irvine Company takes its commitment to the environment very seriously, and it is always an honor to have that commitment recognized." I'll save that for the next time Pelican Hill craps in the ocean. 

Los Angeles Times: Assemblywoman Diane Harkey (R-Dana Point) accepted more than $16,000 in campaign contributions from real estate developers who borrowed money from her husband's company--and the now Chris Cox-less Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating. . . . Dean Grose not only stepped down as mayor of Los Alamitos but resigned from the City Council over the furor caused by his having forwarded an email around town with a doctored photo of the White House with a watermelon patch where a garden should be. . . . Ducks GM Brian Murray says he won't trade Scott Niedermayer, citing "the respect factor. I don't think he should go play somewhere else if this is his last year." Murray also indicated he'll likely keep another fan favorite, Chris Pronger.

If you've been following the self-destruction of the LA Times throughout the past year or so, you probably know that next week, the paper is killing off its "California" section, the paper's increasingly anemic attempt to convince readers it actually cares about local news.

As its name suggests, the California section really just combined a few local stories with state budget coverage from Sacramento and assorted briefs from flyover country. Years ago, the California section was called "Metro," and really did include lots of local news. At one point, in the glory days of the mid-to-late 1990s, the paper even had a bunch of so-called Times Community News bureaus spread throughout OC, so if you read the paper here, your local news was really, really local. And until this week, if you picked up the Times in OC, Dana Parsons was your local columnist, sort of the Steve Lopez of Santa Ana's Civic Center.

Starting in March, what remains of local news coverage will be folded into the paper's front page section. No more room for the ruminations of Parsons, who'll switch to a staff writing position, although word is Lopez, the paper's star columnist up in LA--think best-selling book and movie deal-- will get to keep his column.

Over the years the Weekly has bemoaned Parsons for his wrongheaded carping about the moral culpability of the Haidl gang rape victim but also paid tribute to his more courageous coverage, like his expose of the shoddy police work and prosecutorial indifference that led to the wrongful arrest, conviction and imprisonment of an innocent kid named Arthur Carmona. As Weekly freelancer Bob Emmers wrote here, Parsons was the first person to pay any attention to the facts.

"Parsons then proceeded to do something astonishing--particularly for Orange County and its often lackluster journalism scene: he began his own investigation of the case. He read the entire 700-plus-page trial transcript. He attempted to interview witnesses, police officers, investigators, attorneys, experts in eyewitness testimony. And then he wrote a series of nine columns questioning Arthur's conviction."

Thanks in large measure to Parsons' refusal to stop writing about Carmona, the kid eventually saw his charges vacated. Sadly, Carmona perished in February 2008 during a late-night road rage incident in Santa Ana. We already miss Carmona and we'll miss Parsons too, even if we didn't always agree with his columns, but we're glad there will at least be more room for stories about Britney Spears' dad.

Orange County Register: A tip-of-the-knit cap back at the Reggie, for acknowledging Weekly news breaker R. Scott Moxley's 2001 cover story on a nurse's allegations that famed Dr. Steven Kooshian dispensed watered-down AIDS meds. At the time, Kooshian, other media and Orange County's gay community tried to discredit Moxley's investigastion. When will they ever learn? As the Reg reports today, Kooshian pleaded guilty to multiple counts of health-care fraud and lying to investigators. Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grouse, whose White House-with-a-watermelon-patch email drew calls of racism, says he will resign. A confused public reacts: Los Alamitos has a mayor? . . .  Mickadeit: I took jewelry over to one of those cash-for-gold outfits for "Aunt K." So that's what he's calling his cigar-with-heroin-chaser habit. . . . Lanser: OC new-home sales run 87 percent below average. Ouch.

Los Angeles Times: A not-as-enthusiastic tip-of-the-knit cap back at the Times, for acknowledging Weekly news breaker R. Scott Moxley's 2001 cover story on a nurse's allegations that famed Dr. Steven Kooshian dispensed watered-down AIDS meds. Unlike the Reggie, the Times failed to link to Moxley's piece. Parsons: Columnist the Weekly once dubbed the best journalist in Orange County to readers: buh-bye. He'll now be just another California section writer. The Coen Brothers have created an ad that ridicules "clean coal." President Obama set an August 2010 deadline for most U.S. military forces to pull out of Iraq. In a related story, U.S. Military Forces Airlines schedules a buttload of flights from Iraq to Afghanistan.  

A location scout for a spy movie could not have picked a better location for my late December meeting with Craig Monteilh: a table outside a restaurant in a bustling Irvine shopping center. A lensman would appreciate the shadow-erasing clouds hovering overhead on the warm winter morning. And central casting could not have found a better leading man: Monteilh is tall, intense, talkative, with a shaved head and the kind of cut body one would expect from someone who is now a fitness instructor. All that was missing was the story, which Monteilh was just itching to tell.
"I'm looking forward to getting my name back where it should be," he said.

The gist of 46-year-old's tale: that he had taped Afghans, Iraqis and Pakistanis espousing radical ideas and in some cases plotting terrorism in Orange County. Not quite trusting the source--for a variety of reasons, which will soon become clear--we sat on his story.
 
Then, at dawn on Feb. 20, federal agents arrested 34-year-old Afghan native Ahmad Niazi at his Tustin home. Something about the Los Angeles Times' coverage of the arrest sounded familiar.
 
Looking at my Monteilh interview notes with fresh eyes, I saw that I only scribbled down one name as he had been talking about alleged terror plotters:

Ahmad Niazi.

Orange County Register: Classes sizes will balloon, up to 254 teachers will lose their jobs and frogs will rain down from the sky if Capistrano Unified School District goes through with plans to slash $25 million from its budget. But deputy superintendent Ron Lebs seems more interested in giving school trustees dining advice. "The best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time," Lebs said. "We will keep doing that all the way through June." Bragger. . . . Fear not, fans of public school destruction: all OC districts are screwed. . . . Hey, future furloughed teachers: the line forms at Angel Stadium's Gate 5 for job applications. . . . The Rent show goes on at Corona del Mar High School after principal Fal Asrani is assured a "high-school edition" would be staged. See, in the toned-down version, all references to "gay" are replaced with "freshmen." . . . Octo-mom has been offered $1 million to do a porn film--and I just threw up in my mouth.

Los Angeles Times: The surf gear industry, which is primarily centered in Orange County, is tanking like the rest of the economy. Cost-conscious surfers can always use electrolyzed water to clean their boards. Let's call it a season now: the Angels pound the ChiSox, 12-3, in their spring training opener. Even better: despite the shitty economy, owner Arte Moreno says he'll keep his wallet open to ensure the Halos remain atop the standings. He's probably not a surfer.

In a memo to all staffers, Los Angeles Times editor David Lauter says zoned coverage is now history and the now-editionless Orange County reporters will compete for the same A section space as those on the international, national and LA city beats.

A key section:

That means some stories that currently would run only in Orange County will now appear in the full run. We're not going to back away from covering significant news from Orange County, which makes up roughly one-fifth of the population of our circulation area. But in a non-zoned section, we will have to be more selective about which stories appear in print. Already, we run some stories on the web only-- from OC and from LA. That number likely will go up somewhat.

What does this mean for all of you and how you do your jobs? First, let's talk about what will not change. We're still going to have the same mission: to be Southern California's best and most reliable source of news on the subjects of greatest importance to our state and region. And because we're still going to have roughly the same space to carry out that mission, our basic story mix will not change hugely. It's vitally important that as our section configuration changes, we not lose sight of our priorities for good coverage. I want people to stay focused on the significant stories, the ones that really have impact on the communities we cover. In unsettled times, it's easy for people to react by keeping their heads down and sticking to the routine. But if you keep your head down, you'll miss what's really going on. Don't let that happen.

When I moved from a growing inland daily newspaper that was printing 70,000 copies to the shrinking Daily Pilot of Newport Beach/Costa Mesa that was printing 25,000 copies or whatever it was in 1989, the press on the other side of the wall from the newsroom quickly got up to top speed my first day and then just as quickly slowed to a stop. "Pre-run is over," I said out loud, having been my previous paper's bulldog editor who checks test copies and yells "Stop the presses!" over the din upon discovery of glaring errors. However, as I was informed by my new co-workers, that was not a pre-run, that was the entire run. Said the assistant city editor, as if reciting a marketing slogan, "The Daily Pilot: it's a quick read."

To the outside world in those olden days, the Pilot may have seemed to be in decline given the fewer copies of smaller papers with fewer ads and stories it was printing. But it was actually providing its busy readership a service with this faster format. Now, all Orange County dailies are in decline, so in that quick-read spirit comes this digest of what our busy readers would discover if they had the time, subscription or inclination to read them.   

Newport Beach/Costa Mesa-centric blog A Bubbling Cauldron breaks news this morning that ex-Daily Pilot publisher Tom Johnson and ex-Pilot editor/LA Times journo/current Orange Coast columnist/impending book whore Bill Lobdell are teaming up to start a new community pub that will cover the two burgs, one that, the report says, will be distributed online and, on some days, in print.

Good luck with that. In this gawdawful economy, the pair are currently seeking investors for their project, sez the Cauldron, which means that it could be awhile before NB-CM citizens see anything, if at all. Unless Johnson and Lobdell go after some deep-pocketed plastic surgery docs to help out with startup cash. And lordy knows how many of those there are in Newport.

Their model appears to be the Voice of San Diego, a web-only nonprofit that relies on reader donations for its survival. But that's San Diego, not OC, where the same old problems regarding new media ventures have always persisted: too much competition from other outlets like the Register, the Times (bankruptcy or not, it's still gonna be around for awhile), the Weekly, and a slug of great local websites that blog about everything from food to politics.

Also, J&L will have to eventually realize that they're going to have to pay any fresh-out-of-college reporters they hire a living wage, enough so they can afford to actually live in Newport-Mesa, which eternally has some of the highest rents in all of OC. Oh, and they'll need to give them health insurance, too, if they want to be proper employers.

Yeah. Again, good luck with that.

We at the Weekly have given OC Metro, the self-described "business lifestyle" magazine of Orange County, plenty of well-deserved jabs over the years. But the glossy monthly (Metro had been a biweekly for years until this past September, a downsizing we can all be happy about) has outdone itself with its December issue.

Among the numerous acts of inanity is editor Tina Borgatta's Editor's Note, a look back on 2008 that's really all about . .  Tina Borgatta (pictured here). Check it:

"JANUARY: A new, exciting chapter in my career begins as the editor of OC Metro."

"APRIL: My husband, Art, and I join the Huntington Harbour Yacht Club and meet many great new friends."

"AUGUST: I'm thrilled to be invited back to teach journalism at Chapman in the fall." (Confidential to Borgatta's students: if you had known she was going to write a cheesy column like this one, would you have seriously taken her class??) 

"NOVEMBER: Art is elected to the yacht club's board of directors, and I am named "alternate secretary."

But the yuk-yuks don't stop there. A much larger feature appears several pages later, a basic 2008 Best/Worst list of the sort you see in myriad mags and pubs every December. It's pretty vanilla, just the sort of innocuous puffery you'd expect from OC Metro (although they put the cancellation of KDOC's pathetic song-and-dance show DayBreak OC under "worst," when DBOC's inevitable shotgunning was actually one of the best things to happen during '08).

And then you get to November. Listed under "best": "Proposition 8 passes in California." Then you see they also list 8's passage under "worst."

As iiiiif . . . somehow Borgatta and the Metro are trying to get it both ways? In their business mindset, how could 8's passage possibly be considered best-anything? Perhaps Borgatta missed this sentence on the Prop 8 ballot a month back---the legislative analyst's estimate of what fiscal impact Prop 8's passage would have: "Over the next few years, potential revenue loss, mainly from sales taxes, totaling in the several tens of millions of dollars, to state and local governments."

Gee---that doesn't sound like a particularly good pro-business move, coming from a "business lifestyle" magazine, does it?  

But then, it's OC Metro.

UPDATED WITH REGISTER'S TAKE ON THE SETTLEMENT:

The Orange County Register agreed today to shell out $42 million to settle a class-action lawsuit by newspaper carriers that was hailed as "the first of its kind in the United States" by the delivery workers' Santa Ana-based law firm.

Daniel J. Callahan of Callahan & Blaine, which represented carriers along with Timothy Cohelan of San Diego's Cohelan & Khoury, broke down settlement as follows in an email sent to the Weekly that announced the settlement: the Reg will pay $36 million in past damages and attorneys' fees and an estimated $6 million worth of benefits going forward to existing and future carriers.

The Register posted a settlement story on its website that included this statement from Scott Flanders, president and chef executive officer of the Register's parent company, Freedom Communications: "I am pleased that the five-year protracted litigation has been resolved through a settlement that is fair to both sides. With this resolution, we bring certainty and finality to this issue, and we can move forward to address other challenges and to strengthen our business."

Call it more progressive (read: adult) editorial stance, a copyeditor's error, or a raised middle-finger to the paper's days of branding itself a "family newspaper," I have to admit being tickled at the sight of the word "shit" popping up in today's print edition of the LA Times. It's right there on page 22 of what's left of the Calendar section, in a book review feature: the un-altered title of the new book of essays by Steve Lowe, Alan McArthur and Brendan Hay:

Is It Just Me or Is Everything Shit?

In bold letters, nonetheless. And not printed as "S---" or some other childish form such as "s#%!#," either.

The Times chickened out, though, referring to the book as simply Is It Just Me in the body of the review. But for the paper that once would only print the name of the Butthole Surfers if it was chopped to "B.H. Surfers," this is high progress.

Can a lifting of the ban on "fuck" be far behind?

A handful of upstart publications have made rather determined efforts over the years to compete with the Weekly during our 13-year existence---I'd stick yet another fork in the rancid corpse of the Register's embarrassing Squeeze OC right about here, except at this point its bones have rotted down to a fine powder. These days, though, it seems there are more out there than ever, none of which can even get close enough to us to (insert potentially offensive gratuitous sexual metaphor of your choice here).

But hey, I'm biased.

One of the strangest of these recent rags has to be a thing called Live OC, a glossy, slick-papered monthly published out of one of those myriad office parks under the John Wayne Airport landing path. I first started seeing it about two years ago (they also re-brand it as Live LB for their Long Beach market; that one sucks, too), and was struck by the amateurishness of just about everything, from the high-school-freshman-quality writing (that is, when its writers aren't essentially reworking blowjob press releases) to the lack of original art to the mystifying story selections, which can be found in many other, better forms. (The current issue features a fall TV preview---yawn---a bare-minimum event calendar, "news" briefs about Hurricane Ike and Paul Newman's demise, and several celebrity interviews with folks like Seth Rogen, who've never had anything to do with Orange County ever in their lives.

There are also a bunch of ads for cosmetic dentistry, rapid weight loss clinics, laser hair restoration and frou-frou restaurants, meaning that perhaps Live OC considers itself to be the gateway drug for future Orange Coast readers.....no, wait, can't be---not a single plastic surgery ad here.....

Then there are the reeeeally bad mistakes. Take the current October ish, where writer Tyler Andrews previews the MLB playoffs, with paragraph-length blurbage on the Angels, White Sox, Rays, Red Sox, Cubs, Phillies, Mets and Dodgers. Just one thing: the Mets? Either this was some extremely wishful thinking, or Andrews was too much of a dipshit to pick up a paper or log on to a web site to know that it was the Brewers, not the Mets, who made this year's Elite Eight.

Seriously, how could anyone fuck something up this badly? As Andrews writes, "Frankly, if the Mets win in the Playoffs (sic) they'll need seven games to do it." And the whole of next season, too.

*UPDATE: Should've known better than to trust Live OC with spelling abilities. That Seth Rogen cover story and interview? They spell his last name wrong throughout, even on the cover---ouch! (It's R-O-G-E-N, not R-O-G-A-N). I spelled it wrong, too, when I posted this originally yesterday, but I was basing my spelling off the Live OC spelling. Sometimes Wikipedia is true!

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."