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Monica Hesse has an interesting story in today's Washington Post on a new breach of etiquette sweeping this great land of ours: the
secondhand porn that travelers are subjected to as they, well, sweep across this great land of ours.
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In what must be one of the fastest-ever turnarounds of a first TV season to a DVD set of the same, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has announced Glee Season 1: Road to Sectionals will be on store shelves or available online beginning Dec. 29.It seems to be loosely based on the early days of Orange County High School of the Arts, back when it first formed in the mid-1990s at Los Alamitos High School and before it moved to its current location in downtown Santa Ana. That's ironic considering Morrison attended the early OCHSA.
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John Larson accompanied Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (C.A.M.P.) strike forces as they descended on illegal marijuana farms in Riverside County--and damn if he didn't have a camera crew along with him.
See, Larson is a correspondent with the KCET/Channel 28 program SoCal Connected, which is airing his footage from the 36-hour C.A.M.P sting operation. The "Cannabis Cowboys" segment airs at 8 tonight.
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| "Weave" |
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Heck,
if he isn't at the ballpark yet, you might even catch
him wiping the crumbs off his chin from the California turkey sandwich he devoured at Hector's Subs in Long Beach or begging that the river be the Jack of Clubs at the Hawaiian Gardens casino.
But whatever you do, tread gently lest you have a burning desire to be branded the goat who jinxed Weaver's pre-game rituals.
Meanwhile,
should you feel brisk gusts coming from the direction of
Anaheim tonight, let's hope they have not been produced by Santa Anas but
Boston bats whiffing at whatever Jered and the 'pen throw at the Sox. Of course, meteorologists will tell you there's always a 90 percent chance such windpower was derived from Vlady's wild swings.
As for our competition crying in their overpriced beers in Beantown, their strategy to reverse their fortunes apparently involves hiring a witch doctor to soak Weaver's jersey in chicken blood--something they admittedly should have done before Thursday night to Torii Hunter's.
Ah, Bostonians and their quaint little local customs.
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| These Real Housewives' are real! |
Gretchen Rossi will not get a boob job.
REPEAT: NO NEW BOOBS FOR GRETCHEN ROSSI!
Oh, the humanity!
Seriously, what happened to humanity?
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| Poor? What you talking about, Seth? |
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10) "Stump the Band" now brought to you by Cialis.
9) Green room double padlocked when Hollywood starlets are inside.
8) While promoting the new season of The Girls Next Door, a creepy old man who bangs much younger women will be in one chair and Hugh Hefner will be in the other.
7) G Love and Special Sauce no longer just a musical guest.
6) Special audience seating for grand jury members.
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| Dr. Peter Karpawhich, a Detroit area physician, plays a Bolshevik lieutenant firing a pistol at American soldiers as another re-enactor takes aim in waist-deep snow in "Voices of a Never Ending Dawn." |
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Nothing more can be said about the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim's dominating 11-0 shutout of the Texas Rangers last night to win the American League West crown. The offense, defense and especially Ervin Santana's pitching were of a caliber one would expect from a World Series-bound team. So, let's instead relish the top 11 moments from the Halos' victory celebration . . . while we don't have to think about Boston. Yet.
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2) Pitcher Sean O'Sullivan showing off a wide-array of dance moves in the plastic-covered clubhouse, including a tribal booty shake that had the black guys looking at each other saying "Damn!" and Fox Sports West announcer Bill MacDonald remarking, "That's 100 times better than Mark Madsen a few years ago with the Lakers when they had their celebration."
3) Usually stoic manager Mike Scioscia's smiling widely as he watched O'Sullivan.
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| California Secretary of State's Office |
| Heidi De Jong Barsuglia |
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| Nasim Pedrad |
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| Mom fight! Mom fight! |
Photo by Corey Nickols
Lucas Hilderbrand reels in our on-demand video culture.
The photo above of Lucas Hilderbrand, an associate professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Irvine and the subject of this week's cover story "Close to YouTube," was shot at Eddie Brandt's Saturday Matinee video store in
Given the state of flux in the video business these days, Hilderbrand says he was happy to see Eddie's "was actually renovating and the business seemed as busy as ever. That's because it has an amazing collection of videos that you can't get anywhere else. It's probably the best video store in the world."
Meanwhile, if you'd like to read what Hilderbrand writes about film instead of getting it through yours truly, go online and purchase the Spring/Summer 2009 edition of Millennium Film Journal 51: Experiments in Documentary. Among those you've read in OC Weekly who have contributed to previous editions of Millennium Film Journal are Ernest Hardy and J. Hoberman. Hilderbrand's piece is titled "Experiments in Documentary: Contradictions, Uncertainty, Change."
Too much reality for Orange County law enforcement (clockwise from top left): Ryan Alexander Jenkins, Josh Waring, Renzo Gamboa, Dennis Rodman, Jason Wahler and Matt Keough.
UPDATED TO REFLECT MURDER CHARGE, CRIMINAL BATTERY COMPLAINT AGAINST JENKINS.
If anyone in Orange County with a Hispanic surname, baggy jeans and a tattoo can be branded "gang affiliated" and therefore subjected to a life as a suspect in any goddamn local crime, then why the hell can't scofflaws tied to reality TV shows suffer similar fates?
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| "Megan Wants a Millionaire" . . . but not that badly. |
Yes, dear, the NFL is back already. The Oakland Raiders kick off the 2009-2010 preseason versus the Dallas Cowboys tonight from Oakland Coliseum in a preview of this year's Thanksgiving Day game. Live coverage begins at 7 p.m. on KTLA-Channel 5.
Photo by John Gilhooley
Larry "D-Fence" Garcia is ready for another season of Raiders football.
Despite their relative--ahem--differences in the win-loss columns in recent years, the Raiders always give the 'Boys a good fight.
This also kicks off a new season for the Raiders Boosters of Orange County, which gathers on game days at Larry's Pizza, 926 W. Orangethorpe Ave., Fullerton, (714) 871-3484. The eatery has added more high-definition, flat-screen televisions since last season for viewers' enjoyment.
It's best to wear silver and black inside, and Mr. "D-Fence" himself, Larry Garcia, will be on hand to pass out and accept Boosters membership applications. Members get new t-shirts, which should arrive in a couple more weeks, Garcia says. Paid members are also automatically entered into a drawing for a grand prize each season. This year, two tickets to sit in Oakland Coliseum's "Black Hole" for the Dec. 13 game against the Washington Redskins will be given away. For more membership details, call (714) 278-8922 or e-mail Larry.Garcia@alcoa.com.
It took a most unusual campaign for advertising/public-relations/brand-identification firm Young & Rubicam Brands to convince fellow Irvine-based company Toshiba U.S. to jump back into advertising via television commercials after being absent from the airwaves for several years. The above ad from the just-launched Toshiba "Breakthrough" Campaign is trippy enough. But for a real dose of strange, check out another component of the campaign that pits the towns of Boring and Normal against one another. That would be Boring, Oregon (population 12,851 in 2000), and Normal, Illinois (45,386).
Among the contests in this burg vs. burg deathmatch: knuckle cracking . . .
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When did Showtime's Weeds, which is set in Valencia or Calabasas or Santa Clarita or Stevenson Ranch or Gorman or wherever the hell it is, spring up in Orange County? It's sure seeming very Agrestic-like based on two police incidents mere hours apart Wednesday.
First, cops started going door-to-door in the 1100 block of East First Street in Tustin because someone had called saying marijuana was being grown and sold in the area. The odor led officers to a particular home around 9 a.m., and when they went inside they reportedly found 300 pot plants growing thanks to elaborate irrigation, lighting and atmosphere-control systems. Handguns and assault rifles were also found, and residents Jeremie Johnson, 35, and Otha Millner, 65, were booked at Orange County Jail on suspicion of marijuana cultivation and weapons charges.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Born Identity | ||||
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Man, oh man, the opening bit on last night's The Daily Show With Jon Stewart scored a direct hit on the nutbar birther movement, which pushes its hate screed that Barack Hussein Obama was not born in the U.S. and is unconstitutionally qualified to be president.
As you'll see above, host Jon Stewart takes aim in particular at Laguna Niguel's Orly Taitz, who has filed the unsuccessful lawsuits meant to torpedo Obama's presidency. Best line: You know, I think the lost Gabor sister is right. Wait, she's an attorney, a dentist and a real estate agent."
But Rep. John Campbell (R-Newport Beach), who is among the Republicans who have listened to the birthers by sponsoring legislation to require birth certificates from presidential candidates, fares even worse. After he is shown on Hardball With Chris Matthews saying "As far as I know" Obama is qualified to be president, Stewart says that's a way for politicians to appear in the mainstream while winking to the wack pack.
Best line of the bit: "I have no reason to believe Congressman Campbell spends his time surreptitiously giving out dollar tug jobs at the local rest stop. All I'm doing is introducing legislation to catch this motherf*&@er."
The birthers apparently won't leave CNN's Rick Sanchez alone. (Welcome to the club, bub). A day after exploiting their nutty cause to his noontime audience--again, welcome to the club, bub--he had U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn on his CNN Newsroom program today to explain how the Oklahoma Republican could support legislation born out of birther rants yet still claim he believes Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii, is a legal citizen and is constitutionally qualified to be president of the United States.
Sanchez inferred that Coburn was pandering to the wingnuts and scoring political points against Obama. Coburn tried to counter-spin that the birther legislation is designed to bring people together and restore faith in the election system and that it has nothing to do with Obama and his birther-disputed birthplace. Sanchez didn't seem to buy it (nor, for a second straight day, did his MySpace followers).
In a discussion with a couple talking heads afterward, Sanchez conceded he is struggling with giving the unfounded birther story any more legs vs. the right of people to know the issue continues the rear its ugly head--notably now in the U.S. Congress.
Once again, welcome to the club, bub--with feeling!
Late nights on Irvine-based KDOC TV/Channel 56 famously featured right-wing wingnut Wally George's Hot Seat and, less famously, lifelong adolescent Poorman's various programs, is about to go to pot.
Cannabis Planet, a new weekly half-hour news show, premieres at midnight July 31 and will continue at that time Thursdays and Saturdays for 13 consecutive weeks. It will cover "the merits of the cannabis plant (medicinally, industrially, agriculturally), and the benefits this plant brings to planet earth, mankind and the United States," say producers.
The show is co-hosted by West Coast Cannabis Magazine publisher Ngaio Bealum and medical marijuana activist Sarah Diesel. Horticulturist and author Ed Rosenthal, who serves as resident cannabis expert, will provide weekly growing tips. But topics will extend beyond pot as medicine or hemp as an industrial product, focusing on music, entertainment and celebrity tie-ins to the wonder plant as well.
"We are very excited to be bringing the latest in cannabis news and information into millions of living room each week," says Brad Lane, the Cannabis Planet creator and executive producer. "The show will also be available on the Internet, but we think the information is important enough to be seen on television."
When his program airs on Thursdays, it follows Rod Serling's original The Twilight Zone, creating a solid stoner hour of television.
CNN's Rick Sanchez aired a story around noon Pacific time on what he characterized as a non-story: the growing "birthers" movement that claims President Barack Hussein Obama was not born in the U.S. and is, thus, constitutionally unqualified to be commander in chief.
CNN.com
Rick Sanchez: Tonight's top non-story...
You know, the non-story that OC Weekly has written and blogged about incessantly.
Sanchez showed video of a Republican congressman's recent speech before constituents getting taken over by birthers who wondered why their elected representative has not joined their crazy cause. The newsman was then joined by a representative of FactCheck.org and a conservative radio talk show host who both agreed the Obama birth certificate story is a non-story.
The radio shouter said if he was Obama's PR man, he'd have the president pause during one of his nationally televised addresses or press conferences to hold up his birth certificate and put the non-story to bed once and for all. But the FactCheck.org rep said Obama has already done that, and feeding the nutbars' fantasies does not seem very presidential.
Most following along on Sanchez's MySpace page seemed to agree with the FactChecker . . .
Well, guessed who showed up in the ol' email inbox, responding to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann naming him the "World's Worst Person"? It's First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park pastor Wiley Drake, who drew the dubious distinction for saying he's prayed for the deaths of President Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and fellow pastor Rick Warren.
Pastor Wiley Drake
Alas, the good reverend's reaction is short and, uh, brief:
"Olbermann is my new press secretary," types Drake. "I could not have bought that much press coverage. Thanks, Mr. Olbermann."
In a quick follow-up, Drake adds, "Even beat out Rush."
And, really, isn't that what life's all about?
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