March 31, 2016 – OC Weekly

OCDA JAILS WITNESS FOR NOT SEEING ITS MURDER | AMERICA’S FIRST HEMP VODKA | WHO’S BETTER FOR MEXIS: HILLARY OR BERNIE?

APRIL 01-07, 2016 | VOLUME 21 | NUMBER 31

#RENEWBORDERTOWN | OCWEEKLY.COM

Z I E T I C OBEN K

America knows Kobe Bryant as a basketball legend—but here in Orange County, he’s the most regular famous guy around

COMING SOON!!!

NEW WAREHOUSE/SHOWROOM

LOCATION in IRVINE

COUNTY county | CLASSIFIEDS | MUSIC | CULTURE | FILM | FOOD | CALENDAR | FEATURE | THE | CONTENTS | | | classifieds | music | culture | film | food | calendar | feature | the | contents

AFTERS NOW OPEN!

MAp ONril TH 0 X1X–X 2014 07,X2, 016

OCWEEKLY.COM/SLIDESHOWS NAPALM DEATH AND MELT-BANANA

TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER

Costa Mesa Courtyards 1835 Newport Blvd.

Costa Mesa www.aftersicecream.com

ALLIX JOHNSON

mmer SISuRIGHT AROUND THE CORNER OVER 5

up front

#1 BRE

,000

BREA

The County

AST SU

ST AU G

RGEON

06 | MOXLEY CONFIDENTIAL |

IN OC!

MENT ATION S

BREAST AUGMENTATION MIRA MIST TECHNIQUE ®

»JUST $2900

LIPOSCULPTURING

UPPER & LOWER ABDOMEN

»JUST $2900

COMPLETE • NO HIDDEN COSTS

BRAZILIAN BUTT LIFT »JUST $3900

COMPLETE • NO HIDDEN COSTS

TUMMY TUCK STARTING AT $3900 FULLER LIPS RESTYLANE/JUVEDERM • $385

OCWEEKLY.COM | | ocweekly.com

VOLUME 21 | NUMBER 31 » OCWEEKLY.COM

ICE CREAM

MINIMALLY INVASIVE • FASTER RECOVERY MINIMAL PAIN • NO HIDDEN COST

14

inside » 04/01-04/07 » 2016

PHOTOFACIAL $99 LASER HAIR REMOVAL BIKINI/FACE $69 BOTOX $99 PER AREA SCLEROTHERAPY $99 PER AREA MICRODERMABRASION $39

MIRA AESTHETIC MEDICAL CENTER 3140 RED HILL AVE #150, COSTA MESA | 714.544.8678 LOCATIONS IN OC & BEVERLY HILLS | YOUNGERLOOK.COM

PERF ORME

D

OCDA jails witness for not seeing a murder its way. By R. Scott Moxley 07 | ¡ASK A MEXICAN! | Who’s better for Mexicans: Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders? By Gustavo Arellano 07 | HEY, YOU! | A perfect example of a dickhead driver. By Anonymous

Feature

09 | SPORTS | Encounters with Kobe

Bryant as a regular guy in OC.

By Weeklings and pals

in back

Calendar

14 | EVENTS | Things to do while

dealing with weirdos anew.

Food

18 | REVIEW | Gratitude in Newport

Beach has good food, grating mantras. By Edwin Goei 18 | HOLE IN THE WALL | O Udon in Fountain Valley. By Gustavo Arellano 19 | EAT THIS NOW | Fried tofu at Ha Long Vietnamese Cuisine.

By Edwin Goei 19 | DRINK OF THE WEEK |

Humboldt’s Finest Cannabis-Infused Vodka. By Mary Carreon

Film

20 | REVIEW | Amigos de Bolsa

Chica get into the documentary game.

By Mary Carreon 21 | SPECIAL SCREENINGS |

Screw Netflix; see local stuff.

By Matt Coker

Culture

22 | THEATER | South Coast Repertory takes on child stars and Comic-Con culture with Eliza Clark’s Future Thinking. By Joel Beers 22 | TRENDZILLA | The Great Santa Ana Pot Clinic Raid . . . in comics form! By Aimee Murillo 23 | UNDER THEIR SKIN | Alec Rodriguez of Goodfellas Tattoo Studio.

By Josh Chesler

Music

24 | PROFILE | The Abigails’ Warren Thomas returns from the brink of selfdestruction. By Kim Conlan 26 | ANNIVERSARY | Programme Skate & Sound looks back on five years in Fullerton.

By Candace Hansen 28 | LOCALS ONLY | Nieman Gatus has some new-old soul.

By Taylor Morgan

also

31 | CONCERT GUIDE 32 | SAVAGE LOVE | By Dan Savage

on the cover

Illustration by Leslie Agan Design by Dustin Ames

O

®

EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL ART

ART DIRECTOR Dustin Ames CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS Bob Aul, Jared Boggess, Mark Dancey, Rob Dobi, Jeff Drew, Greg

PRODUCTION

PRODUCTION MANAGER Cassie Voors PRODUCTION ARTIST/LAYOUT EDITOR Luke Dubois PRODUCTION ARTIST Richie Beckman

SALES

SALES DIRECTOR Ryan Whipple SALES MANAGER Jason Hamelberg SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Danny Hudgins ACCOUNT MANAGER Katie Lynch ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Jennifer Cassity, Dionna Harris, Carter Lav, Branden Murray, Jason Winder ACCOUNT COORDINATORS Cesar Aguirre, Gisselle Dragan, Melissa Tomaske

MARKETING

MARKETING MANAGER Ashleigh Fleury MARKETING COORDINATOR Jenna Moothart

OCWEEKLY.COM/SIGNUP

ADMINISTRATION

PUBLISHER Jennifer Besheer OFFICE COORDINATOR Janelle Arballo AR COORDINATOR Daniela Ortigoza

OC Weekly is located at 18475 Bandilier Cir., Fountain Valley, CA 92708. (714) 550-5900. Display Advertising, (714) 550-5900; Classified Adver tising, (714) 550-5900; National Advertis ing, (888) 278-9866, voicemediagroup.com; Fax, (714) 550-5908; Advertising Fax, (714) 550-5905; Classified Fax, (714) 550-5905; Circu la tion, (888) 732-7323; Website: www.ocweekly.com. The publication is free, one per reader. Removal of more than one paper from any distribution point constitutes theft, and violators are subject to prosecution. Please address all correspondence to OC Weekly, 18475 Bandilier Cir., Fountain Valley, CA 92708; email: letters@ocweekly.com. Published weekly (Thursday) by OC Weekly News, Inc. Subscription price: $30 for six months; $52 per year. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to OC Weekly at OC Weekly, 18475 Bandilier Cir., Fountain Valley, CA 92708. Submissions of all kinds are welcome. Address them to the editor and include a selfaddressed, stamped envelope. Copyright ©2016, OC Weekly News, Inc. All rights reserved. OC Weekly® is a trademark licensed to OC Weekly News, Inc.

tomorrow exchange buy * *sell*trade sell*trade

AP RIL 0 1- 0 7, 2 016

EDITOR Gustavo Arellano MANAGING EDITOR Nick Schou ASSOCIATE EDITOR Patrice Marsters SENIOR EDITOR, NEWS & INVESTIGATIONS R. Scott Moxley STAFF WRITERS Mary Carreon, Matt Coker MUSIC EDITOR Nate Jackson WEB EDITOR Taylor Hamby CALENDAR EDITOR Aimee Murillo CLUBS EDITOR Denise De La Cruz PROOFREADER Lisa Black CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Reyan Ali, Dave Barton, Joel Beers, Sarah Bennett, Lilledeshan Bose, Kyle Cavaness, Josh Chesler, Heidi Darby, Alex Distefano, Edwin Goei, Michael Goldstein, Courtney Hamilton, LP Hastings, Daniel Kohn, Dave Lieberman, Alejandra Loera, Adam Lovinus, Todd Mathews, Patrick Montes, Katrina Nattress, Nick Nuk’em, Anne Marie Panoringan, Amanda Parsons, Ryan Ritchie, Gabriel San Román, Andrew Tonkovich, Chris Ziegler

Houston, Jesse Lenz, Cameron K. Lewis, Bill Mayer, Luke McGarry, Kevin McVeigh, Thomas Pitilli, Mina Price, Joe Rocco, Julio Salgado PHOTOGRAPHERS Mary Bell, Jennifer Fedrizzi, Brian Feinzimer, John Gilhooley, LP Hastings, Zack Herrera, Jonathan Ho, Ryan Philip Lane, Danny Liao, Shane Lopes, Liz Monroy, Corey Nickols, Matt Oliver, Jeanne Rice, Rickett & Sones, Josue Rivas, Susan Sabo, Chad Sengstock, Beth Stirnaman, Sean Teegarden, Miguel Vasconcellos, Christopher Victorio, William Vo, Jennie Warren

Your weekly guide to Orange County culture. With all you SIGN UP NOW TO need to know about GAIN ACCESS TO OUR local theater, dance, :::: arts & culture :::: comedy, gallery NEWSLETTER! shows & promotions.

| CONTENTS | THE COUNTY | FEATURE | CALENDAR | FOOD | FILM | CULTURE | MUSIC | CLASSIFIEDS |

online»ocweekly.com ORANGE FEATHERS »

BuffaloExchange.com

| OCWEEKLY.COM |

FULLERTON: 215 N. Harbor Blvd. • 714-870-6855 COSTA MESA (The LAB): 2930 Bristol St. • 714-825-0619 LONG BEACH: 4608 E. 2nd St. • 562-433-1991

5

classifieds | MUSIC music | CULTURE culture | FILM film | FOOD food | CALENDAR calendar | FEATURE feature | THE the COUNTY county | CONTENTS contents | | CLASSIFIEDS MAp ONril TH 0 X 1X–X 2014 07,X2, 016 ocweekly.com | | OCWEEKLY.COM

26

the county»news|issues|commentary

Witness Against a Prosecution How the OCDA jailed a witness who didn’t see a murder the way it wanted

W

hat happens if you’re an innocent bystander to a murder, but the Orange County district attorney’s office (OCDA) doesn’t like your account of events because it contradicts the version of the crime prosecutors want to sell a jury?

We don’t have to guess.

Jonathan Alvarado knows the answer, and it’s not pretty—at least if you believe law enforcement’s job is to pursue justice, not operate corruptly.

Playing video games inside his Santa Ana home at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 23, 2006, then-15-year-old Alvarado heard more than a dozen gunshots and looked out a living-room window, according to court records. Down the street, an unarmed, fiftysomethingCONFIDENTIAL year-old Emeterio Adame lay dead.

From a distance of 40 feet, Alvarado watched one of the gunmen run to the passenger side of an idling, black Toyota R SCOTT Camry and jump in MOXLEY before the driver, whose head was visible, sped away. The physical descriptions Alvarado gave police fit Sergio Cabezas and Victor Lagunas, two chubby, bald Latinos who were members of the Public Vandals (TPV) street gang and would eventually be tied to the crime.

Critically, Alvarado didn’t see a third perpetrator near or inside the getaway car.

That fact eventually proved problematic for Deputy District Attorney Erik Petersen. He desperately wanted to convict Eric Ortiz, 17, as the triggerman and, as I’ve explored in prior reports, took questionable moves in hopes of accomplishing his mission. (See, for example, “Prosecutor Erik Petersen Magically Finds Jailhouse Snitches to Save Troubled Cases,” Oct. 14, 2015.)

Cramming rectangular wishes into oval reality hasn’t worked, despite a decade of trying to put Ortiz in prison for the rest of his life. Petersen won a January 2014 conviction just three days before his reputation as a rising superstar in OCDA began imploding with the emergence of what has become known nationally as the OC Jailhouse Snitch Scandal. But the deputy DA’s victory proved fleeting amid revelations that prosecution teams have secretly trampled the constitutional rights of pretrial defendants for years.

With Ortiz awaiting sentencing last October, Tustin-based defense attorney Rudy Loewenstein demanded a hearing

moxley

» .

to explore government corruption tied to the case. Four Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) deputies historically refused to testify under oath about their on-duty actions for fear of being charged with crimes. In November, Superior Court Judge Richard King lost confidence in the conviction and overturned it. A second trial earlier this month resulted in a 10-2 vote for not guilty.

Not surprisingly, OCDA—which maintains all snitch-scandal misdeeds only coincidentally aided prosecutors 100 percent of the time in dozens of cases— refuses to give up. Agency spokeswoman Susan Kang Schroeder declared after the embarrassing loss that Ortiz will be tried a third time, saying, “Sometimes it takes more than one trial to bring justice.”

For anyone still confused about the scandal’s relevance, this case illustrates the enormous power of unethical badged individuals to manipulate the criminaljustice system, trick jurors and win tainted convictions—all while appearing noble public servants.

Consider: •In 2011, five years after the murder, three Santa Ana Police Department detectives—including David Rondou, a close Petersen friend—claimed they were transporting Misael Santos to Juvenile Hall when the 15-year-old suddenly blurted out that Ortiz confessed to him. What really happened will remain a mystery because the veteran officers claimed they didn’t know how to record the statement.

•The following year, with Ortiz in custody based on Santos’ alleged word, Petersen said jail deputies overseeing more than 6,000 inmates accidentally placed informant Donald Geary in a cell next to the defendant, and Geary somehow knew to contact Petersen with claims of winning a second confession.

As regular Weekly readers know, a 50-year-old U.S. Supreme Court case called Massiah bans government officials and their agents—such as snitches—from questioning defendants who’ve been formally charged with a crime and have legal representation. An exemption is triggered when an inmate overhears the target incriminating himself without prompting.

OCDA and OCSD officials have tailored their stories to fit that exception.

During Ortiz’s January 2014 trial, sheriff’s deputies set up the witness and the defendant by placing them together, then pretended the production had been an accident.

“Given the history of this case and the misconduct which occurred within the jail involving the movement of prison-

LOEWENSTEIN: SPOTTED OCDA GAMES

JOHN GILHOOLEY

ers/informants into position to obtain incriminating statements against Ortiz, such a placement of Alvarado and the defendant was not an accident,” Loewenstein asserts.

Here’s where the depths of OCDA crookedness sink to a new low. Alvarado’s story didn’t change from 2006 to 2014, and he refused to conjure up proprosecution statements, so Petersen punished him. Officers twice “accidentally” placed the witness and Ortiz in the same cell, and then the deputy DA asked Alvarado on the witness stand if he’d known the defendant. He said no.

Having slyly orchestrated the placement of the men in a room with a video camera, Petersen declared the footage proved Alvarado committed perjury.

Loewenstein argued the governmentstaged encounters proved nothing and that Alvarado likely assumed the question had been “Did you know Ortiz before the killing?” Judge King thought the development was meaningless and blocked its admittance.

“During Alvarado’s time in custody, Petersen made him aware that in order to have his perjury case dismissed, Alvarado had to say [Ortiz] confessed to the Adame murder while both were being held in the holding tank at the courthouse,” said Loewenstein.

“Alvarado refused to succumb to Petersen’s threats and went to a preliminary hearing maintaining his innocence.”

At that April 2, 2014, hearing, Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseño, a former prosecutor, wasn’t impressed with Petersen’s tactic. He dismissed the case. The

OCDA power play made its point, however. At this year’s trial, Alvarado seemed afraid to have any memory.

District Attorney Tony Rackauckas claims there is no evidence of wrongdoing by anyone on his staff, refuses to issue any punishment and angrily insists the scandal is imaginary. But a reasonable observer doesn’t even need to consider the Alvarado fiasco to know OCDA, while it employs outstanding prosecutors and investigators, is a warped institution.

One of the agency’s main witnesses against Ortiz is Cabezas. Not only did he drive the getaway car that belonged to his mother, but he also hated the target of the shooting, a rival gangster who’d been sitting in a wheelchair next to the victim.

Cabezas also owned the 9 mm murder weapon that somehow needed to be relocated to Ortiz’s hand.

Petersen, who resigned and moved out of state as the scandal intensified last year, gave Cabezas a choice: Testify he’d willingly given his gun to Ortiz, a person he’d never met before the night of the killing, and, as a reward, win a generous benefit. Or fail to cooperate and face a prison term of life without the possibility for parole.

During the 2014 trial, Loewenstein confronted Cabezas, asking, “You’re not going to do one single day for the murder of Adame; isn’t that the deal?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied.

RSCOTTMOXLEY@OCWEEKLY.COM

aREAD MORE»ONLINE WWW.OCWEEKLY.COM/NEWS

» GUSTAVO ARELLANO DEAR MEXICAN: Why can’t U.S. citizens take responsibility for their own actions? It’s so common to encounter ignorant people blaming Mexicans (and many, though not all, other Latin Americans) for their own plight. But let’s look at the facts: Almost as soon as the Spanish, French, Portuguese and Dutch left their colonies in this hemisphere, Washington stepped in, trying to support puppet dictatorships and crush any real independence.

These puppets often (not always) impoverished many of their people. Also, every year, U.S. citizens hand billions of dollars of their own tax money in subsidies to agribusinesses. These companies use their “welfare for the rich” to cover their costs, and then dump overproduced, underpriced agricultural products on Mexico. This forces Mexican farmers out of business and off their land, which forces down Mexican wages and job availability—and forces Mexicans out of the country. So what happens? The impoverished results of the aforementioned events are showing up as illegal immigrants in the U.S. As embattled immigrants in the U.K. put it in the 1970s, “We come here because you go there.”

Fuck Neo-Colonialism DEAR GABACHO: You pretty much lo clavaste, especially the second and third points—that’s the story of NAFTA, which Bill Clinton pushed on us Mexicans during his administration and which Hillary Clinton has never denounced. While the Mexican’s preferred candidate for any political race will always be Alfred E. Neuman, you’re better off as a Mexican if you feel el Bern instead of trying to pretend that Hillary has things in common with your abuela, as a laughable Clinton

listicle insisted last year. The only grandmother La Hillary even resembles in Mexican culture is one of those mean, rich ones in telenovelas who talks trash on the india maids and her puta daughter-in-law.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO

DEAR MEXICAN: Why are we content to hear the same old recycled Tejano music?

We have tons of local jazz and blues musicians; why don’t the Latin radio stations dedicate a few hours a day to these artists? Encourage them to push the boundaries. Stretch out and push the envelope.

Can you imagine the outcome? Why aren’t we, in turn, impacting Anglo and Black culture with our style, music, art, literature, acting, architecture?

Fresa Freddy DEAR POCHO: I seriously doubt you’re listening to Tejano music; you’re probably a pendejo pocho who can’t tell his Flaco Jiménez from Ramón Ayala and thinks Jennifer Lopez made Selena popular. Spanish-language stations don’t play local artists for the same reason the English-language ones don’t—they don’t come from the record-label cartels that dominate Top 40 music. You want boundary-pushing music?

Let’s take your much-maligned Tejano music, which takes the Czech polka, Polish mazurka and German waltz; puts Spanish lyrics in front of it; speeds it up with American rock & roll and R&B pizzazz; and calls it a start. Modern-day jazz and blues? They’re more derivative than a piñata maker. Finally, if you don’t think we influence gabacho and negrito culture, go talk to Taco Bell.

ASK THE MEXICAN at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter, or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

» ANONYMOUS

Increase Your Sexual Performance

The Plate Says It All

ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION • PREMATURE EJACULATION FEMALE SEXUAL DYSFUNCTION • DECREASING SEXUAL STAMINA.

T

o the guy in the tricked-out white BMW with the license plate that read “EXAMPLE” who, the other night, was trying to drive faster than the flow of traffic, riding up people’s asses, weaving in and out, and being generally obnoxious: Congrats, bud—you were, indeed, the perfect example of a dickhead driver. Enjoy the irony.

Locations in OC & Beverly Hills! $125 CONSULTATION (Includes one-on-one with a sexual health specialist & all diagnostic tests. *See results on your first visit or your consultation is FREE! results may vary.

BOB AUL

HEY, YOU! Send anonymous thanks, confessions or accusations—changing or deleting the

names of the guilty and innocent—to “Hey, You!” c/o OC Weekly, 18475 Bandilier Cir., Fountain Valley, CA 92708, or email us at letters@ocweekly.com.

with ad; expires 4/7/16 Call for details

TESTOSTERONE REPLACEMENT

INCREASEMYROMANCE.COM

DISCOUNTS TO 1ST RESPONDERS & VETERANS! ASK FOR DETAILS.

THERAPY VIAGRA CIALIS (AS LOW AS $15 EACH) INTRACAVERNOUS INJECTION THERAPY (ICP) *GENERIC U.S. COMPOUNDED

SEXUAL ENHANCEMENT MEDICAL CENTER | 714-966-2850 | 3140 RED HILL AVE #150 COSTA MESA

OCWEEKLY.COM | | ocweekly.com

NEW PATIENT SPECIAL

One FREE Month ICP Customized Treatment.

ril 07, X20 16 MAp ON TH0X1-X–X , 2014

RED HOT ROMANCE — —

HEYYOU!

CONTENTS | the THE county COUNTY | feature FEATURE | calendar CALENDAR | food FOOD | film FILM | culture CULTURE | music MUSIC | classifieds CLASSIFIEDS | | contents

¡ask a mexican!»

37

Bulletin

ADS START AT $50 PER WEEK | TO ADVERTISE, CALL 714.550.5900 BECOME AN

INSIDER

& WIN FREE STUFF! SIGN UP NOW TO GAIN ACCESS TO OUR PROMO NEWSLETTER!

ocweekly.com/signup

Orange County Museum of Art Marilyn Minter / Pretty Dirty Exhibit Opens 4/2 850 San Clemente Dr, Newport Beach (949) 759-1122 | www.ocma.net

Newport Beach Film Festival April 21-28, 2016 Join us for fantastic features, shorts, documentaries and nightly gala events. www.newportbeachfi lmfest.com

Astrologers-Psychics-Tarot Readers P/T F/T $12-$36/hr. tambien en Espanol.

954.524.9029

50% OFF Teeth Whitening or 10% OFF Invisalign Braces!

Ginnie Chen Family Dentistry 13420 Newport Ave., Ste L, Tustin 714.544.1391 www.ChenSmiles.com

•EVENTS•

#1 BREAST SURGEON IN OC! Over 5,000 Breast Augmentations Performed!

Mira Mist Technique JUST $2900!

Minimally Invasive • Faster Recovery • NO HIDDEN COST (714) 544-8678 3140 Red Hill Ave #150, Costa Mesa

summer fest – July 16th PROMO TIO NS & MORE.

Injured at work?

Workers Comp Law Firm READY TO HELP!

For a FREE consultation, please call 310-664-9000 x 101 or text 310-849-5679 Website : www.workinjuryhelp.com Warning: Making a false or fraudulent claim is a felony subject up to 5 years in prison or a fine up to $50,000 or double the value of the fraud whichever is greater, or by both imprisonment or fine.

Artopia – May 21st Decadence – September 9th BOTTOMS UP – November 5th

•VIP LOUNGES•VENDOR SHOPPING• •LIVE MUSIC•FOOD & DRINK TASTINGS•

We are one of Orange County’s biggest event promoters.

Sign up now to gain access!

CUSTOM SOFAS Sleepers | Ottomans | Headboards Sectionals | Recliners Starting at $795!

The Sofa Company 1920 Newport Blvd., Costa Mesa 949.356.5180 www.TheSofaCo.com/OCW

PRINT D I G I TA mobil

e

O C WE E K LY. C O M/S I G NU P Increase Sexual Performance We can help with Female Sexual Dysfunction, Premature Ejaculations, Erectile Dysfunction & more.

Sexual Enhancement Medical Center 3140 Red Hill Ave, Costa Mesa 714.966.2850 Perq's Nightclub and Sports Bar Best Happy Hour in HB $2 OFF All Liquor | $3 Domestic Drafts | $4 Import Drafts Karaoke every Thursday 9:00pm Live Band Friday & Saturday 9:00pm 117 Main St. Huntington Beach | 714.960.9996

Dinner and Drag Hosted by TV Celebrity SHANNEL Enter Access Code: ILoveOC For $5 OFF! www.DinnerandDrag.com Hi-Times Wine Cellars VOTED BEST LIQUOR STORE IN OC! Retail wine cellar specializing in California, French and world wines, spirits, beers, cigars 250 Ogle St, Costa Mesa | (949) 650-8463

$50,000 $75,000!

CASH IN 7 DAYS!

NO Interest, NO Payment, NOT a Loan!

Various types of programs available to suit your needs. *Any California Real Estate with Good Equity

(626) 548-3817 Specializing in All Things Naughty!

Sexy Lingerie, Adult Toys, Novelties Lotions & Edibles, + much more!

Follow us on FB for Upcoming Sex Education Events!

17955 Sky Park Circle, Ste A, Irvine 949-660-4990 | www.pinkkittystore.com South County Hydroponics Moving Sale!

30%-50% OFF! FINAL DAYS, EVERYTHING MUST GO! 22511 Aspen St. #A Lake Forest, CA 92630 | 949.837.8252 Shed the Unwanted Weight!

HCG Injections, only $9 per shot New Fat Burning Laser Procedure, $750 per area OC Weight Loss & Anti Aging Center 714.544.8678

L

Want to reach your exact target audience, in the target areas at the exact time that you want?

We can help.

Contact your Account Executive, or Call 714.550.5900 or email Ryan at rwhipple@ocweekly.com for more details

|

| contents CONTENTS | the THE county COUNTY | feature FEATURE | cAlendAr CALENDAR | food FOOD |film FILM |culture CULTURE |music MUSIC clAssifieds | CLASSIFIEDS |

| |

America knows Kobe Bryant as a basketball legend—but here in Orange County, he’s the most regular famous guy around

|

AS TOLD BY A BUNCH OF WEEKLINGS AND THEIR PALS

| | | 07, X20 16 MAp ONril TH 0X1X–X , 2014 ocweekly.com | | OCWEEKLY.COM

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

|

LESLIE AGAN

|

Z I E T N I C OBE K

|

I

n about two weeks, Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant will step off the Staples Center court after a game against the Utah Jazz and call it a career. With 18 All-Star appearances and five NBA championships, and after setting a record this year—his 20th with the Lakers—for most seasons with one team, Bryant retires not only as a surefire first-ballot Hall of Famer, but also as one of those rare athletes who transcend sports. His commitment to training and otherworldly competitive nature get cited from the playground to corporate board rooms; pro athletes have aped his social-media savvy for years. Bryant is already gearing up for a life beyond sports with Kobe Inc., a company through which he has plans for films, books, partnerships, websites and more.

But here in Orange County, where Bryant has lived during most of his entire professional career in Newport Coast, the Black Mamba is something even more extraordinary than a mere superstar: He’s normal. Sightings of Bryant and his wife, Vanessa (a Fullerton native), are commonplace at Disneyland, at Fashion Island, at movie theaters, at camera stores, even at hole-inthe-wall Mexican restaurants. And almost always, people have the same story: Kobe is nice, genuine, a mensch, un chingón, un cazzuto. . . .

To honor Bryant’s retirement, the Weekly has gathered some of our favorite Kobe encounters from friends, family and us. They span his career, from when he was a smug youngster to the wise veteran of today, from Pavilions to Orange, with men, women and kids alike.

The rest of OC celebrities, take note: Be like No. 24, not Michael Jordan.

9

COUNTY county | CLASSIFIEDS | MUSIC | CULTURE | FILM | FOOD | CALENDAR | FEATURE | THE | CONTENTS | | | clAssifieds | music | culture | film | food | cAlendAr | feature | the | contents MAp ONril TH 0 X1X–X 2014 07,X2, 016 OCWEEKLY.COM | | ocweekly.com

10

DETAIL OF THE SIGNED MOVIE-THEATER TRAY

COURTESY OF LESLIE AGAN

Citizen Kobe » FROM PAGE 9

it was an exciting time to be alive. Ask my former coworkers—they’ll tell ya.

(Leslie Agan)

AT EL CAMINO REAL

KOBE’S A CARNE ASADA MAN POPCORN BEFORE A THREE-PEAT

The first job to give me a W-2 form was AMC 30 at the Block [now the Outlets at Orange]. It was January 2000, and three of us girls were running one of the concession stands at the far end of the theater when we finally had some downtime.

Something in my peripheral vision made me look up from cleaning the countertop.

At the very end of our really long hallway, all alone, was an extremely tall, majesticlooking black guy sort of gliding toward us. The girls behind me were hyperventilating and yelling/whispering, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” I laughed, looked back at them and asked, “Who is that guy?” (At the time, I was still missing Magic Johnson and the Showtime Lakers, so I wasn’t up to speed, and the Internet was still so mysterious.)

They were shocked for a few moments, looked me up and down in shock and disgust, then gurgled, “That’s KOBE BRYANT! He’s supposed to be the next Michael Jordan!”

Oh, crap, I HAD heard of him.

They disappeared. A deep voice asked, “Hey, how you doing?”

I smiled up at him and said, “Hey, I know who you are. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything.” As we shook hands, my hand vanished inside his. He laughed, looked down and adjusted the knit cap covering his then-Afro. Mr. Kobe Bean Bryant ordered a small popcorn and a strawberry Fruitopia. And before he walked away, he signed a carryout tray for me: “Kobe 8.”

That was the first year of the Lakers three-peat (2000-2002), and Kobe became a regular fixture at our theater—

Kobe Bryant has been coming to El Camino Real in Fullerton, the Mexican restaurant my family owns, for well more than a decade—I’d say at least 14 years. He began coming because Vanessa brought him to us. She once told us that she grew up in Fullerton, and that she and her mom have been coming here since she was 12.

When Kobe and his family arrive, they stand in line just like any other customer, and they sit to eat just like any other normal family. His favorite food is the carne asada tostadas, and for dessert, he likes the flan. People eventually take notice and greet him, and he’ll greet them back.

He usually lets people know that he likes to enjoy his time with his family when he’s eating, but he’ll take pictures and give autographs when he’s done. Several times, he’s come into the kitchen and storage room to take pictures with all of the employees. He’ll laugh and talk with everyone.

It’s been a while since he’s physically come in, but about a year ago, if I remember correctly, they were on their way to their daughter’s softball game, and Vanessa came in to order some food for him while he waited in the car. It’s really nice to know that Kobe enjoys our food.

Customers are usually surprised to know that he has been a longtime customer. We always enjoy when he comes in, and his fans do, too. (Marissa Castañeda) SMILE FOR THE CAMERAS

I used to work at Ritz Camera at Fashion Island around 2006, 2007. Both Kobe and his wife would come in about once a month to get their pictures developed, and they always acted very friendly to the staff,

COURTESY OF EL CAMINO REAL

| | | 07, X20 16 MAp ONril TH 0X1X–X , 2014

ENJOYING A RAW KALE SMOOTHIE

|

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

| ocweekly.com | | OCWEEKLY.COM

“Hey, isn’t that Kobe?” my friend asked as we rounded that awkward curve between Main Street and Adventureland.

“Yeah, I think it is,” I replied.

We both tried to play it cool and act as though seeing Kobe at Disneyland wasn’t a big deal, as we were each at the ol’ Magic Kingdom with dates we’d never see again and had consumed enough booze

Explore the interwebs a bit, and you’ll come away thinking Kobe Bryant is a regular customer of Wild Strawberry Café at Fashion Island, where he goes to load up on raw kale smoothies. It is true that a photo of the Black Mamba and a café employee hangs on the wall of the quaint eatery behind Muldoon’s and Big Newport theater. But Laura Sosa, the lady in the picture, wants to set the record straight: Bryant is no regular. He came in three years ago and asked if he could use the restroom.

When he came out, he was given a free drink—a power kale smoothie—and asked if he would pose for a picture.

As far as Sosa knows, that was his only visit to Wild Strawberry—and her only known celebrity sighting in her three

|

WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR

DEBUNKING THE MYTH

|

Kobe Bryant’s exit from the game marks a generational trauma for me. If the player who got traded to the Lakers for Vlade Divac on Draft Day 1996, when I was a teenager, is retiring . . . Shit, I’m getting old.

I never bumped into him roaming around OC, but my nephew, who was 3 years old when Bryant first suited up for the purple and gold, sure did while working a construction job last year. It was May, and Bryant was at a stoplight in his sleek Range Rover near Newport Beach’s Fashion Island. “Oh, that kind of looks like Kobe,” my nephew, a 6-foot-3-inch Andrew Bynum lookalike, thought to himself. “Kobe!” he yelled out.

Sure enough, it was him. Walking up to the Mamba-mobile, my nephew asked if he could get a picture. “Yeah, that’s cool,” Bryant said. The Range Rover thundered with Jay-Z’s “A Week Ago” while my nephew filmed their encounter.

“I’m chillin’ with the Black Mamba,” he boasted. Bryant, sporting shades, threw up an arthritic deuce before giving a thumbsup and driving off. (Gabriel San Román)

Kobe likes going to Javier’s at Crystal Cove Promenade. The workers there love him because he always respects them and gives good tips, whether valet, bartender or server. Some probably don’t even know who he is, but he doesn’t care—Kobe treats raza right. (A Javier’s regular)

|

HE’S A BUSINESS, MAN

BUT DOES HE LIKE THE SPICY SALSA?

|

It was the early 2000s, maybe even February 2003, when Kobe joined Wilt Chamberlain and Michael as the only players ever to go 40-plus in nine consecutive games. I’d taken my then-77-year-old shopaholic mom to promenade the new Crystal Cove shopping center, where parked cars get the best view of the ocean.

Just as we rounded a bend, Mom spotted an overexposed fleshy lady walking past us, and when she was just out of earshot, my mom said, “Shake it, but don’t break it”—a family joke with its roots deep in Brooklyn. So we were all smiles as we looked ahead and saw No. 8 clad in a lush crimson tracksuit, talking on a flip phone and carrying two pizza boxes. He glanced at our grinning faces, then flashed us a big smile, so I gave him a thumbs-up. Clever use of a phone call to shield you from the fans! (Lisa Black)

|

THE STROLL

on our way to the park to slow even the most rambunctious 19- and 25-year-olds.

But standing a few feet in front of the Tiki Room was one of the greatest Lakers to ever live, surrounded by a mob of (much shorter) male fans.

Most of the time, there’s a host of security guards around any celebrity you see at Disneyland. They get privately escorted everywhere, don’t talk to anyone, and generally look like they’re not having nearly as much fun as anyone else. That wasn’t the case with Kobe. There was definitely an employee or two with him, but he didn’t seem to mind signing Mickey ears and Dumbo hats. Kobe smiled and laughed alongside the fans, who seemed to know more about his career than he did.

A few rides later, we caught a glimpse of Kobe smiling for photos and waving to fans once more. Part of me wishes I’d asked for an autograph or photo, but I’m really just fine knowing that Kobe enjoys Disneyland as much as the rest of us.

(Josh Chesler)

| contents CONTENTS | the THE county COUNTY | feature FEATURE | cAlendAr CALENDAR | food FOOD |film FILM |culture CULTURE |music MUSIC clAssifieds | CLASSIFIEDS |

as well as the other customers in the store.

They always waited patiently and never acted famous or standoffish. I would make small talk with them if there was any sort of wait—never anything personal, obviously, mainly just current events, sports, etc. We knew they lived nearby, so we just tried to give them their space and leave things as relaxed as possible for them.

Kobe did pose a couple of times outside our store with kids who had been walking by and noticed him, but I never did ask for an autograph. (Jason Winder)

11

COUNTY county | CLASSIFIEDS | MUSIC | CULTURE | FILM | FOOD | CALENDAR | FEATURE | THE| the | CONTENTS | | | clAssifieds | music | culture | film | food | cAlendAr | feature | contents MO Nril TH X , 016 2 014 Ap 0X–X 1- 07,X 2

21+ event

TICKETS ON SALE NOW! $25*

Artopia is OC Weekly’s annual event celebrating the vibrant art scene across Orange County. From visual and performing to fashion and film, art is featured in many forms throughout the venue and paired alongside inventive food and drink sampling booths. 10 local artists who were chosen by the public during The Creatives contest, will exhibit and sell their work in an interactive gallery experience.

ARTISTIC FOOD PROVIDED BY: MAR dtsa • TERRA • & more!

Includes light food and drink samples plus access to cash bar, free photo booth, live music and art exhibits! *Pricing will increase 4/1 and at door if tickets are still available.

Vote!

ocweekly.com | | OCWEEKLY.COM

» FROM PAGE 11

years there. Did Kobe at least like the smoothie? “Yes, he did,” Sosa answers.

Was he nice? “He was really, really nice,” she confirms. Sosa had been handed the phone by a co-worker, who said after being told what the Weekly was writing about, “Good. We need to get him back in here.” (Matt Coker) KISS AND TELL

I was a teenager in 2002, working at the Block. A co-worker and I passed a blackedout SUV parked right outside the back entrance. We had heard that Kobe was going to be there that day and assumed the car was his. My co-worker said, “I dare you to go kiss his car!” Of course, never wanting to pass up a dare (also assuming the SUV was empty), I obliged.

I didn’t just oblige; I made it a whole performance. As we were walking away, I heard someone laughing loudly behind me. Yep, it was Kobe’s car, and he was still in it . . . as was his wife, Vanessa (who wasn’t nearly as entertained by my grand performance). As he walked toward the theater, still laughing, I said, “I love you, Kobe!” He waved and said, “I love you, too!” My husband, who I met shortly after, is the biggest Kobe fan there is and claims this embarrassing encounter was the reason he married me. But really, he’s just

jealous that I made his man crush laugh so hard! (Hannah De La Vega) FILL ‘ER UP

On Sunday, May 29, 2011, my friends and I had just gotten done golfing at the pitchand-putt at the Newport Beach Golf Club on Irvine Avenue in Newport Beach. I was low on gas, so we stopped by the Chevron on Bristol Street and Irvine. As we pulled up to the pump, I noticed a super-nice, black Mercedes with blacked-out, tinted windows. Finding it strange that no one was pumping gas, my friends and I started laughing and talking about how it’s probably Kobe Bryant’s car. I took my time pumping gas and kept pacing around my truck and near the Mercedes. After a couple of minutes, the black door with tinted windows opened and it actually was Kobe Bryant!

He casually got out of his car and went over to the pump. I quickly said, “Hey Kobe, how are you?” and he looked over and said, “Hey, man, I’m good.” At this point, all my friends got out of the car, and Scotty asked if he could get a picture with him. Kobe was very friendly and said it was no problem. We all ended up getting pictures with the [no-doubt future] Hall of Famer. We talked to him for several minutes and thanked him for all of the championships. Being HUGE Laker fans and having the opportunity to thank our favorite player—in person—was a lifechanging moment. We must have told him he was a Lakers great 10 times, and each time, he laughed and thanked us.

BLACK MAMBA STYLIN’ BLACK MAMBA

on APRIL 5th!

Help curate the artists who will be featured at Artopia 2016!

Voting will take place online from April 5th-24th.

Inspired

E�� G��� F���

12

Citizen Kobe

The Art and Wine Experience

S���� A��� C�

To Vote And Find Out More, Visit Basic Black and White.

OCWEEKLY.COM/ARTOPIA COURTESY OF IAN WALES

| IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE ACADEMY OF MAGICAL ARTS, AND THEIR WORLD FAMOUS CLUBHOUSE THE MAGIC CASTLE

|

Invisalign Braces FREE CONSULTATION

|

Teeth Whitening FREE CONSULTATION

|

10% OFF

|

50% OFF

|

Laser Dentistry Most Insurances Accepted Financing available Cosmetic Dentistry

LETTERS@OCWEEKLY.COM

|

DenTIsTry

• • • •

It was an average night at the Pavilions in

|

FAMILY

KOBE LIKES CEREAL

Newport Coast about four years ago—9 p.m. on a weeknight, to be exact. The grocery store was empty. Laura Henkels stood in the produce section with her 10- and 13-year-old sons when a lone, towering man wearing a Lakers jacket and sweat pants walked in. Henkel’s sons began to flip out. They recognized Bryant, and the youngest began following him across Pavilions, standing at the opposite end of each aisle that Bryant shopped.

“I’m going to see if he’ll say hi to my sons; the worst he can do is tell me to leave him alone,” Henkels remembers thinking. She found Bryant in the cereal aisle. “Hi, my kids LOVE you, and they’re here,” she told him. “Would you by chance mind meeting them?”

“Of course not!” Bryant responded.

“Where are they? Show me.”

Bryant followed Henkels around the aisle to meet her kids. He kneeled down to their level and said, “Hey, my name’s Kobe. What’s your name, man?”

The boys were speechless. “I wasn’t really thinking; I was just shaking his hand and going crazy,” Henkel’s son Dylan recalled.

Bryant then told the boys about his helicopter rides to work before saying goodbye.

Some time later, the Henkels were brunching at Gulfstream for Easter. Henkel’s youngest son was holding the door for people when he heard someone say, “Let me help you, man.” He looked up, and there was Kobe Bryant. (Denise De La Cruz)

|

It was September 2008, the very start of my third year at UC Irvine. It was “Late Night at the ARC,” when the Anteater Recreation Center is open until 4 a.m. with obstacle courses, tournaments, games, competitions, dance showcases (dancing was huge then because it was just after Kaba Modern was representing UCI on America’s Best Dance Crew), etc. I was a marketing assistant, essentially an in-house graphic designer at the ARC. My friend Thai and I were next to the rock wall, set up at a table to hand out UCI Campus Recreation-branded reusable aluminum bottles with a small carabiner attached to each one.

Ashley, our boss, came running down the stairs from the offices, as a crowd started to trickle into the gym. It was around 8 p.m., not too ridiculously packed, but a good crowd. She hailed us over and handed me the office camera and a copy of our quarterly catalog of classes and services. Thai had his camera with

the maintenance golf carts would be, tucked away from the main parking lots.

We asked him if he would mind taking a picture with our catalog. He was smiling and slightly hesitant, but he obliged. He took the catalog, looked at the cover and said, “Who the hell is this guy?” pointing to a shirtless guy with a red shower cap inside an egg-shaped pod that measures your body fat and all sorts of high-tech health thingies. It was a new machine we acquired and were trying to promote people to use for a nominal fee. He looked over at me, and I said, “That’s me, man.”

He held the catalog and looked at it with two hands. “You look crazy in here, man,” Kobe told me. “Imma call you Hydroman.” When Kobe gives you a nickname, all you can say is “Okay, I’m down.”

He posed for a second for us to take a picture, handed me the catalog, and he and his friend started walking to their respective cars, chatting about something I can’t remember. I worked up the courage to say, “Yo, Kobe, I’m a huge fan of yours since forever. You mind if I get a picture with you?”

“Yeah, sure, Hydroman,” he said. I stood next to Kobe, and as we threw our arms over each other’s shoulders for the picture.

I thanked him, then Thai and I headed back to the ARC, where I told the story a million times to all my friends who were coming to “Late Night.” (Benzamin Yi)

|

ENTER HYDROMAN

him already, perhaps always ready for the occasional Kobe sighting—or perhaps it was because it was always an accessory on him. She told us, “Kobe is in the gym.

Leave the bottles; you guys have to escort him out the back. Go get a picture of him with the catalog.”

Our faces beamed. Thai is a Warriors fan; I’m a Lakers fan—but also a diehard Kobe fan. A staff member and the two of us went into the workout room as crowds of people started pouring into the gym with their cell phones out, taking pictures while attempting to be low-key, but really super-obvious. People who were walking out after witnessing him were beaming. We approached Kobe and his friend/personal trainer/ bodyguard (he was there each time I saw Kobe) and told them about the event that was going on and how it’s going to be a crazy night, so it might not be a good idea to work out here tonight. He was cool about it, and we escorted him to a side door inside the workout gym while waving people off so they didn’t follow us. The door closed behind us, and we were walking along the outdoor Olympic-sized pool. He looked at the pool and told us that he talked to Michael Phelps at the Olympics and learned all his tricks and thought he could beat Phelps. We all laughed, and, holding back a smile, he told us he was serious.

We reached the back door to where his white Bentley was parked, with an SUV parked next to it. This was usually where

| CONTENTS | THE THE COUNTY COUNTY | FEATURE FEATURE | CALENDAR CALENDAR | FOOD FOOD |FILM FILM |CULTURE CULTURE |MUSIC MUSIC CLASSIFIEDS | CLASSIFIEDS |

By that point, it seemed like we were taking up a bunch of his time, but I remembered I had a pair of custom Kobe 6s I designed myself in my truck. I played basketball in them all the time; I knew I HAD to get them signed by Kobe. I asked him if he would do me the honor of signing them, and he said, “Sure.” He autographed them, we took even more pictures with him and thanked him again, and then he was gone. (Ian Wales)

GINNIE I. CHEN, D.D.S.

BECOME AN

WIN FREE STUFF.

Receive VIP event invites, free tickets, hot prize packages and special offers only available to our subscribers.

TICKETS ON SALE NOW | QUEENMARY.COM

| OCWEEKLY.COM |

SIGN UP NOW TO GAIN ACCESS TO OUR PROMOtional NEWSLETTER! ocweekly.com/signup

Illusionists Close Up Magic Strolling Magicians Magical Mixology Magic Market

APNRIL 07, X20 6 MO TH 0X1X–X , 21014

13420 NEWPORT AVE., STE. L., TUSTIN CHENSMILES.COM • 714.544.1391 Graduate of Northwestern University & Faculty Member at USC

13

| classifieds | music | culture | film | food | calendar | feature | the county | contents | Ap ril 0 1- 07, 2 016

| ocweekly.com | 14

calendar *

wednesday›

NOW THAT’S A GOOD STRETCH

PAUL KOLNIK

fri/04/01

sat/04/02

[CONCERT]

[THEATER]

Are They Oldies Yet? Off the Page Decades Collide

Bodice Ripper

We weren’t all lucky enough to live through the greatest period on planet Earth. But for one night only, you can pretend you were there. Crimp your MORE hair and grab ONLINE your Tamagotchi OCWEEKLY.COM because we’re about to mix two of the greatest decades for a night of pure magic. Decades Collide at the House of Blues combines two great periods of human history into one amazing jam fest, featuring DJ Biz Markie, Past Action Heroes and Hit Me ’90s. It’s basically grunge and gangsta rap united with synthpop and new wave. The Brat Pack conjoined with Friends. Shoulder pads mingled with shutter shades.

Awesomeness with a side of cowabunga.

Be there or live a life full of regret.

Decades Collide: ’80s Vs. ’90s featuring DJ Biz Markie, Past Action Heroes and Hit Me ’90s at House of Blues, 1530 Disneyland Dr., Anaheim, (714) 778-2583; www. houseofblues.com/anaheim. $17.50-$45.

Don Fried’s Bodice Ripper goes through its final weekend of performances at Camino Real Playhouse, and we assure you you’ve never heard a synopsis like this: William, a struggling writer of hard-boiled detective novels, decides to switch over to penning romantic fiction and ends up falling for his lovely editor and publisher. Things seem to be in an upswing, both creatively and personally, until Will’s biggest muses—Manley Stone and Vera, the main characters in all of his stories—come to life to sabotage his new career. Can Will get them to adhere to these new rules? Find out in this surrealist comedy romp.

Bodice Ripper at Camino Real Playhouse, 31776 El Camino Real, San Juan Capistrano, (949) 489-8082; www. caminorealplayhouse.org. 8 p.m. Through April 3. $20. —AIMEE MURILLO

a

—AMANDA PARSONS

»

*

[FUN]

OLD-TIME FUN

Charles Phoenix’s Long Beachland

Enthusiastic public historian Charles Phoenix is the reigning king of kitsch—and Googie, Americana and anything else you want to file under “the way we was”— and if it ended up looking beautiful in a Southern California snapshot taken any time between, say, 1951 and 1969, then Phoenix probably has the original Kodachrome slide filed in his archive. At this particular performance, he’ll explore Long Beach as it was before all the good stuff was torn down to make room for condos, so expect (and/or hope) to see the Pike, the Pacific Coast Club, the Municipal Auditorium, Herman the German and more, all in lovely living color. It’s a chance to experience nostalgia, civic pride and the comparatively less well-known sensation of civic regret, all in one engaging sitting.

Refreshments to follow at inRetrospect.

Charles Phoenix’s Long Beachland at the ArtTheatre of Long Beach, 2025 E. Fourth St., Long Beach, (562) 438-5435; www.charlesphoenix.com. 11 a.m. $29.

—CHRIS ZIEGLER

[CONCERT]

Kickstart Our Hearts Trüe 2 Crüe

In the world of ’80s hair-metal bands, Mötley Crüe were the living embodiment of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. That’s typical VH1’s Behind the Music fodder, but they did produce great music—which explains the longevity of their mainstream popularity. Fans can still enjoy their music perT H I S CO D E formed live by tribute TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE band Trüe 2 Crüe. After OCWEEKLY receiving accolades IPHONE/ANDROID APP FOR MORE EVENTS OR VISIT from Mötley’s crew, you ocweekly.com know this band is redhot from the look to the sound. Members Criss Sixx, Ozzy, Larry and Michael exude the “Bad Boy Boogie” realness you’d expect, but Trüe 2 Crüe are a family-friendly act, so you can bring your little crew to the show.

Trüe 2 Crüe: Mötley Crüe Tribute at the Slidebar Rock-N-Roll Kitchen, 122 E. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton, (714) 871-2233; www.slidebarfullerton.com. 3 p.m. Free.

SCAN

—AIMEE MURILLO

| contents

| the county

| feature | calendar | food | film | culture | music | classifieds

| Apr i l

0 1- 0 7, 2 016

| ocweekly.com |

15

| | contents county

| music | culture | film | food | calendar | feature | the | classifieds

With 75 million records sold globally, he is one of the biggest-selling musicians of all time, and his impact on smooth jazz is unbridled. More recently, Kenny G has worked with the likes of Robin Thicke and Babyface and even appeared in a Katy Perry video. While his heyday may be behind him, the fact remains that many still respect his musicianship.

Kenny G at the City National Grove of Anaheim, 2200 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim, (714) 712-2700; www.citynationalgroveofanaheim. com. 8 p.m. $45-$80. —DANIEL KOHN

[CONCERT]

Sexy Sax Man Kenny G

Though it’s been more than 20 years since he shot to fame and became the butt of jokes, Kenny G remains synonymous with the same easy-listening, adult contemporary music as he was then. He’s a bigger draw these days in Hong Kong and China, but that doesn’t mean the 59-year-old multi-instrumentalist can’t still fill a room.

| ocweekly.com | 16

[ART]

It Takes a Village!

Village Art Faire

Need some artisanal goods for your living or work space? Or just feel like checking out a good craft fest? Downtown San Clemente has you covered with its monthly Village Art Faire, which connects the community with more than 60 creative vendors. These vendors line Avenida Del Mar to form a street-market environment

IL VOLO THIS SAT - APR 2

showing off jewelry, woodworking, photography, ceramics, paintings, fancy recycled doodads, antiques, glassworks and everything in the wearable, handmade accessory department—as they have since the faire’s beginning. Make the most out of Sunday with a breezy stroll by the beach—and don’t forget to bring some cash!

Village Art Faire at Downtown San Clemente, 144 Avenida Del Mar, San Clemente, (949) 395-7008; villagesanclemente.org.

9 a.m. Free. —AIMEE MURILLO

mon/04/04 [FILM]

Japanese Gem The Life of Oharu

LOS LONELY BOYS & LOS LOBOS THIS FRI - APR 1

GLADYS KNIGHT APR 9 PEPE AGUILAR APR 22 OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN APR 29 CHIQUIS & LUIS CORONEL APR 30 LUPITA D’ALESSIO MAY 7 LUDACRIS MAY 14 BILLY CURRINGTON

SEE WEBSITE FOR FULL LINEUP

STARTING AT

$139 (PER NIGHT)

JUN 3

SNOWBIRD PACKAGE  $20 GIFT CARD  $45 RESTAURANT CREDIT  $20 FREE PLAY OFFER  1 PM GUARANTEED CHECKOUT

800.827.2946

■

www.FantasySpringsResort.com

In the Palm Springs Valley ■ 90-min Drive from Orange County

18-HOLE CHAMPIONSHIP GOLF COURSE – 40 TABLE GAMES – 2,000 OF THE HOTTEST SLOTS – 250-ROOM HOTEL – SIX RESTAURANTS – IMPROV

Hotel prices are per night plus resort fee. Snowbird Package valid Mon. - Thurs. through 4/30/16.

Blackout dates may apply. Management reserves the right to cancel or modify promotions at any time.

FANT-48528 OCW 032816.indd 1

The humble Hibbleton Gallery in Fullerton does more to globalize OC’s cinematic experience than anyone else. With a projector and fold-out chairs, they’ve been exploring the wonders of Japanese cinema in a monthlong series ending tonight. Award-winning filmmaker and series curator Steve Elkins saved the best for last, introducing audiences to the splendor that is The Life of Oharu.

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, this 1952 masterpiece of social commentary focuses on Oharu, a woman who is forced into a life of prostitution during the Edo period (between the 17th and 19th centuries), as a wider critique of Japanese society emerges.

The Life of Oharu at Hibbleton Gallery, 223 W. Santa Fe Ave., Fullerton; hibbleton.com.

8 p.m. Free. —GABRIEL SAN ROMÁN

tue/04/05 [FUN]

We Got BINGO! Boosters Bingo

Apr i l

01 - 07 , 2 01 6

sun/04/03

3/28/16 10:24 AM

Break out your lucky garment of clothing to wear—it’s bingo night! One of America’s favorite simple pastimes is back, and it’s not just for little old church ladies anymore.

Boosters Bingo happens every Tuesday at Costa Mesa Senior Center, and 100 percent of the proceeds go toward sports programs for Costa Mesa High School students.

Everyone gets free popcorn, coffee and tea, with chances to win up to $250 in mystery jackpots, Powerballs, pull tab and strip games, and more. Whether you like to go big and get multiple bingo cards or keep it lowkey with one, expect the competition to be fierce. May the odds be ever in your favor!

Boosters Bingo at Costa Mesa Senior Center, 695 W. 19th St., Costa Mesa, (949) 645-2356; www.cmhsbingo. webstarts.com. 6 p.m. Game sheets, $15$35. —AIMEE MURILLO

THE COACH HOUSE www.thecoachhouse.com TICKETS and DINNER RESERVATIONS: 949-496-8930

[CONCERT]

Trust Metro

4/1 4/2 4/3 4/8 4/9

Metro Boomin

GERT KRAUTBAUER

*

[DANCE]

FANCY FOOTWORK

Discover Ailey

Alvin Ailey was a trailblazer and an inspiration of heart and spirit in the dance world, starting his internationally recognized company in 1958. Drawing from his training in modern dance, ballet and African dance, Ailey brought forth a choreography style that broke through tumultuous racial tensions and spoke to a massive audience.Tonight at the Segerstrom, the Alvin Ailey American DanceTheater troupe pays homage to its founding father with a specially priced, 60-minute performance including Revelations, the group’s influential trademark routine, for which Ailey says he called on his “blood memories” growing up in a racially segregatedTexas surrounded by gospel music.

Alvin Ailey American DanceTheater presents Discover Ailey at Segerstrom Hall, 600Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa, (714) 556-2787; www.scfta.org.

7:30 p.m. $29. —ERIN DEWITT [COMPETITIONS]

Bring It!

—AIMEE MURILLO

4/9

CINDERELLA’S TOM KEIFER

4/24 4/28 4/29 4/30

4/10

LINDI ORTEGA

4/21

*

CLAY WITH US

THE ANN WILSON THING

‘Transformed

By Fire’

The Long Beach Museum of Art continues its innovative programming with an exhibition of ceramic works culled by collector Richard Oelschlaeger. On view are an array of functional and contemporary pieces, inspired by local, regional and national motifs and representing a variety of traditions. Studio pottery from the T H I S CO D E East Coast mixes TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE with innovative OCWEEKLY designs linked IPHONE/ANDROID APP FOR MORE EVENTS OR VISIT to Montana and ocweekly.com beyond, offering a wide range of styles and influences from a breadth of artists that serve as both historically contextual and visually exciting.

“Transformed By Fire: A Collection of Contemporary Ceramics” at Long Beach Museum of Art, 2300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach, (562) 439-2119; www.lbma.org. 11 a.m. Through May 29. $7. —SR DAVIES

SCAN

5/1 5/5 5/6 5/7 5/8 5/10 5/11 5/12

—AIMEE MURILLO

[ART]

4/10 4/15 4/16 4/17 4/21 4/22 4/23

4/28 AUGIE MEYERS

5/1

THE SMITHEREENS

5/13 5/14 5/21 5/22 5/25 5/26 5/28 5/29 6/2 6/3 6/5 6/8 6/10 6/11 6/16 6/19

THE NEXT CHAPTER TOUR

IRON BUTTERFLY VENICE WHICH ONE’S PINK? STRUNZ & FARAH LOS LONELY BOYS LEON RUSSELL GUN BOAT KINGS JUICE NEWTON ACOUSTIC TRIO LEON RUSSELL JONNY LANG TRASHCAN SINATRAS MORGAN HERITAGE JUSTIN HAYWARD QUEEN NATION ISRAEL VIBRATIONS AL DI MEOLA

6/16 ISRAEL VIBRATIONS

7/2 HINDER

7/23 THE YARDBIRDS

UPCOMING SHOWS 6/22 7/1 7/2 7/6 7/8 7/9 7/17 7/23

DONAVON FRANKENREITER DAVE ALVIN & PHIL ALVIN W/THE GUILTY ONES HINDER TED NUGENT CASH’D OUT WILD CHILD VONDA SHEPARD THE YARDBIRDS

7/31 8/6 9/15

THE WAILERS DESPERADO GUITAR ARMY FEAT. ROBBEN FORD, LEE ROY PARNELL, JOE ROBINSON 9/16 RICHARD CHEESE 9/17 DICK DALE 10/15 PETTY VS EAGLES 10/29 OINGO BOINGO DANCE PARTY

866.468.3399 33157 Camino Capistrano | San Juan Capistrano

Like Us on

facebook.com/coachhouseconcerthall |

follow us on Twitter

@coach_house

| OCWEEKLY.COM |

For one night every month, O.C. Steel House becomes the House of Rhymes, as independent songwriters and aspiring rappers come forth to test their skills against one another in a verbal throwdown known as the Rap Contest. Created, hosted and produced by underground hip-hop legend Sellassie, the Rap Contest is the platform for artists to get their talents known to people outside their inner circle, and the winners will receive cash prizes and deals with industry professionals to launch their professional careers. Sounds pretty good, right? This touring competition has made its way all over the country, with thousands of rap hopefuls dropping bars, verses and rhymes. Think you got what it takes? Test your mettle here and see!

The Rap Contest at O.C. Steel House, 316 S. Euclid St., Anaheim, (562) 248-9349; www.sellassiefrisco.com. 8 p.m. $20. 21+.

»

a

4/3 MIKE PETERS

AP RIL 0 1- 07, 20 1 6

The Rap Contest

Hip-hop fans know Metro Boomin from the popular meme “If Young Metro Don’t Trust You, They Gon Shoot You,” a line derived from Future and Drake’s track “Jumpman.” It clearly shows the reverence both rappers have for the young Atlanta producer; at just 22, Metro Boomin is behind some of today’s biggest hip-hop tracks, some MORE of which are ONLINE certified gold, OCWEEKLY.COM and featuring chart-topping heavyweights Kid Cudi, Kanye West, Tinashe, The Weeknd, Travis Scott and more. It will be interesting to see how Metro will further the world of hip-hop production, but for now, he’s stepping out of the studio and onto the stage, returning to his love of beat-making in front of a live audience.

Metro Boomin at the Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; observatoryoc.com. 8 p.m. $12.

SUPER DIAMOND HONK MIKE PETERS (THE ALARM) DSB (JOURNEY TRIBUTE) CINDERELLA’S 5/25 TOM KEIFER LOS LONELY LINDI ORTEGA BOYS THE TUBES Y&T ROD PIAZZA THE ANN WILSON THING AL STEWART ROGER CLYNE AND THE PEACEMAKERS 5/26 & 6/2 BILLY JOE SHAVER LEON RUSSELL AUGIE MEYERS DEANA CARTER MICK ADAMS & THE STONES THE SMITHEREENS CRYSTAL BOWERSOX 6/5 L.A. GUNS TRASHCAN OC’S FUNNIEST SINATRAS HOUSEWIVES TOMMY EMMANUEL JAMES MCCARTNEY JAVIER COLON ANDY MCKEE –

| CONTENTS | THE COUNTY | FEATURE | CALENDAR | FOOD | FILM | CULTURE | MUSIC | CLASSIFIEDS |

wed/04/06 thu/04/07

17

| classifieds | music | culture | film | food | calendar | feature | the county | contents | Ap ril 0 1- 07, 2 016

HOLEINTHEWALL

» GUSTAVO ARELLANO

Fountain Valley Strong O UDON 17870 Newhope St., Fountain Valley, (714) 427-0482.

W

BRIAN FEINZIMER

I Am Vegan, Hear Me Roar

Ignore the hippy platitudes and focus on Gratitude’s good food that happens to be vegan

W

Its best dish is the samosa, which it borrows from India, a meatless culture that has mastered making vegetables and grains palatable for thousands of years before the invention of Tofurkey and Soyrizo. The kitchen staff is so fluent in Indian spices and techniques that Gratitude’s samosas would pass muster if they were served in Artesia’s Indian enclave. In fact, I can honestly say these yam-and-cauliflowerstuffed tetrahedrons may be better than any others I’ve had lately. The crust was so tender it collapsed under its own weight.

A refreshing coconut-mint chutney and candy-sweet tomato jam slathered it. And underneath it all, the spicy and complex chana masala was so good my friends and I fought over the last spoonful.

Gratitude’s Authentic is certainly that.

The ravioli were served five to a plate on dewy greens and filled with a ricotta-like substance made from cashews. But the dish’s greatest achievement was how the chefs managed to make the pasta without the use of a single egg. In fact, the texture and mouth-feel was so dead-on I propose a better name for it: Uncanny.

The Italian meatballs—made by chopping up eggplant and forming it into spheres— were another triumph. They came draped in a marinara that tasted like, well, marinara. But if the texture only vaguely approximated real meatballs, the waves of flavor made up for it. At the next table, a husband took a forkful from his wife’s plate and promptly ordered another one for himself.

Gratitude also tries its hand at Mexican food in the tostada, arguably its most popular dish despite the $9 price tag. And just as with the samosa, you enjoy it without even thinking about it. The cashew

queso fresco, the chunks of portobello, beans so rich they seemed as though they were prepared with lard—they all melded together under the skull-rattling crunch of the tostada shell.

There is, of course, kale in all forms.

The best incarnation was as wispy chips served with a garlic tahini dipping sauce.

There were also some not-so-successful dishes. The pad Thai made of kelp noodles would’ve been better if they didn’t invoke the expectation that it would taste like the common takeout dish—it’s closer to a cold noodle salad. And though I liked the toppings on the pizza, the crust had the personality of a frozen Celeste I microwaved last week with one of those crisping sheets.

By far, my least favorite dish was the Southern soul-food sampler in which red beans and rice, yams, stir-fried collard greens, coleslaw, tempeh, and a glutenfree biscuit kind of just sat together on the plate discordantly. The chore of eating it reminded me this was a vegan joint.

This becomes a big disservice to the place because Gratitude doesn’t look and feel like a vegan restaurant. It’s noisy, full of beautiful people in beautiful clothes and employs Jason Eisner, a hip bartender from LA known for making craft cocktails such as a gin and tonic served in a bong with a haze of tea smoke. There’s no fancy mantra attached to the drink— it’s just called a gin and tonic, all the affirmation you need.

GARELLANO@OCWEEKLY.COM GRATITUDE 1617 Westcliff Dr., Newport Beach, (949) 386-8100; cafegratitude.com. Open daily, 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Dinner for two, $50-$75, food only. Full bar.

MORE ONLINE aREAD FOOD & DRINK OCWEEKLY.COM/RESTAURANTS

| OCWEEKLY.COM |

hen I went to the Gratitude, the new Newport Beach outpost of the vegan restaurant chain, I saw a characteristic common to the past few such eateries I reviewed: The dishes are given code names. The ravioli isn’t called ravioli; it’s called the Authentic.

I didn’t order the pizza; I asked for the Giving. Actually, I think I was doing it all wrong. According to a few people I talked to, these titles are supposed to be affirmations. They are to be said after the words “I am.” So rather than telling the waiter, “I’d like to order the roasted beet salad and the Indian red dal,” I should’ve said, “I am Gifted and Humble,” which sounds more contradictory than silly.

More motivational psychobabble is found on the company’s mission statement: “We invite you to step inside and enjoy being someone that chooses: loving your life, adoring yourself, accepting the world, being generous and grateful every day, and experiencing being provided for.”

Rather than that Stuart Smalley-esque sentence, I think Gratitude should have just stated its strongest selling point: It’s a vegan restaurant that doesn’t use fake meat. Mushrooms sub in for beef, tempeh is used to emulate the dense texture of animal flesh, but nothing involving textured soy protein is found anywhere. In fact, I’ve yet to find anything that tasted unnatural or lab-concocted in its dishes.

Nothing I swallowed seemed less than fresh and wholesome. The food, unlike at other vegan places, doesn’t seem reverseengineered. Instead, Gratitude actually uses produce and cooks them as is, you know, with fire and stuff.

BY EDWIN GOEI

ith all the talk nowadays about diversity this and multiculturalism that, people usually forget that such buzz words are old hat in Fountain Valley. The city is currently experiencing a Turkish restaurant boom, features some of the county’s few Armenian eateries, hosts a chunk of Little Saigon, and has more than a few good Latino restaurants. Ease with ethnic groups is in the city’s DNA: Fountain Valley was essentially founded by Japanese farmers, whose sons became World War II heroes (Kazuo Masuda), the first JapaneseAmerican mayor of a mainland American city (James Kanno), and the first JapaneseAmerican California Supreme Court justice (the Honorable Stephen Tamura). And it’s that legacy that has always made the city the capital of Japanese eating in OC. Sorry, Costa Mesa: From ramen shops to izakayas to Japanese-American sushi bars to fusion places such as Samurai Burrito, teriyaki shops and more, Fountain Valley brings it. For the past couple of years, one of the more favored places has been O Udon.

Its kitchen staff hand-make the Second City of Japanese noodles and prepare them at least 14 ways, all offered hot or cold, all delicious. Plum udon is the simplest yet also one of the best: tart and sharp and sinusclearing when hot, refreshing when cold.

Oroshi features grated Japanese radish and a bunch of other veggies, all prepared like a bento box. Get shrimp tempura udon hot, and the crispy skin melts into the broth, adding another layer of umami. Order the mac and cheese cold, and you have a far better meeting of Italy and Japan than the original Iron Chef could’ve ever hoped for.

What’s best about O Udon, though, is that it’s always debuting new menus and specials, just for the hell of it. They now have an onigiri list, the rice cakes all delicately wrapped in seaweed yet bulky enough to smash a peanut. The takoyaki resembles a living diaroma with its pulsing bonito flakes yet tastes all-American with the copious amount of teriyaki sauce and mayonnaise. And dessert should always be the pudding (playfully spelled “Puring” on the paper on the wall that advertises it). Go quick: Only 20 purings and a set amount of udon are made per day.

M ON TH X X–X X , 2014

| ocweekly.com |

NAMASTE THIS WITH HOT SAUCE

| CONTENTS | THE COUNTY | FEATURE | CALENDAR | FOOD | FILM | CULTURE | MUSIC | CLASSIFIEDS |

18

food»reviews | listings

1

BEST TATER TOTS ON EARTH

EDWIN GOEI

Tofu to Crunch To Fried tofu at Ha Long Vietnamese Cuisine

DRINKOFTHEWEEK » MARY CARREON

T

THE DRINK

Upon first swig, the heavy, aromatic forestlike flavors envelop the senses. Yet, the bold botanical characters make it an excellent

savory dipping sauce with hints of hoisin, you didn’t need it. Ha Long’s chefs toss a flurry of seasonings, wilted onions and whole dried peppers with the tofu cubes that could easily stand in as the protein in a Lenten Friday meal with just a bowl of rice.

Still, I must tell you it’s not exactly the same dish as Siam Taste of Asia’s. The tofu used here is firm instead of custardy.

But it’s the McCartney to that Lennon.

And it has wings.

HA LONG VIETNAMESE CUISINE 3850 Barranca Pkwy., Irvine, (949) 654-3736; halongcuisine.com.

substitute for juniper berry, and it goes down a lot smoother than gin. According to Abe Stevens, the owner of Humboldt Distillery, the hempinfused vodka is a mixologist’s dream because it provides a new base for bartenders to get creative with (plus, there’s the whole novelty factor). He suggests recipes include yellow peppers, fresh oregano leaves and other green garden ingredients.

Don’t expect a high, though: Humboldt’s Finest contains no THC. But it’s a good start to seeing more hemp in our daily lives. So go make a martini, and salud!

For more information, visit humboldtdistillery.com.

Hi-Time Wine Cellars Wine Bar This Week!

Thurs. 3/31 4:30-8:30pm $25 California Chardonnays Spring is here, and we’ll kick it off by tasting some fantastic Chardonnays! Kistler, Hudson, Rochioli, Patz & Hall, and many more!

Friday 4/1 4:30-8:30pm $25 Land Without Oak We’ll taste wines that utilize no oak in the vinifying process!

Saturday 4/2 2-8:30pm $20 French Rosé Picnic Dry French rosés with picnic foods!

Follow @mrhitime on Instagram & Twitter!

250 OGLE STREET - COSTA MESA, CA 949.650.8463 - HITIMEWINE.NET

| OCWEEKLY.COM |

he age of hemp is upon us: Orange County’s finer liquor stores will soon receive regular shipments from the Emerald Triangle.

But instead of acquiring massive trash bags full of marijuana, bottles of Humboldt’s Finest—vodka infused with the first legally produced hemp crops since Prohibition—will be on shelves. And because Humboldt’s Finest is the pioneer of cannabis vodka, you’re basically making history every time you drink it—yay, history!

But don’t be aghast when you realize it tastes a hell of a lot like gin.

» EDWIN GOEI

AP RIL 0 1- 0 7, 20 16

Humboldt’s Finest Cannabis-Infused Vodka

ike Restaurant & Bar is a neighborhood meeting place for locals and out-of-towners alike, conveniently located on 4th St. Retro Row in Long Beach, CA. We serve a full menu ‘til midnight, 7 days a week and feature the best microbrews in the US.

EATTHISNOW

DUSTIN AMES

T

here used to be a Thai place in Santa Ana called Siam Taste of Asia that made the best fried tofu. It was—to borrow the description I wrote back when it was still open—tofu made into candy. It may have resembled the usual deep-fried tofu cubes common to Chinese/Vietnamese/ Thai restaurants—the kind you dip into a sauce—but it had a craggly, crunchy shell with the same DNA as a tater tot and a coating of a sticky glaze that might as well be a Willy Wonka confection.

I was reminded of that dish when I encountered its Vietnamese sibling at Ha Long Vietnamese Cuisine in Irvine. Each cube was covered in the same crunchy cocoon you could rap with a spoon. And though the dish comes with a thick and

3316 E 7TH ST, LONG BEACH, CA 90804 @thegoodbarlongbeach

P

| CONTENTS | THE COUNTY | FEATURE | CALENDAR | FOOD | FILM | CULTURE | MUSIC | CLASSIFIEDS |

food»

19

| classifieds | music | culture | film | food | calendar | feature | the county | contents | Ap ril 0 1- 07, 2 016

The Nicest Amigos

AMIGOS DE BOLSA CHICA

Saving the Bolsa Chica Wetlands shows how activists saved Huntington Beach’s famed nature preserve

I

who called themselves the Amigos de Bolsa Chica banded together to protest the construction of waterfront properties that would have destroyed 2,000 acres of coastal wetlands, one of the largest such expanses in North America. Over the following decades, the Amigos did everything possible to save Bolsa Chica from the ever-looming threat of asphalt and stucco: lawsuits, protests, letter-writing campaigns, fund-raisers, lectures, all leading to the national treasure we have today.

Now celebrating its 40th anniversary, Amigos de Bolsa Chica premiered Saving the Bolsa Chica Wetlands in February at the Huntington Beach Central Library to a packed house. Part celebration of the group’s resolve, part rallying cry for other activists around the country that they can also succeed like Amigos, and all about capturing Bolsa Chica’s beauty, filmmaker Rita Baghdadi and Amigos de Bolsa Chica activist/teacher Joana Tavares-Reager eloquently captured how a group of ordinary citizens succeeded in carrying out an extraordinary mission.

“The goal of our film is to ignite passion, enthusiasm and the desire to do something positive for the environment,” says Tavares-Reager. “Anyone can succeed at improving the world as long as they put their minds and hearts into it.”

Saving the Bolsa Chica Wetlands also serves as a chronicle of a shift in thought regarding nature in Orange County.

Huntington Beach’s allure in the late 1960s to early ’70s wasn’t only because of the surf—it offered an alternative to

the overcrowded, smog-filled LA life.

Before the Bolsa Chica battle, OC residents mostly shrugged as hills, canyons, coastland—essentially, everything involving plants and dirt—got paved over and took what was left for granted, mostly because Orange County was still relatively empty. “We lived 1 mile from Bolsa Chica and had no idea it was even there,” says David Carlberg, director emeritus of Amigos de Bolsa Chica.

Although Huntington was beginning to blossom as a city, the area of Bolsa Chica was relatively undeveloped—and undiscovered. But as Surf City began to grow, the demand for open land became obvious—especially to Signal Oil, who was already using the wetlands for oil extraction. By the early ’70s, Signal Oil presented the city with a major development plan, which set the Amigos in motion.

“There was a need for preserving the wetlands and even improving it,” says founding member Margaret Carlberg.

Signal Oil is the villain of Saving the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, with newspaper clippings, interviews and archival footage depicting the David-and-Goliath battle that followed. It’s touching to see activists as their younger selves, and then see them now—grayer, wiser, yet no less enthusiastic about spending nearly half of their lives fighting for the same cause. “Their inspiring story of how they saved the wetlands is an opportunity to reflect upon the power of environmental advocacy through the portrait of real-life heroes,” says Tavares-Reager.

Although the Amigos prevailed against Signal Oil, the fight to restore the wetlands still persists, a point the film smartly makes. “What [the Amigos] didn’t know is that they would spend the next 40 years fighting to restore the Bolsa Chica,” Tavares-Reager says. In other words, it’s been the Amigos’ mission to help mend the damages done to the wetlands since their victory. Basking in its placid setting is fine and all—but there’s always work to do the rest of the time.

“The wetlands serve as an oasis to animals, plants and people who use this ecological reserve to escape from our overwhelmingly urbanized existence,” she says. “But most folks are completely unaware of the amount of effort, dedication and time that was required to save this special place from development.”

The documentary is expected to pop up in film festivals and live a long life in Orange County classrooms and Amigos functions. “Our hope is that this film can serve as inspiration for a new generation of environmentalists and social activists,” Tavares-Reager says, encouraging members of the community to stand up for our natural surroundings. “It’s very easy to get involved. There’s still much work to be done to protect the Bolsa Chica and the other few coastal ecosystems that remain in California.”

For more information on Saving the Bolsa Chica Wetlands and Amigos de Bolsa Chica, visit www.amigosdebolsachica.org.

| OCWEEKLY.COM |

n the opening minutes of Saving the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, a short documentary on the efforts to save Huntington Beach’s iconic coastland preserves, the stunning bird’s-eye images look almost too serene and untouched to be a part of Orange County: a tiny sliver of land, surrounded by suburban sprawl, where wildlife and nature flourish. Soon after comes more beauty: a pelican hopping along the shore ready to take flight, lit by the warm colors of a sunrise. An egret wading through the mud with its impossibly long legs and bright-white plumage. A duck peacefully preening itself, content to relax for eternity. “This is our . . . cathedral,” says one of the many environmental activists interviewed in the doc, his voice cracking with emotion.

Those images, however, must fight for space with ugliness: Oil derricks on a desolate land, despoiling paradise.

Smoke-belching bulldozers ripping through earth, ready to pave the way for more tract housing. Disinterested politicians pretending to listen while citizens take to the podium, pleading with them to save Bolsa Chica from OC’s eternal thirst for buildings.

The green marshlands that lie next to Pacific Coast Highway in the northern part of Huntington Beach were never intended to stay serene. By the time developers were submitting plans to cut up Bolsa Chica, about 90 percent of California’s wetlands had already disappeared, victims to pollutants and progress.

But in 1976, a group of environmentalists

BY MARY CARREON

MO N TH X X–X X , 2 014

| ocweekly.com |

KEEP THIS AS FAR AWAY FROM DAVE GAROFALO AS YOU CAN

| CONTENTS | THE COUNTY | FEATURE | CALENDAR | FOOD | FILM | CULTURE | MUSIC | CLASSIFIEDS |

20

film»reviews|screenings

1

| contents

film»reviews|screenings Special Screenings

APRIL 14th 2016 e# +,#9, $!(,#e

PALISADES/TARTAN

E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. Steven Spielberg’s 1982 classic about the bug-eyed, phallic-fingered extraterrestrial lizard king screens as part of the Calle Cuatro Sunday Matinee series presented by Frida and the Santa Ana Business Council. The Frida Cinema; thefridacinema.org.

Sun., 11 a.m. $1-$5.

Raíces de Mi Corazon (Roots of My Heart). UC Irvine’s Latin American Film Festival screens this independently produced short drama from 2001.

It was the first film in Cuban media to deal with the 1912 massacre of thousands of members of the Independents of Color, the hemisphere’s first black political party outside Haiti.

McCormick Screening Room, Humanities Gateway 1070, UC Irvine, West Peltason and Campus drives, Irvine, (949) 824-6117. Wed., 4 p.m. Call for ticket price.

Bush Mama. See the story of Dorothy, a pregnant welfare recipient in Watts, and then hear director Haile Gerima talk about her as part of the UCI African American Studies’ African American Film Festival. McCormick Screening Room, (949) 824-6117. Thurs., April 7, 4 p.m. Call for ticket price.

APRIL 1st 2016 NOW

in its 17th year, the Festival is proud to treat its audience to World and U.S. Premieres, Academy Award entries, Sundance Selections, a Spotlight Series, and Children’s Festival, from both the independent and studio worlds. Be part of the OC Weekly’s full color program guide for the Festival.

This program guide will be a script of the Festival that features film synopses and show times. Most importantly, this is your chance to reach 503,206* OC Weekly readers!

- APRIL 21st–28th 2016 -

MADDIE HASSON

WRENN SCHMIDT

“AMAZINGLY, TOM HIDDLESTON INTENSELY CHANNELS THE TIMELESS COUNTRY MUSIC STAR HANK WILLIAMS. ELIZABETH OLSEN IS DYNAMIC. A MOVIE THAT IS EASY ON THE EARS AND EVEN EASIER TO LIKE.”

NBFF

2016

-Rex Reed, NEW YORK OBSERVER

0 1- 0 7, 2 016

TOM ELIZABETH CHERRY BRADLEY HIDDLESTON OLSEN JONES WHITFORD

Apr i l

MCOKER@OCWEEKLY.COM

|

Senior Thesis Film Screenings. See the work of the next generation of J.J. Abramses. Chapman’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, 283 N. Cypress St., Orange. Fri., 7 p.m. Free; first come, first seated.

Oldboy. OC Weekly’s “Friday Night Freakouts: April Fool’s Edition” pick is Park Chan-wook’s 2003 neo-noir masterpiece that had me thinking, “These Koreans are onto something.”

The Frida Cinema, 305 E. Fourth St., Santa Ana; thefridacinema.org. Fri., 11 p.m. $8-$10.

UHF. Twenty-seven years ago, the comedy about a low-budget TV station that stars and was co-written by “Weird Al” Yankovic bombed. Now, Midnight Insanity hails its anniversary in Downtown Long Beach’s First Friday Cult Classics series. The Art Theatre, 2025 E. Fourth St., Long Beach, (562) 438-5435; facebook.com/ firstfridaycultclassics. Fri., 11 p.m. Call for ticket price.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The March 18 “quote-along” screening of Rainbow Releasing’s restoration of the 1975 cult classic was so amazing that Frida mounts two afternoon encores.

The Frida Cinema; thefridacinema.org.

Sat.-Sun., 1:30 p.m. $8-$10.

| feature | calendar | food | film | culture | music | classifieds

e#/ $! ), #e

Guide

county

WHAT A COMB!

| the

BY MATT COKER

“SEE IT FOR THE MAGNIFICENT TOM HIDDLESTON, WHO HONORS HANK WILLIAMS’ GREATNESS.” -Stephanie Zacharek, TIME

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY MARC ABRAHAM SOUNDTRACK AVAILABLE ON LEGACY RECORDINGS

STARTS FRIDAY, APRIL 1

BREA Edwards Brea Stadium 22 regmovies.com

WWW.SONYCLASSICS.COM

READ THE BOOK FROM BACK BAY BOOKS

COSTA MESA Regency South Coast Village (714) 557-5701 LAGUNA NIGUEL Regency Directors Cut Cinema at Rancho Niguel (949) 831-0446

LONG BEACH UA Long Beach 6 (844) 462-7342 #509 NEWPORT BEACH Island Cinema (844) 462-7342 #151

ORANGE AMC Orange 30 amctheatres.com ORANGE Century Stadium 25 & XD (800) CINEMARK

VIEW THE TRAILER AT WWW.ISAWTHELIGHTFILM.COM

CALL YOUR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

TODAY

TO RESERVE YOUR SPACE OR

CALL: 714.550.5900

| ocweekly.com |

I SAW THE LIGHT

21

|

| classifieds | music | culture | film | food | calendar | feature | the county | contents Ap ril 0 1- 07, 2 016

Mommie Damndest

» AIMEE MURILLO

South Coast Repertory takes on child stars and Comic-Con culture with the world premiere of Eliza Clark’s Future Thinking

BY JOEL BEERS

E

HOW CAN WE GET COMIC-CON TO ANAHEIM NEXT YEAR?

BEN HORAK/SCR

were supportive and just saw acting as just another thing my brother and I liked to do, I was around a lot of kids [for whom] it was their whole lives. Their parents had picked up and moved from some small town to New York City, and they were kind of putting all their chips on the kid. And that is a lot of pressure on a child, to mean something like that to someone else.”

Yet Clark doesn’t necessarily cast parents of show-business brats or parents who drive their kids to excel at sports or even academics as bad people. “I think it comes from a good place,” she says. “Parents want their kids to succeed, and in order to do that, they want something that sets their child apart, that makes them special. But sometimes, that does come at the cost of childhood.”

Clark feels Future Thinking is as much about the perceptions of parents and children and, by extension, all relationships as it is of those of fans and celebrities.

Whether family, friends or celebrities, Clark says far too often, we are less concerned with really seeing or hearing the other person than in seeing what we want them to be.

It was only natural for Clark to set a play about perceptions and relationships at Comic-Con, since few places allow for such real-life access to the people who play fantasy characters for the people who feel they know them. And while there are some lines in the play that dismiss fan obsession as nothing more than fueling merch sales and DVD rentals, Clark has a different take. “I think the stories we tell are important to people, and that is exciting for me as a storyteller,” she says. “I like that there are people who engage with the thing, whether it’s a TV show or a film or whatever. That it gives them some relief from their lives to imagine a world outside of themselves. I think it’s a really beautiful thing, but [the fans have to realize] the people who are making the show are not always the warrior that you would imagine them to be.”

FUTURE THINKING at South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa, (714) 708-5555; www.scr. org. Tues.-Wed., 7:30 p.m.; Thurs.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2:30 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 & 7:30 p.m.

Through April 24. $20-$46.

I

f you need a refresher from comics depicting morally upright superheroes for a change, consider checking out Fullertonbased indie publisher Trabajo Press. It’s currently two issues deep into its True Stories of OC series, in which controversial events in our county’s recent history are immortalized in comic form. Illustrated by Felipe Flores, the first issue covered the killing of Kelly Thomas; the second deals with police corruption in an issue fittingly titled The Great Santa Ana Drug Bust. That tale recounts the infamous May 2015 pot raid during which a team of SAPD officers busted into Sky High Holistic dispensary to shut it down for—according to cops—operating without a permit. Secret cameras revealed law enforcement eating up cookies and candy bars, laughing about “feeling high,” and cracking jokes at the expense of wheelchair-bound volunteer Marla James.

The event made national news, and three of the cops are now facing criminal charges.

Flores captures the surveillance video’s contents in a gritty, noirish, black-and-white illustrative style reminiscent of Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes and Raymond Pettibon.

But the 31-year-old says his immediate influences are more mainstream—Jack Kirby, Dave Gibbons and George Perez—with a “clean” and documentary-like style placing his genre as creative nonfiction. “I want these stories to be remembered, so that’s why I chose [to make] them,” Flores says.

“Although, it’s not journalism; you should actually read the articles they came from.”

He memorializes these events in comics form to keep them in the public consciousness. “I want to draw things that are important to me and relevant to where I live and my community,” Flores says. “I chose these truecrimes stories where justice was somehow not served in one way or another.”

Trabajo Press will celebrate the debut of The Great Santa Ana Drug Bust with a gallery show at Hibbleton Gallery’s Bookmachine zine library. People can buy an issue and observe Flores’ hand-drawn pages. See you there!

AMURILLO@OCWEEKLY.COM THE GREAT SANTA ANA DRUG BUST debuts at Bookmachine inside Hibbleton Gallery, 223 W. Santa Fe Ave., Fullerton.

Fri., 6 pm. Check out more art by Flores at www.facebook.com/trabajopress.

ONLINE » aMORE OCWEEKLY.COM

| OCWEEKLY.COM |

liza Clark isn’t naming names.

But considering she was a working actress by the time she was old enough to go to elementary school, she has seen and known plenty of show-biz kids who have been burned, have burned out, or became famous but were pretty much turds.

Such as Chiara, the fictitious character at the center of Clark’s play, Future Thinking, receiving its world-premiere production at South Coast Repertory. The 23-year-old star of the similarly fictitious TV show Odyssey (think Game of Thrones meets Battlestar Galactica) is a child actor turned adult starlet. Though famous, she loathes her overbearing mother, who groomed her from infancy to be an actress, for turning her into someone who may have gone to many places, but feels as if she has never been anywhere.

“I was a child actor and had a good experience doing it,” says Clark. “But we live in a society that values celebrity, and there’s a lot of pressure on children, so I wanted to write a story based on some of my experiences in child acting, although through the lens of kids I used to know, not myself.”

Set amid the high-profile collision between film and TV stars and their diehard fans, Future Thinking focuses on Chiara and Peter, a 51-year-old man who may be a bit too into her. Already barred by law from being around Chiara, Peter decides to show up at Comic-Con anyway, with more on his agenda than getting a selfie with the actress he idolizes. But it turns out that Chiara is less upset with Peter than with her mother’s attempts to control her, and what begins as a play about how people’s fantasies can get in the way of their reality turns into a play in which people’s reality can also screw up their fantasies.

In some way, each character is enmeshed in a fantasy; the only difference is that Chiara’s is real and truly interesting—if your idea of interesting is being rich, famous and hot. No surprise, Chiara is also the most emotional, high-strung and frequently out of control, the kind of impending trainwreck that Clark has seen more than a few times.

“I was around a lot of people who you, you know, you hear about,” says the playwright, who landed her first acting job as a 6-month-old and appeared onstage, on TV and in commercials until she started focusing on writing while at Yale University. “And I have a lot of sympathy for people who are in positions that they didn’t choose for themselves. While my parents

True OC

M ON TH X X–X X , 2014

| ocweekly.com |

TRENDZILLA

| CONTENTS | THE COUNTY | FEATURE | CALENDAR | FOOD | FILM | CULTURE | MUSIC | CLASSIFIEDS |

22

culture»art|stage|style

1

DEFINITELY HAS NO SHOESHINE BOX

COURTESY ALEC RODRIGUEZ

The Brown Blackand-White Master

Alec Rodriguez of Goodfellas Tattoo Studio

A

UNDER THEIR SKIN » JOSH CHESLER

GOODFELLAS TATTOO STUDIO 2345 N. Tustin St., Orange, (714) 637-8282; officialgoodfellastattoo.com.

Follow Rodriguez on Instagram: @alecrodrigueztattoo.

| ocweekly.com |

tattoo scene was hard to penetrate, so he went to the shop where he’d been getting tattooed. Goodfellas didn’t have space for another apprentice at the time, but because he’d spent so much time getting tattooed there, Rodriguez was essentially put on a waiting list.

After about a year, Rodriguez got the phone call he’d been waiting for. Although he’s no longer an apprentice, Rodriguez says he still feels as though he learns something new all the time. Vets such as Soto teach Rodriguez tricks that aren’t in the curriculum for every shop, including studying and practicing in color to perfect the tones of a piece. Such lessons have made Rodriguez a better artist than many people who have tattooed decades longer than him.

Rodriguez’s talent and dedication got him a spot representing Goodfellas at major tattoo conventions, which he’s held for the past three years. While the Musink award has so far been the pinnacle of his career, Rodriguez has other reasons for appreciating the festival. “I like Musink because a lot of my friends go there who I don’t see for years at a time,” Rodriguez says. “A lot of them work out of state, so it’s always really cool to go back and see everyone.”

Ap ril 0 1- 0 7, 20 16

lthough the American traditional tattoo style has had a long presence in Southern California, the region is more known for its fine-line black-and-gray tradition. That’s part of what makes Alec Rodriguez so interesting. He’s the future of the scene in Orange County, a place loaded with stars such as Jack Rudy, Chuco Moreno and Steve Soto, under whom Rodriguez is currently learning at Goodfellas Tattoo Studio in Orange.

He has only been tattooing for a few years, but Rodriguez is already reaching heights that more established artists can’t even envision. Just a couple of weeks ago, he won a first-place award for Music Related tattoo at Musink—an event at which veterans are lucky to get a participation certificate in the festival’s contests—for a Jim Morrison portrait he did on his younger brother.

“It’s definitely helped me get on the fast track for my career because these guys are some of the world’s best black-and-gray artists,” Rodriguez says. “To be able to learn in that kind of environment has definitely helped me out a lot and been very inspiring.”

But Rodriguez wasn’t always such a bright prospect. Roughly five years ago, the tattooer began seeing some of his friends practice in their garages in Huntington Beach. Always an artist, Rodriguez wanted to try the medium. “I had the mentality of ‘If they can do it, I can do it, too,’” Rodriguez says. “I started tattooing at the house after I bought a kit online. I started fucking up a lot of tattoos on my friends, and from there, I realized it was something that I really wanted to do more seriously.”

Rodriguez knew he needed an apprenticeship at a reputable shop, but the saturation and tightly knit community of HB’s

| contents | the county | feature | calendar | food | film | culture | music | classifieds |

culture»

23

| classifieds | music | culture | film | food | calendar | feature | the county | contents | Ap ril 0 1- 07 , 20 16

| ocweekly.com | 24

music»artists|sounds|shows LOOKING GOOD ON THE THRONE

A Wretch Redeemed

KIM CONLAN

The Abigails’ Warren Thomas returns from the brink of self-destruction

BY KIM CONLAN

W

arren Thomas always appears as if he’s in control of the way he’s falling apart. The lead singer of the Abigails’ stylistic digressions don’t detract from the songs. Rather, his puzzling behavior exemplifies what the band’s music is all about: being on the brink of unraveling and attempting to keep it together during the highs and lows of life.

The sound isn’t exactly surf, psych or punk, and their tunes carry a country twang.

There are hints of Modest Mouse and the Make-Up, “bands that are ultimately punk at their core, but they’re not, like, your standard-sounding punk,” Thomas explains.

A transplant to LA from his native Dana Point, Thomas lives in a worn-out cityscape covered in graffiti and grit. An industrial building set directly beside train tracks, Thomas’ place is really more of a compound.

Once inside, the disturbing essence of this rough part of LA disappears. His good friend Brooks Nielsen, lead singer of the Growlers, recently moved out of this loft-style artist flat, and Thomas has taken over the room made of makeshift walls, with no windows to let in light. Nielsen’s hoarded decorations, leftovers from his band’s old studios, are artistically organized on the walls. On this afternoon, Thomas sports a blue-collared, button-up shirt labeled with patches indicating that his name is “Bobby” and he works

for Vulcan Oil. Simple tattoos adorn his skin, including a small red heart on his left cheek. His colorful striped socks match—but almost don’t—the rest of his outfit.

This eclectic style of living is completely normal to Thomas, who has shared homes with and toured beside Nielsen and the rest of the Growlers for many years. “When you’re with five guys in a weird psychedelic bus every day, and then you go home, and you live together and see one another every day—we would see our personalities, like, morph into everyone having the same jokes, same mannerisms, just the same stupid whatever.”

Thomas’ career in music started in his early 20s with the now-defunct Long Beach band the Grand Elegance. Most fans and friends are aware of the legend of Thomas, being a few years older than the fledgling Growlers guys, directly influencing the band’s sound, jokingly dubbed “Beach Goth”—a name that stuck. It’s surprisingly accurate considering the Growlers’ mix of dark psychedelic rock, ’70s reggae, and country and western music.

“That’s probably like the most influential person I ever knew,” Nielsen says of Thomas. “Warren was always pushing weird [music] since I first met him.”

The singer spent years of following a philosophy that seemed to be “if you can imbibe it, do so—and in prolific quantities.”

He was at the forefront of the Long Beach underground, with the Grand Elegance as his platform. “I wasn’t doing the Growlers, but I was still living with them and kind of just cruising,” Thomas says as he lights up a cigarette.

Nielsen recalls the house in Long Beach they cleverly called the Boobytrap. “That was the first experience where I was, like, seeing this guy who left our small town, started a band and found a fucking cool old house where you could make music,” he says.

Despite their local success, the Grand Elegance started to fade after almost a decade. “It was almost like, I think, that we all knew we missed our calling, you know?”

Thomas says. “There was this window, and I don’t know when it was exactly, but we were really tight and really good and doing something different, and if something was going to happen for the band, it was going to be then, and it didn’t.”

However, Thomas’ place in the scene would start anew with the Abigails. “All the while, [band mate] Kyle Mullarky is one of my best friends,” Thomas explains, “and we’ve got these songs that we’ve been working on, just assuming that it’s Grand Elegance stuff. I met up with him and was like, ‘I want to do something different. I don’t want to do the Grand Elegance anymore.’”

But his old habits put him through some

hard times, including a jail stint for drug possession. “When I got out of jail [in April 2011], my girlfriend broke up with me. . . . I felt really lost right then ’cause I was, like, 30, and all of a sudden, I didn’t even know where to go or what to do,” he says. After a few tries at rehab in August 2014 (and again in July 2015), followed by a relapse, he finally hit the end of the line. When the Abigails’ 2014 album Tundra was released, Thomas was in rehab, so touring was out of the question. But the singer is now six months clean from alcohol, pills and heroin.

“We’re going to Europe from May to June, and Tundra is going to be released there to coincide with the tour,” he says. “Right now, I’ve been working on songs for the next album, and that’s been going really good.”

After years trapped in his addictions, the prospect of staying clean has given him a new perspective on his art and what it takes to make it great . . . or, in this case, what it doesn’t take. “In today’s society,” Thomas says, “it’s so accessible to be weird that it’s almost weirder to not have to use drugs or alcohol as this creative stimulant.”

THE ABIGAILS perform with Vinnie and the Hooligans and Dano Forte’s Juke Joint Freak Show at the Wayfarer, 843 W. 19th St., Costa Mesa, (949) 764-0039; www.wayfarercm.com. Sat., 9 p.m. $5. 21+.

| contents

| the county

| feature | calendar | food | film | culture | music | classifieds

| Apr i l

0 1- 0 7, 2 016

| ocweekly.com |

25

| classifieds | music | culture | film | food | calendar | feature | the county | contents |

music» FACEBOOK/HOBANAHEIM

TWITTER @HOBANAHEIM

ANAHEIM

The Store That Keeps Shredding

Ap ril 0 1- 07 , 20 16

| ocweekly.com |

ZANE GREY

Programme Skate & Sound looks back on five years in Fullerton

T

COMING SOON

26

SCHULZ (LEFT) AND GORONOWSKI DO THEIR VERSION OF WEIGHT LIFTING

H O U S E O F B L U E S .C O M /A N A H E I M

4/14 HIATUS 4/19 HA*ASH 4/20-21 JULIETA VENEGAS 4/23 CHARLES KELLEY 4/24 SAY ANYTHING 4/26 BOYCE AVENUE

4/28 TONY VISCONTI + WOODY WOODMANSEY’S HOLY HOLY – CELEBRATING DAVID BOWIE 4/29 CLUB COSPLAY 5/6 APOCALYPTICA 5/11 MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK 5/13 TOTALLY 80’S LIVE W/ MISSING PERSONS, BOW WOW WOW & MORE!

153 0 S . D I S N E Y L A N D D R . I N T H E D O W N T O W N D I S N E Y ® D I S T R I C T FOR INFO & TIX 714.778.BLUE HOUSEOFBLUES.COM/ANAHEIM Shows are all ages and standing room only unless otherwise noted. Show dates and times are subject to change.

Tickets subject to all applicable facility fees and service charges. Applicable fees and charges apply to all ticket sales.

he combination of skateboarding and punk-rock shows has undoubtedly shaped the culture and legend of Southern California, and this tradition is kept alive nearly every night of the week at Programme Skate & Sound in Fullerton.

Now in its fifth year of business, Programme has become a hotspot for North County skaters and music fans, cultivating and supporting the local scene by hosting touring acts such as Bane and Real Friends, providing the perfect blend of skate gear and lifestyle wear, and even sponsoring local skaters. While it has already accomplished a lot for a quaint store wedged in the corner of a suburban shopping center, owner Chris Gronowski has the humble yet driving energy of a man on the ground floor of something bigger than himself.

Gronowski first fell in love with skateboarding after receiving a California Free Former board as a gift in the first grade.

Just as many other OC kids, he spent the majority of his adolescence either on a board or a BMX bike. It wasn’t until he was a teen that Gronowski was drawn to the rebellious and infectious energy of punk and hip-hop, which would shape the trajectory of his life. “I heard X, the Ramones, Adam Ant and the Dead Kennedys, and I was hooked,” Gronowski says.

“After [discovering] Run-DMC, Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul, I knew I had to do something with [music].”

Because of his love for both music and skateboarding, he worked in both fields. He deejayed for a while, but after managing a “core skate shop,” Gronowski dreamed of pushing the boundaries “of what a skate shop is supposed to be.”

Despite the recession, he and business partner Efrem Schulz (vocalist for Death

By Stereo) hustled and opened the doors to their dream store in 2011. DIY spirit is integral to Programme. “From the floors

BY CANDACE HANSEN to the fixtures to the walls to funding [the place], we literally did it all ourselves,” Gronowski says. “We knew no other way.”

Programme’s location is not by chance.

Gronowski and Schulz came of age skating and going to shows in Orange, Buena Park and Anaheim, so picking a spot that bridged their passions was central to their mission. They chose Fullerton because of its rich punk history and as a tribute to Gronowski’s favorite shop, the nowdefunct location of Bionic Records, which once stood directly across the street from Programme’s spot.

Gronowski believes having shows at Programme is necessary to building the community. “It’s all part of the experience,” he says. “You grow up skating, listening to records and going to shows; ultimately, you meet someone at a skate spot who becomes your friend, your comrade. Same thing at a show: You make an acquaintance that’s a pal for life.”

The skate and lifestyle side of their business is just as important and integral as the music. From sponsoring locals to having pro appearances in the shop— including multiple pro teams, Chris Cole, Ray Barbee and Tony Alva—Gronowski enjoys cultivating a passion for skating in the next generation of OC shredders.

And he dreams of expanding the business, possibly creating a record label. In the meantime, Programme’s calendar is filling up with such events as a benefit for victims of domestic abuse put on by new Long Beach-based collective Making a Change, a benefit for the family of Nathan Alfaro, Record Store Day, and a meet and greet with hip-hop legend Masta Ace. “Efrem and I just wanted a place that we would’ve gone to growing up,” Gronowski says.

PROGRAMME SKATE & SOUND 2495 E. Chapman Ave., Fullerton, (714) 7987565; www.facebook.com/programme-HQ.

| OCWEEKLY.COM |

AP RIL 01 - 07 , 2 01 6

| CLASSIFIEDS | MUSIC | CULTURE | FILM | FOOD | CALENDAR | FEATURE | THE COUNTY | CONTENTS |

music»

28

THE R&B SWEETHEART

ANDRE MAMPOURIAN

New-Old Soul

M

NIGHTCLUB AND SPORTS BAR

Best

Happy Hour In HB $2 OFF ALL LIQUOR $3 DOMESTIC DRAFTS $4 IMPORT DRAFTS

NEW MUSIC

TUESDAYS LIVE BANDS @ 8PM

E KARAOK HURS. T Y R E V E 9PM

LIVE BAND FRIDAY SATURDAY 9:00 PM 117 Main St. Huntington Beach (Across from HB Pier)

714.960.9996 | PERQSBAR.COM

illennials are often touted as the lazy generation. The general discourse is that we’ve been coddled, don’t understand the value of holding an underpaid position, and are too lazy to eat cereal—as New York Magazine wrote recently. And yet millions of dollars continue to be invested to understand us. The story of R&B sweetheart and Chapman University film student Nieman Gatus is the perfect nod to what other generations seem to be missing. Millennials such as Gatus have an unshakable hunger to pursue their dreams, despite their unorthodox path.

Gatus’ dream is to win a Grammy and an Oscar. “I used to say to myself, I need to think realistically,” he says. “But why can’t I achieve both?”

While he intended to pursue a career in medicine after high school, he courted his love for music in choir, theater and worship. “My best friends and I had a band called Undone Superhero,” he says, pointing to the tattoo his girlfriend designed on his wrist. “I sang in this really nasally voice. . . . I guess I was trying to imitate the Jonas Brothers at the time. I wrote songs on my guitar about what felt like heartache.”

But when he applied for the pre-med track and was declined, “it felt like my world was shattering,” Gatus says. “I went to Saddleback College, and then [Irvine Valley College], still taking biology and chemistry classes. But around [age] 19, I realized this wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing.”

The year 2013 was one of rebuilding: Gatus bought a camera, became a videographer for DisneyExaminer.com, took his first solo trip to see a friend in Portland, asked his girlfriend to be his steady (by way of post card at a Justin Timberlake and Jay Z concert as “Mirrors” played) and started making music again.

The next year, Wyatt Bock was recording Gatus’ vocals, while Nick Pacoli produced his first EP, Lanes, which debuted December 2014.

The five tracks effortlessly take you back to ’90s

LOCALSONLY » TAYLOR MORGAN

R&B; they are infused with poetic and carefully crafted lyrics that reminisce on his cultural identity, brief obsession with fixies (hipster bikes) and trying to find his way.

While the baby-making beats are present throughout his tracks, Gatus offers a refreshing spin. “When did something as sweet as Brian McKnight’s ‘you’re like a dream come true/just wanna be with you’ become Chris Brown or Trey Songz?” he asks. “They’re not bad—in fact, I listen to them—but when I decided to pursue R&B, I knew that my mom had to be able to listen to it. I don’t need to glamorize something that I’m not for. I wanted to bring class and easy listening back to the music, and that’s why in [the 2015 single] ‘Throwback Love,’ I ask to bring it back to a time when three words—I love you—meant something.” Gatus wrote the song while strolling through Target on Black Friday, after Pacoli sent over the music.

His next EP, the recently released Palette, features six tracks inspired by his entourage, including “Why Do I Still?” (co-written by Katie Li and featuring the majestic May Angeles) and the chilling I-can’t-stop-listening “Only Me” (produced by Casey Lagos and featuring Daniel Fojas on the guitar). Considering “Why Do I Still” garnered more than 10,000 plays in less than two weeks, it seems Gatus’ throwback sound is taking his music one big step forward.

Hey, Orange County/Long Beach musicians & bands! Mail your music, contact info, high-res photos & impending show dates for possible review to: Locals Only, OC Weekly, 18475 Bandilier Cir., Fountain Valley, CA, 92708. Or email your link to: localsonly@ocweekly.com.

| contents | the

Win !

county

THE ULTIMATE FESTIVAL

WEEKEND EXPERIENCE AT

BASE CAMP April 14–18, 18, April 21–25, 21 & April 28–May 2 | 2016 Indio, California

Includes:

Last Chance to Enter!

Winner will be announced 4/1!

•Two individual passes to Base Camp •4-night Base Camp campsite of choice, on weekend of choice •Cabana for a day of their choice •Hot air balloon ride from the property •Survival kit

OCWEEKLY.COM/FREE/BASECAMP OCWEEKLY.COM/ OCWEEKLY.COM /FREE FREE/ /BASECAMP TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE AT HOLLYWOOD PALLADIUM BOX OFFICE WITHOUT SERVICE FEES SATURDAY 10AM TO 2PM

CHARGE BY PHONE 800.745.3000 ALL DATES, ACTS & TICKET PRICES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE. A SERVICE CHARGE IS ADDED TO EACH TICKET PRICE.

| feature | calendar | food | film | culture | music | classifieds

A new RV & Camping experience, desert beach + art compound.

| Apr i l 0 1- 0 7, 2 016

| ocweekly.com | 29

| | contents

FLAMINGO

| ocweekly.com |

Apr i l

01 - 07 , 2 01 6

| classifieds

| music | culture | film | food | calendar | feature | the

county

SHOWGIRLS

30

FREE ADMISSION W/AD

FULLY NUDE 18+

$10 DANCES

ALL DAY & NIGHT

HIRING DANCERS NO HOUSE FEES

MUST PRESENT AD AT THE DOOR FOR DISCOUNT

714.535.0811|11AM-2AM|7 DAYS 618 E. BALL RD., ANAHEIM O C F LA M I N G O G I R L S . C O M

THIS WEEK FRIDAY, APRIL 1

ALLIGATOR BEACH: 9 p.m., $10. Harvelle’s Long

Beach, 201 E. Broadway, Long Beach, (562) 239-3700; longbeach.harvelles.com.

CASH’D OUT: 7 p.m. The Auditorium, 305 N. Spurgeon St., Santa Ana. CODA: 7 p.m., $5. Beatnik Bandito Music Emporium, 417 N. Broadway, Santa Ana, (714) 835-3313; beatnikbandito.com.

CONTRABAND: 8 p.m., $15. Doll Hut, 107 S. Adams St., Anaheim, (714) 533-1286.

DOSE: 7 p.m., $12-$15. Chain Reaction, 1652 W. Lincoln Ave., Anaheim, (714) 635-6067; allages.com.

FALCONS: 9 p.m., $12. The Wayfarer, 843 W. 19th St., Costa Mesa, (949) 764-0039; wayfarercm.com.

THE HIGGS: 9 p.m., $15. Golden Sails Hotel, 6285 E. Pacific Coast Hwy., Long Beach, (562) 5961631; goldensailshotel.com.

LIVE GUTTER DEMONS: 7 p.m., $10. Original Mike’s, 100 S. Main St., Santa Ana, (714) 550-7764; originalmikes.com.

THE SECRET AFFAIR: 9 p.m., $5-$7. Alex’s Bar, 2913 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, (562) 434-8292; alexsbar.com.

STORM LARGE & LE BONHEUR: 8 p.m., $29-$39.

Soka Performing Arts Center, 1 University Dr., Aliso Viejo, (949) 480-4278; performingarts.soka.edu.

SUPER DIAMOND: 8 p.m. The Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, Ste. C, San Juan Capistrano, (949) 496-8930; thecoachhouse.com.

TINASHE: 11 p.m. The Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; observatoryoc.com.

WILLIAM SINGE: 8 p.m. The Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; observatoryoc.com.

SATURDAY, APRIL 2

THE BABYS, DILANA, AND THE KELLY BOWLIN BAND: 8 p.m., $25; four tickets, $80. The Yost Theater,

307 N. Spurgeon St., Santa Ana, (888) 862-9573; yosttheater.com.

CJ SIMMONS: 6 p.m.-1:30 a.m., free. Bigshots Billiards Bar & Grill, 23512 El Toro Rd., Lake Forest, (714) 6554992; bigshotsbilliards.com.

HEAD WOUND CITY: 9 p.m. Constellation Room at the Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; constellationroom.com.

JESSIE JAMES DECKER: 7 p.m., $20-$40. House of Blues, 1530 S. Disneyland Dr., Anaheim, (714) 778-2583; hob.com/anaheim.

LEA SALONGA: 8 p.m., $39+. Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 615 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa, (714) 556-2787; scfta.org.

MARIO EL CACHORRO DELGADOS: $10. Mexico de Noche, 10560 Magnolia Ave., Anaheim, (714) 761-7037.

4242 Campus Dr., Irvine, (949) 854-4646; thebarclay.org.

NIGHT NATION RUN: 5-10 p.m., $60. OC Fair & Event

Center, 88 Fair Dr., Costa Mesa, (714) 708-3247; ocfair.com.

SEX PANTHER: 9 p.m., $15-$20. Sutra, 1870 Harbor Blvd., Ste. 200, Costa Mesa, (949) 722-7103; sutraoc.com.

SICK OF IT ALL: 7 p.m., $16-$18. Chain Reaction, 1652 W. Lincoln Ave., Anaheim, (714) 635-6067; allages.com.

SLIM JIM PHANTOM OF STRAY CATS:

7:30-11:30 p.m., free. Don the Beachcomber, 16278 Pacific Coast Hwy., Huntington Beach, (562) 592-1321; donthebeachcomber.com.

BARAN: 9 p.m., $25. Sutra, 1870 Harbor Blvd., Ste. 200,

Costa Mesa, (949) 722-7103, sutraoc.com.

CORAZON DE AZERO: 4-11 p.m. Original Mike’s, 100 S.

Main St., Santa Ana, (714) 550-7764; originalmikes.com.

DARRYL WILLIAMS: 7 p.m., $15. Spaghettini

Rotisserie & Grill, 3005 Old Ranch Pkwy., Seal Beach, (562) 596-2199; spaghettini.com.

EMELINE MICHEL: 7 p.m., $29-$39. Soka Performing Arts Center, 1 University Dr., Aliso Viejo, (949) 480-4278; performingarts.soka.edu.

Beach, (562) 435-2000; thefederalbar.com.

MIKE PETERS: 7 p.m. The Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, Ste. C, San Juan Capistrano, (949) 4968930; thecoachhouse.com.

NATHAN ALFAROS MEMORIAL SHOW: 7 p.m.

Yost Theater, 307 N. Spurgeon St., Santa Ana. SANTIGOLD: 7 p.m., $32.50-$55. House of Blues, 1530 S. Disneyland Dr., Anaheim, (714) 778-2583; hob.com/anaheim.

TYLER THE CREATOR: 8 p.m. The Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; observatoryoc.com.

MONDAY, APRIL 4

JEREMIH: 8 p.m., $40. The Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor

Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; observatoryoc.com.

133 BAND: 7:30 p.m., $10. Mozambique, 1740 S. Coast

Hwy., Laguna Beach, (949) 715-7777; mozambiqueoc.com.

VILE DESCENT: 7 p.m.-2 a.m., $8. Blacklight District

Lounge, 2500 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach.

TUESDAY, APRIL 5

BIG CITY HILLBILLIES: 7 p.m. Original Mike’s,

100 S. Main St., Santa Ana, (714) 550-7764; originalmikes.com.

DENMANTAU: 7:30 p.m., free. Mozambique, 1740 S. Coast Hwy., Laguna Beach, (949) 715-7777; mozambiqueoc.com.

FETTY WAP: 11 p.m., $45. The Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; observatoryoc.com.

MIC DANGEROUSLY: 8-11 p.m., free. Gallagher’s Pub & Grill, 2751 E. Broadway, Long Beach, (562) 856-8000; gallagherslongbeach.com.

SUM 41: 8 p.m., free. The Slidebar Rock-N-Roll Kitchen, 122 E Commonwealth Ave, Fullerton, (714) 871-2233; slidebarfullerton.com.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6

MODERN DISCO AMBASSADORS: 10 p.m.-2 a.m.

La Cave, 1695 Irvine Ave., Costa Mesa, (949) 646-7944; lacaverestaurant.com.

THE RAP CONTEST: 8 p.m.-1:45 a.m., $20. O.C. Steel House, 316 S. Euclid St., Anaheim, (562) 248-9349; theocsteelhouse.com.

TOPS: 9 p.m., $12. Constellation Room at the Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; constellationroom.com.

TRANSVIOLET: 9 p.m., $5. The Wayfarer, 843 W. 19th St., Costa Mesa, (949) 764-0039; wayfarercm.com.

YUNG LEAN: 8 p.m., $25. The Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; observatoryoc.com.

YUNG SIMMIE: 10:30 p.m., $20. Constellation Room at the Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; constellationroom.com.

THURSDAY, APRIL 7

ANDREW BLOOM: 7:30 p.m., free. Mozambique,

1740 S. Coast Hwy., Laguna Beach, (949) 715-7777; mozambiqueoc.com.

CURLEY THE 5TH: 7 p.m., $10. Chain Reaction, 1652 W. Lincoln Ave., Anaheim, (714) 635-6067; allages.com.

HOTEL GARUDA: 9:30 p.m., $5. Yost Theater, 307 N. Spurgeon St., Santa Ana. IN HER OWN WORDS: 8 p.m. Constellation Room at the Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; constellationroom.com.

LUNA: 7 p.m. Doll Hut, 107 S. Adams St., Anaheim, (714) 533-1286.

ONI: 8 p.m.-2 a.m., $5. Blacklight District Lounge, 2500 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach.

REBEL SOULJAHZ: 8 p.m., $20. The Auditorium, 305 N. Spurgeon St., Santa Ana. RHAPSODY IN BLUE: 8 p.m., $25. Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 615 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa, (714) 556-2787; scfta.org.

THE SPARRING: 8 p.m., free. The Slidebar Rock-N-Roll Kitchen, 122 E Commonwealth Ave, Fullerton, (714) 871-2233; slidebarfullerton.com.

TO P L E S S DA N C E R S • F U L L BA R • S U S H I BA R

FREE

ADMISSION ALL WEEK

FROM 2PM-7PM

HALF OFF

ADMISSION AFTER 7PM

Happy Hour 2PM-7PM MAGIC MONDAY: $3 DRINKS

TEQUILA TUESDAY:

$3 - $4 - $5 DRINK SPECIALS*

WHISKEY WEDNESDAY:

$4 WHISKEYS* WELLS & BEERS*

THIRSTY THURSDAY:

½ OFF BOTTLE SERVICE*

VIP FRIDAY:

$200 PATRON $200 GOOSE $200 JACK*

VIP SATURDAY:

$200 D JULIO $200 KETEL 1 $200 CROWN*

SUNDAY FUNDAY:

$4 DOMESTIC $5 IMPORTS $5 WELLS *NOT ALL DRINKS ARE INCLUDED IN SPECIALS

1421 N. STATE COLLEGE BLVD. ANAHEIM CA. 92806

714•808•8500

WWW.VENETIANGC.COM

Now Auditioning Dancers!

| ocweekly.com |

SUNDAY, APRIL 3

Anaheim, 2200 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim, (714) 7122750; citynationalgroveofanaheim.com.

Ap ril 0 1- 07, 20 1 6

MENALIVE, ORANGE COUNTY GAY MEN’S CHORUS: 3 p.m., $39-$49. Irvine Barclay Theatre,

FREE A

KENNY G: 8 p.m., $45-$80. City National Grove of

MATTHEW LOGAN VASQUEZ (OF DELTA SPIRIT): 8 p.m. The Federal Bar, 102 Pine Ave., Long

| contents | the county | feature | calendar | food | film | culture | music | classifieds |

concert guide»

31

ALL

F 12P &H AFT

|

| CLASSIFIEDS classifieds| MUSIC music| CULTURE culture| FILM film| FOOD food | CALENDAR calendar | FEATURE feature | THE the COUNTY county | CONTENTS contents |

sex»

|

JCCSF

|

I YOUR ONE STOP SHOP FOR:

SPECIALIZING IN ALL THINGS

naughty!

MAp ONril TH 0 X1X–X 2014 07,X2, 016

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

SEXY LINGERIE (S-XXXXL) ADULT TOYS & NOVELTIES SEXY SHOES | XXX DVDS LOTIONS & EDIBLES BACHELORETTE PARTY SUPPLIES

20%OFF

ANY PURCHASE OVER $25

OCWEEKLY.COM | | ocweekly.com

How do you combat homophobic remarks in a culture that condones and promotes homophobic tendencies?

What is the one thing that concerns you most about the current political climate/election cycle?

You combat homophobia—and misogyny, its big sister—one terrified middle-schooler at a time. Bearing in mind, of course, that “terrified middle-schooler” is a state of mind, not an age bracket.

Donald Trump getting the Republican nomination. I’m not at all concerned about the potential destruction/ implosion of the GOP—those fuckers have it coming—but about the likelihood of political violence. I’m concerned that black and brown people—Mexicans, Muslims, African-Americans—will be subjected to more political/social/economic violence than they already are. People will die as a direct result of Trump getting the GOP nomination. This is a terrifying moment.

Got any advice for a bi girl, formerly submissive, who wants to start dominating men?

Move to San Francisco—oh, wait. You’re already in San Francisco. Leave the house: Get involved in local kink orgs, if you aren’t already involved; check out local sex-positive events (bawdystorytelling.com is a great place to start); and let people know what you’re looking for. There’s no shortage of submissive guys in the Bay Area, and no shortage of dominant women up for mentoring women who are curious about topping.

In gay male relationships, what can you say about the psychological boundary between being alpha in the world and beta in bed?

APRIL 7TH @ 7:15PM

Are you intrigued by bondage or BDSM play but don’t know where to start with your partner? This workshop is geared towards beginners who wish to explore the erotic side of light BDSM play in a fun, sexy & safe way. We will discuss safety and communication as well as introduce you to some basic toys and bondage items to enhance your play.

Is Savage your real last name? It’s mine, too! My mother kept her maiden name, I took her name, and she’s a sex therapist! We’re both huge fans. Could you say hi to Dr. Linda Savage? She’ll die!

BDSM 101: LIGHT BONDAGE & SPANKING

HOW TO PERFORM A WORLD CLASS BLOWJOB: In this workshop you will learn tips and techniques for amazing handjobs and blowjobs! This is our most popular workshop and always sells out! Register early! This workshop is for women only.

Space is limited, call the store to register. $15 per person, $25 per couple when prepaid in advance. $25 per person on the day of the workshop, if space is available

17955 SKY PARK CIRCLE, SUITE A, IRVINE | 949-660-4990 STORE HOURS:MON – SAT 11AM – 7PM CALL FOR DIRECTIONS TO STORE!

Porn is so accessible today. How has it affected society?

You are—unless you open up to your current BF about what’s missing in your sex life and/or get his permission to get your hard-fucking/spoon-feeding needs met elsewhere.

I had the best sex of my life with my ex. He fucked me hard, had a huge cock and made me eat his come with a spoon. I loved it. Needless to say, we were incompatible in other ways. My current BF is vanilla.

Very. Vanilla. When I masturbate, I think about my ex and can’t help but wish my current guy would make me slurp his come up from a utensil. We are very compatible in other (non-sex) ways. Am I doomed to fantasize about my ex?

The boundary between alpha in world and beta in bed is pretty fucking porous—it’s not studded with guard towers, barbed wire and death strips, à la the Berlin Wall. (Google it, kids.) That boundary only exists in our heads. And once we get that fact through our thick heads, not only do we discover the alpha/beta boundary is easily crossed, but we also quickly learn that crossing it repeatedly—brutally and joyfully violating it at will—is a total blast.

UPCOMING SEX EDUCATION EVENTS

» DAN SAVAGE

One positive effect (among many): Porn’s wider accessibility forced us to stop pretending there’s one kind of sex—heterosexual, man-on-top—that absolutely everyone is interested in. Thanks to the Interwebs, we can track what people are actually searching for (it’s not all hetero), where they’re searching for it (a shoutout to the great state of Utah, which has the highest porn-consumption rates per capita in the nation!), and how long they’re lingering over it (long enough to finish themselves off).

One negative effect (among many): The ubiquity of porn coupled with the general lousiness of sex education—in the United States and Canada—has resulted in porn doing something it isn’t designed to do and consequently does not do well. And that would be, of course, educating young people about sex. If we don’t want porn doing that—and we don’t—we need to create comprehensive sex ed programs that cover everything: hetero sex, queer sex, partnered sex, solo sex, gender identity, consent, kinks, as well as how to be a thoughtful, informed and critical consumer of porn.

*Present this ad for discount. Exp. 4/14/16 Not valid on sale items, previously purchased items or with any other discount or promotion.

Not valid on Lelo or We-Vibe products. Only one coupon may be redeemed per person.

APRIL 21ST @ 7:15PM

1 32

was honored to speak at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco (JCCSF) last week as a part of its “Uninhibited: About Sex” lecture series. The audience submitted questions on cards, which were ably put to me by Jourdan Abel, who was wearing a wonderful uterus-themed sweater. (Check out my Instagram account, @dansavage, to see Abel’s sweater!) Here are some of the questions submitted by the uninhibited JCCSF audience that Abel and I didn’t manage to get to during our conversation.

SAVAGELOVE

What kind of sexual fluid or act would you name after Donald Trump?

Trump, as I pointed out in a previous column, already has an alternate/more accurate meaning. There is no authority higher than the Oxford English Dictionary, and here’s what you’ll find under “trump” at oed.com: “in reference to a sound like a trumpet . . . the act of breaking wind audibly.”

So remember, kids, when you see Donald Trump standing in front of a microphone . . . Trump isn’t talking. He’s trumping.

What is the etiquette when it comes to social media and open relationships?

It all depends on the preferences of the couple/ throuple/quad/squad in question. If a particular couple, etc., wants to maintain the appearance of being monogamous, if they want to avoid stigma, judgment, freaked-out parents, etc., then they’re not going to want evidence of their open relationship popping up all over Facebook and/or Instagram. If there’s internal disagreement in a particular couple/throuple/quad/squad about keeping things quiet on social media, not outing the person(s) who want to keep things discreet may be the price of admission their other partners have to pay.

Hi, Dr. Linda Savage! Please don’t die.

What was your favorite aspect of the orgy held in honor of your 50th birthday?

What do you do when you can’t make your partner come?

The fact that I wasn’t invited. #NotAnOrgyFan

Me? I hand him back his dick and go get myself some ice cream—but you shouldn’t do what I do when you can’t make your partner come. Here’s what you should do: Keep trying, ask your partner what they need, and encourage them, if need be, to “finish themselves off” (without pouting, without laying a guilt trip on them about how they’ve made you feel inadequate, and without treating them like they’re broken). Cheerfully offer to hold ’em or play with their tits or eat their ass while they finish—or, hell, offer to go get ’em ice cream.

Whatever helps!

“Uninhibited: About Sex” continues at the JCCSF through the end of May. Upcoming speakers and events include Esther Perel, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, Nicole Prause, Jules Howard, films, poetry readings and live musical performances. For a full schedule of events, visit jccsf. org/arts-ideas/uninhibited.

On the Lovecast, power poly kinkster Allena Gabosch on poly complications: savagelovecast.com. Contact Dan via email at mail@savagelove.net, and follow him on Twitter: @fakedansavage.

LBC 420 EVALUATIONS By. Dr. Raja Toke

Southern California’s Most Affordable & Legitimate Alternative Healthcare Centers

WE MATCH ANY COMPETITORS PRICES

(657) 2 51- 8 032

For more Information or to Schedule an Appointment, Call (657)251-3520 Or Email us at Rwellness714@gmail.com.

DO YOU SUFFER FROM ANXIETY, ADHD, BIPOLAR DISORDER, DEPRESSION PAIN etc.?

DO YOUINSOMNIA, SUFFER FROM ANXIETY, CHRONIC ADHD, BIPOLAR DISORDER, Now Offering Medical Assessment for Prescription Medications

INSOMNIA,$149.00 DEPRESSION, CHRONIC PAIN etc.?

(Please call for details)

•CALL US NOW & SEE A DOCTOR TODAY! •100% PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL • IF YOU DONʼT QUALIFY YOU DONʼT PAY!

NEW PATIENTS

Some restrictions apply One offer per patient w/ad

720 ALAMITOS AVE., UNIT A, LONG BEACH 90813 (562) 599-8420

LBC 420 Evaluations is one of the largest and most trusted clinics in the Long Beach area -providing you with the safest and most affordable MMJ recommendations. We offer the best prices and we guarantee that we are 100% legal and in compliance with all state laws under prop 215.

N

SIO MPAS ER CO WINT SPECIAL

rd ad ID Ca FREE tient - Must show

*One

Expires 04/30/16

RENEWALS

CERT GIFT I AVAI FICATES LABL E

a per P

SoCal420docs.com

THE BEST PRICES IN ORANGE COUNTY 440 Fair Drive, Suite S. 227 Costa Mesa, CA 92626 1626 E. 17th St. Santa Ana, CA 92705

TOLL FREE! (800) 620-2027

Open 7 Days a Week Walk-Ins Welcome!

Monday-Sunday 9am to 6pm

MDLICENSE: LICENSE: A22208 MD A22208

Yo hablo Espanol!

Professional Photo ID Cards

24/7 Verification!

NEW PATIENTS

1

#

EVALUATION CENTER IN OC, LONG BEACH, WHITTIER, & RIVERSIDE RIVERSIDE LOCATION NOW OPEN ON SUNDAYS!

DON’T DRIVE TO LA FOR LOW PRICES! LICENSED BY CA MEDICAL BOARD

LIMITED TIME ONLY (EXP 04/30/16)

nty

ou eC

$15 $25

ng

Ora

RENEWAL

FOR YOUR BENEFITS AND LEGAL PROTECTION OUR CLINIC IS OFFERING ADDITIONAL SERVICES:

ANAHEIM:

PATIENT SPECIALS!

431 NORTH BROOKHURST ST. STE 100 ANAHEIM, CA 92801 714-880-4488

30

$

NEW PATIENTS / RENEWALS (EXPIRES 04/30/16)

Long Beach office matches any local advertised price with proof.

24HR INFO LINE

(714) 880-4488 www.AffordableEvaluations.com

4 LOCATIONS

LONG BEACH:

1040 ELM AVE., STE. #210 LONG BEACH, CA. 90813

562 888 9007

LONG BEACH OFFICE LOCATION IN ST. MARY’S MED PLAZA (WOMAN’S HEALTH BUILDING)

10:30 am - 7 pm (Mon-Sat)

RIVERSIDE:

8990 GARFIELD ST. RIVERSIDE, CA 92503

WHITTIER:

8023 PIONEER BLVD. WHITTIER, CA 90606

877 670 6338 562 888 9008

$30 $20 *

*

No waiting, fast processing “LIKE” us on Facebook! www.facebook.com/briangamblemd

714-530-3322

12570 Brookhurst St. #1, Garden Grove CA. 92840 Veteran & Senior Citizen discounts available MEDICAL MARIJUANA EVALUATIONS

WALK INS WELCOMED

OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK MON - SAT 9am - 7pm | SUN 10am - 6:30pm

**Bring three and the fourth person free!!! *terms and conditions apply. EXPIRES 04/30/16

ocweekly.com/mmj

• DOCTOR’S RECOMMENDATION WITH INCREASED QUANTITY OF PLANTS FOR GROWING AND FOLLOW UP VISITS AS NECESSARY. • PHOTO ID WITH POCKET SIZE RECOMMENDATION. • 24 HOUR VERIFICATION BY WEB & PHONE • 100% PRIVATE/CONFIDENTIAL • MINI RECOMMENDATIONS AVAILABLE NOW • WE MATCH ANY PRICE WITH PROOF • DISCOUNTS: DISABLED, MILITARY, VETERANS

ECIAL!!!

SPRING SP

NEW PATIENTS

RENEWALS

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE SERVICES

BRIAN GAMBLE, M.D. TWO LOCATIONS:

to advertise call 714.550.5900

29

$

(with proof of ad)

1540 E. Edinger Ste. A Santa Ana CA 92705

24

$

Pure & Natural Therapy

7 GRAMS for $50 -ALL strains-

Delivering

CEPT WE NOWIT ACCARDS CRED

quality product to LONG BEACH, HB, Seal Beach & surrounding cities.

(714) 330-0513

ocweekly.com/mmj

MEDICINE SERVICES // COLLECTIVES

to advertise call 714.550.5900

Check out our menu on Weed Maps!

2112 E. 4TH ST. #240 #111 SANTA ANA, CA 92705

$35 CAP

or $10 off concentr 8th ftp ates 4.5g

5.0 rating on Weedmaps

On Deck Buds

MEDICAL DISPENSARY @ODB714_35cap • #ODB714 •

OnDeckBuds

714.468.4142 • 10am–2am Daily • 12371 Haster St., #203, Garden Grove

F U -LE A SLE CEO L LR T O N ECTIVE High Quality Meds

SPECIALS

At Competitive Prices

TOP SHELF ANAHEIM CHECK IN BEFORE YOU TAKE FLIGHT!

FREE BAS A D NY H WIT

714-309-7772 | 2435 E ORANGETHORPE AVE

ON NATI

DO

MEDICAL MARIJUANA DELIVERY

DOGO DEALS & OZ SPECIALS!

$35 CAP

Bay Area Select Indoor Medication

SC LAB TESTED STRAINS

949-529-8779

FTP 4.5G 8TH

FREE DELIVERY

to advertise call 714.550.5900

DAILY

Professional • Clean

OR $10 OFF CONCENTRATES

Call forSpecial

9AM TO 12 PM DAILY

HOURS: 10am–1:45am

for full menu,visit

HAPPYNHEALTHYSOLUTIONS.COM

ORGANIC VAPORIZER PEN —Serving all OC— EDIBLE CHOCOLATE • TOPICAL CREAM • OIL • WAX • SHATTER

3124 W .Lincoln Ave., Anaheim (Entrance In Rear)

714-385-7814

@_TSAnaheim_ #TSAnaheim

HOUT G U O R H Y RING T E V I L COUNT E E D G N ORA ALL OF

S 2 GRAM R RAM FO $35 PER G OR MORE S 3 GRAM

5 GRAM

*SPECIALS & OFFERS CANNOT BE COMBINED.

Limit 1 PE

ALL WAX

8THs

R PATIEN

T

$95 / 8TH

OPEN 11AM-8PM DAILY 949-752-6272

/7 UGH 4 THRO VALID R E F F O

7 GH 4/ HROU ALID T V R E OFF

/7 UGH 4 THRO VALID R E F OF

/7 UGH 4 THRO VALID R E F OF

31 GH 3/ HROU ALID T V R E OFF /7 UGH 4 THRO VALID OFFER

ocweekly.com/mmj

SHATFTOER R $80

FIRST TIM E PA 5 GRAM TIENTS FREE GO 8TH & ODIE BA G EVERY SU NDAY

/7 UGH 4 THRO VALID R E F OF

COLLECTIVES

ORANGE C OUNTY PATIENT CARE

to advertise call 714.550.5900

420

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20TH FREE 1/8 of flower to the first 100 patients*

SALE

50% off the entire store - all patients

* S E LE CT

STRA I N . PATI E NT WI LL N E E D TO S PE N D A M I N IMUM OF

$30

WANT TO ADVERTISE IN THE WEEKLY ISSUE? Call Now!

COLLECTIVES

2400 Pullman St., Suite B, Santa Ana, CA

FTP : 4.5 G 8TH —OR—

$10 OFF

Concentrates

$10 Grams —Exclusive shelf— $35 CAP —SC Lab Tested Strains— FREE DAB WITH ANY DONATION

ocweekly.com/mmj

Daily Deals • OZ Specials • Stamp Card Program

10722 Katella Ave. #4, Garden Grove, CA 92804 | 714.309.9729 #tricityessentials

@TCE_714 #tricity714

714.550.5900

to advertise call 714.550.5900

Cannabis

COFFEE CAKE 420 GUIDE

HITS NEWSSTANDS TH

APRIL 7

The Rolling Paper is OC Weekly’s semi-annual, glossy, pocket-sized alternative healing guide.

This guide will include editorial content, references to our blogs and advertising froetm a variety of alternative healing industries, amongst other industries – from tattoo shops to promoters.

COLLECTIVES

NEXT THURSDAY! W o W !B

FREE DA 2526 W. Lincoln Ave., Anaheim, CA 92801

2 oz for

2 oz for

(on select strains)

(on select strains)

$235

$2 DaB OR

ocweekly.com/mmj

$5 For 3 20% OFF

Wax

Y WITH AN N O I T A DON

$310

P.r. PreRoll

30 G oz

F R E E DaB

(on ANY strains)

(When you Refer a Friend)

20% OFF edibles

INGREDIENTS • 2 1/4 Cup Flour

• 1/4 Tsp Salt

• 1 Package of Active Yeast

• 1 Egg

• 2/3 Cup Milk

• 1/2 Cup Sliced Almonds

• 6 Tbs Vegetable Shortening

• 1 1/2 Tbs Cannabis Butter (melted)

• 6 Tbs Sugar

{with Any Donation}

& PreRoll Exp. 4/3 • Must bring coupon Only1 coupon per donation CANNOT COMBINE COUPONS WITH INSTORE SPECIALS

|7 14.410.9348

DIRECTIONS In a medium bowl, add 1 cup flour and package of active yeast. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan, add the milk, vegetable shortening, and 4 tablespoons of sugar.

Heat the pan and stir occasionally. Once the vegetable shortening has softened, remove the mixture from the heat and add the contents to the yeast and flour mixture. Add an egg and with an electric mixture beat ingredients for one minute. Remove mixture from the sides of the bowl, and continue to beat for another 3 to 5 minutes. Slowly stir in the rest of the flour and form a dough.

Use nonstick cooking spray to grease your baking pan. Place the cake mixture into the baking pan and sprinkle the top with sliced almonds and the remaining sugar. Cover it with a clean, damp dish cloth and keep aside for 1 hour to allow the dough to rise for about an hour.

Preheat oven to 375 F. Remove the dish cloth and drizzle the risen dough with melted cannabis butter. Bake for 17 to 20 minutes. Allow to cool and enjoy!

aGrand Openinga 999 Roses

BLACK MALE & FEMALE 5'4", 130 lbs of lean muscle, handsome face, smooth and athletic, Ocean view massage. Private Personal Training also avail. Michael (562)714-4270 Or 2 Male Masseurs also avail. MC/Visa Accepted.

Exotic Hottie All Natural Model Sexy, fit, curvy, Busty Goddess caters to Tantric full body pleasure. CMT, deep tissue, & Swedish, prostate mass & toys avail. A model w/long brunette hair& beautiful looks. Fetish/ Fantasies. BDSM, worship, spank, role play, x-dress, medical, foot leg, stockings, nurse, sounds. Mild sensual to heavy play. Incall 2 me or outcall to you. $200 special.

818-821-9090

Ladies Make over $100,000/yr

bombshells ENT is looking for new talent any race welcome.

Text or email us 3 pics at: bombshells143 @gmail.com or call

424-269-8142

Swedish Massage

By Pretty Lady From 7am-6pm 7 days a week.

(562)-500-0673 Gkershaw@yahoo.com

30240 Rancho Viejo Rd. #E (949) 487-7756 San Juan Cap, CA 92675

Touch of Excellence

14291 Euclid St. Unit D 111, Garden Grove

Tantra Goddess

714.554.3936

Full Body Massage

DEEP & OIL MASSAGE

$35HHR $50HR + FREE

(949) 472-4029 (949) 855-9646

Table Shower

23600 ROCKFIELD BLVD #2N LAKE FOREST, CA

(714) 653 2381

Sensual fullbody tantra, CMT, deep tissue massage. Tantric prostate intense release. Beautiful statuesque, slender & toned w/long dark raven hair & hypnotic green eyes. Goddess worship, CFE, fetishes & fantasies.

Private, Nice incall.

Special rate $200

818-821-9090 945 Phone Services #1 GAY, BI CHAT & HOOKUPS Discreet chat that will turn you on!!

FREE to try!! 18+ Call 714-464-8977 RIPPED MUSCLE JOCKS & BEEFY HAIRY BEARS! are waiting to chat live with you. Try us FREE!! 18+ It's discreet and it's hot!

Call 714-464-8977

STAR ACUPRESSURE

24342 MUIRLANDS BLVD, LAKE FOREST, CA

GOLDEN SPA

GRAND OPENING!

U&I

FREE PARTYLINE! 1- 712-432-7968 18+ Normal LD Applies

Hot & Nasty Phone Sex 1-800-960-4328 18+

New Spa Massage Special $35/half hr with ad and $50/one full hr

714-827-6868 | 5491 Ball Rd., Cypress

$30/1hr 714-505-2288 10am to 12pm

13846 Red Hill Ave., Tustin, CA 92780

GRAND OPENING

949.768.8258 23782 MERCURY RD. LAKE FOREST, 92630

MOON ACUPRESSURE

Call: 562.694.0888 1874 W. La Habra La Habra CA, 90631

GRAND OPENING SPECIAL PRICE

SKY MASSAGE

SPECIAL 1/2 HR for $35

Young Beautiful Sexy Girls

• CLEAN PRIVATE ROOM • FREE TABLE SHOWER • ASIAN & LATINA GIRLS

714-896-0700

2625 W. LINCOLN AVE ANAHEIM, CA 92801

IT’S TIME TO TRY THE DIFFERENCE!

714.886.2126

(18-25 yrs)

1 Try and You Will Come Back!

508 S. STATE COLLEGE BLVD ANAHEIM CA 92608

12128 Beach Blvd Stanton, CA 90680

(714) 783-7000 State College and Santa Ana Blvd next to Barber Shop

NEXT TO TATTOO SHOP LINCOLN & MAGNOLIA

Behind Mad Greek Restaurant

Sweet Massage •••••••••••

Full Body Massage

FREE TO LISTEN AND REPLY TO ADS

$30/HHR ••••••••••

Free Code: OC Weekly

$50HR + F ree

Table Shower

714-892-2068

12505 Beach Blvd #b3 Stanton, CA 90680 Beach & Lampson (Inside 7-Eleven Center) Open 7days/week: 10am – 10pm

WHO ARE YOU AFTER DARK?

Try FREE: 714-627-2273 More Local Numbers: 1-800-700-6666

FIND REAL GAY MEN NEAR YOU Anaheim:

redhotdateline.com 18+

AMERICAʼS HOTTEST GAY CHATLINE!

(714) 905-0050

TRY FOR FREE

714-627-2269

www.megamates.com 18+

LIL MASSAGE REAL PEOPLE, REAL DESIRE, REAL FUN.

Grand Opening!

(714) 705-0583•(714) 787-9677

off on first hour.

•FREE TABLE SHOWER & HOT STONE! •MORE YOUNG, SEXY GIRLS. •WAXING: Available. $10

10AM–10PM, 7 Days/Week 12067 BEACH BLVD., STANTON, CA 90680 (Inside Home Depot Center, next to China Buffet Restaurant)

Ahora español Livelinks.com 18+

Try FREE: 714-627-2267 More Local Numbers: 1-800-926-6000

The hottest place to meet Latinos!

FREE TRIAL

714.464.2989

| ocweekly.com |

Great Massage!

Grand Opening

MASSAGE

WITH MASSAGE

$45/1HR W/AD

LOCATED BEHIND TACO BELL

Open 7days/week: 10am - 10pm

0 1- 0 7, 2 016

WAXING$19/ AREA

10356 Beach Blvd. Stanton, CA 90680

Apr i l

LAKE FORESTMassage

Open 7 Days a Week 10am to 10pm 714-995-6789 Accept All CC's 831 S. Knott Ave., Anaheim 92804

|

R Spa & Massage

$45/hr FREE Table shower

PRIVATE ROOM*

$10 Buck Phone Sex Live 1 on 1 1-877-919-EASY (3279) 18+

Intimate Connections 1-800-928-MEET (6338) Naughty Older Women 1-800-251-4414 1-800-529-5733 18+

HOT PRICE

DELIGHT SPA

HOT Gay Chat!

1-708-613-2103 18+ Normal LD Applies

Sexy Swinger’s line!

1-800-785-2833 1-800-811-4048 Sexy Hot Local Girls!

1-888-660-4446 1-800-990-9377 Erotic Playround!!!

1-888-404-3330 1-800-619-2428 18+

New Chinese & Japanese Staff

Welcome to Sweetness Young Asian & Latina

Private Connections Try it free!

1-708-613-2104 Normal LD Applies 18+

GRAND OPENING

1/2 HR $50, 1 HR $80

Bliss Massage

Silky Spa Massage

| feature | calendar | food | film | culture | music | classifieds

Sensual body. Up late?

So am I. Beautiful exotic model available 10am till late hours.. 4am.

Toned & slender beauty relaxing, sensuous, CMT deep tissue, Swedish full body massage. Tantra G spot intense release, prostate stimulation.

Tantric sensual & soothing experience w/stunning girl. Nice, private.

Special rate $200.

818-821-9090

Beautiful Asian Staff

county

All Natural Beauty Avail. Til 4am Cozy VIP Private

999 Roses

GOOD MASSAGE

| the

Hot Asian Girls to Pamper you! Massage, Facials, Relaxation! 14291 Euclid St. #D111, Garden Grove (714) 554-3936

915 Adult Massage

| contents

915 Adult Massage

39

| CLASSIFIEDS | MUSIC | CULTURE | FILM | FOOD | CALENDAR | FEATURE | THE COUNTY | CONTENTS |

HAPPY MASSAGE Young and beautiful Asian, Latina & American girls.

SPECIAL $10 OFF

-Special for 2 girls

-FREE

table shower

-Full body massage & private room

Come try us and you will be back!

• 2209 S Main st /Warner Santa Ana 92707 • We open 9AM to VERY LATE 7 days a week.

Call 714-549-2825 • We accept VS/MC

BRAND NEW SPOT* SPECIAL PRICE ASIAN/ LATINA/ FILIPINO FREE Table Shower in Your Own PRIVATE Massage Room ( Regular Shower Also Available)

8am–10pm

TEMPTATION MASSAGE 11855 BEACH BLVD STANTON CA 90680

714.983.6624 ON BEACH BETWEEN ORANGEWOOD & CHAPMAN NEXT TO SMOKE SHOP

• Sassy Massage • HOT PRICE FREE

Table Shower

We Accept All CC's

Open 10am–11pm Mon–Sun • 714-229-5828 2940 W Lincoln ave #J Anaheim, 92801

VIP MASSAGE

FULL BODY

MASSAGE

$40 $60 FOR SPECIAL HOURS & SPECIAL PRICE.

AP RIL 01 - 07 , 2 01 6

(to receive this price coupon must be presented)

Serenity Massage Beautiful, Young, Sexy Girls

Grand

| OCWEEKLY.COM |

657-272-2600 10AM–9PM

949-698-0306 1001 Avenida Pico Ste J, San Clemente

Opening!

• Private Room • Full Body Massage • Free Table Shower • Body wax & Facial

Call:

714.614.4503 11951 Beach blvd., suite K, Stanton CA, 90680

308 W. BALL, SUITE A, ANAHEIM, CA (BETWEEN HARBOR BLVD & ANAHEIM BLVD)

ening Grand-ofOp SPECIAL PRICES!

For further information you may also contact Class Counsel at:

LOVE

MASSAGE

OPEN LATE 7 DAYS A WEEK •FREE TABLE SHOWER* •ASIAN & LATINA SHOWER FOR YOU •COZY & PRIVATE ROOM

LOCATED:

email: ParadiseClass@kpclegal.com

If you are a Class Member and do not wish to remain in the Settlement Class, you may exclude yourself (or “opt out.”) If you wish to exclude yourself from the Settlement Class, you must file and mail a written request for exclusion, which must contain your full name, any stage name(s) utilized while you performed as a dancer at Paradise, the specific dates, if known, or date range(s), month(s), year(s) you performed as a dancer at Paradise, and your current address. Your request for exclusion must also contain generally the statement “I want to be excluded from the PARADISE SHOWGIRLS class action settlement described in the Notice dated March 11, 2016. I understand that by requesting exclusion, I will not be eligible to receive any payment or other benefit from the settlement but will be free to pursue my claims individually”, and your signature. You must mail, fax, or email your request to the Settlement Administrator at the address set forth above postmarked or delivery receipt marked no later than July 9, 2016.

10am to 10pm • 714-737-4102 Accepts All CC’s 7041 Western Ave # B, Buena Park 90620

Facial..................... $49/hr Colon Hydrotherapy $65

The completed Claim Form should be sent to the Claims Administrator at: In Re: Paradise Showgirls Claim Administrator. c/o ILYM Group, Inc. P.O. Box 2031 Telephone: (888) 250-6810 Tustin, CA 92781 Fax (888) 845-6185 Email: Claims@ilymgroupclassaction.com Website: www.paradiseshowgirlssettlement.com

Telephone: (818) 547-5250

New Hot Vietnamese Staff Open 7 Days a Week

Full body Massage $49/hr

If you believe you are a member of the Class and want to make a Claim, you must submit a Claim form. You may do this by mail, facsimile, or email; however, the mailing or other transmission must be postmarked or otherwise have date confirmation by August 8, 2016. You may be asked to submit a Settlement Questionnaire in order to assist in determining your qualification as a Class member and your entitlement under the Settlement. You can receive a copy of the Notice, Settlement Questionnaire and/or Claim Form by contacting the Claims Administration office.

K.L. Myles KNAPP, PETERSEN & CLARKE 550 North Brand Boulevard, Suite 1500 Glendale, California 91203-1922

$45/hr w/ Free Table Shower

Super relaxing, cozy & clean!

40

On February 10, 2016, the Court issued an Order which, among other things, granted preliminary approval of the Settlement and established procedures for notice, final approval of the Settlement and other related matters. A hearing will be held before the Honorable Michele Rosenblatt in Department 40 of the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, located at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, California 90012, on September 21 at 8:30 a.m. to consider whether the Settlement is fair, reasonable and adequate to the members of the Class.

Hot Vietnamese Staff

Grand Opening!

TO: ALL PERSONS WHO PERFORMED AS DANCERS AT PARADISE SHOWGIRLS AT ANY TIME DURING THE PERIOD MAY 17, 2006 THRU MAY 26, 2015 The purpose of this notice is to inform you of a proposed settlement (the “Settlement”) of a class action lawsuit (the “Action”) against Defendant Todd & Katie, Inc., aka Paradise Showgirls and/or Paradise 2000, (“Paradise”) located at 14310 Valley Boulevard, City of Industry, California, 91746, on behalf of all persons who performed one or more Dancer Days as a dancer at Paradise at any time during the period from May 17, 2006 through May 26, 2015. The Action is currently pending in the Superior Court of the State of California, Los Angeles County, (the “Court”), Case No. BC437919. The Action includes claims of unlawful wage deduction and tip collection, denied rest periods and reimbursement for uniforms, and not providing itemized wage statements. A judgment was obtained on behalf of the class against the Defendant after trial.

$45/hr with

Bodycare Spa

PUBLICATION NOTICE OF PROPOSED CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT

one try and you’ll come back for more

1241 1/2 S. MAIN ST. SANTA ANA CA 92707 CALL US : 714-610-9539

To object to the settlement, you must follow the procedures as set forth in the full Notice of Proposed Class Action settlement.

You can receive a copy of the full notice by contacting the Settlement Administrator at the address and numbers set forth above.

Any objection to the settlement must be filed with the Court by June 9, 2016.

IF THE SETTLEMENT IS APPROVED, AND IF YOU ARE AND REMAIN A MEMBER OF THE SETTLEMENT CLASS, AND IF YOU DO NOT SUBMIT A CLAIM BY August 8, 2016, YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE ANY MONEY BUT WILL STILL BE DEEMED TO HAVE RELEASED YOUR CLAIMS.

music

automotive

605 Musicians Available/Wanted

421 Used Auto A-1 DONATE YOUR CAR FOR BREAST CANCER! Help United Breast Foundation education, prevention, & support programs. FAST FREE PICKUP - 24 HR RESPONSE TAX DEDUCTION 855-403-0215

health

17thStRecords.com

services

Tri-City Essentials: $35 CAP SC Lab Tested Strains | $10 Grams on Exclusive shelf. | FTP:4.5 G 8th OR $10 OFF Concentrates 10722 Katella Ave. #4, Garden Grove, CA 92804 | 714-309-9729

P/T F/T $12-$36 per hour. tambien en Espanol.

954-524-9029

305 Roommates

Euclid Medical Center: FTP Specials: 20% OFF Wax & Edibles| FREE P.R. PreRoll with Any Donation | FREE Gram of Keef with $20 Donation | Any Top Shelf 11 Grams - $99 | 9757 Garden Grove Blvd. #5 Garden Grove, CA 91710 | (714) 719-2713

ROOMATES WANTED

House of Gas: 2oz for $235 on select strains | 2oz for $310 on select strains $2 DAB OR $5 DAB for 3 DABS | 20% OFF Wax | 20% OFF Edibles 2526 W. Lincoln Ave. Anaheim, CA 92801 | (714) 410-9348

Rentals

ALL AREAS ROOMMATES.COM. Lonely? Bored? Broke? Find the perfect roommate to complement your personality and lifestyle at Roommates.com!

Education THE OCEAN Corp. 10840 Rockley Road, Houston, Texas 77099. Train for a new career. *Underwater Welder. Commercial Diver. *NDT/Weld Inspector.

Job Placement Assistance.

Financial Aid avail for those who qualify 1.800.321.0298

NOT SEEING THE RESULTS YOU WANT FROM YOUR ANTIDEPRESSANT? Please consider our depression research study...

Our office is conducting a research study to evaluate whether adding an investigational medication to an approved antidepressant therapy might give relief from the symptoms of major depressive disorder (MDD) when added to a current medication.

You may be able to take part in this study if you:

525 Legal Services Robbed by your Employer?

Working overtime & called salaried? Told to clock out but continue to work? Called an independent contractor/1099 employee? Speak w/attorney Diane Mancinelli at no cost to you.

(714)734-8999

Viagra!! 52 Pills for Only $99.00. Your #1 trusted provider for 10 years. Insured and Guaranteed Delivery. Call today 1-888-403-9028

530 Misc. Services

Viagra!! 52 Pills for Only $99.00. Your #1 trusted provider for 10 years. Insured and Guaranteed Delivery. Call today 1-877-621-7013

WANTS TO purchase minerals and other oil & gas interests. Send details to P.O. Box 13557, Denver, Co 80201

Employment Accountant, Fax (714- 670-2999) resume to Christie K. Cho CPA, Buena Park CA 90621.

Associate Pastor (La Habra, CA), The Star Korean Church, M.A. req’d. Send resume to 1201 S. Beach Blvd. #110 La Habra, CA 90631 Taekwondo Instructor (Cypress, CA) Teach taekwondo techniques. Minimum 4th degree Dan certificate req'd. Resume to: Yuhl Bang, Inc. 10077 Valley View St, Cypress, CA 90630

• Are 18 - 65 years old, • Have been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), • Have been experiencing symptoms of depression for at least the last 2 months, • Have been taking at least one antidepressant medication as prescribed but it is not helping you enough.

Additional study criteria will be assessed by the study doctor.

The study lasts 19 to 26 weeks. Participants will receive either the investigational medication or Seroquel XR or a placebo (an inactive substance) in addition to a standard antidepressant therapy medication.

All study-related medications, office visits and examinations will be provided to you at no cost.

At the end of the study, you may be eligible to participate in an extension research study in which all participants will receive the investigational medication. The study staff will discuss this with you at that time.

Please call toll-free at 1-888-444-1104 www.435.com

RE-UP: FTP Specials: 5g's 1/8th Private Reserve for $45 | 5g's 1/8th Top Shelf for $40 | 2g's Rilla Extracts Crumble for $45.

8851 Garden Grove Blvd Ste 105 Garden Grove 92844 | (714) 586-1565 Show Grow Santa Ana: 5 Gram 8ths All Day - On all strains Sundays & Wednesdays | 2 Gram Specials Everyday - On all Strains 1625 St. Gertrude Place Santa Ana, 92705 | 949.565.GROW From The Earth: We are the largest dispensary in Orange County! 3023 South Orange Avenue, Santa Ana, CA 92707 Tel (657) 44-GREEN (47336) | www.FTEOC.com

DR. EVALUATIONS Releaf Wellness: Renewals ~ $25 | New Patients ~ $35 1540 E. Edinger Ste. A, Santa Ana 92705 | 657.251.8032 OC 420 Evaluations: NEW PATIENTS $29 | RENEWALS $19 | WalkIns Accepted | 1671 W. Katella Ave. Anaheim Ste. 130 | TOLL FREE 1-855-MMJ-EVAL (1-855-665-3825 ) | Mon-Fri 11am-7pm, Sat 11am- 6pm, Sun 11am-5pm

DELIVERY OCPC: 5 Gram 8th & FREE Goodie Bag (FTP) | All Wax $95 /8th 949.752.6272, 11am to 8pm Daily PURE & NATURAL THERAPY: 7 GRAMS for $50 on ALL STRAINS | DELIVERING quality product to Long Beach | Huntington Beach, Seal Beach, and Surrounding Cities | (949) 608-7363

| ocweekly.com |

ELIMINATE CELLULITE and Inches in weeks! All natural.

Odor free. Works for men or women. Free month supply on select packages.

Order now! 844-244-7149 (M-F 9am-8pm central)

a (949) 680-6568 a

Ease Canna: FTP- All 8th will be weighed out to 5GRAMS!! | 2435 E. Orangethorpe Ave., Fullerton, CA 92831 | 714-309-7772

836 Psychic/Astrological

*ASTROLOGERS, PSYCHICS, TAROT READERS NEEDED!

Top Shelf Anaheim $35 CAP | FTP 4.5 G 8th or $10 OFF Concentrates | 3128 #B W. Lincoln Ave. Anaheim (714)385-7814

0 1- 0 7, 2 016

Behavioral Research Specialists, LLC is currently conducting studies in the Los Angeles area and is always looking for Volunteers. Some studies may provide compensation for travel and time. Sleep/ Diabetes/Pain/Psychiatry/ Depression//Schizophrenia/ Bipolar/Anxiety/ADHD (Adolescent)/Alzheimer’s If you or some you know would like to participate, contact BRS at (888) 255-5798

Call 714.550.5900

South Coast Safe Access FTP: Buy an 1/8, Get a FREE 1/8 | 1900 Warner Ave Ste. A, Santa Ana 92705 | 949.474.7272 | Mon-Sat 10am-8pm Sun 11am-7pm

Apr i l

810 Health

17th Street Recording is a professional state of the art recording studio which provides songwriting, production, and recording services. Recording session includes platinum Engineer.

Credits include: Sting, Mary J Blige, Sublime, Dirty Heads , Long Beach Dub Allstars, Sublime w/ Rome.

Slightly Stoopid, Sugar Ray & more Fast Pro Tools skills.

Studio A has a Master DAW Pro Tools HD4 , one ISO vocal booth & Studio Mix Room B has Pro Tools HD. ALL GENRES - ALL STYLES Vintage Keyboards Galore!!!!

Location: Costa Mesa, CA

Gram Kings: DAILY DEALS | Discounts for Military, Veterans, Disabled | 10189 Westminster Ave. Suite #217, Garden Grove 714.209.8187 | Hours: Monday-Sunday 10am-10pm

new age EMPLOYMENT

GreenFellas Collective: FTP: FREE .5G W/ 1G DONATION | 5G EIGHTH'S *Excludes PR | Donate ANY 7G & receive a FREE 3.5G from MIDS (10.5 TOTAL) | $5 OFF ANY CONCENTRATE | 20% OFF EDIBLES | 10181 Westminster Ave., Ste #212 ( Up the stairs, turn LEFT) | Garden Grove, CA 92843 | 714-767-1537

|

CASH FOR CARS: Any Car/Truck 2000-2015, Running or Not! Top Dollar For Used/Damaged. Free Nationwide Towing! Call Now: 1-888-420-3808

17th ST. Recording Studio

Hand N Hand: Legally Permitted Collective hnhpc.org | 657.229.4464 | 2400 Pullman St. Suite #B Santa Ana, CA

| feature | calendar | food | film | culture | music | classifieds

Target Audience?

MOBILE & DESKTOP WEBSITES

On Deck Buds: $35 CAP | 4.5G 8th or $10 OFF Concentrates 12371 Haster St. #203 Garden Grove | 714.468.4142

Just Quality: FIRST TIME PATIENT DEALS: 5 GRAM 1/8TH ON ALL SHELF | 5% OFF A GRAM WAX | 8 GRAM DOGO DEALS (714) 209-8187 | Open 10am - 10pm Daily 9774 Katella Ave Unit 103, Anaheim, CA 92804

WANT TO REACH YOUR EXACT

PROGRAMMATIC | SEO

STOREFRONT

county

CONDITIONS: All advertisements are published upon the representation by the advertiser and/or agency that the agency and advertiser are authorized to publish the entire contents and subject matter thereof, that the contents are not unlawful, and do not infringe on the rights of any person or entity and that the agency and advertiser have obtained all necessary permission and releases. Upon the OC Weekly’s request, the agent or advertiser will produce all necessary permission and releases. In consideration of the publication of advertisements, the advertiser and agency will indemnify and save the OC Weekly harmless from and against any loss or expenses arising out of publication of such advertisements. The publisher reserves the right to revise, reject or omit without notice any advertisement at any time. The OC Weekly accepts no liability for it’s failure, for any cause, to insert an advertisement. Publication and placement of advertisements are not guaranteed. Liability for any error appearing in an advertisement is limited to the cost of the space actually occupied. No allowance, however, will be granted for an error that does not materially affect the value of an advertisement.

To qualify for an adjustment, any error must be reported within 15 days of publication date. Credit for errors is limited to first insertion. Drawings, artwork and articles for reproduction are accepted only at the advertiser’s risk and should be clearly marked to facilitate their return. The OC Weekly reserves the right to revise its advertising rates at any time. Announcements of an increase shall be made four weeks in advance to contract advertisers. No verbal agreement altering the rates and/or the terms of this rate card shall be recognized.

| the

2975 Red Hill Avenue, Suite 150 | Costa Mesa, CA 92626 | 714.550.5940 | free online ads & photos at oc.backpage.com

| contents

o classifieds

SAFE ACCESS DIRECTORY

41

1ST LICENSED MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY IN ORANGE COUNTY

SCSA

SOUTH COAST SAFE ACCESS

Largest Showroom & Biggest Selection in OC

FTP: Buy an 1/8, Get a FREE 1/8

Physician’s Recommendation Required for Treatment of: Anxiety | Chronic Pain | Diabetes | Insomnia | Arthritis | Glaucoma

25% VETERANS DISCOUNT 21 Years and Over10% DISABILITY DISCOUNT 10% SENIOR DISCOUNT All Products

25% Veterans Discount

10% Disability Discount

Lab Tested

10% Senior Discount FTP 7 Gram 1/8th

HOURS: Monday-Saturday 10am-8pm • Sunday 11am-7pm *Physician's Recommendation Required for Treatment of: Anxiety | Chronic Pain | Diabetes | Insomnia | Arthritis | Glaucoma

1900 Warner Ave. Ste. A, Santa Ana 92705 (Conveniently Located Off the 55 Freeway) 949.474.7272 • Hours: Mon-Sat 10am-8pm Sun 11am-7pm