April 28, 2016 – OC Weekly

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The County

06 | NEWS | Feds go after a

marriage-fraud guy—and he keeps marriage-frauding. By Matt Coker 07 | ¡ASK A MEXICAN! | Why do Mexicans like to deny parts of their ancestral roots?

By Gustavo Arellano 07 | HEY, YOU! | How to save $104 at your local shipping business.

By Anonymous

Feature

12 | NEWS | Why Stanton is spending

millions of dollars on a park despite being, well, Stanton. By Will Swaim

in back

Calendar

17 | EVENTS | Things to do while

finishing our last Caramel deLites.

Food

24 | REVIEW | SeaLegs Wine Bar is best at dinner but does a great brunch. By Edwin Goei 24 | HOLE IN THE WALL | Desert Moon Grill in Anaheim.

By Gustavo Arellano 25 | EAT THIS NOW | Pork chop rice at Pig Haus. By Edwin Goei 25 | DRINK OF THE WEEK | Louis II at Mastro’s. By Gustavo Arellano

26 | LONG BEACH LUNCH | Halal

Guys comes to Long Beach.

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Film

27 | REVIEW | Dirty Old Wedge packs them in at NBFF. By Matt Coker 28 | SPECIAL SCREENINGS |

Screw Netflix, and see local stuff.

By Matt Coker

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invades Fullerton with its gross greatness. By Joel Beers 29 | TRENDZILLA | Smart officewear for busy-as-hell women.

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30 | ESSAY | How Prince inspired our music editor to try to sneak into Coachella. By Nate Jackson 32 | PREVIEW | Painted Wives get a new start with an old album.

By Kim Conlan 34 | LOCALS ONLY | Caitlin Lucia is a free-spirit folkie. By Heidi Darby

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Passage From India

SoCal immigration service at center of fraud scandal allegedly married victims to random homeless people, drunks and drug addicts

BY MATT COKER

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wo women from India claim a Yorba Linda man who was helping them get green cards married them off to men they did not know and without their consent or knowledge. The fraudulent transactions allegedly occurred after the women, both of whom were already married, were sent to Ajit Bhargava; his wife, Nisha; and daughter Runjhun for immigration assistance. The three had already been arrested for running a scam marriage ring that charged more than 20 foreigners up to $60,000 so they could marry U.S. citizens who were either homeless, drunks or drug addicts.

Bhargava and his wife and daughter mostly served people from India at Maple Eagle Consultants in Cerritos, also known as MP Eagle Inc. A 75-page affidavit alleges the Bhargavas paid an associate to recruit unemployed and low-income U.S. citizens, who would be paid $2,000 each for the ruse, although many who joined the scam weren’t fully paid. The ring leaders also had “the couples” put on several outfits and take photos in different locations to make it look as if they were in a relationship, according to court papers.

But a federal employee who processes green-card applications noticed a pattern, which sparked an investigation in September 2009. Agents taking a closer look discovered the Bhargavas got sloppy, according to Joseph Macias, who heads Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations in Orange County. “They were just recycling marriage certificates,” Macias said at the time of the Bhargava family’s arrest in April 2011. “They were even using the same witnesses; a couple of applications had the same U.S. spouse. It got to the point where they didn’t care. They thought they were just kind of above the law.”

Two women allege Ajit Bhargava, identifying himself as “Kumar Sharma,” victimized them in 2013 and early 2014. “Both victims are still very much afraid of Mr. Bhargava, especially now that they know that even his arrest and prosecution did not stop him from engaging in his criminal activities,” Anish Vashistha, the ladies’ lawyer, said. One of the women and the husband of the second separately told the Weekly they

fear Bhargava because he allegedly threatened them. As a result, we agreed to withhold their names in their accounts.

The first woman, who resides in the Midwest, had lawful status as an immigrant student in the U.S. as she sought a master’s in business administration from Concordia University in 2007. She later married a man who had been granted asylum in this country. The husband had a green-card application pending in 2013 when his wife was referred to Kumar Sharma, executive director of Immigrant Relief Center in Yorba Linda, for help in attaining a document that would allow her to stay in the States with her husband while she gave birth to her second child.

She claims Sharma/Bhargava told her that he could get her what’s known as “derivative-asylee” status because of her husband, as well as a green-card application. But that’s actually impossible; derivative-asylee status legally cannot be granted to what is termed an “after-acquired” spouse, and therefore, she also would not legally be eligible for a green card.

But the woman did not know that and left her fate in Bhargava’s hands. As she awaited her U.S. documents, Bhargava insisted she pay him $7,000, which drove her into debt. Bhargava offered to reduce her debt in exchange for client referrals. Something did not seem right.

Through the Freedom of Information Act, she looked at her own immigration

them documents on file show the wife is married to someone else. Having paid Bhargava a total of $22,800 for nothing, the couple ceased contact with him, but he kept trying to reach them for more money.

The encounters with Bhargava left the women in a legal limbo status in this country.

They each separately turned to Los Angeles-based Vashistha for help. The lawyer says he’s grasping for ways to keep legitimate couples together in the U.S., but he’s not sure that’s possible. Meanwhile, to keep more of these folks from coming to him, Vashistha informed the U.S. Attorney’s office handling the Bhargava prosecution about the latest allegations.

Bhargava pleaded guilty in November 2014 to a single count of conspiracy to commit marriage fraud and visa fraud, but his sentencing in federal LUKE MCGARRY court in Santa Ana has been delayed several times for health reasons. documents and discovered she had been Asked if the latest known alleged victims married off to someone she did not know. will get justice, prosecutor Sandy Leal sent “My signature was forged,” she says. “My the Weekly a document showing Bharjob information was wrong; the tax docugava’s scheduled March sentencing was ments were all wrong.”

When she contacted Bhargava, all he did postponed to June 20. According to that was harass her for more money, she claims. document, on Jan. 21 and March 11, “the government received information that is A friend of the second woman’s huspotentially relevant to the parties’ sentencband referred her to Sharma for help ing positions in this matter.” getting a green card based on her employAsked if this move was made to allow ment status in Los Angeles County. Unforthe judge to consider the new allegations tunately, that would likely be impossible at sentencing, Leal did not respond. Vashbecause of her inability to prove lawful istha, after reading the court document, entry, her lack of valid non-immigrant stasaid it is unclear if his clients’ allegations tus, and the unavailability of a visa numare the reason for the delay. He also ber. But Sharma/Bhargava assured the noted neither was interviewed by the woman’s husband that it would not be a prosecution. Leal is legally obligated to problem and quoted a price of $16,800 for forward the reason for the delay to Bharhis services. The couple put $5,000 down. gava’s lawyer. Reached by the Weekly, “After one week, he called. I went to his veteran Southern California defense office, and he demanded $6,800,” the husattorney Victor Sherman did not confirm band says of Bhargava, who also wanted whether the new allegations are behind proof of the wife’s lawful entry. The husband reminded Bhargava that his wife does the sentencing postponement.

Nisha Bhargava, 61, pleaded guilty Jan. not have such documentation and asked 11 to misdemeanor possession of immifor a refund, but Bhargava said he already gration documents to defraud the United spent it to prepare and file the case.

States, which is punishable with a brief The couple waited six more months jail stay. Runjhun Bhargava, 35, cut a deal for the green card that never came. They to enter a court rehabilitation program. contacted Bhargava, who demanded MCOKER@OCWEEKLY.COM more money, threatened to have the wife deported and, with his contacts at airports throughout India, arrested upon her READ MORE ONLINE return, the husband alleges. The couple WWW.OCWEEKLY.COM/NEWS later met an immigration officer who told

a

»

» GUSTAVO ARELLANO DEAR MEXICAN: Recently, I took a DNA test to find out about my genetic heritage. It turns out that my Mexican side (maternal side) may not really be Mexican at all. The DNA test has 100 percent matched me to that of Native Americans in what now straddles the U.S. Southwest and Northern Mexico borders, with no traces of European ancestry. My mother’s ancestry clearly traces back farther than the political existence of both the U.S. and Mexico.

The same test on my mother and her close relatives would reveal the same results, but everyone on that side of the family insists they are Mexican (in fact some of that familia would vehemently deny any indigenous ancestry, despite irrefutable scientific evidence—like a weird Mexican-DNA version of the O.J. trial). But what is the “Mexican race,” if there is such a thing? I understand Mexican history was at times bloody and oppressive, which is why any connection to an indigenous past was probably whitewashed away by my ancestors or someone else. At this point, there’s no way of finding out any specific details of an indigenous ancestry, so I’m just left with my family’s DNA. So what’s a confused Mexican . . . Chicano . . . Hispanic . . . Latino to do? Technology has opened my eyes to a part of my heritage that I don’t really know how to process. Am I still Mexican? Am I Native American? What’s going on here?

Damn Nerd Assholes

comes to certain parts of their ancestry—we practice the opposite of the Cherokee princess blood myth claimed by so many gabachos. You have prietos who can’t grow facial hair insist they’re pure Castilian, grandmothers with kinky hair and broad noses who won’t entertain the thought that the familia tree has negrito roots, mothers who light candles every Friday night because that’s how their great-grandmother taught them and no way on Earth does that mean that her Mama Pacha was carrying on the traditions of Sephardic ancestors. Best of all are the armchair Aztecs who decry everything European yet can sprout a beard as epic as that of that loco redhead Tormund Giantsbane on Game of Thrones.

In your family’s case, they seem to fall in the first example—denial of indio roots. I’d remind them being Mexican is more of a state of mind than it is a race (that’s why people such as awesome actress Lupita Nyong’o and comedian Louis C.K. can claim they’re Mexican but don’t, while a gabacho such as Rick Bayless can pass himself off as the greatest cook of Mexican food on the planet) yet is fully anchored in the realities of pozole—that is, Mexico is its own spicy melting pot, with the indigenous part being the caldo of it all and not some stray strand of repollo. But let your family try to run away from their Native American blood all they want; the physiological Cortés called diabetes will catch up with them in the end.

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!

DEAR DNA: We have a saying in Mexican Spanish: “Tiene un nopal en la frente” (“He has a cactus on his forehead”), which is used to mock people who say they’re not Mexican but totally are. That’s how a lot of Mexicans are when it

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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.

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his wasn’t the first time I’ve had to ask a professional to stop the job I asked them to do, but when you took the small unreinforced art print I just wanted to have securely packaged to ship overseas and stuffed it without any backing into a nebulous wad of bubble wrap sandwiched between two bent scraps of cardboard smaller than the actual print, and then wound several yards of plastic around it from

a spool on a handle, I started having my concerns. When you slipped the assembly into a flimsy paper DHL box, weighed all fractions of a pound of it and informed me shipping would come to $127, I asked you to unpack everything and instead bought a cardboard box from you for less than $4. I went home and cut it down to the flat and sturdy package I thought you’d know how to make (and without all the needless plastic waste you generated) and shipped it via the U.S. Postal Servive for $104 less than what you quoted and only about $5 more than I guessed.

With expertise like that, it’s a wonder you’ve stayed in business for so many years.

A pri l 29 Ay 05 , 20 16 M ON TH- XMX–X X , 2014

HEYYOU!

BOB AUL

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¡ask a mexican!»

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

by Will Swaim

CHAPTER 1: PIGS

In March 2011, facing a $4 million deficit, cil members met panicked Stanton City Council nanimously, in special session and voted unanimously, dramatically to declare a fiscal emergency. d been hearIt was the sort of thing we’d ing from Portugal, Italy, Greecee and Spain x revenues for months—a government’s tax ts spending falling so disastrously short of its erhouse that what comes next is slaughterhouse S, what folugly. By the standard of the PIGS, ight strike lowed immediately in Stanton might scal you as banal: Having declared a fiscal emergency, the council agreed to ask voters to approve a 50 percent hike in the city cent. utility tax, from 5 percent to 7.5 percent.

—then At that meeting, David Shawver—then a 23-year council veteran and selfball proclaimed “ultra-conservative football olcoach Republican”—said he and his coles. leagues had no choice but to raise taxes.

As with the PIGS of Europe, the Great ver Recession had slammed Stanton, Shawver said. The city was pinched between the rising cost of its public workers and falling property- and sales-tax revenues.

Conservative George W. Bush bailed out the nation’s largest banks in 2008; David

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ON29 TH -XMAy X–X X05 , 2014 ApMril , 201 6

DESPITE THE THREAT OF BANKRUPTCY, ONE OF THE COUNTY’S POOREST CITIES WILL SPEND AT LEAST $24 MILLION FOR A $6 MILLION PARK—AND THE BILLS WILL KEEP COMING

12

ILLUSTRATIONS BY KEVIN MCVEIGH

Shawver begged for a new tax in 2011.

“We had to come up with some type of ssystem or some type of program to generat ate more revenue to keep the city going,” Sh Shawver told a Garden Grove reporter at the time.

That same night, leaning on the podium T reserved for public comments, a retiree rese named nam Charles Rell asked Shawver and the o others a question that seems just as pertin pertinent today: “How much more can we afford to pay?”

Shaw Shawver’s response could have been nei that neither Rell’s personal finances nor ari even arithmetic figured into the city’s calculati calculations.

Because long before that Sha night, Shawver and his council colleagues had emba embarked on a great adventure, a free-spending circus in one of the county’s free-spend poorest and smallest cities: the creation of a $6 million milli park that would supernova into a $24 m million project that will cost millio more over time. the city millions Whether R Rell and others like him can afford that par park is irrelevant. Thanks to they’ have to.

Shawver, they’ll late to christen it Central Pork.

It’s not too lat

| “WHAT’S THAT OLD SAYING ABOUT THE FIRST THING YOU DO WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF IN A HOLE— STOP DIGGING?” —STEVEN GREENHUT

| | | | | BRIAN FEINZIMER

|

Throughout much of that period, a Los Angeles Times reporter noted, the digital sign outside the Stanton City Hall blinked the ominous, verb-free reminder: “STANTON FISCAL CRISIS.” In June 2012, just before voters killed the utility-tax hike, City Manager Carol Jacobs warned residents the city was on the verge of bankruptcy.

Tallying up the toll of the financial crisis in Stanton in 2012, Times reporter Christine Mai-Duc wrote, “In the last two years, after-school programs have been cut, city staffers have been laid off and even the lone police station in town has closed to the public, a sign on the door offering residents a number to call if they need assistance. The city has even elected to stop paying dues to the League of California Cities, an organization that lobbies on behalf of local governments. It’s not required by law, says City Manager Carol Jacobs, and Stanton just can’t afford it.”

“We’ve never really had much fat in this city,” Shawver told the Times. “We’re getting to a point here where there’s not much left to cut.”

|

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

SHAWVER: FATHER OF STANTON’S $24 MILLION PARK

ocweekly.com | | OCWEEKLY.COM

Still, the city spends. And as if to answer Rell, the fixed-income retiree raising uncomfortable questions at that 2011 emergency council meeting, city officials asked residents to pay still more. But they don’t mention Stanton Central Pork.

In 2014, city council members, many of them present for the unanimous declaration of financial emergency three years before, backed a 1 percent local sales

A pri l 29 Ay X 05 , 20 16 M ON TH- XMX–X , 2014

KEVIN MCVEIGH

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CHAPTER 3: DON’T MENTION THE PORK

To recap: a self-declared “fiscal emergency,” the threat of bankruptcy so catastrophic that the city had shuttered its police station, the end of redevelopment and the death of a tax hike at the polls.

During all of this, in October 2011, the council voted to spend $6 million to build Central Park on land it bought from the school district for $12.5 million.

That would be $18.5 million. But the cost to build Stanton Central Park is now at least $24 million—the cost of the school property, plus the city’s upwardly revised $11.5 million construction estimate.

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To understand how truly weird it is to blow $24 million after you’ve declared a fiscal emergency and begged the public to raise taxes, it’s best to start in 2010. In September of that year, about the time of the Great Recession’s second, deepest roller-coaster plunge, the city announced it would spend $12.5 million to purchase land from the Savanna School District. Two months later, at a formal signing ceremony, buyer and seller cock-a-doodled their delight. Stanton City Council member Al Ethans said the purchase “enhances our facilities for parks beyond our fondest expectation.”

Looking back from the lofty promontory of 2016, hearing a guy say that his real-estate deal is “beyond our fondest expectation” sounds like the sort of goman-go, mad-money hyperbole that was on almost every overmortgaged American’s lips—right up to the moment the housing crisis burned down the entire planetary economy in 2008.

Stanton’s $12.5 million land acquisition was followed just four months later by the self-declared fiscal emergency and the call for a bump in the utility tax.

Finances grew shakier. Stanton voters rejected the council’s pitch for a tax hike on utilities. And in June 2011, California Governor Jerry Brown announced that he and state lawmakers had decided to kill the state’s scandal-plagued redevelopment process. For years, city officials, including those in Stanton, had used the state’s redevelopment law as a revenue booster. In return for declaring property “blighted,” city officials were allowed to freeze the assessed value of that property and therefore the property-tax revenue for everybody else. School districts all over the state went into the red as their expenses climbed but their share of property-tax revenue remained frozen by the city. Redevelopment in Stanton meant that schools were on fixed incomes while the city captured 100 percent of the tax on the increase in the value of the land over time—what geeks call the “tax increment.”

Officials were not unique in having claimed their entire city was blighted, and therefore subject to the pickpocketlight touch of the city tax collector. State lawmakers excused the accounting trick as necessary to improvements—by which they meant the replacement of rundown properties with high-income, tax-generating commercial and residential projects.

When the band stopped playing— when Sacramento officials shut down the redevelopment dance hall—Shawver threatened legal action. In a statement that reveals his very liberal reading of a program that was supposed to build new buildings and clear away the wreckage of his city’s past, Shawver told the Orange County Register, “We were using that money for a lot of our city services.”

Brown’s decision ended Stanton’s future casino-style real-estate investments—but would not apply retroactively to the 2010 announcement to buy school property, though no cash would change hands until 2013.

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CHAPTER 2: GO-GO, STANTON!

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tax. Their reason: Without the sales-tax increase, they told voters, the city would lose vital public-safety services. Of course, it wasn’t presented that way in the city’s full-color, ALL-CAPS messaging. In that campaign, opposing the city sales tax meant you supported house fires and gangsters—and, what’s maybe worse, that you hated cops and firefighters.

Faced this second time with a tax hike or the apocalypse, voters approved the tax.

Shawver has tried to downplay the impact of the now-1-year-old tax hike on residents—and is working to kill a November 2016 ballot measure to repeal the tax.

The self-described conservative and member of the Orange County Republican Party’s central committee told a March community gathering that the increased sales tax is great—because it’s pretty much a tax on outsiders and it pays for sheriff’s deputies and firefighters.

“It’s a tax on people who drive through our community,” Shawver said at that meeting. “They drive up and down Beach Boulevard, stop to get gas, and we get one penny. One penny! And thanks to that one little penny, we’ve been able to restore critical public-safety assets.”

It also hits anyone who shops in Stanton, of course, though not (the officials stayed carefully on message) grocery and pharmaceuticals shoppers.

But it’s all for a good cause, Shawver said: public safety.

Stanton has a well-earned reputation for violence—it’s among the toughest towns in a county more famous for catfights among wealthy housewives than gunfights, gangs and prostitution. So public safety is no abstract line item. But even Shawver admits the county sheriff’s deputies, firefighters and paramedics who patrol Stanton are a major cost center.

“I’m not going to fool you,” Shawver told the community gathering. “Public safety is expensive, but I am concerned with maintaining the level of service that you demand.”

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FROM PAGE 13

Already expensive, public safety is getting pricier. This year, the city will pay an additional $1.1 million for public safety, most of that for the escalating pay and benefits of its $220,000-per-year firefighters and $187,000-per-year sheriff’s deputies. Those are extraordinary pay packages, even in relatively affluent Orange County. And they stand out especially in Stanton, where the median yearly household income is $46,000 and 22 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. They were negotiated with the county by the powerful firefighters’ and deputies’ unions—the same publicemployee unions that back Shawver and who carried almost the entire cost of the 2014 campaign to raise the sales tax.

CHAPTER 4: ‘STOP DIGGING’

If it weren’t for a few lousy public investments—such as the park—the city might be able to pay its sheriffs and firefighters even at that stratospheric level, without a tax hike of any kind. But park spending never made even a cameo appearance in the muffled 2014 debate over the tax increase. There has been only limited dissent inside City Hall. Stanton businessman Rick Muth was an early critic of the park, and that was when he was outside City Hall. Muth says he became more alarmed when he got inside, after Republican state Senator (and former Orange County treasurer and county supervisor) John Moorlach appointed him to the oversight board responsible for winding down Stanton’s redevelopment agency.

That put Muth directly in contact with Shawver and Shawver’s Great Pork.

Muth’s connection to Stanton runs through Orco Block Co., the company that Muth’s father, grandfather and a family friend created in 1946—a full decade before Stanton became a city. The Big Bang in Southern California building that followed shortly after Orco’s founding continues to this day, and it helped make the company one of the largest buildingmaterials suppliers in the region.

Orco is still in Stanton, and Rick Muth runs it. Like Shawver, Muth is a selfdeclared conservative. Unlike Shawver, he clearly expects the city’s finances to be handled as a business like Orco might manage them.

Citing the city’s financial emergency and a general lack of transparency where city spending is concerned, Muth opposed park funding. He says he battled city staff “even to get minutes from meetings” and was repeatedly denied itemized park

MUTH: OPPOSED THE PARK BEFORE IT WAS COOL

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City officials say not to worry. The city budget declares, “The project’s design, construction and construction management are funded from a Redevelopment Agency Bond, a State Grant and Park-InLieu Fees and has no impact on the City’s General Fund.”

Translation: State taxpayers (who generously funded the public-parks-friendly Proposition 84, but who don’t count

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CHAPTER 5: THE PAPER TRAIL

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luncheons—suggests not just boundless commitment, but also capacious memory of his own remarkable contribution. It’s unlikely he’s forgotten anything.

But if these good deeds indicate feverish social activity, they do not really capture something else about the man: After 28 years on the Stanton City Council, he says, “my work is not finished.” Looking back over the past many years of financial drama, the city’s residents may wish that it was—finished, I mean.

The man’s energy may also explain his Rooseveltian (Franklin, not Teddy) sense that government can and should do anything, including build a massive park in a time of financial crisis. “Quality of life is very important, but if a city is in such financial crisis that it has to go out and raise taxes, well, you just have to go back to basics, to do what you’re absolutely responsible for,” says former city of Orange mayor Carolyn Cavecche, who is CEO of the Orange County Taxpayers Association.

Building a park is nice, Cavecche says, “because everybody loves parks, including me.” But paying for public safety? “That’s just basic.”

Steven Greenhut laughed when told about the city’s decision to build Central Park in the midst of financial crises.

“What’s that old saying about the first thing you do when you find yourself in a hole? Stop digging?” says Greenhut, a former Register editorial writer who’s now western region director for the free-market R Street Institute. “Cities that cry ‘poverty’ and ‘public safety’ to convince their residents to pay higher taxes have no business spending big bucks on new parks.”

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expenses. When he asked council members how a city in a financial death spiral could afford to build and maintain the park, Muth says Shawver told him that all construction and operations costs would be funded through the sale of “excess city land around the park” once the real-estate market ticked up.

Muth says shortly after that conversation, he was touring the proposed park site with another council member. He asked the council member to point out the excess park land Shawver had said would be sold to cover operating expenses. Muth says the council member looked at him “with this really puzzled look on his face” and told Muth there was no excess park land to sell.

Now it was Muth’s turn to look puzzled. But the council member said any budget gap would be easy to fill: The city would cut down on park costs by closing the Central Park occasionally. Muth is still incredulous as he recounts the conversation and those that followed. “No one could tell me how you close a park for a few days every week,” he says.

“The last straw for me,” Muth recalls, “was when the city refused to give another oversight board member the true, full cost of the park”—unless she dropped her demand to explain how the park had jumped from $6 million to $8 million, then to $11.5 million. In March 2015, he resigned from the board.

Shawver did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

His City Council campaign site lists accomplishments that will outnumber mine if I live to be 400. He’s a credentialed teacher; a softball, wrestling and football coach at Millikan High School in Long Beach for 42 years; he’s got certificates for first aid, CPR and lifeguarding.

He’s taught religion in his Catholic parish. He coached Pop Warner football and was his Neighborhood Watch director.

He volunteered for the Stanton Haunted House, the Christmas pageant, the Easter egg hunt and the Drug Busters youth program. The list of activities that Shawver recites—afternoon teas, soccer, fiestas, civic clubs, pancake breakfasts and charity

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FROM PAGE 15

because, like drivers who stop in Stanton to buy gas, most of them live elsewhere) and hypothetical future real-estate developers (who will pay fees on construction) will fund most of the park. On page 126, deep in the Stanton budget, there’s also the promise that city staff will “successfully procure sponsors and additional revenue programs for the new Stanton Central Park.” In public meetings, officials have offered the example of revenue from participants in a community softball league.

But by far the biggest source of cash will come from $28 million in bonds hurriedly issued by the Stanton Redevelopment Agency just as Brown raised his sword over the program.

The city’s assertion that paying for the Central Park will have “no impact on the City’s General Fund” is hard to square with reality. My colleague, the bond analyst Marc Joffe, found Stanton’s bonds cost city taxpayers nearly $400,000 to issue. Interest payments—totaling $42 million over 30 years—will continue to put a multimillion-dollar ding in the city’s budgets.

There are other significant park costs that Stanton officials never mention in

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their estimates but which appear scattered throughout city financial documents. There’s lost revenue from the golf course that closed when the city took over the school property. The city’s park-maintenance budget will jump dramatically, on average about $150,000 in each of the next two years. The budget for parks staff will go up “by $202,810, or 43 percent in FY [fiscal year] 2015-16. The increase primarily relate [sic] to salaries for the new Stanton Central Park,” the budget reports.

A new, six-figure community-development director will spend part of her time managing the park.

“Saddling the people of Stanton with a $24 million park and all the other associated costs—a park that was sold to them as $6 million—is unconscionable,” says Sal Sapien, the city’s former mayor and still a member of the county Democratic Party’s central committee. Sapien is also a longtime Shawver adversary. Recalling that he and other council members voted to censure Shawver in the early 1990s “for his antics,” he says, “The council should censure him again.”

CHAPTER 6: THE GOLDEN SHOVEL

Spiraling costs weren’t on the official

brain at last summer’s Central Park groundbreaking, though. That June, with golden shovels held over their hard-hatted heads in triumph, city officials were talking about the future, about coming together, about the generosity of government, the noblesse oblige of City Hall.

“This is a gift to Stanton residents,” declared Allan Rigg, the public works director. “I’m excited. It’s an exciting time in Stanton.”

But as Register reporter Chris Haire deftly observed in his account of the groundbreaking, “Not everyone is thrilled about the impending [park] construction.”

Haire talked with leaders of three churches renting space on the old school grounds. In a little-remembered footnote to the city’s $24 million Central Park, the churches are gone now.

“The churches received 45-day eviction notices. Because of their size—California Christ Community Church has 50 to 60 members—and lack of money, the churches are having trouble finding new locations,” Haire reported.

“It was kind of a shock for us,” Daniel Park, pastor of California Christ Community Church, told Haire. “I don’t even know if the city knew we were here.”

LETTERS@OCWEEKLY.COM

Will Swaim is vice president of communications for the California Policy Center and founding editor and former publisher of OC Weekly.

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HAIL TO THE QUEEN

| the county

KAYLIN IDORA

sat/04/30

[BURLESQUE]

Bow Wow WOW!

Oh, Dita!

Stunt Dog Experience

Thunder From Down Under

Ladies, get ready to rumble with the Thunder From Down Under. The troupe of sexy Australian dancers oughta be in jail ’cause their bodies are on the verge of bein’ obscene. The all-male revue of bawdy brawn boasts solo and group performances, ensnaring female libidos for an evening filled with muscle and mayhem. But it’s Saturday night—I guess that makes it all right—and if the six-pack abs and low-riders don’t grab you, the insane throngs of women in the audience will.

Catch them while you can, baby, ’cause they’re much too fast.

Thunder From Down Under at Gaslamp Restaurant + Bar, 6251 E. Pacific Coast Hwy., Long Beach, (562) 596-4718; www.gaslamplongbeach.com. 7 p.m. $24.50-$74.50. 21+. —HEIDI DARBY

Let’s Feast!

Sabroso Beer & Taco Festival Imagine the world’s greatest Taco Tuesday materialized into an actual festival that had the good sense to hold itself on a weekend (we’ve lost count of how many HangMORE over Wednesdays ONLINE we’ve suffered OCWEEKLY.COM through), and you’ve got something akin to the Sabroso Craft Beer & Taco Festival. Hosted by the good folks of Brew Ha Ha, this outdoor fest features OC restaurants and chefs slinging $3 gourmet tacos, the kind you find in a secondhand store, and free boozy samplings from more than 100 craft breweries. That’s right: unlimited beer. Take in some lucha libre while you imbibe, and if it’s warm, you wouldn’t need much more.

Third Annual Sabroso Craft Beer & Taco Festival at Lake View Park, 5305 Santiago Canyon Rd., Silverado; www.sabrosotacofest. com. Noon. $20-$65. 21+. —ERIN DEWITT

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Famous pinup, neo-burlesque queen and tiny waist-haver Dita Von Teese isn’t a woman, isn’t a man—she is something you’ll never understand. Her lavish style and old-school glamour would die 4 U, from over-the-top giant fan dances to her signature martini-glass baths—and then, of course, there’s her elegant taste in lingerie and jewel-encrusted gowns.

Now, Von Teese is embarking on her international Strip Strip Hooray! tour, on which you can expect numerous guests including male burlesque performer Jett Adore, Dirty Martini and Ginger Lee Valentine. Check out Von Teese’s own extravagant, theatrical numbers at the Yost Theater this weekend.

Dita Von Teese’s Burlesque: Strip Strip Hooray! Variety Show at the Yost Theater, 307 N. Spurgeon St., Santa Ana, (888) 8629573; www.yosttheater.com. 7 p.m.; also Sat.-Sun. $35-$1,000. 18+. —AIMEE MURILLO

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We can all agree that dogs rule, right? Their cuddly, lovable, loyal qualities only want to see you laughing in the Purple Rain, but rarely do we recognize how intelligent they are. Famed dog trainers Chris and Suhey Perondi have been showcasing their amazing stunt dogs for more than a decade now, training them to jump through giant flaming hula-hoops, flip backwards, balance in midair, jump rope, walk on their front legs and more, allowing these pups to flex their athletic and learning skills while thrilling us humans at the same time. And as these fourlegged stars are rescue dogs, the Stunt Dog Experience encourages shelter adoption and supports numerous animal foundations.

Put your paws together for these talented dogs as they guide you to the Purple Rain.

Chris Perondi’s Stunt Dog Experience at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Dr., Irvine, (949) 854-4646; www.thebarclay. org. 8 p.m. $22-$32. —AIMEE MURILLO

Burlesque: Strip Strip Hooray!

[ADULT]

A pri l

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THE COACH HOUSE www.thecoachhouse.com

TICKETS and DINNER RESERVATIONS: 949-496-8930 4/28 4/29 4/30

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There’s something for everyone here: The La Habra Citrus Fair kicks off Friday night with the famous Bubble Parade and a two-hour Michael Jackson tribute show; Saturday welcomes snappy line-dancers; and Sunday is International Day, highlighted by music and dance from Latin America, Asia, Hawaii, Europe and more. Adventurers and trendy naturalists can enjoy the Preparedness Expo to learn MORE how to survive ONLINE off the grid OCWEEKLY.COM with safety demonstrations and a Survivors Challenge for free prizes. The food court offers hot dogs, tacos, starfish and coffee, maple syrup and jam, butterscotch clouds, a tangerine, and a side order of ham for the kiddies. Don’t forget to throw in some funnel cake and a few spins on the wild carnival rides. They’ll remember it for the rest of their lives.

La Habra Citrus Fair at El Centro-Lions Park, 321 E. La Habra Blvd., La Habra; citrusfair.com. Noon. Free; rides, $2-$20.

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Rancho Days Fiesta

You can surely find the history of Native American tribes and Mexican ranchos of Orange County in a book, but it won’t be as fun or interactive as the Rancho Days Fiesta. Round up the young’uns for this long-running, beloved festival that wants to be the only one that makes you come running, with access to historical buildings, including the 1863 Serrano Adobe; Native T H I S CO D E TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE American and folkOCWEEKLY lorico dancing; charro IPHONE/ANDROID APP FOR MORE EVENTS OR VISIT horse riding; and ropocweekly.com ing demos. Have your kids churn butter! Learn how to make candles! We don’t mean to pressure them; all we ever wanted to do was be their mother and their sister, too—and let ’em make some crafts and hit a piñata around.

We’re crossing our fingers it resembles Donald Trump!

Rancho Days Fiesta at Heritage Hill Historic Park, 25151 Serrano Rd., Lake Forest, (949) 923-2230; www. lakeforestca.gov. 11 a.m. $5.

SCAN

—AIMEE MURILLO

LEANN MUELLER

*

[CONCERT]

TEQUILA AND TEARDROPS

Dale Watson and His Lone Stars

Alt-country rebel Dale Watson, accompanied by the exceptional, always-game Lone Stars, may show some wear and tear, just like my father—too bold. Brazenly against the commercial Nashville country scene like my mother—she’s never satisfied—Watson has proven he’s an original songwriter, unafraid to put his heartache on blast, and projects an overall fearlessness that has rewarded him with a success that sounds like when doves cry.

Dale Watson and His Lone Stars at Don the Beachcomber, 16278 Pacific Coast Hwy., Huntington Beach, (562) 592-1321; www.donthebeachcomber.com. 7:30 p.m. $20-$200. —AIMEE MURILLO

tue/05/03 [THEATER]

Bush-Era Jams American Idiot

Since 2000s-era pop punk has been all the rage lately, it’s no wonder one of the biggest bands of the genre makes its return in the form of American Idiot. Written by Green Day front man Billie Joe Armstrong and based on the album of the same name, American Idiot decries stifling suburban life, war, wanton drug use and poverty bringing U down—needless to say, mature audiences and viewer discretion are advised.

La Mirada Theatre of the Performing Arts’ version switches things up by fusing the 2010 musical with songs from its follow-up release, 21st Century Breakdown. But life it ain’t real funky unless it got that pop. Dig it.

American Idiot at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada, (562) 944-9801; www.lamiradatheatre.com. 7:30 p.m.

Through May 15. $22-$70. —AIMEE MURILLO

Mayer Hawthorne

100 YEARS OF BLUES:

ALL-STAR JAZZ:

MAY 7 at 7:30 pm

MAY 8 at 3 pm

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Following the release of his anticipated last album, Where DoesThis Door Go, Mayer Hawthorne is the funkiest man you’ve ever seen. All hail the new king in town! His split from a major label and the release of his catchyTuxedo side project provided the impetus for Hawthorne to return to making some of the finest work of his career. As for his live show, Partyman rocks a party like no one else can; don’t be surprised if the singer breaks out a few new tricks.

Mayer Hawthorne at the Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; www.observatoryoc.com. 8 p.m. $25. —DANIEL KOHN

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With The Force Awakens regarded somewhere between “acceptable” and “oh, thank God!” and the coming Rogue One—directed by Monsters/Godzilla dude Gareth Edwards—looking extremely promising, you don’t have to watch Dynasty to be committed to Star Wars.

This May the 4th Be With You blowout—

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TOWN MAYER

county

Star Wars Party

[CONCERT]

JAKE MICHAELS

Come to the Dark Side

presented by social-media sensations the Force Girls—screens the first three films and features Misfits cover band the Sithfits, raffles, cosplay and more. It starts at 3 p.m. on a weekday, and there ain’t no particular sign I’m more compatible with; I just want your extra time and your kiss.

Could your Emperor—or Red Leader— demand anything less?

May the 4th Be With You Star Wars Party at Alex’s Bar, 2913 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, (562) 434-8292; www.alexsbar. com. 3 p.m. Free. 21+. —CHRIS ZIEGLER

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[FUN]

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Cinco de Maya Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life—and get faded off Mexican beers and tequila shots.

Oh, no, let’s go crazy at the Bowers Museum!

The latest in its Thirsty Thursdays series celebrates chocolate, Mayas and music. Peruse the museum halls after-hours while taking in the “Popol Vuh: Watercolors of Diego Rivera” exhibit. Enjoy the Mayan and indigenous sounds of musician Martin Espino. Let’s get nuts with Dr. Gloria Arjona’s multimedia and interactive presentation on Latin American cultures. And, of course, there will be a themed happy hour menu at the museum’s Tangata Restaurant, including specialty drinks.

Thirsty Thursdays: Chocolate, Mayas & Music at Bowers Museum, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana, (714) 567-3600; bowers.org.

5 p.m. $10-$30. —GABRIEL SAN ROMÁN

ROLLIN’ WITH THE HOMIES

MAY 2 SEGERSTROM HALL

StarTrekUltimateVoyage.com

MS. LISA FISCHER AND GRAND BATON

CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE

Featured in Oscar-winning Twenty Feet from Stardom

Harmonica and Blues Harp Legend

BETTYE LAVETTE

DR. LONNIE SMITH TRIO

The Grand Lady of Soul

Hammond B-3 organ’s Turbanator

GREGORY PORTER

JOHN MAYALL The Godfather of British Blues

Blue Note Records Jazz Sensation

ORDER TICKETS TODAY!

600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

(714) 556-2787 TTY (714) 556-2746

SCFTA.org

Group Services (714) 755-0236

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Despite the gimmick of a semi-parodic Latino band such as Manic Hispanic performing on Cinco de Mayo—the States’ national holiday for booze and gringos attempting to speak Spanish—it’s a smart idea for a night out. I was dreaming when I wrote this, so sue me if I go too fast:The hardcore, Mexi-punk stylings of Gabby Gaborno and the bunch is just a party, and parties aren’t meant to last. And while Gaborno has been experiencing some serious health issues as of late, this OC hero is back to his old self and committed to raising hell with his vatos with yet another explosive performance.Tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1999 with the other carnales in the lineup, hosted by Super Steve Flores: 8Kalacas, Happy Drunk Cartel and Left Alone.

Manic Hispanic with 8Kalacas, Left Alone and Happy Drunk Cartel at theYostTheater, 307 N. Spurgeon St., Santa Ana, (888) 862-9573; www. yosttheater.com. 8 p.m. $10. —AIMEE MURILLO

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Manic Hispanic

A pri l

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[CONCERT]

TM & © 2016 CBS. © 2015 Paramount. All Rights Reserved.

Thirsty Thursdays

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Count all of the Coronas in THIS WEEK’S Cinco de Drinko guide & enter to win a $200 GIFT CARD TO HI-TIME WINE CELLARS! Enter your guess online at:

• OCWEEKLY.COM/FREE/CINCODEDRINKO • Winner must be 21 years of age or older. Winner will be chosen at random and will be notified on Monday, May 2nd, 2016

may 5th

EL TORITO Eltorito.com Multiple Locations in Orange County Cinco de Mayo Party Central!

Enjoy margarita, beer, shot and taco specials on May 5th!

Bring the party to you – catering menu available.

Anaheim TORTILLA JO’S 714.535.5000 Patinagroup.com/torilla-jos 1510 Disneyland Dr., Anaheim Celebrate with tequila tasting, face painting, Mariachi Divas, piñatas and special menu items!

Brea

Costa Mesa LA VIDA CANTINA 949.612.2349 Lavidacantina.com 1870 Harbor Blvd., Costa Mesa Full day Cinco De Mayo Fiesta at La Vida! Live music, taco man, piñatas and more from 12pm to closing MARIACHI SOL DE MEXICO AT SEGERSTROM CENTER 714.556.2787 Scfta.org 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa May 5th, 2016 at 8pm. Tickets cost between $29 - $89.

Mariachi sol de Mexico performs traditional Mexican Folk, classical and pop music under the music direction of Jose Hernandez.

SOL MEXICAN COCINA 949.675.9800 Solcocina.com 251 E. Coast Hwy., Newport Beach Happy hour is Monday-Friday from 3pm to 6pm. Enjoy one of Sol’s Signature Drinks like the House Margarita or the Pineapple Serrano Margarita.

SUTRA OC CINCO DE MAYO FIESTA 949.722.7103 • Sutraoc.com 1870 Harbor Blvd., The Triangle, Costa Mesa Official birthday bash of Grammy Award winning and multi-platinum selling singer/songwriter Chris Brown.

Fullerton MATADOR CANTINA 714.871.8226 Thematador.com 111 N. Harbor Blvd., Fullerton Orange County’s Biggest Cinco De Mayo Celebracion!

Two Dining Rooms, Three Bars & Patio.

Featuring DJ Bob Soul and DJ Tone.

ZIING’S BISTRO 714.526.5777 Zings.com 209 N. Harbor Blvd., Fullerton Open Mic Night with Anthony Williams on May 5th at 7:00pm.

watch all boxing fights here

Huntington Beach BAJA SHARKEEZ 714.960.5282 Sharkeez.net 211 Main St., Huntington Beach Happy Hour from 11am until packed.

Buy any drink, any size and get your

7821 Westminster Blvd Westminster CA 92683

WWW.OCWEEKLY.COM

BREA IMPROV AND COMEDY CLUB 714.482.0700 Improv.com 120 S. Brea Blvd., Brea Doors Open: 7pm, Showtime: 8pm Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with Ricky Rick, Aurelio Miguel Bocanegra, Dante Chang & Robert Zapata Ticket price is $12, 18 & Over.

OBSERVATORY OC 714.957.0600 Observatoryoc.com 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana $5 Sir-Mix-A-Lot show on May 5th.

Doors open at 10:30pm, open to all ages.

WWW.OCWEEKLY.COM

2nd for $0.25!

80oz. Donkey Punch or Shark Attack Buckets for $24 and $7.50 Corona Ritas. Win Cash and Prizes during the Big Bad Burrito Challenge.

Open at 11am on Thursday, May 5th!

SOLITA TACOS & MARGARITAS 714.894.2792 Solitatacos.com 7631 Edinger Ave., Suite 1508, Huntington Beach Bar open until 12am seven days a week! Celebrate with a Solita House Margarita, Horchata Cocktail and other specialty drinks.

Orange MORENO’S 714.639.2181 Morenosrestaurant.com 4328 E. Chapman Ave., Orange Aztec Dances, Mariachi and Folklorico!

Starts at 6pm on May 5th, 2016.

WHO SONG AND LARRY’S 714.639.9550 Whosongandlarrys.com 1535 W. Katella Ave., Orange Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with large, shareable margaritas!

Long Beach

Santa Ana

AGAVES KITCHEN & TEQUILA 562.435.7700 Facebook.com/agavesbarlb 200 Pine Ave., Long Beach Infused Tequilas, Margaritas and other specialty drinks! Happy Hour is Tuesday-Friday from 5pm to 7pm and All Day on Sundays!

CINCO DE MAYO IN SANTA ANA Santa-ana.org/parks/cinco 4th Street in Downtown Santa Ana April 30th to May 1st, 2016 Enjoy this free event including carnival rides, games, music, dancing and food.

CAFÉ SEVILLA 562.495.1111 Cafesevilla.com 140 Pine Ave., Long Beach Live music in the tapas bar!

Happy Hour is from 2:30pm-7pm Sunday-Friday! Enjoy $3 off items $11 and under, and $5 off items $12 and over.

CUBAN PETE’S 562.646.7294 Cubanpeteslongbeach.com 245 Pine Ave., Long Beach $4 Tequila Shots, Margaritas or Mexican Beers. Live performance by Suga Free & DJ Exempt. Doors open at 5pm, Mariachi 6pm-7pm. Enjoy 3 rooms of music!

BAJA SHARKEEZ 949.673.0292 Sharkeez.net 114 McFadden Pl., Newport Beach Happy Hour from 11am until packed.

Buy any drink, any size and get your 2nd for $0.25! 80oz. Donkey Punch or Shark Attack Buckets for $24 and $7.50 Corona Ritas. Win Cash and Prizes during the Big Bad Burrito Challenge. Open at 11am on Thursday, May 5th!

CINCO DE MAYO PARTY AT RED O 949.718.0300 Redorestaurant.com 143 Newport Center Dr., Newport Beach Thursday, May 5th, 2016. Free Event, All Night! Live Music, Drink and Food Specials! $5 Coronas & Modelo Especial $7 El Tesoro Margaritas $10 Patron Silver Shots

San Clemente 26TH ANNUAL CINCO DE MAYO FIESTA San-clemente.org 1100 Calle Puente, San Clemente Sunday, May 1st, 2016 from 12:00pm – 4:00pm. Celebrate with live entertainment, traditional Mariachi’s, dancing and authentic Mexican food.

Silverado Canyon SILVERADO CHILI COOK-OFF & CINCO DE MAYO FESTIVAL Smrpd.org 27641 Silverado Canyon Rd., Silverado Saturday, May 7th, 2016 Chili tasting and competition, arts and crafts expo, and live Cinco de Mayo entertainment.

Westminster CLOUD 9 SPORTS BAR Cloud9sportsbar.com 7821 Westminster Blvd., Westminster Cinco de Mayo celebration on May 5th! $3.50 Modelo, Tecate Lite, Budlight and Margaritas! Tacos will be available all night.

WWW.OCWEEKLY.COM

Newport Beach

MANIC HISPANIC AT THE YOST THEATER 888.862.9573 Downtown-santaana.com 307 N. Spurgeon St., Santa Ana All ages, full bar with ID. Only $10!

Celebrate with Manic Hispanic and another special guest TBA.

| classifieds | music | culture | film | food | calendar | feature | the county | contents | Ap ril 29 - MAy 05 , 201 6

» GUSTAVO ARELLANO

Arabian Bites DESERT MOON GRILL 888 S. Brookhurst St., Anaheim, (714) 533-6601; desertmoongrill.com.

U

You Had Me at Merlot

BRIAN FEINZIMER

SeaLegs Wine Bar is most popular at brunch but really shines at dinner

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a conversation here on a Saturday morning, when large parties converge upon the place to celebrate baby and bridal showers with balloons and party favors.

Brunch time has now become prime time for the restaurant.

Its popularity during this time may have less to do with the omelets, which taste more like frittatas, and more to do with the prospect of endless $15 mimosas.

Most important of all is the side room that owner (and former Weekling) Alicia Whitney has decorated as though it’s ready for a Martha Stewart Living cover photoshoot. She’s appointed the spacious alcove with comfy couches, side chairs and pastel colors, making it catnip for females who might not care that the chilaquiles can sometimes come off a bit dry so long as the flutes of orange-juice-flavored champagne keep coming.

Rather than the mimosa, I’d argue that the better way to get weekend-morning drunk is the Instant Breakfast mason jar, which is as potent at 10 a.m. as a Long Island Iced Tea is at 10 p.m. After I sucked up the last few dregs of the iced mixture of vodka, Kahlua and house-made Irish cream, the boating-themed room started to sway as though I was actually on a boat.

Dinner, though, is still my favorite time to go to SeaLegs. Most of the tapas-sized plates do, in fact, go well with wine. Some dishes, such as the castanet-sized clams coated in spicy red chorizo grease, require it. And if you’re a wine novice, the waitresses, most of whom look as if they’re just a few years older than legal drinking age, can quickly recommend a varietal

appropriate for any dish. What’s most refreshing is they’ll do it without much fuss or any attempts at upselling.

I asked our server what would pair well with the Coca-Cola-braised pork shank served over a purée of parsnip and apple.

She pointed to the True Myth, one of the cheaper cabs. And she was right: In my mouth, every swig of that wine seemed to dance with every forkful of the sweet-tasting meat. And if I’d requested a recommendation for the garlic shrimp that comes swimming in an inch of olive oil, I’m sure she would’ve guided me to a perfect wine that wouldn’t have cost more than the dish itself.

If you’ve already figured out that a few glasses at dinner can get costly quick, the best time to come to SeaLegs is during happy hour, when a modest selection of basic dishes are offered for $5, but also the house wines. It was then that I discovered that Chardonnay and corn dog bites are a natural match—especially SeaLegs’ version, which uses not a hot dog, but a thick, meaty sausage that’s probably knackwurst. It is, however, best to enjoy this revelation at SeaLegs, since Wienerschnitzel hasn’t yet realized the potential and doesn’t take kindly to people bringing in bottles of Two-Buck Chuck.

SEALEGS WINE BAR 21022 Beach Blvd., Huntington Beach, (714) 536-5700; www.sealegswinebar.com.

Open Mon.-Fri., 4-11:30 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m.11:30 p.m.; Sun., 10 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Daily happy hour, 4-6 p.m.; brunch, Sat.-Sun., 10 a.m.3 p.m. Dinner for two, $50-$75, food only.

Full bar.

GARELLANO@OCWEEKLY.COM

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hen SeaLegs Wine Bar opened in Huntington Beach four years ago, the menu was short and sweet. There were only a handful of dishes, including mac and cheese, braisedchicken tacos, and the obligatory cheese board. Though nothing cost more than $15, you couldn’t really call any of it a meal. It was just as well: The food seemed to be there as ballast for the wine, of which there was plenty.

The entire back wall of the bar is a floor-to-ceiling, glass-encased shelf, the kind for which a ladder is necessary to access half of the more than 2,000 bottles in the restaurant’s collection. But as the place quickly became a haven for social drinkers who’d rather swirl their alcohol in a goblet than pound it down from a mug or shot glass, the food menu by Alexander Dale also grew larger and more elaborate.

A wagyu beef, pork and veal meatball simmered in a San Marzano tomato marinara and draped in gooey burrata cheese joined the bruschetta and the “stinky” cheese-covered fries. The sausage sliders were upgraded to Angus beef patties with crumbles of bleu cheese and crisp-edged buns toasted in butter. And there was now a papaya-gastrique-smeared flatbread with prosciutto, bacon and figs. There were full-fledged entrées, too, including a flat-iron steak and a $30 filet mignon.

Then, at some point, SeaLegs started opening for brunch and found its true calling. If you thought the echo-y acoustics made it hard to hear the person across from you on a Friday night, just try having

BY EDWIN GOEI

lulating rhythms of the Fertile Crescent blast on the soundtrack, with stylish curves and murals of Bedouin tents on the walls transporting you right to the Wadi Rum. The female servers wear modest-yet-stylish dresses with— yep—arabesque designs; the men sport checkered red keffiyehs, save for the floor manager, resplendent in a fabulous shemagh mhadab, the Jordanian version of the headwrap complete with thick cotton tassels. But that’s not the most stunning part of his outfit; that would be the plastic gun-packing holster he wears around his waist while roaming the restaurant to give people free shots of strong coffee.

Gimmicky? Maybe. But the crowds who’ve packed Desert Moon Grill, the Rainforest Cafe of Middle Eastern restaurants in Orange County, since it opened last month don’t care. Hijabis, Eritrean taxi drivers, refugee families, Lebanese Christian bros, older men still wearing their sandals from mosque prayers—everyone who makes up OC’s Middle Eastern community—flock to Desert Moon for the riotous atmosphere, but also for a great menu that zigzags across the Levant like the Tigris and Euphrates. You know you’re eating at a serious food spot when the pita not only comes bloated with steam, but is also still dusted in flour. And while the shawerma, wraps and all the usual suspects please, go for the rarities: Start with muthawama, which is basically potato hummus with the garlic turned to 11, or makdous, pickled eggplants stuffed with walnuts and garlic, then sprinkled in olive oil and salt—and as tart as kimchi.

Try the Syrian quesadillas called toksha: pitas stuffed with beef or chicken and a salty Syrian cheese. Desert Moon cooks its meats on a wood-fired grill and offers a full seafood menu—a rarity in the lamb/ quail/chicken/beef-obsessed Little Arabia.

There’s even an Egyptian-style casserole that’s essentially a hamburger patty slathered in a tomato-tahini sauce—Hamburger Helper by way of Tahrir Square.

There’s no alcohol, of course, but that doesn’t matter. Instead, order one of Desert Moon’s sweet banana-strawberry milk “cocktails,” or go back to that mule-kick coffee—salaam!

M ON TH X X–X X , 2014

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HOLEINTHEWALL

GOOD JOB, ALICIA!

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food»reviews | listings

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ZOT THIS WAY

For Homesick Taiwanese

EDWIN GOEI

Pork chop rice at Pig Haus

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ig Haus used to be called MJ Cafe, but it’s less important what it’s called and more important where it is. It’s located within walking distance of the UC Irvine campus, and it’s the closest place, save for Cha for Tea, where a Taiwanese college kid can eat something that reminds him of mom’s cooking. It serves a great Taiwanese sausage and also a homey Three Flavor chicken dish cooked with the trinity of soy sauce, sesame oil and rice wine.

If you consider the dozens of Taiwanese joints in the whole city of Irvine, Pig Haus is just a blip in the sea, but this close to campus, it’s the only place where you can get a proper pai gu fan (pork chop rice). And Pig Haus’ version is just as good as any of the others. The kitchen lightly batters and fries

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

» EDWIN GOEI

a thick, bone-in pork steak marinated in sugar and rice wine, serving the tender, notparticularly-crisp baseball mitt with just enough steamed rice to call it a meal.

And when a homesick Taiwanese does order one, he gets two sides of veggies with it, usually some sort of bean sprout dish and corn kernels, all of it packaged up in a compartmentalized bento box. The sides are little more than cheap roughage, but it’s still technically vegetable, something he can tell his mom he’s eating when she calls.

Hi-Time Wine Cellars Wine Bar This Week!

PIG HAUS 4535 Campus Dr., Irvine, (949) 387-0827.

Thurs. 4/28 4:30-8:30pm $20 Domaine Spiropoulos, Greece We will host winemaker Dr. Apostolos Spiropoulos (5-7pm) to talk about their wines & vineyards.

» GUSTAVO ARELLANO

Friday 4/29 4:30-8:30pm $25 California: New Releases

GUSTAVO ARELLANO

THE DRINK

MASTRO’S STEAKHOUSE 633 Anton Blvd., Costa Mesa, (714) 546-7405.

MASTRO’S OCEAN CLUB 8112 E. Coast Hwy., Newport Beach, (949) 376-6990; www.mastrosrestaurants.com.

Follow @mrhitime on Instagram & Twitter!

Saturday 4/30 2-8:30pm $30 Caymus & Company!

We did this before… people said they wanted it again… well, here it is! Tonight we’re gonna pour Caymus (both Napa and Special Selection), Emmolo, Belle Glos, Red Schooner, and maybe even an older vintage of Caymus or two!

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

| OCWEEKLY.COM |

It’s the bar’s take on an Old Fashioned, and I gotta say it’s better than any version of the classic I’ve ever imbibed. I’ve always favored Manhattans over Old Fashioneds because of the former’s bitterness, but the Louis II splits the orange peel between them: a smack of High West Double Rye wrestled down by the soothing caramel of Bénédictine, with Averna Amaro and orange bitters cheering their respective sides on. The Beverly Hills waiter assured me the Louis II is at the OC locations.

And if it’s not on the menu yet? Tell them to call the mothership and ask ¿que chingada?

A PRI L 29 - M AY 0 5, 2 016

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ast week, myself and legendary Chicano cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz joined our Bordertown boss Mark Hentemann for steaks at Mastro’s— not the Newport Beach or Costa Mesa location, but the ultra-ritzy one in Beverly Hills. I hadn’t been to the steakhouse in a while because my expense account only covers Zingers and tacos.

But we had a great time, talking about the lack of Hollywood diversity; the Zika virus; and the hopes that our show, which airs Sundays at 7 p.m. on FOX, gets picked up for a second season.

What I wasn’t planning on was to drink— no, seriously. My Mastro’s trips usually just stick to digestifs to aid in the consumption of porterhouses and seafood towers, but I decided to crack open the cocktail menu and see how good the place’s booze game has become. Madone! A stellar, exciting roster that I could’ve gone W.C. Fields on—but I was driving, so I stuck to the Louis II.

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

DRINKOFTHEWEEK Louis II at Mastro’s

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WHITE SAUCE, GET IN MA BELLY

New York-By-the-LBC Halal Guys comes to Long Beach

LONGBEACHLUNCH » SARAH BENNETT

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he sound of metal on metal reverberating off the walls is deafening—thwack thwack thwack, thwack thwack thwack.

Two Halal Guys employees are chopping milky-white chicken thighs sizzling on the griddle, each holding two butcher knives.

It’s noon on a warm weekday in April, and they’re preparing for the lunchtime rush.

The place is steady but nowhere near full.

The arrival of Halal Guys’ first West Coast location in Costa Mesa last year inspired rabid lines of tweeting foodies for months afterward. The lines were so long and unending, in fact, you’d think you were on the corner of 53rd Street and 6th Avenue in New York City, where the cult-famous cart has been serving throngs of late-night fans since it was started as an anti-hot-dog stand by an Egyptian immigrant in 1990 (someone was stabbed for cutting the line in 2006).

But you’d never know how much Halal Guys disrupted the New York street food scene or what a big deal it is to have one in Southern California by walking into the Long Beach location, its second on the West Coast, which stands between a Chipotle and a Wing Stop a few blocks from Long Beach State. There is rarely a line more than a few deep, and the simple chicken-or-beef, platter-or-sandwich ordering system means to the uninitiated that Halal Guys might as well be any other cheap Middle Eastern-inspired joint trying to capitalize on the hungry, college masses. This is how good food should be, anyway—not a line to wait in or a Snapchat waiting to happen or a bragging right, but just another meal that’s a normal part of everyday life.

And Halal Guys is good—damn good.

The beef (started on the spit and finished on the grill) is lightly spiced and heavily addictive. The pitas (which manage to hold an explosive amount of fillings) are thick and pillowy. The sauces (a creamy herbed white mayo and a spicy hot sauce) are

SARAH BENNETT

applied liberally. The portions are always enough to take some home for a round two. I can see why it quickly expanded into a mini empire of metallic street carts across the city, competing against—and slaying—the famous steamed NYC hot dog.

And I can see why it was a prime candidate for franchising, which it did through the same company that caused the explosive growth of Qdoba and Five Guys.

The interior of the restaurant resembles a street cart gone room-size; a photo of the original cart and its infamous line sits on the wall. Costs are (surprisingly?) a little more than they would be if you were in Manhattan, but it’s a small price to pay for the luxury of eating at a pretty adept simulacrum of a New York institution in the middle of Southern California. In addition

to the classic platter and sandwich options, there are also some franchise-only additions: crispy falafel, silky hummus, crinklecut French fries and baklava for dessert.

The restaurant has signed a franchise deal that will bring 48 more Halal Guys to SoCal (10 of them in the next year), which is good news for the few obsessed foodies I caught driving from LA to pick up to-go orders at the Long Beach location.

But even after the planned locations in Koreatown, San Francisco, Las Vegas and the Philippines open and spawn their own unending lines, Long Beach’s Halal Guys might still be the chillest one around.

HALAL GUYS 1804 Ximeno Ave., Long Beach, (562) 9869038; halalornothing.com.

SPOIL MOM WITH A SPLENDID MEAL

makes it easy Let Mom relax, put her feet up, and enjoy a delicious brunch, lunch, or dinner at home. Skip the crowds and let Gelson’s cater the meal with one of our prepared classics from our top-rated Service Deli.

Of course, you can spoil Mom with homemade fare. Our aisles carry the freshest and finest seasonal ingredients, bursting with flavor. Remember, too, that Gelson’s carries a wide range of lovely gifts and cards as well as stunning fresh floral arrangements that will make Mom feel extra special.

Stop by your local Gelson’s or visit www.gelsons.com and you’ll be all set for a super Mother’s Day celebration.

Serving Suggestion

/ilovegelsons

@gelsonsmarkets

@gelsonsmarkets

/gelsonsmarkets

CATCH IT!

Wave of Support

PROVIDED BY NEWPORT BEACH FILM FESTIVAL

Dirty Old Wedge gets huge push from Newport Beach Film Fest

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exemplifies how much passion people have for that wave,” Burnham says.

Dirty Old Wedge should appeal to a wide audience beyond the 949 area code, from those who do not know about the surf break at the end of the Balboa Peninsula to those who have found themselves on the wrong end of a “locals only” enforcer’s fist.

Burnham takes us back to the 1930s, when the unique wave phenomenon was born, through to the beginnings of the “Wedge Crew,” an assemblage of eccentric, protective bodysurfers. The first-time director reveals how the Wedge has been covered by the media, how the innovation of bodyboards in the 1980s affected it, and how the birth of the blackball in the early 1990s sought to control “the beast.” He does not shy away from the deaths.

Leslie Feibleman, the longtime programmer of action-sports movies at the festival, says local surf films (such as Echo Beach and Living It Forever) have a history of selling out, even at the 600-seat Lido Theatre, which is not available until closing night because of remodeling.

“Although Dirty Old Wedge made its world premiere at a slightly smaller theater, it is on track to surpass all past localsurf-film sellouts,” she says. “Instagram

and other image-focused social-media platforms [along with drone cinematography] have not only increased the popularity of the iconic surf spot worldwide, but they have also been instrumental in the promotion of the surf films at the NBFF. Gotta love the hashtags.”

The next stop for his film is the fifth annual San Diego Surf Film Festival, which opens May 18. “We plan on continuing to submit to film festivals all over the country and world and hope to show the film in as many places as possible,” Burnham says. “We also teamed up with a fantastic distribution team, Something Kreative [Studios], and with their large network, we intend on getting the film in as many outlets as possible.”

As for that day job . . .

“I’ve always been really intrigued with storytelling and would love to keep doing this in some way in the future,” he says.

“I’ve thrown a few ideas around with the Hunt House Pictures guys, and we may get something going again in the not too distant future. We’ll wait and see how this whole Wedge thing pans out first though.”

MCOKER@OCWEEKLY.COM

Pre-order the Dirty Old Wedge DVD, which is to be released by the end of summer, at www.somethingkreative.com.

ocweekly.com | | OCWEEKLY.COM

there could be an entire movie made about it based on its culture, history and clique of bodysurfers. “I knew some of the Wedge ‘elders’ had quite a bit of old footage lying around and figured it would be something people would want to see,” Burnham says.

One problem: He was an environmental consultant with “zero” filmmaking experience. So, as did many entertainment impresarios before him, Burnham recruited the expertise, including that of his friends Jack Murgatroyd and Edwin Eversole of Hunt House Pictures in Santa Monica. “We got the ball rolling with a Kickstarter crowdfunding effort, and the rest is history,” Burnham says.

Continuing the storybook was the opportunity to have Dirty Old Wedge make its world premiere at the 2016 Newport Beach Film Festival.

“When we got the news that we were accepted, we were ecstatic,” Burnham says. “Premiering the film anywhere else wouldn’t have been right.”

Demand from festival-goers led to the action-sports entry rolling three more times before the run ended Thursday, April 28. “The Wedge is a staple in the Newport Beach community, and the fact that we’ve sold out three shows truly

A pri Ay X 05 , 014 20 16 MOlN29 TH- XMX–X , 2

s if propelled by a giant wall of water, Dirty Old Wedge got a huge push from the Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF), selling out three screenings before the eight-day cinextravaganza even opened on April 21.

More amazing is how the documentary on Newport Beach’s famous surf break came together. Tim Burnham, who is now 32, first started going down to the Wedge as a 12-year-old from Newps. “My mom wouldn’t let me go there, so she dropped me off at 40th Street with a couple of buddies, and we would make the trek down,” he remembers. “So rebellious.”

A graduate of Mater Dei High School and Cal State Long Beach, Burnham figures he has plied the Wedge waves consistently since 2000—and he has the battle scars to prove it. “Yes, I’ve definitely had my fair share of beatings,” he reports.

“One of the more severe ones was when I ended up in the hospital in 2013 after hitting my head and tweaking my neck pretty good. It hasn’t been the same since.”

Two years before that, his friends Keith Malloy and Mark Cunningham made a film called Come Hell or High Water that included a section on the Wedge.

The filmmakers mentioned to Burnham

BY MATT COKER

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film»special screenings

Chasing Sleep

BY MATT COKER SLEEP DEALER

COURTESY NEWPORT BEACH FILM FESTIVAL

Traficante de Sueños (Sleep Dealer).

Chatting up director Alex Rivera about his muy relevant Mexican-borderhopping freakout was a career high-

light. His 2008 sci-fi flick concludes the Languages Department’s International Film Festival. Santiago Canyon College, Building D, Room 101, 8045 E. Chapman

THE FILM THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO SEE “I think the movie is something people should see.”

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Ave., Orange, (714) 628-4938; www. sccollege.edu/internationalfilmfestival.

Fri., 6 p.m. Free.

Senior Thesis Film Screenings.

The lineup includes Follow Me, Mom, Untitled No-Apocalypse Script and Very Funny. Chapman’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, Folino Theater, 283 N. Cypress St., Orange; www. chapman.edu/dodge. Fri., 7 p.m. Free.

Shark Exorcist. B-movie maestro Donald Farmer’s movie that sticks Satan into the body of a great white shark A Film by Randall Wright

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is presented in “MuVChat,” in which audience members watch and riff wise via texts. The Frida Cinema, 305 E. Fourth St., Santa Ana; thefridacinema. org. Fri., 11 p.m. $8-$10.

Ingrid Bergman In Her Own Words.

Learn how a young Swedish girl rose to become a Hollywood icon. Art Theatre, 2025 E. Fourth St., Long Beach, (562) 438-5435; www.arttheatrelongbeach. com. Sat.-Sun., 11 a.m. $8-$11.

The Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare At 400 presents director David Richards’ hilarious 2005 adaptation, with Shirley Henderson as said shrew.

The Frida Cinema; thefridacinema.org.

Sat., 1:30 p.m. Free.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Midnight Insanity strips down on Lingerie Night. Art Theatre; www. longbeachrockyhorror.com. Sat., 11:55 p.m. $8-$11.

Bolshoi Ballet: Don Quixote. Seeing it live on the big screen is the next best thing to being there. Regency Director’s Cut Cinema, 25471 Rancho Niguel Rd., Laguna Niguel, (949) 831-0446. Sun.,

12:55 p.m.; Tues., 7 p.m. $8.75-$11.50.

Peace Officer. Documentary about a former sheriff who established Utah’s first SWAT team 30 years ago and is now probing the unit’s controversial killing of his son-in-law and other police shootings as a private investigator. Carpenter Performing Arts Center, 6200 Atherton St., Long Beach, (562) 985-7000; www.carpenterarts. org. Tues., 7 p.m. Free.

High Noon. Gary Cooper is at his stoic best as a marshal facing a returning baddie without the town’s help in Fred Zinnemann’s 1952 potboiler. Regency South Coast Village, 1561 W. Sunflower Ave., Santa Ana, (714) 557-5701.

Wed., 7:30 p.m. $8.

Time Chasers. For RiffTrax’s 10th anniversary, MST3K’s Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett skewer the sci-fi “classic” in which a man time travels with the help of an airplane and his beloved Commodore 64. Various Orange County theaters; www. rifftrax.com. Thurs., May 5, 8 p.m.; also May 17. $10.50-$15.

MCOKER@OCWEEKLY.COM

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He’s Gross, But He Still Gets Girls

» AIMEE MURILLO

Maverick Theater’s staging of the cult film Toxic Avenger hits the right, goofy spots

BY JOEL BEERS

F

“IF YOU LIKE THESE LUMPS . . .”

MAVERICK THEATER

tiple roles, as well as the strangest duet you’ve ever witnessed courtesy of Lane), but there are times when you can feel particularly onerous changes happening, and that saps some of the energy out of a show that demands it the entire time.

Munoz is also difficult to hear at times; then again, he is forced to perform while wearing a burdensome and bizarre mask, created by producer Brian Newell. And the five-piece live band, while highly proficient, compounds that difficulty, especially if you’re sitting right beneath it. But the chutzpah of the five-member cast and its total commitment to a deliriously cheesy show evens out those rough patches. This is a total team effort, from the actors and the band to the unseen dressers (Chris Jones and Rob Downs).

Anyone who doesn’t think that theater demands a huge amount of hard work probably doesn’t know that Bon Jovi even had a keyboard player.

THE TOXIC AVENGER at Maverick Theater, 110 E. Walnut Ave., Fullerton, (714) 526-7070; www. mavericktheater.com. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 6 p.m. Through May 7. $15-$28.

aving recently settled into the new Weekly World Headquarters, I’ve run into a dilemma that many career women face: finding clothes to wear that are professional, comfortable and suitable for everyday, all-day use—but also versatile for whatever style I want to present on a given day. Leggings aren’t appropriate, and as a gal who stands slightly taller than 5 feet, there’s no way I’m wearing a pantsuit. Aella Clothing exists to lean in and show ladies the middle ground between casual and polished attire to compliment every silhouette. Its clothing line falls into the “athleisure” category, producing garments fit for the gym and the office, yet Aella’s multiblend materials are imported from Italy and long-lasting without requiring the care of a dry cleaner.

“These days, women are more empowered than ever—and busy as hell—so these clothes are meant to make women’s lives easier,” says Aella co-founder Ariyana Smith Hernandez.

She and fellow OC native Eunice Cho decided to start Aella after Cho’s experiences working her first professional job in New York. While Cho liked being a visual merchandiser, she hated having to wear bulky, ill-fitting, expensive pantsuits. She later went to business school at UCLA and decided to patent her own clothing line, focusing on pants that supported the female form. She designed a series of sustainably produced trousers that contour to the body with a comfort waist band, flattering women of any age in any setting— and on behalf of modern working women everywhere, that’s music to our ears.

According to Cho, Aella’s most popular item is the Ankle Skinny pant, with its sleek, sophisticated look and support. But there are other great separates, including the duster with a detachable bottom, which is a classy alternative to the common cardigan. Cho intends to design short-sleeved blazers and even traditional suits in the future. You can browse Aella’s current styles at www.aella.co, but you’ll soon be able to find the collection at South Coast Plaza’s Bloomingdales store—if I don’t get to them first.

AMURILLO@OCWEEKLY.COM

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is transformed into the Toxic Avenger, a grotesque freak with super-strength.

But he has two weaknesses: common household bleach and Sarah (a radiant Tara Pitt), a beautiful blind librarian.

The rest of the show consists of Toxy, Sarah’s name for the exotic French lover she thinks she has fallen for, attempting to keep Sarah from touching his face and realizing what he truly is, as well as his battle to expose the corruption at the stinking center of Tromaville.

Firmly entrenched in the world of antimusicals such as Urinetown, shows that are intentionally goofy and poke fun at the conventions of musical theater as they awkwardly embrace them, Toxic Avenger is a lot of fun, even if it sometimes feels rougher around the edges than it’s supposed to be. One of the conventions it hugs and chokes is that of quick-change artistry (characters bolting offstage, then suddenly reappearing as someone else). This is a very difficult thing to pull off, as it requires costume changes in a matter of seconds and frantic work by backstage crew members. For the most part, this production pulls it off (kudos to Korey Gene Mitchell and Steven Joseph Alcantar for their mul-

H

A pri l 29 Ay 05 , 20 16 M ON TH- XMX–X X , 2014

ew people in attendance that Sunday night at the Maverick Theater in Fullerton had been in the space before. But nearly all of them raised their hands or roared in the affirmative when the pre-show greeter asked them if they were familiar with the source of the play they were about to watch.

So, you had a theater filled to near capacity with a bunch of people, most of whom looked younger than 30, seeing a play in a space they’d never been in before, willing to wager their very existence by venturing to the other side of the train tracks in downtown Fullerton (the side where the bars ain’t located) to do so. And what towering achievement of American letters were they there to see? What urgent, compelling force tore them from their abodes on the night Game of Thrones premiered its sixth season?

Bon Jovi’s keyboardist.

Well, not exactly. In fact, most of those in attendance probably had no idea that David Bryan wrote the music and lyrics for the musical they were seeing. But he did. What they did know is that The Toxic Avenger is a musical adaptation of the low-budget 1984 film that didn’t make a dent at the box office but turned into a cult sensation after a long midnight run at a New York movie house and the proliferation of cable TV channels and VCRs. And lots and lots of people smoking pot while watching it.

This is the first time the show, written

by Bryan and Joe DiPietro, has been staged in Southern California, according to the Maverick. Though first produced in 2008, the intentionally silly musical (which actually contains an almost-sweet message of love conquering all, as well as some predictable armchair-liberal global-warming propaganda) of an intentionally bad film, allows for ample updating, so there are a slew of references in this Anthony Gallerandirected production to targets such as Donald Trump and Twitter.

But the bulk of the show centers on the same Melvin Ferd the Third (Enrique Munoz Jr.), a nerdy janitor and aspiring environmentalist living in the town of Tromaville, basically a toxic-waste dump off the New Jersey Turnpike. Melvin wants to uncover the truth behind the company dumping barrels of toxic waste (impressively arranged onstage by set designer Erik Furuheim), but he runs afoul of dastardly mayor Babs Belgoody (Dahna Lane) and a couple of her goons.

Melvin takes an unintentional dip into a huge vat of the radioactive poison and

Smart Clothes for Busy Women

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music»artists|sounds|shows CAN ALSO DUNK A MEAN BASKETBALL

The Power of Prince

I

recently had a moment in front of my computer that I didn’t wanna have. Prince’s death became real in the way that no blog headline, tweet or update could possibly make it. Real in a way I couldn’t conveniently avoid.

Maybe it’s self-centered to relate a pop icon’s death to a moment in my own life, but I guess right now that’s what we’re all doing, at least privately. I have a lot of those moments when it comes to Prince, as many of us do.

Sitting at the dinner table at our pad for weekend 2 of Coachella, which was besieged by music journalists, I clicked on one of the few live clips of Prince you can still find on YouTube. It was his performance of Radiohead’s “Creep” at Coachella 2008. I watched footage of His Purple Majesty in a white dashiki with glittery gold trim throwing a guitar over his tiny shoulder and plucking the first few notes of the tune to a rolling sea of fans. I felt like smiling and tearing up at the same time, the way that looking back on the most amazing memories of your life can feel like a grenade to the gut.

This year, I’m celebrating my 10th consecutive year at Coachella. It’s not a huge, earth-shattering deal. But it’s one that at least moves the needle in my world.

The festival has been a constant in my life since before I could legally drink a beer. But without Prince, this anniversary wouldn’t have happened this year.

In 2008, I was a 22-year-old senior at Cal State Fullerton. Like a lot of college students, I was broke pretty much all the time. And though I’d experienced two years of Coachella in 2006 and 2007, that year seemed like a bum one to me. Blame my immature tastes. Blame it on my lack of greenbacks or too few hip-hop acts and

CHRISTOPHER VICTORIO

How Prince inspired me to try sneaking into Coachella

BY NATE JACKSON

too much Jack Johnson on the bill. It felt economically justified for me to save my money for something more grown-up, such as paying a bill, rent or car repairs.

Though we’d gone together the previous year and had a blast, my best friend Art and I were ready to let Coachella 2008 grudgingly pass us by. Then, as if by some act of divine intervention, Prince was announced as a late addition to the Saturday night lineup. It’s not really in my best interest to admit this, but I screamed like a schoolboy bitch the minute I saw the news flash on my computer. Right away, I called Art, a fellow Prince fan, on my old-school 2004 Nokia cell phone.

Without much of a conversation, it was decided we had to go to Coachella to see the Purple One. The catch: We’d have to drive three hours to the festival without tickets and find a way in.

To this day, I credit Prince for getting Art and I in the car that sweltering afternoon. For giving us the hope that a foolhardy attempt could somehow magically work out. To a couple of naive college kids, anything was possible.

Three hours later on that Saturday, we were parting the dust in the dry, suncracked maze of the general-admission parking lot of Coachella after blasting Prince on the stereo of my toastershaped, maroon Scion XB the whole ride there. We parked and walked along the perimeter of the festival’s gated barricades, looking about as suspicious as two 22-year-olds trying to sneak into a festival possibly could. Sweat dripped down my face as I tried to not get phased by every siren or festival cop who trudged past us.

The goal was to find a chink in Coach-

ella’s armor and slip in before dark. But the closest soft spot we got was looking over a horse stable about a mile away from the polo field. As each hour passed, the festival booming from over the rows of swaying palm trees, a reverse Shawshank Redemption didn’t seem to be in the cards for a couple of law-abiding amateurs. We’d walked about 3 miles in the desert sun, only to finally break down and walk back to the will-call booth with our life’s savings (we’d each scraped together $100).

It turned out that this should’ve been our option four hours before. The willcall booth had just released a few hundred tickets, and we got us ours for exactly $100 each.

As the will-call worker handed me my ticket, not even the total depletion of my bank account could deflate my excitement. Paying to see Prince was a privilege in and of itself, a small price to ensure that at least this last two hours of the festival would be meaningful enough for me to say I was actually there.

Prince walked onstage with a coy smile and his hand over his mouth, and he surveyed rows of joyous, sunburned faces.

From the start, Prince’s show was the stuff of legend.

Looking back at the video, I don’t just remember “Creep,” though it was an amazing moment in the set. I remember watching Prince bring out Morris Day during the beginning of his show, and the pimpish, smooth-talking foil with impeccable dance moves churned out classics such as “The Bird” and “Jungle Love” to get the crowd going. The goddess Sheila E. took the spotlight on “The Glamorous Life.” I remember the costume changes.

I remember puffing on a joint during

“1999” and hearing the crowd shout all the words to “Little Red Corvette.” Above all, I remember Prince captivating the entire polo field with the proclamation of his presence: “Coachella! I am here!” To this day, I think he’s the only headliner I’ve seen who could get away with saying that in a way that only made him seem even cooler.

But during “Creep,” the party paused for a brief moment and became something spiritual as Prince decimated the chords of the song, melted its structure with incredible solos and howled, “What the hell am I doing here?!” at the moon as if something from the great beyond might actually answer him back. The cheers of tens of thousands of adoring fans that night hopefully gave him the answer he was looking for.

There are times during the past 10 years when I still think about that set and Prince’s influence on the music world; I’m always finding myself remembering the ways his music brought out a true spirit in me that has remained unbroken, fearless and willing to rise to any occasion, even the idea of sneaking into Coachella. Yeah, it was a dumb idea, even back then. But I also knew that no matter what, I wasn’t leaving until “Purple Rain” washed over me in the desert.

I learned a lot that day. I learned that sometimes the money doesn’t matter, nor do the extra time and effort or the pain and suffering. At the end of the day, when the odds are against you, it’s the mission that matters. And if it took all of that extra bullshit my friend and I endured to see Prince at Coachella to learn that lesson, then no matter what we gave up to get there, we still came out ahead.

NJACKSON@OCWEEKLY.COM

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music» IS THAT RYAN GOSLING ON THE LEFT?

PHOTO COURTESY OF PAINTED WIVES

Beginning At the End

Painted Wives get a fresh start with new label, old album

BY KIM CONLAN

I

f you’re already in the know about Painted Wives, then you’re familiar with Obsessed With the End, which was already released locally by the band in DIY fashion in 2014. But the band’s new contract with major metal label Century Media allows them to breach their Southern California bubble by releasing an official version of that fulllength album countrywide. “[The label] put their hands on it and brought out all the coolest stuff about it, I think,” says bassist Justin Morales. “So that’s what we’re releasing on April 30—an album that we had already made on our own that’s been remixed since, and we’re officially releasing it under Century Media.”

Painted Wives played their first show at the late Detroit Bar in 2010. Following a win in the Orange County Music Awards’ Best Live Band competition in 2012, they played a few stints on the California portion of Warped Tour. Though the group still didn’t quite fit into Orange County’s music scene, they gained fans and kept refining their sound.

When they were finally about to record their first full-length, they encountered some major setbacks. While biking in downtown Huntington Beach one night, drummer Derek Eglit crashed and broke his arm. Around the same time, Morales decided to quit and begin a career in music production for film and television.

Lead singer and guitarist Justin Suitor decided to have oral surgery on his jaw.

With the mound of issues, it looked like a hiatus was inevitable, that Painted Wives might fold and the album might never come together.

But after a few months of healing, and with their OCMA prize of recording time

in the Red Bull Studios, the ensemble— Suitor, Eglit and Morales, plus rhythm guitarist Jeff Lyman and artist/lyricist Ryan Williams—surged forward. What wasn’t recorded at Red Bull was finished up at Sound Asylum in Santa Ana. A handful of the tracks were sent to Red Room Recording in Seattle and mixed by engineer Matt Bayles, who has worked with the likes of Mastodon, Minus the Bear, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. When Obsessed With the End was published, the product belonged solely to Painted Wives. Morales explains that the rerelease is almost like new. “The album that we’re releasing was bought by the label and remixed by a guy called Machine in Austin, Texas,” he says. “We all liked how the album was before as well, but it’s different now. It’s a little brighter and a little more driving. Before, it was kind of a wall-of-sound thing.”

With the help of Century Media, the Painted Wives will be spreading their music to continental and international audiences. They will tour in support of Italian metal band Lacuna Coil in May and June for almost 25 U.S. dates. They’re also busy writing their sophomore album, which is set to be recorded in the fall.

“We’re kind of notoriously always writing,” Morales says. “Luckily, we have a good team at Century Media, and they have assembled the right people to help us garner all that so we can focus on the music.”

PAINTED WIVES perform with Aeges, Them Evils and Dark Ale at the Constellation Room at the Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; constellationroom.com.

Sat., 9 p.m. $10. All ages.

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ALISON YARDLEY

Free-Spirit Folk

C

alling Caitlin Lucia a free spirit is an understatement. The 20-year-old singer/ songwriter, who turned down an opportunity to attend the London School of Business and Finance to instead pursue a career in music, went on a solo mini-tour that took her up and down the coast of California in February. The Santa Ana resident took pride in booking the dates herself and traveling alone, saying the experience was liberating, leading her into new cities and serving as inspiration.

“There was a moment on the tour when I was in San Francisco—it was, like, 3 a.m., and it was pouring rain on me—and I just took a moment and was so thankful,” she says. “There I was, on this tour I booked myself, playing shows, and on top of all of that, I was making money. I couldn’t believe it. I had this overwhelming feeling like, ‘This is it; this is the beginning.’”

The rain-soaked epiphany may have been confirmation of a new beginning, but she’d arguably already made a name for herself over the past two years. Lucia appeared on The Voice in 2014, and despite missing out on an infamous chair turn, she continued playing local one-off shows. Though she notes that the experience on The Voice was beneficial and fun, she decided to swear off reality singing competitions.

However, when the producers for the last season of American Idol contacted her, she felt as though she couldn’t pass on it. “I was really lucky to have the chance to be on both shows, especially since this is American Idol ’s last season ,” says Lucia, who made it through Hollywood week before being sent home. “That being said, at this point, I’m over reality TV. I’m trying to focus on the music I love and be my own person.”

LOCALSONLY » HEIDI DARBY

The young singer is currently on a path of self-discovery, and it’s working in her favor.

She penned several songs before going on tour, and upon her return, she was motivated to get into the studio with her backing band, the Daisy Train—guitarist Anthony Grisham, bassist Cameron Lew and drummer Eric Bumb. The sophomore EP, Us, was laid down in less than a week and shows a step forward, offering a sharper sound with a wider vocal range. Lucia’s heartsick lyrics are relatable and, at times, playful, and the addition of a harmonica adds a new layer of emotion to her sound. The Daisy Train give the music a more solid foundation and round out her folky, twang-infused style.

And while her free-spirited muse has led her up and down the coast and onto multiple television shows, she says she’s focused on her goal of being able to support herself as an artist.

“You choose your path in life; you choose to be happy,” Lucia says. “I just want to see where this road takes me, and I’m certain it’s one of the best experiences I’ll ever have in my life. If you want something bad enough, you’ll do what it takes to make it happen.”

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.

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concert guide» THIS WEEK

Lab, 4000 Mesa Rd., Irvine.

FRIDAY, APRIL 29

DEANA CARTER: 8 p.m., $25. The Coach House,

33157 Camino Capistrano, Ste. C, San Juan Capistrano, (949) 496-8930; thecoachhouse.com.

FLATBUSH ZOMBIES: 8 p.m., $25-$100. The Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; observatoryoc.com.

GUS SVERKOS: 9 p.m., free. The Pike Bar & Fish Grill, 1836 E. Fourth St., Long Beach, (562) 437-4453; pikelongbeach.com.

PEPPER: 8 p.m., $30. Alex’s Bar, 2913 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, (562) 434-8292; alexsbar.com.

PHYSICAL GRAFFITI: 8 p.m. xPL Experimental Media

at the Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; constellationroom.com.

SEGA GENECIDE: 10 p.m. La Cave, 1695 Irvine Ave., Costa Mesa, (949) 646-7944; lacaverestaurant.com.

SATURDAY, APRIL 30

BIG SANDY: 7:30 p.m. Don the Beachcomber, 16278

Pacific Coast Hwy., Huntington Beach, (562) 592-1321; donthebeachcomber.com.

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

HIT THE LIGHTS: 6:30 p.m., $14-$16. Chain Reaction, 1652 W. Lincoln Ave., Anaheim, (714) 635-6067; allages.com.

IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE: 8 p.m., $30. The

Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; observatoryoc.com.

MICK ADAMS & THE STONES: 8 p.m., $15. The Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, Ste. C, San Juan Capistrano, (949) 496-8930; thecoachhouse.com.

Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; constellationroom.com.

SLEEP EXPERIMENT: 8 p.m., free. Max Bloom’s Cafe Noir, 220 N. Malden Ave., Fullerton, (714) 871-2600; maxbloomscafenoir.com.

VERY BE CAREFUL: 8 p.m., $8-$10. Alex’s Bar, 2913 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, (562) 434-8292; alexsbar.com.

SUNDAY, MAY 1

MONDAY, MAY 2

PAINTED WIVES, AEGES, THEM EVILS, AND DARK ALE: 9 p.m., $10. Constellation Room at the

DALE WATSON & HIS LONE STARS: 7:30 p.m.,

| | | | | | ON29 TH -XMAy X–X X05 , 2014 ApMril , 201 6 OCWEEKLY.COM | | ocweekly.com

1 36

STAR TREK 50TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT:

7:30 p.m., $59. Segerstrom Hall, 600 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa, (714) 556-2787; scfta.org.

TUESDAY, MAY 3

MC MAGIC & BABY BASH: 8 p.m. The Observatory,

THIS SAT APR 30

THIS FRI APR 29

3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; observatoryoc.com.

NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC: 8 p.m., $50. Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 615 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa, (714) 556-2787; scfta.org.

YUJA WANG: 8 p.m., $39-$49. Soka University, 1 University Dr., Aliso Viejo, (949) 480-4000; soka.edu.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4

LUPITA D’ALESSIO

MAY 7

LUDACRIS

MAY 14

CAMILA

$20-$40. Don the Beachcomber, 16278 Pacific Coast Hwy., Huntington Beach, (562) 592-1321; donthebeachcomber.com.

SAM BEAM & JESCA HOOP: 7 p.m., free.

Fingerprints, 420 E. Fourth St., Long Beach, (562) 4334996; fingerprintsmusic.com.

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Observatory, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, (714) 957-0600; constellationroom.com.

THE CLASSIC CRIME: 6:30 p.m., $17-$20. Chain Reaction, 1652 W. Lincoln Ave., Anaheim, (714) 635-6067; allages.com.

DIRTYPHONICS: 9:30 p.m., $15-$30. Yost Theater, 307 N. Spurgeon St., Santa Ana. EMISUNSHINE: 7:30 p.m., $20-$40. Don the Beachcomber, 16278 Pacific Coast Hwy., Huntington Beach, (562) 592-1321; donthebeachcomber.com.

MAY THE FUNK BE WITH YOU: 8 p.m., $10. The Federal Bar, 102 Pine Ave., Long Beach, (562) 435-2000; thefederalbar.com.

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

QUIET LIFE: 9 p.m., $10. The Wayfarer, 843 W. 19th St., Costa Mesa, (949) 764-0039; wayfarercm.com.

THE SITHFITS: 3 p.m., free. Alex’s Bar, 2913 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, (562) 434-8292; alexsbar.com.

THURSDAY, MAY 5

ANAMANAGUCHI: 8:30 p.m., $15-$18. The Glass

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ANDERSONPONTY BAND: 8 p.m., $40-$50. City

National Grove of Anaheim, 2200 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim, (714) 712-2750; citynationalgroveofanaheim.com.

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

DEAD MEADOW: 8 p.m., $8-$10. Alex’s Bar, 2913 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, (562) 434-8292; alexsbar.com.

RIO AND THE FURS: 7 p.m., $15. House of Blues, 1530 S. Disneyland Dr., Anaheim, (714) 778-2583; hob.com/anaheim.

THE SMITHEREENS: 7 p.m., $28. The Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, Ste. C, San Juan Capistrano, (949) 496-8930; thecoachhouse.com.

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RUN RIVER NORTH: 9 p.m., $15. Constellation Room

4/25/16 9:57 AM

House, 200 W. Second St., Pomona, (909) 865-3802; theglasshouse.us.

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

CHRIS BROWN: 8 p.m., $20-$40. Sutra, 1870 Harbor Blvd., Ste. 200, Costa Mesa, (949) 722-7103; sutraoc.com.

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

ELI YOUNG BAND: 7 p.m., $25-$45. House of Blues, 1530 S. Disneyland Dr., Anaheim, (714) 778-2583; hob.com/anaheim.

PARTY THEIVES: 9:30 p.m., $15. Yost Theater, 307 N. Spurgeon St., Santa Ana. SALVAJES: 8 p.m., free. DTSA Underground, 220 E. Third St., Santa Ana. SANTOROS: 9 p.m., $8-$10. The Wayfarer, 843 W. 19th St., Costa Mesa, (949) 764-0039; wayfarercm.com.

SECRET SHOW: 8 p.m., $35. Alex’s Bar, 2913 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, (562) 434-8292; alexsbar.com.

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

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The OneNight Stand I am a trans man, and I have no love life. But I did just hook up with a friend two nights ago.

It was the first time I’ve had sex in more than a year. My problem is that it was a one-time thing; I was hoping to be FWB at least. I’m furious with myself for giving that away for what amounted to a hookup and thoroughly sorry for myself for it being a one-time thing because it nearly always is. I feel thoroughly unlovable and dejected right now. I was raised a Boston Irish Catholic, and I have PTSD from my parents being difficult. In a backward way, I hope the issue for others is tied to the fallout from my upbringing—because that’s something everyone has problems with, and those things, while not entirely fixable, are manageable and not so visible. I worry it’s not that, though.

I worry my being trans is the first problem a potential partner sees. I am a man with a twat—a forlorn, underused twat at that.

Not Often Picked, Everyone Not Interested Sexually

And here’s the punch line: I found her fiancé’s profile on Fetlife, and he has some hardcore fetishes—even by my standards! I’m sure his kinks are going unexplored within their relationship/ engagement and that they will go unexplored once they’re married, as my friend has been horrified during discussions of my attendance at BDSM events. I know your rule is generally to “stay the fuck out of it,” but I have a rule that goes like this: “I would like to know that the person I’m dating is a serial cheater who’s probably after me for my money.” So do I warn the guy?

Fucked Regarding Imperiling Ensuing Nuptials, Dan Mind your own business, FRIEND, and do so with a clear conscience—because these two sound perfect for each other. He’s on Fetlife looking for someone to diaper him, and she’s probably cheating on him already.

If your friend is still a dishonest, lying, heartbreaking cheat—if she’s still making monogamous commitments she cannot keep—why stop her from marrying a man who is already cheating on her or is likely to cheat on her shortly after the wedding? To gently paraphrase William Shakespeare: “Let thee not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.”

Watching these two walk down the aisle will be like watching two drunk drivers speed around a closed racetrack. Maybe they’ll crash; maybe they won’t.

Maybe they’ll die in a fire; maybe they’ll get out alive.

But so long as no one else is gonna get hurt, why risk your own neck trying to pull these fuckers over?

My father is a friendly, kind, all-around good guy.

We get along well and always have. But I now have to avoid all political discussions with him. He was always a bit socially conservative, but now he gets a lot of batshit crazy and simply dumb ideas from the scourge of our nation today: FOX News.

How can we stop the dumbing down of our society

by FOX News, Dan? We have to do something about this malady!

Anonymous “Anonymous is right—FOX News is a malady, one that I’ve often joked is worse than Ebola,” said documentary filmmaker Jen Senko. “It destroys families and has torn apart the country. That’s pretty powerful.”

Here’s what Senko did about it: She made The Brainwashing of My Dad, a terrific documentary exploring how FOX News and other right-wing media turned her mild-mannered, nonpolitical father into a ranting, raving, right-wing fanatic.

“We need to stigmatize ‘Faux News,’” said Senko.

“I make it a point when I walk into a restaurant or some other public place and they have on Faux News of politely asking them to turn it off. I write to news outlets when they try to emulate FOX and complain.”

But how do you get your own dad to turn off FOX News?

“Speaking to loved ones is important, but it’s difficult,” said Senko. “You have to approach them in a calm way, starting the conversation on neutral ground.

Sometimes just getting them out of the house and away from the TV helps. There is a group called Hear Yourself Think (hearyourselfthink.org) that focuses on deprogramming FOX News viewers. You will find plenty of advice there. But if you can sit down with your loved one and tell them you are concerned about their anger and their worry and you feel that FOX News is helping to generate that, it can be a conversation opener. You can also get them to try to watch our movie!”

Go to thebrainwashingofmydad.com and watch the trailer to learn more about Senko’s terrific film.

And you can—and you should—follow Senko on Twitter: @Jen_Senko.

On the Lovecast, a cavalcade of sex-toy questions: savagelovecast.com. Contact Dan via mail@savagelove.net, and follow him on Twitter: @fakedansavage.

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I have a friend who is getting married. She has cheated on every guy she’s been with, including her past three husbands. This will be her fourth marriage. I’m sure she’s fed the new guy a million reasons why her first three marriages didn’t work out. She’s obviously a sex fiend, but she’s not kinky.

» DAN SAVAGE

A pri l 29 - M Ay 05 , 20 16

Buck Angel is a public speaker, a filmmaker, an activist and a trans man, NOPENIS, who famously and fearlessly bills himself as “the man with a pussy.” I passed your letter on to him because who better to answer a question from a man with a twat than the man with a pussy?

“Anyone who hasn’t had sex in more than a year is going to find it scary to get back out there and start again,” said Buck. “And starting again with a body that you might not be 100 percent comfortable with yet? That’s even scarier. The first thing that NOPENIS needs to hear—and really believe—is that he is lovable. And he is, even if he doesn’t know it yet.”

The second order of business: You gotta stop beating yourself up over that one-night stand. Take it from Buck, your fellow trans man, and take it from me, your fellow Irish Catholic queer: You didn’t do anything wrong; you didn’t give anything away—hell, you were doing something right.

“Hookups can be important for understanding your body sexually,” said Buck. “So NOPENIS shouldn’t be mad at himself. We learn and grow from our experiences, even if they’re bad ones. And here’s what I learned from my first experiences in the gay men’s world of sex: Hookups are the way it’s done. I was not prepared for that because I’d had sex only with women before my transition. That was hard for me, too, at first. But what I learned was that I wasn’t being rejected, even if it was only a one-night thing. I was being accepted in a way I wasn’t used to.”

Finally, NOPENIS, you’ve got to stop seeing your body and your twat as problems. It’s the only body you’ll ever have, and it’s a body some will find attractive and some won’t. Some guys will be attracted to your body (and you, ideally) for its differences—not attracted to your body (ditto) despite its differences.

“NOPENIS absolutely shouldn’t count himself out just because he’s trans,” said Buck. “The world is different now, and many people are attracted to trans men sexually. He just needs to learn to love himself and to have sexual confidence because people find that attractive. And he should continue to experiment and continue to embrace new experiences!”

For more Buck, go to buckangel.com. And you can— and should—follow Buck on Twitter: @BuckAngel.

SAVAGELOVE

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| contents

915 Adult Massage

47

| | contents county

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

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| ocweekly.com |

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notices

Education

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2 9 - M Ay 0 5, 20 16

Behavioral Research Specialists, LLC

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|

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

421 Used Auto

health

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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 RedBANDILIER Hill Avenue, CIR, Suite FOUNTAIN 150 | Costa Mesa, CA 92626 | 714.550.5940 | free online ads & photos at oc.backpage.com 18475 VALLEY, CA 92708 | 714.550.5947 | OCWEEKLY.COM

STOREFRONT Organic House Collective: 7G for $50 - All Private Reserve | 6G 8th & FREE 0.5 G J-Rocks - FTP | 9840 Garden Grove Blvd. Garden Grove, Ca | 714-770-7529

| contents

o classifieds

SAFE ACCESS DIRECTORY

49

1 ST LICENSED MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY IN ORANGE COUNTY

SCSA

SOUTH COAST SAFE ACCESS

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