Tag: local

Sociopathic Soccer Moms Kill 3

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1237890.php

1. Drunk driving mom in her big fast Lexus passes on the right at 90, hits guardrail, kills her 6 year old son by hitting it so hard that the seatbelt is ripped out of the car and he’s ejected.

2. Hapless hamburglars running from botched auto theft get run over on freeway. Woman calls cops from a bar some time later to say that there was clothing and human remains stuck to the bottom of her minivan and she “may have been involved in an accident” earlier.

I’m not including the other news story about the woman whose tire blew up and her 12 year old kid was ejected due to no seat belt, even though three other occupants of that car had no seatbelt either, because for all I know she could have been yelling at them to buckle up when it happened.

Costa Mesa History X

Allan Mansoor is Costa Mesa’s David Duke, their Jorg Haider. He’s a smooth, well-groomed, and unctuously multisyllabic racist. He presents his anti-Mexican program as a combination of respect for law and preservation of the city’s prosperity.

Behind every smiling frontman like Mansoor, though, there’s an oaf with a club. In this case it’s Martin H. Millard, a Neo-Nazi white supremacist of the familiar type: paranoid, ignorant, obsessed with racial purity, and self-published. He’s a nut, and a dangerous one.

And behind Millard is an even scarier group: violent white supremacist gangs, who mix racial violence in with their drug deals and auto theft. Guys like the one who beat up a black guy in a wheelchair outside a Circle K last month for no particular reason.

Millard and Allan are good buddies, and the same goes for Minuteman Jim Gilchrist. Mansoor turns a blind eye to Millard’s race-mix paranoia and Gilchrist’s illegal vigilantes, and they all pretend to be law-abiding citizens and deplore street crime, which is of course an “immigrant” problem.

Costa Mesans, do not be fooled. Mansoor’s buddies aren’t just making you cringe with their crackpot racist screeds. They’re also hotwiring your car, selling speed to your kid, and doing drive-by shootings. Costa Mesa is a practical capitalist town for small businessmen. Whatever else you guys need from your city government, you need the rule of law, not a lawless ideology.

Dump your mayor. He’s no friend to anyone but pathetic Nazi losers and their thug crew.

The new chain restaurant is here! The new chain restaurant is here!

The huge restaurant chain that owns Outback, Fleming’s, and various other Tchotchke’s/Flingers type places has brought their expensive seafood joint here, “”Blue Coral.” Best quote from the Register article is:

That was evident Tuesday night, as diners such as Stafford – clad in khaki shorts, an Oxford shirt and a Crevier BMW cap – admired Blue Coral’s high-back booth seats, iridescent-blue mosaic tiles and teak floors. The Fleming’s regular said he plans to cruise among Roy’s, Fleming’s and Blue Coral on a weekly basis.

“This is what Newport Beach is all about,” Stafford said.

Um. No. Newport beach is all about the Crab Cooker, the Villa Nova, Dad’s Donuts, the Blue Beet, and Original Pizza. Among others. There’s an actual town here and we don’t need any more chain restaurants for the guys in polo shirts and pressed khaki shorts and pressed executive hair.

I bet he has a Duffy electric boat, too. Snark. 😀

The full article is interesting, especially in the detail that America’s shitty chain restaurants are getting their profits ground to bits by high energy costs.

Welcome back to the human race

I’m warming up to Ruba. There’s no where else to go that late, so this is a good thing. This evening’s entertainment included some personal history about being a Marine and a felon simultaneously and how that worked out, someone’s idiotic $500 plastic sunglasses, and a guy named Bilbo who wore too much fringed stuff and a mullet.

Now here’s the good news: Panera’s putting in a location on 17th, apparently in the former Rite-Aid. Hurray for the imminent arrival of good free wifi, lots of power plugs, decent coffee, and food.

I was listening to “Sultans of Swing” on the radio in my car and realizing that what I like about that song is the bassline, although it’s supposed to be a Guitar Asshole Song.

Finally, the National Weather Service agrees that our weather has been all fucked-up:

The heat that scorched Southern California this past weekend was not only record breaking…but largely unprecedented in recorded history. Strong high pressure centered over the southwest United States sent easterly flow and strong sinking and compressing motion into Southern California that maximized the heating. Monsoon moisture also contributed to the heat by keeping the minimum temperatures up…and numerous daily high minimum temperature records were also broken for much of the last week.

Several high temperature records on Saturday were the all-time highest for the entire period of record (see details below). This is particularly remarkable in Escondido since the record dates back to 1900. At San Diego Lindbergh Field the temperature peaked at 99 degrees…becoming the hottest day since September 25 1989…which is still the last 100-degree day on record.

Also remarkable for areas near the coast was the time of year for this extreme heat since several daily records were not just broken…but shattered (by 16 degrees in Escondido!). normally onshore flow with a marine air presence dominates the weather near the coast at this time of year…so record high temperatures are not as high as they are during the late Summer and early fall…when Santa Ana conditions are usually the cause of high temperature records and are more likely to occur.

I can’t talk to her. She’s against shit she can’t even pronounce.

The Midnight Van

After last night’s fun, I went to bed at 6 am and slept until 2. The rest of the day was… slow. Fortunately nothing else broke at work. I was bummed at missing Nicole’s wedding, but there was no way that mission could have been accomplished without loss of life.

I finally dragged myself out of the house after dark and bought food, etc. I ended up at Ruba, which was full of weird ghosts of ten years ago. I don’t think I’d seen Sabrina since Indian Burial Ground Night at Totally Coffee. She didn’t acknowledge my existence, for which I am grateful.

Choice “Overheard at Ruba™” quotes:

“I live the same place she does. She has a nice rack. It’s been okay.”

“Oh, that Dennys. One of my best friends got busted for selling drugs to a minor there! It was awesome.”

“You and I have a lot the same background, but you’re good-looking.”

“You know her. She’s the racist secretary.”

“I know it was illegal before, I asked you how old is she NOW?”

“No, man, I can’t afford any tools. I just do shit to shit, you know?”

Ahh, Ruba.

It was 80 degrees F here at midnight with humidity around 50%. In coastal Orange County. I do not understand.

I never did find the naughty bits there I wanted!

When I was a kid, I went to a used bookstore called the Apollo. It was just across the boulevard on 18th Street, next to the music store where I got my Schirmer classical sheet music. It was a classic of its type: dark, confused, and full of toppling piles of paperbacks and magazines.

For a kid with only small amounts of kid money, it was paradise. I could get a big fat read for fifty cents. And the disorganization was really a plus. A visit to the Apollo meant strange finds and surprises, even if the surprise was a mechanical engineering manual from 1903 wedged in the “Occult” section.

Used bookstores are overstocked with the last few decades’ bestsellers in paperback, and the last generation’s bestsellers in hardback. You can always see who’s dying now by looking through old hardbacks. At the time, it was clear that the generation that read A.J. Cronin’s The Keys to the Kingdom and lots of Dreiser had just kicked the bucket. The paperbacks were a mix of 1960s radicals, 1960s radical reactionaries, 1960s freakouts, 1970s aquarium bubbleheadism, 1970s sexytime explosions, and 1970s thrillers. Since those were great decades for sf, I bought a lot of science fiction there too.

This is also where I met Madman Moriarty. He was an employee at the store and was… colorful. More than once he showed up in full 19th century Scots military finery including kilt, tam o’shanter, and assorted belts and medals. Civil war regalia occurred as well. He drifted in and out of a Scots accent. At 13 years old I had no tools for dealing with him, so I just listened as he described his war reenactment club’s activities, the glory of Scotland and the Scots fighting man, and many details of military life. He lived to correct small errors in his areas of expertise, but there weren’t many people breezing in from the Costa Mesa small business district to talk about Wallace’s last battle or the proper method for throwing a World War I German “potato masher” grenade.

Much later in life I realized that the 5149.5 stalker guy who hounded red_maenad at the bookstore and the over-the-top Scotsman who accosted vegemitelover and bruisedhips at the swap meet were the same affable madman who had delighted and terrified me 25 years before.

While I was in Los Angeles the Apollo moved from 18th street to a trailer in the parking lot next to Hi-Time Liquor. Nothing else changed. Over the years I bought some wonderful books there, including old recipe collections, vintage periodicals, and complete editions of both Pepys’ diaries and Burton’s Arabian Nights.

They’re closing now. After 44 years they’re packing it in, selling as many books as they can, and putting the rest on the Internet.

If you’re local, drop by and say hi and pick up a crappy paperback or two.

what a week (local)

Tonight I almost ran over an entire pack of ironically metalled-out 20somethings who were tittering across the street after a Scorpions concert at the fairgrounds. The cops were having a joyous time arresting them all for misdemeanor irony. Aren’t the Scorpions, like, 60 years old now?

Looking through the police blotter I see that:

  • There was a drive by shooting around the corner from my house (East Bay St.)
  • Someone found the remains of a bound and decapitated lamb, which appeared to have been sacrificed by some loons celebrating the Solstice (way to handle your GOTH PARTY, assholes!).
  • Some local buffoons put an ad on Craigslist selling very illegal fireworks and all got arrested. Bonus points: the ringleader, teen henchman #1, and teen henchman #2 all have Myspaces so we can laugh at them.
  • A local couple were convicted of slavery this week. That’ll look awesome when you apply for a job at Wendy’s after you get out. Please list your felonies on this form.
  • There are two separate ongoing criminal cases at once right now of guys who licked people’s feet.

On the plus side, my friend Craig made it into the Weekly for being a 581% insane hardcore bicyclist. He’s clearly made from liquid metal.