There are times I really miss OC Weekly. Fabulous investigative reporting, wonderful reviews of new restaurants and entertainment venues, and its listical of the Best of OC that is far superior to similar editorial devices published by the Orange County Register or any online site.
The Weekly shut down 5 years ago last week (November 27); the site www.ocweekly.com is still up and searchable for stories, but nothing since 2019. The paper joins others like LA Weekly, the Village Voice and the Boston Phoenix that suffered a similar fate. And if these weeklies somehow survived, the COVID19 pandemic would have surely killed them from a lack of advertsing for clubs and restaurants.
On of the last editors-in-chief of OC Weekly, Gustavo Arellano, now a columnist with the LA Times, penned a thoughtful obituary of alt-weeklies in Reason Magazine in Nove,ber 2017 about two years before OC Weekly ran its last issue.
He wrote: “Meanwhile, my beloved OC Weekly marches on. It still hosts a staff with four founding members, a staff that got at least five innocent people out of prison, put former OC Sheriff Mike Carona into prison, and destroyed the careers of too many politicians to list here. The last issue we worked on together was Best Of. It was the largest in years, thanks mostly to art director Dustin Ames, who came up with a brilliant idea: Team up with dog rescue organizations to use their wards as our models, to promote adoptions.”
The one mystery for me is what happened to R. Scott Moxley? His last Twitter (now X.com) post is from July 2000. Good luck finding anything about him on Google. If anyone knows what happened to him, please leave a comment. I hope he is well, wherever he may be.
If you follow Arellano’s column or Gabriel San Roman’s OC coverage in the LA Times, you can still see the fingerprints OC Weekly left behind with its journalism over the years. When I think of OC Weekly, there’s that Joni Mitchell lyric coming back to me: : “You don’t know what you got til it’s gone.”
You’re nice to post this, but wrong on a few things. Moxley last posted in 2020. My Reason piece was published when I left the Weekly in 2017, not right before it shuttered. And the last editor was Matt Coker.
The date on the Reason piece was 11/4/2017, you are correct. I misread it and have corrected. Moxley’s last post on Twitter is linked and is correct, but more importantly, where is he now? Matt was editor for a few weeks, but point taken.
No, Matt was editor for the last six months of the Weekly.
Gustavo you better get Ada to take you to the White House for all your propagandizing and proselytizing on her behalf before the Orange One takes the reins. It’s the least she can do for you. Heck maybe she would be nice enough to take you and GSR.
How come no journalistic uproar or newsworthiness about this alleged hate crime that actually took place in Irvine. Farrah must have blinders on for the LGBTQ community. Not as sexy as Malik Brown, Gus??
https://newsantaana.com/dance-instructor-allegedly-assaulted-at-a-taco-bell-in-irvine-asks-gofundme-to-take-down-their-page-about-the-incident/
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-wil-lad-heal-medical-bills-assistance
It’s ok chubby, Gus can’t get his facts straight either. He thought this incident occurred In Irvine and reported as such when in fact it occurred in Laguna Hills.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-27/racism-orange-county-high-schools
I’ve got some favorite OC weekly stories. This one by Nick Schou about a judge I really respect.
https://www.ocweekly.com/reversal-of-misfortune-6376365/
Gus goes into hiding. Bye Gus!!!
I notice Ashleigh Aitken is noticeably silent about Mr. Ladd’s calamity
. She usually loves catching flak for the LGBtQ community. What happened??
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/anaheim-mayor-invites-queer-and-trans-nun-group-to-angels-stadium-pride-night/3157168/?amp=1
Gustavo ran that rag Into the ground. His Mexi-Centric spin on everything turned the Weekly from something worth reading when you were bored , horny for an outcall massage or looking for some weed into a liner for the bottom of your birdcage. At one point the weekly actually had some good investigative journalism, but sadly, under Gustavo, it devolved into predictable smear campaigns against anyone with a different viewpoint. I’m glad that useless piece of trash is no longer cluttering up places. Good Riddance.
Gustavo would disagree; OC Weekly was a force for investigative journalism. Argue other parts of the paper if you will. I miss the publication
I agree on Jews definitely LaRaza prejudiced.
If it was worth a shit, it would still be around, now wouldn’t it?
At its peak, it was a true force for local investigative journalism. At the end, it was a formulaic weekly hit piece filled with unsubstantiated gossip, always against conservatives, as if liberal dems could do. I wrong. The advertisers all bailed on the Weekly when it ceased to be relevant and subjective. The pay to play restaurant reviews were painfully obvious and the ad base degenerated into Whores, Gun buyers, dispensaries and ads from the pay to play restaurants.. because as far as Gustavo was concerned, if it had no Latino angle, it wasn’t worth reading. So glad that POS is gone, along with the beat up racks it was displayed in. Duncan was smart to kick Gustavo to the curb.
and yet Gustavo is winning awards as a columnist for the LA Times; so he’s not gone and his columns are actually decent — except when he writes about sports.
Sorry that I keep having to report the truth that the Angels are a trash franchise
that’s not it; nice that you think that
My 2010 Irvive Girls all-star team shoots better baskets than you do; second in the country
Gustavo is a race baiting hack. Stop Kissing ass, Dan.
Bob: It’s so wonderful you have such fond feelings for me!
When everything you publish and all your perspectives are framed through a racial lens, you just might be a racist. Try looking at the world as just another human, Gustavo. Instead of looking thru your red white and green lenses. And lay off the tequila. Life is so much better when you don’t go through it drunk.
Gustavo is many things. He is not a drunk. And I believe he prefers bourbon; I remember buying him a drink at Memphis in Santa Ana
Typo error I could not correct
It should not say Jews I was referring to Gustavo.
The internet destroyed LA Weekly that proceeded OC Weekly by the way.
I liked Commie Girl although I did not agree with her always
Bob you are correct .
Don’t worry Bob, his outfit’s owner has a solution for Gus the corporate journalist.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/12/05/media/la-times-soon-shiong-ai-bias-meter-opinion
Eric, the Times should institute a Mexi Meter for Gustavo. It will increase and move upward every time Gustavo drops a Spanish word into his piece or every time he mentions “Santana” as if it is the cultural capital of the world. Gus might publish something worth reading on occasion, when he puts aside his anti Anglo bias and stops acting as though the Taco is the height of world culinary genius. And as far as I’m concerned, we should ask for our money back when it comes to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It’s turned out to be a shitty deal for the Americans. Don’t jump back in a try to polish up Gustavo’s Cred, Dan. He is washed up and was hired as a “ Token” by the Times when they were at their absolute woke worst.
Bob,
You may be right. He may be racist.. but it may just be a racist his public is looking for.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-12-06/books-about-latinas-in-southern-california
I disagree with you; aside from his columns on sports, I appreciate his insight into the topics he writes about. He’s certainly matured as a writer and the LA Times is a much better platform for him than the Weekly. It’s not racist to be proud of your roots. But you give Armenians a bad name Eric.
I’m an American chubby.
and you’re a lousy American too
And you don’t think Farrah Khan is a racist. Hence, your opinion doesn’t amount to much.
I know you are
Here are a couple of Gus’s articles that foreshadow Farrah’s racism. She claimed the subject treats her like family. You are a putz chubby.
https://www.ocweekly.com/ergun-kirlikovali-coto-de-caza-armenian-genocide-denier-supreme-threatening-legal-action-against-uc-davis-professor-6451354/
https://www.ocweekly.com/supporters-of-ergun-kirlikovali-idiot-armenian-genocide-denier-threaten-to-protest-outside-weekly-offices-6483935/
“18. And on that note, we’re genocide-denying central, from the Institute for Historical Review (the largest Holocaust-denying publishing house in the world) to a community college district who employed a Holocaust denier to Kevin MacDonald, the Long Beach St. professor whose writings are the intellectual framework for modern-day anti-Semitism to the anti-Armenian genocide ravings of Ergun Kirlikovali and his bands of outraged Ottomans.”
https://www.ocweekly.com/50-reasons-why-orange-county-is-the-worst-effing-place-in-america-6484401/
Haha Bob you’re so right on man . Absolute truth
This is another oldie but goodie from the OC Weekly.
https://www.ocweekly.com/a-long-strange-trip-the-relationship-between-orange-county-and-the-grateful-dead-7369716/
You be on top of it Eric. An article 12 years after they disbanded……..
We’re you there with Corrina and her husband, trying to elbow your way into S. Monets (Bobby’s kid) in West Floral Park, where she lived while going to Chapman???? LOL!
Hey nuttin wrong with a guy who got on the bus in ’87 in Anaheim.
I bet Dan has Rochester relatives who could tell stories……they just don’t post their shit on blogs.
Make a name for yourself counselor.
Saw my first show in Ventura in 84. Met Bobby back stage in Irvine in 89.
Endless noodling is not entertainment, unless you are enjoying the same drugs as the band members.
I do actually!
And San Roman writes throwaway boilerplate for the “Daily Pilot” with a circulation of about 7 people. Tim Geddes keeps the Pilot alive by buying multiple paper copies of the Pilot so he can clip out the copies of his letters to the editor and save them for his mom. Saying that writing for the Pilot. Is writing for the LA Times is like telling somebody you work for Amazon when you drive a third party delivery bobtail 12 hours a day for minimum wage.
It’s gratifying to know that, five years on, the Weekly lives eternally in the heads of haters. Right next to their undiagnosed tumors.
It was always a fun read
At the end, The Weekly was nothing but “Haters” . They hated you if you were conservative. They hated you if you were Anglo. They hated you if you were heterosexual. They hated you if you weren’t on board with the enlightened woke agenda. It just slowly mutated into a smelly pile of leftist brain mold and identity politics cheerleading. So glad it disintegrated, under the incredible leadership of Gustavo Arellano and no longer smells up the entrance to my favorite liquor store.
Amen Bob TBT