This was originally drafted in August but I never finished it — and we need an Open Thread so I’m going to publish it after all. Three topics today: our ads, cars, and trolls:
1. We Have This One Weird Ad…
Our ads help to fund the costs of running this blog, mostly hosting services. But even we find them irritating or even worrisome sometimes. We have one online that shows you a gigantic “CLICK HERE!” Don’t. That’s not us telling you do do that. Go to the upper right hand corner and click the “X” instead, and pretend like it never happened, and then repeat these steps when it inevitably happens again.
2. A Car for KPCC?
My wife and I have had a trusty 2005 Prius for many years now, purchased from an activist (whose name many readers would recognize) when they moved out of state. It was the assigned car for each of our three naturalized American-citizen at various times. Then, in 2022, both the electric battery and the electric battery charger system died after an ill-fated round-trip to the Santa Ana Courthouse — I had thought it was the transmission, but eventually found out otherwise — and it’s been sitting in our driveway in “storage” ever since. And it’s time to send it away.
We’ve been preparing to dispose of it by donating it to a local non-profit that can turn it into money. I hear ads all the freaking time from KPCC 89.3 FM — now I’m supposed to call it “LAist,” because in LA one doesn’t have to follow the customs that every other radio station I know follows — telling us to donate our cars, working or not, to them so they can fund their operations. (By the way, the vaunted New York City publication of this ilk is not called “New Yorkist,” but “Gothamist”; shouldn’t “LAist” have called itself something like “Angelenist” instead?
The arguments for going with KPCC are that (1) it’s the only radio station I listen to regularly in my car, (2) it’s the station that I listen to on my app, (3) they have a nice set of non-LAist links on their app, such as Science Friday,, and (4) they hired Nick Gerda as their OC reporter, and he’s been doing quite a good job.
The arguments for not going with KPCC are #1 that they lost John Horn, who had the show “The Frame” for most of a decade and then later the “Retake” podcast (though they still use his image to get people to click on the show and listen to Not John Horn) after he committed an amazing act that I can’t remember ever seeing in real life: he suddenly quit his job as staff cuts were impending, without any “soft landing” into a new position in place, and did not explain his reasons other than to say that he still loved the job, was not upset with the station, was in perfectly good health, and was not retiring. Based on his X-Twitter comments, Horn is now occasionally commenting about movies with the WAMU (DC) program “1A” (which stands for “1st Amendment.) #2 is that they kept whiny oleaginous self-serving narcissist and libertarian evangelical
3. Or a Car for KCRW?
When I’m not listening to KPCC or whatever random Spanish music station I can find — well, I can’t find any African music stations around, and Latin is what I like next best — I’m probably listening to KCRW. They also want cars. Any reason not to donate one there?
Well, yes. They host Gustavo Arrelano to get their OC news — something that his mentee Gabriel Tallest Mexican could do three times as well. (I mentioned this earlier, not remembering that I had never gotten around to publishing this piece.) One afternoon last year (or was it 2022?) after the Melahat story had broken and was engulfing Harry Sidhu, Gustavo was being interviewed by host Steve Chiotakis about what was going on with Sidhu, which he pronounced correctly. Gustavo replied with a discussion of the basic info you could get about the scandal from reading VOC, and you could tell it was from reading because he was pronouncing the name as Harry “Sid-hugh”. Apparently going for bonus points, he also pronounced Melahat’s names as something like Melahat “Rafieli.” Chiotakis continued the segment by asking against about “Sidhu” — “Sih-dhoo,” if you’re reading this from a faraway land like San Clemente — and Gustavo once again responded by talking about someone named Sid-Hugh. There was a quiet and unusual sound on the radio, I believe that it was of Chiotakis’s soul temporarily leaving his body, and he responded by asking another question, this time about “Sid-Hugh” — because part of his job is to not make Gustavo look like an ill-prepared idiot and Gustavo was obviously not going to do his part of it well. So the rest of the interview was about “Sid-Hugh.” It was simultaneously one of the saddest and one of the funniest things I had ever heard on public radio. But, so long as Gustavo is taken seriously there, they do not get my broken-down car.
4. Maybe a Car for KJZZ?
What about the station that wants you to insert an “A” after that K, rather than something else? It’s nice, and a valuable part of our radio community — but I like news and features.
5. Definitely a Car for Clowns
In addition to the above, I want to memorialize an exchange in The Liberal OC’s comments section — not primarily because Dan C. tries to make it hard to find them after they’ve spread their poison, both by not making it easy to find and by not allowing his site to be archives (as I noted previously, for the same reason that burglars wear gloves), but because some recent commentary (well, from last August) suggests a possible identity of these trolls (well, trolls here, contributors there), as they’ve branched out from forged character attacks on us to slamming the JL Report. Who not only hates us, but also hates the JL Report? Maybe someone … mentioned in it?
Keep an eye on the icons used in these comments to see how many of them are the same person.
Three Firefighters or Greg’s Bill at Golden Corral
AUGUST 2, 2023 AT 1:39 PM
True, but wasn’t that widely known?I mean $1.5 Million to watch traffic patterns and serve buy Donna Ascevedo a Starbucks!!! And what does her son have to do with ANYTHING here?
AUGUST 2, 2023 AT 11:30 AM
Is it true they interviewed Diamond and he confirmed he hasn’t seen his penis since 1996?Dan Chmielewski
AUGUST 2, 2023 AT 4:51 PM
I’m sure he’s felt it
AUGUST 6, 2023 AT 10:07 AM
In another example of Greg Diamonds affluence, position (as EDITOR! of the Orange Juice Blog) and power he:
A) was seemingly unaware of what a PDF is, and it’s editablity.
B) Too poor to subscribe to $19.95 per month for Adobe suite
C) Has enough time in his day to transcribe HUNDREDS of names on the weak JL report
D) Has THREE different readers/commenters other than his partner Vern on his postsHey I got an idea: maybe Jose Moreno can start up one of his famous “GO FUND ME” pleas for free shit, or better yet, Donna’s gang could have a carwash like they do for funerals.
Fredo The Pedo
AUGUST 7, 2023 AT 11:55 AM
What a joke this guy is. He calls himself a citizen journalist. Yet he can not understand nor afford a $19.00 per month .More and more Greg Diamond are like the bum in front of Von’s that ages one wonder;
“This guy has been pan handling and without a bed for twenty years, yet he still can’t get it right.”
I almost pity them
OrangeJuice is the new Black
AUGUST 7, 2023 AT 7:25 PM
Some of his legal filings are late because he didn’t pay his internet bill.
Greg Fund Me
AUGUST 8, 2023 AT 12:33 PM
Somebody should ask Judge Smith and Jeff Love how they feel about interviewing Vern and Donna Nelson and Greg Diamond after recieving copies of the more 100 mailers that have been sent out over the years.
It calls their integrity and work product into question. $1.5 Million for a poorly written, grammatically flawed report. But heh Donna got a Grande Starbucks and her dead gang member Son mentioned.
Pull Back The Curtain
AUGUST 9, 2023 AT 1:38 PM
$1.5 Million for report that reads like a 15 year old’s Reddit post.
And now there’s this:
Vern Nelson (5 time DUI and Gang wife) wrote:
“I think Donna maybe overstates our importance to JL. I’m all “Why neither Aitken?” And she’s all, “Well, we didn’t suggest they talk to the Aitkens.” And I’m all, “Really? We need to suggest the Mayor and her major-mover-and-shaker dad?”But the fact is we suggested they talk to a lot of people, and they talked to everyone we suggested. Duane Roberts, Grant Henninger, Tom Tait, Joanne Sosa, Cynthia Ward… I guess we shoulda been thorough and said Zenger too. And the Aitkens.”SO the Million dollar+ “investigation” was based on Vern an Donna’s guidance?The JL groups work product is WEAK at best.Someone should question the legitimacy of this product from a professional standpoint, thirty pages on a gas station fued in.which they “Staked Out” An intersection TEN YEARS later.The Voice Of OC has published more than a dozen hit pieces in two weeks not ONCE objectively questioning the JL Groups methods.
AUGUST 9, 2023 AT 2:08 PM
[same as #8, plus this line]
Great buy Anaheim at least Donna got a Starbucks.
I was particularly interested in Chumley’s response to the hilarious comment that “I hadn’t seen my penis in years.” (Indeed I have, and not just in the mirror.) I was surprised that he didn’t tut-tut at the comment because, the “pot calling the kettle black” possibilities would have stopped a lesser imbecile dead in his tracks. But what really got me was what he did say: “I’m sure he’s felt it.”
Uh, yes, I’ve felt it. Are we to infer that feeling one’s penis is somehow a bad thing? (That would explain a lot about Chumley!) But obviously, feeling one’s penis at some time in one’s week is not a bad thing; what I think that Chumley wanted us to think about here is the subject of masturbation. And here I will say: I don’t think that the image of either her or I masturbating is one that I would care to bring to the public’s mind, but it’s (1) a private thing (at least ideally it is, Rep. Boebert) and (2) a perfectly acceptable thing for people to do in private, 104 out of 105 urologists agree! So … was Chumley condemning the practice of masturbation — one of the most effective forms of birth control? I definitely want to hear more about that if so!
Anyway, the hint about who Chumley’s commenters are. I’ve never been to — nor do I think I’ve even ever heard of — the Golden Corral buffet restaurant. It’s not much of an OC thing. (Sizzler, on the other hand, is where Democrats of Orange County used to eat, and perhaps still do, but I generally would not have the buffet there.) Sizzler has many OC locations: Fullerton, Buena Park, Los Alamitos, Fountain Valley, and Lake Forest — and would have been good fodder for a “Greg is fat … and we don’t talk about Chumley” stupid joke.) Golden Corral, though? With one exception, the locations of this chain are in LA or the IE: respectively, City of Industry, Pomona, Downey, Bellflower, and Covina versus Ontario, Moreno Valley, Lake Elsinore, San Bernardino, and Hesperia. The exception — the only place in OC with a Golden Corral is: Anaheim! That’s the only place that would lead a person to invoke that restaurant rather than Sizzler (or any of our wonderful Asian-food buffet restaurants) in making this sort of joke. So there’s a clue as to where Chumley’s main troll — the guy who spreads lies about mailers coming from us! — comes from: in or near Anaheim, perhaps around Lincoln Avenue and State College Boulevard — and someone with, err, low grade expectations when it comes to dining experiences.
That said: this … this! — is your long-delayed and now quickly lamented Open Thread! Talk about that (eh, or maybe not) or whatever else you’d like — unless you’re banned and pretending not to be, in which event cut it out — within reasonable bounds of discretion and decorum. Need I spell that out?
This is the last open thread?
Big props to the three rare honest Republicans to tank the bullshit Mayorkas impeachment – California’s Tom McClintock, Colorado’s Ken Buck, and Wisconsin’s Mike Gallagher. I remember Scott Moxley endorsing McClintock for governor during the Gray Davis recall despite his social conservatism. And Larry Gilbert used to talk about McClintock so much he almost seemed like an “OJB friend.”