10 Years Ago Today: the big fire

     It was ten years ago today that the DtB crew met ze Monsta, namely, the Santiago Fire, which came a lickin' our doorsteps.
     The Reb, Red Emma, and I provided a play-by-play of this roaming Beast, which came to life on October 21, and traveled east to threaten us a day or two later.
     It got seriously real. At different points, we thought our homes were gone.
     In the end, we were among the lucky ones.
     Some excerpts:

• A Harsher California - The Reb (10/22/07)

October is the bad month for the wind, the month when breathing is difficult and the hills blaze up spontaneously. There has been no rain since April. Every voice seems a scream. It is the season of suicide and divorce and prickly dread, wherever the wind blows.

—from "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream" by Joan Didion

• Santiago fire reaches Foothill Ranch - Chunk/Roy (10/22/07)

     The city of Lake Forest just announced a voluntary evacuation of several streets in Foothill Ranch. Residents have been asked to report to El Toro High School. [Update: reports are that some of these evacuations are now mandatory.]
     Meanwhile, I do believe that the Reb and her crew will be at my place soon, evacuating from M Canyon....

• Long Day's Journey Into Night - The Reb (10/22/07)

• Pillar of Salt - The Reb (10/23/07)

     ...As we drove the grade out of the canyon, I could finally see the fierce sweep of the fire. Somehow, looking back, I could see what I had been in. I was relieved to be leaving, but deeply sad too....

• Tuesday Morning - The Reb (10/23/07)

     ...Sigh of relief here, but not too big. The day is long and the winds are strong and so many others have not been spared and our own safety may not last. The Orange County Fire Authority cites Modjeska, Williams, and Silverado canyons as immediately threatened....

I evaded the road block, hiked up to my place from Cook's Corner. The view from there.

• The guy in the white hat - Chunk/Roy (10/23/07)

     ...I needed information. The TV news wasn’t much help, and neither were my internet sources, so I drove up the grade and then down again to Cook’s. I found about ten fire crews—some from Santa Ana—coming in to relieve others. “If you want to know what’s going on,” they said, “watch the news on TV.” It’s not that they were unfriendly; it’s just that they saw the fire only up close. They had no overview.
     “For that,” one firefighter said, “find the guy with the white hat.” He pointed to his own helmet, which was not white....

• Afternoon - The Reb (10/23/07)

     ...Modjeska, by the way, is now too dangerous for firefighters on the ground or air. They moved on to other fights that they can win. That's the right thing to do.
     As I drove out yesterday I admired those strangers who were staying behind to spend the night with that fire.
     What are they paid? Never enough, I think. At times like these, many are anxious to call them heroes....

• A Modjeska Friend's Experience - The Reb (10/23/07)

     Check out LA Times writer Janet Wilson's chronicle,"Reporter Returns from her Honeymoon to a Nightmare." Janet lives down the street from me. I last saw her at her bridal shower. I called her last night when she was en route home from the airport....

• Evening: Reluctant, Unexpected Optimism - The Reb (10/23/07)

     ...As Rebel Girl has already [in her mind] pretty much burned her own house down hours ago, she doesn't have a place to put this new information but she will do what she can.
     She also knows that even if things in the canyon are better than we believed, the losses are already great and may include her own home after all, hence her relutance to embrace the optimism.
     UPDATE ON CHUNK: As far as we know, Chunk left the Lambrose Canyon compound (in Trabuco) midafternoon with his parents. Their destination is Irvine (I think) where Chunk's brother lives with their daughter, son and newborn twin girls....

• The best sandwich ever - Chunk/Roy (10/23/07)

     ...I saw Red Emma earlier today. My mom made him a sandwich. "This is the best sandwich ever," declared Red. My mom was pleased....
     Red and I watched the TV news, which was largely infuriating for the predictable reasons. None of our questions was answered. Much of the reporting was confused or outdated.
     Later, after Red left, I had a real moment, collecting things for the car. I felt that—well, never mind. I felt very low.... [I recall the moment. I should have searched through my stuff for what I couldn't live without. I didn't have the heart. Let it all burn, I thought. I can't do this. I grabbed Sunny and a few boxes. That was it.]

• Wednesday Morning: hope can be exhausting - The Reb (10/24/07)

     ...This morning, Rebel Girl notices a slight shift difference between her tone of voice when she writes and when she talks on the telephone. Her voice here on the blog doesn't crack but when she's on the phone it does; it cracks and drops. She has to swallow hard and pull it back up. She wants to blame the smoke, her week-old chest cold that still lingers. But she thinks it has to do with other factors as well. No single causes here. Someone yesterday accused her of being brave. It's easier for Rebel Girl to be brave perhaps with the written word as opposed to the spoken word. There is that discrepancy between who she is on paper and who she is when she speaks, when she just is. She has long contended that she is at her best on paper....

• Mid-Morning Update: 10:33 - The Reb (10/24/07)

     ...Mary, a neighbor down the way on Kommers Lane, just telephoned Red to report that she had been allowed in Modjeska Canyon and visited our neighborhood. While there are losses in the canyon, it seems as if our neighborhood has been spared at this point.
     ...Mary said that the sprinkers were still on on our house. Before evacuation, Red Emma and Rebel Girl put the lawn sprinklers on the roof and turned them on. They left them on when they left.
     The sprinklers are still on....

• I called myself and I seem to be fine - Chunk/Roy (10/24/07)

     ...I called my own house (not far from Hamilton Trail) early this morning, and boy was I glad to hear my notoriously surly (or mock surly) message: "Leave a message if you must!"
     Called my parents' house too. The answering machine worked! So it appears that the Wheeler Compound in Live Oak Canyon/Lambrose Canyon is OK....

• Still Red, But Not On Fire - Red Emma (10/24/07)
     ...First, Chunk's canyon seems to be okay. I actually sort of did a naughty, and drove past the momentarily abandoned Sheriff's checkpoint, all the way to the top of Live Oak Canyon Road, where actual real hot flames were burning right to the asphalt and about 20 engines and crews were stationed. This is perhaps a quarter mile from I think it's called Hamilton Trail junction. It looked really, really bad and like maybe they were gonna cut and run. … Meanwhile, waiting around in vicinity of Cook's Corner didn't seem to make sense (I was being ignored by buxom biker babes, go figure), and since I wasn't getting too many papers graded either (my great colleagues proctored an in-class exam and I picked up Blue Books early from UCI) I drove back here to my Lovely Wife and Son to confirm the following. All reports --- from Sheriffs, neighbors, a cool OC Reg reporter named Eugene, County Animal Control dude, more neighbors --- all actual eyewitnesses, confirm unburnedness of Olive Hill and all neighborhoods in Mo Canyon, with obvious exception of a few structures just below southern canyon wall in interior and, of course, the 10 or so which are in the triangle of fire formed by Santiago Canyon, Modjeska Canyon Road and the notorious Modjeska Grade Road.

Picture taken just before we evacuated—in a big hurry!
"Well, it wasn't easy, but we left our
beautiful canyon behind. What happened after that, we have no idea."

Night: the mountains ablaze

After the fire: about a half mile from my place (Hamilton Trail)

• An update—and some "Santiago fire" evac pics - Chunk/Roy (10/24/07)

     ...Just heard from a friend, via cell phone, who has managed to remain in the Trabuco Canyon area (his home is near Hamilton Truck Trail), despite yesterday's mandatory evacuation.
     Bruce happily reports that, right now, there is little fire activity along Live Oak Canyon Road, which stretches for about three miles from Hamilton Trail (it used to be a stage coach stop) down to Trabuco Creek....

• Good Night: the fire is out there - The Reb (10/24/07)

     AFTER THE LAGUNA FIRE, some 14 years ago, when we were almost burned out of our trailer home, I had trouble sleeping. I was haunted by the irrational fear that the fire would somehow "come back." Some of that lingers. I should be sleeping but I can't. The fire is out there. Even if it's not burning my house, it is burning someone else's....

• Thursday Morning: Air Support? - The Reb (10/25/07)

     ...What do we have in OC? Fremon called the Orange County's fire authority and asked. The answer: "Angela, a very cheerful and sleep-deprived OCFA spokesperson told [Fremon], 'Two helicopters.' To make sure [she] hadn't heard wrong, [Fremon] asked again. Two, [the spokesperson] repeated, and they definitely aren't Firehawks. 'I wish,' she said."
     Seems like Supervisior Spitzer—and all of us—need to think about why this is so....

• Mid-Afternoon Update: 4:00 pm Thursday - The Reb (10/25/07)

     ...Rumors spread earlier today that the children's center had burned and I wondered how I'd break that sad news to my son. He's been a student there for three years now, under the inspired guidance of teachers Aimee B., Sara H., sweet Jenny, and canyon legend Chay P. The center is not-for-profit and a project of the Silverado-Modjeska Parks and Recreation Department. Its serves the needs of families in the canyon and beyond, offering quality affordable preschool and after-school care. Our son has forged friendships there not only with his peers but with the farm animals, Tiny the pig and Jazzy the goat....

• Mountain Bob - Chunk/Roy (10/25/07)

     …I parked behind Cook's and started walking up Harris Grade. I figured the cop was too busy to notice me. He was.
     It was hot, and I wasn't really dressed for a midday hike, but it's only a mile to the top of the grade and it isn't much further from there to Lambrose Canyon. . . .

     I walked through the oak trees to Lambrose Canyon and spotted "Mountain" Bob at the entrance of our little colony. He commenced telling me stories. "The flames," he said, were "200 feet high." "I'd never seen anything like it."

     "I got religion," he said.

     Bob is pretty ironic. So I don't think he was serious.

     Later, he asked me, "Do you believe in God, Chunk?"

     "Nope."

     "O.K. Ever heard of Herbert Spencer?"
     He went on like that. Bob's a character, he is....

• Blaise Pascal was an a**hole - Chunk/Roy (10/26/07)

     ...My time of uncertainty was late Tuesday and early Wednesday. Short-lived and feeble, I know. Since then, I've been living with the improbability that my Stuff (that's "stuff" with a capital "s") will be destroyed (including all of my Dissent stuff, which, to tell you the truth, I don't give a rat's ass about).

     At this point, the probability of disaster-for-Chunk has declined to about .1 or lower, I guess.
     Living with the likelihood of personal non-disaster is like holding a grenade that is very likely not going to blow up. If somebody comes up to you and says, "Hey, Grenade Boy! We just heard that the likelihood of your maimage and/or death with that grenade in your hand has gone down further! Ain't that good news?"—well, you smile, but you also cringe.

Somber travel in the night

• Where's your sackcloth, Laughing-Boy? - Chunk/Roy (10/26/07)

     ...Outspoken UC Irvine author-historian Mike Davis will give a free public lecture Oct. 31 titled “Katrina in the Suburbs? The Politics of Fire in Southern California.” He will speak at noon in Room 3008 on UCI’s Calit2 Building, next to Bren Hall, on Ring Road....

• Friday; the power of ritual - The Reb (10/26/07)
     ...As we drove back to our temporary quarters at our lovely friends' lovely home, we heard the news that the fire had moved into Silverado Canyon. By the time we got home, the OC Register had posted a front page picture of my son's teacher evacuating on foot, her arms full, her face, well, her face showing what you feel as you leave your home with the fire moving in behind you....

• Friday Night - The Reb (10/26/07)

     The word tonight is that the fire in Silverado Canyon may reach houses by tomorrow afternoon.

• The OC fire situation improves - Chunk/Roy (10/27/07)

     Flames menacing Silverado Canyon have not moved closer and "may not be as threatening as they once were," said Orange County Fire Authority Battalion Chief Kris Concepcion....

• Locating the homes of Reb, Red Emma, Limber Lou, and Chunk in the Santiago fire - Chunk/Roy (10/27/07)

     ...Right now, things look good for the Dissenters, canyon-domicilewise. It even seems to be sprinkling right now! Yes!
     We're still waiting to be allowed to return to our homes. Reb and crew at least got a chance to visit their place earlier today. RE told me that it's kinda "ugly" out there, but that won't last long.
     Again, we're mighty grateful to the firefighters.

• Worse than the fire - Chunk/Roy (10/27/07)

     ...THE REB finally explained to me why she opted not to evacuate (on Monday) to my place in Trabuco Canyon. She went to her friend's house in Lake Forest instead.
     What's up with that?
     "I just knew," she said, "that your canyon would be next."
     "Well, I sure as hell didn't know. How did you know?" I said.
     I looked at Red. He shrugged.
     "I just knew," said Reb.
     We all nodded. Can't argue with that....

• "The assessment will begin today," said the jackass - Chunk/Roy (10/28/07)

     ...So I finally called the OCFA. I nice man answered the phone. I asked him when I would be allowed to return to my home.
     “Where do you live?”, he asked.
     “Along Live Oak Canyon Road.”
     “Let me see. [A few seconds pass.] No, you can’t return home yet.”
     “When will I be allowed to return?”
     “I don’t know.”
     After a little more conversation, the fellow advised me to go to the OCFA website.
     “But I’m looking at that now. It doesn’t tell me when I will be allowed to return home. It gives me no information about that at all.”
     Clearly, this fellow at the other end of the phone seemed to believe that the OCFA website was chock-full of helpful info.
     Like what?
     “Well," he said, "it tells you that different canyons will be opened at different times!”
     “Yeah, that makes sense."
     After a few seconds I said: "But is there no place I can go, no authority I can speak to, to learn anything about when I can go home? ANYTHING?”
     “Go to the website,” he said.
     OK, I am now officially pissed....

• A happy crew - Chunk/Roy (10/29/07)

     ...The cop at Cook's Corner didn't seem very interested in my ID. He seemed more interested in Sunny Bear [my 6-pound cat], who must have appeared like some sort of weird appendage sprouting from my right arm pit, where she hid her head. She didn't pull it out of there until I rolled up to my place. I let her out of the car and she weaseled around like a lunatic. Then she ran inside and yammered piteously, but not for long....

• Red Emma's fire photos - Red Emma (10/31/07)

• Labradoodle in Trabuco Canyon - Chunk/Roy (11/1/07)

     MY SISTER FANNIE is down in So Cal visiting. This afternoon, she decided to go check out this little place in Trabuco Canyon that she thinks she might want to buy. She asked me to tag along.
     "Maybe there'll be a fire sale," I said....

• Home - The Reb (11/2/07)

     WE'RE BACK, just like the goats down on Modjeska Canyon Road. Those two goats, by the way, used to live on San Clemente Island and were rescued before they could be shot. The plan was that they'd join the local landscaping crew but they proved too wild for that and so now they just live on the side of the road. We often stop on the way home from school and feed them the leftovers from our lunches.

     It's nice to see them again.
     It's nice to see everyone again....

• Appearances are deceiving - Chunk/Roy (11/3/07)

     ...Fannie drew my attention to the smoke billowing from behind Modjeska Peak, over to the northeast.
     “Wow,” she said. “How often do you see that?”
     Actually, we'd seen quite a lot of it in the last two weeks. We were under the impression that firefighters were going to make great headway against the Santiago fire today, but that was hard to believe, looking at that plume of white smoke, and listening to all of the helicopters coming and going and disappearing over the mountains.
     But appearances are deceiving....

• Visiting north of Hamilton Trail - Chunk/Roy (11/11/07)

     Jan emailed. He wrote me that Mojo, son of Sunny Bear, had died "in his sleep," last night.
     Mojo was an excellent young man, and I will miss him. He was about 16 years old.

     EVEN THOUGH there was little sun, I decided it was a good time to visit Hamilton Trail, which is very near Lambrose Canyon, where I live.
     I walked up Live Oak. Then I hopped the fence up at the crest of Harris Grade.
     It looked very bad. It looked worse as I got further in....

• Yikes! Ash + wind = pseudo-smoke - Chunk/Roy (11/12/07)

     THIS MORNING, from my place in Lambrose Canyon (in Live Oak Canyon), I noticed lots of ash on my car. Uh-oh!
     I looked toward nearby Hamilton Trail—one of the areas hit by the great Santiago fire—and I saw something that looked like smoke.
     But wait. Is there anything over there left to burn? Not much. (Check out my pictures from yesterday: Visiting Hamilton Trail.)

     It soon became clear to me (I think) that I was looking, not at smoke, but at the result of winds picking up ash. That's all.
     I hope....

• Come See the Canyons! - The Reb (11/15/07)

     EVEN THOUGH, as you may know, the Inter-Canyon League received an unprecendented ONE MILLION DOLLAR DONATION from an anonymous donor (rumored to be a reclusive billionare from Newport Beach who has a soft spot for the canyons)—more help is needed.... 

Modjeska Canyon after the fire: hills denuded

I held her tight as we viewed the fire from a park ten minutes after evacuation.

This video seems to have been shot from about a 1/4 miles from my place (as the crow flies)

24 Years Ago:

Meet Ze Monsta

Saddleback's Lariat Still on the Job

Once upon a time, IVC had an award-winning newspaper, The Voice. Then when that program was dismantled, and Saddleback's Lariat covered IVC, giving some attention to the college's award-winning teams, theatrical productions and speech team triumphs, filling the Voice's empty newspaper stands with stacks of Lariat newsprint.  Then, no more.  The district is, after all, too big, resources too few.  Now if IVC students want to know what's happening, they must track it down on the website.  Some fun.

Meanwhile, The Lariat has a robust presence online, doing what college newspapers do.

This week Rebel Girl was impressed by their coverage of two local stories with SOCCCD roots:

Civil trial starts this week in stabbing death of Saddleback College student at local pub

Jury selection began Tuesday in the wrongful death trial of Craig Matthew Tanber, 37, of Los Alamitos, in the stabbing death of Shayan Mazroei, 22, at Patsy’s Restaurant and Irish Pub in Laguna Niguel on Sept. 7, 2015.

Tanber, a third-striker and member of white supremacist gang Public Enemy Number 1, was charged with one felony count of murder with sentencing enhancements for the personal use of a knife and prior strike convictions for voluntary manslaughter, dissuading a witness by force, street terrorism, assault with a deadly weapon in 2007, residential burglary in 2001, and serving a prison term for one year or more and not remaining free for more than five years....

Former Lariat staffer and boyfriend dead, 2 others wounded in Aliso Viejo shooting

Luke William Ferguson is suspected of fatally shooting his father, 59-year-old Douglas Ferguson and his father’s girlfriend, 51-year-old Lisa Cosenza and wounding roommates Todd Kuchar, 48, and Brandon Dufault, 23, in their own home at 6 Ashbury Court in “The Hamptons” community of Aliso Viejo on Thursday afternoon.

Ferguson, 26, who was described as armed and dangerous, was arrested and taken into custody in Inglewood after he led police on a short chase in a stolen vehicle, authorities said Friday.

Lisa Cosenza was a former member of the Saddleback College Journalism Advisory Committee before going on to study at California State University Fullerton, working for the Daily Pilot and then becoming the Director of Advertising for the Los Angeles Times. Former Lariat Instructional Assistant Carol Ziehm worked with Cosenza in the early 1990s. “Lisa was a bright light during a time when the Lariat was emerging as one of the nation’s top student newspapers,” Ziehm said. “It was obvious that she developed a real love for journalism and continued a passionate pursuit of it at Cal State Fullerton and into her professional career.”...

Former IVC Voice reporter Catarino Dueñas
surprises Rebel Girl and Red Emma at the Newport Beach Public Library. 

*

Coming Down the Pike: Marmalade and More

by Rebel Girl

     25 years is a long time and Rebel Girl has seen a lot. Once, maybe five years into her stint at the little college in the orange groves, at an English department meeting where folks had gone on and on about the challenges in the classroom and how instructors were going to respond, Peter Morrison whispered to her, “You will be sitting in another meeting just like this one in twenty years.”
     He was right.
     In some ways that’s fine. We should always reflect on how better to meet the challenges of successfully teaching our students and meeting their needs. The students of 2017 are not the students of 1997 or even 2011. Challenges are somewhat the same but also different.
     Sometimes plans are developed on site, from our classrooms and our programs and sometimes they are imposed top down. Rebel Girl has seen a lot of this. Her advice when others have talked about their concerns with different initiatives – GAP 4, Early College, etc. and now Guided Pathways, is to explain that sometimes resistance is indeed somewhat futile. Take Assembly Bill 705 signed this week by Governor Brown. Our challenge now is to implement it the best we can to meet our students’ needs. We can do that. We must.

     Guided Pathways seems like that too. It’s coming down the pike, with a lot of money attached which makes the pike bigger, swifter and the prize at the end more shiny. The institution is already invested and yet many faculty aren’t buying, concerned, as ever about process and the role of faculty as well as unintended consequences. Also something about jam. Or was it jelly? Preserves? Chutney?
     Anyway, the imminent arrival of Meta-Majors have some folks worried, anxious. Especially those people who are finding themselves, under the proposed designations, teaching in areas that they themselves as instructor do not recognize. (Don't even get Rebel Girl started on how the use of "meta" in "Meta-Majors" is all wrong. All wrong.)  Other areas, these peeved porofessors point out, are privileged to actually have their disciplines in the newly proposed titles. Not so Rebel Girl, who is now assigned to “Culture, Languages and The Global Citizen.” What the hell? (And isn't "culture" plural like "languages" is? Where is the consistency? Are is this another problem regarding marmalade?)
     The Senate will be voting on a draft this week (tomorrow or today depending on when you are reading this) and some creative types (no doubt people who as students accrued some extra units in useless classes) have compiled some suggestions for revisions of the Meta-Majors.

Suggestions for Revisions:

[Draft term:] Meta-Majors 

[alternatives:] 

You Betcha Majors 

or 

Super Mega-Mech-A- Majors 

or 

Mo-Betta Majors

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) 

[alternatives:] 

Numbers and Machines  

or 

Lazers [sic], Coal, Fracking, & Calculating Profits 

or 

“Drones and Bombs"

Business, Economics, and Entrepreneurship  

[alternatives:] 

Money 

or 

PreTrump Studies

Culture, Languages, and the Global Citizen 

[alternatives:] 

Civilization  

or 

AntiTrump Studies 

Teaching, Law, and Public Service 

[alternatives:] 

Talking At People While Standing Up 

or 

Support or Challenge Trump Studies

Creativity, Arts, and Design 

[alternatives:] 

Colors, Sounds and Shapes 

or 

Graffiti and Questioning Mike Pence in your Audience Studies

Health and Wellness 

[alternatives:] 

Sweat and Vitamins 

or 

Profiteering from People's Misery Studies

Too many choices?
Guess so!

Undeclared  

[alternatives:] 

Chaos 

or 

Send Straight to Ministry of Love

 

Gustavo Arellano: Longtime editor of the OC Weekly resigns

Gustavo earlier this year at the UCI launch party for Orange County: A Literary Field Guide,
edited by Rebel Girl and Red Emma, with a foreword by the Mexican himself. 

The Saddleback College "Gaucho"
—a perennial embarrassment

Word came down Friday morning that Gustavo Arellano had resigned from the OC Weekly. Faced with an ultimatum from the corporate owners to cut half his staff, Arellano proposed a plan to keep them all employed by cutting his own salary. That proposal was rejected.  He resigned as he had told them he would. (As Rebel Girl's 93-year-old Aunt Lucy wrote on Facebook: "What a thoughtful man. God bless him." It's hard to imagine the OC Weekly without Gustavo, who's been writing for it since 2001.

The LA Times has the story here:

OC Weekly editor Gustavo Arellano resigns from alt-weekly newspaper in dispute over cost cuts (Oct 13)

You could call Gustavo up and say "Help," and he'd help.

Gustavo with Rebel Girl, her cousin former OCC prof Sharon Daniel and Red Emma
at Newport Beach Library's "Library Live" kick-off event for the season in September.

You could say, "Guess what they're doing now!" and he'd listen.

We made the cover! (1998)

Long after the LA Times left the county and the OC Register could care little or less, the OC Weekly continued to care - because that was their job and they were led by a man who understood that.

You could send Gustavo students looking for meaningful internships and he'd give them those internships and then, years later, hire one as a full-time reporter: IVC alum Mary Carreon whose cover story graces Gustavo's final issue.

We will miss him in the pages of the Weekly but fully expect to see him elsewhere continuing to raise desmadre. Indeed, Gustavo was a guest on NPR's All Things Considered Saturday afternoon, part of  The Barbershop, a roundtable of journalists who today discussed soccer, Eminem, the Boy Scouts and much more.

For sense of Gustavo's visionary leadership and the Weekly's contribution to covering our fair district, here are some highlights, some written by Gustavo, others by other fearless Weekly staffers, especially the indefatigable Matt Coker (OMG! Matt. Jeez.). Their coverage made a difference. We owe them some good tequila. And more.

Trustee Dave Lang and OC Sheriff Mike Carona, felon

SOCCCD newbies may be particularly interested. The past, as Faulkner said, is not even past. Not even! Especially here! You can't make this stuff up, though you wish you could. Together these articles create quite a story of the last couple decades. Just look at the titles! It's sort of unbelievable, but then again, as we at Dissent like to say, "It's Orange County, Jake."

* * *

✩ Connecting Donald Trump Dots with OC's Steve Frogue and John G. Schmitz (2017)
     What do former (as in retired) far-right South County disgraced politician Steve Frogue and former (as in no more) far-far-far right South County disgraced politician John Schmitz have in common?
     BZZZZZ!
     The answer is: sons who worked on Donald Trump's transition team (and still sniff around the White House).
     Half of the preceding game show Q&A is brought to you by Dissent the Blog, operated by the ever-rascally Irvine Valley College philosophy professor Roy Bauer....

Hung with pride at IVC Library

✩ Irvine Valley College to Rededicate Emigdio Vasquez Mural THIS THURSDAY (2015)

     ...Irvine Valley College ain't exactly thought of as a Chicano mural stronghold, but it's one of the many places in Orange County that hosts a mural by legendary artist Emigdio Vasquez--a 40'x8' beauty called La Educación y El Trabajo (Education and Work). And, unlike the rest of OC--which keeps letting the maestro's work fade away or tries to criminalize it--IVC cares enough about its treasure to not only take care of their Vasquez mural, but to restore it, and rededicate it in a ceremony this Thursday....

✩ An Incomplete, Embarrassing Timeline of Anti-Black Moments in Orange County (2013)

     ...1993: Two African-American students at Saddleback College running for homecoming king and queen abandon their efforts after receiving hate mail. After a town-hall meeting to address the issue, the president of the Black Student Union finds a racist note under his car's windshield wiper.
     1994: OC Register letter to the editor: "Black Americans [should] be grateful for the fact that their ancestors were rescued from the horrors of African tribal warfare [and were] brought here by our Southern states, albeit as slaves."....

 

DtB Photoshoppery in the Weekly

✩ OC Weekly 2012 Election Guide: South Orange County Community College District (2012)

     …But Frank M. Meldau stepping away from his Trustee Area 7 seat has created some fireworks. Topping the list of candidates seeking the seat is John S. Williams, who served on the same SOCCCD board for years, spanning the end of Frogue's and beginning of Fuentes' terms.…
     Williams left the board to become Orange County's public administrator/public guardian, elected/appointed offices that left Williams in charge of estates left by Orange Countians with no heirs and the affairs of living people who cannot fully care for themselves and have no family to help them. Williams was ultimately driven out of office by two separate grand jury reports and an Orange County Board of Supervisors that blasted his management of the offices. It was telling because friends and supporters of Williams were among those who told him to scram. His departure turned bizarre when he remained in his physical office after he said he'd leave, and the board was forced to have the locks changed to keep him out….

✩ Frank Mickadeit, OC Register Columnist, Slams College Professor on Behalf of Late Tom Fuentes (2012)
     ...In a follow-up post, [IVC Philosophy prof Roy] Bauer—prodded by Mickadeit and The Liberal OC's Dan Chmielewski—goes to great lengths to amplify the sins of Fuentes with more fact-based ammo than either critic has ever deployed. Like that Fuentes 40 years ago was the right-hand man to Ronald W. Caspers, during a time the Register itself was reporting on the corrupt county supervisor's bribery, unethical election and other assorted political corruption....

✩ Tom Fuentes, Longtime Head of Orange County GOP/Protector of Pedophile Priests, Passes Away from Cancer (2012)
     ...The best that can be said about Fuentes is that he was colorful—if, by colorful, you mean you enjoyed a man who helped put poll guards outside Latino-heavy precincts during a 1988 election that cost Fuentes, Curt Pringle and others $400,000 in a civil judgement, or someone who once opined, "I can tell you the registration of the people in the house by observing the neatness of the lawn, what cars are in the driveway...and whether there is a leaky oil can in the driveway."....

✩ The Evil of Froguenstein (1998)
     ...News of the [Frogue "Warren Commission"] seminar turned seats at the district's monthly board meetings into hot tickets. First came Israel backers, Holocaust survivors and militant Jewish activists. They were soon joined by Frogue supporters—uninvited, according to Zanelli—who spouted neo-Nazi and white-supremacist rhetoric. While protectors and supporters took over the meetings—loudly—the man of the hour either remained silent or didn't show up at all. Frogue's defenders insist he was trying to keep an out-of-control situation from getting worse. Others read his silence as smugness toward critics or agreement with creepy supporters....

Black history?

✩ Irvine Valley College Celebrates Black History Month with Gandhi, Graffiti Wall, Double Obamas! (2010)

     ...Oh, the racialist merriment of the South Orange County Community College District never end! We've previously written about Saddleback College's gaucho-masquerading-as-bandito, and now Irvine Valley College has gotten into the simplistic-approach-to-race game so endemic in Orange County. IVC spokesperson Diane Oaks sent out a campus-wide email yesterday advertising the juco's Feb. 24 Black History Month celebration. Attached was a flyer (above) that is...interesting....
     For starters: exactly how is Mahatma Gandhi black?

✩ Tangled Web of Hate Weaved By Carto, Von Brunn & Co. (2009)

     It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry and it takes Irvine Valley College philosophy professor Roy Bauer to connect the dots between National Holocaust Museum shooter James Wenneker von Brunn, some of our most notorious local haters and The Unabauer's own South Orange County Community College District.
     Keep your eyes on the road because it gets twisty....

✩ Heriberto Erick Vergara Calvillo Gets 22 Years for Role in Slaying of Popular IVC Student (2014)

Raghu P. Mathur - more DtB
Photoshoppery in the Weekly

✩ Campuses Remember Mikel Anthony Williams and Carlos Salas, Victims of Violent Deaths (2012)

     A 28-year-old man who'd admitted his involvement in the fatal stabbing of a popular Irvine Valley College student was sentenced today to 22 years in state prison....

✩ Saddleback College Students Seek to De-Mexicanize their School's Gaucho Mascot (2010)

     ..."Whereas, Saddleback College, an educational establishment, reiterates institutional racism through caricatures of a minority that misrepresent it, and Whereas, the inaccurate depiction of the Gaucho suggests a climate of tolerance towards stereotype," the resolution states before asking for the "halt of Saddleback College merchandise and school publications with the image of the current Gaucho."....

✩ Separated at Birth? Ask a Mexican's Logo, Saddleback College's Gaucho (2009)

     My first actual visit to the campus happened last week, at a well-attended lecture that was well-attended only because nearly all the attendees earned extra credit. I took a quick glance at the school's newspaper, the Lariat, before my speech and became speechless. There, in the sports page, was the logo for Saddleback's sports teams' nickname, the Gaucho, the fabled cowboy of the Argentine pampas. Except it wasn't a Gaucho—it was a dirty Mexican that looked just like my dirty Mexican!....

✩ Alan Cohen (2006)

     At Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall writes about his father, biologist Alan Cohen, who taught at Irvine Valley College. Cohen died following a heart attack two weeks ago....

✩ Darius Porter, Freeway Suicide or Accident Victim, Remembered by IVC Basketball Team (2013)

     Irvine Valley College's basketball program is mourning the loss of a former player, while wondering if the young man took his own life by wandering on foot into freeway traffic....

✩ Why Does Saddleback College Have an MRAP Armored Vehicle? (2014)

     ...The campus cops acquired the 2012 [Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle] this April at no cost through the federal 1033 program. The South Orange County Community College District (SOCCCD) approved the transfer.
     "I think the trustees let our cops get an MRAP when they found out that some of our students are Democrats," says Irvine Valley College (IVC) philosophy professor Roy Bauer. He also runs Dissent the Blog, which kept a close eye on the SOCCCD that IVC and Saddleback belong to, when police tried unsuccessfully to arm up from carrying .38 Specials to 9mm handguns....

✩ Raghu Mathur Out as SOCCCD Chancellor? (2010)

     Irvine Valley College professor Roy Bauer's Dissent the Blog is reporting that after about a decade, Raghu Mather is out as chancellor of the South Orange County Community College District.

It's official. During tonight's board meeting, Board Clerk Marcia Milchiker read out board actions taken during tonight's closed session. She reported that a decision was made essentially to end Chancellor Mathur's continued tenure as Chancellor.

     The vote was apparently 5-2, with board president Don Wagner and trustees Milchiker, Nancy Padberg, William Jay and John Williams voting for the agreement to terminate and trustees Tom Fuentes and Dave Lang voting against....

✩ College District Board's Battle Cry: Send Lawyers, Hired Guns and Money (2010)

     The South Orange County Community College District (SOCCCD) board votes tonight on whether to pay a private lawyer $25,000 in taxpayer funds for helping negotiate what the district calls the "Mathur settlement." Why the district must settle anything with Raghu Mathur, who in January was fired/didn't have his contract renewed/was lovingly told it's time to tackle new career challenges (depending on who is doing the spinning), is unclear. Why it's paying someone other than the lawyers it already pays to handle labor matters is equally murky. What is known is the lawyer in line to get the dough has more skeletons in his closet than a college anatomy department.
     He's Phillip Greer, Orange County Republican politicians' attorney of choice....

Trustee and Public Administrator
John Williams

✩ South Orange County Community College District Settles Prayer Lawsuit (2011)

✩ [UPDATED] Federal Lawsuit Targets Orange County College District Prayers (2009)

     ...The district's campuses are Saddleback College in Mission Viejo and Irvine Valley College in Irvine, but Westphal v. Wagner ... specifically targets prayers at Saddleback, where school officials are accused of routinely sponsoring official invocations at events for students and faculty, including scholarship-award ceremonies, commencement ceremonies and training programs for faculty....

✩ UPDATED: College Board Sued Over Prayers Weighs Prayer Policy Tonight (2009)

✩ "God's Lawyer" Aids College District in Prayer Suit (2009)
     ...The new suit against the SOCCCD was filed last week by Americans United for Separation of Church and State on behalf of Saddleback College faculty members, former and current students and one Irvine Valley College professor, Roy Bauer. Writing as the ever-lovable "Chunk Wheeler" on his Dissent the Blog, the philosophy prof points out that the Western Center for Law and Religious Freedom is now known as the Pro-Family Law Center of Abiding Truth Ministries.
     The resource center presents writings by its president and lead attorney Scott Lively, who co-wrote with Kevin Abrams The Pink Swastika, which denounces as a gay myth the fact that the German Nazis were anti-homosexual. Bauer blogs that Bill Berkowitz of Buzzflash called The Pink Swastika a "Holocaust revisionist anti-gay book" and said Lively declared "war against the Southern Poverty Law Center for refusing to remove his Abiding Truth Ministries from its list of hate groups."
     Another anti-gay book Bauer came across was As We Sodomize America by O.R. Adams Jr., who mentions a documentary that Llewellyn partly narrated called The Gay Agenda. Adams, who Bauer labels "a nutjob," describes The Gay Agenda as "an authoritative and comprehensive explanation of the homosexual movement, and homosexual activity."....

✩ Don Wagner Kicks Off Assembly Bid With a Little Help From His Far-Out, Far-Right Friends (2009)

     ...Both Fuentes boy toys—that would be the Christ and the chancellor—got a run for their tidings during the Chancellor's Opening Session in August, when Mathur showed a video of images accompanied by the tune "God Bless the U.S.A." The collage ended with the words, "Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you—Jesus Christ and the American Soldier. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom."....

The embattled Tom Fuentes, Mr. GOP, RIP

✩ [UPDATED:] Eamon Daniel Higgins GUILTY in Foreign Student Visa Fraud (2010)

     Eamon Daniel Higgins, 46, of Laguna Niguel, pleaded guilty in federal court today to conspiracy for allegedly orchestrating a visa fraud scheme involving dozens of Middle Eastern students enrolled at Southern California colleges and universities, including Irvine Valley College.
...
     He obtained counterfeit California driver's licenses, took tests and exams and attended classes on behalf of students from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Kuwait, Turkey and Qatar. Co-conspirators helped Higgins with his scheme, including a mysterious blonde who apparently posed as a Middle Eastern man....

✩ What Do Barry Bonds and Saddleback Ballplayers Have in Common? (2006)

     The answer — alleged steroid abuse — is apparently in the May 11 issue of the Lariat, the student newspaper of the goosesteppin' South Orange County Community College District's Saddleback College in Mission Viejo and Irvine Valley College (IVC) in Irvine....

✩ No Entiendo: Tom Fuentes and friends ax Saddleback Colleges Spain study-abroad program (2005)

     ...But [former OC GOP chair] Fuentes shocked everyone in the audience when he began to assail his ancestral home. "One hundred ninety-five years ago, in 1810, my family arrived on this continent from Spain, so I have an affection for that land," Fuentes said. But he quickly dropped the amicable pretense, simultaneously attacking Saddleback College's study-abroad program as catering to "an elite" and as a death wish given the March 11, 2004, Madrid train bombings that left 191 dead.
     Terror wasn't what disturbed Fuentes the most, though. "Now: something more," he intoned sternly. "Many of our students in this college and its sister college, Saddleback and Irvine, past and future, today fight on the battlefield of Iraq under the flag that is behind us. Spain has abandoned our fighting men and women, withdrawing their support. I see no reason to send the students of our colleges to Spain at this moment in history."....

Rebel Girl

✩ I Have a King Day (2006)

     Our pal Rebel Girl at Dissent the Blog has a dream: it is a dream for a week worth of activities at Irvine Valley College dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr., and kicking off on his birthday today. Those activities include: a new on-campus Peace and Justice Center; an institutional adoption of Amnesty International's Prisoner of Conscience; a campus-wide re-creation of the 1963 March on Washington, D.C.; school Trustee Tom Fuentes (the former Orange County Republican Party chairman) reciting King's "I Have a Dream" speech; and, to cap the week in honor of Dr. King, the announcement that the school district has agreed to give classified employees a fair contract.
     In other words, Rebel Girl's dream can only be dreamed.

✩ I Am a Terrorist: I Teach (2004)

     ...There's a clear pattern here, a trajectory of terror: thin mints, folk music, political prisoners, fur seals, nukes, tamales and, finally, a membership card in, yes, a terrorist teacher's union. And not only do I belong, but I also sit on the California Teachers Association's state council. Hundreds of deep-cover operatives like myself regularly gather in plain sight at an LAX hotel for a weekend of cell meetings and training workshops, receiving our marching orders and instructions on disseminating the goods to our locals: "Read Across America" curricula, school-bond bumper stickers and research on student-teacher ratios....

✩ Hate Central (1998)

     ...Yes, the technobigots have struck again, this time at Irvine Valley College. On Oct. 22, about 400 teachers and staffers at the college found a message in their e-mail boxes headed "Very Important Information." The e-mail, sent by someone calling himself "George Washington," contained anti-Semitic quotations attributed to such historical figures as Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and a list of 60 government officials headed "USA's Rulers-They Are All Jews!"....

The late Irv Rubin

✩ Not So Liberal (2001)
     [Historian Bill] Billingsley said state legislators might have been sincere in their anti-communist convictions. However, he said, "A question I put to ones I interviewed was, 'Define communism.' And most of them couldn't. To many of them, I think communism meant any manifestation of social disorder or violation of the 'natural hierarchy' of race. It was a commonplace assumption of segregationists that blacks were satisfied with the racial status quo. So when there was a sudden eruption of what they'd thought were docile black people, the answer to them was that the communists were behind it."....

✩ You're a Creep (2002)

[SOCCCD board meeting highlights:]
     9:38 p.m. Someone leaves the standing-room-only meeting, and Rubin is allowed in by the doorman cop. [The JDL's Irv] Rubin and [Frogue supporter Michael] Piper exchange death stares. 9:38 p.m. "Shouldn't you get your money back for that haircut?" Piper crony Jim Scott asks Rubin. 9:40 p.m. Barry Krugel, Rubin's colleague, is finally admitted. Barry is the brother of Earl Krugel, who is also being held in the alleged bomb plot. 9:47 p.m. After much back and forth, Scott calls Rubin "subhuman" and "a lower life form." 9:59 p.m. Rubin wants to "shed the spotlight" on Joe Fields, who had to leave the meeting early for another engagement. "He's a self-admitted Hitler-lover," Rubin says of Fields. "He is also a convicted child molester who tries to pick up young girls and put them in his dirty little movies. And yet we have nothing but silence from Mr. Frogue. Mr. Frogue, your silence speaks a great deal. Maybe you ought to look yourself in the mirror and wonder who you're associated with." 10:07 p.m. As pro- and anti-Frogueans shout at one another, Rubin stares down Scott. "Don't look at my face," Rubin demands....

✩ Not-So-Secret Service: An Open Letter to IVC President Raghu Mathur (1999)

     As your presidential security consultant, I am prepared to:
     • Escort you to and from your car and the administration building every morning and evening.
     • Maintain secret files on high-profile personnel (we'll call it an Enemies List), including—but not limited to—academic-senate president Peter Morrison, philosophy instructor Roy Bauer and anthropology instructor Wendy Phillips....

✩ The Unabauer Manifesto (1999)

     Professor Roy Bauer has let everyone in the South Orange County Community College District know he wants to drop "a 2-ton slate of polished granite" on the head of his boss, Irvine Valley College's president. He's proclaimed an "urge to go postal" during an election party for conservative Board of Trustees candidates. And his e-mail address is frighteningly similar to the handle of another college professor preoccupied with going postal: "Unabauer."

✩ Cirque du Socccd (2000)

     ...Andrew Tonkovich, a liberal adjunct faculty member at IVC and a constant thorn in the side of conservative trustees and administrators, responded to the fax campaign by putting out a satirical release from the "One True Conservative Faculty Association." Noting that his organization "put the 'con' in 'conservative,'" Tonkovich announced his group's endorsement of Fuentes for not one but all four vacant district trustee seats this November. He concludes his delicious lampoon by pointing out that his public "remarks were met by complete indifference."....

✩ LA? No Way? (2001)

     Hot on the heels of its recent vote to disallow a student trip to Cuba, South Orange County Community College District (SOCCCD) trustees on Monday night voted to block all student outings to Los Angeles County. "The trustees have serious concerns about allowing district-sponsored travel to Los Angeles," said a district spokesperson. "It's far away and dangerous. Plus, students might get lost."
     In discussion of the recent controversial Cuba vote, trustees cited a report that "Fidel Castro made derogatory remarks about President George W. Bush." Later, in announcing the ban on Los Angeles field trips, conservative members of the board of trustees raised concerns about student health and safety during visits to the nearby metropolis.
     "It's all about protecting our kids," said one....

✩ Read All About It (1999)

     South Orange County Community College District trustees on Nov. 22 decided to appeal a court ruling favorable to Roy Bauer. The Irvine Valley College (IVC) professor publishes rabble-rousing newsletters that hilariously lampoon a board and administration that does a damn fine job of hilariously lampooning itself (Nazi sympathizers attending board meetings, homophobic political mailers in trustee elections, faculty fuckheads willing to sell their souls for coin—such a hoot!). Bauer's bosses tried to force him to seek therapy because, they alleged, his Vine and Dissent newsletters were filled with violence and hatred. Bauer sued on First Amendment grounds. The district countersued, claiming employees had been threatened physically in what friends and foes affectionately refer to as the "Unabauer Manifesto." But the judge sided with Bauer—in humorous fashion. When the district tried to make hay out of a comment in one newsletter that stated the author wanted to drop "a 2-ton slate of polished granite" on the IVC president's head, the judge dismissed it as pure hyperbole, noting, "Think of the logistics!" So now the not-so-appealing district is appealing, even though Bauer's court record against them is a solid 3-0....

✩ Another Fine Mess (1999)

     ...Clockwork asked Irvine Valley College (IVC) philosophy and ethics professor Roy Bauer the other day: Roy Bauer, you just won a $98,000 decision against the South Orange County Community College District. What are you going to do now?
     "Why, I'm going to Disneyland," he shot back. "There's a fella there, and the trustees hope to appoint him president of Saddleback College. His name's Goofy."....

Dandy Don Wagner. Nowadays, Irvine Mayor and shill for developers, et al.

✩ Teach Your Children Hell (1998)

     ...So it should not surprise us that hate literature littered two South County public schools on Oct. 28-a week after anti-Semitic e-mails were sent to 400 faculty and staff members at Irvine Valley College (IVC). About 500 index-card-sized leaflets featuring a disparaging cartoon of a Jewish man were found on El Toro High School's tennis and basketball courts. Nearly 100 miniature posters ridiculing African-Americans were scattered across Rancho Santa Margarita Intermediate School's athletic field and parking lot. A sticker attached to the fliers directed students to the Fallbrook chapter of White Aryan Resistance, which recruits young skinhead activists. Meanwhile, IVC officials are still trying to determine who sent the electronic letters to employees on Oct. 22. Clockwork isn't suggesting Frogue had a role in these incidents, but his continued presence on the board isn't helping matters....

✩ Textbook Love Affair (2002)
     ..."Hi, Steve, this is Glenn Roquemore," Steve [Zicree] remembers the voice on the other end saying. Roquemore was vice president of instruction at Irvine Valley College. "I'm calling to let you know that we won't have a contract for you."
     "But I already signed it," said Steve.
     "Yes," said Roquemore, who's now the president of IVC. "It's being revoked."
     "Anything more you want to say?" Steve asked.
     "Not at this time, no," Roquemore said before hanging up....

✩ Adventures in Advertising (1996)

     Local political observers are calling it the "most scurrilous and vile" campaign ad of the season, and it wasn't the deft handiwork of U.S. Congressman Bob Dornan, Orange County's most infamous negative campaigner. No, the ad—which critics say was designed to tap anti-gay sentiment—was sent by a college-faculty association on behalf of a slate of three conservative candidates and one Democrat vying for seats on the governing board of the Saddleback Community College District. Three of the candidates supported by the controversial ad—including the Democrat—won....

* * *

Plus Gustavo married one of IVC's beloved alums, Delilah Snell, owner of Santa Ana's Alta Baja Market. 

Lucky guy. 

Of course, the Weekly's coverage of the college district is just a tiny bit of their contribution toward making the county a more just and accountable place to live. Remember Mike Carona, "America's sheriff? He used to be a frequent visitor to IVC back in the day, all dressed up. Remember how the Weekly went after him? Scott Moxley! Fearless.  Check it out:  Mike Carona: No More Excuses

Sheriff Mikey with Glenn Roquemore

Rebel Girl wouldn't have wanted to live here the last quarter of a century without the Weekly, with Gustavo. 

—Gracias Gustavo!

We understand that this song is a favorite of the Weekly staffers. Play it loud.

Rebel Girl and Roy

world @ risk (aka the problem with the moron)

Bob Corker Says Trump’s Recklessness Threatens ‘World War III’
(NYT)

WASHINGTON — Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, charged in an interview on Sunday that President Trump was treating his office like “a reality show,” with reckless threats toward other countries that could set the nation “on the path to World War III.”
     In an extraordinary rebuke of a president of his own party, Mr. Corker said he was alarmed about a president who acts “like he’s doing ‘The Apprentice’ or something.”

     “He concerns me,” Mr. Corker added. “He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation.”
     Mr. Corker’s comments capped a remarkable day of sulfurous insults between the president and the Tennessee senator — a powerful, if lame-duck, lawmaker, whose support will be critical to the president on tax reform and the fate of the Iran nuclear deal.
     It began on Sunday morning when Mr. Trump, posting on Twitter, accused Mr. Corker of deciding not to run for re-election because he “didn’t have the guts.” Mr. Corker shot back in his own tweet: “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”
     The senator, Mr. Trump said, had “begged” for his endorsement. “I said ‘NO’ and he dropped out (said he could not win without my endorsement),” the president wrote. He also said that Mr. Corker had asked to be secretary of state. “I said ‘NO THANKS,’” he wrote.

     Mr. Corker flatly disputed that account, saying Mr. Trump had urged him to run again, and promised to endorse him if he did. But the exchange laid bare a deeper rift: The senator views Mr. Trump as given to irresponsible outbursts — a political novice who has failed to make the transition from show business.
     Mr. Trump poses such an acute risk, the senator said, that a coterie of senior administration officials must protect him from his own instincts. “I know for a fact that every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him,” Mr. Corker said in a telephone interview….

Pence talks up Trump in Newport Beach; protesters chant on street 
(OC Reg)

     …Among the anti-Trump demonstrators outside the venue was at least one Republican. Costa Mesa’s Mary Spadoni, 72, said she’d volunteered for every Republican presidential nominee since she was 21 — until Trump.
     “I’m a Republican but not that kind of Republican,” said the retired police officer, holding a sign that said, “Moron, Vice Moron.” “We’ve lost status in the world. They’re laughing at us. It’s sad. … For the last year and a half, I don’t know what I am (politically). My party has left me.”….

Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.

     Lake Street Dive can do anything, it seems.
     "Bohemian Rhapsody" is Camus for knuckleheads. It was a big hit when I was in college, forty years ago. I recall simultaneously cringing and thrilling to it. I like the guitar solo a lot. Here, it has been replaced with "meows." Nice touch.


     A swinging version of the old Motown hit.

     They absolutely nail M&P harmonies!