Sellouts

Photo by Bob AulIn case you hadn't heard, the OC Weekly is for sale. Stern Publishing, which owns this glorious publication, announced on Sept. 22 that it's on the block. What's now in your mitts could be sold with other Stern alternative weeklies or broken off for individual sale.

Clockwork may be dumb, but we ain't stupid. We're not about to burn any more bridges, since anyone with money and power and influence could be our new massahs. Therefore, welcome to the all-new compassionate, conservative A Clockwork Orange.

BELLY-UPA routine maintenance operation at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station on Sept. 24 killed about 4,800 pounds of fish. Plant employees used heat to clean barnacles, mollusks and other organisms from underwater plant equipment, but it was obviously too hot for a bunch of fishies-turned-floaters that also called those waters home. Most who croaked were yellowtail croakers (you can't make shit like that up). Environmentalists and animal-rights activists would bemoan this as shameful murder of innocent beings, but not always-look-on-the-bright-side Clockwork. Just think: fish sticks for weeks! RADIATION VIBEIf that last item didn't bring to mind Monty Burns and his nuclear-power station on The Simpsons, how about this: shortly after 49 warning sirens went off within a 10-mile radius of San Onofre on Sept. 29, viewers of Cox Communications' 45 cable television channels in south Orange and north San Diego counties were told there was an emergency at the plant. The problem was it was a test—only a test. That's what viewers were supposed to be told. Officials blamed the screwup on Cox getting the wrong signal (must've been the KA-BLOOEY! signal). What a relief! Now you know if the horns start wailing and the message scrawled below The Price Is Right says to kiss yer ass goodbye, it's only a test. I ALSO AM NOT A CROOKJohn Taylor, director of the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, defended that city's former city manager before the City Council on Sept. 29. Taylor said that Arthur Simonian, who was fired after he allegedly received tens of thousands of dollars in allegedly unapproved bonuses and benefits, played a great part in bringing the library to Yorba Linda. Taylor also said a legal-expenses fund-raiser for Simonian will be held at Tricky Dick Central. Clockwork can think of no more appropriate place to honor a shamed public official. Atta boy, Johnny! POND SCUMThe Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, which Anaheim officials swore would be a boon to the city when it opened six years ago, lost $4.7 million last year—its sixth straight year in the red. New York-based Ogden Corp., which manages the facility that's home to the Mighty Ducks pro hockey franchise, announced Sept. 30 that the Pond's total losses are $29.4 million. The city must pay Ogden $1.5 million each year the arena loses money through 2001. That's because the city promised a pro basketball team, which would have offset those yearly losses, would be part of the package when Ogden signed on. But the Los Angeles Clippers—which seemed a natural for the Pond until someone read the fine print and learned Ducks owner Disney gets the parking and concession revenues from all events there—are committed to downtown LA's new Staples Center. Clockwork says Anaheim is doing a great and charitable good, paying millions to see that Orange County doesn't get stuck with the Clippers! HASTA LA VISTA, GRAY DAVIS? Hear me now, and see me later, and talk to me next election: in the November issue of Talk magazine, Arnold Schwarzenegger, calling himself a “compassionate conservative,” reveals he may run for governor of California in 2002. The Austria-born thespian is constitutionally barred from serving as president, but he can be governor because California welcomes anyone born elsewhere who speaks broken English and takes jobs away from able-bodied, U.S.-born residents.

Hey, Arnie: screw politics. Wanna buy a newsweekly?