Reader Mark Sheldon submitted this photo of Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) posing alongside “professional Hillary Rodham Clinton look-alike” Teresa Barnwell of Costa Mesa just before the Huntington Beach Fourth of July Parade. Barnwell rode on the local Democratic Party entry. We're guessing Rohrabacher was hanging out backstage, hoping to hitch a ride on one of those mini Shriners cars. . . . A fellow named Tony e-mailed us that Joel Beers' cover story last week (“Where's Dick?”) neglected to mention a plaque commemorating Richard Nixon's marriage at the Mission Inn in Riverside. . . . Speaking of our wascally 37th prez, he played a prominent role on a marquee in Irvine, according to Steve Smith's missive. One-word titles at Edwards Park Place theaters last week were arranged thusly: “Runaway Dick Inspector.” . . . J. Burns asked whassup with the media's silence on Nostradamus blowing his prediction that World War III would begin in July 1999. “Someone suggested Armageddon might have been postponed until the Antichrist wins herself a seat in the U.S. Senate,” Burns writes. Actually, Armageddon begins when Dana Rohrabacher poses all chummy with Hillary Rodham Clinton.
MARITAL BLISSAn eight-months-preggers woman who believed her man was a-cheatin' allegedly took a pair of scissors and nearly sliced ol' hubby's nose off, according to Sheriff's deputies. Susie Jamison, 26, was arrested on suspicion of mayhem and felony assault after the noontime incident Aug. 4 at a Beach Boulevard motel in Midway City. New lodging arrangements were made for her at Orange County Jail. John Jamison, 25, was taken to Huntington Beach Hospital, where doctors reattached his nose. Coulda been worse, Johnny. You coulda been married to Lorena Bobbitt. I THINK I'M GONNA BE SLICKA group of middle-class, South County youths who call themselves the Slick 50s for their 1950s-style hair and clothing has been deemed a criminal street gang by a jury, which on Aug. 4 convicted four of the teens and an adult acquaintance of attempted murder in a knife attack. Even the prosecution acknowledges that only one Slick 50—Jesse Grist, 17, of Laguna Niguel—and 21-year-old Josh Carlsen of Dana Point actually stabbed and beat a 17-year-old boy outside a high school party in Aliso Viejo last year. But because the Slick 50s was considered a gang, all the affiliated youths present at the party were brought up on the same charges. They were tried as adults and, with the gang tag, face extra time in the slammer. Grist and Carlsen are looking at up to 17 years, while Steven Crader, 17, of Aliso Viejo; Kurtis Pinedo, 17, of Laguna Hills; and Joshua Riazi, 16, of Dana Point could get up to 15 years each at their Oct. 8 sentencing. TEACHER'S PETSMiguel Vivanco, the former vice principal at Rancho Alamitos High School in Garden Grove, was sentenced on Aug. 5 to nearly three years in state prison for having unlawful sex with a 17-year-old student who later bore him two children. The Costa Mesa resident has three kids from another ex-student he was married to at the time of the latest tryst and at least one complaint of fondling lodged by an underage student 12 years ago. School district officials, who continued to promote Vivanco despite his extracurricular activities, received no jail time. WELCOME TO UC SCANDALIt's getting so that you can't keep up with the UC Irvine medical school scandals without a program. It was reported on Aug. 5 that campus officials are investigating an ex-researcher who is being paid to tout nutritional supplements that claim to treat AIDS, cancer, hepatitis and chronic fatigue syndrome. The claims of Dr. Darryl See are apparently based on research he did at UCI. But See left the school amid ethical complaints about his work, and the university is now questioning whether he completed the nutritional supplement research there at all. This latest flap follows UC Irvine's infamous fertility clinic scandal and last year's allegations of unauthorized experiments at the med school's cancer lab.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.