When OC Weekly is not busy applying our journo stick to the backsides of various reprobates, we pause to think about the good people all around us. For instance, there are the folks gracing the home page and sprinkled individually throughout this website. Whether they are feeding the hungry, feeding our brains or feeding our ears, these are the ones who join countless others in making Orange County a special place to be. Sometimes. When those reprobates aren’t running amok.
Among the un-reprobates featured in this year’s People Issue are fighters for trans youths, Arab Americans and easy access to cannabis. There are also protectors of D&D, baseball, spoken word, the needy, musicians and the OC music scene, and the sacred remains and descendants of this land’s first peoples. And to show we are not afraid to highlight a worthy opponent when we see one, we included a journo who beat this infernal rag on news stories. (Gulp!)
PEOPLE ISSUE 2019
The Journalist Citizen: Matt Ferner. By R. Scott Moxley
Decolonizing Surfer: Dina Gilio-Whitaker. By Lisa Black
The Organizer: Rashad Al-Dabbagh. By Lauren Galvan
Fighter for Trans Youth: Priya Shah. By Gabriel San Román
Professor Baseball: Edwin Amenta. By Matt Coker
The Hunger Reliever: Allison Cuff. By Lila Shakti
The Vlogsmith: Gil Ramirez. By Patrice Marsters
Poetic Influencer: Marilynn Montaño. By Aimee Murillo
The Party Maker: John Hampton. By Nate Jackson
Music Man: Biff Cooper. By Steve Donofrio
The Cannabiz Consultant: Nichole West. By Jefferson VanBilliard
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.