Category: Culture

The Union-Tribune has finally discovered that a film crew has been filming in OB for the past umpteen weeks. On today’s (6-15-10) front page is an article entitled, “TV discovers a San Diego star: O.B.”, with some cool observations and comments from the television stars and producers themselves, plus the OB Rag is mentioned along with some of our gnarly commenters.

Here are some great quotes – the first by actor Raymond-James:

“Ocean Beach has become a character in the show that is just as big, if not bigger, than Donal and I. There is a bit of a scruffiness and scrappiness about our characters that fits right into O.B.”

by Jeannette De Wyze /Travels in San Diego / June 14th, 2010

Given how much San Diego has changed in the 36 years I’ve lived here, it warms my heart when I run across something that seems timeless. Case in point: the current flap roiling Ocean Beach, which I’ve been following in the always-entertaining OB Rag blog. At issue is a $2.50 sticker that’s been sold for about three weeks at The Black, the community’s venerable head shop/novelty store. Displaying the silhouetted imaged of a Depression-era hobo and his dog, the sticker recalls California state park messages not to feed the bears. Only it instead directs OB visitors not to “feed our bums.”

On May 28, Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, 42, was shot with a Taser stun gun by a U.S Customs and Border Protection officer at the San Ysidro border crossing after he resisted agents trying to send him back to Mexico. He later died. His death has pushed an already-heated debate over illegal immigration to the boiling point.

By Michael Hiltzik /Los Angeles Times / June 12, 2010

We may finally have discovered a remedy for corporate executives with more greed than brains: Let them invest corporate funds by the millions in California ballot initiatives, then vote the things down.

Isn’t that the lesson of Tuesday’s balloting on Propositions 16 and 17?

I just got off the phone with Ken Anderson, one of the co-managers of The Black. He has worked on Newport Ave for 18 years and has seen everything. He is the one who ordered the new, controversial anti-homeless stickers that say “Welcome to Ocean Beach. Please don’t feed our bums,” with a graphic of a 1930’s hobo and dog.

The Black, the iconic head shop that has been a mainstay in Ocean Beach “since 1969” – has entered the Dark Side – get it? The Black on the Dark Side. Their sale of the anti-homeless stickers – is stirring up the community. The Black used to be the only place where you would find items of the counter-culture, smoking instruments, sandals, incense, weird, psychedelic posters, … you name it – if hippies wanted it they could find it there.

By Jeremy W. Peters / The New York Times/ June 10, 2010

A pilot wanted to take a photographer from The Times-Picayune of New Orleans to snap photographs of the oil slicks blackening the water. The response from a BP contractor who answered the phone late last month at the command center was swift and absolute: Permission denied.

Our roving reporter has discovered the source of the ‘don’t feed the bums’ stickers that have mysteriously appeared on municipal signs and a couple local store windows lately around OB: The Black headshop on Newport Ave.

Someone is spending more money on their underground campaign to rid Ocean Beach of its homeless. They are placing slick yellow and black stickers on city signs around Ocean Beach with the message “Please don’t feed our bums.”

The folks who run the OB Street Fair have a new heartache. Someone broke into one of their volunteers’ cars and besides taking personal items, also escounced with a box of Street Fair T-shirts.

The T-shirts stolen were in a huge box of mostly men’s tanks in black and a number of small and medium size men’s T-shirts. Volunteers were taking boxes home to fold the T-shirts over the weekend and bam! . . . some bad guy a steals one of the boxes. The t-shirts were all printed by the James Gang and are sold to raise money for the Street Fair, Fireworks and lots of OB projects. All the shirts have the street fair logo (two sandals, stars and the words “Ocean Beach Street Fair & Chili Cook-Off Festival”) on them.

Today at 6pm, there will be a local protest against BP (British Petroleum) – the giant oil company responsible for the current catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. The protest will be at the ARCO station just in front of the Sports Arena, at 3580 Sports Arena Blvd. ARCO is owned by BP.

June 8th is World Ocean Day, so the event organizers wanted to hold an action in conjunction with like-minded activists the world over. Apparently the local event is being organized by HuffPost Green readers, who are being asked to brainstorm and take action for helping with the oil spill.

For the first time in years – or at least in any of our memories – there’s controversy surrounding the election of Superior Court judges in tomorrow’s primary. Normally, the usual (yawn) campaign of judges takes on the quiet excitement associated with lawn bowling. But not this year, this year of the rise of the tea party.

This year there is a tea party-like group called “Better Courts Now” that is upsetting the apple cart by pushing their own slate of holier-than-thou conservative candidates. As if judges weren’t conservative enough! Most judges were former prosecutors – an already conservative role within the court system – and so by time most don their black robes and step up to the seats – there’s definitely a conservative bias that dominates the courtroom.