Video: Fryer and Albano discuss the big surprises in CIF-SS baseball, softball playoff pairings

• May 2, 2023

OCVarsity’s Steve Fryer and Dan Albano react to the CIF-SS pairings in baseball and softball in this week’s O.C. Dugout Show, starting with Foothill getting the at-large bid over Servite in Division 1 baseball.

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​ Orange County Register 

How does an attorney represent a guilty client? Ask the lawyer

• May 2, 2023

Q: My brother has been charged with a crime. He has a criminal defense lawyer, though, who says he is “fighting hard to prove his innocence.” Our question is: If the lawyer knows the client is guilty, then what?

F.B., Athens

Ron Sokol

A: The lawyer has an obligation to competently and zealously represent the client, within the bounds of the law; this includes ethical rules. The lawyer, for example, is not to elicit or promote testimony or evidence that they know is false. The lawyer is also not to encourage or participate in a fraud on the court. Thus, the situation you provide is sensitive and requires careful evaluation.

One factor to keep in mind is that criminal defense lawyers are not obligated to prove that their clients are innocent. They can present a defense that seeks to show there is insufficient evidence to convict beyond a reasonable doubt.

If an individual comes to a defense lawyer and proclaims innocence, the lawyer may or may not believe the client; in fact, perhaps the person is not being candid and is, in fact, guilty. The lawyer is still permitted to do their job. This may mean seeking a less harsh sentence, focusing on a lesser crime and/or seeking an outcome that challenges the client’s alleged guilt.

Q: If I am accused of a crime, am I required to tell the lawyer that I did it?

C.S., Seal Beach

A: This question is also challenging to answer. It could take a treatise to address all aspects of what clients should disclose to their lawyers.  Certainly, as a matter of common sense, you do not want your lawyer to be caught by surprise because you concealed information or were misleading.

One option is to ask your lawyer just what they want to know and to what degree the lawyer expects or prefers that you be candid. Some lawyers do not want to know all the details. The expression “don’t ask, don’t tell” comes to mind.

Also, to state it again, the burden in a criminal case is on the prosecution. The defendant’s guilt has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Further, the jury has to be unanimous. You can win the case with a finding of “not guilty,” even though that does not necessarily mean you are innocent.

As such, consider talking with your lawyer about what they want to know, how much they want to know and what does they expect to do with the case.  This is very likely not a one-and-done discussion; it may be a discussion that occurs a number of times over the course of the proceedings.

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From my vantage point, as a lawyer, I would not encourage a client to provide me with false or fabricated information. The client does not want the lawyer caught off guard by information that comes into play, be it records, testimony or basic analysis, but which the client already knew existed. The lawyer is fighting vigorously to try to protect you.

Ron Sokol has been a practicing attorney for more than 40 years, and has also served many times as a judge pro tem, mediator, and arbitrator.  It is important to keep in mind that this column presents a summary of the law, and is not to be treated or considered legal advice, let alone a substitute for actual consultation with a qualified professional. 

​ Orange County Register 

2 hospitalized after minivan slams into Santa Ana apartment complex

• May 2, 2023

Two people were hospitalized after a minivan crashed into an apartment building in Santa Ana Monday night, May 1, authorities said.

The driver ran off after the crash and was being sought, Santa Ana police Sgt. Maria Lopez said.

Orange County firefighters went to the 1600 block of West Memory Lane, near The City Drive, and found the minivan in a ground-floor apartment and had been told that there may have been victims trapped inside, Capt. Sean Doran told OnSceneTV, a news outlet that often partners with the Southern California News Group.

It appears the entire minivan ended up inside the building.

Firefighters moved the minivan enough to free a woman who had been trapped under the minivan, Lopez said. Paramedics took her to the hospital in critical condition.

Firefighters later found a man inside the apartment, Doran said. He was treated and taken to a hospital in unknown condition.

Lamar Moorer told OnSceneTV he was standing in the parking lot of the apartment complex and saw the minivan “going fast through (the intersection)” before running into the building.

“No brakes or anything,” he said. “It just kept going.”

Moorer, whose mother lives in the complex, said he ran to the apartment following the collision and tried to help the injured woman, but was unable to move the minivan and had to wait for firefighters to arrive.

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​ Orange County Register 

Orange County boys athlete of the week: James MacDonald, University

• May 2, 2023

The Orange County boys athlete of the week:

Name: James MacDonald

School: University

Sport: Tennis

Year: Senior

Noteworthy: He won the CIF singles title at The Ojai Tennis Tournament. MacDonald defeated Niels Hoffmann of Corona del Mar 6-4, 6-2 in the final. He beat Sean Ferguson of Peninsula in the semifinals 3-6, 6-3, 6-3. MacDonald this fall will attend Harvard where he plans to make the tennis team as a walk-on. University is the top-seeded team in the CIF-SS Open Division playoffs.

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​ Orange County Register 

OC Museum of Art launches Women in Wine series this week

• May 2, 2023

The Orange County Museum of Art is launching a five-part food and beverage series called Women in Wine that kicks off Thursday evening, May 4. The series is a collaboration between the museum, Catering by Mix Mix, and Argaux, a female-owned wine purveying trio founded by Arden Gilfillan, Margaux Reaume, and Lexi Jones.

Alyssa McDiarmid, managing partner of Populaire Modern Bistro and Catering by Mix Mix at OCMA, cultivated a friendship with Jones. In May 2022, they began discussing ways to celebrate women and the local wine community. They eventually decided to launch the Women in Wine series at OCMA.

“Now that we’re settled in at OCMA, it gives us more time to do these events,” McDiarmid says. “How could we highlight and make it more cohesive for everyone, but also feature different parts of the museum? We’re trying to build up a fruitful relationship with the neighborhood and we’re still new here, at Verdant. People are still discovering us and I hope the series opens that door to more of that discovery.”

The inaugural event is intended to be extremely accessible.

“Something casual that doesn’t feel so scripted,” says McDiarmid. Sometimes people go to these events and it’s intimidating. The goal is you go and aren’t judged. You could be with your friends, learn something and eat some delicious cheeses. Lexi will bring in a bunch of wine from Savoie.”

The pairings begin with wine and cheese but as the series progresses, the food options lean towards the more unexpected. A burger and burgundy night on Friday, June 16, appetizers inspired by the 13 Women: Variation II exhibit on Thursday, July 20, and the series culminates with a 200-person sitdown farm-to-table dinner on Thursday, Sept. 21.

“I was just at Terrace (by Mix Mix) the other day,” says McDiarmid, who also manages the front of house and wine pairings at the restaurant group’s other South Coast Plaza location. She enjoys the tempo of her work. “I get to wear different hats and I get to enjoy different cuisines.” But it’s events like the Women in Wine series where she can showcase other women in the industry that really excites her.

We caught up with McDiarmid to ask about the series origins, what event she is most excited about, and why vegetables work so unexpectedly well with wine.

This interview is edited for brevity and clarity.

Q. How did the Women in Wine series get started?

A. The museum is always looking at more programming. Obviously, we’re a museum. But I thought, what about bringing more food and wine into it. There are so many wines you can feature and I wanted to do a more casual format.

Lexi (Jones) from Argaux is a good friend of mine. I have been working with her for years. She and her two partners started their business during the pandemic. I’m so enamored with what they’re doing (at Argeaux) and it just fits with what we’re doing at the museum with the “13 Women” (exhibit). Lexi has just put her all into Argeaux. She’s traveled around the world and met all these winemakers. I really wanted to work with them because they’re a female-owned company.

Q. Who thought of the burger and burgundy event?

A. (There’s) this book called “Big Macs and Burgundy: Wine Pairings for the Real World.” I thought that was just great and we needed to do an event based on that idea.

This is a sit-down dinner. We’re serving the burger from Populaire (Modern Bistro). We’re trying to cross promote the brands so that’s a fun way to do that. They’ll pour a premier cru Burgundy and something else … People talk about “pizza wine” (inferring that it’s a cheaper drink). But, I thought, how fun that people are taking a more serious approach to these pairings.

The idea of the whole series is to pair something you know (the burger or fried chicken) with something that you don’t necessarily know, and that’s the wine side of it. I like the idea of bringing people who are excited about food and wine into the museum.

Q. Museums usually aren’t the first places you think of for great food. Why is Verdant at OCMA different?

A. Heidi (Zuckerman, CEO and director of OCMA) said, “It’s great to be on this list of restaurants in museums. (Life magazine listed Verdant as one of the 5 best museum restaurants in the U.S. along with heavyweights such as The Modern at MOMA.) It’s only our first six months. We wanted to parlay this into something more and that is what the Women in Wine series is. We’re a museum first, but what if people were coming here just to go to the restaurant. It might be a way to have more female visitors come in and it celebrates the founding 13 Women.

The last event, Endless Summer, is a farm-to-table dinner. We’ll serve flatbread, pastas, kind of like The Ecology Center’s Green Feast, but at the museum. We’re pouring rosés and it’s going to be outside on the terrace. We’re hoping to get 200 guests. The others will be smaller, 75 to 100 people.

Q. You offer traditional burgers and fried chicken. But you also have vegetarian alternatives. Why was it important to offer plant-based dishes to pair with the wines?

A. That was a big part of doing the series, we’re offering something for everyone. We’re not moonlighting. We are a plant-based concept in our everyday life at Verdant.

Pairing wine with vegetables, it pulls out so many components that meat with its iron and blood flavors can’t match. You get different characteristics from the vegetables. You pick up on something else. The floral notes or the salt. It’s actually a really cool part of pairing the food here at Verdant. I do appreciate (plant-based cooking) so much more. People take for granted what you can do with vegetables.

Q. How can you substitute vegetables for fried chicken?

A. One of the things that I noticed here (at Verdant) was that at first we were pooh-poohed for not serving a burger. But, honestly we’ve converted people. I’ve had people say, “I would eat more vegetables if they were made this way.”

I don’t like anything pretending it’s not. So I don’t like processed or dyes in things. But the mushroom works as the fried chicken (substitute). We were thinking about what we could do that would be meaty and still have that fried chicken vibe. That’s it.

Q. What event are you most excited about?

I’m super excited about the Champagne and fried chicken event (on Aug. 17). That reads very Populaire, too. (Populaire Modern Bistro is known for its caviar garnished fried chicken with uni.) We’ll have chicken buckets for everyone.

With a lot of our partners and donors it makes sense for them to have access to these experiences. The burgundy and burger dinner will feature higher end wine pairings which will be interesting for everyone.

Women in Wine events

May 4: Cheese & Wine Tasting, $85

June 16: Burgundy & Burgers, $120

July 20: Summer Spritz & Artist Spotlight, $65

Aug. 17: Fried Chicken & Champagne, $75

Sept. 21: Endless Summer “Farm-to Table-Experience,” $120

All events start at 6 p.m. and are for guests 21 and older only. For more information and tickets, visit ocma.art/calendar/women-in-wine-wine-and-cheese/

​ Orange County Register 

Disneyland hot chicken stand turns down the heat, simplifies the menu

• May 2, 2023

An Orange County-based Nashville hot chicken concept has toned down the double entendres and doused a Ghost Pepper heat level to bring its brand of hand-breaded fried chicken to the Disneyland resort.

Clyde’s Hot Chicken opened a food cart in late April near the Disneyland Monorail station in Downtown Disney serving boneless fried chicken on a stick.

There are no plans for a permanent Clyde’s Hot Chicken location in Downtown Disney at this time, according to Disneyland officials.

SEE ALSO: Sprinkles Cupcakes closes at Downtown Disney to make room for new restaurant

The $14 Clyde’s Hot Stick Combo comes with five pieces of chicken, potato chips and pickle slices. The original Clyde’s Sauce and Clyde’s Ranch are $1 extra.

Two heat levels are available: Original with a Cayenne spice and sweet finish or Hot as Cali that blends Cayenne and Habanero spices. Timid tasters can get their hot chicken without any heat — just ask for it “naked.”

The hot chicken chain adjusted the Nashville-inspired heat levels to appeal to the family-friendly Disneyland audience at the Anaheim outdoor shopping mall.

Gone are the Habanero and Ghost Pepper spice level known as 1930 with the Hot as Cluck heat level renamed to a less irreverent Hot as Cali featuring a blend of Cayenne and Habanero.

SEE ALSO: Earl of Sandwich opens full-service restaurant in Downtown Disney next to pop-up shop

Clyde’s opened its first restaurant in 2019 next to the historic Fox Theatre in Fullerton and has since expanded to Santa Ana, Placenta and Montclair with a Yorba Linda location in the works. Clyde’s also has a concession stand in the Las Vegas Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium.

Clyde’s prides itself on serving all-natural chicken with no antibiotics, preservatives, hormones or artificial additives.

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The Downtown Disney location features a streamlined menu with little more than chicken on a stick and a few soft drinks. The small chain’s larger fast casual restaurants offer a broader menu with sandwiches, wings, tenders, chicken and waffles, fries, sides and milkshakes.

The Clyde’s Hot Chicken cart in Downtown Disney is open most days from 11 a.m. to midnight.

​ Orange County Register 

State audit of CalOptima Health raises concerns over accumulated surplus, hiring

• May 2, 2023

A state audit of Orange County’s provider of publicly funded health coverage, CalOptima Health, said the public agency accumulated $675 million in excess funds without a clear plan for spending it and did not follow best practices when hiring for some executive positions, according to a report released Tuesday, May 2.

CalOptima officials said in a statement they have already implemented some of the recommendations the state audit makes.

Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva had requested, a year ago, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee approve the audit of CalOptima’s budget, programs and services, and organizational changes.

One of the audit’s highlighted findings was how much surplus funding CalOptima had banked.

CalOptima is required by county law to implement a financial plan that includes the creation of a reserve. Under its policy, the agency must maintain no less than one to two months of certain revenues.

The audit reported that as of June 30, 2022, CalOptima had accumulated more than $1.2 billion of combined reserves and surplus funds. From 2014 to 2022, CalOptima’s reserves increased from $156 million to $570 million.

However, the $675 million in surplus funds beyond adequate reserves should have been used to improve services, the state audit says.

The auditor reported that CalOptima’s excessive surplus funds resulted, in part, from intergovernmental transfer funds that CalOptima did not spend. Those funds are a transfer that can be used for Medicaid covered services, auditors said.

While auditors said CalOptima had “historically retained a significantly larger percent” of the funds “than other managed care plans we reviewed,” as of August, CalOptima was retaining only 2% of those funds, and it recently reported that its board has allocated all of its remaining intergovernmental transfer funds to various programs addressing the health needs of members experiencing homelessness. However, its efforts to monitor the success of the programs it funded were inconsistent, the state report said.

The state auditor recommends the agency by June 2024 create a detailed plan to spend its surplus funds for expanding access or improving benefits.

The state probe also said there may have been a violation of state law prohibiting public officials from being financially interested in certain contracts when a board member entered into an employment contract with CalOptima to serve as its CEO in 2020.

On top of that, the public health agency has experienced higher executive turnover than the other managed care plans, and it lacks a written policy governing its process for hiring employees, the report said. The auditor also said CalOptima did not follow best practices when it hired three of the six executives reviewed.

“When CalOptima’s board chose to hire one of its own members to be the CEO, it created the appearance that the board was acting in the best interest of the individual involved rather than the best interests of the individuals CalOptima serves,” the state auditor’s report said.

The report recommends that CalOptima amend its bylaws to prohibit all CalOptima board members from being employed by the agency for a period of one year after their term on the board ends.

“As the largest health insurer in Orange County serving our most vulnerable populations, opportunities to increase transparency and improve services provide a major benefit to CalOptima Health and the patients we serve,” CalOptima CEO Michael Hunn, hired in 2021, said in a statement. “CalOptima Health would like to thank the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, as well as Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva, and the California State Auditor’s office for working with CalOptima Health while performing a comprehensive audit covering January 2014 through June 2022. We were pleased to learn that there were very few findings in the Auditor’s report. Actions are already underway to implement all recommendations.”

This is a developing story, please check back for updates.

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How ‘Little Richard: I Am Everything’ restores the rock ‘n’ roll icon to his throne

• May 2, 2023

Director Lisa Cortés says there’s one thing she’s often heard from people after they’ve watched “Little Richard: I Am Everything,” her new documentary on the colorful, complicated pioneer of early rock ‘n’ roll.

“People always say, ‘I learned so much about him and I thought I knew him,’” Cortés says on a recent video call about the film, which arrived in theaters and on-demand recently. “It’s quite a revelatory journey.”

It was the same for Cortés, too, the Oscar- and Emmy-nominated filmmaker says of her journey to fully understand the life and career of the performer born as Richard Penniman.

“I didn’t learn about him and all of the layers until I made this film,” Cortés says. “My introduction was the music, the joy of dancing around to ‘Tutti Frutti’ with my cousins as a kid.

“Even to this day, I can put ‘Tutti Frutti’ on for my niece, who’s 3 years old, and she loses her mind and starts singing along and gets super excited,” she says. “Because there’s something in the music that’s so joyous.”

“Little Richard: I Am Everything” seeks to place the singer of hits such as “Good Golly Miss Molly,” “Long Tall Sally” and “Lucille” on the throne as the true king of rock ‘n’ roll, a title that eluded him during his lifetime.

Archival interviews with Penniman, who died at 87 in May 2020, show it’s clear he seldom felt he’d received his due. Through new interviews with a host of entertainers such as Mick Jagger, Billy Porter, Nile Rodgers and John Waters – all of whom profess their love, admiration and emulation of him – it’s clear many others agree.

“My connection was solely the music, and then seeing him on talk shows, where you never got a sense of his contributions to rock and roll,” Cortés says. “He was there to be fun and almost be a comic foil in a way.

“And so making the film was a tremendous opportunity to see how someone born in Macon, Georgia in 1932 was so bold in their vision,” she says. “Someone who was so provocative and transgressive that they not only ignited this music form but had a lasting effect on so many artists who followed him.”

In an interview edited for length and clarity, Cortés talked about the film and the role that God, sex and religion played in Little Richard’s life.

Q: Tell me how you came to make this film.

A: Well, here’s the thing. Richard passed away in May of 2020, which is the height of the pandemic. Whenever somebody dies and they are an artist who has such tremendous hits, you hear their music all the time. So at a time that was very dark and challenging, I heard this music that was so joyous.

That brought back memories of being a kid dancing around with my cousins in the summer. And I wanted to learn more. I was like, ‘Wow, I wonder if there’s a doc on him,’ and then discovered there wasn’t.

Q: So you were inspired to make one?

A: I think I was especially intrigued when he passed away. You’ve got Bob Dylan giving tribute. You have [Foo Fighters’] Dave Grohl. You have Elton John. You have so many artists who are like, ‘He was the king, he was so important.’ Bruce Springsteen gave him a tribute.

Then I did a quick Google search. I’m looking at the YouTube of him inducting Otis Redding into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is him actually inducting himself. That’s a very poignant piece of footage. He is calling out these stars in the audience, and he’s saying, ‘Why have you never given me anything? Why are you not recognizing me? I gave you your start.’

It’s humorous, but it’s also very painful because it’s an act of desperation. And I think many of us tap into this idea of being erased. Of being a part of something and losing that foothold.

Q: Why do you think he didn’t get the recognition he deserved? We know one reason is that the work of Black artists was often undermined as White artists rerecorded their work, often enjoying greater commercial support and success with White audiences. How did you come to see it?

A: I think you can’t deny that race and his queerness, that is a combination that was so threatening. The idea of putting a queer Black man in the ’50s on a pedestal, you know, was not going to happen. It’s unfortunate because those are the things that make him so incredible. That he’s a Black queer man who is elevating this art form, and adding so much passion and potency.

Q: Another fascinating part of the film is its exploration of his struggle to reconcile his passions for God, sex and rock ‘n’ roll. At different points in his life, he comes out as gay and then goes back in the closet; he plays rock and roll and then renounces it as the devil’s music, and so on.

A: I think most people don’t know that the renunciation of his queerness in the ’80s is predated by his renunciation of rock and roll in the ’60s. It is this really tragic pendulum that he’s on, and it’s this tension that is pulling him back and forth for a great portion of his life.

That was something that really stood out immediately when I spent the time doing my research. Because you see that he really is a divided soul.

Q: There’s so much wonderful footage in the film of Little Richard performing and giving interviews, things I’d never seen before. Are there things you found in your research that were particularly special finds for you?

A: I think it’s interesting when he tells us about his time after he’s kicked out of his home for being queer. That in downtown Macon, Georgia in the 1940s, there’s a place called Ann’s Tic Toc Room. A place where queer people, Black and White people, came together.

Because that is not in our kind of imagination about what could be possible in the South during this period. Homosexuality is illegal. Homophobia is rampant. But that he finds this community in this small city was pretty interesting.

I think the second part is when Little Richard tells us, ‘I go on the road, on the Chitlin’ Circuit, and I dress up as a woman.’ It tells you so much about all these different places and experiences that he is pulling from to create this musical gumbo.

Q: I was also fascinated by the musical dream sequences you included with musicians like singer-songwriter Valerie June, singer-pianist Cory Henry and gospel singer John P. Kee.

A: From the beginning of the project I knew I wanted to create dreamscapes. I see them as these seminal moments in Richard’s life, where these portals of possibility open. You know, he meets Sister Rosetta Tharpe (portrayed by Valerie June), who says, ‘Come sing with me,’ and then after being on stage with her at the Macon Auditorium, Richard’s like, ‘I want to go be a star.’

I chose all of those artists because they are a part of the legacy. The amazing Valerie June talked about her love of Sister Rosetta Tharpe. The same thing with Cory Henry, who started in the church but now not only can play gospel music but jazz and hip-hop and R&B and pop. And, of course, John P. Kee knew Little Richard.

So each of them felt connected to him in some way. And the same goes for everybody else who was interviewed in the film. They had to have an intimate connection.

And the people who were interviewed were immediately like, ‘I want to talk about Little Richard because the world needs to know what he did for me.’ And in turn for music and culture.

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