The Hospital You Choose for Your Baby’s Birth Matters More Than You Think

• July 8, 2025

By Torrey Halbert, DO, obstetrics & gynecology, MemorialCare Medical Group – Rancho Mission Viejo

You’ve shared with family and friends that you are expecting — what an exciting time! As you prepare for this special time, it is essential to consider the importance of selecting a hospital that aligns with the compassion and clinical outcomes you and your family deserve. Here are some questions to consider:

• Does your hospital have the resources and providers to support your ideal birthing experience?
• Is the hospital close to your home, ensuring you can reach it without delay when the time comes?
• Are there teams and systems in place to offer support beyond your health care provider, such as a maternity concierge, 24/7 nurse advice phone line, and lactation consultants?
• Does the hospital have the capacity for high-risk pregnancies, including at least a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) to address emergencies?
• Is the hospital equipped with an Obstetric Emergency Department (OB ED) to safeguard yours and your baby’s health throughout your pregnancy and postpartum period?

These are important questions you and your partner should ask as you prepare to welcome your newest family member. Choosing the right healthcare provider for this journey is essential. Various types of obstetric healthcare providers can meet your needs, including an OB-GYN or a certified nurse midwife.

Within MemorialCare, both OB-GYNs and certified nurse midwives are available to our expecting patients. OB-GYNs are medical doctors trained to provide women with both medical and surgical care. After completing medical school, they undergo four years of residency training focusing on reproduction, pregnancy, and female medical and surgical issues. They are certified by the American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Certified nurse midwives are educated in two fields: midwifery and nursing. To achieve the title of certified nurse midwife, they must earn graduate degrees in nursing, complete an accredited midwifery education program, and pass a national certification exam administered by the American Midwifery Certification Board. Due to their specialized training, certified nurse midwives are considered advanced practice registered nurses who provide care during prenatal visits, active labor, birth, and postpartum.

MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center has been at the forefront of maternity care for more than
35 years and were the first to open Labor, Delivery, Recovery, and Postpartum (LDRP) suites in Orange County. Saddleback Medical Center consistently re-invests in the community to bring leading quality initiatives and comfort amenities to new moms. Today, these suites are designed with the health and bonding benefits of keeping mom and baby together while ensuring the mother’s comfort needs are met. In addition, the LDRP suites feature large windows for natural light, Bluetooth speakers, lavender-scented towels, freshly baked cookies, and a celebration brunch. They also include peanut balls and rocking chairs for mobility during labor, with six suites equipped with soaking tubs.

Additionally, The Women’s Hospital at Saddleback Medical Center continuously focuses on quality improvement. For eight years running, The Women’s Hospital has been named a Center of Excellence by the Society of Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology. The team also continually implements initiatives to reduce infection rates and support vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC), empowering women with safe, evidence-based childbirth options. Saddleback Medical Center maintains a 23.2% cesarean birth for first-time, low-risk mothers – lower than national and state targets, and many local hospitals.

Another unique benefit I shared with my patients about The Women’s Hospital is the maternity concierge service, available to every patient who delivers at Saddleback Medical Center – something not offered at any other hospital in Orange County. The maternity concierge helps guide you in determining which provider is right for you, whether it be a midwife or OB-GYN, helps schedule tours of The Women’s Hospital, and answers any questions you may have, including those on insurance and billing.

In addition, Saddleback Medical Center has an on-site level III NICU equipped to support premature and fragile infants with a team of neonatologists, specialized NICU nurses, and respiratory therapists available 24/7. While nobody wants to plan for a pregnancy complication, should the need arise, Saddleback Medical Center has a 24/7 OB ED to care for patients who are 16 weeks pregnant and up to six weeks postpartum cared for by specialized nurses and board-certified OB hospitalists.

Future moms, it’s important for you to know that you’re in control of your birth experience. You will have a million decisions to make as a parent, starting with the one that matters most: choosing a provider aligned with your preferred hospital to ensure the best birth experience for you and your family.

Want to learn more? Visit memorialcare.org/SMCBaby or call at (949) 837-4500.

​ Orange County Register 

Modern post and beam lakehouse in Pasadena seeks $3.9 million

• July 8, 2025

A post-and-beam lakehouse by modernist architect John L. Pugsley is on the market in the South Arroyo area of Pasadena for $3.895 million.

This 3,248-square-foot two-story house features four bedrooms, five bathrooms and an airy, open floor plan. Completed in 1970, it sits on just over a third of an acre in the gated Brookmere enclave, with views of the historic man-made Johnston Lake the street.

Records show the property last sold for $1.25 million in July 2016.

While its undergone renovations and updates, much of its architectural character remains.

Pugsley, who died in 2009 at 81, created a glass and wood house where natural light floods the expansive interior. A brick fireplace with a tile surround anchors the living room. Glass doors open into the office, which boasts a long built-in window bench.

The kitchen has been updated with stainless-steel appliances, glossy white cabinetry and a breakfast bar. There’s also a formal dining room.

Updates were also made to the bathrooms.

The upstairs primary suite, which overlooks the living room, opens to an outdoor deck.

“From an architectural standpoint, these post and beam properties are revered, but it’s the setting that sets it apart,” said listing agent Gus Ruelas of The Agency.

According to Ruelas, it’s rare for homeowners to give up their homes in this secluded lake neighborhood.

Surrounded by a grassy meadow, Johnston Lake began as a natural spring-fed pond in the 1870s by then-Los Angeles Mayor Prudent Beaudry. Sid Gally, a volunteer of the Pasadena Museum of History wrote in the Pasadena Star News in 2015 that Beaudry’s holdings included portions of the San Pascual and San Rafael ranches along the west bank of the Arroyo Seco where he operated the San Rafael Winery.

It was there he also dammed up the lake named after the Scottish rancher Alexander Campbell-Johnston, who purchased over 2,000 acres from Beaudry in 1883.

Johnston Lake used to be accessible to all, but Curbed reported that came to an end in 1953 when residents formed the Brookmere Homeowners Association.

Today, only residents have access to catch and release fishing by boat, or the lakeside park and pool.

“The setting is super unique,” Ruelas said. “When the gates close behind you, you feel like you’ve been transported somewhere far away.”

​ Orange County Register 

Cole’s French Dip is closing its doors Aug. 3 after 117 years in business

• July 8, 2025

After 117 years in business, the city’s oldest restaurant and bar — which has a history that harkens back to well before Prohibition — is closing its doors this summer.

Cole’s French Dip, one of two historic L.A. restaurants that claim to have invented the French Dip sandwich, will be shuttering its doors on Aug. 3, according to Pouring With Heart, the Los Angeles -ounded company that runs the downtown staple.

“The litany of reasons for closing are not unique to Cole’s alone; they are affecting most independent restaurants in Los Angeles. The global pandemic, the actors and writers strikes, overall crime, as well as the consistently rising costs of labor and goods, unsustainably high rents and mounting bureaucracy and legal exposure have all led to this unfortunate outcome,” read a statement emailed to the Southern California News Group and attributed to Pouring with Heart founder Cedd Moses and his staff.

Located in downtown’s Historic Core at 118 E. Sixth St., in the Pacific Electric Building, Cole’s was founded by Henry Cole in 1908 and in 1974 it was dedicated as a city Historic-Cultural Landmark. Cole’s claim to fame is inventing the French dip sandwich, which nearby establishment Philippe The Original has also claimed.

Regardless, Cole’s is known as a place deeply rooted in the fabric of the city and saw a rebirth when it was purchased by Moses and underwent a $1.6 million renovation that brought it back to its 1908 state, with original glass lighting and restored penny-tile floors plus a  40-foot mahogany bar adorned with old photos that depict the history of Cole’s and Los Angeles.

The closing of Cole’s follows the shuttering of other historic spots in the city like The Original Pantry Cafe, which closed in March after 101 years of service,

In his statement Moses urged Angelinos to come in for one last French dip and maybe a drink or two.

“We have cherished our time serving the Downtown community, and will continue to craft great drinks and our renowned French dip sandwiches until we shutter. We care deeply about our family of staff and are immensely grateful for our amazing guests who have supported Cole’s over the years. We invite you to come in to see us this month before our departure, to laugh, to cry, to raise glasses, to eat, and to say your goodbyes right alongside us,”  the statement read.

​ Orange County Register 

Catch magician Brad Ross at Knott’s Berry Farm before he disappears

• July 7, 2025

An award-winning magician who has performed in more than 50 countries will bring his action-packed magic show blending comedy, music and choreography to Knott’s Berry Farm for a limited summertime run.

Merlin Award-winning Illusionist Brad Ross will perform at the Buena Park theme park on select dates from July 12 through Aug. 3.

ALSO SEE: Six Flags considering regional pass for Knott’s and Magic Mountain

Ross announced he would be “appearing and disappearing” at Knott’s in an Instagram post.

“We’re bringing our full-scale magic spectacular to the Walter Knott Theater for the first time,” Ross posted on Instagram. “Catch us in California for this very special limited engagement before we disappear.”

Ross has toured with the Disney Live production of “Mickey’s Magic Show” and performed at Dollywood, Silver Dollar City and aboard the Disney Cruise Line. His most recent residency was at Knott’s sister park Six Flags St. Louis.

ALSO SEE: Montezooma coaster track arrives at Knott’s Berry Farm

Past stage shows by Ross have included levitation, shadow box, fire spiker and double saw magic acts as well as interactive audience participation segments.

Ross received the 2010 Merlin Award as the Best International Family Entertainer from the International Magician’s Society — the highest honor in the field of magic.

Ross will perform on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 1 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. in the Walter Knott Theater from July 12 through Aug. 3 at Knott’s Berry Farm.

The limited run of the “Brad Ross: International Star Illusionist” magic show is included with Knott’s admission.

​ Orange County Register 

Embeth Davidtz says ‘Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight’ tells a story she knew well

• July 7, 2025

When the cast of “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight appeared at the Toronto International Film Festival, you could be forgiven for not recognizing Lexi Ventor, who plays the feral 7-year-old Alexandra “Bobo” Fuller in the film adaptation of Fuller’s memoir about growing up as the youngest daughter of White farmers in Rhodesia.

There’s a reason for that, says actress Embeth Davidtz, who wrote and directed the film and also plays Bobo’s mother in the movie.

“Listen, she was cleaned up for that premiere,” Davidtz says on a recent video call. “In real life, if you just let her be, she would run around and have dirty feet.

“It’s one of the reasons I cast her,” she says. “I had met a lot of children who were really refined little girls, and I just needed an authentic, little non-acting creature to play this part.”

In “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight,” the story of Rhodesia’s transformation from a British colony into the independent nation of Zimbabwe is told through Bobo’s eyes. The character is real thanks to the absence of artifice in Venter’s performance in her first acting role of any kind.

“I’d seen a few actresses, very sweet kids trying but acting,” says Davidtz, who grew up South Africa just a few years prior to the events of the film in neighboring Zimbabwe. “The Facebook post I put out was I need a kid who’s untrained, absolutely never acted before. It was an absolute requirement for me because there’s a way that children act when they’re acting, right?

“I just said I need a barefoot, wild, preferably grubby little carefree child that doesn’t know anything about movies or filming,” she says. “Who closely resembles this wild Bobo that Alexandra Fuller wrote.

“And when I first saw Lexi she wasn’t as grubby as we ended up making her to look like Bobo, but she had a wildness to her and an unselfconsciousness. That’s really what it was. Her face was glorious. The camera loved her face. I knew that I wanted a cinematic face. She’s just adorable.”

Where Fuller’s memoir spans several decades, Davidtz narrowed the focus of the story to the few months of 1980 when years of civil war ended with independence for Zimbabwe and the election of Robert Mugabe, one of the leaders of the rebel forces, as Zimbabwe’s first prime minister.

In the lead-up to the election, Bobo watches as the adults in her world fret over the future that approaches. Her mother Nicola, played by Davidtz, struggles with alcoholism and mental illness while her father Tim (Rob Van Vuuren) is sent with a militia to fight rebels at the border

Bobo’s closest friend is the family’s nanny and housekeeper Sarah (Zikhona Bali), who loves the girl even as her coworker Jacob (Fumani Shilubana) warns Sarah that she risks being seen as a collaborator with her White employers.

Davidtz, who was born in the United States to South African parents, moved back to that country in 1974 when she was 8 years old; she says she wanted to make a movie of Fuller’s memoir for years, drawn to it by how it mirrored so many moments of her own life.

In an interview edited for length and clarity, Davidtz, whose resume includes memorable roles in films such as “Schindler’s List,” “Matilda,” and “The Amazing Spider-man,” talked about the appeal of the source material, how she accidentally ended up a first-time writer-director, and how the themes of her film remain relevant 45 years after the events it depicts.

Q: How soon after Alexandra’s book was published in 2001 did you come across it?

A: I actually read it right after it came out and I was wowed. Every person that I knew in England and Southern Africa, and even people in America and Australia were like, “Gosh, you’ve got to read this woman’s book. So I read it and I was thunderstruck by how she captured the world, a world that was similar to the world that I grew up in.

But also just the brilliance of her writing. She’s very funny, she’s very exacting. She’s very sort of relentless in what she exposes about herself and her family, but she does it in a loving way.

And more than anything, that character of Bobo. It was like a Scout from “To Kill a Mockingbird” or, oh gosh, the Tatum O’Neal character in “Paper Moon.” And I thought, God, this would just make such a great film.

Cut to years later, I was thinking of what would be an interesting part, something I’d be interested in developing, and I thought of her. And the rights happened to be available.

Q: When was that, and how did you proceed once you had the rights?

A: It was about 2016, 2017. I think I spent a long time on the screenplay. I thought I’d find a writer. I couldn’t find a writer. So I did probably 25, 30 drafts myself, slowly. Because the book is very long. The book spans 20-something years and I just made it about a very short space of time at the end of the war.

Q: Why did cut it down to that moment?

A: Oh my gosh, I stumbled around and I was writing an epic, what would have ended up being a mini-series. Then slowly I realized, the reason I wanted to do it was because I wanted to play the part of Nicola, but as I went along with all my various drafts, I realized, really, the story is Bobo’s story.

The biggest moment of clarity came when I realized, oh no, I have to tell it entirely from the child’s point of view because then I can put in all the racial things I need to. All the prejudice, all of the learned behavior, all of the voice of that kid that was clear in her book.

Q: The point of view let you have Bobo ask adults in her world questions like, “Are we racist? Are we Africans?”

A: Exactly. She can talk about “Africans not having last names.” She can talk about “Don’t be friends with them.”

Q: Had you always intended to write, direct and act? Or did that just kind of happen?

A: It started out as, “I want to play this part, so I’m going to acquire the rights and I’ll find a writer, and then I’ll find a director.” Then as things went along, I couldn’t find a writer, so I wrote it. Then once I’d written it, once I’d gone through my 25 or 30 drafts, I knew it so well that I thought, “How can I hand this over to somebody else?”

I thought, gosh, I know every angle, every frame, everything I want to be in slow motions, everything. I knew what it needed to be. I just thought, I think I know how to do it. I mean, it was a very risky thing to do and very scary. There wasn’t a day I wasn’t terrified. Even while I was editing I was terrified, thinking, who do I think I am doing this?

But I kind of knew on some level instinctively I just know this story in my cells and in my bones. I know how to tell it. So I stuck with it. Then I didn’t really want to act in it anymore. I’d made the part of the mother much smaller and that wasn’t the main thing. The main thing was telling the story.

Q: It’s interesting how you started out not wanting to write or direct and ended up not wanting to act – but then did all three.

A: Yeah, not something I would recommend. [She laughs] It was hard. And in the end, I was the least expensive option, so it was great. I didn’t have to really pay for myself and I could minimize the amount that I had to be on camera.

Q: What was it like directing Lexi, who as you said didn’t know anything at all about acting or filmmaking?

A: In my meetings with her, when I taped her, she was dead keen to light up a cigarette [as the movie has her do] and enjoyed pretending to puff on a cigarette. The way I got her to [deliver her lines] was to have two cameras on her at all times, one very close, one sort of medium. She could say a line the way I told her to say it and then do it a line at a time.

She was very good at even bringing her own expression to things. Sometimes she’d change a sentence. She’d forget a word and say it the wrong way, but the wrong way was the right way. It’s just who she is and a perfect melding of what Alexandra Fuller created, what I wrote and directed, and what she brought to it as a blank canvas as herself that worked.

Q: Is she from a rural part of South Africa? Was she comfortable on location there?

A: As comfortable as a child could be. People at one point said, “Why don’t we look in England?” I said there’s no English child that can run around barefoot in the wild with her dog. That was her dog. I always had her dog in scenes with her.

I said, Don’t brush your hair in the morning and most times her hair wasn’t brushed. So I didn’t have to do anything but I could put dirt on her face. She lives in a small town but she runs around barefoot all the time. She seldom wears shoes so that was easy. It was close to casting to type as I could have found for the character of Bobo.

Q: Zikhona Bali also has a beautiful presence on screen, though she’s much, much quieter and calmer as Sarah than Lexi is as Bobo.

A: Zikhona was a gift to me because, first of all how she worked with Lexi, because Lexi is a lot. I only had three hours a day with her. It’s hard for her to focus and concentrate. And Zikhona was like a glass of cold water. She just would cool things down. She would stabilize Lexi. Again, it was like a lightning bolt, absolutely clear that this was the person to play the part. She’s just wonderful.

Q: You were born and lived in the United States until you were 8 – about the same age as Bobo. What was your experience like moving to South Africa then?

A: I moved from New Jersey, so I had only known lovely green rolling hills and yellow school buses, even though my parents had come from South Africa. So moving at the time we did was incredibly traumatic for me. We were almost immediately in a state of emergency. Soweto riots began. There were always police in this sort of military state.

So my very gentle sort of American childhood was kind of ripped apart when we came to South Africa. Now, my parents were oblivious. Differently to how the Fullers are oblivious but my parents were just back in South Africa, living with something that they knew. They didn’t necessarily agree with it but they didn’t do much to make it OK for us.

That’s why I think I’m so obsessed with telling a story from a child’s point of view. Because that moment in time, exactly the age of Bobo, really resonates for me as a difficult time and a very scary time. All of that stuck with me so that when I read Alexandra’s book I so recognized what she described as the terror of being a kid. It doesn’t leave us. It’s in there. So when I got to tell the story I feel in some way I got to exorcise the stuff that I’d always felt and kept inside.

Q: It’s 45 years since the events depicted in the film. How do you hope the film will speak to today’s times?

A: There’s a twofold thing I’d say. One is, you know, people should know when they look at African countries and form conclusions about them and the way that things are done there, that the African countries inherited what was handed to them after colonialism. It’s sort of what Sarah represents and what I was trying to show at the end of the film. That there’s this beautiful elevated character to the Indigenous people of Zimbabwe, of South Africa.

So I would want people to look at that and know that’s there, and read about it and learn about it. I think that there’s nobility in trying to fix the mess that they were handed after colonialism ended.

Then the other thing I’d say is for people to look around the world at the wars that are going on everywhere, and everywhere there are children watching. So Bobo’s experience of being in the middle of not only a family coming undone on the inside, but a world outside of violence is everything we see on the news every day.

There are the Bobos of the world watching and living through it. You know, we don’t learn, but it would be nice if we did. If it stopped somehow.

​ Orange County Register 

LA County’s plan for rebuilding in fire zones: Cut permit delays, fees, but look to feds for loans

• July 7, 2025

Los Angeles County released highlights of a plan to accelerate the rebuilding process for people who lost their homes in the January fires by granting permits faster using AI, lowering energy capital costs, and reducing property taxes on burned out lots, the county announced on Monday, July 7.

A full plan, “LA County Forward: Blueprint for Rebuilding,” will be released in its entirety in a few weeks.

The announcement was made on the six-month anniversary of the Eaton and Palisades fires, which ravaged the Palisades and portions of Malibu on the coast, and just below the San Gabriel Mountains, destroyed about 70% of Altadena and more than 117 homes in Pasadena after sparks spread to flames and flying embers during a fierce windstorm.

“Six months in — it is not a celebration today. It is really to let the people know we are nearing completion of clearing the lots, but I am not going to let my guard down or take my foot off the pedal,” said First District Supervisor Kathryn Barger, whose district includes Altadena, an unincorporated community north of Pasadena.

The county plan includes four major aspects:

• Waiving codes for rooftop solar and storage, electrification and other new energy standards. This could save about $30,000 in rebuilding construction costs.

• Accelerating permitting. Many homeowners both in Los Angeles’ Palisades, and in county-unincorporated Altadena, say that the process is way too slow. At first, getting a rebuilding permit took 247 days but by adding more planners and one-stop permit centers, that has dropped to 49 days, Barger said. “I want to get that down to 30 days,” she said, adding that using a new Artificial Intelligence program starting next week will help do that.

• Deferring fees paid to the county Department of Public Works and Department of Regional Planning can save about $20,000 per rebuild.

• Property tax reductions. People who own land with no house still have to pay property taxes to the county. But reassessments and lowering tax bills for 17,100 parcels has saved owners up to $10,000 a year, the county reported. County Assessor Jeffrey Prang’s Office has about 2,900 who’ve submitted claims to finish, and about 3,000 property owners who have not filed claims. “We are still going forward. We still have some to work through,” said Steve Whitmore, spokesman. “We want to get everyone into the system.”

But admittedly, Barger said the main complaint she hears from folks is they don’t have enough money to rebuild, even a similar home.

“Insurance seems to be one of the bottlenecks. People have architects, plans, and are waiting on insurance companies and they can be noncommittal,” Barger said during an interview outside where Gov. Gavin Newsom was about to speak at Pasadena City College.

She wants the county to use its bully pulpit to pressure the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to offer people low-interest construction loans. A private loan will cost between 7% and 8% interest, while a Small Business Administration construction loan can be offered at 2% to 4%, she explained.

“I am advocating with the federal government to work toward offering low-interest loans to those who want to rebuild,” she said. “I can sure as heck advocate for my constituents on behalf of what is needed.”

Newsom has asked the Trump Administration for $40 billion in aid. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks, said he and other California Democrats are pushing for this award to include $10 billion in a disaster relief grant program, particularly for those who lost everything and did not have insurance.

Sherman, who represents the Palisades, said the federal government only gives $43,000 for rebuilding, and another $43,000 for replacing cars and contents in the home that were lost, a total of $86,000 per household. “That is not enough,” he said.

He also advocates property owners in the Palisades and Altadena apply for SBA loans, which can amount to $500,000 for rebuilding costs and $100,000 for replacing contents.

“Trump has threatened that package but has not taken it away,” Sherman said. “What we need is a supplemental appropriation to go beyond (the $86,000),” he said, saying this has occurred after other major disasters in other parts of the United States.

What are the Democrats’ chances of getting this bill passed?

“The chance of getting everything we ask for is very small,” Sherman said. “I think we will get something but that is not assured. Government was predictable until Trump took office.”

He also wants to make sure houses being rebuilt are up to new, home-hardening, fire-resistant standards. He’s also advocating in legislation for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to enact more brush clearing, to make the area less prone to wildfire disasters.

“We are going back to the country and saying we will build back better,” Sherman said.

Barger is leaning on Southern California Edison to make good on promises to put electric utility lines underground. An Edison power line that may have re-energized during the windstorm is being looked at as a possible cause of the Eaton fire.

She wants to see more than 150 miles of power lines buried, along with telecommunication equipment, reducing fire risks and updating infrastructure.

“We are here for the long haul,” Barger said. “I am confident in the next six months we will have another good story to tell.”

​ Orange County Register 

John Fogerty celebrates his Creedence Clearwater Revival songs at the Hollywood Bowl

• July 7, 2025

It’s rare to go to a concert where everyone knows almost every song, but then John Fogerty is the rare singer-songwriter whose catalog, especially all those Creedence Clearwater Revival hits, can deliver that.

That kind of show leads to a lot of smiling faces, and at the Hollywood Bowl on Sunday, smiles filled the aisles, though the broadest was Fogerty’s as he sang and played guitar in a set that packed 24 songs, 18 of them Creedence Clearwater Revival classics, into almost two hours on stage.

“I am so frickin’ happy to be here at the Hollywood Bowl,” he hollered after kicking off this stop on the Celebration Tour with the swampadelic rock of “Bad Moon Rising” and the revved-up tempos of “Up Around the Bend.”

“You know I just got my songs back so I’m gonna sing every one of them,” Fogerty continued. “So let’s go!”

“Green River” and “Born on the Bayou” followed, and it bears repeating that nobody looked happier than Fogerty, who turned 80 in May, on stage playing songs he wrote with Creedence Clearwater Revival in the late ’60s and early ’70s.

He’s a naturally cheerful fella, coming off like the oldest, most knowledgeable cowboy in the bunkhouse with his red bandana tied around his neck, his trademark blue plaid shirt, blue jeans and a denim jacket. But the 50-year battle over the publishing rights to the songs he wrote and unwittingly sold in a disadvantageous youthful deal is over now.

Two years ago he wrested control of his publishing rights back, giving him say over how they are used in media such as movies, television, and advertisements, and that’s clearly a weight lifted, judging from the cheerfulness with which Fogerty chatted with the crowd and shared stories all night.

Like this: In 1969, he bought his first Rickenbacker guitar, Fogerty noted as his guitar tech brought that instrument to him, and modified it with a Les Paul humbucker pickup “because I heard about these guys over in England called Jimmy, Eric and Jeff.

“This is the part of the show where I’ve got to say, ‘Go ask your grandpa!” he added before sharing what grandpa would: Jimmy, Eric and Jeff are the guitar heroes also known as Page, Clapton and Beck.

He played that guitar at Woodstock and on nearly every Creedence hit that followed in the next few years before life went south on him.

“By 1972, my girlfriend left me, my band broke up, and my dog bit me,” Fogerty continued. “I was really down. And this 12-year-old kid came up to me and said, ‘Hey John, can I have one of your guitars?’ And for some reason, I gave my most precious guitar to him, and I didn’t see my guitar for a long time.”

Unbeknownst to him, his wife Julie tracked the Rickenbacker down decades later and wrapped it up under the Christmas tree for him a few years back.

“The most beautiful thing is after 44 years I got my baby back,” he said, before launching into “Who’ll Stop the Rain” one of the songs he wrote on it, as clips of muddy rained-on hippies at Woodstock which inspired the tune flashed across the screen behind him.

The video screen underscored both the historical era in which these songs were born and the messages within their lyrics, many of which still feel particularly relevant today.

“Effigy,” a Creedence song off the album “Willie and the Poor Boys,” was the rarest track of the night. Written during the events of the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the Nixon administration, the song is one that Fogerty has added to his sets in recent years.

“Last night I saw a fire burning on the palace lawn,” the first verse begins. “O’er the land the humble subjects watched in mixed emotion. Who is burning? Who is burning? Effigy.”

After “Run Through the Jungle,” during which footage of American soldiers in Vietnam was screened, and “Lodi,” a country rocker about being stuck someplace you’d rather not be, Fogerty paused to praise his family, another source of his current, happy circumstances. Sons Shane and Tyler Fogerty are both in his band, Shane on lead guitar, Tyler on rhythm, and they’ve been there with him for years now.

“Matter of fact my whole family is here tonight,” he said. “Everybody is here somewhere but my dog Creedence. We left him at home tonight.”

Noting that he and Julie recently celebrated their 34 wedding anniversary – “I got the golden ticket when I married Julie,” he added – Fogerty played “Joy Of My Life,” a sweetly earnest ode to his missus, the refrain of which included repeated acknowledgment that “I am the luckiest man alive.”

The back half of the set included another relative rarity, “Fight Fire,” a garage rocker from the pre-Creedence days when the band was known as the Golliwogs, and a pair of lovely melodies, one fast, one slow, delivered via “Hey Tonight” and “As Long As I See the Light.”

The guitar boogie song “Keep on Chooglin’” opened with a long guitar solo and then rumbled through its bluesy grooves. “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” got maybe the biggest sing-along of a sing-along-filled night. And “Down On the Corner,” which opened with just the right amount of cowbell, got the crowd onto their feet and dancing.

After a pair of solo hits, the baseball anthem “Centerfield,” which featured vintage baseball clips, and “The Old Man Down the Road,” Fogerty ended the main set with “Fortunate Son,” perhaps his most pointed political song, an angry shout against privileged young men who were able to avoid the Vietnam War in which the poor and minorities made up a majority of those who served.

It’s become, like many Creedence songs, an anthem that evokes American wars, though not always as its author intended. In a recent interview before Fogerty played the Glastonbury Festival, he expressed astonishment that the song had been played during President Donald Trump’s military parade.

“The song could’ve literally been written about him,” Fogerty told the reporter for the Telegraph.

Here, it had the crowd standing and singing again as Fogerty raced through it at a pace that almost left him breathless.

Following a short break, the encore arrived with Fogerty on stage alone to thank the crowd and his wife Julie one more time for her hard work to get back control of his music.

“It’s a really big deal to any writer of course,” he said of that victory. “I had a plan. My plan was I outlived all those sons of bitches!”

Now he’s taken a page from Taylor Swift’s playbook and recorded a new album, “Legacy: The Creedence Clearwater Revival Years,” on which he and his band have re-recorded new versions of classic hits, each of them with the words “John’s Version” added to the titles.

Then, with “Travelin’ Band” and “Proud Mary,” this night of songs, all of them John’s versions now, wrapped up, their creator still smiling as he left.

​ Orange County Register 

Evacuations ordered after brush fire breaks out in Laguna Beach

• July 7, 2025

A brush fire started in a hilly area of Laguna Beach around 2:16 p.m. Monday and was threatening structures, prompting officials to order evacuations.

La Mirada Street, Katella Street, Summit Drive and Baja Street were ordered evacuated, according to Watch Duty, a nonprofit that monitors wildfires.

Arch Beach Heights was placed on evacuation warning.

The fire started near the intersection of Morningside (Drive) and Rancho Laguna Road, north of Fernando Street Park, said Laguna Beach Fire Chief Niko King. “The fire is progressing rapidly up the hillside and is currently threatening homes.” King said.

The Orange County Fire Authority was working with the Laguna Beach Fire Department to stop the fire.

Ground fire crews were called in for structure defense while aircraft were called in to make drops on the fire.

A Care and Reception center was set up at the Community & Susi Q Center, 380 3rd Street, the city said.

Information on the cause of the fire was not immediately available. It had reached around 1.5 acres by around 2:50 p.m.

​ Orange County Register