If you walk down the stairs at Brooks Street in Laguna Beach and paddle a surfboard straight into the waves, you\u2019ll find the rock that knocked the last baby tooth out of my head.<\/p>\n
At high tide, it\u2019s about 40 yards offshore and barely underwater, close enough to the surface to stand on if you\u2019re so inclined. When the tide is low, the rock rises, with other parts of the reef, a foot or so into the air, its crags and shells softened only by a thin layer of sea grass.<\/p>\n
I learned all about the stupid rock decades ago, when I crashed my face into it. I was 11 at the time, and teaching myself to surf (sort of; I never got great at surfing). But instead of mastering the excellent left-breaking wave at Brooks, I got a lesson in local oceanography.<\/p>\n
Since then, as a career reporter and editor in Orange County, I\u2019ve crashed my face, figuratively speaking, into lots of stuff.<\/p>\n
Not old school newspaper-y stuff, per se. I\u2019m not enough of a bar guy to have a regular watering hole, and there isn\u2019t some diner where I hang out with supposedly wise locals. Nothing against drinking or diners or wisdom, but none of that has been critical to the world I\u2019ve lived in. Same as you, probably.<\/p>\n
That said, my job has brought me, face-first, into more worlds than I can remember. The list is kind of thrilling, actually.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve reported from courtrooms and cop cars and Little League dugouts. I\u2019ve parked cars outside a fancy restaurant, wrangled turkeys on a turkey farm, sold peanuts at an Angels game \u2013 all for stories. I\u2019ve written about businesses and farms and museums. I\u2019ve covered murders and World Series games and huge news events, like Sept. 11 and my daughter\u2019s first day of school.<\/p>\n
And, as a reporter, I\u2019ve always been privileged to be part of the rabble.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve hung out with quantum physicists and planet hunters; a female impersonator who sold Tupperware; a guy who jumped his motorcycle over a low-flying helicopter.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve listened to everybody, or at least pretended to.<\/p>\n
A former NASA engineer explained how much he loved the life-sized flying car he\u2019d built (and still parked) in his living room. A sheriff\u2019s deputy smiled joylessly as he recounted the sound of bullets thud, thud, thudding into a tree that saved his life the day he helped end a mass shooting. A homeless father looked away as he described the first time he sat on a sidewalk and asked strangers for money.<\/p>\n
Not everybody has been so forthcoming, or happy to see me. I\u2019ve been thrown against a fence; had a gun pointed at my face; been called Satan (incorrectly) by a lady who, otherwise, seemed nice enough.<\/p>\n
But, no matter what you hear \u2013 no matter what I might even tell you myself someday \u2013 anger remains the outlier. Instead, people usually are shockingly kind.<\/p>\n
A grieving mother sent me a cherry pie after a story about her deceased daughter. A reader who didn\u2019t leave her name, or explain how she knew it was the right day, sang \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d into my answering machine. A guy offered box seats at an Angels game, claiming a business story had saved him a boatload of money. (Basic ethics \u2013 and the fact that I didn\u2019t write the story \u2013 prompted me to pass.)<\/p>\n
I\u2019m explaining all of this for a couple reasons.<\/p>\n
First, starting today, I\u2019m going to write local columns in addition to my work as an editor at large with the Orange County Register and Southern California News Group.<\/p>\n
As late 2026 jobs go, \u201ccolumnist\u201d is every bit as hip as coal miner or whale trainer. But it is fun. It also means I\u2019ll get paid to tell you my version of our world. So it\u2019s only fair that you know my work background well enough to trust me. Or not.<\/p>\n
Second, familiarity with Orange County is my biggest virtue. It\u2019s a fact, not a weird humble-brag, when I tell you that I\u2019m not wildly clever or extra insightful. But it\u2019s also a fact that I know this community as well as anybody. I\u2019ve grown up here, worked here, raised a family here. I have no idea if I\u2019ll die here, but if I do, it won\u2019t be horrible.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t always love every last inch of this place, or everything about it, or everyone who pretends to run it or develop it or sell it. But at this point Orange County is like a sibling or a kid; I can be a harsh, even unfair critic, without any question about my long-term loyalty.<\/p>\n
The fact that I can describe streets in Laguna Beach or Irvine where some road fissures can knock you off your bike, or where sheephead and perch might bite (when you could still fish for them) off Salt Creek, or where the dust can rise in Bommer Canyon on some late summer mornings, isn\u2019t bad. Somehow, I hope, it might even matter.<\/p>\n
Which brings me to this: Yes, I have a bias. Many, actually; I\u2019m a human, not a bot.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m biased in favor of the old-school version of our culture that values honesty and doesn\u2019t brag.<\/p>\n
I am biased against bullies. And whiners. And, if I\u2019m honest, I\u2019m a little biased against people who whine too much about being bullied.<\/p>\n
I am definitely biased in favor of clear communication. A phrase like \u201cmy truth\u201d confuses me, as does the word \u201cwoke\u201d when used as a pejorative (or, frankly, in any non-alarm clock setting). Nobody, including the users, knows what these terms (and dozens of others) mean. That\u2019s the power of using them, I guess.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m also biased in favor of curiosity. As well as I know some parts of the county, there\u2019s a lot more about it I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m eager to learn.<\/p>\n
And, finally, I\u2019m biased in favor of effort. I like to work.<\/p>\n
Except when I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve got thoughts about what I should work on, or about what I\u2019ve already worked on, my email is in the byline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you walk down the stairs at Brooks Street in Laguna Beach and paddle a surfboard straight into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,23,54693,136],"class_list":["post-513178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-local-news","tag-oc-people","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}