Jeff Pearlman is one of the most successful sports journalists in his generation. His mandatory reading articles appeared in Sports Illustrated and ESPN in the 2000s before changing to write best -selling books especially, from Bo Jackson to the New York Mets of 1986 and the Lakers of the Showtime era, the latter that became the recent HBO series “Winning Time”. His biography of Tupac Shakur is scheduled for its launch in October.
And yet, last month, Pearlman announced that he was embarking on a completely different type of mission: writing about Orange County policy. Talk about an evil curved ball!
As a faithful reader and of Orange's lifetime, I immediately enrolled on his website, The Truth OC. There, almost daily, Pearlman uses the same childish in invective but powerful against conservatives and local president Trump who once reserved for sports fools.
The mayor of Huntington Beach Pat Burns? He is “Bull Connor meets Bobby Knight meets officer Krupke.”
The president of the Republican Club of Laguna Woods, Pat Micone? It belongs to the “genre of the person who needs to be counted, repeatedlyDo not respond to her cell unless she recognizes the number. “
The Trusts of the Unified School District of Capistrano Valley are a “four -headed Wackadoo squad of members of the right -wing board.” The Young Kim representative is a “coward” Because not face Trump. Those are the spikes that I can cite in a family newspaper.
Pearlman already scheduled a scoop when he digsters a video that went viral from the administrator of the Capo Valley, Judy Bullock, using the word N during a meeting of the Board. While I was pleasantly surprised by Pearlman's pivot, he is a very necessary chronicler for a 3.2 million region that has served as a political dining room for decades, but has a much smaller press body than before.
Even so, Pearlman writing about the OC policy seems a bit like Gustavo Dudamel that abandons the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the moonlight as drummer in the Dresden room. Shohei left Dodgers to join a local Pickleball League.
“I am deeply depressed” about national policy at this time, he said that when we recently met in a coffee near the University of Chapman, where he gives conferences about sports journalism. Bawky and with glasses, but with the Brio of a Scrapper, Pearlman was dressed as a sports geek par excellence: the Pittsburgh pirates hat in white and yellow and the Pittsburgh Maulers shirt, the latter a long -standing professional football team. Flip flops. Chandal pants that looked like jeans.
“As, these are not happy days for me. But every time I write a new publication, I feel really good,” he said. “Every time I see people reading and subscriptions continue to go up, I am like, 'very good, this is a way of feeling a bit as if you were doing something.”
Other sports journalists also think of politics, for a long time in their profession. But Galen Clavio, director of the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana University in Bloomington, feels that what is especially fascinating about Pearlman's last approach is that almost all his classmates “are not entering hyperlocal things, because most followers will think:” I don't think you really are in this, why take it to the equation? “
“I wish I did not have to do this … but this feels more important,” said Pearlman who speaks fast when I asked why he is now focusing on the micro instead of the macro. Recently he covered a rainy rain on Friday afternoon in democracy on the outskirts of the Irvine City Council, for Chrissakes. “We do not need another self screaming on Trump, which I do a lot. It really does not resonate. There are a million people screaming, but there are not so many people screaming about local politics.”
I was wondering why not only was he volunteered for a local Democratic club, nor did he write a check to a politician, instead of spending time and energy to something he is doing for free.
“This is important, I'm serious,” he replied. “I want people to know that not everyone is doing sh-t for money. As, I'm just doing it because I am angry. “
Jeff Pearlman attends the premiere of “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynsty” by HBO in the theater at Ace Hotel in the Angees in 2022.
(Tommaso Boddi / Getty Images)
The native of East Coast moved with his family in New York to South OC in 2014 after years of visits for his work, which included covering the 2002 World Series that saw Los Angelinos defeat the Giants of San Francisco (he believes that the halos are the worst franchise in Major League Baseball). “We wanted a patio for our children,” he broke. Pearlman was initially the OC suburban classic, preferring to focus on the good life instead of local affairs. But it always took into account the experiences of a good friend.
“She used to tell me what it was like to be a black person in Orange County and be arrested here” by the police constantly. “And I would notice strange things, and she said: 'Well, that's Orange's county.”
In 2018, Pearlman met the words of the representative of the Huntington Beach Dana Rohrabacher area, an extravagant figure that once said during an audience in Congress that dinosaurs farts caused global warming (he later said it was a joke). “I never had exposure to people like this,” said the 52 -year -old man. “I had read about them, but that was all.”
A website began that traced some of the craziest things that Rohrabacher said, which he remembered as fun but not really revealing. In retrospect, Pearlman was personifying the awakening of the Liberals of OC, who made history in 2018 when choosing a totally democratic congress delegation for the first time two years after Hillary Clinton the first Democratic presidential candidate in taking Orange County from the great depression.
“That was a real turning point,” Pearlman said. “And I didn't think [Orange County] I would ever come back for red. “
Trump's triumph last year (although not in OC, which he has never won), along with the local electoral victories for Magician acolytes, returned to Pearlman's action. Shortly after the elections, he went to a local liberal meeting.
“They were very pleasant people, but basically the entire atmosphere of the meeting was:” Who wants a hug? You need to contact our feelings. “And that is not me at all. [MAGA nation] in the face “.
His struggle reminded me of the oldest political blog: the orange juice blog, which began in 2003. The editor Vern Nelson began as the Loudmouth resident in his animated comments section before becoming a collaborator, and then taking care of the orange juice in 2010.
I had not heard of the truth OC until I told him, and asked if he could read some publications before offering his opinion. When Nelson called again, he was laughing in gratitude.
“It's doing many good things,” said Nelson. “We need another good political blog. I would say that using your existing fame, but you will probably get angry with many of your old readers.”
Pearlman believes that his sports experience actually makes him ideal for writing about politics.
“We deal with people who are angry with us all the time, and we have to return the next day,” he said. “And, as, you have to write quickly. You have to turn the copy quickly. You have to do it blunt. As, it can't be flat.”
Jeff Pearlman, best -selling author of multiple books about sports, Talking in L'Orrange Cafe at Old Towne Orange. His elbow rests on a copy of a book by the councilor of Huntington Beach Chad Williams.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
He admits to be a “student of the Community University, the first year of first semester” when it came to knowing about his new rhythm. I did not know any of the historical names that I threw, and nothing about Santa Ana, where a new generation of Latin voters is bringing the progressive city to the city. When Pearlman tried to rationalize the conservative inclinations of his neighbors: “I think my neighbor is upset for his taxes. I don't think he is upset by a black family here,” I replied that his neighbor would be in arms if he were a Mexican family, and he admitted the point.
“But I'm taking what people have to give me,” he added. “I am open to learn.”
Pearlman does not know how long the Truth will do and even admitted: “I know that I will definitely burn. That does not mean that it will not continue.” But he expected his example to attract attention and vigor to a political scene that desperately needs both.
“You'll go to these [local Democratic] Meetings and they will be, 'Very good, boys, tomorrow we will have a card writing campaign to the Young Kim office, and we will send 100 postcards. And is done seriously and with very good intentions. I'm not attacking anywhere, but it's not f— – working. ”
He was silent for a second, a lifetime for Pearlman.
“I sent $ 50 to [Rep. Hakeem] JEFFRIES OFFICE. There are another 50 dollars that you have. What will you do, buy 100 postcards?
A means of silence.
“What these people [politicians] No As is ashamed. “
