Jeff Perlman is one of the most successful sportswriters of his generation. His must-see articles appeared on Sports Illustrated and ESPN in the 2000s, then switched to all the bestselling books that have turned into the recent HBO series, “Victory Time.” From Bo Jackson to the 1986 New York Mets and the Lakers in the Showtime era. His Tupac Shakur biography is scheduled to be released in October.
Still, last month, Perlman announced that he was embarking on a completely different kind of mission to write about politics in Orange County. Talk about evil curveballs!
As a loyal reader and lifelong Orange County, I quickly signed up for his website, The Truth OC. There, Perlman uses the same gross appeals to local conservatives and President Trump almost every day.
Pat Burns, mayor of Huntington Beach? He says, “Bobby Knight meets Bruconnor and meets Officer Kruppke.”
Pat Micone, Republican Club Chairman of Laguna Woods? It belongs to the “genre of someone who has to say it over and over again to avoid answering her cells unless she recognizes the numbers.”
Capistrano Valley Unified School District Trustees is a “4 Wackadoo team of right and right board members.” Rep. Young Kim is a “co-sick” who doesn’t stand up to Trump. These are the sticks I can quote in family newspapers.
Perlman already won the scoop by using the N-word during a board meeting to unearth a viral video of Capo Valley trustee Judy Brocks. I was delightedly shocked by Perlman’s pivot, but he is a much needed recorder in an area of 3.2 million, serving as a political bell for decades, but has a much smaller press squad than before.
Still, Pearlman writes about OC politics as Gustavo Dudamel, who quit Raphil Harmony to Moonlight as a drummer in the Dresden Room. He abandoned the Dodgers and joined the local Pickleball League.
For now, “I’m deeply down” about national politics, he said when we recently met at a cafe near Chapman University where we lectured on sports journalism. He wore glasses in Gorky, but with Brio from The Scrapper, Perlman wore a typical sports nerd outfit: a black and yellow Pittsburgh Pirates hat and a Pittsburgh Mollers shirt, the latter of which is a long professional soccer team. flip flops. Sweatpants look like jeans.
“Yeah, these aren’t happy days for me. But every time I write a new post, I feel really good,” he said. “Every time people are reading and seeing subscriptions go up, I’m like, ‘It’s okay, this is how you feel like you’re doing something.’ ”
Other sports journalists also sometimes expressed their opinions on politics, and for a long time they were not in their profession. But what’s particularly fascinating about Perlman’s latest focus is that almost all of his peers “don’t go into anything hyperlocal,” says Gallen Clavio, director of the National Center for Sports Journalism at Indiana University in Bloomington. Most followers say, “I don’t think you’re really interested in this, so why bring it into the equation?”
“I wish I didn’t have to do this…but I feel this is more important,” Perlman, who speaks quickly, replies when he asks why he’s focused on micro instead of macros. He recently covered a rainy multi-democratic rally for Chrissakes outside Irvine City Hall on Friday afternoon. “I don’t need another person to scream about Trump. I do that a lot. It really doesn’t resonate. Millions of people are screaming, but not many people are screaming about local politics.”
I wondered why he didn’t volunteer to a local democratic club or write checks to politicians.
“This is important – I’m serious,” he shot. “I want people to know that not everyone is sh-t for money.
Jeff Perlman will be attending the premiere of HBO’s “Victory Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” held in 2022 at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles.
(Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images)
The East Coast native moved with his family from New York to South OC in 2014 after years of visits for his work. “We wanted a garden for the kids,” he cracked. Perlman was originally a classic OC suburb and preferred to focus on good life rather than local issues. However, he always had good friends experiences in mind.
“She’s a black man in Orange County and she told me what it was like to be stopped here,” he said constantly to police. “And I realized something strange and she was like, ‘Well, that’s Orange County.’ ”
In 2018, Perlman came across the words of Huntington Beach Area Councilman Dana Laurabacher. Dana Laurabacher said at a parliamentary hearing that dinosaur farts caused global warming (he later claimed it was a joke). “I’ve never actually been exposed to people like this,” said the 52-year-old. “I was reading about them, and that was it.”
He started a website that tracks some of the crazy things that Rohrabacher said. In hindsight, Perlman personified the awakening of the OC liberals who made history by electing an all-democratic congressional delegation in 2018, after his first two years as the first Democratic presidential candidate to take Orange County since Great Democrat Pression.
“It was a real turning point,” Perlman said. “And I wasn’t thinking [Orange County] I’ll go back for the red. ”
Last year’s Trump victory (although not an OC he never won) coupled with Maga Acolite’s local election victory, bringing Perlman back to action. Shortly after the election, he went to a local Liberal Party meeting.
“They were very nice people, but basically the whole atmosphere of the meeting was, “Who wants to hug? You need to contact our feelings.” And it’s not me at all [MAGA nation] On the face. ”
His pugnacioussionse reminded me of the Orange Juice blog, the OC’s oldest political blog that began in 2003. Publisher Vern Nelson started out as resident Loudmouth in its lively comments section before becoming a contributor, taking over orange juice in 2010.
He hadn’t heard the true OC until I told him, so he asked if he could read some posts before expressing his opinion. He laughed in gratitude when Nelson called.
“He’s doing a lot of good things,” Nelson said. “We need another good political blog. I say we use his previous existing fame, but he will probably piss off many of his older readers.”
Perlman thinks his sport’s background is actually ideal for him to write about politics.
“We have to deal with people who are always angry at us and come back the next day,” he said. “And, like, you need to write quickly. You have to look back on the copy quickly. You have to punch it.
Jeff Perlman, bestselling author of multiple books on sports, speaks at L’Orange Cafe in Old Town Orange. His elbow appears in a copy of a book by Huntington Beach Councillor Chad Williams.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
He admits he is “a Community College Student, a freshman year in the second semester” when it comes to learning about his new beat. He didn’t know the historical name I threw at him, and he didn’t know anything about Santa Ana. There, a new generation of Latino voters bring LA-style progressive politics to the city. When Perlman tried to streamline his neighbor’s conservative tendencies – “I think my neighbor is mad at his taxes. I don’t think he’s mad at black families here” – I countered that if his neighbor is a Mexican family he would raise his arms and he admitted the point.
“But I have anything people have to give me,” he added. “I can learn.”
Perlman found out how much he would be a true OC, “I know I’m definitely going to burn out. That doesn’t mean I won’t go on.” However, he hoped that his example would bring attention and vitality to political scenes that desperately needed both.
“You’ll go to these [local Democratic] The meeting and they said, “It’s okay, guys, tomorrow we’re going to do a campaign to write letters to young Kim’s office. And it’s going to be done seriously and very well-intentioned. I’m not bashing anywhere, but it’s not an F-.”
He was silent for a moment – for Perlman.
“I sent you $50 [Rep. Hakeem] Jeffries’ office. He has another $50. What do you do, buy 100 postcards? ”
Half a second of silence.
“What are these people? [politicians] I don’t like not being embarrassed. ”
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