Semiquincentennial

As an editor, publisher, and writer, I find myself frequently writing the word writer. Mountain biking in the Santa Ana Mountains, I occasionally stop to pull out my cell phone to make an audio note, riding being a reliably generative exercise often producing ideas about, well, writing. Of course, the phone’s voice dictation function turns writer into rider, writers into riders, and writing into riding. As a result, I do a lot of riding without actually going anywhere. Some trick, especially for an otherwise only average old mountain biker if perhaps an above-average if sincere and committed writer.

All good, as the kids say, especially since much writing and thinking about civic life has been purposely, purposefully confused, obscured, or erased by stupid machines and stupid, mean people like, say, J.D. Vance, who visited the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum (aka The Hellmouth) to offer this pearl:

"If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story," said Vance. "The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy, and by the way, if you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it's not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration."

Issue # 18 of Citric Acid arrives to respond to this and other varieties of fraud, lies, and corruption --- trail markers of our fascist descent --- with thoughtful, provocative, and celebratory work. Oh, and we're a quarterly --- get it? --- thus the commemorative Lincoln coin, the only celebratory fetish object I could get behind just now.

Helpfully, the phone robot has no trouble reproducing the strange word which describes our dismal national holiday. Along with reading this all-American semiquincentennial edition of Citric Acid we urge you to purchase and read a copy of our pal (and sometime contributor) Gabriel San Román’s newest, Days of Dissent: Revolts, Strikes, and Rebel Histories.  The historian, longtime OC Weekly writer, and Times OC/Daily Pilot reporter’s book arrives just at the right ennial for considering our semi-democracy.  And look for a feature in our next edition on frequent contributor Danielle Hanson’s new poetry collection The Night Is What It Eats.

Speaking of history, in this Independence Day issue, Sarah Rafael García shares early sections of a project titled Not My President. Perfect. We present two reprints deserving of your attention, one a bittersweet posthumous dispatch from a comic and writer who was boostered by Jeff Pearlman at the excellent Substack newsletter The Truth OC, the other from Steven Elkins, who I met at the recent Huntington Beach Surf City Author Fest (thanks, Mary Camarillo), a remarkable essay with photos. Poet Jax NTP features prominently with both work from their own debut collection and their review of OC Poet Laureate Gustavo Hernandez’s Bachelor. There’s elegant meditational prose (with politics) from locals Rick Hernandez and Louis Jack, and a review by veteran OC (and beyond) journalist Samantha Dunn of the legendary James Blaylock’s defining new memoir-in essays. We stand proudly with words from the reliably on-point Sandra De Anda and delight in sharing journalist/UCI Lecturer Amy DePaul’s exclusive Citric Acid profile of a remarkable activist whose ironic and inspiring turn from victim to advocate will inspire.

Is any of this enough to counter the organized assault?  No.  J.D. Vance thinks Nixon is cool. The Supreme Court affirms racist gerrymandering. The November ballot includes initiatives opposing (!) taxing billionaires and spreading phony voter fraud hysteria with reliable support from OC electeds Don Wagner and Ken Calvert. Fire and flood season is arriving. Another toxic warehouse waits to explode. Don’t forget it! It’s Orange County, Jake.

Except it’s not! On Memorial Day, after driving past flags, bunting and mindless Hobby Lobby made-in-China throwaway emblems of jingoistic bravado, I found refuge and courage in one of Orange County’s singular temples of cultural and political community, Santa Ana’s The Frida Cinema, where I watched the remarkable documentary about Democracy Now! and its founder and media hero host Amy Goodman. It took a while for Steal This Story, Please to get to OC but a vigorous turnout at my favorite art house theater on a day once meant to honor the Union victory over slavery genuinely cheered me.  

Happily overwhelmed with urgently excellent OC writing and art, your editor and managing editor Jaime Campbell could have included much more in this issue. But we can’t pay for it. Using a $10 word is sometimes meant as a pejorative. Speech is free but words of any length cost money. Sartorial. Perspicacious. Verisimilitude. Lugubrious. Epistemological. Big or small, they all cost. We're a quarterly. Please read, share, and repost this issue. Citric Acid needs your help now in these days of necessary creative dissent, engagement, and celebration. Please donate today at the “Donate” button, on the semiquincentennial or anytime.