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Camping / State Parks / California Travel / → All Tags

Orange County Opens a Fancy Schmancy $15 Million Dollar Campsite

If you can't afford to shack up in one of the swanky Orange County hotels during your travels there, now you have another option: Crystal Cove State Park in the Laguna Beach/Newport Beach area just opened its year-round campground today.

The $15 million Moro Campground offers 60 new campsites. Unfortunately, you won't be on the beach, but you'll have a nice view of it from the hilly area. The park has three miles of Pacific coastline, plus wooded canyons, open bluffs, and offshore waters designated as an underwater park.

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Celeb Travel / California / Laguna Beach / LGBT / → All Tags

Can Brad Pitt and George Clooney Save A Legendary Laguna Gay Bar?

Now here's something you never saw on MTV: Apparently Laguna Beach -- the town starring in the guilty-pleasure television series which claimed to depict "The Real Orange County" (unlike that other show) -- has a gay bar. And that gay bar, the Boom Boom Room, is in trouble, because the building that holds the club is currently up for sale, future unknown. The L.A. Times even mentioned the spot, a former clubhouse for semi-closeted actors like Rock Hudson, as an example of "heterosexualization," noting "once-blighted neighborhoods that were settled by gays--often because they felt unwelcome elsewhere--now are so gentrified, in many cases, that younger people can't afford them."

Some residents of Laguna who are actually old enough to get into the Room are looking to Brad Pitt and George Clooney, who had been in on a previous deal to buy the building (it never went through) to save their club, CBGB style--sort of. Save the Boom thinks having the actors on their side will give them a higher profile, and maybe convince a developer to leave their little corner of paradise alone. Will the lifelong bachelor and Mr. Angelina Jolie step up to the plate? Boys, it's the least you can do for Pride Month. But the bar's lease is up in September, so you have to act now.

[Photo: Save the Boom]

Related Stories:
· Hotels in Laguna Beach [HotelChatter]

Laguna Beach / TV / → All Tags

Is Kristen Cavallari Ruining Laguna Beach?

The real Laguna Beach is pissed.

Seems the tiny enclave between Los Angeles and San Diego is being portrayed as "a teenage Disneyland of surfing, shopping and SUVs" by MTV's pseudo reality show Laguna Beach.

The music network's sudsy take on a teenage Disneyland of surfing, shopping and SUVs has so captured the imaginations -- and envy -- of its 3.2 million viewers that local businesses are awash in out-of-town orders.

Inhabitants for the Republic of Laguna are speaking out:

We are an affluent, tolerant community with a long heritage of culture, character and art. The MTV show has hijacked our identity, and people are beginning to feel violated. It [the show] has become a metaphor for everything we don't want to be.

So is the area getting a bum rap?  Well let's take a look at the demographics:

Laguna Beach is 92% white, and the median household income is just over $85,000 a year, nearly twice the national figure.

Numbers are so, like, lame, let's go shopping for some new jeans, k?

Related Stories:
·   Laguna Beach chafes at MTV's images of itself [Detroit Free Press]
·   Laguna Beach versus "Laguna Beach" [BoifromTroy]