Wednesday’s Town Hall meeting/campaign rally with President Obama at the Costa Mesa fairgrounds surely had the usual worshipful energy one would expect with a room full of partisans, but not everyone here found it so inviting.

As I chronicled in the dead-tree version of the Pilot yesterday, Assemblyman Van Tran was invited to the event and even flew down from Sacramento to attend it but was turned away at the door. And Obama, while recognizing dignitaries at the fairgrounds, made special mention of his office’s gaffe in failing to get out an invitation to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.

This left Tran’s spokesman Dave Everett understandably miffed and wondering if the White House was just playing partisan games. I understand how he feels, but I have trouble believing it.

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A few weeks ago when I saw that Sonny Rollins would perform at the Orange County Performing Arts Center I got pretty pumped about it. I mentioned as much to my friend Jessie there and she passed it up the chain. To my amazement they said he’d be open to an interview to preview the show. I wasn’t amazed that the great folks at OCPAC would do that. I was surprised that Rollins would bother. It’s not like the guy needs the publicity. I mean, he’s Sonny freakin’ Rollins, OK? And if you don’t know who I’m talking about then you’re probably not that much into jazz, but take my word for it. They don’t call him the Saxophone Colossus for nothing. He’s a true luminary and his name deserves the same exaltation as Bird and Coltrane.

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I must give my friend Brian Robin credit for inspiring my feature on the Golf Channel last week. Brian, as you might recall from my earlier blogs on my debut as a golfer, handled PR for the tournament. He was helping me brainstorm some ideas Thursday evening for news features and mentioned the Golf Channel. My eyes just lit up. I knew that was a winner. The only question was could we pull it off Friday.

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