SCV Talk · Archive
Nine years of the Valley’s town square · 2006–2015
SCV Talk
November 18, 2013· santaclarita.com · SantaClarita.com (SCVTalk 5.0) · Wayback capture

What Have We Found at the Bottom of the Rock?

By Mike Devlin

Image not recoveredScreen Shot 2013-11-18 at 8.42.20 AM.png
I'm now sure how we've missed this for so long, but it goes to show that the Internet is a big place.

Yesterday, Facebook was abuzz over the discovery of Bottom of the Rock, a terse, gossipy site from an anonymous blogger who's rich with insider tips. The targets are local and the attacks are quite personal.

The first post in the Wordpress-hosted blog was on June 15, Drinkin' With Drew regarding longtime George Runner staffer Drew Mercy's DUI arrest/apology/not guilty plea. Two days later, the domain name bottomoftherock.com was registered anonymously. The same day saw the first of three quasi-defensive posts on Stephen Winkler. 

The late-breaking interest isn't totally coincidental. Since its June debut, posts have been sporadic until last week where the blogger took on four local targets over five days: officeholders TimBen Boydston and Joe Messina, plus Republican activists Alice Khosravy and Kevin Korenthal.

It's odd, considering how our subjects overlap, but I've never come across this site until hearing about from a half dozen people yesterday. I can't find any links to the blog out there, except for one mention in the comments here on SCVTalk just four days after the site's debut. 
Image not recoveredScreen Shot 2013-11-18 at 8.27.07 AM.png

Most of posts do show up on Google, and as far as I can tell, the blog mentioned santaclarita.com in passing once, but never mentioned or linked to this blog.

Bottom of the Rock Enemies list:

At first glance, you might think that this is some professional hit by local Democrats. But this reads more like an inside job. Most of these targets are Republicans who've spurned Buck McKeon in favor of Scott Wilk and there's just too much insider knowledge of the local GOP.

The Winkler defense is odd and at times conspiratorial, though McKeon-backed GOP groups were Winkler's most important public supporters in 2011. 

Some of these attacks are in very poor taste, enough to make an enemy wince. The post about Imhoff celebrated a brutal beating he suffered that sent him to the hospital for nearly a week. The post about Korenthal turned his horrific bicycle accident into a line of attack. And there's innuendo – playfully unanswered but highly suggestive questions about (nearly) everyone.

This is clearly the work of someone who's paying a lot of attention. And for all its nastiness, the writing is uncommonly good. It's crisp, sharp, efficient and readable. In this town, that narrows down the suspects pretty quickly, doesn't it?


Comments (9)

  1. timothymyers02Monday, November 18th, 2013 at 9:44 am
    This is speculation, but the anonymous blogger would HAVE to be someone who at one time drew a paycheck from Buck McKeon and was involved in the Patricia McKeon disastrous jungle primary run. The McKeon camp was definitely VERY upset about the "Really Patricia" anonymous blog and this one is very much in that same vein of mockery and veiled charges of skeezy behavior. This blog could definitely be seen as a revenge piece for that. My second guess is that the writer was born between 1985 and 1995 (Gen X or Gen Y?) since they utilize some of the slang and meter common to folks born in that generation. My third guess is that it was someone involved with the Young Republicans that actively supported Steven Winkler's candidacy, and now they are (sort of) defending that action in that they were "had" by the powers that be that mysteriously (for what good purpose?) engineered Winkler's election and THEN his downfall. I am also guessing it is a lady because they seem obsessed with marital infideltiy, real or imagined, with about every one they attack, particularly Scott Wilk and Cameron Smyth. Also, the phrase "Frat Boy Forever" is something generally used by females to describe a certain noxious pattern of behavior that goes against monogamy. One of the disturbing things about the blog is that the blogger will make a statement as fact, i.e. Paul Strickland left town under what had to be mysterious circumstances, but then solicit information to back that up. So based on a totality of the evidence I going to put myself out there and guess that the anonymous blogger is Devon Cormier who now works for some outfit called the Headington Media Group. There, I said it.
  2. ToddMonday, November 18th, 2013 at 10:14 am
    She certainly fits the profile. Her twitter follow list is a veritable who's-who of the SCV. Jeff, Mike, even you Tim. Sad I haven't made SCV twitter rock star status yet. :-(
  3. IHeartSCVMonday, November 18th, 2013 at 10:15 am
    Another voice building consensus that it's Devon Cormier. Maybe so, but I thought the writing sounded distinctly older. The "slang" as you call it seemed disjointed, at times forced, and distinctly multi-generational (words and phrases like "crybabies", "KTFO", "hard-on", "cowardly lion", "douche nozzle", "BFF", "thicker than thieves", and "the Internets" span from late 20s/early 30s to 60s+--but I definitely wouldn't guess any younger than that). And the Kanye West thing...cringe. So I think all of this puts it into the realm of a member of SCV Young Republicans--someone whose diction is basically "young" (since 25-40 is youngish for politics) but heavily influenced by words more common among older conservative journalists and pundits. And I think it's probably a woman--mostly based on how [she] writes about Peter Carrube. So I guess I'll half agree.
  4. n8iMonday, November 18th, 2013 at 10:27 am
    If you read her Signal columns it is same voice. She is also behind the Wilks smear website.
  5. timothymyers02Monday, November 18th, 2013 at 10:53 am
    IHeart: I also thought the Peter Carrube piece indicated a woman because there were many insults directed at this physical appearance, something a man, because of throwing rocks in glass houses, would hesitate to do.
  6. n8iMonday, November 18th, 2013 at 1:29 pm
    Well Devon also lives in a glass house when it come to physical appearances...
  7. timothymyers02Monday, November 18th, 2013 at 10:55 am
    IHeart: I also agree about the "thicker than thieves" usage. That is a phrase that only very scholarly folks under the age of 35-40 could even properly interpret.
  8. Coastal SageMonday, November 18th, 2013 at 9:14 pm
    I wonder if there is any connection to the Cormier family which owns the car dealerships?
  9. n8iMonday, November 18th, 2013 at 10:10 am
    Good reads Tim. #NailHit

Preserved as part of the SCV Talk Archive. Text is presented as originally published; presentation has been standardised for readability. The original capture is available at the Internet Archive.

Support