The Real Fundy Story

An open letter to Coast readers...

he engaging and thought-proking profile of Pete Fundy that you just read was a complete fake – a “faux-file,” if you will. We hope the April Fools' Day reference and ensuing ridiculousness tipped you off. If not, we’re sorry… that you’re not brighter.

However, lest you think you completely wasted approximated 10 minutes of your life (calculation based on average reading speed of 200 wpm), rest assured that this yarn was spun from a kernel of truth.

Pete Fundy, “Orange County’s leading conservative commentator,” is the fake alter-ego of a real guy named Paul Marsden, 41, a stay-at-home dad from Garden Grove who runs a real fake news and opinion Web site called OCLegend.com. And so we asked Marsden to fill in the blanks in our hard-hitting profile of his foil, Pete Fundy.

Marsden started OCLegend.com in 2005 as an outlet for material previously relegated to political e-mail chatter amongst his friends. An equal opportunity satirist (“I’m a Libertarian, so I can shoot at everybody”), Marsden enjoys skewering national and local news, media and politics alike. With headlines like “Newport Beach Seeks Restraining Order: City tired of Costa Mesa’s crap” and “Survey: OC Wants More Good News About War: Few want details about death, destruction,” his writing is often funny, sometimes goofy and occasionally raunchy.

It’s also probably the best local media site that nobody’s really reading. (It gets only a few hundred hits a month.) However, many who have stumbled across it have become fans. “I laugh every time I read OC Legend,” says Matt Cunningham of local conservative magazine Red County. “Paul really, really has a innate talent for satire, and when he brings it to bear on OC the results range from chuckle-inducing to hilarious.”

Which brings us back to Pete Fundy, OCLegend.com’s resident upstart and Marsden’s ongoing jab at the whole “punditry industry,” as he calls it. So how much of Marsden is there in the Fundy? “We’re both overweight and not terribly attractive,” says Marsden in typical self-deprecating fashion.

And after sitting across from Marsden – no, not in a Denny’s – we can assure you that he, unlike Fundy, does not smell like Aqua Velva.

For more information and to purchase a copy of Marsden’s self-published book The Satire-Driven Life: The Best of OCLegend.com, go to www.oclegend.com.

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