"It is not this council's policy to keep anything hidden from the people," said San Marcos’ Mayor Jim Desmond to fire chief Todd Newman during the city council's October 26 meeting. "The first time I …

Mark Martin's alarm goes off at 4:30 a.m. Monday through Friday. The alarm is an air horn on the Sprinter rail line one mile from his Vista home. That sound has been the wake-up call …

Wrong Guy You have a printed letter called “A Holy Ha-Ha-Ha” (October 14) signed by “Damon Cook, via email.” My name is Damon Cook, and I am a former employee of Scantibodies, and I did …

Amid Athol Fugard’s Nobel Prize–worthy opus are plays about individuals on the margin of the Big Picture. In Blood Knot, Master Harold and the Boys, Sizwe Banzai Is Dead, and others, Fugard shows the cruel …

“Black Magic” cooking? Often! Maria Maria is a small but growing chain co-owned by musician Carlos Santana along with a larger restaurant company (which also owns Bing Crosby in Fashion Valley). The menus are designed …

The San Diego Rescue Mission opens its doors to just a few homeless women each evening. Although the facility is large and houses many men, only 50 women are allowed inside a very small area. …

Granted, Clint Eastwood in his senior years has demonstrated a remarkable readiness to broaden his boundaries as a director. A quick check of his filmography will show that as long ago as his middle-aged Breezy, …

“My inspiration growing up was Billy Eckstine and Nat King Cole,” says jazz singer Jesse Davis, whose first solo gig in Las Vegas came courtesy of a recommendation from Frank Sinatra. “I’ve been compared to …

Membership: 350 families Rabbi: Scott Meltzer Age: 41 Born: Akron, Ohio Formation: Harvard University, Mass.; Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem, L.A., N.Y. Years Ordained: 14 San Diego Reader: How long do you spend writing your sermon? …

With the exception of the brief time it flew the doomed iPayOne corporate banner, for more than four decades locals have known it as the Sports Arena. But after November 1, that changes when the …

Marc “Mookie” Kaczor was escorted out the doors at 91X when he was fired October 15. He’d been on the air there since 2002, when he segued from the Grossmont College radio program to the …

October has been very good to me. I’ll miss it. Rain and chill, overcast skies; one could squint and imagine oneself anywhere in reality as opposed to Southern California, which I never thought quite qualified. …

Every October, when the colors of autumn start to show, my creativity seems to wake from a long summer slumber. I think the seeds of my creativity were sown in my childhood in New England. …

They sound better live. When I saw “Portugal. The Man” at SOMA the first time a couple of years ago, I didn’t know what to expect. I was thinking folksy indie-pop, the way they sound …

“It’s everything we love,” says Shakedown Bar owner DeadTed. “Working in bars, building motorcycles, skateboarding, punk, rock and roll. It’s who we are.” City Heights native DeadTed began working on cars and choppers when he …

Hello, Matt: My neighbors have a horse, and they told me that the horse sleeps standing up. After that I tried to see if I could see the horse do that, and I think I …

Recipe by Carl Schroeder, executive chef, Market Restaurant I have a sports background. I played football and ran track in college. I liked the physical aspect of work, but I knew that being a personal …

God has appointed self-mortification for the seekers, for the training of the soul. Men are ignorant of the high station of that one who is preoccupied with his Lord, who is seen to be thinking …

The goal of this marathon hike or mountain-bike ride is to reach Modjeska Peak, the lower of the two distinct peaks that form “Old Saddleback,” the defining summit ridge of the Santa Ana Mountains. If …

This began with a telephone call from an old friend in Vegas. Brian is a lifelong degenerate sports bettor and so his conversation inevitably buzzes around the topics of “How I won the bet” or …

My father was one of the princes of Khurasan, and I was a youth and rode to the chase. I went out one day on a horse of mine, with my dog along, and raised …

Jordan Clark moved to San Diego from a small town in Connecticut when he was 16. Inspired by local groups such as Boilermaker, Pinback, No Knife, Tanner, and Drive Like Jehu, Clark and three friends …

‘Is my team ploughing, That I was used to drive And hear the harness jingle When I was man alive?’ Ay, the horses trample, The harness jingles now; No change though you lie under The …

Thirty-Five Years AgoThere are two ways to play the blues: One is for a band to launch an uncommitted 12 bars to flesh out a sagging set, jam on one riff relentlessly with tons of …

“You know how to play that thing?” asks an elderly hardware-store employee in a blue apron. Bianca Lara has taken a brand-new carpenter’s saw from a display, propped the handle against her leg, and is …

Thursday 28That Grammy-winning animated band from Plastic Beach, Gorillaz, swings into Viejas Arena. It’s concept pop of the highest order, co-created by indie-rocker Damon Albarn (Blur) and cartoonist Jamie Hewlett (Tank Girl). The virtual quartet …

A rabbit? In Little Italy? Can’t believe my eyes. But there he is, hopping up from the trolley tracks and into the bushes of one of those mega-condos near Date Street. This close to downtown? …

For almost 30 years Mike has helped build casinos and hotels in San Diego, Las Vegas, and even Honolulu. For several Gucci stores, he has handcrafted shell-shaped archways surrounded by exotic veneers. His work is …

Robert Schneider is a gifted writer of upbeat, melodic guitar pop. With his long-running band the Apples in Stereo (or, as they prefer it, the Apples in stereo, with a lowercase s), his songs are …

On East El Norte Parkway east of North Ash Street, the Escondido Police Department staged a sobriety checkpoint On October 23 between 6 p.m. and midnight. According to a news release, 1450 cars were checked …

On October 20, GOP congressman Darrell Issa threw a birthday party for himself at Carmine’s restaurant in Washington, D.C., a brand-new branch of the famous Carmine’s in New York, which boasts serving “every meal in …

The San Diego city auditor says he has busted a scheme in which employees of a division of the City’s General Services Department sold scrap metal from city projects for $5000 and spent $3000 of …

On September 17, Richard Ledford picked up a contract to lobby on behalf of trash hauler Allied Waste/Republic Services Inc. to help it “obtain a contract for the sale and private operation” of the City-owned …

A Santee company has been trying since 2008 to buy a chunk of land along the north bank of the San Diego River. The property is situated on a little finger of eastern San Diego …

Remember the giddy days of the real estate bubble? Crooked lenders drew up mortgages without keeping track of them. Wall Street packaged them and foisted them off on naïve investors. The real estate bubble burst, …