It is a quiet weeknight in early February at the Chula Vista downtown library when Dr. Dan Davis of UCSD, wearing pale green cotton hospital scrubs, arrives in the auditorium. He's come to make the …

Thirty Years Ago "You name it, everything causes cancer. You can't even drink water, they say. It's all a fallacy, like everything else." As Ida McNamare moves around the cramped quarters behind the counter at …

The bus on the sign is an accurate depiction of the "stages" they ran to Tijuana in the '20s. Those big buses left San Diego at 10 a.m., 2 p.m., and 6 p.m. The company …

'I thought he was crazy [to want to produce me]," Molly Jenson says about San Diego colleague Greg Laswell, "but we met one afternoon and wrote a song in our first meeting." Laswell eventually produced …

If you lay down, the baby will never come out! -- Native American saying I didn't think she'd take me seriously. Then again, I was pretty sure she was physically incapable of granting my request. …

I call my husband Patrick "Renaissance man." Five years ago he discovered his tenor voice while singing along with a Three Tenors CD I bought him on a whim. He started taking lessons, won an …

Title: Leaning into the Sharp Points Address: http://switchyardmusic.com/blog.htm Author: Rachel From: University Heights Blogging since: March 2007 Post Date: March 9, 2007 Post Title: The Death of a Dream Music has always been my one …

About seven years ago I went on a date with a rather odd woman (we'll call her Allie). She possessed two bachelor's degrees and was working on a third, yet worked at Restoration Hardware -- …

I received a voicemail about a party for Shay Davis, but I thought the guy said Gray Davis and that it would be a politician's dinner. Shay is an artist who moved here from Denver, …

After a quick check of Internet fares and a phone call, I was on the redeye to Milwaukee. Seventy miles by bus from Milwaukee to the city of Fon du Lac, a greedy jailer with …

"It's the summer months, and your children will be outdoors playing more often and could seriously hurt themselves." This announcement remains ingrained in my mind; it was made on the BBC during their prime-time news …

The border has been "bearish" since 9/11 -- that is, sometimes you eat the bear, usually the bear eats you. The unpredictability has hurt a lot of Tijuana restaurants -- especially the better ones. Fewer …

'Taco Bell had that Chihuahua talking on the TV, and people would always ask me, 'Hey, doesn't that little dog piss you off?' and I'd say, 'No,'" says San Diego State English professor William A. …

Small world. Jeff Morgan, co-founder of a winery founded on the notion of making rosé its flagship product, gets invited to San Diego by the local chapter of the American Institute of Wine and Food. …

"Signs of Life," read the banners affixed to the light poles in the parking lot. In the church vestibule, piles of take-home magnets bore images and Scripture verses explaining the signs. Week three was Worn-Out …

At 7:30 a.m. on the morning of November 21, 1980, Charlie Wright and me were drinking at the Barbary Coast, a midsized casino adopted by locals on the corner of Flamingo and the Strip. Caesars …

Latino rapper Raul "Blaze" Cervantes's first public appearances were impromptu, one-on-one street battles. "We would battle each other at the beach for, like, $40 or $60; whoever wins gets the money." The crowd would decide …

I heard it on the news today/ 39 people dead they say/ A madman had led them astray... Triangles on their faces and money in their hands/ he told them they would venture to faraway …

On radionigel.com, longtime 91X DJ Steve West has played Depeche Mode, Cure, and Ramones hits for the past two years. "Basically, it's what I play on my Resurrection Sunday show [on 91X] and more." A …

Fox Rox, San Diego's only televised local-music show, has been canceled. The program began in 2002 with XETV executive producer Mark Jacobs, who brought in music writer Troy Johnson as host. Jacobs left the station …

It was music -- rock and roll, really -- that brought me to California in 1969. Since then, music and I have treated each other with various degrees of love and dismissal: gaudy and debilitating …

Though Tokyo might not seem like a stronghold for Celtic music, local quintet Skelpin reports otherwise. In 2005, the band did a three-month stint at Disney's Tokyo Sea theme park; the band was asked to …

Few people outside of the military know of guitarist Jim Earp's career as a sailor. "Discharged from the Navy in 1979, I've been working for the Department of Defense/Navy Department as a civil servant since …

"I knew the sound guy's stress level was rising [after] one of us said a microphone should go on one side of the stage and then we changed our mind," says Matt Rhea of Manganista, …

The first-person narration sets the tone closer to a stand-up routine.

"Don't worry, my friend. There's plenty of free tequila for you."

New Mexico governor Bill Richardson -- sometimes called "Dollar Bill" Richardson -- is running for president. It's not an ideal time. Richardson was on the board of San Diego's Peregrine Systems from February 2001 to …

At next month's Peregrine Systems criminal trial, defense lawyers will probably ask if the U.S. attorney's office selected defendants on the basis of a highly biased report prepared after the company plunged into bankruptcy in …

The Colegio de Bachilleres high school sits about five miles east of downtown Tijuana on the Vía Rápida, the highway that straddles the Tijuana River channel. The campus looks like public high schools in San …

It's conflict-of-interest filing time again for state legislators, and as usual, financial disclosures by members of the local delegation reveal that many have been living high on the hog. Take 80th District Republican assemblywoman Bonnie …

Customarily reticent David Copley is speaking out, but it's not about future plans for the Union-Tribune now that the rest of the newspaper chain left him by his late mother Helen has been sold for …

The northernmost stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) in San Diego County traverses the flank of the colorfully named Bucksnort Mountain. Combs Peak is the highest summit on that mountain ridge, and rates as …