My word is “squadouche,” which basically means “nothing.” Don’t really know where I heard it from... But basically used in the context, “Hey dude, what’d you get at the store today?” “Squadouche! I didn’t get …

What’s the name of your book? “Counterclockwise.” Tell me about it. “It’s a combination of alternate history and science fiction because there’s some time travel in it. The alternate history comes in because it’s a …

And he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. — Revelation 22:1 That was the line that came to mind upon …

Clue: Capri-cious diving belle? Describe this location, name the nearest cross-streets, and win a Reader T-shirt. Enter by completing the form below. Last week's place: (clue: Holding up well) The lace bustier that Madonna wore …

Name: Zane Johnston Surfing: Crystal Pier, Pacific Beach Lives: 32nd St. Naval Base Pre-Surf Music: Country Post-Surf Food: Taco Bell “Back in Texas there aren’t a whole lot of places to surf where you’ll catch …

Normally, consumers pull the U.S. out of a recession. This year, they may push us into one. Consumers have loaded themselves with far too much debt. With housing prices plummeting, the game of using the …

On a Sunday morning in Hillcrest, at the intersection of Vermont and Cleveland, realtors Dan Cassidy and Mary Young fight the wind and rain to tape banners to the sides of a bus. The banners …

My Disgust I have to let you know of my disgust with the Reader after seeing the cover story “To Live and Die in Oceanside” (February 21). I am a professional person and live in …

Back in July 2001, then–San Diego mayor Dick Murphy and the rest of the city council voted to give a cool $1 million of taxpayer money to a small nonprofit outfit called the San Diego …

Old politicos never die, they just become consultants and fade onto the advisory boards of taxpayer-funded organizations, where they make wealthy new friends, line up clients, and peddle their influence in ever-widening circles. Take the …

Thirty Years AgoWhile I have permitted myself, the last week or two, to become hopelessly tangled up in writing about, or trying to, Wim Wenders’s The American Friend, a near traffic jam of other important …

The breath of heaven bush encroaches on my garden statuary. In the back yard, the trumpet vine escapes into the neighbor’s yard. And the branches of our rose bushes ramble into the sky and bend …

[Editor’s note: Regi Rae admits that she submitted her blog mainly to draw attention to her videos. It was a good trick. Her investigative report on IHOP’s refusal to sell Smiley-Face pancakes to people over …

When I heard about a party at “Grandma’s,” I didn’t think it would be something that I’d tell my buddies about the next day. Grandma BB’s Hilltop Hideaway is in Oceanside, and the Southern California …

Don’t misunderstand — Robert Baizer is glad he went to Sundance. He had a lovely time — made even lovelier by the happy reception accorded Bottle Shock, a film he helped to finance. By festival’s …

The car has become a secular sanctuary for the individual, his shrine to the self, his mobile Walden Pond. — Edward McDonagh One damp December morning, while frantically twisting the key this way and that …

I live above a liquor store in City Heights. The store’s sign stands out in the neighborhood, as it’s the only one in English. Across the street is a Vietnamese donut shop and a tortilleria. …

The Spanish colonists who christened Arroyo Seco (“dry creek”) evidently observed only its lower end — a hot, boulder-strewn wash emptying into the Los Angeles River. Upstream, inside the confines of the San Gabriel Mountains, …

I wrote this in October 2005: “The thing about the future is, nobody knows what will happen. So, we don’t know what will happen to Michelle Wie. Still, not knowing never stopped anyone from making …

Tourism is, of course, huge in this town. Myself, I never thought of San Diego as a destination. I’d given the place pretty much no thought at all — it was filed away under an …

He was gorgeous. Kristen and I sat on the lawn at Orange Glen High School, watching Chris walk by on his way to the cafeteria. It was winter in sunny Southern California, and he wore …

Keturah StickannAssistant director, San Diego Opera, 2008 seasonsdopera.org John Carney’s Once is one of the best depictions of the creative process I’ve ever seen. I love its sincerity, and I really love its soundtrack. Little …

The Swedish Models formed in early 2007 after guitarist Andrew Bernhardt, original bass player Mark Wiskowski, and drummer Dustin Paul called it quits with their band Cape May. The trio then picked up guitarist/vocalist Ryan …

The Raveonettes are a duo, and their sound is all about dualism and contrast — noisy guitars and careful vocal harmonies, Danish accents and American musical references, modern bluntness and retro song structures. But the …

“The initial thing was just to have a fun time one night,” says Luther Hughes via telephone from his L.A.-area home. Hughes is speaking of his current group, the Cannonball-Coltrane Project. What began a few …

“I see people all the time spraying Windex on their countertop and then slapping down a sandwich — they don’t realize all the chemicals that are left on the counter from the Windex, like petroleum …

‘That cat Oedipus is a bad mother-…” “Shut-cho mouth!” “But I’m talkin’ ’bout Oedipus.” In Will Power’s often blazing, at times reductive hip-hop take on Aeschylus’s Seven Against Thebes, Oedipus is an “OG”: an “original …

Aha. There he is. Right down the pasaje. Willy Clauson. He’s sitting under a way-big vaquero hat, smoking a cigar and playing his guitar in front of his museum. Song’s “Adelita,” about the Mexican Revolutionary …

The Better Half is a restaurant after my own heart, and the hearts of all adventurous foodies. Almost everybody I know (including the pickiest, crankiest, “allergic to everything” gourmet princess in all my acquaintance) has …

When the painter Asher Durand first journeyed to New York as a teenager in 1817, from his rural home in Essex County, New Jersey, the city was a knockabout place of 10,000 souls — without …

Full plate, half-heartedly picked at: Be Kind Rewind. Twisted, tangled, snarled zaniness around a behind-the-times video store, facing foreclosure, in Passaic, N.J. An habitué of the place (Jack Black, at his most demonically possessed) unwittingly …

Levi, “social chairman” of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at Cal State San Marcos, says, “Most of the students don’t live within a five-mile radius of the campus. There isn’t much to do on campus. …

Artist: Satanic Puppeteer Orchestra Song: “I Stole Your Daddy’s Time Machine” (from their self-titled four CD box set) Heard By: Adriana Rhoads, Del Mar It was cool. It’s very different. At first it reminded me …

It was the night I became a man. It was Ocean Beach, California. It was a Halloween party in 1999 and I was dressed as a P.E. teacher. You should have seen my outfit: tiny …

Album: Liberation of Dissonance (2007) Artist: Canobliss Label: self-released Where available/price: canobliss.com, CDBaby.com for $8; iTunes and Napster.com for $9.90 Songs: 1) Riot 2) Insurrection 3) Sinister Minister 4) Liberation of Dissonance 5) Hello 6) …

Home of the first Methodist church in San Diego, c. 1890. Located on the northeast corner of Fourth Avenue and Broadway, the church was first a wooden structure built in 1870 on land donated by …