After months of digging and upheaval, the streets of El Centro de Tijuana (the downtown center) are accepting maiden voyages. All the primary downtown traffic conduits have undergone radical reconstruction and improvement. Dug-up streets where …
“I joined the band to become a bartender,” says singer John “Moon Boots” Thompson of ’77-style punk band the Last Years. “I think that’s how it works.” Moon Boots once tended his dream bar, Tower, …
“We wrote a sludge opera and called it Blind Dead,” says guitarist-drummer Sam Lopez. “Mandy sings.” She also plays bass. “Esteban sings. It’s got six acts. We recorded it, but we don’t know what we’ll …
When it comes to staying young, a mind-lift beats a face-lift any day. — Marty Bucella My laptop sat atop the piano, two windows open: one displayed sheet music for an advanced, chord-heavy version of …
A good friend of mine has this theory that In-N-Out Burger employees are actually reanimated dead kids from the ‘50s. Think about it. They’re hardworking, way too nice, and have names like Bucky, Peggy Sue, …
For beachcombing, tidepool exploration, and all-over suntanning, the coastal stretch north of La Jolla Shores can’t be beat. This coming winter’s extreme low tides (typically a tide of -1 foot or lower) are especially conducive …
My son walked into the room, and I nearly passed out. The aroma from his Speed Stick deodorant was overpowering ($2.99 for 3.25 ounces at Walgreens). I’d prefer body odor to that heavy, cheap-cologne smell. …
Thursday 25Go stuff yourself. Friday 26It’s Black Friday, that vortex of consumerism that sucks us into the holiday shopping season. Go easy, you don’t want to throw out your credit-card sliding arm this early on, …
Movies invade us, and we invade them. It’s a personal transaction. When the Harry Potter film series launched, my children were close to the ages of kid Harry and his new chums at the Hogwarts …
Last November Conrad, my father-in-law, sent me an email, a long one, stating that he was in love. Considering that his studio apartment was situated in Point Loma, a short 15-minute drive from our home, …
Thirty Years AgoToday, the casual visitor to the north part of University City remarks two major features: the University Towne Centre and the vast open spaces surrounding it. Tomorrow — or so it will seem …
For San Diego pop-rock band Flight to Athena, most of the summer was spent alternating its course. In June, guitarists Pat Alcoke and Stephen Colbertson disembarked to stay closer to home. In July, the remaining …
I like my own poems best. I quote from them from time to time saying, “A poet once said,” and then follow up with a line or two from one of my own poems appropriate …
Thanksgiving is thought of as family time. But, we all know Thanksgiving is more than family, bigger than family. Thanksgiving means the NFL is coming at you with three rock-’em sock-’em football games running from …
Dead of night. Dead of the week. Dead of November. At 1:15 a.m. I am looking north at the unhurried, shimmering serpent of Highway 163, up from Mission Valley to a borderland of gaudy neon …
‘What is our town coming to?” asks Mama Cecelyn. “We got whores, pimps, drug addicts, murderers, and liars in Storyville. But now we even have horn thieves amongst us. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.” She just put …
Bees! The Jim Wells County Sheriff’s Office locked down Ben Bolt Middle School in early October after a yard worker disturbed a large nest of bees across the street from the school. Ben Bolt Fire …
Folk troubadour Roy Ruiz Clayton was raised in the steel-mill town of Fontana, California, before moving on his own to San Diego at age 16. “I started writing songs while playing guitar at an early …
“We converted the original video into 3D for Slash and did the deal with him,” says Steve Glum of PassmoreLab on Morena Boulevard. The Bay Park–based company, founded here in 2003 by Greg Passmore, produced …
Ask Steve Poltz how he would like to be remembered, and he doesn’t hesitate: He says he’d like to be thought of as a guy who brought people together. He explains that his audiences are …
Membership: 300 Pastor: Emilio Meza Age: 55 Born: Coahuila, Mexico Formation: Golden State University, California Years Ordained: 15 San Diego Reader: How long do you spend writing your sermon? Pastor Emilio Meza: I spend all …
Heymatt: How did gold become the “metal of choice”? Even back in the ancient days it was revered. Why not lead, tin, copper or...? Who or what made gold the precious metal? — Doug Blackstock, …
Author: Charles Arsenault Neighborhood: Spring Valley Age: 30 Occupation: Electronics technician (seasonally at McMurdo Station, Antarctica) The judge had sentenced me to many hours of hard labor. He hadn’t mentioned the complete lack of intelligence …
I still live for the holiday season. I love hearing The Nutcracker Suite. But it’s a different feeling now. I am not jolted by adrenaline but filled with sadness because something is missing. People still …
Craft and Commerce occupies the spot in Little Italy where a wannabe trendy restaurant named Illume briefly bloomed and died, trying to be a magnet for the hip young crowd moving into the nearby condos. …
In such evil case I believe the man would be glad to come in contact with the worst loathed insect: it would be a shape of life, something beyond and beside his own huge, void, …
My God and my Lord, eyes are at rest, stars are setting, hushed are the movements of birds in their nests, of monsters in the deep. And Thou art the Just who knoweth no change, …
Anné Josefson walks toward a table outside the Starbucks in La Mesa’s Grossmont Center, carrying a black three-ring binder. Clasped inside are two 11-by-24-inch pictures of her son, Nathan Manning. She opens the binder, displaying …
In 1903, Native Americans who had occupied Warner Hot Springs and surrounding land for many generations were forced by the United States to evacuate in a three-day trek called the Trail of Tears. But a …
The nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation’s “Party Time” website, which tracks fund-raising celebrations by members of Congress and their sponsors, is out with a list of invitations to events held by House Republicans vying for the power …
It hasn’t been the greatest of political years for the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce. Its last-minute, closed-door deal with Mayor Jerry Sanders to pass the sales-tax-raising Proposition D backfired when proponents failed to …