Iowa transplant Jaime Lynch says she moved to the Left Coast to compare Hawkeye and Golden State cocktail culture for future reference. “Eventually, I would love to own my own bar,” she explains. As it …

"Complexity is the end of fun,” says Rick. He’s philosophizing at the bar stool to my right, here in this little wine bar behind Rosie O’Grady’s pub. This is up in Normal Heights. Rick’s talking …

“Bicycling has a way of bringing more vibrancy to a city,” says Beryl Forman, marketing manager for the El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Association. “When you see a bunch of bikes in front of a …

When is a guitar like a woman? When it’s in a country song. “She’s all mine for all night,” sings Lucero’s Ben Nichols. “The only girl a boy can trust is his guitar/ She’s my …

“Pretty little harmonies with a pretty little lady,” is how Veronica May describes the music of the Lovebirds, her new performance duo with Lindsay White. May — whose parents fronted the 1970s band the Flatlanders …

A sign you’re getting older: you start hearing your friends worry about their kids’ performance on the SAT. They all knew about the usual large-scale test-prep options, but I was curious about finding something on …

If the Cryptkeeper opened a speakeasy, he’d lurch over to Cherry Bomb first to take notes. Wedged between a laundromat and a taco shop, the Banker’s Hill drinking dungeon sees black brick and red walls …

It’s just past 3 a.m. on a Saturday night. Edward sits handcuffed in the back of an El Cajon police holding van. He watches through a smeared window while his black Ford Focus is hitched …

Please Dig In To Don Bauder and Moss Gropen: Regarding “the voters” having widely rejected Mike Aguirre and voted for Prop C profitization, I don’t believe it (“Bar Rejects Charges Against Aguirre” and “Water’s Monopoly …

I’ve noticed if you’re a pug owner, you’re pug crazy. — Crystal Key ‘Is that a pig or a pug?” asked the little girl. “It’s a pug in a pig costume,” I said. “If you …

A Discourse of Free-Thinking …by Free-Thinking alone Men are capable of knowing that a perfectly Good, Just, Wise and Powerful Being made and governs the World; and from this Principle they know, that he can …

Thirty-Five Years AgoAmerica remains unique in turning popular culture into an industry. A book or movie with wide appeal will create the demand for subsidiary items that flourish momentarily in our national consciousness and then …

When he was ten miles from Placerville, in 1851, gold fever struck J.D. Borthwick hard. Five men slung heavy pickaxes by the roadside. They looked like “so many grave diggers,” but much more determined. Borthwick, …

Rob Steppke chairs the North Park Planning Group. He also sits on the Balboa Park Committee, an advisory committee to the mayor and city council. On February 15, Steppke asked his fellow North Park planners …

As mad fans of Trattoria Antica in La Mesa, my friend the Lynnester and I were thrilled to hear that its exuberant Sicilian chef Francesco Basile had opened a new place in Hillcrest. (Here, his …

Bella has just finished telling me that, yes, she absolutely does believe in racial color-blindness. “I live it every day,” she says. “I’m married to a white man, and I don’t look at him and …

When in 1853 Admiral Perry and what the Japanese called his “black fleet” (the ships were painted black and their coal-stoked engines puffed black smoke) sailed into Yokohoma Harbor, he couldn’t have known he’d be …

Membership: 35 Pastor: Dan Meyer-Abbott Age: 59 Born: Glendale Formation: San Diego State University, San Diego; Claremont School of Theology, Claremont Ordained: 34 years San Diego Reader: How long do you spend writing your sermon? …

The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd If all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy Love. But …

It’s coming on to spring. Fairbanks will see spring three months from now, Brooklyn two months, Austin one month. But, wherever you are, spring is a fine time to check out birding festivals. Put the …

Marnie Stern is an unusual kind of guitar hero. It’s not just that she’s a woman — that’s not so rare anymore. (As Stern points out in one song title, “Female Guitar Players Are the …

“I’ve got one band I can run around and scream to,” says Michael Turi, vocalist for the Old In Out, “and now with Trap Gold I’m sitting down and actually singing.” The Old In Out …

Talofa, Matt: As a tattoo aficionado, I recall reading that before it was destroyed during WWII, there existed a collection of preserved dermagraphics from Japanese yakuza members, and supposedly due to the atrocities in Germany, …

On February 7, the Electric Waste Band celebrated their 19th anniversary at Winstons in Ocean Beach, where they have played every Monday night since February 3, 1992. “We figure that’s roughly 950 shows, 1900 sets, …

For all of the welcome reunited San Diego acts scheduled to play the Michael “Stimy” Steinman memorial at the Casbah on Wednesday, February 16, one artist was especially missed when the lineup was announced. A …

San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders, a self-styled liberal Republican who backed city hall’s failed Prop D half-cent sales-tax hike, has joined seven mayors from Arizona, Texas, and California in bashing conservative GOP presidential hopeful Mike …

The bidding process for contractors seeking to furnish the County with an elaborately outfitted truck to accommodate the sheriff’s bomb-defusing operations, first reported here last month, has been called off. “In the best interests of …

In 2005, Barry John Johnson left his job as city manager of Solana Beach, where he drew an annual salary of $149,344, to volunteer as a counselor at South Bay Community Services. At the agency’s …