Thirty-Five Years Ago
That Mr. Shepherd gives four stars to the apocalyptic disaster film Earthquake and only two stars to Swept Away indicates that he might do well to rid himself of paranoia and study Marxism before he is swept away by destiny.
— LETTERS: “SHEPHERD A CAPITALIST PiG?” Robert D. Chieger, San Francisco, January 29, 1976

Thirty Years Ago
ATTENTION MEN: Stop the tide of feminism while you still have the powers. Stopping feminism means slowing the progress of lesbianism, divorces, and broken homes!

AMANDA, I cannot guarantee safety during this endeavor. We must maintain our link no matter what we confront. My trust is in our empathy. Sarek.
— CLASSIFIEDS, January 29, 1981

Twenty-Five Years Ago
I was discussing the Sears store in Hillcrest with a friend when he told me something I couldn’t believe. He said...when Sears built the store they put a big reservoir under the parking lot. Is this true?
— Ned James, University Heights

The water supply beneath Sears isn’t holy, nor is it stored in what I would call a reservoir...there are about 75,000 gallons sloshing around beneath the parking lot. When the Sears store opened on October 15, 1952, fire protection was not as sophisticated as it is today...should the city’s line fail or the local fire stations prove inadequate, Sears was ready to engage in a bit of self-preservation with its own water.
— STRAIGHT FROM THE HIP, Matthew Alice, January 30, 1986

Twenty Years Ago
“I was amazed by the size of their rear ends,” Rhodessa Jones remembers. “They were huge, humongous behinds. And it struck me that they were also powerful instruments of expression, because whores do use their butts to say a lot about the merchandise they’re carrying.”

Jones is talking about the artistic inspiration for her newest solo theater work, Big Butt Girls, Hard Headed Women. Hired as a “physical theater specialist” for the San Francisco jails — “San Francisco is a wonderfully innovative and socially minded city on many levels,” she explains — Jones mixed “physicality and comedy” to teach the female inmates.
— “MOUTH LIKE A RAZOR,” Paul Krueger, January 31, 1991

Fifteen Years Ago
During a seven-year period in the ’80s, [Louis Almeida] took San Diego art collectors for hundreds of thousands of dollars through forgeries and fraud. At least, that’s what he admitted to when he was caught in 1989. He was sent to prison that same year, served his time, and was released in July 1994. But Almeida’s elaborate cons, ten years or more in the making, were never dismantled completely. They continue to play themselves out, and only Almeida knows where and how they will end. Almeida limited his counterfeiting to one artist, the late Western painter Olaf Wieghorst. It was a smart choice.
— “BUSHWHACKED,” Phyllis Orrick, January 25, 1996

Ten Years Ago
Bathrooms, [Terry “Tweeter”] Donruss says, are a treasure trove of illicit drugs, liquor flasks, lighters, hats, dropped wallets (“I keep the cash to teach them a lesson about being stupid, but I usually give the wallet to an usher”), and loose money. “Guys sit on the pot and get high, maybe ’cause they don’t wanna share or they’re with someone who’s not into it. I found Baggies of coke, weed, joints, pieces of crack, pipes, a little bong. And stuff drops out of their pants...I find twenties once in a while, but usually it’s fives and tens. I came out of the men’s room at the Moody Blues [show] with over a hundred bucks and half an ounce of weed!”
— “MOOCHER IN HEAVEN,” Jay Allen Sanford, January 25, 2001

Five Years Ago
I have been getting requests to crash weddings. The calls have been frequent since the release of Wedding Crashers.

One of the benefits of crashing weddings is you don’t have to worry about presents. In Wedding Crashers, the crashers brought empty boxes they had wrapped. At $27 a pop, I’d rather show up empty-handed. Maybe next time I’ll leave a big envelope. That should be an easy prop.
— CRASHER: “THE BRIDE, THE GROOM, THE HOSTESS,” Josh Board, January 26, 2006