Devotion, by Jessie Ware
Mtume Salaam 8:43 a.m., May 24
Blog Winners for 2012
November
A Love Affair with the Freeway
My Dearest Freeway Five, Having spent most of my life in New York City, I have never truly known someone like you. But I came out here for new and exciting experiences, and boy am I glad our paths crossed. You are a fresh breath of air (you know...except for ...
On the border of University and Nowhere Park
I woke up this morning, knowing that everything on my uncovered porch outside was going to be saturated by the evening rain...Why was everything outside uncovered and unprotected from the rain you ask? BECAUSE THIS IS SAN DIEGO...and it's common knowledge that we overpay heavily to live here because the ...
CBP Interrogation
After two hours in the pedestrian line, waiting to cross into the US, I'm often a bit knackered by the time I get to the CBP Agent Interrogation desk. I have my papers in order, I have a sharp stone in my shoe and,at my age, that sudden gust of ...
October
Routinely Running
It is simply labeled "Blues" — a jazzy three-note riff played four times before landing on the tonic. And then again, with a minor crescendo. This is the iPhone tune that wakes me up at 6:00 every morning. It is also the only musical notes to an otherwise silent social ...
A Love / Hate Letter to the Chargers
Dear Alex (Spanos), After almost 34 years together I’m starting to think this relationship isn’t working. I’ve given you my unconditional support, my precious time, and my hard-earned money and in return you’ve given me nothing but unrealized expectations (2006), sheer heartache (2009), and colossal disappointment (most recently last Monday ...
The Battle Of The Sunflower Maze
It was an organic farm in the Tijuana River Valley pitted against the United States Navy. They weren’t fighting over pesticides or aircraft noise pollution. Instead, what got Congressman Bob Filner involved was a fight over a high-end gourmet dinner set inside a sunflower maze. Suzie’s Farm hosted another autumnal ...
September
Where is the pedestal?
It has come to my attn.that everyone has their head up their arse. This is what I think as I sit outside Starbucks reading the Reader. They pontificate, fornicate, try to communicate:but "SOMETHING" 's missing:where is the direction in our Life? We all just have a hole where our soul ...
Ecleticism
Few years back, I was in a posh San Diego rehab battling wretched alcoholism. Every night, my fellow rehabbers and I would pack in the shiny white van, and head off to yet another AA meeting. We’d go all over San Diego: La Jolla, Del Mar, Coronado, OB, Clairemont, El ...
Filner blocks citizens on Facebook for criticizing his Plaza De Panama support
This is starting to feel like invasion of the body snatchers where these people posture that they are your friends and want to hear your opinions and concerns and then make a concerted effort to silence those opinions. I posted a comment on Filner's Mayoral Facebook page a few weeks ...
August
The Neighborhood Watch
The cultural dichotomy of my neighborhood is one that leaves me with polarized feelings of appreciation and resentment. Though my apartment building is technically located in Talmadge, it has more resemblance to City Heights. For all of the San Diego transplants, I’ll explain each. City Heights is one of the ...
Scum-Sucking Ticket Scalpers
Ticket scalpers! Besides Ticketmaster, they are enemy number one to any concert goer. The other night I attended the Alabama Shakes concert at the House of Blues. Luckily, I was able to get in, but trying to find one single ticket was a battle, right up until show time. I ...
Moving Sale
When I went to bed Saturday night, I’d almost forgot that my girlfriend had posted a Sunday morning yard sale on Craigslist earlier that week. She wrote that it would start at 9am, which meant scavengers might show up anytime after sunrise. So I rolled out of bed long before ...
July
Mallow Madness
My heart’s pumping, adrenaline is flowing and I am smack dab in the middle of a full-fledged war. A huge bonfire rages, growing larger with each passing moment, and the ground has become littered with perfectly in tact ammunition. I'm being attacked from all sides, taking hits to the cranium, ...
The Neighbor
Ours was a normal little enclave affectionately referred to as our South Park “Hood”. It was really like any other small community, an up and coming neighborhood, home to all sorts of folks, of all ages and backgrounds. There were older seniors, those of every persuasion, including young hipsters with ...
let's make some smart business decisions
It's Time to Make Smart Business Decisions for IB and Allow Marijuana Dispensaries
In 1989 I moved to Puerto Rico. I arrived on a Tuesday – that Sunday hurricane Hugo devastated the Island. I had a permit to sell clothes on Luquillo Beach, but the beach was destroyed so I had no source of income. In a few days the Red Cross issued ...
June
My Missed Fortune
I awoke from my daily nap a little later than usual that fate-less Wednesday evening. It was pushing 6 p.m. and my obnoxious tummy was howling for something of substance. Unfortunately for my personal famine, my pantry echoed with emptiness, and screamed of lazy bachelor. Now the question was where ...
1 Dollar Fish Taco Frenzy in University Heights
1 Dollar Fish Taco Frenzy in University Heights Rogue Writer: ptyjournalist This article seeks to find value for fish taco lovers living in the San Diego Area. The Taquerias in question (El Zarape and Kiko’s Place) are often overlooked by economically casual chowers but they shouldn’t be because both offer ...
Red Neck Gardening
Spring is the season that warms the heart of any gardener. You hold hope and a dream in your hand with each seed you plant. Hope for tomatoes, red and juicy, fresh vegetables, fine herbs, an organic salad. Endless possibilities. And in the back country, to garden, you need to ...
May
Look! LA!
So I took the little missus up to LA for the day. Left the sunshine and the safety of San Diego and ventured into that gloom and doom to the north. She’d never seen the place, and I wanted to find out if the air, the traffic, and the gangs ...
The Haunting Desert Coast of Baja Norte
The eastern coastline of northern Baja California is situated on the Sea of Cortez, and supports an entirely different type of habitat and marine life profile than does the Pacific side. Volcanic outcroppings and occasional groups of small, rugged islands intermittently interrupt the miles of warm, sandy beach that adjoin ...
The Red Light Fight
Some weeks ago in the murky AM hours of a drizzle infested day, I fled through a yellow/red light, accidently, in an undisclosed intersection found in North San Diego County. I knew I had committed the crime as soon as the strobes of vigorous flash bulbs, hiding on the snitching ...
April
Why Californians Should Say NO to Any Tax Hikes
A recent poll revealed that Californians are in favor of the idea of raising their taxes in order to pay for Sacramento's massive spending problem. Among other tax hike measures on the ballot the big one, Proposition 30, will hike state income taxes for seven years for those earning more ...
Ladies (and Men) Who Lunch
The first Thursday of each month has the residents of North Encanto gathering at a neighbors' house. For over twenty years, this diverse, fun, quirky group has advocated for their neighborhood while socializing surrounded by home cooked, international gourmet cuisine. It was started over twenty years ago by two neighborhood ...
Same Destination, Different Journey
Same Route, Different Journey
Last week I returned to San Diego for vacation. It has been nine years since I left America’s finest city for my hometown in New Jersey. Every winter my husband and I ask ourselves, “What did we do?” We retell our war story of arriving in the brutal winter of ...
March
My Milkshake Brings All the Birds to the Yard
Well, actually, it’s not really my milkshake, and, technically, it’s not even a milkshake at all—it’s a basic solution of sugar and water, boiled and then cooled to room temperature, that the local hummingbirds seem to find irresistible. After a short trial period, my husband hit on just the right ...
Ensenada Police Department: An Open Letter of Thanks
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/apr/09/22475/ We are living during very trying times. Stateside gasoline prices are headed through the roof while, with the correlated rise in the cost of goods and services, Americans with a desire to take a vacation are finding that they are increasingly difficult to afford. In past decades, many southern ...
No Place Like Rainbow
There's no place like Rainbow. This low mountain ecotone combines riparian woodland with coastal sage scrub, creating an expansive earth tone canvas splashed with Live Oak, Palms, citrus, and multi-colored flowering plants. The canyons act as a giant condenser, capturing and cooling the marine breezes from Oceanside. The peaks of ...
February
a walk on the boulevard beyond the race track
I went back to Tijuana last week to participate in a poetry reading at a small university. I say “back” because, from 1999 through 2007, I lived there pretty much full time. I still rent a room from a dear friend of mine, but only get there once or twice ...
The $10 Sandwich, or why I no longer contribute to my retirement fund
I blame Annel and Drew, the delightful, the charming, the talented, the delicious foodmaking dream duo for my recent decrease in 401k contributions. These two have wondertwin power-activated their foodie know-hows to create Annel and Drew's Kitchen which has dreamed up some of the best eats this city has to ...
Empirical Order — from the Apocalyptic Chronicles
My name is Axel Baxter and I'm a mean guy. Just ask my Old Lady. I don’t mean to be I just can’t help myself. Been around the block and back and I don't take nothing from nobody. To make matters worse, I wake up with a growl most days, ...
January
His Little Brother of France
The holiday cards started coming in around this time last month. I'd gone through dad's directory and contacted as many of his acquaintances as I could, informing them that he'd passed away in June. Still, every time I stopped by to check on things, the mailbox of the old family ...
What We Do for Our Kids
I don’t claim to be a competent speaker of anything other than English, but when I hear Mandarin spoken, I’m often able to discern at least the topic of conversation. Thus, when I’m strolling past a group of Chinese moms at the playground in our neighborhood park here in Carmel ...
Bad Thoughts for Bad People
Everybody believes he is a good person and that what he does in life is done, most of the time, with honor, purpose, and noble conviction; this belief is true of almost all people, the good and the bad, the saints and even the psychopaths, because evil people don’t know ...
