The two small Victorian homes on 20th Street in Sherman Heights that Louise Torio and her husband Steve Veach have restored are examples of how the Mills Act can benefit the owners, their neighborhood, and …

Nora, a local singer, told me that Ike Turner’s old band was going to play a party in La Jolla. I showed up that afternoon and met Steph Johnson, another local musician. She was waiting …

— May 1, 2000 Not only was I late for work, but my car’s booster engine fouled up. It didn’t explode or anything, it streamed a thin trail of smoke and rattled. So the automatic …

Kids With Promise I was at work today reading in bits and pieces your cover story about “families” in San Diego (“If There Are Families,” Cover Story, April 10). I believe this cover story is …

Maybe it’s something in the water, but many of San Diego’s top Republican political players have lived to a ripe old age. Banker C. Arnholt Smith, the town’s preeminent Daddy Warbucks — who owned a …

While the State of California is threatening to slash funds for everything from school teachers to parks, higher-ups out at UCSD continue to party on. Local politicians and other favored VIPs have received a special …

More UCSD spending: recently appointed UCSD health sciences counsel Anthony Perez is being paid an annual base salary of $210,000 and will be eligible for a mortgage loan not to exceed $1.33 million made by …

Thirty Years AgoThe cypress trees remain. So do the eucalyptus, pine, and groves of pepper trees. They are memorials to people who turned a dusty, chaparral-covered section of Point Loma into a utopian wonderland. Of …

My man Patrick will be donning his goggles, taking up his gun, and heading to the field for his first battle. A work colleague has organized a paintball day. “This might just turn into a …

When you think of a hero — a soldier, firefighter, or Marine — what image pops into your head? Do you think of a shaved chest, chiseled abs, and vein-covered arms? Or do potbelly, 12-inch …

While the spirit of neighborliness was important on the frontier because neighbors were so few, it is even more important now because our neighbors are so many. — Lady Bird Johnson I was about ten …

What book are you reading? “Practicing the Presence: The Inspirational Guide to Regaining Meaning and a Sense of Purpose in Your Life by Joel S. Goldsmith.” Tell me about it. “This is a book by …

Crickets sing and bullfrogs groan. A hawk alights upon a sycamore limb, then launches with outstretched wings to catch a puff of sea breeze moving up the canyon. A cottontail rabbit bounds across the trail, …

Siliclone refers to the group of girls that you would usually see in the Gaslamp or P.B. You know, implants, bleached hair, platform flip-flops, skanktastic tattoos. They all look alike to me. I think they …

The dates attached to Thursday through Sunday of this week, or rather weekend, have a series of associations for me. Let me have my coffee, let the old brain percolate on the back burner as …

“I was surfing north of Scripps Pier, and I saw two little girls pretty far out,” says Jeff, a San Diego native. “They were probably seven or eight. I realized that they had been sucked …

I remember the band Mickey Ratt back in high school, in 1970-something. They were the big local band around town. I was at some parties they were at. It’s all kinda hazy for me right …

“Sweetheart?” coos Carla. “Honey? My heart? Mi corazón?” When Carla slips into Spanish and uses “th” for the z, something’s up. “Uh-huh?” “Call from my brother. He’s launching his book here. That academic book? He’s …

‘I.B.” “O.B.” “I.B.!” “O.B.!!” “OK. How’s about Oceanside?” “I tell you, man,” says Hank. “Nothing beats O.B.” We’re ambling west down Newport, arguing, as per usual. Size, of course. Like, who has the longest pier. …

A friend of mine saw a guy walking two dogs downtown. He had the biggest arms she had ever seen. The guy is Paul-Jean Guillaume: Mr. Universe in 1987. The same year, he competed in …

Technically, it’s pretty good, but production-wise, it needs some work. It was trying to be melodic, but it sounds very computerized...very digital. I can tell…because I’m kind of a musician…that it was almost all done …

Dogs’ Beach in Ocean Beach, 1974. The city council got tough on dogs that year. In two weeks’ time, 232 citations were issued to owners, “the toughest crackdown on stray dogs in county history,” according …

The future looked promising for Dengue Fever when the critically acclaimed psych-surf-worldbeat indie act fronted by Cambodian immigrant Chhom Nimol was driving home to Los Angeles after opening for Jonathan Richman at the Casbah on …

Mike Pereira co-owns a recording studio in Golden Hill, but he used to work as a bouncer. “I worked for ten years in security [at clubs] in Miami and here in San Diego, and I …

Singer-songwriters Eve Selis and Mattie Mills have written a book, Forty Schmorty: Life Keeps Happening. “During the process of writing the book,” says Selis, “Mattie was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 45, and I …

A Vietnam vet walks into a bar and tells a singer-songwriter who’s done prison time that he’ll pay for the recording and pressing of 1000 copies of her ten-song CD. It’s no joke. Robin Lee …

Jordan Moorman doesn’t sound like any other open-mike regular. “I don’t have a larynx. I don’t know what it is that I use to sing or talk.” The singer-guitarist lost his vocal cords when he …

I didn’t get to church on Sunday — this is what, my third flu this year? Pathetic, or maybe just scary. (“The germs are winning,” says Dad.) So I’ve got nothing on that front. But …

I figured it was a George Bush thing, his idea of public service. No matter how sordid your disgrace is, how incompetent you are, no matter what your crime may be, or how completely you …

The “Father of Modern Drama” wasn’t Ibsen, or August Strindberg. He was Andre Antoine (1858…1943), a clerk for the Paris Gas Company and an amateur actor. Cercle Gaulois, for whom he played bit parts, performed …

Worst break up ever? In the late ’80s I lived in a basement apartment in San Francisco a block off Haight Street. I was in my twenties and casting about for some deeper purpose in …

“The jaboticaba comes from Brazil; in South America they call it the black cherry,” says José Gallego, San Diego chapter chair for the California Rare Fruit Growers, Inc. “They’re expensive because they can take several …

Minneapolis madman Mark Mallman was in between songs at a 2006 show when his guitarist started fiddling around with a riff from “When Doves Cry.” According to a reviewer, Mallman became angry and shouted, “Fuck …

It wasn’t enough that the Los Angeles band Dengue Fever took ’60s Cambodian pop as their main architecture. They had the random good fortune to chance upon a Cambodian vocalist working in a Long Beach …

Hellyeah is a rock “supergroup” featuring members of Mudvayne, Pantera, and Nothingface. Their self-titled debut sold 45,000 copies in its first week. Hell Yeah is a San Diego rock band and the brainchild of singer/guitarist …

Nu metal soothes the savage teenage ego. Perfected by the awful Linkin Park, nu metal themes revolve around awkwardness and insecurity, which manifest themselves in lyrics as martyrdom, separation from society, loyalty to others labeled …

Clue: Big foot, little ranch. 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: Cat on a cool tile slide) Fountain at …

Under the imprimatur of Judd Apatow comes Forgetting Sarah Marshall, a comedy of heartbreak and heartmend. Apatow personally has directed only The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, but as a producer his name apparently has …

The Union-Tribune’s Christmas Massacre of December 2007 is still producing bloodshed. The Copley Press, aided by a high-powered consulting firm, is contesting unemployment claims filed by a small group of ex-employees who took a buyout …

San Diego mayoral candidate Eric Bidwell rolls across the cement floor of Cream coffeehouse on his Heelys, wheeled shoes that he found used on craigslist for $20. Impressive dreadlocks extend to his waist. He wears …