I Could Have Just Screamed

Thirty Years Ago
When Weird Marvin screams, he means business. He says he once screamed from the top of Mount Helix and a friend over on Mount Miguel heard him. Now Marvin is screaming off Hawley Point in Normal Heights, and it seems like the shriek could reach the ant-sized people at the stadium below. First Marvin warms up with his Colorado River scream: “Jose Cuuueeerrrrvvvo!” he bellows. Then he unlooses his Led Zeppelin endurance yodel.

Marvin says his career as a screamer took off last summer, however, when the KGB chicken one day horned in on his dancing (Marvin performs a blend of ballet, modern jazz, and mime). When Marvin called the station to complain about the chicken pestering him, he was invited to release “Weird Marvin’s Professional Concert Inhaling Scream” upon the local airwaves, exposure which brought him an invitation to act as mascot for the Mariners.
— CITY LIGHTS: “I COULD HAVE JUST SCREAMED,” Jeannette De Wyze, May 11, 1978

Twenty-Five Years Ago
The wrong way to buy drug paraphernalia: walk into The Trip record and poster store on Genesee Avenue in Clairemont and ask for a coke spoon, bong, and rolling papers.

The right way to buy drug paraphernalia: walk into The Trip record and poster store on Genesee Avenue in Clairemont and ask for the gourmet cooking utensils, vitamins, and tobacco products.
— CITY LIGHTS: “CHOP ME OUT A LINE OF THAT VITAMIN C,” Paul Krueger, May 12, 1983

Twenty Years Ago
Larry Ritt is a pseudonym for a 41-year-old mail carrier who likes to spend his lunch hour in Presidio Park. Ritt wants to keep his identity under wraps because someone wrote “Kill the mailman. He’s a snitch” on a restroom wall. Ritt met Ingrid Wynia, age 47, along his mail route one day. They had a lot in common; both had seen men having sex with each other in Presidio Park. Wynia came across a pair while walking her dog, and Ritt encountered a male couple engaged in a sex act in an open bathroom stall.
— CITY LIGHTS: “PRESIDIO PATROL,” Brae Canlen, May 12, 1988

Fifteen Years Ago
The six years between my sister and me exempted me from feeling as she did about the Beatles: by the time I got interested in rock music, they were nearly all solo artists. Yet that didn’t stop me from having a similar revelation about the band. While browsing through a junk store recently, I unearthed a copy of The Chipmunks Sing the Beatles Hits, recorded in 1964. It was sandwiched between old Herb Alpert records, a scratched soundtrack to Peter Pan, and an old Herman’s Hermits: happy music, I thought to myself, but I splurged 50 cents on the Chipmunks relic.
— “CHIPMUNKS RESURRECT WRETCHED BEATLES,” Gina Arnold, May 13, 1993

Ten Years Ago
The Clinton sellout to Gingrich and the Republicans was the most selfish deal that William Jefferson Clinton has ever cut. It was selfish because its primary purpose was to guarantee Clinton a victory over a hapless opponent whom Clinton was going to destroy anyway. The deal did so not only by positioning Clinton further to the right with its tough approach to welfare and immigration, it did so by taking away criticism by Bob Dole that Clinton couldn’t work with a Republican Congress.
— “ZEN AND THE ART OF RUNNING FOR CONGRESS,” Peter Navarro, May 14, 1998

Five Years Ago
The L.A. Weekly reports that San Diego D.A. Bonnie Dumanis was a big hit during the convention of the state’s Log Cabin Republicans two weeks ago at the Riviera Resort in Palm Springs. Jeff Bisiri, new state president of the gay GOP group, hailed Dumanis as “our Sheila Kuehl,” referring to the senate Democrat from L.A.’s west side.
— CITY LIGHTS: “RICH AND INFAMOUS,” Matt Potter, May 8, 2003