"I remember my first encounter with a student here. I was wearing a suit, and a student comes up to me at lunch with a crowbar in his hand. Tapping it against his leg, he …

In a public hearing held on Monday, December 7, the San Diego City Council and San Diego Redevelopment Agency approved the use of tax increment funding from the Centre City and Horton Plaza Redevelopment Agency …

Monday's downpour and ensuing floods might have hindered holiday shopping when the San Diego River overflowed its banks and inundated acres of low-level parking garages at Fashion Valley Mall. The flooded parking spaces — numbering …

Garage-rock duo the King Khan & BBQ Show ignite a blast from the past with their new In The Red Records disc Invisible Girl. The collection taps doo-wop, retro garage, and bold punk for a …

After three years of silence, Wolmother returns with their sophomore effort, Cosmic Egg. Singer-songwriter Andrew Stockdale channels his inner Robert Plant for track after track of in-your-face 1970s hard rock. Larger-than-life riffs, extended guitar solos, …

When Paula Cole performs, it's part concert, part group meditation. Fans were entranced watching the singer-songwriter croon her poetic, self-revealing lyrics at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts. Between songs, Cole's emotional interludes further …

The Feelies’ second album was released in 1986, six years after their Crazy Rhythms debut, a gap mystifying a lot of people but not bandleaders Glenn Mercer and Bill Million, who said, long story short, …

The Feelies sure look like geeks against the ocean-blue on their debut album cover (yes, Weezer ripped it off), and Glenn Mercer’s lightly clogged intonation suggests Jonathan Richman’s taking the lonely boy in the corner …

On December 3, Fox News personality Glenn Beck broadcast a live performance of The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption to movie theaters nationwide. (Tickets were $20.) I was curious — the mention of redemption, …

Incredibly, Tiger Woods may not have enough money to buy his way out of this. Or, to put it another way, how many degrees of fucked can one man be and still find somebody to …

This, as far as I can tell, is a true story. I did not have a tape recorder for Jack Burnham’s story, and my own memory is increasingly unreliable. This took place two weeks before …

In 1953, Tennessee Williams sent the equivalent of a neutron bomb to Broadway. He wrote Camino Real to demolish theatrical realism. Don Quixote, the archetypal antirealist, falls asleep and envisions a new kind of theater, …

The guy in the wheelchair sits at the corner of Fifth and G, waving his “Hot Dogs!” sign toward G Street. That’s all you need. You can see the crowd halfway down G, clumping around …

Let’s have one more chorus of “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” The hellish economy is kickin’ out the jams in the restaurant biz, especially in upscale hotel restaurants that locals tend to overlook, thinking they’re …

Leather-clad misfits from suburbia massed outside the California Theatre. Like angry hornets they formed a large hive around the front door of the concert hall, spilling onto the sidewalk. All members of the various tribes …

Did Mayor Jerry Sanders get his money out of a scandal-ridden private equity group whose chief executive has filed for Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy? It’s an intriguing question. For the past several years, Sanders has …

Window-shopping at Helzberg Diamonds in Westfield’s North County Shopping Mall, Grace, the manager of nearby John’s Fifth Avenue Luggage, says, “I’d think twice before plunking down $10,000 on a ring in this economy.” She enjoys …

Matt: Why do bug bites itch? And if our reflex is to scratch it, why doesn’t scratching stop itching? Sometimes it seems to make it worse and it just itches forever. — Bitten Barb, via …

The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out. — Thomas Babington Macaulay We suspected something was up. “We” being Corinne and the …

“The breading is the swaddling clothes, the chicken is the Christ child, the steam piping off the nuggets is the breath of the animals gathered around the manger, and the fries are the angels’ wings,” …

I was able to hit two parties recently because one involved a student film festival, and the kiddies don’t usually party into the late hours. The event, a fundraiser at Isabel’s Cantina in P.B., was …

Anberlin plays Viejas Arena on Sunday, December 13 (91X’s “Wrex the Halls” concert including AFI, Rise Against, and 30 Seconds to Mars) I started listening to Anberlin in 2005, when they weren’t that big. I …

Recipe by John Skorepa, executive chef, Pomegranate Russian-Georgian Restaurant I have a long and checkered career. After graduating from San Diego State with a BS in biology, I worked in the plumbing and mechanical business …

Make Art, Not Clowns Dress up like a clown, go to a football game, and, voilà, you’re on the cover of the Reader (“Nuts and Bolts,” Cover Story, December 3). If you’re an artist, forget …

Here they come, “for your consideration,” clear through Christmas, elbowing each other to the finish line. So consider in haste. Invictus takes its title from the Henley poem of the same name: “my unconquerable soul... …

Grace Potter, a Vermont organist-guitarist and singer, showed up on the indie scene five years ago with a rock quartet and the usual stuff: a strong appreciation for the music of a generation that was …

On their website, you can watch a video of Tape Deck Mountain playing a cover of Danzig’s “Mother” that’s both inappropriate and perfectly right. These unassuming San Diego indie rockers seemingly couldn’t have any less …

Dan Whitworth Writer and reformed projectionist Neglected Russian filmmaker Larisa Shepitkov’s debut Wings stars Maya Bulgakova as a former Soviet fighter pilot now serving as a school administrator in the early 1960s. Disappointed with her …

The Ambassador is the stage name of singer-guitarist Stephen Gabriel Lewis. “I adopted the title because of the passion I have for travel abroad,” he says, “and because of something my mother used to say …

Last week, Anheuser-Busch, the onetime icon of American beer that was snapped up a year ago by the Brazilian-Belgian international brewing combine InBev, finally unloaded its chain of theme parks — including San Diego’s SeaWorld …

Hard times will soon shutter Rainwater’s on Kettner Boulevard, the fabled red-meat eatery. Over the years, politicos of all stripes dined gratis at the bistro, thanks to well-heeled special interests. February 2004 was typical. GOP …

Thirty Years Ago“Apocalypse At Last,” Duncan Shepherd’s long-awaited review, which appeared in the November 29 Reader, once again demonstrates his clannish and misinformed view of American film. Apocalypse Now is unquestionably the best American film …

“About a year ago, I decided I wanted to form a country band,” says Tim Raldo, best known for his confrontational and scatological stage antics fronting the punk band the Filthy Fuks. “The Ramblin’ Outlaws …

It’s been three years since singer-guitarist Ben Jerman parted ways with the Daffodils. At the time, the band played monthly gigs at the Casbah and were within weeks of recording their first EP; it was …

When Michelle Branch plays the Star 94.1 Jingle Ball at Anthology on Sunday, December 13, the band dressing room requires a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts (“plain glazed only”), a pack of flip-tab tuna in water …

“Adam (Beautiful Boy)” by Michael David Lewis was the most-downloaded MP3 from SDReader.com during November. Below is an interview with the songwriter. There seem to be a lot of layers to this song. How many …

Winter is an often-ideal time for watching the sun rise or set in and around San Diego. Picture yourself on a clear late afternoon, perched atop a seaside bluff or on one of the hills …

“Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp decided that because it was Breast Cancer Awareness Month,” says Laura Roppé, “they should have a spot for a breast cancer survivor, so they contacted the Keep A Breast foundation …

San Diego city councilmembers unanimously agreed to reappoint council president Ben Hueso to another term during the December 7 council meeting. Fourth district representative Tony Young backed Councilmember Todd Gloria's motion for reappointment without discussion …