I’m sitting here looking at a photo taken shortly before Christmas 2008. It’s a very good photo: dramatic and sharply focused. It’s a December afternoon in downtown San Diego: trees dotting a vast swath of …

Santa Fe is one of those American towns with a truly unique flavor. Artists have long embraced this historic community. Adobe architecture and a well-preserved nature contribute to its status as a hub of culture …

Three San Diego police units responded to a report of an assault at the Santa Fe train depot on Monday, December 21, at about 5:15 p.m. The incident happened at the north end of the …

Although Encinitas homeowner Donna Miano has never claimed to have a record-setting Christmas tree, no one else in San Diego claims a taller living Christmas tree. Perched on the ocean-view bluff overlooking Moonlight Beach, the …

"The freaks are outside, and we've locked the doors!" whoops Lady Gaga during Monster Ball, the show created as a safe place for her “little monsters,” as she refers to her fans who displayed a …

Move over, Matthew McConaughey, and make room for 60-year-old Jamie Trivisonno, whom I discovered on my way to the gym on Monday afternoon, December 21. Shirtless and with a cigar in his mouth, Trivisonno danced …

My infatuation with the city of Venice could be considered the longest love affair of my life. It began when I was just a teenager; I arrived by train during my high school student exchange …

When Swagg was nine years old, the rapper’s father shot his mom and then himself. He’s grown up around gang violence. “I’ve seen people get shot in my street,” he tells me. Born as G. …

The young son of a prominent government official boasted to his father that he had saved 25 cents by walking home instead of taking the bus. “Tomorrow, save $10 by not taking a taxi,” cracked …

“It seems like we don’t fit in with what’s going on in San Diego and everyone hates us,” says John Wayne Gacy Daycare singer Davit Buck. “Maybe it’s our name,” he says, referring to the …

Reel Big Fish has been playing ska-punk since the early ’90s and is best known for the 1997 hit “Sell Out,” but to me they will always be the band that created one of my …

Heymatt: I read recently that mushrooms (commercial mushrooms) are grown in hay and straw that has been used in the stalls of horse barns. So, I presume that they are also grown in horse manure, …

Building In An Uproar I’m calling on behalf of everybody in my building. We are very, very disappointed in the cover of the Reader today (“I Had the Rocket Launcher,” December 17). This violence… Kids …

A woman named Cynthia was having a birthday party downtown. I was told we were supposed to bring something, so I bought cupcakes at the store. When I arrived downtown, I parked far away from …

Recipe from Chris Idso, executive chef, Pacifica Del Mar One of my biggest accomplishments as a chef has been to use the local food that grows in San Diego. It was a challenge when I …

Bice (pronounced “BEE-chay”) had been open only five weeks when I ate there, because I didn’t have the patience to wait the standard, tactful three more weeks before trying it — not just because the …

Margaret Noble says local clubs gave her the cold shoulder when she set out to become a DJ here. “The Underground Lounge was the most receptive. Bar Dynamite was a great place to play, and …

Got an unusual press release last week. It began: “On Sunday, December 13, 2009, St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in La Mesa, Calif., held a legally called and conducted meeting to take its second and final …

When blues-rock duo the Black Keys asked San Diego sound engineer and record producer Mark Neill if he would load up his vintage recording equipment and bring it to Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama …

What are you reading? “I just got a book by James Allen called As a Man Thinketh. The main thing in it is that your thoughts pretty much determine the outcome of your life. If …

“I was married in Virginia when I was 23, with a career and a business suit, but I gave it all up to play music in Southern California,” says singer-songwriter Megan Combs, who arrived in …

Camper Van Beethoven is a California band and were somewhat big in the ’80s. CVB integrates country rock, psychedelic, and faux ethnic things with violin. Imagine the Grateful Dead doing a Strawberry Alarm Clock retrospective …

The last of the last. A Single Man. The Christmas movie for holiday depressives (who after all deserve one, too), an adaptation of the Christopher Isherwood novel detailing the planned last day of a homosexual …

Brian Burke was agonizing over whether to appeal the court’s decision in the Mount Soledad landslide case. “Have you ever been too close to something to decide wisely about it?” he asked. He raised the …

There are always germs, and you’re never going to get rid of all of them. — Cheryl Mendelson I scrutinized the underside of David’s shoe as it dangled in the air. The sole and its …

This column is for readers who will do their shopping on Christmas morning for the first time. Hold your heads high, people! Remember the three noble precepts: you can’t be picky, you can’t care about …

Straddling the San Diego–Riverside county line, Rockhouse Canyon and the broad, sloping alluvial basin drained by it — informally known as Rockhouse Valley — constitute one of Southern California’s truly forgotten places. Not much more …

Christmas card by J.M.F. Haase, 1929. “Joseph Malta Frederick Haase joined the Navy in 1911 and was chief photographer at North Island Naval Air Station for much of his career in the 1920s and 1930s,” …