My cell phone was apparently assembled at gunpoint by drunk Yugoslavians in the year 1984. The only way for it to receive any sort of discernible transmission within my house is for me to hold …

It’s not yet 9:00 a.m. on September 6, but the late-summer sun is already baking the blacktop of the Qualcomm Stadium parking lot. It’s hot and promises to get hotter. Sweat drips from the foreheads …

Bouncers, Side Two I take great exception to the article “Bouncers” by Michael Hemmingson (Cover Story, January 8). He portrays club bouncers in almost romantic, heroic terms. I have lived in San Diego since 1975. …

With state budget problems festering and vital services being cut left and right, attention has inevitably turned to the state-subsidized leased wheels used by most members of the California legislature. On the assembly side of …

KPBS, the public broadcasting operation run by San Diego State University, is out with its financial report for the 12 months ending in June of last year, and it reveals that cash dedicated to actual …

In recent news from the state capital, Lori Saldaña, assembly Speaker pro tempore, has moved into Capitol office 3152, “known for having some of the nicer window views in the Assembly,” according to Capitol Weekly. …

Another few stragglers from the year gone by.... Revolutionary Road comes confusingly too soon after Reservation Road, a mere year apart, although in fairness the novels on which they were based (by Richard Yates and …

In the summer of 1983, Dan McLain approached Jerry Raney about forming a band. Raney, a guitarist, was fresh out of the Shames. McLain, who used the name Country Dick Montana both on and offstage, …

Beach House is the name of the band, but “Bleak House” is more like it. The duo of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally specializes in beautiful but slightly unsettling music built on slow drumbeats, droning …

Nam Chi Vu of San Diego’s Riboflavin is a rare multi-threat talent. As a bassist, she’s among the city’s two or three best, comfortable playing classical, jazz, and rock. Now she’s involved in a local …

Thirty Years AgoSo you think Dylan is a has-been/ And Ronstadt is adolescent cheesecake./ Well, bein’ dumb is no original sin,/ But you still gotta live by the choices you make./You know critics are frustrated …

“I could break a Mack truck’s windshield with some of these grocery-store tomatoes,” griped my gardener friend Shawn. “I hate buying produce at the grocery store. This is San Diego; I should be able to …

When I was four, I formed two distinct memories of events that happened at Christmastime. The first was when my mom, newly single, took my older brother and me to see Santa Claus. We didn’t …

There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won’t, and that’s a wife who can’t cook and will. — Robert Frost I felt a twinge in my stomach and looked …

More people should die. Our only problem as a society is that we lack the moral resolve to let it happen. We have no distinguishable line to draw — everyone on this side we will …

The Bayside Trail, sweeping downward from the old lighthouse at Cabrillo National Monument on Point Loma, offers an incomparable view of the city of San Diego and its watery environs. Amid the sweet-pungent sage scrub …

My favorite slang word comes from a Leslie Hall skit. She calls a place the Hobby Lobby. My friends and I took the term “hobby lobby” and started using it to mean something that is …

“You don’t argue with a calling,” said Pastor Matt Ortiz before the service in the refurbished school auditorium. “We started out in west Chula Vista, but God called us into National City. I was talking …

I spent the morning calling small high schools in East County, asking if our state-budget debacle has affected their sports programs. This led me to Calexico, California, the person of principal Dan Plough, and his …

In the past minute or three I’ve been trying to determine what it is that so distinguishes one month from another. What is it that transpires from January to February? For comparison, I’ve thought of …

When American Buffalo premiered on Broadway in 1977, critics had to devise new terms to praise David Mamet’s craft. It wasn’t simply realistic, they said; it was “micro-real” or “hyper-real” or even “really real.” Mamet’s …

“It’s demeaning,” says Carla. “Treating them like sex objects. And the men! They look so stupid, like kids spying on a nudist camp.” Part of me agrees. On the other hand, my buddy Frankie — …

Vagabond was a sensation when it opened in the spring of ’06. As the realtors say, it had a huge edge: location (times three). Restaurateurs Philippe Beltran and Jerome Gombert chose to open an eclectic …

I live in La Jolla, once a scrub-covered area of sandstone hills and arroyos, now covered with homes that, come a half inch of rain or so, slide down said hills into said arroyos. No …

Ross May, singer-guitarist with Faded Chroniclez, played twice at West Hollywood’s Whisky a Go Go last year. Each gig cost his band $600. “We had to drop a deposit of half up front when we …

Happy Ron’s appearance on Sunday, January 18, at Clairemont’s Blarney Stone Pub will be his 1000th open-mike performance. “I started in 1997, and believe it or not, poetry open-mikes are the most borderline violent,” says …

Liquid Blue became the greenest band in the world in 2008,” according to bandleader Scott Stephens, “as we installed solar panels at our office and recording studio and implemented many other green programs.… “We use …

When Boyz II Men appear tonight at the House of Blues, they want only “white meat chicken, no fried.” They’d also like baked salmon, steamed lobster, grilled jumbo shrimp, grilled tuna, and pasta (“prepared in …

Twenty-nine years ago this week (1/18/80), Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers sold out downtown’s Golden Hall. It was the band’s first time in San Diego since playing SDSU’s Montezuma Hall two years earlier. Concert reviewer …

“All I Got,” by Astra Kelly, was the most-downloaded MP3 from SDReader.com during the month of December. Below is an interview with the songwriter. What inspired you to write “All I Got”? Astra Kelly: The …

Matthew: My dog, a sweet, goofy retriever, can always tell when my husband is coming home. He heads for the garage door every night about five minutes before I hear his car. I know lots …

Recipe by Gordon Smith, private chef and former owner/chef, Gordon’s Basil St. Cafe. I’ve always been a chef in San Diego for San Diego. In the ’90s, Basil St. Café was one of the first …

In the past, pro sports has been considered somewhat recession-proof. Not this year, and perhaps not in 2010. Attendance is already sagging, despite the slashing of some seat prices, even in the affluent National Football …

On Saturday, January 10, 2009, the new Stephen Birch Healthcare Center at Sharp Memorial Hospital was officially unveiled to the public. Hospital staff members were on hand at the 315,000-square-foot, 334-bed facility to provide tours …