The radio DJ's bathroom dilemma

Thirty-Five Years Ago
Carlos Santana sauntered quietly onto the stage of the Sports Arena. A sole purple spotlight centered on his diminutive frame as he bowed for five seconds in silent meditation. Santana, resplendent in an immaculate white suit, picked up his emerald Gibson. What the audience was offered was a thunderously loud and repetitious trip down the band’s memory lane. “Black Magic Woman,” “Oye Como Va” and “Soul Sacrifice” are hardly redoubtable instrumental vehicles and it appalls me that after all of Santana’s spiels on divine essence he could succumb to commercialism.
— “WILTED FLOWER,” Steve Esmedina, April 10, 1975

Thirty Years Ago
The music log of 13K, or KGB, as it was known before détente fell apart and the chicken flew the coop, lists about 15 tunes which are to be played every hour.

Talking fast isn’t a matter of choice for AM jocks. Even a case of the trots has got to be accommodated more rapidly by the jock than by other mortals. He’s got to wait out the tune, stick a four-minute number into the tape player, announce it, hit the start button, get out of the studio and down the hall to the john, where he has to do the old down and up and be back before the fadeout.
— “RIGHT BETWEEN THE HITS,” Bob Dorn, April 10, 1980

Twenty-Five Years Ago
[T]he Del Mar City Council recently passed a law to discourage cameramen. Photographer Roscoe Smith got tangled in the unusual law last week when a Del Mar lifeguard lieutenant ordered him off the city beach, where Smith was shooting pictures. The lifeguard told Smith the City now “prohibits cameras on the beach.”

The Del Mar law requires that any commercial photographer obtain a 25-dollar city permit before shooting pictures on public property.
— CITY LIGHTS: “TEN DEL MAR LIFEGUARDS POUNCE ON RICHARD AVEDON,” Paul Krueger, April 11, 1985

Twenty Years Ago
When plans for an expensive new city hall were shoved into limbo last month, editorialists for the San Diego Tribune were outraged. “What is so tough about selling a visionary project that will save tax dollars, revitalize development in downtown’s depressed east end, and make a bold architectural statement about the community’s commitment to a dynamic future?” Despite the Tribune’s enthusiasm for the monumental new city hall, critics like Roger Hedgecock have turned it into a conspicuous target for taxpayer discontent.
— CITY LIGHTS: “THE RISING COST OF CITY HALL,” Matt Potter, April 12, 1990

Fifteen Years Ago
San Diego law enforcement officers handed out 140 tickets to residents whose pets were not vaccinated against rabies. A coyote killed in town last week was the latest in a series of animals that has been confirmed to be rabid. That brings the number of confirmed cases to seven.
— SAN DIEGO, TEXAS, Alfredo Cardenas, April 6, 1995

Ten Years Ago
“We’re gonna...do a spoken-word thing where each of us will interpret one of [Jewel’s] poems. I’m doing mine in dance,” says José Sinatra to his new bass player Gregory Page.

Sinatra asks Page if he’s going to adopt a persona too. (Sinatra’s birth name is Bill Richardson. He claims he was an abandoned child who was found in an alley with a Frank Sinatra record attached to his umbilical cord.)
— “TO SIR WITH A WHOLE LOTTA LOVE BOAT,” Ed Decker, April 6, 2000

Five Years Ago
[Jerry] Coleman on Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio: “DiMaggio seldom showed emotion. One day after striking out, he came into the dugout and kicked the ball bag. We all went ‘ooooh.’ It really hurt. He sat down and the sweat popped out on his forehead and he clenched his fists without ever saying a word. Everybody wanted to howl, but he was a god. You don’t laugh at gods.”
— “THE MAN WHO HUNG THE STARS,” Josh Board and Joe Hight, April 7, 2005