Some Peeves Never Change

Author

By Various Authors

Publish Date

Sept. 28, 2011

Thirty Years Ago
Tribune editor Neil Morgan will put an end to a “very strange and uncomfortable” situation next week when he turns loose his protégé Tom Blair to write a column of his own. Blair has researched and co-authored the Morgan column for more than seven years; this year, after unsuccessfully trying to sell himself as a daily columnist to the neighboring San Diego Union, Blair began writing three times weekly under the Morgan picture and masthead.
Neither was happy with the arrangement.
— CITY LIGHTS: “NO MORE NEILING,” Paul Kruger, October 1, 1981

Twenty-Five Years Ago
People who eat with their mouths open. Morning breath. Ghetto blasters. Bottles on the freeway. People who mimic other people. Smelly feet. Snoring.
— Harvey Hamilton, Machinist
When you pull off the road to make a phone call and the motel section or movie section is ripped out of the phone book.
— Tom Pratt, College Pastor
— OFF THE CUFF: “WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR PET PEEVES?” October 2, 1986

Twenty Years Ago
Intrepid coastal travelers are usually more than a little astonished to see those top-heavy, rickety-looking seafood delivery trucks rocking and swaying over the non-roads that service Baja’s remote fishing camps. They go in filled with ice and come out brimming with shark, abalone, squid, crabs, and lobster. I took a ride across Baja in the back of a pickup one time. It is not an experience I would ever want to repeat, even if I were dead and filleted.
— “ENSENADA SEAFOOD FIESTA,” Neal Matthews, October 3, 1991

Fifteen Years Ago
I was born and raised in San Diego and have seen many changes. One thing that has remained constant until recently has been the Stadium Way/Friars Road overpass drummer. I remember as a child seeing a man who set up an entire drum kit under said overpass, facing away from traffic, just pounding away. I always assumed he was there for acoustics, but come on, there’s got to be a better place. Is it some sort of tradition, or is he a troll with extremely good rhythm?
— Leamus B.
Couldn’t discover who the very first underpass drummer was back in the ’70s, but his (her?) legacy survives.... You’re right on one point, the acoustics are pretty good.... But the real attraction is the lack of neighbors. You can really cut loose, and nobody throws things at you or calls the cops.
John [D’Agostino] recalls a story about Sonny Rollins, who (probably in the ’70s) used to take his sax out onto one of New York City’s many bridges and blow his reeds off. It cleaned out his musical pipes, and it was like playing to the universe. No audience, no walls.
— STRAIGHT FROM THE HIP, Matthew Alice, October 3, 1996

Ten Years Ago
The oft-heard remark that the attack on the World Trade Center was “like a movie” is true enough, I guess, as far as it goes. It goes a little farther, however, than a few seconds of “action news” footage, after which you begin to count the way in which it is not like a movie: no Bruce Willis to take charge of the situation, no British-accented archfiend, no two-hour resolution, no emotional insulation, etc.
It’s a reasonable surmise, then, that the postponement of a number of movies as well as television shows on the upcoming schedule — the Arnold Schwarzenegger anti-terrorist adventure, Collateral Damage, the bomb-on-a-plane comedy, Big Trouble, and others — is no more out of respect for the victims than out of abashment at their own inadequacy to the subject, a tacit admission of their mediocrity.
— MOVIE REVIEW: “ONE CENT’S WORTH,” Duncan Shepherd, September 27, 2001

Five Years Ago
If you had any doubts about the power of emotion or whether there is such a thing as a home-field advantage in professional football, they were taken care of Monday night. New Orleans played eight or nine clicks over their collective head, played like a Super Bowl champion, and destroyed a good Atlanta team. Utterly.
— SPORTING BOX: “WHAT’S UP DOWN THERE,” Patrick Daugherty, September 28, 2006