Bill Tall smells like sawdust and dirt. He reminds me of my father. Bill always wears the same thing: a green City Farmers Nursery T-shirt, yellow suspenders that look like measuring tape, and jeans. At …

The Sweetwater Union High School District board is beleaguered. Two trustees, Arlie Ricasa and Pearl Quiñones, and former superintendent Jesus Gandara are under indictment. Two additional boardmembers, John McCann and Jim Cartmill, are the subjects …

Fruit-bar feeding frenzy (voracious lip-smacking included).

My friend Dan recommended that I check out the Brazilian singer Céu, but he was a little embarrassed about it. “She’s kind of a Starbucks artist,” he said. I knew what he meant: to call …

Daria Matza Producer of Styria Into the Abyss is an intriguing documentary by Werner Herzog about a death-row inmate days before his execution. While the interview with him doesn’t yield much, the other people that …

Porter’s Pub at UCSD, known for its underwhelming vittles and exceptional all-ages music venue.

View salt-marsh plants year round and shorebirds especially during spring and winter migrations.

Mario Escovedo, a Dragon unashamed to stand up for the Carpenters.

The Big C — Courage Rashida McElvene showed physical, moral, and spiritual courage in her willingness to give up her life to protect and save another’s (“Is That a Woman He’s Beating Up Like That?” …

I rearranged my legs with more force than necessary. The wooden bed-frame creaked, and I followed the note with an overtly audible adjusting of my half of the comforter, balling it up so I could …

Golf pro and golf-cart driver Casey Martin won his U.S. Supreme Court case against PGA Tour, Inc.

San Diego county sheriff Bill Gore has put out word that he’s in the market for 25 brand-new Smith & Wesson M&P15 AR .223 rifles, each to be equipped with an EOtech 512A65 holographic weapon …

Pierogies and banh mi — two specialty delicacies sold off San Diego food trucks.

Local TV news under the microscope after being declared “non-news” by a letter writer to Matthew Alice.

This is my farewell column, but not a whine about leaving the Reader. The problems of movie critics don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. And it would be bad form …

UCSD composer, performer, and teacher Christopher Adler talks about San Diego New Music, a local nonprofit.

Brian Karscig of the Nervous Wreckords always wanted to put a transsexual on the cover of one of his albums.

As money troubles continue to pile up at San Diego State University’s owned-and-operated KPBS public broadcasting operation, the university’s tax-exempt foundation is advertising for help. According to a job notice recently posted on the nonprofit’s …

Surfing photographer Kirk Lee Aeder, who has lived in Hawaii since 1985, talked recently about the subject of his new book, Child of the Storm. The 306-page book, from Mutual Publishing in Honolulu, is an …

Brad Davidson’s band the Wipers inspired Kurt Cobain to start Nirvana.

So-called behesting, the process by which state and local politicians request — and sometimes pressure — lobbyists and other special interests to give money to their favorite charities, is alive and well in San Diego. …

D.H. Lawrence believed that the earth and sky gods are still with us, active in what he called our “blood consciousness,” but have been repressed by Christian “education.” In his novel The Plumed Serpent, two …

Professional football takes a blow to the head. Military combat personnel in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars may suffer the same kind of brain damage as professional football players.

Songs about big regret for the terminally hip is Rhett Miller at his worst. But at his best he’s like that person in your creative-writing class back in college who always had better plot lines …

The doctor, on the phone, suggests to the patient that she breathe through her…posterior?

San Diego city officials turned the fire hose on free-speech protesters — not last year, but 100 years ago.

Interview with pastor Harvey Throop of Palisades Presbyterian Church in Allied Gardens.

I love the way the black ants use their dead. They carry them off like warriors on their steel backs. They spend hours struggling, lifting, dragging (it is not grisly as it would be for …