Content for Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Blog Entries

News & Stories

San Diego's backcountry fights wind turbines

They're over 300 feet high. They kill birds. They're linked to cancer.

A lot of windmills being installed on the Anza-Borrego Desert floor. Besides visual blight, backcountry residents complain of health issues and the unknown.

National City a long way from Scripps Ranch

Ed Brand and Alliant University want faster action from planning commission

Many people were surprised to see Sweetwater superintendent Ed Brand appear at the August 19 National City Planning Commission. Brand left a regularly scheduled Sweetwater board meeting shortly after it convened to attend the meeting ...

Will Carlsbad’s California Pacific ever get in the air?

74-passenger Embraer sub-leased to Honeywell.

California Pacific Airlines, a new airline planned for operation out of Carlsbad’s Palomar-McClellan airport has suffered another set back. On August 7, the FAA denied CP Air’s application to begin flying. Additionally, an aviation industry ...

Amorous Abyss: Brian Meanswell's flowers and women

National City artist examines the emotions behind body language in an exhibit at EQ Culture Studios.

Flower Power in Balboa Park

At Balboa Park on a sunny afternoon, both Michaela Wilbanks and Cristina Campos stood out amongst the park’s stunning architecture in lady-like florals. Floral is no longer just a summer and spring staple. For those ...

Average Joes of Dark Globe

Grunge-shunning Dark Globe regroups two or three times a year, even though they broke up in 1994.

Totally stuffed at Sherman's

“Rich,” she tells me. “Too rich.” Dang. No way is it too rich for me.

Sherman’s Shack offers Ed interesting burgers and tacos… a garlic shrimp and cream cheese–stuffed burger topped with orange sweet & sour, for example.

The American Scream and The Town That Dreaded Sundown

The American Scream is a thoughtful and intimate look into the lives of several families who take their love of Halloween a step further. The film quickly became one of my all-time favorite documentaries. Having ...

Sunrise Trailhead, Soapstone Loop

Anza-Borrego’s high elevation multiuse trails appeal to hikers, bikers, and equestrians.

The pink hot tub blues

No crane? No problem.

When you don’t have a skateboard, who can you call to help move out that old backyard hot tub?

Spring Valley is the new North Park

The Bancroft opened at the site of the defunct dive Fannie’s, and the Spring Valley spot is now a punk and hardcore haven.

Modern English Society

Ah, raised stakes. Is there any movie you can’t weaken, even as you seek to ratchet up the significance and tension of the crisis at hand? My top-of-the-head answer for favorite film of Summer 2013 ...

Invaded by hippies

Blues guitarists Michael Stone and Lafayette Falquay start playing live again. Each was on hiatus for different reasons.

Apt for an epitaph

Upcoming gigs for Late Nite Howl, featuring Tijuana guitarist Pablo Dodero.

As the America's Cup turns

Mainstream the mainsails!

Team Oracle in the America’s Cup Challenge — the U.S. entry in the race — has been accused of cheating.

The 39 Steps at Lamb's Players; Burn This at Different Stages

Except for two tall, A-frame ladders, two small balconies, and a solitary light bulb, the stage for Lamb’s Players is bare. Even the coal-black rear wall is exposed. Take away the balconies and Michael McKeon’s ...

Empire Ranch

Three houses on 4500 acres, $17 million — cheap (for some).

For some, having virtually limitless access to money leads to the desire for the perfect private retreat to partake in outdoor hobbies. These individuals might find their ideal getaway in the Laguna Mountains near the ...

This week in the San Diego clubs, August 22–28

Thursday 22With this year’s Sunbather, SanFran band Deafheaven has made black metal a household form. Okay, adventurous households. Fine, very adventurous households. By fitting black metal’s blast and bombast into a shoegaze haze of melodic ...

Wheeler Brothers roll into town

The Wheeler Brothers, from Austin, Texas, are not a poor man’s Fleet Foxes. Nor are they an imitation Avett Brothers, even though, stylistically, they all sit pretty much at the same table with the larger ...

The Raid: Redemption and Shaun of the Dead

The Raid: Redemption is an awesome Indonesian action-packed martial-arts film (featuring a style known as pencak silat) that combines fast-paced fighting with great scenes of brutality and suspense. The story revolves around the dramatic raid ...

Charmed, I'm sure

Emily Post would be delighted.

Mrs. Kymberli Parker, a teacher of etiquette for young children, has garnered a clientele of adults as well.

Are smaller brewpubs over and out?

Local brewpubs closing at unprecedented rate

Readers of San Diego Beer News are hip to the fact new brewing companies are opening at a rapid clip, with a glut of other businesses working their way to their public debut. But the ...

Gray vs. Grey

The John Hull Band’s Shades of Gray CD debuts August 25

“We didn’t win, but looking back at that performance and all the stars that have played on that stage, it’s still pretty exciting,” says John Hull of his band making the Musicpalooza 2009 finals at ...

Ready for Hillary, Irwin, and Joan?

San Diego’s richest man, La Jolla billionaire Irwin Jacobs, who last year gave more than a million dollars to advance the fortunes of his favorite president, Democrat Barack Obama, is already preparing to help elect ...

Papa Doug Manchester picks Siberian bride-to-be

Geniya Derzhavina came to San Diego from Siberia, and will marry one of city's richest men.

Family investigated, Calderon sleeps free at Barona

The election of Democratic state assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez means yet another hungry political mouth to feed around the Barona casino’s tables. On April 6, the Democrat, then a candidate, received a free meal said to ...

Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance and Demolition Man

Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance is the second of four movies that make up the recent “rebuild” of the ’90s anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. It’s the best of the three. All have beautiful ...

Shine, Perishing Public

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire, And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens, I sadly smiling remember ...

Pacific Beach United Methodist

Methodist pastor April Herron found God on a hilltop in Brazil.

We might already be in the kingdom here and now.

Letters about letters

Straight From the Plaintiff Don Bauder’s story “San Diego Builds into Convention Center Glut” (City Lights) said “the fact that citizens could not vote on the hotel tax — although extremely dubious — was upheld ...

I Was a Rock Star, Part One

Rock and roll is white folks’ stuff.

Renée Westbrook’s Rock Reviews blogs talk about the rock stardom he imagined he could achieve with little or no practice.