Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Editor's choice: 2002-2004

San Diegans talk about their tans, smuggled aliens who die in crossing, Balboa Ave. dragsters, James Hartline's campaign against gay baths, our foreign cabbies

BORSTAR team during cliff-rescue training in Laguna Mountains, 12/06/02. "When we found the footprints and started following them, we kept noticing very small footprints." - Image by Joe Klein
BORSTAR team during cliff-rescue training in Laguna Mountains, 12/06/02. "When we found the footprints and started following them, we kept noticing very small footprints."
Said Souikane: "Girls do compliment me."

I'd Never Marry a Pale Girl

On a sunny afternoon in June, Mark Davis is peeling off the top of his wetsuit after taking a swim at La Jolla Shores. Davis, 23, just returned to San Diego after graduating from Humboldt State University, but his skin is dark enough to convince you he'd never left. "I'm actually here to go swimming, not surfing."

Unlike many beachgoers, Davis's tan is of little if any concern to him. "I honestly don't think it's that important to get a tan. I like a natural tan, but tan people who overdo it can look hideous, especially an artificially brilliant tan. “

By Robert Kumpel, June 20, 2002 | Read full article


On April 2, 1999, a late-season snow storm dumped a foot and a half of snow on migrants around Nelson Canyon, a couple of miles east of Interstate 8 and Highway 79. "Eight people died that day."

Once You're Wet, You're Done

One night in 1999, eight illegal immigrants died during a spring snowstorm in the mountains of San Diego County.

Sponsored
Sponsored

These smugglers tell them, 'Within a couple of hours across the border, you will be in a vehicle on your way to Chicago,' or wherever they want to go. We hear that every single time. In reality, it is two, three, four days later, and they are still walking in these remote areas without water and, in winter, without warm clothes. We have found so many people wandering around out there, lost, and we will ask them, 'What happened?' and they will say, 'I fell behind, I couldn't keep up with the smugglers.' "

By Ernie Grimm, Jan. 2, 2003 | Read full article


Earl Williams: "The younger crowd doesn't like the rules at Qualcomm."

Killer Speed

On a recent Friday night at 11:00 p.m., a lone policeman sits in his patrol car watching from 50 yards away a group of souped-up cars in the Target parking lot on Balboa Avenue. "It looks like they're gathering," says Johnnie.

Johnnie, 29, has been fascinated with drag racing since he participated several times in illegal street events in the early 1990s.

Due to stepped-up police pressure and legally sanctioned racing at Qualcomm Stadium and the Carlsbad Raceway, fewer drivers race on the streets these days. But on any given evening, says Johnnie, races can materialize in several areas of town.

By Joe Deegan, Sept. 25, 2003 | Read full article


Vulcan Baths on Cedar, across from county administration building. "Methamphetamine allows people to have sex for two, three, four days without stopping."

Bathhouse Quagmire

"I was in those San Francisco bathhouses in the late 1970s," says James Hartline, an HIV-positive Hillcrest man who is campaigning to get San Diego's three bathhouses shut down. "Those bathhouses were a big part of the generation of the gay scene in San Francisco. They're part of the whole foundation from which these gay communities evolved because they represent everything that the gay community is about, which is sexual liberation with nobody telling you what you can and can't do."

By Ernie Grimm, Nov. 6, 2003 | Read full article


Taxi at airport. One Afghani makes almost no money at all but keeps his job so that his family has a car to use. An Iranian man told me he does well enough, although he loses "about a fare a week" to runaway fare-jumpers.

Second Only To the Cowboy

Of the nine city cabbies I interviewed, one Afghani makes almost no money at all but keeps his job so that his family has a car to use. An Iranian man told me he does well enough, although he loses "about a fare a week" to runaway fare-jumpers. An older Russian driver said he has been robbed three times, including once when he was stabbed in the head.

By Geoff Bouvier, Sept. 4, 2003 | Read full article


Beautiful Light

It's not even noon and already I'm closing the blinds on the south-facing windows of my home office. That pesky natural light is overrunning the glow of the lamp by which I work. Too much of a bright thing. Most mornings, in the cliché of coastal overnight and morning low clouds, the daylight coming into my room takes its time. Like age or awareness. But now, at 11:44, the light's pouring in. If I don't mute it, my eyes'll hurt. Southern California light. How did it get so damn bright when it's not even that hot?

By Thomas Larson, Oct. 7, 2004 | Read full article

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

How Much Time Do I Get With My BetterHelp Therapist?

BORSTAR team during cliff-rescue training in Laguna Mountains, 12/06/02. "When we found the footprints and started following them, we kept noticing very small footprints." - Image by Joe Klein
BORSTAR team during cliff-rescue training in Laguna Mountains, 12/06/02. "When we found the footprints and started following them, we kept noticing very small footprints."
Said Souikane: "Girls do compliment me."

I'd Never Marry a Pale Girl

On a sunny afternoon in June, Mark Davis is peeling off the top of his wetsuit after taking a swim at La Jolla Shores. Davis, 23, just returned to San Diego after graduating from Humboldt State University, but his skin is dark enough to convince you he'd never left. "I'm actually here to go swimming, not surfing."

Unlike many beachgoers, Davis's tan is of little if any concern to him. "I honestly don't think it's that important to get a tan. I like a natural tan, but tan people who overdo it can look hideous, especially an artificially brilliant tan. “

By Robert Kumpel, June 20, 2002 | Read full article


On April 2, 1999, a late-season snow storm dumped a foot and a half of snow on migrants around Nelson Canyon, a couple of miles east of Interstate 8 and Highway 79. "Eight people died that day."

Once You're Wet, You're Done

One night in 1999, eight illegal immigrants died during a spring snowstorm in the mountains of San Diego County.

Sponsored
Sponsored

These smugglers tell them, 'Within a couple of hours across the border, you will be in a vehicle on your way to Chicago,' or wherever they want to go. We hear that every single time. In reality, it is two, three, four days later, and they are still walking in these remote areas without water and, in winter, without warm clothes. We have found so many people wandering around out there, lost, and we will ask them, 'What happened?' and they will say, 'I fell behind, I couldn't keep up with the smugglers.' "

By Ernie Grimm, Jan. 2, 2003 | Read full article


Earl Williams: "The younger crowd doesn't like the rules at Qualcomm."

Killer Speed

On a recent Friday night at 11:00 p.m., a lone policeman sits in his patrol car watching from 50 yards away a group of souped-up cars in the Target parking lot on Balboa Avenue. "It looks like they're gathering," says Johnnie.

Johnnie, 29, has been fascinated with drag racing since he participated several times in illegal street events in the early 1990s.

Due to stepped-up police pressure and legally sanctioned racing at Qualcomm Stadium and the Carlsbad Raceway, fewer drivers race on the streets these days. But on any given evening, says Johnnie, races can materialize in several areas of town.

By Joe Deegan, Sept. 25, 2003 | Read full article


Vulcan Baths on Cedar, across from county administration building. "Methamphetamine allows people to have sex for two, three, four days without stopping."

Bathhouse Quagmire

"I was in those San Francisco bathhouses in the late 1970s," says James Hartline, an HIV-positive Hillcrest man who is campaigning to get San Diego's three bathhouses shut down. "Those bathhouses were a big part of the generation of the gay scene in San Francisco. They're part of the whole foundation from which these gay communities evolved because they represent everything that the gay community is about, which is sexual liberation with nobody telling you what you can and can't do."

By Ernie Grimm, Nov. 6, 2003 | Read full article


Taxi at airport. One Afghani makes almost no money at all but keeps his job so that his family has a car to use. An Iranian man told me he does well enough, although he loses "about a fare a week" to runaway fare-jumpers.

Second Only To the Cowboy

Of the nine city cabbies I interviewed, one Afghani makes almost no money at all but keeps his job so that his family has a car to use. An Iranian man told me he does well enough, although he loses "about a fare a week" to runaway fare-jumpers. An older Russian driver said he has been robbed three times, including once when he was stabbed in the head.

By Geoff Bouvier, Sept. 4, 2003 | Read full article


Beautiful Light

It's not even noon and already I'm closing the blinds on the south-facing windows of my home office. That pesky natural light is overrunning the glow of the lamp by which I work. Too much of a bright thing. Most mornings, in the cliché of coastal overnight and morning low clouds, the daylight coming into my room takes its time. Like age or awareness. But now, at 11:44, the light's pouring in. If I don't mute it, my eyes'll hurt. Southern California light. How did it get so damn bright when it's not even that hot?

By Thomas Larson, Oct. 7, 2004 | Read full article

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Holiday Market At Petco Park, Will Smith’s Dance in the Darkness Tour, Light Shows, Snowfall, Caroling

Events December 12-December 13, 2024
Next Article

A history of the house on the hill at Ivanhoe Ranch

From Apolinaria Lorenzana to Jane Goodall
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader