From the archives

The San Diego look, according to painters

TJ's literary society, SD's first runner, Frank Bompensiero, Jesse Ventura

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Crooks: “They commanded me to photograph them — ‘Hey, man, photograph us!’" (William Glen Crooks)
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  • What distinguishes San Diego landscape to painters

  • In Coronado one day, after lunch with a friend, he went into a CD shop while his friend waited outside on a bench. When Crooks came out, he noticed his friend staring at an apartment house across the street. “Don’t bother me,” the other said, “I’m having a California moment.” Before them was Portico, bathed in a glowing, hyper real light. Crooks returned at the same hour the next day to photograph it. Perfect, he thought: One door is partially open.
  • By Thomas Larson, Aug. 26, 1999
  • Francisco Morales

  • Tijuana poets lost and found

  • The evening began a little after eight in the bar at Sanborn’s on Revolución where eight poets gathered for drinks and chisme (gossip). Around midnight one of them suggested we move on to El Lugar del Nopal, a café near Guerrero Park. When we arrived, the poets waded into the crowded, smoky room where, on a small stage surrounded by candles, a ponytailed folksinger strummed his guitar and sang in a throaty voice about love.
  • By Abe Opincar, Aug. 5, 1999
  • Bill Phillips, a former colleague of Kasch’s at SDSU, took 12 first places for his age division in swimming competitions.

  • Father of Fitness

  • He’s a short, lean man who looks to be in his mid-60s, and God knows there are plenty of those around this town, fit retirees clad in running shoes and exercise shorts. Kasch, however, is 86. And he says when he first moved to San Diego in 1948, “I was the first and only person who was running here. In the whole town!”
  • By Jeannette DeWyze, July 8, 1999


  • 4205 Lamont Street, Pacific Beach. On the evening of February 10, 1977, at 7:00 p.m., Bompensiero had only 90 minutes left to live. A Lassie rerun was shown on television from 7:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

  • Shot in the dark

  • Turn south off of Grand onto Lamont Street. Park along Lamont. Wander over to the gas station. The gas station on your right, as you face away from the traffic along Grand. Back in 1977, a pay telephone stood along the side of the station. It was an Arco station then. Frank Bompensiero made his last telephone call here. “Dialed,” someone told me, and then laughed a high-pitched crazy laugh, “his last number.”
  • By Judith Moore, Feb. 11, 1999


  • "Mr. Clean and the boys," from UDT 12 cruise book. "Jesse in those days was known as Jim ‘the Dirty’ Janos and his brother was Jan ‘the Clean.’"

  • Was Jesse Ventura a SEAL or a UDT guy?

  • Well, I thought, Jesse certainly looks and sounds like many SEALs I’d known during my 16 years in the Teams. But I’d never known or even heard of him. Was Jesse for real or was he one of those politicians who sometimes fudge their military affiliation with elite units? I mean, maybe he’d only worked on a staff or been aboard a ship that once participated in an exercise with SEALs.
  • By Bill Salisbury, Dec. 2, 1999


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