Cover Stories
A second commercial claimed that my campaign was funded by pornographers. This was perhaps Golding’s most outrageous accusation, and it brought my poor wife to tears and me to the brink of uncontrollable rage.
San Diego's convention center owes its existence to— more than anybody, alive or dead — Roger Hedgecock. As mayor, Hedgecock picked up the ravaged pieces of Pete Wilson’s 1981 convention-center-referendum defeat, found a tax-free source …
Once upon a time, in the days when there were many ogres, some pretty flutes were playing in a clearing in the forest, running and laughing, hiding in the deep meadow grasses, then jumping up, …
One afternoon Italo tries to drag me over to UCSD. It starts in the courtyard of his compound in Pacific Beach, amid the blue fountains covered with wandering animals and the tables full of wrought-iron vases.
March 21,1997(Friday, 7a.m. to 3p.m.) ... and including, The Tale of the Palm (Act II): The Fiat is not to be seen when first I peek this morning, it remains in the driveway and the …
For several months last year, they tore up the streets in my neighborhood, installing a new sewer. I watched this closely, for I had taken — have still — a deep interest in repairs. Repairs, …
In January of 1993, nine inches of rain fell on the San Diego/Tijuana region, seven inches more than normal for the month. Most of the rain fell within a two-week period, flooding many parts of …
Frustrated with what they said was the city council's inattention to their desire for more park space and city services, and dissatisfied by proliferating potholes, subdivisions, and high-rise waterfront hotels, they launched a petition drive …
The first thing Dino DeLuke does when I ask him about his heavy metal/alter-native hard rock band Sledd — after making sure that I know the band is in the studio recording a CD and …
You have seen them, these Porsches — on highways, on city streets, in parking lots — and you have coveted. You have gazed at them as they passed you, stopped and walked around them when …
Lying on my back under a window in a corner of my mother’s dining room, I wondered what the particles floating in the sunbeam above my face were. Insects? Germs? Angels? “Dust motes” I had …
THE MUSEUM OF DEATH can be described as a bit of Ripley’s Believe It or Not by way of Barnum and Bailey (with the emphasis on Barnum, as in P.T.), a dash of Madame Tussaud’s, …
One night, I heard a tapping on the glass of my bedroom’s French door and saw a shadow disappear around the corner. I pulled the gun from under my bed and loaded it in five seconds.
Darryl’s Indian grandfather was sentenced to the “big house” (state prison) at McAllister for moon-shining. “Indeterminate sentencing" was an oxymoron for Indians in Oklahoma at that time, so he was in there for years.
"Beware of Dog” warns a sign on the gate leading to Jason Hill’s apartment. As I walk warily up the stairs to the second-floor unit that Jason shares with his girlfriend Sharon in Pacific Beach, …
Why we wrote these stories Happy holidays, holy-days; Merry Christmas, Christ-mas. Once again, a voice cries out in the wilderness, this time a wilderness of shopping malls and office parties, saying, “Make ready the way …