San Diego Symphony gives us messy Beethoven
Those unsustained phrases
4 p.m., Jan. 22
Adam Parfrey
Parfrey Wrote the HELL.A. column and occasional feature stories in the 1990s for the Reader.
Articles by Adam Parfrey
Best Reader stories from 1992
Underground papers, Clinton McKinnon, Michael Reagan, Windansea, I spied on Tom Metzger, Frontier housing, AIDS up close, La Mesa prison, Walter Keane, Michael Reagan, C.A. Smith, Bataan Death March
Notes from Underground San Diego's Free Press (later renamed the Street Journal) was defunct by the end of 1970; the San Diego Door came and went with the Nixon Presidency, 1968 to August 1974.The O.B. ...
Best Reader stories from 1991
Bicycle deaths, Madame Schumann-Heink, Marshall South, Karen Wilkening, paving of I-15, Helen and David Copley, Luis Urrea's Tijuana
Satan chasers San Diego has many experts in the field of Satanism who say the county is a hotbed of Satanic activity. The hidden canyons of the back country, Ramona, Santee, Escondido, even Oceanside, are ...
Holy Week in San Diego: our mish-mash of Christianity
Medical look at Christ's crucifixion, City Rescue Mission, Carmelite nuns, Dorman Owens, Mother Teresa, Antiochian Orthodox
Medical explanation of Christ's crucifixion and other Easter stories The severe scourging, with its intense pain and appreciable blood loss, most probably left Jesus in a preshock state. Moreover, hematidrosis had rendered his skin particularly ...
God, Christ, Satan, or Con?
San Diegans Worship a Miracle Man
It is like baking a cake. I stir, I knead, I pound, I twist, I bake you. I drawn you in tears I scorch you in sobs. I make you a sweet and crisp, an ...
Lt. Col. James “Bo” Gritz at Lakeside's Harvest Fellowship
A Revolution of Small Guns
On this chill evening, a mere fortnight before a Trilateralist named Clinton got the nod, American-built cars of substantial steel pull up in front of Lakeside’s Harvest Christian Fellowship. The bumper stickers say it all: ...
Woman Carries Elvis Presley's Test Tube Tot
“God Made Me Do It,” She Says SPANISH EYES by Debra Wimer (From the Ginger Aldett Fan Club Newsletter; abridged by Adam Parfrey) The first thing I remember is crying over how tragically short Elvis ...
Budd Boetticher ends up near Ramona
Bare knuckles
There are the little men. Then there is Budd Boetticher. I don't mean his size — he's a compact man with an easy smile and vaguely Mongol eyes that hint at a barbaric zest for ...
Walter Keane: the saucer eye orphans have lost their father
A painful paternity suit
Keane kids were the true pop art, much more a mass phenomenon than Warhol’s Brillo boxes or Lichtenstein’s exploded comics.
Russian brides — more than you imagined
Natasha is my name. I like cook and sew. I marry you, yes?
It's a peculiar setup. Strangers write strangers, attempting a mating dance despite cultural barriers so fierce that very little is communicated beyond the desire to communicate. Take Ed Burden (name pseudonymous by request), airline pilot, ...
