“The Red Flag Now Flies Gallantly Over Tijuana!” reads the headline in Hellraisers Journal, Saturday, May 27. Of course, that’s Saturday, May 27 of 1911. Things were happening, right outside where I’m at in TJ, …

San Diego’s active Haitian Pastor Johny (sic) Oxeda has a new weapon: his food truck. He uses it to reach out to his flock, to give them a taste of home. Also, to spread Haitian …

“Attention!” It’s midnight on Friday. A shirtless, tattooed guy jumps up onto the counter at Danny’s, the Coronado bar in which Navy Seals and other special ops types like to gather to let off steam. …

Captain Billy Hunts a Human Martinez escaped in the brush. But his wounds— three buckshot near his right lung, two lower down — and the December cold forced him to the Gaskills’ house at 4:00 …

My good neighbor Kevin and I are walking into the ocean, towards the white waves of a gray winter’s day. Water temp is high fifties. Knife-like breeze makes the air feel colder than the water. …

I was reminded of my meeting with President Jimmy Carter the other day when news broke that the organization he’s intimately involved with, Habitat For Humanity, had come up with their first-ever 3-D printed house. …

Old Haunt “They tore down the original hotel and put the facade in crates. Then they tore down another building and put that façade in crates. Then they built a new building, stuck the old …

Risky Wasteland Because the ordnance littering the Carrizo Impact Area was dropped from planes, a lot of it imbedded itself in the sand as far as 30 feet down. Over the years, the earth has …

My friend John Drehner is in ebullient pre-Christmas spirits. “What do you get when you cross a centipede with a chicken?” he shouts, rubbing his hands against the chill. “Uh? Uh? More drumsticks. Bada-boom!” He …

“Can we be serious!” That’s me, trying to get a shot of Allison (“Allie”) Demers, 22-year-old stage actress, singer, composer, veteran of acting school, recipient of an MFA degree in musical theater from Indiana University, …

Where the Bikes Are I noticed one guy playing pool using a broom as a cue. He looked as if he might have been an extra in a movie with a title like Chainsaw Rapists …

I’ve always been a tad cynical about anything cute. Think portraits of children with giant Disney eyes. But I do have chinks in my armor. Here’s one: ambling down C street in Coronado t’other day, …

It’s one of those evenings. I’m in The Studio in Hillcrest with my friend Eric. He’s introducing me to his friend, the artist Elisabeth Sullivan. And straightaway, I’m mesmerized by this painting of hers. It’s …

Roommates from Hell I walked outside to the storage door. I pushed on the door and opened it. I saw the rope around John’s neck and John’s face looking at me. I screamed and ran …

Koch Overboard Jack told me how a retired SEAL officer and CIA operative had recruited SEAL Team guys for a commando op: to recon the underwater hulls — and especially the keels — of the …

“They’re pouring!” says my friend Kim. We all stand up — some to get out of the splash zone, some to see just how people have been doing this for hundreds of years. We’re in …

“I don’t know how he does it,” says my friend Gene. “He just seems to have the Midas touch.” He’s talking about his son Marc Miller. On October 28th, Marc’s San Diego surfboard company, Isle …

How to Do Genealogical Research in SD “On July 1, 1769, soon after the arrival of Father Serra, burials began in consecrated ground on Presidio Hill.... Even though people began moving off Presidio Hill and …

“Stop the Tyranny!” “Unvaxxed doesn’t mean infected!” I’m surrounded here. “Here” is the late October City Hall demo against vaccination mandates for city employees. Cops and firefighters, mainly. The city has told them December 1st …

When Dick Nixon Came to Town San Diego entrepreneur Arnholt Smith, one of Nixon’s earliest supporters, remembered a melancholy evening in the early ’60s when Nixon was holding a meeting and asked him to get …

All my nephew William wants to do is go home. He can’t. He is my namesake and my nephew. The kid can cook. He’s from New Zealand, but spends half of each year working as …

“Look! Look at this! Crumbling! And they’ve even taken the historical marker plaque off the wall.” This is my brother-in-law Fred, back in town, visiting the old family home. His family were Bandinis; their pride, …

Best Friend to Joshua TreesIs there anything to be done about the plight of the Joshua tree? While state and federal agencies dither over whether the imperiled desert dweller deserves endangered species protections, one local …

What do rich people hoard? I tear over at 8am to find out. This is when the Baby Del estate sale begins. Baby Del’s owner, Susan H (she doesn’t want to give her last name), …

“I was sexually abused as a child,” says Benie Kouyate. By making that simple statement, she has broken a thousand taboos. If publicly admitting such abuse is difficult here, it is impossible in Africa, she …

“I realized I was a comedian when I was 10 years old,” says Abel Silvas. “My dad wanted me to continue the tradition of our Mission Indians, and become a violinist. So he brought me …

You know from the way the parking ladies are dressed that this is going to be a classy event. We’ve gravel-crunched from Diana’s car to Del Mar’s polo paddocks. Our ticket says “Table #8.” Heavens …

You really notice the season’s changes at the beach. For starters, where are the umbrellas? Where are the people, lying around like seals on towels? More important, where is the family of young great whites …

It’s the evening of September 8 at Coronado’s Bistro d’Asia; everybody’s happy, in a gallows good-humored sort of way. Like passengers appreciating the band playing on the Titanic. And as the evening sky turns cerulean, …

Photograph by Matthew Suárez“Born in the Cradle of Civilization,” reads the tagline on Josh Christy’s card. And that is a true statement, if not quite a complete one. “I spent my first ten years in …

Porno King Tied to T.J. Hot Spot Reached by phone on May 14 at his residence in Rosarito (he also owns and rents a gated luxury condo in Tijuana, directly behind the American consulate building), …

“My mama’s a witch and daddy’s a sorcerer,” says Irish Eddie Murphy. He sits down outside the liquor store, stroking his beard. I offer coffee or Coke, but nope. “I’m going to get myself a …

Evening neighbors’ conversation: “Why don’t they get off their fat asses and find a job?” Annie’s talking about the homeless people she passes every day on her way back from work. “We can’t afford them! …

I have always loved the word “loquacious.” I also love the word “screwball.” And I especially love when the two come together in screwball comedies. If ever a rash of movies was by definition loquacious, …

“Limo driving?” says Corb. “It’s not all bad.” The guy should know. He has been driving execs around for 25 years. “I started in 1996, when the Republican Convention was on. I never left. I …

Happy Endings on Convoy Street In all the years I lived in and visited Korea, almost always staying in some relative’s household, I went to countless parties. When they were outside the household, they were …

We’re here for the leopard sharks. They are supposed to be the friendliest sharks in the ocean, and this is the time of year they come close to the shore around La Jolla and raise …

“I’m a node worker,” says Josh Montes. He’s in the alley, sitting on a makeshift work bench, fiddling with metal brackets. Jeff, his buddy — supervisor actually — is up in a bucket, attaching cable …

We need Mr. Roundabout! Scott Ritchie has been called “The Roundabout Guy” ever since he started a company called “Roundabouts & Traffic Engineering” back in 1998. To most of us, the modest roundabout may still …

Raised Not to Hope Too Hard Sherley Anne Williams built her career celebrating the ways black folks talked and acted. School-wise, street-smart, and quick-tongued, she reserved her deepest antipathy for those outside the African-American experience …

When friends ask Zach Johnson’s daughters what their daddy does, it can be hard. How do you tell someone your daddy races pigs? But he must be doing something right. He has four teams of …

“Storm in a teacup!” says my friend Eric. It’s a quiet Saturday evening. Noisiest things around are the crows. We’re talking — of course — about the flying tortilla incident a couple of weeks ago. …

Coronado: you’d think we’d be pretty jaded when it comes to Top Gun planes thundering overhead in this town. Happens every day, right? Especially when a carrier’s returning from a WestPac. And yet I can’t …

Something’s different! I’m off to my usual rendezvous to complete the waking process: coffee on the street at the BBC (Bay Books Cafe), with either Brent or Jose, the baristas. Then sit down to be …

San Diego is no place for cows "You should see the casino [the Pala Band] are building up there," Verboom says. "It's the Taj Mahal. They're going to employ something like 1200 people. And they …

Return of the Mountain Lion In October 1983, a lion killed a domestic goat at a ranch near Julian; in November 1983, a dead lion cub was found on the road near Santa Ysabel. In …

1.) “Lights! Let’s go!” yells Mario Alberto Ortiz Vargas. The whole crew grabs their clubs, rings, balls and unicycles, and charges out into the middle of Paseo de Los Héroes, where the rush-hour traffic has …

He came to my window in the mornings, hovering, darting, accelerating off like a UFO. I noticed sometimes he had a piece of grass in his long beak. I would stand there looking at him …

He’s looking at himself in the window mirror. His arms flail around like the Navy guy who guides planes into landings on a carrier. But what he’s actually doing is wiping the final water away …

Real estate investor and father Steve Rauber is trying to explain why he’s fighting his school district (Coronado)’s plans to make up for covid by squeezing two years of education into one. “The 4x4 [plan] …