Angel of the Apocalypse During that long, violent spring of 1968, leftist student leaders around the world began to quote Marcuse and claim his ideas as inspiration to their movements. By June worldwide media had …
July 26, 2021
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Stories by Ernie Grimm
Herbert Marcuse ends up in lotus land, Ishmael Reed visits Quincy Troupe at UCSD
San Diego's highway landscaping, how to beat avocado thieves
Ground Cover One of the Brazilian peppers, a 20-foot umbrella of lacy foliage, blocks an exit sign for Genesee Avenue. “Look at that sign. Kind of hard to see what it says, isn’t it? You’ve …
July 18, 2021
Pt. Loma's rich Portuguese, who would live on Mt. Soledad, OB's motorhome gypsies
Tunaville Times Crew members, nearly three-quarters of whom were Portuguese, addressed each other in the idioms of their native villages while they laid the huge black purse seine nets on the docks. Nautical designers and …
July 17, 2021
Integration of Encanto, 125 freeway ruins Lemon Grove, Allied Gardens ambivalent about mansions
Everybody I Need to Know I Met in Kindergarten “My dad told me that blacks were moving in because they couldn’t go anywhere else,” Kenny recalls. “But he told me they were just like us.” …
July 4, 2021
North County's tiny airports, Palomar Mountain water war
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 …
June 21, 2021
Wholesome and off-beat homeschooling, Helix High football, Mission Bay High reunion
The Only Kid at Whitebread Central Who Listened to Danzig Many people have asked me why I’m not in school, and when I explain that I am on home study, they want to know why. …
May 1, 2021
The bass at Lake Cuyamaca, the ducks at Niland, where to fish in San Diego Bay
Largemouth lust The casters trade rods back and forth. Watching them, I can feel more sympathy for the obsession with equipment. I’m obsessed too; it’s impossible to be a serious fly fisherman and not be. …
April 25, 2021
Miramar's F-14s, MCRD officer's club as pick-up venue, Richard Meltzer goes to sea
Wing Men On June 15, 1988, they headed north to the Aleutians, where the F-14s played their usual games with Russian MiGs and bombers: VF-51 pilots shot excellent video of the Soviet planes on patrol …
March 29, 2021
Honest stories from a Chula Vista OR nurse, riding in Central San Diego with paramedics
Nurse’s Log Eugene Johnson — by far the sickest person on this shift. We check his I.V., which has again infiltrated. Since even 11:00, his condition has deteriorated. He is barely breathing, and his blood …
March 28, 2021
Night on University Ave., Olive St. above Switzer Canyon, Rob Quigley's vision for Little Italy
University Avenue Nocturne “We try to cruise by the hot spots where there has been trouble. Bars or restaurants, businesses, what have you. For example. Shooters bar on 30th Street in North Park has had …
March 20, 2021
Would-be feminists on sand in PB, why the Yukon is dangerous, great white sharks lurk nearby
Pretty Woman Ann, 21, who filled out her bikini in a perfectly proportionate manner, said she was satisfied with her figure. She listened serenely as I spoke with her friends, but her voice boomed with …
March 14, 2021
Ostrich meat from Bear Valley, melancholy journey of Ramona steer, duck hunting near Chocolate Mountains
Long Neck, Low Fat David Stepp waits for an ostrich craze A 220-pound bird has got about 85 pounds of meat. And the meat is red meat. Two of the muscle groups taste exactly like …
March 1, 2021
SEALs talk war atrocities, Rolling Stone embeds at Camp Pendleton
A Soldier's Pay Bradley is an animated woman of 36, whose tousled long black hair and French accent give her an exotic cast. When I acknowledge her accent, she replies, “Yes, I’m sorry, I’m from …
February 27, 2021
San Diego's tugboat and truck drivers, El Cajon shopping cart retrievers, gutsy stuntmen
Push Comes to Shove: Life on San Diego's Few and Mighty Tugboats “We’d come out here at low tide, bring the working hands out to the job, they’d work off the boat. We moved the …
February 21, 2021
Beautiful Saint Malo, Hillel vs. La Jolla, University City astir, the Children's Pool rift
Halfway between Disneyland and the San Diego Zoo I waded through the ankle-deep water toward Saint Malo. Waves tumbled against the shore, the wind was merciless, but I held my Lancome bag high and waded …
February 20, 2021
Fires in Alpine, San Felipe Valley, Julian
Rustic Firetraps Imagine a wildfire driven by winds gusting at 80 miles per hour is racing toward your house east of Alpine. In the predawn darkness, you can see the red-orange glow of the inferno …
February 7, 2021
Apple Tree's produce man talks, writer joins Gulf Coast Grill cooks, donut immersion
Banana Man Across the aisle, is another table like yours neatly stacked with oranges, grapefruits, pineapples, papayas, and other fruits. That table, as well as the rack against the wall, are refrigerated. Your table is …
January 31, 2021
What chefs themselves eat, San Diego homeless remember their moms, roadside graves, will we be together forever?
Sweat Cuisine "Let's say you have a banquet. Chicken Kiev and vegetables and potatoes, 600 people. An hour before the banquet starts, you find out it's down to 500. You've got 100 leftover half-cooked chickens, …
January 10, 2021
San Diego fires: Campo Creek, Volcan Mountain, Hauser Canyon
It Would Turn You To Toast Pete Scully, a battalion chief for the California Department of Forestry's fire protection agency, stands next to his camper-shelled pickup truck at a Highway 94 turnoff east of where …
January 2, 2021
Tijuana's wax museum, cheap Chinese motorcycles, Luis Urrea on both sides of border
Lifelike Tijuana "This is Tia Juana," Parra says, "the founder of the city. The historical society of Baja doesn't want to certify it. They say she was a legend." The other legendary figure is Juan …
December 14, 2020
Bear Valley ostriches, Balboa Park squirrels, edible food of San Diego canyons
In Lakeside, Chickens Make Good Neighbors You can't use your nose to find the ranch because the sharp ammonia odor you may associate with chicken farms is absent. Harold Hilliker, second-generation owner of Hilliker's Egg …
December 7, 2020
San Diego County lakes and their fish, Descanso neighbors feud, Cameron Corners for sale
Electric Water, Shocked Fish The gate below the dam at San Vicente Reservoir in Lakeside is closed when I arrive just before 10:00 o'clock on a late-April morning. The lake is closed to recreational fishing …
November 29, 2020
San Diego's gay bathhouses, wild life of our foreign cabbies, best light in the city
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 …
November 23, 2020
Tijuana's respect for the body, goodbye Revolucion flower sellers. Frank Lloyd Wright and Tecate
Grateful to the Dead Earlier in the day I attended a one-hour lecture given by Dr. Luis Antonio Martínez, a dental surgeon who teaches anatomy to students at the university’s dentistry school. His lecture was …
November 22, 2020
UCSD entertains species bending, the automated house, an app to find gun bearers
My Gender Is Bunny Cárdenas is spending more than 15 consecutive days living in Second Life. “My contract with myself was to be in Second Life for 365 hours [wearing the headset], except when I …
November 16, 2020
Hunt for petroglyphs in San Diego's desert, dope growers in Cuyamaca
Mommy, why are they shooting at us again? The Tijuana state of mind known as “the psychosis.” “I don’t take my kids to the park anymore on Sundays,” says Luís, a young Tijuana father of …
October 4, 2020
San Diego's squirrels, ostriches, cactuses, chickens, mosquitos, apples
Contagious Buzz As the hysteria over the West Nile virus moves westward, California appears to be the inevitable destination of the mosquitoes that carry the deadly virus. David Faulkner, 51, is a forensic entomologist and …
September 6, 2020
San Vincente Reservoir, Descanso, Cameron Corners, Boulder Creek, Julian, Lakeside
Electric Water, Shocked Fish The gate below the dam at San Vicente Reservoir in Lakeside is closed when I arrive just before 10:00 o'clock on a late-April morning. The lake is closed to recreational fishing …
August 29, 2020
Of special concern to North San Diego County
Grassy Heaven Broad, open grasslands in the topography of San Diego County are the exception to the norm, which is chaparral-covered mesas and barrancas. And most of the natural grasslands, Mission Valley for example, have …
August 24, 2020
Most notable San Diego Reader stories of the early 21st Century
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 …
August 23, 2020
What you'll never read in Baja tourist press
Grateful to the Dead Earlier in the day I attended a one-hour lecture given by Dr. Luis Antonio Martínez, a dental surgeon who teaches anatomy to students at the university’s dentistry school. His lecture was …
August 22, 2020
Hacker in Mission Valley, gene warrior in La Jolla
She told me my arm was gone. We argued about that for five minutes. I mean, I could feel it. When I was in school, I was given two pieces of information about the brain …
August 16, 2020
In and out of Baja –always an adventure
The Only Way to Walk Across the Border in Five Minutes It is with some reluctance that I write about my recent acquisition of the SENTRI border-crossing card because, well, I got a good thing …
June 13, 2020
Cave paintings of Juan Cabrillo ship, marijuana farmers of Cuyamaca
Mommy, why are they shooting at us again? “I don’t take my kids to the park anymore on Sundays,” says Luís, a young Tijuana father of three — eight- and six-year-old sons, and a five-year-old …
May 17, 2020
Little Italy – will the flavor last?
Tiny rooms in Little Italy On a Little Italy plot where a Victorian house stood for more than a century, construction of tiny apartments is underway. The house, built in the 1890s at the corner …
April 6, 2020
Best Reader stories from 2009
A San Diego Charger football game is one thing, fandom is something elseSilva's powder blue coffin was trimmed with gold — Charger colors. His body was dressed in a jersey honoring his favorite player, Lance …
February 29, 2020
Best Reader stories from 2008
Tijuana is the first stop to suicide Faye Girsh, vice president of the Hemlock Society of San Diego, knows that Exit International has been publicizing the Mexico option for its members. “But we do not …
February 23, 2020
San Diego love stories
Why Knot? Randy said that some years ago he bought a thirty-foot trimaran, intending to sail it to the South Pacific. “Now we’re going to fly to the South Pacific on our second anniversary,’’ said …
February 14, 2020
Lakeside – not rednecks
Lakeside turns out “I don’t know if you noticed, but the whole town of Lakeside is here,” said local resident Barbara Sessions, pointing to over 500 people who recently filled up a 250-seat room at …
February 10, 2020
Ramona – a lot of stories
Was Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona real? During late winter and early spring of every year, a bit of confusion reigns up north in the town of Ramona. The folks at the chamber of commerce there …
January 13, 2020
Best Reader stories from 1995
I've got Perry Mason on board! In early 1960, the man who created Perry Mason was introduced to an Imperial Beach resident named Francisco Muñoz. Erle Stanley Gardner had many friends, and he particularly liked …
January 11, 2020
Mission Hills – don't be fooled
Book-lovers chew the fat at the Mission Hills Library His watch tells him 6:45. This Mission Hills branch stays open tonight — it’s Monday. He slaps the book closed, reshelves it, glances to his left. …
December 30, 2019
Otay Mesa – so unsettled
Feds plan to make pond of Tijuana sewage Just how smelly are thirteen acres of raw sewage? Soon, very soon, we shall find out. Next Monday a federal agency is planning to start building an …
December 23, 2019
More than one point of view on Thanksgiving
The ideal hipster Thanksgiving As I’ve pointed out before, no holiday lacks the potential for a hipster makeover. Thanksgiving is no exception. Not only is it nestled comfortably between epic Halloween costumes and ugly-Christmas-sweater parties, …
November 26, 2019
Ernie Grimm and the Reader
Grimm was recruited by editor Judith Moore when he was a recent graduates from Thomas Aquinas College in 1995. Moore felt that he "would have learned humility" from reading the great books. After Moore died …
October 13, 2019
Julian – chock full of history
Appellate court turns back Hosking's fake cattle ranch Inhabitants of Julian who oppose the development of 1416 acres of local back country have a newfound victory to celebrate. An appellate court has reversed the decision …
October 7, 2019
University City – UCSD's bedrooms
No trolley in my backyard A group of neighborhood conservationists in University City are hoping to put the brakes on a plan to extend trolley service from downtown San Diego's Santa Fe Depot to a …
August 12, 2019
Sleepy Descanso
Roberts Ranch Opens its Gates to Hikers Thanks to the crusading efforts of Descanso cabinet-maker Duncan McFetridge, affectionately known by some as the "Robin Hood of Cleveland Forest," two inholdings (islands of private property inside …
July 29, 2019
Spring Valley – land of contrasts
Dictionary Hill in Spring Valley got its name from encyclopedia salesman One of the oddest things about the Dictionary Hill area, also known as La Presa, is the way the streets were laid out on …
July 1, 2019
Del Cerro – in the shadow of Adobe Falls
Adobe Falls lovers pin hopes on Sally Roush Frost spoke of a “battle against the internet,” which continues to draw people to the area. “As of this morning, there were 7132 Instagram pictures of Adobe …
May 20, 2019