Jamul tribe denies casino imploding
Penn National removes Hollywood sign
Marty Graham 4:24 p.m., June 20
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Stories by Various Authors
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Mostly military heroes
Baja emergency, badly wounded in Vietnam, shipwrecked teen, Bataan Death March, Yamamoto's killer, Clairemont's savior
Somewhere Between Death and the Border “I ran over to pick the suitcase up and, yeah, Eddie was laying there, face down in this pool of blood in the sand about a foot across, laying ...
Trade jobs with them?
San Diego occupations worth writing about
Like your road widened, Mister? Roads like Old Highway 80, east of San Diego, were paved with concrete; but after the war, asphalt paving was perfected. Asphalt is cheaper to lay down, which is why ...
San Diego's political animals
Maureen O'Connor, Pete Wilson, Ernie Hahn, Larry Stirling, and SDG&E
The vote is in the mail “Willie Brown is my number-one customer in politics, but I’m a Republican through and through. I’m also a businessman with 45 families to feed, and I think that anyone ...
High drama in the Reader
Rescue near Palomar Mtn., behind the lines in South Africa and Mission Beach, mother killer, gallbladder surgery, and San Diego's toughest cop
The unlikely rescue Shane heard a noise and stopped. It was a voice, unintelligible. Mike stopped too. “Tony!” they called together. They heard an answer and followed it up to where the hunter had come ...
San Diegans who suffer
Men who hit wives, San Quentin inmate, castrated man, military wives
Why men hit their wives "She was following me around the house nagging, shrieking. You could have heard her a mile away. I was going, ‘What do you want from me?’ She stood in front ...
More of most original Reader stories from early 90s
A confab of singles advisors, deepest Africa, and frying eggs on Phoenix sidewalk
Phoenix without apologies The heat is horrible — that’s why we went there, to find out, first hand, why half of Phoenix seems to descend upon San Diego in the summertime. But Phoenicians can cope, ...
How San Diegans use their spare time
Racing pigeons, tasting wine, writing romance novels, carrying concealed guns, dancing to country music
If God didn't love pigeons, He wouldn't have given them wings In the 45 minutes it took to get from Solana Beach to San Diego, he presented an overview of the history of homing pigeons, ...
Editor's picks from early 90s
Iranians on Girard, gonzo tourist, stealing employees, Budd Boetticher in Ramona
Slabs of Persia “We succeed, like the Koreans, because of the indestructible family unit, which makes a certain kind of economic growth possible. Take the carpet shops. Without families they’d disappear. But carpet stores keep ...
Stories you should not have missed
Valedictorians after 20 years, Chicanas, revenge, how New Yorkers see us, an Elvis sighting in Escondido
Valedictorians twenty years later “Probably most people who have kids would say that their ultimate thing would have something to do with their kids. But if you don’t have kids, you really have to think ...
Chinese land in Ensenada, get tossed out
Plus — sketchy trailer park, Mexican gamblers, TJ morgue, lucha libre, what Mexican maids really think
Brief Eden We didn’t see too much of the man in trailer number eight, who was supposed to be a Federale, except for the times when he would step out onto his wooden deck and ...
Colonia Rubi hides unusual artist
Plus tough drug rehab, TJ's Jews, gringos living on Baja beach, The Loud Adios, Mexican bull breeding
Baja's tough-love drug rehab “My best friend’s parents paid $10,000 to send him to a place in Arizona, which he went to for a month. He came back, and the next day he woke up ...
Overstimulated at Comic Con
plus: Where's Wildomar, Putin's Pravda, deformed seagulls, Mi vida loca, more
Overstimulated at Comic In all due respect (“WonderCon ‚“ The way Comic-Con used to be,” Neighborhood News, March 30).... 1) San Diego Comic Con International owns Wondercon. 2) Most conventions these days are going to ...
Secret San Diego arts
Art restoration, stonecutting, gourmet cooking, men's fashion, fireworks, and art realist David Baze
Balboa Park museums do surgery on masterpieces “At this point, I have removed the old discolored varnish and the old inpainting that no longer matched, but there is a residual varnish down within the interstices ...
Jobs more interesting than you thought
San Diego beekeepers, grape growers, ostrich raisers, hotline operators, apartment owners, and hotel union organizer
The cumulative hiss of thousands of wings In some years, when the desert flowers are blooming, Alan Mikolich takes his bees into the Borrego desert. But the heat can be a problem. He sets out ...
Opera board member: Bauder's all wrong
plus: Coronado golf, Trump and sex dolls, Bahia expansion, dockless bikes
Spuck speaks I wish to clarify an erroneous point in Don Bauder’s article regarding San Diego Opera’s selection of David Bennett as General Director (“Opera turns to time-tested titles,” City Lights, March 21). The article ...
San Diegans at Heaven's door
Disabled and aging talk about pain and dying
What's wrong with Frank? Lita bursts into tears. Frankie’s her beloved eldest son by her first marriage. The one she dedicated to God the day he was bom, throwing all her marbles into her Roman ...
They're almost San Diego institutions
Army-Navy Academy, early Linda Vista, best burgers, Francophile kids, swap meets, SD fossils, opera, supermarkets
An unhampered look at Carlsbad's Army Navy Academy “If I ask ’em, Are you using drugs? they will admit it. Even without me ordering a test. Because they think my information’s better than it really ...
San Diego's jobs that attract tough questions
Burlesque, bank robber, maid, animal control
It started the Encinitas drug scene When I was 18, I robbed a gas station with a ski mask on, so I already had that under my belt. I went into another room and started ...
Hidden San Diego
Mystery writers Wade, Miller, Kuhlken, early homosex politics, Chicano MacArthur winner, Britannica in La Jolla, on board with Michael Reagan
A raw, wild, reckless San Diego In 1947 competitors would have included Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. If comparisons are to be made Wade and Miller’s crime novels are much more like Hammett’s in their ...
San Diegans who got religion
California Jews struggle, Mother Teresa and TJ, Faith Chapel, Eckankar, Yogananda, Bishop McKinney
California Jew returns to the source He began to read anything and everything he could about religion and religious experience, books by Hindus, Catholics, Jews, and Moslems, books of Western and non-Westem cosmology; books by ...
What counted as scandals in 1990s
Children's Hospital, the New River, Spanish Village, the Chargers ticket guarantee
Children's Hospital gave AIDS to hemophiliacs So even after talking with Hartman, I still cannot get a date for when my sons were first tested. The only thing that I have in concrete, from Steven’s ...
Music Issue 2018
San Diego raps, too By Jonah Valdez Bands deserve what they can earn By Dryw Keltz Gigs in the retirement digs By Dave Good Care and feeding of Young Lions By Robert Bush San Diego ...
Lovers Lane
Baseball field proposal, meeting on Mira Mesa Bl., I Love You at Buffalo Joe’s, meeting the ex at E Street Alley, bowling at Palomar Lanes, poem at La Jolla Shores, and orange toe ring from Target
Some Women You Want to Hate Lt. Weinpel knew Ms. Smith was the girl for him. “From then on, it was just a matter of how am I going to finance the ring?” The lieutenant, ...
Arts in San Diego: From the visual to the hard-to-find
Movies, theater, artsy spots, special nonprofits, textiles, classical music, dance
No better musical experience of its kind in the world (!) Opera, symphony, Mainly Mozart, L.J Music Society, Bach Collegium, ProArte Voices. By Garrett Harris Used T-shirts, medical gauze, old hankies — The faction of ...
Reader stories from 1995
Drums, cholas, hospice care, Eckankar, French school, gangs, Michael Reagan, Bishop McKinney, Orchids and Onions
Orchids and Onions — 20 years later “You could actually turn off Highway 80 at various points and go to the farms. Mission Valley Center was the one thing that changed the whole character of ...
Southern neighbors — Tijuana culture and history
Mexican Revolution next door, architecture, slang, poets, books about TJ
TeeJay — Back To The Way It Used To Be At Cali-Max, T-bone steaks were selling for 90 cents a pound, compared to American prices of about $1.88. Filet mignon, when bought uncut, costs around ...
Hottest food reviews of the year
Chicken, dumplings, burgers, bagels, Baja, and the closure of Anthony's
Ocean Beach prices in Baja Between Tijuana and Rosarito, semi-upscale, gated communities catering to American ex-pats and retirees line the Baja coast. One of these communities, San Antonio del Mar, has been the subject of ...
Top San Diego music stories of 2017
Rest in Peace, Boss Lady Anilee Griffin, known to many punk and metal musicians as the tattooed music lover who hired bands at Hensley’s Flying Elephant in Carlsbad, Brick by Brick in Bay Park, and ...
Most popular Reader stories of 2017
Porn and Jehovah's Witnesses top the headlines
San Diego's Porn Studios Fourteen women, ranging in age from 18 through 22, including one still in high school, may have felt like stars when they walked into the Hard Rock Hotel and the Kimptbn's ...
Stories from winter and spring, 1997
Beekeeping quirks, life as castrated man, Army-Navy Academy without blinders, serious wine drinkers, the dissection of paintings at Balboa Park
San Diego beekeepers know all the flowering plants One time, Mikolich says, he got a call from a friend, a commercial beekeeper whose helper had driven a truckload of hives off a road and then ...
The great Santa swindle came crashing down
Reader writers dig deep into their psyches
Every Power Rangers toy known to man The exact moment the sleigh bells stopped jingling — by Chad Deal Sister Santa’s once-a-year smile I adored American Christmas — by Tam Hoang We were ruthless Christmas-letter ...
Letters about letters
Chicano Park still flashpoint
Bridge over troubled lingo In talking about the silver-haired man he should have spoken of his “constitutional,” not his “constitution” (although I imagined it benefitted from the outing). Dale Rodebaugh Kensington The United States grabbed ...
Reader stories from summer of '97
Chargers ticket guarantee, cheerleaders, TJ Jews, the Renegade rednecks, San Diego fireworks oddities, apartment owners sound off
Bruce Henderson— stadium prophet "Every time they raise ticket prices it gives them more and more money to do what? To buy what they hope is a better and better team. The council will have ...
Guide to holiday fun
No driveway to shovel ... what to do?
A holiday tourist in my own city Tree farms, Nativity scene, gondola and trolley rides, Christmas movies by the pool. By Siobhan Braun Why not a holiday bar crawl? Bike ride, Messiah sing-along, Santacon bar ...
Southern neighbors — business and politics of Tijuana
Baseball south of border, Caliente racetrack and the infamous Hank family, Baby Rock, Bob's Big Boy, early risers at Club Campestre, TJ Cultural Center
The Sport with No Clock Mexican baseball, like the Mexican economy, is just a half-step ahead of the creditors. The precipitous decline of the peso against the dollar has virtually destroyed the league’s ability to ...
Turn-of-the-century websites — R.I.P.
San Diego Polo Club, Charles Manson, Gulf War blog, pisser clams, CyberSleuths — all gone
Cars that are lemons The assumption that most of us bring to the table when buying or selling a car, new or used, is that we will be defrauded, which is usually the case. One ...
Musical San Diego: the 1990s
Local goths, S.D guitarists, Moby Grape, Stone Temple Pilots, flamenco, Deadheads, Elvis in San Diego, Beat Farmers, Richard Meltzer's records, Crawdaddy
Set a needle on my heart and play those songs of love and pain My record collection is a minefield of potential pain: stacks of Ray Charles, Robert Johnson, Otis Redding, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, ...
World War II — San Diego eyewitnesses
San Diego with lights off, a Hiroshima bomber, I shot down Yamamoto, POWs suffer under and evade Japanese, Vietnam vet visits Iwo Jima, sunken subs off Imperial Beach
War! “Automobile headlights were painted out except for tiny slits. You could see cars oncoming, but the driver couldn’t see. Panic would occur when people thought attack was under way. Then if a light was ...
Betty Broderick killed Dan Broderick and his wife 28 years ago today
The marriage, the murder, the trial
Broderick vs. Broderick But when Judge Howatt’s decision to bar the press and public was challenged by the Reader's attorney at a January 5 hearing, Betty Broderick reversed herself and told the judge that the ...
San Diego in the 1940s
Local Japanese sent to camps, tuna boats join the Navy, Midway-Rosecrans military housing, gas station struggles in Ocean Beach
It’s a Gas During the war, Bob recalls, "A-card owners got four gallons of gas a week. We had tires ordered when the business opened, but when the war came, they put them all in ...
So, you think your life is hard
Try steelwork, arson, rape, cystic fibrosis, drugs, bike accident, losing shrink, mental problems, shipwreck, AIDS, being short, blind, fat
Shipyard blues "With all the stuff you say these guys have to endure at NASSCO, anyone would believe the place is hell. But I don't understand what all these queers thought they were getting into. ...
Southern neighbors — daily life in Tijuana
Cops, dump, Revolucion, rain, taxis, upholsterers, flower sellers, abandoned cars, stealing electricity
The whole area was the city dump They chose St. Martin as their patron saint, the señora explains, because he was a friend of to the poor — because he was black and they too ...
Southern neighbors — Tijuana, the dark side of the law
Smuggling, the Zeta killing, the 1999 crime wave
Coyote — king of the smugglers You can catch a bus on Beyer Street or the trolley at the Iris Street station, avoiding the “Migra” around the congested central San Ysidro area. Stay out of ...
History of San Diego, 1930s
Local WPA and CCC workers, the famous diva Schumann-Heinck, letters from a Depression housewife, a wilder San Diego, what women wore
Was the WPA a Boondoggle or Saving Grace? It's hard to look around San Diego and not see evidence of the WPA: the city library, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the dredging of Mission Bay (and ...
The fall of the Union-Tribune’s Copleys
Sex discrimination at the Tribune, death of the Tribune, David’s new house, Nixon-Copley letters, Morgan’s embarrassing book on Dr. Seuss, David’s DUIs
Copley, Morgan Depositions Show Loose Reins at Tribune Copley maintained she makes it a policy not to attend any board meetings. When an attorney asked, "Under what circumstances would [Morgan] discuss with you matters that ...
San Diego's serious music
Harry Partch, Gustavo Romero, Diamanda Galas, Pacific Strings, inside the opera, best organs, best pianos, the composer, the concertmaster, the piano tuner, the tenor, the symphony player’s wife
The Partch Reverberations The instruments are in varying states of sickness and health. While some can be replaced – improved even, as is the case with the New Boo built by local composer Cris Forster ...
The business of surfing
Early surfboard shapers, very early boards, the man behind Boogie Boards, early surf movies, first surf professionals, how Rusty board maker became clothes guy
Surfboard Shapers Eaton didn't invent the Bonzer, but is responsible for its refinement. It is a strangely old-fashioned board (in the sense that Chuck Berry is old-fashioned), yet as different from conventional surfboards as the ...
Burgers: Urge is the root word
Flavor bombs and gut grenades, all good.
Burgers with a side of ambience Brewski's, Bruski, Legacy, Banzai, Sunrise Deli, San Marcos Brewery, Tivoli, Balboa Bar. By Chad Deal Burgers for those with exquisite taste Craft & Commerce, Barleymash, Mastiff, Fathom, Notorious, Burger ...
History of San Diego before 1900
The Tub of Blood, Madame Tingley from one who knew her, Civil War vets camp in Coronado, murder in rural Mission Valley, and an amazing clock in Pt. Loma
The Little World That Almost Was “I was dressed in my ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy’ suit, and playing with K.T.’s dog (Theosophists are fond of using their leader’s initials). Suddenly, I looked up and said ‘I ...
San Diego odd jobs
Balboa Park art restorers, manicurist with brains, SDSU earthquake expert, the danger at 7-Eleven, why leather shoes, Broadway shoe shiner, lawyer clothes
Preserving the Masters One day when he was on the top of the scaffolding in one comer of the hall, he came upon an inscription on a battle flag. It read, cerca trova — he ...
