My boots clomp against the concrete of the garage, and a gravelly paste falls from the arches to mingle with the oil patch in the center of the floor. I light a cigarette, blow the …
December 22, 2005
News & Stories
A Christmas story, wherein I leave my dad
Cyst-ers
The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. -- Voltaire I shivered with cold, or was it nervousness? Every object in the dark room was bathed in the red …
December 22, 2005
XXXchurch, Corona
Denomination: nondenominational Address: PO Box 78268, Corona, CA Founded locally: January 9, 2002 Senior pastors: Mike Foster and Craig Gross Congregation size: n/a Staff size: 4 part-time Sunday school enrollment: n/a Annual budget: $60,000 Weekly …
December 22, 2005
Coffeehouse Crooner Dreams Big
'A few months back I had this amazing music dream," says local acoustic soloist Kim DiVincenzo, sitting with her laptop at Hot Java before going onstage to play. "It is kind of that cheesy famous …
December 22, 2005
TJ Cultural Center Opens Time Portals
Museo de las Californias, a permanent installation at the Tijuana Cultural Center depicting the history of the Baja California peninsula, leads museumgoers on a regional time-trek beginning 73 million years ago and ending in 1935. …
December 22, 2005
Perforations galore pock the soft sedimentary canyon walls of Arroyo Tapiado in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.
Along the canyon walls of Anza-Borrego's Arroyo Tapiado ("Mudwall Wash"), weathering and erosion acting on friable sedimentary rock have produced a strange kind of topography known by some geologists as pseudokarst. Like karst topography, which …
December 22, 2005
You Need To Go Here And Do This
'In the beginning, I was just a mom." Speaking is Candace Conradi, Poway resident, former law-firm administrator, wife, mother, and author of Diamond Moms: A Mother's Guide to Raising a Baseball Player. Conradi is talking …
December 22, 2005
The Wine Teacher
“I loved the no-frills aspect of it. I felt it was a shop for everybody.”
Welcome to the Belly Up...er...Jungle
Two years ago, Steve Goldberg paid seven figures for the Belly Up Tavern, which included the rights to the name. Last year he opened a second Belly Up in Aspen with his brother Mike. Within …
December 22, 2005
He Owns the Joint
Singer/keyboard player Danny Castro fronts Long Live Logos and runs an all-age music venue called the Selah Building in Escondido; it's in the same space as his father's nondenominational Selah Ministry church. Castro usually hosts …
December 22, 2005
They Did It for Free
"We didn't tell a lot of people that it was just a rehearsal for our Casbah show," says George Vidaurri, bassist for Uncle Joe's Big Ol' Driver (and, currently, The Johnson Account). Vidaurri says the …
December 22, 2005
Punk Marketing Tactic
After 1 a.m. in O.B., I left Winstons and walked down Newport Avenue to the beach. I spotted a sealed Drunkin Punkin Idiots CD on the sidewalk, recorded by a band of the same name. …
December 22, 2005
Fraud? On the Internet?
"Yeah, there was a rumor on MySpace that we were doing [Vans Warped Tour] 2006, but we had nothing to do with that, it was just some dingdong posting." Former Miniskirts guitarist Roxy says she …
December 22, 2005
Early '80s Flashback
Echo and the Bunnymen played the last show of their tour at House of Blues on December 9. The band started later than expected. A group of five Latino guys who left at 1:15 a.m. …
December 22, 2005
Karaoke Alive and Well
John Bertrand has been in the karaoke biz since 1984, when the singing machines ran on eight-track tapes and video screens were years away. With two local retail shops and an online store, his company, …
December 22, 2005
Vending-Machine Charity Suspect
Father Joe Carroll and his charity venture, St. Vincent de Paul Village, have deservedly good names. But if the promotion-minded Father Joe strays too far, he risks besmirching those reputations. It could happen in North …
December 22, 2005
Mission Valley Project May Violate Code
In early September the plan to build the Pacific Coast Office Building into Mission Valley's southern hillside sounded innocuous enough to community watchdog Randy Berkman. Then the building's developer, Robert Pollack, sent him a mid-October …
December 22, 2005
Breaking Stories
The care and feeding of Lamont Ewell San Diego's Ethics Commission has released notes of interviews conducted earlier this year during its investigation of San Diego Data Processing Corporation honcho Roger Talamantez. Talamantez was sanctioned …
December 22, 2005
Stuffed Stocking
Movies reviewed this week: Breakfast on Pluto, Cheaper by the Dozen 2, The Family Stone, Fun with Dick and Jane, King Kong, Memoirs of a Geisha, andWolf Creek
December 22, 2005
Hamsterfest
Heymatt: My girlfriend has a hamster, which I consider to be a stupid animal. He constantly runs on his wheel. Hours and hours and hours. I watch and think, "Does he think he is actually …
December 22, 2005
Peace piece
Dear Matt: What's the origin of the peace symbol-- the circle with the "bird's foot" in it? -- Peacenick, the net England, 1958. At the request of peace activist Bertrand Russell, an artist was doodling …
December 22, 2005
Billy Collins Live: A Performance at the Peter Norton Symphony Space
Billy Collins Live: A Performance at the Peter Norton Symphony Space. Random House Audio, 2005; $19.95 The Trouble with Poetry: And Other Poems by Billy Collins. Random House, 2005; $22.95; 112 pages FROM THE DUST …
December 22, 2005
The Reader's Eye on Television
Rowdy honky-tonk stomps into the room from a monolith speaker in the corner. Piano keys jangle. Drum skins are slapped broad with flat sticks. Disconcerting. The whole damn atmosphere is intentionally disconcerting."Do you remember Molly …
December 22, 2005
Fogueira Kwan Zheng Dao in Texas
An Actual Waist I'm formerly fat. There once was a book entitled A Thin Book by a Formerly Fat Psychiatrist . I went to therapy from the age of 13 until 40 and the bulge …
December 22, 2005
The Green Fairy
My day got off to a bad start. As a volunteer for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, I was asked to help set up a play set for a child in Santee. I'm useless at things like …
Clean as Country Water
If this were February, I'd be writing about a Valentine's Day destination. But don't overlook the romantic A.R. Valentien as a stunning in-spot to take special guests during the holidays. Set in a Craftsman-style lodge …
December 22, 2005