People Buy You Booze D. is dressed as if he is off to the ComicCon or a Clockwork Orange theme party: boots laced up to his knees, raggedy black and red clothes, an old leather …
April 9, 2008
Blog Entries
- Man Found Guilty for Meth Mania Debt Collecting Slaying
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- Killer Admits to Second Degree Murder
- 50 Historic San Diego Concerts 1917 - 2005
News & Stories
The facts of life for homeless San Diego kids
Fresh Every Time
Young Mass (a.k.a. Fifth Element) is, at age 21, the youngest member of the rap and hip-hop collective Digital Underground. His family moved from Chicago to San Diego when he was 10. At the 2003 …
April 9, 2008
Goodbye, City Life
Disenchanted with their hometown of New York City, rockers Karmen Guy and Sami Yaffa of Mad Juana were looking for a change. In June of last year, they packed their bags and instruments and dog …
April 9, 2008
New Monsoon
New Monsoon came with so much of rock’s past in their sound and performed with such accuracy that at first listen I thought they might be a cover band. They are not. Redolent of Southern …
April 9, 2008
Bravo, Oaks!
Picking through Oaks’ photos on the Web, I don’t see any molester mustaches, long hair, or dirty denim vests over leather jackets. But those things wouldn’t be out of place. Despite their earthy name and …
April 9, 2008
You Should Go to Church
I have pretty much done this anyway, but I should make a more formal proclamation, I suppose, that TGIF encompasses weekends as well as Fridays or simply Friday nights. In fact, I have been fairly …
April 9, 2008
Starving Artist by E.K. Mitchell
My ex-girlfriend at the end of the 20th Century (1995–1998) and I made the mistake of letting an acquaintance stay with us. This fellow, “Bill,” was from Los Angeles (or so he said) and living …
April 9, 2008
Hot Stuff
Tell me what you eat, I’ll tell you who you are. — Anthelme Brillat-Savarin I was an occasional user. At least that’s what I told myself. “It’s not that I need it,” I’d say, “it’s …
April 9, 2008
Hoegees Loop
The cabin community in Big Santa Anita Canyon and along neighboring Winter Creek has been called “a rustic Xanadu, where groceries come by burro.” On foot is the only way in for the owners of …
April 9, 2008
Speaking of Drugs
I attended a play Margaret wrote when she was at UCSD a few years back, and when I found out about an event she was organizing at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, I thought I’d …
April 9, 2008
Name This Place
Q: Cat on a cool tile slide. Describe this location, name the nearest cross-streets, and win a Reader T-shirt. Enter by completing the form below. Last week's place: (clue: Fashionable crossing?) Road, river, and rails …
April 9, 2008
Alien intelligence
Information Week is out with a list of organizations that obtained H-1B visas to bring foreign “guest” workers into the country last year. They included Qualcomm, with 158; UCSD (69); San Diego State (8); San …
April 9, 2008
Straight up
The National Organization for Marriage California, a political committee sponsored by the National Organization for Marriage, a group backing a state measure to ban gay marriage, has picked up support from Poway’s Margot Kyd, vice …
April 9, 2008
Rufus and Anti-Rufus
I have to admit, the word I use the most came from the movie Never Been Kissed. The word is Rufus, and it’s used to describe something really cool. I love the way it sounds …
April 9, 2008
Hawthorne House
Jason Evans sat at one corner of his dining room table, his wife Brooke seated across from him, two young children at the head of the table between them. An array of crosses hung above …
April 9, 2008
Pete’s return
Ex-mayor Pete Wilson, who retired as governor to a tony house in Los Angeles, returns to San Diego only occasionally these days to accept tributes from his wealthy friends in the local establishment; the most …
April 9, 2008
Nautical Disaster, Moviegoers, and the Burning of Rome
It had a pretty sweet little guitar solo in the middle…not really — you can write “sarcasm” after that statement. It was cheesy, and it sounded like the timing was off. It’s pretty light, lyrically, …
April 9, 2008
Razor's Edge
Grandfather Nick Razor, 50, has been fronting a local punk band since 1989. “We started as Manticore, then I changed the name to G.F.I. It doesn’t stand for anything. It’s just three letters I threw …
April 9, 2008
Scout Niblett
If you look at the photos on Scout Niblett’s website, you might not think that all of them picture the same person. In one she’s a pretty blonde riding a bike. In another she’s a …
April 9, 2008
The Uke Renaissance Begins Now
For 30 years Owen Burke has been trying to make a living by handcrafting stringed musical instruments. Best known in San Diego music circles for his decade-long stint as drummer with lounge singer Jose Sinatra, …
April 9, 2008
Quick, Who's My Favorite Ninja Turtle?
Bleakness rent my spirit. For days I pinched the bridge of my nose and squinted. I pushed at the inside corner of my eyes until they bulged and I was nearly blind. Indecision can be …
April 9, 2008
Calling new cops
Faced with continued departures from the ranks of its sworn officers due to low pay, low morale, and competition from other law enforcement agencies, the San Diego Police Department is casting an ever-wider net for …
April 9, 2008
Two for You
Occasionally, the Box offers a sports movie review. Leatherheads opened Friday and this time I invited a genuine movie reviewer along. The idea is to see the film together, she writes a review, I write …
April 9, 2008
Go Greased Lightnin'
Paul Patrzalek’s house in La Mesa is impossible to miss: Outside in the front yard sits a 10,000-pound truck with a camper shell that looks — and sounds — not unlike a tank. It’s beige …
April 9, 2008
Realism Dethroned
When first produced in 1889, August Strindberg’s “naturalistic tragedy,” Miss Julie, was a shocker: not just for its stark class conflicts, herky-jerky dialogue, and “multiplicity of motives,” but also because the set was what it …
April 9, 2008
Bound by Fear
“Gated communities are created for different reasons, but the reasons are all about fear,” says president of the American Anthropological Association Setha M. Low. “In places like California, where the cities can’t expand their tax …
April 9, 2008
Pig-Out on Campus
‘See? Skin on the ends. Never, in Fronce.” That’s how Eric says it, of course. “Fronce.” He’s French. He’s pointing to his French fry. It does have patches of skin at either end. Actually, I …
April 9, 2008
Neighborhood of E-ville
Block by block, the redeveloping East Village (which I nicknamed “E-Ville” when it all started) is indeed becoming a high-rise, high-priced condo neighborhood, complete with virulent NIMBYism surrounding the remnants of its former identity, including …
April 9, 2008
Back when Skip Frye was shaping boards in a stall
Thirty Years AgoSunday morning in the little desert pit stop of Burro Bend. Everything’s quiet. The sun has just risen over the Salton Sea; in the light, it looks like a vast oil slick. The …
April 9, 2008
Back in Time
The La Mesa library recently placed California Wine a Sunset Pictorial, published in 1973 and edited by the estimable Bob Thompson, in a cardboard box outside the building’s front door. A visual history of the …
April 9, 2008
Don't Get Sucked Under
“I’ve been around boards my entire life. Surfboards, skateboards, snowboards...it’s what I really love,” says California newcomer Adam as he takes a break from a slow day surfing in Mission Beach. “I’ve been surfing for …
April 9, 2008
Appetite for Deconstruction
The second song on the Burning Brides’ third album Hang Love is titled “San Diego.” The Philadelphia-born/L.A.-based neo-grunge trio played it last week at the Casbah. When the record was released last June, reviewers singled …
April 9, 2008
The Attack
What book are you currently reading? “I’m reading a lot of books. I generally read about three or four a week. One is called The Attack by Yasmina Khadra. It’s about a doctor, a Muslim …
April 9, 2008
Beware the Deadly Wedley
“We’re here to make a stand for all who have been picked on, kicked on, but never licked on,” says singer/guitarist Eugene Over. His band the Pocket Protectors takes its sound from ’80s Freedom Rock …
April 9, 2008
Double-Barrel
Should anyone be suffering symptoms of withdrawal as the “Seen on DVD” column gears down from weekly to monthly, let me share the latest accretions to my own spotty collection. I don’t purchase DVDs often …
April 9, 2008
Perps, X-rayed Sandwiches, and Equatorial Toilets
Heymatt:When I watch all my crime shows on TV, I’ve always wondered about lineups. There’s a bunch of five or six guys in a row and one of them is the suspect, and the victim …
April 9, 2008
Coalition Forces
When a phrase is constantly used over time to the same audience, it ends up losing some of its original significance. So when we first got wind of the “coalition” the United States put together …
April 9, 2008
Morley Field’s disc golf course witnesses methane gas
Standing at the tee pad of hole 15, a Frisbee player on Morley Field’s Disc Golf Course can’t see the basket he’s aiming for. It’s hidden in a thicket of trees 246 feet away. Players …
April 9, 2008
Medicare broken, Social Security broken, SEC broken
In the depths of the Great Depression, the American government set up social and financial safety nets to prevent another treacherous economic downspiral and financial panic. The strategy seemed to work: in the years since, …
April 9, 2008