Maybe it’s my age — the dark side of my sixties, an elder proto-baby boomer, those 78 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964. Maybe it’s because I’ve been tearing my hair filling out Medicare …
March 5, 2008
Blog Entries
- Former Insurance Commissioner, Now a Cop, Under Investigation Again
4 comments
- Train Arrived
5 comments
News & Stories
Bodies…The Exhibition. at University Towne Centre
Strange Stage Moments
Greg Friedman (Truckee Brothers): “In my old punk band, we played a charity Christmas show at a school for the mentally disabled. We started off too loud, and the entire audience was crying in agony. …
March 5, 2008
Not a Bad Battle?
Not a Bad Battle? Sixty-four local bands paid $70 each to participate in the Emergenza Music Festival. The first of eight preliminary battle-of-the-bands competitions began at O’Connells on February 23 (eight bands on eight separate …
March 5, 2008
Find Another Dungeon Rave Party Band
After one semester, Lou Smart, 20, decided not to return to SDSU. He asked his two brothers to move to San Diego and join him on the streets; since September, the three have been supporting …
March 5, 2008
Luckily, It Was a Huge Bottle
“So, last night I got hit in the head by an empty glass Maker’s Mark bottle,” said As I Lay Dying guitarist Nick Hipa after a February 24 gig in Sydney, Australia. “While it did …
March 5, 2008
Approachable Indie
Album: Wasn’t Tomorrow Horrible (2007) Artist: Roxy Jones Label: H.O.I. Where available/price: Off the Record in North Park, M-Theory in Mission Hills, or Thirsty Moon in Hillcrest for $7. Songs: 1) Hola Papi! 2) GM …
March 5, 2008
Mystically Influenced
Originally a three-piece band, Merkaba Bandits moved here from Washington D.C. last year and added a fourth member. Their sound is a mixture of contemporary pop and classic rock, heavy on lyrics and vocals. Merkaba …
March 5, 2008
New Venice
Alexander’s is the new North Park spin-off of very old Old Venice in Point Loma, where the latter is popular, if perhaps taken for granted. In the gentrifying North Park area, however, no decent restaurant …
March 5, 2008
All the King's Women
Extracted from a fat Philippa Gregory novel (the novel, that is, is fat), The Other Boleyn Girl doles out yet another installment in the long-running royal soap opera. Think of it as Elizabeth: The Genesis, …
March 5, 2008
Loving Frank
What are you currently reading? “The most recent book I read was Loving Frank — it’s a novel by Nancy Horan.” Tell me about it. “It’s basically a novel about the events in the life …
March 5, 2008
Living Space
As my mother’s memory gets shorter, the East Coast winters that seep into her bones tend to get longer — especially when she forgets to turn up the thermostat. Mom and Dad are fierce, independent …
March 5, 2008
Heartening
Considering they’ve been making noise and upsetting parental status-quo sensibilities since 1980, it’s not only a pleasure to be on the receiving end of fresh Bad Religion albums every 24 months or so, it’s also …
March 5, 2008
Manson's Minions
The sold-out February 25 Marilyn Manson show at House of Blues had its share of weirdness. A few couples dressed in leather S&M outfits. Many in the crowd dressed like Marilyn Manson, looking like raccoons …
March 5, 2008
Name This Place
Q: Ramona's roses? 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: Capri-cious diving belle?) "Diving lady" neon sign outside the Villa …
March 5, 2008
Peshawar or Bust
Four years back, while I was living in Tarbela Dam, a friend of mine asked me to accompany him to have his computer upgraded. I said, “Fine, let’s hit the road to Peshawar tomorrow.” He …
March 5, 2008
Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Fear and Loathing
Mauricio ChernovetskyDirector, Cassandra To someone who’s a fan of long, contemplative takes and abstract narrative techniques, Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century really delivers! But what’s most refreshing is the lightness and humor …
March 5, 2008
And the Oscar Goes to...
I went to an Oscar party at Sunset Cliffs in O.B. The affair was a potluck, and I stopped at a grocery store to pick up a cake. A few days earlier, when I was …
March 5, 2008
Greeks in the Streets
“With some important exceptions, scholars and translators, from the 19th Century onwards, have been virtually at one in their indifference to Seven Against Thebes; an indifference which has been deflected from time to time only …
March 5, 2008
Up with Riesling
‘Why don’t you write a book about wine?” You write about a subject long enough — nine years here at “Crush” — and you’re bound to hear it a few times. And every time I …
San Diego Church of Christ, West Congregation
“I want to encourage you to enjoy really close fellowship today — about 15 people to a pew,” said Pastor Mark Wilkinson as the congregation poured through the doors of the small, spare church. The …
March 5, 2008
Free Michelle Wie, Part 2
We were talking about Michelle Wie, who was The Next Big Thing in women’s golf at the age of 10, and now, at 18, is a has-been making $19 million a year (according to Forbes). …
March 5, 2008
How the Nightly News Should Be
How the Nightly News Should Be: Today, billions of people survived. Of our species, less than one percent was killed, raped, or burglarized. So, don’t freak out and worry about a bunch of terrifying stuff …
March 5, 2008
Rancho Romance
“We chose these movies because this particular branch has an 80 percent Hispanic-of-Mexican-descent population,” says Catherine Greene, librarian for the Mountain View/Beckwourth branch library. “They like taking these movies out, particularly the classics, and I …
March 5, 2008
New York Dolls
Everyone from Morrissey to Mötley Crüe name-checks the New York Dolls as an influence, but no one really sounds like them. Hardly anyone even tries. The Sex Pistols would not have happened without the New …
March 5, 2008
Red Flags by Janis Rachels
I think there’s a particular kind of relationship — specific to each person — that you must endure before you find the one that you are going to spend the rest of your life with. …
March 5, 2008
Plan Well Acted
Maybe things’re different across the lake, where vacationers play nonstrenuous games and pound down chow on the American Plan: three squares, plus tea, coffee, and snack breaks. They’ve come to the Catskills in the summer …
March 5, 2008
Interpol and New Order's Child
Artist: The Fascination Song: “Do You Know What I Mean” (from myspace.com/thefascination) Heard By: Benjamin Inouye, East Village I thought it was pretty good. It sort of reminded me if Interpol and New Order had …
March 5, 2008
The Corporate O
Could this be it? Cue music: “This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius…” I mean, if I was looking for a sign, this sign has to be it. “Organic to Go,” right here …
March 5, 2008
Longhorned
Texas buyout magnate T. Boone Pickens, who has a spread in Del Mar Country Club Estates near Rancho Santa Fe, is throwing a St. Patrick’s Day fund-raiser for GOP Congressman Brian Bilbray. The host committee …
March 5, 2008
Bad Religion
From the beginning, Bad Religion, a Los Angeles band, thought they had a plan for the world. “Don’t you know the place you live is a piece of shit?” Greg Graffin sang in 1982. “Don’t …
March 5, 2008
Lowery’s demise
The San Diego State University Research Foundation has parted company with the firm of ex–GOP congressman Bill Lowery, its longtime lobbyist, who is currently under scrutiny by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles for …
March 5, 2008
Muscled out
What remains of San Diego’s rapidly diminishing press corps has always had a tough time getting a straight story out of Mayor Jerry Sanders and his bulked-up spinmeister Fred Sainz. Sanders is sometimes produced for …
March 5, 2008
Conceptual Cuisine
I call it performance art, but my friend Ariel calls it wasting time. History will decide. — Steve Martin as Harris in L.A. Story To me, the word “chocolate” is the penultimate attention-grabber, second only …
March 5, 2008
Writers who didn't "want" to write
Thirty Years AgoSunday, country music figurehead Johnny Cash makes his annual visit to San Diego at the Civic Theatre with his perennial partners, June Carter and the Carter family. Cash has long been the most …
March 5, 2008
Stand-Up Guy
Name: Mark Lives in: Ocean Beach Surfing: Ocean Beach Age: 50 After-Surf Food: Bean and cheese burrito Favorite Surf Spot: Mexico “I started surfing when I heard the message from the Beach Boys when I …
March 5, 2008
Chinchilla Lover, 1972
Virginia Casey with chinchilla pelts at Graf’s Firs, Fashion Valley, 1972. In 1940, the daily paper interviewed a local retired druggist who was raising chinchillas. By 1951, 200 San Diegans reportedly had chinchilla farms. A …
March 5, 2008
North Slope Black Mountain
After many years of awkward accessibility, or no access at all, the north slope of Black Mountain once again welcomes hikers (and their four-legged companions). The new, improved access to the Miner’s Ridge Loop Trail …
March 5, 2008
Greeth and Grums
Greeth is a combination of ‘“gross” and “teeth.” I guess it could also be “green” and “teeth,” depending on how long it had been since the person brushed. “Grums” is the same idea but pertaining …
March 5, 2008
Murrugun the Mystic shows San Diego his power over pain
On Friday morning, February 15, the patrons at Krakatoa café in Golden Hill sipped on blood red pomegranate tea and poked at laptops. They repositioned patio chairs to allow the sun’s rays to land on …
March 5, 2008
Smart Corner units at 11th and Broadway don't sell too fast
San Diego’s heralded Smart Corner is smarting — as in stinging. It’s a condominium/office building project, another of the City’s touted public/private sector ventures. What titillates city planners is that the trolley runs between a …
March 5, 2008