“Don’t,” says my stepmother. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.” Her voice is tinny through the speakers of my cell phone. “Why not?” I ask. She pauses, considering. “The whole thing just sounds…dangerous,” …
May 6, 2009
Blog Entries
- Tracking the Union-Tribune Deal: Five parcels sold for a total of $51.2 million
23 comments
- San Diego's Coastal Wildflower Bloom
- The Death Pool and Dom DeLuise
12 comments
- The Osprey Family of Ocean Beach
2 comments
Podcasts
News & Stories
A lesson on couch surfing in North Park
New sand from ocean for Imperial Beach
It’s not even Memorial Day and people are arguing over sand on the beach. But this isn’t just any sand. The argument is over new sand, or what its supporters prefer to call “beach renourishment.” …
May 6, 2009
The Battle of Florida Canyon
Thirty Years AgoBy now the Navy’s environmental study on the proposed expansion of its Balboa Park hospital into Florida Canyon has met with much disapproval. The Navy hopes to obtain the property to build its …
May 6, 2009
Culp Valley and Pena Spring
While most of the Anza-Borrego Desert swelters, the temperature hovers as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler at the “high desert” locale of Culp Valley, 3400 feet above sea level. Culp Valley is the only …
May 6, 2009
Lightning in Chaos
In the sleek, two-story lobby of the Potiker Theater, a soldier saluted, quarter-turned to the east, shoveled imaginary dirt, quarter-turned to the south, peeled imaginary potatoes, turned west, lifted imaginary weights, turned back to where …
May 6, 2009
Marianne Dissard
Tucson is a place of dust and red squatty rocks and ancient cacti and retirees playing golf and a desert heat in the summer so intense that buying a tank of gas becomes a spiritual …
May 6, 2009
Onward and Backward
And so begins the summer of ’09: prequel, prequel. The first of these, opening Friday last, is X-Men Origins: Wolverine, entrusted to director Gavin Hood of little Tsotsi from South Africa. (How much say does …
May 6, 2009
Skullcrusher and Vaporizer
Chad teaches at SDSU and lives in the Clairemont area. He threw a party for his 30th birthday about a month ago. I brought a few women with me. We stopped and bought some booze …
May 6, 2009
What Do You Know?
Here’s Ben Rothman, 25, a graduate of UC San Diego in psychology, a waiter, a construction worker, and currently ranked number 2 in the USA and 29th in the world. Two weeks back Rothman won …
May 6, 2009
Shop Class Philanthropists
Industrial-arts programs were important to Bob Taylor and Greg Deering when they were growing up in San Diego. It was during woodshop classes they made their first instruments: Taylor made his first guitar in his …
May 6, 2009
Pursuit of Happy Hours
“Sometimes life is so good,” I sighed, sipping my dirt-cheap caipirinha. Sam and I watched the ferry pull into the Coronado pier, disgorging commuters marching landward in their varied gaits and garbs. A white-sailed catamaran …
May 6, 2009
Listening in
San Diego ranks high on the list of California jurisdictions where federal judges issued the most wiretaps last year, according to the recently released 2008 Wiretap Report by the Administrative Office of the United States …
May 6, 2009
Worst of the Worst
Will an unruly punk show end live music at the Jumping Turtle? Sheriff’s deputy Sgt. Glenn Antonio said every patrol car assigned to San Marcos the night of Saturday, April 18, was called to the …
May 6, 2009
Foothills United Methodist Church
“Welcome home!” read the handpainted banner in the vestibule of the half-saucer church. Inside, homemade signs rose up on coat-hanger posts from the pews: “Where we love is home.” “Home is not a place, it …
May 6, 2009
Lights, Cameras on SD Roadways
Hey, Matt: So what’s with the funky lighting along the new 5/805 merge? They have cute red-and-white beanies, antennas, and really cool monkey trapezes. I’ve only seen this style of lights in one other place …
May 6, 2009
Define Music
Q: How would you describe what you do? A: “Curator and devotee of experimental, classical, electronic, and improvised music,” says Bonnie Wright. Since 1995, when she opened the doors to the Spruce Street Forum, Wright …
May 6, 2009
Not So Swedish
A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself. He can live without hope, without friends, without books, even without music, as long as he can listen to his own thoughts. …
May 6, 2009
Intriguing politics
Is there a political method to the madness in last week’s pension-board shake-up by San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders? With the city council assenting, the mayor switched out three incumbent boardmembers with three new ones …
May 6, 2009
Out to lunch
Is Republican mainstay and Chargers owner Alex Gus Spanos really making campaign contributions to liberal Democratic state attorney general Jerry Brown? That’s what it says on a campaign finance filing by Brown last week: a …
May 6, 2009
If I'm Any Judge
I judged a battle of the bands last Tuesday night at the Hard Rock Café, home to Mojo’s leathers and Madonna’s bulletproof bra. The event was the San Diego leg of the Ambassadors of Rock …
May 6, 2009
Talk Dirty to Me
“Every gig we’re surprised by someone who looks like a vocal outcast but who burns the mike,” says Pickford’s Party drummer Eric Ganci, whose band plays live behind amateur singers at Rock Out Karaoke. “We …
May 6, 2009
Gone Fishing
I was laid off in February 2009. Forty-five minutes into my shift, the district manager approaches me and says, “Can I see you in the office?” While en route to the office a customer stops …
May 6, 2009
Josh Damigo and Rob Deez
“Sugar,” by Josh Damigo and Rob Deez, was the most downloaded MP3 from SDReader.com during the month of April. Follows is an interview with the duo. Sounds as if you’ve got a Jack Johnson–meets-spoken-word style …
May 6, 2009
Rock Paper Scissors in Ocean Beach closes, stiffs vendors
Many of the more than 100 vendors at Rock Paper Scissors, a consignment store on Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach, have been clamoring for their money after the business stiffed them when it closed in …
May 6, 2009
Sashimi with Watermelon “Margarita”
Recipe by Christopher Lee, consulting chef, Suite & Tender. The thing about food that people don’t realize is that we’re all involved with it — either consciously or subconsciously because you have to survive. I …
May 6, 2009