Billy Stewart wants to know if I am ready to accept Jesus Christ into my heart. He stands under a cluster of palm trees along the Prado in Balboa Park. A navy-blue ball cap with …
March 26, 2014
News & Stories
Atheists, Evangelists, and Prophets take over Balboa Park
Record-release roundup
This week’s new releases include First Flask from barroom rockers Ass Pocket Whiskey Fellas, as well as a four-song EP from boogie masters Shakedown Daddies called Shake’n. Reunited bluegrass stars Nickel Creek will drop A …
March 26, 2014
Reaching out
We All Shop There Re: City Lights: “Scripps Ranch to Walmart: Put it in Mira Mesa,” March 20 Oh, Jenny. So funny you are. Silly girl, don’t you know that every single neighborhood in America …
March 26, 2014
One chicken per 1000 square feet okayed in La Mesa
The La Mesa City Council voted 4-1 on March 25 to amend the municipal code and allow people to keep domestic fowl such as chickens in single-family residential zones. Roosters are prohibited, and councilmembers called …
March 26, 2014
Opera president denies ugliest rumors
Karen Cohn, chairwoman of San Diego Opera, says if some moneybags comes forward with a fat gift, the opera would love to start business again. I interviewed her because Ian Campbell, general director, said he …
March 26, 2014
Maintenance deferred
It’s an open and shut case, according San Diego’s city auditor. The operator of Old Town’s Presidio Golf Course, owned by the city, was using it as an illegal parking lot over last year’s Cinco …
March 26, 2014
Calypso on a Baja beach
Only the Belly Up has a greater tradition of bringing live music to North County than Gilles Knafo. He opened the Calypso Cafe in 1995 as a Mediterranean-style restaurant and dinner club. His seven-night-a-week blues, …
March 26, 2014
The San Diego bikeist (cue trumpet fanfare)
First: what is a “bikeist,” anyway? I’ll begin by telling you what a bikeist is not. Importantly, a bikeist is not a “bikelist.” From The Urban Dictionary: Bikelist (pronounced: bike-a-list) — Someone who rides a …
March 26, 2014
Jimmy Ruelas & the Resonator Guitar
Jimmy Ruelas, from Linda Vista, plays a resonator guitar made by National Steel. Those kinds of guitars always sound vaguely out of tune to me, but then, it is old technology that dates back to …
March 26, 2014
Waterfalls, boulders, and beaches in Cougar Canyon
Cougar Canyon is one of the delights of Coyote Canyon. It has willows, sycamores, and cottonwood trees in a lush riparian oasis where waterfalls cascade into deep pools surrounded by huge boulders and sandy beaches. …
March 26, 2014
Stomp holes in the floor
This idea for a musical sounds doomed from the start: base the story on a 100-plus-year-old play so controversial several countries banned it, which closed after one night on Broadway; talk and sing openly about …
March 26, 2014
Bees on the Brain
Hilary Kearney reminds me of a modern Joni Mitchell. She wears her stick-straight, shoulder-length, blond hair in a side-swept part. When I first met Hilary, she was barefoot and standing in her kitchen. Minutes earlier, …
March 26, 2014
Salty Frog
Like most sterling life decisions, the Salty Frog was born out of little more than camaraderie and a sturdy dollop of beer-addled whimsy. Jason Hasty, his wife Alisha, and Kanai (pronounced “Can-I”) — a buddy …
March 26, 2014
True band love
For fans of ’90s indie-rock, Speedy Ortiz sounds like more than a throwback. They come across as an authentic representative of that musical era. The tangled guitar lines, which always seem to find their way …
March 26, 2014
Edison stockholders buoyed by $3 billion San Onofre deal
Shares in Edison International, the parent company of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station operator Southern California Edison, have hit new year-long highs daily since last Friday (March 21), and stock analysts are predicting that Edison …
March 26, 2014
Tic tact
“I wasn’t doing cocaine in the greenroom, I promise,” I said with a somewhat crazed nervous giggle. She smiled, nodded slowly, and then excused herself to go get changed.
March 26, 2014
David Bowie at the Thrift Trader?
Whether or not drivers are visually disturbed by the strobe light punctuating Hirsch the Machine Hirsch’s performance, few of those passing the El Cajon Boulevard/30th Street intersection are likely to pin it to Thrift Trader’s …
March 26, 2014
The “Grand Chateau at Rancho Santa Fe” is no misnomer
Current Owner: John Isaac Listing Price: $15,800,000 Beds: 8 Baths: 10 The “Grand Chateau at Rancho Santa Fe” is a 20,000-square-foot estate in a well-known enclave for the ultra-wealthy, home to many of San Diego’s …
March 26, 2014
San Diego water: You will pay
March was supposed to come in with a deluge. But populated areas got disappointingly little rain. And the rest of the month has been desert-dry. An El Niño may help later, but that’s iffy. Maybe …
March 26, 2014
The Brothers Gow, true bros who are going somewhere
“Move to San Diego as soon as possible, and don’t waste your time anywhere else.”
March 26, 2014
High-pressure sales job
How to get students to attend UCSD? Get the professors to work the phones. That’s according to a memo last month by executive vice chancellor Suresh Subramani. “Research indicates that faculty interaction is a key …
March 26, 2014
No sewer sleeping
San Diego is looking for a few good watchdogs to monitor its sewers. “The City needs enhanced security guard services at its various water and wastewater critical infrastructure sites located throughout San Diego County on …
March 26, 2014
Song of Myself: from Section 24
Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding, No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them, No more modest than immodest. Unscrew the locks …
March 26, 2014
“A Fourefould Meditation on the Foure Last Things”
Lo! here the look which Angels do admire! Lo! here the spring from whom all goodness flows! Lo! here the sight that men and saints desire! Lo! here the stalks on which our comfort grows! …
March 26, 2014