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Part 3 of 4 – 1995-2005, the Judith Moore years
Stone Temple Pilots at Bodie’s, 1993. Mark Gariss of the local band Radio Wendy had printed up black T-shirts that read, “STP ain’t from SD.” A group of his friends wore the shirts to the show at Bodie’s.
These were the happy days. The salad days, as they say. —H.I. McDonnough, Raising Arizona
I started working here in 1995, thanks in large part to features editor Judith Moore. She had arrived over a decade earlier, after a story she wrote for the East Bay Express caught the Reader’s eye. She wrote her first piece for us in 1983, a zoo story that mentioned De Sade, Diogenes, Wittgenstein, Gregory of Nyssa, Descartes, and of course, Darwin — among others. More stories followed, and by 1987, she was the editor. As her 2006 New York Times obit noted, “she was known for her almost uncanny intuition about how to bring out the best in writers.”
This was true; when the Reader ran a tribute issue in 2007, entry after entry paid tribute to her searching conversation and shepherd’s gift — even those that ended with a note of sour regret. She could be hard. But when she wasn’t, she was a writer’s dream, in part because the paper’s success meant that she could give you world enough and time in which to work, in part because she was a fine writer herself — the obit also noted that “with her mordant humor and tart style, Ms. Moore was sometimes compared to another California writer, Joan Didion” — and in part because she was a careful, generous, and voracious reader.
The pieces mentioned here (and available in full online) represent a great decade for the paper: only The Village Voice and LA Weekly boasted bigger circulations, Abe Opincar’s Tip of My Tongue food column became a well-reviewed memoir, and the internet was still just a dark cloud on the print world’s horizon. And it was all presided over by Judith’s retiring, sardonic voice on the telephone, charting your path to narrative victory before vanishing with an abrupt “Bye, honey.” —Matthew Lickona
Community Concourse parking structure. "It’s a lot safer coming here than trying to do it out on the streets."
Road rash 2.9.95 John Brizzolara
It is 12:25 a.m. at the Community Concourse parking structure at Second and Ash. No cops in sight. Tattooed thrashers and slalom skaters pour from the elevator, wielding boards and attitudes.
Growing up Negro in San Diego 2.16.95 Hawkins Mitchell
When I left San Diego, it was easy to keep going. There was college and afterwards Europe. I meant to live there and never come back. I sailed the Mediterranean, traded in Morocco’s Casbah, and stood looking upon Cairo’s Giza pyramid.
Marlene Price with a photo of Amanda. “They think they found her bicycle. They found it in Lake Jennings Park in Lakeside.”
Something of an angel 3.2.95
John Brizzolara
She returned home from a half day of school on Thursday, October 3, 1991. She dropped off her backpack. Eleven days later, she was found in the bottom of a canyon at 32nd Street and Redwood, murdered at the age of nine.
God's dirt 3.9.95 Jeannette DeWyze
The people who grow the flowers overlooking the freeway in Carlsbad encouraged the public to come onto the growing grounds. An estimated 125,000 people responded between March and early May of 1994.
Jim Thompson, Linda Vista, early 1940s. Steven King: “What makes Thompson’s books literature is his unflinching flatly lighted examination of the alienated mind....”
1940s novelist in San Diego 3.30.95 Ken Kuhlken
Jim Thompson was an Okie. More educated than the stereotype. He’d arrived during the second wave as the factories along Harbor Drive converted to wartime production and hired workers by the thousands.
San Diego pick-up basketball 4.6.95 Peter Jensen
Many of the teams are made up of players from the same law firm. If you’re a member of that firm, you must play on their team. It may be one of the reasons you were hired.
Why the Mother of Balboa Park is the mother of us all 4.13.95 Phyllis Orrick
Why was Sessions so denying of her self? “Her plants were her children” is the cliched explanation. Indeed, Kate left no heirs except her nephew Milton, with whom she clashed regularly. Now 94, he is the end of the Sessions line.
San Diego Grand 4.27.95 David Burge
I visited Mrs. Paul Ringler to examine and play her 1883 Steinway “B.” She was a skilled accompanist for many decades. She had always wanted a seven-foot “B” because she felt it blended best with other instruments.
Navy SEALS spy for Koch in America's Cup 5.4.95 Bill Salusbury
"The ops began in July of '91 and continued right up until Koch squared off for the cup in May of '92," Jack said. "We must have done more than a hundred dives; we did surveillance to get the hot cock on defenses, sailing schedules...."
Hi Fubbi, this is Gakko 6.22.95 Dody Bellamy
For ten years I was a member of Eckankar, one of the groups Lane has written about. His critique was instrumental in my dropping out of Eckankar in the early ’80s. I anticipate our talk with excitement and anxiety.
The Grammar of rock and roll 7.20.95 Alexander Theroux
I remember, for instance, deliberating what Chuck Berry meant us to understand in the song “School Days” when he sang:
Back in the classroom, open your books.
Cheat, but the teacher don’t know I mean she looks.
Williams with Philip Dick. We gave John and Yoko a copy of Dick’s novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and later I believe John told Rolling Stone he wanted to make a movie of it (of course, he never did).
Crawdaddy's Daddy 9.7.95 Paul Williams
I was born with California in my blood, even though I spent my first 17 years in the suburbs of Boston. My dad is from Palo Alto. He met my Brooklyn mom at Los Alamos, working on the atomic bomb.
San Diego cricketeers 9.14.95 Tim Brookes
We take over Warren Field on the UCSD campus, we aliens, we immigrants, carrying our strange apparatus, calling to each other in three or four languages, proudly odd, even un-American, in our all-white clothes.
Diary of an orange grove 1.4.96 Laura McNeal
When we came to Fallbrook two years ago, we built our house on a hill above an acre of orange trees. They were planted in the 1960s by a man named Mr. Barr who, like us, was not a farmer.
Olaf Wieghorst, c. 1976. Wieghorst, a long-time resident of El Cajon, was prolific and hugely successful. His paintings sold literally as fast as he could make them — and at six-figure prices.
Bushwhacked 1.29.96 Phyllis Orrick
Almeida limited his counterfeiting to one artist, the late Western painter Olaf Wieghorst. It was a smart choice. Wieghorst, a long-time resident of El Cajon, was prolific and hugely successful.
The prayers echoing in the night canyon 3.28.96 Bill Manson
The Betty Ford Clinic it is not. For a start, it is free. It is, of necessity, run very frugally. And it was built entirely by addicts and is run by addicts. It is no center for casual meetings. You do not leave.
La Jolla 1962 5.9.96 Geoffrey Wolff
My father wanted me to come to him for the summer, in La Jolla.
I said I wouldn't.
My father said he missed me.
I said nothing.
My father tried to tell me he had a j-j-j-job.
I said, really, how nice. (I thought, how novel, what a piquant notion, my dad working for a living.)
Fisherman works to free dolphins from the tuna nets. If a purse seiner caught a mixed school of yellowfin tuna and dolphins and then let all the dolphins free, the load could be called dolphin-safe.
Flipper victorious 5.23.96 Douglas Whyknott
In 1960 San Diego was the most active tuna port in the world. The fleet consisted of about 135 boats. At any given time, 30 or 40 were tied up at the Embarcadero, in port between trips to the tropical grounds.
The forgotten war 6.20.96 David Burge
It’s just like it was yesterday. On November 27 [1950] we were in a little village of Hagaru [North Korea]. That was the day the Chinese attacked further north and headed our way. There were three of us with a 30-caliber machine gun.
Farm in the valley 7.25.96 Thomas Lux
Pete Verboom, owner of Pauma Valley Dairy, was only a few months old when Nazis occupied his homeland, Holland. He did not mention this on the day I visited his farm, trying to learn about diminishing family farms in San Diego County.
San Diego – city of shame 8.8.96
Matt Potter and others
"[Mayor Susan Golding's] credentials are no worse than a lot of people in office. But it was Gorton’s influence that got her that seat. If she thinks any differently, she’s kidding herself.”
Mafia in San Diego before World War II 12.5.96 Judith Moore
“The raids, all made with search warrants, were made within a radius of a few blocks either in or near the 1600 block on India Street. Some of the addresses were on West Date, West Grape and Atlantic Streets and Kettner Blvd."
Honest to God crooks with blood on their hands 1.9.97 Judith Moore
“Willie the Rat" Cammisano from Kansas City settled in Kensington on Lymer Drive. Momo Adamo from Los Angeles by way of Kansas City and Chicago and Sicily, also settled in Kensington — and came to a bad end there.
hang ten v. To ride so far up on the nose of the board that the toes of both feet are extended over the front end. This involves not only nose riding but also abandonment of the usual diagonal or one-shoulder-forward stance.
Each wave shines like a diamond 1.23.97 Hawkins Mitchell
The summer I turned 16, I was at Mission Beach, sitting on the white sand, gazing out upon the water where I dreamed myself to be. A black kid from Logan Heights may have seemed poor surfer material. But so what?
From Let's Talk Tiapa Aa. “There is no generic word for ‘rabbit.’ You have a word for a jackrabbit, a cottontail, and a brush rabbit."
When an Indian language is gone 1.30.97 Jeannette DeWyze
Margaret Langdon has devoted her life to studying the speech of one of the four Indian tribes native to San Diego County, the Kumeyaay, and she has demonstrated that the communities of them speak three different tongues.
Hell with the fire gone out 2.13.97 Alexander Theroux
Out on the highway I picked up a hitchhiker, a quiet Mexican named Carlo (“Ro’ronners makin’ better time as me”) who, for a ride to Borrego, cheerfully agreed to show me pictographs four miles off the county road.
My old Anthony’s Fish Grotto is gone. At the counter, with John Keats as company, I used to order the crab-meat salad.
The cheese never stands completely alone 5.1.97 Jeff Weinstein
I have come back to San Diego 25 years later to eat, to discover how the eating life of this big city has changed. In 1972 I was, for a short time, restaurant reviewer for the newspaper now in your hands.
La Jolla gentlemen and the party boy 5.22.97 Matt Potter
As the nationwide manhunt for Andrew Cunanan grinds on, discomfort is growing in La Jolla. The 27-year-old Bishop’s School track star is being linked to some of the village's wealthiest and most influential denizens.
San Diego's thinking plumber 6.26.97 Tim Brookes
He likes people who talk to him, but often when he goes to ritzy areas such as Rancho Santa Fe the customer won’t give him the time of day. He’ll try to strike up a conversation and they’ll say “Yeah, the bathroom’s over there.”
The Fletcher family tragedy 7.17.97 Laura McNeal
He opened another door and stepped in. He saw what appeared to be legs on the kitchen floor. He took two more steps and saw that it was Walter and Carrlene Harper. They lay face up on his mother’s kitchen floor. Their eyes were open.
Bruce Henderson – stadium prophet 9.25.97 Matt Potter
It’s a stadium you paid for, you underwrote, and the ticket prices and the cost of some food — and by the way, you’re not even permitted to bring food in; they actually search your bags to make sure you don’t bring anything in that they can sell to you.
Peter Navarro and Lynn Schenk, April 1996. Lynn is a tough, intelligent, articulate, and stunning blonde who looks, acts, and sounds perfect for politics.
El Cocinero confesses about Arellano Felix 10.16.97 Carlos Bey
Inside the vehicle, in the rear part, there was found the dead body of a man lying on the seat with the head pointing to the west and the face to the south. The upper limbs were at both sides of the body, and the lower limbs were pointing towards the east.
Gondola car of whale bones from Magdalena Bay, 1915. Whalers flocked to Magdalena Bay, and by the spring of 1853 they’d slain between 450 and 500 gray whales there.
A whiff of whale breath 10.23.97 Jeannette DeWyze
“Most of the mammals we know who go for months without feeding are hibernating. They’re unconscious. But [gray whales] are up and active and doing everything.” Not just swimming 10,000 to 12,000 miles but also birthing and nursing babies.
Porsche owners are purposeful people 2.12.98 Matthew Lickona
Certain drivers who console themselves with the thought that most Porsches will never be allowed to be all they can be, to do all they can do. Like a Doberman on a chain, they will jerk and snarl and look intimidating, but they will remain hampered.
Body of Ernesto Ibarra Santes in taxi, September 14 1996
San Diego Confidential 4.23.98 Peter Navarro
I lost my first election in 1992 because of a cocaine deal gone bad. I wasn’t directly involved. It was more like a drive-by shooting with me as the innocent victim. Sort of innocent, that is.
San Diego's top ten high schools 6.4.98 Ernie Grimm, Matt Lickona
Julian caught our attention because it ranked fourth in SAT scores among public schools, despite being so small and so rural. They are doing a lot with a little. The high school and the community seem to have a truly symbiotic relationship.
San Diego's least remembered man – U.S. Grant, Jr. 7.2.98 Phyllis Orrick
Three years ago, the general’s name surfaced in another financial tangle where Grants were the victims. Two of his great-great-granddaughters took on Scripps Memorial Hospitals Foundation and one of San Diego’s largest law firms.
Sugar in your ears 7.9,98 Jeannette DeWyze
Ruth Reichl of the New York Times and Jeffrey Steingarten (The Man Who Ate Everything) have raved about the produce there. In 1992, a lengthy New Yorker magazine profile of the Chinos’ operation detailed some of the elements.
The world you have and the world you want 8.6.98 Stephen Dobyns
She lightly holds my arm as we walk up Girard Avenue in La Jolla to D.G. Wills book shop, where shortly I will be giving a poetry reading with the poet Thomas Lux. The beautiful woman is my date, and I’m paying $300 for the privilege.
J.R. Wirthlin (left) and Dave Shaw at Am-Sod in San Pasqual Valley. “The flood in 1979 took the South Bay farm out of production. Floods in 1982 and 1983 took half the farm. In 1986, a flood took a third of the farm, and in 1990 another flood wiped out a third."
Rebel beneath your feet 10-8-98 Douglas Whynott
“When they were releasing water from the Rodriguez Dam in Mexico it was flooding the Tijuana River Valley. In 1979 there was a flood in December that went into January 1980. The farm in South Bay was flooded out, and all my dad's savings were in it."
My very beloved Chanita 12.10.98 Therese Adams Buranska
Chanita, short for Prudenciana, was descended from Ignacio Lopez, a leatherjacket soldier who may have arrived in San Diego as early as 1769 with Junipero Serra. Ignacio's son, Francisco, came with the Anza Expedition in 1774.
Mickey Cohen, Frank Bompensiero (inset photo); Alley off Lamont St., south of Grand Ave. where Bompensiero was shot and killed.
Shot in the dark 2.11.99 Judith Moore
We can surmise that the person whom Bompensiero called is the person who ordered the old man’s assassination. Bompensiero hadn’t wanted to use his own telephone. He lived at 4205 Lamont, two and a half blocks from the gas station.
Kidnapped 3.25.99 Bill Manson
Georgina Romero de Crespo is the 37-year-old heiress to the Serrano family. Her grandfather was Colonel Carlos Serrano, well-known landowner in the Tijuana area from the 1940s to the early ’70s. Georgina and her husband own homes in Coronado Cays.
Crooks: “They commanded me to photograph them — ‘Hey, man, photograph us!’"
What distinguishes San Diego landscape 8.26.99 Tom Larson
In Coronado one day, after lunch with a friend, he went into a CD shop while his friend waited outside. When Crooks came out, he noticed his friend staring at an apartment house. “Don’t bother me,” the other said, “I’m having a California moment.”
Jesse Ventura – the great pretender 12.2.99 Bill Salisbury
Jesse made a comment during the interview that somewhat eased my doubts about his bona fides. “SEALs,” he said, “certainly are different. We don’t wear skivvies.” Only a Team guy — SEAL or UDT — would know this verifiable truth.
Are the Padres married to the mob? 1.27.2000 Matt Potter
An old friend of Larry Lucchino, Emmett, 71, reportedly serves on the Padres board, In September 1980, Emmett was indicted for bribery, racketeering for his role in the infamous Westchester Premier Theatre scandal.
Li Huai: "Painting a portrait of Mao was potentially very dangerous. One small mistake and you could be sent to a labor camp."
Wind, water, and a rice field 2.3.2000 Abe Opincar
You hear talk of a power struggle. Taiwanese, you are told, aren’t much interested in the immigrant experience and want to turn the Chinese Historical Society museum into a showcase of Chinese culture.
Daddy 6.16.2000 28 Reader writers
To commemorate Father's Day, this issue contains a collection of reflections from Reader writers about their fathers: An Air of Exoticism — Duncan Shepherd; Kinder Than I Would Think Possible — Justin Wolff; What He Is, Is Dead — Judith Moore.
Bruce Springsteen and Lester Bangs, 1975. Lester returned to town to spend the Christmas of 1973 with Andrea, who had an apartment in El Cajon. It was a festive time, and Lester wore an expensive new sport coat and much cologne from the many Christmas gifts he got from the Creem staff. He had put on so much weight that he looked obese.
My high school days with Lester Bangs 7.13.2000 Robert Houghton
In 1963, Lester lived with his mother in a postage-stamp-sized house that she rented with her income from a waitress job. There was no father present, and his absence hung like a cloud over the household. I refrained from asking about him.
Home on the water 8,3,2000 Stephen Dobyns
The A-8 — the last remaining long-term, free anchorage in San Diego Bay — is situated in South Bay more or less between the Coronado Cays and the Sweetwater River coming out of Chula Vista. Drawing near the A-8, it at first looked like a floating junkyard.
Michael Angarano, Patrick Fugit, and Cameron Crowe on the set of Almost Famous. The movie strikes me as insufferable dogmeat.
Cameron Crowe then and now 11.2.2000 Richard Meltzer
Jimmy Olsen incarnate, the youthsome Mr. Crowe accepted the R.S. style sheet implicitly, in all likelihood worked very hard, but essentially got and kept the gig when it was discovered that rock stars, such a sensitive lot, were less intimidated by him.
A house and a tree spell contentment to me 11.9.2000 Jangchup Phelgyal
One portion of Olive, a quiet cul-de-sac in North Park, has just 15 homes — 22 counting those off the alley. Here neighbors jog together, go to the movies in a pack, and check with others on Friday night to see who wants to order take-out.
Stephen Facciola's edible world 11.22.2000 Abe Opincar
"You have a lot of rare fruit and vegetable people in San Diego.” “Dr. Condit lived in Vista. Do you remember Dr. Condit? Taught at UC Riverside? The world’s foremost expert on figs.”) Facciola asked Caplan about Uzbek melons. “A real tragedy.”
Adult boys 12.7.2000 Thomas Larson
Eight Rancho Peñasquitos youths, aged 14 to 17, are charged with robbing, assaulting, abusing, and committing a hate crime against five elderly Mexican nursery workers in McGonigle Canyon last July.
"Marilyn Manson is shock rock. He's not goth. Nobody likes an idiot."
San Diego's goths 2.8.01 Justin Wolff
"What are you doing?" she yelled. "I'm interested in people who wear black clothes," I responded. "You know," she said, "it's people like you who have to find a symbol in everything that piss me off. Not everything has a meaning."
No one ever dances 3.8.01 Jeannette DeWyze
Dan Siskowic conceived the idea of creating a place in cyberspace for the Mission Bay High School Class of 1975. Dan did this in January 2000. The last time around they had located less than half of the 476 members.
The Moores exemption 4.12.01 Thomas Larson
Valerie Stallings's guilty plea in late January to two state misdemeanors for not reporting gifts from Padres owner John Moores resulted in her resignation from the city council and a $10,000 fine. Why did she take the fall?
Sheep to sweater in North County 5.17.01 Laura McNeal
Kathy had a bunch of wool on her hands. It wasn’t good wool because they were Suffolks, the big, meaty sheep that you see on the auction block at the Del Mar Fair, but Kathy painstakingly cleaned the Suffolk wool with carding paddles.
None darker than me 8.2.01 Barbara Palmer
People of color were beginning to move into Sherman Heights and Golden Hill. There were colored Civil War veterans who lived in Golden Hill — Robert Tillman and Alexander Luckett and his family. There was another colored man who owned the Palm Nursery.
San Diego's tennis curse 8.23.01 Joel Drucker
“The instinct to please and to belong are the two strongest instincts,” says Stacy Margolin Potter, a former touring pro who used to come to Coronado to play with Herrmann — the two hardly exchanging a word—and who has since become a psychologist.
They make their home by the river 10.18.01 Stephen Dobyns
I got to get me up in Orange County on Tuesday and see my father. It’ll be my birthday [February 6th]. I’ll be 38.” Then he ripped a blanket off a branch, which had served someone as a wall, and headed down the trail.
Did Bin Ladin't brother live a secret life in San Diego? 10.25.01 Matt Potter
What was Binladen, now 35, heir to a Middle Eastern fortune based on construction and Saudi oil, doing in San Diego? And why would he be involved in a tulip-importing business -- based out of a Sorrento Valley industrial park?
Chris Bahr then. "We had a fairly decent team in San Diego, but we let a number of games slip."
Chargers vets 11.15.01 Patrick Daugherty
Sit in front of this list long enough and you notice little things, like how frequently, in this fractured age, people return to their hometowns, and especially, how brutally short a typical NFL career is. Two and a half years is about average.
Follow me 2.21.02 Laura McNeal
Because Waldorf preschools and kindergartens don’t seek to prepare children academically for school but to create a soothing, almost puritanical home outside of home, they don’t teach reading or even read books at story time. Teachers tell stories instead.
Horses and their women 3.7.02 Laura McNeal
The announcer will call 372, the number of the horse she’s been training for eight long years, and at Diane’s cue Sami will step forward into the known and the unknown, over striped poles and around barrels, first trotting, then walking, then loping through the artificial, maddening, gorgeous world of horse shows.
Rich and Susan Breisch. Susan: "All of a sudden a Border Patrol vehicle comes up out of nowhere, and he doesn’t look at our faces. He’s looking at our feet. And he says something like, ‘Oh, darn. I’ve been tracking you.’ ”
Birds squared 7.11.02 Jeanne Schinto
“I’ve been birding in really remote parts of the county. What people for this project do is adopt a square. They’re responsible for reporting on the birding activity there. Many squares in the remotest spots weren’t adopted by anybody. So now we have what we call blockbusters, where a group of us do the square.
I Crawled Inside Brenda van Dam's Head 8.1.02 John Brizzolara
On the Friday night when Brenda van Dam was here at Dad’s, what would it have been like for her? Was she a regular? No. Not really. So, you are Brenda van Dam, mother of three, an aging hottie, and it’s Friday night in Poway. Maybe you stop at the first open bar stool on the right as you cruise the room with your eyes.
Van Dam murder fractures the Sabre Springs image 8.8. 02 Jill Underwood
“There’s been a division in the neighborhood since details of the van Dam lifestyle [Brenda and Damon van Dam admitted, in court, that they smoked marijuana and had engaged in extramarital sexual relations] came out. The neighborhood treats them differently.... instead of saying anything, they just say nothing."
San Diego's Arabs and Moslems on 9-11 9.26.02 Robert Kumpel
“I don’t know who I blame for the attack and crisis. I think the United States is to blame for the attack more than anyone, because I think they have the ability to know what is going on in the whole world, so they should have known it was coming. I usually think that the United States can do anything."
Devon Goldberg of Creedle dressed as John Reis, Rocket From the Crypt party, Halloween, Spirit Club, 1994
Real hardcore, true punk Daniel Ridge 10.17.02
Musicians who began gigging around town in the mid- to late 1980s later became the bedrock of the early ’90s scene, which included bands like Rocket From the Crypt, Drive Like Jehu, Inch, and Three Mile Pilot. They emerged from a rough punk and hardcore climate to form more melodic, lyrically based bands.
The death of Judy Huscher 11.7.02 Laura McNeal
Around town, they will say she was given strychnine in an ice cream cone. They will say Gladys told Judy that if she went to bed early, she could have ice cream. They will say it was pudding, hot chocolate, a milkshake. They will say that Mrs. Huscher spent quite a bit of time stuffing toilet paper into Judy’s mouth.
He's sad for ships 12.19.02 Jeanne Schinto
The painting at the First Baptist Church in Lemon Grove is the size of a door; it is a door, in fact. DeRosset often uses doors as “canvas.” It shows the Titanic in the Irish Sea on the 3rd of April 1912. That was 11 days before she hit the iceberg and 12 days before she sank.
Cabanatuan, central Luzon, Philippines, 1943. Nixon's diary: “1/19/43 — Men are dying almost daily from beriberi, malaria, pellagra, heart, starvation, etc."
Slave soldiers 3.13.2003 Jeanne Schinto
He resembles a lot of prosperous men of his generation who can often be found dealing hands at bridge tables in La Jolla. Besides playing tennis, Tenney is known to play bridge. But he’s a survivor of the Bataan Death March and beyond — three and a half years in Japanese prison camps.
I am your loving daughter 5.8.03 Thomas Larson
Clara Clemens Samossoud was Samuel Clemens’s middle daughter, the only one of his four children to survive him. She was born in 1874, was present at her father’s death in 1910, and died in San Diego in 1962. As his heir, she received a sizable income from the Twain estate every year.
What did David Malcolm want? 6.26.03 Matt Potter
In October 1986, when Malcolm was 32, a disgruntled ex-partner surfaced and claimed he had a tape recording of Malcolm urging him to blow up a house for $1.3 million in insurance money. "Why couldn't somebody just go in and turn on the gas downstairs, leave the burner on upstairs with a candle burning?"
Denver Lucas "missing" flyer
The last Powerdresser 7.24.03 Paul Williams
Lucas greeted me warmly the next few times I visited Lou’s used record and CD section, gave me copies of Powerdresser’s records, and intrigued me once by telling me that that night his band and another group of Encinitas musicians were going to be playing for each other and friends at a party in San Diego.
Fun with Ralph Inzunza 7.31.03 Matt Potter
Virtually every business day at the stroke of 12 noon, the 34-year-old councilman can be seen strolling out of his 12th-story city-council office, heading off to one of a chosen few downtown eateries and watering holes, such as Dobson's and the Grant Grill. Two hours later, he returns.
The probable reason Monroe was having trouble was the baby — she was pregnant, the second time that year. Six months earlier she had suffered an ectopic pregnancy and miscarried.
Marilyn Monroe and the Hotel Del Coronado 9.4.03 Thomas Larson
The probable reason Monroe was having trouble was the baby. Six months earlier she had suffered an ectopic pregnancy and miscarried. During breaks in filming, Monroe would sit on the Del’s veranda and breathe the fresh Pacific air, saying, “This will be great for the baby.”
Under our perfect sun 10.16.03 Thomas Larson
Davis asks whether I’d like to get a drink at Dumont’s tavern, a Hells Angels hangout on El Cajon Boulevard. “You don’t mind if we get beat up, do you?” In June, the Angels’ clubhouse, near Dumont’s, was raided, and today 18 Hells Angels or associates are in jail.
San Diego's literary giant of the 1930s 2.19.04 Don Bauder
One of Miller’s drinking buddies was Ernie Pyle. Before becoming a household word for his World War II columns, Pyle, when in San Diego visited Miller. “Max had several Pyle books, all inscribed — ‘Max, here is my latest, just wish it was as good as yours.’"
My first month or two in San Diego, I played outdoor pickup, on the beach, because, yo, I could, right?
P.B. Rec Center 11.6.03 Geoff Bouvier
I’d been more or less anonymous on the courts of P.B. Rec for the better part of almost three years, just the big mouth with the up-and-down game; some guys knew me by my first name. There’s this distance a highly competitive person must maintain to compete.
Padres who played in the first game in 1969 4.8.04 Patrick Daugherty
“Today you hit a pop-up behind home plate or down first-base or third-base lines, because the stands are so close to the field, the ball is unplayable, so you get another shot at bat. If Willie Mays or Henry Aaron were playing now…Henry Aaron might have hit 800 home runs.”
The Flash
Reader men's summer swimsuit issue 7.1.04 Geoff Bouvier
HEY, LADIES! Let's hear it for men! Give a shout-out now to the body masculine! Here's to five o'clock shadows, Adam's apples, square jaws, and rough skin. To testosterone, to the Y chromosome, lats, six-packs, thighs, hams, calves, tri's, bi's, and pecs.
Tim LaHaye and the Left Behind series 7.8.04 Joe Deegan
I ask the Reverend Scott why some people who knew LaHaye do not want to talk about him. "He is a little aloof, and that's what people don't want to talk about," says Scott, who adds that LaHaye had men around him who spent lots of time with the people.
Football scandal rocks SDSU 9.30.04 Matt Potter
"The equipment room manager was regularly seen taking items from inventory for personal use or being traded for personal benefit. He traded clothing and gear for air travel upgrades to first-class seating, admission to a local amusement park and sporting events..."
San Diego's most beautiful light 10.7.04 Thomas Larson
Since "we are a coastal desert, where most of our open space is low chaparral versus forest cover," we see "more horizon. We see more sky -- so there is a bigness to our perception of sunlight. This ability to see into the distance helps dramatize the light."
More or less sudden mountains 1.13.05 Geoff Bouvier
This area is currently the most geologically active and diverse in the country. Our rocks are still writing away, every single day. Which makes these rocks of San Diego a good substratum for human writers as well.
Jerry Coleman
The man who hung the stars 4.7.05 Joe Hight, Josh Board
Coleman had a broadcast highlight in 1984, calling the game that included the greatest single hit in Padres history. Steve Garvey blasted a home run in the ninth inning to force a deciding Game 5 and advance to the team's first World Series.
Reader writers honor Mom 5.6.05 Abe Opincar, Matthew Lickona, and 14 others
Mom had no time for psychology. She'd rather do than discuss. People's secrets were nobody's business. You face problems. Swallow hard and move forward. She loved Winston Churchill's saying, "If you're going through hell, keep going."
Captain Money and the Golden Girl 6.2.05 Don Bauder
Their investors believed they were making a steady 40 to 50 percent annually on their money. For three years gullible and greedy people from San Diego and Orange counties and from nearby Palm Springs were informed that their nest egg had gone up in value every month except one.
Bad blood 7.28.05 Matt Potter
UCSD agrees to test a substitute for human blood on comatose patients — victims of gunshots and car crashes — without the patients' consent. Within the city of San Diego, the experiment is targeted at several neighborhoods south of I-8.
Reader writers tell what music they would take to a deserted island 8.11.05 John Brizzolara and 24 others
Though my heart hovers at RS's number five, Rubber Soul. If I can't have my own burned, double CD of The Animals and Eric Burdon: A Brizzolara Compilation, then give me Rubber Soul. I might survive on the magic and beauty in those grooves.
Salvation Mountain 11.03.05 Stephen Dobyns
Leonard Knight: "I've never seen myself as an artist. When people call me one, I say, 'No, don't call me that.' What thrills me most is to let people take pictures of the mountain and then let me talk about the Bible a little."
Eleanor Widmer on KNSD 7/39 news
The late long-time queen of the cafe critics 11.23.05 Jeannette DeWyze
They found the sauerbraten appalling. "You really couldn't swallow it without gagging," Widmer later reported. When they reported to their waiter that it was inedible, he summoned the hostess, who snapped, "We don't ever want you to come back to this restaurant again."
The secret Qualcomm Stadium e-mails 12.1.05 Matt Potter
Members of the stadium staff are careful not to run afoul of Nick Canepa and Tim Sullivan, sportswriters at the Union-Tribune who frequently talk up the need for a new stadium. Meanwhile, accessible seating for the handicapped has been late in coming.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Best of 50 years of Reader stories
Part 3 of 4 – 1995-2005, the Judith Moore years
Best of 50 years of Reader stories
Part 3 of 4 – 1995-2005, the Judith Moore years
Stone Temple Pilots at Bodie’s, 1993. Mark Gariss of the local band Radio Wendy had printed up black T-shirts that read, “STP ain’t from SD.” A group of his friends wore the shirts to the show at Bodie’s.
These were the happy days. The salad days, as they say. —H.I. McDonnough, Raising Arizona
I started working here in 1995, thanks in large part to features editor Judith Moore. She had arrived over a decade earlier, after a story she wrote for the East Bay Express caught the Reader’s eye. She wrote her first piece for us in 1983, a zoo story that mentioned De Sade, Diogenes, Wittgenstein, Gregory of Nyssa, Descartes, and of course, Darwin — among others. More stories followed, and by 1987, she was the editor. As her 2006 New York Times obit noted, “she was known for her almost uncanny intuition about how to bring out the best in writers.”
This was true; when the Reader ran a tribute issue in 2007, entry after entry paid tribute to her searching conversation and shepherd’s gift — even those that ended with a note of sour regret. She could be hard. But when she wasn’t, she was a writer’s dream, in part because the paper’s success meant that she could give you world enough and time in which to work, in part because she was a fine writer herself — the obit also noted that “with her mordant humor and tart style, Ms. Moore was sometimes compared to another California writer, Joan Didion” — and in part because she was a careful, generous, and voracious reader.
The pieces mentioned here (and available in full online) represent a great decade for the paper: only The Village Voice and LA Weekly boasted bigger circulations, Abe Opincar’s Tip of My Tongue food column became a well-reviewed memoir, and the internet was still just a dark cloud on the print world’s horizon. And it was all presided over by Judith’s retiring, sardonic voice on the telephone, charting your path to narrative victory before vanishing with an abrupt “Bye, honey.” —Matthew Lickona
Community Concourse parking structure. "It’s a lot safer coming here than trying to do it out on the streets."
Road rash 2.9.95 John Brizzolara
It is 12:25 a.m. at the Community Concourse parking structure at Second and Ash. No cops in sight. Tattooed thrashers and slalom skaters pour from the elevator, wielding boards and attitudes.
Growing up Negro in San Diego 2.16.95 Hawkins Mitchell
When I left San Diego, it was easy to keep going. There was college and afterwards Europe. I meant to live there and never come back. I sailed the Mediterranean, traded in Morocco’s Casbah, and stood looking upon Cairo’s Giza pyramid.
Marlene Price with a photo of Amanda. “They think they found her bicycle. They found it in Lake Jennings Park in Lakeside.”
Something of an angel 3.2.95
John Brizzolara
She returned home from a half day of school on Thursday, October 3, 1991. She dropped off her backpack. Eleven days later, she was found in the bottom of a canyon at 32nd Street and Redwood, murdered at the age of nine.
God's dirt 3.9.95 Jeannette DeWyze
The people who grow the flowers overlooking the freeway in Carlsbad encouraged the public to come onto the growing grounds. An estimated 125,000 people responded between March and early May of 1994.
Jim Thompson, Linda Vista, early 1940s. Steven King: “What makes Thompson’s books literature is his unflinching flatly lighted examination of the alienated mind....”
1940s novelist in San Diego 3.30.95 Ken Kuhlken
Jim Thompson was an Okie. More educated than the stereotype. He’d arrived during the second wave as the factories along Harbor Drive converted to wartime production and hired workers by the thousands.
San Diego pick-up basketball 4.6.95 Peter Jensen
Many of the teams are made up of players from the same law firm. If you’re a member of that firm, you must play on their team. It may be one of the reasons you were hired.
Why the Mother of Balboa Park is the mother of us all 4.13.95 Phyllis Orrick
Why was Sessions so denying of her self? “Her plants were her children” is the cliched explanation. Indeed, Kate left no heirs except her nephew Milton, with whom she clashed regularly. Now 94, he is the end of the Sessions line.
San Diego Grand 4.27.95 David Burge
I visited Mrs. Paul Ringler to examine and play her 1883 Steinway “B.” She was a skilled accompanist for many decades. She had always wanted a seven-foot “B” because she felt it blended best with other instruments.
Navy SEALS spy for Koch in America's Cup 5.4.95 Bill Salusbury
"The ops began in July of '91 and continued right up until Koch squared off for the cup in May of '92," Jack said. "We must have done more than a hundred dives; we did surveillance to get the hot cock on defenses, sailing schedules...."
Hi Fubbi, this is Gakko 6.22.95 Dody Bellamy
For ten years I was a member of Eckankar, one of the groups Lane has written about. His critique was instrumental in my dropping out of Eckankar in the early ’80s. I anticipate our talk with excitement and anxiety.
The Grammar of rock and roll 7.20.95 Alexander Theroux
I remember, for instance, deliberating what Chuck Berry meant us to understand in the song “School Days” when he sang:
Back in the classroom, open your books.
Cheat, but the teacher don’t know I mean she looks.
Williams with Philip Dick. We gave John and Yoko a copy of Dick’s novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and later I believe John told Rolling Stone he wanted to make a movie of it (of course, he never did).
Crawdaddy's Daddy 9.7.95 Paul Williams
I was born with California in my blood, even though I spent my first 17 years in the suburbs of Boston. My dad is from Palo Alto. He met my Brooklyn mom at Los Alamos, working on the atomic bomb.
San Diego cricketeers 9.14.95 Tim Brookes
We take over Warren Field on the UCSD campus, we aliens, we immigrants, carrying our strange apparatus, calling to each other in three or four languages, proudly odd, even un-American, in our all-white clothes.
Diary of an orange grove 1.4.96 Laura McNeal
When we came to Fallbrook two years ago, we built our house on a hill above an acre of orange trees. They were planted in the 1960s by a man named Mr. Barr who, like us, was not a farmer.
Olaf Wieghorst, c. 1976. Wieghorst, a long-time resident of El Cajon, was prolific and hugely successful. His paintings sold literally as fast as he could make them — and at six-figure prices.
Bushwhacked 1.29.96 Phyllis Orrick
Almeida limited his counterfeiting to one artist, the late Western painter Olaf Wieghorst. It was a smart choice. Wieghorst, a long-time resident of El Cajon, was prolific and hugely successful.
The prayers echoing in the night canyon 3.28.96 Bill Manson
The Betty Ford Clinic it is not. For a start, it is free. It is, of necessity, run very frugally. And it was built entirely by addicts and is run by addicts. It is no center for casual meetings. You do not leave.
La Jolla 1962 5.9.96 Geoffrey Wolff
My father wanted me to come to him for the summer, in La Jolla.
I said I wouldn't.
My father said he missed me.
I said nothing.
My father tried to tell me he had a j-j-j-job.
I said, really, how nice. (I thought, how novel, what a piquant notion, my dad working for a living.)
Fisherman works to free dolphins from the tuna nets. If a purse seiner caught a mixed school of yellowfin tuna and dolphins and then let all the dolphins free, the load could be called dolphin-safe.
Flipper victorious 5.23.96 Douglas Whyknott
In 1960 San Diego was the most active tuna port in the world. The fleet consisted of about 135 boats. At any given time, 30 or 40 were tied up at the Embarcadero, in port between trips to the tropical grounds.
The forgotten war 6.20.96 David Burge
It’s just like it was yesterday. On November 27 [1950] we were in a little village of Hagaru [North Korea]. That was the day the Chinese attacked further north and headed our way. There were three of us with a 30-caliber machine gun.
Farm in the valley 7.25.96 Thomas Lux
Pete Verboom, owner of Pauma Valley Dairy, was only a few months old when Nazis occupied his homeland, Holland. He did not mention this on the day I visited his farm, trying to learn about diminishing family farms in San Diego County.
San Diego – city of shame 8.8.96
Matt Potter and others
"[Mayor Susan Golding's] credentials are no worse than a lot of people in office. But it was Gorton’s influence that got her that seat. If she thinks any differently, she’s kidding herself.”
Mafia in San Diego before World War II 12.5.96 Judith Moore
“The raids, all made with search warrants, were made within a radius of a few blocks either in or near the 1600 block on India Street. Some of the addresses were on West Date, West Grape and Atlantic Streets and Kettner Blvd."
Honest to God crooks with blood on their hands 1.9.97 Judith Moore
“Willie the Rat" Cammisano from Kansas City settled in Kensington on Lymer Drive. Momo Adamo from Los Angeles by way of Kansas City and Chicago and Sicily, also settled in Kensington — and came to a bad end there.
hang ten v. To ride so far up on the nose of the board that the toes of both feet are extended over the front end. This involves not only nose riding but also abandonment of the usual diagonal or one-shoulder-forward stance.
Each wave shines like a diamond 1.23.97 Hawkins Mitchell
The summer I turned 16, I was at Mission Beach, sitting on the white sand, gazing out upon the water where I dreamed myself to be. A black kid from Logan Heights may have seemed poor surfer material. But so what?
From Let's Talk Tiapa Aa. “There is no generic word for ‘rabbit.’ You have a word for a jackrabbit, a cottontail, and a brush rabbit."
When an Indian language is gone 1.30.97 Jeannette DeWyze
Margaret Langdon has devoted her life to studying the speech of one of the four Indian tribes native to San Diego County, the Kumeyaay, and she has demonstrated that the communities of them speak three different tongues.
Hell with the fire gone out 2.13.97 Alexander Theroux
Out on the highway I picked up a hitchhiker, a quiet Mexican named Carlo (“Ro’ronners makin’ better time as me”) who, for a ride to Borrego, cheerfully agreed to show me pictographs four miles off the county road.
My old Anthony’s Fish Grotto is gone. At the counter, with John Keats as company, I used to order the crab-meat salad.
The cheese never stands completely alone 5.1.97 Jeff Weinstein
I have come back to San Diego 25 years later to eat, to discover how the eating life of this big city has changed. In 1972 I was, for a short time, restaurant reviewer for the newspaper now in your hands.
La Jolla gentlemen and the party boy 5.22.97 Matt Potter
As the nationwide manhunt for Andrew Cunanan grinds on, discomfort is growing in La Jolla. The 27-year-old Bishop’s School track star is being linked to some of the village's wealthiest and most influential denizens.
San Diego's thinking plumber 6.26.97 Tim Brookes
He likes people who talk to him, but often when he goes to ritzy areas such as Rancho Santa Fe the customer won’t give him the time of day. He’ll try to strike up a conversation and they’ll say “Yeah, the bathroom’s over there.”
The Fletcher family tragedy 7.17.97 Laura McNeal
He opened another door and stepped in. He saw what appeared to be legs on the kitchen floor. He took two more steps and saw that it was Walter and Carrlene Harper. They lay face up on his mother’s kitchen floor. Their eyes were open.
Bruce Henderson – stadium prophet 9.25.97 Matt Potter
It’s a stadium you paid for, you underwrote, and the ticket prices and the cost of some food — and by the way, you’re not even permitted to bring food in; they actually search your bags to make sure you don’t bring anything in that they can sell to you.
Peter Navarro and Lynn Schenk, April 1996. Lynn is a tough, intelligent, articulate, and stunning blonde who looks, acts, and sounds perfect for politics.
El Cocinero confesses about Arellano Felix 10.16.97 Carlos Bey
Inside the vehicle, in the rear part, there was found the dead body of a man lying on the seat with the head pointing to the west and the face to the south. The upper limbs were at both sides of the body, and the lower limbs were pointing towards the east.
Gondola car of whale bones from Magdalena Bay, 1915. Whalers flocked to Magdalena Bay, and by the spring of 1853 they’d slain between 450 and 500 gray whales there.
A whiff of whale breath 10.23.97 Jeannette DeWyze
“Most of the mammals we know who go for months without feeding are hibernating. They’re unconscious. But [gray whales] are up and active and doing everything.” Not just swimming 10,000 to 12,000 miles but also birthing and nursing babies.
Porsche owners are purposeful people 2.12.98 Matthew Lickona
Certain drivers who console themselves with the thought that most Porsches will never be allowed to be all they can be, to do all they can do. Like a Doberman on a chain, they will jerk and snarl and look intimidating, but they will remain hampered.
Body of Ernesto Ibarra Santes in taxi, September 14 1996
San Diego Confidential 4.23.98 Peter Navarro
I lost my first election in 1992 because of a cocaine deal gone bad. I wasn’t directly involved. It was more like a drive-by shooting with me as the innocent victim. Sort of innocent, that is.
San Diego's top ten high schools 6.4.98 Ernie Grimm, Matt Lickona
Julian caught our attention because it ranked fourth in SAT scores among public schools, despite being so small and so rural. They are doing a lot with a little. The high school and the community seem to have a truly symbiotic relationship.
San Diego's least remembered man – U.S. Grant, Jr. 7.2.98 Phyllis Orrick
Three years ago, the general’s name surfaced in another financial tangle where Grants were the victims. Two of his great-great-granddaughters took on Scripps Memorial Hospitals Foundation and one of San Diego’s largest law firms.
Sugar in your ears 7.9,98 Jeannette DeWyze
Ruth Reichl of the New York Times and Jeffrey Steingarten (The Man Who Ate Everything) have raved about the produce there. In 1992, a lengthy New Yorker magazine profile of the Chinos’ operation detailed some of the elements.
The world you have and the world you want 8.6.98 Stephen Dobyns
She lightly holds my arm as we walk up Girard Avenue in La Jolla to D.G. Wills book shop, where shortly I will be giving a poetry reading with the poet Thomas Lux. The beautiful woman is my date, and I’m paying $300 for the privilege.
J.R. Wirthlin (left) and Dave Shaw at Am-Sod in San Pasqual Valley. “The flood in 1979 took the South Bay farm out of production. Floods in 1982 and 1983 took half the farm. In 1986, a flood took a third of the farm, and in 1990 another flood wiped out a third."
Rebel beneath your feet 10-8-98 Douglas Whynott
“When they were releasing water from the Rodriguez Dam in Mexico it was flooding the Tijuana River Valley. In 1979 there was a flood in December that went into January 1980. The farm in South Bay was flooded out, and all my dad's savings were in it."
My very beloved Chanita 12.10.98 Therese Adams Buranska
Chanita, short for Prudenciana, was descended from Ignacio Lopez, a leatherjacket soldier who may have arrived in San Diego as early as 1769 with Junipero Serra. Ignacio's son, Francisco, came with the Anza Expedition in 1774.
Mickey Cohen, Frank Bompensiero (inset photo); Alley off Lamont St., south of Grand Ave. where Bompensiero was shot and killed.
Shot in the dark 2.11.99 Judith Moore
We can surmise that the person whom Bompensiero called is the person who ordered the old man’s assassination. Bompensiero hadn’t wanted to use his own telephone. He lived at 4205 Lamont, two and a half blocks from the gas station.
Kidnapped 3.25.99 Bill Manson
Georgina Romero de Crespo is the 37-year-old heiress to the Serrano family. Her grandfather was Colonel Carlos Serrano, well-known landowner in the Tijuana area from the 1940s to the early ’70s. Georgina and her husband own homes in Coronado Cays.
Crooks: “They commanded me to photograph them — ‘Hey, man, photograph us!’"
What distinguishes San Diego landscape 8.26.99 Tom Larson
In Coronado one day, after lunch with a friend, he went into a CD shop while his friend waited outside. When Crooks came out, he noticed his friend staring at an apartment house. “Don’t bother me,” the other said, “I’m having a California moment.”
Jesse Ventura – the great pretender 12.2.99 Bill Salisbury
Jesse made a comment during the interview that somewhat eased my doubts about his bona fides. “SEALs,” he said, “certainly are different. We don’t wear skivvies.” Only a Team guy — SEAL or UDT — would know this verifiable truth.
Are the Padres married to the mob? 1.27.2000 Matt Potter
An old friend of Larry Lucchino, Emmett, 71, reportedly serves on the Padres board, In September 1980, Emmett was indicted for bribery, racketeering for his role in the infamous Westchester Premier Theatre scandal.
Li Huai: "Painting a portrait of Mao was potentially very dangerous. One small mistake and you could be sent to a labor camp."
Wind, water, and a rice field 2.3.2000 Abe Opincar
You hear talk of a power struggle. Taiwanese, you are told, aren’t much interested in the immigrant experience and want to turn the Chinese Historical Society museum into a showcase of Chinese culture.
Daddy 6.16.2000 28 Reader writers
To commemorate Father's Day, this issue contains a collection of reflections from Reader writers about their fathers: An Air of Exoticism — Duncan Shepherd; Kinder Than I Would Think Possible — Justin Wolff; What He Is, Is Dead — Judith Moore.
Bruce Springsteen and Lester Bangs, 1975. Lester returned to town to spend the Christmas of 1973 with Andrea, who had an apartment in El Cajon. It was a festive time, and Lester wore an expensive new sport coat and much cologne from the many Christmas gifts he got from the Creem staff. He had put on so much weight that he looked obese.
My high school days with Lester Bangs 7.13.2000 Robert Houghton
In 1963, Lester lived with his mother in a postage-stamp-sized house that she rented with her income from a waitress job. There was no father present, and his absence hung like a cloud over the household. I refrained from asking about him.
Home on the water 8,3,2000 Stephen Dobyns
The A-8 — the last remaining long-term, free anchorage in San Diego Bay — is situated in South Bay more or less between the Coronado Cays and the Sweetwater River coming out of Chula Vista. Drawing near the A-8, it at first looked like a floating junkyard.
Michael Angarano, Patrick Fugit, and Cameron Crowe on the set of Almost Famous. The movie strikes me as insufferable dogmeat.
Cameron Crowe then and now 11.2.2000 Richard Meltzer
Jimmy Olsen incarnate, the youthsome Mr. Crowe accepted the R.S. style sheet implicitly, in all likelihood worked very hard, but essentially got and kept the gig when it was discovered that rock stars, such a sensitive lot, were less intimidated by him.
A house and a tree spell contentment to me 11.9.2000 Jangchup Phelgyal
One portion of Olive, a quiet cul-de-sac in North Park, has just 15 homes — 22 counting those off the alley. Here neighbors jog together, go to the movies in a pack, and check with others on Friday night to see who wants to order take-out.
Stephen Facciola's edible world 11.22.2000 Abe Opincar
"You have a lot of rare fruit and vegetable people in San Diego.” “Dr. Condit lived in Vista. Do you remember Dr. Condit? Taught at UC Riverside? The world’s foremost expert on figs.”) Facciola asked Caplan about Uzbek melons. “A real tragedy.”
Adult boys 12.7.2000 Thomas Larson
Eight Rancho Peñasquitos youths, aged 14 to 17, are charged with robbing, assaulting, abusing, and committing a hate crime against five elderly Mexican nursery workers in McGonigle Canyon last July.
"Marilyn Manson is shock rock. He's not goth. Nobody likes an idiot."
San Diego's goths 2.8.01 Justin Wolff
"What are you doing?" she yelled. "I'm interested in people who wear black clothes," I responded. "You know," she said, "it's people like you who have to find a symbol in everything that piss me off. Not everything has a meaning."
No one ever dances 3.8.01 Jeannette DeWyze
Dan Siskowic conceived the idea of creating a place in cyberspace for the Mission Bay High School Class of 1975. Dan did this in January 2000. The last time around they had located less than half of the 476 members.
The Moores exemption 4.12.01 Thomas Larson
Valerie Stallings's guilty plea in late January to two state misdemeanors for not reporting gifts from Padres owner John Moores resulted in her resignation from the city council and a $10,000 fine. Why did she take the fall?
Sheep to sweater in North County 5.17.01 Laura McNeal
Kathy had a bunch of wool on her hands. It wasn’t good wool because they were Suffolks, the big, meaty sheep that you see on the auction block at the Del Mar Fair, but Kathy painstakingly cleaned the Suffolk wool with carding paddles.
None darker than me 8.2.01 Barbara Palmer
People of color were beginning to move into Sherman Heights and Golden Hill. There were colored Civil War veterans who lived in Golden Hill — Robert Tillman and Alexander Luckett and his family. There was another colored man who owned the Palm Nursery.
San Diego's tennis curse 8.23.01 Joel Drucker
“The instinct to please and to belong are the two strongest instincts,” says Stacy Margolin Potter, a former touring pro who used to come to Coronado to play with Herrmann — the two hardly exchanging a word—and who has since become a psychologist.
They make their home by the river 10.18.01 Stephen Dobyns
I got to get me up in Orange County on Tuesday and see my father. It’ll be my birthday [February 6th]. I’ll be 38.” Then he ripped a blanket off a branch, which had served someone as a wall, and headed down the trail.
Did Bin Ladin't brother live a secret life in San Diego? 10.25.01 Matt Potter
What was Binladen, now 35, heir to a Middle Eastern fortune based on construction and Saudi oil, doing in San Diego? And why would he be involved in a tulip-importing business -- based out of a Sorrento Valley industrial park?
Chris Bahr then. "We had a fairly decent team in San Diego, but we let a number of games slip."
Chargers vets 11.15.01 Patrick Daugherty
Sit in front of this list long enough and you notice little things, like how frequently, in this fractured age, people return to their hometowns, and especially, how brutally short a typical NFL career is. Two and a half years is about average.
Follow me 2.21.02 Laura McNeal
Because Waldorf preschools and kindergartens don’t seek to prepare children academically for school but to create a soothing, almost puritanical home outside of home, they don’t teach reading or even read books at story time. Teachers tell stories instead.
Horses and their women 3.7.02 Laura McNeal
The announcer will call 372, the number of the horse she’s been training for eight long years, and at Diane’s cue Sami will step forward into the known and the unknown, over striped poles and around barrels, first trotting, then walking, then loping through the artificial, maddening, gorgeous world of horse shows.
Rich and Susan Breisch. Susan: "All of a sudden a Border Patrol vehicle comes up out of nowhere, and he doesn’t look at our faces. He’s looking at our feet. And he says something like, ‘Oh, darn. I’ve been tracking you.’ ”
Birds squared 7.11.02 Jeanne Schinto
“I’ve been birding in really remote parts of the county. What people for this project do is adopt a square. They’re responsible for reporting on the birding activity there. Many squares in the remotest spots weren’t adopted by anybody. So now we have what we call blockbusters, where a group of us do the square.
I Crawled Inside Brenda van Dam's Head 8.1.02 John Brizzolara
On the Friday night when Brenda van Dam was here at Dad’s, what would it have been like for her? Was she a regular? No. Not really. So, you are Brenda van Dam, mother of three, an aging hottie, and it’s Friday night in Poway. Maybe you stop at the first open bar stool on the right as you cruise the room with your eyes.
Van Dam murder fractures the Sabre Springs image 8.8. 02 Jill Underwood
“There’s been a division in the neighborhood since details of the van Dam lifestyle [Brenda and Damon van Dam admitted, in court, that they smoked marijuana and had engaged in extramarital sexual relations] came out. The neighborhood treats them differently.... instead of saying anything, they just say nothing."
San Diego's Arabs and Moslems on 9-11 9.26.02 Robert Kumpel
“I don’t know who I blame for the attack and crisis. I think the United States is to blame for the attack more than anyone, because I think they have the ability to know what is going on in the whole world, so they should have known it was coming. I usually think that the United States can do anything."
Devon Goldberg of Creedle dressed as John Reis, Rocket From the Crypt party, Halloween, Spirit Club, 1994
Real hardcore, true punk Daniel Ridge 10.17.02
Musicians who began gigging around town in the mid- to late 1980s later became the bedrock of the early ’90s scene, which included bands like Rocket From the Crypt, Drive Like Jehu, Inch, and Three Mile Pilot. They emerged from a rough punk and hardcore climate to form more melodic, lyrically based bands.
The death of Judy Huscher 11.7.02 Laura McNeal
Around town, they will say she was given strychnine in an ice cream cone. They will say Gladys told Judy that if she went to bed early, she could have ice cream. They will say it was pudding, hot chocolate, a milkshake. They will say that Mrs. Huscher spent quite a bit of time stuffing toilet paper into Judy’s mouth.
He's sad for ships 12.19.02 Jeanne Schinto
The painting at the First Baptist Church in Lemon Grove is the size of a door; it is a door, in fact. DeRosset often uses doors as “canvas.” It shows the Titanic in the Irish Sea on the 3rd of April 1912. That was 11 days before she hit the iceberg and 12 days before she sank.
Cabanatuan, central Luzon, Philippines, 1943. Nixon's diary: “1/19/43 — Men are dying almost daily from beriberi, malaria, pellagra, heart, starvation, etc."
Slave soldiers 3.13.2003 Jeanne Schinto
He resembles a lot of prosperous men of his generation who can often be found dealing hands at bridge tables in La Jolla. Besides playing tennis, Tenney is known to play bridge. But he’s a survivor of the Bataan Death March and beyond — three and a half years in Japanese prison camps.
I am your loving daughter 5.8.03 Thomas Larson
Clara Clemens Samossoud was Samuel Clemens’s middle daughter, the only one of his four children to survive him. She was born in 1874, was present at her father’s death in 1910, and died in San Diego in 1962. As his heir, she received a sizable income from the Twain estate every year.
What did David Malcolm want? 6.26.03 Matt Potter
In October 1986, when Malcolm was 32, a disgruntled ex-partner surfaced and claimed he had a tape recording of Malcolm urging him to blow up a house for $1.3 million in insurance money. "Why couldn't somebody just go in and turn on the gas downstairs, leave the burner on upstairs with a candle burning?"
Denver Lucas "missing" flyer
The last Powerdresser 7.24.03 Paul Williams
Lucas greeted me warmly the next few times I visited Lou’s used record and CD section, gave me copies of Powerdresser’s records, and intrigued me once by telling me that that night his band and another group of Encinitas musicians were going to be playing for each other and friends at a party in San Diego.
Fun with Ralph Inzunza 7.31.03 Matt Potter
Virtually every business day at the stroke of 12 noon, the 34-year-old councilman can be seen strolling out of his 12th-story city-council office, heading off to one of a chosen few downtown eateries and watering holes, such as Dobson's and the Grant Grill. Two hours later, he returns.
The probable reason Monroe was having trouble was the baby — she was pregnant, the second time that year. Six months earlier she had suffered an ectopic pregnancy and miscarried.
Marilyn Monroe and the Hotel Del Coronado 9.4.03 Thomas Larson
The probable reason Monroe was having trouble was the baby. Six months earlier she had suffered an ectopic pregnancy and miscarried. During breaks in filming, Monroe would sit on the Del’s veranda and breathe the fresh Pacific air, saying, “This will be great for the baby.”
Under our perfect sun 10.16.03 Thomas Larson
Davis asks whether I’d like to get a drink at Dumont’s tavern, a Hells Angels hangout on El Cajon Boulevard. “You don’t mind if we get beat up, do you?” In June, the Angels’ clubhouse, near Dumont’s, was raided, and today 18 Hells Angels or associates are in jail.
San Diego's literary giant of the 1930s 2.19.04 Don Bauder
One of Miller’s drinking buddies was Ernie Pyle. Before becoming a household word for his World War II columns, Pyle, when in San Diego visited Miller. “Max had several Pyle books, all inscribed — ‘Max, here is my latest, just wish it was as good as yours.’"
My first month or two in San Diego, I played outdoor pickup, on the beach, because, yo, I could, right?
P.B. Rec Center 11.6.03 Geoff Bouvier
I’d been more or less anonymous on the courts of P.B. Rec for the better part of almost three years, just the big mouth with the up-and-down game; some guys knew me by my first name. There’s this distance a highly competitive person must maintain to compete.
Padres who played in the first game in 1969 4.8.04 Patrick Daugherty
“Today you hit a pop-up behind home plate or down first-base or third-base lines, because the stands are so close to the field, the ball is unplayable, so you get another shot at bat. If Willie Mays or Henry Aaron were playing now…Henry Aaron might have hit 800 home runs.”
The Flash
Reader men's summer swimsuit issue 7.1.04 Geoff Bouvier
HEY, LADIES! Let's hear it for men! Give a shout-out now to the body masculine! Here's to five o'clock shadows, Adam's apples, square jaws, and rough skin. To testosterone, to the Y chromosome, lats, six-packs, thighs, hams, calves, tri's, bi's, and pecs.
Tim LaHaye and the Left Behind series 7.8.04 Joe Deegan
I ask the Reverend Scott why some people who knew LaHaye do not want to talk about him. "He is a little aloof, and that's what people don't want to talk about," says Scott, who adds that LaHaye had men around him who spent lots of time with the people.
Football scandal rocks SDSU 9.30.04 Matt Potter
"The equipment room manager was regularly seen taking items from inventory for personal use or being traded for personal benefit. He traded clothing and gear for air travel upgrades to first-class seating, admission to a local amusement park and sporting events..."
San Diego's most beautiful light 10.7.04 Thomas Larson
Since "we are a coastal desert, where most of our open space is low chaparral versus forest cover," we see "more horizon. We see more sky -- so there is a bigness to our perception of sunlight. This ability to see into the distance helps dramatize the light."
More or less sudden mountains 1.13.05 Geoff Bouvier
This area is currently the most geologically active and diverse in the country. Our rocks are still writing away, every single day. Which makes these rocks of San Diego a good substratum for human writers as well.
Jerry Coleman
The man who hung the stars 4.7.05 Joe Hight, Josh Board
Coleman had a broadcast highlight in 1984, calling the game that included the greatest single hit in Padres history. Steve Garvey blasted a home run in the ninth inning to force a deciding Game 5 and advance to the team's first World Series.
Reader writers honor Mom 5.6.05 Abe Opincar, Matthew Lickona, and 14 others
Mom had no time for psychology. She'd rather do than discuss. People's secrets were nobody's business. You face problems. Swallow hard and move forward. She loved Winston Churchill's saying, "If you're going through hell, keep going."
Captain Money and the Golden Girl 6.2.05 Don Bauder
Their investors believed they were making a steady 40 to 50 percent annually on their money. For three years gullible and greedy people from San Diego and Orange counties and from nearby Palm Springs were informed that their nest egg had gone up in value every month except one.
Bad blood 7.28.05 Matt Potter
UCSD agrees to test a substitute for human blood on comatose patients — victims of gunshots and car crashes — without the patients' consent. Within the city of San Diego, the experiment is targeted at several neighborhoods south of I-8.
Reader writers tell what music they would take to a deserted island 8.11.05 John Brizzolara and 24 others
Though my heart hovers at RS's number five, Rubber Soul. If I can't have my own burned, double CD of The Animals and Eric Burdon: A Brizzolara Compilation, then give me Rubber Soul. I might survive on the magic and beauty in those grooves.
Salvation Mountain 11.03.05 Stephen Dobyns
Leonard Knight: "I've never seen myself as an artist. When people call me one, I say, 'No, don't call me that.' What thrills me most is to let people take pictures of the mountain and then let me talk about the Bible a little."
Eleanor Widmer on KNSD 7/39 news
The late long-time queen of the cafe critics 11.23.05 Jeannette DeWyze
They found the sauerbraten appalling. "You really couldn't swallow it without gagging," Widmer later reported. When they reported to their waiter that it was inedible, he summoned the hostess, who snapped, "We don't ever want you to come back to this restaurant again."
The secret Qualcomm Stadium e-mails 12.1.05 Matt Potter
Members of the stadium staff are careful not to run afoul of Nick Canepa and Tim Sullivan, sportswriters at the Union-Tribune who frequently talk up the need for a new stadium. Meanwhile, accessible seating for the handicapped has been late in coming.
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