Ex-biker, would-be Trappist, soldier of fortune, San Diego powerlifter comes down with AIDS Is that you?’ the burly black social worker asked me. pointing to a 13-digit code handwritten on a page in a huge …
August 5, 2023
Parfrey Wrote the HELL.A. column and occasional feature stories in the 1990s for the Reader.
Articles by Adam Parfrey (RIP)
Getting AIDS – one of 3401 cases diagnosed in San Diego
They make I-15 wider at Miramar Way
Like your road widened, Mister? In the pre-dawn gloaming, the roadbuilding machines are just black shapes lined up beside the southbound lanes of Interstate 15. From the overpass at Miramar Way, only the light from …
July 31, 2023
San Diegans on getting revenge
Revenge I used to work on a morning show for Magic 102, a former classic rock station here in San Diego. I usually got to work before the other DJs, and I’d spend a few …
August 14, 2022
Hotels at night
You want the night staff Do all these people pass through in the night, millions of little desperate atoms on their way to conventions, underground bingo palaces, or whores' bedrooms? The only person who sees …
August 13, 2022
Local Olaf Wieghorst fans get burned
Olaf Wieghorst trusted the wrong man Almeida got his start at George Thackeray’s gallery in the late ’50s. He and his wife Grace agreed to talk to me at their house in Ocean Beach, a …
July 16, 2022
Christ's crucifixtion and other Easter stories
Blood of the Lamb "After they crucified Jesus, on the third day, he rose to Heaven. That's the Resurrection. We all go up to Heaven after the third day." Floyd visualizes Heaven as a beautiful …
June 18, 2022
San Diego vs. L.A. – guess who wins?
Two Views of San DiegoI used to consider San Diego roads relatively sane, compared to L.A. Now the freeway is full of lunatics. Everyone’s trying to go faster than the next guy. People used to …
July 24, 2021
Jack Kemp and the fugitive, U.S. Grant's son, Seals ambivalent about Jesse Ventura
Kemp and the Fugitive Fotomat also gave Graham a political base. One of the first beneficiaries was Jack Kemp. On May 23, 1968, the San Diego Union reported that Kemp had “joined Fotomat Corp., La …
July 5, 2021
Best Reader stories from 1992
Notes from Underground San Diego's Free Press (later renamed the Street Journal) was defunct by the end of 1970; the San Diego Door came and went with the Nixon Presidency, 1968 to August 1974.The O.B. …
December 29, 2019