PhotosDeep-Fried QuesadillasEverything was just out of reach as I lay on my left side in a bed at Tijuana's newest and most modern hospital. I had to sit up or lie down only on my …
March 10, 2026
McPhail was a reporter for the Oceanside Blade before coming to work for the Reader in the 1980s.
Articles by Bob McPhail (RIP)
Not so bad being sick in Tijuana
San Diego Reader writers tell their dream stories never written
STEPHEN ESMEDINAStephen EsmedinaA number of years ago, I was persuaded by a guileful siren with designs on the music biz to share my lowly downtown apartment for “a couple of days” with the great but …
March 5, 2026
Homosexuals cruise Oceanside despite bloody murders
The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …
November 12, 2025
San Aliso Creek rest area dwellers
The unconventional community of San Aliso Creek “What is a bum?” asks Jo, a short, animated, talkative man of thirty whose troubled life has included a stint in prison for possession of illegal drugs, a …
March 25, 2023
Inside Child Protective Services
Sometimes Child Protective Services works “When I got back to Stepping Stones from Vista Hill, I decided, ‘Okay, this is it.’ All the people there were the only friends I had. I got in drug …
July 11, 2022
Castro's prisoners end up in San Diego with their stories
¡Cuba, sí! He and four compadres left Cuba one night in a twenty-foot boat powered by a five-horsepower motor. The motor quit on the second day of the voyage, and the men drifted, lost, for …
July 2, 2022
The troubled history of USIU
William Rust and the early troubles of USIU Eleven years after a financial crisis forced Rust to sell all of USIU’s worldwide campuses except Scripps Ranch, the president insists that there was no mismanagement at …
June 20, 2022
Lawyer Sam Spital has most TV ads
Spital's law: Advertise, settle the suit, go to the bank “There are some [attorneys] who are arrogant and think they're at a higher place in life," observes Spital. “They think they deserve to be more …
June 13, 2022
Murder at 63rd and El Cajon Blvd.
American gothic horror By late October they had an apartment at Fortieth Street and Orange Avenue. Early one morning Garrett saw two men at the front door, one of whom was Marck Lambros III, a …
May 22, 2022