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
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Stories by Brae Canlen
They make I-15 wider at Miramar Way
Faye left me for Scientology in L.A.
When friends say good-bye Faye’s biggest news was that she had married Chris, the one who first introduced her to Scientology. He divorced his wife, whom he and Faye see, along with his children, every …
November 21, 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
Nixon man ended up as Helen Copley's man
Herb Klein — the perfect man for Helen Copley Gerald Warren, unlike Neil Morgan, is not on the list of close friends Klein named in the preface to his book, and there has been much …
May 21, 2022
The woman behind the Prophet Vegetarian restaurant, women body builders
Reggae matriarch of San Diego vegetarians “We served Balinese food, like gado-gado. We were into Japanese cooking. We did a lot of tempura.” Near the cash register they sold herbs and — for a while …
May 8, 2022
Best Reader stories from 1991
Satan chasers San Diego has many experts in the field of Satanism who say the county is a hotbed of Satanic activity. The hidden canyons of the back country, Ramona, Santee, Escondido, even Oceanside, are …
December 28, 2019
Brae Canlen and the Reader
Brae Canlen came to the Reader after working as a newspaper reporter for the Rancho Santa Fe Review and the San Dieguito Citizen. At the Reader, she wrote news and feature stories through the late …
April 20, 2019
San Diego characters you should have known
Bad blood in Barrio Logan Ducheny is most unpopular with those who run the government-funded agencies, people such as Rachel Ortiz, who directs the Barrio Station youth program; Jess Haro, chairman of the Chicano Federation; …
July 21, 2018
What really goes on inside San Diego public schools?
Most public high school instructors in the San Diego Unified School District teach five classes a day, and each class averages about 30 students. Count up all the heads, and the typical teacher deals with …
January 17, 1991
San Diego's Elvis impersonators
He liked his peanut butter and banana sandwiches grilled in butter. He wouldn't sunbathe without an electric fan blowing directly on his body. He saw the faces of Stalin and Jesus in cloud formations. These …
October 25, 1990
Where did Chula Vista's sea turtles come from?
At the bottom of San Diego Bay, in the shadow of a huge SDG&E power station in Chula Vista, lives a colony of endangered sea turtles. They have been present, more or less, since the …
June 7, 1990
San Diego extraterrestrial sightings heat up
Allan Reta remembers October 14 as a night that was neither warm nor cool. He was standing in the front yard of his San Marcos home, holding his baby daughter in his arms. They had …
February 8, 1990
Chula Vista's Tulie Trejo knows baking contests
I AM SITTING AT TULIE TREJO’S kitchen table, watching her make gingerbread men and thinking about a story I read in the newspaper this morning. It was about a woman who allowed her boyfriend to …
December 23, 1987
Bullets escape San Diego Indoor Range
Perhaps we're overreacting, but the idea of bullets flying through the wall of the San Diego Indoor Range earlier this month disturbed us. After all, someone could have gotten hurt. As it was, only a …
October 1, 1987
Local writer rides Gray Line bus with tourist and makes notes
Rain is not good weather in which to take a bus tour of San Diego. The color of the air changes, and the crisp edges fall off trees, billboards, bodies of water. Windshield wipers sound …
September 10, 1987
Some people dismiss Stanley Tonight as inconsequential drivel
It’s hard to watch the Stanley Tonight show without asking yourself at some point, “Is this guy for real?” Talk-show hosts are odd, as a rule, and Stanley Siegel is the excess to the rule. …
May 28, 1987
Four Mary Kay pink Cadillacs in San Diego
MEN, READ NO FURTHER. THIS STORY CONTAINS THINGS YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, things you probably don’t care about anyway. The heaviness of face cream has never been a big concern of yours, for example. Coating one’s …
March 12, 1987
Sam Spital – San Diego's successful TV lawyer
Sam Spital. He’s the attorney who advertises on television all the time, the one who asks in all sincerity if you’ve been in an auto accident lately. San Diegans may not be familiar with U.S. …
January 22, 1987
Jeff Ward – the only San Diego member of Mega
When Jeff Ward was seven years old, he could draw a map of the world from memory, correctly filling in the names of all the countries. Now that he’s in his forties, he entertains himself …
February 6, 1986
John Pernicano fights ASCAP over Cole Porter
The following objects in Pernicanos Pizza House arce red: the candles, the booths, the cloth roses, the lamps, the waitresses’ shirts and aprons, the Chianti, and parts of the pizzas. The plastic tablecloths are red-and-white …
December 12, 1985
Faye left me for Scientology
Life has its ugly little secrets, and sometimes it exposes them prematurely, before a pragmatic philosophy gleaned from age can act as insulation. One of these cruel insights: While an emptied spot in a romance …
February 21, 1985