“Hey man, I’m in L.A.!” I got a text from my friend Jaime couple months ago. “Hahaha, funny joke,” was my reply and then I ignored him. A couple of weeks later I got another …
November 30, 2015
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Stories by Carlos Bey
Mexican-Americanized is close enough
Good times, bad times at Gunshot Plaza
“We were at Fresco bar and walked downstairs towards the fountain to, you know, smoke some weed.” My friend Regina tells me what happened on Tuesday night, September 15, at Tijuana's Plaza Fiesta. “While we …
September 17, 2015
Shrubs in the median, blood on the road in PB
A pedestrian was struck and killed by a pickup on the afternoon of August 31st in Pacific Beach. The driver had made an illegal left turn onto westbound Grand Avenue from Dawes Street. “The 28-year-old …
September 10, 2015
Mexican authorities burn tons of marijuana
On Tuesday, August 18, authorities in Tijuana reportedly burned over 70 tons of drugs. The incineration was covered by most Mexican media. The event was called “Magno Evento de Incineración de Narcóticos.” However, no single …
August 20, 2015
Cheese train
A light-skinned Mexican wearing casual work clothes with a tie around his neck stands in the trolley with a black backpack. He looks around to make sure there are no security guards watching him. Then …
September 7, 2014
Tijuana’s chocolate-car problem
Since mid-July, Servicio de Administración Tributaria — SAT, Mexico's rough equivalent of the IRS — and Tijuana police have set up checkpoints in areas of the city to capture so-called “chocolate cars” — cars from …
August 4, 2014
Rotten bacon
Two months ago I was walking home in downtown TJ from a press conference at a new brewery. It was a tad before midnight and I was a block away from my apartment when two …
June 7, 2014
Morning crash mystery in Tijuana
At about 6:30 a.m. on May 31, I heard six to eight loud bangs outside my apartment in Tijuana’s Zona Centro. I immediately got up and walked out to my balcony. A red taxi van …
June 2, 2014
Tijuana police get the wrong man…repeatedly
I have always been afraid of the cops, even when I had no reason to be. But I have never been so afraid of the police until I moved to Tijuana. In the two years …
March 7, 2014
Point Loma Sprouts fires longtime employee for alleged theft
About 15 people and a 10News crew showed up at the Point Loma Sprouts market at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, May 8, to rally support for Ian Rey, a 38-year-old developmentally disabled man who started …
May 8, 2013
Rosie the Riveter to depart San Diego
Sarah has been the old lady down the block since I moved to Point Loma a decade and a half ago. She’s an active old lady, her '90s-vintage pearl-white Thunderbird an often enough sight in …
December 31, 2012
Julian apple pruning class
The December 8 meeting at the Peacefield Orchard on Wynola Road was described by the Julian Apple Growers Association as a lesson in pruning trees. About 30 people showed up. Ray Meyer, acknowledged as the …
December 14, 2012
Ramona – San Diego’s cheapest gas prices?
Ramona’s main street, named Main Street, is where Highway 67 from the south merges into SR-78 coming in from Oceanside on the way to Julian and the desert. The eucalyptus on the west end of …
December 12, 2012
County's most interesting sign is in Ramona
This is the most interesting highway sign in the county. For years I have been noting the political winds of change on the southeast side of Highway 78, about three miles east of Ramona. The …
November 30, 2012
El Cocinero confesses about FBI Top Ten Most Wanted's Arellano Felix
Last month, the United States government took the unprecedented step of placing Ramon Eduardo Arellano Felix on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, and the State Department offered a $2 million reward. The government began …
October 16, 1997
San Diego's most overused words in 1979 and other parting shots
Second prize is two lunches Supervisor Jim Bates offered to have lunch with the door-prize winner of County Government Day at the College Grove shopping center last November. Check the oil and cut the umbilical …
December 20, 1979
1976 San Diego guide to Navy slang
Airdale. Navy pilot; any Navy person associated with Navy aviation. All Hands. Everyone; also, name of official U.S. Navy monthly magazine. Below (also Belowdecks).Downstairs. Boondockers (also Boonies). Navy regulation black shoes with high ankle support. …
October 7, 1976
The hottest ice cream in San Diego
It’s true that the issue of ice cream doesn’t seem like a profound one. No one, as far as I know, has been injured or killed by bad ice cream this year in San Diego. …
July 17, 1975
Stories of San Diego's Chinatown
It’s not easy to imagine old Chinatown while sitting in the Nanking Café. Most of the customers are black; they’re just getting something to eat before heading up to the Zebra Club or the Crossroads. …
February 6, 1975
Night at San Diego's City Rescue Mission
Mr. Robert V. Eckert Editor, the Reader Dear Bob: I know I was supposed to stay overnight at the City Rescue Mission on Saturday. An assignment’s an assignment. But when I got there at 7:30, …
January 23, 1975
1974 San Diego guide to longest bus rides
Whether the Downtown Association likes it or not, $an Diego bus routes are losing their predominant downtown orientation. Many local buses either end up or wind through downtown now, mostly because a lot of the …
October 10, 1974
How pricing works at Amvets, Goodwill, Salvation Army
In the good old days, in the days of dinners at Bully’s or the Mexican Village and nights on the town, in the days of three-figure green government checks for a well-paid naval officer, thrift …
March 7, 1974
Navy Reserve duty on Harbor Drive – not My Lai, but pretty sordid
George Bacon was unshakably naive. He had spent three years of active duty as a Navy officer and still he was astonished to see what he saw when he later joined the Navy Reserve. Maybe …
November 29, 1973
Did this ABA pressure kill the Advocates?
There's a certain kind of law firm every ambitious law student dreams about. In New York it's Sullivan and Cromwell. In Los Angeles it's O'Melveny and Myers. And in San Diego it's either Gray, Cary, …
June 7, 1973
SEAL Team One headquarters – full of Viet Cong and Seafloat and Dong Tam
The war in Vietnam really touched San Diego. It was here in San Diego that the largest number of wives became West Pac widows and POW wives, where the most war-bound ships left from and …
April 12, 1973
I play "La Paloma" and "Maria Helena" on the buses to San Ysidro
The Duke of Mission Hills said to come over right away. The World Harmonica King was taking a bus up from Horton Plaza "and should be here any minute." The Duke's house, north of Washington …
March 29, 1973