Since my voice mail appears at the end of this column, I get interesting calls. One person wanted to know why I made fun of Asians. Another person called saying I was making fun of …

No Doubt drummer Adrian Young joined Bow Wow Wow for a KROQ gig in L.A. almost two years ago. He's been with the band ever since. Rolling Stone wrote that Young played with the So …

I was invited to four parties one weekend. And I had problems trying to attend three of them. The first one was thrown by the UCSD alumni association. They had author Rex Pickett, who wrote …

Ted Nugent played "The Star-Spangled Banner" to open Camp Pendleton's Rockin' the Corps extravaganza that happened April 1. Mike Wachna, who went to the event, had gotten tickets from his son-in-law (who got back from …

The Padres open their 2005 home schedule tonight against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The team begins its second season at Petco Park among the favorites to reach the playoffs, a rare occurrence in franchise history. Jerry …

I went to a few interesting parties in March that I'm just getting around to writing about. One was at a place downtown called the Shout House. It was their first anniversary and also a …

The night after attending a party, I was invited to another party hosted by Mike, one of the DJs. It was at a house in the Del Cerro area near SDSU. Mike lives at this …

On March 22, members of Louis XIV appeared on the radio show Loveline (which airs locally on 91X from 10 p.m. to midnight). Only one person called in the entire two-hour period to ask Jason …

I got a call from Alisha Brophy, who told me about an art show party she was having. When she said it was for "bad art," I was really intrigued. She and her friends were …

I can never go to more than one party when the Oscars are on. It would be my luck that while driving to the second one, I'd miss a famous moment like the streaker who …

"There were people who camped out here the night before to buy the wristband and new CD." Toby Demain, who works in advertising and promotions for Lou's Records in Leucadia, was referring to the March …

When Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir played 4th & B on February 9, Doug Hackett caught him walking into the venue at 8 p.m. Hackett tells me, "Bob...tripped and fell on the stairs leading up …

I was traveling for a fiber optic company in Europe and the States," says singer Doug Benson about his beginnings with the Johnny Cash tribute band Cash'd Out, which performs tomorrow night at the Tower …

I got a couple of phone calls about parties on a Saturday. The first was from a guy in Mexico who had seen my story about the party I attended in Tijuana. He said, "I'm …

I went to a party that was going on two weeks before the Super Bowl. The conference championship games were being played to determine who would make it to the big dance. I walked in …

I went to a party last year when local author Jennifer Coburn released her first book, The Wife of Reilly. I was surprised when she had a party for her next book, Reinventing Mona, coming …

"Gonzo" journalist/author Hunter S. Thompson shot himself in his Aspen home Sunday. My friend Doug called me four months ago and asked if I wanted to go meet Thompson in L.A. He was doing a …

I had two parties one night that couldn't have been further apart in the music spectrum. The first was for a heavy metal band, and the second was hosted by a woman who works at …

A lot of writers at the Reader don't go into the office much. With computers, we can all work from home and send in our work. It's a shame. None of that office camaraderie. Oh, …

I found my notes on parties I went to in December that I forgot to write about. I figured when I wrote about New Year's I was done with 2004. But this night of partying …

When New Year's Eve rolled around, I was surprised to not be inundated with party invites. I did get one from a woman named Sally, whom I'd known back in my junior-high days. Then on …

When I asked Al Kooper if he would be selling shirts at his show (which was a couple of weeks ago at the United Methodist Church as part of their Acoustic Music Series), he said …

It was a mellow Christmas season for parties — for me. That was good, considering I was sick for almost two weeks around that time. There was a bris I found out about, but the …

In a booming James Earl Jones voice: When we last left our hero, he had successfully crashed a Pee Wee Herman party. As he walked briskly across the street to another party, he saw the …

"Julia" was always one of my favorite Beatles ballads. Now it would be one of my favorite party people. She called to invite me to her Pee Wee Herman party. I refrained from making a …

Where I live, no major high-volume road cuts apart the 'hood. People can cross the street without becoming dead. The amoeba-shaped Balboa Park Municipal Golf Course and grid-busting canyons have made a rabbit warren of the streets.

Having grown up in Mira Mesa, I had lots of friends in Scripps Ranch. It was our neighboring community, and in the '80s the kids there all went to Mira Mesa High School because Scripps …

I got an invitation to celebrate the 39th anniversary of John Sant's 21st birthday. I don't know what age that makes him. I'm sure it's a simple math problem....His house was on Mount Soledad. As …

My grandmother thought I was the worst Jew. I didn't know a word of Yiddish. I didn't go to synagogue or wear a Star of David, and I didn't care about the religion of the …

I play poker with a group of guys, and one always deals a game called Diablo. I never thought I'd hear the word outside the poker party. But when Marcy called to invite me to …

Well, it's appropriate that I crashed an event where there can actually be crashing. It was the Soap Box Derby Races in La Mesa.The Soap Box Derby is a youth racing program that has been …

I always liked that old technique of starting a story with a famous quote or song lyric that fits the subject. When I got the invite to go to a girl's Sweet 16 party, my …

I went to two different parties on the Saturday before Halloween. The first one was in Imperial Beach. Lea, who invited me, told me most of the people attending were employees of the UCSD Medical …

When actress Juliette Lewis played the Casbah a year ago, the show sold out. It only lasted 20 minutes, but there was a fight in the crowd, and cops showed up, so that made it …

I didn't get invited to a single party on Halloween. Maybe that's because it fell on Sunday and everyone had their parties on Friday and Saturday. I went to about ten different ones and figured …

A round the time of my ten-year high school reunion, two movies about reunions came out (Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion and Grosse Pointe Blank). I always thought writing about a reunion would be …

What do people spend money on when they go out Saturday night? I went to a variety of locations to ask a variety of people. I hit Horton Plaza downtown, the Belmont Park roller coaster …

Most of these guys are stationed at Miramar. A few were from Camp Pendleton. "Most of us were at El Toro, and that's where these parties used to be. A few people are here from Yuma, too."

Someone asked me my favorite playwright. I said, "Arthur Miller." In reality, I only know three of his plays. One of the guys started to talk about a Miller play I didn't know. I nodded my head knowingly.

"They told us if we have over 75 people, we would be fined $300 since we didn't get a permit. I pointed to those benches over there and said that was a different party, even though it's not.”

I wanted to chat with the best dancer I saw. He was a dead ringer for George Hamilton with whiter hair. I saw him dancing with two different women at various times. The women had the biggest smiles.

When I heard another guy talking about smacking his girl around if she "don't listen to what I say," it made me wonder if theme parties have problems with guys who "stay in character" too long.

“At a Fourth of July party, the band was playing in the back yard. The police showed up and said we were too loud. The cops busted into the house. I said, ‘Do you have a warrant?’“

I told Mike that when I saw him out front, I couldn't decide if he looked more like Kevin Bacon or Bart Simpson. He said, "Damn, I was going for the Ryan Seacrest look.”

McCaffrey grabbed a camcorder and asked me to state that, if anything happened to me, he wasn't liable. "Do you want the one-day waiver, or the life-time?" I made some joke about my calling my lawyer first.

Sure enough, there were two parties going on. I walked into 214, and it was a room that looked to be only 12' by 12' with about 50 people in it. And they were playing volleyball.

Jim's wife brought a bunch of deviled eggs, and I asked Jim how many of those Paul Newman would be able to eat. "I think 84. Wasn't it 42 eggs he ate [in Cool Hand Luke]?"

On November 18, 2002, pro skateboarder Neil Heddings drove his van to San Diego to pick up his two-year-old son, Marty. Heddings’s fiancée Christine Rams, their new baby, and Rams’s four-year-old son had come with …

And, along with the same refrigerator Richard has been trying to dump as a grand prize, this year he put a $50 gift certificate inside it to tempt the winner into taking it.

One girl who looked like k.d. lang kept apologizing to a guy. She said, "Maybe next time I'll drink water instead of alcohol." Later I saw her run and tackle somebody in the grass.