Oakley Hll explains The Corpus of Joe Bailey In San Diego, Corpus of Joe Bailey also made a noteworthy entrance. The book was denounced from San Diego pulpits for being too sexy and provoked Mission …

Sequester yourself in the Secret Ranch Welcome to “The Secret Ranch,” a 12-acre estate with more than 12,400 square feet of living space under roof located in the exclusive Covenant of Rancho Santa Fe. “This …

Feature stories Leave me alone: San Diego's Goths During a conversation at an IHOP in El Cajon, Carnell brings up Hamlet. Carnell is the moniker of the 40-year-old co-publisher of Carpe Noctem; a locally published …

Traffic spares no one “People say, ‘You got a real transportation problem on the 15.’ Well, it’s less a transportation problem than it is a land-use problem. A lot of the people, because they can’t …

Wave Gangsters Socially, Van Artsdalen became a marked man. His reputation as a brawler traveled beyond the predominantly white population of La Jolla to tougher neighborhoods. Butch had already proved himself among the few black …

Eating people is the ultimate control You won’t find Dahmer’s Diner on the bill at the Cannibal Bar in Mission Beach. In fact, DD has been banned from all but two venues in town, SOMA …

Homicidal mania CyberSleuths is able to go into the kind of detail that the avid reader of crime news craves. The typical newspaper story leaves too many questions unanswered — mainly, the hows and the …

Explore Lescaux caves with your mouse What else should we expect from the French? The site tells a complex narrative in a wonderfully modern and abstruse way. At the same time, it’s told with pride …

Tunaville Times Crew members, nearly three-quarters of whom were Portuguese, addressed each other in the idioms of their native villages while they laid the huge black purse seine nets on the docks. Nautical designers and …

The Only Kid at Whitebread Central Who Listened to Danzig Many people have asked me why I’m not in school, and when I explain that I am on home study, they want to know why. …

Pretty Woman Ann, 21, who filled out her bikini in a perfectly proportionate manner, said she was satisfied with her figure. She listened serenely as I spoke with her friends, but her voice boomed with …

Trigger Happy or Just Plain Happy? Who is David Medina? Dressed neatly in a white oxford cloth shirt with a blue pullover sweater, David Medina, a.k.a. “Happy,” pursed his lips and appeared to listen closely …

Trigger Happy or Just Plain Happy? Who is David Medina? Dressed neatly in a white oxford cloth shirt with a blue pullover sweater, David Medina, a.k.a. “Happy,” pursed his lips and appeared to listen closely …

Book-lovers chew the fat at the Mission Hills Library His watch tells him 6:45. This Mission Hills branch stays open tonight — it’s Monday. He slaps the book closed, reshelves it, glances to his left. …

San Diego Polo Club site developed by Heaven's Gate Exclusiveness breeds itself, so it’s little wonder that when the San Diego Polo Club in Rancho Santa Fe needed a Web page designed, they turned to …

Son of Geoffrey Wolff, Justin wrote feature stories plus a weekly column on unusual websites (Sightseer) for the Reader from 1997 to 2006. Editor's picks of stories Wolff wrote for the Reader: Feature stories Does …

Busy Fingers Are Happy Fingers — Joe Deegan Mother Reader — Barbarella Build Your Writing Muscles — Ollie Let the Tape Recorder Do the Work — Matthew Lickona Faith — Abe Opincar Make Something Better …

Judith was a ghost to me. She was present, but never corporeally. It strikes me as ironic that I never met her, considering that the body — her body — was one of her principal …

McNab told me recently that he refuses to quit his crusade against the McMillin plan. “There are bodies buried everywhere when it comes to this deal, and we’re out there with shovels and we’ll keep digging.”

Dressed neatly in a white oxford cloth shirt with a blue pullover sweater, David Medina, a.k.a. “Happy,” pursed his lips and appeared to listen closely as Judge John Thompson handed down Medina’s sentence — nine …

Its influence was not as far-reaching as Oprah’s Book Club, but its consequences were likely far more devastating. Though we smirk at its mass appeal and its seeming insincerity, all Oprah’s list does is make …

A novel from Mission Hills.

Read first part of the novel. In 1953 Judy Garland made a splendid appearance at the opening reception for the Kentucky Derby. She was wearing a navy-blue, full-length coat; navy-blue, calfskin opera pumps with very …

Anyone who wrote an apology for his life while in prison, as Oscar Wilde did in De Profundis, cannot properly be called an anarchist. Yet as he so often did, Wilde condensed a credo into …

“You get to stay in your pajamas, and you get more free time. At homeschool I felt like I had more time but that I learned more. At school, you have to budget your time so much.”

Tegner was ascending from an 85-foot dive when her air apparently ran out, forcing her to surface before she could complete her final decompression stop. A companion suggested to her that she stay in the boat.

The FAQ page at A Volga Girl: International Bureau of Introductions (www.volgagirl.com): Umm, what? Beautiful Russian women eager to be your bride! Oh, cool. But what about that Volga thing? Isn't that a show tune …

Despite all of his outrage and bombast. Hunter S. Thompson has always had the best gig in town. Make no mistake: gonzo journalism has been his ticket to a lush life. True, you can’t fake …

I recently happened across the doings of a guy I knew in high school. I didn’t know him, though, as well as I knew his sister. She was in my class, and in 11th grade …

Se vi povus legi cition, vi komprenas Esperanton. If the degree of a manifesto’s passion and ardor were any test, the Prague Manifesto would be an important one: “Any system of communication which confers lifelong …

“We’re doing really good compared to other cities. We still enjoy something here in San Diego. If you travel outside peak commute times, it’s pretty much free-flowing. You can’t go to L.A. and do that.”

Do you already miss the ’90s? How can we direct that nostalgia? First, what shall we say most marked the decade: the Internet? Coffeehouses? Hip-hop? j Orenthal? Pulp Fiction? Lollapalooza? I think the Zeitgeist of …

It happened on Thursday, September 12, 1940. As the story goes, the “floor formed a succession of terraced basins, full of water. The uncertain light of their lamp barely pierced the darkness,” and it wasn’t …

The Downtown Information Center, a service of the Centre City Development Corporation, occupies the ground-floor lobby at 225 Broadway. The center exhibits sketches and charts detailing the area's redevelopment. Its showpiece is a 200-square-foot model …

In the hot frequencies, the 800 megahertz band, one can hear all kinds of terrible things. Good people and bad people alike victimized by neighbors, lovers, drunk drivers, dogs, drugs, alcohol. On a Monday night …

She was tall, blond, and, like almost everyone there that night, dressed in jet black. What she shouted at — to be heard over the music — hurt, but only for a second, like a …

I may have been sitting on the western rim of the continent, but for about half an hour on January 23, I thought I was back East. Pete Trabucco, co-owner of Chaz’s Sunset Cafe on …

A proposal to impose a 24-hour alcohol ban on San Diego beaches hit a temporary snag on January 24 when the city's Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee postponed action until early April. Although the …

Despite a recent scolding, the city, some watchdogs say, continues to disrespect Mission Bay Park and those citizens who care about it. On April 18, you might remember, a San Diego County grand jury released …

The Desert Pacific Council of the Boy Scouts of America forced the city's hand in November when it asked for a 50-year extension of its lease on 16 acres of land in Balboa Park, where …

I’m no economist, or so my creditors say, but long before Steve Kroft’s report on 60 Minutes on December 10 about the bust up of the dot-com industry and the billions in fool’s gold that …

The expression "high stakes" is a favorite idiom among San Diego educators these days. It doesn't matter if you're talking to people at the local, district, county, or state level -- if the subject is …

On the evening of October 11, George W. Bush and Al Gore were in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, being stupid on TV. Gore: "First of all, let me say that if I'm elected president..." Bush: "If …

Despite the terrible fate of the 118 submariners aboard the Russian Kursk at the bottom of the Barents Sea, I’ve been in the market for ! a submarine. And I don’t mean one of those …

To commemorate Father's Day, this issue contains a collection of reflections from Reader writers about their fathers: The Last Tag Sale — Jeanne Schinto An Air of Exoticism — Duncan Shepherd Kinder Than I Would …

When I got in trouble, my father’s impulse was to hug me. He did punish me for the little things, but when I did something corrupt, committed a youthful transgression that had the potential to …

You have to kiss a lot of toads before you find a handsome prince... Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly... If a relationship is to evolve, it must go …

Bat Bite, Cool Carlos, Cuba Libre, and Sunny Sour. It’s summer: rum season. Time for Mojitos — dark rum, lime juice, sugar, mint leaves, and club soda — and Rum Drinks, the practical name my …

Send me a dime and I'll entertain you for life.” This blunt supplication just about sums up the purpose of Justin Duke’s website. Justin, 21, is from El Cajon and, in his own words, “flat …

April 3, 2000: “Your cleanup guy has a big day at the plate and your staff ace takes a shutout into the seventh inning, so you figure this should be a winning Opening Day. Well, …