Like many people, I have a perverse relationship with my work. It’s not that I bite the hand that feeds me — though that is something writers often do — it’s more that I prefer …
February 24, 2000
Back to profile
Stories by Justin Wolff
< Newer stories
Older stories >
Homicidal mania
Duct tape madness
Duct tape has saved me only once. I’ve used it plenty but only needed it one time. My Oldsmobile ruptured a radiator hose on the Mass Pike on the way to a Boston Bruins playoff …
February 10, 2000
The dangerous Ayn Rand
I am your typical liberal — skeptical, cynical, a little grossed out by Columbus Day. Maybe I’m a little to the left of most liberals, because I’m young and because I owe credit card companies …
January 13, 2000
Cars that are lemons
My first car was a lemon. It was given to me as a gift by my best friend, and it was a good-looking car. A 1974 Volvo 242 DL sedan, dark blue, inside and out. …
January 6, 2000
San Diego free thinkers look to living together
'Build it and they will come," the proverb tells us. Today, however, disciples of the precept have little use for its noble motivational message; they prefer instead its promise of material reward. Build a mall, …
October 21, 1999
San Diego House Rabbit Society takes its mission as seriously as many hospices
I have some rabbit stories. When I was little, nine or ten maybe, my grandfather was cutting a wild meadow with a Gravely walk-behind mower, a massive unit that cuts four-foot-wide paths through grass. My …
September 30, 1999
San Diego dive bars: Star Bar, Live Wire, Nunu's, Bar Dynamite, C.J.'s, Waterfront
February 16, 1999: Fat Tuesday. This afternoon, downtown in the Gaslamp, aren’t letting on that they spent the workday at work. They hustle across Fourth Avenue and yell excitedly at friends as police construct roadblocks …
June 17, 1999
Don Waybright II chronicles Desert Storm
Wow! It’s serious hammer time out there somewhere relatively near us. I don’t feel overly anxious, nervous, pumped, or fearful. I should say not yet, at least. I'm sure it’ll be one hell-of-a rush when …
May 6, 1999
Welcome to the Bad Fads Museum
I try to be a decent, good-natured, and tolerant person, but there are some things that, for no conspicuous reason, I hate. I hate, for example, stuffed animals tied to the grills of trucks. I …
November 19, 1998
Ghost towns Whiskeytown, Agua Fria, Reward, Rough and Ready, Stovepipe, Kenworthy, Tumco
"Whiskeytown came by its name from the number of kegs of whiskey that were lost when mules lost their footing on the narrow trail and plunged into the ravine, emptying their precious cargo into the …
October 29, 1998
In defense of Charles Manson
William Carlos Williams wrote, “The pure products of America go crazy.” Charles Manson is a fine example. At the Access Manson Web site (www.atwa.com) one can measure the depths of the killer’s deviant soul. Collected …
October 22, 1998
Killer Surf Websites
The jagged blue line’s surges and plunges read like the electrocardiogram of a manic patient. But the line tells an innocuous story. It’s the wave report for San Diego County as described by the “swell …
October 15, 1998
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 Higher Source, at the time the most exclusive Web …
July 16, 1998
Penpals-N-Prison makes no appeals to our compassion
The Web reaches out. Its name refers to something abstract, to the network of latticed filaments that extend all over the world, flashing currents of information, innovation, and ideas. But for many users, the Web …
July 2, 1998
San Diego's spiritualists battle local scientists
In San Diego, a network of quacks and charlatans, and opposing them, skeptics and scientists, debate the existence of UFOs, ghosts, and government conspiracies. San Diego is a logical venue for disputes over the paranormal: …
June 18, 1998
Why Convoy is a San Diego band
"Beware of Dog” warns a sign on the gate leading to Jason Hill’s apartment. As I walk warily up the stairs to the second-floor unit that Jason shares with his girlfriend Sharon in Pacific Beach, …
January 8, 1998