How Do You Keep Warm at Night? If you think of the homeless at all — aside from how to avoid them or that daily mini-moral crisis as to whether to give them spare change …

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 …

San Diego's intrepid metal finders The faint sound through the earphones is like the buzz of a mosquito on the other side of the room when you're trying to sleep. It nags at your attention, …

Satan chasers San Diego County is crawling with Satanic cult groups, in Post’s view, including the Ordo Templi Orientis, the Order of Thelema, the Temple of Set, the Brotherhood of the Mind, the Rainbow Children, …

San Diego prostitutes after the Stingaree shut down When Guthrie joined the police force back in ’29, his superiors explained to him that sex was “nice and necessary” but needed to be kept quiet. “If …

Long-necked bonanza We had reached our first destination, about two miles due west of the San Diego Wild Animal Park, the semirural home of a pediatric dentist who’s been raising ostriches as a sideline for …

A little bit warped and kind of sexy "My clue was Caravaggio. He was thoroughly trounced for using Christ and religious figures in his paintings. He didn’t paint them in the clothing and rooms of …

Out there on the dance floor is a bit of paradise Almost everybody in East County knows about the place, but not nearly so many visit This is because the Renegade has a reputation. Rumors …

Hyper-real Artist Andy Lakey, you've seen him on TV. His original paintings can be found in collections including Ray Charles, President Carter, Lee Meriweather, Peter Jennings, the Vatican Art Collection, and museums throughout the world. …

One tough cop "A homosexual murder, I remember that real clear. I was the first person there. They gave him an enema with Clorox, really fouled him up pretty good. Split his body open, his …

Blood of the Lamb "After they crucified Jesus, on the third day, he rose to Heaven. That's the Resurrection. We all go up to Heaven after the third day." Floyd visualizes Heaven as a beautiful …

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 …

Among the creatures I put the dog on the table. I felt inexplicably ill at ease with just the dog, myself, and Dr. Smith there; it was a rare moment shared by just the two …

The Silk Road Ends in San Diego “One of the Russians said, ‘Treat these [Russians] and kill these [Afghans].’ The other doctor said, 'How can I do that?’ The Russian said, 'Like this!’ and he …

A Living Cloud The next morning, I am greeted by my media escort, Penny. This is a fascinating new feature of my life — escorts. They pick you up, drive you around, provide snacks, meals, …

Where the Bikes Are I noticed one guy playing pool using a broom as a cue. He looked as if he might have been an extra in a movie with a title like Chainsaw Rapists …

Escape! Then he emptied out the bag before us. Two small cans and some plastic sacks with lump sugar, salt, and sesame seeds fell to the ground. Glancing around, I could see that all my …

Roommates from Hell I walked outside to the storage door. I pushed on the door and opened it. I saw the rope around John’s neck and John’s face looking at me. I screamed and ran …

Break a Leg In 1993, Hal Holbrook was performing King Lear in the title role. Tom Hall, a San Diego actor, likes to tell the story. Hal came on too soon and started a completely …

Two Views of San DiegoI used to consider San Diego roads relatively sane, compared to L.A. Now the freeway is full of lunatics. Everyone’s trying to go faster than the next guy. People used to …

White On White John put San Diego in the national news. During a taping of Geraldo Rivera’s talk show in New York, Metzger called Roy Innis, chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, an “Uncle …

Where a job with Time magazine led William Weber Johnson Ernest Hemingway was good company, but his drinking and hard living were difficult to keep up with. Argentinian president Juan Peron was either a tad …

The chicken or the ego? Are chickens the proper enterprise for the modern family? Let’s get real about this right now. Chickens teach us about husbandry, domesticity, and death. The sole caveat to raising your …

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 …

Sister Santa’s once-a-year smile I fell in love with America for the first time on a sweaty night in a Bangkok refugee center in March 1991. “In America people have meat with every meal,” my …

Phoenix without apologies Traveler, consider our Phoenix. An hour away by air, this flat, posh suburb of Greater L.A. is your finest summer vacation bargain. For the price of a bad weekend in a tacky …

Lang wrote feature stories from the late 1980s through the late 1990s, including a social column called On the Town by Liz Lang. Editor's picks from stories Lang wrote for the Reader San Diego prostitutes …

Medical explanation of Christ's crucifixion and other Easter stories The severe scourging, with its intense pain and appreciable blood loss, most probably left Jesus in a preshock state. Moreover, hematidrosis had rendered his skin particularly …

The Zipper – near death at the Del Mar Fair The Zipper was a new wrinkle on the midway: this big, gleaming apparatus that looked like a gigantic fan belt, with body-hugging cages attached along …

“This used to be a beautiful place,” says Jonnie. “A family part of town. Nice people lived here. That all changed with the Vietnam War, 1975. People from war places started coming in, big-time.”

Remember that the dead now outnumber the living. There are 18,000 deaths in San Diego County each year. A single San Diego funeral home handles 15 corpses a month. Five of those bodies — former …

“You definitely don't forget," Diane Galiley says. Tiny body clad in A sky-blue pajamas, she’s curled up in a “papasan” chair in the living room of her La Mesa apartment. Watery eyes, huge in her …

"Little lady,” the Chief [of Police] replied, ‘you’re going to find out that every town has got more than its share of Holy Joes — men and women who have nothing better to do than …

There are other sizeable Somali communities in Seattle, Washington, D.C., Minnesota, South Dakota, New York, Boston, and Miami. “In Minnesota and South Dakota, usually it's young people,” she said. “Those communities came out of San Diego."

Unlike 1984, when Ronald Reagan made it a point to finish his campaign at a giant rally in the parking lot of Fashion Valley, George Bush came to see the All-Star game and was booed by the locals.

The telephone is hidden in a black box fixed to the north wall of a small building, island-side of the tollbooths. It’s easy to miss; the signs, posted at even intervals along the Coronado bridge, …

At the sensitive age of 13, I was given a role in a San Diego Junior Theater production of a musical version of Little Women, a role identified in the script and program as “Fat Boy.”

Romance Writers of America, a national organization 3000 members strong, was formed, according to their literature, for published and aspiring writers with “a common interest: their love of romance and their desire to write what …

I find a cinnamon-colored strand of fur, black-banded, poking through the sleeve of my sweater. Another cat hair; I had hoped I’d gotten them all out of my life. They turn up now and then, …

A criticism implied in every gift I don’t remember Christmas. None in particular. There’s this Christmas thread, an irregular stream of pictograms (orange snowriding disk = delight) linked by an underlying Christmas smell (new plastic, …

Satan,” wrote Anton LaVey in The Satanic Bible, “has been the best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years.” Since the appearance in 1983 of Michelle …

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is now the fastest-growing religion, in the United States and worldwide. San Diego County, by no means a Mormon stronghold, is home to more than 52,000 …

A generation learned to read with the Seuss I-Can-Read series. In my kindergarten, perhaps first grade, there was a prohibition against reading Dr. Seuss books aloud for reading tests. Too many kids knew them by heart.

Mr. Van Winkle asked the Student Council Reps, to indicate to the classes that if they can convince him through sound logical arguments that they should ride skateboards to school that he will reconsider his position.

Stretching east of 30th Street, the Mid-City mesa has for decades been a Gasoline Alley wasteland of car washes, card parlors, dinky pink bungalows: low-rent neighborhoods whose obscurity is secured by distance from freeway off-ramps.

I admit this wincing: For a time I was one of those little girls who lives for horses. Since living was for me largely a matter of reading, the obsession took the form of reading …

The electric sodium lights hiss in the zoo’s parking lot. A winged beetle flops, buzzes feebly on the cement apron next to where I park the car. The 11 p.m. air is vaguely scented with …

The incense-choked jumble of the recent Whole Life Expo: vegetarians and environmentalists and every shade of new-age devotee wandered endless rows of booths for radical cancer cures, aura-photography, and Delphi, the City of Dolphins. Few …

"Maybe this is a real broad statement to make," Schneider continues, "but when I meet someone like you, for example, I have a pretty good idea you’re not waiting in the welfare lines when you leave here, right?”

The sailor came here in 1974. San Diego was an exotic port. He felt strange and free. The attraction was aesthetic. There was no snow. (He was from Minnesota.) There were palm trees and beautiful …