Homeless plans for Thanksgiving On a warm autumn afternoon, a homeless man lies against a wall on First Avenue just south of Ash Street. He's sharing a bottle of cheap vodka with an older homeless …
November 18, 2023
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Stories by Matthew Lickona
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Downtown San Diego's homeless dream of Thanksgiving away from sidewalks
Alleys are San Diego's last frontier
A tour of San Diego alleysJack Whalen hands me a beer. “I’m king of this alley,” Whalen says, then points west. “Down there, the king of that next alley is Tom Sweet. He’s 97.” Whalen …
October 16, 2023
Youngblood bartender – ultimate service provider
Last month, a friend visited with his family from out of town, and as thanks for my hospitality, he bought ingredients for my favorite cocktail these days: a Vieux Carre. There are variations out there, …
October 5, 2023
David Ross – knew San Diego homeless intimately
He loves the people no one wants"I'm used to voices downtown, of agony and pain and just dysfunction, and I had the window down a little so I could hear. I look and there's a …
October 2, 2023
Tom Deméré takes us to Mission Valley of 50 million years ago
More or less sudden mountainsThe rocks in and around San Diego have composed amazing, fiery stories for a very long time. An ancient ocean once covered this county; volcanoes used to spew here; and more …
October 1, 2023
The most important woman
The woman we never forgetBy Abe Opincar, Amy Gerstler, Barbarella Fokos, Deirdre Lickona, Ernie Grimm, Geoff Bouvier, Jeannette DeWyze, Jeff Smith, Jennifer Ball, Jim Morris, Laura McNeal, Mary Grimm, Matthew Lickona, Patrick Daugherty, RF Jurjevics, …
September 30, 2023
Gonzo Report: Counting years, Counting Crows
The tears came before we even made it down to The Shell to see Counting Crows on September 3. She didn’t expect them. But she hadn’t heard their hit “Round Here” in close to 30 …
September 28, 2023
Reader writers' dads
29 Reader writers on their fathersBy Abe Opincar, Anne Albright, August Kleinzahler, Bill Manson, Deirdre Lickona, Duncan Shepherd, Eleanor Widmer, Ernie Grimm, Jangchup Phelgyal, Jeanne Schinto, Jeannette DeWyze, Jeff Smith, Jennifer Ball, Jim Eichel, John …
September 3, 2023
General Grant's heirs made mark on San Diego
San Diego's least-remembered great man – U.S. Grant Jr. On a Sunday in September of 1929, 15 members of San Diego’s elite gathered to carry the coffin of an old friend. Among the pallbearers were …
August 26, 2023
A Robert Rundo rabbit hole reminder
The news that Robert Rundo had been extradited from Romania to the United States to face charges of conspiracy and inciting violence at several California political rallies back in 2017 reminded me of a recent …
August 16, 2023
Author of the novel that shook Mission Hills
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 …
August 6, 2023
Gonzo Report: Cake cites Rick James at the Rady Shell
A writer must take care in this, the golden age of branding. Mention any particular subject more than once, and you risk becoming That Guy, the one who writes about X. After that, should you …
July 20, 2023
Steve Hitchcock’s Cabaret Voltaire: a Dadazine discovery
A classified ad appeared in the February 3, 1977 edition of The San Diego Reader. It read, “Creative writers, artists, freaks with ideas for avant-garde journal wanted. Contact Cabaret Voltaire c/o Steve Hitchcock 626 Madeline …
July 19, 2023
Books do furnish a room: from Fashion Valley’s Banana Republic to Burning Man
Books do furnish a room “More Luxury Coming Soon!” promised the poster at Fashion Valley, by way of explaining and apologizing for the mall’s rough-and-tumble construction zone vibe. But inside Banana Republic, it had already …
May 31, 2023
Papa Simp meets the Karen killer
I was frustrated. I hadn’t asked for a Tesla when I made the rental car reservation. I certainly hadn’t asked for a Tesla with the pre-set user name Papa Simp. (I move my seat back, …
May 31, 2023
San Diego megachurches, storefront churches – why would you go?
San Diego's Antiochian Orthodox church surprises. He looks like a regular young guy — maybe late 20s or early 30s. Head shaved to mask a receding hairline, a black goatee to offset the baldness, the …
May 28, 2023
San Diego Reader 2023 Music & Arts issue
On May 11, the Federal Department of Health and Human Services will end the Covid public health emergency. But the bureaucratic behemoth is a slow-footed beast; John Q. Public knows the pandemic ended some time …
March 29, 2023
Sea Dragon eggs at Birch Aquarium!
“People are very intrigued by seahorses,” says Leslee Matsushige, associate curator at Birch Aquarium. And intriguing fish — signs of whimsy in the relentlessly efficient natural world — are good PR for an institution hoping …
January 19, 2023
Dim voices from the forgotten past at Georgian restaurant Pomegranate
A conversation among the inscriptions scribbled amid the doodles on the ochre walls of the Georgian restaurant Pomegranate — layer upon layer, the ink fading like echoes, dim voices from the forgotten past. Remember QAnon …
January 19, 2023
Tom Shaw and heavenly transport on Imperial Avenue
Apostolic Prayer Temple, house of exaltation I came here, to the Apostolic Prayer Temple, a storefront in between a nightclub and a fish market in Encanto, to see the Rev. Tom Shaw in the Gospel …
December 18, 2022
A cold eye on San Diego architects 20 years ago
Orchids and Onions — 20 years later The ’95 jury opened by dubbing 1976 Orchid-winner Rancho Bernardo “the ultimate suburb.” Nicoloff and Collins concurred, calling it “one of the few really successful and well-planned new …
August 27, 2022
San Diego's love of country music
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 …
August 8, 2022
Happy Trumpsgiving
Happy Trumpsgiving Hunter P. Thompson: "Sure, everybody here agrees that Trump is a fascist hatemonger with no sense of respect or decency. That just means he’s just like the rest of us. Those protesters who …
April 30, 2022
San Diego men look at selves in swimsuits
Men's Summer Swimsuit Issue Nowadays, whenever I occasion to strip down to my swimwear, my own interior monologue pesters me, "Are you standing up straight? Is your stomach tucked in? Are there zits on your …
March 27, 2022
USD students look back at high school, the campus's Catholicism
Class Struggle “We had a lot of cliques at my school. There were the drama kids, and we had a group we actually called the Clique. It was just the people that seemed to party …
February 7, 2022
Personal history of La Mesa, the charm of Encanto
Where Sweet Peace and Love Abidith During school vacations, Carl and I hopped the freight train that chugged through twice a week. It stopped in La Mesa to unload flatbeds of planks to the lumberyard. …
February 5, 2022
Reader editor Matt Lickona welcomes first child
I Have Purchased a Grey Cardigan Sweater My wife and I fell in love over wine, bourbon, and cognac. We attended a college with a dry campus, and many evenings were spent sitting in my …
November 29, 2021
Nathanael West, Jim Thompson, Max Miller
Janet, My Mother, and Me “We went out to Belmont, and Harry couldn’t stop picking winners. We went to the 21 Club for dinner, and we scalped tickets for a Broadway musical in the fourth …
November 20, 2021
Kosher cooking in San Diego State area, Navy couple in Otay Ranch
The Door’s Open. Go In! Some beards, like Alan’s, are magnificent in their autonomy — they grow as they wish, untrimmed and untamed. “You shall not round the corners of your beard.” These beards grow …
November 13, 2021
San Diego Reader’s Best Of issue 2021
Best Friend to Joshua Trees Is there anything to be done about the plight of the Joshua tree? While state and federal agencies dither over whether the imperiled desert dweller deserves endangered species protections, one …
October 20, 2021
Army-Navy Academy, wine experts behind doors, castrated man's life
An unhampered look at Carlsbad's Army Navy Academy "Unlike the upper-school cadets, these boys will break down and cry, a lot. They don’t want other boys to see ’em cry, ’cause it’s not macho. But …
August 29, 2021
Alexander Theroux's father and brothers, Amy Chu's mother, Matt Lickona's grandparents
Decent Life Led by the Ordinary Man I will never forget the time a monsignor from our church, favoring our simple household with a visit, stopped by and in the course of dinner, sat back, …
August 21, 2021
Midway upon the journey
I noticed a convertible on the way into work today. Pretty good looking… especially for a Buick. Good grief, I’m admiring a Buick. Old, old, old. The kind of person who still says Good grief, …
April 21, 2021
Is American cuisine inherently racist?
I remember the first time I felt nervous about what I was eating. “Nervous,” as opposed to “apprehensive,” which describes how I felt the first time I ate ant eggs, corn smut, and rattlesnake at …
April 7, 2021
El Indio’s Rube Goldberg-esque tortilla conveyer belt makes good TV
David Page’s initial interest in San Diego’s venerable El Indio Mexican restaurant was maybe not entirely visual, but he grants that “what interested me the most at the time — provided they could meet the …
April 7, 2021
A night out with a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Both sky and highway are washed in gold from the lowering sun as I sail along the 94 toward downtown, there to attend the Grand Re-opening of Rooftop Cinema at the Grand Hyatt. It’s a …
March 24, 2021
Something rotten at the Reader?
We get letters! A longtime Reader reader wrote in a couple weeks back to complain that “The Reader is now spinning Republican shit on your [our?] newly [duly?] elected governor Gavin Newsom… the man we …
March 24, 2021
Night on University Ave., Olive St. above Switzer Canyon, Rob Quigley's vision for Little Italy
University Avenue Nocturne “We try to cruise by the hot spots where there has been trouble. Bars or restaurants, businesses, what have you. For example. Shooters bar on 30th Street in North Park has had …
March 20, 2021
Inside gay killer Andrew Cunanan: Bishop's School, older friends, Gay Pride parade
Schoolboy charm A 1988 graduate thought she recalled Cunanan going up to one of her male friends, grabbing one of his pectorals, and saying something like, "Oooh, very nice. You've been working out. Give me …
March 13, 2021
Ostrich meat from Bear Valley, melancholy journey of Ramona steer, duck hunting near Chocolate Mountains
Long Neck, Low Fat David Stepp waits for an ostrich craze A 220-pound bird has got about 85 pounds of meat. And the meat is red meat. Two of the muscle groups taste exactly like …
March 1, 2021
The soundtrack of our lives
A moment: a cloudless Saturday afternoon, Balboa Park, just in front of Cabrillo Bridge, maybe 200 people — couples, families, friends — lounging on the grass in the spreading shade of the Moreton Bay fig …
February 24, 2021