I remember hearing “Brass in Pocket” and “Kid” all over the radio, and that was when I was in school at the University of Kansas. My friends and I wanted to be and look just …

Thirty Years AgoMaureen O’Connor now guards her private life with remarkable jealousy. In the course of preparing this story I wasn’t invited to her home, she wouldn’t introduce me to her husband, and she warned …

Destin CrettonFilmmaker, Short Term 12, Winner of the Sundance Short Film Award 2009 If you haven’t seen Labyrinth, you’re missing out on a chance to experience 101 minutes of David Bowie flirting with a young …

Thirty Years AgoIt was Saturday, and we had stopped in at the New Seed, the Pacific Beach natural foods emporium, to check up on the junk-food trade-in.... Cake mixes and frostings seemed the most popular …

F’tchou! It’s a noise you can use to mean whatever you want. It’s a sound. It’s a placeholder for whatever word you can’t think of. Chills McGillicutty means it’s cold outside. It’s freezin’ outside; it’s …

The Reverend Horton Heat, or “Jim,” as I like to call him, is a true rock ’n’ roller harking back to the good ol’ days of the era. Some call him psychobilly and some say …

Thirty Years AgoWHITE QUEEN: I’m a Queen fan, but what do Queen fans do besides buy records and attend very very very loud concerts? DCB. SAVOY TRUFFLE, Zoot and Dingo: Will see you at the …

Name: Michelle Mendoza Age: 26 Lives in: Hillcrest Surfing: La Jolla Shores Favorite surf spot: Miami Pre-surf music: MGMT Worst beach pickup line: “Want help waxing your board?” “I thought I could catch a few …

Thirty Years AgoMay we introduce you to Burl Stiff, bon vivant, man-about-town, who’s sitting at the moment in the Whaling Bar at La Valencia Hotel? You recognize the face, which tops Stiff’s Union society column …

Natalie WalshSenior producer, KPBS-FM’s These Days, kpbs.org I’m a history buff, and I loved the series John Adams so much that I was sad when I finished the last episode. As I watched the inauguration …

I am from Hawaii, so most of the slang words that I use are pidgin. Choke means that you have a lot or a bunch of something, like I have choke Christmas presents to wrap. …

Artist: The Shake-UpsSong: “Sex Exchange Operation” (from the CD Breathing the Flood)Heard By: Adam Goodson, La Mesa I didn’t like the xylophone thing, but I think it was all right. I could kind of hear …

Thirty Years AgoCity traffic engineer Joe Casteneda says stretches of road which racked up the highest bicycle-accident rates (in the five-year period from 1969 to 1974) include Clairemont Mesa Boulevard from Highway 805 east to …

A couple of years ago the company changed my computer login to a series of numbers instead of my name; I should have realized the foreshadowing. Local news viewership is down and advertisers cut their …

My friends and I have a game that we invented in our group. It’s called “butt-cracked.” Being butt-cracked is when you accidentally see someone bent over with pants that don’t fit well and you see …

Good Mosquito Report Geoff Bouvier did a great job on the West Nile cover story on January 22 (“Deadly Mosquitoes Breed in Our Urban Drool”). I am a physician, so have an interest in this, …

Thirty Years AgoGOOD WOMAN STILL LOOKING, the Saturday after this appears, I’ll be in the science exhibit next to the Space Theater, same time. I wear a turquoise windbreaker with white trim. Ask for Mike. …

I’ve liked Ozomatli from the start. They’re a very politically conscious band. The name of the band stands for the Aztec god of music and dance, and that kind of drew me to them in …

Thirty Years AgoI am supposed to be conducting an “exclusive” interview with Cheech and Chong between sets.… Cheech Marin informs me that they are “all interviewed out” so I end up with only one worthwhile …

My favorite slang word comes from a Leslie Hall skit. She calls a place the Hobby Lobby. My friends and I took the term “hobby lobby” and started using it to mean something that is …

Thirty Years AgoSo you think Dylan is a has-been/ And Ronstadt is adolescent cheesecake./ Well, bein’ dumb is no original sin,/ But you still gotta live by the choices you make./You know critics are frustrated …

Michel RothComposer, San Diego Rep’s production of production of Doubt Young and Innocent — early Hitchcock from England — is great. The use of the song “No One Can Like the Drummer Man” to reveal …

Thirty Years AgoRe: Greg Kahn’s piece, “Seventy-eight Reasons Why San Diego Isn’t All That Bad” (“Year In Review,” December 21), I love San Diego, but howzabout some New Year’s resolutions? Here are 79 reasons why …

I say “I’m too junkie for that.” It means that you are too cool for something or too hip. It’s not a drug reference, though. I think I made it up about two months ago. …

Thirty Years AgoReal estate has been very high for the past 28 months, but if you had bought on the coastline early this year, you would have an irreplaceable resource. Also, getting into an apartment …

“Sexting” is when somebody —probably somebody who’s drunk — texts you on your cell phone and the subject matter is overtly sexual. So instead of “texting” you, they’re “sexting” you. “Sexting” is sort of the …

Thirty Years AgoVictorian melodrama, on the other hand, does not lie high on anybody’s list of significant art. It is not even a current art, one worth attacking in order to raise the quality of …

EMBREY NEWMAN REQUESTED THE REMOVAL OF HER PERSONAL INFORMATION. OK'D BY JIM HOLMAN ON 3/27/09.

Janeane WhiteSenior, Mount Miguel High School For Christmas I have no idea what movie I’d want because I love too many films. I would probably pick a scary movie even though it’s the holidays because …

Thirty Years AgoI was astounded (but somehow, not surprised) to read of the $3 million suit being filed against your paper by Ted Giannoulas, the KGB Chicken, over a personal ad that appeared a year …

Thirty Years AgoIn the incessant border skirmishes between illegal Mexican immigrants and the Border Patrol, a new battle has developed in the last few months. It’s the “rock chuckers” versus the phlegm-green Border Patrol vehicles, …

"Bumping rims" is when you meet somebody and you have a connection. So, I would say, “Oh my God, I met the lead singer from The Faint last night and we totally bumped rims.” It’s …

Thirty Years AgoI couldn’t help but smirk when reading about the Second Annual Eleanor’s Edibles Contest. If the first prize is dinner with Eleanor Widmer (Reader food critic), then is the second prize two dinners …

Thirty Years AgoSILHOUETTE, how about the little park by the ocean in La Jolla Sunday afternoon. Quiet Man. PYTHON FANS: Does anyone know the number of albums that MP has made? If so, how many? …

Beth AccomandoCurator, Film School Confidential, sdfcs.org Whether you are rejoicing or reeling from the election, here is a trio of films fit for any election year. Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate, with Robert Redford as a …

Thirty Years AgoSo why does a glance at the front page of the San Diego Union’s Flight 182 “memorial edition” elicit a shiver? “If my daughter got killed in that crash and some jerk newspaper …

My slang word has a two-fold meaning. The first is the origin of how I came up with it. I work as a barista at a coffee place that isn’t Starbucks, and I started saying …

“Hello? at home. drunk” said the text message I finally received at 9 p.m. I thought, What did I do wrong to turn this hopeful young relationship into late-night booty texts? Through many protracted therapy …

Thirty Years AgoThe final indignity, scratched by some nitwit on the exact spot where PSA Flight 182 crashed, is this: PSA 128. Leiserson, a photographer for Channel 8, and Fitzsimmons, a photographer for the Union/Tribune, …

Thirty Years AgoOn this hot morning in May, as I load up my old battered red backpack at the Inaja Memorial Picnic Ground and prepare to head off into the brush, there’s a cowboy sitting …

These words must be said with enthusiasm. Geektastic is something you say to show pride in being a geek. Really, you can add “-tastic” and “-tacular” to any words to make them better. Dorktacular and …

Thirty Years AgoI would like to reply to the letter “A Moron Lovely As A Tree,” October 5. First of all, you should pay no attention to such low-grade and unintelligent criticism. I think your …

The Legendary Mighty Raw Tones Experience and Revue has been playing San Diego for over 30 years. The rock/blues band’s current lineup has been together “easily 20 years,” says Point Loma guitarist/surfboard-shaper Scat, who explains …

Thirty Years AgoTO RELATIVES of PSA-Cessna crash: Do you want the truth, the facts? Write J.P., P.O. Box 9224, San Diego 92109. PHOENIX SUNSHINE: I’m male, 17, and interested. Would you like to see Styx? …

“Bikeroni” means urban biking, music, and art all combined together. It’s all about an experience that can’t be defined by what it really is; it’s what you make of it. I ride a road bike …

In the summer of 2001, shortly after graduating with a master’s in politics, I landed a one-year internship with the Congressional Hunger Center to study poverty and food banks in Phoenix, Arizona. I was young, …

Thirty Years AgoThe lobby of the downtown library, normally not the scene of high drama, was the arena for some cops-and-robbers-style action last Wednesday at lunch time. When a young man (carrying a hidden copy …

Holly JonesCurator, San Diego Women’s Film Festival, sdwff.org Expired, by Cecilia Miniucchi, is one of those under-the-radar movies that went to DVD before even reaching a San Diego theater. Luckily, this impressive directorial debut will …

Thirty Years AgoMy former colleague, Jonathan Saville, has the town abuzz with his “review” of Shange’s For Colored Girls. I found both the poetry and the stage production of Colored Girls to be ambitious, adventurous, …

The word of the day is “tragesty.” Pretty much because I can’t speak even basic English, a tragesty is something that is not only a tragedy, but a travesty as well. Such as when your …