Coming of Age Film Festival
Feb 09, 2012
Our first-ever exploration of different ways to get healthy covers: low-income healing, medicinal marijuana, off-the-grid doctors, cleansing, a cosmetics challenge and great big hugs. To your health, San Diego!
Our first-ever exploration of different ways to get healthy covers: low-income healing, medicinal marijuana, off-the-grid doctors, cleansing, a cosmetics challenge and great big hugs. To your health, San Diego!
By Carissa Casares
When Laquida Landford was diagnosed last July with multiple sclerosis, a disease that attacks the central nervous system, she wasn’t sure what kind of treatment she’d seek. She wasn’t sure with the disease and skeptical of Western medicine.
By Dave Maass
Perhaps the question I’m most frequently asked as a writer and researcher on medical-marijuana issues is: What strain is good for what.
If you’re lucky, you can find Dr. Hashington at select San Diego parties passing out tasty baked goods that pack a pretty mean pot-punch. We asked him to play an alternative version of Martha Stewart and share some of his secrets...
By David Rolland
Patsy Balfe rushes a cigarette before she enters the doctor’s office. Through the open door, she sheepishly tells her doctor she knows she shouldn’t be smoking.
By Peter Holslin
It starts in the temples. A line of pressure snakes around my head like a vice grip. There it stays for days, weeks, even months at a time.
By Kelly Davis
I credit Don Bolles, drummer for late-’70s punk band The Germs, for turning me on to Dr. Bronner’s soap. Bolles was arrested in 2007 by a Newport Beach police officer who argued that Bolles’ bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap contained illegal drugs. It didn’t.
By Kinsee Morlan
John Styn is fiddling with his video camera and talking to an audience of 13 who’ve already tuned in, 15 minutes before the 1 p.m. broadcast of Hug Nation, his weekly online video series.
By Carissa Casares
We asked James Bowma, owner of Halcyon Tea (3009 Beech St. in South Park) and Taylor Dye, owner of Mad Monk Tea (4966 Santa Monica Ave., Suite C, in Ocean Beach) to help us compile a list of ailments and the types of tea that might help relieve symptoms. Here are the results:
In this, the 2011 edition of our annual Bars & Clubs issue, we salute the wizards of the watering holes, the stars of the saloons, the conquerors of the canteens, the tops of the taverns.
In this, the 2011 edition of our annual Bars & Clubs issue, we salute the wizards of the watering holes, the stars of the saloons, the conquerors of the canteens, the tops of the taverns.
By Carissa Casares
Eddie “KON” Castro is crazy about pinball, and he’s not afraid to show it.
By D.A. Kolodenko
When the final secret ingredient of the night was revealed to the last two survivors, Anthony Schmidt knew immediately what cocktail he’d make.
By Dave Maass
John Evans will tell you he’s a piano technician. Do not believe him. He is a British MI6 super-agent who’s been sent to San Diego to slowly undermine our social infrastructure—one quiz night at a time.
By Peter Holslin
At first glance, you wouldn’t guess that Todd Cutler is dangerous with a joystick.
From the beaches to the Mesas, CityBeat staff and freelancers set out to write one sentence about hundreds of bars. The result is this seriously long-but-useful list of bars and clubs across San Diego County.
By Alex Zaragoza
As much as natural ability has been key to his success, Kreutzer says that practice has indeed made perfect.
By Kinsee Morlan
The jockeys line up and, one by one, carefully choose their fish from a tank of about two dozen. This one small choice will ultimately decide the outcome of the night.
By Kinsee Morlan
The best thing about a hotel bar is the bathroom. Elaborately folded-over toilette paper ensures freshness. Polished marble. Automated everything. Yeah, hotel-bar bathrooms are the best, I decide as I walk through the lobby of the Sofia Hotel back toward Currant, the Downtown restaurant that boasts a bar shaped like a rounded diamond (or a pointy oblong, depending on how you look at it).
By D.A. Kolodenko
I didn’t want to tell Ora the name of the bar.
“Odysea, a Liquid Adventure” wouldn’t sound cool to a chick who, last time I saw her, was cleaning up a spilled tube of cadmium red oil paint from the dirty floor of her City Heights shack by smearing it onto her hands and slapping bloody prints all over the walls.
We played Mr. Potato-head, trying one sensory organ at a time and following each to the best things about San Diego.
We played Mr. Potato-head, trying one sensory organ at a time and following each to the best things about San Diego.
Have you ever purchased a candle that was so beautiful you didn’t want to light it because it would melt away? If so, Seaport Village’s California Candle Gallery has the perfect solution for your finicky design needs.
So, what is that smell, exactly? I haven’t been able to find a proper answer, but, according to a few librarian blogs, it’s the pungent aroma of books essentially rotting away very slowly.
Who gets all the glory at the San Diego Zoo? Pandas. Everybody wants to hug a cute and cuddly looking panda—but they’ll rip your face off!
I love goat meat—not only is it delicious; it’s also one of the healthiest meats in the world. I prefer it in big chunks, right off the bone, served atop a heaping pile of spiced rice.
You can’t miss Smilin’ Jack—he’s the skinny guy with the big, toothy grin and an accordion strapped to his chest.
Massage Envy, in a way, is the massage industry’s answer to Starbucks: No matter what part of the county you’re in, you’re never too far away from one of this chain’s clinics.
It was Marx who said that religion is the opiate of the masses, to which our Supreme Leader responded, “But beer is the beer of the masses!” The leader promised a new day when the Party would be a party, and that promise holds true with this list of approved locations for congregation. All our dearest ruler asks is that, when you’re boozing by the beach, pour a little on the sand to remember our fallen comrades who died fighting for our right to par-tay. Remember, however, that to prevent further cultural deterioration, the Generalissimo has issued a decree outlawing both the Roger Rabbit and the Running Man, but not the Electric Slide.
The Supreme Leader believes that the best economy is from each according to their ability, to each according to their speed. Yes, the dear ruler’s leadership was inspired as much by Marx as by Supermarket Sweep, and, therefore, you are strongly advised to rush out to this list of endorsed businesses.
By Dave Maass
The Supreme Leader
doesn’t believe in evaluating news, mostly because he’s insulated
himself completely from current events. That leaves those who have gone
underground to provide their own list of subversive 2010 bests. This one
was left for us in a bicycle locker at the Fashion Valley bus stop.
When we started planning this year’s edition of our annual Fall Arts issue, we began with a straightforward arts-and-education theme. Where our public schools are lacking, local arts organizations are filling in, so why not feature the excellent educational programming they do? Some of our writers took the task to heart and focused on nonprofits with good youth-outreach programs, but others begged to be freed from the constraints and allowed to simply write about the coolest stuff coming up this season.
When we started planning this year’s edition of our annual Fall Arts issue, we began with a straightforward arts-and-education theme. Where our public schools are lacking, local arts organizations are filling in, so why not feature the excellent educational programming they do? Some of our writers took the task to heart and focused on nonprofits with good youth-outreach programs, but others begged to be freed from the constraints and allowed to simply write about the coolest stuff coming up this season.
By Peter Holslin
If there’s any lesson to learn from Art of Élan, the local chamber-music organization, it’s that classical concerts don’t have to be boring.
By Kinsee Morlan
Curator Robin Clark holds her hand out and traces the wall as she makes her way through the pitch-black hallway leading to artist James Turrell’s “Wedgework V” installation, on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s Downtown gallery.
By Jim Ruland
Typically, when you go looking for the cutting edge of an art movement, it takes a little searching. This fall, the avant-garde is coming to San Diego.
By Jill Holslin
Contemporary architecture tends to get a bad rap in San Diego. The city lost another piece of contemporary architecture just last month when one of San Diego State University’s most iconic buildings—the historic Aztec Center designed in 1964 by Mosher & Drew Architects—was leveled.
By David L. Coddon
At Young Actors’ Theatre, parental involvement isn’t meddling; it’s volunteering.
By Anders Wright
San Diego is a town of film festivals. Five different festivals will grace our theaters this fall alone. One of them is a newbie, while another is hitting a milestone.
By Alex Zaragoza
The distance between San Diego and India’s capital city, New Delhi, is about 8,109 miles. Gloria Lanuza is doing her best to close that gap—at least culturally.
What a weird, gloomy summer we had here in San Diego. Fall has already brought better weather, and, starting this week, the change of season ushers in several months’ worth of exciting arts programming, too.
By Kinsee Morlan
When Faith Jensen-Ismay got a Rhythm Talk CD as a thank-you gift for teaching a dance class in Switzerland, she had no idea how much the music would influence her work.
The bartendress, Shirley, ruled with an iron fist and a lifelong smoker’s hack. When she and Jack split, she took the truck and left him the house, unbolting the camper from the truck bed and driving away while Jack slept inside.
The bartendress, Shirley, ruled with an iron fist and a lifelong smoker’s hack. When she and Jack split, she took the truck and left him the house, unbolting the camper from the truck bed and driving away while Jack slept inside.
If there’s a given, it has nothing to do with death or taxes. No, the surest thing in life is that our annual Fiction 101 contest will draw tales of zombies, domestic murder and bar-stool angst. Our creative contestants attacked those subjects again this year, but the latest crop also produced stories about reptile roomies, sexual diseases, bathroom hygiene and sadistic children—not to mention two tales of moms with big boobs.
CityBeat’s editorial team spent hours upon hours judging the nearly 300 submissions to our annual Fiction 101 contest. It left us exhausted. It left us frustrated with one another’s tastes.
Its’ time for CityBeat’s eighth-annual Fiction 101 super-short-story contest, our unique way to celebrate excellence in economical creative writing.
Here’s the deal: You have 101 words to craft a compellingly humorous, sad, tragic, scary, heart-warming, silly or abstract story. All we ask is that you keep it under 102 words and that it be fiction (poems, diatribes, how-to manuals and ransom notes will be disqualified). The rest is up to your imagination. But please send us only your best TWO stories.
Our panel of judges will select three winners, and we’ll print all the really good ones in an upcoming issue. We will disqualify all entries of 102 words or more. Hyphenated words in compound modifiers, such as “low-rent district” count as two words, not one. The exception is when one of the hyphenated words cannot stand alone as a real word. The story title does not count in the word total. Some helpful hints: We’ll count “You will not make a monkey out of me” as nine words, but “You won’t make a monkey out of me” is only eight. Also, “Thirty-one” is two words; “31” is only one.
The deadline for entries is Monday, Sept. 27, at 5 p.m.
Make sure to give us your name, neighborhood of residence and phone number (not for publication). We prefer that you e-mail your entries to editor@sdcitybeat.com. But you can also snail-mail them to: Fiction 101, 3047 University Ave., Suite 202, San Diego, CA, 92104, or fax them to 619-281-5273. Please, please, please don’t use more than one delivery method, as our editor is easily confused. No hand-delivered entries.
The winners of our seventh annual super-short-story contest
Our Fiction 101 contest gets revived and made into a live spoken-word show
The winners of our fifth annual super-short-story contest
Shocking Tales of Life, Death and Brave Men in Purple Bunny Suits
Our Second Annual Fiction Contest
By Peter Holslin
If you follow music trends, chances are you’ve heard of Art Fag Recordings, the record label that Mario Orduno runs out of his two-bedroom house in North Park.
By Peter Holslin
If you follow music trends, chances are you’ve heard of Art Fag Recordings, the record label that Mario Orduno runs out of his two-bedroom house in North Park.
By Seth Combs
I’ve just made Gayle Skidmore cry. “Stop the tape,” she requests, pointing to my voice recorder.
By Peter Holslin
Let’s face it: You can’t be a rock star anymore. Record sales have plummeted, and major labels are looking for the next Justin Bieber.
Ever since we started doing the Local Music Issue in 2004, CityBeat’s Great Demo Review has worked like a musical game of Russian roulette.
By Seth Combs
Even after an accident nearly killed them, these screamo kids never thought about giving up
By Nobody
Compassionately waterboarding kittens or, in other words, reviewing local demo albums
By Nathan Dinsdale
San Diego has two types of indie music to choose from on March 29
By Jason Bow
Calico Horse points a Mirror at life and death—but mostly death
By Nobody
The Muslims regale us with tales from the road and SXSW
By Nobody
Forecasting the future of local music
From butt-shaking parties and champagne toasts to family fun and cheap thrills, our New Year’s Eve Guide has a dozen different categories and 78 choices to help you navigate your way to 2012.
From butt-shaking parties and champagne toasts to family fun and cheap thrills, our New Year’s Eve Guide has a dozen different categories and 78 choices to help you navigate your way to 2012.
By Kinsee Morlan
I celebrated the beginning of 2010 atop a 10,748-foot mountain in Colorado. My friends and I cross-country skied to a secluded location and watched the full moon rise over fresh white snow.
We rounded up the best New Year's Eve events in San Diego.
By Peter Holslin
Well, these aren't exactly the best of times, but celebrate anyway—that's an order
By Todd Kroviak
San Diego's New Year's Eve parties
By Nobody
Where to bring in the new year
Jamillah Garden serves it up Halal-style
15 years later, Queensryche finish their epic tale
Here, we present those three winners, along with nine runners-up that we thought were the best of the entries—one of which won our first-ever readers poll.
Here, we present those three winners, along with nine runners-up that we thought were the best of the entries—one of which won our first-ever readers poll.
By Nobody
Egads! Last year, we received 185 submissions to our seventh photo contest. Damn! We thought. That’s pretty good. Um, yeah. This year, we got 905 entries. 905!
2007 SDMA Lifetime Achievement Award winner Nick Reynolds of The Kingston Trio never wanted to be political. He just wanted to be an entertainer.
2007 SDMA Lifetime Achievement Award winner Nick Reynolds of The Kingston Trio never wanted to be political. He just wanted to be an entertainer.
Welcome Message from the President!
12 years and counting...
Jack Tempchin
No Knife, Jason Mraz, Jack Tempchin, Robert Walter, Black Heart Procession, Berkly Hart, Agua Dulce, Troy Sisters
By Kinsee Morlan
A day at work can mean Skyping with a 36-year-old virgin who has problems getting an erection, or heading into a bedroom with a couple whose sex life is lukewarm.
By Kinsee Morlan
A day at work can mean Skyping with a 36-year-old virgin who has problems getting an erection, or heading into a bedroom with a couple whose sex life is lukewarm.
By Alex Zaragoza
This isn’t a sex party—no nudity and no sexual acts. But that doesn’t mean there’s no sexual charge in the room. Perhaps that’s why my palms are sweaty and I keep shuddering. What a prude.
By Alex Zaragoza, Dave Maass
Jane’s sex life fits with trends researchers have documented while studying the consequences of long-term unemployment.
By Kinsee Morlan
Despite the rise in online shopping and the overall economic malaise, the sex-shop business has never been better.
By Peter Holslin
Music nerds like to impress people with their vast knowledge of obscure sounds, but the art of makin’ love requires a distinctly randy soundtrack.
By Enrique Limon
“Come over to the back shed—I’ll show you where the magic happens,” Moats instructs. I’m led to a space the size of a single-car garage filled floor to ceiling with his collection of prototype masks, some 200 strong, as well as tools used to make them
We like to think that every issue of CityBeat titillates our reader's interest, but we hope that our second-ever "Sex Issue" stimulates a different cat of your curiosity.
By Alex Zaragoza
With booty-shaking fierceness, Beyoncé embodies the virtues of being female, independent and feeling totally sassy about it.
By Dave Maass
You can’t miss Dr. Joel Kaplan’s office in Ocean Beach. The windows scream, in capitalized blue and white letters, phrases like “MALE ENHANCEMENT” and “MEN’S HEALTH SUPPLEMENTS & PRODUCTS.”
By Kinsee Morlan
Chris Spotto is sitting at a Downtown pizza place with a stack of DVDs on the table in front of him. Two are adult films; one isn’t. All involve clowns.
By Nobody
San Diego musicians take center stage for our springtime fashion issue
By Nobody
San Diego musicians take center stage for our springtime fashion issue
By Alex Zaragoza, Kelly Davis, Kinsee Morlan, Sammi Skolmoski, Carissa Casares, Jenny Montgomery, Sasha Orman, Kaitlin Perry, Anders Wright, Martin Jones Westlin, Jim Ruland, Dave Maass
We’ve taken a few pages from the Choose Your Own Adventure books that inspired us as kids and present our stab at interactive fiction. Here’s how it works: Start reading and whenever you’re presented with a choice, jump to the section with the corresponding number. And now, let the adventure begin:
By Alex Zaragoza, Kelly Davis, Kinsee Morlan, Sammi Skolmoski, Carissa Casares, Jenny Montgomery, Sasha Orman, Kaitlin Perry, Anders Wright, Martin Jones Westlin, Jim Ruland, Dave Maass
We’ve taken a few pages from the Choose Your Own Adventure books that inspired us as kids and present our stab at interactive fiction. Here’s how it works: Start reading and whenever you’re presented with a choice, jump to the section with the corresponding number. And now, let the adventure begin:
By Carissa Casares, Kinsee Morlan, Peter Holslin, Martin Jones Westlin, Anders Wright
Things to do in San Diego this summer.
By CityBeat Staff
Whether you’re a beach bum or a beach bummer, enjoying the sweltering season is no sweat
Whether you’re a beach bum or a beach bummer, enjoying the sweltering season is no sweat
Whether you’re a beach bum or a beach bummer, enjoying the sweltering season is no sweat
By CityBeat Staff
Our selective guide to the best events happening this summer
By Eric Wolff
What to do when San Diego’s weather turns ideal
By AnnaMaria Stephens
I feel like I barely knew you
By Will K. Shilling
How to learn to surf without pissing everyone off
By Kelly Davis
Nature, green stuff and fresh air not really your thing?
By Dave Maass
In 2011, the bill passed again and Gov. Jerry Brown signed it more quickly than it would take to ink an anarchy symbol on a punk rocker’s calf.
By Dave Maass
In 2011, the bill passed again and Gov. Jerry Brown signed it more quickly than it would take to ink an anarchy symbol on a punk rocker’s calf.
By Kinsee Morlan
When you sit down to get tattooed by Hoag-Corio you will hear plenty of stories, but two are at the top of the list.
By Ryan Bradford
I hail from the Tribe of Being 18, easily recognized by our butterfly tramp stamps, our Chinese symbols and tribal tattoos.
By Dave Maass
How did a young, black-metal fan with stretched ear lobes and a fascination with corpse-simulating face paint score the prestigious “Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship for Academic Diversity” at UCSD?
By Anders Wright
Tattoos in films are nothing new, but in those listed below, they go further than just making a character look badass.
By Kinsee Morlan
Gracia rolls up his right pant leg to show his prosthetic leg. Then he rolls up his left pant leg to reveal a tribal tattoo.
By AnnaMaria Stephens
Justin Hudnall had just driven 18 straight hours to the South by Southwest music festival to write about local label Volar Records when he passed the sign. “I recognized this fishhook
By Alex Zaragoza
For the most part, tattoos fall into one of two categories: beautiful pieces of body art depicting something a person is passionate about or terrible ideas brought on by drunkenness or poor deci
San Diego is one tatted-up-and-pierced city, and we thought it was time to give body art the attention it deserves.
By Peter Holslin
Miles Orff has advice for tattoo enthusiasts: “Do not drink and ink.” Orff, the 29-year-old frontman of hardcore-punk band Coda Reactor, speaks from experience. Of the 25 or so tattoos he has, many were done when he was drunk, sometimes with surprising results.
