From page-boy to testosterone injections: One person’s journey fom female to male

Jim Howley was a girl who wanted to be a boy by the time she was four. It was 1979, in a town with the absolutely literary-perfect name of Plain City, Ohio. At preschool, she hung out with the boys. There—and we can imagine [...]

Nine to five is never a drag when you’re Jewels

PHOTO by JOHN GILHOOLEY
Renowned Long Beach drag queen Jewels (real name a closely guarded secret!) has been performing—as Marilyn, as Dolly, as Tammy Faye and Courtney Love and Mariah, too—since she was 18 years old. Seven years ago, she became part of the Long Beach scene [...]

Is the Long Beach Gay Pride Parade only worth it if you’re gay?
Despite minoring in women’s studies at Cal State Long Beach and ranting feministically in the Daily Forty-Niner, it was only a few weeks ago that I had my first drink at Que Sera. Surprised? Apparently, you’re supposed to be. But although my feminism [...]

That’s the conception—but of course, the city has always had a vibrant gay nightlife scene

PHOTO by RUSS ROCA
We’re standing in the Crest, outwardly a nondescript little cinderblock of a bear bar on an industrial stretch of Cherry Avenue near Long Beach’s border with Paramount. Inside, there’s a fireplace, and out back a waterfall.
What’s a [...]

A woman stole my wallet and all I got was a lousy detective

The woman who stole my wallet six months ago thinks I’m a psycho victim. The police detective who was assigned to investigate the crime told me so; it was pretty much the only thing about the whole unfortunate incident that I didn’t find [...]

Eighty-five years ago, author Upton Sinclair led a free speech fight in San Pedro. Today, it’s remembered as the birth of the Southern California ACLU

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY
It was out of the darkness that Upton Sinclair trudged up San Pedro’s Liberty Hill, a tiring climb past an assembly of cheering dockworkers and a squad of [...]

Beyond ice cream with Matt Allen

PHOTO by JENNIE WARREN
Matt Allen is his name, but you don’t need to know it—about 135,000 people know him as Ice Cream Man, and that’s the important thing, he says. (“People ask, ‘Are you Ice Cream Man?’ And I point to the logo on the truck!’”) They remember him as [...]

Our non-comprehensive, 100 percent biased Grand Prix weekend guide
In Long Beach, you either Grand Prix or you don’t. You hop on the Passport dressed in your finest with pockets full of dollars and cigars, prepped to party at our fair city’s equivalent to the Kentucky Derby infield, or . . . you list your apartment [...]

Updates on some of the biggest stories from The District’s first year

PHOTO by JONATHAN NAFARRETE, WINNER OF OUR FIRST-EVER FLICKR PHOTO CONTEST
Bank doors closing for the last time. Roaring factories fallen suddenly silent. The stock market on suicide watch. Evangelical hymns in 10 thousand churches rising to an angry, bearded God. Foreign powers circling, eyeballing [...]

Remembering when the Press-Telegram was the most important paper in town

Burt Fleischman was a man of perpetual motion and one-track mind—perfect characteristics for a single-copy sales manager, the guy in charge of selling the Press-Telegram’s street edition more than a quarter-century ago. All the dailies used to have a street edition, a paper sold only [...]