So why can’t a shooter get any love?

PHOTO by SUSAN SABO
While shooting at the Port of Long Beach recently, I wasn’t concerned when a big black SUV belonging to the Long Beach Police Department pulled me over, lights flashing. Mr. Susan, however, was freaking out. Relax, I told him, we’re not doing anything wrong.
Questions, answers, [...]

For the perpetual student, college lasts a lifetime

RODNEY DANGERFIELD: BACK TO SCHOOL, AGAIN
I met Paul on the first day of a multicultural dance class at Cypress College. He stood out because he was the only person who came prepared to dance: sweat pants, loose shirt, and a headband that both kept sweat out of his [...]

Or, how I stopped worrying about fleas and learned to love deadly chemicals

COURTESY of CAROLINA K. SMITH, M.D.
In June of this year, the universe bestowed upon me something probably no one in the world has ever wished for: an infestation of fleas. It had never occurred to me that such a thing could happen to [...]

Everything Long Beach desires to be, it once was
So did you get our little joke? Our proposals in this issue for a “new” Long Beach—of public space, amusement areas, cultural centers, and public transit—were all based on Long Beach’s past. It was during our discussions about our story on the possible death of Acres of [...]

The Sign Guys spell it out for us
By Mike Guardabascio

ILLUSTRATION by JOHN MEZA
Usually when you see a stranger holding up a sign with a message scrawled in marker, you brace yourself. You wonder if they’re trying to tell you where to get the best sandwich in town, where you can find the best deal on [...]

Because law inforcement won’t
On Monday, the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles ponied up $660 million to settle claims its priests molested 508 kids over the last few decades. You can read elsewhere the countless, apocalyptic tales of priestly sex involving children, sodomy, oral copulation, kissing, petting, stalking and medieval torture. Those reports, which the church, [...]

7 a.m. drinking with the respectable veteran die-hards
Photographs by Susan Sabo
We got up Saturday morning when it was still grey out and went to Terminal Island and San Pedro and Wilmington and Long Beach to see who was having beers at 7 a.m. Mostly they were people who work hard at off hours—bartenders included—and people [...]

A tremendously brief pictoral history of surfing in Long Beach
On the same sand where couples now take long, romantic walks holding their noses, a thriving beach community once pitched a sea of umbrellas for a day of fun in the sun. Long Beach in the early 1900s was a haven for what you now have [...]

Making the most of 870 minutes of daylight
Photos and text by Mike Guadarbascio and Dan Steinbacher
So, last Thursday was the summer solstice (at 14 and a half hours of sunlight, the longest day of the year) and we were curious who made the most of it—you know, ran an extra errand or two, finished off [...]

Forget the awards—for some hot rodders, arriving at the annual Paso Robles car show is reward enough
By Theo Douglas

ILLUSTRATION by ALICE RUTHERFORD
Every Memorial Day weekend for the past quarter century, more than 500 hot rods and custom cars descend on Paso Robles, a self-conscious little winery town that spends the other 51 weeks of the [...]