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Excerpt From Sunshine/Noir II: The Rock – Resistance Barrio Logan Style

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By Brent E. Beltran

Juanito held the rock firmly in his hand—almost too firmly, as his knuckles turned white from the pressure. He stood there shaking, and tears slowly fell from his reddened eyes. A wheezy cough escaped his tight lungs as the eleven-year-old stood on Harbor Drive facing the towering cranes that loomed over this toxic barrio. Every breath he took was a challenge. The setting sun cast a powerful glow of purples and oranges across the radiant, polluted sky.

He had grown up on these neglected streets, a Barrio Logan native in more ways than one. He stood there with rock in hand as semi trucks rumbled past, hauling bananas picked by people that looked just like him. The vehicles added more pollutants into the atmosphere as they traveled to various points north and east. That rock, smooth from centuries of ocean water beatdowns, weighed heavy in his trembling hand.   [Read more…]

Excerpt from Sunshine/Noir II: Samsay on the Porch

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Editor’s Note: We’ll be publishing excerpts from Sunshine/Noir II: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana, an anthology of local writing about San Diego over the coming weeks, starting with the chapters written by SD Free Press writers. As City Works Press co-editor Jim Miller says in his introduction: “…San Diego is still a city in need of a literary voice, a cultural identity that goes beyond the Zoo, Sea World, Legoland, and the beach. With Sunshine/Noir II we persist in our romantic, perhaps Sisyphean, effort to address this need and expose the true face of “the other San Diego.”

By Anna Daniels

The sudden attentiveness of the cats alerted me to the faint sounds coming from the front porch. Moments before they were curled like fur commas around the suitcase that was splayed open on the bed. I straightened up from the suitcase that I had just finished packing and turned toward the window and the darkness beyond.   [Read more…]

Excerpt From Sunshine Noir II: My Days at the Door

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Editor’s Note: We’ll be publishing excerpts from Sunshine/Noir II: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana, an anthology of local writing about San Diego over the coming weeks, starting with the chapters written by SD Free Press writers. As City Works Press co-editor Jim Miller says in his introduction: “…San Diego is still a city in need of a literary voice, a cultural identity that goes beyond the Zoo, Sea World, Legoland, and the beach.  With Sunshine/Noir II we persist in our romantic, perhaps Sisyphean, effort to address this need and expose the true face of “the other San Diego.”  To buy a copy of Sunshine/Noir II or any other San Diego City Works Press book go here.

By Doug Porter

The San Diego Door and its antecedents were a big part of the alternative media scene in America’s Finest City over a eight year period starting in October,1966 when the Good Morning, Teaspoon published its first edition.

By December, 1971, when I first climbed up the steps of the paper’s Victorian stick mansion at 2445 Albatross Street just north of downtown, the paper had gone through ‘free love’, hippie druggie and counterculture phases and a half-dozen names. It had evolved to become a publication with anti-establishment news and alt-culture reviews, featuring powerful graphics and color.   [Read more…]

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