Up Against a Berlin Wall in Search for the Facts

Christmas comes to San Diego. Or: Ich bin ein consumer.

Suddenly Santa is everywhere.

In Mission Beach, Santa rides a 10-speed and wears cutoffs. In Encinitas, Santa appears at a Ralphs store and gets a Brie break every hour.

In Del Mar, Santa rides a red Kawasaki. He’s a land appraiser delivering presents to real estate firms.

I am at May Co. in Mission Valley. I have come to check on sales for a late-starting novelty: 1-ounce chunks of the Berlin Wall, $10 each, complete with tiny pouch and declaration of authenticity.

The store is thick with shoppers. I hear the rocks before I see them.

“Look, Gloria, there they are,” Amy Sherwood, 76, who lives in Santee, says to her friend and neighbor Gloria Atkinson, 63. “It’s a rock of history.”

Sherwood and Atkinson look but do not buy. Sherwood drifts off to inspect a Euroshaver with vibrating twin blades for her grandson, a Carlsbad contractor.

That’s common. What was once the coldest symbol of a divided Europe is now a come-hither item, luring shoppers who end up buying ties and bulky-knit sweaters and ski goggles.

Marydell McQuillen, 37, office manager for a computer firm in Kearny Mesa, buys a rock for her husband. She bought one last week for her brother-in-law.

“It’s truly for the person who has everything,” she explains.

I ask a clerk how many rocks have been sold. I have bumbled into Checkpoint Charlie.

“You’ll have to talk to corporate headquarters in Los Angeles.”

I sneak away and ask another clerk. This time I do not offer name, rank and affiliation.

“Sales are good.”

“Who’s buying the rocks?”

“Mostly just average people.”

The clerk thereby fulfills the first rule of Christmas retailing: Give the reporter what he wants.

Keep Reading . . .

Here’s some more.

- Sagon Penn has changed his name, resumed his martial arts career and broken up with the woman who gave birth to his child.

He also danced briefly with a male go-go group at Saxx, a nightclub in Southeast San Diego. G-strings only.

- I said a Bush Light.

The Volunteer Project, a nonprofit group that recruits and trains volunteers for social service projects throughout San Diego, has received a Point of Light award for community service from the President.

- Libertarians don’t win many elections, but they do have fun.

Take Dennis Thompson, owner of a San Diego computer firm who is running for governor as a Libertarian.

Thompson doesn’t like Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp’s proposal to tax candy. So he sent Van de Kamp a box of sourball candies to show his displeasure. No response yet.

“I’ll probably hear from his dentist,” Thompson said.

Supremacy and 1st Amendment

The Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is considering a request from Fallbrook white supremacist Tom Metzger for legal help in a damage suit filed against him in Portland.

The suit claims Metzger’s rhetoric incited three skinheads to beat an Ethiopian man to death in 1988. Metzger says the suit has a “chilling effect” on his First Amendment rights.

The suit was filed by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith in New York and the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala.

Stevie Remington, executive director of the Oregon ACLU, says her group probably won’t represent Metzger but might file a “friend of the court” brief in his behalf.

Remington is chagrined that news of Metzger’s request leaked to Portland’s Oregonian newspaper. She remembers how support for the ACLU nationwide dropped after it represented Nazis in Skokie, Ill.

“We could take a hit again just like Skokie,” Remington said. “But that shouldn’t deter us: our client is the First Amendment, not Mr. Metzger.”