San Diego’s Somnambulant Travel Through Pages of History

One of the more unusual (and there are many ) varieties of reportorial perceptions is the Narcoleptic View of History.

This view holds that many, if not most, cities have gone through an early period where paroxysmal sleep was common among the masses.

If scientists and academics had the same mind set as reporters, the Sleep Disorder Clinic at the Veterans Administration hospital in La Jolla would soon merge with the Department of History at UC San Diego.

Here’s what I mean: A recent headline in The Times’ business section informed the world, “San Diego: It’s No Longer a ‘Sleepy Navy Town.’ ”

A few days later, the San Diego Union reported that, until Pete Wilson transformed it, the job of mayor of San Diego had been a “sleepy” one.

Admittedly, my knowledge of San Diego is spotty: a couple of pop histories, some joyful days buried in the California Room of the downtown public library.

But I see nothing to indicate that San Diego was once populated by drowsy sailors and little else. (It’s hard to imagine a city where Wyatt Earp ran three downtown gambling halls and Max Miller wrote “I Cover the Waterfront” as being somnambulant.)

Wilson’s predecessor, Frank Curran, may not have been the greatest mayor, but I have it on good authority that he stayed wide awake his entire tenure (1963-71).

He even prowled the city in a city-owned Cadillac. When Curran wasn’t driving it, the long black Caddie was used for official duties by the director of Mt. Hope Cemetery, but that’s a different story.

Speaking of different stories (as found in “Madam Ida & Other Gaslamp Tales” by Henry Schwartz), consider the broadsword duel fought on horseback between a female phenomenon called The Great Jaguarina and the Bavarian militarist Capt. Conrad Weidermann.

The date was Oct. 28, 1888.

As Schwartz tells it, 7,000 San Diegans flocked to Rose Canyon to see the two square off in a type of combat straight from King Arthur. Jaguarina won, 6 to 5, on an angrily disputed call.

Schwartz makes no mention of anyone falling asleep. Probably just an oversight on his part.

I Brake for Press Releases

It says here.

* Press releases I released immediately.

From the new Loews Coronado Bay resort: “Ahoy me Hardies!”

* North County bumper sticker: “I Brake for Bugs.”

The ultimate environmentalist?

* The umbrellas for the artist Christo’s recent extravaganza were put together by a Shelter Island sail-making firm.

North Sails San Diego cut the German fabric to size and then stitched it together: 3,180 umbrellas, 20 workers, 20,000 man hours of labor over eight months.

Nothing firm yet, but North Sails also hopes to work on Christo’s next (as yet unannounced) project.

* As Paul Lieberman’s series in The Times has shown, the Tribal Council at the Rincon Indian Reservation in North County is known for being nearly impossible for outsiders to deal with, thus hindering progress.

Here’s Tom Dowell, former superintendent of the Southern California office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs:

“Anything at Rincon is difficult. A stairway to heaven would be tough to get approved. Jesus would have difficulty with the Rincon.”

* Ken Leighton, entertainment writer for Go magazine in the Escondido Times Advocate, keeps a running list of rock bands with weird names.

Among the latest: Beatniks from Mars, Stigmata a Go Go, Evil Twin Theory, Siggybiblidieous, and Beasts of Bourbon.

Boiling It Down to Four Words

Bureaucrat spoken here.

From the California Coastal Commission staff analysis of Sea World’s expansion plans:

“However, expanded, redeveloped and modernized facilities do, to some degree, tend to generate an interest on the part of the public to view the new facilities. While it may be argued that some visitors may make an annual or semi-annual pilgrimage to the existing theme park anyway, it can be reasonably assumed that some visitors also make a special trip to view the new facilities in and of themselves.”

Translation: Tourist attractions attract tourists.