OB Flashes – News, Calendar and Discussion Board – November 23-29, 2009

OB's May 2009 Heathen Parade Angered Police. Details below.

Hodad’s to open 2nd restaurant in downtown San Diego

According to Mike Hardin, one of the partners who owns OB’s most famous hamburger place, they are opening up a second Hodad’s- to be called “Hodad’s Too” – in downtown San Diego at 10th Avenue and Broadway.  Mike says he hopes to open it in March of 2010.  Originally, he had plans to open one in north county.  “That was Plan A,” he told me, and “and this is Plan F.”

OB Architects Win Small Orchid

The Bacon Street architectural offices of the Hanna Gabriel Wells firm in Ocean Beach won a small scale orchid from San Diego’s annual Onions and Orchids. The firm also is a winner of several American Institute of Architects-San Diego awards in June.

(Another) OB Comic-Con Founder Passes – Ken Krueger

Ken Krueger, co-founder and first chairperson of the event that became Comic-Con International, passed away Nov. 21.  Shel Dorf, also a co-founder, just passed away on November 3rd. (Maybe they know something we don’t.)

Krueger was owner of Alert Books here in OB and met Shelton Dorf in early 1970. The two, with a group of teen-aged fans, organized first Golden State Comic Con, held Aug. 1-3, 1970, at the U.S. Grant Hotel.  Krueger had attended the very first science-fiction convention in 1939 in New York City.

Kevin Melrose of Comic Book Resources wrote:

“Ken Krueger was as much responsible for the creation of the Comic-Con International as anyone else, alive or dead,” Mark Evanier wrote. “… Perhaps his greatest contribution to the early cons in San Diego was that he was the Grown-Up. The majority of those on the original convention committee were kids in need of adult supervision … someone with some experience in handling business matters. Most were too young to even sign the hotel contract so Shel Dorf and Ken did that. At the early cons, he was the go-to guy for any problem, any crisis, any decision. He didn’t get or seek the attention for all he did but believe me: He did a lot.”

Go here for more on Ken Krueger.

Last Spring’s Annual OB Heathen Parade Drew Police Wrath

Every Spring, right around the middle of May, the Heathens of OB stage a midnight parade of silliness and fun.  Hundreds have joined in as the usually-costumed paraders move from Brighton to Newport and then to the beach.  There’s usually a bonfire at the end, also. This has been going on for 7 years.

This past May’s event, however, was very different, as OB Rag has just found out.  This year the event  drew angry San Diego police officers who dispersed the revelers upon threat of arrest.  For the previous six years, police had been very tolerant and easy-going, allowing the non-permitted parade to be carried out without trouble or problems.

This year, as it turned out, the hundreds of paraders were harassed by police officers along the route – from Brighton to Newport and then to the beach. Individuals were taken aside and questioned by officers.  One common question was ‘who’s the leader?’

The Heathens, begun by the residents of an apartment complex on the 4900 block of Brighton, are a loose-knit crowd, without leaders, who are  into celebrating spontaneity and quiet craziness. It is an event traditionally organized by word of mouth and emails. It involves hundreds of locals, as well as “heathens” from other parts of the city.  Each year there’s a theme – this past year it was clowns – so many people wore clown outfits. But the police weren’t laughing.

I spoke to two participants who described to me the scene.  This year, I was told, there were “angry cops everywhere.”  Once the crowd reached the beach and began to have their bonfire north of the lifeguard station, they were swarmed by at least 20 blue uniforms.  People were threatened with arrest if they didn’t immediately disperse.  It was a sour ending to what’s usually and traditionally been a fun parade. “The cops just didn’t want this thing to happen,” I was told.

My contacts around the beach have offered up that recently the police in OB have been cracking down on a lot of things. This was one event – another possible tie-in was the citing by police of a troupe of fire performers down at the beach – performers who were just found not guilty by a judge – but who had to go to court for something officers in the past had allowed.  Any one with ideas?

Scientists search for bugs on Navy’s Point Loma Base

Scientists from the Natural History Museum are searching for spiders, wasps, bees, termites, ticks, and ants.  And they’re doing it on what’s called the”last unspoiled coastal sage scrub in Southern California,” and it’s actually the 1,200 acres of Chaparral hillsides, sandstone cliffs and Torrey pine trees at the Naval Base in Point Loma. Here’s part of the report from Voice of San Diego:

Jim Berrian and Eric Piehel, scientists from the San Diego Natural History Museum, are conducting what may be the most extensive study of spiders and insects ever done in San Diego County. And they are conducting their study on some of the last unspoiled coastal sage scrub in Southern California — 1,200 acres of Chaparral hillsides, sandstone cliffs and Torrey pine trees.

It is some of the most ecologically rich — and environmentally regulated — land in Point Loma. It also happens to be Naval Base Point Loma. The military specializes in warfare, not ecology, but it understands that we need insects to pollinate plants essential for food, oxygen and medicine. So the brass reached out to the researchers to find out which species cohabitate with the sailors and marines on the land.

Tagged as: Point Loma