Articles by dweisman

Creative artist Jayne Spencer gets to teaching

Don’t tell award-winning watercolor, portrait and landscape artist Jayne Spencer that art is best executed and appreciated only by fellow artists. An award-winning creative artist and teacher, like TV’s father, knows best. “Anybody can be an artist,” Spencer said. “Anybody can learn to paint once they learn the skills and techniques. Find something that inspires you. Paint what you love. Art is subjective” Art is…


Pastor with heavy cross hiked road to Quixotic glory

Pastor Wes Mauch took a road less traveled through Valley Center ten years ago, carrying a 38-pound wooden cross, a well-worn Bible and message all the way to Rancho Santa Fe. He was last seen toting his earthly burden around Carson City, Nevada in 2018. And then…only God knows. Mauch, 66, walked along the side of Cole Grade Road, wooden cross on his shoulder and…


Three Dot Lounge visits Rancho Santa Fe: $20 ice cream pints, crying about the spilt Inn and foie gras lawsuits

We are going to consider a few outstanding three-dot items stripped from below, well below, today’s sundry headlines. But first, a reminder and salute about he who pioneered the three-dot way… It’s been 25 years since famed San Francisco journalist Herb Caen (1916-1997) died. For journalists and San Franciscans, Caen was a superstar. Known as “Mr. San Francisco,” his columns were a vital piece in…


They threw me out of Bill Clinton’s office

“Ooh, let me get it back, let me get it back,  Let me get it back, baby, where I come from It’s been a long time, been a long time,  Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time. Yes it has” — Led Zeppelin Yes, it’s been a real trip — and way too much Linda Tripp although Sarah Paulson’s got to get numerous…


Paradise…Lost? Oceanside church leadership changes ditch Community Roots Farm in the stuck mud

The tiny paradise lost of Oceanside church land once had been alive, according to a KPBS report. Not just with crops but with the pulse of something older than property lines, something that stretched back to the first hands that broke earth and placed seed. Community Roots Farm, 4510 N River Rd #5116, Oceanside, CA 92057,  sat on its acre like a defiant whisper in…


Is Jennifer Lopez moving to Escondido?

Is Jennifer Lopez moving to Escondido? Only The Shadow knows. However, local radio stations and the Internet were buzzing about the possibility that Jenny on the block was moving to this block. While it might be true — who knows, Donald Trump might have been president; the Cubs might have won the World Series — the rumor blasting across several local radio stations and celebrity…


In search of…Big Tepee

Big Tepee? Do you know the way, Jose’? Go around Escondido. Ask anyone about the Big Tepee. Since we can’t bet dollars against donuts anymore — some donuts cost much more than a dollar — let’s wager dollars against Chargers super bowl appearances that people asked that question will believe you should go to a big tepee of the medical kind. There’s an answer to…


Encinitas Musk Tesla sweatshop hit by massive protest Saturday…Breaking news will be updated as needed

1302 Encinitas Blvd. just west of El Camino Real was hit by a massive anti-Elon Musk protest all day Saturday where hundreds of patriots lined the pavement outside the criminal Musk Tesla ripoff facility. Meanwhile, many motorists at the busy intersection honked horns in support as protestors waved placards calling Musk a traitor and calling for his removal from federal government and the criminal trump…


Remembering the 2007 Witch Creek Fire

Fifteen years ago this week the Witch Creek Fire devastated Escondido, Rancho Santa Fe and North County San Diego. This is part of my first-hand coverage done as editor of the Rancho Santa Fe Record. I won the California Newspaper Publishers Association’s first place prize for local news coverage for this, and the other 26 stories, numerous photos, and overall coverage I produced during, and…


Hypersonic dreams for a billion-dollar Zumwalt blunder

At the Huntington Ingalls Industries shipyard, where the San Diego-based USS Zumwalt—lumbering titan of bureaucratic ambition—lay in drydock, welders and engineers moved with an almost ecclesiastical focus, reworking the innards of a ship that was born both too early and too late. The twin turrets, relics of a system so prohibitively expensive it was abandoned in a silent bureaucratic shrug, were gone now, replaced by…