The column that follows this post was my first ever for San Diego CityBEAT. Before this, it was called Sordid Tales of a Bartender in Heat and ran in SLAMM, a biweekly music magazine. In August 2002, SLAMM was bought out by a small company called Southland Publishing and it became what is known as an alternative weekly magazine. Whereas SLAMM was a smaller, less frequent music and entertainment rag, CityBEAT was more of a city paper, covering not only music and entertainment, but politics and culture and news in general.

When the buyout was complete, the decision was made by the publishers and editors to keep the column, however the scope of it needed to shift a bit. They needed something that would appeal to a wider audience than bar goers. So I shortened the title to Sordid Tales and altered the scope.

Sordid Tales of a Bartender in Heat was a column about the comedy and tragedy of the bar scene complete with anecdotes of drunks and brawlers and loners and miscreants from a bartender who's seen it all, while Sordid Tales was more about the tragedy and the comedy of our culture as a whole -- as seen through the bartender's eyes. Some people preferred the original, others the latter. As for me, I love them both for different reasons. Enjoy.