1992
Bill Clinton elected president – Apple introduces QuickTime – Dimensions nightclub opens – San Jose streets explode after Rodney King verdict – Leonid Grin named music director for San Jose Symphony
The Megaclub
More like a Universal Studios tour with mixed drinks than a neighborhood disco, Dimensions fills the shell of the old Goldeen’s building on South First Street, across from Eulipia and the Ajax Lounge and within club-hopping distance of F/X, Marsugi’s and the Cactus Club. Some myopic tourists may mistake the three-story club for the Children’s Discovery Museum, thanks to its purple exterior, but the club’s painted-desert marquee is unique with a vengeance. Carlos deVillalvilla, Feb. 13, 1992
Running on Empty
An exhaustive Metro investigation reveals that San Jose’s Redevelopment Agency lacks public accountability and has dug itself into a deep financial hole that jeopardizes its high-profile program. After a decade of dramatic and loosely supervised expansion that saw the reshaping of San Jose’s skyline and the creation of a powerful bureaucracy, the city’s massive redevelopment building program is now in trouble. In addition to skating on thin financial ice, the agency suffers from internal management problems characteristic of entrepreneurial organizations that grow too fast while failing to distribute decision-making responsibility beyond the corner office. March 19, 1992
Just Plain Dom
Assemblyman Dom Cortese stands in the middle of the legislative chamber delivering the preamble to his water policy bill: “Mister Speaker, members …” His face is serious, his presentation steady. Patiently, Cortese responds to a question from Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman: “My bill also states that …” The picture of a legislator in action—but for one thing: the place is deserted. The Legislature is not in session; Barbara Friedman is nowhere in sight. Cortese is presenting his bill to a quorum of vacant chairs. Cortese is anxious I should see every aspect of what he does in Sacramento. Now he is simulating a scene in which he needs one or two more votes to pass a favorite bill, running to different desks, trying to win converts one on one: “I’d say, ‘Barbara, what’s your problem? You got a problem?'” Short and stout, with baggy jowls and Buddha-like belly and earlobes—who would have thought San Jose’s six-term assemblyman would look like your jolly Italian uncle: a cross between Al from the TV sitcom Happy Days and Friar Tuck? Louis Theroux, April 23, 1992 [Former Metro intern and staffer Louis Theroux has since become a sensation in British television, and is writing a book.]
Dubious Electronic Advances
A recent New York Times article speculating on the possible uses for Apple Computer Inc.’s Newton (or “personal digital assistant”) gushes about a brave new era that could include “smart refrigerator magnets.” How smart does a refrigerator magnet need to be? If it’s moldy, throw it out. Michael S. Gant, July 16, 1992
How to Save the Giants
OK, sports fans, step up to the plate and put your money where your mouth is. It’s time for Silicon Valley’s heavy hitters to exercise their entrepreneurial prowess and keep the Giants in the Bay Area—to have them play right here in the South Bay by building a stadium and purchasing the team. Dan Pulcrano and Jonathan Vankin, Aug. 13, 1992
SoFA Time
Downtown San Jose has hosted several celebrations of late … but none so accurately captures the flavor of the real downtown as the First SoFA Street Fair promises to do. That’s because SoFA was conceived by people who spend nearly all their time downtown, as opposed to the 9-to-5 weekday warriors who planned the better known and larger festival. Carlos deVillalvilla, Sept. 24, 1992
A Leader and His Flock
In late summer of this year, there was a rumor buzzing through the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Jose that Bishop Pierre DuMaine was on his way out as the leader of Santa Clara County’s 400,000-strong Catholic congregation.
The rumor was widespread. It was uttered by a church secretary in Palo Alto, political activists in Cupertino, an administrator at San Jose State University and priest in Sunnyvale. Local church officials, however, doubted that such a move was imminent. They speculated that if DuMaine were on his way out, he would have been included in a series of relocations that recently rocked some Northern California dioceses. “If they were going to get rid of Pierre, they would have done it then,” said one. “For better or for worse, I think we’re stuck with him.” Geoffrey Dunn, part of a six-month investigation of the local Catholic Church, Nov. 19, 1992
Liquid Assets
I like jacking off as much as the next man, but this is one session I’m not looking forward to. That it’s 8:30am, and I’m suffering from a hangover is the least of my worries. What’s making me apprehensive is that I’m on my way to California Cryobank Inc., a sperm bank in Palo Alto, where I’m going to have to masturbate into a little plastic cup in a strange room and then, I imagine, solemnly emerge, bearing my emission like a saint’s relic to have it analyzed. Whether it will pass muster for inclusion in the bank’s donor program is another source of trepidation. Still, I’m going to give this thing my best shot. Louis Theroux, Nov. 26, 1992
