Summer Guide: Wild and Wonderful
From pickup basketball to trout fishing to noontime striding, the outdoor joys of summer can't be over-celebrated.

Free Wheelin': A tale of two landscapes, both perfect for mountain biking.

Hoop Schemes: How a geeky-looking outsider found basketball comfort and joy on the pickup courts of Cherry Park.

Getting Hooked: A man's quest for the reel truth. Also, where to fish in the South Bay.

Down in the Pits: The semi-secret society of horseshoe pitchers becomes a growing concern.

Street Smarts: Museums without walls and historical walkabouts share the sun with workers and visitors looking for a lunchtime cultural getaway.

Summer Events List: All the fun stuff around the bay, from May through August.

Summer Music: Shoreline Amphitheater's open-air concert series features the famous and familiar.

Summer Theater: The best of the season's theater and performing-arts specials.

Wild Animal Survival Guide
Long-Toed Salamander
Cougar
Chinook Salmon
Burrowing Owl
Clapper Rail
Coyote
Marbled Murrelet

News: Welcome to Paradise
How predatory foreign species of plants and animals have stowed away on boats and imported produce and are merrily chomping through the local ecosystem.

Queen of the Jungle: Meet a 67-year-old Roller Derby queen who can't get her skates off.

Public Eye: Foot-in-Mouth Award.

Polis Report: No noise is good noise.

Taking the Fifth: The sights and sounds of rebellion, Latin style, reverberate every Cinco de Mayo at events around the valley.

No Decaf Kofy: Funk sensation Kofy Brown delivers a "hungry" new album.

Conscious Party: Spearhead's Michael Franti talks about the music industry, computer literacy and his spoken word tour.

Beyond La Bamba: From sizzling salsa to sneering punk rock, Latin rockers are reclaiming their heritage.

Audiofile: Reviews of the latest CDs by The Vegas Beat, Rasco and Sandra St. Victor.

Beat Street: More local music to shake your Benadryl at.

Rainbow Connection: Politically evolved Follow Me Home is old-fashioned melodrama.

Slow Train Coming: The latest film adaption of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina proves that every unhappy movie is bad in its own way.

Scraping the Macula: Illness brings new depth to Spalding Gray's monologues in Gray's Anatomy.

Blowing Off Steam: L.A. gets burned in Volcano.

Coming Home: Authentic ingredients and cooking styles please Kien Giang's Vietnamese patrons.

Bargain Bites: Breakfast deals and other daily specials take a starring role at the Intermission Cafe.

Women Wonders: A new book traces the long history of female cartoonists.

A Few More Howls: Eric Johnson writes about what Allen Ginsberg meant to the nation over the past five decades. Also reprint of past articles and current appreciations by the Metro's editor, a writer and the publisher, plus web links from Metro and others on Ginsberg and the Beats.