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Normal Heights is anything but

By Brian Swarthmore

September 4, 2006

San Diego--Ocean Beach has a rep as San Diego’s funkiest neighborhood – and it is if you’re talking about “funk” in terms of stench.

But if you mean funk as in “eclectic,” that dubious honor goes to Normal Heights, which is the forgotten neighborhood between University Heights and Kensington.

It’s a shame that Normal Heights doesn’t get as much credit for hipness as those places because Normal Heights has more bars, more restaurants and, if you’re keeping scores, more gunshots.

I lived in Normal Heights back in the ‘90s and loved it. It was just the antidote for my day job as a pool boy up in Rancho Santa Fe. I’d spend all day long looking at beautiful women who’d never date me and go home to Normal Heights to see skanky hos who were making cakes filled with files for their boyfriends in prison.

Living in Normal Heights was actually a good way to pick up rich chicks – if they were guilty white liberals. You see, they’d want to come down and hang out in the bookstores that used to line Adams Avenue or go to the Ken Cinema a few blocks away or have a nice meal at the “Ye Olde Taco Shop.”

On the way home, there would inevitably be a gunshot somewhere and Ms. Rich Bitch would want me to hold her tightly until we got to my place. Then the police helicopters would fly overhead and I’d say, “It looks like it’s going to be a rough night. You better stay here. Would you like a Lucky Lager? The bottlecaps have puzzles.”

Man, it worked like a charm. I’ve moved away but every time I hear a gun shot or police siren, I get a Pavlovian stiffie.

Normal Heights is a good place to pick up hippie hos as well. When I was there, it was at a time when San Diego was a major center for phone psychics. There were at least three living on my street and some more on the block.

The great thing about dating psychic chicks is they KNOW they’re going to come. Also, they’re kind of psycho as well and one of my rules is the crazier the chick, the nastier she’ll be on your dick.

You just have to play along and respect their crazy beliefs. That means saying things like, “I believe in reincarnation and I remember eating you out during a French revolution. I think it was during a guillotine break. I’ll bet you taste even better now.”

One psychic chick I picked up at a bar right after my 12-step session told me I had the qualities of a world redeemer. Then I took her home and said she was wrong: I’m a world-class reamer. She agreed but got mad when she wanted my phone number and I told her, “You should already know it.”

That’s when I found out that a person who is psychic also KNOWS when she’s going to key your car.

There are lots of bars in Normal Height: The alcoholic kind and the kind that go over windows. Both are necessary because the citizens live lives of quiet desperation. Actually, it’s not that quiet. At least when the gun shots go off.

I remember walking by one of those crappy 99-cent Chinese buffets in a dark blue sweater and some Samuel L. Jackson wannabe yelled at me: “You best be walking! This is blood territory.” I laughed and went over to Vons to buy Band-Aids just in case.

Normal Heights is best known for its street fairs. There’s the Adams Avenue Street Fair in September and the Roots Festival in April. Both are fun events for the whole family and even though I moved away from Normal Heights, I like to go back so I can see all the people who are spending the money taken out of my paycheck for their welfare checks.

It’s also nice to see the guilty white liberals walking up and down the streets North of Adams who admire all the old Craftsman homes and bungalows and think about buying them as fixer-uppers – until they hear the gunshots.

I would move back to Normal Heights but only when they add either the prefix “Ab” or “Para” to the list and I don’t think that’s happening soon.

Still, I’m getting horny so I think I’m going to Rosie O’Gradys or the Ould Sod and pick up a single mom who’s ditching her kids for the night.

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