Pearce, of course, wants none of it. He later e-mailed this egret, "We don't need reform, we need enforcement." Pearce wants no compromise, he just wants all the brown ones shipped home to Mexico, pronto!
Flake dismisses that as unlikely to occur: "Most Arizonans, most Americans, know that's not realistic, to deport 12 million people. That's more than twice as many people who live in the state of Arizona."
Fred Harper
Related Content
More About
But Pearce and his allies aren't concerned with what's realistic, moral or practical.
Without the issue of illegal immigration, Minuteman Simcox and his fellow weekend warriors would have to disband for lack of any pussyfoot patrols to go on. And Pearce would have no outlet for his demagoguery, save maybe for beating his dog or drowning stray cats.
That's why Marshal Flake and his posse must face them down and present them with a federal fait accompli they cannot ignore, in much the same way the 1964 Civil Rights Act forced redneck America to respect the rights of African-Americans, and swallow their own prejudice like a big, nasty plug of chewin' tobacco.
THE GAMBLER
Surprised, shocked and saddened. That's the reaction of this flummoxed flamingo to the news that ex-New Timesstaff writer Joe Watson was popped Friday for allegedly sticking up at least five Valley businesses, including three salons in Scottsdale, hence his newly acquired sobriquet "The Salon Bandit."
Scottsdale detectives arrested Watson at 1:40 p.m. on March 30, doing one of his favorite things — playing poker at Casino Arizona. No surprise to this mynah bird there, at least. Watson confided to having a gambling addiction to other New Timesscribes before he resigned his position with the paper a year ago. According to the Scottsdale Police Department's flack, Sergeant Mark Clark, Watson admitted his prob to the po-po, too, stating he had committed the robberies to feed his gambling habit. He's being held in the Maricopa County Jail on five counts of armed robbery. A sixth charge is pending. And the cops suspect Watson of robberies in Phoenix and Tempe, as well.
During his New Timestenure, Watson penned what's become one of the most popular NT cover stories ever, the tale of William Windsor,a Phoenix eccentric who wears diapers year 'round and sleeps in a crib the size of a Volkswagen ("Baby Man," June 9, 2005). Watson was well-connected in PHX journalism circles, having worked as an editor for Arizona State University's State Press magazine and newspaper. He also toiled on the East Valley Tribune'ssports desk, until famously getting fired for skipping work to attend the World Series, when he had been emphatically warned not to do so by his boss, then-sports editor Slim Smith, who's (ironically) doing four months for extreme DUI.
Watson had a brief stint as editor of the glossy Scottsdale mag 944 and even sat on the board of the Arizona Press Club. Watson had also freelanced under the pseudonym Zachary Best for Phoenix Magazine, where his fiancée, managing editor Ashlea Deahl, still works. Deahl declined comment when contacted for this item. They had been engaged to be wed later this year.
Watson wore a hat as disguise during the robberies and used what may have been a simulated weapon in a paper bag or with a towel over it, police say. Video surveillance footage from one of the robberies was shown on a 10 p.m. newscast. In that footage, he was wearing his beloved Boston Red Sox baseball cap. Someone recognized Joe and dropped a dime. Clark stated that Watson didn't resist arrest at the casino. (Wonder what kind of hand he was holding?)
The Bird knew Watson had been battling an obsession with gambling for years (he once spoke rapturously of the seedy 1998 poker flick Rounders starring Matt Damon and Ed Norton), and he had sunk low in the past because of it. But this beak-bearer had no idea he would go so far. Watson had lately been working at some sort of medical publishing house in P-town. He was upfront about his addiction, but it remained beyond the understanding of most of his friends. Physical addiction to illicit substances, food, or sex — this pterodactyl gets. But gambling? That's all in your head, which maybe makes it more dangerous.
Nothing excuses what's been done, but the Taloned One hopes Watson finds a way to turn his life around. As is, it sounds as if he's got material enough to write a novel from the pen. Maybe even a poor man's version of Nelson Algren's The Man With the Golden Arm (about a self-destructive poker dealer in gritty, post-World War II Chicago).
PHIL'S FOLLY
It's not difficult for us to imagine Mayor Phil Gordon in drag, and that was before he moved his 2007 campaign headquarters into a building that was once home to one of the gnarlier tranny bars in the PHX, the 307 Lounge, next to Wayne Rainey's monOrchid gallery, downtown on Roosevelt.
Heck, back in the day, former Partridge Family member Danny Bonaduce famously assaulted a beefy transgendered dude nearby, a tranny who frequented the 307. So, the spot's got the right mojo for a less-than-manly man, and this nasty nighthawk's not even getting into the fact that the word "monorchid" refers to the state of having one testicle.
