What Lies Beneath Tempe Town Lake

Around 10 p.m. Tuesday, a section of the inflatable rubber dam that held Tempe Town Lake burst, sending waves of sun-baked, germ-infested water into the Salt River Bed.The two-mile-long Town Lake that once was, could be no longer in a matter of hours, which means there's going to be a...

By Claire Lawton

July 21, 2010

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Around 10 p.m. Tuesday, a section of the inflatable rubber dam that held Tempe Town Lake burst, sending waves of sun-baked, germ-infested water into the Salt River Bed.

The two-mile-long Town Lake that once was, could be no longer in a matter of hours, which means there's going to be a whole lot of mud ... and a whole lot else that's been hiding under the murk.

Here are just a few of our predictions of what's at the bottom.

Let's start small.

Phase One of clean up is likely to yield the following:
- The inevitable abundance of empty beer cans, needles and feral cats
- Russell Pearce's toupee
- Plenty of trashy treasures for Angela Cazel Jahn's next installation
- Remnants of the native head shops and hippies
- Michael Crow's job applications to anywhere (and everywhere) out of town

Phase Two:
- Payton Curry's rabbit carcasses from Cafe Boa
- The failed PBR mural campaign
- Kilts from March's Flogging Molly concert
- ASU's Gallon Challenge Victims
- The Arizona Diamondbacks' fan base

Phase Three:
- The Sun Devil Football Team's Annual Broken Dreams (and Rudy Carpenter's dignity)
- A lock box containing: Andrew Thomas' ethics, Dennis Wilenchik's oil
portrait (pictured left), and the long unaccounted for concessions for Sheriff Joe Arpaio's jail vending machines
- The Insane Clown Posse

- All hope for the Arizona Democratic Party

And now for the things we couldn't bring ourselves to put on the official list (in the interest of good taste) ... Hell, we'll share it with you anyway:

- Dan Harkins' Dog
- Jan Brewer's Plastic Surgery Bill
- Walter Cronkite

Clean up's going to be a bitch.

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