Generiks Cactus Jelly-Jive? (World Records) I’m thinking Blue Cheer. I’m thinking Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo. I’m thinking Feargal Sharkey. I’m thinking Nervous Norvus. I’m thinking everybody who’s ever sounded worried delivering a lyric. Whether Tempe’s Generiks are musing about being a fetus (“If I was a fetus, I’d probably make…
The Blue Meanies make it a practice to sleep with their fans. “We can’t afford hotels, so usually someone puts us up, people in the crowd we happen to meet,” says Bill Spunke, the Meanies’ 27-year-old lead singer. “Sometimes you luck out and stay with someone who lives in a…
If it ain’t sung in English, a quick score as a novelty hit is the best a pop ditty can hope for in the U.S. Don’t believe us? Just try naming more than one song by Domenico Modugno (“Volare”) or Kyu Sakamoto (“Sukiyaki”). Betcha can’t! Yet since 1970, the American…
After a vagabond year, changing location with each production, Phoenix Theatre is celebrating its 75th season in a newly refurbished home. The ample lobby, rest rooms and plush seats make the facility, renovated at a cost of $5 million, an attractive destination for an evening out. To christen the theatre’s…
Theater Works is turning out its annual miracle: a great, bloated Broadway musical on a tiny stage in a barn. The occasion is its revival of Jerry Herman’s Mame, featuring 156 costumes and a sterling star turn. When the literati debate the virtues of Stephen Sondheim versus Andrew Lloyd Webber,…
When I first moved to the Valley two years ago, I did the expected thing–I made a visit to Sedona. I was interested in the town for many reasons: the allure of the name, which comes from Sedona Schnebly, who founded the town with husband Carl in 1902; the spot’s…
When I was a reporter not long ago, I often found myself in the same crowd of journalists as one particular television newsman. This reporter stood out from the journalistic pack. No matter what the event–trial or news conference, government meeting or murder scene–he seemed always to be behind schedule…
Everybody knows that Phoenix is, quite simply, the best place in the world to live. Whether you’re looking for great weather, a unique cultural spectrum, expressive architecture or just plain friendly folks, this year-round fun capital has it all! And while naysaying summer guests may moan that the Valley of…
The Executioner’s Song and Dance State Representative Scott Bundgaard considers himself an “idea man.” His fresh idea for this month: kill people. The District 19 Republican intends to introduce a bill requiring capital punishment for interstate drug dealers or people who produce “a commercial amount” of illegal drugs, whatever that…
W. Wallace Covington, a professor of forest ecology at Northern Arizona University, likes to invoke the memory of Aldo Leopold, the naturalist and philosopher who lectured on the importance of undisturbed wilderness. Of course, there are no more undisturbed wildernesses, and after more than a century of fire suppression, grazing,…
The hot talk around the Maricopa County Courthouse in recent weeks hasn’t been about juicy murder cases or Sheriff Joe. What people really want to know is why three court commissioners–Laura Estay, Joel Glynn and Roy Waddell–were forced to resign August 9. The forced courthouse resignations were the first in…
Quail race across a secluded Phoenix street where Gretchen Freeman and her husband will soon break ground on a new home. Their future backyard affords a view of Camelback Mountain’s Praying Monk. Neighboring houses sprawl across roomy, desert-landscaped lots. Home prices in this development, Biltmore Alta Vista Park, start at…
Let’s daydream for a minute. It’s opening day, 1998. Nearly 50,000 fans are tightly packed into Bank One Ballpark’s dark green seats, eagerly anticipating the first pitch in America’s grandest and most expensive new generation of baseball stadiums–$70 million more than the next most expensive ballpark, Denver’s $215 million Coors…
Walking into Durant’s one night last week, a couple of longtime customers asked about the deep trench running across the restaurant’s parking lot. “Oh, that?” quipped the valet parking attendant, pointing toward what turned out to be a plumbing excavation. “They’re installing either a wine cellar or a live lobster…
. . . Heaven admits no jest; wits that presum’d On wit too much . . . with foolish grounds of art Discover’d first the nearest way to Hell. –John Ford, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore A young man starts sleeping with his sister, and she gets pregnant. When she…
The title character of Jeffrey, played by Steven Weber, is a young, gay actor/waiter in New York City. He loves sex, but nonetheless swears off it out of fear of AIDS. Shortly thereafter, he meets Steve (Michael T. Weiss), a beautiful young bartender he can’t quite resist. Before their first…
Food for Thought: I’ve been reading a new book, Becoming a Chef, by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, which offers recipes and reflections from some of the country’s best chefs (Van Nostrand Reinhold, $29.95). I haven’t tested any of the recipes, but I am impressed by the wisdom that inspired…
We certainly are hard up for royalty in this country, eagerly crowning tycoons and entertainers “King” of this and “Queen” of that until their self-importance swells like a bad boil. Leona Helmsley married one of America’s wealthiest men and ruled over his real estate empire with an iron fist and…
There is a huge difference between merely “watching” TV and learning to respond aggressively to it. The difference, for most people, is the difference between the living and dying of their own brains. –Hunter S. Thompson, 1994 I don’t own a television and I’m smug about it. People try to…
Nicolo Paganini was the principal violin virtuoso of the 19th century. He was also a madman. Wild-eyed in appearance and sinister in demeanor, Paganini made little effort to dispel rumors that he had killed one of his wives and strung his instruments with her viscera. It was also widely believed…
“I need a man!” screech female voices in the Planet Earth Multi-Cultural Theatre production of Federico Garcia Lorca’s classic tale of Spanish suppression, The House of Bernarda Alba. Since that sentiment suggests a solution rather simplistic for today’s women, one is left to ponder this play of sexual repression as…
Harold Pinter is arguably the most influential English dramatist in the second half of the 20th century. Traces of Pinter’s spare and oblique dialogue can be found in the works of Edward Albee, Tom Stoppard, Arthur Kopit, Sam Shepard, David Mamet and John Guare. Pinter spent the first ten years…
