Throughout Oliver Stone’s Nixon, the title character, played by Anthony Hopkins, interacts a la Forrest Gump with historical figures like JFK and Mao. Stone’s view of Richard Nixon is a negative-image version of Gump–a darker misfit traveling through the American scene in this century’s second half, turning history topsy-turvy. The…
Message to Santa: Peace on Earth? Goodwill toward men? A Christmas bonus? Some things are beyond even Santa’s powers. Recognizing Santa’s diminished capacity, I’ve scaled down my Christmas wish list thisyear. The following 12 nonnegotiable changes in restaurant behavior are the minimum I’m willing to accept in 1996. If Santa…
Our Gang Cafe, 9832 North Seventh Street, Phoenix, 870-4122. Hours: Dinner, Sunday through Thursday, 4:30 to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 4:30 to 11 p.m. Today’s Jeopardy! answer: Sleep ’til noon, whine about boredom and eat a week’s worth of groceries as an afternoon snack. The correct question: What do…
If you’re looking for a traditional holiday treat, Actors Theatre of Phoenix is offering its slick production of A Christmas Carol. Forthose with a slightly less traditional taste in holiday fare, let me recommend Copperstate Players’ production of Inspecting Carol. If a Mrs. Cratchit played as a Southern landowner, a…
“There’s a white riot going on in Congress,” Bruce Springsteen said at a Neil Young concert in California last month, just before he dedicated the title track of his new album to Newt Gingrich. “It’s going to make this country less safe and less equal.” The Ghost of Tom Joad…
Tony Bennett Here’s to the Ladies (Columbia) Tony Bennett’s unlikely ascent from has-been to hipster continues to be one of the coolest, if most puzzling, success stories in pop. Somehow, Bennett has gone from one of mom and dad’s favorite artists to a fave with the kids, without appreciably altering…
Name: Yuta Kiyono Age: 23 Birthday: December 15 (happy birthday, Yuta!) Hometown: Yokohama, Japan Arrived in the Valley: September 15, 1995 Future Plans: Learn English and study at ASU Current command of English: Shaky, but a hell of a lot better than my Japanese. Current command of eight ball: Nippon’s…
When the holiday hordes descend from the suburbs to swarm the gallerias every year on the day after Thanksgiving, many a dutiful consumer snaps up at least one of the Yuletide albums that magically appeared on the shelves overnight like presents under a tree. But few probably wonder how the…
Bite the Bullet John Dougherty’s article “Sentence: 90 Days of Pain” about an inmate receiving “inadequate” medical care in Maricopa County jails is inaccurate and misleading (December 7). Confidentiality rules preclude discussing a patient’s medical condition without his written consent; but, had the reporter contacted me, I would have told…
It all started five years ago. This guy, whom we shall call Bob, took a job that entailed sitting in a small cubicle with a computer and a telephone in a large office building in downtown Phoenix. About 40 times a day, that phone would ring and on the other…
Every year, famed chef Nick Ligidakis’ efforts to feed the Valley’s needy on Thanksgiving are gobbled up by holiday-drunk newspapers and TV stations. Owner of Nick’s Cuisine of Southern Europe and its offspring, Nick’s on Central, Ligidakis creates an annual mass-feeding machine that is large and well-meaning and swaddled in…
If trophies are ever awarded for pointless web sites on the information superhighway, Arizona State University freshman Dan Siegel’s home page would seem to be a shoo-in for a Golden Speed Bump. The cyber equivalent of melatonin, the 18year-old broadcast major’s web page appears to be nothing more than a…
After 1 in the morning on May 1, as the off-duty police officers moonlighting as security guards cleared the parking lot of the Roxy, as 100 or so mostly black youths filed out of the club, there was a fluttering of automatic gunfire and a squeal of tires. When the…
Rave I: Ghost in the Machine, Icehouse, November 4, 1995 The beat. The beat. The beat. I can feel it through the concrete and steel from 300 yards away, like the pulse of some adrenalized titan going wild within the walls of the warehouse before me. It’s jackhammer fast–at least…
thursday december 14 A Christmas Carol: Actors Theatre of Phoenix’s traditional production ofCharles Dickens’ ghost story, adapted by Richard Hellesen and featuring music by David de Barry, continues with performances at 8p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday and 8p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday in Center Stage at Herberger Theater Center,…
’tis the season Breakfast With Santa: Kids dine with the jolly old elf at sittings scheduled for 8:30 and 11a.m. Saturday at Beside the Pointe restaurant atPointe Hilton at Squaw Peak, 7677 North 16th Street. Also on the agenda: cookie decorating and a performance by a children’s choir. The cost…
Father of the Bride Part II: Directed by Charles Shyer; with Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, Kimberly Williams and Martin Short. Rated PG. Is it my imagination, or do the soundtracks of every movie from Touchstone Pictures include a faux-Leon Redbone vocalist crooning “The Sunny Side of the Street,” or some…
Jumanji, in the film of the same name, is a magical board game in which each roll of the dice conjures up some new terror from the Jungian jungle of childhood imagination. Once you have commenced play on the seductive-looking board, you must continue to the end, despite the attempts…
Rim Shot: My friends know I’m no lover of the great outdoors. My idea of a wilderness experience is staying at a hotel that has no room service between midnight and 6a.m. But just before the feds closed the park, my friends talked me into a hike to the bottom…
Normally, I love the hate. There’s nothing to jazz up a Muzak day like a spitting-mad New Times reader jabbering in my ear about the sacrilege of superimposing Barney the Dinosaur’s head on Jerry Garcia’s body. And any day I get to hear someone call Garth Brooks a musical genius…
Australia’s teeny grunge sensation Silverchair is the biggest (and youngest) band to conquer down under and beyond since the Easybeats had Friday on their minds way back in 1967. Silverchair’s debut, Frogstomp, entered the Australian charts at No.1–a first in Aussie rock. And, like this country’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,…
To better understand the way people acquire language, linguists are always on the lookout for a wolf boy–a person raised without benefit of human contact. When the 1993 documentary film and soundtrack Deep Blues introduced guitarists Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside to an audience beyond northern Mississippi juke joints, it…
