During the mid-’80s, I heard director Richard Donner interviewed on television. He was plugging his film Lethal Weapon and noting, with a touch of Reagan-era pride, that on this project, he had gone back to the old, discreet conventions of action movies and TV, where the actor who was shot…
For He’s a Jolly Delinquent Fellow For a contribution of at least $1,000 to the Arizona State Bar Foundation, attorneys get an asterisk next to their names in the Bar’s phone directory. They also get the title “Bar Fellow.” If you don’t make good on your pledge, you don’t get…
Does your parks department need money to keep a recreation center open? Are your schools having trouble getting dropouts back to class? Not enough police to protect your neighborhood? No sweat. Call out the National Guard. The Arizona National Guard is diversifying. Programs that educate troubled kids, take kids to…
You may not know Stella Gaudreau, but state Senate President John Greene and the 13,500-member Arizona State Bar sure do. Thanks in great measure to Gaudreau, it’s still not a crime to practice law without a license in Arizona. Senate Bill 1055, which could have made it a felony for…
Although People for the West–the antienvironmental “grassroots” lobby of the mining, ranching and logging industries–boasts more than 3,000 Arizona members, fewer than 200 showed up in Mesa last Saturday for the organization’s state convention. Most of the conventioneers were over 60, the sort of right-wingers who drive slowly in the…
You’ve got your Old Hollywood. And then you’ve got your Incipient Forest Lawn. Somewhere in between, you’ve got the stellar feeding trough known as Chasen’s restaurant, the 58-year-old Tinseltown phenomenon that will slam its reservation book shut for the final time this Saturday night. For anyone even remotely acquainted with…
Nothing that’s happened in Lake Havasu City since March 13–the official beginning of spring break, MTV-style–came as much of a surprise to anyone. That’s not to say things were uneventful, though. A miniriot took place on the beach after shots were fired in a confrontation between a pistol-packing spring-breaker and…
The Gaddie family has been in the education business for decades. In the 1970s, members operated the John Hancock Academy in Mesa, teaching children back-to-basics that included phonics, morality and other conservative values. Later, they moved to higher education, operating the Mountain States Technical Institute to teach vocations like mechanics…
Whatever Nola Wants: Looks like it’s time to delete permanently the lukewarm review of Nola’s Cocina Mexicana that’s been molding in my computer system. The casually upscale Mexican restaurant has been doing less than stupendous business since it opened last year in glitzy Biltmore Fashion Park’s restaurant row, between high-profile…
If there’s one place in a man’s home where he’s allowed to do whatever he wants–other than the bathroom–it’s his bedroom. And Prescott’s Chad Calhoun has chosen to utilize his as a recording studio. Calhoun (under the name Big Tin Cactus) sent in a six-song load titled Gravity that he’d…
March 22, 1995 New songs, old songs and a studied sense of slack highlighted a performance by Cake at the Rockin’ Horse last week. Singer John McCrea, a brimmed fishing hat on his head and an undersize acoustic guitar between his arms, looked like a slovenly Jimmy Buffett as he…
Feast your eyes on these humble liner notes: “THIS is an event. Not merely the release of more ‘product,’ but a major milestone in the annals of Rock.” What could it be? A recording of Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley singing together? A Sgt. Pepper outtake? Dylan’s Royal Albert Hall…
If it were possible to run Four Weddings and a Funeral, Strictly Ballroom and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert through a blender together, the result would look a lot like the new Australian film Muriel’s Wedding. From the first, there are two weddings and one funeral; from…
Style matches content in Exotica. The film is set in a strip club, and writer-director Atom Egoyan, a Canadian of Armenian descent, doles out his story as slowly and strategically as a stripper doles out skin. Sadly, having slipped your six bucks under Exotica’s garter belt, you may find it…
ACG (Arizona Cafe and Grill), 3113 East Lincoln, Phoenix, 957-0777. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Over the past couple of months, the Valley’s restaurant buzz has been swirling around two new, flashy, instantly trendy spots. Both ACG…
Single Serving: It’s hard being a person with gourmet tastes and no one to share them with. Enjoying great food is a lot like sex: It’s usually better when you have company. A new-to-Phoenix group doesn’t promise to do anything for your libido, but it may make mealtimes more fun…
R.J.’s Osborn Restaurant, 2333 East Osborn, Phoenix, 956-4420. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. What makes the words “home cooking” so appealing? They conjure up such gauzy, nostalgic visions: Mom working over the stove, lovingly putting together tasty, fresh-baked, steamy-hot, good-for-you meals that fill…
Chuck Cleaver of the Ass Ponys has stories to tell. Some of the stories are about himself growing up in a small Ohio town. There’s the one in which Cleaver found a dead body on his way to high school. Cleaver says it was really no big deal. He was…
South by Southwest. What does it all mean? Does anybody get anything accomplished there? Are careers made? Boosted? Ignored? Is it an invaluable chance to meet industry insiders and enhance one’s working knowledge of the music business? An opportunity to see the latest groundbreaking pop, rock and roots acts while…
Two years ago, Phoenix’s then-newest oldies station, KPSN-FM “Sunny 97,” hit the airwaves playing Arthur Conley’s 1967 hit “Sweet Soul Music.” At noon on November 28, 1994, KPSN played it again for the last time. David Bowie’s “Changes” followed, along with a new ten-minute station ID spelling out exactly what…
I was in my early 20s when Billie Holiday became my personal idol. Her heartfelt phrasing of the simplistic truths of Tin Pan Alley captured the ache, the wonder, the joy of my young soul as no one else could. She had died three years before I ever thrilled to…
Set in 1979, Strawberry and Chocolate is a small, idyllic comedy about the political re-education of a young, conservative, staunchly Communist student by a gay, liberal, intellectual artist. It would seem an unlikely film to come out of Cuba, yet it’s that country’s entry for the foreign-language Oscar this year…
