SAT 1/15 Doctor’s orders: You’re to exercise more in 2005! Running is a good option. But frankly, jogging alone looks painfully boring. Perhaps your ideal workout is something more akin to frat-house activities: frequent “beverage” breaks, drinking games, and singing some bawdy songs. If so, you should join the Phoenix…

WED 1/12 While the Blunt Club has been lighting up the Priceless Inn, 5014 South Price in Tempe, for almost three years, promoter Adam Dumper (a.k.a. Dumperfoo) is promising something decidedly dope on Thursday, January 6, when the third round of the “All B-Boys Armory Hip-Hop Invasion” goes down. Two…

SAT 1/8 Has it really been five years since we all got our collective panties in a bunch over the misplacement of a few lousy zeroes? If you’ve already forgotten the experience of crouching in your shelter with a shotgun in one hand and a flute of Brut in the…

First Fridays have long been the spot for lucky scenesters to score, whether it’s scamming some hottie’s digits or getting the skinny on local music. But hepcats can double up on depravity in one spot during the hippest night of the month at the Paper Heart’s fifth annual “Sex, Drugs…

THU 6 Admit it: You’ve always wanted to be on shows like Wheel of Fortune or Street Smarts, but you just can’t get past the audition. Don’t give up practicing your buzzer-beating skills just yet, as the folks at Hamburger Mary’s, 5111 North Seventh Street, will debut their weekly Game…

“Brian Alfred: The Future Is Now!” at the Phoenix Art Museum: New York-based artist Brian Alfred ponders corporate culture and rampant industrialization in his latest exhibition. Although Alfred’s retro-futuristic paintings and collages emphasize society’s fascination with the digital age and subsequent sensory overload, his collection of work is surprisingly sensory-friendly…

12/30- 2/12 Paul and Corrie just got married. She’s beautiful, and he’s a hotshot lawyer who just won his first case, a whopping 6-cent settlement. But their life as newlyweds quickly digresses into one long, hilarious argument in Neil Simon’s classic comedy Barefoot in the Park, opening Thursday, December 30,…

FRI 12/31 It’s New Year’s Eve and you’ve got at least two options: Join the hordes (via ample television coverage) in NYC’s Times Square to watch the ball drop; or ditch the sofa and ring in the new year by dropping a beat. For pleasure-seeking funkophiles in favor of option…

1/3 – 1/28 Our couch-potato habits are so ingrained that it takes a drill sergeant to get us into shape. Too bad we recoil at the thought of a military haircut. Ladies, on the other hand, can sign up for the Phoenix Adventure Women’s Boot Camp and still keep their…

When New Year’s Eve comes a-knockin’, this town’s a-rockin’. With almost every style of bash going down, it’s hard to find some wallflowerin’ excuse to stay home watching Regis Philbin filling in for the ailing Dick Clark. Even Indo-Pakistani folks can kick it like Kali and welcome the new year…

SAT 1/1 The year 2005 is only mere hours away, so you’d better get cracking on some resolutions quick, lest your better half will think you’re slacking in self-improvement skills. They already guilted you into snuffing out the cigarettes, so consider whipping your fat ass into shape. Plus, you’ve somehow…

12/24-12/25 Can’t afford a plane ticket to go home for the holidays? Don’t end up alone in your crummy apartment with a lukewarm TV dinner when you can surround yourself with a flock of female impersonators at Pookie’s Cafe, 4540 North Seventh Street, where drag queens perform their usual Vegas-style…

TUE 12/28 These Beavers are anything but sloppy. Sure, Oregon State started the 2004 season by posting a dismal 1-4 record (including getting walloped 49-7 by Cal-Berkeley in October), but head coach Mike Riley turned the team’s fortunes around, and OSU won five of the next six and clinched a…

12/31 Appearances often are deceiving. You’d probably expect a public performance of Aesop’s fables to be some infantile feel-good production aimed solely at children. Just like the sheep that mistook the wolf as one of their flock, you’d be dead wrong. Gerry Cullity and Adele Dodds, two members of the…

THU 12/16 Snow? Tony “Scarface” Montaña would bury his face in it, but we’re not talking about blow. Sonik magazine’s “Snow” party on Thursday, December 16, at Devil’s Martini, 4175 North Goldwater Boulevard in Scottsdale, boasts two tons of real snow — the natural, non-homicidal-episode-inducing kind. The party includes six…

FRI 12/17 Those missing the fast-paced, hard-hitting action of hockey courtesy of the NHL lockout may find a willing antidote this winter within the Phoenix Coyotes’ own Glendale Arena. Since landing in the Valley a year ago, professional lacrosse has struck a chord with a small but dedicated group of…

Quick, who’s got the best selection of local music in the Valley? Zia? Hardly. Eastside Records? Possibly. Leslie Barton? Definitely. With hundreds of CDs bursting from two gigantic Caselogic CD wallets, it’s an understatement that the 35-year-old promoter of Modified Arts is plugged in to the local music scene. She’s…

TUE 12/14 From what you’ve come to expect from emo groups, Novi Split — which visits Modified Arts, 407 East Roosevelt, on Tuesday, December 14 — fills the void in the way only the sensitive side of post-punk can. Offering sound design that is as adverse to “over-production” as slugs…

Y’all remember the “Free Tibet” movement? Back in the late ’90s, it was the counterculture cause célèbre, on the lips of every hippie and alt-rocker from Burning Man to the East Village. But now it’s 2004, and while hipsters have focused their ineffectual efforts toward more trendy causes, his holiness…

SAT 12/11 Normally we wouldn’t recommend walking the streets of Cave Creek after dark, given the number of bikers — inebriated or otherwise — who frequent the hamlet’s roadhouses and saloons. But we’ll make an exception on Saturday, December 11, for the second annual Cave Creek Luminaria Run. More than…