How in hell did our WNBA-champion Phoenix Mercury go 0-fer-May? And how ’bout that sparkling 3-6 record they carried into mid-June? Well, there’ve been three significant changes since last year’s campaign, and that’s a ton for any pro-basketball team, no matter the gender. But since someone specific must be blamed…

If Ward and June Cleaver were Phoenicians, they’d live in Arcadia. Wally would be charming the pants off (not literally, of course) the pretty girls at Arcadia High, and Lumpy, Whitey, and the Beav would be bugging the crap out of the firefighters down at Engine Station No. 1. Meanwhile,…

David Lynch, blecch. He’s the Alan Rudolph of cinematic subversion, and here’s how much I dislike him: I’d writhe through a Rudolph triple-bill of The Moderns, Choose Me, and Trouble in Mind if it got me out of seeing Eraserhead again. Serendipitously, I’ve found someone who not only agrees with…

If Jay’s Cocktail Lounge were a country club, some butch chick would’ve taken the bar to court by now over its weekly Men’s Night promotion. But we’re all grownups here, so let us respectfully request that you lovely ladies leave us alone for one goddamn night a week, ’kay? Is…

The TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer ran for seven seasons and totaled 144 episodes. I double-sourced and tripled-checked, ’cause we’re dealing with the Buffyverse, a subset of the Whedonverse, hallowed home to Joss Whedon fanatics, who have lives outside of their obsession, but not really. I know a Buffy…

I solemnly swear not to mention Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story during the writing of this piece. Starting . . . now. When describing an adult-dodgeball affair, it’s de rigueur to reference the 2004 flick. I mean, come on. But if AZ Dodgeball founder Sam Pewitt wants to play coy…

It’s rather tiresome how people (journalists, especially) try to pigeonhole music into one distinct flavor of the month, like, “Ya know, it’s electronic shoegazer grape rockabilly.” That’s why Phoenix’s Courtney Marie Andrews and her sweet strains are such a breath of fresh air. Andrews’ acoustic alt-folk and clear, endearing vocals…

By Clay McNear I (gulp!) teeter on the brink of being a High School Musical fan. After enduring marathons of dreck like The Wiggles and the creepy Booba as the operating cost of being a dad, HSM seems like West Side Story, only, you know, not as good. The flick…

I – gulp – teeter on the brink of being a High School Musical fan. After enduring marathons of dreck like The Wiggles and the creepy Booba as the operating cost of being a dad, HSM seems like West Side Story, only, you know, not as good. The flick is…

We were pleasantly confounded recently when KTAR’s sports-radio kingpin John Gambadoro stood up to be counted in favor of football – the other kind. Of course, this was during a 10-minute tirade against English cricket, so it was probably relative, but still – soccer! Even Gambo’s partner, Mark Asher, was…

As most people either love Phoenix or loathe it, so it is with Phoenix’s gridlike nature. Oh, sure, there are a couple of roads that shamble drunkenly outside the lines – Galvin Parkway and the Squaw Peak Parkway, or whatever it’s now politically correctly called – but for the most…

On the one hand, the Arizona Rattlers had nothing to lose. On the other, everything was at stake when they made that preseason promissory note of a 2008 postseason appearance. Who does that shit? Well, whatever it might say about their sanity, the Rattlers displayed a clangin’ set of cojones,…

The slogan of the Valley of the Sun Juneteenth planning committee is “Remembering the Past, Celebrating the Future.” Ugh. Strangely, the same folks who cooked up that bland, Chamber of Commerce jingle are responsible for the kickin’ Valley of the Sun Juneteenth Celebration. The fest is family-friendly, true, but also…

When the paintball craze first hit critical mass, it seemed like the Hula-Hoop of sports. Fun? Yeah. Doomed? Hell, yeah. Today, paintball’s about as far from obsolescence as a doomed craze can get. Just last year, a group of East Valley investors sank a boatload of dough into a new,…

We have nothing against one-hit wonders, except the ones who don’t realize the jig is up. Take the ’90s band Dread Zeppelin – please! The group’s brilliant come-on lasted about five minutes. Some 15 years later, Tortelvis and crew are still delivering the same peanut-butter-and-banana-sandwich punchline. Sad. The one-hit wonderdom…

While the big Snakes are away, the little snakes keep ball-yard withdrawal at bay. The junior serpents are the Arizona Diamondbacks’ AAA farm teamers, the Tucson Sidewinders, who play just down the road a piece at Tucson Electric Park. Beginning at 7 Monday, June 9, the Sidewinders host the Sacramento…

We love the song “A Girl and Her Horse” by the band Carbon Leaf. Surfacely, it’s about . . . well, a girl and her horse. Subdermally, it’s a metaphor for loss. The same might be said of author Deanne Stillman’s new literary nonfiction work Mustang: The Saga of the…

The Arizona Browncoats don’t need to get a life, as per William Shatner, but perhaps we can suggest a social life. See, these are grade-A geeks, fans of a six-years-gone TV show that lasted a mere 14 episodes. Still, give ’em props for wrenching themselves away from their plasma screens…