Thousands of students and professors returned to the Northern Arizona University campus in Flagstaff this fall to discover that their academic careers were about to be messed with. Blaming budget woes, university president Eugene Hughes announced in late August that 19 majors could be eliminated over the next few years…
In the newspaper ad, the governor appears to be sitting on the lip of the Grand Canyon, as if he could fall in at any time. But the picture–promoting a photo contest sponsored by the Arizona Department of Tourism–is a composite, a cut-and-paste job. Governor J. Fife Symington III never…
The Walkman-wearing dude frying at poolside no doubt spoke for most of his fellow Arizona State University students. “I don’t want to get involved in the controversy,” he said. Yet involved he was, plopped beside the Ocotillo dorm, soaking up the September sun, because Ocotillo is the site of Umoja…
Keith Miller moved to Arizona in 1987, when the state had just begun its political self-immolation. Evan Mecham, a Pontiac dealer and longtime election loser, had lucked into the governor’s office and had quickly turned Martin Luther King Jr., dead almost 20 years and universally hailed as a titan of…
The news from the small river town of Saltillo, Mexico, is Earth-related but not earthshaking: The clay tiles that are the area’s most famous export–and a popular flooring material for Arizona patios and kitchens–are going to be changing. The reason? The tile makers fire their kilns with old automobile tires,…
A Tucson law firm’s legal reference book for journalists that claims to be a “search for the truth” has been nationally recognized by the American Bar Association as a successful advertising ploy for the firm. The American Bar Association honored Mesch, Clark & Rothschild for The Reporter’s Guide to Law…
Late in 1938, a funny new fish was hauled aboard a trawler working the Cape coast of South Africa. Once back at dockside, the ship’s captain notified the curator at the local natural-history museum. Unable to identify the catch of the day, the curator tossed the blue fish into a…
American public television’s ongoing Anglophilia has resulted in an ironic cultural reversal. The collection of Are You Being Served? highlights that will air around the country during the upcoming PBS pledge drive was assembled near the banks of the Salt River, not the Thames. The Best of Are You Being…
“I LOVE WOMEN.” The afternoon sun enters Tommy Maggiore’s empty restaurant on East Camelback Road. In a few minutes, evening diners will enter, too. Tomaso’s isn’t out-of-this-world upscale, but it’s very nice. The prices are on the high end of reasonable, the service is good. Later, when wine is flowing…
A few desert-rat residents of Tucson and its surrounding small towns–your typical Sonoran outposts of dirt-bag chic–say they’ve heard the news: The Biospherians, the story goes, are making like Hogan’s Heroes. They’ve been spotted, in the middle of the night, at the Circle K in Oracle, guzzling malt liquor and…
IT STARTED in San Francisco in the Sixties, at KSAN. As the 1970s began, a few more stations across the country were picking up on the FM “underground” vibe. The owners of KDKB climbed aboard the hippie bandwagon here and began making revolutionary radio. The station’s approach to music then…
The Maricopa County Demand Reduction Program Task Force–that multiagency gang of law enforcers which has been busting pot smokers at rock concerts for the past year and a half–is known by many names. Informally, it is called the “Do Drugs, Do Time Task Force.” In even more informal circles, that…
BIOSPHERE 2 GETS a lot of ink these days. The project has finally reached “closure.” A couple of weeks ago a handful of scientific-looking people sealed themselves inside a big greenhouse near Tucson. For two years, the story goes, they will live under the dome, drink their own recycled pee…
Ethics evangelist Michael Josephson is trying to heal Arizona, a state made gimpy by corruption. Last week he spoke to a large roomful of attorneys. This week he speaks to the Arizona State Legislature, then the Arizona Press Club. He has cornered all the usual suspects, in other words. Josephson,…
THE REMAINS OF Billy the Kid were assembled recently, for purposes of a postmortem. The Kid, a long-dead horse thief, gunman and ladies’ man, still can draw a crowd, and the remains, in this case, were not your typical forensic mess of gristle and bone, but the crowd itself, as…
THE REMAINS OF Billy the Kid were assembled recently, for purposes of a postmortem. The Kid, a long-dead horse thief, gunman and ladies’ man, still can draw a crowd, and the remains, in this case, were not your typical forensic mess of gristle and bone, but the crowd itself, as…
Alex Macias, at age 19 the youngest buff present, first got interested about two years ago. “I got tired of hearing stories that he was a killer,” said Macias. “Then you’d hear other stories about how sensitive he was. I decided to find out for myself.” Macias brought his girlfriend…
KINGMAN–This place is still an insulated, redneck, dust-blown, drive-by town, with mediocre-to-rotten radio, no mall and not enough to do. It is still more than 100 miles from anywhere, unless you count the boom-town horrors of Bullhead City. It is, in so many ways, still Kingman. But it is no…
The hottest local public relations man is not slick or manipulative. At work he wears boots and a cowboy hat instead of the usual overworked grin and slimy handshake. His client is a total beast who nonetheless has sparked an incredible buzz in the international media. The hot publicist is…
You are playing in your company’s annual golf outing, ostensibly a social occasion, but everyone knows the tournament’s results will be the topic of endless conference-table quacking back at headquarters. Interoffice alliances are forged on these occasions, mentors are acquired, careers are ruined. Fate has dropped you, a junior executive…
“Gimme a bray-ay-ay-ay-ake! Gimme a bray-ay-ay-ay-ake! No-oh-oh-oh!” Standing alone in a soundproof room, a grown man is imitating a sick car. Other adults watch through a small window, listening, coaching, judging. The five people assembled in the small recording studio and control room are making a sixty-second radio commercial for…
David Spade is hot and his mom is pleasantly surprised. “Everybody who was close to him knew that he thought funny thoughts,” says Spade’s mother, Judy Todd. “He was very funny in the house, but real quiet. I don’t think anybody expected him to do this.” Spade left Arizona State…
