Claude Olney achieved the American Dream–the acquisition of vast wealth without a whole lot of labor–by turning his underachieving son into a gold mine. Almost everybody has seen Olney’s “infomercial,” a thirty-minute television commercial with 1970s sitcom star John Ritter. And almost everybody knows somebody who owns Olney’s best-selling video,…
Since July 1989, the City of Phoenix has spent about $35,000 on bottled water for its employees. If our tap water is safe to drink–and there’s no evidence that it isn’t–how do city workers rate so much of the fancy stuff? That’s approximately the question Thelda Williams asked at a…
Charlie Humme spends his Wednesdays handing out flowers to passersby beneath the wood-slat hood that covers part of Heritage Square. Not just because he’s a nice guy, which he seems to be. And not just because he’s a purveyor of pesticide-free herbs at the city’s Farmers Market. “I love the…
For a guy trying to make a splash in the relaxation business, Jim Eisenman lives with a lot of stress. To start with, he runs what appears to be the Valley’s only flotation-tank business. During these hours, Eisenman and his wife provide frantic professionals with a few minutes of soothing…
Only 3 percent of Valley residents place “a great deal” of trust in the Arizona State Legislature. Just 16 percent of new governor J. Fife Symington’s constituents trust him the same way. Also down at 16 percent on the trust meter is the Arizona Republic, a daily newspaper. Slightly more…
In an era when sub-.500 baseball pitchers get million-dollar contracts, it makes sense that a peanut vendor has a publicist. In his own field, Rick “The Peanut Man” Kaminski–ace bag-tosser for the Seattle Mariners, Seahawks, and SuperSonics–is no borderline player. He’s the franchise, a superstar. An MVP. Last month, Full…
Where else would Hollywood go to shoot a movie titled The Vagrant? Phoenix, the setting for enough downbeat titles to program an all-existential film festival, is again playing host to makers of movieland magic and/or muck. The Vagrant came to town last week. Production trucks, lights, cameras, actors–even a few…
These two guys sit down at a table in the basement of the Memorial Union at Arizona State University. They’re young, kind of geeky, probably freshmen. They pull McDonald’s hamburgers from paper sacks. It’s 12:30, lunchtime, Friday afternoon: Showtime for the Farce Side, ASU’s student-run comedy troupe. Loud rock music…
After four weeks of Operation Desert Storm, American airplanes have made more than 50,000 sorties over Kuwait and Iraq and have dropped more ordnance than was used against Japan in all of World War II. Although Pentagon spokespersons say “smart bombs” can make surgical strikes against military targets–with sufficient accuracy…
On Thursday and Friday nights, the forces of flamenco are unleashed at Tapas Papa Frita. The guitar slashes, the vocalist wails. At the center of the stage, the dancer pounds his heels and claps his hands. The customers–who come for the blood-red wine, the little plates of marinated mushrooms, the…
For a comic-book superheroine who hasn’t been in wide circulation yet, the Incredible Librarian has quite a following. She gets fan mail from Australia. Her exploits are publicized in newspaper stories and trade journals. Her image is printed on coffee mugs. Incredible Librarian tee shirts are available in several languages,…
The life of your average barroom sot is getting better. No, beer and whiskey have not become cheaper or any less debilitating. No, the long-term health benefits of cigarette smoke have not finally been revealed. Neither pool nor darts has been proven to be an IQ enhancer. Pickled eggs are…
When Joe Rogers first read Martin Luther King Jr.’s words in public, something strange happened. As president of the Congress of Afro-American Students at Colorado State University, Rogers was no newcomer to public speaking. He had participated in several public debates as an undergraduate, had introduced Jesse Jackson at a…
Ken Kesey’s bus trip is generally considered the gala grand opening of the hippie era. In the summer of 1964, Kesey and a bunch of friends who called themselves the Merry Pranksters loaded up a funky old school bus (painted in a fashion that inevitably become known as “psychedelic”) and…
One of the things that will get you thrown out of the Rock Center Motel is if you get loud, which must be difficult to judge. The motel, an old-fashioned grouping of eighteen or so cottages just off grungy Grand Avenue in Phoenix, shares its lot with a rock yard…
My wife had to leave town for the weekend, and instead of sitting around the house saying “No!” over and over again to my nineteen-month-old son Mack, I decided to take him to Vegas. Since the late Eighties, Las Vegas–once known worldwide as Sin City–has been maneuvering to change its…
Candidates for Arizona’s biggest political jobs can advertise themselves for free on a worldwide hotline designed to reach millions of patriotic voters. So far during this campaign, thank heavens, only one candidate has tried it. The hotline is operated by the Pentagon to serve the American military and their families…
Using a long-handled ladle, the chef flicks oil, seasonings, vegetables and meat into the metal pan. Flames leap up around the wok’s sides and lick the stove’s exhaust hood. Seconds later, an order of Kung Pao Chicken is steaming toward the dining room. As the restaurant’s only food preparer, chef…
The new downtown library is still just a block of clear plastic. It sits on a scale model of central Phoenix, centered in an orange splotch that represents the proposed library site. Built to scale, the block represents the approximate square footage of the new library, which was funded by…
The Arizona Legislature has been widely criticized for not getting much done this session on important issues. Lawmakers have been meeting since January, seemingly with little positive result. What, people ask, are they doing down there? The best way to follow the action at the state house is by reading…
If you live in Phoenix and have cable, the strangest thing on your TV isn’t MTV’s game show, those wild Trinity Broadcasting people, Married . . . With Children or even the Bill Close Report. It’s not the shopping channel, Nick at Night or that Cajun guy who overdoes it…
The Arizona State Legislature has declared war on teenagers. A slew of bills introduced this session are aimed at eliminating the rights of nonadults to buy records, play loud music and drive cars. Capitol observers say they’ve never seen such an assault on youth’s right to self-indulgent self-expression. In a…
