I am coming out of an ABCO on one of those torrid days that send shoppers actually scurrying from the store’s air-conditioned sanctuary to their cars. I am moving at a good clip when I see the gray-haired man out of the corner of my eye. He is preparing to…

Roger Rea is a gay attorney who was badly beaten up last year. The night before he was badly beaten up, he made his first visit to a gay bar since he and his longterm lover had parted ways months before. He chose Apollo’s, a well-known joint on Seventh Street,…

Maricopa County Attorney Richard Romley should be feeling very pleased with the way AzScam has turned out so far. For one thing, various legislators who were captured unforgettably on videotape are receiving their apparently just deserts. Sue Laybe and Chuy Higuera are spending their evenings in prison these days, and…

Terry Goddard feature It is easy to get in touch with Terry Goddard these days. If you phone him, he phones you right back. If you ask to meet with him, he easily finds the time. When you arrive at the high-rise office on Central Avenue where he practices law,…

As it turns out, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office was right when it tried to involve Senator Alan Stephens in AzScam as though he were a dangerous man. Not right that he was guilty of racketeering, as became clear last week when Judge Frederick Martone ordered that Stephens’ name be…

They haven’t got much in common on the surface. Candice Nagel, a second-term legislator before she resigned last month, drives home along the Dreamy Draw in a white Mazda convertible and parks in the driveway of a Paradise Valley house that is massive, uninteresting and crammed onto a lot so…

The day before she resigned from the Arizona State Legislature last week, just an hour before she showed up at the Capitol for the second day of her ethics evidentiary hearings, Representative Sue Laybe was picking at a peach cobbler at the Golden Rule Cafe and recalling the afternoon when…

At her first court appearance after she became famous for a new reason, Senator Carolyn Walker enraged the public that had once adored her. She said hardly a word as she did so. Standing tall in a jewel-green suit, she allowed the wavy-haired Richard Gierloff to request that she be…

Representative Don Kenney, the public servant best known for his ability to fit $55,000 in cash into a gym bag, was a very noticeable defendant at the group arraignment last week. For one thing, he came alone, unlike some of the accused, who were accompanied by friends and spouses. For…

It is early in the morning, and Jack Pfister is hunting for cream for his visitor’s coffee. He is rustling around in an alcove that is a kitchen or a bathroom and that opens out of the north side of his large office. When he finds the cream–which is not…

We are tired of hearing that the media is too negative, and so we want to bring you the thrilling story of a man who was inspired. We are not entirely sure what it was that inspired William Chrisman, however, unless he saw an image of Carl Bernstein when he…

There are some things that you have a right to believe will never happen to you, particularly if you are a Pop Warner mother. Pop Warner mothers are selfless creatures who chauffeur their kids around to endless football and cheerleading practices. Who sit in the stands of too many games…

There is a very peculiar thing about Fife Symington’s education at Harvard, and it is that he felt persecuted there. He is not a conspiracy theorist in other ways, not the sort of arch-conservative Republican who is likely to try to hire a private investigator to look over the shoulders…

On the wall of Grant Woods’ office is a photograph, taken of him when he was at Occidental College, together with an old black man named Preacher. Woods attended the small liberal arts school in Los Angeles beginning in ’72, so he missed the pure Sixties, but there are certainly…

Before September 11, there were seven of them. Seven candidates standing for major office who, at age 45 or younger, were a collective statement about the turnover in Arizona’s political power. There probably never had been so many youngsters clamoring to run the state before. And the sudden swarm of…

Into the lobby of Terry Goddard’s downtown campaign headquarters, someone has just lugged a canvas banner that is painted in new campaign colors. At the moment, Goddard is sequestered upstairs with television reporters and he cannot witness this event. His absence doesn’t matter much, however, since he has become such…

At Dick Mahoney’s rambling, Spanish-style house in Encanto, there are some very noticeable things: a slightly disreputable gazebo in the backyard, a swimming pool filled with silt, and a pervasive air of altogether cheerful neglect. All his books are noticeable. But most noticeable of all is the poem. “A Poem…

In this atmosphere of tense campaigning, where Georgia Staton, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, has been publicly scorned as a “junkyard dog” by a prominent attorney and has been deserted right and left by members of her own party, it is probably only fair to point out that she…

There is much to be said about the arts in Arizona, and a lot of it isn’t kind. Too often, the productions and exhibitions that unfold before Arizonans’ eyes pander to a worn-out and pathetic sensibility. It’s the sensibility expressed recently by a community leader and member of the Phoenix…

Would-be urban dwellers should take heart: The city is finally getting serious about rental housing that would bring working professionals into the core of the city, night and day. A brand-new study commissioned by the City of Phoenix and the Phoenix Community Alliance–an advocacy group for downtown–finds there’s a market…

It’s time for the next round in the fight over Central Avenue. And if the final appearance of the city’s “grand boulevard” concerns you, be advised that you stand a greater chance of satisfaction if you keep your expectations under control. “They compare it to the Champs Elysees in Paris…

If the clubfooted Terry Goddard administration is to blame for bungled dreams like Patriots Square (and it is), it also deserves a stirring tribute for the Mercado. This marvelous and near- kitschy jumble of shops, restaurants and offices going up across the street from Heritage Square promises to be the…