Unless you’ve had your head in the oven for the past week, you’re probably aware that the 34th Annual Pillsbury Bake-Off was recently held at the Pointe at South Mountain. Inspired by its presence in our town, I rummaged through a stack of old Better Homes and Gardens magazines in…
Submitted for your approval, one storefront greasy spoon, the kind of place most folks ordinarily wouldn’t pay no never mind to. No, sirree, ma’am. Nothin’ fancy about it, unless your idea of high-falutin’ decor runs to things like souvenir Elvis mirrors and wastebaskets, or maybe a plastic bag from the…
Hey, dude! Wanna buy a Berlin Wall? Yep. As off-the-wall ideas go, this one was right up there. “At the time, it just seemed like a wacky thing to do.” So says Aaron DeVault, an ASU student who hopes to recoup the cost of a trip to Germany by fencing…
When is a trivia question not a trivia question? For the answer to that puzzler, just grab the phone and call Star Entertainment Trivia, a new telephone game sponsored by the grocery store tabloid of the same name. Using touch-tone buttons to indicate your responses, simply answer six multiple-choice questions…
“I knew those kids were trouble the minute they came through that door, the little bastards,” fumes the veteran 7-Eleven clerk we’ll call Midge. “You work in these places long enough, you learn to sense it. Or at least I can.” Never having worked in a junk-food fortress, I lacked…
Momentarily oblivious to the sound man who’s cramming a battery pack down the back of her dress (a skintight creation that could pass for a sequined sausage casing), former Channel 10 newscaster Shelly Jamison ponders her new position in the show-biz firmament. “What would my reaction have been if someone…
Earn “big bucks” . . . work in “a nice air-conditioned office” . . . “have fun” selling photocopier supplies over the phone. Little wonder that a certain central Phoenix telemarketing firm promised new employees that they were about to embark on “THE GREATEST JOB IN THE WORLD!” “It was…
Strutting around outside the Holiday Inn ballroom on Saturday night in his immaculate jeweled jumpsuit, Little Elvis appears momentarily oblivious to the trappings that have temporarily transformed the motel lobby into a reasonable facsimile of Heartbreak Hotel. He blocks out the big-screen TV where a braying Shelley Winters is doing…
“You name me one other business where, with nothing in your pocket and no real knowledge of any kind, you can go out on the street and make $40 to $60 within 45 minutes.” When no answer is immediately forthcoming, the boyish-looking young man who calls himself Cliff decides to…
Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. Build a better clothes hanger and, well, you’d better hope the world has a compass, a four-wheel-drive vehicle and maybe even a can of javelina repellent. Actually, the man who hopes to revolutionize the country’s clothes…
She was the Queen of Television and we worshiped at her throne. So great was our devotion that some of us even worshiped at her son’s throne: In 1953, a company called Moulded Products actually manufactured a Little Ricky potty seat, a multicolored toilet-training device decorated with caricatures of Lucy…
While chatting with a new club member, the spry septuagenarian we’ll call Marge suddenly shakes her head as if objecting to a half-baked recipe for apple brown Betty or a particularly ill-advised knitting stitch. “No, no, NO!” she interjects, cutting off her colleague in mid-sentence. “Listen, that’s never going to…
Mention any giant of the art world and one magnum opus immediately springs to mind. Whistler had his mother, Da Vinci had his Mona Lisa, and Warhol his Campbell’s Soup can. But Ettore “Ted” De Grazia? Just let the name of Arizona’s most beloved artist fall from your lips and…
They’re slimy . . . they’re sluggish . . . they’re spineless! They’re also the backbone of what is literally the creepiest commercial enterprise in town. Sacrebleu! Is this any way to run a business? If your business happens to be snail ranching, you really don’t have much choice. “We’re…
