Jason Ayers sat in the VIP lounge of New York City’s premier techno club, marveling at his luck. On any other Friday night, Ayers would be working in his cramped, rented bedroom in Tempe, or maybe minding his budget at a nightclub. But 48 hours ago, he got on a…

Larry Pohorily thought mortician Mark Eisenhour was playing some sort of sick joke. What Eisenhour told him on the phone couldn’t be true. Pohorily drove to the funeral home, wanting to see the corpse for himself. Eisenhour met Pohorily at the door, then led him back into the embalming room…

It was a star in empty space. A media-friendly, metaphor-inspiring ’90s hipster that was fashionably alienated, yet never lacked attention. But then (cue tragic Behind the Music soundtrack here) the Mojave Phone Booth, that isolated telecommunications anomaly and object of Web fan worship, was disconnected and carted away. In a…

It was a star in empty space. A media-friendly, metaphor-inspiring ’90s hipster that was fashionably alienated, yet never lacked attention. But then (cue tragic Behind the Music soundtrack here) the Mojave Phone Booth, that isolated telecommunications anomaly and object of Web fan worship, was disconnected and carted away. In a…

Two things on Tempe Butte are irritating corporate lawyer turned anti-corporate activist Randall Amster.The first is a City of Tempe sign that says “Enjoy your parks.” It’s a message on the westward side of the Butte, the section long owned by Bay State Milling that the city council quietly approved…

The alien ancestry theory is wildly complex, extremely bizarre and fills just enough holes in evolutionary theory to have won its modest share of proponents. The theory’s influence extends from sci-fi movies such as Mission to Mars and Stargate to effecting the very real debate over rain-erosion tests that suggest…

Thirty-five people who suspect they’re descended from aliens are walking through Indian ruins on a Saturday night. They’re following Marcia Schafer, a petite 41-year-old Phoenix author and business consultant. Schafer leads her group down a trail that’s adjacent to the Pueblo Grande Museum on East Washington Street. The dirt gives…

“Bar’s loaded!” yells the referee. Powerlifter Tim Isaac now has 60 seconds to begin his lift. He takes a deep whiff from a bottle of ammonia to increase the oxygen in his blood, then approaches the bench. As he walks, his tightly strapped bench-press jacket forces his arms straight out,…

As ESPN’s annual Winter X Games play out in Vermont, the sports network and a Phoenix webmaster are competing in the legal arena over ownership of a domain name — winterxgames.com. The webmaster, 28-year-old Chris Birchby, registered the name in January 1998 for his snowboarders’ resource directory. He wanted a…

Go to your toaster. Look at it. Pet it. Is it doing okay? Does it want an upgrade? Is it toasting perfectly, just the way you like it? Does it love you? If it seems unnatural to be so intimate with a household appliance, you might not be ready for…

Lambert Ormsby is graduating with the Mesa High School class of 2000. He’ll be only one of about 800 students donning the cap and gown next spring, and, at 21, he’ll be at least three years older than most of the other graduates. But if it’s taken him longer than…

They have at least two things in common. First, Paradise Valley cartoonist Bil Keane, 76, and Chicago Web developer Greg Galcik, 29, attended the same Philadelphia high school. And second, neither thought Keane’s recent cease-and-desist letter to Galcik would prompt so much attention and outrage. “I just thought it would…

There are three types of escorts: those who are prostitutes; those who “walk the line” (accompany clients to functions or perform strip teases); and those who practice “cash ‘n’ dash” — a form of robbery that some in the escort business say occurs frequently in the Valley. “[Many escort agencies]…

Her business card reads “Cole Taylor,” a name chosen for its sexual ambiguity. Underneath, it says “Photographer,” or, sometimes, “Internet Design Consultant,” and then a phone number. The number listed is disconnected. You must reverse the last two digits when dialing, the escort says, to reach her cell phone. Potential…

The other high rollers call him Sam. He’s the bearish, wealthy owner of two clothing stores, and a regular here at the Bicycle Club card room in Los Angeles. Normally a dominating rock of a card player, Sam is anxious and fidgety. He has about $2,000 in chips lying in…

They arrived from the Netherlands in a small cardboard box. Two bottles and a one-page disclaimer, cushioned by Styrofoam peanuts sticky from leaked chemicals. One bottle was filled with small white crystal pellets and marked “Kalium Hydroxide.” The other contained a clear liquid and was labeled “Gamma Butyrolactone.” The skull-and-crossbones…

Using heat and pressure, more heat and pressure than one can imagine, a 3,150-ton factory press turns solid cylinders of pure aluminum into long, thin rails. The shiny rails exit the enormous machine looking wet and molten, like they might be gooey to the touch. Alexco Tooling Manager Greg Fraley,…

After two days of lectures, product pitches and apocalyptic rhetoric, it is time for a panel of self-proclaimed Y2K experts to take questions from the audience. The crowd, gathered here for the Y2K Summit and Town Hall Meeting at Phoenix First Assembly Church, doesn’t disappoint. One gentleman wants to know…

It was a shiny, black 1992 Corvette ZR-1. Only 20,000 miles on the clock, a glass top, leather interior, fully loaded. A rare find for a ‘Vette enthusiast, and quite intoxicating to Phoenix resident Jeff Nickels. “I immediately fell in love with it,” Nickels says. “It was the ultimate purchase.”…

“There is a phone booth,” goes a story born on the Internet, “in the middle of the desert.” It’s all alone out in the Mojave, a forgotten telephone network anomaly. And there’s this guy, a Tempe resident named Godfrey Daniels, who loves it. He didn’t discover the booth–some letter-writer to…