Hoist the Belgian tricolor and strike up that kingdom’s national anthem, “La Brabançonne.” Chart a course for the ancient port city of Antwerp, and make it snappy. We sail for the land that gave us mystery writer Georges Simenon and the Singing Nun, Audrey Hepburn and René Magritte, pommes frites…
“What the hell is Britpop, anyway, Kreme?” queries the Jettster as I ease the shaggin’ wagon into the lot next to Anderson’s Fifth Estate in Scottsdale, site of the monthly Britpop night Panic!, the reason for our appearance this eve. “Oh, you know, it’s all those ’90s bands from the…
I’d have a rough time coining a more idiotic name for a restaurant than “Cocono’s,” the d.b.a. of the new West Valley venture brought to us by members of the Salazar family, proprietors of the mostly mediocre Manuel’s Mexican Restaurants. The handle’s too close to “Coco’s,” that family-friendly peddler of…
Paco Paco might’ve been a drive-thru likker store back in the day. Something about the slanted roof, pointy lit-up sign, and the way the squat structure juts out to the south of Earll Drive on 16th Street with a little driveway off to the side. Whatever its original use, it’s…
Eyeless sirens trapped in the detritus of urban wastelands. Iconic gas-mask-clad craniums sprouting antlers like human jackalopes. Jigsawed female forms splayed out beside abandoned automata. Behold, y’all, the bizarrely bewitching realm that photographer Dayvid LeMmon, 23, creates with his camera and computer. Outwardly, the Glendale resident plays the unassuming, stringy-haired…
I’ve had New Orleans on the cerebrum lately, and not just because the Katrina disaster remains an open sore on the American body politic. I picked up this recently published comic novel Tremble and Ennui by New Orleanian Edgar Nicaud the other day, and had great fun following its ne’er-do-well…
Four hours before showtime, and Justin Warfield, the lead singer of the neo-New Wave band She Wants Revenge, has his hands all over some chick’s panties. Okay, several chicks’ panties, to be precise. Apparently, this is what some Rock Gawds do in their spare time. Um, you know, prep merchandise…
Holy headcheese, not another freakin’ Irish place! Now, don’t ruffle your kilts, lads. After all, it is St. Paddy’s Day, and this is the only time of the year I’d bother writing up two new purveyors of Celtic comestibles in a row. Last week, it was Scottsdale’s smashing Skeptical Chymist,…
Irish Disneylands? You bet they exist. Actually, I’m as sure that Shane MacGowan likes his Jameson that you’ve been to one. Hard to avoid ’em in this town or any other American city. They’re called Irish pubs. And if a little green man approaches you in one of them and…
Outstanding sushi in the wiles of the northwest Valley? Yeah, right. Now you’ll be telling me that President Bush has been secretly planning to sell U.S. shipping ports to some Arabic-speaking emirate in the Persian Gulf. Huh? He did what? Guess I have to start watching Jon Stewart more often…
A high-pitched cackle and a black strip of thong. That’s what DJ Lady Tribe and I hear and see from the back door of downtown’s Brickhouse Theater, as the lez-and-het-happy Milla Jovovich bum-rushes us, her glutes suddenly shimmering in the streetlight before she covers them up and bounces back to…
Would it trouble you terribly if I told you that I’m guilty of murder? The murder of a strapping, dark-haired chap, whom I’d only just met in Chandler? The homicide would cause me more grief had it not been so much bloody fun. Oh, I know I’ll suffer in the…
“Damn, Kreme, peep all the chicas calientes and fly papis in line to get into Coach & Willie’s,” spits the still-switch-hittin’ Shakira of the PHX, a.k.a. the Jettster. “I’m goin’ home with something fine tonight, for real.” “Yeah, Pan Dulce pulls in more brown-skinned eye candy than a Daddy Yankee…
By the Great Seal of Solomon, they were the most treacherous 18 holes I’ve ever encountered in all my years as a golf enthusiast. I don’t know what made me want to hit the links in Mesa recently. Perhaps it was seeing Bill Murray at the FBR Open. Or catching…
Last call at Jonny Noir’s Filthy/Gorgeous Friday at The Biz: The Chloë Sevigny of P-town is off in a grimy nook with her tongue buried deep betwixt the lips of some effed-up same-sex siren, and I’m trying to score one last vodka-Red Bull for the road. I know, I know…
How’s this for synchronicity, Carl Jung fans: I’m driving down Broadway in SoPo (a.k.a. South Phoenix), my windows open and my system blasting the title song of Damian Marley’s brilliant CD Welcome to Jamrock. My head’s in the clouds, and I’m lost. Lost in some daydream based on the end…
So I’m kickin’ it like a 300-pound Charles Bukowski in the butt-end of the gloriously sleazy Ky’s Place, situated in a shabby strip mall on the northwest corner of 32nd Street and Indian School Road, when One-Eyed Josh decides to pull a Sammy Davis Jr. and show me how he…
Did you know that the German fashion house Hugo Boss outfitted the Nazi SS during WWII? That many of the clocks in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction are set to 4:20, a.k.a. international tokers’ time? Or that actor Kevin Spacey’s dad was supposedly such an impassioned admirer of Adolf Hitler that…
“Too bad you’ve switched sides yet again, Jett,” I needle the PHX’s now stud-muffin-exclusive Vanessa Minnillo as we watch a fine, female-filled pair of Apple Bottom jeans sashay past us. “Your home team has the advantage here tonight.” Jett eyeballs the hiney like an alkie at a bottle of Johnny…
The classic rock jams filtering through the stereo system at the Yard House in Desert Ridge are hand-picked at the corp’s Irvine HQ by none other than The Founder himself, Steele Platt, whom I imagine as a dead ringer for The Architect in The Matrix Reloaded. Dressed in white, with…
I was home alone, meditating in the buff after a particularly sweaty yoga workout, when he appeared to me in a blaze of glory: the four-armed, elephant-headed Hindu deity Lord Ganesha, that potbellied avatar of wisdom, success and prosperity, revered on the Subcontinent and elsewhere as “the remover of obstacles.”…
To celebrate the B-day of Albert Hofmann, the Swiss cat who discovered LSD back in the day and who hit the century mark last Wednesday, your humble Crunkalicious King of Kreme was planning to kick it at home, drop the latest disc from MF Doom, and get trippy off lickin’…
