Ever since yours truly arrived in the Zona, nearly everyone in P-town’s clubland has had the Black and Tan on their lips. And, no I don’t mean a pint of Guiness and Bass! I’m referring to the not-so-secret speakeasy, which has hosted bi-weekly Sodom-and-Gomorrah-esque after-hours par-tays, reportedly with underage cuties,…
I recently read online that the ugliest man in Hollywood, and a piss-poor actor to boot, Billy Bob Thornton, badmouthed the immortal Bard, calling Shakespeare “bullshit,” and thereby confirming my opinion of Monsieur Sling Blade as one dumb redneck. I take comfort in the fact that BBT’s fame is short-lived,…
The celly chimed the other day, and at the other end is my man Gentleman Jules Demetrius, the P-town Picasso whose artwork we first told you about during a visit the Jettster and I paid to the Thursday night Blunt Club at Boston’s in Tempe (“Beats ‘n’ Blunts,” March 25)…
My initial experience dining at Flat Iron Rotisserie and Grill, the new, Southwestern-themed establishment on Indian School Road, can be compared to meeting a bewitchingly beautiful Monica Bellucci-esque femme fatale at a party. There’s an instant, smoldering attraction. Your eyes lock in a flirtatious dance, and you find yourself saying…
Emerg McVay’s a one-man verbal blitzkrieg, a black Osama bin Laden piloting a lyrical 747 right into the core of your cranium. Preconceived notions? Kick ’em to the curb, yo. Especially if you think that P-town can’t blow up like ATL, the Lou, and Chi-town before it. Just listen to…
As you may have gleaned from perusing this space previously, I take a dim view of conventional wisdom and the morons who spout it. Al Pacino’s character Ricky Roma in the screen version of Glenglarry Glen Ross sums up my P.O.V. when he states that he subscribes to the law…
What would you eat if it were your last night on Earth, and you could have just about anything you wanted? That’s the hypothetical dilemma I’ve been mulling since a friend of mine gave me this odd little book titled Last Suppers (Loompanics Unlimited), which is all about the final…
Prêt-à-Porter Ranch It’s a sausage fest in Old Town Scottsdale on this Thursday night. And the J-grrl and I are at Martini Ranch, beholding a sea of horny, white and mostly male faces. I haven’t seen this many ofays since the last time the Boston Celtics won the NBA championship…
, Redendos Pizzeria and Pasta
With the J-grrl back in the saddle this week after her brief leave of absence (though whose saddle, I’ll never tell), I decide to let the lezzie Eva Longoria pick our party-place du jour. Three guesses where the Jettster wants to lick her lips and twist her hips? The new…
It’s a fine Tuesday night in the Zona, and Saddam Hussein’s chrome-dome, um, brother-in-law Sheik Samir Hussein is getting his ass beat down by a big-assed Catholic priest in a dog collar known as Father Punishment. The shirtless Sheik had come into the rasslin’ ring at The Sets in Tempe,…
I’m no urban planner, and Lord knows I have no inclination to be one. But whenever I hear my fellow diehard metropolitans talking up the Holy Grail of downtown dwelling — something that seems to happen like clockwork every First Friday — I inevitably shake my head in disbelief. I’ll…
Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout: The Zona finally starts jackin’ its game up to the minimum of what’s expected from 21st-century party people by extending the drink curfew until 2 a.m. It’s like the end of friggin’ Prohibition, yo! Granted, it’s not like Gotham where you can slam back…
I’ve always wanted to summer in Baghdad, and now at last I can. No, silly, I’m not joining the Army National Guard. I may be the size of John Candy, but this is no rerun of Stripes on basic cable. Rather, my imaginary journey to the banks of the Tigris…
Nineteenth-century journalist, poet and author Charles Pierre Monselet once stated that “a true gastronome should always be ready to eat, just as a soldier should always be ready to fight.” How right you were, Chuckles, but of course, it doesn’t hurt if the cuisine in question happens to be the…
From the street, Tempe’s Palo Verde Lounge looks like the sort of janky, pale brick building that might house a meth lab, a massage parlor, or a drop spot where the mob boys stash shipments of disco doughnuts. The only outward signs of drink-slingin’ taking place are a neon Bud…
One dilemma I face as a restaurant reviewer is how long of a grace period I should allow an infant establishment before writing about its fare. Some of my pals in the eatin’ biz assert that a newbie grub shack should be ready from jump, while others say that the…
Having spent my formative years in the Land Time Forgot (i.e., the South), soul food is as dear to me as pasta is to the Italians. How fortuitous, then, is my current place of employment, which so happens to be smack dab in the soul food section of town. Right…
Before I dive into this week’s review, I should take a moment to reply to some of the correspondence I receive on a regular basis. To the female admirers who deluge me nonstop with perfumed hankies and declarations of undying love, please see my secretary for an application to my…
Looking like a cross between Jet Li and the Hives’ Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist, pimped out like his bandmates in a regal purple tux and a Green Hornet-style black mask, and twisting and shaking as if Benny Hinn had just laid hands on him and filled him with the Spirit, Russell…
So the L-word Mila Kunis and I are kicking it with drinks and smokes in that intimate Seventh Street cabaret Wink’s, enjoying drag diva Barbra Seville’s Early Show-Girlie Show on a recent Sunday eve, when Seville returns to the stage from one of her many costume changes for a little…
A colleague of mine left me a copy of a certain publication the other day with the attached note, “Well, I guess someone feels threatened.” The someone in this case was a fellow food scribbler whose surname rhymes with “Puke-cannon.” I’d never bothered to pick up the rag in question,…
