Ever notice how a celebrity’s career goes downhill after he or she “finds” religion? Scientologist Tom Cruise alienated fans by publicly flogging celebs over their antidepressant use. Prince’s concerts blow chunks now that his Jehovah’s Witness beliefs have him singing the praises of the Lord instead of “Little Red Corvette.”…
Sixty-two years ago, when the West Coast Science Fantasy Conference (a.k.a. Westercon) was founded, the term “geek” hadn’t been coined. Here in the 21st century, home of an all-powerful communications network those no-name nerds couldn’t have envisioned, geeks rule. The g-men, bristling with their social media, will descend on the…
Since her departure from Chandler Cinemas, and the subsequent, though reportedly unrelated, closing of that fine indie venue, Valley movie maven Midnite Movie Mamacita has became a wandering spirit, taking her schlock-cinema shows on the road. Having already played the Glendale 9 Drive-In and the Frontier Village in Prescott, the…
Recent Arizona transplants, let us enlighten you about the infamous “Scottsdale Galleria” rule: Why revitalize a perfectly good building when you can abandon it and build more strip malls less than a mile away? Until local developers get wise to the joys of recycling, Phoenix will continue to be littered…
If you’re Roger Alan Wade, a talented country troubadour from Tennessee with a weak spot for raunchy honky-tonk, is it a blessing or a curse to hitch your wagon to the star of your less-gifted but way-more-famous cousin Johnny Knoxville? On the one hand, the Jackass “mastermind” and Dukes of…
You might not know his name, but can’t forget the face of this kickass character actor after you’ve seen it in Stranger Than Paradise, Platoon, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Dirty Dancing, or Do the Right Thing, and those with long attention spans might remember his signature backbeat as the original…
If actor/musician/artist Richard Edson turned into the Troy McClure character in The Simpsons, this is what he might say: “Hi, I’m Richard Edson. Though my name isn’t known on, say, a Michael Jackson-like plane, you may remember me from films such as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (I was the joy-riding…
If you are a friend or family member of Chuck Close, God help you. You’ve most likely had your portrait blown up to a monumental size (we’re talking 8×10 feet) to really show your asymmetry. Close became famous in the 1970s for the Godzilla-size photo-realist portraits he called “heads,” an…
Instead of spending the Fourth of July drinking Coronas and trying to find a house party, then showing up at a house party where a couple of other losers have wasted the day away drinking Coronas, you might consider rocking out to great bands and DJs at a poolside, rooftop…
You think you’ve got the whole biotechnology thing squared away, then David Ewing Duncan goes and publishes another book. The latest from Duncan, an American journalist whose beat is the environment and the development of green technologies, is Experimental Man: What One Man’s Body Reveals About His Future, Your Health,…
It’s hard to say exactly what Brooklyn via Providence based alt-country band Deer Tick’s coolest claim to notoriety is: Hanging on NBC with Brian Williams, the undeniably fantastic cover to their debut album War Elephant (replete with enough girls and guns to make the late great Warren Zevon happy), associations…
We want our belongings to work as hard as we do. That wish sometimes clashes, gladiator-like, with artists’ urge to make art that does not, on the surface, seem to offer such immediate usefulness. But not at MADE art boutique, where daily inventory and scheduled exhibits both show off what…
If you think of The Gin Blossoms as the primary legacy of Valley music, you’re invited to hop into the Delorean that is “The Grid: Music Edition” exhibition. The Trunk Space, hosts of this sweet show, posed this simple question to The Shizz online local music community: “What’s the oldest…
The Merc face the high-scoring (but notoriously underachieving on the road) Sky of the Eastern Conference, anchored by the killer trio of guard Jia Perkins (pictured), forward Candice Dupree, and center Sylvia Fowles. Wed., July 8, 7 p.m., 2009…
It’s been a year since I sat at Art One Gallery in Scottsdale with a Cornish Rex cat sleeping on my lap. And on a recent visit to check in with owner Kraig Foote, history repeated itself — thankfully. A year ago, Foote didn’t think Art One would stay open…
“They’re all about where people come from. Nobody seems to wonder where somebody’s going.” So says the Depression-era bank-robber-cum-folk-hero John Dillinger upon surveying the clientele of a chic Chicago eatery in a key scene from Michael Mann’s Public Enemies. And, much like its subject, Mann’s exhilarating movie exists in a…
Character is destiny — at least for Woody Allen’s Whatever Works. Allen’s exercise in Woody Allen nostalgia opens with a snatch of Groucho Marx singing his trademark paradoxical assertion (“Hello, I must be going”) and is powered almost entirely by the presence of a single, larger-than-life, and less than likeable,…
Some say the peacocks have always lived in Coronado, one of Phoenix’s oldest neighborhoods. Maria Cody has lived there for seven years and says the birds have been roaming Coronado’s streets since before she did. She proudly shows off a photo of one of the male peacocks, which one night…
Last week, indie movie rental hub Movies On Central suddenly closed. This week, Vintage Fashion owner David Sheflin signed a lease to take over the space, which is located in the Xavier Square retail center on Central, just south of Camelback. The retail center is also home to specialty shop…
Much like the death of Michael Jackson overshadowed the loss of Farrah Fawcett, Bisbee, AZ artist Rose Johnson’s untimely and tragic demise diverted attention from the June 4th passing of 83 year old Robert Colescott, an internationally known artist who lived his last days in Tucson, AZ. We haven’t heard…
You may not realize it, but we have a Hale Centre Theatre in the Valley because a nice young couple, Ruth and Nathan Hale, moved from Salt Lake City to the L.A. area in 1943 and discovered they could get more acting work if they opened their own theater. The…
Just when you thought we’d never stoop to dressing up for some geeky-weird costume event, we prove you wrong. This past Saturday evening, dozens of geeks (including yours truly!) in spandex, leather and all manner of scary custom superhero attire converged on Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall for the Improv AZ…
