Don “Hollywood” Yates isn’t someone you wanna mess with. Boasting a fearsome countenance and muscle-bound physique, the 6-foot-4, 235-pound badass has made a career out of battling both man and beast. As the villainous “Wolf,” a breakout star on NBC game show American Gladiators, he’s fiercely taken out contestants, unleashing…
By day, he is mild-mannered Tait Johnson. But when evil strikes your carburetor, he finds the nearest open phone booth and becomes . . . Honda Man! Okay, not really. He doesn’t have a cape or a fortress of solitude (though his repair shop, HON-MAN, is well-hidden, behind an East…
When Georganne Bryant thought about opening her own boutique, she researched boutiques in L.A. — you know, the stark shops in super-edgy ‘hoods that buzz customers in — and found exactly what she didn’t want. Bryant wanted to peddle her wares in the north central Phoenix neighborhood she calls home…
Gregory Gordon has style. And it’s pretty obvious, considering he and partners Brad Plumley and Lew Gallo are the triumvirate of taste behind Haus Modern Living, one of the premier urban furnishing stores in the nation. Besides being lauded in the pages of influential shopping mag Lucky, Gordon and company…
If ever there was an embodiment of Phoenix’s weirder side, then Stephen Strange and Sahar Mitchell are it, and proud to be. He’s a 32-year-old occultist and magician with a flair for the fantastic. She’s 34, a graceful serpent-wielding dancer dubbed “the Mother Fakir.” Collectively, they’re the Strange Family Circus,…
Corporate VP Rick Provenzano is the quintessential red-blooded American male. He loves sports, works in the family business, and lives in the ‘burbs with his wife and their 2.5 kids (the youngest is still a baby, so we’ll take the liberty). But there’s one part of his life that breaks…
Oscar Mastrantuono, owner of Bomberos in Sunnyslope, has an unshakable confidence that would make his hot-blooded South American ancestors proud. Though he was raised in New York, the Uruguayan-born entrepreneur carries himself with the same Latino swagger that helped his father immigrate to this country and then run a successful…
Forget any notions you’ve ever had of a fat lady singing opera onstage. Mezzo-soprano Olga Perez looks more like she belongs in the cast of American Idol. But this fall, Arizona Opera’s newest diva-in-training will take on one of her first major roles, in the company’s season opener, Rigoletto (for…
Travis Mesman engages in a nonstop battle with gravity. At 34, the dancer and movement artist wages his war against the invisible adversary during each of his performances, whether he’s propelling his lithe and muscular body through twisting acrobatic routines, or stilt-walking on a stage like a gigantic daddy longlegs,…
Paul Wilson’s had more than a few obsessions in his day. In fact, the über-eccentric artist’s spent a lifetime indulging his endless manias for the past (particularly 1953-1963) and all things kitschy or campy. Following his kooky muse since childhood, the 45-year-old Valley native has chronicled his ever-changing fixations through…
Barry Schwartz is a wired guy. Jittery and manic, the overly hyper artist sounds as though he’s practically plugged into the wall as he explains the large-scale electrified installations he’s built around the world during the past 20 years. In lightning-quick fashion, Schwartz rattles off factoids about attenuators, ground leads,…
There’s a sly smile that highlights Paisley Yankolovich’s face. It’s the kind of bemused calm of knowing that the Christian performance artist’s journey with Jesus is less a sunset-showered walk on the beach than an adrenaline-pumping roller coaster that invites people to hop on and throw up their hands at…
Oksana Kroshkina’s background is as intriguing as her alluring Russian accent. The 31-year-old Soviet-born beauty spent almost a decade traveling the world, masterfully engaging in thrilling and danger-filled exploits on behalf of her motherland. Was she some Communist femme fatale or secret agent? Goodness, no. Kroshkina starred as a high-flying…
Victor Gade’s charisma is no illusion. The affable Argentina-born magician, 59, has a constant twinkle in his eye and suave smile on his face, charming people wherever he goes. He’s also constantly in entertainer mode; cracking jokes or conjuring a simple magic trick from his pocket to amuse an impromptu…
Heavy metal singer Patrick Flannery has lived in the Valley since 1983, and he knows a thing or two about the mingling of faith and freakiness in Phoenix. As a teenager, the Catholic-raised Flannery sang in a choir that performed for Pope John Paul II at Ss. Simon and Jude’s…
Andrea Silkey is obsessed with the quality of her music mixes. Every week, the 31-year-old DJ (who’s also know as Sonique des Fleurs) spends several hours in front of her computer hunting through digital music sites like beatport, djdownload, and trackitdown, sampling more than 500 MP3s of techno, house, and…
You might remember the story of four young Latino men from Carl Hayden High School who built an underwater robot named “Stinky” in 2004. They stunned the nation when Stinky kicked MIT’s lame robot’s ass in a college-level competition in California — not once, but twice. The foursome quickly became…
Ray Karam is trademarked. At least, his title is. As tastemaster for Cold Stone Creamery, this guy takes his frozen treats seriously. Cold Stone is headquartered in Scottsdale, with more than 1,400 stores in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Guam, Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan. That’s a lot of ice cream…
In the concierge business, you’re only as good as your Rolodex — and Judy Kabler’s the best. As the pleaser in charge for the Valley Ho, Kabler is charged with keeping well-to-do scenesters snug as bugs in rugs — or, rather, snug in their mod-with-a-nod-to-vintage rooms at the ’50s-era hotel…
Divine Essence is never at a loss for words. The poet and spoken-word artist has been performing around the Valley for more than five years, and hosting open mic nights since 2002, when she started a regular spoken-word shindig at Livingston’s soul food restaurant in Scottsdale. When Livingston’s closed, Divine…
Sloane McFarland is not usually a man of so few words (he passed on several of our scintillating fill-in-the blanks), but he’s certainly a guy of many actions. Whether he’s making art or developing buildings, McFarland comes at it from the heart, and our city’s the better for knowing him…
She plays with rickrack. He plays with clay. And they make a living. Don’t you hate them? Then you must not know Cyndi Coon and Jeremy Briddell, the artists who make up Laboratory 5. It sounds so mysterious, but Lab 5 (www.lab5shop.com and www.laboratory5.com) is really just the showplace for…
