“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…
Howard’s End Bow to Stern: Thank you for such a well-written story. I have been a loyal Howard Stern listener since I was 16 years old; I am now 39 (“After Shock,” Sarah Fenske, January 26). I moved from New Jersey 14 years ago, and it was very painful to…
I used to think I was a big Howard Stern fan, but that was before I met Alice Rubio. For the past 10 years — the entire time Stern has been on the Phoenix airwaves — Rubio has tuned in to his show, every day, all morning, with rapt attention…
Howard Stern’s departure from free radio was a monthlong advertisement for satellite radio, and so it’s no surprise that subscribers flocked to satellite radio, or that stock in Sirius soared. Nor is it especially surprising that some Best Buys and Circuit Cities locally ran out of Sirius’ S-50, a $300…
Phoenix has scored another national ranking, and The Bird doesn’t mean Mr. Blackwell’s “Best Dressed” list, either. According to a list compiled by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, Phoenix is number 17 among the 20 “meanest” cities in the nation…
Show us the ballots! That’s the only way to get to the bottom of a raging scandal that started with an obscure 2004 Republican primary election in the Ahwatukee Foothills and is now entangling six prominent Republican officials. Speaker of the Arizona House Jim Weiers, Senate President Ken Bennett, Secretary…
Published online January 25, 2006, 5:02 p.m. MST The search for the fugitive leader of the fundamentalist Mormon church escalated when FBI agents entered the Colorado City, Arizona-based sect’s packed meeting hall during a church-related function to serve grand jury subpoenas. The January 14 raid on church property was the…
Electile Dysfunction A fool and his votes are soon parted: What a fiasco has resulted from Arizona Republican officials trying to block even one of their own state senators from checking out what went wrong in an election! What is wrong with these fools? As Rick Barrs wrote (a href=”/Issues/2006-01-12/news/barrs.html”>”Rocking…
The crucial District 20 ballots that have become the centerpiece of a mushrooming election scandal are not in the Maricopa County Treasurer’s vault as apparently required by state law. Instead, I have discovered that the 17,000 ballots are stashed away in an unguarded, un-air-conditioned warehouse west of Sky Harbor Airport…
Letting a couple of cops off the hook after they beat the hell out of a Mexican national isn’t enough for County Attorney Andy Thomas. And he’s not content with declining to press charges against a white vigilante who drew down on Mexicans at a rest stop. Or with collaring…
Artists in Residences Capital “A”-holes: There are Artists (with a capital A), and then there are artists. Unfortunately, The Bird paints them all with a very broad brush (“Those Crazy Artists,” The Bird, Robrt L. Pela, December 29). Everyone has to start somewhere, but in every vocation there is a…
It’s a Saturday evening in late November on the border of Phoenix and Glendale. The scent of barbecue drifts through the brisk air on a residential street just north of Camelback Road. All seems quiet at the moment in this working-class neighborhood. But just after 10 p.m., two cars turn…
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’…
Published online: Wednesday, January 11, 2006, 3:10 p.m. MST We at New Times would’ve gotten a big laugh out of all the pompous posturing by the likes of Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, Arizona Senate President Ken Bennett and the fawning Arizona Republic, except for one thing: These yokels, over…
Sitting down can be tricky for JoAnn Gray. She’s also got to be on constant lookout for little boys with pins. “Usually, I’ll have someone walking behind me,” she says, “just to make sure nothing happens.” Such are the hazards when you’re the world’s most in-demand model of elegant balloon…
Published online: Wednesday, January 11, 2006, 3:10 p.m. MST An independent voting-technology expert has discovered widespread problems within the Maricopa County Elections Department that raise serious questions over the ability of voting officials in the nation’s fourth-most-populous county to conduct fair and accurate elections. “Any election where the margin of…
Who Would Jesus Marry? No better than pedophiles: I first noticed John Dougherty’s latest article in his “Polygamy in Arizona” series on the New Times [national] Web site (www.newtimes.com), and as the opening statement introducing the story touts, this may be the “most shocking development yet” in Phoenix New Times’…
Transamerica A beacon of light: I’ve been an avid reader of New Times for years, and I’ve never been disappointed with the journalistic integrity of its writers. This was especially true when I read “The Crying Game” article (Joe Watson, December 22). I’ve known one of the principal subjects of…
Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs continued to elude a nationwide manhunt at the end of 2005 as the fundamentalist Mormon municipalities he controls along the Arizona-Utah border headed toward financial disaster. Jeffs, 50, was named to the FBI’s most wanted list last August after he fled the largest polygamist community in…
You cannot slug a cop. It’s that simple. And the police cannot assault prisoners. This simple bargain between law enforcement and the rest of us is one of the things that separates Americans from the denizens of Iraq and every other dusky pest hole. Keeping the scales even on this…
A Tough Break Arms and The Man: This is an issue that a lot of people keep talking about, and it’s getting blown far out of proportion with the main issue completely overlooked: DJ Donnie Burbank (a.k.a. Dr. Father, now a.k.a. Dr. Fracture) had his arm broken by a bouncer…
Hear that squawking? It’s not The Bird. It’s that group we’ve come to know as “downtown artists.” This time they’re not shrieking about city fathers trying to police the lawlessness of their monthly First Friday gatherings (one of which is coming up just next week) along that stretch of galleries…
