My son’s baseball coach, although a wonderful shortstop, is a remarkably bad pitcher. The 9- and 10-year-olds standing around him can throw more strikes. When Coach tries to reach 55 miles per hour, the standard for competitive 10-and-under teams, more balls bounce across the plate than fly. As we heckled…
Combat FatigueSoldier of misfortune: Please thank Paul Rubin for his in-depth comprehensive report on the heroic life and tragic death of Brian Callan (“Welcome Back, Warrior,” November 21). Good people like Brian continue to volunteer to serve in our military in spite of our shameful lack of post-military care. VA…
Brian Callan marched into Bell Road Toyota shortly before noon on September 1 toting a 12-gauge shotgun. Unhappy over a lease deal he’d signed the day before, Callan pointed his weapon at sales manager Nathan Smith, and told him to hang up the phone or he’d shoot. He ordered Smith…
You’re wearing nothing but shorts and a shirt when police arrive at your door. The police cuff you in front of your children. You are hauled off to jail on 10 felony charges. You’re told you’ll spend a decade in prison. In jail, you are forced to stand nude while…
Joe BlowsThe wrong arm of the law: I read, with amazing emotional control, Robert Nelson’s piece on Joe Arizona’s arrest (“Trick or Threat,” November 7). The only persons guilty of impersonating police officers are those thugs from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. What does David Hendershott tell his family when…
Sometimes, The Spike just wants to reach out and smack someone. In this case, that would be Southwest Airlines, which is being incredibly chickenshit in the way it’s handling an incident involving two paying customers. The two wronged parties are — make that were — bounty hunters. And it’s clear…
Last week I told you the story of how Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his chief deputy, David Hendershott, settled a political score by citing Joe Arizona for impersonating a highway patrol officer. Quick recap: Hendershott was at Tom’s Tavern at noon on Halloween. Joe Arizona, a.k.a. actor Nick Tarr, walks…
Where There’s Smoke . . . Heart of grass: About a decade ago, a famous Republican operative, Lee Atwater, passed away from cancer. Atwater was known for his extremely hard-hitting, below-the-belt tactics (Willie Horton). To many he was a hated figure. He enjoyed tearing people down. But on his deathbed,…
In a converted stand-alone garage in the backyard of a midtown Phoenix home, an artist saunters in to his 20-year retrospective exhibition. The exterior of the garage-cum-gallery is painted eclectically in hundreds of exploding colors by the artist — an eerily omniscient eyeball, a village of leaning buildings, three-dimensional arrows…
The Emerald MonstrocityThe first thing The Spike noticed upon sitting down at a corner table in the Emerald Lounge earlier this month was the woman in a tutu with crabs running down her legs. Next to her was a foam ass, dangling faux droppings at eye level. In its quest…
Like a serial killer, Joe Arpaio is getting cockier and dumber with each hit. This time, Arpaio cited Joe Arizona, the pitchman for Proposition 201, with a class 1 misdemeanor for impersonating a highway patrol officer at a downtown restaurant on Halloween. Arizona, whose real name is Nick Tarr, was…
Artists and public art officials have been meeting in recent weeks to determine whether a state ruling will stymie innovative public art projects of the caliber that the Valley has come to expect in the past decade. An April 29 ruling by the Arizona Department of Revenue is just now…
Maurine Karabatsos can’t get a line from an old Joni Mitchell song out of her head. “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot,” she says, pulling her Porsche Boxster around the corner of Arizona Biltmore Circle toward a construction site that will eventually be a four-story, five-level parking…
The High Life Lookin’ for one last hit: I greatly enjoyed your article about the widely unknown mainstream usage of pot (“Reefer Mainstream,” Amy Silverman, October 31). I felt that the profiling of persons who smoke marijuana and lead completely regular lives is important to get out there. Being a…
To hear this clean-cut, seemingly earnest ex-major league baseball player tell it, it doesn¹t get much better than a methamphetamine high. “I ain’t gonna bullshit you, man, it’s an awesome drug,” says Glendale native Kevin Wickander, who pitched on and off in the big leagues from 1989 to 1996. “Meth…
Most days, Harriet comes home from work, takes off her bra and gets high. “I’m going outside,” she calls across the house, padding toward the garage in a tee shirt and jeans. The dog follows. Harriet stops to move wet clothes from the washing machine to the dryer, then heads…
A small ad on the letters page of New Times “Seeking Secret Pot Smokers” brought dozens of responses from marijuana users eager to talk about their quiet pastime — as long as they could be anonymous. The respondents ranged in age from teens to mid-50s. Some from the west side,…
And my dog died, too. For some months I believed, simply enough, that this year was just a bad year, a particular period with much death and cancer. So when my 17-year-old hound dog passed on this winter, it was more than just her time. Missi’s demise was one more…
The Spike’s family holds a fierce belief that everything from holidays to horoscopes is the work of Satan, so The Spike had “Egg and Bunny Day” instead of Easter, and went to church carnivals instead of celebrating Halloween. When trick-or-treating, The Spike was escorted by its pistol-toting father because Satan…
In Arizona, swine feeding, dead chicken handling, cheese making, emu slaughtering, minnow selling and manicuring are regulated industries with state-enforced rules, permits and inspectors to make sure these activities are performed responsibly. But the state doesn’t care quite as much about responsible clitoris piercing. In Arizona, the burgeoning body modification…
Nice Shot The Thinker: Well, once again you have proved that you have the balls to write with wit, integrity, truth and passion (“Sniper,” Robert Nelson, October 24). Thank you. If the masses respond to the sniper article as they did to the article on Beau Duran, it will once…
I am thinking about the East Coast man who kills from afar. I am thinking he’s an outcast who fantasizes about being a Marine sniper. I am thinking he is a man in love with the taste of power over human life, a power that can taste divine. It is…
