MODERN ROCK: 1. LES PAYNE PRODUCT This high-concept dynamic duo–born of a much reviled alt-rock quartet called Crime Dog–occupies a musical space all its own: You could call it minimalist garage funk-pop. Behind their sense of the absurd and fashion unpredictability, though, guitarist James Karnes and drummer Chris Pomerenke are…
Tribune Newspapers Publisher Karen Wittmer and Mesa Mayor Wayne Brown are continuing to squelch key information related to the Arizona Cardinals’ efforts to build a domed stadium in west Mesa. Their behind-the-scenes strategy, launched last summer, has resulted in the Tribune using its editorial pages to strongly support a plan…
For more than two years, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office withheld a videotape that contains key evidence in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit brought by a paraplegic, Richard Post, whose single night strapped to a restraint chair in Madison Street Jail in 1996 caused him permanent neck damage. When the sheriff’s office…
Sterling, who won the award in 1987 and 1989, was chosen for a portfolio of work that included an investigation into the financial dealings of the Baptist Foundation of Arizona.
“There is a phone booth,” goes a story born on the Internet, “in the middle of the desert.” It’s all alone out in the Mojave, a forgotten telephone network anomaly. And there’s this guy, a Tempe resident named Godfrey Daniels, who loves it. He didn’t discover the booth–some letter-writer to…
Sam I Am Ticked Scottsdale’s head cheerleader isn’t the most popular girl in the class right now. Mayor Sam Campana, who clawed her way to the top of Arizona’s Outdoor Mall from humble beginnings as a baton twirler in Filer, Idaho, has doubled her negative ratings in a recent, top-secret…
Up in Arms While reading the April 1 article on Arm the Homeless (“Give Piece a Chance”) by Inda House (she is very good, by the way; I’m looking forward to her next piece), I was inspired to form my own organization to take on another societal problem that also…
When The Pistoleros singer Lawrence Zubia decided to kill himself after years of depression and drug abuse, for some reason the familiar buttes of Monument Valley came to him in a cocaine-addled haze. Zubia had no gun. And he’d already ingested enough drugs to kill a normal person. Instead, he…
Forget the Super Bowl. The Arizona Cardinals’ biggest victory for decades to come will arrive May 18, if Mesa voters approve a $385 million sales-tax hike that will help finance a 67,400-seat football stadium. For the first time since arriving in the Valley 11 years ago, the Cardinals are displaying…
Bank One Ballpark Rio Salado Crossing Taxpayer funds for construction $238 million $654 million (with interest)* Taxpayer funds for operation and maintenance $0 $163 million through year 2028* Annual naming rights fee paid by team to district $325,000 $250,000 Rent: $1 million** $1.75million*** Seats: 48,500 67,400 Features: Retractable dome Retractable…
As far as we know, the panhandlers downtown are, in fact, not armed with Mac-10s. We’ll give that up now. Last week, though, anyone who called New Times to ask if our April 1 cover story was a hoax received this standard, if indirect, response: “Real homeless people, real guns.”…
If It Swims, We Can Kill It It’s like a classic good news/bad news joke. First, the good news. Governor Jane Dee Hull has finally replaced Russell Rhoades, that canker of a director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. Rhoades was a laughable leader, an obstructionist who, had he…
John, We Hardly Knew Ye POW-wow! Your feature articles are reliably engrossing enough to grab your copy hot off the press. With about average-citizen knowledge of our reputed hero senator, I was captivated by the excellence of your expose, “Is John McCain a War Hero?” (Amy Silverman, March 25). I…
Spry raving echoes between smoked glass high-rises, liberating the cool night air of its usual calm. In it, a bullhorn assuredly shrieks, “They’re bombing hospitals! They’re bombing schools!” and, “Stop Clinton now!” All this is heard atop a trilling of whistles, yelps and cheers. The hubbub–a clear anomaly for a…
The tragic death of Phoenix Police Officer Marc Atkinson has our city leaders casting about for a way to better protect the men and women charged with protecting us. I’m not sure they’ve found the solution. But our leaders are. Phoenix police, police union officials and city politicians have decreed…
It was one night in Arizona’s rave scene. One night of glow sticks, blow pops and pacifiers. Of whispered lies, sabotage and cops with shotguns. One night of cuddle puddles and the best dance music on the planet. Of stink bombs, broken windows and gambles gone bad. One night of…
Mary and Jim Harvey looked forward to their trip to Arizona in September 1996. The Texas couple hoped to relax together at the elegant Phoenician resort for a rare few days away from their three children. Mary Harvey arrived at the Phoenician on the afternoon of September 26. Jim, an…
Manny Marco, unemployed vagabond, tenderly loaded the last of 30 9-millimeter bullets into the spring-action, extended clip for his new Mac-10–a semiautomatic assault weapon capable of throwing rounds as fast as Marco can blink. “That’s very good, Manny,” coaxed Arm the Homeless firearms instructor Pete Whippit. “Now, insert the clip…
How safe is it to take a balloon ride over the Valley? Commercial balloon pilots interviewed for this story say floating in a balloon is safer than driving a car or flying in an airplane. They estimate that about 50,000 people take peaceful, serene commercial balloon rides in the Valley…
Career con man Stephen Charles Peterson sat in a Maricopa County courtroom last Friday afternoon shackled to several other jail inmates. If he weren’t wearing a black-and-white striped jail suit, the physically imposing, bespectacled 57-year-old would have fit right in among the attorneys waiting to process their clients’ criminal cases…
In Arizona, every time you stick a shovel in the ground, you run the risk of being an accidental archaeologist. Long before the Spanish explored the Southwest, prehistoric Indian tribes flourished here, and the remains of those civilizations–including human remains–lie close to the surface. In order to protect that history,…
Language Lessons I liked Michael Kiefer’s lengthy article on the bilingual education issue in Arizona, which I found quite evenhanded, and much more in-depth than anything that had yet appeared in the dailies (“Bilingual Blues,” March 18). Much of the most detailed and thorough coverage of the California initiative occurred…
