Unless you’ve had your head in the oven for the past week, you’re probably aware that the 34th Annual Pillsbury Bake-Off was recently held at the Pointe at South Mountain. Inspired by its presence in our town, I rummaged through a stack of old Better Homes and Gardens magazines in…
Feathering your nest: To most, it’s just a cliche. To the board of directors of Pinnacle West Capital Corporation, it was an economic strategy. Nothing so illustrates how the “homeboys” did business than how they dished out $50 million in “venture capital”–money loaned for speculative investments. More than half, or…
It doesn’t bother me that my brother-in-law calls me Mr. Potato Head. Nor do I mind that no one ever leaps to my defense. What’s really annoying is that, the older I get, the less defense there is to leap to. To illustrate my point, I ask you to imagine…
“I had rather be a dog than the prime minister of a country where the only things the inhabitants can be serious about are football and refreshments.” –George Bernard Shaw The real political infighting never changes. We never learn about the brutal behind-the-scenes business until too late. But this time…
It is not enough to bury your son. Before the earth has settled upon your boy’s casket, you must read that your seventeen-year-old was a juvenile delinquent. Then you must be attacked in the state’s largest newspaper as bad parents. Everyone you know, all of your relatives and all of…
“When I got out of the army, I was working as a bouncer at a club back home. My family knows the Crowders, and I seen Crowder’s dad at K mart. He told me about this place out here. We hooked up, and Crowder asked me if I wanted to…
As the young players of the Phoenix Roadrunners strap on their gear and stretch their sore legs, coach Garry Unger skates graceful laps around the ice with one of his stars, Bruce Boudreau. While the men glide along during practice at Tower Plaza’s ancient rink, they tap a puck back…
Harvey McElhanon has put a lot of change in his jeans with his famous Arizona institution: the necktie-slashing western steakery in North Scottsdale known as Pinnacle Peak Patio. Since the 1950s, it’s been a regular on the tourist circuit, pulling in busloads of folks from all over the world who…
The simple truth about Terry Goddard is that he is not electable as governor of this state. The fact that he would be a disaster in that role is secondary. Like everyone else who sees through him, I find the mere possibility that Goddard might be our next governor at…
Now that state liquor boss Hugh Ennis is moving to revoke the booze license of the notorious crack outlet Club 902, the only question left is: How did the saloon stay open so long? Police Chief Ruben Ortega knows that the buck stops at his desk, which explains why he’s…
It’s almost time! Burkett Child No. 2 will soon be pulled, kicking and screaming, into the real world. And frankly, the parents are too damned busy to thumb through the stacks of baby-name books they bought the first time around . . . giving you the honest-to-God chance to win…
Lawmakers snickered two years ago when Democratic Senator Carolyn Walker introduced a bill making it a crime for a husband to rape his wife. “Oh, you can’t rape your wife anymore, ha, ha, ha,” she remembers hearing. “You’re damn right you can’t,” she shot back. Walker says she isn’t hearing…
Postmodern paradise for yuppies and college kids, or the Valley’s version of Hell’s Kitchen? This is a question the residents and fashionable patrons of Tempe’s spiffy Old Town were asking themselves after the area was hit by a scary blitz of teen hooliganism that left several Mill Avenue fun-seekers bruised…
Lonnie Smith, 67, was working as a janitor when he heard that his wife’s ticket had won the lottery. Smith had been employed by the same Phoenix company for more than thirty years. The lottery ticket which his wife played was worth $5.8 million. “Will you retire?” I asked. “I…
The tumble-down boarding house on Third Avenue was rotting in its own grime, but Dede Devine Yazzie took one look and fell in love with it. That was eleven years ago. The daughter of the famous Notre Dame football coach Dan Devine had just arrived in Phoenix to interview for…
Twenty-two years ago, a power failure on the Colorado River Indian Reservation spirited Nelson Fernandez into the world where men pray so fervently they rip the flesh off their chests. Today, Fernandez lives in Phoenix and conducts ancient Native American rituals to help recovering junkies and alcoholics get back on…
Public men grow addicted to the cool eye of the television camera. Once stricken, they reach out desperately for any opportunity to get their faces on the nightly news. You expect this from a Terry Goddard, who grew so eager for television exposure at one time that he spent every…
Richard Romley’s cash-and-crack hypocrisy is finally facing direct assault. The county’s top prosecutor has maintained a hidden interest for five years in what has become one of the Valley’s most lawless bars. Since assuming office in January of 1988, the incidents of armed robbery, aggravated assault and the sale of…
At first, it seemed like a routine shoplifting case, recalls Phoenix police detective Larry Stubbs. “I’ve been a cop for 23 years,” says Stubbs, who investigated the case late last year, “and this is the only time I can remember a shoplifter who says he was innocent who apparently was…
“I want you all to get nice and relaxed,” Willie Smith said. “You’ll play this game of baseball a lot better that way. At least, that’s always been my philosophy.” Smith smiled down at the two dozen or so kids surrounding him on the old ballfield in South Phoenix. None…
Maglev is straight out of Dick Tracy’s comic book world–the very idea of computer-driven trains magnetically hovering above cities and zipping along noiselessly seems absurd. But what sounds like science fiction is actually being built in Las Vegas–by a company whose marketing chief, John Bivens, lives in Phoenix. In fact,…
Among the atrocities committed here recently was a vicious police public-relations ploy. Several days after Officer Jim French of the Department of Public Safety shot and killed Jeffrey Dawes, seventeen, the following things occurred. Reporters covering the story received calls from a police officer who told them he had a…
