East Valley Tribune gives up traditional newspaper look, goes tabloid

By Ray Stern Guess what came to Mesa today? No, it’s not Sheriff Arpaio’s Mexican supression operation–that’s scheduled on Thursday. The East Valley Tribune rolled out its new and improved look, plowing deep in tabloid territory and essentially ending–by design, anyway–a traditional-style newspaper that has published in Mesa for more…

Wanna-be plus-size lingerie model indicted on suspicion of bail bond fraud

By Ray Stern She’s big, she’s beautiful and–according to Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard–she’s naughty, too. Goddard is accusing Nicole Galbraith, 24, of ripping off the clients of her East Valley bail bond company. Galbraith, a young entrepreneur from Mesa, is the owner of Quick Bail Bonds. While inmates rotted…

Here’s da ting: Pro soccer is for the desperate and delusional. Like us.

By Clay McNear We were pleasantly confounded recently when KTAR’s sports-radio kingpin John Gambadoro stood up to be counted in favor of football–the other kind. Of course, this was during a 10-minute tirade against English cricket, so it was probably relative, but still–soccer! Even Gambo’s partner, Mark Asher, was taken…

Go Skateboarding Day at Cowtown

By Jonathan McNamara You won’t get let out of school for it and you can forget buying Hallmark cards to mark the occasion, but that didn’t stop hundreds of skate boarders from celebrating Go Skateboarding Day on Saturday June 21. Events were planned all over the country, but in Phoenix,…

Arpaio’s savage lesbians? The Weekly World News gets one right, sort of

By John Dickerson “Drop-dead-gorgeous Alison Hicks was plunged into a nightmare world of degrading strip searches, savage catfights, sadistically cruel prison matrons and mannish lesbians–who took one look at her slim, athletic body and big breasts and converged on her like voracious army ants.” So reads the first paragraph in…

Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga Midnight Release Party

By Jonathan McNamara Attention, Stephenie Meyer fans: Here’s your chance to snag the fourth book in the Twilight saga, courtesy of Changing Hands Bookstore. Purchase a copy of the book today and receive a voucher that will allow you to pick up the book at the midnight release party on…

“The Grid II: Documenting Phoenix Through the Lens”

By Clay McNear As most people either love Phoenix or loathe it, so it is with Phoenix’s gridlike nature. Oh, sure, there are a couple of roads that shamble drunkenly outside the lines – Galvin Parkway and the Squaw Peak Parkway, or whatever it’s now politically correctly called – but…

The Vinlanders Social Club pays a visit to members of Rusty Childress’ United for a Sovereign America (w/update on Buffalo Rick Galeener’s public urination case)

The things people will cop to online. Take these recent postings to the message board of United for a Sovereign America, one of the Valley’s most virulent hate groups led by alleged public urinator Buffalo Rick Galeener and erstwhile KIA-dealer Rusty Childress. Under the June 16 subject heading “beware!!!!!,” U.S.A…

Letters from the issue of Thursday, June 19, 2008

YOU HATE WAL-MART Broken man, broken heart: Your story on Herman Teague really broke my heart (“The Wal-Mart Solution,” Paul Rubin, June 5). It, of course, had no effect on top Wal-Mart executives — who have no heart. As Mr. Teague’s lawyer said in your article, we all know why…

Former Korn guitarist Brian Welch finds Jesus

Brian “Head” Welch, former lead guitarist and founding member of the band Korn, was standing in the murky waters of the Jordan River, waiting to be baptized. As his tears dropped into the same river where Christ once stood, Welch looked, on that March day in 2005, like the Jesus…

How do you spell Wal-Mart? Try H-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y

By Paul Rubin We wrote a sad story recently about an octogenarian named Herman Teague, who’d had the misfortune of going to work as a greeter at a Wal-Mart near the 101 and Bell Road. Teague fainted at work and sustained a bad gash to the back of his head…

Sayonara to Copper Square?

By Sarah Fenske We at New Times have never been the biggest fans of the lame moniker for downtown Phoenix pushed by the Downtown Phoenix Partnership. When we hear “Copper Square”, we think “lame suburban shopping mall,” “focus group,” or “Jerrry Colangelo”, not “vibrant downtown.” Not that we have a…