Who says all politicians are corrupt, dimwitted hose-bags? Not this counterfeit canary, at least not since Governor Janet Napolitano’s veto of a bill that would have made illegal immigrants subject to the state’s criminal trespassing law. (In a letter to Republican Arizona House Speaker Jim Weiers, she’s vowed to veto…
It’s near midnight on a Friday, and IO club owner David Landreville and I are chatting up this lil’ pecan-skinned spitfire we’ll call “Natalie” ’cause she didn’t want me to use her real handle, for reasons that will soon be clear. We’re parked at IO’s backlit martini bar, and Natalie’s…
Loose Lips Far out, dude: I couldn’t agree more with The Bird’s assessment of Loose Change (“Goofball Shockumentary,” April 27). I hate the Bush administration, but all these conspiracy theorists just don’t make sense. What you say about Bush and his minions not being smart enough to plan 9/11 is…
The voice wafting over the airwaves is identified only as Jen, 15. In the flat tone of someone who’s seen it all and hated every minute, Jen describes first using crystal meth as an 11-year-old. Later, while using, Jen got raped, but she didn’t report it, didn’t even seem to…
To The Bird’s great amusement, it found itself at a crowded hippie hangout in Tempe called 3 Roots Coffee the other day, watching one of the funniest comedies this proud pecker’s seen in years. Loose Change, an extremely independent film from three New York twentysomethings, wasn’t meant to be a…
County prosecutors may have to take no for an answer now that a state panel again has rejected their attempts to have a judge sanctioned for accusing them of racial bias in a burglary case involving a black man. For the second time in seven months, the Arizona Commission on…
Don’t ask why Jett flaked on me this week. Something about a free eightball and a three-way in Ahwatukee. Not that I blame her. I mean, the last three-way I was invited to involved me, myself and I, all buck nekkid in the hot tub. Talk about a tight fit!…
The Kyl File Slim pickings: I’m a longtime Republican voter, and I thought your profile of Jon Kyl was first-rate (“Stealth Zealot,” Robert Nelson, April 13). You could have taken a lot of cheap shots at the “other” senator from Arizona, but you didn’t. You only gave him the negative…
The majestic red rock sculptures and rare desert vistas of Papago Park are in the gun sights of some of the most powerful real estate interests in the Southwest. Led by Phoenix attorney Grady Gammage Jr., the intellectual architect of Arizona’s rapacious development industry that’s systematically tarnishing the Sonoran Desert,…
The Bird observed all kinds of weirdness when it attended the massive march for immigration reform on Grand Avenue: white guys (from the news media) peeing in alleyways; illegal aliens (who’re normally treated like vermin by Americans) waving U.S. flags; Mayor Phil Gordon. But the strangest thing The Bird saw…
Is this the best the Democrats can do? The question kept rolling through my mind in the days after Tempe political kingpin Harry Mitchell declared his candidacy for Congress. Mitchell is challenging the sharply listing, Jack Abramoff-stained Republican J.D. Hayworth for the 5th Congressional District seat in November. The race…
Hellfire Giligin’s vile: I’ve always loved Inferno, but the one on the wise-ass Chuey and his “fear factor” shenanigans (“Mouthful of Midget,” Stephen Lemons, April 13) is great! I’m heading over to Giligin’s for the Wednesday night craziness as soon as I can. I loved the opener to your column…
Joe Baker has been a painter for decades, but the canvas he works on today is bigger than most artists could ever dream of. As a curator at the Heard Museum, a job he’s held for nearly four years, Baker is charged with choosing the subject matter, and the pieces,…
Arizona has two U.S. senators: John McCain and that other guy. The other guy is a decent man, so decent that in his 11 years as a senator in Washington, D.C., he has often seemed constitutionally incapable of promoting himself in the manner common of national political figures such as…
The Bird cruised over the pro-migrant march along Grand Avenue, half expecting to see KFYI-AM 550 squawk-jock Brian James’ head on the prong of a long, sharp rake at the front of the crowd. The demonstration, which drew at least 100,000 people, was coordinated as part of a nationwide “day…
Published online April 11, 2006, 1:55 p.m. MST State and federal authorities and the Mormon polygamist sect headquartered along the Arizona-Utah border seem finally headed for a showdown. So far, there have been no reports of violence in the towns of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, but tensions are…
Chuey the Rock ‘n’ Roll Midget, a.k.a. “The Satanic Hispanic,” scrambles to the middle of the Wheel of Fortune-like board as fast as his little sawed-off legs will carry him and rips down an 8-by-10 pic of tonight’s “secret square,” missing-and-presumed-dead Alabama hottie Natalee Holloway. The four-foot-three, 180-pound horndog then…
Mexican Stand-Off An admirer of Mayor Phil’s: I’ve been reading The Bird lately, and I see that he seems to have some sort of sympathy for the illegal Mexican idiots who’ve been marching in Phoenix (“Single-File, Please!”, April 6. Also see “Go On, Just Shoot ‘Em”). I was at the…
For Margarita Parada, a 19-year-old from a village deep in Mexico, the adventure of a lifetime is about to start. It is April 11, 2005, and Margarita has stuffed a suitcase and her backpack with favorite clothes and personal mementos. Margarita is the second youngest of Maria and Pablo Parada’s…
After Diff’rent Strokes was canceled, The Bird gave up on sitcoms as a diversion. Fortunately, this squawker lives in Phoenix, where politicians provide almost endless yuks with their foolhardy antics, so who needs TV? The Bird’s new laugh riot came from none other than Mayor Phil Gordon, who announced his…
Carrie Stoudemire, the mother of sidelined Phoenix Suns star Amaré Stoudemire, narrowly avoided jail during a hastily called March 31 hearing before Maricopa County Superior Court Commissioner Aimee Anderson. Stoudemire had violated several conditions of her five-year probation on a 2003 felony DUI conviction. But rather than toss Stoudemire in…
“What the hell is Britpop, anyway, Kreme?” queries the Jettster as I ease the shaggin’ wagon into the lot next to Anderson’s Fifth Estate in Scottsdale, site of the monthly Britpop night Panic!, the reason for our appearance this eve. “Oh, you know, it’s all those ’90s bands from the…
