When it comes to the outdoors, Bruce Babbitt and Bill Clinton couldn’t be more different. The former Secretary of the Interior is a connoisseur of nature — a hiker, a biker, a camper, a guy more comfortable amidst the rattlesnakes that inhabit his native Arizona desert than the variety that…
Since Chez Nous first opened for business nearly 40 years ago, thousands of Phoenicians have gotten hammered inside the glitzy, smoke-choked cocktail lounge. Now, it looks like it’s finally the bar’s turn to get smashed. Pending the results of a city rezoning hearing next month, the snazzy watering hole at…
As a teacher of inner-city kids, Osborn Middle School P.E. instructor Kevin Cherilla hoped his Mount Everest expedition would bring a message about challenge back to his students.Especially since the trip aims to place the first blind mountain climber, Erik Weihenmayer, atop the highest peak in the world. When Weihenmayer,…
The Preserves arsonist apparently hasn’t ended his campaign.An arson task force investigator told New Times that a new note purportedly from the arsonist was discovered at a home construction site on North Arroya Grande Drive. The note was found by residents near the North Phoenix Mountains Preserve, Phoenix Police Sergeant…
The onetime godmother of Arizona’s private fiduciary industry will be going to prison for stealing money from clients over a period of several years.Nancy Etta Elliston pleaded guilty in Maricopa County Superior Court on March 7 to “illegal control of an enterprise,” a felony that carries a term of at…
Museum Piece Arty fact: In Edward Lebow’s recent article “Artistic Differences” (March 15), a former Scottsdale Cultural Council board member states: “Last month Susan Stamberg did a piece on Turrell for National Public Radio, and plugged the show. This month, I hear that the New York Times will probably be…
I find Joseph L. Graves Jr. in his windowless office at Arizona State University West. He’s listening to a classic Carlos Santana CD. Shelves crammed with books line the walls. All the literature absorbs and mutes the guitar virtuoso’s signature fretwork.This comfortable cocoon of academe undoubtedly has the same effect…
Winging ItThe Flash lives on a high-octane cocktail of testosterone and adrenaline, so he experienced a major energy buzz at last weekend’s Cox Communications Air & Motor Spectacular at Williams Gateway Airport.Jets played chicken and dogfought and blew smoke from their bums. Planes simulated bombing runs and strafing runs and…
Deceptively simple, inherently romantic, and by its very nature obsessed with the past, power pop is a hard thing for most artists to get right. Maybe that’s because the people who helped create it — Buddy Holly, Phil Spector, the Beatles, Brian Wilson — were so damn good at it…
Joe Arpaio has been trying to shut Jim Cozzolino up for the last two years. Last week, the sheriff finally found a way to do it.On March 7, Judge William Anderson granted Arpaio an injunction prohibiting Cozzolino from getting near Arpaio or “by means of telephone, e-mail or other medium,…
When Don Stapley comes to a corner, he cuts it. When he sees a string, he pulls it. A Maricopa County supervisor since 1994, Stapley has never seen a rule that can’t be bent, a law that can’t be skirted, a standard that can’t be doubled, an interest that can’t…
Michael Hester awoke January 21 inside an Arizona state prison, where he’s been for the past eight years. The 54-year-old Vietnam veteran is doing time — lots of time– for selling about $50 worth of crack cocaine to an undercover cop. Talk inside the prison at Florence that morning concerned…
One of the hottest topics in Arizona these days involves the case of Claude Maturana. He’s the man who was convicted of murder and sentenced to die, until state doctors declared him mentally incompetent. The doctors refused to medicate Maturana and make him mentally competent — just so he could…
Patty Whack Snack attack: James Hibberd’s story about Arizona State University student activists taking on their food service provider (“Big Mac on Campus,” March 8) is noteworthy as much for its incisive writing as its convolution of certain salient details. In particular, Hibberd repeatedly conveys the sense that these are…
Al’s CapperThat human stealth fighter, Albert Gore, slipped into town under the radar on Friday to thank a group of core supporters for their assistance in his failed presidential bid.About 30 people attended the gathering at the Phoenician’s Canyon Center, including such state Democratic luminaries as Attorney General Janet Napolitano,…
In blooper scenes included on the soon-to-be-released gay porn feature Behind the Set, we see a decidedly mirthful 19-year-old Christian Valentino dancing and clowning about, all smiles as he bounces his flaccid penis off the heads of other actors. The reel also reveals another side of the Phoenix-based Valentino, a…
Weddings and funerals rarely share the same spotlight. Yet when Frank Jacobson, president of the Scottsdale Cultural Council, emerged from the darkened wings of the Scottsdale Center for the Arts’ Virginia G. Piper Theater one evening last month, to introduce a lecture by Time magazine’s renowned art critic Robert Hughes,…
When he closes his eyes, Heinrich Palmer can still see Phoenix from his home in Münster, Germany. “It was for me a very strange place,” he says, his accent thick. “Hard to forget, because of the bright sunlight every day, all that sandy dust, and the big cactus that looked…
George Parsons has inspected apartments that are so bad, he wouldn’t let his dog sleep in them. One place was so bug-infested, he watched a mother pull cockroaches out of her baby’s nose. At another rental, a man lifted up the carpet and asked his downstairs neighbor to pass a…
Introducing Matt May, campus hell-raiser.Last year, the English major organized student activists to protest Arizona State University’s $7 million collegiate apparel contract with Adidas. May demanded that ASU join the student-run Worker Rights Consortium, an anti-sweatshop organization that sponsors independent monitoring of human rights issues at clothing factories. May kept…
Source SpotSpeech impediment: I am writing in response to the judge’s decision regarding the shield law (“Strong Shield,” Patti Epler, March 1). I am very glad he ruled in favor of the journalist. In short, it is imperative that our journalists, newspapers, magazines and other media be protected from law…
On a September evening in 1991, 26-year-old Gregory S. Dickens and his teenage lover, Travis Amaral, drove east from Yuma on Interstate 8 and stopped at a rest area. When a car entered the westbound rest area, Amaral grabbed a .38-caliber revolver and strode across the freeway. There, Amaral robbed,…
