New Times staff writer Amy Silverman was named the state’s top journalist Saturday by the Arizona Press Club. It marks the sixth consecutive year that a New Times journalist has claimed the coveted Virg Hill Journalist of the Year trophy. Silverman, 33, was honored for a 1999 portfolio of work…
Laugh, Don’t Cry I was trying to explain how Phoenix works, or rather doesn’t work, to my out-of-country sister and brother-in-law before Sunday’s baseball game. Reaching for a New Times at Filiberto’s on Broadway in Tempe, I read aloud to them David Holthouse’s column on Mayor Skip Rimsza’s “State of…
Out of the Woods Aside from Amy Silverman’s richly earned triumph as the state’s Journalist of the Year, the clear highlight of Saturday’s Arizona Press Club banquet was emcee Grant Woods’ riffing. The Flash — who attended the Burton Barr Central Library function disguised as a shelf of classic fiction…
Editor’s note: Maybe it was the tight wristband cutting off the oxygen flow to his brain. Or perhaps it was the kiboshing he got from crazy mofos in the Flys’ mosh pit or the foolhardy mixture of sun, sound and Alabama Slammers from four different venues. Maybe he’s attended too…
The pro-choice community in this state is in big trouble. May 1, the Arizona affiliate of NARAL (National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League) will shut its doors. Bruce Miller, essentially NARAL’s one-man show for the past four years, is headed to Minnesota to run that state’s Common Cause chapter…
Beck Blanket Babble On The Flash had looked forward to the Beck concert at Mesa Amphitheatre Saturday night with great anticipation. Beck and his band didn’t disappoint. More on that later — first, the Flash must go off on the abuse dispensed by The Man! “Security” is simply mo-ronic at…
“In 1966, one of the great albums in rock ‘n’ roll history was made: Pet Sounds, by the Beach Boys. Even today it holds up. I listen to it and moan, sit on my bed encircled in a knee-high pile of paper and write poetry.” So who’s that waxin’ wimpy…
Knurly, ass-length dreads, cleverly dowdy attire and a faint, oil-scented aura of some Rastafarian priest say the man could be some roots-revivalist south London hipster. In a Phoenix environ, he could be mistaken for an old-school weed connect, the one guy in tie-dye still clinging with bongloading fingers to a…
Last week, the Arizona Reform Party suffered a setback in its quest to qualify for November’s ballot when Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell refused to certify thousands of signatures turned in by the party. Purcell says the Reform Party’s petitions — which included scores of non-registered voters, duplicates and possible…
John Bailey’s tale involves paperwork, bureaucrats, attorneys, clerks, Latin, gratuitous use of the word “pursuant,” a seven-month Kafkaesque man vs. machina existential run-around and myriad references to statutes 13-4304 through 13-4311 subsection M of the Arizona criminal code. Sorry. But it must be so. For this is a story about…
Pullet Surprise If David Holthouse had checked with the Secretary of State, he’d have found that the campaign to stop cockfighting didn’t spend 600 times as much money as the cockfighters, which his figures implied, but roughly twice as much. This is quite normal as it takes more money to…
Various artists Unsigned 1 — Nuth’n But Hits (Ameritone Records) Picking up a compilation of local unsigned bands is like spying your co-worker’s kid selling chocolates around the office — the rush of generosity is usually supplanted by a sick, queasy feeling in the back of your gullet. All the…
In a world where we’re given daily reminders of man’s often incomprehensible cruelty and horrifying savagery (war, genocide, Sting’s recent duet with the Backstreet Boys), it’s heartening to know that the annual New Times Music Showcase can serve as a universal touchstone, a beacon of harmony and consensus that people…
Click Here for the Photo Gallery In June 1999 as I began my first week at New Times, my predecessor as music editor brought a large box into my office. “What’s this?” I asked. “Pictures.” “Pictures of what?” “Local music pictures. It’s an archive of our old stuff.” Nearly 25…
A grinning J. Fife Symington III steps into the 10th-floor elevator at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, joining three reporters who are covering his civil fraud trial. Three union pension funds seek to block the bankruptcy and win an $18 million judgment against him. “A few years ago, this is the…
Federal prosecutors are expected to retry former Arizona governor J. Fife Symington III on multiple bank and wire fraud charges, sources tell New Times. The charges are expected to include the six counts on which Symington was convicted in September 1997. Those convictions were overturned in June by the Ninth…
“I defy anyone to say this landscape has been harmed by grazing,” says Peter Warren as he drives State Route 83 south toward Sonoita. Warren looks like an environmentalist — he’s got the beard, the spectacles, the granola wardrobe. And he talks like one, too — biodiversity, wildlife corridors –…
Leticia Calderon is not an actress. And, on stage, as she maneuvers her extremely pregnant body over to the stove to fetch her husband’s dinner, the pained look on her face doesn’t stem from any motivational acting technique she learned in school. This is essentially real life. She serves her…
Two years ago, Arizona voters approved the Clean Elections initiative, a law that offers public funding to state and legislative candidates who agree to voluntary campaign spending limits. But with the law in limbo — pending a ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court — it’s increasingly likely that there will…
Documenting Undocumented The article “Phoenix or Busted” (David Holthouse and Amanda Scioscia, April 6) was well done. I was born and raised in Douglas and my family still resides there. My brother-in-law is the director of the U.S. Customs port of entry there and I am very familiar with “a…
The cover charge for Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza’s April 12 “State of the City” address and luncheon — brought to you by AT&T and the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce — was 55 bucks. That’s pretty stiff to hear a public official deliver an assessment of the community he serves…
“Here in this hole that we have fixed/We get further and further and further from what/We must do.” So sings Chan Marshall in a slurry/sleepy voice on “In This Hole,” the emotional centerpiece, and the only self-penned number, on The Covers Record. The album’s already being dubbed “Chan Gets Difficult…
