H.R. Pufnstuf You could fetch a pretty penny if you had the seven-inch TV soundtrack album containing songs like “Mechanical Boy” and the Witchiepoo anthem “Oranges Smoranges.” Freddie the Flute’s Herbie Mann impersonations notwithstanding, most of the musical content of Pufnstuf was handled by Jack Wild, who had three singles,…
Frank Crerie loves modern art. He loves the Sonoran Desert. And at 80, the retired venture capitalist has cash to spend and not a lot of time to spend it. So Crerie figured he’d combine his passions by commissioning artists to create a sculpture garden in the middle of the…
Dapper in his suit and freshly shined shoes, Marcus Giavanni strides into the New Times offices with his wife Celina and 6-month-old son, Atouro. He’s also proudly toting a 484-page hardcover book entitled Nelson vs. the United States of America: A System in Denial, which went into print late last…
The Beatles Yellow Submarine Songtrack (Apple) Most people’s candidate for least fab Beatles album is the original Yellow Submarine soundtrack, and with good reason. No one wanted to shell out full list price for an album padded with an entire side of George Martin instrumentals, two previously released Beatles hits…
Stan Freberg Tip of the Freberg: The Stan Freberg Collection 1951-1998 (Rhino) Once upon a time, radio and television advertising was no laughing matter. Before Stan Freberg showed up, commercials just weren’t funny. They were strait-laced, straightforward litanies of the products’ purported benefits. They were also cynical as hell. The…
Robert is in his mid-teens and has been involved in gangs since he was 10. That kind of admission has become almost a cliché in the past decade, as the media, the courts and the political system grapple with the pressing problems of a dysfunctional society and the increasingly violent…
Gene Rushing, a soft-spoken, 27-year veteran of the Phoenix Fire Department, is accustomed to emergencies and sudden changes in stride. But he was stumped the night he showed up to coach a Pop Warner football practice in mid-August. The first practice had gone pretty well. Five teams of helmeted kids…
Can a model car save a kid from the mean streets of Phoenix? On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Isaac Avila, 11, focuses all his attention and an overused paintbrush on the underside of a ’61 Ranchero Custom. Satisfied with the paint job, he sorts through dozens of plastic pieces in…
A jumble of “chaos” — a narcoleptic judge, bitter staff infighting, political rivalries, an exiled constable and apparent forgery — is creating turmoil in the courtroom of Phoenix Justice of the Peace John M. Carpenter. The bizarre environment at East Phoenix No. 1 Justice Court has triggered at least one…
Power outages! Food shortages! Computer chaos! With all the potential horrors of Y2K looming just around the millennium, it would be hard to think of a worse imaginable time for someone to try to introduce a new calendar. Or at least that would be the conventional wisdom — a school…
A judge has ordered Pima County officials to release for publication autopsy and death scene photographs of 14 undocumented immigrants who perished last year on American soil shortly after crossing the border. Two of the dead were shot by U.S. Border Patrol officers. The rest apparently died of exposure. The…
Rip and Plead Some 13,000 Baptist Foundation of Arizona investors were shocked last month to learn that the financially troubled BFA froze more than $500 million of investors’ money to prevent a “run on the bank.” BFA’s unexpected freeze on funds left in a lurch hundreds of elderly investors who’d…
The nubile creature who welcomed me to the 1999 Burning Man Festival was costumed as a space cowgirl: pink boots, leggings, miniskirt, gun belt and glitter. She said the winds had been so high at night they summoned sandstorms from vast wastelands beyond the festival’s perimeter. “There’s been white-outs, but…
Gangs have been documented in the Valley as far back as the 1930s, but for decades they served more as a neighborhood’s protector than its predator. “It wasn’t like you were in a gang; you were from a neighborhood,” says Phoenix Police Sergeant Paul Ferrero, a member of the department’s…
Edwardo Soto knew his little brother was dead the moment he turned the corner and saw the police gathered by the ambulance. His sister Carolina was hysterical. She had called Edwardo from a pay phone and screamed that Junior had been shot. Hector Soto Jr. was laid out on the…
Her business card reads “Cole Taylor,” a name chosen for its sexual ambiguity. Underneath, it says “Photographer,” or, sometimes, “Internet Design Consultant,” and then a phone number. The number listed is disconnected. You must reverse the last two digits when dialing, the escort says, to reach her cell phone. Potential…
There are three types of escorts: those who are prostitutes; those who “walk the line” (accompany clients to functions or perform strip teases); and those who practice “cash ‘n’ dash” — a form of robbery that some in the escort business say occurs frequently in the Valley. “[Many escort agencies]…
The developer of the $500 million Collier Center in downtown Phoenix guaranteed a partner in the Crowne Plaza Hotel that the city would provide a $10 million subsidy if the owners of Crowne Plaza agreed to sell the facility. The offer was made by Tom Roberts, president and chief executive…
Investors claiming they were defrauded by the Baptist Foundation of Arizona (BFA) have filed two lawsuits in Maricopa County Superior Court. A class action lawsuit filed on August 27 by BFA investor Franklin Kestner Sr. charges that BFA and former and current officers and directors bilked investors by funneling their…
Many elderly BFA investors have other things besides lawsuits to occupy their time. After their life savings were frozen by BFA earlier in August, some investors have been forced to take extraordinary steps to support themselves. Former retiree Ann Cacace is one such elderly investor. At a time when she…
At night, from atop Tempe Butte, the high canopy of lush foliage over the historic Maple-Ash neighborhood near downtown Tempe blocks out the street lamps, creating a dark square in the grid of lights that appears to extend forever in all directions. On the sidewalks beneath that canopy, underground irrigation…
Kevin Bacon is talking about his penis. It’s not his fault — not exactly, anyway. Bacon didn’t bring it up, so to speak. He never does, at least not in public. He’s just trying to promote his latest film, the small, supernatural thriller Stir of Echoes. But here he is…
