You’ve probably heard of Nick Ligidakis–or at least about what he does each Thanksgiving Day. Many news organizations, including New Times, give the Phoenix restaurateur a ton of positive publicity for organizing his annual Thanksgiving Day dinner for the Valley’s downtrodden. You’ve probably never heard of Sacramento and Maria Correa…
Shortly before four o’clock last Sunday afternoon, Michael Jordan strode onto the floor of America West Arena for the first time. The cavernous place, which would later seat more than 19,000 fans, was empty. There was an eerie quiet. People who work the concessions were just starting to arrive. It…
The movie The Silence of the Lambs pulled out all the stops to portray that film’s serial killer as the sickest villain ever to grace the screen. The filmmakers inserted a close-up that drove home the point for even the most jaded moviegoer. Wincing, disbelieving audiences gasped in unison as…
Part I of “Sex Education” (October 28) told how negligence by those who run Arizona’s public schools can turn kids into prey for molesting teachers. The letter to the editor of the Flagstaff daily newspaper pleaded for support of popular Northern Arizona University administrator Ralston Pitts. It asked “the many…
The veterinarian is examining a cat in his office. Shadow doesn’t seem to be his usual frisky self today. Cut to a full feline close-up. From the comfort of the couch, viewers can make their own informed TV diagnoses. Notice the lack of mobility. Ponder the unresponsive reflexes. Get a…
Tom Paniccia came into the New Times Building dressed in a black suit, his shoes still buffed to a military sheen–the habit of 11 years in the Air Force–and grinning from ear to ear with the thought that he would not be out of uniform much longer. Paniccia, 28, was…
For decades, as a truck driver and safety engineer, Joseph Onofrio worked hard for his money, and you can’t blame him for wanting to hold onto it. What with the savings-and-loan crisis and an unstable economy, he felt a need to take money matters into his own hands. That’s the…
The temperature was below freezing. It was one of those Chicago winter days when the sky comes up slate gray and the sun never appears. I was one of a group of reporters and photographers who were all huddled against the wind at the entrance to the old Chicago Coliseum…
Klondyke, Arizona, is little more than a dot on the map west of Safford, a general store on a dirt road that passes a few hundred yards from the middle of nowhere. On a lonely September evening, Gordon Whiting stood in the kitchen of his ranch house there, drinking beer,…
Celebrities, ambassadors and politicians crowded into the Greenwood Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in Memphis, Tennessee. Jesse Jackson was there. Cicely Tyson was there. Dick Gregory was there. Attallah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X, was there. Dignitaries from Senegal and the Gambia were there. They had come to mourn Alex…
Lock the doors. Bar the windows. Keep your back to the wall and don’t ask questions. Jesus Lizard is coming to town. Jesus Lizard is a chemically imbalanced band of misfits led by David Yow, an absolute nut with a microphone. Yow’s m.o. is to scream and yell, rant and…
At the Arizona Bar Center, there are five fat accordion files bursting with complaints about nonlawyers practicing law. Most were filed by real, gone-to-law-school attorneys. Nearly all of them suggest that independent paralegals and scrivener services–the folks who advertise document preparation for divorces and bankruptcies–have overstepped their legitimate roles as…
I got to America West Arena almost two hours early last Saturday night. It was the opening of the Charles Barkley era in Phoenix Suns’ basketball. Outside, the sidewalk was jammed with fans. Traffic crept and horns honked constantly as the garages and parking lots filled. It was a carnival…
If you’re driving back into Phoenix from a trip to San Diego, somewhere along I-10, after brain-numbing miles of creosote, you will realize subconsciously that you are getting close to home because you will begin to notice palm trees sprinkled here and there. You’ll see little groups of them planted…
On a hot July morning in Camp Verde, Ed Phillips, state senator and TV weatherman, briefs the Arizona Federation of Republican Women on the year’s environmental legislation. He’s light on his feet as he chatters pleasantly about the guy who waters his lawn and lets it run down the street,…
It will go down as the Fiasco in Peasco. For the record, it was billed as the Arizona Vs. Sonora Professional Boxing Shootout; aptly enough, when the dust cleared at Puerto Peasco Stadium on October 3, people were in a shooting mood. It was an awesome lineup for any card,…
From his downtown office window, attorney Joe Clees can watch the 20-story building that will be Phoenix’s new City Hall rise one level at a time. At nine stories right now, it is the only significant stirring on the moribund skyline, and the largest construction project going in the city…
Reverend Tommy Barnett couldn’t have made it easier for his congregation to donate big bucks toward the fight against abortion in Arizona. After complaining during an October 25 sermon about the “underfunded” campaign of Proposition 110–the antiabortion measure–Barnett took up an offering as parishioners filed out of his Phoenix First…
“Where’s Johnny Johnson?” a man asked. “Don’t bother,” a friendly photographer said. “He won’t talk.” “You’re kidding,” the man said. “He just played a hell of a game.” “We tried to get him as he came off the field,” said the TV camera operator. “He said he won’t talk.” Johnny…
I don’t have the opportunity to listen to local radio broadcasting teams all over the National Football League. But I’d guess that the current radio team broadcasting the Phoenix Cardinals games over KTAR-AM comes close to ranking as the league’s worst. First of all, they are an absurd trio of…
I wanted to see, face to face, what kind of punks attack and beat a wheelchair-bound paraplegic. There were two of them, a hatchet-faced piece of meanness called Ted Roper and his 200-pound sidekick, the expressionless Richard Brown. Both men carry a badge for the Bullhead City Police Department. I…
Gary Peter Klahr is talking. This is not one of those toss-the-reader-into-the-action, New Journalism leads. It is a statement of fact. No matter when or where you happen to be reading that first sentence, Gary Peter Klahr–Rick Romley’s only competition in Tuesday’s election for Maricopa County Attorney–is talking. The reason…
