If the Guinness Book of World Records has a category for Shortest Radio Talk-Show Appearance, I’m a shoo-in to make the next edition. In my role as New Times/KTAR-AM radio film critic, I was all set to go on Michael Dixon’s midday program to chat about the previous night’s Oscar-doling…
Maurice “Mickey” McDermott’s golf hat was pulled down over his forehead, but that couldn’t hide the laughter in his big Irish face. Down on his luck for years, the former Boston Red Sox pitcher had won $5.8 million in the Arizona lottery on February 7. McDermott, 62, sat on the…
At any time of day, the welcoming day rooms and lounges of Fellowship Towers are dotted with calm, cheerful people living out their retirements in secure, attractive surroundings. For nearly twenty years, the tall building at 222 East Indianola Avenue has opened its arms to hundreds of old men and…
It’s ten minutes until show time and the crowd pouring into the Royal Palms Inn’s dining room is eagerly awaiting the entrance of “The Dear That Made Milwaukee Famous.” Befitting the East Camelback resort’s reputation for “old-world elegance,” the largely geriatric audience is decked out in debonair, if slightly dated,…
The Arizona State Legislature has declared war on teenagers. A slew of bills introduced this session are aimed at eliminating the rights of nonadults to buy records, play loud music and drive cars. Capitol observers say they’ve never seen such an assault on youth’s right to self-indulgent self-expression. In a…
Yet Another Compelling True-Life Sci-Fi Docu-Drama in One Act (overheard from the next room) The curtain rises. The time: 9 p.m. The place: the spectacularly messy bedroom of a four-year-old boy, who is being tucked in by his spectacularly pregnant mother. BOY: Mom, will you read me a story? MOTHER:…
When the Babbitts abandoned Arizona to pursue the White House, they bequeathed Evan Mecham and Rose Mofford to those of us left behind. Not content with this questionable legacy, the Babbitts have once again taken to the road, most recently to midwive the birth of democracy in the unlikely precincts…
The disgusting smell jolted Darryleen Kelley last June 1 when she arrived for work at the Mesa Police Department. “I said to someone, `They must have found bugs as big as rats in here,'” recalls Kelley, an investigative assistant who had been with the East Valley department for a decade…
For doctors, there’s nothing like a pop medical malady to make the big bucks. Back in the Seventies, hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, was the fad of the day. Ten years later, many a physician got that second Benz as yuppies everywhere fell prey (or thought they did) to Epstein-Barr…
And now for the Super Bowl. Bill Bidwill, inept, incompetent and insensitive, is the single clear reason Arizona has “won” the Super Bowl for 1993. After two full seasons of play in Sun Devil Stadium, it was obvious to other National Football League owners that the Cardinals franchise was turning…
They said Phoenix was done. Over. A desert flash in the pan. Worse than Houston. You know who “they” are: the eastern media guys in their fey, little bow ties from Hart Schaffner & Marx. The Valley’s decline didn’t move off the front page of the national press until Donald…
Sam Steiger strolls behind the bar. The place is Penelope Parkenfarker’s sports bar on Cortez in Prescott. This isn’t Whiskey Row. That’s a much-bawdier area on Montezuma. Whiskey Row is two blocks away, fronts the Prescott County Courthouse and is anchored by heroic drinking emporiums like the Western Bar and…
Some stories are so rich they tell themselves. So picture chapter two of the Rose Mofford, Terry and Sam Goddard show. “Goddamn it, Rose,” Sam Goddard shouts into the telephone. “Who in the hell you been talking to?” “Wait a min . . . ,” the governor sputters. “How did…
This is the kind of family I married into. My wife has an aunt named Ha Ha. Actually, her name is Charlotte, but years ago, when my wife’s sister was just learning to talk, it came out “Ha Ha.” The tragic result: a bright, attractive woman has had to spend…
Now that there is a baseball future, writers across the country are peering into their highball glasses in hopes of seeing it. This is something they do every year. These somber prognostications are often hilarious, more often pathetic, hardly ever correct. Still, the writers scrawl. Following are my predictions for…
Dave, A review suggestion: Newman’s Deli in the Liquor Barn at 36th Street and Indian School. They have a screamin’ deal from like 11 to 2–for $1.95 you get a good deli sandwich on your choice of bread or roll, a little side salad and a deli pickle. Can’t beat…
As a video camera whirred away one afternoon last June, a nine-year-old boy popped his gum and accused his mother of sexually abusing him. He said his mother, Wanda C., molested him when he was five. And he said she continued molesting him even after he’d been put in foster…
“It is the most rewarding thing I have ever done.” Does local businesswoman Marion van Rooy: House the homeless? Feed the hungry? Save the whales? Or does she sell $90, custom-fitted, computer-measured swimming suits to women in Scottsdale? “People come in a little negative, a little worried,” says van Rooy,…
The little tent pitched on the lawn at Encanto Park is quickly filling up with noisy children who have dragged their parents to yet another circus. It’s getting crowded and hot, but the kids seem only to notice that the Center Ring is so close they can almost touch it…
Lute Olson’s arrogant smirk told all you had to know. Last Sunday’s game against UCLA was proceeding according to plan. The Pac-10 tournament final was a blowout for Arizona. And so Olson, the basketball coach with the largest ego west of Bloomington, Indiana, was on his way to a soft…
Children believe that television’s Mr. Rogers is a soft-spoken friend. What I believe is that if the man in the cardigan sweater changed jobs, he’d want to drive a bus for Greyhound. Such is the faithful, comforting image all of us carry of the drivers who steward the nation’s poor,…
Drumroll, please. The excitement of the Name-the-Baby Sweepstakes is about to reach a fever pitch. As you may recall (provided you haven’t blocked it from memory), some of the, er, lesser prizes have already been announced: a phone call direct from the Dad Zone upon the kid’s birth proclaiming you…
