Best Hangout for Anarchists, Revolutionaries, and Dreamers 2010 | Conspire | People & Places | Phoenix
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Best Hangout for Anarchists, Revolutionaries, and Dreamers

Conspire

Conspire's the kind of java joint where you might overhear funky, patchouli-oil-smellin', dreadlocked dudes discussing the abolition of money, see some fella reading 19th-century Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin, or find the latest anarchist pamphlet circulating. But don't let that scare you. The cooperatively owned establishment also makes a mean cup of cafe Americano and offers an array of boutique-style handmade gifts that're perfect for the last-minute, apolitical shopper: earrings from Sticker Club Girl, apparel by Arte Puro, insane buttons from Jason Davis, and art, jewelry, and fashions from all over Phoenix. All reasonably priced. And if you don't want to buy anything, they've got an anarchist library in the back, full of books that tell you how you can give the single-finger salute to the man. Whoever said anarchy and capitalism don't mix never paid a visit to Conspire.

Best Hangout for Lefties

Fair Trade Café

Lynn Trimble
Fair Trade is the most politically correct coffeehouse in town, where networking is on the bill of fare alongside homemade peanut butter cookies and iced soy-laden chai. Fair Trade makes killer sandwiches, too, and you can enjoy your double-shot latte smug in the knowledge that the coffee beans that went into making it didn't exploit any Central or South American peoples in the process. Meanwhile, you can interact aplenty with candidates in Democratic primaries, lefty activists, and the occasional lawyer fighting the good fight by suing the pants off Sheriff Joe Arpaio. It's got free Wi-Fi, too, which means that many of those same left-leaners, Rachel Maddow watchers, and Keith Olbermann fans set up shop and make the place their office when they can, as they scan Facebook for the latest snippet to bolster their points of view. Do right-wingers have spots like this? Not really, unless you count the latest tea party rally or cross-burnin'.

Best Way to Hang Out with Republicans

Politics on the Rocks

The truth is that it's the Democrats who could use a few stiff ones right about now, but the other truth is that Republicans are more fun to drink with. Dems are sloppy drunks — they get all mushy about saving the world — while the worst thing that might happen when you're drinking with a Republican is that he might try to leave you with the check. In any case, if you're looking to get down and dirty with some conservatives, we recommend Politics on the Rocks, a monthly GOP-ish confab started in Scottsdale. Beautiful young Republicans get together at tony spots like the Montelucia and Revolver Lounge to press flesh with candidates and engage in like-minded conversation. We hear they let Libertarians in, too. And we all know that they are the most fun of all.

Best Politician

Jan Brewer

We never thought we'd write this. And surely, you never thought you'd read it. (Not in this newspaper, anyway.) But our accidental governor, derided for her supposed lack of intellect and stuck with a bleak fiscal situation, has proved herself to be an enormously savvy politician. We don't agree with many things that she's done. We truly wish she had never signed the anti-Mexican Senate Bill 1070. But we have nothing but admiration for the way she forced the Legislature into letting the voters decide whether they wanted a tax increase — and, then, despite getting little to no help from cowardly Dems like Terry Goddard, actually won at the polls. Thanks to that, along with the odious 1070, she boxed all her Republican rivals into the narrowest of corners and made the Democrats here look useless, which (sadly) they pretty much are. We would never name her Best Leader, or Best Civil Rights Champion, and certainly not Best Public Speaker, after the Pause Heard 'Round the World. But Best Politician? You betcha.

Best Power Couple

Phil Gordon and Elissa Mullany

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and Elissa Mullany, the First Flame of Phoenix, earned power-couple status after they hired a public relations firm to formally announce to the Valley they were dating.Gordon, 58, has been a generous boyfriend, paying his 38-year-old love interest more than $300,000 to fill his various campaign kitties as his political fundraiser. He also raised her political profile by appointing her to notable city boards and commissions and making it possible for her to mingle with celebrities and dignitaries, including Willie Nelson and Vice President Joe Biden. And Gordon even offered advice to Veolia, the transportation company that employs Mullany, that helped it muscle nearly $30 million out of Phoenix.Befitting a power couple, the pair partied in suites during Super Bowls, traveled on private jets, and traveled around the world to places like Dubai, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.Unfortunately, Gordon and Mullany lately have been behaving more like defiant debutantes than belles of the ball. Flaunting their power-couple status, Gordon and Mullany shield themselves in their proverbial ivory tower by refusing to answer legitimate inquiries about how corporate contributions earmarked for city uses are being spent or about Mullany's professional ties with companies doing business with the city. Gordon, who has held the honor of being mayor of the fifth-largest city in the United States for nearly eight years, is apparently the strong silent type — he continues to refuse to release public records that might further shed light on the perks that come with being the first main squeeze of Phoenix.Ah, the perks of power.

Best Public Information Officer

Vinnie Picard

It's rare to find a public information officer as good-humored and helpful as ICE's Vinnie Picard — and that's while you're yelling at him. The guy's no doormat, but as a good PIO is supposed to, he feels journalists' pain, massages their egos, and points them in the right direction. You may dislike ICE's bureaucracy (and dislike what ICE actually does in deporting people), but it's difficult to dislike Vinnie, who is ready with a quote when you need one and never blows you off, even if you're on ICE's case in the worst way. He'll also take the time to explain policy and will call you up to disabuse you of a misconception. A reporter can't ask for much more. Well, ending ICE's deportation policy would be nice, but the man's not God, for Chrissakes. Or Homeland Security czar (and ultimate ICE boss) Janet Napolitano, for that matter.

Best Government Customer Service

Phoenix City Clerk Department

The Phoenix City Clerk's Office is not only accommodating in releasing public records (at least the ones at its fingertips), it also helps customers peruse the city's searchable online database for city records, tracks city election results, and catalogs the volumes of public records that state law requires local governments to maintain — everything from minutes of City Council meetings to campaign finance reports for elected officials.The good-natured staff is friendly and almost always smiling. It's hard not to when you have a boss like Norris Cunningham, a city records clerk who oversees the customer service counter. Cunningham's folks don't mind dropping a stack of public records on the counter, giving you a pile of sticky notes, and letting you tag to your hearts' content all the documents you'd like them to copy.For the record, public or otherwise: Kudos to Phoenix City Clerk Mario Paniagua for running a solid operation and having an excellent customer service crew.

Best Psychic Detective Group

Find Me

Besides retired law enforcement officers and canine search and rescue pros, Jerry "Kelly" Snyder, founder of Find Me, a volunteer organization dedicated to locating missing loved ones, has something most police departments don't: psychics. Snyder, a retired DEA agent, scrutinizes each psychic during a one-year probationary period before adding him or her to his extrasensory stable of over 50 from around the world, where each receives identical case information and employs techniques such as meditation and astrological crime scenes to provide additional investigative info. The cost to families? Nada. Since they started seven years ago, Find Me has located 12 people. At worst, families will have no more information than they had before. At best, the psychic detectives will have brought their loved ones home.

Best Local Skeptic

Michael Stackpole

He's now a renowned author in his own right, but Michael Stackpole built a career out of co-opting characters and settings from other sci-fi works. In 1987, he began writing novels set in the BattleTech universe, and then he wrote several novels in the Star Wars universe for Bantam Books. Many of them landed Stackpole on bestseller lists, so when he struck out with his own original works, sci-fi fans already were familiar with Stackpole's fantastical (and sometimes controversial) style. For example, his original series DragonCrown War Cycle includes firearms in a fantasy world, something considered taboo by many fans of the genre. He has served as executive director of Phoenix Skeptics since 1988 and continues to write. Stackpole's latest series is the fantasy trilogy "The Age of Discovery."

Best TV Journalists

Morgan Loew and Gilbert Zermeno

Sheriff Joe Arpaio must hate Channel 5's news team of reporter Morgan Loew and producer Gilbert Zermeno almost as much as the geriatric gendarme hates New Times. Loew and Zermeno have been all over Joe's ass like scorpions on a bag of bark. In October 2009, they broke ground by getting former U.S. Attorney from New Mexico (and Republican) David Iglesias to say in an interview (after looking at all of the evidence against Joe) that he would seek a federal indictment of the sheriff for abuse of power if Iglesias were in the position to do so. And as if it was meant to be, just a couple of months later, they were the first to report that the sheriff was, indeed, the subject of a federal grand jury investigation. Since then, there's been no stopping them. Who knows whether Arpaio will eventually end up in a pair of his own pink handcuffs before the bar of justice? But one thing's sure — Loew and Zermino will be there to report his downfall if he does.

Best Of Phoenix®

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