Info:Category:Calendar Edition:Print 10/19/1995 Pic Hits for the week By Clay McNear thursday october 19 Arizona State Fair: The annual corn-dog carnival opens Thursday and continues through November 5 at the fairgrounds, bounded by McDowell Road and Encanto Boulevard between 17th and 19th avenues. Along with the usual attractions--midway rides and...
"Maria! I just met a girl named Maria/And suddenly that name will never be the same to me." Her real name is Katherine Stewart, and she is the main reason to see the revival of West Side Story, currently stirring up the sleepy suburbs at Mesa Amphitheatre. West Side Story...
True or false? Reverend Oscar Tillman is a civil rights opportunist in the flamboyant tradition of New York's Al Sharpton. Yes or no? Phoenix Police Chief Ruben Ortega looks the other way when his officers abuse Valley blacks. A six-week investigation by Phoenix city manager Frank Fairbanks was supposed to...
We at New Times did not tell the truth. Was it deceptive? Of course it was deceptive. Was it unethical? Welllll . . . let's talk about that. Under my instruction, New Times writer David Koen called State Senator Jan Brewer, and during each of the three phone interviews Koen...
Second of a series You might say that Ambrose McCree is obsessed with the beating handed out to Rodney King by the Los Angeles police. A retired California truck driver, McCree spent March 14 at the Los Angeles City Council's open forum investigation of the videotaped assault. "I just, I...
After 1 in the morning on May 1, as the off-duty police officers moonlighting as security guards cleared the parking lot of the Roxy, as 100 or so mostly black youths filed out of the club, there was a fluttering of automatic gunfire and a squeal of tires. When the...
Sometimes a man's got to do what a man's got to do. Fifty weeks a year I suppress all the instincts that Freud warned us about. Instead, I sublimate them through dutiful rounds of household activities: shopping for groceries, cleaning the pool and chauffeuring the kids. But every six months...
"Give me the luxuries," said Oscar Wilde, "and I will dispense with the necessities." We recently put Wilde's theory to the test at two of the Valley's poshest eateries. Each features an entrepreneurial young chef with a national reputation. And both will inflict a king-size beating on your wallet. At...
What price faded glory? Plenty. This summer, a recession-plagued public has shaken its collective head in disbelief over the jaw-dropping sums paid for a couple of well-publicized pop-culture artifacts. Several weeks ago, when 1946 Oscar winner Harold Russell put his statuette for The Best Years of Our Lives on the...
The coroner's report said it all; Ric Rankins' death on July 10 was a "homicide." A scrawny 144 pounds, Rankins had his voice box crushed by a choke hold. Unnamed employees of Smitty's grocery chain killed the 43-year-old black man in a west-side parking lot. Three days later, the Arizona...
David Parker lovingly unwraps a plastic baggie and carefully flattens it on the coffee table. Inside the bag are the remains of a badly disintegrated cigarette butt. Most of the tobacco has long since fallen out, and one end of the crumpled paper bears a faintly visible crimson smear. As...
Notebook: Last year was fun. It was full of constant surprises. There were miraculous shots that won games. Almost every night at America West Arena was a combination of Christmas and the Fourth of July. When Charles Barkley wasn't dominating the backboards, he was stealing balls and thundering three-quarters of...
Officers Ruben Ortega and Ralph Milstead walked into the Bridge Tavern one afternoon to arrest a small-time addict for a burglary he had committed to finance his habit. In years to follow, Ortega and Milstead would become two of the most powerful law enforcement figures in Arizona, heading the Phoenix...
You're Kevin Johnson, once a spectacular performer. But now you must hear the whispers that the Phoenix Suns are a better basketball team without you. At this point, you don't know how much longer it will take before your various physical ailments will allow you to return to the lineup...
Claudia Webb can't forget the day her late husband was betrayed by his union. Reed Webb was a new salesman for the U S West Direct Yellow Pages in Phoenix. In 1991, his second year, Webb's sales were near the top of the highly competitive 30-member staff that sold the...
At first, it seemed like a routine shoplifting case, recalls Phoenix police detective Larry Stubbs. "I've been a cop for 23 years," says Stubbs, who investigated the case late last year, "and this is the only time I can remember a shoplifter who says he was innocent who apparently was...
Two years ago, Denzel Washington earned an Academy Award best-supporting-actor nomination for his portrayal of South African black-consciousness leader Stephen Biko in Cry Freedom. Then he waited for the big offers to pour in. Then he waited some more. And some more . . . What about the critical acclaim,...
Recently, the Tucson Police Department's child-abuse detail confiscated artwork by local artist-photographer Robyn Stoutenburg from the city's downtown Gallery Six & 13--without a validly executed search warrant. Twelve of the artist's photographs were seized after the principal of an adjacent middle school complained of the propriety and accessibility of the...
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. The best if you were selling tickets; the worst if you were buying them. And now, only one question remains. Will film historians of the future refer to this as "The Heaven's Gate Decade," "The Ishtar Decade," or...
Writing this is not going to be easy. On the way down to the New Times command center this past, glorious Super Bowl Sunday, I drove through the drive-through at Omega Burger. Bacon cheeseburger, onion rings, soda; an American meal. Now here's the ugly part: As I made my way...
They will sentence Kareem Abdul-Jabbar within the hour. The courtroom is in the old Phoenix Union High School. "Where can I find Kareem's courtroom?" I ask. The receptionist on the main floor doesn't have to check her chart. "You mean that basketball player?" she asks. I nod. "Down the stairs...
When word leaks out that you're going to be interviewing Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, the stars of Lethal Weapon and its new sequel, called (what else?) Lethal Weapon 2, you can count on getting two reactions. Reaction No. 1 (from females of all ages): "MEL GIBSON?!? Oh, my God!...
