UNTIL ABOUT FIVE YEARS AGO, THERE LIVED IN TEXAS AT LEAST one grasping old man with an enormous appetite for pretty young women. His name was J. Howard Marshall II, and for many years, he lived respectably, doing something dull with oil. At last, he diversified his interests. He is...
There is the sound of packs of hogs. An audible rotary force that grasps the chest and rearranges heartbeats. A thousand speed-addled Keith Moons banging contrarily away on tom-toms, kicks and snares couldn't top its fanfare. The crooning grumble of pampered hog motors concedes to snappy spitters and spats, and...
D'Atri's Cinema Paradiso, 10303 North Scottsdale Road (Windmill Plaza), Scottsdale, 480-348-0377. Hours: Lunch, Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Dinner, Tuesday through Saturday, 5 to 9 p.m.; closed Sunday and Monday. Isn't it wonderful to live in a city teeming with cafes? Cafe life is so vibrant, just...
A Journalistic Wilding First Outside magazine took it to task for not being "hippy" enough for the writer's taste, insinuating that Center for Biological Diversity director Kieran Suckling had somehow sold out because he was drawing a $20,000-a-year salary. Now the New Yorker magazine denounces the Tucson environmental group for...
Kimber Lanning is a petite, fair-haired lady. Plopped down in a beanbag chair in a corner of her Tempe Stinkweeds record store and surrounded by records, tee shirts and magazines, Lanning's youthful face and diminutive figure suggest an earnest indie-rock kid rather than the self-made businesswoman she is. Lanning has...
Seasons Rotisserie & Grill, 10050 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, 480-443-1300. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Dinner, Sunday through Thursday, 5:30 to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5:30 to 11 p.m. When a bunch of jocks get together and open a restaurant, you can usually count...
It's a muggy Friday night outside the Metro in Chicago, a club just down the street from Wrigley Field. As drunk and raucous Cubs fans head into the stadium for that night's game, inside the club, equally drunk and raucous fans wait for an event of a different kind: a...
Four Peaks Brewing Company, 1340 East Eighth Street, Tempe, 480-303-9967. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m.; Sunday, 1 to 11 p.m. In spring, the poet says, "a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love." But once spring turns to summer, just about everyone's...
These might be the darkest days in the history of country music. The industry has always been a two-faced creature. While Nashville has long paid lip service to the history and traditions of country music, it's rarely ever practiced what it preached. After all, these are the same people who...
Step inside the "Vaginal Vault," Dr. Brian Finkel's nickname for the clinic where he performs more than 2,000 abortions a year. Finkel's clinic, the Metro Phoenix Women's Center, feels more like a pawn shop. Elvis Presley collectible plates and Native American rugs cover the walls, fertility goddesses and a steer...
Alice Cooper'stown, 101 East Jackson, Phoenix, 253-7337. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday, Saturday and event nights, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. It's spring, and our senses are awakening after a long winter's hibernation. Watch the blooming wildflowers swaying in the breeze. Sniff...
thursday february 18 Karate demonstrations, children's singing and dancing groups, strolling clowns, face painters, live music and radio remotes, a carnival midway with 25 rides and 20 games; arts-and-crafts exhibits; and photo opportunities with a live 400-pound tiger, along with an international food festival and beer garden, are among the...
When The Pistoleros singer Lawrence Zubia decided to kill himself after years of depression and drug abuse, for some reason the familiar buttes of Monument Valley came to him in a cocaine-addled haze. Zubia had no gun. And he'd already ingested enough drugs to kill a normal person. Instead, he...
El Conquistador, 15420 North 32nd Street, Phoenix, 493-3913. Hours: Lunch, Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Dinner, Tuesday through Friday, 5 to 9 p.m.; Lunch and Dinner, Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Would you ever walk into a bookstore, randomly buy...
When people meet me and discover what I do for a living, they invariably ask two questions: 1) What's your favorite restaurant? 2) With all the eating you do, how do you keep yourself in such magnificent physical condition, so lean, muscular and fit? Actually, nobody ever asks me the...
Gordon Biersch, 420 South Mill, Tempe, 736-0033. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m., seven days a week. It's hot. It's sticky. It's August. How do you find relief this time of year? If you've got some vacation time and disposable income, you can get a cabin in...
Haus Murphy's, 5819 West Glendale Avenue, Glendale, 939-2480. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. For the past 20 years, Americans have been wrestling with their principles: how to balance a strong commitment to ethnic diversity with an equally...
Arizona Roadhouse & Brewery, 1120 East Apache, Tempe, 929-9940. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m., seven days a week. Aye, laddie, may your leprechauns always be green; may your sainted mother find a four-leaf shillelagh; and may the Blarney Stone kiss ye back. I don't know what...
You'd think the one place a person would be safe would be locked inside a prison cell. You'd be wrong. In 1996, a team of lawyers brought a class-action suit against the Arizona Department of Corrections on behalf of 274 inmates in protective segregation. DOC wanted to move those inmates...
One of the first times I saw Big Pete Pearson and the Blues Sevilles was at Char's Has the Blues, the club on North Seventh Avenue. I was chasing shots of Jack Daniel's with ice-cold Rolling Rocks. At one point during the performance, Big Pete disappeared from view. But the...
It's the season for fantasy. But I don't fantasize about the meek inheriting the Earth, smooth sailing on the rush-hour Squaw Peak Parkway or mandatory IQ testing for Arizona legislators. My job requires me to dine out 200 nights a year. So, not surprisingly, my fantasies tend to be about...
The atmosphere in Mind's Eye Digital Recording is jammed with sound waves, the kind of badass, bottom-loaded frequencies that blow woofers and mess with eardrums. Bionic Jive, a Tempe sextet, is rehearsing songs from its forthcoming Six Million Dollar Band CD, a psycho-delic joy ride that makes groups like Prodigy...
