Charlie Keating and Gary Driggs have fallen. And in a city edgy about the self-destruction of its icons, a question is being posed: Will Keith Turley, the man who pushed the Arizona Public Service utility into real estate and banking with disastrous results, be next? A few years ago, the...
Dedicated to the memory of Ed Abbey, an Arizonan who understood that it is important to litter the asphalt paths of America with beer cans pitched from a fast-moving vehicle. Larry Miller, director of the Regional Public Transportation Authority (RPTA), sat in New Times' conference room and lied to the...
Kim Moody, a cockatiel perched on his left shoulder, sits at a table in the backyard of Alwun House, the beleaguered alternative-arts organization he directs. He's smoking Marlboros and sipping black coffee, but otherwise looking pretty relaxed, considering that Alwun, located in a 77-year-old three-story house at 1204 East Roosevelt,...
Twenty-two years ago, a power failure on the Colorado River Indian Reservation spirited Nelson Fernandez into the world where men pray so fervently they rip the flesh off their chests. Today, Fernandez lives in Phoenix and conducts ancient Native American rituals to help recovering junkies and alcoholics get back on...
Prior to the Eighties, the desert dining scene might best be characterized by its cheap (but delectable) chimichanga chow and its pretty (but indigestible) resort restaurant ambiance. Even as late as 1979-1/2, high-tone Valley victualizing often meant the likes of generic Veal Oscar and canned vegetables, albeit served in beautiful...
Yes, that's right. I've kept an intimate diary of the entire deal. As I look back through this journal of the Eighties, I see that more often than not my intuition has been pretty amazing. Also, through the years I've had the opportunity to hobnob with most of the so-called...
If you live in Phoenix and have cable, the strangest thing on your TV isn't MTV's game show, those wild Trinity Broadcasting people, Married . . . With Children or even the Bill Close Report. It's not the shopping channel, Nick at Night or that Cajun guy who overdoes it...
In his seventies, Maurice "Biff" Niehaus of Cincinnati found an exciting new career. He had been a lawyer, then a state senator, then a judge. Last year, he became a "news distributor" of horror stories about his old chum Charlie Keating. The law of supply and demand was at work...
No candidate this year--with the notable exception of Evan Mecham--has been the target of more questions about his integrity, honor and past actions than Grant Woods, Republican candidate for attorney general. Each time Woods begins to build a substantial lead in the polls, another face from his past surfaces to...
The crafty old trainer watches his new kid shadowbox in front of a full- length mirror. Fifteen-year-old Chris Campbell is working out for the first time at the Tuff Side Gym on 17th Avenue and Van Buren. Sweat pours off both of them. It's 110 degrees outside the gym and...
Cap'n Dave, No one gives a damn about wineburgers. Get the picture? This one, like all of your series so far, is a big flop. Please stick to the one-shot method--that's what you're good at. Now stop sniveling or get a real job. Snades Phoenix P.S. Thanks for all the...
John Madden's routine is growing more than a bit tired. For the first time, I found it impossible to vote for either candidate in the governor's race. Riccio's on East Indian School serves the freshest pasta dishes in town. The Weiss Guys at Camelback and Central is still the best...
Turn on your TV at 9 o'clock next Tuesday morning. You've got your Sally Jessy Raphael. You've got your Regis and Kathie Lee. And over on Channel 45, you've got your Tom Tabback. Who? Actually, the big question may be: What? You see, The Tom Tabback Show is a talk...
Where else would Hollywood go to shoot a movie titled The Vagrant? Phoenix, the setting for enough downbeat titles to program an all-existential film festival, is again playing host to makers of movieland magic and/or muck. The Vagrant came to town last week. Production trucks, lights, cameras, actors--even a few...
Odd as it was, the caller's request didn't shock Leigh Wilson. "This woman on the other end said she had plenty of money and that she wanted a certain person killed," says Wilson, a 48-year-old Scottsdale businessman. "This may sound crazy, but I'm one of the few people in the...
It used to be that people would joke with Julie Renn about her winning ways on Star Search. "What, are you having an affair with someone on the show? Are you buying your way in?" they would say. Since 1984, when she began training dancers to perform on the now-eight-year-old...
Since July 1989, the City of Phoenix has spent about $35,000 on bottled water for its employees. If our tap water is safe to drink--and there's no evidence that it isn't--how do city workers rate so much of the fancy stuff? That's approximately the question Thelda Williams asked at a...
I had been in Phoenix exactly one day when I saw a news story on TV about former Governor Evan Mecham's plans to publish a newspaper. At the time, Mecham refused to give a publication date for Arizona Newsday, but he said that when it did start, it would be...
In late May, only weeks after announcing record losses for a second straight quarter, America West Airlines chairman Ed Beauvais boasted to nationwide airport executives meeting at the Phoenician resort that the airline would soon expand service into Mexico. As one onlooker put it, "The most disturbing thing about Beauvais'...
There has been so much speculation surrounding the Arizona State University and Phoenix Cardinals football teams that I decided to see for myself. I drove over to Tempe to see the ASU-UCLA game hours before it was scheduled to start. It was a sunny day with temperatures in the 80s...
Linda Lee Curtis grew up in Great Bend, Kansas, the daughter of an oil-field worker. She moved to Phoenix 11 years ago and settled in a simple clapboard house near the State Capitol. Since that time, she and her husband, Ron, have lived frugally--a 1967 Volkswagen is their transportation--and have...
Today is Christmas. I'm no Scrooge. Instead of putting some poor restaurant through the ringer today, I thought I'd share with you some of the "gifts" I've received--in the form of new restaurants--in 1991. Here, then, in no particular order, are my 12 days of Christmas, my memorable finds of...
