8/7, 8/9 Last year, with her debut book The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club, Valley humorist Laurie Notaro hit the New York Times best-seller list right about the same time her long-running column for the Arizona Republic was unceremoniously canceled. Much of the book, and its just-released follow-up, Autobiography of a...
Last year, ASU bioengineering grad Jason Wilson was at a friend's party when he was let in on a secret. He'd found himself talking with Gaynel Hodge, a doo-wop musician and former Valley resident who now makes his home in the Netherlands. Hodge was back in town on a visit,...
Having seemingly exhausted all permutations of the sports comedy formula (Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump, etc.), Ron Shelton has now moved on to another obsession: the Los Angeles Police Department. Earlier this year, we got the uncharacteristically somber (for him, anyway) Dark Blue, a "what if" tale of the...
I find myself on the couch excited about watching the last few innings of an Arizona Diamondbacks game. I haven't felt this way since the postseason run in 2001. What the hell is going on here? I'm supposed to be mowing. My 10-year-old son joins me. I look at him,...
Bob Hoag loves to rip on Nickelback. "They suck!" shouts Hoag, high-profile Valley producer, musician and Technicolor oddball. He whips off his horn-rimmed glasses, flares his nostrils and launches a dead-on impression of Chad Kroeger, the grunge band's dawn-of-man- looking lead singer. "And this is not for real, you're wasting...
Save the ChildrenIrresponsible pool owners: I have been a reader of your newspaper for about eight years, and I would like to say that you are the only voice of reality in the Valley. Also, as a somewhat new parent, I have to say the story that you ran in...
Man Down Children should be seen and not heard: I have a hard time believing that something like this can go on in America ("Lost Hope," Amy Silverman, August 22)! This is disgraceful. Paul Hewitson's daughter should be put in jail, but not before she pays him all the money...
It's been three weeks since the artist currently known as Prince helped to christen the Dodge Theatre with a show that left the sellout crowd, well, enraptured. The three-hour performance by Prince and his band -- which included inimitable alto saxophonist Maceo Parker of peak James Brown fame -- was...
Driving up the Seventh Street exit ramp from I-10 West, there is a sign with a white arrow, pointing you south. It reads: "Cultural/Sports Facilities." While the words may seem at odds with each other, the curators of the downtown Phoenix arts community want to show you otherwise. In the...
Lucy didn't pay $1,200 and fly across the country just to watch naked strangers in cowboy hats probe their anuses. A widow and business owner from the Deep South, Lucy says that, since her husband's death, she has been fascinated with spirituality and is intent on exploring a variety of...
In a culture so besieged by the conflict between art and commerce, it's perhaps natural that the use of pop idioms is disparaged by the critical elite, anxious to protect their canon from dilution. Charlie Hunter has dodged such dismissive darts aimed at his eclectic jazz treatments, which have spanned...
Wandering through a Riverside, California, thrift store with her sister, Amy Knox stopped to shuffle through a bowl of assorted photographs from years gone by. As she looked at the faded images of nameless people, of forgotten lives captured in an instant, something nearby caught her eye.An open, antique book...
You're in the check-out line at the supermarket. There are two TV Guides with Michael Jackson on the cover; which Michael do you buy? The nappy-haired 13-year-old from Gary, Indiana, who launched his solo career 30 years ago with "Got to Be There" or the 43-year-old from Neverland Valley who...
When you were a kid, and you went to see a magic show, which kind of viewer were you: The one who got utterly swept away and believed that those doves appeared from nowhere, or the one who sat with furrowed brow, trying to figure out how the trick was...
Given rock's smutty half-century, it's a wonder that The Mammoth Book of Sex, Drugs & Rock 'n' Roll (Carroll and Graf), edited by Jim Driver, is only 600 pages long. Fortunately, the British collection passes on the well-known shock fodder by stateside writers and shovels up a pile of lesser-known...
Quick, name your favorite indoor arena. How about a midsize theater you'd frequent weekly regardless of what bands were on the bill? Now name the best stadium or sports complex to see a concert. Having trouble? That's because concert ticket prices are too high to venture out even monthly and...
Scott McCaughey just might be the busiest man in rock 'n' roll. Since 1994, McCaughey's "day job" has been playing guitar, bass and keyboards, both live and in the studio, as a hired member of R.E.M. The year before, McCaughey had started a music collective he dubbed the Minus 5...
The arsonist remembers the day it began. He was mountain biking when he first considered burning down somebody's house. He had no prior experience with arson, he says. "Hell no," he exclaims, somewhat offended at the very idea. "I had never committed a crime, period." And why would he? He...
This book . . . she's so hea-veeeeee! Numerous sittings with this coffee-table tome have resulted in either my arms becoming numb, my chest getting pins and needles or my lap falling asleep. Sure, I'm getting old -- we all are. And no one's getting older than the surviving Beatles...
Mesa Public Library 64 East First Street, Mesa 480-644-2702So it doesn’t have five floors and special columns that light up during the summer solstice. We still like going to the Mesa Public Library. It’s got an impressive collection of material, yet it’s small enough to navigate. And it’s got chess sets in the youth area, a bulletin board offering jobs to teens and […]
Mesa Public LibrarySo it doesn’t have five floors and special columns that light up during the summer solstice. We still like going to the Mesa Public Library. It’s got an impressive collection of material, yet it’s small enough to navigate. And it’s got chess sets in the youth area, a bulletin board offering jobs to teens and […]
The frantic call came at 5:36 a.m. on September 24, 1999. "Hurry, hurry! My wife is bruised everywhere! I don't know what's going on!" Brian Eftenoff shouted into the phone. A 911 operator listened as he pleaded with Judi, his 30-year-old wife and mother of their two young children. "Baby,...
