Ask anyone who knows me; I am a romantic. When I awake with the rising of the sun and venture out to pick up the newspaper from its resting place on the front lawn--wherever my careless paper boy has tossed it with his usual wanton indifference--I will instinctively take time...
One summer day A.D. 525, a Buddhist monk from India named Ta Mo arrived at the base of Mount Shaoshi in what would later become the Henan province of central China. He took in the scenery, thought or said something to the effect of "This is the place," and promptly...
For years, the uninitiated have roamed the aisles of adult boutiques, wondering what possible uses anyone could find for the bevy of battery-operated rubber-and-latex pumps, prods and plungers dangling from the walls. In recent months, however, sex-shop customers have been baffled by an even stranger mystery. Namely, what's so erotic...
Treatment: War of the Roses meets The Money Pit meets The Player. Scene 1: A summer day in present time, early morning, a quiet neighborhood in central Scottsdale. The movie opens in the rambling ranch house of our main character, accomplished screenwriter Steven McKay. The camera pans the house--living room,...
It played last July like a typical page-three scientific discovery, the slot where daily newspapers normally run the disease of the week or the story about the gene that causes obesity. The scoop: Phoenix resident and average guy Tom Bopp--truck-parts buyer for a cement company--discovers Comet of the Century. But...
So I'm sitting there in a bar, talking with a guy I know, and he's complaining to me about his job. This guy works in a furniture warehouse and he says that one of his coworkers is a wrestler. A wrestler, huh? Yes, indeed. He is the Drifter. And the...
To better understand the way people acquire language, linguists are always on the lookout for a wolf boy--a person raised without benefit of human contact. When the 1993 documentary film and soundtrack Deep Blues introduced guitarists Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside to an audience beyond northern Mississippi juke joints, it...
"I used to look at him and say to myself, 'Now, that's what I call a white boy!'" wheezes Marcus Hesby, dissolving into a laugh that starts with sheee and ends about 30 seconds later and an octave lower with it. Hesby is an old man now, a retired hod...
Last March, Eve Edwards took advantage of what she sensed was a grand opportunity. She knew her ex-boyfriend, Jerry Ingalls, was immersed in a legal battle with his ex-wife--a top Dial Corporation executive named Joan Potter. Edwards also knew Ingalls had been talking about suing Dial for allegedly conspiring with...
Le Big MacFor two years, a federal grand jury has investigated Governor Fife Symington's business dealings. The state's chief executive is suspected of being the Mac Daddy of phony financial statements. Financial statements are the backbone of all loans, credit lines, investments, partnerships, debt restructuring, write-downs and all the other...
The Luhrs building, at the intersection of First Avenue and Jefferson Street, is somewhat magnificent--by Phoenix architectural standards. But inside the 1920s-era art-deco structure, the flat, patterned carpet has aged and the hallways smell, faintly, like dirty laundry. It is here, on the first floor, that you will find the...
In 1962, Grover Cleveland Thompson decided to spruce up the front lawn of his Sunnyslope home with a salute to the then-current Seattle World's Fair. Using concrete, marbles, broken pop bottles, shattered ceramic figurines and shards of brightly colored Fiesta Ware, the retired plant foreman created a nine-foot-tall replica of...
You've waited four long weeks for this, I know you have. Yes, it's time again for more local reviews, kids. Get em while they're hot. By the way, I don't know if we're running out of bands that actually have tapes or folks just aren't sending anything in because they've...
It's Friday night at Scottsdale Stadium. Michael Jordan walks up the dugout steps at 6:41 p.m. As he reaches the top step, Jordan looks around the stands as if to count the house. When Jordan ruled the National Basketball Association and led the Chicago Bulls to three consecutive titles, he...
Constable Burt Alvord, who served Willcox in the 1890s, made news when it was discovered that he used the law enforcement office as a front for his other profession--robbing trains. As the story goes, Alvord left behind his partner in crime, "Three-finger" Jack Dunlap, after Dunlap had been shot. Dunlap...
The vacant expression in Joe Stedino's eyes shocks me. I expect him to look more menacing, more unfeeling, like a Mafia soldier from a Mario Puzo novel. But instead Stedino seems vulnerableÏperhaps a little lost. For years he has suffered from a panic disorder. In order to raise the courage...
Last month the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour devoted a segment to Arizona. The idea of the broadcast, loosely speaking, was to discuss the sheer wonder of living in a state where seemingly normal adults have actually elected into office the stunted race-baiter Evan Mecham, tsetse fly survivor Rose Mofford, a Shriners' caravan...
THE GOVERNMENT MAN recalls the first time he laid eyes on a Klump. "One of the brothers was riding horseback over the south side of the Dos Cabezas Mountains," says Larry Humphrey of the federal Bureau of Land Management. "I noticed that his horse wasn't wearing any shoes and I...
ARE YOU REALLY HAPPY with your current politicians? Perhaps Doug Wead can inspire you. Arizona's newest big-time politician, Wead often tries to display a disarming sense of humor. He doesn't jab you in the ribs; he's kinder and gentler. At his May 12 campaign kickoff rally for the state's newest...
"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...
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...
Steve Emerine swears he's not a cop. A spokesman for the University of Arizona's controversial Mount Graham International Observatory project, 58-year-old Emerine claims he attends campus demonstrations only to observe and answer media questions. "Under no circumstances, that I can think of, would I be involved in telling police who...
