SAN ANTONIO -- The crowd was so large that about one-third of the estimated 1,000 mourners had to huddle around an underequipped Peavy speaker outside. But even more impressive than the large turnout at the November 23 funeral of Doug Sahm, who succumbed to heart disease five days earlier while...
He is a gangbanger, a drug dealer and a devoted father, and when he goes to buy coke from the Sinaloans, he always leaves his gun in the car. He says one .45 would do little good against the men on the other side of the duplex door. This door...
In Cradle Will Rock, his third directorial outing, Tim Robbins takes on an almost insurmountably ambitious project: a re-creation of an era into which characters imaginary, obscure and famous are woven into a tapestry that represents the texture of the time. It's a tall order. E. L. Doctorow was able...
Ah, what a miracle that Andy Kaufman was. So sublime his wit, so pioneering his spirit. Astonishing! A hero to be loved, adored and emulated by all artists and performers for the rest of eternity. An opener of doors; a smasher down of barriers; a glorious, luminous, intrepid spirit without...
The regulation clearly states that a bare-fisted blow to the skull is prohibited. The theory being a man's knuckle rack is more destructive to a combatant's face than that of an open palm. But the base of the hand, that arched mass of bone and tendon just below the palm,...
'Twas I, row 12, seat 12, surrounded by 12-, 4- and 14-year-olds, their overanimated parents, and the occasional beery-eyed guerrilla who--while handling some comparatively waifish girlfriend--took to crowing things like "Stone Cold sucks, so sit your candy asses down," and "Blow me, Bad-Ass Billy Gunn." Banners and signs posting quick...
Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord. And do not touch what is unclean. --2 Corinthians 6:17 I am alone on a stage in the back of a vast, lavish ballroom, overlooking a panorama of modern Christian soldiers, seated in groups of 10 around white-clothed...
Brutal, low-road, Vegasy entertainment plays off the faces of blue-collar, heavy-jowled types who suck light beers and siphon cigars while their eyes trace figures of nubile dancers and waitresses. It would seem the perfect night out, eh? Well . . . As strains of "The Theme From Rocky" die down,...
The referee takes half a fresh lime, pushes it between his fingers to bring out the juice, then runs the pulp along each blade to make them shine. They're called Mexican short knives. One and a half inches of finely honed steel, curved like a scimitar and leather-strapped to the...
Fighting Mad Thanks to Amy Silverman for her informative article on extreme fighting ("John McCain Breaks Up a Fight," February 12). John McCain has been exposed. I wonder if the Anheuser-Busch brewery and the senator's office will respond to the requests for clarification on these matters, or if they will...
Senator John McCain likes to play on the national stage; that's why many of his constituents were startled January 30 to find him taking off after a local entertainment event. An upcoming match in a blood sport called cage fighting, he declared in a letter to his pal Maricopa County...
A Convict's Warning What I do find appalling is that there are a lot of people in here simply for having big mouths and a lack of common sense. I estimate that only 25 percent of the crimes of manufacturing and conspiracy to manufacture meth were actually directly involved in...
Round three, and Tyson bites off a chunk of the guy's ear. Nobody can say for sure why he does it. In boxing, nobody can be sure of anything other than the concussive impact of punches. The referee deducts two points from Tyson, but lets the fight go on. Holyfield...
Neil Jordan's Michael Collins opens with Collins' trusted aide Joe O'Reilly (Ian Hart) speaking of his departed leader: "He never did what anyone expected." But, in fact, Collins (Liam Neeson) does pretty much what is expected of a movie hero: He fills the screen with noble bluster; he aches for...
The silicon-wafer plant going up in northeast Phoenix has been at the center of a storm of controversy, but only after construction on it had already begun. That's apparently just how government officials wanted it. Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza claims that the $400 million Sumitomo Sitix plant will anchor a...
This is a description of legendary bluesman Howlin' Wolf, from the masterful work Nothing But the Blues: He "stood six feet three inches and tipped the scales at more than 270 pounds. . . . Big, fearsome, solitary and mysterious, the Wolf was already an imposing figure in the Delta...
Eric Taylor was a proud father, an exceptional college athlete, a hard worker and a devout Christian. He was six feet seven inches tall, with a strong jaw, heavy brows and chiseled features that could look forbidding until they eased into a freely given, gap-toothed smile. But he lived his...
Eric Taylor was a proud father, an exceptional college athlete, a hard worker and a devout Christian. He was six feet seven inches tall, with a strong jaw, heavy brows and chiseled features that could look forbidding until they eased into a freely given, gap-toothed smile. But he lived his...
Eric Taylor was a proud father, an exceptional college athlete, a hard worker and a devout Christian. He was six feet seven inches tall, with a strong jaw, heavy brows and chiseled features that could look forbidding until they eased into a freely given, gap-toothed smile. But he lived his...
John Thul walks to the back of his nearly completed $8 million sheet-metal-stamping plant and gazes at the undeveloped rangeland stretching for miles to the north. His face fills with the distressed look of a man who's been had. Thul points to a lone creosote bush, about 150 feet away...
"Hempy Halloween," proclaims the sticker plastered on the door of a conference room at the Hermosa Inn. Above the slogan is the image of a jaunty jack-o'-lantern with a joint dangling from its mouth. Elsewhere, a couple of children whose parents are attending the convention skateboard around the sidewalks of...
As the stylishly draped litigator who ran Attorney General Grant Woods' staff of 301 lawyers, Rob Carey was the most powerful prosecutor in Arizona. Carey is cocky, urbane and intellectually intimidating, attributes that might have hung more gracefully from the frame of an older, less ambitious man; having taken over...
