Veteran New Times staff writer John Dougherty has resigned to chase his muse. Dougherty, who is writing a farewell column to be published in the August 31 issue of this publication, has decided to travel around the West searching for book ideas. After 14 years as a writer and columnist…
Owning a home is the American dream, but Arizona’s version has turned into a nightmare for hundreds of people who bought shiny new houses, only to discover that the floor is literally coming out from under them. The reason: soil problems. However, as our series “Cracked Houses” revealed, not all…
Is Congressman J.D. Hayworth a boob or an anti-Semite? This rascally warbler knows there’s beaucoup evidence of the former, from J.D.’s days of almost starting fistfights on the House floor and reading lame-o Top 10 lists into the Congressional Record, to his embroilment in the Jack Abramoff scandal or his…
Why do Mexicans forget about great beers like Tecate, Negra Modelo, and Bohemia and start drinking swill like Bud Light when they come to the United States? I always remember John Steinbeck’s immortal line — “Ah, Bohemia beer and the Pyramid of the Sun; entire civilizations have created less” —…
Memorial Daze A necessary reminder: I can’t believe the ignorance of New Times readers like Conner Young regarding what happened to us on September 11, 2001 (“Shameless Exploitation,” Letters, August 10). To say that we don’t need another memorial to the people who died on that day at the World…
When the most famous evangelist in Arizona history died last year, his will decreed that his estate be split evenly among his five sons. But there was practically nothing left to split. Neal Frisby — the guy on TV in the ’80s, preaching the Gospel “from Phoenix, Arizona, under the…
I’m chillaxing at the bar in the revamped and newly het-friendly lez club known as The Biz, formerly Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness, which up until recently mostly served the mulletcore of the PHX’s lesbian community. Beside me is a phatty who, despite her roundness, is good enough to do. Except that…
My July 20 column advising Enamorada Gabacha to improve her relationship with the Mexican who invaded her heart by giving him “an old-school blowjob” drew many letters — starting with Gabacha in Love herself: Well of course I thought of a good old-school blowjob, silly. How do you think I…
Twenty-five very sweaty people stand facing themselves in a mirror, pushing their heads into their knees. Because this is Bikram yoga, the room is hot — easily 115 degrees, hotter than the July morning outside the central Phoenix studio. The room smells faintly of feet. The teacher, Brooke Sterling, moves…
Last week, a Maricopa County grand jury indicted former Phoenix resident Eric Natzel on two counts of felony child abuse in the brutal August 2005 death of his 2-year-old daughter Abbey. Police in Michigan arrested the 27-year-old Natzel and are holding him in lieu of $500,000 bond at the Lenawee…
Pros and Neo-Cons Shameless exploitation: I guess I wasn’t surprised when neo-con author Ann Coulter was blasted for her views on the shameless exploitation of the 9/11 tragedy carried out by some of the relatives of those killed. Whenever you speak the un-PC truth in this country, the “thought police,”…
Ryan Avery staggers through the Trunk Space in downtown Phoenix, sweaty, smelly, and spent. For the past several minutes, the 19-year-old front man for the thrash-punk foursome Fathers Day has transformed his flabby, 5-foot-11, 230-pound frame into a frenetic pinball of cherubic fury, including rolling, crawling, and jumping around the…
Last week, this park-lovin’ pigeon decided to take advantage of P-town’s “cold snap” of highs in the 90s and flap down to Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza, right across from the Arizona State Capitol, for a summer stroll through that public promenade filled with monuments both large and small, both moving…
Soul Good Fryer power: I simply can’t get over an institution like Stacy’s soul food closing (“The Last Meal,” The Bird, July 27). I’ve eaten there once a week for at least five years. I will truly miss the place. And while I’m on the subject, why is it that…
The last two movies I attended were rated R. Sitting around me were Mexican families with very young children. Why do Mexicans bring their 8-year-old kids to see a movie like Hostel? Do Mexican parents just not give a shit, or can they not afford a baby-sitter? Plus, the Mexicans…
The Phoenix homicide detective reaches the crime scene just after 8 p.m. on December 12. A woman has been shot to death behind a warehouse at 40th Street and Southern Avenue, about five minutes by foot from the busy intersection. Her body is splayed on the concrete driveway between the…
This ravenous raven has been wing-deep in tears since it learned that its all-time favorite eatery — Stacy’s, at 1153 East Jefferson Street — was being forced to leave its home of seven years, de-nested on far too short notice. Owned and operated by chef Stacy Phipps and family, the…
Chandler freelance writer Randy Harrington triggered a foaming-at-the-mouth frenzy in the anti-immigration movement earlier this month when he published a bombshell story revealing that Mexican government officials are supposedly providing substantial aid to Mexican citizens seeking to illegally enter the United States. “The Mexican Consulate is briefing illegal aliens, and…
Candy Nobody Wants Coward of the county: Funny column by The Bird on Andy Thomas. I can’t believe this guy was cowering inside his office under armed guards during the peaceful pro-illegal-immigration march (“Candy Thomas,” July 20). He’s truly clueless about the people he hates. I still can’t believe he’s…
Tricky T’s on the tables at Camus this Sunday, dropping tracks as diverse as Damian Marley, Devo, Nine Inch Nails, and old-school Michael Jackson, while mixologist extraordinaire Carson Quinn prepares another one of his amaretto-infused Carson City Martinis for your 300-pound Paul Wall of the PHX. Yep, it’s the Lord’s…
The Mexican presidential elections have been a freaking mess. I voted for the conservative candidate, Felipe Calderón, who almost everyone agrees won the election. But the leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador is making a mess out of this by claiming electoral fraud. Does the Mexican have an opinion of Mexican…
When Ann Marie Tate was a little girl, she wrote a story that her mother, three decades later, recalls precisely. Chien Johnson says her daughter described finding a ring on a sidewalk. The ring, Ann Marie told her mom, had magical properties. It could make wishes come true. Ann Marie’s…
