Down, but Not Out One day at a time: Thanks, Amy Silverman, for writing your story. The story on the Huffs was beautiful as well, but it was yours that touched me (“Up the Down Staircase,” November 25). I normally wouldn’t have read this, as I tend to avoid these…
There’s light pop music piped in through the ceiling speakers at Paradise Valley Mall, but Donny Lang never really hears it. “This particular mall has no music — or it’s so quiet and the ceiling’s so high that I can never hear it,” says Lang, 25, a part-time musician and…
Here’s a fact that should be at the center of the debate over the future of the Phoenix metropolitan area, but is rarely discussed. Central Arizona has enough renewable surface water to build and sustain a metropolis of more than 10 million people, if not far more. Even with a…
Lisa Clarke was not a dog person. Didn’t have a dog. Didn’t want one. Then she met Klondike. Just two and a half weeks old, he was part of a litter of seven orphaned pups. Clarke’s husband and kids were smitten, and the orphan soon had a home. Now a…
Sometimes, it takes a lawsuit to punish a bad nursing home. But state lawmakers may rein in the lawyers by making it tougher to sue. In June 2001, Katherine Johnson, 72, was found unconscious at her apartment on Camelback Road. Doctors at Phoenix Baptist Hospital said she was suffering from…
It’s ’round midnight on a Thursday eve, and yours truly, Kreme, is at Scottsdale’s Pussycat Lounge getting his fat fanny slapped by the finest dime in the hizz-ouse, a blonde cutie by the name of Victoria. Queen Vic is laughing her pretty little ass off, laid-back in this big circular…
The Devil and Michael Crow Undermining overachievers: Regarding “Quid Pro Crow” (Joe Watson, November 18), I’d like to personally tell Mr. Ira Fulton and Mr. Michael Crow to get fucked! I’m completely disgusted at Arizona State University. “Unconstitutional” is a word that comes to mind. Separation of church and state…
Stricken with dementia and unable to care for herself, Lucille Ayers died a horror-movie death. “My mother basically died staked to an ant pile,” her son James says. “She was eaten alive.” Before her health declined, Ayers, a devout Catholic, opened her home to visiting priests and troubled teens who…
First up, this week’s column is dedicated to ex-Wu Tang warrior Ol’ Dirty Bastard (a.k.a. Russell Jones), who on November 13, just two days short of his 36th birthday, graduated to that big pimp parlor in the sky, and is now no doubt sippin’ Cristal with fellow legends like Biggie,…
Tyler was barely born when Kevin Huff looked down between his wife Shawnie’s legs and noticed that their third child had Down syndrome. It’s hard to pick out the signs of Down syndrome — the almond-shaped eyes, the low ears, the flat nose — on a squishy newborn face. But…
Press On Nipplegate: The State Press pissed off a lot of people in my time at Arizona State University (1993-96). It had its fallouts, but I don’t recall it ever being threatened with eviction (“Quid Pro Crow,” Joe Watson, November 18). And now, editors are getting reamed over a picture…
Colorado City school superintendent Alvin Barlow meets me inside the hallway of the public school district’s crumbling administration building with an armed Colorado City cop at his side. Arizona’s senior school administrator is quivering with rage. He’s extremely unhappy to see me. Barlow ignores my greeting, abruptly turns and walks…
Like Tara Reid getting a new rack or Cynthia Nixon deciding to bat for the home team, it’s a time of transition for Inferno, y’all. First off, Implants cartoonist Elaine Bell fled Phoenix for Manhattan a couple of weeks ago, where, from this point on, she’ll be seeking her fortune…
The Mex Files A documented fact: Good story by Robert Nelson on so-called illegal immigration! Very balanced and truthful (“Alien Nation,” November 4).Why don’t Americans — who don’t want to do manual labor anymore — get it? This country would go under, particularly the southwestern part of it, without undocumented…
During seven of the most frantic and festive days in the history of Arizona State University, a female nipple pierced with a 10-gauge barbell threw a wrench in President Michael Crow’s week. As news broke of ASU’s first Nobel Prize winner in the university’s 119-year history, the ASU community was…
Life Goes On Editor’s note: More than 1,500 letters and phone calls came in on New Times’ recent article about Preserve A Life Inc. (“Forever Yours,” Esteban Sauer, October 28). First Bush wins the election, now this!: I just finished reading “Forever Yours,” and I can only imagine the mountain…
For the roughly 735,000 Arizonans and 56 million Americans who got trampled by the November 2 election, the challenge now is to follow in the footsteps of the Boston Red Sox. This is not the time to give up in despair after Senator John Kerry’s narrow defeat. It’s time to…
Hours after storied Phoenix attorney Tom Thinnes died September 14, two of his adult sons drove to a rental storage facility on West Indian School Road. Despite overwhelming grief, they needed to see if their father’s safe was there, and in it vital papers about his burial wishes, life-insurance policies…
To borrow a line from Demi Moore boy toy Ashton Kutcher, “You’ve been punked!” That’s right, New Times’ October 28 cover story ’bout a Valley firm named Preserve A Life — which taxidermies deceased humans for “mountings” in the homes of loved ones, etc. — was a spoof just in…
When I heard that Jett, the L-word Maria Menounos, wanted to go to Amsterdam with me, her extremely Kreme-y partner in nightlife, I thought maybe she’d seen the error of her lezzie ways, and wanted to get freaky with a fat man. So when I met up with her at…
Blackened and Tanned Duh, get a brain: While you’ve got to give the proprietors of the Black and Tan props for daring to operate an after-hours club in Phoenix, you’ve also got to wonder why these guys have to demonstrate how those who pass themselves off as underground chic in…
Let’s just say Proposition 200 supporters got their wish: all 300,000 or so illegal immigrants left the Valley. Hallelujah! Prop 200 supporters would say. Arizona is doomed, Prop 200 detractors would lament. A new day would dawn. Emergency-room waits would plummet. Hospitals could become solvent. Violent crime might drop. However,…
