Artists and public art officials have been meeting in recent weeks to determine whether a state ruling will stymie innovative public art projects of the caliber that the Valley has come to expect in the past decade. An April 29 ruling by the Arizona Department of Revenue is just now…
Maurine Karabatsos can’t get a line from an old Joni Mitchell song out of her head. “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot,” she says, pulling her Porsche Boxster around the corner of Arizona Biltmore Circle toward a construction site that will eventually be a four-story, five-level parking…
The High Life Lookin’ for one last hit: I greatly enjoyed your article about the widely unknown mainstream usage of pot (“Reefer Mainstream,” Amy Silverman, October 31). I felt that the profiling of persons who smoke marijuana and lead completely regular lives is important to get out there. Being a…
To hear this clean-cut, seemingly earnest ex-major league baseball player tell it, it doesn¹t get much better than a methamphetamine high. “I ain’t gonna bullshit you, man, it’s an awesome drug,” says Glendale native Kevin Wickander, who pitched on and off in the big leagues from 1989 to 1996. “Meth…
Most days, Harriet comes home from work, takes off her bra and gets high. “I’m going outside,” she calls across the house, padding toward the garage in a tee shirt and jeans. The dog follows. Harriet stops to move wet clothes from the washing machine to the dryer, then heads…
A small ad on the letters page of New Times “Seeking Secret Pot Smokers” brought dozens of responses from marijuana users eager to talk about their quiet pastime — as long as they could be anonymous. The respondents ranged in age from teens to mid-50s. Some from the west side,…
And my dog died, too. For some months I believed, simply enough, that this year was just a bad year, a particular period with much death and cancer. So when my 17-year-old hound dog passed on this winter, it was more than just her time. Missi’s demise was one more…
The Spike’s family holds a fierce belief that everything from holidays to horoscopes is the work of Satan, so The Spike had “Egg and Bunny Day” instead of Easter, and went to church carnivals instead of celebrating Halloween. When trick-or-treating, The Spike was escorted by its pistol-toting father because Satan…
In Arizona, swine feeding, dead chicken handling, cheese making, emu slaughtering, minnow selling and manicuring are regulated industries with state-enforced rules, permits and inspectors to make sure these activities are performed responsibly. But the state doesn’t care quite as much about responsible clitoris piercing. In Arizona, the burgeoning body modification…
Nice Shot The Thinker: Well, once again you have proved that you have the balls to write with wit, integrity, truth and passion (“Sniper,” Robert Nelson, October 24). Thank you. If the masses respond to the sniper article as they did to the article on Beau Duran, it will once…
I am thinking about the East Coast man who kills from afar. I am thinking he’s an outcast who fantasizes about being a Marine sniper. I am thinking he is a man in love with the taste of power over human life, a power that can taste divine. It is…
The Spike smells fall. The shelves at Walgreens are stocked with candy corn, and every intersection in town is blocked with big, ugly signs advertising big, ugly candidates. It’s almost Election Day. One of the most obvious by-products of the Clean Elections law is that the big, ugly signs are…
The author of a purported Attorney General’s Office memo describing widespread criminal activity in the polygamous community of Colorado City remains unknown more than two weeks after it surfaced. The state Department of Public Safety has begun an investigation requested by Attorney General Janet Napolitano to determine who prepared the…
Mama’s Boy Hey, Todd, how embarrassing is this?: What a pleasant e-mail to have received regarding the Best Sports Interviewer being Todd Walsh (Best of Phoenix, September 26). I happen to be his mom who lives more than 2,900 miles away from Todd. But this makes me a very proud…
“I should be dead right now,” says Jacob Martinez. It’s near midnight on a Saturday in August. Martinez finds himself in familiar surroundings. He’s at Good Samaritan Hospital, in the orthopedic ward this time, with a brace on his neck and an IV snaking out of his arm. His large…
St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa should be fired. He should be fired for threatening gang violence. He should be fired for inciting a riot. He should be fired for basically putting a hit out on a fellow human being. It’s only fair play. A local radio DJ was…
The family of a boy who died in the custody of the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections has filed a claim against the state for $20 million. Christopher Camacho, 15, was found hanging from a sheet in his cell at Adobe Mountain School in north Phoenix on April 11. It…
Women With Balls Playing defense: I am an offensive lineman for the Arizona Caliente Women’s Football Team. I recently read the article about the Arizona Nighthawks and their struggles to be a successful football organization “Ladies Who Crunch,” Lisa Kennedy, October 10). I was truly enamored by 90 percent of…
Tight end Emmy Schmelzer pushes the Jetta onto I-10. The drive to Glendora, California, and the Citrus College stadium, where the Arizona Knighthawks of the Women’s Professional Football League will face the Los Angeles Amazons, takes a good five hours. Schmelzer, a West Point grad and Qwest cable repair technician,…
Last week, The Spike watched as the Arizona Diamondbacks lost the bid for the world championship. There was much drinking of beer, throwing of pompoms, and some smack talking involved, but The Spike tried to be a good sport — after all, the Diamondbacks in five short years have made…
Debris was just the gold that Matt Smith was looking for a month or so ago. A Tempe sculptor, he’s always scavenging for inspiration in rubbish. But pawing through a mound of construction refuse across the tracks from Macayo’s Depot Cantina in downtown Tempe, he found a mother lode that…
Two founding members of a beleaguered animal charity have disassociated themselves from the organization. John Teets — former head of Dial, current boss of his own investment firm — and his wife, Nancy, are the latest defectors from Scratch & Sniff, a nonprofit founded and operated by Susan Heywood. Three…
