College listeners will find themselves Googling lyric phrases to discover the artists and song titles of all the oddities they hear; older listeners will just go giddily searching for the hash pipe. Below are 50 of the better mind-benders heard on 103.1 recently. In no particular order, which is just…
Last week’s arrest of four skinheads charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder offered another glimpse into a world where, despite the white supremacist gang’s professed beliefs, violence is not limited by the ethnicity of their victims. It appears that anyone who encounters them, whether friend or innocent bystander, is fair…
Congressman Rick Renzi is sponsoring a provision in a defense-spending bill that could provide hundreds of millions of dollars to his father’s business while delivering what environmentalists say is a death blow to the San Pedro River, the state’s last free-flowing desert stream and one of the most important environmental…
Fear Factor As Phoenix incubates an art scene, one thing the players — and the wanna-bes — are learning is that creativity breeds contempt. And nowhere is that more evident than on East Roosevelt Street. Recently, The Spike showcased the artistry — really, the pageantry — of the not-so-nice goings-on…
Jazzed Up “Vee” day: You should have known the “Vee” back in the late ’70s and ’80s when it was smaller and more seedy-looking (“Jazz Rift,” Ilan Brat, September 11). It was The Bomb then. Times have changed and people have passed on, but places like the “Vee” exist more…
Last year, ASU bioengineering grad Jason Wilson was at a friend’s party when he was let in on a secret. He’d found himself talking with Gaynel Hodge, a doo-wop musician and former Valley resident who now makes his home in the Netherlands. Hodge was back in town on a visit,…
Lethal Weapon 1 Gun Safety Rule No. 1: Never point the muzzle of a gun at something you don’t want to shoot. Like your left hand, for instance. Or the person walking behind you. But that’s what happened last week in west Phoenix when a local firearms expert made a…
I had been in this situation before. Last time I got a call about a mom and a young daughter arguing in a park, I nearly got my head blown off. I mean, you arrive and see a young woman sitting calmly on a park bench with a purse and…
It’s not easy being a liberal in Arizona, much less broadcasting your progressive beliefs via radio from Tucson to Yuma to Prescott each day. It comes as no surprise that in the two months On Second Thought has been on the air, host Dr. Mike Newcomb says irate conservative listeners…
The Candidate Dog eat dog: After reading your article regarding Jessica Flores (excuse me, Florez, since the letter Z is Spanish, unlike the rest of the letters in the Castilian alphabet) and her campaign for the Phoenix City Council, I am very disappointed /(“Vote For Me Or I’ll Shoot This…
They emerge from the darkness like a scene out of Night of the Living Dead, boys in tee shirts and girls in skintight halter tops. You can see the girls from the far end of the parking lot, with their sparkly earrings and glitter-smeared skin already glistening in the hot…
Artistic Discord The Spike loves the arts, loves artists, loves to tour the galleries on First Fridays, sipping wine and watching the young and hip watch each other. So it comes as no surprise that there’s a bit of bickering going on within the community. After all, artists, like most…
Meth Mess Some people live like animals. And if you think that’s some sort of journalistic overstatement, then you should have been with the Valley cops who last week busted three suspected meth labs in Wittman, a community strewn along Grand Avenue west of Phoenix. Actually, the term “meth lab”…
In his 25 years as the footnote to the popular television newsmagazine 60 Minutes, commentator Andy Rooney has been called a racist, a nationalist, a homophobe and a sexist. But the latest criticism of the 84-year-old curmudgeon comes from an unlikely source: a self-proclaimed champion of freedom of speech. And…
In the Doghouse Dogs are people, too: Let’s put aside the fact that the Weimaraner pictured with Jessica Florez looks like it would rather be having its nails extracted from its paw (“Vote For Me or I’ll Shoot This Dog,” Susy Buchanan, August 28). Last time I checked, almost any…
She’s cute going on beautiful, energetic to the point that just watching her in action is tiring. She’s so young and exuberant she seems to be everywhere at once, flipping about her environment like a pinball, her inexperience and enthusiasm equal in intensity. A chaotic bundle of energy whose most…
Not So Special Delivery A Domino’s Pizza delivery guy had no idea the man who answered the door at a Maryvale home was an armed robber. In fact, the terrified family who lived in the house near 66th Avenue and Palm Lane was being held at gunpoint in another room…
I don’t get the adrenal cascade of rage much anymore, and I can’t even remember the last time I saw the thin veneer of civil society collapse before my eyes. I’m guessing that’s why it was so invigorating to sit in line for an hour last week in 105-degree heat…
As the criminal trial against abortion doctor Brian Finkel entered its first trimester last week, this became clear: When the time comes, Finkel’s lawyer is going to have to tie the accused sexual abuser into stirrups, then drug him to keep him off the witness stand. Finkel was in his…
Fire Alarm Promises, promises: My compliments on your recent column regarding Rural/Metro (“Deadly Politics,” Robert Nelson, August 14). I experienced a 13-minute response time. My child of 11 months did not survive. Rural/Metro mismanaged the call, sent the wrong station. I was a major part of the “yes” vote in…
If Governor Janet Napolitano isn’t a lesbian, I’ll eat your hat. She is a walking, one-woman LPGA tour all by herself. It may be the thing I like best about her. I’ve known Attorney General Terry Goddard almost from the first moment he entered politics, and I’ve never known a…
Arizona and Utah authorities plan to join together for the first time in an effort aimed at curbing the widespread sexual abuse of minors within a Mormon polygamist enclave that straddles the border between the two states. Law enforcement officials have agreed to open a sheriff’s office substation close to…
