Of the many scenes I’ll take with me from the Phoenix Coyotes’ 1998-99 hockey season, this one first comes to mind: It happened on Easter morning. It was a rainy, cold day, and inclement weather would cause cancellation of the Tradition golf tournament a few miles north of the Ice…
Late on a brassy Sunday afternoon, Celia Putty stands beneath the velvet curtain, loaded on sass and confidence. Stretching diagonally over his frilly shirt and ample breasts is a red beauty queen sash that reads: “Project LifeGuard Phoenix–Queen of Safe Sex ?-1999.” Putty’s black leather shoes are trimmed with bright…
Alice Does Live Here For the record, I would like to comment on your article regarding Alice Cooper’stown (“Go Ask Alice,” Gilbert Garcia) in the April 29 issue of New Times. As the founder of Evening Star Productions, and producing concerts here for 25 years, I have been fortunate enough…
Scott Stanley wants to show you photos of dead Mexicans. Some of the bodies photographed in American deserts are wasted and burned after lying for days as buzzard meat. Others, found sooner, are less unsettling. One is of a 17-year-old girl whose face, except for the doll’s-eye stare, belongs in…
Our state legislators wrapped up their work and went home quietly last week. Some limped. This was a mean session–tears in conference committees, snipes on the House floor, chains on the doors of the Senate. Senate President Brenda Burns and House Speaker Jeff Groscost should be glad to have made…
Through binoculars at night, the corner of Ninth Avenue and Madison Street is a murky scene of people milling in the dark. Yet the few lights in the area radiate just enough to see that the street’s after-hours crowd of about 100 homeless men and women is beginning to stir…
Lance Paul Hawthorne was not a model citizen. When a landlord attempted in 1989 to evict Hawthorne for not paying rent, the overweight, sparsely employed photographer opened fire with a .22 revolver, shooting through his door and walls. After Hawthorne, then 44, was arrested, the converted garage he lived in…
Grandstanding Maricopa County has a critical stadium/arena shortage. Sports venues are few and far between. At least you’d think that was the case, based on the Herculean efforts under way to exponentially expand the number of edifices where a sports buff can drop $50 or $100 or more to plant…
Outside the Center for the New Age in Sedona, Oak Creek babbled like an inner child as rental SUVs on Highway 179 roared like angry parents. Above the din, professional healer Daniel Rain attempted to alleviate my chronic sciatic nerve pain via a technique billed as “didgeridoo chakra realignment,” which…
In familiar, stoic poses, the Duke hangs purposefully among framed moments of bronco busting, ranch landscapes, and flyers publicizing an event called “Bill Williams Steak Fry and Dance.” Juke-spewed country and classic rock thump through the lounge’s dim light and blue curls of cigarette smoke. Men in uniforms chase balls…
Sitting on the couch, Shawndra Lee stretches, bored, as her mom talks about their HMO coverage. Her back cracks with a sound like a rifle shot. The loud snap is one of the only indications that her spine is bent 65 degrees out of shape. To get some idea of…
How Come a Judge? I just finished reading your article on Bonnie Scherer (“Sitting Petty,” Matthew Doig, April 22). Here is a woman who has clearly worked very hard to better herself and get out of the system (as she put it). Then you get some arrogant judge who is…
The date is February 24, but the calendar pages in Steve May’s office haven’t been flipped since January 11, the first day of his first session as a member of the Arizona House of Representatives. May barely has time to read the piles of bills his secretary has stuffed into…
Fossil Creek, a major tributary of the Verde River, doesn’t flow over travertine and river rock, bedrock gorges or deep canyons. It runs through pipes and tunnels, through two power plants and a steel half-pipe that resembles the log flume ride at Disneyland. In fact, woodland yahoos have been known…
The Arizona Department of Health Services plans to study the possible health problems caused by the ASARCO smelter in Hayden, despite officials’ earlier dismissals of any concerns. Researchers from the state met with residents in the area last week. But lawyers in a planned lawsuit against ASARCO charge that the…
The Spider Mafia In case you missed the hilarity in an Arizona Republic story Sunday that was toned down so as not to offend too many readers in Sun City and other Sheriff Joke Arpaio strongholds: The Jokester told the daily that the “bomb” in the shape of a metal…
During Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s tenure, several of his employees have come forward with damaging information about what really goes on in the offices of “America’s Toughest Sheriff.” But of Arpaio’s former trusted troops, none has done more damage by coming clean than Robert Wetherell. The former lieutenant’s November whistle-blowing affidavit…
Paul Peaty rolls up to the scene in his white pickup truck. The victim lies lifeless on the side of the road. Hit and run. “That’s a nice one,” Peaty deadpans. He gets out of the truck, and, even upwind of the carnage, the putrid stench is thick. It’s only…
Killers Behind Badges I’m still reeling from David Holthouse’s column (“Murder on Madison: The Norberg Remix,” April 15), although I’m still not quite sure why. Both Scott Norberg’s tragically ironic letter to his father and Holthouse’s brilliant juxtaposition of Norberg’s words with the testimony of his murder are enough to…
Men are like fine wine. They all start out like grapes, and it’s our job to stomp on them in the dark until they mature into something you’d like to have dinner with. –Anonymous Mistress Cathryn Curtis emerges as the archetypal dominatrix: zaftig, milky-hued, clad in an all-black ensemble of…
Cruise along Avenida del Yaqui, the main drag in Guadalupe, and you’ll feel like a tourist in a cute little Sonoran town. Fuchsia houses are landscaped with scarlet hollyhocks and giant prickly pear. Mexican restaurants with Spanish signs promoting homemade menudo sit next to tiendas selling pinatas and Indian crafts…
4.26.99 Cris Kirkwood 1029 W. 17th Street Tempe Cris– You know me, but you’ve smoked so much coke since we last talked I should probably reintroduce myself. I’m the guy who will write your obituary, unless you stop this mad jig to death’s fiddle. I imagine what’s going on inside…
