On Christmas Eve 1992, at the advanced age of 64, Carlos Contreras hiccupped for the first time in his life. Sixteen months, four dozen doctor visits, thousands of dollars in medical bills and more than two and a half million hiccups later, the retired Phoenix postal service employee was still…
James Dunham cringed while he was watching the film Wyatt Earp last year. Well, so did a lot of other people, but mostly they were film lovers appalled by Kevin Costner’s performance. Dunham was covering his eyes because of the historical inaccuracies he saw perpetrated onscreen. One was particularly close…
Hi, NBA fans! I’m Chuck Barkley, and I own this town. New Times asked me to do this guide for the folks who are pouring in to Phoenix for the big All-Star show. Hope you dig it. Party hard, and don’t spit on anyone! EAST VAN BUREN STREET For those…
Jan Brooks was bustling about her new Mesa apartment, preparing for her daughter Ashley to come home from the hospital. It was June 9, 1993, and in a few days, Ashley would be 18 months old. Happy days like this one had been rare for Brooks, who had moved from…
The two-lane asphalt road stretches southward across the desert, eerily blending at the horizon with three steam plumes that surge 2,000 feet above the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. Four miles ahead lies the nation’s largest nuclear power plant; during the past two months, more than 800 migratory ducks have…
When it comes to bedside manner, “suicide doctor” Jack Kevorkian really missed the boat. At least that’s the opinion of a rival assisted-suicide advocate who claims to operate secret “euthanasia cruises”–suicide voyages for which terminally ill passengers from around the country pay $500 for the privilege of being wined, dined,…
The guy everyone calls Bing is bantering with the pizza man. “You get that Italian beef sandwich on your menu, you’ll have them lining up,” Bing tells Chris Bianco of Pizzeria Bianco, a fabulous little eatery at Phoenix’s Town & Country Shopping Center. “Okay, okay, you got it,” Bianco bellows…
After months of bickering, backbiting and finger-pointing in the Phoenix art community, it appears that there will be an Art Detour this year–but it may not look much like the ones the city is accustomed to. Every year since 1989, the Valley artists’ association Artlink has put together the Detour,…
The letters “WPA” are stamped on the exterior of the buildings that make up Picacho Elementary School. That’s because the buildings date to the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program launched in the 1930s. Students at Picacho Elementary, which is located near Picacho Peak south of Casa Grande, are…
Constable Burt Alvord, who served Willcox in the 1890s, made news when it was discovered that he used the law enforcement office as a front for his other profession–robbing trains. As the story goes, Alvord left behind his partner in crime, “Three-finger” Jack Dunlap, after Dunlap had been shot. Dunlap…
Jerry Brock slowly leans over and to his right, stretching slightly to reach the candy jar stashed behind his office desk. Very deliberately, he opens the wrapper to a piece of hard candy, and precisely places the morsel in his mouth. The ritual gives him a moment to contemplate disturbing…
As the mayor of Phoenix, he pushed for a dress code in local public schools. As a candidate for governor, he called for a statewide dress code. Now Paul Johnson may finally get his wish–at least at one Phoenix public school. Shortly after his third-place finish in the 1994 Democratic…
Recently asked by a magazine writer what he wanted chiseled on his tombstone, pioneering skin-flick maestro Russ Meyer cited a quotation directed at him by Charles H Keating Jr. some 25 years ago: “More than anyone else in his time, Russ Meyer was responsible for the decay of values in…
Veteran Arizona Republic reporter David Schwartz lost his job last month after it was revealed that he impersonated Valley attorney and former appellate judge Bruce Meyerson, allegedly to impress a woman he wanted to date, Meyerson confirmed last week. Meyerson says, “Obviously, it’s outrageous. It’s an intrusion into my privacy…
From the beginning, Rich Brydle says, he heard rumors about improper purchasing procedures at the Maricopa Community College District. Brydle, a former employee in the district’s purchasing department, says memos had been written and reprimands issued to Gary Mandarino, another purchasing employee who was in charge of buying computer software…
Asasn is over where the I and the Z in “revitalization” yawn in blown-out, three-foot-tall alphabet in front of him, filling in the characters with the blasphemous Glidden spray paint provided by the friendly folks at Pioneer Ford. A splash of bright red, and he stands back, intrigued: “That’s like…
A few minutes after pulling into the dusty parking lot of a huge barn just outside Goodyear, Raimondo Fontana puts down the tailgate on his ancient Ford pickup and starts checking his roosters. He has brought four of them for tonight’s derby, two red ones and two blacks, and darting…
The teenager doesn’t understand why the prosecution of her best friend’s alleged rapist failed so miserably. “It drove me crazy,” says Sharon Singer. “I wanted to jump up in court and tell the jury, ‘That guy forced her to have sex. She’s just a kid. You’ve got to believe her!’…
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether Maricopa County’s massive budget deficit precipitated a series of illegal bond sales in 1993, several county officials say. While the officials refused to comment on the record, one county supervisor confirmed last Monday that an SEC investigation is under way. The…
Ruth Brown joined LA Fitness Sports Club last spring expecting to regularly exercise in the pleasant surroundings of the spacious and well-equipped fitness center. Instead, Brown has spent the past six months deadlocked in a dispute with the health club stemming from foul-ups with electronic withdrawals the club takes from…
It was a band’s dream: to play a small town in the middle of nowhere and give hundreds of local kids music they never get to hear live. Phoenix industrial-metal rock groups N-17 and Ultrapure thought they had that fantasy all lined up in Kingman for New Year’s Eve. On…
When Gary Metzler decided to unload his 1966 Plymouth Valiant last year, the artist didn’t even bother to place a classified ad. It’s probably just as well. Within the constraints of a few lines of newspaper type, how do you even begin to describe a souped-up station wagon that simultaneously…
