Fear never strikes out. Now even Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson deems it acceptable to boast on public television of a newly purchased rottweiler and home security system. Johnson explains: “We had a gentleman who was crawling in and out of our windows. He broke into our personal things. When arrested,…
Jerry Colangelo’s plan to build a glorious, open-air baseball stadium in downtown Phoenix has Norman King sitting somewhere in the infield. King, proprietor of King’s Onion House, is a 34-year-old farmer’s son who has run a produce operation in an almost-historic building at 425 East Jackson for seven years. He…
When he bought Phoenix Suns season tickets to give away to his customers, Brian James, general manager of a club called Houlihan’s, thought he was exhibiting business acumen and doing his part to back the Suns. But then James made the mistake of advertising his ticket-giveaway promotion. Suns management told…
Snowbirds! Arizona merchants love em, Arizona motorists hate em, Steve Benson lampoons em. Beyond that, they’re fairly unobtrusive to most Valley residents. But in Arizona’s hinterlands, snowbirds are a much bigger deal–economically, socially and, increasingly, politically. Consider the case of sparsely populated Mohave County–an area the size of Massachusetts with…
The owner of Le Girls–a nude juice bar at 5151 East Washington–faces fines and a possible prison sentence after pleading guilty to obscenity and liquor violations at a topless club in Kansas. The Kansas City, Kansas, club, Legs, has been ordered closed for at least two years, and its owners…
For years, the tall man drank alone. He would arrive before noon at the bar of his choice, with a tumbler brought from home in his hand. Placing it on the bar, he would stare down at the bartender from his six feet four inches until he caught the attention…
There has already been too much written and said about constructing a stadium for major-league baseball here in Phoenix. I suggest we stop the debate. For once, let’s get together and decide it is our civic duty to get this stadium built. I promise you, we will immediately feel better…
A smoky voice rings up to the rafters of the pink chapel at the Cathedral of the Valley in Glendale. With an otherworldly echo, it calls out to the 20 or so faithful gathered for the Sunday-afternoon service: “We lift up our hands toward Heaven and say, ‘Jesus, I reach…
Our jaws dropped when news of Linda Turley’s new gig broke. She’s leaving an anchor job at Channel 5 to become head information wonk for Maricopa County. Salary: $72,000. This coming during a time in which our county government supposedly is broke and basic services to young, old and poor…
It’s tempting to cast the Bill MacCallum career bio in cinematic terms. There is conflict here. Elements of black comedy, too, and some old-fashioned territorial feuding. MacCallum is director of the Arizona Motion Picture Office. Maybe his movie is a Western, suddenly a popular genre again. To his supporters, MacCallum…
Imagine signing an agreement to buy a fancy car on layaway, then having to pay for an expensive valve job before your first installment is due. That’s sort of what’s happened in the case of the Central Arizona Project. Although Arizona hasn’t even begun repaying the $2 billion it owes…
A hushed silence fell over the room as Diane Felix began to speak. The mother of a young girl who attends the Phoenix Day School for the Deaf, Felix was quivering with rage, and her words flowed forth with a bitter edge. “Somebody at this school pulled down my little…
The television camera gives us a tight shot of Joe Bugel. The Phoenix Cardinals coach stands on the sidelines with his hands shoved into the pockets of his Windbreaker. He watches soulfully as the football sails toward the goal post 54 yards away. If the end-over-end kick by Brad Daluiso…
I still remember the day I talked to Sarah Brady about her long battle with the National Rifle Association over what has finally become known as the Brady bill. “How about Ronald Reagan? How does he feel about your campaign for gun controls?” “Well,” Mrs. Brady said haltingly, “he’s been…
Roger Rudman sits nervously on the edge of a chair, his fingers busily fondling an imaginary cigarette as he takes a momentary respite from a chain-smoking habit. His clothes are rumpled and his hair mussed. He looks as if sleep has long been a stranger, and dark circles rim his…
Kenneth Wayne Reed keeps meticulous records. He has to. His future absolutely depends on it. Locked in Maricopa County’s Madison Street Jail for the last 18 months on felony charges of aggravated assault and kidnaping, 35-year-old Reed cannot meet the $25,000 bond needed for his release on domestic-violence charges. Frustrated…
Not counting Robin, there are four givens in this mad world: Everyone dies. Only the little people pay taxes. Nearly everyone hates Neil Diamond. Everyone owns one Neil Diamond recording. You may beg to differ with that last universal truth, but check your own collection, just to be sure. Maybe…
More than two years have passed since the night her then-husband, Samuel Parker, nearly killed her, but Alice Wheeler says she remembers almost every detail of the beating–until the point she lost consciousness. She’s sitting in a classroom at ASU West, telling her story to students in an undergraduate sociology…
Lots of people know that Matt Martinez, a senior at Mountain View High School in Mesa, is editor of the school newspaper, The Viewpoint. Not nearly as many are aware that he’s also a devout Catholic, because Martinez believes that religion is a private matter. That belief prompted him to…
I am forever searching for basketball’s ultimate truths. As part of this enduring quest, I went to the Suns-Portland game last Friday night at America West Arena. Upon arriving at my assigned seat, I was surprised to see that the man in the blue blazer sitting next to me was…
We are always thrilled by the sight of armed men on horseback. The Lone Ranger. Tom Mix. Clint Eastwood. We love them all. And now just the sight of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s posse members at our shopping centers brings a sense of the Old West’s romanticism back into…
Unexplored so far in the domed Major League Baseball stadium debate: the vendor angle. “I think it’s great for the Valley,” says the Red (pronounced “Rrrreeeedddd”) Licorice Man, a fixture in the aisles at most local sporting events. “I think it’ll put people to work.” Red, a mild-mannered municipal bureaucrat…
