Two days before Christmas, Tom Martinez sat forlornly in his empty restaurant at the downtown Mercado shopping and office complex. Lights strung above the Cafe La Tasca’s bar twinkled for no one but the waiters, who set out silverware and napkins in false hope that someone would come to lunch…
Park Central, Phoenix’s original mall now suffering from declining-tenant flu, recently has added two new stores. What’s unusual about these two businesses, located just a few storefronts apart on the mall’s north leg, is their, um, orientation. Unaffiliated in any way besides thematically, both stores deal in “adult” products–condoms, flavored…
In our opinion, there are just two things Phoenix Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill must consider when he evaluates his team’s coaching situation: 1. Mike Ditka is God. 2. And He is available–if not immediately, then eventually. Joe Bugel is a nice guy. But you know what they say about nice…
It’s one thing to be mistaken for a common criminal. But looking like a sex offender–a man seen masturbating in a car–is quite another. Just ask John Gidcumb, a student last semester at ASU West. He weathered the wrath of other students who mistook him for a man in a…
I usually don’t look upon anything Charles Barkley says as being especially prophetic. I should have listened to him the other night, though. “We had a perfect month,” Barkley said after the Suns had won their 14th straight game. “Now the season starts for real. It’s gonna be tough.” I…
Thirteen months ago, Kathleen Stanton handed me a blue vinyl three-ring notebook. Kathleen, a reporter and co-worker I count as a friend, had been cleaning out her office. She was leaving Phoenix, moving on to a university job in a different town. I knew Kathleen had always meant to do…
Squaw Peak?! Ugh and double ugh! How politically incorrect can one mountain be? Heap big plenty, according to Phoenix Councilmember Calvin Goode. Earlier this month, the man called Goode received a complaint from a Native American constituent who reportedly found the north Phoenix mountain’s moniker “offensive.” Realizing that where there’s…
Amid the spectacle of Arizona’s notorious law enforcement sting, AzScam, the most chilling facet of the undercover operation remains unobserved by the public and unremarked upon by the press. The cops and the prosecutors tried to railroad a clean guy. The Phoenix chief of police, the Maricopa County attorney and…
On May 6, 1992, New Times began a series of investigative reports detailing extensive groundwater pollution linked to Motorola, an $11 billion multinational electronics manufacturing company that is the state’s largest employer. Among the findings: Motorola’s two flagship plants have been linked to severe contamination of two separate aquifers in…
Ryneldi Becenti stands by herself at center court in the Albuquerque basketball arena known as The Pit. A few minutes remain in a game between Arizona State University and the University of New Mexico. Ryneldi and her Sun Devil teammates are crunching the Lobos by 60 points. Ryneldi peeks out…
On a chilly Saturday morning in late November, a few dozen parents and educators from the Washington Elementary School District gather in the middle of Cortez Park in north Phoenix. It’s not your typical school function; the only kids are on the other side of the park, fishing in a…
For all you television-football fans, let’s get this straight first. Joe Bugel’s the one hunched over on the sidelines with the greased black hair and the headphones. He calls all those dumb plays during the Phoenix Cardinals games. And, yes, he’s the guy most responsible for losing the games. And…
It’s no big surprise that Willie Nelson believes in hemp. But Nelson, a longtime advocate of smoking the stuff, has now moved his advocacy into a different realm. The outlaw country-music icon is spreading the word that hemp, a sturdy weed more popularly known as marijuana, can save the planet…
“This is how the other half lives,” Billy Rivera says as he wheels his garbage truck through a neighborhood nestled between Tatum Boulevard and the mountain preserves. The houses are big and pretentious, Taj Mahals in stucco and red tile with lawns like putting greens and shrubbery like a Philippine…
What’s the flashiest automotive accessory to hit the road since mirror-plated mud-flap vixens? Just take a quick spin around the Metrocenter cruising district any weekend night and the answer quickly becomes apparent to even the dimmest bulb: car neon. Thanks to neon tubing hidden underneath the cars’ bodies, the vehicles…
Fueling speculation on veeply ambitions, veteran investigative journalist Jack Anderson reported last week that soon-to-be-former Vice President Dan Quayle is considering an offer to become publisher of the Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette. The Quayle-as-R&G-publisher mill began to grind just after the election, when New Times cartoonist Bob Boze Bell…
On September 1, former pro basketball star turned car dealer Sidney Moncrief dropped by the Glendale City Court. Moncrief was seeking an injunction to keep Kevin Taylor–a used-car wholesaler–off the lot of Moncrief’s Glendale Mitsubishi. As it had twice before, the court refused to issue the order. Since Taylor and…
When singer Richie Havens stole the show at Woodstock in 1969, A. Melvin “Mel” McDonald says he was “a Mormon boy up in Utah.” “I thought that festival thing was nothing but a bunch of liberal freaks from back East carrying on,” recalls McDonald, a child prodigy on piano and…
In the six months since it opened, America West Arena has delighted the Valley like a shiny new toy. Sold-out Suns games, arena-football matches, concerts and other events have drawn throngs to the flashy, $87 million hall. Most seem taken by the place. But taxpayers best not ask too many…
Paul Rubin’s book about jazz musicians is clearly a labor of love. Constructed in the form of interviews with 22 outstanding musicians, it takes the genre made famous by Studs Terkel to a higher level of performance. Readers of New Times, familiar with Rubin’s work as one of the most…
You’re Kevin Johnson, once a spectacular performer. But now you must hear the whispers that the Phoenix Suns are a better basketball team without you. At this point, you don’t know how much longer it will take before your various physical ailments will allow you to return to the lineup…
The Mesa Library Advisory Board made a popular choice when it voted 6-1 to reject the gifts of three copies of the book Sex, Madonna’s fleshy paean to Narcissus. Jacqueline Kasper lauds the board’s November 12 decision, saying, “I think this was a very wise decision, and I think it…
