Tom Paniccia came into the New Times Building dressed in a black suit, his shoes still buffed to a military sheen–the habit of 11 years in the Air Force–and grinning from ear to ear with the thought that he would not be out of uniform much longer. Paniccia, 28, was…
For decades, as a truck driver and safety engineer, Joseph Onofrio worked hard for his money, and you can’t blame him for wanting to hold onto it. What with the savings-and-loan crisis and an unstable economy, he felt a need to take money matters into his own hands. That’s the…
The temperature was below freezing. It was one of those Chicago winter days when the sky comes up slate gray and the sun never appears. I was one of a group of reporters and photographers who were all huddled against the wind at the entrance to the old Chicago Coliseum…
Klondyke, Arizona, is little more than a dot on the map west of Safford, a general store on a dirt road that passes a few hundred yards from the middle of nowhere. On a lonely September evening, Gordon Whiting stood in the kitchen of his ranch house there, drinking beer,…
Celebrities, ambassadors and politicians crowded into the Greenwood Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in Memphis, Tennessee. Jesse Jackson was there. Cicely Tyson was there. Dick Gregory was there. Attallah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X, was there. Dignitaries from Senegal and the Gambia were there. They had come to mourn Alex…
Lock the doors. Bar the windows. Keep your back to the wall and don’t ask questions. Jesus Lizard is coming to town. Jesus Lizard is a chemically imbalanced band of misfits led by David Yow, an absolute nut with a microphone. Yow’s m.o. is to scream and yell, rant and…
At the Arizona Bar Center, there are five fat accordion files bursting with complaints about nonlawyers practicing law. Most were filed by real, gone-to-law-school attorneys. Nearly all of them suggest that independent paralegals and scrivener services–the folks who advertise document preparation for divorces and bankruptcies–have overstepped their legitimate roles as…
I got to America West Arena almost two hours early last Saturday night. It was the opening of the Charles Barkley era in Phoenix Suns’ basketball. Outside, the sidewalk was jammed with fans. Traffic crept and horns honked constantly as the garages and parking lots filled. It was a carnival…
If you’re driving back into Phoenix from a trip to San Diego, somewhere along I-10, after brain-numbing miles of creosote, you will realize subconsciously that you are getting close to home because you will begin to notice palm trees sprinkled here and there. You’ll see little groups of them planted…
On a hot July morning in Camp Verde, Ed Phillips, state senator and TV weatherman, briefs the Arizona Federation of Republican Women on the year’s environmental legislation. He’s light on his feet as he chatters pleasantly about the guy who waters his lawn and lets it run down the street,…
It will go down as the Fiasco in Peasco. For the record, it was billed as the Arizona Vs. Sonora Professional Boxing Shootout; aptly enough, when the dust cleared at Puerto Peasco Stadium on October 3, people were in a shooting mood. It was an awesome lineup for any card,…
From his downtown office window, attorney Joe Clees can watch the 20-story building that will be Phoenix’s new City Hall rise one level at a time. At nine stories right now, it is the only significant stirring on the moribund skyline, and the largest construction project going in the city…
Reverend Tommy Barnett couldn’t have made it easier for his congregation to donate big bucks toward the fight against abortion in Arizona. After complaining during an October 25 sermon about the “underfunded” campaign of Proposition 110–the antiabortion measure–Barnett took up an offering as parishioners filed out of his Phoenix First…
“Where’s Johnny Johnson?” a man asked. “Don’t bother,” a friendly photographer said. “He won’t talk.” “You’re kidding,” the man said. “He just played a hell of a game.” “We tried to get him as he came off the field,” said the TV camera operator. “He said he won’t talk.” Johnny…
I don’t have the opportunity to listen to local radio broadcasting teams all over the National Football League. But I’d guess that the current radio team broadcasting the Phoenix Cardinals games over KTAR-AM comes close to ranking as the league’s worst. First of all, they are an absurd trio of…
I wanted to see, face to face, what kind of punks attack and beat a wheelchair-bound paraplegic. There were two of them, a hatchet-faced piece of meanness called Ted Roper and his 200-pound sidekick, the expressionless Richard Brown. Both men carry a badge for the Bullhead City Police Department. I…
Gary Peter Klahr is talking. This is not one of those toss-the-reader-into-the-action, New Journalism leads. It is a statement of fact. No matter when or where you happen to be reading that first sentence, Gary Peter Klahr–Rick Romley’s only competition in Tuesday’s election for Maricopa County Attorney–is talking. The reason…
The 18-year-old turned on his tape recorder and spoke from the heart. “There’s more out there than the anger and violence you see,” he said. “There’s beauty, there’s love, there’s happiness and there’s joy. You need to go out and find it. And you better hold onto it tight, man,…
A handshake used to be enough for Lou Mastela. During more than 30 years in the restaurant business, Mastela ordered thousands of dollars of groceries and liquor, hired staff, paid bills and built his businesses on a foundation of good intentions. Legal niceties–things like contracts, leases and other paperwork–he left…
“From the time he’s an infant, the average person is brought up to believe that all bugs are bad and that we should annihilate em all immediately,” says antipesticide activist Debbie McQueen. “The truth is that there’s a purpose for every bug in the world–whether we like it or not.”…
As the co-chair of the Maricopa County Libertarian party, Debbie Norwitz is understandably upset when people talk about “the American two-party system.” She knows better. She knows that there are Libertarians, Greens, New Alliancers, Natural Law devotees, independents and others out there struggling to “open people’s minds” to the possibilities…
I was startled the other day to see Red Barber’s photograph in the New York Times. He had been the voice of the Brooklyn Dodgers when I was a kid growing up in New York City. I remember so clearly his calm Southern drawl helping me to keep my own…
