Something hilarious happens within the first few minutes of Chyro Arts’ Dearly Departed: A woman, played by Jacqueline Gaston, reads a wickedly amusing letter to her husband, who suddenly falls over in a dead heap just after she finishes. It’s a moment that’s shocking and witty and holds a good…
Remember how much fun it was to swim at the public pool as a kid? Unfortunately, when you grew up, you realized that the oasis of your memory was just a chlorinated hole filled with grimy little creatures who got pleasure from peeing in the water and stewing in their…
The under-30 crowd made one helluva showing in the 2004 primaries, contributing to a leap from a measly 9 percent of the electorate in 2000 to 17 percent this year, according to The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement. We’re hoping the ballot-boothin’ kids keep kicking…
Brandon Wronski, frontman for the band Eye Alaska, characterizes his group’s sound as “genre-less.” It’s an appropriate description given that the foursome sounds very little like its stable-mates on Fearless Records or the majority of its peers from Orange County, California. However, nature and alt music abhor a vacuum, and…
Among comedy geeks, Frank Caliendo is a divider like no other. First off, he’s an impressionist, and not since the halcyon days of Rich Little-as-George Burns has the skill been comparatively viable to, say, humorous hypnotism or ventriloquism. Second, his interpretations of Dubya, John Madden, and Jack Nicholson haven’t really…
Every year, like clockwork, New Times bestows our Best of Phoenix Bookstore award on Tempe’s Changing Hands. There’s no collusion or favoritism; the long-lived indie’s indisputably the best. While the new Dog-Eared Pages Used Books is unlikely to dethrone Changing Hands, any biz that’s both indie and literate is a…
Fan or hater, you’ve kept tabs on Ryan Avery. If you weren’t already up on his exploits, then the New Times cover story piqued your interest (“Hi, My Name Is Ryan,” August 3, 2006, Benjamin Leatherman). Then you heard about Paul Eagleston and Stephen Rose’s documentary Hi My Name Is…
Hey, gringos, look what you’ve been missing. Namely, Silverio, a south-of-the-border sensation who will seduce all five of your senses with a wink of his eye and a thrust of his pelvis. The Mexican love child of Peaches and Günther (you know, the gold lamé-loving Swedish sex panther who sings…
A bumper sticker proclaims, “Enjoy weekends? Thank unions!” Alas, don’t forget an extra tip of the hat for the extended Labor Day weekend, when Sway Events and the Clarendon Hotel spin summer’s sunset into the Splash Bash Labor Day Weekend Party. The Splash Bash pool pachanga lights the fuse on…
But for being born white, San Francisco chanteuse Lavay Smith might be the latter-day Billie Holiday. Smith has Lady Day’s throaty purr, though it might be more appropriate to say that Smith has Holiday’s purr down. Smith, see, is a natural-born self-promoter whose business is channeling swing/bebop legends such as…
As children, we’re filled with creativity. Then real life drowns the butterflies and rainbows in a festering sea of debt, responsibilities, and mind-numbing labor. Some adults choose to deal by popping pills or shooting smack. Siberian artist Natasha Matveenkova has sidestepped the sinkhole of adulthood the legal way, by giving…
Are you still having emotional issues because of that punk ass bully from the fourth grade? Well, you’ll have to keep going to your shrink for that, dude. However, if you like tough looking pooches, then you may want to hit up the AZ Bully Expo, which will feature everything…
Commodification of art is nothing new (we especially like those Hello Kitty vibrators), but a respectable art gallery slumming in a mall is right up there with Walmarts on sacred burial grounds, even if it’s exactly the kind of “social embeddedness” that Joe Baker, ASU’s Director of Community Engagement, has…
With a football program of ASU’s caliber, a contest against the NAU Lumberjacks is a guaranteed notch in the win column. However, as we learned in 2003 and 2006 when the boys from Flagstaff came to town, not-so-impressive showings by the Devils can spell later-season doom. In the ’03 tussle,…
Your vegan upbringing turned you into a meat-craving psychopath. At age 9, you offed your hippie parents and hid their bodies in your digestive tract. Ever since, you’ve found it hard to control your beastly instincts and have started roaming with the zombie crowd. At night, you loot the butcher’s…
You grew up in a fascist household where creativity wasn’t encouraged. At age 2, when you drew an abstract version of your dog, your parents took note of its asymmetry and shook their heads critically. They couldn’t tolerate anything but pure genius, and if that wasn’t achievable, they enforced utter…
Drinking. Drugging. Thugging. Odes to these will be legion when Bay Area underground rapper Andre Nickatina brings his subtly named Coke White Tour to Marquee Theatre. As he has throughout his nearly 20-year recording career — as well as on his new CD, A Tale of Two Andres — Nickatina…
What will life be like for Olympic swimming sensation Michael Phelps after Beijing? Cheers and parades? His face on a Wheaties box? If his predecessor and former swimming buddy, three-time Olympic medalist and former teen phenom Nadia “Anita” Nall, is any indication, he’ll have a year or so of endorsements…
Did you hear what those geezers on the Arizona Cardinals preseason broadcast were saying during the Kansas City Chiefs game on August 16? That the redbirds’ win was a monumental turning point, especially considering that it was coach Ken Whisenhunt’s first exhibition victory in six tries. Give. Us. A. Freaking…
If you’re a golfer, summer’s either the greatest thing since sliced bread or an involuntary exile from the links. If you’re poor, it’s probably the bread, ’cause you don’t have to spend as much of the doughy stuff to get in your 18. Many of the power resorts significantly lower…
A friend of ours freaks out when he realizes the molecules he’s inhaling have been inside our lungs, too. You other wusses better check out “Human & Animal Grossology” at Arizona Science Center beginning Saturday, May 24, and get desensitized to all the emissions and secretions of us Homo sapiens…
The NL Central club who are fighting for their wild card lives visit Phoenix for the final time in 2008 during this three-game series. Mon., Sept. 1, 1:10 p.m.; Tue., Sept. 2, 6:40 p.m.; Wed., Sept. 3, 12:40 p.m., 2008…
