Baron Gordon is a monster, but not the creepy-crawly kind. As the founder of the Alpha Monster artist collective, which comprises major players in the Valley’s growing live painting scene, Gordon is more Monsters Inc. than Frankenstein. When he started the collective in 2003, he wanted to help other artists…
Not long ago, in a downtown starved for more restaurants of any kind, Matt Pool and his wife Erenia figured out just what the neighborhood needed: a mom-and-pop breakfast joint. So while Pool was working nights managing Bar Bianco (owned by his sister Susan Pool and her partner Chris Bianco,…
Andrea Beesley-Brown wants to be a bad girl. Really. And the New Zealand native is naughty in her way; the 27-year-old “Midnite Movie Mamacita” unspools schlocky B-movies at Paper Heart and beats the crap out of her competitors as captain of the Brutal Beauties/Beauty Pageant Rejects team in the Arizona…
She once co-owned a shop in Glendale called Saints and Sinners, but now you can only find Nancy Nenad’s south-of-the-border treasures at the occasional local festival (like the Desert Botanical Garden’s Días de los Muertos celebration) or anytime on eBay (search under sellers for funkychickeneggranch). Nenad uses the proceeds from…
Turntablist-promoter Al Page rocks the party hard on Saturdays with his underground hip-hop night The Shop at Hidden House. Packed so tight the female next to you will feel your cell phone ringing on “vibrate,” The Shop is the spot for true hip-hop heads to hit and not have to…
Barney Mullen is a man of few words, but many kind gestures. For almost three decades, Mullen has been going about his business at the Denny’s restaurant at Seventh Street and Camelback Road. His job isn’t fancy: Day in and day out since 1978 (that’s 28 years and counting), Barney…
Though her nickname is “Prima Donna,” 25-year-old amateur mechanic and Arizona Derby Dames skater Alissa Gere is the antithesis of spoiled rich girls with their purse dogs and fake-bake tans. Her icy green eyes and black Bettie Page ‘do could easily propel Gere into modeling. But this Southern California native…
Zach Yoshioka is the Valley’s version of Robert Rodriguez or Roger Corman. Since 1999, the self-taught auteur has cranked out 15 different no-budget flicks with such luridly visceral subject matter as gang violence, love triangles, cyberpunk shenanigans, and witchcraft. Schlocky cinematic adventures like Urban Pressure and Synthetic Truth have occasionally…
For the past six years, Patti Hannon has been starring in both Late Nite Catechism and Late Nite Catechism II at Scottsdale Center for the Arts. “I love playing Sister,” she says of the grouchy nun with the soft spot for Catholic school kids, a character with whom she’s spent…
Thomas Keller, 24, is flat-out the best poker player in the Valley. The Stanford grad (economics, natch) has won two major poker titles, including a $5,000 buy-in tournament at the 2004 World Series of Poker, where he took home a $384,000 first prize. He’s got a book “in the works”…
Sculptor Melissa Martinez, 29, combines materials like cactus needles and concrete into stark, elegiac pieces about the natural world vanishing beneath the pavement of our eternally expanding city. The Chicago native came to the Valley a dozen years ago to get a degree in sculpture from Arizona State University. She…
Phoenix has been very, very good for 28-year-old JX3. The Power 92.3 DJ moved from Denver to Phoenix to study meteorology at Arizona State University. Eventually, this gregarious young gent began MCing local club events, where he was spotted by Power program director Bruce St. James. Four years later, the…
Aaron Homoki, 15, beat out more than 1,500 entrants from around the country in an MTV skating competition tied to a promotion for this past summer’s Lords of Dogtown picture. The northeast Phoenix teen is the polar opposite of the outlaw punks immortalized in the movie as skateboarding’s pioneers –…
Tammie Coe, 35, makes the cake. We discovered her amazing, fondant-covered creations in the dessert case at La Grande Orange, and pretty soon they were everywhere. (And coming soon to her second location at Artisan Village near Seventh Street and Roosevelt.) Tammie Coe Cakes is a tasty Phoenix phenomenon that…
Bullfighter and backpacker Carlos Manriquez, 33, is the chef and co-owner of two critically acclaimed Valley eateries: Scottsdale’s Atlas Bistro, and Mucho Gusto Taqueria and Mexican Bistro in Tempe. Raised in Mexicali, Mexico, Manriquez has a degree in dairy husbandry from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. He came to Arizona…
Vivacious, witty, and easy on the eyes. Such is the appeal of Justina Duong, 31, owner of Cyclo, Chandler’s kudos-laden Vietnamese eatery, a culinary lodestone for Valley foodies. You can add smart to her list of attributes. Duong attended USC on scholarship, acquiring a degree in pharmacy. But after a…
Florida native Steven Rogers honed his nightclub skills in Manhattan, during the reign of Studio 54, and celebrity restaurateur Mr. Chow, for whom he worked. He rubbed shoulders with the likes of Truman Capote, Mick and Bianca Jagger, and Lauren Bacall, while doing lighting for Gotham clubs. Then he said…
