Dear Spike Lee: The opening words of Do the Right Thing, your 1989 breakout film, were these: “Wake up!” You wanted the world to awaken to the deep and painful rifts in American race relations — between black and white, brown and white, black and brown, the whole enchilada. You…
To understand this most tumultuous year in film, over which loomed the ghost of a blessed messiah and the shadow of an accursed pariah, turn your eyes from the movie screen and look to the bookshelf. There you will find a copy of Peter Biskind’s Down and Dirty Pictures, which…
While Michael Moore and Mel garnered most of this year’s critical attention, plenty of fine films opened to little or no fanfare. Following are our reviewers’ favorite movies that didn’t draw the adulation they deserved. Consider yourself armed for the next trip to Blockbuster: Control Room — In a year…
This is the comedy-club rule: Sit up front, and you can expect to get fucked with, at least a little bit. Plus, when you roll on any club with the bisexual Ashanti of P-town lookin’ fine in a low-cut, form-fitting, red satin top, it’s like wearing a raw T-bone as…
Rappin’ ’bout Inferno Enlightening rod: I wanted to write in and tell you how much I enjoy the Inferno columns. The most recent one about the ACME Roadhouse in Tempe (“Monday Night Meatmarket,” Stephen Lemons, December 16) was enlightening — even to somebody like me who frequents the Scottsdale club…
Francisco Valencia’s home in San Isidro, Sonora, would be heaven if it wasn’t in Mexico. He lives under a grove of pomegranate trees on a farm along the cottonwood-lined valley of the Rio Magdalena where his four grandsons run wild most every sun-baked afternoon of the year. He walks with…
‘Tis the season of paybacks, desperation and fear at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is doling out promotions and sweet assignments to his supporters and harsh retribution to anyone who’s dared question his corrupt regime. The shuffling of more than 150 deputies and detention officers to new…
Eminem’s down with his niggas. Puerto Ricans like J.Lo and Fat Joe, and even that Asian kid in the baggy jeans, they claim posses of niggas. Thanks in large part to the marketing of commercial hip-hop, what was arguably the most destructive word in the English language has (rightly or…
Let’s see if I can do justice to this mutha: Monday nights at ACME Roadhouse in Tempe are off the hook, the chain, the rope, the string, and just about anything else you can imagine. According to manager Alex Mundy, ACME, about a block south of University on Rural, serves…
Old Guard A dilemma of epidemic proportions: I was moved by your story on nursing homes. It is about time someone wrote an article about this despicable problem (“Hope I Die Before I Get Old,” Bruce Rushton, December 2)! I am a provider in this area, and I am in…
Rick Romley remembers precisely what he said to his rescuers after a land mine in Vietnam blew his body apart on April 7, 1969. “I asked them if my balls were still there,” he says. Turned out, the 19-year-old Marine Corps squad leader’s cojónes were among the few outward body…
Phoenix residents awoke on the morning of March 9, 1991, to terrible news. Someone had bludgeoned an elderly father and his daughter to death inside their small east Phoenix market. For those who didn’t know 72-year-old John Lee or his 50-year-old daughter Ginger, the apparent robbery-murder was just another lousy…
Anyone who doesn’t believe the PHX has talent like Chi-town, the ATL and the Lou needs to pop over to O’Mallys at 3544 West Glendale Avenue in Phoenix on the day after Monday and check their Roc the Mic Tuesdays, where P-town’s husslas, playas, fly bitches and MCs congregate to…
Down, but Not Out One day at a time: Thanks, Amy Silverman, for writing your story. The story on the Huffs was beautiful as well, but it was yours that touched me (“Up the Down Staircase,” November 25). I normally wouldn’t have read this, as I tend to avoid these…
There’s light pop music piped in through the ceiling speakers at Paradise Valley Mall, but Donny Lang never really hears it. “This particular mall has no music — or it’s so quiet and the ceiling’s so high that I can never hear it,” says Lang, 25, a part-time musician and…
Here’s a fact that should be at the center of the debate over the future of the Phoenix metropolitan area, but is rarely discussed. Central Arizona has enough renewable surface water to build and sustain a metropolis of more than 10 million people, if not far more. Even with a…
Lisa Clarke was not a dog person. Didn’t have a dog. Didn’t want one. Then she met Klondike. Just two and a half weeks old, he was part of a litter of seven orphaned pups. Clarke’s husband and kids were smitten, and the orphan soon had a home. Now a…
Sometimes, it takes a lawsuit to punish a bad nursing home. But state lawmakers may rein in the lawyers by making it tougher to sue. In June 2001, Katherine Johnson, 72, was found unconscious at her apartment on Camelback Road. Doctors at Phoenix Baptist Hospital said she was suffering from…
It’s ’round midnight on a Thursday eve, and yours truly, Kreme, is at Scottsdale’s Pussycat Lounge getting his fat fanny slapped by the finest dime in the hizz-ouse, a blonde cutie by the name of Victoria. Queen Vic is laughing her pretty little ass off, laid-back in this big circular…
The Devil and Michael Crow Undermining overachievers: Regarding “Quid Pro Crow” (Joe Watson, November 18), I’d like to personally tell Mr. Ira Fulton and Mr. Michael Crow to get fucked! I’m completely disgusted at Arizona State University. “Unconstitutional” is a word that comes to mind. Separation of church and state…
Stricken with dementia and unable to care for herself, Lucille Ayers died a horror-movie death. “My mother basically died staked to an ant pile,” her son James says. “She was eaten alive.” Before her health declined, Ayers, a devout Catholic, opened her home to visiting priests and troubled teens who…
First up, this week’s column is dedicated to ex-Wu Tang warrior Ol’ Dirty Bastard (a.k.a. Russell Jones), who on November 13, just two days short of his 36th birthday, graduated to that big pimp parlor in the sky, and is now no doubt sippin’ Cristal with fellow legends like Biggie,…
