Ring the Changes What’s hot and what’s not: I’ve noted a lot of positive changes in New Times over the past year. It seems that you’re returning to your former place as the paper to read to find out what’s really going on in Arizona. Michael Lacey has always been…
New Times was honored for everything from religion writing to music criticism — with John Dougherty capturing the Don Bolles Award for investigative reporting — at the Arizona Press Club’s 80th-anniversary banquet in Phoenix. In all, New Times took home eight first-place trophies, including Robert Nelson’s win in the John…
The Metrocenter security guard slows down his white Honda CRV to eye what looks like an episode of MTV’s twisted stunt show Viva La Bam going on in the mall’s east parking lot. One after another, along a ramped walkway, 19-year-old Matt Stewart and his three new friends grab a…
The nation’s biggest garbage company is everywhere in Mobile, one of Maricopa County’s smallest communities. “Thank You Waste Management,” reads a sign in front of the school, just above a message noting that the sign itself was paid for by Waste Management. Headquartered 1,200 miles away in Houston, Waste Management…
Maricopa County Administrator David Smith was named best county leader in the nation by Governing Magazine in November 2001. Now Smith deserves to lose his job. The publication, which is read by practically every high-level bureaucrat in the nation, had gushed that Smith performed miracles in leading Maricopa County out…
After blowing most of our dolo at that swank strip club Skin last week, Jett and I needed a low-rent joint at which to chillax (that’s chill and relax, yo). Fortunately, my pally Gatsby, ribald renaissance man and massage therapist to club hotties, had a semi-genius idea for us. “Monday…
Firearms Aren’t Us Gamers don’t pose a threat: I just wanted to comment on the excellent job that Jimmy Magahern did in delving into our little circle of gaming and other activities (“War Games,” May 6), but I would like to refute the spin that the story seemed to take…
The argument is simple enough: Metro Phoenix is the world’s new baseball mecca. If you love baseball, this is the best place on Earth to visit. If you’re a kid with dreams of being a big league star, this is the best place on Earth to call home. Supporting such…
Governor Janet Napolitano has finally found her man. Tucked under the right arm of presumed Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry, Napolitano beamed radiantly during a Democratic party rah-rah at the Arizona Biltmore recently. Normally aloof, Napolitano never drifted far from the Massachusetts senator’s side. She got the good lovin’…
My dawg Jett, a.k.a. the lezzy Nelly, has been ailin’ of late ’cause she got dumped by her squeeze of the week, some fine hoochie-mama with bodacious ta-tas. The girl went Unabomber on me, and locked herself in her room with some bud and a bottle of Tanqueray. “What you…
Fly the Friendly Skies Not for party animals only: Skydive Arizona is not the party animal place you make it out to be (“In the Zone,” Susy Buchanan, April 22). It is the home of world champions — first and foremost. Arizona Airspeed has dominated U.S. Nationals and the world…
They line up by the warehouse door at Contractor Wire and Cable in south Phoenix like an army of IT guys delivering refurbished computers: 140 mostly white males, most in their mid-20s, clutching big CRT monitors in front of their guts and toting hefty cabinets and bags full of wires,…
One day isn’t enough. Phoenix should be celebrating Cuatro y Cinco de Mayo. A two-day party would allow us to fete not only the Mexican Army’s smashing defeat of the French Foreign Legion on May 5, 1862, but also the founding of Phoenix on May 4, 1868. Next year, if…
On his first solo night in February 2001, P hoenix rookie cop Shawn Dirks found himself accused of anal rape. He knew his accuser was drunk — he’d encountered her during a DUI stop. But he didn’t know until later that she was also mentally disturbed. It quickly became evident…
For the second time, Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley has declined prosecution in an alleged case of abuse of a quadriplegic woman by her husband. In a New Times story published last year (“Paralyzed in Paradise,” May 1, 2003), Heather Grossman claimed that her husband, John, spit in her face,…
The Bishop Be Damned Adult Catholic’s perspective: Regarding your column on Bishop Thomas J. O’Brien, masterful is an understatement (“The Divine Sociopath,” Michael Lacey, April 15). What is so hopeful about what you said is this: You are an adult and a Catholic, and you think like an adult, not…
Haven’t you always wondered what Ralph Nader groupies look like? I have. Nader’s a sort of celebrity in the way that tofu’s a sort of food, and in these effervescent days of cable exposure, all politicians — even a serial scold — are national personalities. The best-kept political secret is…
David Sheflin is absolutely the most fashionable man in town. Sheflin runs his high-end, vintage boutique in central Phoenix like a weekly salon, mingling with discerning customers and influential friends as though he’s Diana Vreeland presiding over Vogue. On the side, Sheflin deals in top-name mid-century furniture. He’s also a…
“I just wish that sometimes your paper could say ‘Thank you’ rather than taking shots!” Jerry Colangelo bellowed over the phone in October, the last time I was able to reach him for comment on his business endeavors. The Godfather of Phoenix sports was angry because I had dared to…
Have you heard the one about the onetime felon who threw a fund raiser for the guy who wanted to be the county’s top prosecutor? Mike Bailey, one of several candidates hoping to succeed outgoing Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, started off his remarks with a wisecrack during a debate…
Like Snoop says in that joint they play all the time on Power 92.3, “Green’s for the money, the money, the money.” But green’s also for the mainstay of P-town bar-band culture, the Emerald Lounge, the kind of place where hot bands rub up against friendly drunks and stoners. It’s…
Lock Him Up Profile in courage: I take my hat off to Father Joe Ladensack, who had the moral courage to refuse Bishop O’Brien’s outrageous demands to make a family rescind its charges of pedophilia in the Catholic church (“The Divine Sociopath,” Michael Lacey, April 15). What courage Father Ladensack…
