Blogs

By Jonathan McNamara

If you haven't been round to see HoodRide Bodega tackle a sticky subject, tonight is your last chance. The exhibit, Sticker Phiends, features all types of adhesive art. Some pieces are actual stickers while others are adhesive material that has been drawn on.

Catch a sneak peek of the exhibit in our slideshow: Sticker Phiends at Hoodride Bodega.

Silver Martini & Wine in Phoenix on Saturday, April 26.

By: Lilia Menconi

For more sultry scenery click here.

It’s been too long since we hit the downtown scene, and we were beginning to miss our old digs. So on Saturday, April 26, we strolled down Washington Street looking for a dance fix. After circling construction zones and avoiding homeless crackheads, we stumbled into a swank little spot called Silver.

The floor was full of salsa dancing, as Latin beats shook the walls. There were some super-hot mamas hitting the floor with some pretty killer moves. In fact, they were so good, we were too intimidated to jump in. So we decided to slam a drink and chat it up while we took photos. Next time, we’ll hit the liquor harder and be sure to shake it.

Silver Martini & Wine, 136 E. Washington in Phoenix, 602.253.8300, www.silver136.com.

By Paul Rubin

Suns game just finished, as did the season... Heart finally slowing to a more survivable rate, but the inner heart--the one that beats more intensely as the soul of a season slowly reveals itself---isn't doing so great at the moment. Terrific game when the Spurs weren't employing the hack-a-Shaq or the hack-a-Skinner and slowing things down to a crawl, but whatever. Don't want to think much about the ways the Suns could have won this game. This series, really.

Speaking of O'Neal, the Big One definitely ain't what he used to be, but he was just fine out there, and no one should cast too much blame on him for the team's terrible first-round demise.
Many Phoenix fans inevitably will blame the refs, though the zeebs didn't do in the team (even though blue-collar defender Bruce Bowen pushed Steve Nash in the back on that weird pass in the corner near the end of the game when the Suns had a momentary chance to take the lead).

Nash displayed his typically big heart throughout, but was fairly awful for most of the game, just out of synch and not in charge of the proceedings, as he's been since the day in 2004 that he signed on as a free-agent. The little man is about a step slower than he used to be, and that's that. It didn't help Nash that the Suns decided to run the offense through forward Boris Diaw most of the time, but that was strategy that worked in Game 4. As for Nash, see ya in the Hall of Fame.

Amare Stoudemire did some out-of-nowhere magical defensive things--blocks, wonderful stops on the great Duncan, but it was too little, and much too late.

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By Ray Stern

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio acted all angry today when asked if he had any comment on the lawsuit New Times filed against him, County Attorney Andrew Thomas and fired special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio and County Andrew Thomas respond to questions about New Times' lawsuit and other issues at a news conference Tuesday.

As he explained to the media at a press conference at Thomas' office, what led to the lawsuit was the publication of Arpaio's name and address on New Times Web site back in 2004.

He took the pretense of anger so far, in fact, that he actually held up the December 21, 2006, edition of our newspaper for all to see -- the one on whose cover we published Arpaio's home address.

To continue the facade that what we had done was very bad, he even shook the copy of the paper a little as he glared at this reporter in the first row.

That's right. To make his point that the publication of his address has put his family "in jeopardy," Arpaio revealed his Fountain Hills address in a most blatant way:

He showed it in big, bold type to a roomful of camera-wielding print and TV journalists.

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By Jonathan McNamara

On April 29, Carrie Fisher kicked off the first of six performances of her one-woman tour de force Spy in the House of Me at Theater 4301. Spy,which is roughly taken from her other show Wishful Drinking, is heavy on audience interaction. It begins and ends with candid Q&A sessions during which Fisher will answer anything.

The Hollywood princess was certainly enthusiastic about answering my questions about Spy, her time as a script doctor, and the other projects she's got up her sleeve.

New Times: Walk me through the storyline of Spy in the House of Me

Carrie Fisher: It’s about this girl that was born to a father that owned a hardware store and a mother that was as substitute teacher in the local school . . . It’s not about my parents, but it is about my fantasy parents.

Here’s what I say: If my life wasn’t funny, it would just be true. And that’s unacceptable. One of my 12,000 shrinks told me that I should learn the difference between a problem and an inconvenience. Once I did that, I realized that I’ve had four problems . . . It’s about those four nasty little problems.

NT: How does Spy in the Houst of Me differ from Wishful Drinking?

CF: I’m going to be performing my other show all around the States and other places. What happened here is that they tried to get my show Wishful Drinking to come here. And the producer wanted to charge $50,000 to rent that set. If that had happened, people would have had to pay like $300 a seat. It’s just too much money for most places. So because I couldn’t bring the set and we couldn’t do it in conjunction with that producer, we had to vary it up. It’s a sort of a different slant on the same subject.

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By Steve Jansen

I’m pretty sure that Kevin Brockmeier won’t be reading this blog entry about Kevin Brockmeier.

Last year when Brockmeier visited Tempe’s Changing Hands Bookstore to plug his amazing novel The Brief History of the Dead (the book fuses suspended belief with a light dusting of science fiction), the Little Rock, Arkansas-based author told me that he never reads press about himself. However, this doesn’t deter me from writing about his Monday night appearance at Changing Hands, where Brockmeier read from and signed copies of his latest short story collection, The View from the Seventh Layer. Because Dead (published in 2006) is one of my favorite reads of the past few years, this was a not-to-be-missed event for me.

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By Jonathan McNamara

No, it's not Christmas. We do this every month.

Check out a month's worth of hard-hitting news, riveting restaurant reviews, rockin' show previews and a slide show or two direct from the streets of Phoenix.

This month in photos features our special report "Green Fatigue," Guadalupe Mayor Rebecca Jimenez in her fight against Sheriff Joe and the invasion of the toys. Want to see what else made the cut? See for yourself in Month of Photos: April 2008.

By Jonathan McNamara

Boy did Commodore Perry poke a stick into a hornet's next when he opened Japan to the West in 1854 or what? Nine years later (they didn't have e-mail) Emperor Kohei issued an edict to "Expel the foreign barbarians" as a reaction against the westernization of Japan. While this was bad news for the foreigners and the shogunate in 1863, you have very little to fear from the Emperors of Japan at Trunk Space tonight. They're just there to rock along with the Old Haunts, Black Jacket and Mike Montoya.

By John Dickerson

ABC’s Good Morning America recently retold New Times' "Hot Potato" story.

New Times reported the story on November 8, 2007. “Hot Potato” detailed a case of buyer-remorse that escalated into a lawsuit. The story centered on Candy Tatum, a potato-throwing neighbor whom the buyer said was too crazy to live next to. He complained that the seller should have disclosed the potato lobber.

The house became worth about $40,000 less than the sales price, thanks to market changes. That had some folks wondering if the buyer was really upset about potatoes or about pesos. Either way, the lawsuit stands to set a precedent in Arizona. Current disclosure laws require sellers to report any “material” defect to buyers. But whether a nuisance neighbor is a “material” problem remains to be determined – most likely by this case.

The lawsuit is still making its way through the courts. Meanwhile, national mental-health advocates say it could set a dangerous precedent, particularly if sellers start diagnosing the mental health of neighbors. Others say “buyer beware” applies and that buyers should investigate the neighborhood before dropping dough on a new pad.

Another gritty detail: The seller used a Realty Executives agent for the transaction. That’s interesting because the buyer (who’s now suing the seller) is an executive of the same company, Realty Executives.

The Arizona Republic also took a shot at reheating this cooled potato.

By Sarah Fenske

So Peter Singer came to ASU on Monday. The philosopher has argued that parents ought to be able to kill disabled babies within a year of their birth — and he's not talking about just the extreme cases, like when an infant has no brain. He thinks that parents literally ought to kill babies with, for example, Down syndrome.

His beliefs are so warped that after I wrote a column about them for our April 24 issue, I actually got a call from a reader who wanted to know if it was one of those New Times spoofs. You know: Like Anna Nicole Smith having a love child on the Indian reservation — too silly to be true. Alas, not so. The dude really does want to kill retarded babies!

I assumed the incendiary nature of Singer's views would mean that, at today's lecture, a phalanx of disabled students would surround the lecture hall, placards in hand. Or that at least one pro-lifer would have considered this event a good time to enlighten fellow students on the nature of the beast.

Not so.

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Hark! Tonight is an opportunity not to be missed! You and yours may yet see The Southwest Shakespeare Company finale of its most ambitious marathon reading of the collected works of Shakespeare, as begun last Thursday. Let not the magnitude of such a task frighten you. Nay! Venture forth to fair Tempe Marketplace, where we lay our scene.
See with thine own eyes the completion of their most interesting of endeavors.

By Paul Rubin

Late one night six months ago, plainclothes Maricopa County sheriff's deputies showed up in unmarked cars at the homes of New Times founders Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin.

The grim-faced cops arrested the men on misdemeanor charges of revealing so-called grand jury proceedings -- orchestrated by then-county special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik -- in a cover story in this publication.

Dennis Wilenchik

That article revealed the unprecedented attempt by authorities to subpoena the identities and reading habits of New Times readers, as well as to obtain notes and correspondences of the paper's writers and editors regarding Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

According to a lawsuit filed Tuesday, April 29 in Maricopa County Superior Court, defendants Arpaio, County Attorney Andrew Thomas, Wilenchik and two county agencies subverted "the grand jury process" and committed other wrongdoing in seeking this information. Read about Arpaio's bizarre reaction to the lawsuit here.

Listed as plaintiffs in the suit are Lacey, Larkin and New Times.

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By Jonathan McNamara

Halfway through "Comedy Draft" on Sunday, MC Bryan Ricci got up on the small stage in the cabaret lounge at Tempe Improv and said something I wasn't expecting.

The audience had already been assaulted by a few local comics including Steve "The Short Bus" Krause, who made light of his disability by pointing out that he risked his life getting his wheelchair onstage.

"If there's a fire, I'm fucked," he said. "You people aren't going to save me."

There was also Stevie Ray Fromstein, who ended his set with this zinger:

"Have you ever started dating someone, you think they're normal, and then they freak out on you?"

A murmur of agreement floated up from the audience.

"Next thing you know, they're all, 'Untie me! Untie me!'"

It was at that moment, as Fromstein left the stage, that Ricci made his announcement: Norm McDonald was headed for the stage.

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By Jonathan McNamara

In the wake of the Suns' loss there was one event this weekend that sports fans could totally rock out to. I'm talking about curling, the sport in which boulders are slid across ice (Get it? Rock out . . . boulder . . . never mind). The Desert Ice Bonspiel brought the primarily Canadian sport to the Alltel Ice Den in Scottsdale this weekend.

Click for a few more photos from the Desert Ice Bonspiel

Meanwhile in Chandler, Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman were replaced by avid Moulin Rouge! re-enactors. Several audience members got into the film via the fine art of lip-synching and theater makeup application as Chandler Cinemas presented Moulin Rouge! on Saturday night.

Click to see a few more photos from Chandler Cinemas presents Moulin Rouge

Norm McDonald of SNL fame made a guest appearance at Tempe Improv's Comedy Draft last night. On his joke agenda: the fact that if you're favorite drink is coke, Pepsi is probably your least favorite drink, not your second favorite drink.

By Joseph Golfen

One of the rinks at the Alltel Ice Den wasn’t full of the usual sounds of pee-wee hockey last weekend. There wasn’t the scrape of blades against ice, the smack of sticks cracking against the puck, or the thudding of players careening into each other. Instead, the rink rumbled with the sound of 40 pound rocks gliding across the ice; the cheerful sounds of Curling being played.

The fifth annual Desert Ice Bonspiel brought 23 teams from around the U.S. and Canada to this unlikely climate for a good natured curling championship. Eight of those teams were from Arizona’s own Coyotes Curling Club, a group that meets up every Saturday night at the Ice Den to play the game.

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