“Phoenix, Arizona: an oasis of ugliness in the midst of a beautiful wasteland.”
- Edward Abby
Have you been to Arizona? It's hot. We spent a few days in Sedona. We had the best hotdog either of us had ever had at a nondescript ice cream parlor in the center of town. We still talk about it. You never know what a day holds.
If you've been to the Grand Canyon, you probably wondered the same thing we did: How is it possible that someone doesn't fall in every day? That's what you'd predict by watching the behavior of the masses there along the rim. I was so struck by the idiocy I saw that it got me wondering how many people have gone over the edge. In the bookstore there in the big lodge I found a title called “Death at the Grand Canyon.” How many would you imagine have plummeted to their premature demise?
There have been 900 fatalities at the Canyon since records started being kept in the 1800s. Not all of those are from falls, of course. The greatest causes of death are from medical issues, cardiac arrest and the like. Second, though, are falls. About three people fall per year. Between 2007 and 2025, 48 people perished from fatal plunges. Death by selfie, many of them, no doubt.
On to music. Lots of well known musicians were born in Arizona but made their fame elsewhere.
Best Band: I must go with the Gin Blossoms from Tempe. They remind me of a good period of life, or at least that's how I remember it. They had jangly, melodic radio friendly songs that rocked, back when you could still get rock on the airways. I have a soft spot for them too, because they recorded that big selling album of theirs, New Miserable Experience, at Ardent Studios in Memphis in early 1992. I remember them being in town. Perhaps of interest, do you know where the term “Gin Blossoms” comes from? Well, at one time, it was thought that excessive alcohol intake caused a red, bulbous nose, sometimes called “whiskey nose. It was W.C. Fields who coined the term “Gin Blossoms” to describe his own big red nose. Fun fact.
Best Solo Artist: This is one of the problematic choices. Some heavy hitters were born or were raised in Arizona and some have maintained residences there like Linda Ronstadt, Stevie Nicks and Waylon Jennings, but it's not where they lived most of their lives. So, I'm going with someone who has spent the bulk of his life there in Phoenix and Paradise Valley, Alice Cooper. Cooper was born Vincent Furnier in 1948. In need of a gimmick to propel his music career, he changed his name in the late 1960s. He was a progenitor of shock, glam and heavy metal rock. You have him to partially thank or blame for the likes of Motley Crew and Marilyn Manson. I saw him on July 4, 1975 in Des Moines, Iowa on his Welcome to My Nightmare tour. You had to be there or you wouldn't believe anything I told you about it now. When we were teens, there was the rumor that the actor that played Eddie Haskell on Leave It To Beaver had gone on to become Alice Cooper. It was completely bogus but Cooper maintains that some people still believe it to this day. Through the early part of his career, Cooper had a prodigious drinking and drug problem. At its worst, he consumed a quart of whiskey and two cases of beer a day. That's hard to get your head around. He was able to get clean when he was 35 and has since done what he can to help other musicians wrestling with the substance demon.
Wildcard: Gotta be The Refreshments. They're another Tempe band and I've liked everything about them for a long time.