Category Archives: Community

Vacant lots and low density of downtown are enticing to Devil for pits into the fiery depths

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The Devil and his staff have found downtown Phoenix to be the prime location to send the less fortunate into the fiery beyond, building pits on every empty lot with the help of the government. (Sat Antics/PD)

It’s no doubt the arrival of the apocalypse has taken a major toll on humanity and all other living things on Earth. But Hell has also been facing difficulties, as dense cities with plenty of street development and construction block many possibilities to build pits into the burning depths.

Hell’s effort in urban areas to get people into the abyss has been heavily criticized by the national media, exposing major holes in the Devil’s work leading his part of the apocalypse.

But the Devil and his staff have found hope in downtown Phoenix as a prime location to send the less fortunate into the fiery beyond.

That hope, the Devil said at a press conference in Phoenix on Thursday, rests in the area’s vast amount of vacant lots.

“Vacant lots are some of the easiest places to build pits to hell, and in Phoenix we found the jackpot,” the Devil said during his visit to the city.

Since the apocalypse started, construction crews from Hell have been coming downtown to tear down lots and begin pit development. The operations set up fast, construct quickly and move on to the next of many available vacant lots in the area.

“I’m not gonna lie, it’s been tough in some parts of the world to get people down into hell,” said Faust Fieri, spokesperson for the Devil. “New York, Beijing, London, they’re all packed to the brim, and it makes it hard to find vacant land to plunge a hole straight down to Hell. That wasn’t the case at all with Phoenix.”

Once a pit is completed and the lot is activated, Hell updates its online list of Hell-certified places to jump into the netherworld. On its website, Hell has advertised downtown Phoenix as “the place to go in the southwest to meet your doom.”

“I’m happy there’s someone finally doing something with these lots,” said Gittinhaht N. Herre, the owner of a hot-dog stand in front of a pit on Second and McKinley streets. “They’ve been empty for way too long, and it’s nice to see some development.”

Herre said the pits have been a boom for his business, if only for a short time.

“Most people want to have a bite before they go in there. It’s a long trip — no one wants to travel on an empty stomach!” he joked. “Unfortunately, I’ve been spending all those earnings at the casino, so it’s only a matter of time before I visit the pits myself.”

So far, Hell has bought 10 vacant lots to build its pits to the inferno, some of which were formerly city-owned. Five pits have been completed downtown, and two more should be finished by Monday, Fieri said.

The city of Phoenix sold most of them at low rates. There was only one request: that none of the City Hall staff would be sent to Hell.

“We brought in Heaven to mediate the negotiations,” Fieri said. “To be frank, I was way too fired up about this deal to let it pass anyway.”

The Hell-pit construction has brought in thousands of visitors, most of them from the California area, who don’t want to face long lines to meet their fate.

“Including the drive, I’m still waiting less time than if I would’ve gone down to the (Los Angeles Memorial) Coliseum,” said Los Angeles resident Helen A. Handbesket, referring to the University of Southern California football stadium. “Go Trojans!”

About 10,000 more Hellbound visitors are expected to arrive downtown today, the Devil said.

“Going to Heaven is easy,” the Devil said. “All you need is to send people to the open sky. Creating the pathways to get to Hell takes a lot more work.”

With city in ruins, no change in plans for Super Bowl festivities in February 2015, officials say

Despite pressure from the Super Bowl host committee about the fact that there are only 12 residents remaining, Phoenix officials insist on keeping Super Bowl activities in downtown Phoenix. (Francis Hallo/PD)

The apocalypse that recently shook much of downtown Phoenix and the world is not expected to affect Super Bowl festivities, city officials said Friday.

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton said he is used to people regarding downtown Phoenix as “boring,” but the apocalypse could even be seen as part of downtown Phoenix’s revitalization efforts.

“We’re currently in the middle of revitalizing downtown, but as we’ve seen before, big events like pre-Super Bowl festivities draw people from outside downtown Phoenix to the area,” Stanton said. “We’re confident that this massive swath of destruction won’t impede on either the revitalization efforts or the Super Bowl festivities.”

Not everyone was as optimistic about the situation as Stanton. Several members of the Super Bowl’s host committee visited downtown Phoenix on Thursday to scout facilities and further plan the festivities, committee member John Smith said. He said he was outraged that the city failed to inform the committee of the apocalypse’s utter ruination of the city.

“If we had known that downtown Phoenix had become more of a desert wasteland, we never, ever would have scheduled the pre-game events here,” Smith said. “We would’ve gone somewhere more vibrant. Like Mesa.”

A major issue with the apocalypse is that there will be no one to operate the venues where the festivities would take place, Smith said, and out-of-state visitors may be turned off by the complete lack of human life in the area. Stanton dismissed the notion.

“We’ve heard this before, that there’s no nightlife in downtown Phoenix, that there’s nothing to do,” Stanton said. “It simply isn’t true. Downtown is a bustling urban core, and it’s ridiculous to think something as insignificant as the complete and utter destruction of the city’s infrastructure would change that.”

City Councilwoman Kate Gallego said keeping the Super Bowl festivities in downtown Phoenix would bring an economic boost to the area and be an exciting experience for the residents as well. According to disaster-relief numbers, downtown Phoenix currently has 12 surviving residents.

“I can’t think of a better way to show visitors to Phoenix the spirit of the urban core than by hosting the Super Bowl parties here,” Gallego said. “I don’t think this widespread annihilation of everything we know and love will affect it at all. If anything, it gives us an opportunity to show visitors how vibrant downtown Phoenix truly is.”

Despite the mayor and councilwoman’s optimism, city records indicate reservations at city-owned facilities, such as the Phoenix Convention Center and the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown Hotel, have taken a nosedive, with less than 2 percent of each venue scheduled to be occupied during the Super Bowl.

Former downtown Phoenix resident Scott Johnson, who relocated to Mesa prior to the apocalypse, said it would be better for the Super Bowl festivities to take place in another city.

“This is the city once again not giving the downtown community, dead or alive, a voice,” Johnson said. “You know things are bad when the Super Bowl host committee wants to host events in Mesa, of all places.”

A Tailored Place: Staying stylish at the end of days with ash makeup, layers, DIY jewelry

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(Photo by Whatta Ware)
A survivor applies ash to her face in order to keep up with the latest fashion trends of the ever-changing post-apocalyptic world. The use of scavenged materials has been all the rage lately. (Whatta Ware/PD)

I realize that with everything catching fire, clouds of disease floating through town and all of us making peace with our impending deaths, outfit inspiration has a hit a real low. So, I’ve made a quick list of DIY looks to help you make it through the end of days in style!

1. Ash as makeup

So your entire city is burning. All your worldly possessions are gone, including your trusty makeup kit (even your Naked palettes!). Well, silver lining, look at what’s around you! What do you see? Ash, soot, dirt, whatever you want to call it, these leftovers from the Great Fire have similar properties to your favorite powders!

Grab a container and fill it up with this stuff in between escaping the Hell beasts. I recommend using some fur scraps from your latest kill as a brush to apply some ash as a contour for a real avant-garde survivor’s look. You’ll really harken back to all those Hunger Games-inspired trends, so retro!

2. Layer, layer, layer!

With temperatures fluctuating between -50 and 150 degrees Fahrenheit, your daily look has to be able to meet the ever-changing demands of the Final Storm. Luckily, the rags that are left over from your once-impeccable wardrobe or found in the crumbling remains of civilization are perfect for the latest layered trend!

See if you can vary between shades of brown, gray and beige as well as textures to really highlight the different pieces of your look. If you’re feeling really ambitious, dried blood splatter can add a splash of color and really sends a “Don’t mess with me” vibe to roving murderous bandits.

3. Making jewelry from diamonds in the rough

Accessorizing when you’re facing death by starvation, disease, mauling by demon, fire or botched rapture is hard. However, taking those extra few minutes after returning from foraging empty-handed to bump your outfit to the next level can really make a difference in your ensemble.

I know just two weeks ago you were telling everyone over brunch how much you wanted to make and sell your own jewelry on Etsy. So, why not now? Grab a small strip of scrap metal, heat it up a bit over one of those pits to Hell, and bend it into a basic ring shape. Then, grab any one of those rocks lying around and stick it in while the metal’s still hot and bendy. Ta-da, your very own rock ring!

That’s all for now! If we’re all still alive next week, check back in for my next post: the ideal hunting and foraging ensembles.

Audio: Found recorder contains tape of man’s bold and valiant quest for pizza, his last

(Photo found in pocket of dead man)
Pizza restaurants used to abound in downtown Phoenix. Now, all that’s left is a recording of one man’s search for pizza in the final days of our community. (Photo found alongside recorder)

As the apocalypse continues to draw on, we’ve got the latest updates on how it’s affecting the average citizen. One of our reporters salvaged this exclusive footage from a recorder found in the street. A leader of a small group of survivors used the recorder to document his quest to find pizza.

It’s a harrowing reminder of what we took for granted the most in pre-apocalyptic times — the wide selection of pizza places in downtown Phoenix. It’s such a shame we don’t have that luxury anymore.

Curtain Critic: ‘Happy in America’ takes wholly unexpected dark turn, but to failed effect

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Wanda Menzel’s play “Happy in America,” which is being performed at the Herberger Theater Center, tried too hard to convey emotional turmoil through the metaphor of physical destruction. (Thea T. Re/PD)

The question of happiness in upper-crust America has been one we’ve dealt with in this country for years. With money, wealth and power, what more could a person want, and why do so many of us feel dissatisfied?

Wanda Menzel’s new play, “Happy in America,” which opened this weekend at the Herberger Theater Center, deals with this question. The show takes a look at a regular high-income family living in California to explore the trials they face.

The first half of the play set up the characters and outlined their plight. Peter Goodman, played by Robert Menton, faces marital troubles with his wife, Annie, played by Alissa Cooper. Their son, Harold, played by Henry Grimes, is struggling with his classes at Stanford and has come home for the weekend for his parents’ support — only to find himself thrown into a tumultuous home rife with arguments.

Cooper gave the standout performance of the first half of the play, illustrating Annie’s character with nuanced action and excellent body language. As a mother, we see her demeanor change and soften; as a wife, she stands rigid, asserting her needs.

As the play progressed, however, the plot took a sudden twist, leaving many thematic elements unaddressed and loose ends untied. The entire performance, too, took a 180-degree turn — it simply wasn’t convincing.

During the second act, as Annie is sitting down with Harold to discuss whether a new car might help improve his grades and is preparing to tell him about her impending divorce from Peter, the stage began to shake. While the scale of the effect was impressive, it failed to seem realistic.

As stage left began to crumble away, rapidly advancing toward Annie and Harold, I found myself questioning the purpose and efficacy of this move. In the middle of a performance filled with subtleties, why now take on such grand and theatrical effects?

I felt as though I had been transported into a cheesy B-level horror film. The shaking seemed choppy and overwrought, and the floor breaking into pieces and descending into a vast hole of nothingness just took everything one step too far. For a theater company to accurately illustrate disaster, they should do so with taste and simplicity, or it will begin to feel too over-staged and unrealistic. That’s what happened with “Happy in America.”

Cooper and Grimes also demonstrated a lack of preparedness for the scene. Their responses to the crumbling metaphorical and physical worlds around Annie and Harold were slow and ill-timed. Perhaps the most grating part of the whole show was the distinct change in Cooper’s performance: The scream she gave as Annie responding to the floor beneath her feet crumbling away into an endless, empty void was clearly fake and actually pulled me out of the scene. I found myself wondering how long this would last before we could get back to the compelling issues of how Annie and Peter would divide their joint belongings after the divorce.

After such a gripping and believable performance from Cooper and Grimes, their acting in this scene was simply inexcusable. Their actions were thin and fake, failing to convey the emotional complexity of the characters of the Goodman family. As the floor falls beneath her, for example, Annie reaches for Harold in a panic, but instead of using this moment to demonstrate a moment of tenderness between mother and son, Grimes brusquely grabbed Cooper’s arm and yanked her, almost violently, back onto the stage.

The two started to run from the yawning hole of absolute darkness but fell in. The audience could hear their screams for at least half a minute after they had fallen — far too long to allow the moment, which should be traumatizing, to develop any sort of emotional response at all.

You’d think that would be melodramatic, unrealistic and exaggerated enough, but the floor only continued to crumble. Theater seats on either side of the stage collapsed into the pitch-black, bottomless pit. They even recruited extras to appear as usual theatergoers, who were sucked from their chairs into the infinite darkness.

Finally — after far too long, in my opinion — the shaking stopped. And with that, so ended the play, which was utterly disappointing. The more I think about it, the more disgusted I am. In an act of complete arrogance, the actors also failed to enter for curtain call, leaving the audience with too many questions and a sense of business forever left unfinished.

When I turned around to see if anyone knew what was happening, I realized I was alone in the theater. I can therefore attest to the horrifying failure of this play by the fact that of all the audience members for the opening-night show, I was the only one with the fortitude to stick around for the final scene.

“Happy in America” will be playing at the Herberger Theater Center through Nov. 16. Tickets range from $35-$65.

Luxury apartment complex with running water to replace downtown’s last remaining gallery

Remaining downtown survivors could soon enjoy running water, spotty electricity and a private sinkhole as Megacorp develops another luxury apartment complex on top of Phoenix’s last art gallery. (Sir V. Ivor/PD)

Megacorp announced Tuesday its plans to purchase downtown Phoenix’s last remaining art gallery and construct a luxury apartment complex.

Stalk Opshun, a Megacorp spokesman, said the company had been eyeing the land for development since the apocalypse that decimated the Phoenix area. Megacorp is finalizing its plans to buy the land that currently houses Art Box, the only gallery to survive the end of days, for 13 million ration cards, 12 rifles and several crates of ammunition.

“This parcel’s close proximity to what used to be the light rail makes it the perfect place for our new luxury development,” Opshun said. “The downtown core has been on the rise since the roving bands of mutants and barbarians were driven away, and Megacorp wants to be part of that revitalization.”

Opshun said the apartments will include luxury amenities such as running water, occasional electricity and a bed roll. Tenants will also have access to a private sinkhole and the option to barricade their doors if rioting starts.

Iyam Legend, a local resident, self-identified scavenger and aspiring actor, said he would consider living in the apartments only if they allowed pets. Fluffy, his zombie dog, is his top concern, Legend said.

“Fluffy’s a sweet girl, really,” he said. “It’s just sometimes she needs to feed on human flesh, and I’d need to check with management before I sign the lease.”

The project will be financed in part through a Government Property Lease Excess Rations agreement, which provides free food, water and electricity to giant corporations in exchange for building empty, ostentatious skyscrapers on historic or culturally relevant sites.

The GPLER agreement for Megacorp’s new apartment complex is slated to last until the next apocalypse, which has drawn concerns from residents living inside the downtown Phoenix quarantine zone.

Some community members have said the government is getting the supplies it needs to finance GPLER projects by reducing rations and conscripting residents to hunt for food in the barren wasteland.

Marshall Laws, public-information officer with the interim government, said there is no cause for concern and reminded residents they should report any signs of unrest or dissent to the interim government’s Office of Information and Correction.

“GPLER agreements are the best way to offer incentives to encourage growth and development downtown,” Laws said. “GPLER agreements attract companies that truly understand the needs of downtown and believe in what Phoenix can become. Through GPLER and the efforts of our glorious leaders, the new Republic of Phoenix can rise from this hellish wasteland and become the only shining city on the hill that isn’t on fire.”

Laws’ concerns about unrest are not without basis. Recently, a secret organization called the Downtown Whispers Coalition has been leaving pamphlets and spray-painting their insignia throughout the quarantine zone.

An anonymous and very intimidating source with knowledge of the situation said if residents would like to sit down with a group of like-minded individuals to politely discuss ways to improve and change the interim government, they may or may not find a secret meeting of the DWC somewhere in the abandoned Roosevelt District.

Planes, trains and automobiles: Food trucks consider expanding to alternative vehicles

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Food trucks such as Short Leash Hot Dogs are considering expanding to alternative vehicle options such as the yacht shown in this rendering. Other ideas include motorcycles and blimps. (Courtesy of Short Leash Hot Dogs)

Food truck owners across downtown Phoenix collectively announced Tuesday that they were planning to “look into other motor vehicle options” to create mobile sites for selling food.

“As it turned out, we had all been thinking about expanding the market,” said Valeria Hernandez, owner of Flan-tastic, a food truck that offers flan, fried ice cream and other Mexican desserts. “When we got together and talked about it, it was like, bam. This is it. Trucks are just going out of style.”

Hernandez is hoping to leave her food truck behind, opting instead for a motorcycle. This would allow her better mobility, she said, and a greater variety of places to offer food.

The motorcycle would have a rack on the back to carry cooking supplies and extended saddlebags to hold miniaturized kitchen appliances, such as a stove, small oven and cooler/freezer unit.

“When I hear the word ‘flan,’ I don’t think trucks,” Hernandez said. “I don’t think restaurants. I think something that really makes an entrance. The only right answer is a motorcycle.”

Pietre Levy, owner of the new truck Blintz Blitz, said he plans to “scrap the truck” and move on to “bigger and better” options. Blintz Blitz, which serves Russian blintzes — thin pancakes with a filling such as cheese or berries — came onto the food truck scene in November and quickly became popular at events such as Food Truck Fridays.

Levy hopes to keep with the concept of food trucks, though he’s thinking big wheels and bright colors — his dream is to convert Blintz Blitz into a monster truck.

“It was really important to me to continue the tradition of food trucks as trucks,” Levy said. “You know, blintzes are a traditional food, I want to be a traditional guy. But just like I want to throw a creative twist on my blintzes, I want to put a creative twist on my truck, too.”

He is still unsure how he will serve food from the truck, though ladders and stepping stools are definitely options, Levy said.

Other food truck owners want to think much further outside the box. Gordon Abernathy operates the truck Just Haggis, which serves pudding made from sheep heart, liver and lungs that is served in the sheep’s stomach. Abernathy has already begun saving money and taking out loans to buy a blimp, which he intends to float over different areas of downtown Phoenix.

Abernathy will serve food by lowering it in baskets from the cabin of the blimp, he said. He hopes to take customers’ orders by cellphone call from a Just Haggis employee stationed on the ground below the blimp.

“For me, it’s not about the novelty,” Abernathy said. “I’ve wanted to own a blimp ever since I was a boy. I wanted to make haggis ever since I was a boy. This has been in the works for decades.”

The downtown Phoenix community is generally excited about the prospect of new vehicles to provide them food. Marie Louise Alberta May IV, who is a devoted regular at Food Truck Fridays, said the food-truck expansion is a sign of better things to come.

“When you think about it, Phoenix is just a really creative place,” May said. “This is just the beginning of what we can do. You know, I’m thinking, why stick to food? I might just create my own mobile home devoted entirely to crocheting classes. Or knitting. Or understanding and interpreting Voodoo culture. You know, whatever.”

Other community members, however, are skeptical about the expansion. Marmon Sedgwick, who journals regularly about his food truck experiences, said the idea was “totally dumb” and could never come to fruition.

“Food trucks have a charm about them,” Sedgwick said. “You see a truck and you smell the food and you think, ‘I just belong here.’ I don’t look at a blimp and think that. I don’t look at a yacht and think that. Food trucks put you right in the middle of the action.”

Sedgwick also said that as a longtime fan of Just Haggis, he was unsure how the sheep stomachs would stay fresh in the period of time between leaving the blimp cabin and making it to the ground. Additionally, Sedgwick felt a concerted fear that the Just Haggis blimp may run into one of the downtown buildings, rip apart and fall to the ground in a flaming mass — “just like the Hindenburg,” he said sadly.

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton has also expressed a desire to bring the city into the food-vehicle game, citing ideas such as a light rail line that is devoted entirely to mobile restaurants. He was most excited, however, at the prospect of creating a food gondola lift, which would consist of cable cars containing restaurants and riding suspended on cables around the city.

“This is a great opportunity for the kind of economic innovation Phoenix is looking for, especially in terms of transportation,” Stanton said. “We are a city full of creators and innovators, and this just goes to show that. With ideas like a food hot air balloon or a food horse-and-buggy sprouting up all over the city — the possibilities are endless.”

Community apathy prompts employee protests as 8/12 convenience stores expand downtown

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8/12 convenience stores have opened downtown without hearings or boycotts, prompting employees to protest the lack of community outrage. The store has a record of lashing out for attention. (Randy Tombs/PD)

Police responded to several employee protests outside of 8/12 convenience stores across downtown on Monday in the wake of their successful zoning committee meeting.

Cashiers and CEOs alike flooded the streets of Phoenix, outraged at the lack of community outrage to their stores. 8/12s have opened around downtown without hearings, protests or boycotts.

“I don’t think that any publicity is good publicity, it’s not like that,” 8/12 Southwest Manager Ivan Tattention said. “But it gets lonely sometimes. Nobody pays attention to us. They just buy their sodas and leave.”

The protests are not the first case of 8/12 lashing out for attention. Last month, the Phoenix Police Department issued a warning to an 8/12 store after several false emergency calls were made there.

“Criminals are here all the time,” 8/12 clerk Dan J. Sticks said. “Last week someone jaywalked across the street and came right into the store! Of course I called the police.”

Sticks said that 8/12 stores cause just as much crime as other major convenience store chains. He added that jaywalkers, speeders and people who don’t take the caps off of bottles that they recycle all frequent 8/12 stores.

A police official said they responded to calls for the various semi-crimes and issued warnings to Sticks and the other clerks who called them in. The police had to draw the line when Sticks called in an attempted hold-up at the store. The robber was Sticks.

“Police responded to an emergency call at 11:14 a.m. on Sunday morning,” the police report stated. “Officers found Sticks squirting water into his mouth from a water gun while screaming ‘Give me the reduced-fat hard candies!’”

Sticks did not admit to the crime, although he was seen sucking on a reduced-fat hard candy shortly following the incident. Sticks emphasized that the store was clearly a danger to the surrounding community.

“I mean, I’m not saying that because I like it or anything, it’s just the truth,” Sticks said, later adding that his store’s slushies “are more like smoothie-type things, actually. That’s really outrageous, right?”

Reports from the Garfield District say that Tattention has approached them about their anti-8/12 community meetings. The reports also show that there, in fact, have not been any anti-8/12 community meetings.

“We understand that the community reaction to our expansion has been less than ideal,” Tattention said to an empty conference room. “However, we promise to make things right if you’ll just get up in arms about them.”

Jim Volatile of the Garfield District has been a major organizer of the community’s battle with other corporations. When asked about the possibility of a new 8/12, Volatile did not raise his voice in the slightest.

“Oh, yeah, I guess I’d rather that be something more local-focused,” Volatile said. “I don’t know. I don’t really care that much either way.”

Volatile appeared at the zoning committee meeting, which regarded a potential soda-pop license for 8/12. When given the floor to speak, Volatile asked where the bathroom was. Other community members also appeared at the zoning meeting, but left once a committee member clarified that the meeting was for 8/12.

“Oh, it was that convenience store,” local advocate Dan Dry said. “They’re all right. Not the greatest thing for Garfield but we could do worse.”

Several community members claimed to see Tattention driving around before the meeting in an unmarked minivan. Tattention allegedly offered people $5 to wear T-shirts that read “Enemy of 8/12.”

“I had nothing to do with those well-designed ‘Enemy of 8/12’ shirts,” Tattention said. “It was clearly a clever stab made by the community at my corporation. Well done, community — we’ll get you next time, though!”

Tattention also offered milk and cookies at the nearest local 8/12 store following the zoning meeting. A few Garfield residents came and ate cookies, but no one stayed for pin the tail on the donkey.

Phoenix residents claim 3 women’s witchcraft is to blame for light-rail system shutdown

(Photographer/PD)
The Metro light rail lost power on Oct. 24. Phoenix officials are searching for three suspected witches in connection to the power outage after finding witch’s brew coated on the lines. (Elphaba Thropp/PD)

The Metro light rail lost power throughout its entire system on Oct. 24 and residents claim local witchcraft is the culprit after Metro employees discovered witch’s brew coated on the lines.

Before the light rail lost power, some people in a light-rail car noticed suspicious activity from three women in the back. According to eyewitnesses, the women kept arguing and murmuring “incantations that could not possibly be English.” To make matters worse, there was a black cat named Binx; the suspicious women cooed his name, and the cat reportedly made a number of people uncomfortable.

“The cat looked like your average black cat, but its unsettling bright eyes looked almost human as they stared at me,” frequent light-rail rider Glen Dale said. “I don’t know what kind of sick Halloween joke these women were pulling, but Phoenix police need to find them soon.”

After the light rail came to a halt, riders noticed that the women disappeared without a trace. Even Binx silently vanished. Due to the extravagant black costumes, strange behavior and current public opinion, the city launched a witch hunt the following night.

“The suspicious activity is pretty normal for the Metro light rails,” Phoenix police Officer Dan Dee said. “However, this is a whole new level of suspicion that needs to be addressed, and the only way to clear the claims is to find these women before they cause any more chaos.”

The names of the three women are unknown, but coordinators of the downtown Phoenix witch hunt are channeling the old days of Salem and 1950s Washington by tracking broom routes and pasting wanted posters on walls around the city.

The city is expected to call in two witch-hunting professionals, Hansel and Gretel Grimm. The hunters have extensive experience with witches, tracking and fighting them many times since their youth.

One of the major tips that witches were involved with the shutdown was physical evidence on the power lines.

During repairs on the line, a worker noticed the lines were coated in a green substance.

“The stuff on the light-rail lines looked like Jell-O, and it went on and on all throughout the lines,” Valley Metro employee Reese Spieces said. “It was really difficult to remove. We even tried using a chisel, and it wasn’t working so well.”

After workers removed the substance late in the afternoon, it was sent to the Cauldron, a local laboratory, and tested. Scientists found many unexpected components, including human toes, spider legs and duck bills.

“We had to break out an unusual, banned-in-15-states chemistry set,” Dr. Vic Frankenstein said. “Tests indicated double the amount of bubble, a little bit of toil and lots of trouble.”

Local rapper Wiz Magica’s album protested for derogatory use of the word ‘witch’ in lyrics

(Photographer/PD)
Wiz Magica, whose new album “good kid, w.I.T.C.h. City” is expected to debut at the top of the music charts, has been protested by Witches Against Rap Music for his lyrics. (Willow Rosenburg/PD)

Witches Against Rap Music, a movement against the derogatory use of the word “witch” in hip-hop, is protesting the release of an album in Phoenix. Local rapper Wiz Magica’s “good kid, w.I.T.C.h. City” is expected to debut at the top of the Mageboard 100 Music Charts.

“w.I.T.C.h. City” is Magica’s third release. Magica’s first two albums, “Section.666” and “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Wizardry” earned the rapper over $2 million in sales and fans around the world. Liliac Blue, WARM president, is not among them.

“It’s not just about the way he (Magica) says ‘witch,’” Blue said. “It’s about my rights as a human being, magical or otherwise. It’s about being able to walk to my broom at night. It’s about not accepting that you’re a – as Magica likes to call us – ‘second-string witch.’”

Magica has long been known for the controversial themes and language in his music. In 2011, his “Twisted Wizardry” album release had similar, but smaller protests. The album set first week sales records and received a 10.0/10 from popular music site “Witchfork,” also known as “W4k.” W4k founder Devin Skweeber noted in his review that listeners must often look past Magica’s lyrics and focus on his musical merit.

“There’s no doubt that Magica needs to grow up,” Skweeber wrote in the October 2011 article. “Phrases like ‘a witchy wizard, that’s that spell I don’t like’ aren’t acceptable in today’s day and age. However, the very passion that leads to Magica’s enormous beats is the same passion that fuels his language.”

Protestors at the WARM event in Civic Space Park chanted and held signs for more than two hours. Signs were mostly plays on Magica’s anti-witch lyrics, with phrases like “I’ve got 99 problems and your language is one,” and “#MadWitchAlert” being commonplace.

Magica acknowledged the protestors during his press conference at the album release. He didn’t have much of a choice – most of the questions reporters wanted answered were about his controversial lyrical content.

“Man, I don’t hate witches,” Magica said. “I’m not saying they belong at the cauldron or anything like that. I even say it on the album – on ‘Spell 2’ – I can’t get enough of witches.”

Even the allegedly positive “Spell 2” lyric that Magica referenced received attention from the crowd. In a song dedicated to his fiancé, Get Morecashian, Magica asks the listener “have you ever asked your witch for other witches?”

Blue answered the question with a resounding “no.”

“I’m not here to challenge an alternative lifestyle,” Blue said to the crowd of protesters. “But loyalty and trust stay important, even in a telepathic relationship. In fact, we should be asking ‘Have you ever asked your rapper for other rappers?’”

The one subject that Blue refused to touch on was one Magica seemed most excited to talk about. “Broom Ridin’,” the third single off of “w.I.T.C.h. City” featured known spellcaster and implied witch advocate Lana the Grey. The song’s chorus has resulted in backlash for both Magica and the Grey.

“Catch me ridin’ like a witch,” Magica raps. “Got my broomstick high, catch me ridin’ with my witch, uh. Long hair. Lana, that’s my witch, uh. You can tell by the magic and the lips, uh.”

Blue would not comment on the Grey’s work with Magica. As the album release came to a close, Blue rallied the protestors as they left on their broomsticks. Blue’s rallying cry remained what it had been all night – a reversal of Magica’s own words from his new album.

“One witch is worth a thousand good girls!”

“good kid, w.I.T.C.h. City” will be released by Mage Nation Records next week. The WARM movement is expected to follow Magica on his nationwide tour this autumn.