36 Best of phoenix 2023 | WWW.bestofphoenix2023.c0m | septemBer 28, 2023 Best Weekend Ever SUPER BOWL WEEKEND Feb. 10-12 Remember the feeling of excitement as you’d wait for your friends to come over for your birthday party? That’s what it felt like to welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Valley for Super Bowl LVII. We spent months or longer sprucing up the town — revitalized parks, new murals and such — and when the first arrivals showed up, we were ready to party. We don’t know many people who were able to actually attend the big game, but we know plenty who checked out the Super Bowl Experience or hit up one of the dozens of parties, concerts, festivals and events that dotted the city. And in case the Super Bowl wasn’t exciting enough, that weekend was also the culmination of the annual Waste Management Open, which is always one of the crazier events of the year. Sure, the traffic was terrible and there was nary a restaurant reservation to be found, but we’ve never had more fun. Best Reason to Stay Indoors JULY HEAT WAVE Phoenix summer is a strange season, one that we think we understand, and antic- ipate, until the heat is upon us, that inde- scribable heat — sizzling, blistering, scorching heat. This year, at ease after a rainy spring and the dreamy superbloom that followed, we thought we were prepared for the summer. Until July arrived. For 31 days, beginning on the last day of June, daily highs did not dip below 110 degrees. Somewhere in the haze of the July heat wave was a particularly dreadful stretch: three 119-degree days. Meteorologists told us daily of the heat records that were broken. Gawking pundits in New York opined on the mistakes of building a city in the desert. As best we could, we tried to stay indoors. All the while, the heat wave threw into relief the deep failures of our city, as does every summer in Phoenix: the lack of shade, the lack of housing, the lack of protections for workers out in the hellish sun, the people suffering on the streets, the slumlords ignoring the broken air conditioning, the water drying up. None of those failures are inevitable, though the heat may be. And the heat descended, unrelenting. Best Guardians RAMSES JA AND QUINTON WARD The list of terrible things hip-hop artist Kanye West has done could fill several columns of this publication, but we’ll be damned if wearing and distributing shirts reading “White Lives Matter” isn’t among the most heinous. But in the midst of all his offensive behavior, Ye forgot one little tiny thing: He didn’t own the rights to the phrase. As it turns out, an anon- ymous citizen in Phoenix bought the trademark and turned it over to two radio hosts, Ramses Ja and Quinton Ward. Why them? The unknown person thought that the hosts of “Civic Cipher,” a nationally syndicated radio show dedicated to discussing issues of race and social justice, would be the best people to keep the ugly slogan away from shirts and bumper stickers. The two men initially had concerns about the optics of owning the trademark on such a phrase, but in the end decided that the psychic burden was worth being able to lessen its visi- bility. As Ja told Phoenix New Times, “Someone brought it to us, and once it was in front of us, we thought it’d be more irresponsible to walk away from it.” Best Veto Queen KATIE HOBBS Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs owned the Republican legislature in 2023, vetoing some 150 bills sent her way by the mini- majority Republicans boast in both chambers. You would think that losing the governor’s race, the U.S. Senate race, the state Attorney General’s race and the Secretary of State’s race in 2022 to Democrats would send AZ Tuskers a serious message about moderation. But Republicans, at least of the legislative variety, only march in one direction — over the cliff. Hobbs got to wield her veto stamp like some maniac on crystal meth, breaking the record for the most vetoes in a legis- lative session previously held by Janet Napolitano, who had 58 vetoes in 2005. As a result, all of the Republicans’ wingnut ideas about banning drag shows, suppressing the vote and punishing the homeless for being homeless ended up in the square file once they hit the ninth floor. Now if Hobbs can flip the legislature blue, the GOP’s long reign of legislative insanity may finally be at an end. And we’ll have to start worrying about lefty legislative kook- iness for a change. Best Political Grifter KARI LAKE You may think Kari Lake’s cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, a self-described “proud election-denying deplorable” who lost the governor’s race in 2022 to Katie Hobbs by more than 17,000 votes while maintaining she was the real winner of that contest. But despite her pile of dismissed lawsuits challenging the gover- nor’s race and her sluggish book sales, she still made out like the second coming of Willie Sutton, raising more than $2.5 million even after Hobbs kicked her tuchis in the general election. Now she’s gearing up to run for the U.S. Senate in 2024, and thanks to the political hubris of Arizona’s now-Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, it’s shaping up to be a three-way race, with Lake as the likely Republican nominee, U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego as the Democratic nominee and Sinema running for reelection as an indie. Does this mean Lake, a polished, telegenic fanatic if there ever was one, could be headed for a seat in the hallowed halls of D.C.’s most exclusive club? Who’d bet against her? With a three-way split in the race, you’d be crazy to do so — unless Sinema unexpectedly takes a powder and doesn’t run in 2024. Here’s hoping there really is a Santa Claus, because we know what we want for Christmas this year. Best Political Selfishness KYRSTEN SINEMA U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema sucks as a poli- tician. Although she’s previously cited Republican Sen. John McCain as a model, she failed to learn the one trick McCain played so well in his more than 30 years in politics: When it comes time to run again, placate the base. After you’re safely elected, you can go back to treating party stalwarts like trailer trash and acting like you’re Megan Thee Stallion as you stalk the halls of Congress in pink hair and a dress that glows like green neon. Only then can you own Dems with your “Fuck Off” ring, curtsy as you give a thumbs down to the minimum wage and rake in the corporate dough — all with impunity. But when your six-year term draws to a close, it’s time to come home, pretend you’re a Democrat, mend fences, shake hands, tame your raging ego and generally act like a human being. But Sinema, in an act of supreme selfishness, decided to ditch the Democratic party altogether and become an Independent. As an Independent, Sinema is doomed to be a spoiler, drawing enough votes from a Democratic candidate to put the Republican candidate over the hump. As a result, Ds may lose control of the U.S. Senate. And there we all are, victims of Sinema’s petulant narcissism. Best Activists PERIWINKLE MOBILE HOME RESIDENTS If Grand Canyon University thought it could discreetly shutter the Periwinkle Mobile Home Park, if it thought that the Periwinkle residents, many of whom had lived there for years, if not decades, would go quietly, then it was proved very wrong this year. To the tentacular, ever-expanding Best Neon Sign DIVING LADY Starlite Motel 2710 E. Main St., Mesa 480-964-2201 mesapreservation.org/diving-lady. html When the sun sets in Phoenix, the city is lit by the glow of neon. And our favorite glowing beacon is the so-called Diving Lady, who plunges nightly at the Starlite Motel in Mesa. Created in 1960, she was destroyed in an epic storm in 2010. The Mesa Preservation Foundation led the charge (and the fundraising effort) to restore the Diving Lady not just to its pre-storm state but to her original midcentury glory. After more than two years and $120,000, the resto- ration was complete, and the Diving Lady was back to beckoning motel customers. In a town awash with neon, she’s certainly the queen bee.
