Queen of the Scene

For JAVA Magazine, on news stands now!

If you're a part of the local party scene, you probably already know her name. You may be among the few who realized who you were looking at as you watched the thin, buxom visage stride from shadow to shadow around the dance floor, but never on it. Even if you don't go out, you've probably heard of her parties sometime in the last two years. They come up regularly in the mainstream press. They begin waves of copy-cat events throughout the Valley. She is Miss Jen Deveroux, and at the moment she is Queen of the Scene.

I say "at the moment," because nothing so etherial can last very long, and that's fine with Deveroux. With a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Loyola University and more than half-way through pre-med, throwing trendy DJ parties has been more of an inspired diversion than a calling.

Deveroux moved to the Valley from Chicago in 2000 to be on her own and go to school. "In 2007, I had a job as an aesthetician in a clinic, working with reconstructive surgery patients and doing chemical peals and stuff like that, and after eight or nine months, it just got so boring." A friend of Deveroux's, Jas Tynan, introduced her to local powerhouse DJ William Reed, who was an established local act, and the boredom was cured.

"I approached William Reed and asked if he'd teach me how to DJ, and he basically blew me off." He did recommend to Tynan that she help promote a night called Old School Thursdays at Club E-4, and Deveroux found she had a knack for creating energy AWAY from the turntable.

Still, says Deveroux, she found a lot lacking in the local party scene. "Most of these parties put a lady on the cover and they give it some lame name and then that's all they do. It's generic at almost every venue. There are one or two exceptions, but basically all the parties, quote unquote, are the same." Jen wanted more of the diversity and dynamism, some of the "cool" she had seen at parties in L.A.. She set about building a party from scratch.

She lined up Reed and another local DJ, Jared Allen, to share mixing duties. Both men had amassed a healthy following at other venues. In order to provide a diversion from the steady music, she approached various artists and performers who would rotate into the party. Not only would they be selling their art during the shows, but in many cases they would also be creating on-site. Next, they needed a venue.

"We wanted something with its own character that wasn't just an ordinary club. Most big cities have these great old hotels and that's always where the best parties are," she says. "Los Angeles has the Roosevelt on Hollywood Boulevard, and The Standard; San Francisco has tons of them. When I saw the San Carlos, I fell in love with it!"

That's how I met her. I was managing the Hotel San Carlos at the time. It was early April, 2008, and I was looking ahead to a long Summer with no revenue coming into our food and beverage operation. Our restaurant staff already wasn't making much money in tips, and soon they would be making even less. We couldn't count on locals to make up for the absent tourists, either. The hotel had just celebrated its eighty-fifth year in the center of Downtown Phoenix and aside from old-timers, very few people in town even new it existed.

Looking out the window at the outdoor pool deck, I thought there must be a way to entice people to come enjoy the pool and, more importantly, buy booze! A mere day later my phone rang, and Jen Deveroux made her proposal for a weekly pool party. Perfect!

Thus started Adult Swim, the event that put Jen Deveroux AND the San Carlos on the map. Not only did it attract scenesters from all over the Valley, but students, artists, business people and people who didn't even know what a "party scene" was. The event grew to capacity quickly and it wasn't long before hotels Valley-wide were trying to jump on the bandwagon. Still, Adult Swim was the hottest, hippest party in the Valley that season. By the next Summer, the party had outgrown the San Carlos and moved to the Wyndham, which could handle the capacity.

Since then, Jen Deveroux has been a minor celebrity in town. She has launched numerous parties with greater or lesser success, but her reputation for creating a cool event has remained intact and sought after by business people wanting to bolster flagging interest in their clubs and bars.

Her current hit is a party called "Harlot," which inhabits both the Red Room and Peire Lachaise lounges at the Mondrian Scottsdale Friday nights. While there are no bathing suits, the vibe is much the same as Adult Swim. People are laughing, dancing, having a great time. A girl dressed as a living anime character is putting paint to canvas at an easel on one side of the room. On center stage, a contortionist from the performing troop Scandalesque draws whoops of applause for adopting superhuman positions. In the far corner, DJs William Reed and Tricky T are behind their laptops cueing up the next transition of songs.

And in walks Jen in a smart black blazer, skin tight jeans and straight, shoulder-length hair. She looks professional, thin and shapely. She's difficult to get a beed on from across the room because she is everywhere. Two feet through the door, and she's stopped by an admirer. Another joins. She laughs, answers a question or two and excuses herself, only to take a few more steps and then stop to answer text messages. Then it's across the floor and over to Reed, over to the bar to check on liquor sales and out to the patio because someone out there is partying a bit too hard. Over the course of the next hour, she has been downstairs twice to check on the party there, conferred with hotel management three times about sound levels, rowdy attendees and an animated DJ, and given small bits of personal time to about a dozen friends, most of whom she never knew just two months ago and won't see or speak to again until next Friday.

Go to the Mondrian any other night of the week outside of tourist season and it's dead; but on Harlot Fridays, the place rocks and the bars make bank.

There are a couple of reasons why Jen Deveroux's success in the Phoenix party scene is deeply ironic. Private by nature, she is decidedly not promiscuous. She marvels at the level of hooking up she hears about through the party grapevine, but is only interested in it for its soap opera qualities. She only drinks alcohol on rare occasions, and never to excess. Although she can appreciate the thumping beats of the party music, she admits that her secret favorite parties are the ones with live indie bands - a crowd that wouldn't normally be caught dead at a place so chi chi as the Mondrian Snottsdale.

A quick scratch of the surface, however, suggests she may have a genetic predisposition to successful wheeling and dealing on the periphery of the stage.

The name Anthony Pellicano would be familiar to anyone watching the nightly entertainment news magazines a few years ago. Pellicano, once known as "Private Investigator to the Stars," did detective work for the likes of Michael Jackson, Steven Seagal, Michael Ovitz and Chris Rock, among many others.

Possibly not content to just sit back and let clients come to him, Pellicano is alleged to have drummed up business by actually purchasing incriminating information and charging would-be clients big money to keep the information a secret under the pretext of "managing" it for them. What Pellicano may have considered a bold and innovative business idea, eventually resulted in racketeering charges, and later a conviction for other prodigious transgressions.

He's a real go-getter, that Anthony Pellicano; much like Jen Deveroux. Also like Jen, he is creative and energetic and driven. He knows everybody and everybody knows him. Jen Deveroux knows him perhaps best of all.

Pellicano is Jen's father.

(Cue the Darth Vader theme.)

Jen loves and once trusted her father. The revelations of his misdeeds and the reality of his subsequent downfall put Jen through the mill. The move to the Valley was a much needed escape from a more fucked up reality - one she now has in perspective and no longer needs to feel threatened by. The creativity she has exercised here and the success she has had has enabled her to lay claim to her own identity. She is in control of her life and her destiny and is determined to keep it that way.

Even though we admire one another because of our past collaboration, Jen was slightly apprehensive at being interviewed for this piece. I knew I'd have to be somewhat cautious, and ease into it gradually.

Java: Some people say the party scene is where you go to find tomorrow's homeless people today. Basically it's for losers. What do you say to that?

Answer: I'd say they don't know what they're talking about. I'd also say you're an ass!

Wow, a simple question, and she was already being so sensitive!

Java: Why do people go to a "Jen Deveroux party?"

JD: Well, all these parties have their own sort of characters. For Adult Swim, people came to see vast amounts of other people who are cool, artsy, tatted up, in bathing suits. Also because the Hotel San Carlos was just the only place in town where you could get the really hip kind of vibe. So that all came together. And yeah, there was a bunch of people who were looking to get laid. I mean, come on, let's be honest.

...and even now at Harlot, you still have most of that, minus the swimming pool. The Mondrian has its own cool vibe, plus we give them a lot to look at. We get people who wanna hear good music and from the best DJs. And we always get a real variety of people. We get artists, intellects, wealthy people, people on a budget because it IS a free party...

...one thing I want to have at all of my parties is that cool mix. I don't want it to be just a meat market or just for girls or just for rich people. Just for cool people. Haha - You know who you are!

Java: So how do you achieve that?

JD: Through branding. Through the look of the flyers, the promotion, marketing, musicians, the DJs involved. I try to imagine stuff that's totally different than what's going on. With Harlot I'm trying to use the physical entertainment, the contortionists and performers with live painting with DJs and integrate it into a hip night that would be attractive to a lot of the population. You don't really go to a club here and see that type of performance. You see go-go dancers, but not someone breathing fire or hanging from the ceiling. It might be more common in L.A., but it's not here.

Java: What changed after your success with Adult Swim?

JD: It was amazing! For one thing I got a lot of name recognition. We were featured in The Arizona Republic, New Times, on television. I think it gave me credibility right away. People who had clubs started seeking me out to see if I could do something for them. I think it made everything else possible, really.

Java: Unless a party is really successful, there's not a lot of money to go around. Why wouldn't the DJs just do this themselves and cut out the middle-man?

JD: It's funny because back ten years ago, most DJs were hired just as a DJ, but now they've merged into promoters, too. Some DJs are o.k, with it, but most aren't. I mean, I actually used to hear that a lot from some of my DJs, like "why should you get a cut when it's all about the music, and I play the music." That works until one of the hotel managers wants to pull them out of their sets to talk about room capacity or until one of the DJs friends does something stupid to get themselves ejected. The truth is these DJs are performers. They can't do what they do if they're also juggling the other performers, the guests, the parking, the receipts... Some of our DJs are absolutely wild, too, and that's part of their popularity. From the venue's standpoint, they always know where to find me and I'll solve their problems and keep the party going. From the DJs standpoint, they don't have to worry about anything but the music. Ha - I'm VITAL!

But so are they. I love my boys! William Reed, Jared Alan, Sean Watson and Tricky T. They're the best, and I couldn't do it without them.

Java: Was there a party you did that just didn't work and that baffled you?

JD: Yes! Royal Filth! That was downtown (Phoenix) at Rose and Crown. I thought the concept was very intriguing. It was a really attractive place and it was outdoors. Ultimately, though, there are a lot of thing going on on Saturdays that targeted the same people - other really well-established parties - and that's probably what did us in.

Java: You're in great shape! What's your routine?

JD: Well, I run six to seven miles, four times a week. Twice a week, I do yoga at Bikram Yoga of Phoenix. They're actually the only place in town I'll go for Yoga. I've been Vegetarian since I was fifteen. I'm one of twelve brothers and sisters, and I'm the only vegetarian. I started that because I became aware of the torture that animals go through when they are in our food chain, but I also loved the health benefits I got from it.

Java: How old are you?

JD: 37

Java: You're not going to be mysterious about that? You know, that makes you the oldest girl at most of your parties.

JD: No, I'm not going to be mysterious, I think that's great! I'm very proud of my age.

Java: What are your parties going to be like ten years from now?

JD: Ha! I'm not going to be doing this ten years from now!

Java: Back to medicine?

JD: Maybe. I really love that, and I love helping people. I'm thinking about some other things too, though. I've met a lot of really talented people over the last couple of years. I think I could do a good job representing them.

Java: O.K., now just a couple of quick questions "for classification purposes:" First, boxers or wrestlers?

JD: What? Boxers, because they're extremely disciplined as far as their workouts and I admire that. There's also something about two dudes rolling around on the floor. I mean not that there's anything wrong with that...

Java: O.K., Rough or smooth?

JD: Rough or smooth? Rough, definitely! Wait - What are we talking about? Did you go to school for this?

Java: What's coming up, party-wise?

JD: Harlot's still the big thing right now - it's getting bigger every week! What we've got planned for Valentines Day, though, is going to blow everyone away. It's a French Revolution themed masquerade night - We're calling it Let Them Eat Cake. We're having a fashion show with six or seven designers, contortionists, aerialists, fire eaters, clairvoyants. No admission without a costume. People should hit me up on Facebook to keep up to date.

You can see more pics from Harlot and other of Jen Deveroux's parties, along with a whole bunch of random stuff in the JAVA set at my Flickr site.

Also, pick up a copy of JAZA Magazine around Phoenix and Tempe. Among the places that carry them is Zia Records, Buffalo Exchange, Urban Grocery, Tempe Camera.

The Real Deal

A large group of friends and peers gathered in the office of Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon tonight to celebrate the work and accomplishments of Mr. Scott Phelps, who was the Mayor's Communications Director until today at 5pm, when he began his retirement. A 19-year employee of the Mayor's office and a nearly thirty-year civil servant in various capacities, Scott chose early retirement ahead of upcoming budget cuts mandated city-wide. Had he not elected to do so, it would have meant a less senior employee (or more than one, since Scott had a relatively high salary by city standards) would have been out of work; a situation Scott was quoted as saying "would certainly not have been acceptable."

You can find plenty of accolades of Scott on the web, so I won't be too expansive with mine. He's affable, intelligent, and absolutely tuned-in. He makes friends easily and has tons of them. Even after nearly thirty years of being in the orbit of the local political world, he seems remarkably un-jaded and un-guarded. He once devoted some of his scarce time to advising me how to work within the system to get something done - note that I said "within" and not "around" the system. Scott's response to my gratitude was to say "Government should be in the business of achieving the right outcome." It's the attitude and mindset we can only HOPE our public servants will have.

It's further testament to Scott as a person that among the many well wishers were political operatives of both major parties, as well as two former Phoenix mayors, business people, media personalities, sports personalities and a contingent from the Phoenix zoo - just one of the local concerns Scott has made better with his service over the years.

Along with the recent retirement of Frank Fairbanks after 20 years of HIS service as Phoenix City Manager, Scott Phelps' departure highlights the importance of the unelected and mostly unlauded people BEHIND the scenes of our government. Scott worked for several different mayors during his career with the City, in both Republican and Democratic administrations. His devotion was to the City and its citizens, rather than to a person or party. In truth, Scott, Fairbanks, and other long term civil servants have an impact every bit as important, if sometimes less tangible, as that of the elected officials they report to.

Without them, there would be no continuity, no institutional memory, and reckless follow-through, if any, on long-term goals and projects. Without Fairbanks' dedication, spanning multiple administrations, Valley lightrail would still be a dream and downtown redevelopment would have stagnated. With the wisdom and network of contacts that only comes with time, Scott Phelps was able to help new administrations hit the ground running and avoid many of the pitfalls and errors of rookiedom. He put the right people in touch with the right people. What's more, these men didn't need to make a profit with each connection. They weren't "owned," except by us.

It will be interesting to see where each of these men target their talents next. They are both retiring with many good years left, and it's unlikely they will be satisfied with lives of leisure. For all his joking about having time on his hands now, I doubt that Scott's Blackberry will actually get much of a rest. If nothing else, there is a small army of public servants that both of these gentlemen have inspired and who, if they find themselves at a loss, will be well-advised to "use a lifeline."

Volcanico a tranquilo

Something really cool happened over at my Flickr account last week. Two people started out being pricks to one another and ended up friends. As is the nature of Flickr, it all surrounded a picture. In this case, one that I posted of a lady at a demonstration in downtown Phoenix, supporting immigration reform. Since we're dealing with humans here, the debate began with vitriol, generalization and accusation. Thankfully in this case the parties remained engaged long enough to actually come to some understanding and even cordiality. Maybe friendship.

You can check go see the bile in all its glory at my Flickr site, or continue reading here, where I've selected choice bits. If you do go to the Flickr site, you'll need to look at the comments HERE and HERE and HERE.

Here's the picture that sparked the blowup:

And here's the result:

Rick248: Too bad the real illegals don't look like that. Most people that protest think of them as poor, misunderstood types. Not the drug dealers, murders, sumgglers and I could keep going on but you get the picture. They use our emergency rooms for their personal doctors, so when you need to go to the ER it's a five to seven hour wait. Of course they don't pay so guess who picks up the tab? No matter what that poster shows, your more likely to be shot than handed flowers. I've with Sheriff Joe. I don't have a problems with sending someone back who interes our country illegally.

Corrin: By all means, Rick248, I certainly hope that you support a comprehensive guest worker program that allows the immigrant labor we exploit to also buy health insurance and be registered as having limited rights as long as they contribute to our economy. Please vote for that the next time you have a chance. Also, unless you are approaching the issue with a purely racist foundation, you will surely concede that even Arpaio's office admits that the vast majority of the illegal aliens he has turned over to the feds are not guilty committing a crime other than coming here.

Rick248: I knew it wouldn't take very long to be called a racist. If wanting my country to be safe with secure borders is racist, fine, go ahead and call me anything you want. Tell me something, when did we start picking and choosing what laws to enforce and what laws to ignore?... During my years as a LEO, I've been in four shootings. Three were illegals. I was stabbed by an illegal. You're doing no one a favor by allowing illegals to remain here. They don't learn the language so we have things in two languages. I'm 61 now and have been out of L.E. for quite a while. Both my wife and I have CCW permits. Six times I've been accosted (that is a polite way of saying attempted robbery) by illegals. Displaying my holstered weapon was enough to stop them. Two months ago three gentlemen tried a home invasion on my house. I make it a habit of answering my door with my former duty weapon in my hip pocket.

Corrin: This goes on all around the world, and it's always a problem. I really don't see it as liberal versus conservative, either, because it seems to cut across party lines. No one wants to be taken advantage of financially and certainly no one wants to be a victim of crime. It's a fantasy, though, to think that we could honestly secure our borders and an economic reality that in a profit-driven economy rotten jobs will always fall to an underclass to perform.

Plus which, having guest workers that only tap a small portion of the benefits of citizenship allows us to use them to support a time of economic growth and abandon them during a recession. Illegals aren't coming here in smaller numbers over the last year because of Sherif Joe - it's because the jobs are no longer here.

... sorry about your personal experience, but I see this as a result of not having a comprehensive guest worker policy that would truly allow us to attack the violent criminals separately from the busboys, housekeepers, produce pickers, etc.

Rick248: I'm 61 and I remember when we did have a "guest worker" program. I don't remember when it expired. I'm in favor of bringing that program back. We both know that there are jobs that Americans just don't will not do, If that program came back, then things would be better for everyone. Pay would be fair, benefits would be provided, it would be legal to obtain a drivers license and insurance. I wouldn't have any problems then.

A "guest worker" is not citizenship. If that is desired, then the person in question would be required to go though normal channels. I would be quite happy with that arrangement. It should work to everyone's advantage. Does that work for you?

Corrin: Oh definitely that would work for me - sanity, that's all. My neighborhood has a mix of both legals and illegals from Mexico and the lower Americas, so I hear a lot of different perspectives. Some of the most vehement critics of illegals are people who came during the 80's and worked really hard WITHIN the system to finally get full citizenship. I can see their point very easily. "I earned this, what did all of YOU guys do?" At the same time, I'll sit outside with the parent of a family of illegals and he tells me how much happier they were in Mexico where they had family, property and a lot less stress; but that their family is relying on them to send money back.

I didn't mean to soft-sell the crime among this group; but aside from what is a direct result of the border issue, it doesn't SEEM to me to be any different from what you find among the lower socio-economic strata in general, regardless of ethnic makeup. Also, to be sure, they have their saints and sinners like the rest who further muddy the issue.

Then in a follow up letter, Rick wrote: Just because we disagree doesn't mean we can't be friends and respect each other. You seem like a pretty good person to me.

There. Hope for humanity?

Here's a great picture from Rick's Flickr site

Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton

An hour ago, the Whitehouse posted a photo taken by one of their official photographers of the President greeting Mr. and Mrs. Dumbass at the state dinner for visiting Indian president Singh. The photo can be viewed and reproduced in any of six different sizes by anyone who has copy/paste capabilities and can find their way to the Whitehouse's Flickr account.

They didn't have to do this. They could have rightly claimed the photo was evidence in a potential criminal case. Its only real value is to administration critics who already feel that the office of the presidency is being dishonored by its current resident. They could have waited until someone in the media went through months of petitioning under the Freedom of Information protocol, betting that demand for the image itself would wane with time. That has been a common tactic in the past.

I wonder if I'm the only one who thinks this is refreshing. Understanding as they must that it will not always paint them in a positive light, I think they are showing a deliberate commitment to openness. They seem to have much less of a filter before the public than even the Clinton administration had (even PRIOR to Monica-gate.) From what I've noticed so far, they take their hits pretty straight on. Isn't it nice not to have a presidential administration described as "secretive" for a change?

Ralph Nader and the Urban Grocery

It always amazes me how quickly people can turn when their need for instant gratification isn't met.

A Zogby pole conducted in late August found that over the preceding six weeks, support for Barack Obama fell a whopping 18 percent among liberal voters aged 18 to 29 years. This is when it was being suggested that Obama may not find it possible to abandon the Afghan war right away and may entertain a compromise in order to pass healthcare reform legislation. Lower support will translate to fewer of these voters turning out for crucial mid-term elections, or to their votes shifting to fringe left candidates who don't have a real chance of getting elected.

One consequence of this last phenomenon was evident in the presidential election of 2000, when Ralph Nader's candidacy drew votes away from Al Gore and effectively put George W. Bush in the White House. How many well-meaning but short-sighted liberals ended up saying "oops" after that?

There's more than a little of this short-sightedness surrounding some Phoenix residents' reception of the Urban Grocery and Wine Bar.

If you're one of the privileged few, you will have read here about the wonderful fact that Phoenix now has a store right in the middle of downtown where we can get farm-fresh produce five days a week during regular hours. The store also serves food and wine that patrons can enjoy on-site or back at home. It's not perfect. For one thing, it's small and therefore its assortment is limited. It's run by a not-for-profit entity, and at the moment can't afford to stay open seven days.

Just the same, isn't this a step up? Won't downtown dwellers who have been clamoring for this for decades bend over backward to show their support? Isn't it better than nothing? Doesn't the fact that it DOES have farm-fresh produce, fresh bread, pasta, and candy mean that it gets at least 3 out of 5 stars for merely existing?

Not according to some people on social networking sites such as Yelp.com. "Glen D." of Phoenix writes that he's "been waiting for a grocery store downtown for almost 5 years." You might think he'd be really happy to have his five-year dream come true, but you'd be wrong. "...I do my grocery shopping on Sunday...but they are closed. Try and go back Monday...they are closed. At this point, I really need those items and I'm just going to buy them from a normal store." Great job showing your support, Glen D.!

His tag line says, "I act real shallow when I'm in too deep." Boy oh boy, Glen D. of Phoenix must be in really REALLY deep. I can't emphasize enough how "in deep" I think Glen D. of Phoenix is. So deep, in fact, that instead of reading the store hours on the door, he just keeps coming back day after day. D'oh! That's deep, Homer - I mean Glen D of Phoenix.

I won't go too far into the fact that his wife writes a second two-star review on top of his. Don't know what that's about, unless her father is Mr. Safeway or something. Please get a different hobby, guys. Remember that episode of Extreme Makeover you Tivo'd last week? It's calling you.

So...The reason for the tiresome paragraph on politics at the beginning was to underscore how sometimes we humans unwittingly do ourselves in by not seeing the big picture. I don't want supporters of a downtown farm-to-table grocery to end up saying "oops" because they fail to support the Urban Grocery and Wine Bar and thereby lose the only chance Phoenix has had in decades of making a permanent farmers' market a reality.

This is a sprout, if you will, that needs to be sheltered and nourished if it's ever going to flourish. It has City backing and an entity with full non-profit 501c-3 status running it. This is our best shot, Phoenix. It will grow or die based upon its viability as a business, for sure; but for us to doom it because it isn't perfect would be...that's right...voting for Nader.

Eat THIS!

Nothing poetic this time, but I have great news for anyone living or working around downtown Phoenix. If you like to cook with farm-fresh, locally grown produce, you no longer have to wait for a weekly market. In case you haven't heard, the Urban Grocery and Wine Bar is open for business at Central Avenue and Pierce St. It bridges the gap between the convenience of Safeway and the direct-from-the-Earth purity of Phoenix Public Market.

The grocery occupies a building adjacent to the parking lot where the normal Wednesday and Saturday markets continue to be held. Sharing the space is Royal at the Market coffee bar, which roasts their own coffee and offers a variety of homemade baked items.

Local farmers, four of whom I profiled in my piece for JAVA Magazine, keep the grocery supplied with fresh fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. The current inventory also includes locally made pasta, bread, chocolates, sauces and artisan cheese. Don't feel like cooking? Order a sandwich or soup from the lunch counter and choose a glass of Arizona wine to get that glow going. A handful of tables just inside the sunny front window make this a great place to pass the time with a friend (Or the remainder of the bottle of wine. Or both.)

The Urban Grocery and Wine Bar is all part of a master plan developed by Community Food Connections to bring a thriving and much larger permanent market to the heart of the city. According to Cindy Gentry, Director of CFC, this stage of the plan has so far gone well. "I think it's exceeded our expectations. We did a lot of careful planning because there's not a lot of room for mistakes...but we're right on target."

By next week, the Urban Grocery shelves should be completely full, after the arrival of staple items that Gentry feels are absolutely vital to the success of the shop.

"People need to be able to do a lot of their shopping here and not just their produce. Rice, flour, baby food...we're not very big, but we need to have some of the everyday items." That gives people less reason to make a trip to one of the huge, traditional stores, where convenience will likely tempt them into buying their produce as well.

"The next step is to grow the capacity of these vendors and increase the size of the store...A typical public market is about 25 to 40 thousand square feet. We have about 17 hundred here now." Whether that means purchasing adjacent lots or moving elsewhere in downtown, only time will tell. First Community Food Connections needs to prove that the community at large will support Urban Grocery by giving it some of their regular shopping time and money.

Urban Grocery and Wine Bar is located at 14 E. Pierce St., and is an easy walk from the lightrail and bus hub at Central/1^st Ave and Van Buren St. Hours are 11am to 8pm, Tuesday through Saturday. Royal at the Market coffee bar is open 7am to 8pm, and can be entered through a door around the side when the grocery is closed.

Growth Industry

For Java Magazine

November, 2009

by

Corrin Green

"How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?" So went a popular song of 1918, as American sons and daughters began trading the agrarian lives of their ancestors for cleaner, more "sophisticated" work. Over time, giant agri-business concerns gained control of much of U.S. food production and either consumed or killed their smaller rivals. What family farms remained became slaves to government subsidies which dictated not only what they raised but how they raised it. Bigger was better, and Americans experienced "better living through chemistry."

Today, though, innovations in farming methods, and growing consumer demand for healthier food has opened a niche in the U.S. food supply chain which allows small farms to exist, if maybe not quite thrive. Increasingly, the grandsons and granddaughters of the generation which abandoned farming are returning to the land. They hope to change the way we grow as well as the way we eat.

Maya Dailey tends an acre and a half of land near 32nd Street and Southern, known as Maya's Farm. She is a powerhouse, and among a number of locals who are helping the small farm niche grow in the Valley. Her father was in the garment business in New York and her mother was an activist for human rights, but her grandparents were immigrant farmers. "Farming is in my blood," she says.

It's easy to imagine you're in another time and place as you walk into Maya's Farm, which sits inside a larger compound on the grounds of "The Farm at South Mountain." Remnants of a grove of elderly pecan trees soften the sunlight as you approach row upon row of ripening melons, sprouting carrots and assorted other vegetables and flowers. The rows are precise and the plants are well-manicured. Roughly twenty chickens peck and poke and go about their poultry lives in a shady area that allows them plenty of space to socialize. If one wanted to glimpse idyllic scenes of rural life (albeit on a small scale), one need look no farther.

None of it is for show. Maya's produce is featured at several local farmers' markets, and is also sold on-site. In addition to that, a growing number of locals actually subscribe, in a way, to be first in line for a selection of her vegetables and eggs on a weekly basis (It's called CSA. More on that, shortly.) She claims to be making a profit. She took her life in a new, old, direction and it is rewarding her.

New directions seems to be a theme among local small farmers, in fact.

Carl Seacat ran a successful software design company in Seattle for a couple of decades prior to starting Seacat Gardens, basically in his backyard. Today, he manages an acre of land in Litchfield Park, and couldn't be happier about it. "We designed a specialty piece of software that addressed a need in this one industry," he says, "and that kind of sustained us for about fifteen years." Does he miss the business world? "You joking?"

The geek side of Seacat shows as he explains the workings of his farm, but it's engaging. He's kind of a mixture of your favorite teacher, the next door neighbor who always has the barbecues, and Bob Ross, the painter guy from PBS. He's had this acre for a year now, and discovering what makes workable land healthy and productive clearly turns him on.

"We'll actually save a few of the best items of each crop for ourselves." Those would be the actual fruits or vegetables from each variety, each season, that displayed the quickest time to-harvest, and the choicest characteristics for color, shape and flavor. "We'll eat them and save the seeds, and those will be the seeds we plant when we raise that crop again next year." No microscopes and no teams of white-coated vegetable Nazis, conducting evil experiments. Just good old genetic engineering the way agrarian civilizations have been doing throughout history - ways that didn't put extra chemicals into the soil or make genetic alterations with possibly unpredictable consequences.

In addition to selling directly to the consumer at farmers' markets, Seacat supplies to a small handful of local restaurants. Although he can't compete in volume with some other growers or the traditional suppliers, he plants certain crops specifically for chefs who talk with him and, in some cases, also help him plant and tend. He gets some extra help in exchange for an assurance that, if the produce is excellent, it will be bought.

Not that he is content with this arrangement as is. Oh no. By planting more than one variation of a single item, each suited to a different temperature range by nature of its origin, Seacat hopes to extend the period during which he can provide that item to the restaurants and markets.

He takes me to a section of six rows of vines, all with broad green leaves. On closer inspection, though, it's easy to tell that the leaves in the first three rows are starting to get yellow. "These plants over here," he points to the yellowing ones, "...are starting to die out because it's already getting too cool for them at night. The ones over here, though…" the very green ones, "…they come from a slightly cooler part of the world and are just now starting to really thrive and produce. That means I can pretty much double the time I can deliver this fruit." That's not only cool in kind of an agri-Tetris sort of way, but that's a great selling point when trying to convince a restaurant or third party purveyor to start getting their produce from Seacat Gardens.

On the other side of town, in the Lehi district adjacent to downtown Mesa, another budding family farmer is following a similar route, but with some notable differences. Michael Thompson had a digital imaging business in San Francisco before chucking it all and moving to the Valley where his wife was born and raised. He bought a house and several acres of land which had never been cultivated (not in modern times, at least) and started Love Grows Farms.

Thompson's intensity is conspicuous, even in a peer group of all intense people. It's easy to see why farming and the business of farming suits him - it's an all-encompassing endeavor that uses every bit of energy he can give it. He hit the internet, he hit books, he hit chickens. (Just seeing if you're awake, that should be "got" or "purchased" chickens, of course.) He also built two greenhouses where he grows luscious herbs, and did a lot of digging. He got selling to restaurants and he got in-touch with the public through some great publicity (including a piece in Martha Stewart's living) and a concept called CSA.

Now I'll tell you what CSA is, in case you haven't heard.

CSA stands for "Consumer Supported Agriculture" and is a growing trend in this growing trend. Basically, a consumer buys a periodic subscription to a farm. In the case of Love Grows Farms, that period is 10 weeks and the price is $250, up front. It's a win for the farmer, who gets some cash for a change; and it's a win for the consumer, who gets a weekly selection of the freshest, local, hand-picked, pesticide and hormone-free produce and, in many cases, eggs. For some, the rub in the CSA equation is that the consumer has little say over the exact contents of their weekly package. Whatever is ripe for picking is what goes into the mix. On the other hand, that's no different from if they actually owned the farm themselves.

For the week of October 17 2009, Love Grows Farms CSA members received tons of fresh basil, four kinds of squash, tomatoes, okra, a sweet pepper, a pomegranate, a red chile pepper, and half a dozen freshly-laid eggs.

Both Maya's Farm and Love Grows Farms feature a CSA program.

Maya's Farm, Seacat Gardens and Love Grows Farms are relatively small. One could walk around all three of them combined and still be less than halfway around McClendon Select Farms in Peoria. At 25 acres (with another parcel in a cooler area just out of town), McClendon dwarfs them all in geography as well as production, yet it is every bit a family farm.

True to form, Robert McClendon wasn't born a farmer. For twenty years he was a pharmacist and eventually the head of Surgical Pharmacy at St. Joseph's Hospital. A backyard garden put him in touch with nature and growing. The business began strictly with internet sales. "We started by selling citrus, dates, and honey over the internet and then people started coming to our farmers markets at Town and Country," says McClendon, referring to the seasonal weekly farmers market at Phoenix's Town and Country shopping center at Camelback and 20th St. "We used to sit and wait for people to come up to us and buy our stuff. We kept putting the best quality out there and finally it caught on. Now when we do Town and Country we have five cashiers and 600 customers in about five hours."

McClendon uses not only his family, including son Sean, daughter-in-law Kate, and wife Marsha; but also paid and volunteer help. He has also hosted interns from Israel who he says brought his organic farming techniques back home.

Today, internet sales are the smallest portion of McClendon Select Farms' revenue. "Our biggest business is restaurants - around 35 or 36 restaurants in the Valley and four in Flagstaff. We also supply to three restaurants in Las Vegas," he says. "We're very closely attuned to the chefs. They basically request more things all the time. We'll always try it and if it works for us, great." Direct sales at farmer's markets make up most of the rest of McClendon Select's sales.

Clearly McClendon Select Farms is a rousing success which has far outgrown Robert McClendon's ability to be out picking the potatoes (just chosen because it starts with "p" - I'm not sure he grows 'em). And yet when you call the toll-free hotline to order your gallon of Desert Blossom Honey for $38, you better believe it's Robert who answers the phone.

Among this diverse group of farmers, there are a couple of constants. One is involvement in the product. Each one can quote chapter and verse on what went into their soil on any given date and in what quantities, what pests had been spotted and repelled, what they produced for their weeks of labor. Carl Seacat won't say who, but a large entity in the state hired him as a consultant when they wanted to enter the agriculture business. It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't successful. "When I start hearing 'oh we didn't get around to that', or 'that's not so important so let's just skip it,' that's when I knew it wouldn't work. You gotta be out here every day and you gotta know what's going on with every plant." They all agree.

They also all agree on the concept of organic farming as the way to responsibly treat the earth as well as our bodies. According to McClendon, "organic was a personal part of our mission as a family. As we became educated to realize the health benefits of organic there was just no question." Both his and Seacat's operations are certified organic by third parties who base their certifications on federal guidelines. Love Grows Farms and Maya Farms aren't certified yet, but both are using methods which meet or actually exceed the standards, and say they are going through the necessary steps to achieve certification.

In many ways, a certification is more relevant in the marketing of organic produce than it is in actually describing the specifics of the growing method, which is why each of these farmers encourages consumers to learn beyond the label.

Each of these farmers shows a real passion for what they're doing. They believe in it, and they believe all our lives would be better if more people joined the cause, both as producers as well as consumers. Maya Dailey even has a patriotic angle: "We get our food right now from Argentina, from Asia. We depend on all these other countries. America's independence, its REAL independence, is in its ability to grow its own food. Food that doesn't make us sick, food that makes us smarter and healthier. Not just nationally, but locally, too. Every community. That's what makes a strong, healthy nation."

© Corrin Green