The Show for Sept. 14, 2026: Vape tax could pay for kids programs, Harkins drops A24 and more

Why First Things First wants state lawmakers to approve a new tax to pay for early childhood development programs. And Harkins will no longer show A24 films at its theaters. What’s behind the split?

Transcript

KJZZ’s original production “The Show” is supported by Banner Health, Arizona’s largest nonprofit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health, nonprofit for Arizona.BannerHealth.com/nonprofit4az.

MARK BRODIE: Hi, I’m Mark Brodie, co-host of “The Show,” an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday, we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at TheShow.KJZZ.org. Here’s today’s episode.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning and welcome to “The Show” here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, why First Things First wants state lawmakers to approve a new tax to pay for early childhood development programs.

LAUREN GILGER: And Harkins will no longer show A24 films at its theaters. What’s behind the split?

MARK BRODIE: But first, flash floods in the Grand Canyon late last month killed two people and forced the evacuation of dozens of others. Heavy rains led to the flooding at the bottom of the canyon, including at Phantom Ranch. The events were shocking, but perhaps not surprising to everyone, especially after the Dragon Bravo Fire burned through the canyon’s North Rim last summer. With me now to explain is journalist Annette McGivney, who has reported extensively from and about the Grand Canyon over the years. Annette, good morning.

ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Yes, hello.

MARK BRODIE: So what is the relationship between the Dragon Bravo Fire on the North Rim last year and the flash floods that we saw just a few weeks ago?

ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Well, there have been flash floods obviously since the beginning of the Grand Canyon, but the difference that happened with this recent flood is the Dragon Bravo Fire magnified the intensity of the flow of the water and also increased the amount of debris that came down through Bright Angel Canyon.

MARK BRODIE: So without the vegetation there to sort of slow it down, it was really just kind of going down unimpeded?

ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Right, yeah. Not only did the vegetation wasn’t there to slow things down, but it also increased the amount of actual hazards in the drainage itself that hit structures and people.

MARK BRODIE: Was there any thought of doing things differently this tourism season at the Grand Canyon given that and given the other impacts from the fire?

ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Yes. Well, so one thing is that there was a lot of debate around whether the North Kaibab Trail should be opened at all during this summer tourism season. And that was a debate within the Park Service among the staff members.

And that was ultimately ... business interests, the desires of visitors overruled some of the safety concerns that would have made it — people couldn’t have done the rim-to-rim hikes and that type of thing. And so they ultimately decided to open the trail and hope that things wouldn’t happen, but it actually did. The flood did happen that they feared.

MARK BRODIE: Well, I mean, was there anything put in place? Like we heard about an alert system that was supposed to have told people when there was a danger of potential flooding. Was that put in place and, if so, did it work?

ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Right. As far as I know — I’ve talked to people within the park — it’s unclear. It does not seem that a real-time warning system was in place. There are some flood gauges to manage flow. There was a kind of alert system about like National Weather Service forecasts and that type of thing. But it does not seem that there was an actual real-time predictor system that could have told people, “... There’s a flood headed your way. Get out. You’ve got a few minutes.” It does not seem that that was in place, but I don’t know that for sure. And I have talked to current and former people with the park, and it just has not been clear about that. And certainly none of the visitors that were rescued have said that they were using such a system.

MARK BRODIE: That would be potentially telling. So let’s go back to what you were talking about, sort of the debate between — and it’s not as black and white as it’s going to sound — the debate between safety and business. Because obviously there are companies and businesses that rely on Grand Canyon tourism to stay afloat. Do you have any insight into what some of those conversations were like between folks who were saying, “OK, look, this isn’t quite ready to go, maybe we should limit access or just close these particular areas altogether,” and those who were saying, “No, look, we need the business to be coming in here”?

ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Right. Yeah, there was a debate going on. Obviously ... I guess the pressures to keep the trail open won out. But I did talk to Mark Nabel, who retired from the park a year and a half ago. He was the manager of the Geosciences Program, very familiar with things going on in the park. I talked to him on Saturday, and he said — and this is in addition to some other staff members — that there were the safety people, the science people were hoping that the North Kaibab Trail would stay closed. But he said that it’s not necessarily the management at Grand Canyon National Park that had the ultimate say in that decision, that there was a lot of pressure coming from Washington, from the Department of the Interior, and also from a bipartisan push from Arizona’s congressional delegation. Mark Kelly and Eli Crane both sponsored legislation and a push to support regional businesses by opening the North Kaibab Trail so that all that rim-to-rim and tourism traffic could return.

So there was political pressure, and there was also pressure coming from the higher levels of the agency to make it seem like everything at the National Park Service, our national parks, is fine despite major budget cuts on staffing and that type of thing. Which would not have prevented the flood at all, but if the North Kaibab Trail would have been closed, people would not have died on that trail.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so given what’s happened, is there a sense that maybe now that trail will be closed, or there will be other measures put into place to make sure this doesn’t happen again?

ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Yeah. Well, it absolutely is closed for the rest of the season right now. I mean, there’s two issues with the trail. One is the first several miles of that trail were burned in the Dragon Bravo Fire, so the stability of the trail itself was compromised. They tried to shore it up before they opened the trail, but the landscape has changed as a result of the fire.

And then also there’s the issue of flash floods during monsoon season, which are intensified from the fire. So there’s two issues with that trail, and it is closed for the rest of this season, I assume. I mean, certainly during monsoon season. And I guess they’re doing assessments about what to do, but the landscape — Mark Nabel, the geosciences manager, said, you know, the landscape has changed as a result of the fire. So the trail may need some massive rebuilding in order to stabilize it. And then there’s still the issue of how the Dragon Bravo Fire impacts floods in the coming years.

MARK BRODIE: Right. Interesting. All right, that is journalist Annette McGivney. Annette, thanks as always for your insights. I appreciate it.

ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Of course. Thank you, Mark.

MARK BRODIE: A group that distributes money for early childhood development programs says it needs to find new sources of revenue, and one area it’s identified: vaping. This comes as a tax on cigarettes approved by Arizona voters two decades ago is generating less money. That money goes to First Things First for those programs. So the group wants state lawmakers to approve a new tax on vaping products to fund its work. But as with any new tax at the state Legislature, this one appears to be a tough sell. With me now to explain is Howie Fischer of Capitol Media Services. Good morning, Howie.

HOWIE FISCHER: Good morning. Of course taxes are a tough sell. The question is, will this one be an exception?

MARK BRODIE: Right. OK, so the situation is basically, fewer people are buying cigarettes, right, because fewer people are smoking them. So that is generating less tax revenue to go to First Things First. So what is the situation, what are their books looking like right now?

HOWIE FISCHER: Well, in the first year after voters approved the tax in 2006, the first full year, it brought in something like $169 million. The collections are now projected to be in the $89 million range. And remember, the $89 million doesn’t buy what $89 million did even two decades ago, so you’ve got a double problem there.

So the argument by Melinda Morrison Gulick, who’s the CEO of First Things First, which was also created in 2006, is, look, if vaping had been around then, it’s a nicotine product, and sort of like smoking, like cigars, like cigarettes, like pipe tobacco, all of which are taxed, we probably would have taxed that. You know, what people would have done two decades ago, who knows?

So she says it just makes sense to go ahead, since some people have switched from tobacco to vaping, to make that burden to — for these health programs, you know, early childhood development and subsidized child care, and programs to help parents know what it takes to be a good parent, have that paid for by these sin taxes, for lack of a better word. The problem is that the original one was approved only by like 53%.

So they want the Legislature to come in and say, “Well, let’s just do a whole new tax. We don’t have to take it back to the voters.” But the problem, as you know, having been at the Capitol, is a new tax takes a two-thirds vote, which means 20 of 30 senators and 40 of 60 House members, plus a gubernatorial signature. And that is a really big climb.

MARK BRODIE: Right. So does First Things First have an estimate for if vaping products were to be taxed, like would that bring them back up to the $160-some-odd million that they were getting at the beginning?

HOWIE FISCHER: Well, here’s the yes and no. It depends on how big the tax is. They want a tax that’s equal to 50% of the retail price of the product. So if a product costs, let’s say, $10, it would now be $15. Now, they say they could raise $100 million a year on that, which would, again, bring them back to about where they were. That’s a really big climb.

Remember that cigarettes run what, about $10, $11 a pack now, and of which $2 is taxes, $1.20 — there was a previous tax for health programs — the 80 cents a tax on this. So imposing a 50% tax is going to be really hard for lawmakers to swallow, plus the fact that the vaping industry says, “Look, A, we want to be treated fairly, we’re willing to contribute. And B, if you raise the tax so much, you end up with a black market where people just get the product sent in from elsewhere and you don’t get the revenues anyway.”

So this is going to be a really hard sell to get that much money.

MARK BRODIE: Well, I’m also wondering, Howie, why they’re going after vaping when there was kind of a sense, even early on in 2006, that at some point, like the goal was to get people to stop smoking or smoke less, which would necessarily bring in less revenue. Like I wonder if by going after vaping, First Things First is just kind of setting themselves up to have to do this again at some point down the road.

HOWIE FISCHER: Well, that’s an interesting question because you’ve got a larger issue there. The original idea, people like Will Humble, who was head of the Department of Health Services at the time, said, “Look, if people are vaping, that’s probably less harmful than tobacco.”

But as we’ve also seen, as they come up with all these new flavors and gadgets and everything else, you have people who never smoked who have taken up vaping. And so that’s a question in terms of what the system will be like. But the larger question becomes, how do you decide that something is related to vaping? I mean, it’s one thing to say we’re going to tax tobacco for smoking cessation programs. How does early childhood development relate to somebody vaping? And why that? Why not the liquor tax?

I think part of the reason it’s not the liquor tax is the liquor lobby is a lot stronger than the vaping lobby, and a lot stronger than tobacco lobby. Well, why not something else? You know, why not a tax on people who listen to public radio? I know, Heaven forbid.

MARK BRODIE: No don't do that.

HOWIE FISCHER: But you come down to a question of so what’s the connection here, and why should these people be responsible for funding early childhood development?

There may be a good case to be made for that. It may also be that since only about 8% of people smoke or vape, it’s an easy tax to do because it doesn’t affect 92% of Arizonans, Arizona adults. The question is, is that the way to go? Is it fair? Is it logical? I don’t know.

MARK BRODIE: OK. Howie, very quickly before I let you go, if the Legislature doesn’t go along with this, is First Things First prepared to try to go back to the voters?

HOWIE FISCHER: Well, technically speaking, First Things First can’t because it’s a quasi-state agency. It was created that way, so they can’t go back to the ballot. The question then becomes, who will? It’s very possible the Chamber of Commerce might go ahead and support this, because the Chamber happens to like the fact that if people have child care, that they’re more likely to be in the workforce. It helps create a better workforce and more people willing to work.

Will the Chamber of Commerce take this on? That’s, again, going to be a hard sell for the Chamber, which is always there saying we want lower taxes, to say, “Oh, but this one, we want higher taxes.” I think it’d be a really hard sell to take this to the ballot.

MARK BRODIE: OK. That is Howie Fischer with Capitol Media Services. Howie, thanks as always.

HOWIE FISCHER: Have a great day.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning. It is “The Show” here on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, an unpopular college professor goes missing, and it’s up to a journalist and detective team to find answers in a new mystery set in Northern Arizona. We’ll hear from the author about her life experiences and 40 years in Flagstaff influencing her books.

LAUREN GILGER: But first, televised debates are not just an effort of media outlets in our state. They are part of the Arizona Clean Elections Commission’s—which was created by voters—mission. But every year, there are a number of major candidates who do not debate. The top of the list is obviously Governor Katie Hobbs, who refused to debate Kari Lake in 2022, and has said again she will not take the debate stage to debate Republican opponent Andy Biggs this year. But there are more, from several members of our state’s congressional delegation to a host of incumbents in safe legislative districts. Six incumbents in what are considered pretty competitive legislative districts won’t debate either.

The reasons are often political. If you are in a highly partisan district or are way ahead in the polls, why open yourself up to attacks? But our next guest this morning says debates are about civics, and they still have value today. Tom Collins is executive director of the Arizona Clean Elections Commission. He came into our studios recently, and I asked him about the number of candidates opting out of debates this year. Is this out of the ordinary?

TOM COLLINS: No, I don’t think it’s out of the ordinary at all. I think if you look at the — at the congressional level, we will have had debates that feature incumbents. We’ve already had Adelita Grijalva, Representative Ciscomani. We will have had Representative Stanton. We will not have had Representative Hamadeh, Representative Crane, Representative Gosar or Representative Ansari.

Now, let’s take those four. Representative Ansari does not have a Republican opponent on the ballot. The other three candidates I mentioned, I’m not sure they’ve done any joint appearances with their opponents at all, right? So it’s not as if this is some like, “Oh, debates, oh, we’re not doing that.” No, it’s more along the lines of, “We made a tactical decision. We don’t want to engage in this kind of thing.”

LAUREN GILGER: Well, and it is normal, I think, more normal, right, for people in noncompetitive races in kind of gerrymandered districts to not debate. But should they?

TOM COLLINS: Well, I mean, I’ll give you a perfect example. I think on the legislative level, where the districts are going to be the most disparate, right, like the percentages are what they are, there are districts like we had LD11 recently, where the leader of the House Democrats, Oscar De Los Santos, debated along with his seatmate two opponents who were Republicans. That’s not really a competitive district, but everybody was there and it was a good discussion.

It wasn’t fireworks. It wasn’t name-calling. It was a really kind of an earnest discussion between the Republican opponents and the Democratic incumbents who wouldn’t necessarily have been there. There are obviously some competitive legislative races where we don’t see folks show up. And I think that, again, has more to do with tactical decisions by those candidates.

Some candidates in — especially in those crucial districts — they are and have been for the last, I think, at least decade, operating under the assumption that the less they say, the better, in general. And then at the state level, you know, we will have had the incumbent secretary, the incumbent attorney general, Kimberly Yee, who’s running for superintendent, but effectively an incumbent, and Kevin Thompson, incumbent corporation commissioner, and Les Presmyk, incumbent state mine inspector, all will have appeared. I think that’s consistent with the past, and I think that it’s solid.

LAUREN GILGER: Well, so let me ask you about that, because what you’re basically saying here is that when it’s a campaign strategy, those people are not going to debate if they’re not going to engage with the candidates on the other side in general.

TOM COLLINS: That’s my impression. My impression is not debating is tied to a broader strategic decision rather than an “I don’t like debates” decision.

LAUREN GILGER: But I mean, this has come to the fore in lots of ways, particularly with the gubernatorial debate, right? Governor Katie Hobbs says she will not debate again this year. Neither will her lieutenant governor nominee, John Giles. And that’s a strategy she used in the past, and that’s, you know, worked for her in the past. I wonder, does that example, right — this high-profile top-ticket candidate saying, “I’m not going to debate, it’s not useful” — does that make it harder to convince other folks to do it?

TOM COLLINS: Not so far. I mean, the evidence is that that’s not been the case, that most candidates, including the other incumbent Democrats, are participating in debates. The fact that they’ve felt successful with that, you know, that ratifies their decision. But I haven’t seen that spread to other races. And I think there’s an important distinction to be drawn there, right?

There’s a tendency, especially if sort of you spend too much time online, which maybe everybody does, to blur the two categories: whether or not debates are fading in relevance or popularity, and whether or not specific candidates are going to make a decision not to participate. Those are different things, and I really haven’t seen them augmenting each other, right?

LAUREN GILGER: So you think debates still are relevant today.

TOM COLLINS: Well, I think they are. I think the coverage they generate demonstrates that. Print, broadcast media and online media are covering these debates. Our surveys that we’ve done in the past show that people want those debates. And I think that, look, we’ve had a presidential election in recent memory that had a key debate moment. We’ve had debates generate news in other states.

So I think what voters get out of that is they get to see how a person is, right? So if a person comes in and they say, “I’m going to show how tough I am,” or “I kind of want to have an attitude in the way that I present myself at debate,” voters get to see that. That’s what they want to present.

On the other hand, you know, we broadcast our Corporation Commission debate. That was all substance. Both parties’ candidates had real ideas on how to address things like data centers, how to address rate cases, and the ongoing role of the Corporation Commission there, how to deal with small water company regulation. I mean, these are important issues for ratepayers on an everyday basis.

And both sides had substantive discussion about that. Now, was that exciting? Probably not. But —

LAUREN GILGER: Depends on your definition of exciting.

TOM COLLINS: Right. Similarly, we had a mine inspector debate for the first time, I think, in like 10 years.

LAUREN GILGER: Very interesting.

TOM COLLINS: And that debate, you learned more about what mining means to the state, why we have a state mine inspector that’s elected.

I mean, that’s all, I think, designed to provide voters with a richer and broader information than they might otherwise have. And, you know, my own observation is that the press itself is not getting the access to candidates that they did either. So —

LAUREN GILGER: This is absolutely true. So relying on debates in a way.

TOM COLLINS: Yeah.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. But let me ask you about the overarching narrative there, right? Because those are some specific races that may not be as political in nature, right? Many of these debates are political, though, or would be if they were happening.

And the governor has said, for example, and other folks have said this as well who are opting out of debates, you know, it’s just political theater, the debates are about sound bites, you know, it’s not as effective as directly engaging with voters. They’re avoiding the press as well, as you’re saying. But do you think that there’s something lost in that for the voters themselves? Like, this is a required, a mandate for the Clean Elections Commission to hold these.

TOM COLLINS: Well, the voters when they created the Clean Elections Commission wanted the commission to be the debate sponsor, and so that’s a statutory obligation and that’s what the commission is implementing. I do think, though, I want to push back a little bit. The governor has a specific point of view on this, and she and her spokespeople have articulated what you said. I don’t hear it from other candidates if they’re saying it. Where it’s being said is by consultants who purport to represent the view of candidates.

LAUREN GILGER: So, I mean, you’re here to defend this as a — not something that’s a bygone practice of an old era, but like something that really serves not just the public, but our democracy.

TOM COLLINS: Well, I’m not sure why the narrative that seems to have been constructed by a lot of political consultants — and this is the distinction between tactical decisions and institutional framing. The tactical decisions of candidates are one thing, but the consultant-level effort to say debates are not relevant is a little odd because it’s not consistent with the facts on the ground.

It’s not consistent with what voters have said. It’s not consistent with what the broadcasters, who have the choice to run this or not run it, are choosing to do. And then it also raises this different question, which is, you know, we, people who listen to this show, are incredibly pro-civics. I know them, I know them all, and I go to meetings with them even and talk about civics. And so too are some of the consultants who have really been out there leaning into this “debates are not necessary” narrative.

But this is information for everybody. And so I don’t really understand, if you want to make a big push in civics, why would you want to undermine a specific program that’s designed to make a public policy discussion available to anybody that wants to view it? It’s a public good.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. Tom Collins, executive director of the Arizona Clean Elections Commission. Tom, thank you so much.

TOM COLLINS: Thank you

LAUREN GILGER: The low-budget thriller “The Backrooms” has officially raked in nearly $400 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of all time from indie film production company A24. The film was directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, who first went viral on YouTube.

[CLIP FROM “THE BACKROOMS”]

CLARK: I found something in the store.

MARY: OK. What did you find?

CLARK: A place. I found a place.

[END CLIP]

LAUREN GILGER: But that’s just the latest in A24’s indie hits. They’re behind the new Anthony Bourdain biopic “Tony”; as well as “Marty Supreme” starring Timothée Chalamet; Oscar winners “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Moonlight”; and the upcoming Robert Pattinson movie “Primetime.” In short, A24 is a darling of indie film buffs.

And now, Arizona’s own Harkins Theatres says they’ll no longer play their movies. Harkins says they couldn’t secure, quote, “mutually agreeable terms” with A24. They pulled screenings of “Tony” and “Primetime” last week.

And here with his take on all the drama is M.V. Moorhead, film critic with Phoenix Magazine. Good morning, Mark. Thanks for coming in.

M.V. MOORHEAD: It’s always good to see you, Lauren.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so tell us first just about A24 and how they became such a big force in the film world.

M.V. MOORHEAD: Well, one of the things that’s extraordinary about A24 is that they became a big force of a certain kind of boutique film really quickly. They’ve been around just a little over maybe 10, 12 years, something like that.

And they’ve had — I mean, you just rattled off a bunch of them — but they made some movies early on that kind of flew under the radar that I wish more people knew about, like a movie called “Morris from America” and “Equals.” And one of my very favorites from just not quite 10 years ago, a movie called “The Lovers” with Debra Winger and Tracy Letts was number one on my top 10 list that year.

But eventually they started to become a really big deal. And like you said, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” they had “The Whale,” they had “The Zone of Interest,” they had “Sing Sing,” “Minari.” So that’s kind of become their forte is real award-bait kind of movies.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So they’re a big force, right, this independent, but very big now, film company?

M.V. MOORHEAD: Yes.

LAUREN GILGER: Kind of a darling — indie film lovers love them.

M.V. MOORHEAD: Very much so.

LAUREN GILGER: And indie film lovers kind of love Harkins, right? This kind of homegrown, almost century-old movie theater here founded in the Valley. Tell us about their history.

M.V. MOORHEAD: Well, they were started by a man named Dwight Harkins, who was really known as Red Harkins. Red founded them in the early ’30s, and he was just kind of a born showman, and he had a lot of innovative, creative ideas.

He experimented with drive-in movies at Tempe Beach Park back in the ’30s. He built — it wasn’t his first film or his first theater, rather — but he built the College, what was called the College in those days. It’s now known as the Valley Art Theatre in downtown Tempe. And he had a lot of kind of wacky ideas.

He did luminescent carpeting so you wouldn’t stub your toe in the dark, I guess, or whatever, but it wouldn’t mess with the lighting of the screen. He had a room for mothers to go in and take care of their babies, and they could plug in and listen to the movie while they were doing it, but it wouldn’t mess with everybody else’s experience. Stuff for the hard of hearing.

His son, Dan Harkins, who we know to this day, insists that it was Red who broke up segregated seating, racially segregated seating in the movies. So he has a very storied history.

But the one thing I mean, my disclaimer is this thing between him and A24, I have like zero inside baseball knowledge about what’s going on.

LAUREN GILGER: Well, neither side’s saying that much about what’s going on.

M.V. MOORHEAD: And nobody seems to be saying much.

LAUREN GILGER: But this is not the first time Harkins has done something like this.

M.V. MOORHEAD: Exactly. Harkins’ history, especially — Red seemed to mostly be into being a good, solid local chain. And but they were in financial trouble by the time that Red passed on in the ’70s. And it was the son, Dan, who really took them to another level.

And that was partly because of a little bit of feistiness. That company is known for just having a little willingness to fight and contention. And most notably in the ’70s, Dan took other distributors, big major distributors, the studios and all that, to court in an antitrust suit because of practices that he felt were anticompetitive.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow.

M.V. MOORHEAD: And really kind of to everybody’s surprise — for all I know maybe even to Dan’s own surprise — he won. And my old late friend, Bill Rocz, who used to be the film critic on Channel 5 here, told me that he always saw Dan as sort of a David who took on a Goliath and won.

And that was the beginning of Harkins becoming what we know it to be today, which is just a dominant local chain that people are very loyal to. But they’re also in a lot of other places — in Oklahoma and I think Colorado and California. That branching out, that’s what not only saved Harkins, but turned them into a pretty big player.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Well, it is kind of what local film fans here love about Harkins, right? So you’re seeing a lot of people online right now saying like, “We hate this. This idea that we can’t see A24 films at Harkins, because we don’t want to go to AMC, we want to support this local chain.”

What do you think here? Do you think they’ll come to some kind of deal? You think they’ll figure it out?

M.V. MOORHEAD: If I had to guess — and it would be nothing but a guess — I would guess that they will. They had a problem with New Line Cinema. Harkins had a legal wrangle with them back in the ’90s, and so they weren’t playing things like “Austin Powers” and stuff, really lucrative pictures.

And so they eventually, I believe — now New Line has since long since been gobbled up by Warner — but I think they eventually settled their differences, too. But he — the business, Harkins — they don’t take any guff. They fight. And I’m certainly in no position to say who the rights and the wrongs are in this, but the point is that’s not a company that rolls over.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. All right, well, we’ll see what happens. M.V. Moorhead, film critic with Phoenix Magazine, joining us. Mark, thanks so much. Appreciate it very much.

M.V. MOORHEAD: Great to be here. Thanks.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning. It’s “The Show” on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie.

LAUREN GILGER: And I’m Lauren Gilger. This weekend in Flagstaff, bluegrass fans will unite for the city’s annual Pickin’ in the Pines Bluegrass Festival. And our next guest will hit the stage to rock out on the banjo there. Tony Trischka is an award-winning banjo player who has dedicated much of his career to documenting and preserving the work of American banjo legend Earl Scruggs. It resulted in a multi-album release called “Earl Jam,” which features some of the biggest bluegrass musicians today. Trischka told me he’s been performing for most of his life, when he was just a kid who fell in love with the sound of the banjo.

TONY TRISCHKA: I was involved in the folk boom of the early ’60s, late ’50s. I mean, it was all happening at that point. And I was playing some folk guitar, and then I heard a group called the Kingston Trio, which people of a certain age will remember, and they had a song called “M.T.A.,” which had a banjo solo in it by their banjoist, Dave Guard.

[AUDIO CLIP PLAYS]

I heard these notes that he was playing, 16 notes in particular, and it blew me away. And at that moment, I realized I’ve got to play the banjo. And I hounded my parents till they bought me a banjo for that Christmas, which would have been ’63.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow. So you were just a kid.

TONY TRISCHKA: I was just a kid. I was a little tyke. Yeah. And I just fell in love with the banjo and have been ever since.

LAUREN GILGER: What did you love about it? I mean, it’s a particular kind of sound. It’s very Americana, and it’s kind of plugged into that folk, kind of bluegrass world, right?

TONY TRISCHKA: Yeah, I didn’t know anything about bluegrass at that point. It was really just the sound of it. It was just a fast solo. It was very exciting to me. And I’ve interviewed many people myself, lots of banjo players, and I would ask them, “What got you into it?” It’s the sound. It just has that, you know, it’s almost like a magpie being attracted to bright, shiny objects. It was that sort of a thing.

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LAUREN GILGER: And it is, I’m guessing, fun to play, especially in those very fast solos like you’re mentioning.

TONY TRISCHKA: Yeah, it was more fun when I was younger. I mean, I can still play fast, but, you know, once in a while I’ll have — this one instance, a 12-year-old kid came up to me after a workshop I was giving. “Mr. Trischka, can we play ‘Shuckin’ the Corn’?” which is this really fast tune. And I said, “Sure, son.” We started playing. He’s playing it so fast I’m struggling to keep up, you know. This was a bunch of years ago, because, you know, kids can roll out of bed and just play really fast.

LAUREN GILGER: All right. So let’s talk about “Earl Jam” and Earl Scruggs, right, the father of bluegrass banjo, for lack of a better phrase. I mean, first, for those in our audience who aren’t keyed in to bluegrass, tell us about Earl Scruggs.

TONY TRISCHKA: He just came up with a style of banjo playing, three-finger style of banjo playing, that other people had been playing before, even as early as the 1870s, but he had this other thing, this excitement to his playing. Then he came up with a whole raft of new licks and ideas that no one had come up with before. And he told me one time that he thought what he brought to the banjo was syncopation, which is when you accent notes landing where you don’t expect them to land.

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LAUREN GILGER: He changed the game in that way for this instrument in particular. Yeah. I mean, so it sounds like you knew him. What was that relationship like?

TONY TRISCHKA: We were friendly in his later years. I guess one indication of our relationship was a friend of mine, who’s a wonderful photographer, wanted to take a picture of Earl when he came to New Jersey. He did this after the show, and then my friend said, “Well, let’s get a shot with you and Earl together.”

So I’m standing next to Earl. Now, I wasn’t going to put my arm around his waist or anything, but I’m standing there. He put his arm around my waist, and, “Oh, this is big. This is big.” So, no, we were definitely friendly and had a chance to hang out on various occasions.

LAUREN GILGER: So it sounds like you have been inspired by him for a long time, but you did also get to know him. And then, you know, he passed away in what, 2012, right? So, I mean, this is years later. We’re in the lockdown of the pandemic, and something kind of crazy happens, right? Like someone sends you a thumb drive. Did you know what was on it?

TONY TRISCHKA: I didn’t at the time. I’d been working on this Earl Scruggs book, making corrections to an Earl Scruggs book, when this guy Bob Piekiel — and he would send one or two tunes here and there, you know, through the internet, of this jam session with Earl and John Hartford. And I’m going, “What are these?”

And it turns out he was at some of these jam sessions. And so finally my friend Bob just put all of these tunes that he had, over 200 tunes, on a thumb drive and sent them to me.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow. So you plugged it in, and what did you think?

TONY TRISCHKA: I was blown away, because what is all this material? It’s just stuff that no one had ever heard before. And it was tunes that we’d never heard Earl play before, like “Here Comes the Bride” was on there, a duet with John Hartford, fiddle and banjo, just playing “Here Comes the Bride.” And a tune called “Chinese Breakdown,” and just a whole host of other tunes.

And then there were other tunes that we knew him, you know, playing before really well, like “Cripple Creek” and things like that, and — but he would take that in a totally new direction, playing bluesy solos on a fiddle tune, which you’re not supposed to do, but he did it. And rather than only being able to play one solo on a tune, he would play two or three or four, and sometimes three or four in a row, just taking it out and going deeper down the rabbit hole. It was amazing stuff.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. So you take those recordings, and it’s more than 200 of them that no one’s ever heard, and you’ve turned them into this project, right, that’s been going on for a long time called “Earl Jam,” which you got to love. You’re bringing in all of these very well-known bluegrass musicians and playing with them and and kind of re-releasing this music, right?

TONY TRISCHKA: That’s basically what I did, because before I had the idea to do the album, I just started transcribing his solos at slow — slowed down to half speed, so I could learn what he was playing. And then I started thinking, well, I’ve got all this material now, I should — and no one will ever be able to hear these, probably, which I found out later Earl never wanted these recordings to be released.

So I will never give them out to anybody because of that. But I figured if I on these recordings that I ended up doing with “Earl Jam” and “Earl Jam 2,” if I just play note-for-note what Earl played in these recordings, then at least through me people will hear what Earl was doing.

LAUREN GILGER: So what was that like? Like as somebody who, you know, is a protégé in a way of of this great banjo player, what did you learn transcribing those those songs and and recording them on your own?

TONY TRISCHKA: I learned a lot of things, some of which are too geeky to get into for a normal person to have to listen to ...

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.. but just a lot of the syncopations that he did. I was doing some of that, but I got deeper into it because there was so much syncopation in his playing.

And then just the way he moved around the neck, I discovered things that I’d never heard him do before. And I thought I knew his style, because I trans — I had already transcribed for years many of his solos. And then here’s all this new stuff.

He just had — he was so much deeper than I even realized. And so a lot of that is just sort of osmosed into my own playing when I’m just playing whatever I would happen to play. “Oh, that’s an Earl thing there. Oh, that’s an Earl thing there,” that I never used to play. So he’s had a very big impact on my own playing.

LAUREN GILGER: But you’re carrying it forward in that that way, kind of keeping the tradition going.

TONY TRISCHKA: Yeah, well, I sometimes say I wouldn’t exist without Earl Scruggs. You know, he’s had such a profound impact on my life, because he was just this shy shy kid from, you know, whose father died when he was 4 years old from North Carolina, and he changed the world.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Pretty cool. All right. We’ll leave it there. Tony Trischka, he will be playing at Flagstaff’s Pickin’ in the Pines Bluegrass Festival coming up here. Tony, thank you so much for coming on The Show. Thanks for talking to us about this. I really appreciate it.

TONY TRISCHKA: Thank you, Lauren. It’s really been a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning. It is “The Show” on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. The second book in a series of mysteries set in Northern Arizona takes on some contemporary themes. “Mountain Campus Murder” is the latest in the Flagstaff Mystery Series written by Mary Tolan. She’s a retired journalist and journalism professor, which also plays a role in her fiction books.

Tolan joins me to talk about her latest work. And, Mary, without giving too much away, since it is after all a mystery, can you give us kind of a thumbnail synopsis of what this book is about?

MARY TOLAN: Well, it’s about an unpopular professor who goes missing in chapter one, and right away we know something bad has happened to her, and, of course, many people disliked her. So there are many suspects. And this professor has wanted her students to write “humankind” instead of “mankind.” This is back in 2010, 2011 when this is set, and that sets off all kinds of responses. It goes viral and—so that’s part of part of this. But basically, it’s a detective, a journalism person—I guess I could say journalist—and a woman who is in the original “Mars Hill Murder.” They’re trying to help solve this crime and then two crimes that happen on the university campus.

MARK BRODIE: So at the risk of of maybe putting you in a tough spot here, it sounds like you kind of drew on some personal experience. Hopefully not the part where, you know, the professor is disliked, but it sounds like the saying “write what you know” kind of comes into play here.

MARY TOLAN: Yes, it does as far as journalism goes, and also as far as teaching at our campus at Northern Arizona University, but I can’t use that name, so it’s a little bit different in this book. But, yes, there are some personalities. Some people, if they come to my readings, will be thinking, “Is this me?” And I’ll just say, “It’s fiction.”

MARK BRODIE: Why did you decide to base it in Flagstaff?

MARY TOLAN: Well, I’ve lived here going on 40 years now. I love the mountain town. It just came natural for me when I was first getting into writing fiction and I wrote “Mars Hill Murder” about a murder that happened up at what I call the Flagstaff Observatory, which is Lowell Observatory in reality. And that’s not based on a real murder, by the way. These are all made up from my brain. And I just think Flagstaff is such a great setting, and we got plenty of things set in New York, L.A., maybe down in the Valley, and why not Flagstaff?

MARK BRODIE: So I’m so interested in the fact that you spent so many years as a journalist and a journalism professor basically doing nonfiction. What was the thought process in terms of transitioning to writing things that didn’t actually happen, and I’m curious how that transition was for you.

MARY TOLAN: The transition has been beautiful. You know, with, as you know, as a journalist, you have to get everything right, check all your facts, and it’s not that I haven’t made any errors in my fiction writing, but it’s just so freeing. And to tell you the truth, I’d been writing fiction for years, but not full time and nothing that got published, and so when I did retire, I had the bones of one of these books, the first book, and I just started working on that, you know, several hours every day, like a job, but I’m my boss. But it’s just been—it’s just been so much fun to write fiction. You should try it. It’s just great.

MARK BRODIE: So I’m curious about some of the themes that come up in this book, and let’s start with the victim of this crime, who was a sort of an unpopular college professor, but, you know, the crime in the story kind of gets to what I suspect is happening at a lot of colleges and universities on campus these days is conversations about, you know, we read about, you know, what is the role of free speech? What—how much DEI should there be or should there not be? How did you try to incorporate some of those themes into a basically a murder mystery story?

MARY TOLAN: Yeah, that’s really insightful. I try to just look at social issues and how can I bring them into a mystery. Now, this was set in 2011, so it wasn’t ex- exactly what we’re going through now with DEI, but it was still important. You know, the first book, “Mars Hill Murder,” my secondary theme, you will say—besides you might say besides the murder mystery—was about illegal immigration and immigrants, and that’s so big now. And then, as you say, this one, it’s about what’s going on on various campuses, DEI, and also there’s a another theme, which is people that are homeless that are living in their cars. So I try to, instead of just writing a mystery, which is so fun to do, I want to have some kind of important themes so the book is more than just a whodunit. Does that make sense?

MARK BRODIE: Yeah. I’m curious why that’s so important to you, that it isn’t just a whodunit, that it’s—there’s maybe a little something deeper in there.

MARY TOLAN: Maybe it does go back to me being a journalist. It’s just those issues are just so important to me. And in fact, I’m just starting on book three, I mean, in my head I’m starting it, I haven’t started writing, and I’m trying to think what’s going to be that other theme that is so important to our community or, you know, American communities. So I guess that’s probably why.

MARK BRODIE: So, okay, so you mentioned you’re starting to sort of toss around ideas in your head for a third book, and at the risk of, you know, putting the cart before the horse here, how do you try to come up with what is going to happen next?

MARY TOLAN: Well, I think about my main characters and where they might be. There’s a potential romance in—not a romance novel, don’t worry, although those are giant big sellers now—but, you know, there’s a couple characters, are they going to get together? What’s going to happen to this older woman who’s been in both books? What’s going to happen with the detective? And then what would be a natural something to happen with one of those issues, and then while I’m taking walks with my dog or while I’m just sitting at home kind of thinking, I just think, what do I want to happen? I just start thinking and playing with things in my head, to tell you the truth.

MARK BRODIE: So Flagstaff is obviously—it’s not a tiny town, but it’s certainly not as big as, you know, the Phoenix area or or Tucson or some of those other cities. You kind of alluded to this, you know, people come to your readings and think or maybe even ask you, “Is this character based on me?” Like, I’m curious what response you get, you know, when you base a murder mystery in a particular place, especially a place that’s not a huge city. What kind of response do you get from people in that community?

MARY TOLAN: I have gotten the most amazing response. That’s sort of a cliché answer, Mark, but so many people have come up to me and say, “Oh, we love this book.” I’m talking about the first one, the second one people are just learning about. But—so what I had to do, because my first publisher I’m no longer with, they had a rule that you couldn’t use the names of businesses, just lawsuit stuff. So I took all the businesses that I wrote about and I changed the names. For instance, one of the favorite coffee shops in both books—there’s many coffee shops here, of course—but is Late for the Train, so I called that Caboose Coffee. And all these people were kind of reading it like a puzzle, like, “What—what’s that? Which place is that?” And, you know, I couldn’t say NAU. I couldn’t say Lowell Observatory, as I mentioned before. So that’s been really fun, and people like that. Yeah, I’ve had great responses. And, of course, the people that don’t like it probably haven’t wanted to tell me to my face, so maybe there are a lot of people who don’t, but I hope not. But it’s been really fun. And so Flagstaff, you didn’t quite say it this way, but I do think Flagstaff is almost a character in these books. It’s the setting, of course, but it just becomes something for people who’ve traveled here or, obviously, who live here, they’re fired up about seeing it in a in a mystery, in a novel.

MARK BRODIE: All right. That is Mary Tolan, whose newest book is called “Mountain Campus Murder,” part of the Flagstaff Mystery Series. Mary, so nice to talk to you. Thank you.

MARY TOLAN: Thank you so much, Mark. It was a pleasure.

LAUREN GILGER: Thanks for listening to “The Show” podcast. “The Show” is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah, and Ayana Hamilton. “The Show” was created by Jon Hoban, and our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of “The Show” and sign up for our newsletter at TheShow.KJZZ.org. You can also find us on Instagram @KJZZTheShow.