There comes a time in every person's life where he must sell his cats and move to Austria. That time has come for me.
After producing more than a hundred videos, here are my favorites from my tenure as the Tucson Weekly Web Producer:
10. "How we fixed this pothole"—I'd like to think of my legacy as something more than fixing a pothole on Valencia, yet here's the video proof.
9. "Tales from the Outskirts: Ajo"—Never question a small town's commitment to its historical figures, no matter how obscure.
8. "Eating the 12-patty OMFG burger twice at Lindy's on Fourth (1 of 2)"—Sure you could watch the whole 18 minute saga of a failed attempt to eat two of the mega-burgers back to back, but part of the fun is seeing the first one get inhaled by the 4-minute mark.
7. "AZ state rep. loses temper, committee seat"—Tucson Rep. Daniel Patterson makes House committees interesting in this Daily Show-worthy clip.
6. "Brian Lopez plays 'Killing Moon' at Fall Club Crawl® 2009" —Our most popular Club Crawl® video for good reason.
5. "Finishing Something Sweet's Sugar OD challenge"—If this proves nothing else, it's that feats of food strength are always a winner (see: OMFG burger).
4. "Tucson All Souls Procession 2009"—This parade has to have one of the lowest spectator-participant ratios in existence.
3. "Tucson May 1 SB 1070 immigration bill protest" —I asked both sides if they had read the bill and nine times out of 10 got the same response: no.
2. "WTF?! AZ lawmakers ban goat-people"—To be fair, the term "goat-people" isn't used by lawmakers, but THIS is what state government is concerned about?
And the requisite drum roll for my favorite Tucson Weekly TV video ...
1. "Hitler reacts to Tucson's downtown Rio Nuevo hotel"—Someday they'll make a Pulitzer for parody commentary videos ... someday.
THE WEEK ON THE RANGE
We followed Republican Ruth McClung's surge against Congressman Raúl Grijalva; told you about the latest predictions of how the race would go between Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Republican challenger Jesse Kelly; and shared a new McCain campaign attack ad that hammers Democrat Rodney Glassman—and features a guest appearance by Tucson Weekly senior writer Jim Nintzel, who (in a rather surreal moment) appears inside Glassman's mouth.
We also followed the disgraceful gay-baiting from Gov. Jan Brewer's campaign, which suggested that the media look into whether Democrat Terry Goddard was gay because investigative reporter John Dougherty mentioned on his Facebook page that Brewer might be ill (yeah, it was confusing to us, too); brought you the sad news that state Sen. Jorge Luis Garcia passed away; and shared a letter from Republican Grant Woods, the former Arizona attorney general who explained why he wasn't afraid to cross party lines to support Democrat Felecia Rotellini.
On the Chow beat, we gave you a sneak peek at the menu being developed for the Abbey Eat + Drink, coming soon to Kolb Road and Sunrise Drive; told you about a new mini-farmers' market at El Rio Community Health Center; and ran down a whole bunch of other tidbits about food specials that we hope you didn't miss.
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
"You just want to teach low income families to be elite and get cancer."
—Facebook user Sarah Terpening remarking on our seemingly innocous post about the Tucson Community Food Bank launching mini-farmers' markets to get the goods of local growers to low income families. We asked Ms. Terpening to elaborate, but haven't heard back of our press deadline.
NEW VIDEO THIS WEEK
Club Crawl® is clearly a really big deal, flooding Congress Street and Fourth Avenue with music lovers and people who just enjoy the ability to drink beer on city streets (legally). The fall edition of this always anticipated Tucson event was a ton of fun, but if you missed it altogether or just can't seem to remember much of what happened (I'm looking at you, guy who threw up in front of O'Malleys), we tried to catch as much as we could on video. See Salvador Duran, steel guitar wizard Jon Rauhouse, Silver Thread Trio, the Young Mothers and more on our video site, TucsonWeeklyTV.com.
