Cover Story
Un Gringo Chilango
I had just come out of Mexico City’s Hospital de Jesús Nazareno where Hernán Cortés’ remains are surreptitiously stashed in the adjacent templo when something happened that had never occurred before in my six years of living in Mexico: I got called a gringo.
Cinema Clips: The Lego Batman Movie
This is the great Batman story that Batman v Superman failed to be. Even better, it has Will Arnett voicing Batman with a new, super amped, still dark, but amazingly well rounded and sometimes humorous incarnation. After all these years of dark—and admittedly sometimes brilliant—Batman movies, it’s nice to have a vehicle where we can…
The Weekly List: 19 Things To Do In Tucson in the Next 10 Days
Your Weekly guide to keeping busy in the Old Pueblo. Rodeo: Apparently School Needs to be Cancelled for this Rodeo Break Kids Camp: Yeehaw! Calling all cowboys and cowgirls in Tucson who love riding horses and wearing big floppy hats. This is a camp for you! Lasso into camp by learning everyone’s favorite modern western dance…
Tracking the Tricked: Police Join the Fight Against Human Trafficking
The Southern Arizona Anti-Trafficking Unified Response Network task force, known as SAATURN, received a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to research, track and combat human trafficking in Tucson for three years. The grant and task force began in October 2015. Tucson Police Department is one of three grantees for this task force,…
TUSD Suspense Continues
The Tucson Unified School District Governing Board announced last night they were once again postponing the agenda item concerning Superintendent H.T. Sánchez’s job. The Duffy Community Center was so packed that overflow crowds had to wait outside. For over three hours, the board and superintendent were in executive session. At about 7:45 p.m., Sánchez somberly…
Did the TUSD Board Come To Bury Sanchez Or To Praise Him? (Answer: C, None Of the Above)
At the second TUSD board meeting in as many weeks, the board punted on the topic of keeping or firing Superintendent Sanchez. Last week, on Feb. 14, the action item was removed from the board’s agenda. On Tuesday, Feb. 21, it was the meeting’s sole agenda item. After an executive session which ran hours longer…
Cinema Clips: The Red Turtle
Finding Dory got snubbed for this year’s Best Animated Film nominations. While I still find that a little shocking, the Academy did manage to nominate some decent films in its place, including this delightful, traditionally drawn effort from Michael Dudok de Wit. There’s no dialogue in The Red Turtle, and it doesn’t need it. A…
Song of the Day: Billy Sedlmayr on Watching Someone Roll His First Kid Joint to Grand Funk, and ‘We’re An American Band!’
The first marijuana cigarette I ever saw rolled was in the inner fold of a terrible Grand Funk compilation called Mark, Mel & Don, or was it Mark, Don, Mel? They were Flint, Michigan’s finest, and had nothing to do with Detroit’s Motown or The MC5/Stooges trip. Nope, these three hooked up with manager, singer,…
The Fetching, Saucy Black Cherry Burlesque Nails its 11th Anniversary Show With Some True Elegance and Beauty
A history lesson: By definition, Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work meant to humor, and challenge by it’s ludicrous treatment of subject matter. The word derives from the Italian word burlesco, meaning a joke, ridicule or mockery, popularized during the Victorian era … like any great art it was reactionary and had some…
‘Enemy of the People’: The Phrase’s Ironic and Instructive Literary History
In a recent tweet, Trump called the press “the enemy of the American people.” Days earlier, though he didn’t use the phrase, he made a similar accusation about our courts when they ruled against his Muslim ban. I’m sure Trump had no idea he was quoting the title of a 19th century play, An Enemy…
Get Lost in the (Buffalo) Sauce
The competition will be fierce, but only one can be the Lord of the Wings. 40 local restaurants and 30 breweries will be coming together at this year’s Tucson Wing Festival on Saturday, March 4, from noon to 4 p.m. at the Rillito Park Race Track to provide the best wings and beer the Southwest…
Director Alex Cox Taps XIXA For Some Kickass Western Sonic Voodoo
Spirited, trailblazing director Alex Cox has tackled the OK Corral shootout yarn (and local locations) for his new flick Tombstone Rashomon. (Jim Nintzel yakked with Cox about said film here.) Cox is, you’ll note, known for upending certain filmic tropes. He’s clever that way. So it makes sense he chose dusty hypnotic hooks by Tucson’s XIXA…
T.H.R.E.A.T. Watch: Bless, Keep and Protect Our Free Press
Since the election, I have feared the mainstream press would collapse under the weight of Trump’s endless onslaught. Instead, it has dug in its heels and held its ground. It could have normalized our aberrant new political order, accepting the presidential campaign as a variation on a standard political theme, treating Trump’s continual lies and…
Cinema Clips: XX
Four women direct short films in this horror anthology. Most notably, Annie Clark of the band St. Vincent (My hero!) makes her film directorial debut with a segment called The Birthday Party, where a frantic mom (Melanie Lynskey) panics when she finds a corpse just before her child’s birthday. The segment looks great, is acted…
Mordecai Needs a Home
Hi, I’m Mordecai! I’m a handsome 1.5-year-old big boy and I need a new home! I was found as a stray and brought into the care of HSSA by a good Samaritan. I love meeting new people and am very silly. I weigh over 70 pounds, so I’m looking for a home that is able…
Death in the Arizona Borderlands
Since 2001, thousands of migrant have died in the desert of the U.S.-Mexico border. Activists, professionals and migrants talk about the continuing humanitarian crisis in the Arizona borderlands.
TUSD Board Meeting Scheduled For Tuesday, Feb. 21. Only One Item on the Agenda
A special TUSD Board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 21, with only one agenda item: a discussion of the possible firing of Superintendent H.T. Sanchez and General Counsel Todd Jaeger. It’s a bit more complicated than that—you can read the agenda here—but that’s the gist of it. The same item was on the February…
Police Dispatch
When a woman told her adult stepson he couldn’t take dresser drawers full of clothing out of her house, he obeyed and left her drawers—but emptied an entire can full of garbage on the hood of her car, according to a Pima County Sheriff’s Department report.
Vintage Vinyl
The Travelers “Spanish Moon” was released on three different labels, first on guitarist/songwriter Ron Story’s own Yellow Sand Records, then the Southern California-based Princess Records
Police Dispatch
A man stole a very large number of lottery tickets and then went (almost) directly to jail, a Pima County Sheriff’s Department report stated.
Cultivating Community
Sock footed in the Islamic Center of Tucson’s prayer room, more than 30 people of various religious and cultural backgrounds
Taking Initiative
Republican state lawmakers are once again taking aim at the initiative process this year.
Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: My parents were born in Mexico. I was born in Dallas, Texas.
Danehy
It is the toothless hillbilly matriarch of all clichés to complain about traffic.
Old West Flavor
When someone mentions the word steakhouse, eyebrows raise.
A New Light
I’m not supposed to wake dancer Francis Lawrence from his nap.
Tolerance, Please
When Israel Horovitz wrote his play Lebensraum in 1996, he could have had no idea that it might become a cautionary tale for the 21st century.
Dig Deep
Let’s face it; the Dark Knight has been really living up to his name since Tim Burton’s Batman came out 28 years ago.
Veteran Volunteers
Sue Sisley’s research on the efficacy of medical marijuana treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans has finally begun.
Noise Annoys
The following is a conversation between my girlfriend Veronica and I about local musician Casey Golden’s first solo album, which is self-titled.
Editors Note
One reader sent an email not happy that I referred to our president as the Mook, writing that in order to convince the other side we have a true mook for president, we probably should refrain from name-calling.
Beyond the Blues
Adia Victoria says her debut album, Beyond The Bloodhounds, encapsulates her 20s, with all the restlessness, self-reflection and emotional expansiveness that suggests.
Dust Devil
The suede shifts from a time of condescension towards completion
Five Guys Walk Into a Bar …
Once lauded in Russian Playboy as “The Greatest Guitar Band on Earth!” After a long hiatus, this Tucson powerhouse is back. So if ever you are, let’s say, gunning through the desert southwest on a psilocybin-fueled hellride toward rebirth, in that surreal expanse, the sound of Friends of Dean Martinez starts to make perfect sense.…
Rural Resistance
I pull into Gadsden Coffee Co. on the outskirts of Arivaca, a rural town, 11 miles from the Mexico border.
Know Your Product: Datsik
Canadian producer Troy Beetles, aka Datsik, has had one hell of a couple of years.
