Snake Eyes
Crooked Fingers’ latest slithers through the darkness of substance abuse.
Mondo
Mat Bevel Institute 520 N. Stone Ave. Tucson’s only “kinetic sculptor,” Ned Shaeffer (a.k.a. Mat Bevel) considers himself a social artist: “I tell people I’m in the inspiration industry. I said that when I started my bank account, and she made me say something else. But I’ve realized the importance of what I call social…
Soundbites
The Ataris are coming from nowhere… Billy Bacon is speaking Pig Latin… Little Rooms are opening at Plush… And more spring Soundbites.
Mondo
Meet Rack www.meetrackbar.com Well, this bar is not listed. We looked in three phone books and called information, to no avail. You won’t have a trouble finding it, however. It is situated on a rundown part of Drachman, west of Stone–a lime-green building with a large sign in front, which reads “Meet Rack Party.” Asking…
Open Spaces, Intimate Places
Greg Benson and Cynthia Miller conjure the spirit of America and the soul of home.
Mondo
Valley of the Moon 2544 E. Allen Road 323-1331 In the 1920s, former mailman George Phar Legler built a strange world of castles, tunnels and bridges near the banks of the Rillito River, where he presented magic shows to children. His fantasy world lives on today as the Valley of the Moon, where volunteers present…
The Low Down
La Placita’s triad of eateries will take you places.
Mondo
Titan Missile Silo Museum 1580 W. Duval Mine Road 520-625-7736 From the early ’60s through 1982, 18 Titan Missile silos surrounded the city of Tucson, armed with 330,000-pound, 110-foot-long nuclear ICBMs designed to annihilate those who would dare to steal our precious bodily fluids. One silo southwest of town is now a museum where visitors…
Spectral Analysis
Joni Wallace makes of the self a constellation.
Mondo
Fore Gone Conclusion After an afternoon of golfing at the ritzy La Paloma Country Club (3800 E. Sunrise Drive), real-estate hustler Gary Triano climbed into his car to head home to a birthday party on November 1, 1996. But first, he opened a box of cigars that had appeared on the passenger seat, activating a…
Mailbag
Howls of outrage and squeals of delight from our astonished fans.
Great Gonzo
Hunter Thompson’s letters thrill and enthrall.
Mondo
Getting Your Goat In the summer of 1996, the legendary chupacabras–the goatsucker–was sighted on Tucson’s west side. The creature, which has also been spotted in Miami and through Latin America, is a winged monstrosity that sucks the blood from goats and other farm animals. According to an account in the Tucson Citizen, a westside family…
The Skinny
Clean Elections are trying to clean up politicians’ mouths… Rio Nuevo is overflowing with problems… Mike Boyd is walking the line of lawlessness once again… and more shocking Skinny.
In Bad Faith
Devotion to the King won’t bring salvation to “Graceland.”
Mondo
Space Suit After he was passed over for a promotion with Pima County Emergency Services, Army retiree Bob Dean filed a lawsuit alleging that he didn’t land the job because he believed in UFOs. The suit was eventually settled out of court, with Dean receiving a six-figure settlement and extensive tabloid coverage. He quickly quit…
Diamond in the Rough
Pima County got taken, out at the ballgame.
Bad to the Bone
The Bad Girl Storytelling Brigade fleshes out color and connection.
Mondo
Smoked Out Public Enemy No. 1 John Dillinger and his gang were nabbed by local cops while hiding out in a university-area bungalow (927 N. Second Ave.) in January 1934. The authorities became suspicious of the men after they’d given a $12 tip to local firefighters to retrieve some heavy bags from a room in…
Delayed Impact
A development fee for schools is bottled up in a legislative committee.
Mondo Tucson (Intro)
The Tucson Weekly’s Guide to the Strange
Mondo
A Real Ladykiller His good looks and loopy philosophical ramblings tagged him as the Pied Piper of Tucson: Charles Schmid, who charmed and killed three young women before dumping their bodies in shallow desert graves. Sentenced to death, Schmid died in prison after being stabbed repeatedly by fellow inmates in 1975.
Head-Banger Clangor
Protect your ears now or forever lose your peace.
Mondo
El Tiradito 354 S. Main Ave. At the back of a simple dirt lot next to El Minuto restaurant is a little grotto waxy and oily from decades of dripping candles. It’s one of America’s more interesting folk shrines, because it’s a wishing shrine dedicated to sinners. Details of its origins vary and even conflict,…
Mondo
North Edith Boulevard, between Bermuda and Flower streets This dingy block in a rundown central neighborhood served as a crucible for Abstract Expressionism, the movement that changed American art in the 1940s and 1950s. The New York painter Adolph Gottlieb lived on this block in a rental house with his wife Esther during the winter…
Sound the Conga
Hotel Congress bids farewell to its last resident, Vince Szuda.
Mondo
La Casa Cordova 175 N. Meyer Ave. Continuously inhabited by Mexican American families from 1848 until it became part of the Tucson Museum of Art Historic Block in the 1970s, this house is named for its last resident, Maria Navarette Cordova. Now a Mexican heritage museum, its five rooms have been restored to their original…
Mondo
The Annie Graham Rockfellow Architectural Tour You can’t see the El Conquistador Hotel, Rockfellow’s elegant 1928 masterpiece: It was demolished in the ’60s to make way for the hopelessly homely El Con Mall, 3601 E. Broadway Blvd., during a decade-long Tucson frenzy of destruction of the best of the city’s past. But you can still…
On the Defensive
Advocates fight for justice for victims of beryllium disease.
Mondo
Stevens House 150 N. Main Ave. This, along with the Edward Nye Fish House next door, was the center of Tucson’s upper-crust social life in the late 19th century. Built in 1865, the adobe house served as the seat of the empire of cattle baron Hiram Sanford Stevens; the home was overseen by his wife,…
Mondo
Urban Renewal Trail of Tears Tour In the late 1960s, Tucson, intent on becoming just like every other American city (read: not Mexican), destroyed hundreds of buildings in its historic heart. Elegant adobes and rundown rentals, movie houses and flowering family gardens, pool halls and cafes, all were smashed indiscriminately by the wrecking ball, wielded…
And Baby Makes Two
Hollywood bastardizes another aspect of life.
Mondo
Environmental Research Laboratory 2601 E. Airport Drive 626-3322 There’s something fishy here, but investigating it can make you feel stuck in a riptide. Because of the one-way traffic restrictions, you have to drive by the Tucson International Airport terminal and begin heading back out in order to reach this facility. The center consists of environmental…
Mondo
Puppet Works 111 E. Congress St. 770-1533 In cities around the world puppets seem to be making a comeback. In France puppets make regular appearances on the evening news to help attract viewers. In Hong Kong public television is sporting children’s puppet shows à la Sesame Street with government-sponsored grants. Some people believe that a…
Newsreel
Any publication’s editorial department is a gaping chest wound hemorrhaging money, to hear the bottom-liners tell it, and the sales department is there to infuse the place with life-giving dollars. John Hankinson certainly loved to keep the money flowing–he spent about a decade at the Tucson Weekly, first selling ads and then as sales director–but…
Mondo
Franklin Museum 1405 E. Kleindale Road 326-8038 This small automobile museum specializes in the Franklin, featuring 21 fully restored or original models built between 1910 and 1934. A few other classic American cars dating from 1909 to 1941 are rotated through seasonally. The place is open October 15 through Memorial Day. Because volunteer staff is…
Mondo
Mob Justice Evo A. DeConcini U.S. Courthouse, Congress Street and Granada Avenue The late state Supreme Court Justice Evo A. DeConcini had such a close relationship with mobster Joe Bonanno that in the early ’60s, the Bonannos ran a gambling joint called B&P Publishing Co., Arizona’s Own Bookmakers out of a building DeConcini owned on…
City Week
Oracle’s artist are opening their doors… R. Carlos Nakai take you to the Ancient Future… The Russians are coming to the TCC… and more in this City Week.
Mondo
Postal History Foundation 920 N. First Ave. 623-6652 If you like to push the envelope, check out this outfit that’s certainly made its stamp on the Old Pueblo. This little museum houses a nationally important collection of domestic and foreign stamps, and details the history of postal deliveries from colonial days to the present. It’s…
Cheap Thrills
Fun things to do that won’t cost a fortune.
Mondo
Pancho Villa statue Between Congress and Broadway, east of I-10 Tucsonans have fought like riled scorpions about public art in contemporary styles–the sculptures in front of the downtown library (101 N. Stone Ave.) and at the east end of the University of Arizona (Campbell and Third Street) drew plenty of stings when they were new.…
