Cover Story
Summer Movie Preview!!!
Calendar-makers would have us believe that summer begins on June 21, which, paradoxically, is called “Midsummer Night’s Eve,” as though the beginning and midpoint of summer occurred at the same moment. Bloated Hollywood filthocrats smartly reject this convention and mark the start of summer with the release of the year’s first superhero movie. So summer…
Arizona Voters to Decide Medical Marijuana Initiative
A medical marijuana initiative has made the 2010 ballot. Evan Wyloge of the Arizona Capitol Times has the details here: Supporters of the initiative said some Arizonans are suffering from medical conditions that are most effectively treated with marijuana, voters have shown they support medical marijuana, and the initiative heading to the ballot avoids mistakes…
GOP Candidates Reax to Munger’s Decision to Throw in the Towel
Republican gubernatorial candidates are responding to the news that fellow GOP candidate John Munger is dropping out of the race because it appears that Gov. Jan Brewer and state Treasurer Dean Martin will have more than $2 million in Clean Elections funds to match the spending by Buz Mills, a shooting-range owner who has put…
Sort of Like Living in Janos Wilder’s Head
Janos Wilder, owner and operator of Janos and the J-BAR, has been blogging up a storm about designing his up-and-coming restaurant, Downtown Kitchen and Cocktails. The restaurant is expected to open in September in the former Barrio Food and Drink space at 135 S. Sixth Ave. Check out Wilder’s blog here.
Munger Quits Governor’s Race
Tucson attorney John Munger has given up his pursuit of the governor’s office. The statement from Munger: “The Supreme Court’s decision to leave in place the “matching funds” provision of Arizona’s so-called Clean Elections law presents an insurmountable obstacle to my campaign for Governor. As I have previously stated publicly and in legal filings, these…
Picture This: Red Hot
CAROLINE BRUNER William Justiniano, the manager of Tucson’s Sonoran Glass Art Academy’s Hot Shop, and instructor Jason Marstall work together to create a blown-glass sink.
Closed: Jason’s Deli
Both local Jason’s Deli locations closed their doors Sunday, according to a spokesman for the restaurant chain. “It’s sad. There were 85 employees and a lot of loyal customers,” said Dan Helsman, a company spokesman. “We had been working with (the franchisee) for a while to avoid closure.” Helsman said the local franchisee, Delwest, Inc.,…
Skinny 2010: The Battle To Unseat U.S. Sen. John McCain
Hank Stephenson Arizona Sen. John McCain is facing a serious primary challenger: Republican J.D. Hayworth, a former congressman and radio talk-show host who calls himself the “consistent conservative.” When he formally kicked off his campaign in February, the bombastic Hayworth cast himself as the champion of the insurgent Tea Party revolution, calling the campaign “a…
Meet U.S. Senate Candidate John Dougherty
Investigative reporter John Dougherty, one of four Democrats running for U.S. Senate this year, will be at Hotel Congress from 7 to 9 p.m. this Thursday, June 3. Here’s the release from Dougherty’s campaign: U.S. Senate Democratic candidate John Dougherty takes his campaign to unseat John McCain to Tucson Thursday to rally Southern Arizona supporters…
America’s Wildest Wiener
Parade magazine calls the Sonoran hot dog “America’s wildest wiener” in this article about the country’s top hot dogs: America’s wildest wiener is the Sonoran hot dog, sold by street-corner vendors throughout Tucson. A bacon-wrapped all-beef frank, hoisted hot from the griddle, gets loaded into a soft bun from a Mexican bakery and is outfitted…
Tucson’s Everyday People: Beats with Norman Weinberg
UA journalism student Robert Alcaraz introduces us to Norman Weinberg, the director of percussion at the University of Arizona’s School of Music. Weinberg is often seen working with his students on a personal and professional level.
Center for Biological Diversity: Tougher Measures Needed on Off-Shore Drilling
Remember when we said last week that the top kill strategy might be slowing the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Not so much, as it turns out. It appears the oil may continue pouring out until August, according to this NYT account. Meanwhile, Kierán Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity has responded…
Boca Is Open!
A new restaurant specializing in gourmet tacos has opened in the old Greasy Tony’s location at 828 E. Speedway Blvd. Boca is the brainchild of Brian Mazon—whose family runs Papagayo Mexican Restaurant and Cantina—and his wife, Maria Jose, who is the executive chef of the new eatery. The couple spent some 13 months renovating the…
Need Child Care So You Can Hang Onto Your Job? Don’t Expect Help in Arizona
Here’s a New York Times story from earlier this week about how cuts to subsidized childcare are making it impossible for single moms to hold onto jobs: Here in Tucson — a city of roughly 500,000 people, sprawling across a parched valley dotted by cactus — Jamie Smith, a 23-year-old single mother, once had subsidized…
Friday Roundtable: Week in Review
Wick Communications takes over the Friday Roundtable as Dan Shearer of the Green Valley News and I look back on the big stories of the week on KUAT-TV’s Arizona Illustrated.
Friday Roundtable: Two Sheriffs in Town
Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada and Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever visited the Friday Roundtable on KUAT-TV’s Arizona Illustrated last night.
NYT Examines Musicians’ Boycott of AZ
The New York Times looks at the musical boycott of Arizona over SB 1070: For the singer Larry Hernandez, the 2010 Billboard Latin Music Awards should have been a moment of pure celebration. But when it came time for Mr. Hernandez to accept his award as new artist of the year, he got drawn into…
Brewer, Goddard Spar Over SB 1070
The New York Times reports: Gov. Jan Brewer has removed the state’s attorney general from defending Arizona’s controversial new immigration enforcement law, accusing him of colluding with the United States Justice Department as it weighs whether to challenge the law in court. But the matter remained in dispute on Saturday, as the attorney general, Terry…
UA Scientists Sort Out The Polar Icecaps on Mars
NASA/Caltech/JPL/E. DeJong/J. Craig/M. Stetson A bulletin from Daniel Stolte of UA Communications: A team of planetary scientists has used radar and a high-resolution camera to reveal the subsurface geology of Mars’ northern ice cap. The findings — based on data from SHARAD (the surface-penetrating radar) and HiRISE (the high-resolution camera) on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter…
So Long, Gary Coleman
Gary Coleman, the diminutive star of Diff’rent Strokes and onetime Tucsonan, died today at age 42. Details here. I got a chance to interview Coleman a few years back when I wrote a story about the locally made Postal video game. He talked about how much fun he had firing automatic weapons in Tucson: The…
CNN Breaking News Bulletin of the Day
From our in-box this morning: BP’s top official upgrades impact of Gulf oil spill from “very modest” to “environmental catastrophe.”
Tucson’s Everyday People: From Vietnam to Tucson
In this multimedia project by UA journalism student Kellie Mejdrich, we are introduced to the owners of popular campus eatery Saigon Pho. Owners Son Thu Tran and her husband Quan Chu celebrate the two-year anniversary of the restaurant this month.
Thursday Night at The Loft: Dark Side of Dr. Seuss
Tonight at the Loft Cinema: The Dark Side of Dr. Suess. This is your one and only chance to see the Army propaganda films done by the same genius responsible for The Cat in the Hat! Details here.If that doesn’t paint your eggs green, consider heading downtown to see an outdoor movie. Cinema La Placita…
Center for Biological Diversity: New Lawsuit to Stop Off-Shore Drilling in Gulf
The Center for Biological Diversity filed another lawsuit today to block off-shore drilling projects that have been exempted from the environmental permitting process. The press release: The Center for Biological Diversity today filed suit against Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the Minerals Management Service to strike down the agency’s exemption of 49 Gulf of Mexico…
Walmart Springs Up At El Con
After more than a decade of political resistance, Walmart has finally found a way around the city’s Big-Box ordinance and plans to open a store at El Con Mall. Inside Tucson Business has details here. We wonder: While the perimeter has a lively collection of shops and restaurants, will anything ever open up inside El…
Center for Biological Diversity on Offshore Drilling: “Much More Needs To Be Done, and Right Away”
BP may have finally managed to cap the well that’s been leaking between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico daily, but only after it became the worst oil spill in U.S. history. President Barack Obama laid out a number of reforms in a new conference today, including the suspension of…
Classes and Controversy
If State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne is right, then the Mexican-American Studies classes I observed on Friday, May 21, at Tucson High Magnet School are a greenhouse for Chicano revolutionaries bent on turning the Southwest into an Aztlán paradise. Instead of Aztlán, however, I watched students—most of them Hispanic, but some white, and…
Soundbites
Sold out!; funk times two; a dose of Deadbolt; friends with benefits
Mailbag
Danehy’s SB 1070 Viewpoint Is Remarkably Sensible; Devine’s Coverage of the Mentally Ill Has Had Good Results
Ignorance Is Dangerous
In a whirlwind year of conservative lawmaking, we’ve seen everything from an immigration crackdown and a concealed-weapon-restriction letup to the long-awaited liberation of sparkler aficionados. Now it seems the right-leaning Arizona Legislature also wants to free our children from pondering the birds and the bees. Sponsored by state Sen. Chuck Gray of Mesa, and signed…
Live
Clem Snide, the Heligoats
Police Dispatch
Successful threat; brillo-padded story; another bag, another collar
Danehy
As though stigmatizing the girls’ basketball program at Green Fields Country Day School weren’t enough, I now also “coach” the track and field team at the northwest-side school as well. “Coach” is probably too strong of a word; indeed, one of my better athletes told my athletic director that I’m not so much a track…
Nine Questions
Justin Valdez
Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: I have a sister. I read your column each time it comes out in the Tucson Weekly. Once, we were talking about all the hatred against Mexicans in our state, and my sister said, “Sis, why do they hate Mexicans so much in Arizona? Why do they hate us so much?” I asked…
Downing
My neighborhood, like most of the leafy central ‘hoods of Tucson, is lousy with mockingbirds—mockingbirds singing all night from telephone poles and the tops of trees; mockingbirds fluttering up and looping around to show off their cool white wing patches; mockingbirds hopping around on their long, skinny black legs, flashing their wings and tails and…
T Q&A
Jeremy Isajiw
Top Ten in Books
Mostly Books top sales for the week
Guest Opinion
In 2005, Arizona was part of a group of about eight states that ranked 49th out of 50 in education spending. How can that happen? It’s all in how you combine the data sets. Anyway, the point is that states are competing to be at the bottom. Why is being at the bottom better than…
City Week
Kore Press Benefit Auction and Garden Party; Bubblepalooza; “Every Woman”; Crossing the Line: The Arizona ‘Border Disorder’ Comedy Show; Jessy J and her Band
Top Ten in Movies
Casa Video’s top rentals for the week
Minding the Mine
Last week, I joined some colleagues on a tour of the proposed Rosemont Mine site, just off of Highway 83 in the Santa Rita Mountains. The tour was led by Jeffrey Cornoyer, the senior mine geologist for Rosemont Copper. Dan Ryan, the former TV sports dude who is now Rosemont’s community relations director, was also…
Media Watch
KJLL finds financial stability under Scott
Top Ten in Music
Zia Records top sales for the week
What’s the Rush?
While he campaigned for a City Council seat last year, Richard Fimbres pledged to streamline Tucson’s land-use code (LUC). After being elected, he followed through on his promise—and critics say that the community may be harmed as a result. In late March, the council approved a motion by Fimbres to have a draft revision to…
The Skinny
Voters pass the sales-tax increase in a landslide … Clean Elections makes a comeback … Rasmussen has lots of new polls for Arizona, but are they reliable? … and more!
Old Favorite
It had been at least a decade since I’d visited La Fuente Restaurant prior to this review. The long absence was not because I had any bad experiences in the past; I just didn’t have any memorable ones, and the location is not in a part of town that I often frequent, so it managed…
The Multitasker
Gabriel Sullivan—local musician, singer-songwriter and bandleader—grew up listening to and playing punk rock, but he now spreads himself among such genres as Latin, blues, country, rock, soul and, lately, gypsy and Balkan music. Just 22, he’s also a graphic designer and the booker at downtown’s Red Room bar. “I feel like I’m extremely ADD when…
Noshing Around
New: Joe Mama’s Grill; Bubby’s Chicago Style; Sausage Shop Meat Market; Fun With Food Fridays
Back to Basics
Montreal’s Plants and Animals is in many ways a project about going back—not necessarily to nature, as their name might imply, but to rock music, and to being in a rock band. The three members—Warren Spicer, Matthew “the Woodman” Woodley and Nicolas Basque—were adept at making complicated music as music-school students before forming Plants and…
Weekly Wide Web
The new favorite word of politicians: “misspoke.” Did you say something stupid? Just say “I misspoke” a few times during your next speech, and everything’s fine. Just ask Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal, who “misspoke” by saying, multiple times, that he served in Vietnam. (He was in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, but was…
Ogre-rific!
A return to form is rare in movie franchises. Usually, if the first film is good, the second is simply bigger and targeting more money. And if there’s a third one, the odds are it’ll be even worse. There are exceptions—especially when the trilogies are pre-packaged, like Lord of the Rings—but once a series loses…
Now Showing at Home
The Wolfman (Blu-ray); The Virginian: The Complete First Season; The New Daughter (Blu-ray)
Big Bomb
Will Forte is a talented, funny guy, and I would like to see him make a successful transition from Saturday Night Live to the big screen. Unfortunately for Forte, MacGruber, his first starring big-screen role, is far from a success. While Forte gives it his all, and fellow SNL writer Jorma Taccone makes a valiant…
LCD Soundsystem: This Is Happening (DFA/Virgin)
Are you ready to say goodbye to LCD Soundsystem? Because the inherent drama of an announced “final” album insists that we prematurely indulge in nostalgia, and asks that we cherish these final moments before they’re gone. That ephemeral glow subsumes This Is Happening, and it’s a struggle to decontextualize the album in order to judge…
Coconino Quest
I’ve discovered that it’s vital for me to travel to Flagstaff for a few weekends every summer. What’s not to like about this place? A thick pine forest rich with hiking trails. Great restaurants. Funky shops. Friendly locals. And average summer temps ranging from the mid-70s to the mid-80s. When I’ve had enough of the…
A Laughing Matter
A powerful ruler has died, and the lack of an automatic succession protocol has resulted in a power vacuum, which a number of petty leaders are seeking to fill. Assassination, kidnapping and torture are a constant threat. Which nation is currently experiencing such upheaval? Whatever it is, it’s the place depicted onstage at the Gaslight…
Toni Braxton: Pulse (Atlantic)
It’s difficult to imagine a singing voice sexier than Toni Braxton’s—call it smoky, sultry, a calm storm, a warm caress or whatever. It’s the perfect instrument to deliver the bedroom soul for which the Grammy-winning R&B star rightfully has become famous. But Braxton, now a radiant 41, hasn’t released an album in five years, making…
Dry Times
For kids living throughout Tucson, going to the neighborhood pool isn’t just about cooling off; it’s also about spending time with friends, taking swim lessons and (sometimes) staying out of trouble. But this summer, fewer kids will be able to enjoy city pools. Way back in January, the Tucson City Council told the Parks and…
Sizeys Time!
Luis Jiménez is the best-known artist in the annual Small Works show at Davis Dominguez, this year given the clever title Small Things Considered. But Jiménez’s piece, “Abu Ghraib Study,” doesn’t fit in with the general lightheartedness of the annual summer invitational, which gathers together tiny works by a multitude of artists. The artists are…
The National: High Violet (4AD)
Success and fatherhood have done nothing to ease Matt Berninger’s fears about finding his way. But by continuing to explore those fears with an ever-greater artistic command, Berninger and The National have reached new heights, with an intense and radiant fifth album. High Violet is a sort of distilled passion, burning with intimacy and vivid…
Got Books?
It’s summer—so it’s time to read. You read on the plane; you read at the beach; you read at home while your kids are at the multiplex seeing the latest mindless summer blockbuster. There, now that we’ve gotten the intro out of the way, here are some books I highly recommend this summer. At the…
Helping the Poorest
For six hours, Sarah Roberts trudged through knee-deep mud, high in the mountains of Northern Guatemala. Ahead of her, an indigenous couple carried their malnourished 17-month-old baby, hoping to find medical treatment at the nearest hospital. “They were walking out of their community into a different world,” said Roberts, a registered nurse who volunteers for…
Always Reliable
Fans of mystery novelist J.A. Jance are awarded with consistency and constancy. At her current pace, she’s putting out two books a year and has a tidy stable of well-developed heroes and heroines. The Bisbee-raised, UA-educated Jance is now the author of 40 books, including the J.P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series and several…
Musicians Sound Off Against SB 1070
Arizona’s new immigration law is drawing more attention from musicians who say they won’t play the state. From Pitchfork: Arizona’s controversial immigration law continues to draw outrage from the music community. Rage Against the Machine frontman Zack De La Rocha has helped organize the Sound Strike, a protest against the state law, which “would make…
And They’re Off! Your 2010 Candididates for Office in Arizona
The list of candidates for office this year—barring some kind of legal challenge—has been posted by the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office. Check ’em out here. There are a few surprises. Who knew that Jay Quick would join the four Republicans running against Democrat Gabrielle Giffords? Or that five Republicans would be seeking the chance…
Tucson Weekly Gets U.S. House Floor Shout-Out
Our April 29 story on the Robert Krentz murder got a lot of people talking in a lot of different places, one of which was the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives this week. District 8 Representative Gabrielle Giffords displayed a large version of that issue’s cover and quoted several sections of the Leo…
Chickens, Wine and Raffle: Yay, it’s a Kim Fox Fundraiser
Arts Marketplace is the location for the final Kim Fox fundraiser for her food sabbatical trek (from Paris to Lithuania) we told you about in the Tucson Weekly. Tomorrow, from 5 to 7:30 p.m., there will be wine and some good eats, and we understand some amazing locally made goat cheese. Kim told The Range…
Soundtrack for Arizona
Maybe this is just what we need right now: Soundtrack for a Revolution playing at the Loft tonight, 3233 E. Speedway Blvd., 7:30 p.m.
