New at ScrambleWatch '08:

• Ephraim Cruz breaks his silence about that child-support case

• We announce the very first ScrambleWatch Muckraker Challenge--with big prizes!

• A preview of tonight's Clean Elections debate between Al Melvin and Pete Hershberger

• Clowns!

The goings-on in Tucson are relatively slim during the summer, partially due to it being damn hot outside. Usually, the City Week section, the fiefdom of the interns (including myself), tries to alleviate this boredom by pointing out interesting goings on around the city. But sometimes, deadlines and the reality of being a weekly paper means interesting events fall through the cracks (through no fault of us, the dynamic, beleaguered interns).

In such a vein, I present to you, the blog-reading public, Valley of the Ashes, a burlesque variety show based on The Great Gatsby. It's 3 bucks to get in; it's at the Hotel Congress at 311 E. Congress St.; it's at 8 p.m., Thursday, July 3, and it's a friggin' burlesque show based on The Great Gatsby.

I mean, if nothing else, this is cheap and weird enough that it warrants further investigation. Put on your best flapper gear, and give it a look.

Call Hotel Congress at 622-8848 for more info.

Looks like we’ll still have City Manager Mike Hein to kick around for a while. After all the drama that followed City Councilman Steve Leal’s e-mailed request for Hein’s resignation, the council met today and Leal delivered a quasi-apology for bungling the resignation demand, though he added that he still had frustrations with Hein.

The council agreed to look into hiring an auditor who could make sense of the city budget and vanished behind closed doors into executive session. When they emerged a few minutes ago, they voted 7-0 to support Councilwoman Karin Uhlich's motion that the council and the manager work on their communication issues “to best serve the community.”

Whether this means group counseling remains to be seen.