Yeah, this seems bad. I've sat on those bleachers, City of Tucson. I would have appreciated knowing that they're held together with zipties and duct tape:

The bleachers at the Tucson Convention Center have been used for 27 years.

When the TCC needs more seats for a show or an event, the bleachers are set up to accommodate nearly 3,000 people.

They put close to the stage and near the floor. They may also put people in harm's way.

"It's safe today," says TCC Director Tommy Olbermeir.

But whether they're safe tomorrow, is another question.

"I'd say we're quickly approaching that point," he says.

Many of the railings around the bleacher sections are held together by duct tape.

Hand railings are secured by nylon, plastic ties. Many of them wobble as visitors hold on while slowly making their way down the stairs.

• Photo L.A.
• Tucson magician John Coppin sticks a sword through participant's throat at recent 2nd Saturdays Downtown.

Coppin is a master magician who was a contender in the recent Stage Magician of the Year competition and a regular performer at Tucson's 2nd Saturdays Downtown.

A 2nd Saturdays niche at the Ronstadt Center was the stage for his sword trick. The master maneuver was compelling enough to draw the crowd away from a nearby table selling marshmallow and weenie roasters shaped like teddy bears with the foodstuff where private body parts should be.

I know I was hooked — with the sword trick, not the weenie roasters. I had to be hooked with the sword trick, literally, since it was my neck through which the sword was stuck. Coppin, however, has a gentle touch and the wound magically healed before I could snap out of the hypnotic trance in which he placed me during the procedure. The crowd oohed and ahhed, he gifted one young lady with a snazzy balloon parrot, pulled a few rubber balls out of thin air and the weenie roasters were all but forgotten.

While the balloon twisting and traditional tricks are steady staples in his acts, Coppin says the weirder side of magic is where it’s at. Some of his zanier tricks include the sword through the neck, sticking a needle through a balloon, or the ever-popular “zig zag lady” who is sawed into pieces.

“They add a bit of craziness to the act,” Coppin says. “It goes away from the norm.”

Hacker group Lulzsec, which has been on a data thievery rampage of late, including attacks on Sony, PBS, and the tv show X Factor, has made Arizona law enforcement its latest target. Making 700 confidential documents from Arizona Public Safety available on torrent sites, the group said in a press release that they were "targeting AZDPS specifically because we are against SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona". Some of the release includes personal information, including phone numbers and addresses of officers.

Tucson Weekly music critic Sean Bottai really liked the new album from Canadian band Fucked Up, calling David Comes to Life "the record people who think they don't like hardcore should hear all the way through" and the songs "uniformly gorgeous". Now there's a somewhat strange video for "Queen of Hearts" and like the album, it's ambitious, creative, and moving. The version on the album may not have kids singing on it, but I might like the video's take on song a bit better now that I've heard it this way.

• Arizona State Parks
• Slide Rock State Park near Sedona

The Joint Legislative Budget Committee agreed earlier this month to allow the State Parks Department to shift some funds around so the agency would have enough funds to handle payroll and other other expenses.

Here’s the bad news: The parks are continuing to run on a shoestring and the current path is a road to disaster.

“We can’t go on every year like this and try to sustain a statewide park system,” said board member William Scalzo.

The GOP-led Legislature has whittled away at the parks’ funds for years now. The parks used to get $10 million a year in lottery dollars, but that has been redirected by the Legislature. And in the upcoming budget year, lawmakers swiped a portion of the gate fees from the parks, as well as some of the money from the parks State Lake Improvement Fund.

At this point, the department has no money for any capital improvements—new campgrounds, improved sewer systems, historic renovation. The parks had $150 million in unmet capital needs in 2007; State Parks Director Renée Bahl says that number is even higher today, but the department doesn't have enough money to even survey the needs.

Several parks are open because local governments, business leaders and non-profits have stepped up to help.

The partners have been “fantastic,” says Bahl, but the arrangement “was a bridge, and there’s only so long a bridge can go.”

Photographer Josh Morgan went down to Hereford, Arizona to document the evacuations resulting from the Monument Fire.

Slideshow

Scenes from the Monument Fire

Click to View 15 slides

Mad Dogs British Pub is opening a Tucson location. From the press release:

(Tucson, AZ)—- Mad Dogs British Pub, a full tilt experience of British-influenced food, beers and colorful décor is expanding its unique brand of pub entertainment across the U.S. Targeting development in Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, Peoria, Tucson and Scottsdale, Mad Dogs British Pub aims to open 20 locations by mid-2015, six of which are expected to open in Arizona.

“It’s such a natural expansion for us,” says Terry Corless, a native of Cambridge, England and currently the company’s CEO. “Many of our customers in San Antonio are either transplants or visitors from around the country. We’re constantly asked when we’re going to open other locations.”

Mad Dogs British Pub opened on San Antonio’s Riverwalk in 1995 putting a playful twist on English pub culture, with its staff donning kilts and Union Jack dresses while serving beer to patrons in yard glasses. A franchise program was launched in 2010. In addition to expansion in Arizona, the brand is also eyeing expansion in Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Tennessee.

The Arizona Biennial ’11 opens tomorrow night at the Tucson Museum of Art, followed by an after-hours party that includes Powhaus Productions, Pork Torta and lots more. And they say there's nothing to do in this town in the summertime...

If you haven't read The New York Times story giving high praise to the cocktails at Tucson's own Scott and Co., you might enjoy it.

And if you want to try those cocktails at cut-rate prices, you can do so at Scott and Co.’s new happy hour from 6 to 8 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday.

Co-owner Travis Reese tells us that the cocktail menu is priced at $5 across the board during the new happy hour. Classic cocktails will cost you the same, although upgrading to finer booze could cost you a few extra bucks.

It's a little strange to think of a Pixar movie as not being universally loved, even by critics. Even the studio's sequels are wildly acclaimed, with reviewers discussing how Toy Story 3 brought them to tears, but it looks like Cars 2, hitting theaters tomorrow, might break their winning streak.

Right now, the film is at a 37% approval rating on film review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, hands down the lowest rating ever for a Pixar film. There have been Pixar films that would have received a perfect 100% on the site if it weren't for one or two bad reviews (semi-famously, former Star movie critic Phil Villarreal was one of two critics to screw up Wall-E's perfect score). There are critics giving the film a positive review, but there are quite a few prominent writers who, like New York Times critic A.O. Scott, are not thrilled by the sequel's focus on supposedly charming hick, Tow Mater:

Mostly, though, there is Mater, who tags along with Lighting on the grand prix circuit before falling in with the secret agents. Through it all, he talks and talks and talks, mangling idioms and missing the point in an exaggerated drawl that would make even the cast of “Hee-Haw” wince. As if to prove that certain groups have escaped the protection of political correctness, the Southern-fried Mater is dumb, excitable and puppy-dog loyal, his idiot-savant automotive expertise grounded in humble, blue-collar simplicity. I doubt anyone will protest much, but Pixar has now found its redneck Jar-Jar Binks. Such a proud moment.

In the end, maybe it doesn't really matter if Cars 2 is actually good or not. Disney will certainly make a bazillion dollars from the movie and the wave of merchandise that accompanies it, and the core audience (which includes my two kids) couldn't be more excited and it's not like my nine year old son consulted the New York Times to see if he really wanted to spend all week bugging me about the film's release date. For me, if the movie's terrible, it's just disappointing. One thing you could count on from Pixar is that they'd make movies that my entire family would enjoy while managing not to be just a two hour ad for a line of toys. A four year run of movies I genuinely loved as films (Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up, and Toy Story 3), a stinker was bound to emerge eventually, right?

See our review in next Thursday's issue to find out whether the Weekly ends up being one of the lone voices in the wilderness enjoying the movie or whether we kick Cars 2 while it's down.