Big Freedia is coming back to Club Congress on April 20th and any time the New Orleans Bounce musician comes to town, it really is an event. While I don't know if it'll help in real life, you can pass some time with NSFW digital fun playing a game of Booty Battle on her website, with prizes of some sort involved. It didn't take long for my key-pressing skills to be wildly overmatched by the game, but still it's a few minutes of entertainment for a Monday.

Pima County Supervisor Sharon Bronson, a Democrat seeking a fifth term on the Pima County Board of Supervisors this year, has drawn a Republican opponent: Former UA football player Tanner Bell, who now works in the UA athletics department as an academic counselor.

And apparently, it's tearing him up inside. From Arizona Republic columnist E.J. Montini's blog:

Arpaio said, “I've had presidential candidates visit me in my office. I've talked to every one of them. I don't see anybody talking about this. I don’t see any senators talking about it." . . . When the host asked Arpaio if Republicans were backing him, Arpaio said, “I haven’t heard from any, especially the congressional delegation from Arizona.”

Hmm. I can only wonder why no one is supporting you, Joe.

Seriously, give it up. Just because your "cold case posse" of retirees can use Adobe Illustrator doesn't mean they're forensic experts—they're just really good a touching up photos of their grandkids.

I often wonder how Buddhists feel when companies fashion beer, bars and hot dog restaurants after their spiritual leader. There was apparently quite a stink before Buddha Beer changed it's name to Lucky Beer, but it's webpage is heavy on the Buddhist stuff, with references to the Dalai Lama, enlightenment and other pretty serious Buddhist references.

One wonders how the masses would react to a beer bottle shaped like Jesus or the Pope, but perhaps it would be very well received. He'Brew seems to have made very little of a ruckus, after all.

Looks like our favorite Depeche Mode aficianado/talk show host Jon Justice will be undergoing open-heart surgery tomorrow to fix a tiny hole in his aorta. While he manages to make the procedure seem like not a terribly big deal in the above YouTube clip (and of course, he manages to sneak in a quip about Obamacare), it seems like the very nature of open heart surgery is something to be at least somewhat concerned about, so best of luck to you, Jon.

This week kicks off the "wait, how I am supposed to get there again?" stage of Tucson Modern Streetcar construction, so if you're planning on heading downtown or to Fourth Avenue this week, you might want to re-strategize your normal route to get where you're going.

The main points:

Congress will be closed to traffic, starting tomorrow, from Toole to Stone. Pedestrians, you're still ok, but you might need to do some creative walking. This is scheduled to last for four months.

Sixth Avenue will become a two way street (weird, right?) from Broadway to Sixth Street.

This week, Fourth Avenue will be closed between 6th Street and University Boulevard.

The complete guide to this week's construction from the Streetcar folk is below the cut.

Former Tucson Weekly Film Critic James DiGiovanna here: I've got a new ebook single available at Amazon.com. You can read it on the web, offline on your computer, on iOs or Android, or, if you don't have any of those, just call me and I'll read it to you over the phone.

It's a longish short story about feelings, a talking tree, the nature of consciousness, advertising, and chronic pain. But mostly feelings.

It's called Plants and Animals and I wrote it to help people forget about the terrible thing that Rick Santorum did to them when they were five years old.

The traveling street-food extravaganza knows as the Tucson Food Truck Round-Up heads east this week to the Lazydays RV Park at 3200 E. Irvington Road. The action kicks off at 4 p.m., Tuesday, April 10, and there will be music, live art performances and, for the first time ever at one of these events, beer and wine.

These events have basically become a traveling food court that can pop up just about anywhere. A number of trucks were at the Tucson Museum of Art a few weeks back, then the Bookmans Entertainment Exchange on Grant and now at an RV park. And wherever they happen, droves of people come out to partake of the dozens of kinds of foods the events provide.

There's more on this week's event here.

If you were fortunate enough to have picked up tickets for one of Coachella's two weekends during their brief onsale window early this year (or are have the expendable income needed to purchase tickets on the expensive-borderlining-on-absurd resale market), the LA edition of food blog Eater has a helpful guide to places worth eating close-ish to the Empire Polo Grounds. Every time I attended the festival, I was so broke that I was counting the change in my car to see what I could afford at Del Taco, but still, this seems like it could be helpful to someone.

David Abie Morales is back online with his Three Sonorans' blog. See for yourself at threesonorans.com.

The header at the top of the Three Sonorans' new home is a mantra that many have repeated and others dismissed—History is being made today. What side will you be on?

It's a good question and reminder—despite the criticism we've dished on him from time to time—of what Morales does best: Question the community and advocate for the Mexican-American studies program (including its teachers and program director) and, as he reminds us in his latest post, the future of our desert and its resources.

One situation I've been thinking about a lot since writing on the blog being booted off the TucsonCitizen.com site is why people continue to question what it is about the Three Sonorans that many, many people love and many, many people hate.

Right now there is a severe lack of leadership in the Mexican American community. No group brings everyone together and regularly meets to develop important and meaningful strategy and then act—something that has been needed all along to effectively fight. What exists are many different independent players working like islands, and often what surfaces is a different agenda that is more about politics.

In Tucson, Sylvia Campoy, who is representing the Mendoza plaintiff's in the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund's ongoing desegregation lawsuit, is as close to a focused leader the community has right now. Who comes in a close second? Three Sonorans. Yep, that's what I said. But Morales is an activist, not an organizer, and he works to remind the community about what's important and the result is sometimes a prophetic voice of what's to come.

You love Morales. You hate Morales. Either way, I'm sure you're headed to the blog site to read what he writes next. In Morales' latest post, his reminder regarding video reporting is correct. He's one of the only people out there with a camera capturing important moments and statements from state players — like state Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal.

This is a favorite gem here:

Here's part of the lastest "Citizen"-free post from the Three Sonorans:

In all this, the main point is being missed, and I think these accusations serve their purpose. Why deal with the huge elephant in the room when we can argue semantics? Whether it be exposing corporations, racism, or domestic violence, let us worry about how you didn’t dot the i’s and cross the t’s when you wrote about it.

Consider the Arizona House today. Even Democrats are bringing guns into the state capitol for fear of one of their own. That’s how afraid they are!

But my words exposing this are inaccurate?

My time at the TucsonCitizen.com has been coming to an end for some time. My writing for the “Voice of Tucson” did not fit in with voices they wanted to hear. I started thinking about this when Mark Evans told me recently that Three Sonorans does affect how the overall Tucson Citizen is viewed by others.

To me, if you give me some speech, and it’s free, I’m going to take as much as I can! Isn’t that what we always claim soldiers are fighting/dying for? Our freedom?

Tucson is UA country, and the importance we place on putting spheres through circles (basketball) is demonstrated by following the money. Who gets paid the most at the UA… which bloggers get paid for writing at the TucsonCitizen.com?

These are the different Tucsons that we experience, and I have no hard feelings against Evans. We have different ideas for the future, of what is important, and that is fine.

So now I have my own independent blog at ThreeSonorans.com.