If you have a kiddo in a Tucson Unified School District school, chances are they came home last Wednesday with a handout advertising the TUSD School Master Plan Town Hall meetings, which start today, Monday, Aug. 20. TUSD also sent out a press release.

The point of the meetings is to get public input to the school board on how the district should deal with a projected $17 million deficit. Discussion at past school board meetings have included the possibility of the school board going to the community with a bond package in 2013 for funds needed to build larger centralized schools. That means the possible closure of up to 34 eastside and westside schools.

The district set up a website for for the plan that you can visit here, and according to the press release, the town halls will be videotaped and available on the website. An online survey is also on the website for those unable to attend the town hall meetings.

From TUSD:

The public is encouraged to participate in upcoming town halls to provide input as to how the Tucson Unified School District Governing Board should make budget decisions to overcome a projected $17 million deficit while continuing to improve student achievement. The public meetings will be held Aug. 20, 22, and 25.

The Governing Board is seeking community input as it develops a School Master Plan to address five critical areas: Academic Achievement, Equity and Diversity, Services and Programs, Facilities, and Finances. The district faces substantial budget challenges due to demographic shifts in the community, declining enrollment, reduced state funding, and escalating expenses for utilities and maintenance.

Community members will have the opportunity to learn more about the economic realities facing the district as well the chance to provide their ideas to help shape the future of the district and support the priority of academic excellence.

The town halls are scheduled as follows:

• Monday, Aug. 20, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Sahuaro High School Auditorium, 545 N. Camino Seco

• Wednesday, Aug. 22, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Cholla High Magnet School Auditorium, 2001 W. Starr Pass Blvd.

• Saturday, Aug. 25, 10 a.m.- noon
Catalina Magnet High School Auditorium, 3645 E. Pima St.

In another case of something amazing rolling across my Facebook feed, I present to you Nicky Da B's "Hot Potato Style":

Fact: I was hypnotized by the Conan O'Brien-esque mouth superimpositions the whole damn time.

The evening's show, brought to you by MEOWmeow Productions, will feature Nicky Da B, Rusty Lazer and Tucson's very own Jamie J.

From Club Congress:

Nicky Da B is at the forefront of the next generation of New Orleans Bounce Rappers. He is currently earning huge accolades for his most recent work with Grammy nominated producer Diplo on “Express Yourself” (currently in rotation on MTV and an NPR Song of the Day), his ground-breaking video for “Hot Potato Style” and his sold out headlining performance at the Sydney Opera House this past June. His style is deliberately smoother than many of his Bounce contemporaries (though his lyrics are no less explicit) and his delivery is very unique…lying somewhere between the rapid fire vocalizations of Jamaican Dancehall and the call and response party-style chants of NoLa Bounce, complimented by a rap lyricism not usually associated with the genre. He uses his voice naturally (and unnaturally!) to create the chopped vocal sound that many other rappers do via the producers’ magic fingers. His live performance is highlighted by several choreographed songs featuring his three amazing dancers and his DJ/Manager Rusty Lazer.

One thing to note, courtesy of MEOWmeow's Facebook event page: "This party will be ghetto fabulous and you are encouraged to celebrate such spirit in your most ghetto fabulous outfits."

You heard 'em, folks: Get yourselves all bootylicious and get on the dance floor.

Tickets are $6 for the 18+ event. Bring your own booty.

[Club Congress]
[MEOWmeow Productions]

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Friday formally proposed 838,232 acres as "critical habitat" for endangered jaguars in southern Arizona and New Mexico.

From the Center:

“Jaguars once roamed across the United States, from California to Louisiana, but have been virtually extinct here since the 1950s,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has worked for almost 20 years to bring back American jaguars. “Today's habitat proposal will ensure North America's largest cat returns to the wild mountains and deserts of the Southwest. Jaguars are a spectacular part of our natural heritage and belong to every American — just as surely as bald eagles, wolves and grizzly bears."

Like the gray wolf, jaguars were driven from the United States by federal and state predator-killing programs. Over the past two decades, however, the animals have begun recolonizing Arizona and New Mexico. Macho B, the last jaguar known to have crossed into the United States from Mexico, was killed in a botched state capture effort in 2009.

Did Stephen Seigel rave enough about this show in Soundbites this week? I think not!

The Bad Livers and Split Lip Rayfield were two of my can't-miss, top-rad favorites of the '90s. That wasn't just because I left every show with a smile on my face and exhausted from the sheer energy, but also because both bands surprised me every time, with their blinding chops matched only by their, how you say?, cheekiness!

The show's at 8 p.m., tonight, Saturday, Aug. 18; Hank Topless opens. Well worth the $8. Have fun, and hope those fretting fingers slow down enough that you can watch them.

Yet another Tucson restaurant institution is closing, folks.

This time, it's Jack's Original Barbecue, originally owned and operated under Jack and Laura Banks from 1950 to 1992, when Jack retired and sold the business.

The current owners, Greg and Steve Baccardo, along with their father, Larry, purchased the restaurant a few years later from its second owner, and have run it since.

Now, after a long drought in sales, the restaurant is closing its doors.

"That's what happens when you go through a five-year recession ... you can only keep up with it for so long," Greg Baccardo said. "We want to be able to pay everybody back, not go bankrupt and shut down the right way.

"We don't want the business to close. I'd rather give somebody the business if they bought the building for whatever it appraises for."

The restaurant was originally slated to shut its doors at the beginning of the summer, Baccardo said. Then the Arizona Daily Star caught wind of their plans and published a story about the then-imminent closure. "[The Star] came out with the article, and everyboudy started pouring in. I said, 'Hey, we'll ride it as long as we can' ... then slowly but surely, it just tailed off again 'til, you know, nothing."

The restaurant is packed one last time, with diners streaming in to say farewell. "Everyone's telling stories of 'when I was a kid,'" Baccardo said. "My father brought me here when I was a kid, before we bought it. It was a big part of my family, a part of my history."

Jack's Original Barbecue, located at 5250 E. 22nd St., plans on keeping regular business hours today, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., for as long as they still have food to serve.

City Councilman Steve Kozachik, Republican National Committeeman Bruce Ash and Pima County Democratic Party Chairman Jef Rogers stop by Arizona Public Media's Political Roundtable to talk about how Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan will affect the presidential race and Southern Arizona congressional races, handicap the GOP primaries for the Pima County Board of Supervisors, weigh the pros and cons of the sales-tax proposition, warn about the dangers of the jungle primary, and unpack the controversy of a UA-area student-housing highrise.

From the Associated Press:

A federal judge has barred Arizona from rejecting federal voter-registration forms on the grounds that the applicants haven't provided proof of citizenship as required by a voter-approved state law.

Wednesday's decision by U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver is a response to an April ruling by an appeals court.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that a federal law trumps Arizona's requirement that people to prove their citizenship in order to vote.

That federal law allows voters to fill out a mail-in voter registration card and swear they are citizens under penalty of perjury, but it doesn't require them to show proof as Arizona's 2004 law does.

Silver ruled that Arizona has to make the federal form available in places where the state registration form is available.

Honestly, at this point, I just want the state's government to decide whether it wants to abide by federal law (medical marijuana) or continue to fight the power (immigration policy), and stick with that stance across the board.

C'mon Jan: If you have the sand to make THIS your Facebook profile picture, surely you have the sand to take a solid damn stance.

A storied child of Tucson's 5,000-year history turns 237 on Monday: El Presidio de San Agustín de Tucsón was established on August 20, 1775.

Lots of fun is planned to celebrate the event. The complete schedule is on the Pima County Website, and it's not too late to add your own party.

Here are some of our favorites:

Birds and Beer!
Pizza, local brew, live birds, bird photos and trivia on a big screen are featured from 5 to 7:30 p.m., tonight, Friday, Aug. 17, as part of the Tucson Bird and Wildlife Festival at the Riverpark Inn, 350 S. Freeway. It's $15, but there's also cake. Details are here.

Trains!
What a change trains made in Tucson's history! But you can learn about that any day at the Southern Arizona Transportation Museum. Saturday, Aug. 18, it's time to partay! From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., there's cake, Tucson dignitaries and trains of all sizes to play with. Details are here. This event is part of an all-day celebration along Fourth Avenue and University Boulevard involving a beach party and 23.7 percent discounts (for the 237th birthday, get it?) and all kinds of other fun. Details are here.

Costumes!
One by one, the five flags that have flown over Tucson's history are presented by people dressed in the outfits of their era, starting at 7:30 p.m., Monday, Aug. 20, at the reconstructed portion of the birthday baby, the Presidio de Tucsón, corner of Washington St. and Church Ave. Kids especially love when the muskets blast and the cannon booms, but the whole family enjoys talking to historic figures in character and seeing what life was like in the fort. It's also one of the few places to learn about the importance of Apaches to our town's past. Tucson's official troubadour Ted Ramirez performs his Southern Arizona ballads and, naturally, there's cake. Details are here.

So how about this Nano Cache Kickstarter?

A project out of Tucson's Cybernetic Research Laboratories, a machining and engineering company just off of Aviation Highway and Alvernon Way, has been ridiculously successful with their travel-sized capsule container Kickstarter project. (For the uninitiated, Kickstarter is one of the original crowd-funding websites—users post projects and ask other users to pledge funds. If it gets off the ground, the donors get gifts related to the project; if it doesn't, nothing changes hands.)

How successful, you ask? The original target for the project was $2,500. Kickstarter users have, as of this writing, pledged $30,258—1,210 percent of the funding they originally wanted to get the project off the ground, making it the third-most-funded Tucson-based Kickstarter yet, with 18 days yet to go before funding closes.

From the Nano Cache Kickstarter page:

Nano Cache is a versatile, sturdy, sleek, protective metal case to be used for just about… well, anything! Nano Cache was the idea to somehow protect all those precious small items and keep them secure/close at all times on your person, backpack, pet, etc.

Forty years ago, The Godfather was packing them in at theaters; Neil Young released Harvest; and gas cost 35 cents a gallon.

You can relive more of the good things from 1972 through KXCI 91.3 FM’s concert celebration of that year at the Rialto Theatre on Saturday, Aug. 25.

When KXCI celebrated the 40th anniversary of Woodstock with a similar concert in 2009, it was followed by tributes to the music of 1970 and 1971. This year’s concert is expected to continue the success of the previous three, with nine local bands and solo artists covering cuts from nine of the best albums of 1972. The featured albums range from Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together to Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book to Randy Newman’s Sail Away.

“It’s a lot of fun, really,” said Amanda Shauger, community engagement director at KXCI. “It’s a little bit kitschy, and people get into the ’70s gear. It’s just a great way for people who love downtown, who love Tucson, who love KXCI and who love local music to get together and celebrate.

“I would also say it’s a way to think about the time period. I mean when you look at ’72, it was an election year, and it was the Olympics (in Munich, where terrorists killed members of the Israeli Olympic team). It’s kind of a way to reflect on that history. It’s a fun celebration of music and culture, but it’s an awareness of those times.”

Although the concert is mainly a social event, it’s also a fundraiser for the nonprofit radio station. Proceeds will help keep KXCI on the air and presenting an eclectic music mix that Tucsonans won’t find on most radio stations. Past KXCI Celebrates concerts have drawn more than 500 music fans.

Several food trucks will be on hand outside the Rialto to provide nourishment for concertgoers.

Admission is $10. Children 12 and younger admitted free. Get your tickets here.