What's with all the reunion shows this weekend, Tucson?  Chronicles Presents, Tucson's self-proclaimed premier Hip Hop showcase group, are going back to basics and reuniting for a free show at 9 p.m., Friday, June 27, at The District Tavern, 260 E. Congress St. The home of the $3 shot of whiskey and High Life.


The current roster of rappers schedule to perform are Shaun Harris, Sho Nuff, Terick Lamont, Malachi Messenger and your host: Black One and DJ Saer Uno. 

Chronicles Presents- Tucson Arizona's Premier Hip Hop showcase is getting the "gritty reboot" and going back to basics. Featured at one of the last real dive bars on Congress St., "Noir" is designed to bring back the small, personal, authentic feel that made Chronicles special in the first place.

Jake and J-Boogie are celebrating the release of their new album, Breakfast. I'm digging the "Mimosas" music video that was filmed, edited and produced by Jose "Chewest" Zavala. Runt from The Jivin Scientists scrambled his way in this track.

WASHINGTON – A Mesa executive told a Senate panel Wednesday that there is plenty of opportunity for economic development in Indian Country, but not enough investment to make it happen.

Gary Davis, president and CEO of the Mesa-based National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, was one of several witnesses at a Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing on the importance of encouraging investment on tribal lands.

Davis said his organization’s efforts to help tribal businesses and economies “are oftentimes frustrated by federal programs that provide too few dollars and too many rigid operating and private matching-fund requirements.”

Other panelists agreed that access to financing is key to boosting economic development in Indian Country.

“Native communities all across the nation continue to face extraordinary economic challenges that limit access to capital,” said Dennis Nolan, acting director of the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund.

Nolan said a 2001 survey by the fund found this poor access to be one of the key reasons for the lack of economic opportunity in native communities.

The federal fund is supposed to help reverse that trend, by investing in nongovernmental entities so they can serve low-income communities that lack access to affordable financial services.

But the CDFI Fund itself came in for a fair amount of criticism Wednesday from other witnesses and lawmakers.

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and chairman of the committee, pointed out that none of the current 68 Native CFDIs have been awarded program funds in the last two years.

Nolan attributed that to both a lack of funding and a lack of awareness about the program in native communities.

“In the last round in 2013, we actually only had two native CDFIs that actually applied for the program,” Nolan said. “One of them probably would have made the qualified list to receive an award had we had some available funding.”

I guess we can totally concur that the 1980's was a serious time for drugs and television. I'd liked you to take a moment and think of that happier time and place, and picture what it would be like Game of Thrones was a hit HBO series in the eighties. It would look and feel much different than the incarnation we know today. We would have to watch it on VHS, and the theme song would be a kick ass club song.


Some anonymous YouTube user decided to take two separate fan made Game of Thrones pieces, and forged them into one. The maker clearly cites his sources, so there's no confusion of how he was able to make this retro video. You can download the song here by Steve Duzz, and watch the footage from its original source here. 

Check out the spoiler-free theme intro here:

Unlike in later years, the lands bordering this stretch of the mighty river, down which Orellana and his men were headed, was densely populated, kingdoms made prosperous by elaborate techniques for farming turtles, manioc, maize, llamas, nuts, peppers, honey, pineapples, avocados, and other goods. In one region people harvested rubber and manufactured devices from it. In another, people specialized in producing vast quantities of pottery. The largest kingdom they encountered, the Omaguas, bordered three hundred miles along the river.

For the next few months, Orellana’s band—now down to fifty men—fought constant battles with thousands of warriors in flotillas of canoes, who were waiting in ambush as word of the odd, bearded white men preceded them downstream. As with the conquest of the Aztecs and Incas, the superior Spanish weaponry—steel swords, harquebuses, cross-bows and armor—enabled the relative handful of Spaniards to fight their way through vastly greater numbers of natives. The Spaniards would often land and fight through swarms of warriors in order to raid villages for food.

The Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation (SAAF) is participating in the 20th Annual HIV Testing Day, a nationwide campaign urging people to get tested to learn if they are infected with the HIV virus.

Testing will be available at the SAAF main office as well as at other locations throughout Tucson (see listing below). HIV testing is free and confidential. The testing procedure is a HIV rapid test that produces results in 15 minutes. SAAF is partnering with Walgreens, the Tucson Indian Center, and Wingspan in this community-wide call for HIV testing.

The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) estimates that more than one million people are living with HIV in the United States. The CDC recommends that all Americans, ages 13–64, be routinely tested for HIV as part of their regular health care practice. In Pima County, more than 1,000 people are believed to be infected and unaware of it. The only sure way to know if you are HIV-infected is to be tested.

DATE: Friday, June 27, 2014

Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation
375 S. Euclid Ave.
8:00am-8:00pm

Pima County Health Department
Theresa Lee Clinic-332 S. Freeway
8:00am-5:00pm

IBT’s
616 N. 4th Avenue
4:00-9:00pm

Tucson Indian Center
97 E. Congress Street
11:30am-2:30pm

Walgreens
Grant & Swan
3:00-7:00pm

Wingspan- EON Youth Lounge
430 E. 7th St.
3:00pm-8:00pm

Walgreens
605 W. Ajo Way
3:00-7:00pm

Why do it yourself when the Chinese have probably a machine that will make life easier. Two years ago, A Chinese hospital in Nanjing created this hands-free sperm extractor to help sterile male patients. There's a massage tube that has various speeds, adjusts in height and has a screen to get the job done.

Watch it go: 

Yesterday, the Tucson Weekly was told that Wingspan, Tucson's 25-year-old LGBT community center and advocacy organization, was possibly closing, its executive director terminated and that employees were told yesterday that their jobs are ending July 31 due to the continued loss of grants and other funding.

However, Paul Guerrero, Wingspan board of directors, denied that current Wingspan employees were told they were losing their jobs. In fact, he said, the organization is working to prevent that from happening and to partner with other organizations to help the agency continue its programs, like Eon Youth, Anti-Violence Prevention and Senior Pride. The Wingspan board, he said, plans to send out a formal press release tomorrow.

Guerrero confirmed that Wingspan Executive Director Carol Grimsby was terminated on June 16th due to lack of funding, and added that this is a very difficult time right now for the board and remaining staff.

Other sources close to the Weekly said a plan was in the works for the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation to take on Eon Youth and the Anti-Violence Prevention projects. But Guerrero said no such decision has been made, but that the board has been reaching out to other organizations, what he described as partners and collaborators, to help determine what happens to the organization and its programs.

In a press release issued today, Vince Rabago, chairman of an Arizona Latino Democratic Caucus of Pima County, joins the chorus demanding the immediate resignation of Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal for all those lovely blog and internet posts he's had time to make anonymously while running our state's glorious education system:

Huppenthal was recently forced to reveal that he had been secretly posting seriously offensive and false internet comments, including attacks on ethnic and other groups in anonymous online blog comments for years under the fake names of Falcon9 and Thucydides. This included, among others, outrageously comparing teachers in a Mexican American Studies program in Arizona to the KKK and violent skinheads, calling the poor “lazy pigs,” falsely blaming FDR for the rise of Hitler and the Great Depression, as well as his views that all Spanish media should be banned.

Vince Rabago, Chairman of the Latino Democratic Caucus of Pima County demanded that Huppenthal resign. “This outrageous conduct is unacceptable for any political leader in this day and age. Huppenthal would never have been elected if voters had known his true colors, his outrageous and false assertions and beliefs, and had been aware of his radical anti-Hispanic views. The only responsible thing for him to do is resign immediately,” said Rabago.

The scandal has only grown as more and more comments surface, being discovered and revealed to the public, comments that Huppenthal anonymously posted for years on political blogs under the fake names of Falcon9 and Thucydides. It has been discovered that the elected official even used state resources and computers to post the anonymous offensive comments.

Rabago joins numerous Arizona leaders including the former Republican Arizona Superintendent of Schools, Lisa Graham-Keegan, in publicly calling for Huppenthal's immediate resignation from statewide office.

Nathan For You is a reality-based comedy television series starring Canadian comedian Nathan Fielder is back. Fielder made headlines in February when he founded a non-profit, parody coffee shop called Dumb Starbucks. Sadly, the "art shop" was closed by the Los Angeles Health Department after three days of service.

Here’s the preview for the second season of Nathan For You:

Here's an eight-minute video of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog pooping on soccer and its fans watching the World Cup. Triumph would induce a field day if he fared to the Rialto tomorrow morning. We can't wait for the next video to surface.