Good news for you Trekkies, George Takei is in Arizona. Unfortunately, he's in Scottsdale.

Takei will be a special guest at a dinner to support Democratic Governor candidate Fred DuVal. The legendary Star Trek icon has been very vocal about his dissatisfaction with our elected officials and their decision making this year, and he made that very clear in his letter to the state during the SB 1062 fiasco.

Entry fee is $100, or you can shell out $2,500 for preferred seating with helmsman of the USS Enterprise. The event is taking place from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., at the Saguaro Hotel, 4000 N. Drinkwater Blvd. Go here to buy your tickets.

When Michelle Rhee, ex-Superintendent of D.C. schools and serial prevaricator (which is a much nicer word than "liar"), decided to leave Students First, the education reform/privatization group she founded, it opened the journalistic floodgates. Dozens of pieces have been written about her and the health of the reform/privatization movement (It's very healthy, and well funded. Frighteningly so.) One of the best recent articles is on Salon: Michelle Rhee’s real legacy: Here’s what’s most shameful about her reign. It dovetails nicely with a post I wrote last week, Schools, Society And Snake Oil Salesmen.

I wrote that the snake oil salesmen in the reform/privatization movement either disavow poverty as a cause of low performance in school or minimize its importance so they can maintain their laser focus on replacing "failing government schools" with charters and voucher-supported private schools — which, by the way, have nearly identical records of success and failure as the schools they brand as failures.

Here's how Matt Bruenig at Salon puts it when discussing one of the "three themes" the reformers use to diminish the strong correlation between poverty and educational attainment.

This third theme usually features reformers like Rhee simultaneously admitting what is obvious — child poverty is an independent drag on educational attainment — without having to endorse doing anything about it. Instead, they insist that reforming education is the only way to do anything about poverty to begin with, so the acknowledgment that poverty is an independent harm in terms of education never inspires any direct action to repair it. Instead, only indirect action through education reform is ever advocated. This is convenient for their cause — and their fundraising campaigns — but it’s totally dishonest and harmful to poor kids.

I said ages ago that I thought the Future Islands show would be a quick sell-out, which turned out to be wrong, since there are apparently a few tickets left for tonight's show at 191 Toole (complete with new temporary bar for the 21 and over set), but hey, here's a GIF of frontman Samuel Herring's most famous dance move (from the Willamette Week, by Leo Zarosinski)

Tickets are (as of writing this) still on sale via Ticketfly. In case you missed it, check out Joshua Levine's feature on the band from this week's issue.

This could be the best news of 2014. The Purple One held a press conference at Lianna La Havas' house and announced he's debuting two albums in late next month, according to Gigwise. Plectrum Electrum, first album with his band 3RDEYEGIRL, and Art Official Age will release on CD/MP3 on Tuesday, Sept. 30.

Here's the tracklist for Art Official Age:

1. ART OFFICIAL CAGE
2. CLOUDS
3. BREAKDOWN
4. THE GOLD STANDARD
5. U KNOW Prince
6. BREAKFAST CAN WAIT
7. THIS COULD BE US
8. WHAT IT FEELS LIKE
9. affirmation I & II
10. WAY BACK HOME
11. FUNKNROLL
12. TIME
13. affirmation III

Click here to pre-order Plectrum Electrum.

Yes, it's still August, so planning ahead for an event in December takes a level of mental focus I'm personally not capable of, but the lineup for the second annual "Celebration of the Lives, Loves and Music of Nowhere Man and a Whiskey Girl" is starting to form and it already looks like a can't miss occasion.

Set for Saturday, December 6, this year, the event (which raised $4000 last year for the Lupus Foundation of Southern Arizona) will be held at both Cafe Passe (from 6 to 9 pm, with the more singer-songwritery acts) and at the Flycatcher (from 8:30 p.m. to close, for the bands and such), with tickets set for $7 for admission to one venue or a $10 wristband to get into both. Already Jimmy Eat World's Jim Adkins is on board, as well as fellow Phoenix acts Dry River Yacht Club and Lonna Beth Kelly, joining Tucson acts Carlos Arzate, Sorry About the Garden, Keli and the Big Dream, Sweet Ghosts and a bunch more. It's all for a great cause and a wonderful opportunity to remember two people who gave a lot of themselves to audiences all over the state.

More info on the shows available on Facebook, including updates on the lineup and a silent auction.

Demolition will begin today on three Arizona Department of Transportation-owned warehouses on Stone and 6th St. which are better known to the community as the former homes of the Downtown Performance Center (DPC) and the Mat Bevel Institute, as the removal of these beloved iconic properties represents the final phase of the twenty-year RTA Downtown Links Corridor project.

In a memo to the Mayor and City Council from Tucson Transportation Director Daryl Cole, as of March of this year TDOT notified the City of the pending demolition of three ADOT-owned warehouses once environmental remediation was complete and had been documented as part of the DLC project. The ADOT properties listed are at 530 N. Stone Ave, 510 N. Stone Ave, and 140 W. 6th St. The demolition is expected to be completed in three weeks.

The 530 N. Stone Ave building is particularly held near and dear to members of the music and art community, as it was used during the lengthy DLC delays as a home to the DPC and Mat Bevel Institute. During its heyday, the DPC was a hotbed of activity that fostered Tucson's disenfranchised youth. It celebrating a burgeoning local counterculture and featured countless local musicians and hosted then-obscure touring punk acts such as Green Day, Bad Religion and The Offspring, as well as regional Arizona bands like Malignus Youth.

Somehow, in my second improv group appearance of the month, I'll be performing with the quite funny folks of Not Burnt Out Just Unscrewed this Saturday night at their newish theater on Speedway next to Fronimo's (3244 E. Speedway Blvd). There will be two shows for your enjoyment: a 7:30 p.m. family-friendly show and then a more "adult" version at 9:30 p.m. Tickets for either are just $5, which is a solid entertainment bargain.

More info at unscrewedtheater.org.

Aida Rodriguez started her career backwards.

"Actually, my first show was in Arizona at The Orpheum Theatre. I did a five minute set before I tried the bit at an open mic," Rodriguez said. "It wasn't until my second set when I was humbled because I bombed."

The mother of two is the midst of the Shaq Comedy All-Star Tour, but she's making a special pit stop in the Old Pueblo. "I believe I'm the first Latin comedian to perform in this tour," Rodriguez said. "This is the same platform that launched Kevin Hart's career."

Rodriguez has reach an important milestone in her comedic journey this month. "I can't believe seven years has gone by, and I feel like I'm just getting started," Rodriguez said. She was a finalist in this year's critically acclaimed reality show, Last Comic Standing. "It was great working with Roseanne Barr, Keenen Ivory Wayans and Russell Peters. I was lucky enough to receive a (comedy) session with Amy Schumer," Rodriguez said.



Rodriguez was one of two female finalists in the ninth season of Last Comic Standing. "Being a comedian is a challenge all into it's own. But I would say being a woman has an added pressure because there aren't that many women at the top, and it's a male dominated sport," Rodriguez said. "Opportunities will create themselves when you really work hard at honing your craft, developing a voice and a clear point of view.”

"I don't like playing the "woman victim comic role" because it doesn't service my advancement, but I can't deny there aren't challenges of being a woman in the comedy world," Rodriguez said.

Some of us at Tucson Weekly HQ are a little baby crazy at the moment. We know it's not Dan or Mari, so that leaves Jim and myself. I'm keeping tabs on the Reid Park Zoo Facebook page for up-to-date videos and photos of Tucson's most adorable elephant calf. I'm available for babysitting just incase Semba wants to go out for a date night, or what ever.

I have seen every episode of Babar the Elephant, so I'm highly qualified for the job.

Watch this video and squeal (after the jump): 

All I did was say, when I was a guest on the Buckmaster Show, that Republican legislators and Governor Brewer should be ashamed of themselves for refusing to give the $317 million to our schools mandated by law, even though a judge says they have to — right now. Then I said something about them balancing the budget on the backs of children. Was that so wrong?

Apparently the callers who filled the rest of the show (I've never had that kind of a call-in response before) thought so. After two tinfoil hatters, the rest were more reasonable — wrong, but more reasonable. I tried to set them straight, but I wish I had the same delete and rewrite capabilities when I have a mic in front of me that I have when I put fingers to keyboard. (And then I shoulda said . . .)

The first half of the show is an interesting Buckmaster interview with Bishop Gerald Kicanas. A good man, even if I disagree with him about vouchers. I come in at about the 30 minute mark.