Hello! I’m Mac!

I am a 10-years-young which means my adoption fee is only $50 (+$19 license)! I am a friendly boy who will easily win your heart. I love taking pictures and already know how to pose with my good side showing. I love to go on walks and do very well on leash. My dream home would have lots of rope toys for me to play with.

Please bring any kids or dogs that currently live in your home to meet me at HSSA Main Campus at 3450 N. Kelvin Blvd. For more information you can give an adoptions counselor a call at 520-327-6088 x173.

Barks and Wags,
Mac (849560)

The goal of Arizonans United for Health Care is to educate the community about the Affordable Care Act in its current form, according to Alma Hernandez, senior organizer for the group. "We want to remind people the first day to enroll is November 1 and enrollment ends December 15," she said, "and you can get help signing up."

The group is building coalitions with other local nonprofits and activists working to inform people about the ACA.

One of the best places to find help signing up is Cover Arizona, according to Hernandez. Type in your zip code, and the website generates a list of places where you can schedule an appointment to get help applying for KidsCare, AHCCCS and the ACA Marketplace.

Arizonans United for Health Care is nonpartisan, Hernandez says, but it isn't shy about going after Rep. Martha McSally and Sen. Jeff Flake for their votes against the ACA, including in a short video featuring Julie Simons, a single mother who started her own business and provides health insurance for her employees. Simons is also a breast cancer survivor. Citing McSally's vote against the ACA, Simons worries that an end to affordable coverage for preexisting conditions can endanger her ability to get affordable health care for herself or provide it to her employees.

Arizonans United for Health Care can be contacted using an email form on the bottom of its web page or by messaging on its Facebook page.

Darkness descended upon the three-tiered east grandstand at Arizona Stadium as the faint scent of mesquite wafted through the Southern Arizona sky.

For the first time, after months of scorching heat, the weather seemed downright, dare I say, fall-like.

It was a perfect night for football, and an evening fit for a showdown between two of the hottest teams west of Ames, Iowa—in Arizona and 15th-ranked Washington State.

It was a night that had it all—with more yards (1,181 combined) and points (95) than your typical arena league game.

It was a night fit for a king, with sophomore renaissance man Khalil Tate once again playing the lead role.

There was one glaring thing missing Saturday, however—the crowd.

Saturday’s crowd for Tate and company’s bowl-clinching 58-37 coronation—according to the man in the press box, at least—was listed at 42,822.

Arizona Stadium, if you’re wondering, officially seats 55,675, meaning roughly 13,000 seats went unused on a night that could be a turning point for coach Rich Rodriguez’s program.

A numbers game

How bad was Arizona’s attendance in retrospect, you ask? Let’s go through the numbers.

Two weeks ago, in a game against a hapless UCLA team, Arizona managed to fill 48,380 seats, in a game that Arizona won by 17 points.

Against Northern Arizona University—an FCS program with a 6-2 record—the Wildcats drew 43,334.

The only game so far this fall in the Old Pueblo that drew fewer members of the peanut gallery was the team’s dismal 19-16 loss to Utah.

That game, played on a Friday night, drew a measly crowd of 36,651—though it can be excused, since once again, it was on a Friday night.

I could go on and on bludgeoning the Wildcat faithful (or lack thereof) for their absentia on Saturday, but I’ll take the high road.

Instead, I’ll give you the rundown on what people that avoided Arizona Stadium like a week old Sonoran hot dog missed.

First, you missed another mind-boggling performance from sophomore quarterback Khalil Tate, who torched the Cougars’ eighth-ranked defense to the tune of 275 passing yards (a career high) and 158 rushing yards.

Next, you missed a hell of an effort by the defensive unit from Arizona, affectionately known as the Baby Cats, who snagged four interceptions—including a 66-yard pick six by freshman Colin Schooler—off Washington State backup Tyler Hilinski in the game’s latter half—giving the unit nine picks in their last four games (a stat I received from do-it-all Arizona stat guy Blair Willis).

You missed not one, not two, not three (etcetera, etcetera)—but four scoring plays of more than 25 yards by the two teams.

You missed a team pull off a feat that boggles the mind. The Wildcats—381 days removed from their worst loss in 68 years (a 69-7 defeat to the very same Washington State Cougars)—punched their way off the ropes, slaying the Cougars on their home field.

Redemption song

Sellout or not, Rodriguez and his players expressed a similar theme in avenging last year’s humiliating loss to the Cougars—redemption.

“This game we talked about redemption and relevance and that was the last thing I said to them before the game,” Rodriguez said. “I said that we had a chance to be relevant by beating a top 25 team. Every player wants to be relevant. The more you win the more there is at stake and we have a pretty big one next week.”

The big one Rodriguez is referring to is the team’s clash against the Trojans of USC in Los Angeles next Saturday, in a game between the Pac-12 South’s two best teams.

The Wildcats, with a victory, would be in the driver’s seat for a division title and a berth in their second Pac-12 Conference Title Game, heading into their final home game against Oregon State on Nov. 11.

Here’s hoping redemption applies to the hometown crowd as well.

When the crowd cheers at the intro of every song, you know the band is doing or did something right. In this case it’s both.

From blistering noise-rock to sweet and sentimental ballads, Pixies’ show at Lost Lake spanned their entire career. There was so much music for them to cover they rarely had time to speak between songs; in fact they didn’t at all. There wasn’t a single non-musical word spoken the entire show. This may have given a feeling of disconnection from the audience if it weren’t for the crowd singing along to every word.

This standoffishness does however, fit the lunacy of their music: they don’t take their songs too seriously, so why treat their concerts any different? Besides, when you’re a band that large and influential, and with so many classics in your repertoire, you don’t have time to talk, nor is talking necessary.

Not to say the songs were uninteresting or the same as they’ve always been: frontman Black Francis sang most songs with a different pacing and inflection than what listeners are used to on the albums. Not only did this make their classic hits sound fresh, but it caught the audience off guard and had them listening for the changes to come. If the audience was sitting down instead of thrashing about, they’d be on the edge of their seats.

So in the end, you’re left with a great band playing the hits, and an eager crowd of thousands singing along and not wanting it to be any other way.

Even the security guards volleyed beach balls when Run the Jewels took the stage. And they definitely did take the stage—by force. The hip-hop duo’s presence and energy was unsurpassed the entire festival weekend. That combined with eye-rattling bass and some of the catchiest hooks in modern rap made an explosive concoction rarely heard outside of the classic hip-hop of the 90s.

But it was more than rambunctiousness and fun, another similarity RTJ has with the 90s golden age is being hip-hop performers with a message, like Public Enemy and Nas. Throughout the night the duo (Killer Mike and El-P) discussed losing a loved one, following your dreams, and suicide prevention.

“If any of you ever lost anyone you care about,” El-P said. “Close your eyes during this next song and pretend they’re standing next to you.”

However this consciously-charged delivery wasn’t too much of a break from the norm for the rappers, considering just last year Killer Mike opened for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.

A Run the Jewels live show can be rowdy inspiration to anyone: aspiring musicians, depressed youth, even middle-aged adults who’ve lost their groove will start rocking again when they see two rappers, both 42, dancing their asses off on stage.

How do you frame a game against an opponent that beat you worse than any team since the Truman administration as a coach?

That’s the issue confronting Arizona football coach Rich Rodriguez and his staff this week, ahead of the team’s Saturday game against mighty Washington State.

The Cougars are 7-1 this season, and still elicit screams from Wildcats fans, a year after their 62-point annihilation of Rodriguez and company.

That 69-7 defeat to the Cougars ripped the scar tissue that stitches together the hearts of Arizona’s small but fiery fan base.

Saturday represents the 380th day since that on-field trauma—when Wildcat faithful forced a new four-letter word into their lexicon—Falk.

Falk, in this case, refers to Washington State’s folk hero of a quarterback, Luke Falk, who torched Rodriguez’s woebegone defense, to the tune of 311 yards and four touchdowns.

How the worm turns

Fast-forward a year and change and you’ll see a picture that seemed utterly impossible at season’s start.

The Wildcats—yes, the very same bunch that was picked dead last in the Pac-12 Conference by my media brethren (yours not included)—enter with a 5-2 record, on a three-game winning streak.

Many among us would jump at the chance to label Saturday’s clash of the (unexpected) titans as a ‘revenge’ game, with a bloodthirsty Wildcats squad ready to slay the Cougars in front of what should be a packed peanut gallery.

Images of great Roman gladiators may flash across your cranium, with the scorned home crowd howling like a pack of emaciated wolves.

Well, don’t expect Rodriguez himself (or any of his players) to join in the fray, at least given his comments in Monday’s press conference.

“I talked about it, and I told the guys that somebody’s going to use the word ‘revenge’,” Rodriguez said. “And I said that that word’s used way too much. It’s like you’re defending your family or something like that—you got embarrassed in a football game.”

Can’t-miss action

Revenge game or not, the synopsis of the story here is that Arizona is a game away from bowl eligibility, in a year where Rodriguez’s very livelihood was staked to such a feat.

Such a mind-boggling sea change wouldn’t be possible without a gift from the football gods—with the gift in this case being a gazelle-like freak of nature from Inglewood, California by the name of Khalil Tate.

Tate, who I’ve already gushed about, is reason enough to scrape together enough pocket change to find a way into the musty confines of Arizona Stadium.

The other reason, shockingly enough, is that this year’s team has a hell of a roster, and faces its biggest (and best) home opponent of the year.

The game, which kicks off at 6:30 p.m., is part one of a two-week gauntlet for Tate, Rodriguez and the family band, before heading to the L.A. Coliseum for a game against a decimated USC Trojans team.

Rodriguez knows his team will be fired up, whether the fine folks of the Old Pueblo choose to watch or not.

He also knows how much of a difference a packed house can make, given the tall task of beating the vaunted Cougars.

“I think that redemption is probably a better word than revenge, but there’s no question that it’s embarrassing; terrible — every bad adjective that you can have about it,” Rodriguez said of last year’s debacle. “That was a long time ago, this is a completely different team. But we certainly have a lot to prove against those guys, that’s for sure.”

It’s not quite Carthage and sowing the land with salt, but it’s salty language nonetheless.

The River Bride blends Brazilian folklore, poetic imagery and the excitement of young love to tell a story of two sisters in fishing village along the Amazon. Right before her sister Belmira’s wedding (to a man Helena feels was rightfully hers), fishermen pull a man out of the river who has no past, but who offers both women an enticing, if uncertain future.

The Arizona Theatre Company production of The River Bride, by Marisela Treviño Orta, opens in Tucson this Friday, Oct. 27 at 7:30 p.m. The play made its debut at the 2016 Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and was the winner of the 2013 National Latino Playwriting Award.

Treviño Orta has a background in poetry, and received a master of fine arts degree in writing at the University of San Francisco. After serving as the resident poet at El Teatro Jornalero!, she found herself attracted to playwriting for the first time

“It felt so very welcoming and embracing and supportive in a way that I was like ‘this feels so right,’” she said. “And doors kept opening for me.”

Put on your roller skates Sunday night, Oct. 29, for two great charity comedy shows!

At The Whistle Stop, 127 W. 5th St., Tucson cartoonist David Fitzsimmons hosts an extravaganza to benefit Exodus Community Services, a local substance-abuse recovery program.

The evening includes a host of comedians: Nancy Stanley, Dave Membrila, Josiah Oswego, Unscrewed Comedy Theatre Improv, Elliott Glicksman and Fitzgerald himself.

There’s also a silent auction, and a feast provided by Vivaci, Kingfisher, Feast, Parish, Angelo’s, Lerua’s. Music by Kinda Kinks, a British invasion cover band, rounds out the fun. Tickets are $35.

Less than a mile away, at The Flycatcher, 360 E. 6th St, FST (Female Story Tellers) honcho Bethany Evans and her running buddy, artist Adela Antoinette, host a comedy show and silent art auction at 8 p.m. It’s The Best Medicine: Benefit Show to benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
The two organizers are raising money for an upcoming half-marathon benefitting the research center. Featured comedians are Nöel Hennessey, Steven Yanez Romo, Stacy Scheff, Nancy Stanley, Bridgitte Thum, Mo Urban and Matt Ziemak.

“There’s no cover charge, Hennessey says, “but donations are welcome. Art was donated by nine local artists, and 100% of the proceeds go to St. Jude.”

Puff, Puff, Laugh

Sam Racioppo hosts the new comedy showcase Puff, Puff, Laugh, monthly on the first Sunday at the 420 Club. The club’s new location is 3024 N. 1st Ave., Ste. 6. Admission is $5 or two cans of food for the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona.

“We do 10-minute sets followed by a ten-minute truth or dare segment,” Racioppo says. Dares included “Call your parents and tell them you are expecting” and among the truths was, “What is the biggest lie you have ever told a significant other?”

Racioppo, new to the Tucson Comedy scene, wants to create an opportunity for local comics to perform in a no-alcohol environment. It’s a chance for comedy lovers to enjoy the benefits of their medical marijuana cards in community and laughter.

Unscrewed Theatre Workshops: TRIUMPH Nov. 3 - 5

Unscrewed offers four 3-hour workshops with Amanda Blake Davis and Celeste Pechous of top L. A. improv troupe, TRIUMPH! Both have extensive national credentials for improv, sketch writing and acting. Workshop topics are A Taste of Longform, The Initiation, The Supporting Role and The Two-Person Monoscene. Classes are $60, each or $200 for the weekend. Register online.

Yume Japanese Gardens Tea Ceremony. There’s something inherently mindful about drinking a cup of tea. You don’t drink it to help you move faster, like coffee, and the flavor is usually subtle, so as you slow down to focus on the taste, it feels like time slows down as well. In Japan, a tea ceremony is even more ritualistic, to the point where it’s a work of art that leaves a deep impression on participants. A master of “The Way of Tea,” will prepare a cup of matcha for everyone, and offer a traditional Japanese sweet to go with it. 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28. Yume Japanese Gardens. RSVP by Oct. 24 to [email protected] with name, phone number and number in your party. $15 plus Gardens admission fee ($9 adults, $8 seniors, $7 students and military, $5 kids 3 to 15, free for kids under two, free for members.)

Devil’s Night Dinner at Hotel Congress. Hotel Congress isn’t limiting its Halloween festivities to one night—they’ve got a whole Halloweekend thing going on. But this dinner, featuring Kenny Bang Bang the magician and a fire juggling (FIRE JUGGLING!) performance, is a can’t miss. Each of the four courses—See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil and Devil’s Dessert—are paired with a delicious Halloween-inspired cocktail. Chili vodka, blackberry-hazelnut agave, angostura bitters and St. George Raspberry Liquer will all be involved (albeit all in separate drinks) for a culin-scary adventure that’s sure to be the ghost delicious feast in town for the evening.

Feast with the Dearly Departed. Take this opportunity to honor your loved ones without the solemnity. Celebrate life, appreciate the preciousness of the people you love and dance the night away to Tucson High School’s Mariachi Rayos del Sol. For the sixth iteration of this annual event, Tucson Botanical Gardens is bringing in face painters, pan de muerto, sugar skulls and a Dancing Skeleton exhibit—which will feature papier mâché skellies made by local artists, community groups, and even you, if you want to submit one (call 520-326-9686 ext. *10 for more info on that). Feast on the food available throughout the gardens, including tacos, tamales, pallets, refreshes and limeade. The community-made Ofrenda lies at the center of the event, and all guests are welcome to bring notes and mementos to place at the ofrenda. 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28. Tucson Botanical Gardens, 2150 N. Alvernon Way. $13 GA, $7.50 children, $10 member adults, $4 member children.