It seems like not too long ago we celebrated El Tambó's second birthday.  Well, maybe because it wasn't that long ago, it was last month. But hell, it's spring now and these evenings are perfect for outdoors dancing, especially if it involves delightful cumbia.

Like he's done so many times in the past, Logan Phillips, aka DJ Dirtyverbs, is introducing Tucson to some new sounds in the patio of Hotel Congress this evening: LA's Buyepongo, La Diabla is coming to represent Tijuana and DJ Maclovio  visits from Phoenix. The trifecta is a known presence in the Valley's version of El Tambó, ¡Clandestino!, but hadn't had the chance to make it down to the Old Pueblo. Phillips made it happen because he loves us.

If you haven't listened to Buyepongo or La Diabla, jump on that. Buye's music is a fusion of cumbia, merengue, punta, salsa, son—the best of Central and South American afro-Latino sounds. Punta comes from the Garifuna people of Guatemala, Belize and Honduras and you add Colombian cumbia into the mix, thank you. 

Then, there's La Diabla from the Baja California borderlands. Their cumbia sabanera is hypnotizing, just good old dirty cumbia—a lot of accordion and guacharaca.

So, come have a drink and put your hip bones to good use.

The festivities begin at 8 p.m. and it's FREE. 

Here's these to warm up:

This Sunday you can start your St. Patrick's celebrating a couple days early when the 28th annual St. Patrick's Day Parade and Festival hits the streets of Armory Park with a "Peace, Love, Shamrocks" theme.

Beginning at 10 a.m., attendees can watch live music, step dancers and other entertainment, including a game area for children. Food and beverage vendors will be at the event as well—some serving "traditional Irish drinks" for the 21 and over crowd. 

Then at 11 a.m., an hour long parade will put over 1,000 participants on display for crowds to watch. You can expect plenty of floats and local celebrities, all presented by 2015's parade grand marshal Tom McNamara.

The St. Patrick's Day event runs from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Sunday, March 14. The parade and other festivities are free to attend. You can check out the route and map of events to get an idea of where you're going to plant yourself for the best view here and more information on this year's event can be found on the event's website.

Last weekend, my friends and I had the opportunity to test our problem skills in Tucson's first live room escape game. The game was good, our skills were not.

Nicolette Cusick, who runs the operation on her own, opened Will You Escape? in February. She heard about the concept in August, visited a few live escape rooms in other states and thought Tucson would love it as much as she did. Cusick invited us to play after I posted about her website back in January.

Participants enter the room, which Cusick furnished as a '50s movie star's dressing room from thrift store finds. Cusick explains the story: There was an actress, she's been killed and you have to solve the murder (person, method, time) in under an hour. Otherwise, the murderer comes back and he's gonna get ya. 

There are so many locks. So. Many. Locks. You have to use clues hidden all throughout the room to find the combinations. There's no polite way to go about it, you're going to leave that room a mess.

Comedian Kyle Kinane has started off 2015 with a brand new stand up special and now he's heading across the country on tour. With the release of his 40-minute special "I Liked His Old Stuff Better," he's going to be performing live at Club Congress on Sunday, March 8.

Kinane has one of those H. Jon Benjamin or Jason Mantzoukas gruff, monotoney voices that is kind of funny no matter what he's saying. Be warned, though, his bits are a bit NSFW in the following clip so you might want to put some headphones on if you're in polite company.


Tickets for the show are $15 and local comedian Pauly Casillas will open the show at 7 p.m. You can find your ticket, along with more information, on the Club Congress website.

In the beginning of the year, I wrote about Living Out Loud, the first clinic and wellness center primarily focused on LGBTQI people to open in Tucson. 

The clinic, a child of CODAC Behavioral Health Services, has functioned since December, but will celebrate its official opening this week. The event will feature a tour of the place, refreshments and speeches by state Rep. Victoria Steele, members of CODAC, the GLBT Chamber of  Commerce, the Southern Arizona Gender Alliance and others. 

When I visited the LOL crew in January, a few psychologists had already been seeing some patients, and there were lots of white walls and desks they hoped to fully staff by spring with primary care doctors, therapists, and other health and wellness providers to care for LGBTQI adults and children as young as 6 years old. 

“These populations are all very different and have different needs when it comes to their whole health care,” said Dennis Regnier, CODAC president and CEO, in a statement. "We are proud to be able to offer the core elements of excellent mental health and primary care, with staffing and program components that are specialized to the populations being served.”

All staff and volunteers are LGBTQI-identified and allies who have worked with the community, with some of them transferring to LOL from the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation and other CODAC facilities.

The place fills up a huge gap in health services for LGBTQI people. There are too many avoiding a doctor's visit for fear of discrimination, so bravo LOL.

The opening is Thursday, March 5 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the clinic, 3130 E. Broadway Blvd. For more information, call 327-4505.

Cowgirl Rachel Dice gives a barely perceptible nod. The gate swings open.

Dice and her horse Katie shoot forward, angling to the right where a barrel waits amid dry mounds of dirt. Rider and mare slow as they approach the barrel, leaning their bodies into the curve. Dice’s white shirt billows in the lashing wind.

Dice and Katie successfully clear the second and third barrel, placed in a triangle formation. As they head back toward the gate Rachel gives Katie’s chestnut muscles a spurt of kicks, urging the horse faster during the last stretch.

Last year, Tucson favorite ChamberLab set a live orchestra to Buster Keaton's classic Civil War silent film "The General." This weekend, the show is getting a rare second run.

Chris Black, who got ChamberLab started, says this was the show everyone was devastated to have missed.

"We did it right on Easter weekend, or around then, so a lot of people were out of town. People didn't know how awesome it was going to be," Black said, adding that this is the show he's been asked to repeat above all the others.

"If you haven't seen Buster Keaton before, he's just incredible. I don't know how he does what he does. This no special effects, no anything, just pure deranged athleticism as he leaps around and takes all kinds of chances with his life," Black explains. "It's about 78 minutes and all but about 15 minutes of it is train chases—so it's action packed."

This time, ChamberLab will be filming the event for DVD and digital download. They're running an IndieGoGo, from which proceeds are being split up between production costs for the filming and paying the musicians. 

"It's just to make sure that we stay healthy and that we pay the musicians for the really ridiculous amount of rehearsal we'll be putting them through for the next week," Black said, noting that while his shows usually just split up the profits from ticket sales, that's just not enough for the amount of work people are putting into this. "Everyone is really amazing that they're giving us their time in the way that they have been I'm trying to get a little bit more into their pockets."

The show takes place this Saturday, Feb. 28 at 7:30 p.m., at the Fox Theater, 17 W. Congress St. You can get tickets and preorder a DVD/digital copy of the screening through their IndieGoGo—which will remain open for a week after the event, just in case you feel like sending a little more money their way after the performance.

"It's an amazing accomplishment. I mean, when you're right in the middle of it with the music playing and the movie's going and you can't stop and say 'Oops, lets take that again,' and theres 11 people just going at it—it's a tremendous feeling," Black said. "I have never surfed, but I imagine kinda like surfing a gigantic wave. I'm not sure how else to describe it, but thats a pretty good feeling."

It's time to get up and get out of your house because the Coming Out Queer Dance Party is going down again at La Cocina this Friday and this time its benefitting Camp Born This Way. 

For the do-gooders out there, Camp Born This Way will get donations from the event which will help to keep the program, which provides a safe space for children who are transgender or gender non-conforming, running. If you're just in it for the dancing, the event is free and runs from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. so you'll get plenty of that in. However, you really should bring at least a few bucks for Camp Born This Way.

The nearly four year old event happens on the last Friday of every month, which means it's all going down on Friday, Feb. 27 this month at La Cocina, located at 201 N. Court Ave.

John and Diane Foley—the parents of James Foley, an inspiring freelance journalist who was murdered by members of ISIS in Syria on Aug. 19, 2014—will participate this evening in a discussion at the University of Arizona about what it is like for journalists to face a world that seems to be getting more and more dangerous.

I spoke with Diane a few days ago, and she said being a part of these talks are important to them because it is a way to keep their son's inspirations alive. Until his last breath, James was an advocate for his fellow journalists' freedom of speech, and a loud voice shedding light on people's suffering, hoping that through his work he'd be able to change things.

"We feel Jim's spirit with us, and it helps me continue," she said. "Whether it was a child in the inner city of Phoenix or a child suffering in the middle of war, advocating for freelancers and their needs. He was always one to try to help the underdog."

Foley is among 61 correspondents and other reporters who were killed last year, and more than 1,100 journalists and other media workers from Latin America to the Middle East have been killed since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The groups says that figure does not include the many others who have been kidnapped, imprisoned, threatened or forced to flee.

Through the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, the Foleys hope to help protect journalists reporting from war zones, health and social aids working in dangerous regions and also inspire others to be more involved in the issue. It something that concerns all of us.

In recent days, Diane has been in touch with the family of Kayla Mueller, a Prescott native humanitarian aid worker and activist who was killed on Feb. 6 while held hostage by ISIS. She had been worried about Kayla's situation for over a year, since she was taken captive in Aug. 2013. 

"She was a wonderful young girl, huge heart," she said. "She is one of our heroes."

Diane reached out to her family and hopes to be in touch with them more often, although she wishes they could have met under other circumstances.

"We are going through this horrible situation together," she said.

The forum today is sponsored by the Center for Border & Global Journalism.

Journalist Terry Anderson, a former Associated Press correspondent who was held hostage in Beirut, Lebanon for almost seven years, will participate, as will David McCraw, a First Amendment lawyer from The New York Times. The discussion will be moderated by UA journalism professor and co-director of the Center for Border & Global Journalism, Mort Rosenblum.

The talk is from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the UA's Integrated Learning Center Auditorium 120, located near the Main Library.

Hey all you gin-thusiasts out there—it's time to turn your love of the white botanical spirit into a show of support for Tucson's historic (and nonprofit) Rialto Theatre this Saturday, Feb. 28. The Gin Joint Jubilee at Rialto will be part fundraising gala and part roaring '20s theme party (yes, you can and should dress up) with vaudeville entertainment and, of course, some stiff cocktails.

Attendees can bid on silent auction items and enter for raffle prizes with items up for grabs including vacation packages, a hot air balloon ride, gift certificates, original artworks and more with special guests Mayor Jonathan Rothschild and KXCI's Cathy Rivers. Pre-bidding is available now through Bidding Owl. While all of that bidding and raffling goes on, Cirque Roots and Black Cherry Burlesque will keep the crowd entertained with cheeky vaudeville acts. An ensemble group of local musicians will also be playing classics from the '20s and '30s.

From 5:30 until 8:30 p.m. there will be a main tasting event with an hour of dessert samples following that. 9:30 to 10:30 p.m. will feature late night bite options if you're still hungry. Some of the many restaurants serving up samples for the evening include Miss Saigon, Hotel Congress, Hub, Empire Pizza, Proper, The Parrish, Reforma Cantina, Dante’s Fire, Got to be Gluten Free, Delectables, Saffron, US Fries and more. 


But, let's not forget the gin. You can sip on a Tuxedo #2 at R Bar (or you can order one from a server). The exclusive cocktail for the event is a classic that takes an improved (a.k.a. with absinthe) martini base and adds a touch of maraschino. If you're not ready to go full martini, a few of these will sell you on the cocktail once and for all.

The Gin Joint Jubilee kicks off at 5 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 28. Tickets are $75 per person or $125 for a pair and can be found online, along with more information, on the Rialto Theatre website. Each ticket for the fundraiser includes a complimentary drink.