Local firefighters will duke it out to see who makes the best homebrew at the second annual Homebrew Challenge at Thunder Canyon Brewery this Saturday.

The event works like this: You pay $25 at the door (or $20 in advance), which entitles you to tastes of tons of different beers. Everybody drinks their beer-loving buts off until the winner is selected, and that person gets to mass brew a batch of the winning beer at Thunder Canyon Brewery. The proceeds from the sales of that beer will then be donated to Northwest Firefighters Charities.

There will be food, too. While the event focuses on home-brewed beers, many breweries are sending beer and representatives. I'll post a list of the participating breweries after the jump.

If you're bored in Tucson this weekend ... you need help. Serious help.

In addition to the Luz de Vida launch party going on at the Rialto; all the arts openings happening thanks to the Tucson Rocks! collaboration; and about a bazillion other things, the Childrens Museum Tucson and the Fox Tucson Theatre are hosting a day of Bollywood fun (cliche alert!) for the whole family.

Bollykids presents FAME: The Family Arts and Music Experience kicks off at noon at the Childrens Museum, 200 S. Sixth Ave., with entertainment, arts-and-crafts activities and Bollywood culture. Then, at 2:30, the party moves to the Fox, for a live performance of Childsplay called Tomás and the Library Lady:

In Tomás and the Library Lady, Tomás loves the stories. Grandfather tells them every night during the long summers, when the family leaves Texas to pick crops in Iowa. But soon Tomás knows all the stories by heart, and that’s when Papa Grande tells him there is a place full of stories he’s never heard before: the library. When Tomás meets the library lady, nothing is ever the same again. Based on Pat Mora’s popular book by the same name, the play tells the true story of Tomás Rivera, who began his life as a migrant worker and ended it as a university chancellor, Tomás and the Library Lady celebrates the wonder of reading.

The fun is being presented by Neelam Sethi , creator of "Bollywood at yhe Fox," and her husband, Dr. Gulshan Sethi.

Best of all: The whole event is free. Get more info here.

• Photo Ryn Gargulinski

The fact that many have it figured out is steadily apparent on Oct. 31, when chichi neighborhoods that usually house about 10 kids suddenly have more like 100 swarming through the streets. Those streets, of course, are clogged with cars bold enough to park in yards and in front of fire hydrants.

The survey that made the rich-give-more-candy theory official came from the survey research and consulting firm Morpace Omnibus, which last month asked 1,011 American consumers about their Halloween habits.

Those pocketing an annual salary of $100,000 or more are the most likely to give out candy, which makes sense since they probably have a few bucks to spare, with 77 percent of them saying they’ll be doling out treats.

TUSD Mexican-American studies supporters plan to be at the Loft tonight to greet Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal.

Huppenthal is in town for a screening of a documentary that, according to the supporters' Facebook event page, "exemplifies the curriculum at a school in Phoenix." Huppenthal will be on a panel, and there will be a TQ&A.

Be there at 5:30 p.m. The TQ&A starts at 7:30 p.m.

In a story published last night on AlterNet, Tucson son and writer Jeff Biggers wrote about the screening tonight, but he also asks where's the outrage—and where is that apology that Huppenthal still owes us for comparing Mexican American Studies to a Hitler military program:

How much farther do extremist Arizona politicians and their Tea Party supporters have to go in their witch hunt of the Ethnic Studies Program before someone will demand that the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice be summoned for an investigation?

Or at least hold Huppenthal accountable for his offensive remarks against Mexican Americans—which would never be tolerated for any other ethnic community in the state.

In an inexcusable affront to Mexican American veterans and their families at a Republican meeting last month, Huppenthal compared the Mexican American Studies program to paramilitary Hitler Jugend training, despite the fact his own commissioned audit of the acclaimed program conclusively determined that the Mexican American Program did not violate the state’s bizarre Ethnic Studies ban, and: “No observable evidence exists that instruction within Mexican American Studies Department promotes resentment toward a race or class of people. The auditors observed the opposite, as students are taught to be accepting of multiple ethnicities of people.”

“Huppenthal owes not only the Mexican American Studies (MAS) students, their parents, their teachers, and all of us who support MAS an apology for his abject “Hitler Youth” libel,” said long-time Tucson educator Salomon Baldenegro, Sr., “he needs to get himself a dictionary and go to the letter “H” and look up “hypocrite”; Huppenthal is in bed with state senate president Russell Pearce, and as is well known, there is video footage of Pearce embracing J.T. Ready, a known Neo-Nazi (who marches under the Nazi Swastika flag!) and white supremacists on the grounds of the State Capitol! If Huppenthal wants to go after REAL Nazi fellow travelers, why the hell is he not out campaigning to Recall Russell Pearce instead of libeling school kids?”

Huppenthal, in fact, joined a who’s-who’s lineup of Tea Party extremists and right-wing hardliners last weekend at a disastrous rally for Russell Pearce’s lagging recall effort, and praised the state senate president’s draconian cuts in education.

LGBT community members and activists Kate and Carol Bradsen, John Peck (a former Tucson Weekly contributor), Amelia Kramer and Dante Celeiro will be honored at the Jewish Inclusion Project's Rainbow Keshet Awards on Sunday, Oct. 30, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 3800 E. River Road.

Tickets cost $36, and include a reception, concert from Israeli performer Uri Banai and "Oy Gay," LGBT Jewish coming-out stories presented by Odyssey Storytelling.

Info on the Keshet Award recipients:

-Carol & Kate Bradsen for their hospitality work with asylum seekers and migrant workers,

-Dante Celeiro for his work as a Transgender Activist , founder of Boys R Us & Fluxx Studios

-Amelia Kramer, Chief Deputy Attorney for Pima County & Former Managing Attorney for the Western office of Lambda Legal

-John Peck, Freelance Editor & Retired Senior Vice President of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona

For tickets or info, e-mail [email protected] or call 577-9393, ext. 121.

image

Whether you walk, run or ride a bike (or a horse!) there is enough room for everyone on the connected 23-mile path that connects the Santa Cruz and Rillito river parks. Launch the Loop is an event aimed at celebrating this connection and the organizers are inviting everyone out to enjoy it!

Check out our calendar listing and save the date!

Walkers, runners and bicyclists celebrate the connection of the Santa Cruz and Rillito river park paths, from 7:30 to 11 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 22. Free. The connected 23-mile path is the longest completed segment of the loop, 55 miles of car-free paths being developed around metropolitan Tucson. Register at one of three sites to get free T-shirts, water bottles and safety gear. Then walk, run or ride to the dedication ceremony at 10 a.m. on West Sunset Road, west of Interstate 10.

Visit www.pima.gov/TheLoop for more information

More than two dozen local restaurants are expected to participate in the Empty Bowl Luncheon on Thursday, Nov. 3, and all of the money made goes to the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona.

A handmade ceramic soup bowl made by a member of the Southern Arizona Clay Artists is included in the $10 to $15 ticket price. So for the price of a meal you get to eat and take the dish home with you. That's pretty sweet.

I'll post the rest of the press release about the event after the jump:

• Photo Ryn Gargulinski

The sprucing-up festivities, officially known as the Toole Avenue Streetcape Project, is part of Make a Difference Day, scheduled from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 22. Activities are geared toward refurbishing the yet-to-be-finished Toole Avenue Artwalk with greenery and all other hues in a planting and art fest.

Oodles of artists, community volunteers, art and civic organizations and businesses will be on location planting trees, installing dozens of other plants, finishing off existing murals and adding new artwork to the scene. Performances, art activities and other festivities will be going on along Toole and throughout the entire Tucson Historic Warehouse Arts District, including three, one-day exclusive exhibits.

The Great Cover-Up is one of my favorite Tucson events every year, for obvious reasons, I suppose. The money raised goes to a great cause (the Tucson Artists and Musicians Healthcare Alliance, an organization that's more necessary all the time in this economy) and it's just a lot of fun to see bands have fun playing songs they have some affection for, whether as a sort of guilty pleasure or as an inspiration for the music they usually play. Sure, you don't get paid, but you have twenty minutes to be a different band for a night, and if you haven't seen one of these shows before, some bands really make the most of the opportunity.

If I had any sort of musical talent whatsoever, I'd be begging for the opportunity to play the Great Cover-Up (playing a set of Happy Mondays tracks, clearly), but I don't, so I can at least shill for it here. So, if you actually make music in some form, why not apply to perform this year?

This year's event will be held at three venues over three nights: Thursday, Dec. 15, at Plush; Friday, Dec. 16, at Club Congress; and Saturday, Dec. 17, at the Rialto Theatre, and applications will be taken until this Friday at 5 pm. It's super easy to apply: all you have to do is email [email protected] with the following information: your band name, what type of music you normally play, your top three picks for bands/artists you'd like to cover, and a contact name and number and/or e-mail address. Then, someone will let you know if you've been selected.

Since I won't be out there performing as Bez, I look forward to what you come up with, Tucson music scene.

A fundraising event called The Party is scheduled for Thursday Friday, Oct. 21, and some band called Third Eye Blind is headlining it. There will also be all sorts of food by Zinburger, North, Blanco Tacos and Tequila and other Fox Restaurant Concepts restaurants.

Sounds like a good time. Tickets are $100, $50 of which is tax-deductible. I'll post the press release after the jump.