Thursday, April 6, 2017
What’s better than riding your bike through a scenic route? Eating cookies while you do it.
The second annual Tour de Cookie is coming to Tucson to support the Marana Rotary Club as they help fund international community service projects such as special needs playgrounds, access ramps, and water projects in Africa.
On Saturday, April 8 from 8 a.m. to noon, Tour de Cookie will take over the Rillito River Park bike path where 11 organizations in Tucson will hand out homemade cookies to all riders.
Dan Contorno, self coordinator at Marana Rotary Club, said the idea wasn’t original and happened about four or five years ago. The Rotary Club decided to bring it back because a lot of members participated in the original event.
“It used to be almost like a scavenger hunt where there were six or seven stops but this new Tour de Cookie is different, it’s safer and not a race,” said Contorno.
The path is about 29.5 miles and each organization will hand out a different type of cookie every two miles passed.
Contorno said some of the organizations include youth organizations, churches, breweries and insurance companies.
He said the Marana Rotary Club hopes to get 13 organizations by the time the event happens so that participants can have two more stops of cookies.
To sign up for the event, participants can visit the rotarytourdecookie.org website and fill out the waiver form to bring to the event. People riding with a group of 10 or more can get a $5 off discount on the registration fee.
All ages are allowed to participate and the entry fee is $40 but children 12 and under can ride for free. The only requirements for this event is to bring your own bike, your appetite and to leave your competition at home.
Tags: wine , gone , wild , tour , tour de cookie , cookies , bikes , Tucson , Reid Park Zoo , wine gone wild , animals , events , food , quick bites , quick , bites
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
The zoo is partnering with Uber so visitors can use a special promo code on the event's website to get a free ride up to $15. Designated drivers also receive a reduced admission price of $25. For extra money, visitors can even meet one of the zoo's rhinos, Yebonga or Fireball.
This is a 21+ event only. Preorder admission prices are $65 per person or $55 per member. Prices at the door are $70 per person or $60 per member. The VIP visit with a rhino admission price is $120 or $150 if you want early access at 5:30 p.m. Preorder your tickets to this jungle adventure here. This is a perfect event to support the animals at the zoo while having a fun Friday night!
Tags: zoo , rhinos , wine , booze , food , catering , Reid Park Zoo , vineyards
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Yesterday, the internets forgot about #45 for a few minutes and gave a Tucson high school senior some love.
BuzzFeed shared 17-year-old Timea Post's senior pictures and how the world took notice. We approve too, and don't care if people don't understand our love of eeggee's or why we love her picture in front of the Mattress Firm. You live in a city with a mattress store on on almost every corner, then get back to us. Also, everyone should be here during monsoon when watermelon is the flavor of the month.
Post is giving us a bit of hope here at TW HQ and we're pleased T-town gets some love through her eyes via Twitter. Yo, #45, this is what Twitter is for.
Tags: Twitter , BuzzFeed , Timea Post , Mattress Firm , eegee's , Tucson , hometown love
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
If an escape from any of the above sounds like what you need this week to keep some sanity, pick up these best sellers from Casa Video.
Moana
Passengers
Doctor Strange
Fences
Assassin's Creed
Sing
Moonlight
Arrival
Collateral Beauty
Solace
Tags: movies , Casa Video , Tucson , top 10 , best sellers , rent movies , trailers , Video
Friday, March 24, 2017
So when Roxy Merrari, long-time good Wench customer, and her pal Mo Urban approached Johnston about hosting Tucson’s only female-run open mic, she jumped right on board. “They’ve since broadened it to two nights,” Johnston says, “because it went over so well. Everyone seems to have a great time, and the staff likes it, too!”
A regular on Tucson’s stand-up comedy scene, Merrari wanted to be able to do her favorite thing at her favorite club. The idea got legs over a friendly breakfast with fellow comic Urban. “We were talking about how all of our guy friends (in stand-up) were doing comedy around town, but we noticed there just weren't many women,” Merrari says. “We said, ‘We need some more women! We can't wait around for other people to invite us to their shows. Let's just start one!’”
Urban says, “Initially in 2012 (when she started doing stand-up) I had a bad experience. I didn't feel comfortable just because I didn't have a lot of women to connect with. I didn’t feel safe having a voice, and I didn't come back for a few years.”
Now, she says, “I've seen a huge shift. I think it's a very supportive scene, but I also recognize that I can have a voice now, and I feel safe having a voice, whereas I did not before.” Urban points to the recent Tucson Women’s Comedy Festival, hosted by Tucson Improv Movement, as an example of Tucson’s growing appreciation of women’s comedy.
“Once we got the idea to do the show,” Merrari says, “Every time a woman came to Laff's (Comedy Caffe) open mic we pounced on them!” Urban says, “We started asking ourselves, ‘Are we just coming off weird?’" But the encouragement is working, and several new female comics are now learning the ropes at local open mics.
Comedy at the Wench is a show-up-to-go-up open mic at 8:30 p.m., the second Tuesday of every month, and a hosted mic for invited comedians on the fourth Tuesday. Donations are $5, but no one is turned away.
March 28 guests are Dana Whissen of the Torch Theatre Company in Phoenix; the masked comedian Dick Strangler; Southern California comedy scene transplant Marilyn Lopez, aka M Lo; Lilliya Souslova whose riffs often recall her Russian homeland and Arizona’s Funniest Comedian finalist, Conor Dorney.
The Surly Wench is at 424 N. 4th Avenue. “Like” Comedy at the Wench on Facebook to receive reminders and information about upcoming shows.
Tags: Surly Wench , Mo Urban , Roxy Merrari , comedy for women , open mic , Dana Whissen , Torch Theatre Company , Dick Strangler , Marilyn Lopez , M Lo , Lilliya Souslova , Arizona's funniest comedian , Conor Dorney.
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Moana
Tags: Casa Video , movie rentals , movies , top 10 , binge , Video
Thursday, March 16, 2017
The Secret Sisters are as joyful on stage as their songs are depressing. Laura and Lydia Rogers love the dark days.
“We sell antidepressants at our shows,” Laura jokes on stage at Cooper’s BBQ’s Americana Music Association showcase, which became Americana Ladies’ Night when the organizers realized all their headliners were women.
In front of a brick wall with a neon Budweiser sign over the shape of Texas, the Alabama women sing “Bad Habit,” a song their mother calls “intense.”
The huge head of a longhorn bull looks down on them as they harmonize with a rapturous twang. Over 100 people sit on the floor, fill the tables and stand along the walls. The whole room is silent, enchanted.
Between songs, Lydia tunes her guitar, and Laura chats with the audience, joking and telling stories. Chewing gum, she tells them about meeting the Everly Brothers. Laura says she was so excited, she burst into tears, and they weren’t pretty tears. She looked like she’d “just been born—red and shiny and wet."
The sisters love music from another time, and most of their favorite musicians are dead. It shows in their music—an old-timey feel with a sadness that’s older than they are.
“And now we’re going to segue into happier material by playing a murder ballad,” Laura says. It’s a sequel to their first murder ballad and will be on their next album, “You Don’t Own Me Anymore,” produced by Brandi Carlile and out this summer.
“Don’t tell us if you don’t like it,” Laura tells the audience, laughing. “That’s like telling someone they have an ugly child.”
The women get a lot of their inspiration from failed relationships, which is why Laura hasn’t written a song she likes since she got married to a “redneck from Alabama” last April. So they play the last good song she wrote: “He’s Fine,” about the last man who broke her heart.
Just a week later, Powers presents “Animated Arizona,” the state’s first animated short-film fest at the Screening Room, March 31 through April 1; $6.
“’You’ve always done all those things,’” Powers says, quoting his dad. “’Who knew you had to do them all at once to make it work?’” The Origin Story! Fast-forward to the present day!
Powers supports himself as a freelance graphic designer. Currently he’s rebranding a charter school and creating educational animated short films in superpower style. But he also runs a retail space and studio-rental operation, Constant Con (constantcon.com) at, 117 N 6th Ave. The building is home to ten Tucson graphic artists, and something like heaven for the Con-crazed Tucsonans who shop there for comics, costumes, props, posters, stickers, T-shirts, and ephemera for characters created by the space’s tenants.
“Pissed Off Panda” is Powers’ own trademark character, available in every format. Fans follow Panda’s provocations and the rest of Powers’ prodigious creative output by following @Frankenstylin, on every app he’s ever found. He also has a radio show from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. every Saturday at 99.1 FM Downtown Radio. That show has him jolly-ing it up in his turbo-charged Radio Man voice with whoever he thinks his audience might find interesting.
Powers says Steve Romo’s “Romo Tonight”, inspired the live version of “After Hours,” but he had always wanted to be in radio. “That’s a real career, though,” he says. “I knew I could never walk in and be a radio announcer.” He saw his chance when independent Downtown Radio begin to thrive. “I figured out how it worked, and I pitched them a show.”
At the time, the only slot the station had left was 7 to 9 a.m., Saturday mornings. He says, “That’s perfect! So I made a Saturday morning cartoon show, ‘Fun Times with Frankenstylin’. After Hours With Frank Powers debuted on the station at midnight last New Year’s Eve.
Tags: comic , graphics , Pissed Off Panda , The Screening Room , Frank Powers , frankenstylin , Downtown Radio , David Fitzsimmons , Max Cannon , Jacob Breckenridge , Mark Zepezauer , Constant Con
Monday, February 27, 2017
The Rhythm and Roots Concert Series is showcasing a variety of folk genres including Americana, blues, bluegrass and Celtic. The series, which gives musicians the space and resources to share their craft, is taking place this week at Hotel Congress with two free shows.
“‘Music is medicine’ is our motto,” says the series director Susan Holden. “Rhythm and Roots wants to bring—especially in this day and age—some healing with music.”
Monday night features a Mardi-Gras-themed party featuring the Carnivaleros. The band pulls from Eastern European sounds, with remnants of old western movies, as well as borrowing from genres like zydeco, waltz and swing. The event starts at 5:30 p.m., with the Carnivaleros on at 7:30.
Don Armstrong with Friends will play on Sunday from 6 to 8 p.m. A longtime, local folk musician, Armstrong spent 42 years performing with his wife Victoria Armstrong until her death in 2014. They recorded nine albums together, empathetic songs that could make you cry or want to hop in your car just to feel wind in your hair. His debut album comes out later this year on Ronstadt Records.
“When you hear his music, it kind of transports you to either where he was when he wrote it or what he was thinking,” Susan says. “He just has his own unique style, and you can hear sort of the history of folk music come through him.”
The concert series was founded in 1996 by Susan’s husband Jonathan Holden. Before his death in 2012, Jonathan brought some big-name folk and blues artists to the Southwest, including Richie Havens, Dave Van Ronk and New Riders of the Purple Sage. Holden was also known for his part in founding Tucson community-radio station KXCI.
Tags: Don Armstrong , Susan Holden , Jonathan Holden , Video
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
40 local restaurants and 30 breweries will be coming together at this year's Tucson Wing Festival on Saturday, March 4, from noon to 4 p.m. at the Rillito Park Race Track to provide the best wings and beer the Southwest has to offer. The chefs will be able to compete for the Lord of the Wings title by whipping up their finest creations for a panel of judges. Not only will guests be allowed to sample wings from every booth, but they can also learn about the best pairing techniques from the brewers.
Two bands and a DJ will also be there to encourage guests to resist the inevitable food coma by moving, dancing and staying active after feasting. As if this event needed any more entertainment options besides booze,
As much food and beer samples your heart desires are included in the ticket price. General admission is $40 and VIP admission, which includes a private seating area, servers, exclusive beers and extra food, is $85. You can purchase tickets on this Eventbrite page. Guests must be 21 years old or over.
Tags: wings , Tucson Wing Festival , Lord of the Wings , beer , Rillito Park
