The second annual Cardboard Ball was held Saturday, Sept. 28, 2013, at the restored Steinfeld Warehouse on the outskirts of Downtown Tucson. Hosted by artist Mykl Wells, the event showcased 2D and 3D works by local artists, and a cardboard themed dance party.

The event, which led well into the early hours of Sunday, was held to help fundraise for the All Souls Procession in November. Listen to Robert Alcaraz's report below.

I hate having that "I don't know. What do you want to do" conversation every weekend. Here's some interesting events you can partake this weekend. You know want to. Make some memories:

Born and Brewed: Here's a good way to gain some local beer knowledge to impress the ladies and/or fellas. Some of the featured breweries are: Dragoon, Barrio, Nimbus, Borderlands, Thunder Canyon, 1702, Ten 55 and Sentinel Peak, along with some special guest breweries.

Free Drumming and Dancing for Kids: It's hard to find activities that children and parents can both enjoy. Children Carrying Sound gives FREE drumming and dancing lessons every Saturday at the John Valenzuela Youth Center, 1550 S. Sixth Ave. Here's a preview of what kids learn and perform:

Standup to Violence: Vanessa Hollingshead is headling the third annual Stand Up to Stop Violence benefit for Emerge! at the Fox on Sunday. Lot of local favorites and some national acts in the lineup:

Comedian Suzie Sexton is bringing the show to the Fox Theatre for one stellar night of comedy. Suzie and friends David Fitzsimmons, (voted “Best Entertainer”, Tucson Lifestyle Magazine), Gary Hood (a comedy legend who has appeared at LAFFS Comedy Caffe, on Showtime and Comedy Central), Dina Kucera (comedienne and author of the bestseller Everything I Never Wanted to Be), Butch Lord (a 20-year veteran of standup whose “edgy look is softened by his carefree and light hearted view of himself and the world around him”), Elliot Glicksman (who has opened for Jerry Seinfeld, Phyllis Diller and Ricky Nelson), and Suzie Sexton (she has been called Tucson’s own version of Joan Rivers).

Be an extra in a music video: Penn "That Penn Thing" Weickhardt is filming a music video and needs your help. Penn is looking for young people in the age range of 18 through 25. The shoot starts at 5 p.m. Sunday at the Hacienda del Sol Guest Ranch Resort. Email him at [email protected] for visit his Facebook for more information.

KFMA Fall Ball: It's that annual music festival that gets on you the side of town you never visit unless you're going to the emergency room. Tickets are $39+ services fee. Gates open at noon and here's the lineup and schedule:

1:15 Stars In Stereo
2:05 American Fangs
3:00 Asking Alexandria
4:05 Pierce The Veil
5:20 P.O.D.
6:35 A Day To Remember
8:05 KoRn

The second annual Born & Brewed Tucson Beer Cup is happening this Friday at Hotel Congress, from 7-10 p.m. Part beer festival, part competition, it's a great excuse to get out and try some of the best local brews. The hotel also offers special packages that include a room for the night in case you "sample" too much. Some of the featured breweries are: Dragoon, Barrio, Nimbus, Borderlands, Thunder Canyon, 1702, Ten 55, Sentinel Peak, along with some special guest breweries.

What's beer without food and music you ask? They will have that covered as well. This event sold out last year and a good number of folks were turned down at the door, so get your tickets quick!

You can purchase them here : http://hotelcongress.com/music/2nd-annual-born-brewed-tucsons-beer-cup/

Happy Drinking Tucson!

I'm sort of an obsessive game show fan (last night at dinner, I surely bored an audience of my friends discussing my year or so of trying out for and appearing on game shows in LA), so just the mention of a live stage version of Price Is Right coming to Tucson this Sunday night was exciting for me. Talking to Todd Newton, the host of the show, on the phone, however, it seems like anyone who has affection for the classic show or just feels like having a chance to win prizes should probably get tickets.

My big concern, because I am a nerd who needs better hobbies, was that the stage show wouldn't have the same feel as the TV version, like a regional theater version of a Broadway musical, but Newton assured me that the audience will be impressed. "The similarities are endless," Newton said, "since the live show is produced by the same people as the TV show, there are still the same prizes, the cars, the vacations." In seemingly an apt comparison, he described the traveling version like a band playing its greatest hits, since they bring the full-size versions of games like Plinko and Cliffhangers. However, one advantage the live adaption has is ditching the time constraints of TV. "We go at least 90 minutes," Newton said, "sometimes up to two hours, if things are going well with the audience." Also, the show gets more people on stage than TV. Instead of bringing four people to "Contestant's Row" and then those people staying until they get on stage or the show ends, four new contestants are chosen for each pricing game. The contestants will be chosen at random from those who chose to put their names in, so the people in the cheap seats have the same chance as those up front. In this case, wearing a novelty t-shirt doesn't help you get on stage, although Newton noted that "it helps any game show to have people dress up and be loud."

Tickets for Price Is Right Live range from $38 to $64, not including fees, for Sunday, September 15th show at Centennial Hall. Showtime is 7 pm.

Buena Vista Social Club alumni Omara Portuondo, Guajiro Mirabal, Barbarito Torres and Eliades Ochoa return to the stage to perform with La Orquestra Buena Vista Social Club, a 13-piece group including a new generation of musicians, will perform Saturday, Sept. 14, at 8 p.m. in Centennial Hall. Fans will be able to hear some of their most famous songs like "Chan Chan," "El Carretero" and many other classics.

“I am very happy to be back with the public in the United States, I have done a lot of tours and the public has always been great, they know all our songs and are always welcoming,” said Eliades Ochoa, an original member and one of the founders of the Buena Vista Social Club.

Opening for them will be jazz pianist, Roberto Fonseca, a highly acclaimed, well respected musician from Havana.

“He is a very talented young man; what makes him great is that he can play variety of music. He is a complete artist,” Ochoa said.

Tickets are $45, $43, $40, $37, $30 with discounts. For information about the concert call (520) 621-3341 or go online to uapresents.org.

Eliades Ochoa had a few moments to talk to the Tucson Weekly:

What is the difference or similarities to the new generation of members in the Buena Vista Social Club?
The new generation in Buena Vista Social Club plays peninsular Cuban music. They come to us at a young age but they have a deep knowledge of the music of peninsular Cuban music and want to be there playing this music with the Buena Vista Social Club.

What is your favorite type of music and why?
Son cubano. I am sonero, my life is the countryside (the fields and land), I was born in the fields and will die there. (A style of music that originated in Cuba and gained worldwide popularity in the 1930s. Son combines elements of Spanish canción and the Spanish guitar with African rhythms and percussion instruments of Bantu and Arará origin.)

If you were not performing and playing music what would you be doing instead?
I think I was meant to be born as an artist and if I weren’t meant to be playing music, it would be better that I was never born. So if I wasn’t playing music, I don’t know what I would be doing.

If you are not playing music what are you doing?
I visit with my friends. I read a lot. I am like any other person.

What is your favorite song to play while on tour?
That’s hard; I love all the songs.

Many people compare you to Johnny Cash, does that bother you?
It is something beautiful; he is an artist of the world. I think when one is compared to another artist of quality whose music has made it around the world and brings joy to others is beautiful and to be compared to him I value a lot.

What is the most popular music in Cuba right now?
The youth is listening to a lot of a Reggeaton.

Did you like the documentary made by Wim Wenders about the Buena Vista Club and why?
Yeah, of course. It was very beautiful and it made us be even more well known around the world. Now wherever we go people recognize us and because of that we are all very thankful for the documentary.

Many Cuban artist have left Cuba but you have decided not to leave why?
Many artists do leave and they go travel the world, work and do whatever this is where I feel comfortable.

What kind of legacy do you hope the Buena Vista Club Leave behind?
I hope that we are known to have always played the best possibly could at our concerts and that we always gave the best to our fans, that we celebrated our public because they were always their for us. We did it all with lots of love.

"The World of Lisa Frank" - A Short Film from Scott Ross on Vimeo.

Reclusive artist, business woman and queen sitting upon an undoubtedly rainbow-and-sparkle covered throne Lisa Frank actually allowed filmmakers to enter Lisa Frank world headquarters in Tucson, where she sat down for an interview on just exactly what it's like being Lisa Frank. (Spoiler: She's crazy. I mean, she says it in the video. Really. Probably more "wacky aunt" than "volatile nutjob" though.)

Interestingly enough, the filmmakers purport this to be one of the first (if not THE first) video or audio interview that Lisa Frank has agreed to, though she appears on camera in only silhouette form...and possibly a glimpse of her wrist.

The film was financed by Urban Outfitters, who apparently signed a contract with Frank to slap all of her vintage designs onto merchandise, so look out for that next time you've got a lot of money to throw at overpriced faux-vintage items when you're shopping on University Boulevard.

[h/t: Laughing Squid]

The end of the office-based work-week draws near, so what better way to kill time than to pretend that you are the leader — nay, the god — of a cookie-forged empire?

Enter Cookie Clicker.



The premise is simple: You start out clicking an on-screen cookie. This, somehow, produces more cookies. From there, you create a cookie empire, using your click-based earnings (this might sound like a weird Craigslist ad, come to think of it) to create "buildings" ranging from extra cursors to click the cookie for you, to grandmothers to bake for you, all the way out to portals to some dimension that is apparently based on cookies.

The only way that Cookie Monster would love this game more is if it actually shot out cookies, directly into his om-nom-nomming mouth.

As for its addictiveness, I'll say this much: I began playing this game, on a whim, at 10:30 last night. I realized at about 1 a.m. that I was somehow creating more than 10,000 cookies per second, and that I had started to rewrite laws of the universe, using cookies as both pen and paper. By the time I woke from a cookie-filled dreamscape, I had become a titan, surveying the universe as my machinations produce more than 13 million cookies per second. 

I'm thinking of joining some sort of help group now, to shake the cookie habit.

In other words, it's a perfect way to destroy an hour or two at work before you head home to get ready for the Kathleen Madigan or Chief Keef show (or both), or whatever else you're up to tonight. Just, y'know. Tone it down on the clicking, lest your boss and coworkers realize you're all wasting time doing the same thing.

[Cookie Clicker]

So, as you might have noticed, the Internet exploded when Miley Cyrus rubbed her ass on a guy at the VMAs, ignoring that the Earth kept spinning while a 20-year-old pop star acted like a 20-year-old pop star.

Well, a new Tumblr noticed the disparity and thought that one might be able to help the other.

Miley Twerking On Things We Should Talk About uses a picture of the former Hannah Montana and current acknowledged Madonna wanna-be to highlight things that Americans have been ignoring in favor of freaking out that a girl wore vinyl pants and used a foam finger as a faux-penis the other day. 

Other things worth talking about that Miley is rubbing her ass on: the March on Washington; an incendiary memo related to the global financial crisis; the Bradley Manning conviction; and so much more.

Remember that rant on satire the other day? Yeah, this Tumblr is a master class on how to properly satirize things on the Internet.

Oh, Miley Cyrus. You used to be such an adorable scamp, what with your Disney Channel sitcom/toy-selling vehicle, music and movie career.

But, as pretty much everyone with a computer has seen, Miley went wild at last night's MTV Video Music Awards, collaborating on stage with "Blurred Lines" singer Robin Thicke as both a performer and a prop for Miley Cyrus to grind upon — and yeah, treat this link as NSFW.

For those who aren't going to follow that link (not a bad decision, mind you) here's a preview of what you would've seen, in GIF form (editor's note: I put the rest behind the cut, so you have to make a conscious decision to expose your brain and soul to such things):

For your Friday pretending-to-work needs (and possibly in tribute to Get Air Tucson), here's a compilation of animals jumping on trampolines, set to the soothing tones of House of Pain's "Jump Around." Enjoy.

[HT: Laughing Squid]