• FACEBOOK

King of the Internet and former Star Trek Enterprise commanding officer George Takei has cast his magical meme wand over Tucson for the second time this year with his Facebook and Twitter posts of a crudely Photoshopped headline page of the Arizona Daily Star on Sunday. The image of the fake story touted an erroneous, sexually charged acronym that a local artist created as a parody of the city's Sun Link Streetcar.

As of 4:00 p.m. today, Takei's Facebook post of the "Tucson Loves the C.L.I.T.T." hoax story image had more than 24,000 shares, 62,000 likes and almost 5000 comments from his page, which boasts more than 7.3 million followers. A Twitter share of the article's screenshot, which featured sexual imagery envisioning the streetcar as "going down south on 4th Ave until sliding underneath the 4th Ave Underpants," had been retweeted more than 700 times and garnered 900-plus "favorites" among his 1.7 million fans.

Tucson had previously popped up on Takei's radar in February of this year during a heated national debate surrounding anti-gay legislation, of which Arizona's SB 1062 was particularly extreme. After Takei reposted an image of a sign in Tucson's Rocco Little Chicago Pizzeria's window protesting the bill, owner Rocco DiGrazia was propelled into the international spotlight. DiGrazia found himself being interviewed by media outlets of all sizes—from the UK's Guardian, the New York Times and Al Jazeera, right on down to an obscure LGBT blog based in Germany.

Since the one-note joke parody Facebook page was created on July 11, Ride the CLITT and its fictional acronym C.L.I.T.T. (Community Link Integrated Transit of Tucson) had many Facebook users wondering if the page was an official, awkwardly titled Sun Link-sponsored page or an Onion-like parody. To further add to the confusion, official Sun Link press release posts were mixed with Ride the CLITT's own photoshopped maps and promotions, all of which were dripping with innuendos and double entendres.

The page was actually the brainchild of longtime local art activist and Food Truck Roundup creator David Aguirre. In a statement sent to the Tucson Weekly on July 14, Aguirre explained his motivation: "Ride the C.L.I.T.T. has a $100 budget for advertising on Facebook. [...] I hope the page will inspire others to get out there and make stuff up informing us who we are as a community." Aguirre had also cited Seattle's similar "Ride The S.L.U.T" web prank as inspiration.

• Nicola Freegard

Approximately 60,000 passengers enjoyed free rides from the Tucson Sun Link Streetcar over the three-day Sunrise Over Sun Link celebration this weekend, according to the City of Tucson and the Regional Transportation Authority. The city estimated 17,000 passengers hopped on during Friday's Grand Opening celebration, 25,000 braved the heat on Saturday and approximately 18,000 people rode streetcars during Sunday’s twelve-hour scheduled service.

Sun Link Streetcar Project Manager Shellie Ginn said, “This weekend's ridership numbers are a clear indication of the interest and support the Tucson community shares for the Tucson Sun Link Streetcar system. We had a great first weekend and look forward to many more.”

• Nicola Freegard

More than 400 Tucsonans volunteered through the weekend, handing out free water, answering questions and assisting riders in getting on board the streetcars. By all accounts, Sun Link's service went on without a hitch, with happy riders and crowded businesses from its most western stop at Mercado San Agustin to the University of Arizona campus.

Sun Link started its first official day with fares this morning at 7:00 a.m., with one-way rides at $1.50, $4.00 for a day pass, and monthly passes starting at $42.00 with additional discounts available. The day passes can be purchased at kiosks on the 23 designated stops along the route by using either exact cash, debit or credit; find more details at Sun Link.

• James Hudson

Sun Link Project Manager Shellie Ginn said, "The Sun Link streetcar system had a great first day of service. We were able to provide a comfortable, cool ride for thousands of people and the streetcars were consistently overflowing with passengers." The cars were so full that many Sun Tran buses were used to accommodate the overflow.

As ridership slowed later into the evening, eight cars were reduced to six along the Sun Link route, which connects West Side of downtown from Mercado San Agustin to the lively heart of downtown on Congress St. and Broadway Blvd; the historical, cultural soul of Tucson, Fourth Avenue; and the University of Arizona campus. Sun Link service was free on Friday and will continue to be so through Sunday evening at 8:00 p.m., taking passengers to a series of five separate district celebrations along the route.

• JAMES HUDSON
• Within 30 minutes of opening, the MLK lot pop-up beach party already had scores of visitors enjoying beer, music, and games of volleyball & badminton; children instantly gravitated to the field of sand.

A jovial mood was omnipresent Friday, and could be seen on full display at the streetcar stop on Broadway and 6th Ave. as late as 1:30 a.m., as downtown bar-hopping regulars waited for their all-electric, made-in-America, thirty-ton designated driver to take them home. The streetcars will continue to run until 2:00 a.m. early Sunday morning to accommodate passengers taking advantage of several special events planned Saturday night along the route, including the Wet Hot American Block Party on the pop-up beach party MLK lot and Hotel Congress.

• JAMES HUDSON
• Downtown's faux beach during its construction Thursday morning. It will remain for public use through Labor Day weekend.

Over 170 tons of sand has been shooting over 5th Avenue and Toole into the empty MLK lot across from Hotel Congress this week, bringing the beach to Tucson as part of this weekend's Sun Link celebration of the Modern Streetcar Launch.The Downtown Tucson party, dubbed Summer in the City, starts Friday, July 25 at 4:00 p.m., and is one of five separately themed events each of the districts along the streetcar's route have planned. The celebrations will follow a series of ribbon cutting ceremonies, which kick off at 7:00 a.m. at Mercado San Agustin and conclude along Congress street with a procession that will feature a streetcar escort by the UA Pride of Arizona.

• JAMES HUDSON
• This machine will be spraying hand sanitizer following Saturday's Wet Hot American Block Party.

Starting Friday at 10:00 a.m. and running through Sunday, July 27, riders will be able to jump on the streetcar and enjoy unlimited rides at no charge. Over at the Summer Beach Party in the MLK lot on Friday beginning at 4:00 p.m., passengers can take a pit-stop for a cool one at the shaded beer garden; build sand castles; pick up a game of volleyball or ping pong; or grab a cup of Kona Berri frozen yogurt with food from a rotating cast of local food trucks.

• Tom Walbank

Friday's live music at the Summer in the City party kicks off at 5:00 p.m. with Sticks & Fingers's steel drum-infused Caribbean vibes, followed by retro-psych-desert-rockers The Modeens; classic rock cover band No Reply; and Delta bluesman Tom Walbank closes out the night from 9:30 to 11:00 p.m. with harmonica solos that will rival downtown's passing locomotives.

• JAMES HUDSON

Each district will be hosting a weekend full of events and entertainment centering around a specific theme. Mercado San Agustin’s theme will be Fiesta in the City (aka “Streetcar Named Deseo”), with Latin-flavored music, food and fun. Fourth Avenue’s Soul in the City party will focus on the area’s history as a destination for a uniquely Tucson experience. Sidewalk sales from 4th Ave's eclectic merchants will dot the main strip; live music plus food and drink specials for all ages at the avenue's restaurants and bars. Main Gate Square's Jazzed in the City will fill the air with jazz music from performers of all ages, in addition to specials from all the merchants, restaurants and bars up and down the university area. The University of Arizona campus is appropriately calling its celebration Art and Culture in the City, with several museums and the Flandrau Science Center offering discounted or free admission all weekend.

• Pretty much.

Not much else to say about that image—it's how Tucsonans get through July and August. But the good news is the partial screen shot above was taken early yesterday, and since then, depending on what weather service you are viewing, most forecasts have lowered today's high temperature down around 106° to 104°. And our monsoon storms appear to be coming to the rescue, as chances of rain have been upgraded from that 10% figure to 30% to 40%, increasing as the day wears on.

And though it was predicted on Monday, it does not look like Tucson will top the highest temperature ever on this day, 109°, achieved in 1987. And nowhere near Tucson's all-time high of 117°, which was recorded on June 26, 1990.

Then again, as of 11:30 a.m., we've already passed the century mark. Keep refreshing that radar map.

Following a Sun Link news conference today hosted by Mayor Johnathan Rothschild and a plaque dedication honoring Rep Raúl Grijalva, a group of local dignitaries and the media were led aboard Tucson’s Modern Streetcar on its route up to Mercado San Augustin and back down 4th Avenue to the University of Arizona. This is part 3 of 5 videos taken on the trip, in which it proceeds up through the Broadway/Toole intersection, crosses Congress St. and continues north down the 4th Avenue Underpass. The video also features a quick view of the streetcar's interior.

More video, photos, and interviews from the news conference, which also featured Rep. Ron Barber, to follow.

From the official Ramones Facebook page:

We are saddened to announce the passing of Tommy Ramone (nee Erdelyi), the original drummer for the Ramones, earlier today, 11 July 2014.

"It wasn't just music in The Ramones: it was an idea. It was bringing back a whole feel that was missing in rock music — it was a whole push outwards to say something new and different. Originally it was just an artistic type of thing; finally I felt it was something that was good enough for everybody." - Tommy Ramone, 1978

RIP Tommy.

It's that time of year again, when Tucsonans can see dozens of two-inched metallic midnight-blue or burnt-sienna creatures scampering under our mesquite trees in a methed-out manner, as if perpetually looking for an imaginary missing lighter. They are the Pepsis and Hemipepsis wasps, aka the tarantula hawk, which normally come out of hiding in July, and can be found mid-day just before and after a monsoon rain as they sniff out possible tarantula burrows amongst the mesquite's fallen bean pods.

• Photo courtesty of mtrb.com

According to a report by Dawn H. Gouge and Carl Olson of the UA Department of Entomology, the tarantula wasp has the most painful sting in North America, second in the world only to Central and South America’s bullet ant, which earns top ranking on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. The wasp's sting has been described as something close to sitting in a tub of water and throwing in a toaster oven—blinding and debilitating, leaving the victim a screaming, balled-up hot mess.

After only a few minutes, however, the excruciating pain usually subsides, and the tiny sting resembles that of a fire ant. You pretty much have to purposely pick the wasp up in order to get stung, as they mostly ignore humans. It’s our velvety eight-legged friends that need to beware, for its fate shall be a slow and grisly one as the female tarantula hawk uses the spider as a host for its larvae.

David B. Williams at Desert USA gets into the morbid details:

Once stung, the tarantula becomes paralyzed within seconds. The condition will last for the remainder of its life. The wasp may drink the body fluids oozing from the spider’s wounds or from its mouth to replenish nutrients and water she used during the attack.

If the wasp expelled her victim, she will drag it back into its own burrow, now a burial vault, lay a single egg on the spider’s abdomen, then seal the chamber. If the wasp succeeds in stinging a male tarantula on a mating hunt, she will excavate a burrow, drag the paralyzed spider inside, lay her single egg, and seal the chamber.

Once the egg hatches, the tiny grub, initially connected to the spider by the tip of its tail, bends over, attaches its head and begins to suck. It continues sucking until its final moult. It then rips open the spider's abdomen, thrusts its head and part of the thorax inside, and "feeds ravenously," as one entomologist described it. As one might hope, even for a spider, the tarantula at this point is finally dead.

• JAMES HUDSON
• As close as I wanted to get to this tarantula hawk cruising Downtown Tucson yesterday evening.

Gene Hall, who is Museum Manager at the UA Entomology Museum's Insect Collection, said of the tarantula hawk, "They are one of the beautiful gentle giants of the desert fauna. We get a lot of inquiries at the UA Entomology Department and try to convince/teach people these wasps are one of the many benefits of living in the desert."

That said, it's probably best if we civilians just let these spazzy little winged critters be, and according to Tucson's Conquistador Pest & Termite, "Tarantula hawks are not aggressive or prone to stinging and most experts recommend that such wasps simply be left alone and preventive measures be taken to keep the wasps from getting into your home or stinging someone." Don't try this at home, folks—if you must, get a professional. As for the crusty neighborhood tweakers, you're on your own.

While an Independence Day weekend filled with free entertainment over the skies of Tucson was expected, the Old Pueblo got a bonus treat as the long-awaited monsoon storms finally delivered. Here is a collection of photos and videos found 'round the net.

A time-lapse of Saturday evening's monsoon storm whipping through the UA campus, as fillmed by the University of Arizona Atmospheric Sciences.

• Leigh Spigelman
• A Mountain (Sentinel Peak) saw plenty of smoke, but no fire this 4th of July.

• Curtis Dutiel
• Fireworks in Downtown Tucson, and for once it's not over budget cuts!

Fireworks on "A Mountain" in downtown Tucson Arizona from Sean Parker on Vimeo.

An amazing time-lapse of the fireworks display over Sentinel Peak Park on Friday, July 4th, from local professional photographer Sean Parker.

• JAMES HUDSON
• Caruso's Italian Cyprus trees were slow-dancing just before the storm hit 4th Ave late Saturday afternoon.

A Fish Called Wander? Local creative director Nicola Freegard found this hatchery bluegill about a half-mile walk away from Reid Park Lake on Saturday. "The lake was teeming with very large fish, I suspect this was to be dinner for one of the park's hawks or larger birds. In England there's a history of fish falling from the sky—that would be a fantastical sight in Tucson!"

• Judith Gonzalez
• Mission San Xavier del Bac

• Ansel Adams, Fresh Snow, Yosemite Valley, California (1947) gelatin silver print © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust.

Downtown's Etherton Gallery is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act with a glorious display of photography from Ansel Adams and Debra Bloomfield. Wild America continues through Aug. 30, with a Bloomfield coming to town for a reception on Saturday, June 21. Snowy peaks in an air-conditioned gallery? Can't beat it on a summer day. Details here.