Cheap Thrill of the week

This week's cheap thrill is at the Herberger Theater. For those of you haven't ventured downtown in a while this is a good time to check it out.

The second annual Herberger Theater Festival of the Arts event takes place on Saturday, October 1st. Tickets for the event are $5.00 for adults and FREE for kids under 12 years old. The parking is also FREE at the Arizona Center, located at 5th Street and Fillmore.

At the Herberger Theater Festival of the Arts you will have the opportunity to hear live music from bands like Chicks with Picks and Take Cover! You will also have a chance to see several film shorts and other performances. There will be food and a wine tasting and even a kids zone! Click here for a participant list. The event begins at 1 PM and ends at 5 PM so get there early to take advantage of all they have to offer.

Leather, Music and Motorcycles - Bike Night @ Westgate

Thursdays at Westgate hundreds of motorcyclists show up in droves to show off their, chrome, custom paint and LED's adorned bikes. You will not be lacking for eye candy here, there is something for everyone! All shapes, sizes, makes and models (of both bikes and people) fill the walkways round the fountains for an evening filled with socializing, live music, bars and restaurants. If you are looking to make customizations to your bike you will find vendors here to show off their talents and equipment. Riders enthusiastically share information about their bikes to anyone who shows interest or takes a few photos of their bike. They also give you the evil eye if you get a little too close so mind your manners and don't touch the merchandise!

Pictures from Bike Night

Michael and I have recently become motorcycle owners and have yet to participate in any cyclist events, mainly because I feel under dressed without my leather chaps...however we have found that it's easy to find fellow riders. There is an instant camaraderie with motorcycle owners and you always have something to talk about (instant ice breaker). Riders share a super secret 2 finger wave (like the peace sign) from the either the hip or the handle bars with fellow bikes passing by. If you are suffering from cabin fever from the dog days of summer take a ride over to Westgate City Center and check out some of the free events. There is shopping, food, movies and more! One word of caution...in my experience Thursday night, many of the bikers were not very patient with the pedestrian traffic and they let you know you are in their way by revving their engines behind you.

Cheap Thrill of the week

The thrill this week is brought to us by Ballet Arizona.

Ballet under the stars is running at different locations throughout the valley until Sunday, September 25th.  Here's a blurb from their website "

Ballet Arizona will present its 14th annual Ballet Under the Stars, series at parks throughout the Valley. FREE and open to the public, Ballet Under the Stars, allows Arizona communities to enjoy dance in a unique outdoor setting complete with a stage, lighting, costumes and beautiful Arizona weather. Bring a blanket or lawn chair and enjoy a varied program, ranging from classical to contemporary. You won’t want to miss this perfect show for the entire family – it is a great way to introduce ballet to your children for the first time."



Click on their link for locations and times. Ballet Arizona

Cheap Thrills, Recurring Events

There are a few events that are free and that happen every week. We will be posting them on the calendar over there on the right but here are a few to whet your appetite!

First up, check out the Thursday night bike night at Westgate. This west side event (located at the 101 and Glendale) begins at 5 PM and runs until 9 PM. This event will be on Thursday nights for the next five weeks and then they switch to Wednesday for five weeks after that. They are currently doing a theme night every week with this week being a 60's theme.

http://www.cyclerides.com/

Our second recurring event is also on Thursday. The Scottsdale Art Walk is happening every Thursday from 7-9 PM. Here's the blurb from their website "A 30-year tradition, the ArtWalk process is simple — proceed at your own pace, wander into galleries that capture your fancy, stroll around a delightful area punctuated by dramatic statues, bubbling fountains, tree-covered courtyards, famed restaurants and more. Horse-drawn carriage rides and trolley rides are often available from plentiful free parking areas nearby" You can also click on their website to get more information.

http://www.scottsdalegalleries.com/index.html

Belly Belly Belly

Saturday night found Beth, Michael and I at Next Coffee located on the west side, just south of the 101 on 59th Ave.

We were at Next Coffee to experience some of their free entertainment. This particular Saturday night was belly dancing night! The festivities began at 6 PM and when we arrived at 6:30 things were in full shimmy.

There was a pretty good sized crowd of people, some were dressed up and some were just clapping and having a great time.

Speaking of dressing up, there were belly dancing costumes of all types. There were some that looked like the traditional style that you would expect to see a belly dancer in and there were some others that were inspired by Steampunk. I had to google steampunk to see what it was. They kind of looked like pirates to me.

Beth and I ventured in to the little shop that the belly dancing troupe set up. There were all kinds of costumes and accessories for sale. Some of the costumes were really cool and very heavy with all the beading. We spoke with Kristyn (aka Anyanka) she is the director and choreographer of Dancers of DeNile. Here she is performing with her daughter and another dancer.

We asked Anyanka about the music choices of some of the dancers (Wang Chung Tonight anyone?) and she said that the dancers choose their own music to go with their particular style and the music doesn't necessarily have to be traditional.

She was shimmying all over the place!

 The belly dancing was something fun and free to do on a Saturday night. It is a recurring event on the third Saturday of the month at Next Coffee.

This venue is pretty cool. They have lots of yummy coffee drinks, teas, beer, wine and all kinds of food and snacks. They offered samples of their pumpkin spice latte and I drove back over the next day to get one for breakfast! Delish!

Next Coffee supports local artists and they have a great calendar of free events all during the week including open Mic night, live music, tea tastings and much more. Just click on this link and check them out.

I am sure we will be back to enjoy some of their other offerings and you know, maybe another pumpkin spice latte or two.

Cheap Thrill Date Night Edition

Our Cheapskate Daters

We begin our first edition of cheap thrill date night in Old Town Scottsdale at the Gelato Spot.

This particular cheap thrill date night is sponsored by Groupon. I picked up a Groupon for the Gelato Spot. The cost was $12 and that gave us two entrees and two small scoops of gelato. The food was molto delizioso!  On a side note, did you know that gelato is lower in calories than ice cream? So basically that means I could have had a large scoop but I didn't. I am getting so moderate in my 40's.

With our appetites satiated, we headed on over to Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMOCA). On Thursday the Museum is free and it is open until 8 PM.

 

I should have been on the Price is Right!

We checked out the Extended Collapse exhibit which is an installation that depicts architecture and design history and the implications of boom culture. Yes that was taken straight from the brochure but that is such a good summary why mess with it?  One of the pieces is a chunk of the marquee from the United Artists multiplex movie theater that was torn down in 1999 and replaced by the current location of SMOCA.

Here's a picture of the marquee. This is taken with my cell phone. I was being stealthy because I didn't know if we could take pictures in the museum. 

There were some other exhibits and SMOCA is really cutting edge. If you have a smart phone with the ability to scan, you can scan in the little bar codes at the beginning of the exhibit and read all about the artists and whatnot. This is WAY cooler than the old school head phones and the walk-man style players around your neck. What? Don't they do those anymore?

After the tour of SMOCA we decided that we had not seen nearly enough art so off we went to the Scottsdale Art Walk. It is free and it is a recurring event, every Thursday from 7 PM to 9 PM.

My little artsy take on the artwalk markers all along the streets.

We started our tour at the Bonner David Galleries. There were some pretty cool things in there, like this one that I call the cat lady in the wooden bowl.

She's a colorful cat lady

Then we sauntered on down to Madau Homan gallery. Mike liked this one the best. It had some seriously cool metal sculptures like these two.

Because of course I like the lady jumping out of the window and the robot holding a bunch of wine.

As we continued our loop, a few of the owners we chatted with mentioned that it was unusually quiet for Thursday night. I noticed this as well when we didn't have any trouble parking, which to me is a bonus. I didn't mind it being a slow night, it felt more intimate to be able to talk with the people and enjoy a glass of champagne with the other art walkers and gallery owners.

Here I am at the Occasions! By Design gallery. 

So, with that I will wrap up our Cheap Thrill Date Night. We had a lovely time and with the weather getting cooler this is a great thing to do.

I have a few tips. First, the parking is pretty easy for SMOCA. You just head East on 2nd Street from Scottsdale Road and the free public parking garage is on the North side of the street. There are also tons of restaurants around there so you could grab an appetizer or a snack if you get hungry.

Second, you can hop on and off the trolley to get around and make sure you hit all the sites. Here's the link to the Trolley Routes They keep it running until 9 PM on Thursday nights.

And lastly, wearing heels is probably not the greatest idea no matter how cute you look in them. Trust me,  I have a few blisters to prove it.

Cheap Thrill of the week!

Hey check this out! Harkins Theaters are saying celebrating 78 years in Arizona by offering free movies all week! Select movies and select theaters so here are the details.

Or click this link for more details Harkins Theaters

Jammers and Packs and Pivots, Oh my!

Our first foray out into the world of cheap thrills finds us at the Arizona Roller Derby opener on Saturday, September 10th. The tickets were $10 if purchased online at Arizona Derby Girls

The Arizona Roller Derby is a founding member of WFTDA ( Women's Flat Track Derby Association) Their home track is located in Castle Sports Club at 11420 N. 19th Ave.

First impressions? Well, the parking lot was jam packed and people were sitting out with coolers and camping chairs. I thought, "holy cow, this is an EVENT!" It turns out that there was a volleyball tournament going on which added to the semi chaos.

The crowd was filled with people of all shapes, sizes and ages with many interesting tattoos and piercings. There were even a few pirates! Let's just say that you could tell which people were headed to the Roller Derby and which were headed to the volleyball tournament.

The venue itself was loud and kind of stuffy. The benches in the glassed off area around the rink were filled and they had chairs on the floor around the "rink" where Beth and Michael had saved me a seat. We were behind a group that was there in support of their Derby Girl, Silent Ninja from the Brawlerinas team.

The bout began with a run down of the rules. I won't bore you with them here ( you can click on the link if you are interested) but it was helpful to kind of know what was going on. The rules were also posted in the program for the event. The next item on the agenda was to introduce the teams.

The colorful names of the teams and their players definitely follows Derby tradition. Here's a sampling of the player names; Bo Peep Show, Fairy Vicious, Destructo Kitty, Gratuitous Violet, Sammi Automatic, Milly Watt and Blok and DekHer. Not to be out done the refs get in to the game with Buster Chops and Maya Pinion.

My action shots aren't nearly as good as Beth's.

You will also be happy to know that they continue tradition with interesting outfits complete with fishnet stockings, tutus, hot pants and crazy makeup.

The bout itself was pretty cool. Nothing like you would imagine from what you may have seen in the movies or on t.v. but still fun in it's own right. The girls all had great attitudes and they were having a good time. For such a rough event it was inspiring to see the pack rolling around and tactically blocking the other team to keep the jammers from scoring. There wasn't a hint of nastiness or animosity when they slammed in to each other or crashed to the floor in a major pile up. They just got up and kept going. It was awesome! I think this would be a great event to take your teen and pre-teen girls to. Here's the link to the schedule. Arizona Derby Girls

So... Beth, what did you think? Got some cool pictures and videos to add?

Beth Says:

We had our choice of sitting safely behind the glass or on the playing field. I chose the dangerous route in hopes that I would photograph the perfect derby brawl. Being totally new to the Roller Derby I decided I better try to read the rules of the game so I know what I’m looking for and have a hope of understanding the scoring. I read about Pivots, Jammers and Blockers and none of it made a lick of sense. The pregame was chocked full of people watching while the derby girls warmed up. The MC worked hard to pump up the crowd, there were raffle tickets to buy…the prize.. $25 off a tattoo (very fitting for this event). One of the referee’s was worth a second look because her mannerisms reminded me of the star of GLEE. She took her job way too seriously, positioning herself in all sorts of weird stretches that normal athletes do not do while warming up, it was comical. I even spotted a derby perv taking action shots of the skaters from the floor, the only thing missing were the mirrors on his shoes!

With names like “Block and DekHer”, “Nicole Bitchy”, “Racey Rizzo” and “Hacker Too Pieces”, I hoped for some exciting brawls. I had images of girls smacking against the hockey glass and blood streaked glass, but in reality this particular event was nothing of the sort. We were clued in that the men’s roller derby leagues may have a little more of the action I was looking for. Being a skater myself, if I was 10 years younger I may have just signed up to be a derby girl. The girls did a great job and it was definitely worth seeing at least once. Advanced ticket prices are $10/ea for adults or $12 at the door. Don’t procrastinate because online ticket purchase can’t be made after 12pm on the day of the bout and it will cost you more at the door. Overall it was a perfect opportunity to stay within my budget of $10 and it was a great opportunity to try something new. I would totally take the family to see this event.

Picture Highlights