Benefits of locally sourced foods short-sold by '10,000-Mile Diet' champions
"If our modern food system is so bad for us, why do we now enjoy dramatically longer and healthier lives than our ancestors?" This question is one of four that locavores have yet to answer satisfactorily, and should, according to the book The Locavore’s Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000-Mile Diet. Answering it is a…
Little Giants
San Antonio’s McAllister Park National team remained undefeated at the 2012 Little League World Series after a convincing 13-3 thumping of New Castle, Indiana. Returning to the South Williamsport, Pennsylvania tournament for the first time since 2009, it was soon evident that the North Side sluggers had packed their hot bats. Sparked by Zachary Sanchez’s…
Pick of the Day: DJ Pauly D
If you’re among the millions of fans of the MTV train wreck Jersey Shore you’ll know that “GTL” stands for “Gym, Tan, Laundry,” Snooki is Chilean but wrote a book titled Confessions of a Guidette, The Situation’s real name is Michael Sorrentino, and blow-dryer enthusiast Paul “DJ Pauly D” DelVecchio scored the reality show’s first…
Upcoming San Antonio Pet Adoption Events
Well, since we’ve talked about opportunities to go green with your pets, let’s talk about other pet pawsibilities–like adoption events. My friend Gavin Nichols aka the no kill guy, sent me a list of scheduled adoption events hosted by Animal Care Services (ACS). The purpose behind the adoption events is to give a dog or…
Pick of the Day: B.B. King
It was six years ago, at the substantial age of 80, that Riley “Blues Boy” King announced to the world that he was launching his farewell tour. Of course, even then, we knew he didn’t mean it, and he did too, acknowledging with a wink that he wasn’t going to stop playing or singing classic…
Pick of the Day: Brian Regan
As lame as it may sound, Brian Regan is one of the good guys of comedy. The Miami native doesn’t swear or tell raunchy jokes and he hopes no kids out there find out he takes a shot of peach schnapps before going onstage or that he dropped out of college in 1980 to pursue…
The Memory of Sound by Matthew Guzman
What is it about insanity that make writers want to write about it? The challenge of not being able to really know what the insane are really going through, or maybe the fact that they do know? Edgar Allen Poe wrote “The Fall of the House of Usher” about the process of writing, which takes…
Pick of the Day: Friday Night Films in the Park: Giant
In the summer of 1955, Tinseltown invaded Marfa to start filming Texas’ own Gone with the Wind — George Stevens’ Oscar-winning adaptation of Edna Ferber’s epic novel Giant, a sweeping slice of life complete with cattle barons, nouveau riche oil tycoons, racists, and drunks. Along with a star-studded cast led by Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson,…
Tips for evironmentally-friendly pet ownership
Welcome back guest blogger Andrea Nocito. Andrea currently works as manager for the Energy Savings Solutions program at UTSA. In her spare time, Andrea founded EcoStrategies, a sustainability planning and implementation firm. Andrea is truly a goddess of the green movement with her focus on helping every aspect of life become environmentally friendly. This week,…
‘Expendables 2’ star Terry Crews explains why he’s indispensable
Actor Terry Crews (“Terminator Salvation”) looking good behind the barrel of a bazooka in “The Expendables 2.” In The Expendables 2, actor Terry Crews (Terminator Salvation) returns to reprise his role as Hale Caesar, a barrel-weapons specialist on the hunt for a rival who has killed one of his fellow mercenaries. The film also stars…
Bogus reality TV producer accused of sexually assaulting aspiring teenage model
More details have surfaced in the FBI’s case against a wanna-be San Antonio reality TV producer accused of sexually exploiting local underage girls. In February the feds unveiled a 22-count indictment against Gemase Lee Simmons, outlining the case of one underage San Antonio girl who claims Simmons coerced her into texting him sexually explicit and…
Behind the Scenes: Lego Alamo Plaza cover
This week’s cover was a lot of fun to put together. It’s been a personal goal of mine to create a cover entirely out of Lego (as a kid I used to build my own X-Wings and Batmobiles out of the stuff), and when the Team Better Block story came up, I knew this was…
‘Free Pussy Riot’: the videos and the band’s brave closing statement
Canadian electro-punk artist Peaches have released a free song in support of Russian punk band Pussy Riot, likely to be condemned to three years in prison tomorrow for criticizing Vladimir Putin’s government and the Russian Orthodox church. The song can be downloaded for free, but any donations will be used to help Pussy Riot’s defense…
Pick of the Day: “Dub & Sports Politics”
Taking a cue from the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver’s Mixed Taste — a lecture format that challenges experts to find common ground between such disparate topics as “Wittgenstein and Hula Dancing,” or “Nietzsche and Puppies, Puppies, Puppies!” — the McNay inaugurated its own Mash-Up Lecture Series in June with “Sous-vide & Indigo.” On Thursday,…
Spuriosity: Dream On
It’s been twenty years since Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, and David Robinson captured Olympic gold in Barcelona, simultaneously conquering the hoops world and jumpstarting the evolution of basketball around the globe. Without the original Dream Team there’s no Manu Ginobili or Tony Parker. Without Manu, an Olympic gold medalist in his…
Pick of the Day: Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden — along with older kin Judas Priest — helped launch the New Wave of British Metal. Characterized equally by the rumbling locomotive rhythms of Maiden bassist/songwriter Steve Harris and the twin lead guitar attack pioneered by Judas Priest, NWOBM not only inspired thrash, but later extreme movements like death and speed metal. In…
Los Lobos’ ‘Kiko’: 20th anniversary edition out on Aug. 21
This is what a band that has been together for 39 years sounds like (28 if you start counting from the time saxophonist Steve Berlin joined in 1984). They’re still at it, now touring worldwide with Neil Young & Crazy Horse. Los Lobos’ masterpiece, Kiko, turns 20 this year and the East L.A. band celebrates…
A conversation with Green Chef and co-owner Mike Behrend
How did you make the transition from Lulu’s to this establishment? In 2005 I became a vegetarian for ethical and environmental reasons. I could no longer cook chicken fried steaks, put them in Styrofoam to-go boxes, do that kind of business anymore. So, we sold Lulu’s in 2006, and my mom and I moved over…
Joss Stone: 'The Soul Sessions Vol. 2'
For someone so musically addicted to re-introductions, Joss Stone is pretty damn bad at them. Since her Miami-assisted breakthrough in 2003, Stone has tried the same feat time and again with diminishing returns: third album Introducing Joss Stone threw Betty Wright under a diva-sized bus; Colour Me Free! was a celebration of the end of…
Wonder Boy
Last Thursday, Christa Brothers’ Bismarck Studios celebrated "Franctober-Fest in August" with "Wunderbares," the latest art happening orchestrated by Rome Prize winner Franco Mondini-Ruiz. Sausages sizzled on the patio, wine and beer flowed, Rennie and the Happy Travelers played live polkas, impromptu treasurer David Zamora Casas (above right) marked territory with his signature shade of red,…
Shelton's greatest hits
While San Antonio is losing one of it’s most impeccable platforms for contemporary art, the local artists who’ve landed on the roster at David Shelton Gallery will represent the Alamo City in Houston starting in September. Late last month, Shelton confirmed rumors of his relocation, describing the opportunity to join Inman Gallery, Kinzelman Art Consulting,…
Chilling docudrama 'The Imposter' plumbs the depths of the human psyche
Stare deep into the eyes of French-Algerian criminal Frédéric Bourdin and it is evident he has no conscience. His matter-of-fact answers and weasel-like expressions during interviews with director Bart Layton for the documentary The Imposter are unsettling to say the least. Bourdin didn’t murder or maim anyone. He isn’t a child molester or serial rapist.…
Crosby, Stills & Nash: 'CSN 2012 (Live)'
Time hasn’t been kind on CSN, judging by their first live performance in 20 years. Here the trio (each twice inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for their collective work on CSN, The Hollies, and Buffalo Springfield) sounds tired, unrehearsed, and poorly recorded. The band and the songs are there, but the…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): These days you have a knack for reclamation and redemption, Aries. If anyone can put fun into what’s dysfunctional, it’s you. You may even be able to infuse neurotic cluelessness with a dose of erotic playfulness. So be confident in your ability to perform real magic in tight spots. Be alert…
Restaurant Week means city-wide specials
If you’ve been dying to try one of San Antonio’s better restaurants, but haven’t found a good excuse to go, you’re in luck this week. During Culinaria’s Restaurant Week — August 18-25 —participating restaurants will be offering three-course prix-fixe lunches for $15 and dinners for $35. I’d head out to Esquire Tavern, Bin 555, Mela…
Revisiting the great Convention Center black hole
There we go again. Or rather, there they go again. Local leaders keep spending hundreds of millions on our Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, and on its next-door Grand Hyatt hotel, in the hopes that the local convention business will boom. We’re about to do it again. More than $325 million is going toward the…
Girl in a Coma returns to TMA on their own terms
OK, the Tejanos haven’t done much to attract the rockeros, but the rockeros haven’t given too much of a damn about the Tejanos either. Enter Girl in a Coma. The girls played at the TMA Selena tribute in 2010, and they loved it. So why can’t the rest of you embrace boots and big belt…
Cafe Aroma: Network while you nosh
I have a suspicion — based perhaps on how difficult it is for most people to down a shot of ouzo without toasting to their own health — that Americans still want their food blessed. One of the easiest and most ancient ways to have this happen is, of course, to get some holy man to pray over…
Polynesian revival trades tired mojitos for a walk with a Zombie
Garlic, silver bullets, crosses, wooden stakes, Kevlar armor … they’re all part of your essential arsenal of antidotes to the undead. (The Kevlar guards against zombie bites, in case you weren’t aware.) Yet more likely these days than a zombie invasion is a deadly encounter with any of the drinks inspired by the assorted creatures…
Hey, diddle diddle, sex is a riddle in Cellar Theater production
According to the familiar nursery rhyme, when the cow jumped over the moon, it caused the little dog to erupt into laughter. There is much mirth in The Little Dog Laughed, but it usually comes at the expense of three characters serving as foils to a fourth’s pungent wit. Douglas Carter Beane’s 2006 play is…
Team Better Block takes on Alamo Plaza
This Friday and Saturday an experiment will be held in Alamo Plaza. The street will be closed and food stalls and a pop-up wine shop will be erected. Storytellers and musicians will be on hand, and a walking tour of the plaza will point out the locations of the long missing walls of Mission San…
Director Bart Layton confronts "The Chameleon" for compelling look into SA mystery
Getting to the truth wasn’t going to come easy for director Bart Layton. He knew this even before he turned on the video camera and gave serial imposter Frédéric Bourdin a platform to do what he does best. "He is a master manipulator," Layton told the Current during an interview to discuss his documentary The…
Council watch
Included in City Manager Sheryl Sculley’s proposed FY 2013 budget presentation before Council last week was a plan to cut 102 non-uniformed positions (meaning not police or firefighters), about half of which are currently vacant — those other employees would be shifted to other departments. Scully’s $2.3 billion budget also includes a provision to adopt…
Tejano Music Awards show signs of life
For the first time in 10 years, the Tejano Music Awards (which is to say: Tejano music) is showing signs of life. For its 32nd edition, the event returns to the Alamodome (or close enough to it, the Illusions Theater) and promises to show the world the new breed of Tejano. But let’s face it:…
Here's the top nominees for the 32nd Annual Tejano Music Awards
6 Jay Pérez (Song of the Year for “Invencible,” Male Vocalist, Entertainer, Tejano Album of the Year for The Voice of Authority, and duets of the year for “Tus ojos castaños” with David Marez and “Te quiero así” with Stefani Montiel) 5 Shelly Lares (Song of the Year for “Baila,” Female Vocalist, Entertainer, Album of…
Off the cow for now: Green Vegetarian Cuisine's restorative power
As a devoted omnivore and newcomer to San Antonio, I passed on familiar garden greens for many a month in favor of exploring the many meat-vending outlets here in Tacolandia, munching my way through neighborhood offerings of barbacoa, carne asada, and menudo until my own tripes rebelled. Vegetable cravings set in, so I set out…
Newsmonger: Hill Country unfair?, Public to vote on Brainpower
Hill Country unfair? About a dozen teenagers and organizers with Southwest Workers Union protested outside an Eastside H-E-B on the corner of Houston and New Braunfels last week, saying they spent over a year surveying food at H-E-B stores, finding major discrepancies in produce quality and healthy food options at stores in economically depressed areas…
¡ASK A MEXICAN!
Dear Readers: The Mexican is currently smuggling mescal out of Oaxaca and into hipster bars nationwide, and thus gives you two oldies-but-goodies. But I do want to give a shout-out to Olympic silver medalist Leo Manzano, a former undocumented immigrant who’s turning out to be the greatest American long-distance runner since the legendary Jim Ryun.…
Incubus: 'Incubus HQ Live'
To celebrate both the release of 2011’s If Not Now, When? (their first studio album in five years) and the fact they’ve been together for 20 years, Incubus invited its fans to six free, intimate nights at a storefront on La Brea in West Hollywood. The shows were broadcast live on the internet, and now…
Emilio Navaira to perform at Tejano Music Awards
"I’m just glad to be alive, man," says a happy, euphoric, Emilio Navaira. No kidding. The man known as Emilio will be 50 on August 23 ("I’ll be 50, dude!"), but it’s a celebration he nearly missed. Back on March 23, 2008, he crashed his band’s tour bus outside Houston, shooting 30 feet past the…
Last Nighters: 'Animal Room'
Animal Room, the debut LP by San Antonio’s Last Nighters, plays like something of a concise history of modern Southern indie music. From blues to pop to country twang and indie-rock bluster, Last Nighters are children of the wide-open Texas night — unafraid to be exuberant or to dress like their heroes when the time…
Rabbi Chaim Block on Cafe Aroma certification
What does eating kosher mean? Eating kosher means that all of the ingredients that go in to the preparation of the foods are approved and confirmed by a rabbi. Primarily, that means that there are no animal-based ingredients or derivatives used in any of the foods that they serve. And also, that all the aspects…
'Ruby Sparks' fizzles behind Zoe Kazan's tweepulsive screenplay
Vanity Fair had the right idea late last year when it started recapping episodes of the comedy series New Girl by categorizing each of Zooey Deschanel’s idiosyncrasies as either “adorkable” (a personality trait described as dorky and adorable) or “tweepulsive” (the same trait, but at a more cloying level). It’s not a standard gauge for…
Semi-losers and 'Inbetweeners' checking the British pulse
The Inbetweeners (9:30pm Mon, MTV) Based on a British series, The Inbetweeners puts its finger on high school’s “in-between” cohort. Our four male heroes fit somewhere in between the lowest and highest social strata, and they’re forever attempting to boost their status. These attempts inevitably end in humiliation, making them the object of derision for…
Botched care at SA’s Emeritus as Texas leads nation in nursing home deficiencies
When federal inspectors dropped by San Antonio nursing home Emeritus at Lincoln Heights last summer they discovered a laundry list of problems. They noted several instances of unsafe nursing practices, saying staff was “carelessly failing, repeatedly failing, or exhibiting an inability” to conform to minimum nursing standards. The facility, inspectors wrote, failed to develop care…
Brent Grulke, SXSW Creative Director, dead at 52
Grulke at the London Olympics last week The unexpected Monday passing of Brent Grulke, Creative Director of South by Southwest (due to a heart attack after oral surgery), is a heavy blow for Austin’s music scene. But thanks to his work (and that of the many people who worked with and for him), the city…
Pick of the Day: “Sounds of Spain”
La Casa de de España and the Instituto Cultural de México in collaboration with Houston’s Consulado General de España, H-E-B, Friends of Spain, and the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce present Dúo Rubio-Benavides’ “Sounds of Spain”, a free concert featuring a solo by pianist Ana Benavides as well as a duet with Pedro Rubio…
