U: Lanny Sinkin offers perspective on STP nuclear then and now
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com Lanny Sinkin has lived this before. As one of the few opponents of CPS Energy’s decision to partner in the construction of two nuclear reactors outside of Bay City in the 1970s, Sinkin was critical to exposing serious construction problems at the facility. After encountering a cowed inspector from the U.S. Nuclear…
Live & Local preview: Prevail Within
If you like your punk with a side of “circle pit,” head over to the Ten Eleven immediately! Prevail Within, one of San Antonio longest standing punk outfits, are set to play at 10:15. For those looking to fit in, try some Knox gelatin if you’re having trouble getting your “hawk” to stay up. And…
Chaléwood No. 20: Eva LaRue
Eva LaRue – CSI: Miami By Kiko Martinez San Antonio Current contributing writer kiko@cinesnob.net Actress Eva LaRue remembers what it was like for Latinas in the television industry when she started her career back in the late 80s. “Twenty years ago when I first got into the business there was literally no Latinas working in…
U: STP nuke plant acheiving record levels of power production
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com If you aren’t anti-nuclear by disposition (or education) and weren’t around to witness the intimidation of federal inspectors, explosive construction faux pas, and wild cost-overruns that marked the birth of the South Texas Project’s twin reactors back in the 1980s, it’s conceivable you may not have one negative thing to say about…
Hammer of the Gods
Two rock stars and one living legend consider the guitar and its heroics
U: Property owners association fighting Comanche Peak expansion
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com When folks gather to oppose the expansion of the South Texas Project nuclear complex in San Antonio, they run the risk of being called “communists,” as happened recently in the comments section of one local news site. While the San Antonio protestors do include a smattering of “seasoned” activists generally not on…
Randall Terry prays for Obama
By Enrique Lopetegui elopetegui@sacurrent.com Why do I waste my time talking to nuts like Randall Terry? The guy founded anti-abortion Operation Rescue in 1987, but the organization’s current leaders want to have no part of his nonsense, at least not publicly. Terry’s tactics are so over the top that he makes Pat Buchanan look and…
Easy Reader: A chain of emails about the Eastside Crosspoint facility fight
As the Express-News reported last week, another Eastside battle is underway, this time over a proposed reentry facility — a residence for individuals who are transitioning from the criminal-justice system to the real world — which is on the Council’s agenda this week. I care very much about SA’s East Side, am a fan/fascinated observer…
Happy Blues
By Enrique Lopetegui elopetegui@sacurrent.com Here’s the complete Poncho Sánchez Q&A. Catch him and his band live this Saturday at 9:30 at Travis Park, for JazzSAlive. Not only you are not from Cuba or Puerto Ricoâ?¦ (he laughs) â?¦but you are from Texas! Was it extra hard for you to earn credibility as a conguero? Oh,…
Haih or Amortecedor
Os Mutantes
Curse Your Branches
David Bazan
Artwork
The Used
Zero Cool
Corporate crime? Oh, whistleblow me
Still Forgotten
Luis Buñuel’s Mexican masterpiece reminds us that things haven’t gotten much better
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Critic’s Pick Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs Director: Christopher Miller, Phil Lord Screenwriter: Christopher Miller, Phil Lord Cast: Bill Hader, Neil Patrick Harris, Anna Faris, James Caan, Andy Samberg Release Date: 2009-09-16 Rated: PG Genre: Film Spray-on shoes, check. Requisite mad-scientist pinwheel coif, check. Port-a-potty elevator to backyard lab guarded by a Simon keypad,…
The Scientists
(doctors of drinking)
Popular Songs
Popular Songs Composer: Yo La Tengo Conductor: Yo La Tengo Label: Matador Release Date: 2009-09-16 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Old married couple and YLT founders Ira Kaplan (guitar, vocals) and Georgia Hubley (drums, vocals) should by all rights be growing fat off remastered greatest-hits collections and soundtrack royalties in 2009, 25 years into their musical…
Dear Uncle Mat
I started dating my best friend two months ago, and it’s great! We hang out all the time, our friends are really supportive, and we just enjoy each other’s company. The problem is he’s looking at moving this winter to another city. He really hates the town we live in now (Lubbock, yuck!) and wants…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I don’t think I’m being unduly optimistic when I speculate that you’re on the verge of achieving a ringing victory over your bad self. What makes me so confident that this development is in the works? Well, in recent weeks you have been dealing more forthrightly and intelligently with the lowest…
Cultural imperatives
Mexico, de novo The life of photographer, caricaturist, and adventurer Leo Matiz (1917-1998), unarguably Colombia’s greatest photographer of the 20th century, was in itself worth capturing on film. A photojournalist almost by accident, he is revered in Venezuela (where he lived from 1954-64, as documented in the Leo Matiz en Caracas short); was named one…
¡Ask a Mexican!
We gabachos get differing reports regarding the Reconquista. Some say it’s a genuine movement, well under way. Others claim it’ll never happen, but that it’s useful as a slogan that both antagonizes white America and energizes young Mexicans. Let’s say for now that it’s a genuine movement destined for success. What would victory look like? I…
Thomas Cook
In case you were wondering who (if anyone) in San Antonio sang professionally on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in New York (Ping in Turandot, 1985), fondled the Hope Diamond (pre-Smithsonian residency), and absconded with legendary opera diva Leontyne Price’s last dollar (as in “Morgan dollar”), that would be none other than our own…
Short Shorts
This was a watershed month for submissions, which made my life that much more difficult: choices, choices. But interesting choices, fun choices. I only wish we had more room. In this month’s very short stories, rifts yawn open and revelations preclude a life of freedom (or a life at all). Glum but wonderfully delivered. Please…
Tuscan vanilla
Even by San Antonio standards, the conversion of the old Maggie’s on San Pedro into Barbaresco Tuscan Grill and Enoteca appeared to be taking forever. “We decided to delay the opening until the economy seemed to be improving,” said Michel Adib, who moved here to manage the San Antonio sucursal of the Guadalajara-based restaurant. We…
Ill Communication
It’s another humid Saturday night in San Antonio, and throughout Trinity University’s campus, the sounds of Alamo Stadium football echo in the trees. Inside an empty building, the KRTU radio machine runs on automatic until DJ Scub Nice, aka “Scuba” Steve Balser, flips on the station lights and Super Soul Saturday begins to lift off.…
The Sound & The Fury
The (no, I won’t say “spicy”) American Sabor exhibit at the Alameda comes to an end on Sunday, September 20, so catch it before it’s too late. Kill two stones with one bird (I’m a veggie, sorry) and go to Market Square on Saturday between noon and 11 p.m. to hear Bombasta, Girl In a…
S’NUFF Film
“Does anybody remember laughter?” It’s the noise you make after Robert Plant poses this awesomely condescending inquiry in Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains the Same. Watch it the way your grandpa did — in a theater full of stoned teenagers and funny-smelling perma-fried acid casualties — for free at either 7:30 p.m. or 10 p.m.…
Live & Local
The Mix doesn’t really have one, so vocalist Cindy Osbourne brings her own stage. No kidding — she spends the whole set standing on a small wooden platform, elevated about three inches above the common folk on the floor. She’s not very tall, so the effect isn’t all that pronounced, even in her thick-heeled boots.…
Big Tex bailout, columnist dropout
Rock collection No good deed goes unpunished, and so the bill for the cleanup at the Big Tex site just south of downtown came due last spring — but it has yet to be paid, leaving the scenic plot in development limbo. Last December, the Environmental Protection Agency removed 1,200 cubic yards of dirt contaminated…
Nukes mean mines
A string of lakes across Karnes County sparkle as blue as any found in the resort towns of Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Each is graced with the gentle slope of a nearby hill, where wildlife forages on its way to and from the waterline. These former mine sites were blasted open during the uranium…
Reasonable Doubt
For the past month, the case of Sharon Keller has been the talk of the legal world in San Antonio, where District Judge David Berchelmann Jr. is preparing his findings of fact for the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which will decide Judge Keller’s fate. Keller, you’ll recall, is the Texas Criminal Appeals Court judge…
Don’t polish the Sterling
This month, Jump-Start celebrates the art and leadership of Sterling Houston, who guided the performance company through its formative years before his untimely death in 2006. By everybody’s definition, Houston was a quintessentially “San Antonio playwright,” a designation that now seems a double-edged sword. By concentrating so narrowly — indeed, almost exclusively — on his…
American music
If you want to play congas and earn people’s respect, you better be from Africa, Cuba, or Puerto Rico. Or you can be Poncho Sánchez. “Nobody showed me nothing,” says conga player and bandleader Sánchez, who was born in Laredo, of all places, but grew up in Los Angeles. “I learned from listening to records,…
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
Publisher: Activision MSRP: $59.99 Comic lovers usually get stuck with unplayable trash when their beloved superheroes are cast in video games. There are a few exceptions, however, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is the newest game in Activision’s Marvel RPG series that refuses to suck. The two X-Men Legends and Marvel Ultimate Alliance have been…
