San Antonio, “Constitution-free zone”
The perils of DWM in the Alamo City By Enrique Lopetegui elopetegui@sacurrent.com (Update on 2/16/10: CBP press officers contact the QueBlog) If you are brown and drive a pick-up truck on San Antonio Highways, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has a message for you: Whether you’re undocumented or a U.S. citizen, watch your butt.…
Rate Hike: Council vote on electric/gas bump Thursday morning
Citibank ranks nukes potential â??corporate killers,’ but CPS still wants a taste Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com Thursday morning, San Antonio Council members are expected to vote on increasing electric and gas rates for CPS customers. Though the 6.5- percent and 7.5-percent 7.5- percent and 8.5-percent* increases â?? the first of an anticipated decade of rate hikes…
Edwards murder update: DeGuerin weighs in
“Thomas Ford did not kill Dana Clair Edwards, and he doesn’t know who did,” said defense attorney Dick DeGuerin. Ford was arrested this morning for the January 1, 2009 murder of Edwards, with whom he’d had a serious romantic relationship. DeGuerin referred to the “cloud of suspicion” that has surrounded Ford almost since Edwards’s death…
Police make arrest in Dana Clair Edwards’s murder
The San Antonio Police confirmed today that Thomas Ford was arrested for the murder of Dana Clair Edwards, 32, whose body was found in the early hours of January 2, 2009. Ford, who reportedly has retained top-notch Houston defense attorney Dick DeGuerin, is expected to make bail today. Ford has not yet been indicted, but…
Price is Wrong: Guess the rate for sex with a child, win a Foreman grill
How much for that child in the back room? UTSA students play along. Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com What’s the going rate for a Egyptian prostitute? How much do families in India earn from selling their daughters into brothels? How much do sex tourists pay to sleep with child slaves in Thailand? Know the right answer and…
Bay City Blunder: Nuke love means never having to say â??Correction’
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com It can be a hard job running a small-town weekly. I know. I did it for three years. Practicing good journalism there can be risky. Expose official corruption in a big city and you have the instant support of a dozen candidates hoping to replace the alleged embezzler/wife beater/criminal of the hour;…
A silly video for the end of your workday
I don’t know who wrote this, but it’s awesome. Part of a whole series of “Hitler reacting to stuff” hilariously-mis-subtitled videos on Youtube. This one is Hitler reacting to the news that notorious/prominent art dealer Jeffrey Deitch has been named director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).
San Antonio AIGA? Possibly?
Thanks to Facebook I found serious interest in an AIGA chapter for San Antonio. I missed the first meeting but soon jumped in on the second start up meeting last Saturday. In short, several designers in San Antonio have grown tired of having to go to Austin and Dallas for all the great AIGA membership…
‘Danse’ machine
Doc reveals ballet’s inner workings
Planet Hulk
Critic’s Pick Planet Hulk Director: Sam Liu Screenwriter: Sam Liu Cast: Rick D. Wasserman, Kevin Michael Richardson, Mark Hildreth, Marc Worden Release Date: 2010-02-10 Rated: NOT RATED Genre: Film First a disclaimer for those of you in romantic relationships: Sunday, February 14, is VALENTINE’S DAY, for chrissakes. Yes, it’s a bullshit, consumerist attempt to guilt…
The Courage of Others
The Courage of Others Composer: Midlake Label: Bella Union Release Date: 2010-02-10 Rated: NONE Media: CD Length: LP Format: Album Genre: Recording It’s not easy for a band to come up with a memorable sophomore album, so it was auspicious when Midlake uncorked a masterpiece with their second release, 2006’s The Trials of Van Occupanther.…
Hellbilly Deluxe 2
Hellbilly Deluxe 2 Composer: Rob Zombie Label: Roadrunner Release Date: 2010-02-10 Rated: NONE Media: CD Length: LP Format: Album Genre: Recording Sequels are generally inferior to the original, and it’s no exception with Rob Zombie’s follow-up — a dozen years and two albums later — to his breakthrough solo disc. That said, Zombie stays consistent…
Record an EP
Record an EP Composer: We Leave at midnight Label: Self-released Release Date: 2010-02-10 Rated: NONE Media: CD Length: EP Format: Album Genre: Recording This four-song release from We Leave at Midnight — all locals except for Austinite frontman John Dailey — isn’t nearly so straightforward as its name. Dailey’s mellow Mike Love mannerisms on “Law…
Colours
Colours Composer: Eberhard Weber Label: ECM Release Date: 2010-02-10 Rated: NONE Media: CD Length: LP Format: Album Genre: Recording The CDs in this box — Yellow Fields, Silent Feet, and Little Movements — collect out-of-print work by the German double-bass virtuoso Eberhard Weber and his exceptional chamber-jazz band. Each consists of long, lyrical works, almost…
Degrees of combat
It’s really about that famous line: You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. Particlarly when there’s no clear borderlines anymore to war. … People don’t play by the same rules, and borders aren’t as impermeable as they used to be,” says scholar, author, and filmmaker Jim Der Derian. Der…
It’s their party (and they don’t do cumbia if they don’t want to)
Norteños, rancheros, gruperos, and tejanos keep telling me that they’ll continue making music “for as long as our fans want it,” and that everything they do is “for them.” And I keep telling them the same thing: Screw the fans, and make some great music instead. Nothing wrong with crowd-pleasing garbage, but give me a…
Getting schooled
Started almost by accident — as a side-tent public attraction during 2003’s X-Games Global Championships — the Battle of the Alamo has become SA’s premier B-Boy event. Asked to suggest a theme for a party being held at the nearby Sunset Station during the first and only international extreme-sporting event held in the Alamo City,…
Live & Local
Nick Mery, who bills his electronically enhanced one-man band as Merykid, carries a cardboard box up to the performance area with him, but he’s not trying to pull off a Tom Waits broke-down hobo look, or convince you he’s a boxcar-hopping beatnik. The box has an asymmetrical smiley face Sharpied on its side, and Mery…
The Sound & The Fury
Don’t look for Ramón Ayala at this year’s SA Rodeo at the AT&T Center: Last December, the norteña/Tejano legend was jailed for 12 days after performing at a Mexican party hosted by the Beltrán-Leyva cartel, which was raided by Mexican narcs. Ayala (who resides in McAllen) was released for health reasons, but he’s technically not…
Tim the Girl Catering
This past December, I had one of the most satisfying and un-fussy meals in recent history at an artsy Christmas party. A few things made this gathering different; For starters, children peddled the spin-art they had just made in the back of the gallery while the adults mingled amidst the impeccable woodwork of artist Peter…
Bulldozing the old East Side, predicting suicide problems at the jail
Blackout shades The Mayor’s recently concluded set of Eastside investment summits took place against a virtual backdrop of boarded-up houses and empty lots, the legacy of decades of poverty, discrimination, and absentee landlords. Hundreds, maybe thousands, more buildings in the City’s historically black neighborhoods are in precarious shape, their roofs sagging, porches detached, windows broken.…
Chocolate mayo beet cake
Valentine’s Day is approaching faster than Cupid’s arrow shot from a compound bow, and you may be sweating under the pressure of preparing a sweet something for your sweetheart. You want your creation to be as full of significance as flavor, as surprising as it is sweet and sexy. For the ultimate culinary embodiment of…
And justice for all
I was having cocktails at one of those nice new places on 1604 when a friend came over and asked me what was up. I told him the federal court had gone against me on some rulings in my Taser case. He looked at me like I had downed a few too many “two for…
Mary De Los Santos Harder
In her autobiography, Jane Fonda writes that there are three acts in every woman’s life: one to 30, 30 to 60, and lastly, Act III — 60 on. She also reveals that, for her, Act III has been the most satisfying, rich, and meaningful so far (this from someone not particularly known for having any slacker…
It was a dark and stormy drink
Rumor had it that Nosh, the downstairs Silo sibling, had upped the ante on its small but inventive drinks menu, so a return visit seemed in order. From the modified list of novelty cocktails, you can order a flight of three for $9, but through a misunderstanding I ended up with four (they’re small, OK?):…
¡Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: I’ve always been attracted to transgendered women since I was about 13. I’ve noticed, however, that most trannies are Hispanic. Now, before you say that this is ¡Ask a Mexican!, not ¡Ask a Hispanic!, I’ve also noticed that more than half of all Hispanic transsexuals are Mexican. What’s up with that? Is it…
First Friday Art Report
Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best. –Sir Max Beerbohm The one thing to expect of First Friday is consistency: Following a broad middle road assures that there is something for everyone and that nobody is in danger of being amazed. This leaves me mulling over the validity of…
Waiting for the blues
There’s no getting past the past. There’s making peace with it. There’s taking pride in coming through it. But the past is profoundly, inevitably part of the present, an idea at the heart of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom — and Black History Month. The memorial month in fact began as “Negro History…
Just only Jack
Two years ago, I had no idea who Jack Kent was. I collect vintage children’s books for my son, and rooting around in a junk shop on Austin Highway one day, I came across a little book called Jack Kent’s Twelve Days of Christmas. It’s a thin paperback in which a cartoon boy gifts a…
Lost in the supermarket
Collegehumor.com compares stand-up comic Mitch Fatel to a “child lost in the supermarket.” It’s true that the awkward naïveté in Fatel’s delivery is what’s funny about a line such as “It’s so hard to have sex with girls. They’re always like, ‘No.’” The wild-eyed kid innocence probably also explains how he turned an almost entirely…
Birth of a queer nation
An iconic poster of the legendary 1961 “Judy at Carnegie Hall” concert occupies a sacred niche in the San Antonio College production of Mart Crowley’s landmark 1968 play The Boys in the Band, which is set in a pre-Stonewall Manhattan. The poster informs the smartly appointed duplex of writer and drama queen Michael (Chris Quiroz),…
Short Shorts
Wow, San Antonio writers sent in some excellent submissions this month. The stories I’ve included here are about revelations — at least for the reader. Some of these characters realize things too late, or can’t make heads or tails of them, but we can. Loss and absence, ironically, make appearances in places people least expect. …
Dear Uncle Mat
What is the best way to find out if someone is lying to you? I really can’t give you any details about the situation, but I believe someone I trust and consider a close friend is lying. I am afraid to confront this person and want to know how you would go about uncovering the…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Hate leaves ugly scars,” wrote author Mignon McLaughlin, but “love leaves beautiful ones.” If I’m reading the astrological omens correctly, Aries, you’re scheduled to receive at least one of the beautiful kind of scars in the coming months — maybe even two or three. In fact, I think they’ll be such…
Sea of love
That true and inerrant sage who goes by the mortal name of “Hugh Grant” once said, “Love, actually, is all around.” And it’s true. I mean, seriously: Have you seen Love Actually? Like 17 total tools make love connections in that movie. And they’re all, like, paunchy old Brits with pock marks and receding hairlines.…
Dem Dam: Unheard candidates sue KERA in federal court
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com It’s not all about a Jimmy Carter-eggplant cross and a Palestinian comb over king. Those of you who suffered through the two-way Democratic Primary debate this week (or follow the race in virtually any of the state media) will be forgiven for not knowing that a full seven contenders are actually vying…
RIP Rock Bottom Tattoo Bar
After weeks of canceled shows and speculation that had me crawling around on a bridge guardrail trying to see if the roof really had caved in, Rock Bottom Tattoo Bar has officially closed. The venue’s former MySpace page has been renamed Chaos City Show Info, and a message posted on the page reads, in part:…
