A Prayer for the New Year: Change in Unison
“And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of…
The Year in Sex: 2010 with 210 Twists (hint: Eva Longoria)!
In my expert opinion, 2010 was a great year for sex. More people were talking about it, singing about it, and just plain DOING IT! Unfortunately, there was way too much media attention on the break-ups of celebrity marriages. Lesson learned folks: If you’ve never been married, keep it that way! You’ll be much happier…
Gayby’s Monday Musings: Spurs hold top spot in Western Conference
The calendar changed to 2011 and the San Antonio Spurs kept rolling, in Oklahoma City’s case — steamrolling. Lead by Duncan’s 21 points and 9 rebounds, the Spurs victory concocted several statistical appetizers, including the Spurs’ largest margin of victory this season (27); the lowest point-total allowed by the stingy Spurs defense, and the lowest…
How-to overshare on Facebook: A mother’s painful status update story
Michelle Jimenez-Reyes, a single mother of two, is someone we can all learn from. She’s part of the local community in a variety of ways. By day she’s an award-winning massage therapist, and by night a skillful mixoligist serving crowds at the Mix Night Club. You can also find Michelle working on public school education reform…
FAIR’s 2010 P.U.-litzer Prizes and a loving update and FYI from the ladies of Tech Tease
We love the Internet as much as the next person — arguably even more so. That being said, don’t forget you can find us twice a month rocking out print-style in the pages of the San Antonio Current. A LOT happened on the Hill before the holidays that impacts your use and access to our…
Worst Films of 2010
Maybe I have way too much time on my hands, but it’s always been my motto as a film critic to give every movie its fair chance to impress me. When the year comes to an end, I want to be able to step back and take in all the good with the bad. (See…
“Thanksgiving Morning” by Trey Moore
Introduction Trey Moore’s two books, we forget we are water and Some Will Play the Cello, showcase his intelligent and original poems. “Thanksgiving Morning” does the same. It blurs the line between prose poetry and flash fiction, focusing instead on the paradoxical nature of life, at once beautiful, ruthless, disconnected and all-encompassing. It describes an…
Ill Prospekt on Fire
This is it: the precise moment when Ill Prospekt set the speaker on fire during Gordon Raphael’s backyard party at Vintage Clothing, December 10. Thanks Pete Bella for the video, and sorry about that bald asshole who got in front of the camera.
29th Annual New Year’s Day PUNKFEST featuring U.Y.U.S., Nuklear Fishsticks, Prevail Within, So Unloved, Ticket For a Trainwreck, Broken Spokes, Oi! Dolls
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-12-30 Why not ring in the new year in a sweaty mosh pit? Tony Chainsaw’s yearly event attracts acts from all over Texas and beyond. Dead Reckoning and Slowly Truth Dies (both from Austin) are on the bill along with the Bent Gents, the Deceased, Nuklear Fishsticks, F.A.T.M.D., Squid Row, Our…
BAD ADVICE with Jay Whitecotton
Back to the grind people… I spent the month of December in hibernation from technology to work on my list of many artistic failures. I’d like to thank everyone who filled my inbox with queries for Bad Advice and also apologize for not being able to answer all of them. For those I got too…
Punkfest 2011: Day 1: Prevail Within, Ticket for a Trainwreck, Nuklear Fishsticks, So Unloved, Broken Spokes, Oi! Dollz, & U.Y.U.S.
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-12-29 Calling all moshers! “Keeping It Old School” is the theme of this year’s Punkfest, a counterculture explosion that’s 29 years strong this year. Thanks to punk scene instigator Tony Chainsawww (who’s been booking bands since ’86), a goodly number of brain cells and eardrums will be damaged on Saturday (when…
Elvis New Years Eve Celebration
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-12-29 Elvis impersonators may be a dime a dozen, but “World Class Tribute Artist” Nathan Belt actually excels at his craft and even looks the part. Beyond the cheese of his fan club ($15 setup plus $10 a year for an individual ? it’s only slightly more for a “married couple”)…
Mitch Fatel
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-12-29 Mitch Fatel has been working as a stand-up comedian since age 15. By no means an overnight success, Fatel climbed the comedy ladder slowly, interning on The Howard Stern Show during college and later scoring appearances on the Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and The…
Celebrate San Antonio
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-12-29 No, Saytown doesn’t get a giant ball drop, but it also doesn’t get annoying blizzards, either. The San Antonio Parks Foundation’s annual extravaganza attracts a reported 250,000 for live music on four stages, kid-friendly activities, and a countdown to the kind of fireworks spectacular only Valero could spring for (no…
Rockin’ New Years Eve
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-12-29 The Cameo offers an attractive alternative to the chaos of New Year’s Eve in La Villita — an “All Star Show” revisiting 2010’s most memorable performances, followed by the presentation of Stage and Theatre Achievement Recognition (STAR) awards, and finally a killer view of the nearby fireworks from the historic…
Best of Texas New Year’s Eve Bash featuring Flaco Jimenez, Pinata Protest, Pop Pistol, Blackbird Sing, Fear Snakeface, & Nicolette Good
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-12-29 I defy you to find a better New Year’s Eve concert/party than Flaco Jiménez at Boneshakers. If The Man Himself is not enough for you, his conjunto includes Max Baca on bajo sexto, David Jiménez on drums, Rudy Calderón on bass, and Nunie Rubio on vocals. They’ll play everything from…
Rockin’ New Years Eve
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-12-29 The Cameo offers an attractive alternative to the chaos of New Year’s Eve in La Villita — an “All Star Show” revisiting 2010’s most memorable performances, followed by the presentation of Stage and Theatre Achievement Recognition (STAR) awards, and finally a killer view of the nearby fireworks from the historic…
Oh Baby! Burlesque
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-12-29 Pantie Oaklie and her posse of provocateurs are gettin’ busy ? and we mean busy in the traditional sense of the word. Hopefully the lovely ladies of Oh Baby! found plenty of racy underwear under their trees. Surely Santa rewarded the gals for the way they artfully toss their skivvies…
Planet of the Apes
With the company Christmas party winding down, I needed to suggest an afterparty spot that 30 people could agree upon, stat. I could only think of one place, but the common thread was something everyone holds dear: monkeys. The Crazy Ape was our destination, and I’ll be an Ebenezer if every one of my faithful…
Ask a Mexican!
Dear Readers: Wish I could say I was back on the rancho, but you know how that drug war of ours (both Mexican and American) is going. So the Mexican decided to stay home for the holidays for the first time in decades. Besides, there’s too much work at mano. The failure by the Senate…
Spuriosity (b-ball breakdown)
I stood in at my best friend’s wedding recently, looking the part in my dapper gray rental tuxedo. (Is it just me, or are tuxedo rental businesses the clothing equivalent of predatory payday loans?) I held back man-tears during the groom’s vows; gave a lackluster, San Antonio Spurs-infused wedding toast, evidencing why I have pursued…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19):“Just because everything is different doesn’t mean anything has changed,” said writer Irene Peter. That should be cautionary advice for you in 2011, Aries. From what I can tell, it will be relatively easy for you to rearrange the way things look, but trickier to transform them from the inside out. You…
The Sound & The Fury
When I came to San Antonio in 2004, I was so excited that my friends told me I was crazy. They couldn’t understand my excitement: I was going to share a place of residence with Manu Ginobili, I was going to eat gorditas, and, most importantly, I was going to live in the world’s conjunto…
Top tens of the year
CHUCK KERR Despite being a consistent pain in the ass in many, many ways, 2010 turned out to be a pretty good year for music. And the theme of 2010 was BOLD EPIC STATEMENTS. This was the year of beautiful/dark/twisted fantasies, suburban war stories, and triple-disc fem-folk odysseys. But one artist shot for the moon…
Nina Díaz with David Garza at Casbeers
I don’t know about you, but when I see a poster announcing Nina Díaz and David Garza in concert, that’s exactly what I expect. If it’s December and the venue is an old church, OK, I’ll put up with a couple of Christmas standards. But what I want to hear is two songwriters at the…
Blown speaker?
San Antonio’s Joe Straus was ushered in as speaker of the Texas House in 2009 thanks to an “Anybody but Craddick” wave of dissatisfaction with former Speaker Tom Craddick. Straus, first elected during a special election in 2005, was seen as a bipartisan leader who could help bridge a difficult divide between Democrats and Republicans…
A progressive in Rick Perry’s court
At Milam Park three weeks ago, a young man in crisp slacks and blazer stepped into a ring of roughly 200 DREAM Act supporters to praise their work advocating for a pathway to citizenship for thousands brought to the U.S. as children. The 39-year-old Democrat and 10-year statehouse veteran said he was inspired by the…
Out Arizona-ing Arizona
While observers agree that the projected $20-billion budget shortfall (give or take $10 billion, or so) is the biggest challenge Texas legislators face in the coming year, a slew of other complicated issues suggest the upcoming 82nd legislative session will be one of the most arduous in recent memory. In the absence of federal immigration…
Post-Obsessive
In addition to “Nostalgia, Texas” (a permanent art installation at the San Antonio International Airport that lovingly pokes fun at SA by advertising it as a “winter wonderland” that’s “now open year-round!”), Gary Sweeney has public art installations in Denver, Colo., Charlotte, N.C., Memphis, Tenn., and Los Angeles, Calif. In his spare time, Sweeney, who’s…
From scotch to port
Most tasting reports, Omniboire’s included, consist of a litany of wines or spirits accompanied by lengthy, possibly even pithy, descriptions. Stars, poufs, even corkscrews are accorded. The notion is that the consumer will pick a bottle that sounds appealing and try it — simple as that. But most wines and spirits aren’t consumed in such…
Top tens of the year
The Current’s critics have spoken: here you will find our picks for best films of 2010, many of which took forever to be shown in San Antonio, if they were shown at all. A message to the studios: Could you please stop treating SA like dirt? We’re one of the nation’s top 10 cities, dammit!…
Bonus feature: Kerry Valderrama
Local director/writer Kerry Valderrama’s stock has never been higher. After the success of his 2008 military mystery Garrison, Valderrama, a U.S. Army veteran born in Panama and raised all over Latin America, focused his attention on another story that hit close to home. In his new screenplay, Memories of a Hundred, Valderrama uses the 1997…
Ten films in no particular order
Cine File is a random reference guide exploring the vast catalogue of films available on Netflix instant viewing, with special emphasis on the interesting, the unusual, and the ones that got left behind. Consider these 10 films that debuted on Netflix in 2010. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) — A documentary that was supposed…
Critic’s Pick: The Fighter
The Fighter Dir. David O. Russell; writ. Scott Silver (screenplay), Paul Tamasy (screenplay, story), Eric Johnson (screenplay, story), Keith Dorrington (story); feat. Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo, Mickey O’Keefe, Jack McGee (R) Few — if any — arenas persistently provide a tidier, more starkly simplified symbolic examination of idealized human achievement and…
Local filmmaker roundup
Laura Varela As Long As I Remember: American Veteranos How big of a deal was Laura Varela’s documentary As Long As I Remember: American Veteranos? Big enough that at the time of writing this review, Varela was ’cross the ocean blue, screening the Vietnam-centered doc in Germany. Stateside, PBS broadcast As Long as I Remember…
Bottle & Tap
VIVA VICTORIA There are two Mexican beers frequently on any cross-border Texan’s wish list. One is Indio, which I first tasted in Nuevo Laredo about a year before the city deteriorated into a narcotic trafficking war zone. The other is Victoria, a Grupo Modelo beer. Indio, which is made by the Heineken subsidiary that produces…
Donate Now–No Wallet Necessary
Every 16 weeks or so, the nice ladies at the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center (STBTC) call to make a date with my husband, Richard. Good looks aside, what they really want is his type B positive blood. According to Wikipedia, only 8% of people in the U.S. have this blood type. So blood…
DREAMers taking pro-immigration fight to San Antonio businesses
Educator and DREAM Act supporter Felipe Vargas says Texas is striving to outdo Arizona when it comes to immigration legislation (Check out “Out-Arizona-ing Arizona” by Nicole Chavez when it hits stands and this site in the a.m.). We spoke with Vargas this week to get his take on numerous anti-illegal immigration bills that have been…
