Soul Survivors
Snack & Smack proprietor cooks BBQ the old-fashioned way
HOWARD DEAN’S YOUTH MACHINE
Governor Howard Dean announces his candidacy for president in front of a crowd of 5,000 supporters in Burlington, Vermont. Dean will visit San Antonio on August 25. Photo by John Pettitt/DeanForAmerica Not since the ’70s has a presidential candidate enamored so many young voters Gray Brooks is a young Southern gentleman from Alabama, the…
SOUND AND THE FURY
DJ Dan a week on the scene NEEDLE DAMAGE A native of indie-rock nexus Olympia, Washington, the turntablist who goes by the name of DJ Dan has made his biggest mark in the development of rave culture and breakbeat science. In the early ’90s, he was a pioneering force on the Los Angeles rave…
DEAN SWINGS THROUGH TEXAS
While Bush takes a siesta, Howard Dean is sleepless Look out, Dubya, Howard Dean is treading on your turf. But while President Bush kicks back for a nap at his Crawford ranch, Dean, a Democratic presidential candidate and former Vermont governor, swings his “Sleepless Summer” campaign through Texas later this month. Dean will visit San…
BAD TRANSLATIONS
The consensus on Bob Dylan’s latest cinematic venture, Masked and Anonymous, is that it only comes to life when Dylan is on-screen performing with his band. The same can almost be said for the film’s accompanying soundtrack album. Just as the movie toys with the Dylan myth, the soundtrack is dominated by familiar Dylan…
ALL EARS
RAPPING IN WEST LONDON AND NASHVILLE Last year’s debut by The Streets, Original Pirate Material, triggered the kind of cross-genre enthusiasm that generally happens only a couple of times a year in the music world. Dance clubbers, hip-hoppers, and bedroom electro-collagists all embraced it, and the disc left many of us with a jones for…
SETTING HER OWN PLACE
A former newspaper reporter and arts writer, Rosemary Catacalos also has worked as a literary arts administrator, grant writer, publicist, and development officer for non-profit arts, education, and social service organizations. She has written two books of poetry and published poems in literary journals throughout the U.S. and internationally. Her poems are used in…
GRITOS DE GILB
Author Dagoberto Gilb reads from his collection of personal essays at the Market Square Art Space If you haven’t heard of Dagoberto Gilb, it’s probably just as well. Because if you have, there is a good chance that you have heard that he’s a big, gruff sort of guy, a hot-blooded machismo out for…
FILM, VIDEO, AND RESISTANCE
The Esperanza’s Out, Other, & Beyond festival will screen D. Robin Hammer’s eight-minute film short based on the life and death of 16-year-old Fred C. Martinez Jr., a transgendered, “two-sprited” Native American youth who was killed in a hate crime in 2001 in Cortez, Colorado. Courtesy photo The Esperanza Peace & Justice Center debuts…
NEW REVIEWS
Freddy vs. Jason Dir. Ronny Yu; writ. Damian Shannon, Mark Swift; feat. Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, Monica Keena, Kelly Rowland, Jason Ritter, James Callahan, Lochlyn Munro (R) Few sorts of movies are as critic-proof as slasher films. While some horror fans might read a review to find out what’s being said about a flick, they…
Armchair Cinephile
JUVENILIA, ET CETERA When the tight, tense Joel Schumacher-directed Phone Booth (Fox) was released in theaters a few months back, certain reviewers made a big deal of the fact that its screenplay was written by a guy named Larry Cohen. A nation of filmgoers collectively wondered, “Larry who?” Cohen is a screenwriter and director…
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
El Patrullero 777 Dir. Miguel M. Delgado; writ. Mario Moreno Reyes, Isaac Diaz Araiza; feat. Mario Moreno ‘Cantinflas,’ Ana Bertha Lepe, Wolf Ruvinskis, Ofelia Guilmain (NR) Time was when any film by master comic Cantinflas was an instant box office smash. And certainly, El Patrullero (Patrolman) 777 was a hit. But by 1977, Don Mario’s…
STILL PLAYING
American Wedding Dir. Jesse Dylan; writ. Adam Herz; feat. Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Alyson Hannigan, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Eugene Levy (R) Proving that it is possible for a movie series’ characters to mature independent of the series itself, American Wedding gives us characters old enough for matrimony in a flick more juvenile than American…
BRIGHT IDEA
Troy Curry and Elaine Peña built an underground record label around their shared love of conceptual art Even at the dawn of the ’60s, brides-to-be made daily pilgrimages to the lovely grounds of the McNay for their wedding portrait sessions. Composer Phillip Krumm, a San Antonio native, began his musical career on those very…
HONKY-TONK MAN
Dwight Yoakam: Guitars, cadillacs and Bakersfield Biscuits are the only things that keep him hanging on. Courtesy photo His career has offered few surprises, but Dwight Yoakam remains a model of country consistency On his latest album, Population Me, Dwight Yoakam shares vocals with Willie Nelson on a song called “If Teardrops Were Diamonds.”…
SADDAM’S MAKEOVER
While Saddam Hussein remains at-large through the clever use of sunglasses and a Texas Rangers baseball cap, the U.S. government has issued several photos of the deposed despot wearing different hair colors and styles – hoping to lead American intelligence straight to the dictator’s beauty salon. However, the Current has obtained classified military pictures showing…
