CM Sculley’s salary SA’s own $355,000 â??artisanal marmalade’
Tricia Llanes tllanes@gmail.com Everybody knows stuff that costs more is better. Why buy a $3 jar of Smucker’s when there are $12 rhomboid-shaped jars of artisanal marmalade, chutney and fruit curd on the shelf? Plus it just feels good to treat oneself to luxury. So who can blame our City Council for scoring San Antonio…
Happy Mondays: Arcade Fire movie for Google Chrome users
To make the start of your desk-bound work week a little more bearable, the Current will be sharing whatever decent internet tidbit makes it’s way to the music and screens email inbox. This week Arcade Fire sent us a link to The Wilderness Downtown, an interactive film made by Chris Milk. To me it sounds…
Wild Bunch: troubled SA sanctuary looking to unload hundreds of animals
Enrique Lopetegui candombe108@yahoo.com Ron and Carol Asvestas built it, then screwed it up; next, daughter Nicole GarcÃa sacked Mom and Dad; then, the new board, led by Jamie and Michelle Anthony-Cryer, sacked GarcÃa. Such has been the very wild history of the Wild Animal Orphanage. If the cycle is to continue, who will sack the…
Graziano @ Grey Moss
The kitchen at Grey Moss Inn does much of its best work at special dinners such as the annual Zin-Din held in January. A special vintner dinner has just been announced for Sept. 3 with Greg Graziano, owner/winemaker of Graziano Wines of Mendocino, CA. Many of Graziano’s wines currently grace GM’s award-winning wine list; this…
Chaléwood No. 34 – Jay Hernandez
Jay Hernandez – Takers By Kiko Martinez San Antonio Current contributing writer kiko@cinesnob.net In the new heist movie Takers, actor Jay Hernandez plays Eddie Hatcher, an LAPD officer who goes after a team of bank robbers alongside his edgy partner Jack Welles (Matt Dillon). During the heist, Eddie is faced with a situation concerning his…
Chuck Kerr and Chris Maddin album cover night: Go glam or go home
In lieu of a printed Live and Local, we’ll go ahead and give our impressions online of the Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, as covered by Chris Maddin (singer, Blowing Trees), Chuck Kerr (drummer, Gospel Choir of Pillows), Marcus Rubio (guitar, violin, vocals, Gospel Choir of Pillows), Matt Thomas…
Bikini-clad lettuce girls vs. obesity
Sonya Harvey sonyaharveytx@gmail.com When Men’s Health voted San Antonio the seventh-fattest city in the U.S. in May, claiming 28 percent of residents are clinically obese (the national average being 25.19 percent) and that 9 percent of us spend more time in front of the boob tube than, well, healthier cities, PETA decided to break out…
Ziggy Played Guitar… TONIGHT
Everyone: there is only so much room we can devote to Marcus Rubio, Chuck Kerr, Chris Maddin, et al in print. I make no excuses. They just happen to be out playing music ALL THE TIME. Seriously, I saw Kerr gig with We Leave at Midnight just last night.Rubio has like 12 shows this week.…
The Big Uneasy
Critic’s Pick The Big Uneasy Director: Harry Shearer Screenwriter: Harry Shearer Cast: John Goodman, Harry Shearer Release Date: 2010-08-25 Rated: NONE Genre: Film Let’s address the elephant in the room (or, if you like, the armadillo in our trousers): The prospect of viewing a documentary about the Katrina disaster written, produced, directed, and hosted by…
No Better Than This
No Better Than This Composer: John Mellencamp Conductor: John Mellencamp Label: Rounder Release Date: 2010-08-25 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording No Better Than This is steeped in musical history. Mellencamp and producer T Bone Burnett recorded the album at landmark places around the country: in a Baptist church in Georgia, in Memphis’s famous studios, and in…
God Willin’ & the Creek Don’t Rise
God Willin’ & the Creek Don’t Rise Composer: Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs Conductor: Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs Label: RCA Release Date: 2010-08-25 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne gives his backing band equal billing on his fourth album, God Willin’ & the Creek Don’t Rise — his first without longtime…
Strange Weather, Isn’t It?
Strange Weather, Isn’t It? Composer: !!! Conductor: !!! Label: Warp Release Date: 2010-08-25 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording It’s strange that the many-membered dance-punk band !!! (or chk chk chk if you’re reading this album review to the blind) chose “AM/FM” as their big single. It sounds a little lethargic for a group indebted to the…
Ms. Franchesca’s & Wayne’s No Where Near Las Vegas “PLEASE DON’T GONG ME!” Cabaret & Talent Showcase
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-08-25 The soon-departing, lovable Idol tyrant Simon Cowell oft disses performers for being “too cabaret,” and he always seems to hate those performance-artist types who have character names, wacky outfits, and clear-cut gender issues. So he’s not invited to this Friday’s “Ms. Francesca’s & Wayne’s No Where Near Las Vegas PLEASE…
Monkeyfest with Mucho Backflips!, Opposite Day, Megafauna, and The J. Wesley Haynes Trio
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-08-25 No, we’re not inviting you on an all-expense-paid vacation to Lopburi, Thailand, where greedy macaques gorge themselves on fruit and cake, and wash it all down with cans of soda pop. Sorry. But we do want to tell you about Drunken Monkey’s fourth-annual Monkey Fest, a four-day showcase of local…
Forcing the issue
After a welcome detour through RENT, the Vexler continues its baffling retrospective of minor American plays with William Mastrosimone’s Extremities, best known as a vehicle for Farrah Fawcett in both its off-Broadway and cinematic incarnations. There might be some historical interest in presenting this early ’80s revenge fantasy — it’s like the sexual-assault version of…
Grappling with stereotypes
Seconds before he flings his body midair and lands on an injured opponent on the canvas below, Jordan Rafael, aka J-Mazing, towers over the crowd as he stands on the top rope of the wrestling ring. Place him anywhere else and it’s a different story. At 3 feet, 11 inches and 70 pounds, Rafael is…
Bateman and boy wonder
When it comes to Bateman/Aniston rom-com The Switch, don’t judge a book by its cover. Or, to be perhaps more precise: Don’t judge it by its title (-sequence) page. Not that most folk will get into much of a ruffle over this, but here’s a small note of personal preference: If you’re a writer/director/editor, and…
San Antonio sons
In late June, six up-and-coming Texas filmmakers screened their short films in Los Angeles to a packed house of Hollywood types. For the first time since its inception in 1994, the Texas Filmmakers Showcase featured multiple directors hailing from San Antonio — three filmmakers had ties to the city. That’s a lot for this project…
Suck it, Interscope
Let this be an example for you whippersnappers out there still pining for a major record-label deal. In 1996, Vaden Todd Lewis’s six-year-old North Texas outfit the Toadies became alt-rock gods on the strength of their major-label debut Rubberneck and its unlikely blockbuster single “Possum Kingdom,” preserved, it seems, forever on modern rock radio’s playlist.…
Hold the French
Budian might be too clever for their own good. Or at least too clever for entertainment journalists. Case in point: Their MySpace page features a quote from now-defunct 210SA that reads, “BUDIAN French pop! It’s all you need to know.” Now, if you’re a good-looking writer for a sexy alternative weekly, you might be inclined…
Live & local
After taking a crash course in Esteban “Steve” Jordan to write last week’s article on the late, great accordion player (see “’El Parche’ slips away,” Aug. 18), my personal closure came with a trip to Saluté on Thursday. Upon the news of Jordan’s death, Plata (née Eddie Hernandez) decided to dedicate his weekly record-slinging gig…
The Sound & the Fury
Listen up, SA, this is one of the few weeks the music scene really delivers. Starting Wednesday, Anthony Trinidad kicks off the fourth annual Monkeyfest (see p. 29), promising a multi-venue, four-night extravaganza more deserving of the “-fest” suffix than his previous three efforts. Maximize your Lonestar tallboy money with Monkeyfest’s free shows at Limelight…
The big what-if
Academy Award-nominated director Spike Lee returned to New Orleans four-and-a-half years after Hurricane Katrina — and decades of federal neglect and malfeasance — devastated the city, to take stock of the survivors, the pioneers, the continuing iniquities, and the diaspora, many of whom have made San Antonio a permanent home. His new documentary, If God…
¡Ask A Mexican!
Dear Mexican, Oye, I’m a Mexican con un pie aquí y un pie allá, and I have to admit that it is difficult to be a Mexican these days. I’d like to make the argument that it is one of the worst times ever to be a Mexican. I even think it is worse now…
The Queque – August 25, 2010
Nuclear family First there was a call for a federal investigation into Waste Control Specialists’ growing nuclear-waste dump in West Texas. The August 11 press release issued by the reliably anti-nuclear Sierra Club, Public Citizen, and SEED Coalition urged the EPA (or possibly the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) to take over the job of regulating Texas’…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Why should you work harder than everyone else? Why is it up to you to pick up the slack when others are suffering from outbreaks of laziness and incompetence? And why should you be the fearless leader who is focused on fixing the glitches and smoothing over the rough patches when…
Tex-Mex and Tempranillo
Omniboire has absolutely nothing whatsoever against a good Bohemia or Negra Modelo with Mexican food. We’ve been known not to be opposed to several on occasion. But when Central Market’s wine muse, Heidi Holcomb, suggested we consider a panel on wines with Tex-Mex food, we — though admittedly skeptical at first — agreed to pick…
Del este de Los Angeles
It’s the end of the month and therefore time for another installment of Travels with Frenchie, the monthly food series in which a trio of culturally mismatched San Antonians explores the local hinterland in search of dining adventure. As always, the culinary vice squad consisted of: Frenchie (aka Fabien Jacob, celebrated local sommelier), Carlos the…
Thank God it’s Phiday
Phi is: the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet, a voiceless bilabial fricative in the International Phonetic Alphabet, 500 or 500,000 in the system of Greek numerals, the golden ratio (1.61803399) in mathematics, art, and architecture, and the name of a bar in San Antonio’s oldest office building — but not for long. On August…
Bottle & tap
The latest entry in Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.’s series of 30th-anniversary beers has California roots and San Antonio highlights, but there’s nothing blond about Jack & Ken’s Ale. Jack McAuliffe has been out of the brewing business for nearly three decades, but he is somewhat of a legend in the craft-beer world. The engineer opened…
Roundup
The earliest appearance of the term concentration camp recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary occurred in 1901, during the Second Boer War. British troops in South Africa held 100,000 Boer civilians in guarded compounds without adequate sanitation, medical care, and food. By the end of hostilities, in 1902, more than 25,000 Boer detainees, most of…
Nuke skirmish: Texas lobbyists, radwaste dumps, airliner terrorists
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com First there was a call for a federal investigation into Waste Control Specialists’ growing nuke waste dump in West Texas. The August 11 press release issued by the reliably anti-nuclear Sierra Club, Public Citizen, and SEED Coalition urged the EPA (or possibly the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) to take over the job of…
