Stayin’ Alive
If you believe that 75% of the oil in the Gulf has somehow miraculously disappeared, you are also likely to be sanguine about the state of the economy, the prospects for the war in Afghanistan, the likelihood of meaningful energy or immigration reformâ?¦.fill in your own, favorite bad-news scenario. Restaurateurs (yes, this is the correct…
Rambling Rosé Redux
If you’re not doing anything Saturday August 14â??or even if you are but don’t feel fully committedâ??let me recommend a pleasant drive in the country (you can even contrive to skirt Willie’s favorite haunt on the way there or back) followed by a tasting of refreshing rosé wines in a unique and charming setting. How…
Texas won’t budge on climate as hard times are forecast for Mexico
By Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com At a certain point, sustained ignorance becomes so “willful” that it becomes criminal. Texas’ leadership is approaching that territory now in its campaign to deny its responsibility to regulate the gases that are destabilizing the planet and projected to cause untold human suffering especially in developing parts of the world. In…
Bexar County sued for arresting wrong man 2X as child “molesterer”
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com The first time Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputies wrenched the cuffs on Jose Luna Torres was bad enough. It was 2006 when they showed up at his West Harding Street home and booked him on charges of indecency with a child. Only they had the wrong address and the wrong Torres. Yet that…
A Big Grant for the Little Corner of Hope
Y’all know how much I looked forward to the San Antonio kiddie council’s first day of school meeting. So, it was with a special poignancy that I looked on today’s proceedings, the first council meeting since they went on summer break way back in July. See, Callie Enlow won’t be kicking council members around anymore…
We refuse to be done with Regis.
Regis Shephard working on his 2005 Artpace “Chalk it Up” public art piece, photo by and courtesy of Lloyd Walsh Grief is a process, y’all. To that end, I’m here to post some really lovely tributes that were e-mailed or Facebook-ed to me right after his death. Keep on making comments here or on his…
State shortfall, bad economy ganging up on Bexar Adult Probation’s budget
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com Officials and staff at Bexar County’s Adult Probation Department are bracing for another year of deep budget cuts as they tally up state funding commitments received over the past few days. Over this closing fiscal year, the department’s $23 million budget was reduced by $600,000. However, this year’s cuts could be twice…
Lone Star Next to Hop on POP?
Lone Star: not as bad as a set from HBO’s The Wire Holy Frijoles! After living in the Lone Star neighborhood for more than one year I attended my first neighborhood association meeting and who should I see but SAPD chief William McManus. I didn’t know we were neighbors? Turns out we’re not. McManus held…
Andrew Update
To lay the rumors to rest (waiter underground gossip can go viral very quickly): no, Il Sogno is not turning into a pizzeria, and, also no, Exec. Chef Luca Della Casa is not leaving “for the foreseeable future.” According to Andrew Weissman, who should know, there will be some menu changes, however. “Things have gotten…
Lower Leon Creek stands out in regional toxic watershed survey
Toxic Leon meets Wilson meets cell phone camera. Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com A study of regional watersheds to be released later this year suggests the Lower Leon Creek, sandwiched between former Kelly Air Force Base on the east and Lackland Air Force Base on the west, deserves both its bad reputation and recently expanded fishing advisory.…
‘Haute Dawg’ StoneMetal Press Annual Fundraiser
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-08-04 Certified cicerone (a sommelier of the beer world) Brian Tarver will be on hand at StoneMetal Press’s annual fundraiser to advise art-lovers which beer to pair with their gourmet hot dog of choice. On view: Hot off the Press, an exhibition of prints hand-pulled by members and friends of SMP.…
International Beer Day Celebration
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-08-04 Invented only three years ago in Santa Cruz, California, International Beer Day is the U.S.’s response to Oktoberfest. This DIY holiday suggests that beer tastes even better in August, when the mercury in your thermometer is about to boil and the ice-cold beverage in your hand is about to make…
Art opening: Lari R. Gibbon: Passengers
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-08-04 “The migration of invasive species through maritime commerce, exploration, and travel” is the basis for Lari R. Gibbons’s Passengers, an exhibition created exclusively for Blue Star’s Gallery 4. A printmaking and drawing instructor at the University of North Texas, Gibbons tells unsettling tales by visually mapping out the arrival of…
God’s Favorite
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-08-04 The Book of Job becomes comedic fodder in God’s Favorite, a Neil Simon play set in a Long Island mansion (thoughtfully relocated to the Dominion for this production). For those who don’t remember what’s been called “the most profound and literary work in the entire Old Testament,” Job loses everything…
International Pancake Film Festival
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-08-04 They never say that something is “selling like bran muffins,” now, do they? Wanna know why? Because hotcakes rule. Call ’em whatever you want: Pancakes, latkes, crêpes (if’n you must); they perk you up, soothe a savage hangover, remind you of your childhood, and attract houseguests from their slumber. Get…
Dinner for Schmucks
Critic’s Pick Dinner for Schmucks Director: Jay Roach Screenwriter: Jay Roach Cast: Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Jemaine Clement, Jeff Dunham, Bruce Greenwood, Ron Livingston, Lucy Punch, Stephanie Szostak Release Date: 2010-08-04 Rated: PG-13 Genre: Film I’ll be the schmuck (or possibly the schlemiel) and admit I didn’t really know a damn thing about Le dîner…
Fleshtone
Fleshtone Composer: Kelis Conductor: Kelis Label: Will.I.Am./Interscope Release Date: 2010-08-04 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording What was “Milkshake,” anyway? R&B? And now that you think about it, isn’t it kind of weird to categorize what Kelis did in “Caught Out There” as singing, or what was going on in “Bossy” as rapping? Kelis has been a…
Crazy for You
Crazy for You Composer: Best Coast Conductor: Best Coast Label: Mexican Summer Release Date: 2010-08-04 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Almost as annoying as the nonstop iTunes upgrades bombarding my operating system every three weeks is when some 20-year-old sets the internet afire about how so-and-so is the next big thing in music. Then I check…
De los Muerte
De los Muerte Composer: DJ Dus Conductor: DJ Dus Label: Exponential Release Date: 2010-08-04 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording This “mini EP” from Corpus Christi’s DJ Dus is a $3 dance party constructed by cutting world-music (heavy on the cumbia) samples into snippets suitable for 808 beats. What differentiates Dus from the countless other DJs who…
Lords of Acid, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Blownload, DJ Deathwish
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-08-04 With an online fan base known as “Children of Acid,” and album titles like Expand Your Head, it should come as no surprise that Lords of Acid frontman Praga Khan (née Maurice Engelen) credits “extensive experimentation with drugs” (as well as “esoteric paths of self-deprivation and mutilation”) for his staying…
Flamenco Fest
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-08-04 Allow clicking castanets and Spanish guitars to take your mind on a spicy staycation at this event celebrating “75 Years of Dance,” courtesy of the City of San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department. This weekend of “electrifying performances” promises to treat viewers to a vibrant trip down memory lane as…
Motion pictures
In a world where it seems everyone has a flat-screen, surround-sound, high-def home theater with Blu-Ray, how will theaters protect their bottom line, preserve the communal movie-going experience, and live to play another day? This summer, one technology comes to the rescue … D-BOX: The Power to Move You. Multiplex managers across the country are…
Dear Uncle Mat
A problem has arisen and I need your help! I am a college student who got carried away with new friends and, bored with school, skipped classes, and spent my financial-aid money on mindless, self-indulgent, mundane things. As the months passed, my erratic behavior continued, and when the financial-aid money went dry, I used my…
Kathy Griffin wants you
A paradox: As a rule, comics tend to be easy interview subjects — they do all the work, buffeting you with promotional agenda, funny bits, opinions, and complaints. However, a huge percentage of comedians aren’t comfortable talking one-on-one. Put another way, they’re dudes with social issues. (One such guy at a comedy open mic told…
¡Ask A Mexican!
Dear Mexican, I am a retired gringa living in Mazatlán, Sinaloa. Most of us foreigners here are liberal and sympathetic to the immigration problem, which the U.S. Congress refuses to address in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, I get lots of emails from acquaintances “apprising” me of the horrible situation in el Norte, and how all…
Fast Foodie
Coal-fired ovens were once the norm in New York and Brooklyn, where Grimaldi’s has packed ’em in at its location under the Brooklyn Bridge for generations. Both the coal-firing and the water are cited by Grimaldi’s as sources of thin-crust goodness. That’s New York City water, y’all, and the chain has installed special, local-water-modifying systems…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): The ancient Greek god Dionysus did not, in fact, encourage people to get sloppy drunk, lose control, and do stupid things. His preference was that they free themselves from their inhibitions by imbibing moderate amounts of alcohol. With this medicinal spur, they might get unstuck from their worn-out old behavior patterns…
Academy fight song
Watching Elora Valdez sing Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City” is humbling beyond calculability. Sure, she’s still working out the kinks of handling Axel Rose’s range and her delivery is a little on the close-eyed, focused, and mannered side. But as she taps her foot and traces her voice along the trail of dead that is…
Smoke alarm
City Council has returned from summer camp (What? You didn’t notice they were gone?), which means the smoking-ban debate is back on the front burner, beginning with Monday’s Quality of Life Committee meeting, where some of our least intellectually aggressive council members will review the latest iteration of the proposed ordinance before it heads to…
Farm subsidies
A FOR SALE sign sits out front. Men carrying cardboard boxes walk down the drive. The massive Five Points yard that until late last year served as San Antonio’s most laid-back music venue is empty except for scattered unsold garage-sale items. Proprietor Matt Ahern, we’re told after we’ve barged into the nearly empty house and…
No happy endings
Y’all, the QueQue gave you some bad info back in late May, when we were up in arms that the SAPD’s 257 prostitution arrests to date included not one man — an indication, we suspected, that those arrests included not one john. Since the state statute criminalizing prostitution doesn’t distinguish between ’hos and joes, neither…
Live & local
I know what you’re thinking. I thought it too the first time I heard that a band named Royal Punisher was playing at a joint called Boneshakers: Great, another metal band playing at another metal bar. Real original, San Antonio. Still, intrigued by the sheer proximity of this Boneshakers place to my Southside abode, I…
Permanent school funk
Last week, perhaps bored by the lack of opportunities to call our President Barack HUSSEIN Obama, State Board of Education member David Bradley (R-Beaumont), chair of the Permanent School Fund Committee, introduced a motion to use half a percent of the $23-billion Permanent School Fund to provide funding for charter-school facilities. “Charter schools are essentially…
The Sound & the Fury
Work week got you down? Swill some tear-diluted beer Thursday to the sounds of fellow sadsacks Hardluck Heroes and So Unloved at Nightrocker Live (605 San Pedro; (210) 265-3573), because you better have sucked up all that self-pity by Friday night so you can properly celebrate Jamaican Independence Day with Rhythm International and Love Rock…
Texas White house
Rebecca Bell-Metereau (District 5) and fellow State Board of Education candidate Judy Jennings (District 10) rallied the party faithful at the annual Texas Democratic Women Retreat luncheon Saturday, where the guest of honor was Andrea White, spouse of Democratic gubernatorial candidate and ex Houston Mayor Bill White. A former real-estate attorney and author of books…
The golden Ticket
Last Friday night, I hit the Ticket — winner of the Current’s Best of SA 2010 honors for Best Sports Bar. The Ticket is a real sports bar, not an excuse for scantily dressed theme waitresses. When I rolled through the doors solo, two enthusiastic and stylish bartenders were taking care of the almost all-male…
Razing Arizona
How do you like them apples, Arizona? Even as Texas steps up border militarization with National Guard troops, many San Antonians cheered for the preliminary injunction against controversial Arizona SB 1070. Had the law gone into effect on its scheduled July 29 date, it would have effectively made being an illegal immigrant a state crime…
Bottle & tap
The thermometer flirts with 100 degrees. Responsible South Texans struggle with the water vs. dead lawn debate. And the beer drinker’s thoughts turn to … Oktoberfest? In a move borrowed from the retailers who bring us Christmas, craft brewers are rolling out their Oktoberfest beers this month. Samuel Adams O-fest 12 packs are on the…
Tommy guns
Retired Air Force Major General Susan Pamerleau confirmed Monday that she is seeking the Republican nod to run against Precinct Four County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson. Adkisson’s previous opponent, Larry Click, a retired deputy sheriff who was uncontested in the Republican primary, died suddenly July 19. Pamerleau, who spent eight of her 15 years in the…
Very Vodka 2010 — Photos Now Online!
Our 5th Annual Very Vodka was a huge success thanks to our readers & sponsors. If you were there, were you caught on camera? If you weren’t, see what you missed out on!
Meeting of the week
Former Green Party Presidential candidate David Cobb swings through town next Wednesday on his national tour for the Declaration of Independence from Corporate Rule campaign. Formulated as response to this year’s Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, which overturned a 100-year-old ban on direct corporate participation in elections, the DICR movement hopes to…
On my knees
You know, I hope to Jehovah nobody dimes me out to the geckos running my claim-denying, co-pay-jacking sickness-assurance provider. Because if they ever find out how I produce this column, I’ll be hosed out of the risk pool quicker than `euphemism for their alleged “coverage”` through a talking goose. See, it’s unhealthy, this writing. Leaving…
From the bottom
I’ll tell you why I fucking hate my life/ I’ll tell you why I can’t seem to get it right/ I’ll tell you why I entertain the thought of dying all the time Punk rock being the refuge it is for socially dejected fuck-ups, the genre has expectedly accumulated a fair share of material over…
Art time!
The memorial service for Regis Shephard — son of Seminole, Texas, a painter, musician, and draftsman, an educator and a self-proclaimed geek, a Hawaiian-shirt enthusiast, churchgoer, hugger nonpareil, and fan of the local hip-hop scene as well as Portishead, anime, and contemporary Swedish fiction — commenced at 10 a.m. on Monday morning. The Watson Fine…
The time warp again
You might think you’re prepared for the Quarry Hofbräu, thanks to its name, or a visit to the restaurant’s website, but to open the entry doors is to experience serious culture shock. According to owner Beau Roby (on said website): “Thinkin’ back, I guess there never was a big thought given to naming the place…
The thunder rolls
We continue dumpster-diving through San Antonio’s forgotten cinematic past to find another all-time cult classic that showcases the city — Rolling Thunder. There are a lot of big names attached to this film: Local hero Tommy Lee Jones appears in one of his first supporting roles; Paul Schrader, screenwriter for Martin Scorsese’s two best films,…
