Trojan Women at SPP
By Thomas Jenkins San Antonio Current theater critic A freak of nature–now known in these parts as ‘rain’–prevented an opening weekend review of the San Pedro Playhouse’s THE TROJAN WOMEN, but I did manage to catch last evening’s final performance. I’m still not sold on the San Pedro Springs as an inviting locale for outdoor…
CPS: â??Dude, where’s my $40 million in green energy?’ and other obvious questions
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com Here’s a $5.5-billion-dollar question for you: What happened to revenue gained from the 2008 electricity rate hike? If you recall, city-owned CPS Energy was asking for a five-percent rate hike. It was their first such request in more than a dozen years. It had obviously been so long since they needed something…
Chaléwood No. 16: Armando Montelongo
By Kiko Martinez San Antonio Current contributing writer kiko@cinesnob.net In its fourth season on A&E, Flip This House features a diverse cast of characters on renovation teams from New Haven, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. Leading the San Antonio team is Armando Montelongo , who works alongside his wife Veronica, general contractor Randy, and…
Watch it before it’s taken down: The Beatles Rock Band ‘Birthday’ video
Sure, maybe it’s the fifth worst song on the White Album, but it’s being played by digitized Beatles this time. This video is the first in-game footage of a full song, and it was originally released as a treat for the people who preordered the game. Watch it fast, because Viacom keeps knocking it off…
PR headline of the week: “Tell Congress: Patriots Not Angry Rent-A-Mobs”
I knew this whole health-care debate would bring us together. The press release that follows the above headline waxes indignant about law enforcement pointing guns at protesters — in America!! Then it quotes from an account of an Obama health-care town-hall meeting in Virginia, published on gatewaypundit.blogspot.com (which also documents arrests and harassments of conservative…
Live & Local preview: The Off Beats
‘ello gents, We’re probably gonna be talking with a British accent and holding in fish-taco farts at the Cove all day Saturday in an attempt to look classy enough for the 6th Annual Art & Music Festival. A metric butt-ton of local bands will be playing, including Blue Means Go, Heather Go Psycho, and our…
Art Capades online, with asides
First, a moment of silence for Mr. John Hughes. RIP sir. What a summer. Still reeling from, among other things, Contemporary Motherfucking Art Month. You know, I sort of half-expected it to be pretty lame, seeing as how it’s gonna happen again in March. Figured the artists and curators would be girding their loins for…
N-BAF: Feds preparing biolab sale as TX-KS ‘puss war’ nears
By Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com A band of San Antonian über-boosters are rattling they’ll be suing again to try to wrest Homeland Security’s planned $500-million-plus National Bio & Agro-Defense Facility away from Kansas. Safety be damned. Some enthusiasm, it seems, truly knows no bounds. You see, the U.S. General Accountability Office reported last week that lab…
Errata: QueQue’s crimes and misdemeanors
Y’all, The QueQue made more than one mistake this week, and we take it hard. We pride ourselves on maintaining a low error rate, especially because the Current has a total editorial staff of eight, none of whom is a full-time copy editor. We team edit, and the buck stops with me, who sometimes at…
Throwdown: Drought versus Plants
The San Antonio Riverwalk Extension landscape is taking the heat By Haylley Johnson After stopping by the Pearl Brewery Farmers Market, I took a morning stroll down the riverwalk extension with my organic coffee in tow. Sadly, most of this was spent sweating and hiding under a shady overpass alongside fellow San Antonians. While beads…
The Lovely Bones Trailer
Apple.com has posted an exclusive trailer for director Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Alice Sebold’s bestselling novel. Judging by these few clips, the plot seems to have been tightened up to put more emphasis on bringing the killer to justice than on the family coping with loss, but maybe that’s just trailer trickery designed to sell…
Greek rush
A bit of the islands at SA’s fast-casual chains
Greek rush
A bit of the islands at SA’s fast-casual chains
Funny People
Critic’s Pick Funny People Director: Judd Apatow Screenwriter: Judd Apatow Cast: Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana, Jonah Hill Release Date: 2009-08-05 Rated: R Genre: Film Our Rating: 3.00 As sad clowns go, Adam Sandler is superior to Robin Williams, but probably not as good as Jim Carrey. Hard to say for sure,…
Fear Snakeface
Fear Snakeface Composer: Fear Snakeface Conductor: Fear Snakeface Label: Self released Release Date: 2009-08-05 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Fear Snakeface’s MySpace page describes this album as“19 years of songwriting, reduced to 15 tracks,” but you wouldn’t know it from listening to it. The self-titled debut from the local duo certainly shows no indication of having…
The Weather Here
The Weather Here Composer: Buttercup Conductor: Buttercup Label: Bedlamb Records Release Date: 2009-08-05 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Buttercup’s latest full-length is equal parts quiet and mesmerizing. Get the headphones; this one will bring a party to its knees. Not that finely crafted should-be hits “I Am a Tiger,” with its hand claps and “hey”s, and…
Acquired Taste
Acquired Taste Composer: Delbert McClinton Conductor: Delbert McClinton Label: New West Release Date: 2009-08-05 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording For Acquired Taste, his first studio album in four years, McClinton doesn’t stray far from what he’s done in the past; amazingly, it’s his entire past he draws upon. The album jumps to life with the rollicking…
Recessionista Couturettes
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2009-08-05 Local designer and face fixer John McBurney unveils a 12-month street-inspired collection this weekend that reminds us necessity is the mother of fashion, too. McBurney is a makeup artist by trade with a celebrity-rich resume, but locally, he’s long been famous for his brilliant Cornyation costumes (this year it was…
Silver Surfer
Release Date: 2009-08-05 The Silver Dollar Saloon has always maintained a loyal following of gay cowboys, line-dancing lesbians, off-duty drag queens, and admirers of any and/or all of the above. Decidedly unfancy, the SD has always been the best gay bar to go “slumming” in. In other words, a bad-hair day in yesterday’s clothes has…
A friendly face
Release Date: 2009-08-05 That little old man on the John the Greek salad-dressing bottle, smiling jovially from the shelf at grocery shoppers, always seems to make the dressing aisle at H-E-B more cheerful. I discovered recently that this tasty vinaigrette — made with mystery herbs, olive oil, vinegar, and garlic — originated from an eponymous…
Green Day
Under the Covers Vol. 2 Composer: Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs Conductor: Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs Label: Shout! Factory Release Date: 2009-08-05 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Whoever came up with the idea of pairing pop-rock maestro Matthew Sweet and Bangles angel Susanna Hoffs should get some kind of congressional recognition, or the American version…
Greek rush
A bit of the islands at SA’s fast-casual chains
Greek rush
A bit of the islands at SA’s fast-casual chains
Greek rush
A bit of the islands at SA’s fast-casual chains
ARTifacts
The small traffic island at the intersection of Josephine and North St. Mary’s Streets, directly outside the Josephine Street Theater, hosts three abstracted, angular, yet weirdly anthropomorphic metal sculptures, a family of sorts entitled “Cor-Linche Triad.” Welded and donated by sculptor Michael Bigger back in 1989, they honor the memory of San Anto’s real-estate arts…
¡Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: Why does El Tri act like pendejos every time the U.S. men’s national soccer team kicks their ass? They won’t even shake hands or exchange jerseys after the game, and they always act like the U.S. got lucky with the win, even though the Americans have destroyed Mexico on the pitch this century.…
Dear Uncle Mat
One of my coworkers and her husband want to have sex with me. They are a little younger than me and newly married, but do this “all of the time” according to her. She told me that I’m the one they want, but I can bring another woman if I want, or they know another…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I expect that you will soon stumble upon a key secret to your next masterpiece. And I’ll be surprised if you don’t discover a healing agent that will be effective in correcting an old mistake. In fact, Aries, I prophesy that in the coming week, you will have a sense that…
The QueQue
Putting the ‘bull’ in Bullis If landowners around Camp Bullis ever have to get an endangered-species seal of approval from the City, one thing they probably won’t have to aver is that they actually understand the Endangered Species Act of 1973. You can thank Gene Dawson Jr. for that. In an attempt to get a…
State of unrest
Lydia Lopez is used to spending the bulk of her time in hospitals. For the last 15 years, the 62-year-old Lopez has cared for mentally ill patients as a psychiatric nursing aide at San Antonio State Hospital (SASH), one of 10 mental-health facilities within the Texas Department of State Health Services system. These days, however,…
Greek rush
Perhaps I was spoiled by having an extended vacation in Greece this year. OK, I was definitely spoiled, and in addition to the sun, the beach, the antiquities, I adored the food. Greek food is not haute cuisine, but it is tasty, filling, and unpretentious. It uses fresh ingredients, relies on quality olive oil, and is accompanied…
Amuse-BOUCHE
Wine poured with a plastic shot measure? Hard to believe at a wine dinner at upscale Shiraz Restaurant in Olmos Park, but our wine server poured us single shots of vino to accompany the four-course dinner. When we looked around for a refill he avoided us —not so easy to do as only five of 15 tables…
Dead men’s waltz
When Liam Neeson opened the envelope at the 2009 Academy Awards and announced that Departures had beat out Waltz With Bashir, the supposedly mortal-lock winner, and another highly touted nominee, The Class, for Best Foreign Film, it was a complete shocker. Departures was a film that, unlike Bashir or The Class, had not yet opened…
Feeding the inner Child
“Love” is a six-letter word spelled B-U-T-T-E-R. If you agree, consider Julie & Julia tonight’s special. For her premiere foray into culinary porn, writer-director Nora Ephron — normally of the rom-com persuasion — fused Julia Child’s My Life in France with Julie Powell‘s blog-turned-book, Julie & Julia. No doubt readers know a thing or two…
S’NUFF film
A movie-nerd joke with two possible punchlines: Q: What would you get if you remade The Godfather 2 as a 10-minute amateur film? Hyman Roth: Don’t ask. It’s got nothing to do with business. Kay Corleone: An abortion, Michael. It’s an abortion! Hopefully our local filmmakers did better in the San Antonio Local Film Fest-sponsored…
“Run” – Zita B. Sanders
Sanders starts running to catch the bus, but doesn’t make it before it pulls away. Then the rain starts, but Sanders shrugs “Life just isn’t fair that way.” Backed by a tune that’s got more than a little in common with “Teach Your Children” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Sanders seems to suggest life…
Live & Local
Richard Morgan, dressed in slacks and a button-down, sound-checks his banjo with a few bars of The Beverly Hillbillies theme song. Jeannette Muniz, sitting cross-legged in a church dress and heels, tunes her acoustic guitar and invites the audience to move closer to the stage with “Come on up and be our friends.” Most of…
Otep loves you
A few weeks ago, Otep Shamaya logged into her Facebook account and sent a message to a fan’s sister, a stranger, wishing her a happy birthday. For the driving force behind one of metal’s most accessible acts, it was all in a day’s work. “They couldn’t believe it, and I’m just honored that they feel…
THE SOUND & THE FURY
Ask In & Outlaws guitarist Matthew Rose how long his band has been together, and he’ll quickly reply “too long, man.” That wry note of world-weariness seems fitting for an outlaw C&W quartet that, based on its “illicit and under the table” new CD, finds cause for gloom at nuptials (“I Always Cry at Weddings”),…
Keepin’ it conjunto
When the syrupy silliness of early ’50s pop music became too much for the young to put up with, rock ’n’ roll came to the rescue. The Beatles turned it into rock, a legitimate art form, and since then popular music has reinvented itself (punk, New Wave, hip-hop, grunge…) whenever it seemed to be running…
Day-old Danes
Paul Rudnick’s I Hate Hamlet whisks us back to the innocent, halcyon days of 1991, when gay men could still write innocuous, frothy comedies with single-unit sets and zany characters — and get away with it. Of course, Tony Kushner’s subsequent time-, space-, and gender-bending Angels in America torpedoed that implicit social contract with straight America,…
Buttercup’s “I Am a Tiger” video
Buttercup “I am a Tiger” Check out the video for “I Am a Tiger” one of the standout tracks from Buttercup’s pretty kick-ass new album, The Weather Here. According to a track-by-track commentary written by frontman Erik Sanden, “Tiger” actually started out as a “heavy metal” kind of song, but I don’t see how. The…
Congress on vacation: Read the GAO NBAF report yourself
Hi, kids. Your dedicated staff is on deadline here at the Current, but I wanted to give you the link to that Government Accountability Office report that criticizes the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to relocate a bio-defense research lab to the heartland (that is: to the axis of livestock and tornadoes) so you could…
An end-run on warblers?
Big maps, little birds: tech advisers figurin’ on warblers Monday. By Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com If landowners around Camp Bullis ever have to sign off with the city regarding endangered species, one thing they probably won’t have to swear to is that they actually understand the Endangered Species Act of 1973. You can thank Gene Dawson…
City pools will extend summer run. Hallelujah.
Yes, our municipally owned pools are free â?? when they’re open, which is 1-7 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday, June 6 through … August 9?! The Current was so upset about this state of affairs that it asked video correspondent Jeff Turner to make a dry-doc `use the scroll tool at the bottom to find “SA Pools: Patiently…
