On the Street
Unsettling Ornamentation Letters (to the On the Street Penthouse Suite) The creek hasn’t completely dried up just yet. The trickles of the week… #1 Bonnes fetes de fins d annee From the local French communityâ?¦ Bonjour a tous j espere que vous allez passer de bonne fetes de fins d annee entoure de gens que…
More on the suspicious death of Mike Connell
The mainstream media deserves a toxic lump of coal in their collective stocking this year for their atrocious lack of coverage regarding the suspicious death of Republican IT guru Mike Connell last weekend. Connell died when his plane went down near the Canton/Akron airport in Ohio on Friday night. The indie media has been ablaze…
The Old 97’s w. The Drams
Release Date: 2008-12-24 With fifteen years of shows and records under their belts, the Old 97’s proved why they’re a force in the music biz with this year’s release, Blame It On Gravity. Their seventh record sums up everything about them that fans have always loved. Though the sound is more mature, the band turns…
Moscow Ballet Great Russian Nutcracker Tour
Release Date: 2008-12-24 The Moscow Ballet features the top graduates of prestigious ballet schools around the world, and the touring company is best known for its annual Great Russian Nutcracker holiday productions. Set against Valentin Fedorov’s spectacular scenic design, with larger-than-life puppets and a backdrop of unicorns, exotic birds, and animals, the production is a…
Reverend feat. members of Metal Church w. Seed, Specoban, & Water Became Blood
Release Date: 2008-12-24 Formed by ex-Metal Church vocalist David Wayne, Reverend has undergone many changes since its original lineup in 1989, but is still active despite Wayne’s death in 2005. The band is making its way through the metal ranks once again — this year they worked up ten pure shredding metal tracks with Grammy…
Valero Alamo Bowl
Release Date: 2008-12-24 Close out 2008 with nearly 65,000 screaming fans at the Valero Alamo Bowl, which pits the Missouri Tigers against the Northwestern Wildcats `see story page 16`. The Tigers won the Big 12’s North division, going 9-4 and 5-3 in conference play, but were destroyed 62-21 by the Oklahoma Sooners in the Big…
The Swindles
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2008-12-24 Mitch Webb keeps pythons in his home, so the notion of playing rootsy rock in front of some beer-addled bar patrons doesn’t faze the leader of the Swindles. Webb is a veteran presence on the local club scene, but he’s on something of a roll these days, with his band’s…
CATS
Release Date: 2008-12-24 Felines sing and dance in the world of Cats, one of the most celebrated family musicals of all time. The audience follows the tribe of Jellicle Cats as they meet on a special night of the year to rejoice as their leader, Old Deuteronomy, chooses one of them for a journey that…
CATS
Release Date: 2008-12-24 Felines sing and dance in the world of Cats, one of the most celebrated family musicals of all time. The audience follows the tribe of Jellicle Cats as they meet on a special night of the year to rejoice as their leader, Old Deuteronomy, chooses one of them for a journey that…
Delicious decadence
Chocolate isn’t the only indulgence at luxe Coco
Great Russian Nutcracker
Release Date: 2008-12-24 The Moscow Ballet features the top graduates of prestigious ballet schools around the world, and the touring company is best known for its annual Great Russian Nutcracker holiday productions. Set against Valentin Fedorov’s spectacular scenic design, with larger-than-life puppets and a backdrop of unicorns, exotic birds, and animals, the production is a…
Safe deposit
Release Date: 2008-12-24 The Maloney building is a sliver of masonry — the interior is a maroon-colored corridor broken up by an old bank vault: the wine “cellar.” The bartender comes in and out of its mouth, which opens into the horseshoe bar. Recessed windows span from floor to ceiling, though given the location not…
The SOB’s
Release Date: 2008-12-24 If you’re not out caroling with the fam or snuggling on the couch this Christmas Eve, head out for holiday spirits and rockin’ tunes with the city’s most original cover trio, Sons of Bitches, as they present A Very Bitchy Christmas Show at The Mix. You might even stay out late enough…
A kind rewind
Benjamin Button takes the easiest route from grave to cradle
Dramatic lightweight
Seven Pounds Director: Gabriele Muccino Screenwriter: Gabriele Muccino Cast: Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, Michael Ealy, Robinne Lee Release Date: 2008-12-24 Rated: PG-13 Genre: Film Half of all Americans believe in guardian angels. Mitch Albom’s death-porn novels have sold 26 million copies worldwide. And Will Smith is so powerfully likable that Barack Obama recently…
No conviction
Frost/Nixon Director: Ron Howard Screenwriter: Ron Howard Cast: Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Sam Rockwell, Toby Jones, Matthew MacFadyen Release Date: 2008-12-24 Rated: R Genre: Film Adapted from the play of the same name, Frost/Nixon chronicles the real-life efforts of British television impresario David Frost to score the first interview with Richard Nixon following the disgraced…
Nothing Like the Holidays
Nothing Like the Holidays Director: Alfredo De Villa Screenwriter: Alfredo De Villa Cast: John Leguizamo, Freddy Rodriguez, Jay Hernandez, Melonie Diaz, Alfred Molina Release Date: 2008-12-24 Rated: PG-13 Genre: Film Come holiday time, the number of broad, family-friendly comedies usually spikes like Santa’s cholesterol, but the families engaged in yuletide slapstick almost always have surnames…
Toadies
Release Date: 2008-12-24 The Toadies are back in business, this time on the road supporting the new CD, No Deliverance. The Fort Worth rockers rose to fame in the grunge-ridden ’90s when their debut album, Rubberneck, went platinum on the strength of the smash singles “Possum Kingdom” and “Tyler.” It should have been the beginning…
Winter Wonderettes
Release Date: 2008-12-24 As a longtime employee of Harper’s Hardware, Betty Jean is in charge of the company Christmas party and the Wonderettes are her logical choice for the entertainment. But when Santa turns up missing, the girls must use their talent and creative ingenuity, with the support of some great holiday tunes, to dazzle…
Spazmatics
Release Date: 2008-12-24 The Spazmatics are a hilariously nerdy but cool ’80s dance show that regularly packs both Houston and San Antonio Scout Bar locations full of cheering fans. The rockin’ ’80s new wave show includes hits by Devo, Flock of Seagulls, Cindy Lauper, Missing Persons, and more. Prepare for the onslaught of geekdom —…
The gift of the fragile
Every once in a while, right before the December holidays, I come across a copy of O. Henry’s remarkable story “The Gift of the Magi.” It’s the tale of a man and a woman who do not have any money to buy Christmas presents, so they sell the two possessions that mean the most to them…
¡Ask a Mexican!
SPECIAL YEAR-END EDITION Dear Mexican: I was driving home on old King Road in San Jose, where a bunch of Mexicans live, and I noticed that almost every house has their Christmas lights still hanging from the rafters, and reindeer and Santa Claus decorations weathered by the hot sun on the roofs. It’s the middle…
Amuse-BOUCHE
Tell me the truth: Do I look thinner? That’s because I am! For the next couple of weeks, the Current’s on the annual holiday diet (contrary, as always), and your altweekly muckrakers and critics take various forms of vacation (A-B included). So while you won’t find Café SA in print, you can search our ever-growing…
Ear in review
1. Department of Eagles In Ear Park (4AD) 2008 was all about exciting, next-level shit, a year full of electronics-enhanced envelope pushing (the Bug, Flying Lotus, Gang Gang Dance), neo-globalist ass-shaking (Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit), revisionist disco (Hercules and Love Affair) and hardcore (Fucked Up). And, thanks to Auto-Tuned robo-voice overload (God will judge you,…
Deadpool
Before Deadpool takes the stage, Mistress Juliya, hostess of Fuse TV’s heavy-metal countdown, orders the crowd upstairs to put their devil horns in the air. The audience does what she says, of course — she is, after all, a pretty lady from the magical talking box — but it quickly becomes obvious that shaping their…
S’Nuff film
While we’re bitching and shivering at our late-December dip into mid-40s temps, it’s fun to remember that the folks up north are currently drooling over our five-day forecasts, fantasizing about strangling us with their tire chains. But if your hot-blooded South Texas ass has been bundled up indoors ever since the pools closed in late…
Cinema Obscura
On Christmas Eve 1971, young Billy’s grandfather (Hare) vegetates in the Utah Mental Facility, staring dead-eyed at the family who’s come to visit. Until Billy’s parents leave the room, that is. Then Grandpa shifts in his rocking chair and grabs Billy’s arm. What follows can only be described as the finest scene ever committed to…
Hey, BCS! Remember The Alamo
The 16th annual Alamo Bowl takes place this week, matching the Number 23 Missouri Tigers against the Number 20 Northwestern Wildcats. Las Vegas isn’t buying those rankings, though, as odds-makers have established Missouri as a prohibitive 12-point favorite. But Northwestern seems to possess the extra motivation that sometimes leads to surprising upsets in bowl games,…
Hoochy-cutesy
A couple of hours before show time, I received a text from Beto, my friend whom I’d lured to accompany me to the Overtime Theater’s Christmas-themed burlesque show, the Naughty List, with the promise of nekkid dancin’ as well as several beers if he’d let me use him like some Pavlovian heterosexual-man-dog and record his…
ARTIFACTS
Last Second Saturday, the Fl!ght/1906 Complex hosted a hootenanny of creative output, including a musical performance by Boxcar Satan. But it’s the cerebro-visceral images produced by Thomas Cummins and his camera that I can’t get out of my head. His artist’s bio describes the work as “large-format lenticular 3D panoramic lightboxes of his nocturnal photography.”…
‘Cats’: a scratch card
This week the musical Cats resumes its caterwauling at the Majestic, and longtime readers of the Current might thus expect my usual Cats-related cattiness. After all, Cats has been the butt of critical jokes since at least Saturday Night Live’s “Skimbleshanks celebrates his 11,000th performance” skit, and it’s hard not to poke fun at the…
Dear Uncle Mat
I am a 28-year-old, college-educated black male. I live on the northwest side of San Antonio and come from a middle-class family. About five months ago I met a 27-year-old Hispanic female from the East Side of San Antonio, born and raised. We come from different backgrounds to say the least. Over this period of…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Most people spend their entire lives immersed in three modes of awareness: waking, sleeping, and dreaming. But there are many other modes that have been explored down through the ages by the pioneers of consciousness. Some of them aren’t very interesting to me — like those sought out by people who…
Skeletons in Caterpillar’s Closet
The Express-News reported last week on how Caterpillar Inc. has decided to build their new $170 million engine-manufacturing plant in nearby Seguin, which will employ more than 1,400 people. “It’s wonderful news,” Seguin Mayor Betty Ann Matthies said in the story. “By a large margin, it is the biggest incentive package we have ever put…
Global Warming solutions proposed â?¦ in Texas?
Beyond the smog… H-town: breeding ground for climate change action? Greg Harman What the world knows about Texas: J.R. Ewing was one ruthless son of a bitch. George Jr. can bob and weave with the best of â??em. and Houston is where Global Warming gets made. Well, chalk another one up for Energy City: Houston…
Ban the Bag
Greg Harman Even if humankind came down sick all of a sudden and fell down dead, so much of what we have built would live on after us. At least for a few years. Your lovely wood frame home at the corked end of that traffic-limiting cul-de-sac would be overrun and overgrown in just a…
“Trooper Protector” — Dance Like Robots
The song begins with the sorts of glitchy, funkatronic blips you’d expect at a droid dance party, but blasts off after this 15-second countdown for three and a half minutes of the furious space rock the title insinuates, sheltering the titular trooper inside a near-impenetrable wall of chiming guitars. Sustained keyboard notes methodically slow the…
