Dem Dam: Candidates we won’t hear in primary debate tonight
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com When North Texas television news anchor Karen Borta earnestly shoots her first question to the Democratic candidates for Texas Governor at tonight’s debate, there is no risk viewers will find themselves assaulted with any rants about “foreign”-owned motels proliferating across the state or schooled on the secret plan to scrap the American…
More Die Antwoord
More info on my current fave art-persona band here. And here’s a li’l video starring Watkin Tudor Jones, who plays Ninja in Die Antwoord. It took me three viewings of this to realize the voice-over was in English! Strange, strange feeling. I got that feeling once before while staying with a family in Cork, Ireland.…
GEAUX SAINTS! (some halftime entertainment)
OK, enough with the Super Bowl. I’m’a watch it, but I’m fed up with the media omnipresence. NEW ORLEANS IS IN THE SUPER BOWL. I GET IT. I AM ROOTING FOR THEM TOO. NOW LET’S ALL MOVE ON WITH OUR LIVES. It was very cool what these players did however. WAIT, though, I came here…
Drone Wars: Obama and Texas cops agree on dehumanizing sky
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com Not counting those “supplemental” billions sought from Congress to keep the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan humming in time, Obama’s 2011 proposed defense budget bumps Defense Department bones up by 3.4 percent. It’s a healthy meal in a time of famine. While social programs across the country are getting frozen in place,…
Live & Local preview; weekend concert guide
We’re heading to the cozy GIG tonight to watch Merykid, aka Nick Mery. Check him out in the video above. Cover is $6, and for $5 more you can bring your own bottle o’ wine. Otherwise you’ll have to straight-edge it. We’ll see you there, maybe. There’s a lot going on this weekend, so you…
“Factory farms not so bad after all” says TFB
Cavalier blog post of the week: “Factory farms not so bad after all” Written by Texas Farm Bureau spokesman Gene Hall, it argues that if you just look at the plain meaning of the words, not only are “factory farms” not “vile” or “evil,” but “efficient,” “productive,” and “beneficial.” I’ve read it three times and…
UHS fought with Bexar County Jail about over-crowding, suicide risk
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com University Health System staff worried about the impact of jail over-crowding at Bexar County Jail and fought to change jail practices like housing suicidal inmates in parts of the jail not intended for suicidal observation, recently released emails show. “There is a lot of confusion regarding housing for suicidal inmates,” Lydia Mesquiti…
The Beatles reunited via mashup
<a href=”http://werelateforclass.bandcamp.com/album/47-were-late-for-class-presents-the-act-youve-known-for-all-these-years”>Space Fantasy Peace (Intro) by We’re Late For Class</a> The latest mashup from copyright-infringement collective We’re Late for Class cuts, pastes, and reconfigures tracks from the Beatles’ experimental solo works, and the result is a pretty freaking phenomenal 75 minutes of mostly instrumental psychedelia. Sir Paul’s attorneys will probably confiscate your children if they…
Extras needed for Coen Brothers’ ‘True Grit,’ filming in Austin
If you’ve got the free time and the gas money to drive up to Austin and stand around in a cowboy hat for several days, go for it. The press release (reprinted below) asks for Texas residents, families, and “unique ‘character’ faces,” which I’m pretty sure is a nice way of saying remarkably ugly. ***…
Supplemental Screens coverage: Oscar films, ‘Dream Healing,’ and full-frontal disclosure
A few things missing from this week’s Screens section. First and foremost, in the interest of full disclosure, we’d like to acknowledge that Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center’s CineFestival was curated this year by Current freelancer Manuel Solis. Solis did not contribute to our coverage of the festival in any way outside of a typical curator’s…
Hearing Tonight: Rate-hike testimony suggests green reforms to slow
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com With San Antonio’s nuclear-play creeping toward dissolution, blasts of cold weather and artificially inflated gas prices have started edging up local power bills. Come March, that edge will almost certainly be sharper for already-struggling families. That’s when a proposed CPS rate increase is expected to be folded into the batter. At a…
Critic’s Diss!
When in Rome
The so-so depression
Mr. Shivers evokes mostly shrugs
Atomix Bomb
Release Date: 2010-02-03 A couple of weeks ago I received an email announcing “Three Japanese bands coming to San Antonio Jan. 30.” While readers may remember that Jeremy Martin’s Calendar Pick from last week pointed out something a little stinky about the contact information listed for advance tickets, I was far too busy poring over…
Candy Apple Daydreams
Candy Apple Daydreams Composer: Hyperbubble Conductor: Hyperbubble Label: Bubblegum Records Release Date: 2010-02-03 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording From the synthesizers to the stupid-ass hairstyles, seems like everybody’s loving the ’80s these days, but married duo Hyperbubble’s neo-retro sound is notably different for a couple of (possibly correlated) reasons. Experience, for one — Jeff DeCuir’s been…
Romance Is Boring
Romance Is Boring Composer: Los Campesinos Conductor: Los Campesinos Label: Arts and Crafts Release Date: 2010-02-03 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording After releasing their first two albums in 2008, Los Campesinos! spent the middle of 2009 prepping their third, Romance Is Boring, whose 15 tracks are a solid blend of the first two albums. The Welsh…
Been Meaning to Tell You
Been Meaning to Tell You Composer: Ernest Gonzales Conductor: Ernest Gonzales Label: Exponential Release Date: 2010-02-03 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording What qualifies as ambient anymore? In comparison to San Antonian Ernest Gonzales’s seismic, surprisingly unorthodox dance-oriented grooves, the low-key Been Meaning to Tell You is practically wallpaper, more similar to labelmates AM Architect than Gonzales’s…
Realism
Realism Composer: The Magnetic Fields Label: Nonesuch Release Date: 2010-02-03 Rated: NONE Media: CD Length: LP Format: Album Genre: Recording Stephin Merritt rarely steps into the studio with his rotating collective the Magnetic Fields without a concept. His greatest thematic work is 1999’s 69 Love Songs, a three-disc release exploring the subject in all its…
Dream Healing
Dream Healing Director: Dora Peña Screenwriter: Dora Peña Cast: Gabi Walker, Evie A. Armstrong, Jesse Borrego Release Date: 2010-02-03 Rated: NOT RATED Genre: Film Dora Peña’s “metaphysical thriller” Dream Healing is exactly the sort of film festivals are made for. As an introduction to an emerging local filmmaker and up and coming actors (not to…
13th Annual Small Scale Work for a Larger Cause
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-02-03 On February 26, the community-essential Say Sí will hold its annual Small Scale Benefit and auction, featuring affordable works from some of the city’s art champs: 2010 featured artists are Jeannette MacDougall and Suzanne Paquette, but Margaret Craig, Stuart Allen, and Katie Pell (whose show at Sala Diaz is a…
¡Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: How can a formerly proud Latina like myself feel proud to be Mexican again after my beloved relative was murdered in Mexico by narcos while visiting? I still have love for my heritage, and I understand that many Mexican people live in desperate situations because they have no opportunity. But on that day,…
Brass Knuckles
If there’s anything post-Katrina that New Orleanians have come to value, it’s stability, familiarity, and tradition. For a city nearly lost to forces of nature and foolish men, that trinity gives hope and direction, providing both a sense of history and a legacy worth preserving. Crescent City icons the Dirty Dozen Brass Band have kept…
The Beat is on(line)
When Angel Castorena, publisher of Backbeat magazine, which is devoted to San Antonio’s music scene and culture, told me he wanted to go back to the glory days of print media, when people longed to hold an actual paper magazine in their hands, I rooted for him instantly. When he said he didn’t want to…
Live & Local
Panic Division’s mannerly, clean-cut demeanors and adorable haircuts make it difficult to imagine them truly getting down. Onstage, the band wears expressions of utter concentration while Colton Holliday, the remaining original member, yells or wraps both hands around the microphone to sing intensely. The show opens with “Big Day,” off the original band’s second full-length…
The Sound & The Fury
Polysics (named after a Korg synthesizer) is the fourth Japanese band to visit SA in two weeks, but this is the last chance we’ll get to see them in the present lineup: long -time member Kayo (keyboards, guitar, vocoder) will leave the somewhat Devo-influenced band after their March 14 show at Tokyo’s legendary Budokan. The…
Action food
Whammm!! Bam!! Splat!! Zing!! . ..the teppan-table action at Osaka reads like a Roy Lichtenstein pop painting: everything in balloons. But without the irony. Which is both the charm and the inherent limitation of the genre. Leonardo must either be a little lower-key than some show chefs or a very good judge of character,…
Homey style
I’ve always wanted another neighborhood restaurant, like we had at the original Biga,” says chef and restaurateur Bruce Auden. It’s mid-January, and the sign for Auden’s Kitchen is being attached to the building outside the windows. His Stone Oak debut is a mere three weeks away, but if the lanky Englishman is tense, it doesn’t…
Sundance vatos rule!
Interested in the future of independent filmmaking? One could hardly find a better opportunity than the latest edition of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts’ CineFestival, scheduled for this weekend. U.S. Latino filmmaking has come a long way since such pioneering works as Gregory Nava’s El Norte (1983) and San Antonio native Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi (1992)…
The so-so depression
In Robert Jackson Bennett’s lackluster debut novel, Mr. Shivers, Marcus Connelly rides the rails seeking vengeance for the murder of his daughter. Joining up with similarly driven individuals, Connelly searches Depression-era America for a killer, the mysterious title character recognizable by distinctive facial scars. To further denigrate his already cliché-ridden tale, Bennett adds a fallen…
When queens collide
I first saw Robert Epstein’s Oscar-winning documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk, while attending summer school at Yale in 1985. I was deeply moved by the film and spent hours in an off-campus coffee shop discussing it with friends. Soon after, I read Randy Shilts’s definitive Milk biography, The Mayor of Castro Street, and glimpsed the ruthlessly…
ARTifacts
All right, all right, so Chris Sauter’s made these pages before: I’ve mentioned him as an adjunct professor at Palo Alto in an article about the stellar art programs at our community colleges `See “Art missions,” January 28, 2009`; covered his wedding to husband Rick Frederick `see “State of the Union,” June 10, 2009`; and…
Criminalizing trafficking victims, decriminalizing pot possession
Trying the victim Sixteen-year-old “Angela” was a “case study” in the challenge domestic human-trafficking victims represent to law enforcement. Forced into prostitution at age 11, she wasn’t discovered by local police until several years later, when she was placed in the juvenile system after a man accused her of stealing his wallet and pants. Only…
Middle East pieces
Barack Obama had worse failures to address in his State of the Union message last week, but a few days earlier he owned up to the most foolish miscalculation that his administration had made in its first year in power. In an interview with Joe Klein of Time magazine, he confessed that he had not…
Dear Uncle Mat
Dear Uncle Mat, I live in a cute fourplex near downtown San Antonio. A new gay guy moved in last month, and he is a great neighbor. He has totally cleaned up our little garden and has plans for a spring garden with fresh herbs and vegetables when the weather clears up. We (the residents…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Those who know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories.” So said the ancient Greek historian Polybius, and now I’m conveying the message to you. I hope it will serve as a spur in the wake of your recent…
‘39’ cheers
It’s loosely based on a Hitchcock thriller, but the hilarious The 39 Steps is nothing less than a valentine to theater; indeed, this zippy quick-change comedy manages to turn everything — film, politics, war — into a hellzapoppin’ celebration of all things thespian. Like the film, the plot follows the travails of a world-weary Everyman, Richard Hanney,…
And … Action!
As the proud owner of an Alfred Hitchcock pop-up book and an admittedly rabid fan of the master of suspense, I approached seeing The 39 Steps — the stage version of his seminal 1935 film — with both excitement and trepidation. What could be better than watching four actors madly juggle multiple characters while bringing…
Desperately seeking cinco
History came calling early for Tim Duncan two Fridays ago at the AT&T Center, where less than two minutes into a contest with the upstart Houston Rockets, Duncan drained an open jumper to notch points 20,000 and 20,001 of his storied NBA career. The raucous crowd serenaded a subdued Duncan with a standing ovation, leaving…
AOL streams Ernest Gonzales
Ernest Gonzales’s new album, Been Meaning to Tell You, is streaming today on AOL’s Spinner. Go listen to it right now (it’s great instrumental music to work by), and check out my review in tomorrow’s issue of the Current. (Spoiler alert: I liked it quite a bit.)
Oscars see shadow; 6 more weeks of ‘Avatar’
Oscar day used to mean something in this town. They used to pull a studio-owned orphan up on stage and sacrifice it to the box-office-return gods. They wouldn’t give Bill Murray an Oscar for Lost in Translation (he should’ve won for Rushmore) because he tried to blow up a gopher several years earlier. They wouldn’t…
