Bar-B-Que blues
Release Date: 2003-02-06 As a fabulously full and gloriously golden moon rose over the storied skyline of Selma recently, a pack of pre-teens erupted in an orgy of whooping and running about – and on – the benches and tables of Rudy’s outdoor dining patio. Obviously unperturbed parents chatted among themselves – or on cell…
Bar-B-Que blues
Release Date: 2003-02-06 As a fabulously full and gloriously golden moon rose over the storied skyline of Selma recently, a pack of pre-teens erupted in an orgy of whooping and running about – and on – the benches and tables of Rudy’s outdoor dining patio. Obviously unperturbed parents chatted among themselves – or on cell…
Bar-B-Que blues
Release Date: 2003-02-06 As a fabulously full and gloriously golden moon rose over the storied skyline of Selma recently, a pack of pre-teens erupted in an orgy of whooping and running about – and on – the benches and tables of Rudy’s outdoor dining patio. Obviously unperturbed parents chatted among themselves – or on cell…
SOUND AND THE FURY: A WEEK ON THE SCENE
Their second such release is a comp called Delta Masters, on which an assortment of bands from Boxcar’s orbit contribute their own interpretations of tunes by the pioneering blues men of the Mississippi Delta. Many of the participants hail from SA and surrounding burgs, but the label also recruited like-minded artists from such established centers…
HEADS UP A WEEK EARLY
Such fans fail to remember that pop groups exist – a shiny, round, vacuum-packed and doughnut-holed reality – that will never, ever intersect with their own. So why does anyone care how a band lives, grows, splinters, digresses, or dies? How does the creative decision of a bunch of strangers have a profound effect your…
THE KING OF SAN ANTONIO CINEMA
But his retirement was brief. It was not even retirement; Santikos kept busy as monarch of a mighty commercial real estate empire. Even when selling his movie business, he retained ownership of the theater buildings and surrounding properties. So he was still landlord of the largest movie chain in San Antonio in 2001, when Regal,…
SCHOOL’S OUT
The Islamic University and Palestinian Polytechnic Institution, both located in Hebron, were closed by the Israeli army in mid-January. According to official government statements, this action was taken in response to the recent twin suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that left 24 people dead and more than 100 wounded. Despite the fact that Israeli authorities…
A FINE PLAY NAMED ‘STREETCAR’
Not just American, but an American archetype – another star in his constellation of characters fighting a losing battle against the destructive impact of American society. When our catch-phrases and conversational shortcuts were as likely to come from literature as from Hollywood, Williams wrote into archetype characters whose very names came to be shorthand for…
ALL EARS
Bar/None Records, God bless ’em, are doing their part to make my pal’s mission obsolete. On The American Song-Poem Anthology: Do You Know the Difference Between Big Wood and Brush, they’ve collected 28 examples of one of waxdom’s oddest beasts, the mail-order vanity record. You may remember seeing ads in the back of cheap magazines…
A UNIQUE KITCHEN CONCOCTION
Monroe began the script with a central character and structure in mind, but when the time arrived to add other voices to the plot, the writer took a very unconventional approach by inviting more cooks into the kitchen. “I felt I needed other characters, and rather than create them, I decided to invite them.” Monroe…
SPELLBINDING SLEEPWALKERS
TALK TO HER Dir. and writ. Pedro Almodóvar; feat. Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Rosario Flores, Geraldine Chaplin, Mariola Fuentes, Roberto Álvarez (R) Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film opens with a rising curtain, and it’s filled to the brim not only with performing artists — dancers, musicians, bullfighters — but with vivid examples of them…
NEW REVIEWS
BIKER BOYZ Writ. & dir. Reggie Rock Bythewood; feat. Derek Luke, Lawrence Fishburne, Orlando Jones, Kid Rock (PG-13) Touted as “an action-packed contemporary Western on wheels,” Biker Boyz leaves a bad metallic taste in the mouth that even $6 nachos can’t erase. Maybe it’s all the chrome-colored plastic on hundreds of souped-up crotch rockets. Maybe…
ARMCHAIR CINEPHILE: COMIC CHAMELEON — THE PETER SELLERS COLLECTION
THE PETER SELLERS COLLECTION (Anchor Bay) THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN (Artisan) Henry Kissinger has been in the news lately, and one natural response to that is to curl up in a fetal ball, hoping he’ll go die. Another, more fun response is to remember the immortal Dr. Strangelove, Peter Sellers’ outrageous caricature of the myopic Machiavelli.…
STILL PLAYING
ABOUT SCHMIDT Dir. Alexander Payne; writ. Louis Begley (novel), Payne; feat. Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, Kathy Bates (R) Schmidt is a road movie set on the other end of life’s cycle from Nicholson’s Easy Rider, as full of metaphoric ambition and as devoid of solid meaning. The actor is utterly convincing as a…
DRIVING WHILE NOT-WHITE
Albert Ortiz’s first year as San Antonio’s police chief hasn’t been an easy one. He had barely broken in his new office chair when he found himself engaged in a heated verbal spat with the police union; an ex-con shot named James Lichtenwalter shot four of his officers with their own guns at a North…
STAND UP AND BE COUNTED
For that reason, 81 local agencies, under the aegis of San Antonio’s Community Initiatives Department, on February 24 will conduct an ambitious, one-day census of the homeless population in San Antonio and Bexar County. To members of the involved agencies – collectively called the “Continuum of Care” – an accurate count of San Antonio’s homelessness…
THE RHYTHM OF LA RAZA
Originally from the town of Rosa Morada, Sinaloa, Los Tigres del Norte started out during the 1960s. As adolescents, Los Brothers Hernández began playing music to help their disabled father. In 1968, the year of Olympic protests and military massacres in Mexico City, the four brothers – Jorge, Raúl, Eduardo, and Hernan – accompanied by…
ONE-MAN BAND
Inspired by Ray Manzarek’s keyboard playing with the Doors, Winston initially took up organ in the late ’60s; he switched to acoustic piano after hearing recordings of Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson. His first solo piano album was on guitarist John Fahey’s label in 1972; subsequent solo albums on the Windham Hill label included programmatic…
CAMPAIGN WATCH: THE PROCESS OF WEEDING OUT
About 60 people are running in the 10 Council districts this election, so it will require scrutiny to separate the wackos from the legitimate contenders. At 11 candidates are scrambling for District 1 including Rene Balderas, who will formally announce on February 8 that he’s running to replace Bobby Perez, whose term limits expire in…
EDUCATIONAL NOTES
Ferguson was born in Montreal in 1928. He moved to the United States in 1949, and played with several big bands, including Tommy Dorsey’s and Charlie Barnet’s. Former Four Freshmen guitarist Bill Comstock was a Charlie Barnet fan and remembers seeing the band in West Virginia: “Maynard Ferguson and Doc Severinson were both with the…
