Ratepayer Protection Coalition intervenes in CPS-NRG lawsuit as utilities play nice
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com CPS Energy lied to and manipulated the public and City Council in its rush to consolidate support for the expansion of the South Texas Project nuclear complex outside Bay City. That’s not only the running public narrative these days, but the substance of a fresh legal complaint piled onto the multi-billion CPS-NRG…
Angela, everywhere
On Saturday, January 9, the Guadalupe Theater (1301 Guadalupe Street) will render tribute to the great Chicano poet Angela De Hoyos, who passed away on September 24. The free tribute will take place at 7 pm and will include music by Juan Tejeda (accordion) and his cousin Armando Tejeda (bajo sexto), food, beer, and wine.…
A decision, PERFavor
By Enrique Lopetegui elopetegui@sacurrent.com Update on 1/11/10: Includes quotes from Michael Helle, president of the San Antonio Police Officers Association) According to city officials, the police union’s unwillingness to give an inch on its health-care benefits — as most of the rest of the U.S. population has done — has brought the collective-bargaining contract talks…
Urgent: Special Community College Board Meeting
An important public meeting will occur on 12 January. Alamo Community College District (ACCD) is hosting a special meeting to address the issue of single accreditation. Single accreditation would require aligning ACCD colleges so that the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools can accredit the district as a whole — instead of leaving the colleges…
Would any Andrew W.K. fans care to explain…
What in Sam Hell is going on with this here “I’m not a victim of mind control” statement from Andrew W.K.? We got a press release about this shit, even. Is anyone seriously worried there’s some kind of reptilian Illuminati conspiracy behind the “Party Hard” dude? Is soundtracking frat keggers eight years ago really an…
Doctor who?
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Unnecessary use of Force
Family Guy: Something Something Darkside Release Date: 2010-01-06 Rated: NONE Genre: Film The hipster consensus on Family Guy — at least since South Park so devastatingly suggested the show is plotted by manatees — seems to be this: It was pretty decent in its first three-season run through 2001; derivative of The Simpsons, for sure,…
Fresh Frite
Mother-son duo adopts Watel’s Southtown bistro
Leap Year
Critic’s Pick Leap Year Director: Anand Tucker Screenwriter: Anand Tucker Cast: Amy Adams, Matthew Goode, Adam Scott, John Lithgow, Noel O’Donovan Release Date: 2010-01-06 Rated: PG Genre: Film I’m not Irish, nor have I ever visited the Emerald Isle. But if Newton Thomas Sigel’s lush, picture-postcard-worthy cinematography in Leap Year is to be believed, Ireland…
Angelus
Angelus Composer: Pop Pistol Conductor: Pop Pistol Label: Self released Release Date: 2010-01-06 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording “This album took two years to create and has changed into many beasts along the way,” read the liner notes (aka the sheet of ultra-thin printed vellum the CD comes wrapped in) for Pop Pistol’s debut album. If…
Volume 4: Songs in the Key of Love & Hate
Volume 4: Songs in the Key of Love & Hate Composer: Puddle of Mudd Conductor: Puddle of Mudd Label: Flawless/Geffen Release Date: 2010-01-06 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording If it were 2001, Puddle of Mudd’s fourth studio release would fit right into the musical landscape. Producers Brian Hawes and John Kurzweg give the tunes real power,…
Early Seger Vol. 1
Early Seger Vol. 1 Composer: Bob Seger Conductor: Bob Seger Label: Hideout Release Date: 2010-01-06 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Ten tunes from the vaults of Michigan rock icon Bob Seger reaffirm the strength of classic rock ’n’ roll and testify to its key appeal: nostalgia. Such meat-and-potatoes music may have more staying power than Detroit,…
Stir the Blood
Stir the Blood Composer: The Bravery Conductor: The Bravery Label: Island Release Date: 2010-01-06 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording The Bravery are good at marketing. They’re the kind of band that posts “leaks” of new tracks on their website, gives things away on Facebook, and offers album pre-orders of autographed merch. This has helped them spend…
The Hard Bargain
Release Date: 2010-01-06 Inspired by the shadows, smoke, and mystery of classic noir films, writer Scott McDowell and director Andy Thornton have adapted the genre for the stage with The Hard Bargain. While investigating a murder, detectives Blake and Winters are sucked into the seedy underworld of nightclubs and temptresses, placing their own moral fiber…
Retro Theater: The Outsiders
Release Date: 2010-01-06 Considered the very first Brat Pack film, The Outsiders helped launch the careers of Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, and Diane Lane. Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s classic 1967 bromance novel brilliantly depicts a West Side Story-esque battle between “greasers”…
2010
Release Date: 2010-01-06 Fl!ght Gallery looked into its crystal ball (possibly a hand-blown Jake Harper creation) for guidance in curating this exhibition showcasing artists we’re likely to be seeing a lot of in the future. There’s no forced, pretentious theme or one of those elusive “connective threads” in this group show: Fli!ght’s Justin Parr hopes…
The Ruby Jane Show
Release Date: 2010-01-06 Fourteen-year-old Ruby Jane Smith is a sparkling example of that often over-used word: prodigy. A bluegrass sensation who cites Dolly Parton as her ultimate hero, Smith started playing the fiddle at the tender age of 2. Ten years later, Grand Ole Opry legend Jim Brock took Ruby Jane on as a (non-paying)…
Performance Party 25: Intergalactic Adventure
Release Date: 2010-01-06 If there’s one thing Jump-Start Performance Company knows how to do, it’s organize the kind of evening you won’t experience anywhere else. For the grassroots theater troupe’s 25th birthday, a slew of conceptual drama queens will participate in a non-stop, three-hour celebration of the absurd. With live music, dancing, fire-eating, comedy, spoken…
Opening Night of tick, Tick… BOOM!
Release Date: 2010-01-06 Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical rock musical, tick, tick… Boom! tells musical tales of the playwright’s life as a struggling artist with Broadway-bound dreams in ’90s-era New York City. Notably, Larson’s Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning musical, Rent, opened off-Broadway in 1996, one day after he died. With Rent’s status as the seventh-longest-running show in…
Brad Paisley w/ Miranda Lambert & Justin Moore
Release Date: 2010-01-06 What sets Brad Paisley apart from the rest of the country superstars is his sharp sense of humor: The video for his song “Celebrity” spoofs Fear Factor and American Idol and features cameos by William Shatner and Jerry Springer. His hit song “Alcohol” is sung from the bottle’s point of view: “I…
The Wailers w/ the Supervillains, Sun Salutation, & Bandulus
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-01-06 Aston “Familyman” Barrett was Bob Marley’s bassist and musical director from 1970 until the death of the reggae icon in 1981. But don’t say that to widow Rita, who in court reduced Barrett to a mere backup session musician after “Fams” unsuccessfully sued for unpaid royalties. Rita did correctly admit…
Reduce, reuse, ‘Revolt’
I don’t want to be one of those alarmist film critics always telling you how to live, but, guys, seriously, we are rapidly depleting the world’s supply of teenage-sex comedies. Most are made of at least 75-percent recycled materials, but our creation of new gags when the old ones are still good — the uncomfortably…
An American band
Some say touring bands don’t want to come through San Antonio because we’re just too lame. Others — like me, often in this very column — claim San Antonio promoters have no balls. And last week, Cleveland straightedge icon Don Foose told me that he doesn’t like to play in any city within two hours’…
Anchor management
Boats! bass-player and blogger extraordinaire David Hayden’s MySpace post about friend-of-a-friending his way into a hip party and meeting Green Day’s Tre Cool — who said Hayden looked like David Archuleta — is an exciting read. (Hell, that was the reason he got into punk in the first place — “you could actually meet the…
Live & Local
When Good Friends Become Strangers closes with a belated cover of U2’s “New Year’s Day,” but let’s start there, because it gets the inevitable comparison to Bono and friends out of the way early. Keyboardist-vocalist Frank Garcia’s voice thrives in the higher-pitched, most dramatic octaves, and guitarists Anthony Gauna and Abraham Tobar trade off lead…
The Sound & the Fury
The Aly Tadros and Douglas Jay Boyd show scheduled for Thursday, January 7, at the Republic House, has been moved to the Cove (606 W. Cypress). General manager Alan Jackson confirmed to the Current that Republic House closed last Saturday and that they’re looking for another location, but if we needed more info we’d need…
Manu in the mirror
It’s seven days before Christmas and Manu Ginobili is busy playing Santa. Decked in red kicks, casual jeans, and matching red, silver, and black Spurs gear, Ginobili is flanked by teammates Antonio McDyess and Matt Bonner as they bring a little holiday cheer to the Christus Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital. A nine-month-old girl named Emily…
¡Ask a Mexican!
SPECIAL BEST-OF EDITION Dear Readers: The Mexican is still trying to shake off the Herradura from the previous year, so I’m reprinting this week a favorite column of mine from el pásado. To make up for my siesta, though, I’m bringing back the YouTube edition of this column, where I’ll take the questions of the…
The year in Food
Alot happened in the food world in 2009, but the year may be most remembered as the year of the high-profile symbolic garden, thanks to the veggie patch Michelle Obama planted on the White House lawn. It created an instant buzz, and many other politicos around the world have followed suit, providing countless opportunities to…
Dear Uncle Mat
I have a small personal and professional problem. I got a little drunk at our annual company Christmas party and slept with one of my supervisors. Since then we have had sex a couple of times a week. We have been friends since I started at the company and have regularly hung out and even…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): According to my reading of the astrological omens, it’ll be a hair-on-fire kind of week for you — and yet also a heart-in-repose kind of week. In other words, you have the potential to be fierce and relaxed, vigorously ambitious and sublimely poised. In fact, this might be one of those…
First* Friday preview
Holy arbitrary calendrical shenanigans, you guys, it’s actually 2010 right the hell now! Dig us, we’re living in the future. Also: This coming Friday marks the first First Friday of the new decade. Yet it won’t be the first actual Friday, which was New Year’s Day — it would’ve been difficult to get art peepers…
Something weird this way comes
Early in the aughts, a new creative force emerged. Worldwide political events, crystallized by the 1999 Seattle WTO protests and the terrorist attacks of 9/11, energized a self-aware readership that embraced New Weird, the 21st century’s first major new literary movement. Books such as China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station (2000), Jeff VanderMeer’s City of Saints…
Operation:CPS
If CPS Energy, San Antonio’s City-owned utility, took a solitary human form, it would be a headless corpse bouncing gently under a white hospital sheet on its way to the morgue. While the events surrounding the demise of this heavyset, middle-aged entity have played out almost daily in frontpage headlines for months now, a handful…
Timing is everything
2006 June 19 NRG Energy files a letter of intent with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to pursue development of South Texas Projects Sites 3 and 4. Initial cost estimate: $5.2 billion 2007 September In a preliminary estimate, Toshiba puts its share of the project at $8.5 billion; the STP Nuclear Operating Company reviews the numbers…
Not enough latex gloves?
It is the duty of all public officials to “do something” whenever a new threat appears, even if there is nothing sensible to be done. If they don’t make a show of solving the problem, the media will punish them severely. So we have had a vigorous U.S. government response to the recent apprehension of…
Living in the future is full of potential, shitty surprises
Happy New Year. Look at this awesome hovercraft diagram: When I was a little kid, I envisioned 2010 quite differently. I totally figured on personal hovercrafts like that one up there, and moon colonies and underwater cities and pet Bubos (slight quibble with Bubo image/joke: that’s not the pinche Kraken, it’s Medusa!) I thought for…
