Ouija boards, water planning, and 30-foot sucking sounds
Dig In! Thirty feet of groundwater: must sell! Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com BOERNE â?? If the Texas Water Development Board accepts the recommendations of regional water planners, area groundwater supplies from Bee Cave to western Bandera County will be expected to decline by 30 feet in the coming decades. Only one member of the Groundwater Management…
City will pay for “emergency” demo
Chalk one up for the Constitution: U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez ruled against the City Wednesday in a lawsuit over its 2008 demolition of Chance Kinnison’s Tobin Hill fixer-upper. The City razed the historic bungalow that April, a little more than a week after Kinnison bought it from Richard Brownlee, who has sued the City…
CPS Energy’s secret CEO pick and the nukes of distraction
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com When CPS Energy and their nuke partners at NRG Energy and Toshiba settled their differences in February, they also shut down, in large part, the city’s broader debate about nuclear power. NRG/Toshiba took full control over pumping the federal government for needed loan guarantees for the would-be Matagorda County reactors STP 3&4.…
Texas headed for serious water crunch, says NRDC report
This land is your (bleeding) land: Water use predicted to be way (more) out of whack by 2050. Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com Population growth, rising temperatures, and changing rainfall patterns are poised to wreak havoc on the country’s water supply, leaving one in three counties facing high risks of water shortages by 2050, according to a…
Buffalo Soldiers and The Texas Frontier
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-07-21 The nickname “Buffalo Soldier” dates to the 1800s and was coined by the Native American tribes who fought the U.S. Army’s first African American regiments. While the exhibition Buffalo Soldiers: Discovering Heritage on the Texas Frontier (which opens Thursday) does a great job of explaining who these men (and at…
2 to Watch: Ken Little and Trey Moore
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-07-21 Artpace and Gemini Ink unite to present a unique dialogue between visual artist and musician Ken Little and poet Trey Moore. This creative meeting of the minds includes a live performance, “powerful words, and possibly tears of joy (yours).”
The Last Broadcast of Bailey and Long
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-07-21 The Overtime Theater, the Current’s Best of San Antonio winner for Local Theater Company, has never been averse to the kinds of risk-taking so integral to good performance. They’ve also got a knack for the vintage, whether in a production’s design or its story (not cutesy plastic vintage, either -…
Third Coast Rythm Project: Jazz on Tap
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-07-21 Unless you’re one of the lucky “rhythm explorers” who’s enrolled in one of the 57 percussion and dance workshops being offered this week (visit thirdcoastrhythm.com for a full schedule), Jazz on Tap is your only chance to enjoy the 13th Annual Third Coast Rhythm Project. This four-day gathering of choreographers,…
Una Celebración del Leyenda Esteban Jordan y Su Musica
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-07-21 One of SA’s most fascinating characters will be honored this Sunday, when Sexto Sol, Piñata Protest, Bombasta, Los Nahuatlatos, Mexican Stepgrandfather, JJ Lopez, and Plata pay tribute to Esteban “Steve” Jordan – a living legend who plays 35 musical instruments and is frequently referred to as the “the Jimi Hendrix…
Concerts Under the Stars: Terri Hendrix
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-07-21 Terri Hendrix’s 12th album Cry Till You Laugh proves the SA native has mastered the art of switching things up. Hendrix’s voice is basically the only thread connecting twangy tracks like “Hand Me Down Blues” and jazzy rants like “Take Me Places,” but perhaps the biggest surprise on the album…
Broken Record
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-07-21 The Overtime Theater, the Current’s Best of San Antonio winner for Local Theater Company, has never been averse to the kinds of risk-taking so integral to good performance. They’ve also got a knack for the vintage, whether in a production’s design or its story (not cutesy plastic vintage, either -…
The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Girl Who Played With Fire Director: Daniel Alfredson Screenwriter: Daniel Alfredson Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Annika Hallin, Alexa Eisenstein, Paolo Roberto Release Date: 2010-07-21 Rated: R Genre: Film Finally, a movie that makes viewers want to read the source material, if only to discern what the fuck they just spent $10 watching at…
Seven Star Fist
Seven Star Fist Composer: Rawkause Conductor: Rawkause Label: Self released Release Date: 2010-07-21 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording This seven-song debut EP — available for free download at rawkause.bandcamp.com — is nearly wall-to-wall verbiage, except for those instances where Rawkause, wisely, lets SA producer MyOwnStyleZ’s beat ride for a minute. The combination of elegant classical strings…
Lazers Never Die
Lazers Never Die Composer: Major Lazer Conductor: Major Lazer Label: Mad Decent/Interscope Release Date: 2010-07-21 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording For those bemoaning a lack of epic hipster summer jams this year, Major Lazer offers salvation on this brief EP. DJ demigod Diplo again ditches baile funk for Jamaican dancehall in collaboration with UK fidget-house fiend…
Adaptation
Adaptation Composer: A.M. Architect Conductor: A.M. Architect Label: Creative Commons Release Date: 2010-07-21 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Sometimes the best summer soundtracks aren’t designed for the poolside kegger or the top-down nighttime drive, but for the midday hammock ride. This EP from San Antonio’s down-tempo MVPs — available for free download at amarchitect.bandcamp.com — provides…
Fourth Saturday
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-07-21 No, nobody’s calling it that — and please don’t start — but a lot of art happens to be dropping on the fourth Saturday of July. To properly enjoy this artful challenge, be prepared with: one bottle of water (for thirst, as needed), enough gas to get you 21 miles…
Cinderella
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-07-21 Philadelphia-based glam metal band Cinderella disappeared for a while, but they’re back on the road again (hair spray doesn’t buy itself), revisiting the multi-platinum, acid-washed glory of the mid-’80s. Cinderella’s most recent release is ’94’s Still Climbing.
Victory at sea and onstage
In 1571, European forces allied with the Republic of Venice inflicted decisive defeat on the mighty Ottoman fleet. The Battle of Lepanto has been depicted by several notable Italian painters, including Tintoretto, Titian, and Veronese. However, for Scenes From an Execution, English playwright Howard Barker invents a brilliant, headstrong artist, an audacious and vivacious woman…
So da dinero, Pepsi
You may have seen the TV spots this spring: Beverage behemoth Pepsi Co. pledges, through its Pepsi Refresh program, to fund innovative and idealistic “good ideas” throughout the nation. A perusal of the website (refresheverything.com ) presents some worthy would-be recipients and ideas, including inner-city neighborhood associations, plans to green-up public and work spaces, provide…
No brainer
I’ll tell you what it is It’s some kind of Texas psychobilly freakout That’s what it is — Reverend Horton Heat Arizona is cracking more than just migrant skulls this summer, and that’s bad news for San Antonio music lovers. Arizona highways brought the hurt to the Kraneos’ touring van over the weekend, effectively aborting…
Used up
He’s not going to lose any sleep over a 13-year-old fan including it among the search tags and anime tears on her YouTube tribute video about the impact he’s had in her life, but you get the feeling that, at 28, John Vesely, is quite eager to start stretching his career beyond the confinements of…
Live & local
There’s a not-all-that-fine line between hardcore and a reel of nothing but close-up penetration shots. Crowdsurf Off a Cliff seem content to set up camp on that latter side, only taking an occasional peek at the former — metaphorically speaking of course. If you insist on taking your film-to-music analogies in PG-13 form, COC is…
Dear Uncle Mat
Dear Uncle Mat, My life’s a mess, but what’s new? That is why people write you, not because they are perfect. I am an educated, employed, handsome, nice guy. I live with two roommates who are also well-put-together gay guys in their 20s. All of us are single and looking for relationships, but with no…
The sound & the fury
What kind of devil-music fan are you? Do you lean more toward the violent heavy-metal sounds that so bunched the knickers of the former Mrs. Gore and her mob of concerned parents in the ’80s? If so, the Dark One commands you get the hell on over to White Rabbit (2410 N. St. Mary’s; sawhiterabbit.com)…
¡Ask A Mexican!
Dear Mexican, I heard Mormonism is a quickly spreading religion down in ye olde Mexico. What is it about this religion that a lot of Mexicans find so fascinating? — Jack Mormón Dear Gabacho, Historically? Mexico has long had the second-largest community of Mormons in the world, after the United States — official LDS figures…
Nico on defense
Nicholas “Nico” LaHood is a product of San Antonio: son of a judge, graduate of Central Catholic High School and St. Mary’s University, and a former bit player in the city’s 1990s drug scene. Now, with star-studded fundraisers and high-profile backers, LaHood is out-raising 12-year veteran Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed and evolving into…
Home on the range: Bite me
I’m going to out myself: I have read all four books in the Twilight series, and I have seen all three movies. And I’m not in middle school — I’m a mom, old enough to have spawned sullen teen vampire bait Bella Swan. But before you jump to conclusions, I am NOT a “Twi-Mom.” I…
A Duel in District 1, Tree muggers and flagrant fliers, and more…
District 1 duel While our attention is focused on the various November showdowns `see this week’s story about Bexar County DA contender Nico LaHood, page 9, and last week’s review of the Dems-Greens tussle, online at sacurrent.com`, next year’s City Council races are percolating away. Early-bird District 1 candidate Carolyn Kelley turned in a campaign-finance…
Tour of Duty
Weekly, hundreds of emails bubble up from the boiling cauldron of information that is sacalendar@sacurrent.com. Sometimes, especially if I’m given ample time (14 days is ideal) to locate your diamond in my pile of garbage, a priceless discovery is made. On June 24, I received an email from Steve Elliot — Army civilian, writer for…
Web exclusive: An institute you can’t disparage (any further)
We Americans absolutely amaze me. Compulsory education notwithstanding, every day millions of us commit unfathomable acts so unforgivably, dead-dog dumb that one must, must drop the F-bomb just to inquire about them properly. “What the bloody, hecking, motherhecking heck are you hecking doing, you blockheaded heck?” simply doesn’t suffice when one second-guesses smoking Nazi-method crystal,…
Summer beer
There is no way to bottle summer. In fact, 12 ounces of San Antonio summer would be a warm, sticky concoction, spiced faintly with mosquitoes, and with a tendency to either dry up quickly or unpredictably spill over the top onto your shoes. Perhaps the more satisfying goal is to find a bottle of something…
Web exclusive: Raging bullshit
Ah, the ’90s. When times were so good that the only thing kids had to worry about was the fact that there was nothing to worry about. The players at the Rose Theate have recreated the feel, if not the actual setting, of that bygone era of jaded prosperity with their production of Eric Bogosian’s…
I only laugh when it hurts
My wife, I’m told by die-hard Larry David fans, hates Curb Your Enthusiasm because I misguidedly tried to indoctrinate her via a mini marathon of first-season episodes. You can’t do that, apparently, because David’s brand of obsessive-compulsive misanthropy and have-to-watch-from-the-corner-of-your-eye awkward humor, when taken in doses larger than 60 minutes or so, is enough to…
Summer stop-gaps
Is anyone else totally discombobulated over these TV “summer seasons”? We used to moan there was nothing on our happy boxes this time of year but reruns. Now, an old episode of a familiar show might be a refreshing sight. The rapidly resurgent Law & Order: Criminal Intent ended its season on USA this month.…
Agarita maniacs unite!
a few weeks back, Current Editor Elaine Wolff asked me to write about Agarita Mania. Yippeee! I thought. I get to tell everyone about this little-known annual ritual, one in which I have lovingly participated for the past few years. What makes Agarita Mania so special is the opportunity for good friends to get together,…
Fast foodie
Too many notes. At least that’s my biased Western view of most Asian menus. In the case of Vietnamese restaurants, it’s the pho noodle soups that drive me nuts. So, do you want the soup with brisket, steak, meatball, book tripe, and soft tendon? Or the one with steak, brisket, soft tendon, and book tripe…
Chisme y Chicle
Tripadvisor.com rates hotels, restaurants … you name it; “reviews you can trust” is their tagline. And though our kudos go out to Las Canarias for coming in first on their survey of 1,390 San Antonio restaurants (!), we suggest that a few words of caution are in order. Of the nearly 1,400 restaurants listed, many…
Signs of life
Suddenly, last summer, during the drought and the health-care debates, simple Coroplast signs bearing the legend “no socialism” sprouted like buttercups on the front yards of 78209, the insular Alamo Heights-Terrell Hills-Olmos Park bubble of mostly well-heeled Anglo families. These particular signs lacked the zeitgeist gut-punch of Tea Party protest signs, those oft-misspelled homespun rebuttals…
But is it news? Adkisson, Hall, and anti-toller intolerance
Don’t tell Tommy! Visions of Cali tollways courtesy of TURF. Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com The tug-of-war between the Express-News and Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson has been partly settled, with the County releasing hundreds of pages of emails to toll-road opponent and Mysa.com blogger Terri Hall from Adkisson’s official email account. Readers piled on in the…
Future still cloudy for airport and park police
While the San Antonio Police Department recently negotiated a fairly cushy contract with the City (CLEAT, the legal association that represented the SA police officers association in negotiations even brags about â??the top of the line’ deal on their web site homepage), the San Antonio park police and airport police still wonder whether their jobs…
