USDA’s war on fat gives pass to problematic corn, soy products
Sometimes diets aren’t in vogue because of the latest research study or governmental recommendation; they’re popular because they harken back to very old food wisdom — traditions that inherently make sense to our human sensibilities, before food became a corporate venture. It’s about eating the way people “used to” eat, not only for sake of…
‘FOCUS: A Documentary’ takes a look into the life of a pro gamer
With one of the most prestigious gaming tournaments, EVO 2K11, just behind us, I thought it would be good to share what a player goes through trying to prepare for a tournament where anything can happen. This is the story of Mike Ross, a professional gamer who plays fighting games, mostly Street Fighter IV. His documentary is called…
Web series based on Agosto Cuéllar’s Southtown antics debuts Thursday
A big, ivory-colored dildo hits the concrete floor awkwardly after the owner of Jive Refried Vintage throws it at a Southtown customer. But this isn’t actual Refried owner-cum-fashion designer Agosto Cuéllar in a lather, but a fictionalized version of him acting out in a new comedy web series, JiveTown, which is loosely based on the…
Happy Birthday MTV: 30 years later
My dad had just celebrated his 30th birthday. At the time he was working all nighters for the first cable company in San Antonio, Rogers CATV. Tonight, he came home somewhat early with a light brown box in hand that had little black and white numbers. The appliance was then connected to our television which…
Mickey Avalon Vs. Zeb Atlas: Who w(h)ore it best?
It’s hot out there. And ARTslut whoreheartedly supports public nudity as a cost-effective way to cool off. So we couldn’t resist whipping out a camera when… rapper and former junkie/bisexual prostitute Mickey Avalon (who once told LA Weekly he’d “much rather give a hand job than wash dishes all day”) peeled off a wet tank…
Sweatshop the video game
Sweatshop is a web browser video game where players struggle to meet the demands fashion with workers who are under-paid, and under-nourished. “Sweatshop is a light-hearted game, but it’s based upon very present realities that many workers around the world contend with each day.”-playsweatshop.com Littleloud Studios and London’s Channel 4 worked with experts to integrate…
Eagle Ford fracking body packed with industry interests
How does one shatter dense rock thousands of feet below ground with a toxic slurry and suck up the oil and gas in a environmentally responsible manner? Is safe “fracking” of oil shales even possible? Among those that aren’t so sure, count the EPA, France, and states of New York, West Virginia, and Arkansas. Yeah.…
Save Our Inboxes, 10 Rules to Reverse the Email Spiral
The Email Charter was created in response to the massive time suck of email correspondence. The call to action was originally initiated by TED Curator Chris Anderson and TEDScribe Jane Wulf with a blog post read by over 45,000 people. By visiting http://emailcharter.org you can read the charter, sign it, and share it with others.…
“A Thumbnail of Bandera South of 410” by Marisela Chavez
Marisela Chavez returns with an ode to San Antonio. An image sketched in words for someone far away. And so this is also an ode to memory. Writing as drawing as a way to retention: “fade proof” to writer and reader. San Antonio has so much to offer including the flash fiction section of the…
John Wayne’s grandson Brendan talks ‘Cowboys & Aliens’
Brendan Wayne remembers when he was four years old, visiting his grandfather, iconic actor John Wayne, on the set of the 1976 Western The Shootist. It was the Duke’s final film of his career. He succumbed to cancer three years later. “I remember him picking me up with one hand and smiling at me,” Wayne…
Macondo Writers free reading tonight, July 28
A free reading by Macondo Writers with music by Conjunto El Trio will be held at Thiry Auditorium at Our Lady of the Lake University from 7 to 9 pm, Thursday, July 28. Below, images from last night’s performance at Jump-Start, courtesy of Ray Santisteban- Our Lady of the Lake University is located at 411…
Veterans group forced to vacate as H-E-B expands downtown
In the rush to pack up and move out Wednesday, Brothers of Fallen Heroes founder and president Bert Hernandez spoke of countless fellow veterans, troubled and homeless, who have sought help at his office downtown. “We give them food if we have it, assistance, and we help show them where there’s help available. They know…
Urban-15’s Hot Hot Hot Latin dance class for seniors
Down on South Presa Street, in an old converted church, the URBAN-15 Group is a hotbed of creative activity. URBAN-15 is a San Antonio-based nonprofit arts group that creates educational programs, events, and performances dedicated to music, movement, and media. Through the practice and performance of these three arts disciplines, URBAN-15 inspires creativity, confidence, community,…
Get your Vudu on, it’s like Netflix for poor people
Today Walmart.com announced their arrival into the world of HD streaming. They’re prepared to go head-to-head with rival content streaming giant Netflix. Now Walmart.com customers have the option to select a digital VUDU title streamed to more than 300 VUDU-enabled devices, including select HDTVs, Blu-ray Disc players and the PlayStation®3. Again, Walmart continues playing the…
¡ASK A MEXICAN!
Dear Mexican: A few years ago, my girlfriend and I visited the beautiful city of Mérida in the Yucatan. We were surprised to see a sentence in our guidebook warning us to be on the lookout for Mennonites pedaling queso in the mercado. Sure enough, we bumped into a bearded, light-skinned Mennonite carrying cheese! As…
Grieves: Together/Apart
Grieves will catch flack for sounding like emo-hip-hop duo Atmosphere, but he’s hardly the Puddle of Mudd to their Nirvana. His rhyme schemes, topics, and tuneful hooks are delivered with a confidence befitting his four years in the game. Meanwhile, producer/labelmate Budo has time-tested breaks and cinematic textures on lock (his instrumental contribution "Speak Easy"…
How Luna’s sub-par Amounting to Nothing eventually turns the tables
Amounting to Nothing, the first feature written and directed by San Antonio’s Johnny Luna (and starring some of our city’s top comedians) is one of those projects that seem to be always arriving, with endless email updates and a sole, poor “unofficial trailer.” The movie opens with too obvious Pulp Fiction references: a diner talk,…
Rodrigo y Gabriela: Live in France
The Mexican guitar duo’s third live album is raw energy at play. Drawing mainly on selections from their latest studio album 11:11, Live in France showcases Rodrigo y Gabriela’s ability to feed off each other and the audience where they are most comfortable — on stage. Though Rodrigo y Gabriela’s studio albums have won over…
Critic’s Pick: Crazy, Stupid, Love
Forget marriage counseling. If you really want to know the status of your relationship, pay attention to what’s happening under the dinner table during a romantic evening out. Playing footsies means there’s still some spark. Flatfooted and aloof? You might as well start drawing up those divorce papers. At least that’s where loving husband and…
Amy Winehouse’s death should take us to her music
“Reality is a crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs,” Lily Tomlin once said. Amy Winehouse couldn’t cope. Neither could Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain, whose company Winehouse joined hours before the police found her dead in her house in London on Saturday. Reality for them was an…
How the Tobin Center will transform performance — and San Antonio’s Museum Reach
A concrete crater remains where seats have been stripped away in the belly of the old Municipal Auditorium; the room is cavernous, like an old rock quarry. For now, the hulking stage that has hosted concerts, boxing matches, and high school graduations since the auditorium was built in 1926 still stands. But it too will…
Live & Local: Jai Roots and the Herb-n-Café at España Bar de Tapas
“What you’ve got to capture is the vibe,” Jai Roots told the Current on the curb outside España Bar de Tapas after his show on Friday, July 22. Jai Roots played España with his Herb-n-Café Project, a three-year creative endeavor that blends Latin jazz with reggae, funk, and rhythm and blues. It’s mercurial both in…
Chic chard
“Mineral!” she said. Smugly. This is what happens when one pontificates about wine in front of somebody susceptible. It always comes back to bite you. But, as it happens, she was right. We were tasting a 2009 Joseph Drouhin Mâcon-Villages, and both mineral and citrus, along with faint floral notes, were in the nose and…
The Croissant Chronicles
Among other things, the French are freaky about bread. It played a role in their revolution (think of Jean Valjean and Les Misérables), and Parisians have been known to incite to riot with any attempt to raise the price of their beloved baguette. It’s ironic, then, that the current champion of pain francais is an…
Hyatt protests escalate with hundreds on the street and 11 arrests
When I first started here, it was better,” says Elvia Claudio, reflecting on her three years cleaning rooms at downtown’s stately Grand Hyatt hotel. At 47, she’s cleaned hotels for almost a decade, and now sufferers from the same back and joint aches that plague most long-time housekeepers. “The work was manageable and we weren’t…
Artifacts: The Macondo Writers Workshop
Begun in poet and writer Sandra Cisneros’ kitchen in 1998, The Macondo Writers Workshop began with a modest group of 15. Later growing to more than 150 participants, the workshop, run by the nonprofit Macondo Foundation since 2006, emphasizes compassion, non-violence, and community building, and enjoys the support of internationally renowned authors such as John…
Bottle & Tap: Try This at Home
Try This at Home It is becoming more difficult to keep track of new breweries popping up in Texas. A few minutes poking about on Twitter, Facebook, or beer blogs each week seems to drop another hint of some brave soul who wants to live the dream of owning a brewery. Visions usually begin with…
Local Review of The Copper Gamins: The Copper Gamins
Zinacantepec, Mexico’s José Carmen (guitar) and Claudio Lafania (drums) recently moved to San Antonio and are the latest White Stripes-offshoot to grace our town. When I asked them why they sang in English even while living in Mexico, Carmen said, "Because we like the blues." Huh? He sings like a spoiled six-year-old whose favorite toy…
Flash Fiction: “Awake
“Awake” by Gabriela Preiss tears at you, at your conceptions. “Awake” is a fable about innocence, as most good fables are, but it is more than a fable. It does not exhaust itself in some kind of lesson. It is a metaphor: pulling and scratching at your mind. Read on fearless reader, but do not…
Local Review of Chacho and Brance: The Como Sessions
One of the artists chosen by the upcoming Troubadour, TX docu-reality series on the CW network, Chacho and Brance is the type of act that’s quickly changing its virtually unknown status. While this debut EP is not nearly as explosive as its live performances, it is good enough to show the pipes of Eagle Pass-raised…
The Apoca-List
AKA The “We’re Fucked” Index
The Scientists get pampered and serenaded on West Avenue
We have to set the record straight: The Hidden Tavern isn’t really that hidden. Yes, it’s a little out of the way for those of us who consider the St. Mary’s Strip to be home base — and it is sort of burrowed into an anonymous, uninviting strip mall — but all in all it’s…
Mega Man celebrate 8-bit while calling it quits
Here’s something you may not expect from the members of synth-rock video-game cover outfit Mega Man. They’re a little curmudgeonly — with hearts marooned in a more pixilated age. “I don’t really care for that Halo bullshit or Modern Warfare,” said guitarist Ian McIntosh. “Fuck all that.” McIntosh (of Daytes) is the only band member…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Symbolically speaking, there is a Holy Grail hidden close to you, and you know it, but you haven’t been able to find it. The Grail is a golden chalice filled with medicine that could open what needs opening in you. Luckily, you will soon come into possession (symbolically speaking) of a…
QueQue: H-E-B expanding downtown, Fear of Southtown loafing (times infinity), ICMA nods at SA, Casa Maldonado not so wretched?
H-E-B expanding downtown The Brothers of Fallen Heroes were supposed to be providing a military salute at a fellow veteran’s funeral Tuesday night; it’s one of the principal duties of the four-year San Antonio nonprofit organization: free, respectful military send-offs, frequently including pall-bearer duties. Instead, Founder and President Bert Hernandez, served with an eviction notice…
Fast Foodie: Calypso Rotisserie
Living downtown, I generally eat, drink, work, play within a small three-mile radius, and I have yet to really exhaust all the options at my fingertips within that rich, eclectic bubble. The 1604 rim, the edges of suburbia, are still a foreign land to which I travel rarely, and even somewhat cautiously when it comes…
To do list: Make Queen’s latest video, paint with Somber Sons, and have a Whisky at the Mix
If you’re a music fan and a video/filmmaker, this one’s for you: Besides the re-mastered re-release of its first five albums, Queen is celebrating its 40th anniversary by giving you the chance to create a video for “Sheer Heart Attack,” the band’s classic included in 1977’s News of the World. All you have to do…
New life for TV reruns
This week we look at two short-lived television comedies that met with critical success and popular indifference. Thanks to Netflix instant viewing, both shows can now be viewed in their entirety, and who knows, maybe there’s still a chance they can find the popular success that eluded them, after all. For two seasons and 20…
Cameo delivers writer’s block in two acts
In The Lady with All the Answers — a new one-woman biographical play about Ann Landers — author David Rambo aims low and succeeds. Other playwrights might exploit a monologue for its powerful psychological possibilities, but Rambo’s more interested in dispensing amusing anecdotes, liberally drawn (and sometimes recited) from Landers’ own advice columns. Only in…
Chickrocks delivers
When Marianna Urrutia graduated from her master’s program in architecture at the University of Houston, the recession had already begun. Undeterred, the native San Antonian found a way to use her skills and passion. “I took it as a clue to experiment and explore,” Urrutia says. “I’d already been very crafty and part of being…
Food Truck Throwdown
In a world of topsy-turvy food-health debates (Scientific American sides with salt; diet sodas linked to obesity?) some things still need to be settled the old-fashioned way. Sometimes you just need to throw down. So this weekend some of the city’s top food trucks will be competing for your vote at the Boardwalk on Bulverde…
30 Days of Creativity
30 Days of Creativity is a social initiative encouraging people to create stuff (anything) every day for 30 days in June. Follow #30daysofcreativity on Twitter to see how people are sharing their work. In the meantime check out David Shiyang Liu’s #30daysofcreativity video of Ira Glass on Storytelling.
