Music Ram R.I.P.
RamR.I.P. In June 2002, the Current published several stories about Taco Land, including musicians’ and patrons’ memories of the club and its beloved owner, Ram Ayala. In light of Ram’s shooting death on June 24, the 2002 stories are posted here; in next week’s issue, Gilbert Garcia remembers Ram’s legacy as an icon in SA’s…
Culture feature – Stage An encore for men in tights
A homegrown Shakespeare in the Park returns to SA 1990 was an important year for theater in San Antonio. The San Antonio Little Theatre (now San Pedro Playhouse) made history – even though Managing Artistic Director Wayne Elkins lost a three-year battle with AIDS that March – by becoming the first American community theater to…
Food & Drink The bar tab
Enjoy the art, but don’t flirt with the lady in snaky tendrils Housed in the former Parchman Stremmel Gallery, Medusa Lounge is the newest addition to the Charles Court collection of eateries and upscale bars. Developed as an “art bar,” an establishment often seen in New York and San Francisco, Medusa Lounge’s sophisticated aesthetic is…
Arts – Stage Past-present, but not tense
SA’s teatristas embrace history and post-Chicano theater in the Guadalupe’s teatroFEST “For me there can never be enough Chicano teatro out there, and certainly there isn’t enough of it,” proclaims teatrista Rodney Garza. Garza, an influential figure in the Austin theater community and the man who directed the highly successful run of Petra’s Pecado and…
Food & Drink All you can eat
Current Online news politics culture News and notes from the San Antonio food scene Summer Food Service Program Last month we reported that while school is out, free lunch would continue at a few elementary schools. In fact, the program is much broader than originally reported. From June 6 – July 29, the USDA’s Summer…
Arts – Books Buy low, sell out
‘The United States of Wal-Mart’ indicts America’s consumers along with its biggest retailer Alternative-press scribe John Dicker (whose book reviews have appeared in the Current) has a message for activists who are fighting a Wal-Mart megastore in their hometown: Think zoning. “That’s how you’re really going to impress the county or local planning board,” he…
Music All ears
The record business is a tough one. It’s getting so that rereleasing a long-lost or much-loved album just isn’t enough; if your reissue doesn’t contain at least two discs (sometimes as much as quadrupling the original LP’s running time), you risk looking like a cheapskate label out to fleece the fans. Sometimes, you run that…
Arts – Books The handler
The Smithsonian’s senior conservator has a few tips for saving your heirlooms A few years back, the Smithsonian recreated itself as a populist institution. Take their New Braunfels affiliate, the Museum of Art & Music. It currently hosts an exhibit paying homage to the long-running TV show Austin City Limits. Arresting, large-scale, black-and-white photographs of…
Music CD Spotlight
Hot licks – you’re speaking my language If there’s one thing Keanu Reeves has taught us, it’s this: actors don’t rock. Someone, though, should explain that to Juliette Lewis who, despite a career that once earned her an Oscar nod, might just be the baddest chick to hit rock since Chrissie Hynde. With the Licks,…
Arts – Opera Lost in space
Lyric Opera’s Don Giovanni almost manhandles the giant Municipal Auditorium The Lyric Opera of San Antonio has definitely come of age since its first performance in 1997. Originally a small, semi-professional company called the San Antonio Pocket Opera, the Lyric closed its 2004-05 season with a performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni featuring sets from the…
Music Current choice
Egg roll Ana Egge likes to build things. The affable 28-year-old singer-songwriter plays a guitar that she made herself in the early ’90s. For a time, she also lived in a New Mexico desert home that she constructed with her own hands. Egge’s fascination with how things are put together also extends to the abstract…
Arts – Words Word on the street
News and notes from the San Antonio literary scene Contemporary Art Month tends to dominate San Antonio’s media waves in July, but the month is also home to two major literary events: Gemini Ink’s Summer Festival, July 8-24, and the Latina Letters conference, July 14-16. In addition to the usual line-up of summer classes, including…
Music Sound and the fury
SA Current Online Slightly warped Vans Warped Tour likes to bill itself as “the tour that won’t die,” and there’s something to be said for that claim. Now in its 11th summer of bringing punk rock to the scalding arena parking lots of America, this traveling circus seems strangely immune to industry slumps and inevitable…
Arts – Piracy Aye, mateys, it’s time to walk the talk
Why couldn’t the little pirate get into the movie? Because it was rated Rrrrrrr. Bad jokes aside, if you’ve a fancy for the pirate talk it’s time to polish up and earn some money with your hobby. Ripley Entertainment kicks off its first Talk Like A Pirate Contest this summer at three national locations, including…
Music – Feature Viva ‘Vegas’
Two Tons of Steel roll the dice with new album and live recording A couple of weeks ago, Kevin Geil faced a dilemma. Geil, lead singer for local rockabilly/country institution Two Tons of Steel, is also a staff photographer for the Express-News, and he received a phone call informing him that because the Spurs’ playoff…
Screens – FeatureDivided we watch
Spanish-language TV has a major audience and big stars. So why the separate awards? After receiving his Emmy, Don Francisco, the popular host of Univision’s variety show Sábado Gigante, was whisked to the Blue Room where photographers and journalists waited. As Francisco stood before the paparazzi’s flashing cameras, I asked him how he was going…
Screens Trading places
A black sheep becomes the man of the house when his sibling falls from grace in ‘Brothers’ Michael, a Danish Army officer leading rookies into Afghanistan, makes his nervous troops a promise: “You won’t encounter anything you haven’t been trained for.” He’s wrong. Michael himself will face a near-unthinkable choice, and the decision he makes…
Screens New reviews
Howl’s Moving Castle, Mad Hot Ballroom Howl’s Moving Castle Dir. Hayao Miyazaki; writ. Diana Wynne Jones (novel), Miyazaki; feat. (voices) Emily Mortimer, Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall, Jean Simmons, Billy Crystal (PG) Animator Hayao Miyazaki is often called “the Japanese Disney,” a comparison that’s about half accurate. As an auteur, Uncle Walt can’t hold a candle…
News Little wing
Construction forces rescue of federally protected cave swallows The expressways that conveniently whisk us from one end of the city to another take their toll on human habitats: Highway construction divides and demolishes neighborhoods and displaces residents, many of whom don’t have the political clout to stop the flow of concrete. Yet, humans are not…
Screens How low can you go?
‘Extreme Chick Fights,’ extreme tedium Before I tell you that Extreme Chick Fights Volumes I and II is low-brow, degenerate, and a tedious waste of 160 minutes, allow me to clarify: I’m no prude. I had third-row seats at a National Guard Armory to see Kryptomaniac emerge from a coffin and wrestle Billy Bart, and…
News Speed reads
Newsflash: Those who turn out to vote decide elections Not part of the blob: State Representative Mike Villarreal (D-San Antonio) has been named one of the top legislators by Texas Monthly. In his fourth term, Villarreal is the first Bexar County lawmaker to make the Top 10 list since it began in 1973. He serves…
Screens Special screenings
SA Current Online Cinema Tuesdays, the Slab, Camp Cinema Cinema Tuesdays with Texas Public Radio Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams Dir. Akira Kurosawa (1991) Kurosawa’s 28th and most personal film, Dreams comprises eight metaphoric dream squences, one of which includes director Martin Scorsese as Vincent Van Gogh in a wheat field resembling one the artist’s painting. The…
News Brief
Threat complaint tossed The Ethics Review Board on June 14 dismissed a complaint against Mary Calk, a member of the Transportation Advisory Board, that alleged she physically threatened a man in a wheelchair. After a February 28 Transportation Advisory Board meeting, Eddie Masson, who is in a wheelchair, alleged that Calk verbally threatened him over…
Screens That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres A remake of the 1968 family adventure The Love Bug directed by Academy Award-nominee Robert Stevenson (Mary Poppins), Herbie: Full Loaded stars teen queen Lindsay Lohan (Mean Girls) as the race-car driver of a Volkswagen beetle that has more personality than David Hasselhoff’s Trans Am KITT from the ’80s…
News – Feature Unbreakable bond
COPS/Metro Alliance warns ACCD board: Let’s get it right Last Tuesday, a dedicated group of community activists, including one with his oxygen tank in tow, crowded onto the steps of Holy Redeemer Catholic Church to watch as elected officials, religious leaders, and representatives from COPS/Metro Alliance presented a new ACCD bond proposal, one they think…
Food & Drink Born to eat corn
Growing and cooking corn requires the right tools and a feel for the earth The sweet-corn stand on West 38th Street was no bigger than a family-sized kitchen table and sat behind my grandparents’ house in the bend of a U-shaped gravel driveway beneath a cottonwood tree. From the ’50s through the ’70s, my grandparents…
News Rapid results
National Aids Testing Day is June 27 On June 27, the San Antonio Prevention Cooperative, a group of HIV service organizations, and San Antonio AIDS Foundation will observe National Aids Testing Day by offering free finger-stick (blood) and OraQuick (oral swab) rapid testing for HIV infection at seven testing sites across the city. In addition,…
Food & Drink Say formaggio
From appetizers to dessert, Fralo’s Pizza piles on the cheese Ah, wilderness! Well, maybe not exactly wilderness, but at least a few rustic picnic tables, some sheltering live oaks, and a good breeze. This is pizza al fresco at Fralo’s Art of Pizza and, since any flies seem to go to bed with the sun…
Grand Theft History
‘GTA: San Andreas’ captures the essence of L.A. circa 1992. Today, that’s as good as a dissertation. Last night I dreamt I went to Compton again. I cruised the streets of South Los Angeles while the orange glow of the ocean-fed sunset lit up the Watts Towers and delayed the plans of graff writers. Everything…
Food & Drink California dreamin’
Timo’s Cafe has good coffee and simple sandwiches, now where’s the beach? Winston Churchill once said, “All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.” We won’t venture to contaminate Churchill’s list by adding a new favorite lunch retreat, but we’ve found a coffeehouse…
