How you can /really/ help spill-affected Gulf communities
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com In the months and even years to come, there will likely be all kinds of organizations parachuting into the Gulf to help set things aright. Unfortunately, many of these good-intentioned newcomers wouldn’t know the difference between a crawfish etouffee and a steaming heap nutria tail (Myocasto deliciousos). So how are they to…
Protesters join hands on Corpus beaches, call for an end to drilling
Richard Sedita, a Houston nurse, makes his point with a placard. Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com CORPUS CHRISTI â?? Overlooking a still-unspoiled, leisure-as-usual beach scene below, dozens of protesters gathered beside the ear-rattling whine of a snow-cone stand’s diesel generator to demand an end to offshore oil drilling. It was one of three gatherings happening in Corpus…
Buzzcocks show at the White Rabbit
In a hot and sweaty room full of punk rockers, The Buzzcocks take to the stage with “Boredom” highlighting their dissatisfaction with the status quo, and the crowd boils into a frenzied sing along that could be mistook for a riot. Only this time you’re not watching in Manchester July 1976 opening up for the…
Frackin’ gas rush: India’s largest company joins S TX energy play
Dippin’ Dots: The completed and proposed wells in the Eagle Ford Shale. Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com It’s been interesting to see the amount of terrifying and tantalizing natural-gas news that sandwiched our opening salvo about South Texas’ shale-fracturing natural-gas developments this week. First came GASLAND, a scalding indictment (but is it honest?) of all things shale…
Give the Gift of (Pet) Sterilization to Dads
Happy Belated Father’s Day! If you slacked on getting your pop a gift, give him one that won’t keep on giving and pass on the message that SpaySA is still offering free spay or neuter surgeries to dads who come in with their family dog or cat. While there, he can also make sure his…
Council approves resolution opposing Texas action on immigration
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com Maybe it’s the accumulation of all these less-than-gracious disagreements we’ve witnessed over the years (fists, bottles, cars used as weapons, angry clowns), but we always expect clashing ideologies to lead to clashing bodies. I have to say, San Antonio (one Finger aside), ya’ll did public discourse good today. And if you’ve been…
SA public, council debating merits of resolution opposing Arizona bill
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com I’m on the one mission To get a politician To honor or he’s a goner By the time I get to Arizona â?? Public Enemy By the time the anti-immigrant politics of Arizona arrive in Austin with the opening of 82nd session of the Texas Legislature, San Antonio’s objections should be plain…
Seattle’s love child? The U.S. Social Forum in Detroit
San Antonio super-organizer Diana Lopez helped organize the People’s Freedom Caravan, which decamped to Detroit, Michigan, this week for the United States Social Forum. What’s it all about? Our sister paper, the Detroit Metro Times, is tracking the movement: Radical listening: Why a social forum? Why Detroit? By W. Kim Heron and Curt Guyette With…
American Slang
American Slang Composer: Gaslight Anthem Conductor: Gaslight Anthem Label: SideOneDummy Release Date: 2010-06-23 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Like Against Me!’s Tom Gabel, Gaslight Anthem frontman Brian Fallon is a tattooed punk with an affinity for big classic-rock hooks and the Boss. Both Gabel and Fallon favor ringing arena-sized anthems about suburban working-class folks looking back…
Before Today
Before Today Composer: Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti Conductor: Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti Label: 4AD Release Date: 2010-06-23 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording L.A. weirdo Ariel Pink’s most beloved work can be found on 2004’s The Doldrums, which was released on Animal Collective’s label. That should tell you something about Pink and his equally freaked-out collaborators. Like…
Wonder Slips Away
Wonder Slips Away Composer: Gary Davenport Conductor: Gary Davenport Label: MuseMyth Release Date: 2010-06-23 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording You can hear the history in this solo release from local singer-songwriter Gary Davenport (“founder member,” the shrink-wrap sticker helpfully informs us, of Mannequin, Himmel, and Red Square), which was 15 years in the making and draws…
Shout It Out
Shout It Out Composer: Hanson Conductor: Hanson Label: 3CG Release Date: 2010-06-23 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording In the dozen-plus years since their breakthrough song, the three Hanson brothers have been trying to live up to and live down “MMMBop.” Their eighth album reaches a compromise. After spending the past decade proving their chops with R&B-style…
Harry Brown
Critic’s Pick Harry Brown Director: Daniel Barber Screenwriter: Daniel Barber Cast: Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Charlie Creed-Miles, David Bradley Release Date: 2010-06-23 Rated: R Genre: Film Viewed from one angle, Harry Brown is a competent action film with more character-building than an average Bruce Willis joint. With too much analysis, however, it becomes the big-screen…
Heroes of Woodstock featuring Jefferson Starship, Canned Heat, Big Brother & The Holding Co., Tom, Constanten (Grateful Dead), hosted by Country Joe McDonald
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-23 Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, Heroes of Woodstock boasts a handful of key players from the legendary “Aquarian Exposition” of 1969. Whether performances by Jefferson Starship (who’ll revisit the music of Jefferson Airplane — unfortunately without Grace Slick), Janis Joplin’s band Big Brother &…
Psychedelia and Fantastic Realism
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-23 If you — for some cosmic reason — don’t feel like shelling out $886.84 for a skybox at the Heroes of Woodstock concert, consider taking a bite of space cake (imitation, of course) and checking out Long Hall Gallery’s Psychedelia and Fantastic Realism exhibition. Über-trippy Lubbock-born illustrator Jim Harter, most…
Tito el Bambino
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-23 It should come as no surprise that Tito El Bambino, who rose to fame in his native Puerto Rico as one-half of reggaetón duo Hector & Tito, is also a star in Jamaica (reggaetón is rooted in Jamaican dancehall as well as a slew of other musical genres). If you…
The Temptations
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-23 With a back catalog of quintessential songs like “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” “Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World Is Today),” “Get Ready,” “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” (with female counterparts the Supremes), and “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me),” the Temptations concert this Sunday will undoubtedly…
Fear Snake Face & Colt of Us: Early Sunday Sounds BBQ
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-23 ass=”story”> Abstract animal-related names and dirty, unapologetic rock ’n’ roll will be the order of the day when these local acts hit Nightrocker Live for an early evening barbecue fundraiser for Snakeface’s upcoming tour. While the Sid St. Onge-fronted Fear Snakeface draws inspiration from four-track garage bands and big-picture indie…
Yellow Rose of Texas: The MYth of Emily Morgan A graphic novel
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-23 ss=”story”> I know how much y’all like your Emilys in almost any color and dress, but I wish fervently that Douglas Brode’s graphic-novel interpretation of this much-revised Lone Star urtext were written and illustrated by some badass grrrlz (the fashion for sure would be better — apologies to illustrator Joe…
16th Annual San Antonio Film Festival
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-23 Including the shorts shown at last Saturday’s CineMundo screening in Main Plaza, some 134 films are included in the 16th Annual San Antonio Film Festival. Over five days, films ranging in length from 60 seconds (SA-based Lissette Longoria’s PSA Don’t Smoke, Sunday) to 127 minutes (Austin-based Mike Woolf’s documentary Man…
Stroke of genius
Last Wednesday, while celebrating Father’s Day in advance, my Dad told me something curious and memorable. Finishing a sous-vide baby-beet salad — an adventurous choice for a man who uses the term “fills the stomach” to describe the quality of food — he said, “Well that was different. You know, I picked the first cucumber…
¡Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican, Why do the Mexicans HATE American soccer and hate Landon Donovan? — Uncle Sam’s Army Brat Dear Gabacho, Because Mexicans hate Americans — DUH! Geez, this is the literary equivalent of taking a penalty kick at this year’s FIFA World Cup with no goaltender — but I also want to plug Gringos…
Dear Uncle Mat
I’ve solved a lot of touchy issues with the help of advice from your previous columns. However my current conundrum requires some one-on-one attention. I’m 22 years old and gay; I’ve been with my boyfriend for three years and have lived with him for at least two of those three years. It’s a pretty serious…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19):A few years ago, a group of artists built a giant bunny out of pink wool on an Italian mountainside. The 200-foot-long effigy will remain there until 2025. There’s a disturbing aspect to this seemingly goofy artifact, however: It has a wound in its side where its guts are spilling out. That’s…
15 minutes of infamy, replayed
My country patented, undefeated land of doublespeak, of thee Sam Shepard wrote. The playwright, known for his Gothic depictions of the American West, penned The God of Hell in the summer of 2004 and insisted that the unsettling dark comedy be produced in the days just preceding that year’s presidential election. He described it as…
Assisted deicide
Remember what old Chekhov said? “One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” The same principle is true of a garden hose in Mourning Dove, and indeed, its eventual utility is far more pernicious than lawn irrigation. Even in the Cellar Theater’s busy, beautifully represented garage-workshop…
The end of the world as we know it
Isaac Asimov himself panned Karel Capek’s 1921 play, R.U.R. – Rossum’s Universal Robots, as “a terribly bad one, but … immortal for that one word.” Maybe he just needed to wait a few decades to see Roy Thomas’s 21st-century adaptation, playing through July 10 at the Overtime Theater. The original “machines rise to overthrow their…
Have gun, will travel
The barbecue-plate and yard-sale fundraisers, and their work with local-music coalition 782, which could easily be labeled “community outreach,” may make them seem more like a three-person church youth ministry, but Pop Pistol is looking a lot like the rock band of the future. Sure, their plan of action — piling into a van, traveling…
Cloud illusions
As tech-savvy, good-looking Current readers, you no doubt expected Steve Jobs to unveil the iPhone’s fourth iteration at the June 4 Worldwide Developers Conference. And he did. But some technofiles, this author included, wondered if Jobs would reveal any developments regarding Apple’s 2009 purchase of Lala.com and the rumored iTunes “in the cloud.” The closest…
Live & Local
When Diego Bernal’s opener — a classical guitar riff, chopped but not screwed — fails to elicit much audience reaction beyond some appreciative foot-tapping, Art Slam master of ceremonies Scuba Gooding Sr. gets back on the mic. “For those of you who haven’t seen a live DJ before,” Gooding says, “this man’s not nodding his…
Moving Images
Being the Diablo is exactly the kind of documentary you want to see at a festival: a personal film about a very strange person. Though he was once institutionalized, and Diablo features candid discussions about his bipolar disorder and claims of childhood sexual abuse, Asheville, North Carolina’s Mickey Mahaffey has to be one of the…
Satan in the Hill Country
These days, San Antonio’s connection to Hollywood is basically nonexistent. Sure, things were “hot” back in the 1920s with some award-winning World War I aviator films and all that, but that was kind of “a long time ago.” Studios have shot here since then, but it’s been random. Either they’re already shooting in Austin and…
Gerrymandering: districts, chickens, E-N reporters
Redistricting is here! Hey Texans, raise your hand if you’ve recently been frustrated with all the heated partisan debate in this country … frustrated that we’re not seeing enough of it here in the Lone Star State what with our part-time legislature recessed until 2011. Our great state senators and reps have largely been sidelined…
Savvy Southern Sauvy
Sauvignon blanc, always the bridesmaid to chardonnay, needs a reality-show makeover. “As a category, it’s just stable,” says Central Market’s wine and beer manager Heidi Holcomb, who notes that other white grapes, pinot grigio, for example, have enjoyed an uptick in popularity. The new-hairdo approach has been tried before — notably by Robert Mondavi, who…
The next petro boom
WILSON COUNTY — With the nation’s largest environmental natural disaster in history suffocating the country’s richest fishery and beginning to smother our coastal wetlands — the breeding ground for a variety of fish, crab, oyster, and shrimp — Americans are in a sour mood on crude. There aren’t many places left one can expound freely…
Chisme y Chicle
Having recently watched the Tony Awards (I admit it) I’m in the mood to thank people. First, I want to thank Mom, who set the stage for my becoming a writer by teaching me to read at an improbably early age, then … oh, wait, I got carried away by the laundry lists of shocked…
The Sound & The Fury
Sometimes you can judge a band by its name. San Antonio’s Upon a Burning Body, playing Wednesday at White Rabbit with out-of-towners Haste the Day and Mychildren Mybride ($15; sawhiterabbit.com), really do produce an excoriating brand of hardcore comparable to a spontaneous funeral pyre, but the constant time-changes are so meticulously planned the band will…
Travels with Frenchie
It’s the fourth Wednesday of the month and therefore time for another installment of Travels with Frenchie, the monthly food series in which a trio of culturally mismatched San Antonians explores the hinterland in search of dining adventure. As always, the culinary vice squad consisted of: Frenchie (aka Fabien Jacob, celebrated local sommelier), Carlos the…
McChrystal: Right move, wrong reason
When I was 17, I got a job in a restaurant swabbing out urinals (the perfect task for a 17-year-old) and cooking steaks (though that’s not something any 17-year-old should be doing). And I’ll never forget the first time I ever talked back to the boss. It must’ve been 130 degrees in the kitchen. I…
United Tejano Artists to cast independent film
You don’t have too much time to prepare â?? casting is tomorrow. But watch the clip from the original above to get the character down. Press release reprinted below: WHAT: Casting call set for UTA’s indie film “Los Tres Perez” WHEN: Starts 10 a.m. to midnight. Wednesday, June 23. WHERE: Upstairs, Body Art Tattoo, 2109…
Pollster calls Perry â??unusually weak;’ New Ab Buster ordered
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com It’s strange to think of our tough-talking Governor â?? “Deadshot,” “Good Hair,” “Chicken,” whatever you’re calling him these days â?? as “unusually weak,” but that’s where Public Policy Polling ranked the 2.5-term Texas governor in a poll released today. As the longest-serving Texas governor, Perry has also been considered one of the…
Party or the people? State redistricting efforts kick off
Hey Texans, raise your hand if you’ve recently been frustrated with all the heated partisan debate in this country … frustrated that we’re not seeing enough of it here in the Lone Star state what with our part-time legislature being recessed until 2011. Our great state senators and reps have largely been sidelined from such…
