River Re-Development Roundup Part 3: Eeny meeny River-tini
Quick! Set your DVR for “Conversations” on KLRN2 (channel 92 on digital cable) at 7 pm and/or 12:30 pm tonight. NOW!!! I’ll wait. Alright. On that episode of “Conversations,” (which also aired this past Wednesday night), San Antonio River Foundation Executive Director Kim Abernethy gives an excellent and interview about the Museum Reach portion of…
Healy-Murphy goes to Quality of Life tomorrow
Opposed by a formidable coalition of neighborhood groups and community organizations, the proposed sale of Healy-Murphy Park goes before the Quality of Life Committee Tuesday, May 12, at 3pm in City Hall’s Media Briefing Room. The small Eastside park’s sale was set in motion in 2007, when outgoing District 2 Councilwoman Sheila McNeil received an…
Voter ID bill leaves committee but lacks momentum
Greg M. Schwartz gschwartz@sacurrent.com After much haggling, the Texas House Elections Committee backtracked today and voted 5-4 to move the original Senate version of a voter ID bill out of committee and to the House. But this version of the bill, SB 362, is the same one that was originally deemed by many to have…
SA becomes Castro-ville
By Gilbert Garcia On Saturday night, Julian Castro’s campaign headquarters was filled with excitement, but very little suspense. In the middle of the afternoon, Castro campaign manager Christian Archer openly suggested that his candidate might be looking at a mayoral runoff with either Trish DeBerry-Mejia or Diane Cibrian. Archer indicated that early-voting returns would hold…
Hardberger (and others) urge Gonzalez to take tough climate action
Hardberger and Gonzalez: time to break break and chew the climate cud? Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com San Antonio’s out-going mayor Phil Hardberger, the force behind the city’s sustainability plan Mission Verde, gathered up a few council colleagues to help urge Congressman Charlie Gonzalez to get tough on the climate. “We have an unprecedented opportunity to put…
Millions headed to SA for home weatherization
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com Think of it as the stimulus on top of the stimulus. When the Obama Administration unloaded both fiscal barrels on the nation recently, it shot $5 billion into the federal Weatherization Assistance Program. Of that, Texas will be seeing more than $327 million. In a move that ensured San Antonio would get…
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BREAKING: Recall election, SWU, and racial tensions in Hondo
Tomorrow’s election will determine fate of ‘Real Change’ candidates. Brian Thompson bthompsoe@gmail.com The small group of protesters grew to about 40 individuals as downtown Hondo closed for the day. Demonstrators armed themselves with signs reading “Vote No on the Recall”. They yelled, “Raza si, recall no.” Other chants included, “We won the election fair and…
Robb’s Metal Works to close up shop
Local metal show host Robb Chavez announced that he’ll be retiring from Robbs Metal Works, which he’s been hosting and producing since 1997. The show’s final episode, featuring interviews with local acts Brotherhood and Nothing More, is scheduled to air June 21st on Stuff TV (Time Warner Channel 50). Excerpted from Chavez’s announcement: “To say…
Chaléwood No. 7: Clifton Collins Jr.
Clifton Collins Jr. — Star Trek By Kiko Martinez San Antonio Current contributing writer paperboy5456@yahoo.com Line up the characters that actor Clifton Collins Jr. has portrayed during his nearly 20-year career and it’s no wonder people might not recognize him once he’s off the set. In Star Trek, Collins Jr. (second from the right at…
Ahern’s vision for happier SA rolls out with EchoTown
Ahern and crew reach for it down on The Farm. Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com The Farm has been a resource for area musicians and audiophiles for a couple years already, thanks to its recording studio and frequent shows. This Saturday, in a swirl of remarkable musical talent, the Farm’s Matt Ahern will launch his larger ambition,…
Water works at Council
By Gilbert Garcia Maybe it was pre-election jitters, but things got pretty testy at Council this morning over the appointment of three new members to the SAWS Board of Trustees. You might remember that the Council first pondered the SAWS appointments three weeks ago, but grassroots unrest over the wham-bam rubberstamp job that Mayor Phil…
“BUTTER WOMAN” SPEAKS!
Some of you might remember this blog post I did last week, about Fiesta: King William parade, stuff left at my house, etc. It amazes me when there’s evidence that people have read these posts. And it thrills me beyond what’s appropriate, really, when readers respond. And thisâ?¦well, it’s just unprecedented. I am beside myself…
800 lb. Film Festival
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2009-05-06 They go to Sundance and SXSW like you and I went to the mall; some of them are going to be famous; and you’ll read somewhere that they’re from San Antonio, and you’ll feel a twinge of regret that you never knew them when. Catch tomorrow’s cinematic talent today, as…
The Bar Tab
Release Date: 2009-05-06 The Gatsby 18730 Stone Oak Pkwy. (210) 490-9340 thegatsbysa.com THE VIBE F. Scott Fitzgerald meets the Bitter End BEST USE Grownup night out on the town PRICESMartinis: $8-10 Beers: mostly $4
Speak easy, rock hard
Release Date: 2009-05-06 Jacob Larkey’s much-admired Cigar Club is back, reincarnated as the Gatsby. It’s still run by the same team, but the place has received a major makeover. Located near the intersection of Highway 281 and Loop 1604, the club has been transformed from a smoking den with live music into a high-end music…
Speak easy, rock hard
Release Date: 2009-05-06 Jacob Larkey’s much-admired Cigar Club is back, reincarnated as the Gatsby. It’s still run by the same team, but the place has received a major makeover. Located near the intersection of Highway 281 and Loop 1604, the club has been transformed from a smoking den with live music into a high-end music…
Together Through Life
Together Through Life Composer: Bob Dylan Conductor: Bob Dylan Label: Columbia Release Date: 2009-05-06 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording The last time Bob Dylan collaborated with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, it was 1987, and the needle on Dylan’s inspiration meter was on empty. So it can’t be a good sign that Dylan — the most…
Deeper Than Rap
Deeper Than Rap Composer: Rick Ross Conductor: Rick Ross Label: Def Jam Release Date: 2009-05-06 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording More proof bad things come in threes: 1) Smoking Gun releases a photo of Ross working as a prison guard, then 2) 50 Cent posts a sex tape online featuring Ross’s girlfriend (or at least a…
My Maudlin Career
My Maudlin Career Composer: Camera Obscura Conductor: Camera Obscura Label: 4AD Release Date: 2009-05-06 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Glaswegian indie-outfit Camera Obscura is the official ambassador of twee, crafting reverb-soaked, string-adorned, ’60s-tastic pop under the watch of hopeless romantic (and brooch enthusiast) Traceyanne Campbell. My Maudlin Career is the band’s least tentative release to date,…
Cabinet of Curiousities
Cabinet of Curiosities Composer: Jane’s Addiction Conductor: Jane’s Addiction Label: Rhino Release Date: 2009-05-06 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording The influential L.A. rockers who helped spawn the “alternative” genre show how they did it on this three CD, one DVD retrospective. The band only released two studio albums in its heyday, but both were landmark affairs,…
Hunger
Critic’s Pick Hunger Director: Steve McQueen Screenwriter: Steve McQueen Cast: Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham, Stuart Graham, Liam McMahon, Laine Megaw Release Date: 2009-05-06 Rated: NOT RATED Genre: Film More gallery installation than movie, British visual artist Steve McQueen’s highly praised, extravagantly stylized account of the last months in the life of IRA figurehead Bobby Sands…
Tejano Conjunto Festival
Release Date: 2009-05-06 The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center (and, to be honest, Budweiser) presents the 28th Tejano Conjunto Festival, which, if you didn’t know, is a legendary local event. Some might call it the pride of the West Side . People occasionally confuse this event with the annual International Accordion Festival, but don’t look for…
The Filling Station
Release Date: 2009-05-06 The Filling Station has been in business for about two years in King William, and the place still feels like a secret, albeit a very poorly kept one. Business overflows at lunchtime with a combination of city workers and neighborhood residents. Succeeding in Southtown is not easy, especially when you don’t cater…
Last of the Red Hot Lovers
Release Date: 2009-05-06 Kevin Murray directs Neil Simon’s funny-sad tale of mid-life boredom and sexual adventure concerning a schlemiel who yearns for an affair to relieve his dreary life at work. When he finds out his mother’s apartment will be empty one afternoon out of the week, the scheming begins. Simon wrote this right after…
Consumerville: The Execution of Eartha Terra
Release Date: 2009-05-06 An indie film about car culture, consumerism, and urban sprawl — in other words American life. However, don’t expect Jimmy Stewart niceties. What began as a 15-minute short film expanded into a 50-minute showcase of the wasteful aspects of the American lifestyle. This all sounds pretty dour, but the film looks to…
Second Saturday at L.A. Arte Cosmico Studio
Release Date: 2009-05-06 The South Flores Arts District offers an exciting rendition of their monthly standard, Second Saturday. There seems to be a confluence of good events this time around: the visual jolt of Cheryl Finfrock’s paintings at One9Zero6 Gallery; the pop-culture re-imaginations of John Davis at Fl!ght; dancing Con Los Burros at L.A. Arte…
Bonnie Raitt
Release Date: 2009-05-06 Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and blues traveler Bonnie Raitt comes to town for a one-night performance at the Majestic Theatre. Though she works in a traditional style of music, she isn’t afraid to break from the herd both personally and in support of important projects. Part of the show benefits…
The Strap-Onz & Black Fag (Black Flag Tribute Band)
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2009-05-06 We’d probably recommend Black Fag, the self-billed “absolutely fabulous tribute to Black Flag” simply because their drummer’s stage name is Robo Simmons. If that weren’t enough, their filtering of Greg Ginn and co.’s catalog through a B-52s lens (as drastic if not as artistically significant as the Dirty Projectors reconstructions)…
Caught, read, handed
There are some dead animals in the entrance room at Sala Diaz. The fanned-out feathery mess of a squished bird, a lifeless squirrel in the road, their post-mortem portrait photos reproduced in grainy black-and-white, like mimeographed relics of a particularly curious boy whose outlines you can almost make out; poking, almost reverently, with a stick.…
The Trish filter
Following what has become the usual protocol for the second-tier candidates in this mayoral race, Rhett Smith rose from the audience at the end of last week’s debate at Rackspace to accuse the organizers of “bigotry.” They had, he said, invited only the wealthiest candidates. Forget for a moment that the latter accusation might not…
Dear Uncle Mat
I think I have made a mistake. Last year I married my girlfriend of over five years. She is a wonderful woman and I love her, but I am not happy. I thought I could be happy, but I think I knew I shouldn’t have married her when I did. I am fairly certain that…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): When they pray, Muslims face the Kaaba, a cube-shaped building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Every mosque around the world typically has a niche that shows the precise direction of that holy place. Recently, however, worshipers have discovered that many of the older mosques in Mecca itself have niches that aren’t pointing…
¡Ask a Mexican!
SPECIAL PANDEMIC EDITION Is it true that most Mexicans are carriers of the swine flu due to the fact they eat a lot of chicharrones, or is it the fact that your women are so pig-like? I knew that Mexicans have muy shitty diets, but now we have to worry about them infecting us with…
Al fresco grub
TARPLEY — One of the best steaks I’ve eaten this year came with plastic cutlery and was served on a paper plate plunked down on a rooster-themed vinyl tablecloth. The steak was the 12-ounce rib-eye at Mac & Ernie’s Roadside Eatery. For an extra $5, the cook piled on a half-dozen hand-breaded fried shrimp. Surf-’n’-turf,…
Amuse-BOUCHE
It has been more than 25 years since the Paso Robles American Viticulture Area was formed. Since then, this California Central Coast region has grown apace. A scenic area, with gentle hills, long warm days, maritime breezes, and cool nights, this AVA is producing soft, approachable red wines and crisp whites, some from unexpected blends. …
Fill ’er up
The Filling Station has been in business for about two years in King William, and the place still feels like a secret, albeit a very poorly kept one. Business overflows at lunchtime with a combination of city workers and neighborhood residents. Succeeding in Southtown is not easy, especially when you don’t cater to the easy…
When pigs flu
At the mid-April Bajofondo concert in Austin, former LA veejay Paul Saucido was particularly excited. “Hey, man, have you heard? Emilio `Morales` and María `Madrigal` moved to Austin,” Saucido told me, referring to the legendary editor-designer and photographer team of La Banda Elástica magazine, the symbol of the burgeoning LA rock en español scene of…
The Sound & The Fury
This is a big week for Exponential Records, the thinking-person’s electronica label run by veteran local producer and DJ Ernest Gonzales. On May 5, Exponential put out two new releases from SA artists: AM Architect’s Road to the Sun album, and Mexicans With Guns’ Nuts and Bongos EP. Road to the Sun finds AM Architect…
Live & Local
“Windows of Streets and Corners,” the second song on Viet Ruse’s set list, begins at a sedated island pace and ends full of post-punk piss. Drummer Mateo Arredondo eggs on Myke Miranda and Chris Rocha’s double-edged guitar fight till you practically feel each note slash the air around your face. Miranda’s got the vocal delivery…
Logan’s (box-office) run
I paid actual money to see a movie last week. In the pre-BitTorrent era, this wouldn’t have been a big deal, but all those starving-actor, anti-bootleg ads the Motion Picture Association of America runs before film trailers and the “movie thieves” alerts they post on their website lead me to believe buying a movie ticket…
S’nuff Film
I totally gave you guys the heads up a few weeks ago, so don’t come crying to your old Uncle Snuffy if you let the SA Film Festival’s May 1 deadline pass without postmarking a single narrative short. If it were up to me, the festival would tell all you procrastinators where exactly to submit…
Let’s put up a music hall
From the roof of the Chansonia, a music hall in a blue-collar quarter on the outskirts of Paris, you can glimpse the Eiffel Tower in the distance. But for a dazzling spectacle of life, love, strife, and glamor, you need look no farther than the homely theater below. With little else but talent and determination,…
The missing link
Fiesta meant a particularly successful week for a new Southtown boutique, B.Link, open on South St. Mary’s across from El Mirador since December. The Fiesta focus on neighborhood events like Beethoven Gartenfest and King William Fair meant strong sales and new customers for Brandy Garcia, B.Link’s owner. A new customer myself, I checked in on…
Less than boring
A California blonde abandons her boyfriend to chat with his sister and then dives into a foursome with the boyfriend’s friend and another couple because she can. An adored rock star finds an underwear-clad young woman from Nebraska waiting for him in his room — he gets her to role-play up her girl-next-door appeal before…
Art Capades
Within the much-traveled territory of portraiture and figurative painting, Carlos Daniel Donjuan is striking out for unclaimed land. The Mexican transplant, whose show shares the Satellite Space with Connie Swann this month, begins with the basics — subject, background, visual clues — then detours into the postmodern: his subjects are outsiders, minorities, and illegals. Small…
The QueQue
The cavalier calvary Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hechtsupplied late reinforcements for the City of San Antonio last week, and though he rode in on a questionable steed long after the battle’d been fought, he threw the balance of power to our City Attorney’s office in City of San Antonio v. Charles Pollock and Tracy…
Artifacts
Surely you’re all healed up by now, psychically and toxic-wise, from the merry rigors of Fiesta, and you’re ready for another civic-minded party. This Saturday, why not drop a well-deserved 25 measly bucks to help defray the ongoing costs of our public river-front redevelopment, at the first (um, annual? … one can hope) “River-tini” Pour-off?…
Filling Phil’s shoes
Two campaigns for San Antonio mayor are happening simultaneously this year. In one campaign, Julián Castro is cruising to what looks like an inevitable — almost preordained — victory. This campaign has been like the final round of a title fight in which the champion holds a prohibitive lead on the scorecards. All he wants…
On the pavement for climate action
P.S. Did South Texas climate activists find their very own Joe the Plumber? Not this one. Read deeper. Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com Roughly 20 protestors held the sidewalk outside the U.S. Federal Building in San Antonio on Tuesday to urge Congressman Charlie Gonzalez to commit to tough climate legislation and not cow to utility lobbyists pursing…
Freeze Tag: Style Wars, Gallery Bound, and Vincent Valdez
I found this story in our current issue and the reader comments it inspired both interesting and important. Also, since the story mentions the Gallery Bound art program for at-risk kids, it gives me an opportunity to post a couple of photos here from the Gallery Bound opening: which I attended, and found inspiring and…
Lawsuit blames Mexican government for Juarez femicides
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com A collection of legal and human rights organizations are suing the Mexican government before an international court for failing to adequately investigate the torture and killings of women in Ciudad Juarez. It is thought that more than 500 women have been killed in Juarez since 1993. The lawsuit before the Inter-American Court…
Green messages bombard Gonzalez at home
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com U.S. Representative Charlie Gonzalez is getting it on all sides these days. Public Citizen ambushed the unsuspecting Congress member in the midst of King William revelry a week ago (it makes for great video!) to demand strong climate action. Today, a group mobilized by MoveOn.org and Texas Climate Emergency (featured in the…
