Gayby’s Monday Musings
“We’re going streaking” — On Monday night, the Spurs hosted the Orlando Magic, winning 106-97 in what may be considered the game of the year, thus far. Outscoring the Magic 32-20 in the fourth quarter propelled the Spurs to their 11th straight victory, continuing their best season start in franchise history. Tony Parker continued his…
Skip the Mall Nerdz
This is the first year I’ve put together a gift guide for the masses. With so much crap on the net to buy, the possibilities seem endless. What was the methodology behind choosing these items? My friends, family, and co-workers 🙂 And, after going to one bat-shit crazy shopping event last weekend in real-time, I…
Hippies Make Change with Drum Circle
In what is being hailed as an unprecedented historical event … a group of hippies have finally been able to accomplish something. “It’s an amazing feeling! We’ve struggled so hard to have an effect on civilization, it’s just nice to know we’ve finally made a meaningful impact.” says Petal Lips, Hippie, and self described Dream…
The 12 Days of Xicana-Friendly Reading
Every week (okay, almost every week), we blogger folk gather ’round to swap ideas, commiserate sad stories of opposition, and voice our thoughts on all that is wonderful and lame about this city we call San Antonio and this humble little alt weekly known as The Current. At this week’s meet-up, someone (Up All Night? Femme Nation? TechTease?…
Dropping the ball
Rudy Gayby Today, my girlfriend gifted me – FreeDarko Presents: The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History (2010). According to the biographies section, “FreeDarko is a collective of like-minded NBA writers and artists whose blog has become a staple of basketball fandom on the Internet.” FreeDarko writers include (among others): Bethlehem Shoals (founding member of…
Holiday Volunteer Opportunities
This is my own definition of a volunteer–a person who shares time, talents, experience, and love to a help make a difference in their community. While most nonprofits use volunteers all year round, there is a greater need during the holidays. Here are a few opportunities I ran across this week from Twitter and other…
Review: Tommy Tune’s Steps in Time
Tommy Tune, a native of Texas, describes Steps in Time: A Broadway Biography in Song and Dance as a product of his later Catskills years, sandwiched between his stints working on Broadway, in Vegas, and in Hollywood. Indeed, Steps in Time, which played a one-night stand at the Majestic on Thursday, has all the hallmarks…
“The Evolution of Cats” by Jose Pena
Introduction We have evolved into our present state (though that process appears to have slowed and even reversed in many of us). So what is the next evolutionary step? That third eye used solely for social networking? Or is it more likely our trusted feline companions will be the next evolutionary leap? Jose Pena explores…
Interview: Natalia Tena
Since 2007, actress Natalia Tena has portrayed Nymphadora Tonks in the Harry Potter franchise. Her introduction into the wizardly world came during Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix followed by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Now, Tena, 26, wraps up the series with the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly…
Black Ops: Why you should care
Like the 5.6 million others who waited for the midnight release, I have not slept more than 10 hours this week while playing Call of Duty: Black Ops. Needless to say, it’s all been well worth it. As you are all aware of by now, the new multiplayer is mind-blowing. A new way to customize…
The Dairy Conundrum
Could Too Much Dairy be Depleting the Calcium in Your Bones? Last week, my brother sent me this New York Times article: While Warning About Fat, U.S. Pushes Cheese Sales. The article brings to light a major contradiction in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s role. In this article, the U.S.D.A. “acknowledged that cheese is high in…
November is Epilepsy Awareness Month Y’all
Ferg_e – A Mom On A Mission There is a ton of misinformation and lack of knowledge about Epilepsy and people that are living with Epilepsy. Since November is Epilepsy awareness month, I thought now is as good a time as any to share some facts that I have learned about Epilepsy. Epilepsy is not:…
Q&A with Sandra Bernhard
Bryan? It’s Sandra Bernhard. Oh my God, thanks for calling. Are you looking forward to coming back to Texas? I love coming to Texas and I love BBQ. Will you be kissing other states on the lips as well? Not really. Carla [of Austin’s White Widow, Bernhard’s back-up band for a three-date tour] has been…
The Lady Killer
The Lady Killer Release Date: 2010-11-17 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Bitter but supremely infectious, the summer internet hit “Fuck You” — a lewd little pop gem and one of the year’s best songs — anchors Cee Lo Green’s third solo album. You can thank the singer’s ability to turn surreal psychodrama into sensational pop music.…
Nothing
Nothing Release Date: 2010-11-17 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording On its fourth album, N.E.R.D. replace most of the rock elements found on its earlier records with more cohesive R&B sounds. It gives it a sturdier base for more experimental tracks and helps cover up the trio’s occasional lyrical and vocal weaknesses. But Nothing isn’t a boundary-redefining…
CARBOMB
CARBOMB Release Date: 2010-11-17 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Don’t be fooled by the first 10 seconds of Austin duo Butcher Bear and Charlie’s first “mini-LP.” The fuzzed-out, bass-heavy chords sound absolutely nothing like the rest of the saucy electro album. In fact, you can skip the sizzurp-leaning opener “Let Loose Rule” all together for the…
Gay Bingo
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-11-17 The Overtime may have stolen this idea from the Sex and the City episode “Old Dogs, New Dicks,” but who cares? This new adaptation of an old classic (something the theater is famous for) promises to put a high-heeled spin on a gay old game that dates all the way…
The Amazing Acro-Cats with music by The Rock Cats
Release Date: 2010-11-17 For the first time ever, “pioneering feline behavioral expert” Samantha Martin wheels her wagon of circus pussies into town for six shows at the Rose. Martin’s Acro-Cats skateboard, leap over hurdles, jump through hoops, and walk across tightropes before taking the stage as the Rock Cats — a semi-functional band fronted by…
IAIR 10.3 Artists’ Dialogue & Public Opening: Henning Bohl, Roy McMakin, Adam Schreiber
Release Date: 2010-11-17 Michael Darling, Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, serves as guest curator for Artpace’s IAIR 10.3, which showcases new works created locally by artists-in-residence Adam Schreiber (Austin), Henning Bohl (Berlin), and Roy McMakin (Seattle). Known for creating photographs of outdated technology (Schreiber), three-dimensional modernist paintings (Bohl), and surrealist furniture…
Art Opening: KUU Works of Estonian artists, Juri Ojaver, Jann Paavle, Paul Rodgers & Jann Toomik
Release Date: 2010-11-17 With a dry sense of humor and a touch of “self irony,” Estonian artists Juri Ojaver, Jaan Paavle, Paul Rodgers, and Jaan Toomik (all of whom have exhibited work with the collective Eesti Energia) employ sculpture and video to comment on the political, social, economic, and cultural changes that have occurred since…
Misfits, Juicehead, Saturday Night Shockers, So Unloved
Release Date: 2010-11-17 Aptly, Jerry Only is the only remaining original member of the iconic horror-punk band formed by Glenn Danzig in 1977. After winning a decade-long legal battle with Danzig (over the rights to perform and record as the Misfits), Only’s led the band through two major incarnations. Now with former Black Flag members…
Marcia Ball & Johnny Cockerell
Release Date: 2010-11-17 For this year’s Robert Johnson Sessions, the San Antonio Blues Society brings in Marcia Ball to commemorate the November weekend in 1936 when blues legend Robert Johnson recorded some of his most famous songs at the Gunter hotel downtown. Ball, a sassy Southern blues pianist and singer by way of Austin and…
Author Jonathan Silverman reads “Nine Choices: Johnny Cash and American Culture”
Release Date: 2010-11-17 Jonathan Silverman reads from his scholarly, yet accessible, cultural biography Nine Choices: Johnny Cash and American Culture. The recently released book analyzes the life of the man in black, often pegged as a beacon of authenticity among the music industry’s glitz. Silverman frames his work as an exploration of nine choices Cash…
Kiss Me on the Lips Texas
Release Date: 2010-11-17 Bryan? It’s Sandra Bernhard. Oh my God, thanks for calling. Are you looking forward to coming back to Texas? I love coming to Texas and I love BBQ. Will you be kissing other states on the lips as well? Not really. Carla `of Austin’s White Widow, Bernhard’s back-up band for a three-date…
The Amazing Acro-Cats with music by The Rock Cats
Release Date: 2010-11-17 For the first time ever, “pioneering feline behavioral expert” Samantha Martin wheels her wagon of circus pussies into town for six shows at the Rose. Martin’s Acro-Cats skateboard, leap over hurdles, jump through hoops, and walk across tightropes before taking the stage as the Rock Cats — a semi-functional band fronted by…
The universal language
In a scene dominated by youth, as rock ‘n’ roll should be, Every Avenue’s David Ryan Strauchman, 23, makes it a point to know his audience. Judging by the comments on his band’s MySpace page and the front-row faces at its shows, that audience is mostly girls and mostly young enough for half-birthdays to still…
Hanging with the Possum
OK, we didn’t actually hang out with legendary country singer George Jones or get anywhere within a 500-mile radius of him. But we pretty much lost interest in Jones since we learned he’s sober and thus unlikely to take us on a late-night riding lawnmower spin to the liquor store. Just kidding! The 79-year-old troubadour…
Music my mom does yoga to
Every time I go home to visit, I do yoga with my mom, a devoted practitioner of the Anusara style. She’s always playing crazy pop music while we practice, and it always works! She’ll be sharing her playlists with other yoga posers every other wee. There is no law that says yoga music has to…
¡Ask A Mexican!
Dear Mexican, I’m thinking of moving to Mexico. I’m a first-generation mexicano. Speaking with my parents about moving, they’re absolutely against it, insisting that it’s violent and that I should be proud of being an American. I’m not looking to lose my American-ness, but just want to add some more mexicano to it. Is there…
Dear Uncle Mat
Dear Uncle Mat, I found out my boyfriend has an online profile on a cruising site. I found the site open on his work laptop. I wasn’t snooping. It was what popped up when I clicked on the browser icon. He left the laptop on, open, and sitting on the coffee table in our office.…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “You don’t want to be the best of the best,” said Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. “You just want to be the only one who does what you do.” That’s always good advice, but it will be especially apt for you during the next few weeks. You’re entering a phase when…
Giant brings Steps in Time
I was a wee adolescent when Tommy Tune first floated across my theatrical radar. Through a fluke of Ticketmaster and the beneficence of the gods, I’d landed fifth-row center seats for the touring production of the musical My One and Only, starring Tune and Stephanie Zimbalist. And when Tune — Broadway’s consummate song’n’dance man —…
David Sedaris does fables his way
I wish I was this articulate this morning on ‘Morning Edition.’ I was a nervous wreck,” David Sedaris confided during our lunchtime phone interview. Over the phone, Sedaris’ trademark lilt sounds slightly higher and more vivacious than on the deadpan public radio commentaries that made him one of America’s most popular humorists. Sedaris specializes in…
Daughter of immigrants
María Antonietta Berriozábal, a San Antonian whose name is synonymous with community organizing and political activism, is releasing her memoir in May of 2011, chronicling her family’s experience of immigrating to the United States and her subsequent rise to become the first Latina to serve on the city council of a major U.S. city. Berriozábal…
Cine File: Never B for Boring
Documentaries are perhaps the truest cinematic art form, mainly because there are no concrete rules for how they are to be made. People expect documentaries to tell the truth – and that’s about it. Because of this minimal expectation, filmmakers can do anything and everything they want to achieve that goal (assuming that’s even the…
Veg for the holidays with Tim the Girl
The list of benefits offered by a vegetarian diet is virtually endless. But if reduced risks of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and obesity aren’t enough to get you on the green team, consider this: you’ll save money (your own), save lives (of cuddly animals), and live an average of seven years longer than a carnivore. In…
The beginning of the end
Dark times, indeed. The first part of the Harry Potter finale (part two is slated for summer 2011), plunges the viewer into the epic’s nadir. Dumbledore is dead. Voldemort is back. Death Eaters are swirling. Potter still can’t quite accept his friends’ much needed help. It’s all a total downer, but a necessary one in…
Starving for a dream
Before leaving for a 14-mile walk from UTSA’s 1604 campus to San Fernando Cathedral Saturday morning, a group of UTSA students and their supporters circled together less than 10 feet away from a statue depicting a family crossing the Rio Grande. The group walked to raise awareness and support for the DREAM Act, a bill…
BOTTLE & TAP
The taking of Europe Kosmos Spoetzl, a Bavarian immigrant to Texas, probably never thought beers made at his little brewery in Shiner would travel back to his home and wow critics. But the Spoetzl Brewery, owned by San Antonio’s Gambrinus Co., has done just that 101 years after it was founded on Texas soil. In…
Low expectations as Repubs hold Texas’ State Board of Education
On the night after the November 2 elections, Rebecca Bell-Metereau and her husband Pierre had a two-for-one dinner special at Logan’s Roadhouse. Exhausted, but happy to have been involved in a campaign to unseat Republican Ken Mercer from his District 5 spot on the State Board of Education — however unsuccessfully — the two liberal…
Eco-chic drink
Mixing eco-friendliness and elegance may seem like a contradictory goal for a bar. However, The Long Bar manages to succeed (mostly) at combining being upscale with being environmentally conscious. As a certified green business, The Long Bar uses an array of energy-saving equipment and light bulbs, relies on post-consumer marketing materials, and mixes refreshing organic…
QueQue – The Agua Fresca edition
The Edwards Aquifer is entering a critical period. Yes, it’s still a remarkable source of drinking water by national standards. But increasing development across the recharge zone and surrounding area is resulting in signs of contamination. Months back, outgoing Edwards Aquifer Authority District 3 Board Member George Rice detailed the appearance of pesticides and toxic…
Put a little ‘Bellini’ In your holidays
The Skinny A literary tourist trap still delivers one of the better cocktails you’ll ever have. Here’s how to save some airfare and make it yourself. VENICE, Italy — Harry’s Bar is a Venice institution. Started in 1931 by Giuseppe Cipriani, it became instantly literary: Ernest Hemingway features the bar in his cleverly titled short…
The Next Three Days
The release and production dates probably don’t line up for this, but still, it seems plausible that Paul Haggis caught Law Abiding Citizen, made it all the way through ’til the end, and then said to himself, “Really?” His The Next Three Days feels like a correction, a textbook film, one that builds, builds, builds,…
The Sound & the Fury
Welcome to the giving season. Right now, there’s some holiday-themed billboard outside the Current office guilt-tripping people into “giving generously” of their already thin paychecks; not for any specific purpose, mind you, but just because if you don’t, you must be a total jerk. Thankfully for a tightwad grinch like the Sound and the Fury,…
Spuriosity
While the 2010-2011 NBA season is just getting underway, it doesn’t even feel like it left. Ever since LeBron James announced on The Decision back in July that he would be “taking his talents to South Beach,” the NBA hype machine has been firing pretty steady on all cylinders. E!SPN immediately rounded up the troops,…
Peaks and valleys
Underoath got its start as a Christian metal band from Tampa, Fla. Ordinarily, you would be safe in assuming that such a provenance would guarantee niche popularity, at best. Underoath defied those expectations, becoming a much-lauded force in popular heavy music with a frequently dark, occasionally striking melodic style and memorable hooks. Over the course…
Fast Foodie
I love it when this happens — and it seldom does: One of the cheapest dishes on Sushihana’s entrée menu has just become one of my favorite new plates in town. Make that bowls. Other entrées have been favorites in the past, the orange miso sea bass being one of them. But the bowl in…
Pearl Pushes Tamales
First, let’s get your attention: the first-prize winner in each of three categories gets $1000. That’s right, a cool thousand bucks. Now for the details. The first annual Tamales at Pearl celebration will take place on Saturday, December 11 from noon to seven. Tamales! Musica! Live Dancers! Cerveza! Anticuchos! Empanadas!…y más will all be on…
Bread for the Masses…
While The Hunger Games is billed as a quasi-science fiction trilogy targeted at the adolescent market, its message resonates with a much broader appeal. I dismissed it initially because I’m not much of a young-adult lit fan but after hearing one of my dearest friends gush about it, crack that baby open I did. The…
