Groups call on Council to reject $400 million for nukes until alternatives are studied
Clean-energy promises: Karen Hadden, of SEED, and Amanda Hass, of Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com San Antonio can avoid the high risks associated with new nuclear power by banking instead on a raft of renewable energy sources and energy-saving technologies, representatives of a coalition of organizations fighting the proposed expansion of the…
Toby Keith Essay Contest: So many ways to win!
Hey there, y’all. I done got two copies of the new Toby Keith album, American Ride in the mail, and considering even watching the above video for the lead single, which sounds something like a Glenn Beck stand-up routine you can line-dance to, made me simultaneously put a red-white-and-blue shotgun in my mouth and send…
The Wao Files, Part III: Asvestas vs. Asvestas
By Enrique Lopetegui elopetegui@sacurrent.com UPDATE: Carol has two lawyers/lawsuit filed, but no hearing set yet. Ever since Carol and Ron Asvestas were first suspended, then terminated, by the board of the Wild Animal Orphanage in late September amid accusations of animal neglect and misuse of donated funds, it seemed WAO was (finally?) on its way…
ATAC President defends the Globe Awards
In advance of Current theater critic Tom Jenkins’s critique of the Alamo Theatre Arts Council’s annual Globe Awards, I spoke with ATAC Board President Tom Masinter, a composer, music director, and charming man who agrees that the number of awards had started to get out of hand in the past few years. So they’ve attempted…
Bargain hunting in full drag
PHOTOGRAPHS BY BRYAN RINDFUSS For years, I had been hearing about the countless tented fields that make up the Round Top Antiques Fair, but I never seemed to be able to get organized in time to go. On more than one occasion, I felt like I had totally missed the boat when I saw friends…
U: Speaking from the Edge of the End
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com `I sent the following to a collection of friends this morning, folks I admire, but not so much that I refrain from “spamming” them every week or two with my latest news-related scribbling. As I finished it, I realized it is a suitable concluding post for the now-titled “Nukes of Hazard” series.`…
Gene Elder talks to Ansen Seale: The Chartreuse Couch Interview
If you’re an at-all regular reader of this blog â??or this paperâ?? you’ve likely read about Gene Elder: conceptual artist; activist and founder of the Wedding Cake Liberation Front; Director of the HAPPY Foundation; bon vivant; and San Antonio’s foremost archivist and historian of the LGBT community. Gene Elder at the HAPPY Foundation Archive, November…
Keep It Hid
Keep It Hid Composer: Dan Auerbach Conductor: Dan Auerbach Label: Nonesuch Release Date: 2009-10-14 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording After six consistent albums as a driving force behind grunge-blues duo the Black Keys, singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach steps out of the Keys shadow, if only briefly, for his first solo album, Keep It Hid. A powerful songwriter,…
Vegan Vietnamese
Meatless in Steer City
There won’t be blood
Donato, King of the Vampire Drags Director: Mary Harder Screenwriter: Mary Harder Release Date: 2009-10-14 Rated: NOT RATED Genre: Film Donato, King of the Vampire Drags bites. Too hokey? Not for this movie. Now, there’s nothing wrong with liking a little cheese with your blood — I get my kicks from the ludicrous undead the…
Grace & Gravy
Release Date: 2009-10-14 The chicken-fried steak at Casbeers, its surface pocked and pitted like hardscrabble soil, looms large over half of a simple, white plate. A mound of equally earthen fries covers any remaining space. A bowl of pepper-flecked cream gravy sits saucered on the side, its pale color offering little in the way of…
Paranormal Activity
Critic’s Pick Paranormal Activity Director: Oren Peli Screenwriter: Oren Peli Cast: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Michael Bayouth Release Date: 2009-10-14 Rated: R Genre: Film Our Rating: 4.00 I’ve never been so terrified watching people sleep. Katie (Featherstone) and husband Micah (Sloat) purchase a video camera in hopes of catching some of the strange noises and…
Embryonic
Embryonic Composer: The Flaming Lips Label: WEA/Reprise Release Date: 2009-10-14 Rated: NONE Media: CD Format: Album Genre: Recording In the grand tradition of double albums, Embryonic — the Lips’ 12th freaking studio full-length — is perplexing, difficult to categorize, and yes, maybe a little bloviated. Colder critics might take a scalpel to a few of…
Where the Wild Things Are Soundtrack
Where the Wild Things Are Soundtrack Label: DGC/Interscope Release Date: 2009-10-14 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording I am dying — dying! — to see Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are. But, alas, no private screenings for music reviewers — I have to wait until October 16 like regular folk. (Associate Editor and all-around nice guy…
Love 2
Love 2 Composer: Air Conductor: Air Label: EMI Release Date: 2009-10-14 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Never has a band’s name fit its sound better than Air, the French electro-pop duo whose music floats effortlessly on sparse arrangements and breathy vocals. Jean-Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin recorded Love 2 in their new studio, intending to capture…
SA Vultures begin to circle
The (made-up) story of hip-hop’s invention: Three guys are passing around a microphone (it doesn’t have to have been plugged in, but there had to be a microphone). What the first guy says doesn’t really matter ’cause he invented hip-hop. The second guy says how much better he is than the first guy. The third…
Live & Local
According to the flyer, Saturday night was the “Rockin’ for Racks” breast-cancer benefit show at the Ten Eleven. The only possible indication in the room was propped up behind the bar — a presumably empty breast self-exam kit that appeared to be a leftover from the 1970s. I didn’t see anyone lining up for “free…
The Sound & The Fury
As expected, Louisiana’s Buckwheat Zydeko (forget zydeko; they’re a superb rock ’n’ roll band, period) killed Saturday night at the International Accordion Festival at La Villita. Imagine an in-your-face bulldozer with the precision of a Swiss watch and the energy and fun of James Brown, and you get half of it. Pat: Bring whomever you…
Songs sung true
At 10:30 p.m. on a recent Saturday evening, most of the lights were out along Josephine Street. Liberty Bar and the Josephine Street Café were busy, as always, but you had to drive a few blocks to encounter more signs of life. Near the North St. Mary’s Street intersection, the blazing marquee in front of…
Dear Uncle Mat
What do you do if in the past you have received alcohol-related citations — as you will in your life here on planet earth unless you’re not human — and you stand in front of four tickets still pending and the judge comes up with 18 more? This is what happened to me in the…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): You say you not only want to be loved, but that you also want to love? Then learn the fantasies and symbols and beliefs that hold people’s lives together. Be interested in feeling the crushing weight and deep comfort of their web of memories. Every now and then, dive in and…
Childhood’s End
Oh, yeah, I reminded myself as I resentfully watched a woman carrying her small son, who was wearing a cardboard crown and wolf pajamas, into the theater, this movie isn’t really for me. Strange as it seems now, throughout the interminable lead up to Where the Wild Things Are’s release, I’m pretty sure this is…
Closing out the Toxic Triangle, conserving gay history
Nuke’m high Halftime score: 5-0. It wasn’t the usual opposition the QueQue has become familiar with during the past year, the “no-rate-hikes-for-nuclear” chanters, but the voice seated behind us at the special meeting of CPS Energy’s Board of Trustees (held Tuesday in a bunker at the Alamodome) was opposed to the expansion of the South…
Until the end of the world
“I think the human race is going to wreck itself, and it is important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it … I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation.” — Admiral Hyman G. Rickover Father of the Nuclear Navy Admiral Rickover’s…
The dream translates to Italian
Chalk up another culinary success for Andrew Weissman! Taking a cue from his long-standing and justly praised Le Rêve (set to close after this month, so the chef and father can pursue more family-friendly ventures), this summer he opened up Il Sogno (also translated as “the dream,” this time in Italian) at the Pearl Brewery. Less…
Rosie Castro
STOP THE PRESSES! HOLD THE PHONES! At long last the secret can be told. Our Mayor’s mom has a deep, abiding, and passionate obsession for … poetry. Rosie Castro — mother of Julián and State Representative Joaquín, director of Palo Alto College’s Center for Academic Transitions — reads, writes, and might even publish her own collection…
Ask A Mexican!
Dear Mexican: An uninsured wetback just hit my car and totaled his. He had no insurance and no license, but did have a nice cell phone. I asked him if he was OK in my limited Spanish, but he did not ask about me or my children. He was handcuffed and taken away to be…
Another gold star!
In the past, one could usually count on the annual Alamo Theatre Arts Council’s Globe Awards for Excellence to eventually recognize just about everyone involved in San Antonio theater. (My favorite example: the 18 awards for “Lead Actress” in the storied year of 2006-7. They were joined by an equally astounding 16 “Supporting Actress” awards,…
Globes under ATAC
Yeah, I hadn’t heard of them, either, but apparently ATAC is the Alamo Theatre Arts Council, a non-profit founded in 1990 to recognize, support, and stimulate San Antonio theater and the artists therein. Founders included Jasmina Wellinghoff of the San Antonio Express-News, former SAEN arts writer Dan Goddard, Brooks Hill, Professor of Theatre Arts at…
A woman of miens
If, like the poet, you believe the most wasted of all days is one without laughter, count on the Classic Theatre’s production of She Stoops to Conquer to help you get your giggle on. This production of Oliver Goldsmith’s 18th-century “laughing comedy” is the best argument I’ve seen to date against putting the oldies in…
ARTifacts
So, you’re a San Antonio/Bexar County artist. Maybe you studied art in one of the excellent Alamo Colleges programs, or at some far-flung university. Or maybe you’re an outsider artist seeking an inside track. You’ve developed your style, met the challenges of your materials, and express yourself through lithographs, collages, drawings, or poems. You might’ve…
Nuke’m High: CPS Board votes 5-0 for nuclear power
Down Fighting: CPS Energy Board Chair Aurora Geis insisting withering green-power plans aren’t withering green-power plans. Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com Board Chair Aurora Gies opened the special meeting of CPS Energy’s Board of Trustees in a bunker in the bowels in the Alamodome with a defense of the utility’s clean-energy pursuits. “We don’t want to compromise…
