Mock The Vote
With some coming elections across the country, voting is slowly starting to creep back in the news. As a comedian I am a big fan of hypocrisy and there is no better hypocrisy than the American Voter. Oh American Voter Where was that fire you had during the ‘Obama Run’? All that Hope and Vinegar…
In-Box Surprise: !!! Video for “Jamie, My Intentions are Bass”
For their single “Jamie, My Intentions are Bass,” likely my favorite song on !!!’s Strange Weater Isn’t It?, comes this weird video. I’m not sure what’s going on. There’s a pool party, pelvic thrusting, and hot pistil/stamen action. It’s at once literal and totally incpmprehensible, but either way it looks like the video shoot was…
SAWS ramps up its “poo”-powered gas plant
Sonya Harvey sonyaharveytx@gmail.com Area officials at the San Antonio Water System’s Dos Rios Water Recycling Center celebrated the grand opening of a new biogas plant last week. The plant will capture methane gas generated during the sewage treatment process and clean it up so it can be sold as pipeline-grade natural gas to commercial buyers,…
Share This? Tweet That? Kodak EasyShare M590
Product: Kodak EasyShare M590 Promise: Saves you precious upload time with its Share button, connecting and allowing you to post directly to YouTube, flickr, facebook, orkut, and Kodak Gallery and send via email from the camera. Break-down: We opened the box and started poking around. First thing we noticed: it’s listed as the world’s thinnest 5x…
Kung Fu Fuzzy
Yup it’s Monday and back to work we go. Massage the noodle with this kitteh Kung Fu fighting video. xoxo @deannecuellar and @beccacolada
Three NES Games That Still Matter
The Gentleman Gamer regrets that he could not deliver the promised five games teased in this week’s issue. In celebrating the NES’s 25th Anniversary, it seems three games were enough to take up several hours of research, writing and analysis. The 2G hopes to make it up to readers in the future. — Ninja Gaiden…
The Mexican Name Game
I have to admit that the first time I called myself a Chicana, I winced a little. I left one eye open to look around for people who might tell me I had no right identifying with such a politically charged term unless I had originated in Crystal City and was there for the making of…
Bad Advice with Jay Whitecotton
Wrong has never seemed so Right… Dear Whitecotton: My boyfriend is locked up in County. He promises me lots of ‘what every girl likes’, but has failed to deliver each time he’s released. He now knows I’m the only one willing to put up with his s&#t as his family has all but abandoned him…
Interview: Wilmer Valderrama
While actor Wilmer Valderrama is probably best known for his role as Fez in That ’70s Show, children will more likely recognize him as the voice of the animated title character on Disney Channel’s Handy Manny. Since 2006, Valderrama, 30, has played the bilingual Hispanic handyman who goes on adventures with his talking tools. During an…
5MB: 10/22
This edition of 5MB is brought to you by Officer D-Pad. ; 1MB Gaming website Game Politics reports that The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) released a consumer report saying that even with the current economic woes, the gaming industry will remain strong. An earlier estimate by the NPD predicted that only 15 percent of consumers…
Zombies Roam The Streets, Hit The Track
Want to kick-start the Halloween festivities early? Look no further. San Antonio Roller Derby and the SA Zombie Walk give you the perfect reason to dress up all week. SARD preps for Hallow’s Eve this Sunday with Monster Mash-Up — skaters from around Texas will mash it up on the track in a Halloween-themed exhibition.…
Screening: Pelada
I was given a wonderful opportunity to screen the documentary Pelada this week before it hit theaters and wanted to urge San Antonio moviegoers to go to the Santikos Bijou tonight for opening night. Pelada will be playing at the Bijou as a limited engagment. You can catch the film on these days: Thursday, Oct.…
Noche de Recuerdos
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-10-20 Presented by Proyectos Locos (Ramon Vasquez y Sanchez, Deborah Keller-Rihn, Erik Bosse, and Henry de Leon) and the American Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions (an organization dedicated to the preservation of the culture and traditions of the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation and other indigenous people of south…
Moving Waters: Blue Star Family Day 2010
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-10-20 With a little help from local artists Gary Sweeney, Debra Sugerman, Amber Rodriguez, Kristy Perez, Justin Parr, Laurel Gibson, Dayna De Hoyos, Vanessa Centeno, Kim Bishop, Rigo Luna, Kimberly Aubuchon, Stuart Allen, Andy Benavides, Joe de La Cruz, and David “Shek” Vega, families and kids of all ages will create…
Pet Pawchanga
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-10-20 In celebration of National Pit Bull Awareness Day, San Antonio Big Dawgs partners with Bully Breeds Need Love and Talk About It (a bilingual campaign with the motto, “Care, Adopt, Neuter”) and other animal welfare organizations to present SA’s first Pet Pawchanga. Designed to raise positive awareness about Pit Bull…
Jennifer Holliday
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-10-20 Native Texan Jennifer Holliday’s first big break on Broadway came in 1979 when she landed a part in Your Arm’s Too Short to Box with God. After earning a Drama Desk nomination in 1981, Holliday stepped into the role of Effie Melody White in the 1981 debut of Dreamgirls. During…
18th Annual Texas Clay Festival
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-10-20 Whether you shop for one-of-a-kind works of art (ranging from bare-bones functional to high-concept decorative) by more than 60 Texas-based ceramic artists or learn from informative workshops, the 18th Annual Texas Clay Festival is a great excuse to spend the day in Gruene Historic District. Look for raku vessels adorned…
Charleston, SC 1966
Charleston, SC 1966 Composer: Darius Rucker Conductor: Darius Rucker Label: Capitol Nashville Release Date: 2010-10-20 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Former Hootie & the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker’s 2008 album Learn to Live was a surprise hit, reaching No. 1 on the country charts. He even snagged a CMA Award for Best New Artist. The follow-up…
The Grand Theatre, Volume One
The Grand Theatre, Volume One Composer: Old 97’s Conductor: Old 97’s Label: New West Release Date: 2010-10-20 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording After 2008’s dismal Blame It on Gravity, Old 97’s gets some of its mojo back on their eighth studio album. Recorded mostly live at a 100-year-old hall in their hometown of Dallas, the first…
Canciones Populares Contestatarias
Canciones Populares Contestatarias Composer: Perrozompopo Conductor: Perrozompopo Release Date: 2010-10-20 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Thank God for 39-year-old Ramón Mejía, the man behind Perrozompopo. With his third album, the nephew of the great Carlos and Enrique Mejía Godoy (and brother of salsero Luis Enrique) spits out a moving but desolate love letter to a post-Somoza,…
Hereafter
Critic’s Pick Hereafter Release Date: 2010-10-20 Genre: Film Like life itself, Hereafter is a sometimes tedious amble to a vaguely unsatisfying end. But, then again, there are plenty of small details that make it worth a go, and the ending, full of promise but no final answers is like, well, many of our conceptions of…
Zombie Walk 2010 San Antonio
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-10-20 The “zombie walk” is a nationwide cultural phenomenon sprung from the desire of non-undead Americans to play at being undead, with the gory face, groaning, and tattered clothes (surrendering of your social role, day-to-day problems, and very identity) in order to live it dead. It’s the troubled U.S. version of…
Vicente Fernandez
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-10-20 If we can call Roy Orbison “the voice,” can we bestow the title of “la voz” on Vicente Fernández? The Jalisco-born king of the ranchera song, who dresses the part as well as sings it, has serenaded fans for more than 35 years. In Mexico, the film and music celebrity…
Artslam! “Undead” with Big Soy, Las Hijas de La Chingada, the Hawks of Holy Rosary, Snowbyrd, & DJs JJ Lopez & Scuba
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-10-20 Celebrate Halloween early with dripping blood and paint when the “always live” art and music throwdown Artslam! focuses on all things undead. Big Soy, Las Hijas de La Chingada, the Hawks of Holy Rosary, and Snowbyrd provide the death-rattling soundtrack for more than 20 flesh-eating visual artists caught in the…
Dear Uncle Mat
Dear Uncle Mat, I have a problem with my baby’s mom. We’re trying to work things out, or at least that’s what I’m thinking. But in a way, I’m kind of thinking maybe it’s best if I just let her go. Cause I mean, she likes doing her own thing, and it sucks cause I…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “There’s one ultimate goal during sex,” says Cosmopolitan magazine, a renowned source of erotic guidance for women. That is “to be as sensually stimulated as possible.” I don’t quite agree with that assessment. Having emotionally pleasing fun should also be an important consideration, as well as creating a playful ambiance and…
Southtown to Stinson
As the mercury (finally) dips into fall chill, San Antonians shut off the AC, open the windows, and head once again into the outdoors. With all the egg-frying rhetoric behind us with those extended summer temps, there is an embarrassing glut of outdoor activities in the Alamo City. The best place to start is with…
War of the pita pockets
The latest in mass-marketed culinary cultural appropriation — Canadian-born Extreme Pita — is poised to open its second San Antonio location. To understand the ramifications of this event, I thought it my duty to examine the product of Store #1, located in the business building of UTSA’s main campus, where the company boasts “Fresh to…
Art for autonomy
David Zamora Casas is working on a collage piece. He has stuck a line of marijuana papers across a print of The Virgin de Guadalupe and placed his voter’s registration card in the center. He started on this latest piece in artistic retaliation to “the stupidity of that Arizona law.” It’s called “Show Me Your…
Celebrity impersonators
When I last saw Girl in a Coma perform live, they busted out a fierce cover of Patsy Cline’s “Walkin’ After Midnight.” Singer Nina Diaz nailed Cline’s sweetness on the intro, but the band pulled a U-turn with a rock breakdown and Diaz’ wide-eyed intensity to finish out what Diaz noted was essentially a stalker…
Ghosts of things past. Way past.
I still smile at many of Noël Coward’s aphorisms (“I have a memory like an elephant. In fact, elephants often consult me.”) and find him an appealing literary-theatrical figure — witty, English, gay, elegant. But to sit for three hours and watch the fruit of his mental womb performed with faithful, correct — indeed, reverent…
Now that they’re here
Talk about wearing your heart on your sleeve. Just the simple question, “How did you form your band?” provokes Melissa Ludwig and guitarist Mitch Connell to launch into a complicated love story. It happens to be their own, and it’s all over not just our interview but also the now-married couple’s live shows and the…
Shadow play
The most important components in crafting an effective supernatural drama are almost certainly the mundane ones. The fantastic only becomes compelling when the characters who experience frightening events are believable, and their stories are emotionally resonant. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s King of Shadows, currently playing at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, seems to understand the need to…
The anti-diva
Avant-garde metalcore phenoms iwrest-ledabearonce are one of the most anti-establishment acts in hard music today, and not just because their three-year-old aesthetic is more Ren and Stimpy than skulls ‘n’ bones. Their latest video features dirty underwear, a cast member of Saved By The Bell, and copious amounts of vomit. And it’s not because they…
21st century man
Acclaimed as “a new sleuth for the 21st century,” Sherlock, a new three-part television series, debuts this Sunday on PBS’ Masterpiece Mystery! As promised, the latest interpretation of Sherlock Holmes isn’t your college lit course’s Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories, or those dusty Basil Rathbone films (nonetheless preferable to last year’s lame brawn-over-brains cartoon with…
The Sound & the Fury
You know what’s been missing for a while from SA? A classy hip-hop night for “grown folks.” At least that’s according to Max “Tha Midax” Edman, who helped create East/West Connector, a monthly underground hip-hop night at the Revolution Room (8123 Broadway, (210) 320-1663, revolutionroom.com). He and G. Tomas V. promotions figured the Revolution Room’s…
The king is not forgotten
If ever there were an example of an artist with nothing left to say, Woody Allen is its living definition. When you consider how many good films he made in the ’70s and ’80s, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger makes it clear how far he’s truly fallen. It’s not that this latest is…
Collective Dreams
Since the elimination of a vocalist and the addition of keyboardist Jonathan Lopez, Collective Dreams has entered instrumental territory. It is impossible to sum up Sunday night’s performance in one word. Hell, it’s difficult to choose which of the myriad of remarks Collective Dreams inspired to include in this review. Besides hitting the stage almost…
Oh Baby! teases Dixie’s
Oh Baby! Burlesque, a “freshly-formed group of San Antonio ladies” with a “great lust for music, costuming, and the art of burlesque,” is the source of some hot air blowing around Dixie’s Country Bar, a neighborhood watering hole in window-rattling range of the San Antonio International Airport. In this neighborhood, where you can ditch your…
Bottle & tap
Business cards are often the exclamation marks ending good conversations on airplanes, at events, or more commonly, at breweries and brewpubs around the country. While judging beer and hanging out with home brewers at the annual Dixie Cup in Houston last week, I pulled one of those cards to use as a bookmark. The card…
The Queque – October 20, 2010
SASH attacks Whether washing dishes, pushing unruly wheelchairs, or subduing violent patients, life for the staff of the San Antonio State Hospital is no walk in the park. Last year, the Current spotlighted the case of Lydia Lopez, a 15-year veteran nursing aide at SASH who was beaten so badly that doctors had to install…
Enough is enough
Like walking the stations of the cross, the group moves around Main Street Plaza stopping for a few minutes before selected landmarks to discuss how the various aspects of society — the churches, governments, businesses — can help eradicate violence against women. Monday’s event sponsored by the P.E.A.C.E. Initiative is billed as a “men’s march”…
Saytown Lowdown
San Antonio is blessed with two key attributes that set it apart from many cities and make it a great place to live: we are situated atop an abundant source of clean, fresh drinking water from the Edwards Aquifer, and we possess a wealth of beauty amid the rivers, creeks, hills and trees that make…
¡Ask A Mexican!
Dear Mexican I’m not the type to let things slide when I see something that strikes me as ignorant, no matter who it is. When my friend’s mom posted jokes on Facebook about Mexicans, and her friends popped up with comments I felt were racist, I just had to step in and say something. They…
Innovation Sprouts at Local Nonprofits
After months of preparation, a local group of organizers brought TEDx San Antonio to fruition at Trinity University’s Stieren Theater this past weekend. With the theme “Planting New Ideas,” 16 diverse speakers invigorated the hand-picked audience by presenting ground-breaking ideas cultivated to change the world. Nonprofits are not often viewed as hotbeds of innovation. However,…
Round One: Fight
It is absolutely no secret we love cats. Also no secret: we love reminiscing about our old school favorites. So when we stumbled across this video featuring bits from nostalgic fighting games AND cats? It was over. We dissolved into fits of glee:
Artfolk seeking dayjobs: Guadalupe position could be good
Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center Job Title: Development/Events Manager Reports to: Development Director Status: Exempt Position Summary: Responsible for assisting the development and fundraising operations; and managing the coordination of special events and annual festivals for the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. Demonstrate an appreciation and understanding of GCAC’s mission and the ability to effectively communicate that…
