10 Free Events Happening This Week
Tue 9/23 Mark Obama Ndesandjo: An Obama’s Journey Courtesy photo Mark Obama Ndesandjo visits Barnes & Noble (La Cantera) in support of his memoir recounting his complex relationship with his older half-brother, President Barack Obama, including their first meeting in Kenya over 20 years ago. Free, 7pm, 9/23 Tuesday, Barnes & Noble, 15900 La Cantera…
Spurs Top ESPN Magazine’s 2014 Best Franchise Poll
via Facebook Good news from the world of irrelevant metrics: after the dominant championship run last season, the San Antonio Spurs have been ranked the best franchise in ESPN Magazine’s “Ultimate Standings 2014” poll. Of the eight factors that readers voted on (affordability, coaching, fan relations, ownership, players, stadium experience, bang for the buck and title…
‘Restaurant Impossible’ Returns to SA
Robert Irvine. Yes, he really is that beefy. (Courtesy) There’s another restaurant getting a makeover in our neck of the woods via Robert Irvine and his team behind “Restaurant Impossible.” This time around, Knife & Fork Gastropub (20626 Stone Oak Pkwy, Ste 103) will get a $10,000 makeover and there are ways you can be…
It’s Banned Books Week
Yesterday marked the beginning of this year’s Banned Books Week, an annual opportunity to embrace your literary rebel and fly in the face of American puritanical outrage. Celebrated since 1982, the American Library Association (ALA) uses Banned Books Week to condemn censorship and promote the freedom to read. Hundreds of books have been censored in…
Humane Society: Texas Biomed Violated Animal Welfare Act
An HSUS investigator documented a pattern of mistreatment of primates at Texas Biomed, a taxpayer-funded institution. Photo: The HSUS Earlier this summer, the United States Department of Agriculture criticized the San Antonio-based Texas Biomedical Research Institute after a routine inspection of the facility, particularly because of how the institute handled the deaths of a young…
5 Things You Have to do This Week
Tue 9/23 Hand Pies Cooking Class Master the art of hand pies, savory and sweet, with Hannah Smith, Central Market cooking school instructor. The hands-on class will feature recipes for gouda apple hand pies, chicken chimichurri empanadas, eggplant parmesan calzones and cherry pop tars with icing. $60, 6:30pm-9pm, Central Market, 4821 Broadway, (210) 368-8617, centralmarket.com…
Texas: Improper Photo Law Unconstitutional
Photo by Andy Rennie (Creative Commons) Last Wednesday, the highest criminal court of Texas axed a law criminalizing “improper photography or visual recording.” The episode that incited this controversial ruling centers on San Antonio resident Ronald Thompson who snapped several questionable photos of swimsuit-clad children at Sea World. The 50-year-old man was charged with 26…
Wendy Davis and Greg Abbott Debate for the First Time
(via) The first televised gubernatorial debate had the potential to get good. At one point, Republican candidate Greg Abbott and Democratic candidate Wendy Davis were given a chance to ask each other questions. Well, just one question each. Abbott’s question to Davis: did she regret voting for President Barack Obama? And Davis to Abbott: Would Abbott…
10 Breakfast Date Ideas Under $20
There’s no way to say, “I think you’re neat” to someone you have a romantic interest in than by getting up at a reasonable hour to take them to breakfast. Well, there are also those people that you don’t remember bringing home from the bar, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve breakfast, too! So…
Dan Patrick Holds First Press Conference In Months
Photo by Alexa Garcia-Ditta Dan Patrick is finally out of hiding. Flanked by representatives of several business organizations, the Houston senator and Republican candidate for lieutenant governor touted his business accomplishments at his first press conference since winning the runoff against Republican incumbent David Dewhurst in late May. Patrick has been criticized for flying largely…
Shot of the Week: The Workaholic
Via Dustin Dooling We all have that friend or relative who is always on the clock. Tightly wound and high strung, the workaholic can’t handle a moment of inactivity. Somehow these very same people always seem to make the best drinking buddies. A quick shot and beer-chugging chaser and then it’s back to the grind.…
Texas Turns Ship Into Artificial Reef
The Kinta S is sunk eight miles off of Mustang Island to become an artificial reef. Photo courtesy of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. A 40-year-old freighter embarked on its last voyage Wednesday, but rather than dock in some tropical Caribbean port, it was sunk in 75 feet of water eight miles off of…
The Spurs Announce 2014-15 Broadcast Schedule
(via) Get ready to set some reminders and clear your schedules, all you cable-watching Spurs fans, because the team has officially announced their 2014-15 broadcast schedule. 74 games will air locally: 60 games will air on FOX Sports Southwest (all of these will include “Spurs Live” pre- and post-game shows hosted by Ric Renner), 12…
5 Shows to See this Weekend
Deniro Farrar, Denzel Curry (Fri, Sept 19) Over disjointed, purple-hazed beats, Deniro Farrar reps the everyday with style normally reserved for 36-chain rap. Based out of North Carolina, Farrar leads the self-described Cult Rap movement, which he explained to Complex as “speak[ing] to a listener’s emotion, less to flamboyant activity and materialistic shit.” After three Dat Piff-friendly mixtapes, Farrar…
Stars and Garters Wants to Pull You Away From Your TV with ‘Tease-o-Vision’
(via) Is that a remote in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? Trust me, you won’t want to change the channel on these ladies. Stars and Garters, San Antonio’s longest-running burlesque troupe, will be paying homage to television this Saturday, September 20 at 8:00 pm. The show, which has been accurately dubbed…
Groups Launch Latino Voter Engagement Coalition
Photo by Alexa Garcia-Ditta A coalition of Latino advocacy and civic organizations are coming together this election season to mobilize the Latino electorate, register tens of thousands of eligible voters and increase turnout among Latinos. “We have one message: to make our voices heard,” said Ben Monterosso, executive director of the Mi Familia Vota Education Fund. Texas Latino voters…
Boldly Go… to Star Trek: Live in Concert
(via) Consider your day made, Trekkies. After making its rounds in Europe, Star Trek: Live in Concert is coming to San Antonio. On October 17 and 18, you will be able to experience Michael Giacchino’s Grammy-nominated soundtrack for Star Trek Into Darkness live, performed by the San Antonio Symphony. The performance will take place at…
10 Things You Have to Do This Weekend
Thu 9/18 Lone Star Live Summer Concert Series featuring Daedelus Daedelus is an anachronistic dude. With the name of a mythic Bronze Age Greek architect, the sideburns of a 19th-century president and the aesthetic sense of a retrospective futurist, the LA producer isn’t held down to a place in time like the rest of us.…
A Divine Mission, Terrorists And City Budgeting
San Antonio police and fire union members meet after City Council passed a budget Thursday morning. Photo by Alexa Garcia-Ditta. Members of the fire and police unions on Thursday morning booed just about every person who supported changing uniformed employee health care and pension costs. The City Council unanimously passed a Fiscal Year 2015 budget…
First Course: Boozy events at The Hangar Tavern and Market on Houston
(Via) The Hangar Tavern (14532 Brook Hollow) is having their monthly wine tasting tomorrow, Thursday, September 18 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The cost to attend is $10, which includes 10 wine samples, light snacks, a complimentary wine screw and a raffle ticket. Be sure to think of some good questions, because there’s gonna…
‘Bow Down’ to Deniro Farrar and Denzel Curry at the White Rabbit
Deniro and Denzel from the “Bow Down” video Over disjointed, purple-hazed beats, Deniro Farrar reps everyday style with style normally reserved for 36″ chain rap. Based out of North Carolina, Farrar leads the self-described Cult Rap movement, which he explained to Complex as “speak[ing] to a listener’s emotion, less to flamboyant activity and materialistic shit.” After three…
SAPD, FBI Investigating Councilman Cris Medina for Corruption
(via) District 7 Councilman Cris Medina is the subject of a FBI and San Antonio Police Department probe, according to the San Antonio Express-News. The law enforcement agencies are investigating public corruption allegations that stemmed from an anonymous email that began circulating among the media and city officials last July. When the email was released,…
Tim Duncan to Appear in Marvel Comic
Courtesy BlackJack Speed Shop Tim Duncan can add “comic book cameo” to his already long list of accomplishments. The legendary Spurs forward will appear in comic form in a upcoming special release of Marvels Punisher, according to a Facebook post from Blackjack Speed Shop, Duncan’s auto customization garage. (He has a lot of hobbies. Good…
Free Cheeseburgers at Mark’s Outing on September 18
(Via) Love celebrating made-up holidays? We do too. So do the folks at Mark’s Outing (formerly Fatty’s) at 1624 E Commerce, which will be celebrating National Cheeseburger Day on Thursday, September 18 from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Guests who stop by Thursday can order a free quarter-pound cheeseburger, along with complimentary beans. Mark’s will…
A Sure-Fire Smoked Cabrito Recipe
paytonphotography.com In this week’s issue, Ron Bechtol examined the legacy of cabrito in San Antonio. Here is his sure fire recipe for succulent, smoked goat: [Related: “Far From a Fad, Cabrito’s Lasting Legacy in SA”] Brine (this was enough for both a slab of ribs and a hindquarter): 1 gallon water ¾ cup kosher salt…
SA Symphony Debuts at Tobin with Opera Singer Renée Fleming
On Saturday, September 20, the San Antonio Symphony debuts in the lush and acoustically pristine H-E-B Performance Hall at the Tobin. The season opening performance features Grammy-winning opera singer Renée Fleming, a soprano currently operating out of Chicago. Fluent in German and French (and dabbling in Italian), Fleming’s bel canto won her a Grammy in 1999 and a…
Our Picks for the 31st Annual Jazz’SAlive
Eddie Palmieri: 9:30pm Saturday Jazz’SAlive has traditionally made sure to clear at least one headlining space for Latin jazz, with the likes of the Afro-Bop Alliance, Ed Calle and the Spanish Harlem Orchestra topping the bill in years past. Even then, landing a Latin jazz giant on the level of Eddie Palmieri feels particularly significant.…
Loudon Wainwright Hasn’t Got the Blues (Yet)
Emerging with his eponymous debut in 1970, singer/songwriter Loudon Wainwright III found himself lumped along with fellow post-Dylan folk-revivalists Leonard Cohen, Cat Stevens and Randy Newman. But where those contemporaries relied on abstract imagery or parody in their lyrics, Wainwright aimed for an unadorned, almost uncomfortable level of confessionalism. His marriage (“On the Rocks”), his…
Austin Punk Outfit Total Abuse is Looking For Love
Austin’s Total Abuse is a band at odds with itself, tearing at its contradictions and anxieties to a mean and fruitful end. Tight punk structures clash with freeform noise sets; intelligent language loses meaning in the distortion of Krakatoan decibel levels; and the power of tradition crashes against the power of transformative energy. “When we…
The Permanent Gangsta Status of Mobb Deep’s Prodigy
Prodigy, better known to ’90s rap aficionados as the prodigious half of Queensbridge duo Mobb Deep, has made a successful career operating on the assumption that real gangsta rap can never die. This assumption is true to the extent that the gangsta rap persona acts as a doppelgänger for rapper and listener alike, allowing each…
Lost Bar Nails Drunk Food, Sports Bar Vibe
Much like the cookie-cutter houses that fill the North Side, (most) bars outside of 1604, hell outside 410, tend to have that same formulaic feel. There’s nothing completely wrong with this strategy, and if it works, it works damn well. Case in point—Lost Bar & Grill. Finding it isn’t as difficult as the name suggests…
Flavor File: Two new eateries and upcoming dinners
Some three years ago, Where Y’at opened its truck window at Alamo Street Eat Bar and quickly turned into one of my favorite kitchens on wheels. This was likely due to chef Pieter Sypesteyn’s care of ingredients, his expert sauce making and, well, ’cause the food is damn good. After several months of fundraising, building…
Happy Hour Hound: 20Nine Restaurant & Wine Bar
Wanting to put the ol’ sniffer to the test, I went the wine-enthusiast route for this installment of Happy Hour Hound with a visit to 20Nine Restaurant & Wine Bar. Opened in 2009, 20Nine tries to provide “a Napa Valley road trip experience without leaving San Antonio,” and while the restaurant makes you long for…
2060: SA looks forward, protects drinking water
In just 14 years, the City of San Antonio has purchased 125,712 conservation acres over the Edwards Aquifer. And if the City Council brings the popular sales-tax proposition to fund the effort to voters three more times in the next 15 years, including next year, the City will secure its water demand on the aquifer…
Far From a Fad, Cabrito’s Lasting Legacy in SA
Little-known (and probably not all that interesting) factoid: I grew up with goats. Not in a cohabiting in the barn sense (except when tasked with milking, a chore I was at pains to keep hidden from classmates), but with goat’s milk every day. And, as these critters were as much pets as providers of leche,…
Lt. Governor Race: the ‘Luchadora’ vs. the Tea Party radio host
Correction: September 17, 2014, 12:02pm A previous version of the pie chart incorrectly identified some of the polling data. The chart has been corrected to reflect the accurate numbers. The original story follows below. A few Saturdays ago, I spent several hours hanging around a Texas Association of REALTORS conference in San Antonio, trying…
Kid (Goat) Facts: More cabrito tidbits to know
Joe Doria knows cabrito. The market manager at Bolner’s Meat Market for the last 14 years, Doria’s been in the goat game since the age for nine, still raises kids at home and doesn’t hold back when asked about cabrito as a trend. “It’s not. It’s been feeding families for years,” Doria said. There’s quite…
Cityscrapes: Local history pays the price for Briscoe deal
Update: September 22, 2014, 6:20pm Last week the city council voted an additional $50,000 for the Central Library’s Texana and Geneaology Department for the coming fiscal year, which starts October 1—enough to keep Texana’s current hours of 40 per week. The responsiveness of the council in the face of pressure from a number of folks,…
4 Ways to Get Your Drink/Grub on This Week
Saturday, September 20: Open the Taps, an organization that supports all things craft beer in the Lone Star State, will host a bottle share and fundraiser at catering outfit and restaurant Cruzan’s. Bring that vertical stash (the same brew via the same brewer from different years) you’ve been dying to try, or that rare bottle…
Mayoral Horse Race
Tommy Adkisson, who ends his 16-year career as Bexar County Commissioner for Precinct 4 this November, is another of a handful of local officials mulling a run for San Antonio mayor. And like other rumored hopefuls, he’s waiting until after the November 4 general election to make any public declaration. Adkisson, who rolls off the commissioners court…
Savage Love: Get It Together
I’m the bisexual everyone loves to hate because I want to be in a poly relationship with both a man and a woman. I am a woman who is into commitment, loyalty, love, trust and honesty. I am not looking to cheat on anyone. But I discovered after one failed marriage to a man and…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): These horoscopes I write for you aren’t primarily meant to predict the future. They are more about uncovering hidden potentials and desirable possibilities that are stirring below the surface right now. When I’m doing my job well, I help you identify those seeds so you can cultivate them proactively. Bearing that…
Daniela Riojas’ Photographic Studies in Self-discovery
Daniela Riojas explores ideas of the figure in art, Latin American rituals, letting go of the past, and Jungian archetypes in “A Collection of Work,” a Fotoseptiembre exhibition comprising several bodies of material, including Being and Becoming, Dysplacia, Meiosis, Blood History and Portrait of a Woman Who Will Lose Her Hair in Two Weeks. Riojas’…
‘Behind the Brooch’ Reveals Secret Charms
Artist/designer Lorena Angulo’s book Behind the Brooch isn’t a how-to, although Angulo teaches as an adjunct in the Metals Department at the Southwest School of Art and is a repeat instructor at Say Sí. She’s a well-known designer of original pieces of jewelry, also, though Behind the Brooch isn’t a catalog of her own body…
Everything but the Bowie in ‘David Bowie Is’
People love David Bowie more than you are capable of loving your family. But that’s OK—people love Bowie to an extent that your family would quite frankly find creepy. Consider: (A) How many other gay icons were most likely just baiting the press when they came out of the closet? (B) His performance in Jim…
Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy Disappear into ‘Eleanor Rigby’
“If you’re going to start, you might as well start big,” an ambitious person once said. Ned Benson must have been paying attention, because for his first feature project, the writer/director has gone huge, releasing three versions of the same story. Though he should be applauded for his effort, he’s bitten off more than he…
RE//THINK: Mirror Fears at The Compound
Mirror Fears (via Facebook) The project of Denver native Kate Warner, Mirror Fears taps into a brooding and wickedly smart strain of dark pop on the new EP Re//Think. With lines like, “Too late to break these chains of duality,” Mirror Fears ventures into territory blazed by Swedish duo The Knife, posing some heady ideas…
13 Local Date Ideas Under $20
Whether you’re swiping right on Tinder, winking at other users on OKCupid (are the kids still using that these days?), or weighing your actual compatibility percentage on Match, date or “hang out” ideas should be stimulating and best of all cheap (going on one too many dates can add up, I guess). The mostly single…
Clear Channel Communications Didn’t Heart its Name
Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is no more. The mass media company based here in San Antonio will now answer only to iHeartMedia, as of this Tuesday. Clear Channel owns over 850 radio stations nationwide, all of which can be streamed digitally via their internet radio platform, iHeartRadio. While iHeartRadio is no Pandora in terms of…
La Villita Proposal Deadline Extended
Via City of San Antonio website Proposal submission deadlines for vendors and restaurants applying to rent space in La Villita have been extended, and the criteria for retail submissions has been slightly broadened. The new deadline for retail submissions is Wednesday, November 12 at 2 p.m. and the new deadline for restaurant submissions is Friday,…
Is SA Late to the MLS Race?
According to one council member, the only thing missing from this picture is a Major League Soccer team. As Major League Soccer executives visit Sacramento this week, Governance Committee members will consider whether to identify financial options to lure the last, planned expansion team to San Antonio. And “league insiders” tell the Sacramento Bee, that…
10 Free Events Happening This Week
Tue 9/16 At War with Dust Residency at Liberty Bar At War with Dust opened his residency at the Liberty Bar last Tuesday. (Photo by Charlie Kitchen) Kevin Sanchez, aka At War with Dust, is the September artist of the Liberty Bar’s monthly residency series on Tuesdays. With an an evolving act for the 7pm…
Planning Around SA’s Broadband Blues
This map created by Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation shows broadband access disparities in San Antonio. Is efficient access to the internet a luxury or a utility? District 8 Councilman Ron Nirenberg argues it’s a necessary utility for workforce and economic development; and the City of San Antonio needs a comprehensive strategy…
