Lackluster awards show disappoints this critic
Last night, the Alamo Theater Arts Council presented their annual Globe awards for excellence in local theater in the lovely space of SAC’s McAllister auditorium. Like all awards ceremonies, it was a somewhat masturbatory exercise in self-congratulation; and, unfortunately, like most awards ceremonies, a bit too long. (How many powerpoint photos can one person stand?…
Lackluster awards show disappoints this critic
Last night, the Alamo Theater Arts Council presented their annual Globe awards for excellence in local theater in the lovely space of SAC’s McAllister auditorium. Like all awards ceremonies, it was a somewhat masturbatory exercise in self-congratulation; and, unfortunately, like most awards ceremonies, a bit too long. (How many powerpoint photos can one person stand?…
Tiger Army, Street Dogs & Imperative Reaction
Release Date: 2007-09-26 Tiger Army rocks the Rabbit on a Monday night, a few months after being featured on the main stage for this summer’s Vans Warped Tour. The punky trio has persevered despite a number of setbacks and member changes throughout the years, playing with the likes of Social D and Morrissey, touring the…
Zombie Night at Aztec Theatre
Release Date: 2007-09-26 In a week filled with film happenin’s, the San Antonio Film Institute raises awareness about the city’s filmmaking appeal by screening eight selected short films by talented local filmmakers. Check out the premiere of Dr. “S” Battles the Sex-Crazed Reefer Zombies, a locally produced feature directed by Bryan Ortiz. Complimentary beer and…
ID, Freebleeder, Silent Minority, & Spin Alley
Release Date: 2007-09-26 A new San Antonio (by way of Amarillo) product, 1000 lbs. of Sound looks to slap some fresh performances on the local scene with trippy, groovy rhythms and an alternative blues style. They’ve rocked the Emergenza Music Festival stage more than once in Austin, and are awaiting the release of their sophomore…
The General
Release Date: 2007-09-26 In a week filled with film happenin’s, the San Antonio Film Institute raises awareness about the city’s filmmaking appeal by screening eight selected short films by talented local filmmakers. Check out the premiere of Dr. “S” Battles the Sex-Crazed Reefer Zombies, a locally produced feature directed by Bryan Ortiz. Complimentary beer and…
Down Syndrom, Given A Chance, Good Tippers, Plan B Pursuit, Typicals, & Buffalo Lopez
Release Date: 2007-09-26 A new San Antonio (by way of Amarillo) product, 1000 lbs. of Sound looks to slap some fresh performances on the local scene with trippy, groovy rhythms and an alternative blues style. They’ve rocked the Emergenza Music Festival stage more than once in Austin, and are awaiting the release of their sophomore…
Tex Pistols
Release Date: 2007-09-26 A new San Antonio (by way of Amarillo) product, 1000 lbs. of Sound looks to slap some fresh performances on the local scene with trippy, groovy rhythms and an alternative blues style. They’ve rocked the Emergenza Music Festival stage more than once in Austin, and are awaiting the release of their sophomore…
ID, Silent Minority, Plan of Attack, & Ticket for a Train Wreck
Release Date: 2007-09-26 A new San Antonio (by way of Amarillo) product, 1000 lbs. of Sound looks to slap some fresh performances on the local scene with trippy, groovy rhythms and an alternative blues style. They’ve rocked the Emergenza Music Festival stage more than once in Austin, and are awaiting the release of their sophomore…
Filthy F#*%in’ Fest
Release Date: 2007-09-26 The Methane Sisters are back and we’re ready! Upping the ante on the return of As Filthy As It Gets to the Jump-Start stage is this filthy fundraiser. The exceptional evening boasts whipped cream and vanilla pudding wrestling, live music by The Methane Sisters and Heather Leather, sexy bar hops, tons of…
S.A. Local Film Festival
Release Date: 2007-09-26 In a week filled with film happenin’s, the San Antonio Film Institute raises awareness about the city’s filmmaking appeal by screening eight selected short films by talented local filmmakers. Check out the premiere of Dr. “S” Battles the Sex-Crazed Reefer Zombies, a locally produced feature directed by Bryan Ortiz. Complimentary beer and…
Art Slam w. Big Soy, Dance Like Robots, Kick It, Univac, JJ Lopez, & Doc-J
Release Date: 2007-09-26 ARTSLAM — the local live art/music mix — will be hosting its first themed performance in honor of the recently celebrated “Talk Like A Pirate Day.” Local and out-of-town artists create works while Dance Like Robots, Big Soy, Univac, and more supply the tunes. Anyone sporting an eye patch and parrot will…
Gardens by Moonlight
Release Date: 2007-09-26 This perennial festival favorite features a cavalcade of bands performing live under the moon and stars. Charlie Robison and Dale Watson head the night’s line-up, while the RK Group serves up sumptuous culinary treats. The beautiful Garden grounds are open for strolling; great lighting and night-blooming flowers create the perfect backdrop for…
1000 Pounds of Sound
Release Date: 2007-09-26 A new San Antonio (by way of Amarillo) product, 1000 lbs. of Sound looks to slap some fresh performances on the local scene with trippy, groovy rhythms and an alternative blues style. They’ve rocked the Emergenza Music Festival stage more than once in Austin, and are awaiting the release of their sophomore…
Slam Your Rights: Poets Speak Out
Release Date: 2007-09-26 The current political climate affects our lives in many ways, so unleash frustrations about civil liberties, social injustice, and the war on reproductive rights in a poetry slam hosted by Planned Parenthood of San Antonio. Emcee Slammaster “Shaggy” and DJ Lenyrd Spinyrd spin the grooves, and featured poets Martha-Saenz Buchanan, Anthony M.…
Armchair Cinephile
PICK OF THE WEEK- Knocked Up (Universal): If you’ve only seen Judd Apatow’s movies in the theater, you’re missing a big wad o’ fun. The director’s improv-heavy shooting strategy means that dozens of filthy, nasty laffs are left on the cutting-room floor, for special-edition discs to gather later on. Universal, catering to fans who want…
Letter to the Editor
RE: ¡Ya basta!, posted September 19, 2007 john said: It is obvious that free-trade costs lives as corporate networks vie for the economic advantage of corraling whatever is cheap and inversely responsible for larger profits. And the bottom line for American workers in response to such FTA’s is where does that leave them. Human Rights…
It takes a ghost town
I’m a sucker for utopian sentiment. I like to believe that if we work hard enough, human societies are perfectible. It’s a nice buffer against reality. I’m also a “Greatest-Love-of-All”-ist. The children are our future, that lot. It’s easy on the conscience (and the work load) to be convinced — as my parents’ generation fades…
Big Grass Bamboo: Helping SA go green
Asian influence pervades all aspects of contemporary Western culture — food, art, fashion, and children’s cartoons. More and more we see the growing popularity of Asian-inspired home décor with prints depicting white-crested waves and workers tending to rice fields. Drive down Huebner Road on the weekend, pull into a gas-station parking lot, and purchase a…
Double jeopardy
On hold for Yoko Ono, and the phone system is playing “Watching the Wheels,” from Double Fantasy, the “comeback” album released by Ono and John Lennon shortly before he was murdered in New York on December 8, 1980. I’m back in my childhood basement in Minnesota, lounging on ribbon-candy shag carpet while the turntable plays.…
¡Ask a Mexican!
After the great migration of Jews to this nation, a question was posed: “How long does it take a Jew to go from being a street sweeper to becoming a corporate attorney?” The answer given was, “One generation.” Not so for Mexicans. Most Mexicans seem to recoil from education like the fictional Dracula recoils from…
ARTIFACTS
Filth, flair, and a frenzy of over-the-top events will be featured at Filthy F#@*IN’ Fest!, a fundraiser which benefits the performance As Filthy As It Gets (a winner of The Current’s Best of 2007 Critics’ and Readers’ picks) and Jump-Start Performance Co. Activities include whipped-cream wrestling, live music by The Methane Sisters and Heather Leather,…
Clothes-Minded
Walking up the stairs to jewelry designer Carroll Dorsey Walker’s second-floor boutique, I wondered why a young woman sat at a desk in the front window. It turns out the newly opened shop, Bejewel (located on 4901 Broadway, suite 221, above Mon’s Thai) is also Walker’s creative studio and office, where merchandise, supplies, and paperwork…
Instituto art project to unify cultures
Antonio Gomez’s favorite art comes from surrealism, a movement that is known for its elements of juxtaposition. So, it is fitting that he is the organizer of a project intended to form a union between two artistic locales. For the past few years, Gomez has been working to obtain a sculpture installation for the city…
Dear Uncle Mat
I met this guy just over a year ago. We have since become really good friends. When we first met we intended on it being a purely physical thing, as we met via gay.com. However, since our initial meeting we have become the closest of friends and I am still very attracted to him. I…
Exposing Big Oil’s red pen
Whistleblower Rick Piltz exposed the White House Council for Environmental Quality’s plot to maximize doubt about climate change by aggressively editing scientific reports on the topic. Since resigning a federal research job in 2005, Piltz founded Climate Science Watch, a public-interest watchdog group dedicated to monitoring the politicization of climate science. He comes to Fredericksburg…
Framed
This is a big blind spot for a lifelong comics enthusiast, but I have to admit I’ve never dug manga. Anime, from time-to-time (Miyazaki for sure, plus hokey Battle of the Planets stuff for guilty nostalgia), but those yards and yards of little volumes multiplying like kudzu near the bookstore’s graphic-novel section? Unless there’s a…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Your first assignment is to practice feeling that everywhere you go you are standing on holy ground. Capitalize that phrase in your imagination — “I AM STANDING ON HOLY GROUND” — as you move through the world. Your second assignment, which may at first seem unrelated, is to kick your evil…
Middle man
Local music promoter Roland Fuentes struggles to describe what he actually does in the industry. His job description has changed so much over the last 18 years, it’s hard for him to keep track. “I’m not a banker,” says Fuentes, 38, owner of the San Antonio-based promotions company Nightrocker Presents. “Everything’s not in black and…
¡Viva tequila!
No longer is tequila the rotgut white lightnin’ once renowned (in this country) for being cheap, quick, and lethal — not when a product such as Chinaco Negro can hit the shelves at $230 a bottle. The Negro is one of a new category of tequilas recently recognized by the Mexican government’s Consejo Regulador del…
THE SOUND & THE FURY
The Hollies never got to meet Buddy Holly and the Yardbirds never hung out with Charlie Parker. Girl in a Coma, however, recently had the opportunity to commune with the artist who provided them with their band name and continues to serve as their greatest inspiration. Of course, that artist is Morrissey and the vegan…
Amuse-Bouche
The Current got goosed in last week’s QueQue. Central Texas Animal Defense picketed Bistro Vatel September 15 because chef and owner Damien Watel serves foie gras — the duck/goose-liver delicacy produced through gavage, force-feeding with tubes — on the heels of a press release announcing that local fine-dining establishments Biga on the Banks, Las Canarias,…
On the Street
Carrot and Wine (On Stieren Street) The free wine and carrot sticks investigation continues. Get used to it. I began at Unit B. The obvious question – “how was the food and drink?” I wasn’t in the mood for carrots and cucumbers, and the gallery must have been on the same wavelength. For refreshments, I…
Victorian Vengeance
Goodbye Joe Blue’s. Hello SoHo. Marc Arevalos, the artist in the middle of the “Too Gay for Joe Blue’s” controversy, is set to have two openings this week beginning Thursday, September 27 at SoHo Wine and Martini Bar, located on 214 W. Crockett. His second show is set for First Friday at Armon Art Studio…
Academy fight songs, funded by Fall Out Boy
Way back when, Fall Out Boy was just another wannabe band and Fueled by Ramen was the small-time label that took a chance on them. Fall Out Boy has since become one of the biggest bands in the world and its bassist Pete Wentz, via his imprint DecayDance Records, has become the backbone of Ramen’s…
’Burb-friendly chorizo
I recently started watching the Food Network — partly for inspiration and partly because I now work at home and need outside stimulation. I don’t like most of the female cooking hosts — not because they don’t have any good ideas, but because they do. I just can’t handle the perkiness and “let’s decorate the…
Victorian Vengeance
Goodbye Joe Blue’s. Hello SoHo. Marc Arevalos, the artist in the middle of the “Too Gay for Joe Blue’s” controversy, is set to have two openings this week beginning Thursday, September 27 at SoHo Wine and Martini Bar, located on 214 W. Crockett. His second show is set for First Friday at Armon Art Studio…
On the Street
Carrot and Wine (On Stieren Street) The free wine and carrot sticks investigation continues. Get used to it. I began at Unit B. The obvious question – “how was the food and drink?” I wasn’t in the mood for carrots and cucumbers, and the gallery must have been on the same wavelength. For refreshments, I…
aural pleasure
From the Screen to Your Stereo Part II New Found Glory (Drive-Thru) New Found Glory ain’t exactly everybody’s cup of Earl Grey. You have to give them credit, though, for being just about the only emo-punk outfit to survive the millennium war for legitimacy that saw bands such as Sum 41 and A Simple Plan…
Mi Taza es su Taza
Owned and operated by Laredo native Judith Gonzalez Hanley, La Taza Coffee House is located in the all too bland Brook Hollow Shopping Center off of 281 North. Modestly hidden in the corner of the strip center, the cozy coffee-house ambiance today’s caffeine drinkers have become accustomed to is noticeably absent. Bright red cushy chairs…
Playback
The story goes that at one of George W. Bush’s private inauguration parties in 2001, the president gave Ted Nugent a big hug and told him: “Just keep doing what you’re doing.” You see, it was important to our chief executive that Nugent continue elevating the nation’s collective spirit with anthems such as “Yank Me,…
If the ‘Halo’ fits
A couple of weeks ago, the cats at Entertainment Weekly published a hysterical sit-down with Sean Young, the batshit actress whose promising late-’80s career (she starred in Blade Runner and No Way Out) went off the rails due to a series of bad breaks and foolish career decisions. Today, she’s a B-cable-movie dweller. “I’m not…
‘The War’: What is it good for?
On the one hand, there is art, and on the other is identity politics. Or such is the belief of acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns, who expressed this sentiment in a feature published by the New York Times. The two things, he said, “don’t mix.” The War, his approximately 15-hour, rather definitive-sounding documentary on World War…
One state, under suit
The Religious Right in Texas counts among its biggest recent success stories two pieces of legislation affecting (mostly) public-school children across the state. One, enacted in 2003, mandates a “moment of silence” and the recitation of the pledges to the U.S. and Texas flags during each school day. The Right’s second victory altered the Texas…
CRITICAL DARLING
The entertainment industry’s ogres — the ones who think they’re so edgy — have again illustrated just how little they understand our desires. What the world needs now is a television reality show concerning renowned YouTube “Britney-apologist” Chris Crocker, right? Crock, indeed. We’ll see if this one makes it out of development. If so, you…
Sovereignty bequeaths oblivion currency, shitface
Too hot In this socially fragmenting age of online alienation, Queque hungers. In the overly exploited world of worship, we thought surely a to-be-unearthed flavor would call to us. Yet, we found your neighbor’s brand too oppressive (read: raw woolen undies); the rock-n-roller church’s double bass drum destabilizing; and the feel-good chanters a wee ethereal.…
In praise of Julie Taymor’s strange visions
What do you call a theater professional who pushes the envelope of movement, voice, and dance? A visionary artiste. A film director who does the same? Box-office poison. So seems to be the conventional wisdom concerning Julie Taymor, whose third feature film is once again an object of wonder (and gossip) to blogerati everywhere. After…
In her own words
On Friday, May 4, 2007, as the Texas Legislature debated House Bill 1034 by State Rep. Debbie Riddle (R-Tomball), State Rep. Scott Hochberg (D-Houston), engaged Riddle in an exchange that could face close scrutiny in the coming months as federal courts try to determine whether or not the intent of the pledge law is secular…
Postcards on a scandal from the edge of reason
Dear Wes Anderson Let me begin by noting that I screened The Darjeeling Limited just last week, and I do believe it is your best work yet. Yes, I admit to being a fan to start with, one who feels very close to your work emotionally and culturally. Perhaps those notions elucidate my relative ease…
The world meets, Bush sits out
As world leaders gather this week to address the United Nations General Assembly, President Bush’s refusal to negotiate on the two key issues of our day — war and global warming — has been stunning. And the media hasn’t helped. Focusing on whether Columbia University should have invited Iran’s President Ahmadinejad to speak, the Bush…
Made for Manhattan
Call it “the Olympics of short film festivals.” At least that’s what Manhattan Short Film Festival project coordinator Herman Lira hopes people will regard the event as when the 2007 competition makes its way into San Antonio for its fifth straight year. “Unlike a local festival where you represent your city, in this festival you’re…
Revealing Briefs
SAN ANTONIO — A state district judge Monday denied an anti-toll-road activist’s request to halt the Texas Department of Transportation’s spending on an advertising program promoting toll roads and the Trans-Texas Corridor. Terri Hall, an activist with the San Antonio Toll Party and Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom alleged that TxDOT’s “Keep Texas Moving”…
