San Antonio Current - November 30, 2016

November 30-December 6, 2016

Christmas

Wednesday, December 7, 2016 | 7:30pm TOBIN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

Grammy ® award-winning Conspirare delivers vocal artistry in a celebration of love, connection and renewal.

Tickets: tobincenter.org or 210.223.8624 sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 3

ARTIST TALK November 30, 2016 at 6 p.m.

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101 Santa Rosa Ave. FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC MODERATOR: Veronique Le Melle, Executive Director of Artpace FEATURING: Ruth Buentello, Jenelle Esparza, Ana Fernandez, Tess Martinez Veronique Le Melle will lead a discussion with Latinas and women of color exhibited in the SATX/MX exhibit. Topics will include concerns regarding cultural and gender diversity in museums, galleries and cultural institutions and transparency of decision making within these institutions.

SATX/MX exhibit is currently on display through January 2017.

For more information, visit GetCreativeSanAntonio.com. #GetCreativeSA

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CURRENT • November 30-December 6, 2016 • sacurrent.com

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Exhibit Opening Reception: December 8, 2016 6-9 p.m.

101 Santa Rosa Ave. FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC This exhibit of photographs, paintings, historic cook books, and other two-dimensional artworks, explores San Antonio’s long tradition of Mexican, Mexican-American and Tex-Mex food culture, and celebrates the people - restaurateurs, patrons, and cooks – who continue this tradition in their homes, kitchens and restaurants.

Exhibit runs through February 17, 2017

A RT I ST S

Rolando Briseño David Casillas Jimena Marin Destiny Mata Arlene Mejorado Mark Menjivar Chuck Ramirez Featuring historic cook books from the UTSA Libraries Special Collections For more information, visit GetCreativeSanAntonio.com #GetCreativeSA

sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 5

San Antonio Current Publisher: Michael Wagner Editor in Chief: Michael Barajas Associate Publisher: Lara Fischer

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CURRENT • November 30-December 6, 2016 • sacurrent.com

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Ron White 27 SA Dent Company 18 SA Plastic Bricks 18 AT&T Center 28 Rampage 55 Saeb Thai & Noodles 36 Sancho's Cocina 32 SATX BARS 38 Shenanygan's 36 Slackers 30 Smokerz Paradise 28 South Texas Spice Company 36 Sub Zero Yogurt and Ice Cream 34 Tamales 13 Temptations Boutique 49 Texas Public Radio 38 The Friendly Spot 44 The Junction 18 The Motorcycle Shop 6 The Pearl Brewery 35 Tiagos Cabo Grill 36 Tobin Center 3 & 56 Tucker's Kozy Korner 46 Twin Liquors 18 Uptown Gypsy 14 Whole Earth Provision Co 7 Wurzbach Ice House 46 Yeya's Antiques 6

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sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 7

FIRST WORDS

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• Send your thoughts, comments, kudos or tips to letters@sacurrent.com

Texas could finally blunt its harsh marijuana laws next legislative session: “I thought I would never see the day. This is surreal. Ill be writing my reps in support of medical marijuana. If me or my husband were sick and felt relief from it I would want the ability to obtain it legally. Its just the humane thing to do.” – April Marie A guisada fest at Mary’s Snack Bar & Cafe:“Hey! This is my HANDS DOWN favorite taco spot in the UNIVERSE!!! Been going there since I was a child. Carne Guisada like no other in SA!” – Storie Saenz Judge who told newly-minted citizens to “go to another country” if they don’t like Trump will retire: “Way to go SA Current, brought down a man’s 30 year career by misquoting him.” – Clare Pace Rodgers Texas judge screws over 4.2 million Americans who were about to get overtime pay: “Happy Holidays to over worked & low paid salary employees – restaurant & retail supervisors totally screwed” – JJ Mazuca “Academic racist” coming to speak at Texas A&M: “Awesome way to change their reputation for being an intolerant and racist campus.”

– Jessica Ayala

IN THIS

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ISSUE Issue 16_48 /// November 30-December 6

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NEWS

Work Week Texas judge screws over 4.2 million Americans who were about to get overtime pay Black Friday Man shot to death for trying to stop assault in Walmart parking lot

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FEATURE

Lamar Smith’s War on Science How a Texas congressman’s newfound power could silence critical climate change research

COVER At a critical time to take action against climate change, one Texas congressman may have found a way to silence the most crucial answers. In this week’s feature, we explore U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith’s war on climate science.

Cover illustration by Jeremiah Teutsch Art direction by Sarah Flood-Baumann

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CURRENT • November 30-December 6, 2016 • sacurrent.com

CALENDAR

Our top picks for the week

Actual Innocence The San Antonio Four are finally exonerated

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ARTS + CULTURE

Cactus Face Artist’s work dismantles the shame of looking like your ancestors

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SCREENS

Bad Sequel Unlike the first one, Bad Santa 2 is a miserable, vulgar slog

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FOOD

Unique at Unifresh Local produce company supplies area restaurants with hard-to-source goods Food Court Hummus recall, no mas mezcal, and a new distillery

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ON THE

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NIGHTLIFE

Crowler Woes TABC faces setback in its war on crowlers

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MUSIC

Raise Your Voice Six uber-talented vocalists right here in SA Music Calendar What to see and hear this week

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51

ETC.

Savage Love Jonesin’ Crossword Freewill Astrology

sacurrent.com • November 23-29, 2016 • CURRENT 9

NEWS

COURTESY O FGOFUNDME.COM

BLACK FRIDAY

Man shot to death for trying to stop assault in Walmart parking lot MICHAEL BARAJAS | @MICHAELSBARAJAS

•

Police called MICHAEL BARAJAS | @MICHAELSBARAJAS Isidro Zarate a "good samaritan"

> Police say a father of four was shot and killed on Black Friday because he saw a man beating a woman in a northwest side Walmart parking lot and told him to stop.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus called the victim, identified as 39-year-old Isidro Zarate, a “good samaritan” who’d just dropped his wife off for some Black Friday shopping at the Walmart off Vance Jackson Road when he saw a man assaulting a woman in the parking lot. McManus said the assailant had grabbed the woman by the hair when Zarate tried to intervene.

According to McManus, Zarate pulled up in his car and, from the driver’s seat, told the man: “get your hands off her.” The assailant, later identified as 21-year-old Teles Mandan Juarez, “pulled a handgun and started firing rounds,” McManus said, striking Zarate in the neck and killing him.

One stray bullet hit another woman in the parking lot who was “not even involved,” McManus said. A

woman inside the car with Zarate suffered serious injuries from shrapnel.

McManus said a police helicopter chased the shooter after he fled from the parking lot, with officers eventually arresting him on the Westside near Cupples and Castroville roads. Officials have charged Juarez with aggravated assault and retaliation, but McManus said he will likely also face a murder charge.

Zarate’s murder comes as local police try to figure out what’s behind 2016’s spike in homicides, which police officials have in part blamed on the kind of domestic violence-related killings we’ve seen a lot of this year. When asked what to do if you see partner violence and want to intervene, McManus said “you have to give credit” to Zarate for trying to stop the assault. “I think anyone would do that. Unfortunately, this other man was too eager to shoot. I think anyone would try to intervene if they were to see something like that.”

007NATALIIA

WORK WEEK

Texas judge screws over 4.2 million Americans who were about to get overtime pay MICHAEL BARAJAS | @MICHAELSBARAJAS

> A judge in Texas has blocked a new federal overtime rule, which was set to go into effect this week, that would have made some 4.2 million American workers eligible for mandatory overtime pay, including some 370,000 Texans.

The injunction from U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant comes on the heels of yet another Texas-led legal assault on what was supposed to be a key Obama Administration policy. The rule, which sought to make it harder for employers to take advantage of low-paid

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employees, would have doubled the maximum salary at which someone working 40 hours a week can still earn mandatory overtime pay – raising the earning threshold from $23,600 a year to $47,467.

In September, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joined Nevada’s attorney general in filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Labor on behalf of 21 states seeking to block the new overtime rule, arguing it was – you guessed it – just another federal

overreach that would burden businesses.

In a statement last week, Paxton chided the new rule for imposing a “one-size-fitsall standard that only looks good in press statements. Not on my watch.”

Now many employers who granted yearend raises to bump workers over the new earning threshold face an awkward choice: do they claw back raises they’ve already promised or suspend them until the rule is ironed out by the courts?

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sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 11

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CURRENT • November 30-December 6, 2016 • sacurrent.com

THE HISPANIC CHAMBER LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION INVITES YOU TO

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CELEBRATE THE HOLIDAYS SAN ANTONIO-STYLE Free to the public – live music and fun activities for the whole family all day. Enjoy tamales of all kinds - from traditional to unique, plus many more Tex-Mex specialties.

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sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 13

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People’s Choice: Come and Taste it (CPS Energy team) Special thanks and gratitude to: Bexar County and the City of San Antonio Department of Human Services including: T&D Solutions, Chain Electric, Spectrum Reach, Alterman, Silver Eagle Distributors, University of the Incarnate Word, Skanska/Capital and Silver Springs Networks

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NEWS

MICHAEL BARAJAS

MICHAEL BARAJAS | @MICHAELSBARAJAS

ACTUAL INNOCENCE ≥

The claims were always fantastic — as in difficult to believe.

The girls, ages 7 and 9, told police and child protection workers that a weeklong visit to their aunt’s Westside San Antonio apartment in the summer of 1994 had turned into a sadistic, orgy-like nightmare.

They said their aunt, Elizabeth Ramirez, had red, wild eyes as she forced them into her bedroom. The girls said Ramirez’s friends — Kristie Mayhugh, Cassandra Rivera, and Anna Vasquez — held them down by their wrists and ankles, repeatedly raping them with various small objects. The girls spoke of syringes, vials of white powder, guns, and possibly a knife.

All four women turned down plea deals that would have allowed them to avoid prison time, believing their innocence would be proven in court.

During two separate trials, juries heard a maze of contradictions: The assaults happened at night, or sometime in the morning, or maybe in the afternoon while Full House was on TV. Mayhugh wasn’t there. Or was she? Ramirez pointed a gun at the girls as they spoke to their father on the phone, threatening them to keep quiet. Or perhaps Ramirez and Vasquez each had guns. Or maybe it was only Vasquez who was armed.

It wasn’t just the girls’ testimony that sent the women to prison, but also flawed forensic analysis from a local child abuse expert who told jurors there were physical signs the girls had experienced sexual trauma.

None of it was true, according to judges with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which last week issued a ruling exonerating the so-called San Antonio Four, women who have fought for more than two decades to prove their innocence.

In its ruling, the state’s highest criminal court blames the saga on a vindictive man named Javier Limon, the girls’ father and Ramirez’s one-time brother-in-law.

Ramirez has testified that the allegations

The San Antonio Four are finally exonerated

of abuse surfaced not long after she’d rejected Limon’s sexual advances. She also says that when she was pregnant, Limon wanted to be a father figure for her child. When she turned him down, Limon was furious, according to Ramirez.

In its ruling, the CCA says that Limon “has engaged in a pattern of threatening behavior” and “false allegations of sexual assault to gain leverage in disputes over custody of his children.” During a twoday evidentiary hearing last year, one of Limon’s ex-wives testified that he tracked her down, pulled a gun on her and threatened to kill her after she fled with their kids to Colorado. The incident led to a custody battle, during which Limon made up assault allegations against a man the girls had been left alone with.

“Javier also made false accusations that a non-existent 10-year-old boy in Colorado had sexually assaulted” one of his children, the CCA concluded. An investigation into the assault was dropped in 1992 after sexual assault examinations of the girls turned up nothing.

Stephanie, one of the girls who accused her aunt and three friends of graphic, violent assault years later, would ultimately testify that her father was abusive growing up. She testified that when she was 14, she tried to commit suicide, got treatment, wound up in a group home and never moved back in with him. When she was 19 years old, she told a counselor that she’d never been sexually assaulted — that the allegations against her aunt and her friends were lies. She says her counselor urged her to do the right thing and come forward.

Which she ultimately did. In 2012, she recanted on camera to Deborah Esquenazi, the filmmaker behind the widely-acclaimed documentary on the San Antonio Four case. On camera, Stephanie nervously read from a prepared statement, saying “I was threatened and

I was told that if I did tell the truth that I would end up in prison, taken away, and even get my ass beat.”

In court last year, Stephanie testified that when she called her father to let him know she was going to recant, “he told me that if I did that, that he was going to hit me where it hurt.” He followed through on his promise. In 2012, soon after his daughter recanted and blamed the lies on him, Limon accused his daughter of being a bad mother and tried to use the courts to take away her children (Limon’s effort failed and Stephanie kept her kids). Stephanie’s sister has not recanted her story.

In 2013, lawyers tried to overturn the women’s convictions under a new law that makes it easier to challenge a case based on junk science. Besides the girls’ disjointed stories on the stand, prosecutors had leaned on testimony from Nancy Kellogg, a local pediatrician and supposed expert in the field of child sexual trauma who testified that a tiny white “scar” on the hymen of the 9-yearold girl was likely evidence of sexual assault. In her exam notes, Kellogg also hinted at the long discredited “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s when she wrote that the abuse described by the girls “could be satanic-related.” (Kellogg later recanted her trial testimony, saying the science has since shifted.)

In large part due to Esquenazi’s documentary, the case of the San Antonio Four has in the past several years become a sort of cause célèbre among criminal justice reformers (who call it the last gasp of the so-called “ritual satanic abuse” panic) and LGBTQ advocates, who see homophobia in the way the women were treated at trial. Some point to statements made by prosecutors about the women’s “homosexual relationships” as sign that the four women, all lesbians, never had a chance at beating charges they molested little girls in the much more conservative San Antonio of the mid-90s.

Earlier this year, a state district court judge overturned the women’s convictions but said they weren’t “actually innocent” — an important distinction that would allow them to seek compensation from the state for time wrongly spent behind bars (all have already been released from prison). In its ruling, the CCA disagreed with the lower court, pointing to the state’s “exceedingly weak case for guilt.”

In many ways, the ruling reinforces what virtually every journalist who’s looked at it has concluded. Take, for example, former Express-News reporter Michelle Mondo’s 2012 investigation of the case, which was the first to highlight the many serious problems with it.

And in case anyone still has any doubts as to their innocence, here’s how the CCA capped its ruling on the San Antonio Four: “Those defendants have won the right to proclaim to the citizens of Texas that they did not commit a crime. That they are innocent. That they deserve to be exonerated. These women have carried that burden. They are innocent. They are exonerated. This court grants them the relief they seek.”

Keith Hampton, who represented Ramirez in her post-conviction hearings, told the Current the day before Thanksgiving, when the ruling dropped, that “we’re all just celebrating right now.” He says the court’s ruling is “basically everything we’ve wanted for such a long time.” Ramirez, who prosecutors considered the ringleader in the bizarre ritual abuse case, had once been sentenced to 37 years in prison for the assault. Hampton says that when he spoke to her on the phone shortly after the ruling came out, she was emotional upon hearing that the state’s highest criminal court had declared her unquestionably innocent.

“Liz was crying so heavily she couldn’t really even talk,” Hampton told us. “They were tears of joy.”

sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 15

O

ver Memorial Day weekend in 2015, a monster thunderstorm turned the arid Texas Hill Country into a murky swamp. Nonstop downpour had simultaneously tipped the San Marcos and Blanco Rivers over their banks, spilling powerful waves of muddy water throughout the region. In the small town of Wimberley, nestled in the valley between the two rivers, the flood waters devoured city sidewalks, uprooted hundred-year-old cypress trees, ripped homes from their foundation and killed eleven residents. Thousands became homeless overnight.

A day later, Congressman Lamar Smith, who represents Wimberley’s district in Washington D.C., arrived to survey the damage. Dressed in a blue dress shirt and pressed khakis, the 68-year-old San Antonio native visited the remains of town bridges and shook the hands of business owners whose livelihoods were destroyed by the crashing flood.

“There’s great tragedy, there’s great devastation,” he told a FOX News reporter that night. “But people are coming back...there’s that sense of the American spirit.”

While the Wimberley floods were the largest in state history, Smith certainly wasn’t a stranger to extreme weather. Over the past few years, severe droughts, blazing wildfires and torrential storms had ravaged the ten counties that lie within his district. Climate researchers have directly linked these drastic weather events to manmade global warming — but Smith had never mentioned its role in the storms that brought him back to walk the flood-damaged streets and dry, dusty creek beds of Central Texas year after year.

In fact, Smith would scoff just a few weeks later when reading a study from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration disproving the idea that global warming had slowed down. That’s because Smith, who chairs the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, is a climate change skeptic.

Smith may genuinely reject the science behind global warming — or may just be spreading the message his main

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CURRENT • November 30-December 6, 2016 • sacurrent.com

H'S

WAr on

How a Texas congressman’s newfound power could silence critical climate change research

LA MA R SMIT

ALEX ZIELINSKI | @ALEX_ZEE

campaign donors in the oil and gas industry want him to plug. But either way, some view him as a serious threat to the planet’s future.

For the past two years, Smith has led an unforgiving attack on major science organizations that study climate change in the United States — and the lawmakers that use their work to inform policy. In particular, Smith believes that climate researchers have become political pawns, forced by the Obama Administration to create false data to validate Obama’s “burdensome” climate change regulations. Smith has yet to provide evidence backing this theory.

That, however, hasn’t stopped him from subpoenaing every single organization or politician he suspects are in on the conspiracy. So far, he’s issued 24 subpoenas — a number he’s boasted about on multiple occasions. Before Smith’s rule, the science committee had only issued one subpoena since its 1958 inception.

For now, researchers have refused to play along, arguing that Smith's baseless accusations intentionally distract climate scientists from conducting research, thus stunting the country’s understanding of the looming climate crisis. But Smith, wielding an unprecedented amount of power as the chair of the House science committee, has threatened to hold them in contempt of Congress, a move that would further divert scientists from their work.

It’s one thing for a politician to doubt a proven scientific phenomenon. It’s another, scientists argue, for him to muzzle research that goes against those doubts. (Smith, through his staff, declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this article.)

At a critical time to take action against climate change, one man may have found a way to silence the most crucial answers.

Last year, a monster thunderstorm turned the Hill Country into a murky swamp.

n Science CLINTON BAILEY VIA YOUTUBE

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mith has a history of bending facts to fit his political mood.

In March 1999, Smith, already 12 years into representing Texas in Congress, led a hearing on immigration reform. Smith, sitting behind a clunky microphone, still had a full head of brown hair — a look he still attempts to mimic — and a smooth, wrinkle-free forehead. He didn’t need glasses to read his opening statements.

“How many illegal aliens are living in the United States today?” he asked the quiet room. “Numbers do not tell the whole story.”

He went on to explain how undocumented immigrants are the sole importers of gang activity and drug crimes in America. But there was a hint of sympathy in his remarks.

That November, shortly after electoral votes handed George W. Bush the presidency, Smith signed a letter to then-Attorney General Janet Reno asking her to “use discretion” when deporting immigrants, arguing that “unfair” deportations had caused “unjustifiable hardship” for undocumented immigrants.

A decade later, Smith penned a bill that would effectively ban the Obama Administration from using discretion in immigration cases. He called Obama’s policy to prioritize high-risk undocumented immigrants before those who haven’t ever committed a crime a “plot,” despite it being a near duplicate of the plan he endorsed in 1999.

Along with his anti-immigrant stance, Smith is known for spearheading a 2011 bill called the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. Under the guise of fighting online copyright infringement, SOPA threatened the U.S. with sweeping internet censorship — and was extinguished after months of protest from free speech advocates. SOPA would have benefitted companies like Verizon, Time Warner and AT&T, some of Smith’s top campaign donors. AT&T alone has contributed more than $133,000 to Smith’s political campaigns.

Despite SOPA’s failure and his well-recorded disbelief in climate change, Smith was appointed to chair the

House Committee on Science, Space and Technology in 2013. Smith, a Christian Scientist, had graduated from Yale with a Bachelor’s Degree in American Studies. In an interview with The Hill, Smith said he was qualified for the chair seat because “long ago and far away, I won the Bausch & Lomb Science Award in high school.”

Then, in early 2015, House Republicans introduced a new rule that would reshape Smith’s legacy: committee chairs were no longer required to get approval from any committee members before issuing subpoenas.

Smith was officially unleashed.

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t began when the NOAA report landed on Smith’s desk, shortly after his return from stormravaged Wimberley. Researchers had found that previous reports of global warming slowing down or “pausing” were wrong — the world was still heating up at a concerning rate.

Smith immediately sought to discredit the study, arguing that the timing of the report was sloppily rushed to come out before the United Nations’ upcoming climate summit in Paris. Plus, he added, the Obama Administration had probably forced scientists to skew data to validate its brand-new Clean Power Plan.

He was certain that NOAA’s report was part of a massive conspiracy to validate the Clean Power Plan’s additional regulations on gas, oil and energy companies — the same companies that have donated more than $600,000 to Smith’s political campaigns.

“It was inconvenient for this administration that climate data has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades,” said Smith, in his letter to NOAA. How could multiple studies that showed a stall in climate change, including the widely-sourced report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have been wrong? According to NOAA scientists, these past reports had relied on outdated tools sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 17

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for collecting surface temperatures — their new study used an improved methodology to produce more accurate data, factoring in issues that previous researchers ignored.

Even the IPCC admitted their data on a climate change “pause” was flawed. Their numbers were skewed by volcanic eruptions, a decrease in solar activity, aerosols, and regional weather patterns across the largest oceans.

Smith promptly subpoenaed NOAA for documents on its scientists’ data. NOAA declined, since all of this data was already available online — it’s the law. To make it easier, NOAA staffers printed out the public research and handed it over to his office. That didn’t cut it for Smith.

“NOAA needs to come clean about why they altered the data to get the results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda,” he demanded.

Which raises a serious concern: Smith doesn’t appear to understand the purpose of scientific research. NOAA scientists didn’t alter the data, but rather added new information to a growing, global pool of research. This process is a core piece of scientists’ work — comparing past research to current data.

“We don’t rely on one paper to bring us the answers, we rely on thousands. Science needs to be applied under the fundamental curiosity of research,” said Lawrence Krauss, a physicist and professor at Arizona State University. The more research that exists on a topic, the better, he added — even if it ultimately disproves a scientist’s original belief.

“That’s the beauty of science, we force our beliefs to align with science, not the other way around,” Krauss said.

“But that scares some people.”

Smith’s fellow Democratic committee members weren’t pleased with his subpoenas. In a blistering six-page letter, Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), ranking member of the science committee, called Smith’s so-called investigation a “witch hunt” driven by a partisan agenda.

“The Constitution doesn’t imbue you with the power to sanction a separate and equal branch of government simply because they won’t entertain your baseless conspiracy theories,” she wrote.

Smith charged on, opening another investigation while he waited for NOAA to comply to his liking.

This time, however, it was against politicians who were subpoenaing another group of scientists.

But these scientists weren’t employed by the government to inform public policy, like NOAA’s — they were longtime private employees of one of the largest oil conglomerates in the country, ExxonMobil.

Around the same time Smith was grilling NOAA staffers, investigative reporters unearthed internal documents from ExxonMobil that suggested its scientists had known about the dangers of climate change as early as the 1970s. Two attorneys general, Massachusetts’ Maura Healey and New York’s Eric Schneiderman, subpoenaed the Texas-based oil giant for documents to prove that staff had intentionally hid this information from the public and investors.

Suddenly, the very tool Smith proudly used to dig into NOAA had turned against him — or rather, against

a company that had given him $22,270 in campaign donations.

So Smith let even more subpoenas fly. He swiftly subpoenaed both attorneys general and eight environmental groups that had provided the AGs with climate change research and legal information, demanding they hand over all emails related to the ExxonMobil investigation. Smith’s reasoning was nearly identical to Rep. Johnson’s argument against the NOAA probe.

“The committee is concerned that these efforts to silence speech are based not on sound legal or scientific arguments,” Smith wrote. “[The subpoenas were an] infringement on the First Amendment rights of American citizens and their ability to fund and conduct scientific research free from intimidation and threats of prosecution.”

Ken Kimmel, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, one of the targeted organizations, called Smith’s subpoena a “farce.”

“It’s ironic that Representative Smith sees our work as an attempt to stifle scientific discourse, when he has spent the last 10 months harassing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists whose research he doesn’t like,” wrote Kimmel in a response to the committee’s subpoenas. In this “request for transparency,” Smith had seemed to reveal his own political — and corporate — biases.

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mith’s flip-flopping certainly isn’t unusual in modern-day Congress. Neither is his eagerness to silence scientific data that goes against his public and private allegiances. For decades, politicians stifled research linking lung cancer to smoking to appease their wealthy friends in the tobacco industry. Since 1996, politicians financially backed by the National Rifle Association have blocked any federal funding from going toward gun violence research.

And more recently, major organizations like the NFL and Monsanto have been caught tinkering with federal research to cut regulations they don’t like.

What’s different about Smith’s fight is its scope, said Andrew Rosenberg, the director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

UCS is one of the eight organizations subpoenaed for emails between their staff and members of the attorneys general offices. In total, more than 2,000 scientists, researchers, policy experts and legal staff are employed by these organizations. They all are responsible to comply with this subpoena.

“He’s not just targeting one industry like those in the past,” he said. “It’s an entire community, an entire area of science.”

The only comparison, Rosenberg said, is the calculated assault on fetal tissue research coming from another arm of Congress, the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Like Smith, energy committee chair Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has justified her attack with a empty suspicion — the belief that Planned Parenthood profits off fetal tissue that scientists use for research, a claim that investigations in a dozen states have sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 19

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It’s an EntirE community, an EntirE arEa oF sciEncE.

°Andrew Rosenberg

DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND DEMOCRACY AT THE UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS

debunked. Her only evidence is a collection of discredited undercover videos. But, thanks to the updated House rule, this hasn’t stopped Blackburn from subpoenaing dozens of research organizations for documents, including employees’ bank statements and personal information.

Blackburn and Smith have found a way to use subpoenas to, in essence, hold scientists hostage.

Rosenberg is quick to compare Smith to former Senator Joseph McCarthy, who used his subpoena power to discredit and threaten the livelihoods of thousands of Americans, falsely accusing them of being Communists and Soviet spies. Smith must have also seen himself in the late McCarthy, since he directly relied on McCarthy’s investigations to justify the subpoenas he sent climate scientists.

“The First Amendment...is not an impenetrable shield to Congressional inquiry,” writes Smith in a letter to UCS, explaining why he’s allowed to demand all communications from the private nonprofit. In the letter, Smith directly cited Watkins v. United States, the Supreme Court case centered on McCarthy’s House UnAmerican Activities Committee.

To meet Smith’s subpoena demands, UCS is required to hand over all emails that specifically include the words “climate” and “science.” This would take weeks, said Rosenberg, undermining any research the scientists could otherwise be spending time on, and discourage scientists from publishing future work on climate change, now that they know the tedious consequences.

To Kerry Cook, a climate scientist and professor at the University of Texas at Austin, that seems to be the entire 20

CURRENT • November 30-December 6, 2016 • sacurrent.com

point of issuing these burdensome subpoenas. She fears the investigation is meant to have a “chilling effect” on all climate science. Cook has spent decades studying global warming — even working for NOAA at one point — and is too familiar with the consequences of studying a “controversial” area of science.

“Climate scientists always keep a low profile, we’re afraid of federal government,” Cook says. “It’s incredibly expensive to deal with a federal investigation. It could ruin a career.”

It’s become such a problem, she said, that a former climate researcher has created a legal defense fund just for climate scientists. And it’s not like the field is financially secure to begin with — Cook said that public funding for climate research, especially in Texas, is already scant.

Hindered research, political tip-toeing, a mountain of lawyer’s fees: These scare tactics could easily deter future scientists from studying global warming. It’s a question climate researchers hear far too often: “Is it worth it?”

“If someone is deciding on a research area, are they really going to choose one that is under attack by the government?” asked Krauss, who's a board member with the Federation of American Scientists. “It’s a tough sell.”

Thus, Smith’s subpoenas have the potential to shrink the national pool of climate scientists — slowing crucial research needed to inform policy on climate change.

But this isn’t just about censoring climate change research. If Smith is successful in hindering climate science progress with his subpoenas, he could effectively clear a path for future lawmakers to follow. In short, every committee chair in Congress could use their subpoena power to stifle research that clashes with their political agenda.

“Our democracy relies on an informed public,” Krauss argued. “It’s now becoming hard to distinguish between scientific issues and political opinions.”

Politicians don’t run for Congress to practice science, he added. Their main priority should be the people they represent. For Smith, those people happen to live in one of the regions most threatened by global warming, making his anti-science crusade particularly troublesome.

“Global warming is affecting entire world, but it’s particularly hurting Texans,” said Ginny Catania, a geology professor at the University of Texas. Catania’s been studying the world’s shrinking ice sheets and rising sea level for several years, and can easily see how these larger changes affect her home state.

From Hurricane Ike’s devastating floods along the Gulf Coast to Bexar County’s baseball-sized hail storm just earlier this year, it’s nearly impossible to ignore the shifting weather across Texas.

And such extreme weather is only expected to increase.

Most coastlines in Texas are 10 centimeters away from sea level, said Catania. If current studies are right, oceans should rise by at least 1 meter, or 3 feet, by the end of the 21st century, meaning Port Arthur, Galveston, Corpus Christi and other cities along the Gulf Coast could be marshlands in 80 years.

Meanwhile, the state’s many oil, gas and coal-fueled energy companies continue churning out carbon dioxide, the very chemical responsible for widespread

warming — making Texas the country’s top contributor to climate change.

These companies include San Antonio’s NuStar Energy, the number one campaign donor to Smith’s most recent run, Honeywell, another Smith backer who opened a new Liquefied Natural Gas production facility in Brownsville last year, and Valero Energy, a San Antonio-based oil refiner who’s given Smith nearly $80,000 in campaign donations throughout his career.

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mith’s dismissal of a destructive climate shift that is visibly playing out across his state isn’t just reckless, said Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas. It’s immoral.

“It’s preposterous that the chair of the science committee doesn’t accept evidence of climate change, especially coming from Texas researchers,” Metzger said. “It goes against his role as a representative to look out for the safety of the people he represents. He’s neglecting them.”

The polls say otherwise. On November 8, Smith’s constituents re-elected him to represent Texas' Congressional District 21 for the 30th year in a row. Smith has yet to win a general election by less than 60 percent of the vote.

But, Metzger added, that’s because Smith’s district is the result of Texas’ 2003 redistricting plan that shifted Texas’ US House delegation to a Republican majority. In a dependably conservative district, it’s almost guaranteed that Smith will never lose an election “It would take a huge amount of money to unseat him,” Metzger said. “In the meantime, drought, flooding, wildfires —the effects of climate change — are costing Texans their lives, property and jobs.”

This May, on the anniversary of the 2015 floods, Wimberley residents met at the banks of the Blanco River to stick handmade prayer flags in the mud. Crumbling foundation and piles of water-damaged, forgotten appliances still littered the banks of the calm river. Some of the wealthier victims of the flood had rebuilt their vacation homes along the Blanco River. But not all were so lucky.

“Just take a look around my neighborhood now,” Antonio Monterroso, who lived just east of Wimberley, told Spectrum News. “It was bad at that time; now it is pretty much destroyed.”

Monterroso had just put his house on the market before an October flood destroyed the months’ repair he put into the home after the Memorial Day storm. He was back to square one — and was feeling hopeless.

“It disappoints us that our authorities just forget us,” he said. “They don’t do anything for us, pretty much, around here. It may change.”

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., his representative, Lamar Smith had just become the first member of Congress to endorse a longshot candidate for president. It made sense; the two had a lot in common. Like Smith, Donald Trump believed climate change was a “hoax.” And, like Smith, he was about to have an unrestricted amount of power. azielinski@sacurrent.com

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ART

◀ Currently an MFA candidate at the University of Texas at San Antonio, Chicano artist and musician Jason Eric Gonzales Martinez works between sculpture, performance art and assemblage to create “artefacts/ mixtech” that deal directly with “the experience of Texas Mexican Americans and the hybridity that is formed by living as an intersectional being.” That hybrid classification begins to make a lot of sense when you study his deftly executed creations, many of which could indeed pass for mysterious relics left behind by a lost civilization. Often incorporating earthy materials (corn masa, nopales, leather, clay, wood, bronze, found objects, etc.), Mesoamerican symbols and rasquache sensibilities, Martinez’s works come to light in “nos/ otras,” an MFA thesis exhibition hosted in UTSA’s offsite gallery Terminal 136. Free, 6-9pm Thu-Fri, Terminal 136, 136 Blue Star, (210) 458-4352, art.utsa.edu. — Bryan Rindfuss

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Jeff Dunham

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◀ Ventriloquist Jeff Dunham makes bank! Not only is he considered the topgrossing stand-up comedy act in North America, he’s also ranked the third highest-paid comedian in the U.S. behind Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock. Who knew playing with puppets could be so profitable? Still, as popular as he is, Dunham, 54, who rolls into San Antonio for his Perfectly Unbalanced tour, isn’t a stranger to controversy, specifically for using two of what many of his detractors call racially insensitive and stereotypical ventriloquist dummies in his act — Achmed the Dead Terrorist (“I keel you!”) and José Jalapeño on a Stick. So, why hasn’t president-elect Donald Trump already booked him as pre-show entertainment for the inauguration? Well, maybe it’s because Dunham isn’t what most critics would consider a funny guy. Bluntly put: He aims for the low-hanging fruit and eats well. He’s the Tyler Perry of ventriloquism. Gawker once called him one of the “Most Hated Comedians of All Time.” Current New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik once asked, “In all seriousness: What is it about Jeff Dunham that I do not get?” The answer is most certainly nothing. $49.50, 7:30pm, AT&T Center, One AT&T Center Pkwy., (210) 444-5000, attcenter.com. – Kiko Martinez

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◀ While most contenders in the NBA place premium value on chemistry, the Spurs continue to compete with an emphasis on what Gregg Popovich calls “corporate knowledge.” Loosely defined as an intrinsic familiarity with Spurs sets, complimented by a sense of humor and the ability to “get over oneself,” corporate knowledge has been tested early this season with the abundance of new faces on San Antonio’s roster. Nothing against Matt

CURRENT • November 30-December 6, 2016 • sacurrent.com

Bonner, but now that Coach Pop’s ideal starting lineup has been restored, things are starting to click for the silver and black on both ends of the floor.

The reemergence of Pau Gasol and the passing game should offer a solid counter to Washington’s promising yet dysfunctional backcourt on Friday night. $30.00-$1843.00, 7:30pm, AT&T Center, One AT&T Center, (210) 444-5000, attcenter.com – M. Solis

‘Borderwavve’ ART ▲ With only a couple of exhibitions under its belt, Presa House Gallery has proven itself as an independent art space worth keeping an eye on. Coming from a decidedly different angle than much of the politically charged, often explicit contemporary art addressing the U.S.-Mexico border, the gallery’s December show “Borderwavve” brings together four artists employing the visual vocabulary of abstraction to “shatter misconceptions and claim their space in the art world, on behalf of la frontera.” A selftaught artist and co-founder of the Tejano band Elida y Avante, Brownsville-born Cande Aguilar, Jr. earned his classification as a “barrio pop artist” via large-scale canvases combining elements of pop culture, graffiti and cartooning.

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THEATER Christmas Eve, 1914: hunkered down in the trenches, British soldiers begin to hear something unusual — instead of exploding shells, strains of the carol “Stille Nacht” begin to cross No Man’s Land as German soldiers sing to mark the holiday. Soon after, soldiers began to lay down their weapons and cross into No Man’s Land. They exchanged gifts of food and tobacco, sang together, and even buried each other’s dead. Styled as a radio musical drama, All Is Calm tells the story of the Christmas Truce through the words of those who were there, using text from “letters, journals, official war documents, poetry [and] grave stone inscriptions” among its sources. The Playhouse’s production features San Antonio’s all-male a capella group The Marcsmen, and for anyone looking for a double dose of holiday cheer, a special double feature of All Is Calm and A Marcsmen Christmas will run on December 17. $10-$40, 8pm Fri-Sat, 3pm Sun, The Playhouse, 800 W. Ashby Pl., (210) 733-7258, theplayhousesa.org. — KMN

Born in the Mexican state of Coahuila and based in Austin, Gerardo Arellano puts a postmodern spin on border culture via expressionist works riddled with familiar symbols.

A “self-informed” painter with an extensive exhibition history, Piedras Negras-born, San Antonio-based artist Jorge Purón draws creative inspiration from life and work on both sides of the border. A self-taught multidisiplinary artist with ties to the forthcoming Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Ciudad Acuña, Aldo Fabian Ramos explores cross-cultural identity through paintings and drawings distinguished by a vivid palette and “collaged visionary symbolism.” Free, 6-11pm, Presa House Gallery, 725 S. Presa St., (210) 973-8947, facebook.com/ presahouse. — BR

COURTESY OF SOUTHWEST SCHOOL OF ART

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Articopia

◀ The Southwest School of Art’s Articopia holiday bazaar has returned for another year, filling the campus’ Coates Chapel with unique and handmade objects perfect for all your gifting needs. Vendors run the gamut from letterpress prints to modern apparel and home decor. For the environmentally-conscious, Casey Galloway’s Hand Eye Textiles features scratch-made shawls that use fibers she colors using natural dyes then hand-weaves into finished garments – the holy grail for crunchy fashionistas – and Boyd’s Farm’s bath and body products are organic, vegan, and scented with essential oils, providing a gentle clean without harsh chemicals. If you’re looking for gifts with a sense of humor, Barbaco Apparel’s cheeky screen-printed tees will allow you to immortalize your bestie’s taco order so that you never forget it again, and Tattoos & Love Letters’ punny greeting cards will delight your goofy pen pal. The more refined among us will enjoy Loyalty & Blood’s geometric jewelry designs and Guten Co.’s minimalist ceramics. This year also features the introduction of the Feral Cat Collective, which will feature items made by the school’s BFA students. SSA Members will have access to an exclusive preview from 5-6 pm on Friday for an hour of V.I.P. shopping, after which the rest of us plebeians can get our shop on. Free, 6-9pm Fri, 10am-5pm Sat, Southwest School of Art, Coates Chapel, 300 Augusta St., (210) 224-1848, swschool.org. — Kelly Merka Nelson

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◀ Over the last three decades, the 1985 comedy adventure starring a pubescent Sean Astin and a slightly-older Josh Brolin has seen its cinematic cult status rise so much that GenXers who are smitten by nostalgia don’t care that the movie is sort of just alright (same thing for millennials and their love for Hocus Pocus, which many of them consider a Halloween classic). But I digress. Every parent should enjoy sharing something they loved during their childhood with their own young kids (I have my five-year-old daughter watching The Princess Bride and Pee-wee’s Big Adventure right now), so if your soft spot happens to be laughing at the scene where Chunk does the Truffle Shuffle or reveling in the heroics of a swashbuckling Sloth, so be it. You won’t have more fun experiencing a movie with your little ones than at one of the popular outdoor screenings sponsored by Slab Cinema. And what about that long-anticipated Goonies sequel? No new news to report, but back in 2010 Brolin told the Current, “I’m loyal to [ The Goonies ]. I would probably do anything they wanted me to … unless I thought the role was ridiculous.” Free, 7pm, Hemisfair Park, Yanaguana Gardens, 434 S. Alamo St., (210) 212-9373, slabcinema.com. – KM FILM

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The Goo Goo Dolls

Jimmie Vaughan

◀ Austin-based electric blues man Jimmie Vaughan, the older and slightly less celebrated brother of Stevie Ray Vaughan, is a multiple Grammy winner, a dedicated student and practitioner of American rock ‘n’ roll, jazz and blues, and a guitar virtuoso par excellence. Recently, he’s been quiet on the album release front, but has stayed busy touring, including a guest spot playing with the Foo Fighters on the PBS show Austin City Limits in 2015. As with any guitar great, Vaughan’s prowess is most fully on display in the live setting where his fingers can trace his racing mind and consistently inventive musical ideas upon his guitar with unfettered abandon.

While blues music may not exactly be in vogue these days, Vaughan’s signature style of writing and playing will never be obsolete. $22-$100, 9pm, Sam’s Burger Joint, 330 E. Grayson St., (210) 223-2830, samsburgerjoint.com. — James Courtney

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▶ Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons carved a niche in the American consciousness when they broke onto the scene in the 1960s. Even those of us who live under a rock can’t help but be familiar with the beloved hits “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” That being said, until Jersey Boys premiered on Broadway in 2005, not much was widely known about the men behind the band, and for good reason – public knowledge of the band members’ spotty history (which included jail time) and ongoing financial issues would have only harmed their careers.

Yet, with the cooperation of the surviving members of the group, writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice used The Four Seasons’ greatest hits to weave the band’s story into a Tony Award-winning

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musical. The touring production stops off in San Antonio this week, and is well worth a scoot over to the Majestic for a night of nostalgia and drama. $30$110, 7:30pm, The Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. — KMN

▲ The Goo Goo Dolls are worth seeing in 2016. Now, now… Hear me out. This pop/ alt-rock band, which was actually formed in 1986, is a quintessential 1990s radio band.

With the recent waves of 1990s nostalgia, it is no surprise that the Goo Goo Dolls are touring extensively, but it’s also worth noting that they never really stopped. While you may think of them as a one-hit-wonder (remember the once ubiquitous ballad “Iris?”), the group has actually released 11 studio albums — five since the year 2000 — including this year’s effort Boxes. While there is nothing experimental or groundbreaking about the band (presently or probably ever), lead man John Rzeznik is a good songwriter, splitting his time (especially of late) between power ballads and alt-rock anthems. Plus, the band will totally be playing both “Iris” and “Black Balloon.” What more do you people want? $35-$1,250, 8pm, Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 8124355, theaztectheatre.com. — JC

COURTESY OF THE GOO GOO DOLS

COUTESY OF JIMMIE VAUGHN

The Goonies

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ART Art Opening: “A Painting’s a Painting, No Matter How Small” TwoTen Fine Art unveils an exhibit of works no larger than 80 square inches. Free, 5-8pm Thursday; TwoTen Fine Art, 2518 N. Main Ave, (210) 399-3255.

Art Opening: Neo Geometric Realm Join Mercury Project as they feature artists Jorge Purón, Louis Vega Treviño and Marc Wiegand to explore the visual thrill that is the Neo Geometric Realm. Free, 6-9pm; Mercury Project, 538 Roosevelt, (210) 478-9133.

“Beck Whitehead & Pulparazzi” The Southwest School of Art bids adieu to its longtime papermaking and book arts department chair Beck Whitehead with a survey showcasing her work and opening in tandem with solo shows featuring Israeli mixed-media artist Hadar Sobol, local photographer Erin Neve and New Mexico’s Todd Christensen. Free, 9am-5pm Monday-Saturday, 11am-4pm Sunday; Southwest School of Art, 3000 Augusta St., (210) 224-1848.

International Artist-in-Residence Exhibition Curated by MASS MoCA’s Denise Markonish, the fall 2016 edition of Artpace’s revered International Artist-in-Residence program comprises site-specific exhibitions by Lily Cox-Richard (Houston), Kim Faler (Williamstown, Massachusetts) and Kim Morgan (Halifax, Canada). Free, noon-5pm Wednesday-Sunday; Artpace, 445 N. Main Ave., (210) 212-4900.

Museum Shop Holiday Fair Visit SAMA for artful holiday shopping featuring local artisans with art activities for children, music and food for sale. Free gallery tours available at 11:30am and 1pm. Free, 10:30am-5pm Saturday; San Antonio Museum of Art, 200 W. Jones Ave., (210) 978-8100.

“Telling Tales: Contemporary Narrative Photography” Billed as the McNay’s first large-scale exhibition of photography, the survey features contemporary masters like Nan Goldin, Gregory Crewdson, Philip-

Lorca diCorcia and Jeff Wall constructing suspended stories that address everything from class differences and marginalized communities to social justice and the onset of the AIDS epidemic. $15-$20, 10am-9pm Thursday, 10am-4pm Tuesday, Wednesday, Fridays, 10am-5pm Saturday and noon-5pm Sunday; McNay Art Museum, 6000 N. New Braunfels Ave., (210) 824-5368.

URBAN-15’s 2016 Holiday Laser Show 2016 marks URBAN-15’s 12th annual Holiday Laser Show, a multimedia spectacular of choreographed laser beams, colorful 3D animation and light effects performed to traditional holiday favorites and experimental electronic composition. $10$15, 7pm Tuesday; Lila Cockrell Theatre, 200 E. Market St., (210) 736-1500.

THEATER Las Nuevas Tamaleras This San Antonio yuletide favorite touches on the hard work, bonding and mishaps intrinsic to yuletide tamaladas. Alicia Mena’s one-act comedy shows struggling first-time tamaleras who get an unexpected assist from the ghosts of tamal authorities Doña Juanita and Doña Mercedes. $12-$50, 8pm Friday-Saturday, 3pm Sunday; Guadalupe Theater, 1301 Guadalupe, (210) 223-2009.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat The first collaboration of the legendary Sirs Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, Joseph tells the cheerful and family-friendly story of Jacob’s favorite son and the jealous brothers who sell him into slavery in Egypt. Many songs in the show become comic parodies of diverse musical genres, from country-western to calypso to rock ‘n roll. $17-$26, 7:30 pm FridaySaturday, 3pm Sunday.; Woodlawn Theatre, 1920 Fredericksburg Road, (210) 267-8388.

Merry Gentlemen Written and directed by local playwright Sheila Rinear and drawing inspiration from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Merry Gentlemen tells the story of Ben and Tim Dickens, a father and son whose lives have been on hold since a car accident killed Mrs. Dickens and damaged Tim’s leg. Similarly to the infamous Ebenezer Scrooge, on the Christmas holiday Ben is visited by a series of ghosts who press upon him to reconnect with the world despite the tragedy his family has suffered. $10-15, 8 pm Friday-Saturday; The Gregg Barrios Theater at the Overtime, 1203 Camden, (210) 557-7562.

WORDS Henry Rollins Spoken Word Tour Fans can expect Henry to mix timely commentary on the current state of politics with

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CURRENT • November 30-December 6, 2016 • sacurrent.com

anecdotes on his latest L.A. experiences and perspective gained from his extensive world travels. $35, 8pm Wednesday; Aztec Theatre, 104 N St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355.

COMEDY Adam Carolla Drinks Presents A Night of Music & Comedy Carolla Drinks’ inaugural tour lands at Jack’s Bar for a night filled with stand-up comedy from Ryan Doon and George Perez and live music by Laxi, The Vegabonds and The Heroine. $15, 7pm Wednesday; Jack’s Bar, 3030 Thousand Oaks, (210) 494-2309.

Corey Holcomb Corey Holcomb (Chicago) often bills himself as the “ghetto Dr. Phil” because most of his standup material revolves around relationships, particularly relationships gone wrong. He has appeared in three comedy specials of his own, The Problem Is You, Comedy Central Presents, and Your Way Ain’t Working and has guest starred on sitcoms such as Half & Half, Everybody Hates Chris, Tyler Perry’s House of Payne and Black Jesus. $22.50, 8pm & 10:15pm Friday-Saturday, 8pm Sunday; Rivercenter Comedy Club, 849 E. Commerce, (210) 229-1420.

Doug Benson Doug Benson (Last Comic Standing, Super High Me) has been on an album-a-year schedule since 2008, has several popular podcasts (including Doug Loves Movies and Getting Doug With High), does the occasional film (The Greatest Movie Ever Rolled, Chronic-Con) and makes regular appearances on @midnight on Comedy Central. Such a busy schedule for High Times’ 2006 Stoner of the Year. $20, 4:20pm Saturday; Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, 618 NW Loop 410, (210) 541-8805.

SPECIAL EVENTS Holiday Magic Festival of Lights Holiday Magic Festival of Lights is an East-meetsWest holiday celebration featuring giant illuminated Chinese lanterns. Millions of Christmas lights, 30-foot tall themed displays, a 36-foot Christmas tree, Santa Claus, snow, live reindeer, cultural performances, international street food and a huge carnival await visitors. $21-$26, 5:3011pm Thursday-Tuesday; Retama Park, 1 Retama Pkwy., Selma, TX, (210) 492-1437.

A Homemade Christmas Learn about Christmas traditions in frontier Texas, make holiday arts and crafts to take home, listen to holiday stories and play period games at the Alamo. Free, 9am-4pm Saturday; The Alamo, 300 Alamo Plaza, (210) 225-1391.

King William Association Holiday Home Tour & Fair The fair will take place around the gazebo in King William Park on Turner

and King William streets featuring art and food vendors and holiday music. The Home Tour ($15-$20) will showcase five homes on King William Street and two museums. Free, 10am-5pm Saturday; King William Park, 131 King William, (210) 227-8786.

Mercado de Artistas Two days of shopping at The Jackson Ranch featuring artist booths, live music and refreshments. Free, 10am-6pm Saturday-Sunday; The Jackson Ranch, 8910 Callaghan Road, (210) 344-8910.

Queer the Cheer 2016 This handmade market and holiday celebration will feature art and handmade gifts by local LGBT/ Queer and ally artists, crafters & makers.

Enjoy beer, wine & tamales plates for a small donation. Free, 6-11 pm Saturday; Southwest Workers Union, 1416 E. Commerce, (210) 232-9052.

River of Lights + SAMA Free Admission The San Antonio River Authority will throw the switch on the holiday lighting of the Museum Reach. Enjoy live jazz music from the passing river barges plus Santa’s Wonderland and art activities on Brooklyn Ave. Plus, SAMA will offer free admission.

Free, 4-9pm Saturday; San Antonio Museum of Art, 200 W. Jones Ave., (210) 978-8100.

SAN LAN CS:GO Tournament - Holiday Edition At this Toys for Tots benefit event, SAN LAN will host the largest South Texas Counter Strike: Global Offensive tournament where gamers from all over Texas will compete in an intense 12 hour marathon with the first place team winning a $500 cash prize. $5-$40, 7:30pm-midnight Saturday; Norris Conference Center, 618 NW Loop 410, (210) 738-0040.

Tamales! Holiday Festival The Historic Pearl hosts its seventh annual celebration of culture, music and above all: tamal. The city’s favorite chefs and restaurants will join more than 40 tamale makers for the citywide holiday tamalada, showcasing a wide range of tamales from traditional San Antonio styles to Mexican regional variations and bold, surprising takes on the classic treat.

Free, noon-6pm Saturday; Pearl Brewery, 303 Pearl Pkwy, (210) 212-7260.

DANCE The Nutcracker This year, San Antonio’s favorite holiday tradition offers new choreography from Ballet San Antonio artistic director Willy Shives, inclusion of more than 100 local children, and live performance of Tchaikovsky’s beloved score by the San Antonio Symphony. $20.30-$134, 7:30 pm Thursday-Friday, 2pm & 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2pm Sunday; Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8264.

sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 27

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MARITZA TORRES

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CACTUS FACE Artist’s work dismantles the shame of looking like your ancestors

ALEJANDRA LOPEZ

by Maritza Torres,

7 p.m.-12 a.m. Sat. Dec. 3 at Pan Dulce Gallery, 1005 N. New Braunfels

As a third-generation Mexican-American living in a large Mormon family right outside of Salt Lake City, life was pretty much mapped out for Maritza Torres — or so she thought. Growing up, she was taught that a woman’s role is limited to getting married and having children, and as the oldest sibling in her family, she had already experienced what taking care of a household full of kids was like. So, against her parent’s wishes, she moved to L.A. In 2008, after seven years of living in California, Torres, whose background is in fashion and graphic design, was able to launch her career as a full-time artist. She began drawing, painting and creating sculptures at an early age, but after engaging with her new surroundings, she started experimenting with different themes and alternative mediums.

These new themes included the city’s cautious attitude about the environment, the struggle of feeling like she was contributing to the gentrification of East L.A., and a growing sense of isolation — from her family, her identity and her heritage. All of which are experiences that have played a large role in her work, especially in her latest collection titled Cactus Face.

“The group Cactus Face is about embracing [the] term ‘Cara de Nopal,’” she says, “[which] is often used in a derogatory way that really should never be considered an insult.” When she was younger, her father used the term in a loving manner, but for many Mexican-Americans with indigenous physical characteristics like dark skin and dark hair, “Cara de Nopal” wasn’t usually heard as a term of endearment. So, she’s reimagined the term through illustrations in a way that questions how we, as a

society, could get to a point where we think that looking like our ancestors is something to be ashamed of.

With an emphasis on her own heritage, she alludes to parts of Aztec culture through patterns and colors in Cactus Face, representing her family’s tribal origins. “I think it is essential to learn about where we come from,” she says, “if we want to know who we really are.”

Currently, Torres is working on a commissioned work that deals with the Goddesses of Tonga, a matriarchal society in which all of the gods are women. “I am always looking for stories of women in history and matriarchal cultures,” she says. “I remember as a kid always wanting to defend women and hearing mainly about great men in history or the dominance of males in different species,” which is why at the focus of many of her pieces you’ll find women of all shapes, colors and sizes.

She doesn’t hold back on expressing her fascination with the roles women play within the family and community, and she admits that she feels empowered just knowing that matriarchal societies exist.

On December 3, Pan Dulce Gallery will have the pleasure of hosting Torres’ first solo show, titled Bleeding Heart, which focuses on the experience of loss and is a representation of her emotional state while she witnessed her father’s fight with cancer, and later, the aftermath of his passing.

Torres says she’s grateful for the opportunity to share her work with San Antonio and to have already met “so many xicanax that are not waiting for revolutionary leaders, but are letting their voices be heard in an engaging way.”

“We are strong,” she says.

“All we have to do is stand up.”

sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 29

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SCREENS

BAD SEQUEL COURTESY OF BROAD GREEN PICTURES

Unlike the first movie, Bad Santa 2 is a miserable, vulgar slog DAN HUDAK

≥

Bad Santa 2 is a bad sequel. It’s a vile, offensive and unfunny movie that does little to build on the hilarious 2003 original, and as a result plays like yet another Hollywood cash grab that would’ve been better off not existing.

Wait a minute, you’re thinking: The fi rst movie was vile and offensive and it was great, so what’s the problem here? Director Terry Zwigoff’s Bad Santa was uniquely subversive while somehow still channeling the spirit of Christmas. We didn’t necessarily like Willie (Billy Bob Thornton) and Marcus (Tony Cox) as they plotted to steal from a shopping mall, but we pitied their sad souls enough to laugh at their brazenly vulgar insults. And because we laughed so much at the inappropriateness, many (including me) loved the movie.

Director Mark Waters (Mean Girls) tries to capture that spirit in Bad Santa 2, but fails miserably. It all feels forced, not organic, and as a result is tiring from the opening minutes. This time Willie (Thornton) and Marcus (Cox) are in Chicago plotting to steal $2 million from a charity. They team up with Willie’s mom Sunny (Kathy Bates), whom he hates, and must work around

the rigidity of a stuffy security guard (Jeff Skowron) serves no real purpose to the narrative and you have and his boss, Regent Hastings (Ryan Hansen). A wild to wonder why he’s here at all. card is Regent’s wife Diane (Christina Hendricks), who Speaking of asking “why?”, why cast Christina takes an odd liking to Willie.

Hendricks? Her character also serves no purpose. All Reports say actor Brett Kelly gained 40 pounds so she provides is someone for Willie to have sex with, he could return as Thurman Merman, a character he and she’s too good an actress for that. originated when he was a kid in the 2003 film. You The script by Johnny Rosenthal and Shauna Cross can’t help but ask why: Plenty of chubby kids grow up goes out of its way to ridicule little person Marcus. to be healthy-weight adults, so why couldn’t Thurman?

Not only do Willie and Sunny offer up one wise crack He wasn’t likable because he was heavy, he was after the next, but he’s also laughed at and deemed likable because he was sweet and innocent and dumb undateable by an overweight security guard (Jenny and you pitied him.

Zigrino). Don’t get me wrong – she’s free to date This isn’t even the biggest (no pun intended) whoever she wants, but as a plot point we didn’t need problem with Thurman, though. The real issue is Marcus constantly being demeaned because of his that he’s inexplicably loyal to Willie no matter what size. As if this all isn’t bad enough, the credits cookies Willie does or says to him. When Thurman was a kid take it a disgusting step further. in the original, this made more sense and worked Dear reader, I beg you: If you have the same fond as a story device. But now he’s 21, literally an adult, memories of the foul indecency of Bad Santa as I do, and he still acts like he’s eight. Didn’t he go to high please do not waste your money on Bad Santa 2. It will school? Have friends? Learn about the world? taint your mind to end every future conversation He’s mentally slow, but not that slow that he can’t about the original with “yeah, too bad the second take Willie’s clear indication of wanting nothing one sucked.” Don’t be like Hollywood – leave well ★ to do with him. Add to that the fact that Thurman enough alone and avoid this movie. sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 33

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If you’re a fan of Rebelle, Folc, Mixtli, Grayze, Feast, or The Bin, you’re already familiar with their standout flavors — all made possible by adding a slew of ingredients you will definitely not find at your local H-E-B. Owned by Joe Mendez, Unifresh Produce is a relatively small three-unit vendor located in a small nook of the San Antonio Produce Terminal. Though Unifresh opened in June 2000, Mendez’s roots in the produce game go as far back as the 1950s when his father owned Big State Produce, now owned by brother Roy. Joe deviated from the family business to become an engineer at IBM during the late 70s, but made his way back to San Antonio in the mid-80s to be around family.

“My mom talked me into it, my wife’s family is from here, my whole family is here,” Mendez said. “I enjoyed working with my family.”

The vacation days aren’t as plentiful as they were at IBM (now he works weekends and holidays, to the dismay of his wife). But Mendez has now been around the produce industry long enough to have seen dining trends come and go.

“When salad bars became popular, we had to start having honeydews and cantaloupes all year round because the salad bar had to look the same,” Mendez said. “That

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meant bringing in produce from all over the globe.”

He’s hired on a slew of drivers and sales people, including top sales rep Andrew Magallanez, to staff the notso-tiny operation. On an early morning visit this November the warehouse bustled with various moving parts. Drivers wove in an out of walk-in freezers, filling orders and loading up vans. The warehouse shuts down at 4 p.m., but orders continue to fill the system until midnight, when an employee heads back into Unifresh to write them up. Three hours later, at 3 a.m., another slew of drivers makes their way back into the chilly coolers to fill said orders.

And while this happens at each produce company inside the terminal, not everyone deals in boutique goods. What sets Unifresh apart is the several refrigerators’ worth of hardto-find items. Our visit included peeks at freeze-dried sweet corn, dried pomegranate seeds, lobster mushrooms (so named due to their pungent, crustacean-like odor once they start going south), the sweetest and tiniest of edible apples, and mouth-puckering and tart dried gooseberries.

Andrew Magallanez, who’s been with Unifresh for 7 years, learned how to navigate the specialty produce market while working with Jesse Perez at Westin La Cantera.

“Growing up in the wholesale business, before we sold to restaurants, the produce professional at each store

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knew about produce, they knew about the season, they knew the pricing,” Mendez said. “You have to educate buyers differently now.”

This means making people aware of seasons and how they’ll affect prices. Just a few weeks ago, cases of avocado were difficult to come by, and now it’s raining creamy goodness (thus making prices drop).

For Magallanez, that means a sharing bushel of this or a package of that to get restaurants familiar with the produce.

How else are chefs supposed to figure out what they can make with caviar limes? Also known as finger limes, this special fruit is made up of tiny globules of bright lime juice — perfect for topping a ceviche or garnishing a cocktail.

Magallanez will study and geek out over specialty items such as the vibrant amaranth beet sprouts from San Antonio’s FreshWater Farms or tribble-like pom pom mushrooms that soak up whatever buttery sauce they’re paired with.

No, home cooks can’t just stroll into Unifresh for a batch of Moscato grapes or dried star fruit (Mendez’s operation is not large enough to warrant 24-hour service), but area diners can still frequent eateries that carry said specialty ingredients. If you’re into micro greens, big flavors and new bites, visits to Feast, Tre Trattoria, Bliss or Café Dijon just might be in order.

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FOOD

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FOOD COURT • Mezcaleria Mixtli closed November 13

Hummus recall, no mas mezcal, and a new distillery Listeria woes

> Bad news hummus fans.

A recall of Sabra Dipping Company’s products due to a possible contamination is affecting a few more items in shelves. Taylor Farms, which uses Sabra products is holding a voluntary recall for products labeled “Taylor Farms Veggie and Hummus Bistro Boxes” and “Schnucks Vegetable and Hummus Snack Trays,” which contain Sabra Hummus Classic 2-ounce dipping cups.

The Sabra recall was issued November 19 for a slew of its products due to a possible Listeria monocytogenes contamination. See which of your hummus tubs has go to go here.

The Taylor Farms recall only affect the Veggie & Hummus Bistro Box with UPC 0 30223 01037 1, with the use by dates of November 11, 2016 and December 1, 2016 and Schnucks Vegetable and Hummus Snack Tray, UPC 0 41318 09193 9 and use by date of November 18 and November 23, 2016.

Per the press release issue by the Food and Drug Administration: Taylor Farms has not received any reports of illnesses associated with these recalled items. The recalled products were distributed from October 30, 2016 – November 18, 2016. The grocers involved have been instructed to remove any remaining product from their shelves and to dispose of any of the remaining product in their inventory.

The recalled products were distributed in Arkansas, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.

Rum in SA

> Raise those tiki glasses, people: San Anto is now making rum.

As first reported by the San Antonio ExpressNews, Edwards Ridge Distillery Company opened its tasting room this month.

Owned by Nathan Brown, Luis Gonzalez, Joe Neely and Jonathan Reading, Edwards Ridge is open Thursday and Fridays from 3 p.m. to midnight and Saturdays from 3 p.m. to 1 a.m.

The 1,200-square-foot tasting room is about a third of the 3,200-square-foot facility that’s been two years in the making. For now, ERDC distills

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William, Talus silver rum and William, Talus gold rum with plans for whiskey hitting shelves in 2017.

The brand is distributed by Gima International and will likely slowly make its way to bars around town.

Currently, those interested in buying the spirits can find them at Alamo City Liquor and Gabriel’s. The facility is currently projecting production at 2,000 cases by the end of the year.

“Our bartender can serve up a drink of our customer’s choice (serving our distilled spirits).

Our goal is a relaxed environment where customers can relax with friends and enjoy our locally made premium distilled spirits,” said Brown via email.

A grand opening party is scheduled for December 31 from 3 p.m. to 1 a.m.

16104 University Oak, (210) 802-7864.

Sake bombs all around!

> The flashbacks of many a happy hour spent on Kona Grill’s patio are slowly pouring back in.

The upscale sushi joint with 23 locations in the country announced a second location for San Antonio which will join its already existing post at The Shops at La Cantera. The new outpost for American cuisine-meets-sushi rolls will be located inside North Star Mall. At 7,000 square-feet, the behemoth of a restaurant will also feature 1,000 square-foot patio for all your sake-bomb-taking needs.

Though slated for a mid-December opening, Kona Grill has already announced a 3 to 7 p.m. happy hour time slot with a reverse happy hour from 9 to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday.

7400 San Pedro Ave.

Menos Mezcal

> Mezcalería Mixtli, which opened its doors in May 2015, has closed as of Sunday, November 13.

The Mezcalería, owned by the folks behind Mixtli, the fine dining Mexican restaurant inside a teensy box car at The Yard on McCullough, was the first of its kind in the city. Though other bars and bartenders have gone on to expand their own mezcal programs, Mezcalería Mixtli’s closing is still a huge bummer.

Management announced the bar’s closing on Facebook on November 18.

Send food- and nightlife-related events and news to flavor@sacurrent.com.

sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 37

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CURRENT • November 30-December 6, 2016 • sacurrent.com

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CROWLER WOES TABC faces setback in its war on crowlers MICHAEL BARAJAS | @MICHAELSBARAJAS

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There’s sign the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission could be losing its fight against so-called “crowlers,” a portmanteau of “can” and “growler” that, until the TABC banned them last year, you could find in a small but growing number of bars, grocery stores and specialty beer shops.

In a decision last week, state administrative judge John Beeler sided with an Austin bar that decided to challenge the TABC’s brain-twisting logic on crowlers – that glass, screw-top growlers are perfectly legal, but if a bar fills up a giant can instead and stamps on a cap to seal it, that bar is now a beer “manufacturer” and breaking the law.

“There is no material difference between growlers and crowlers,” Beeler wrote in his findings, which now go before the TABC’s executive director and could ultimately change the way state regulators view crowlers.

The legal challenge over crowlers started last year when, to the surprise of many, the TABC banned their sale (outside of a brewpub, that is) ordered bars to stop using crowler-filling machines or risk losing their sales licenses and face steep fines. TABC effectively killed the market for crowlers last

September after it raided the Austin-based Cuvee Coffee Bar and seized its tabletop seaming machine, an invention by the Colorado craft beer pioneers at Oskar Blues Brewery. TABC soon afterward “clarified” the loosely worded section of the state alcoholic beverage code on “packaging” beer to effectively regulate crowlers out of existence.

Cuvee fought back, filing a lawsuit against the TABC that was ultimately bounced to a state administrative hearing before Judge Beeler. San Antonio-based attorney Angel Tomasino, who represents Cuvee, said that Beeler’s findings – that the bar was not in violation of the state alcoholic beverage code for using a crowler machine and selling beer in crowler cans for off-premise consumption – is for now only limited to the specific case at hand.

“As of now, TABC has not changed their stance on Crowlers, so they could still take action against other retailers — including Cuvee — if they find them using the Crowler machine,” Tomasino told us in an email.

“That said, Judge Beeler’s opinion was fairly broad.”

In fact, Beeler’s findings pretty much dismantle every argument TABC threw at him for why crowlers shouldn’t be sold by bars. For instance, TABC

argued that selling beer in crowlers “jeopardizes the general welfare, health and safety of the people” because “beer in crowlers is not properly oxidized, organism can get into the product.” Same with growlers, Beeler responded in his findings. Plus, the judge wrote, if crowlers are so dangerous to public health, why would TABC allow brewpubs to sell them? “It appears disingenuous for Staff to assert crowlers are dangerous to the public, unless they are sold at brewpubs,” he wrote.

Tomasino said that the judge’s findings could very well make it easier to fight the crowler issue in the future if TABC decides not to change its stance.

“Proposals for decision don’t have as significant precedential value as state court of appeals opinions, but they do have some,” he said.

Bar owners have argued that the 32-ounce crowlers cans have several advantages over regular glass growlers – that they’re lighter, more durable, easier for bars to sell and better protect beer from air and light. While they can’t exactly break out the crowler machines just yet, Beeler’s decision last week could go a long way in reviving the newest, easiest take-home craft brew trend in Texas.

sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 39

RAISE YOUR VOICE 6

uber-talented vocalists right here in SA

> In song, no instrument is capable of moving listeners the way that the human voice can. Its singular range, its power to carry emotion from heart to heart, filter free, and its unique association with identity (like fingerprints, no two voices are exactly the same) make it a musical element beyond compare.

While San Antonio certainly has no shortage of talented musicians and songwriters, working in as many genres as you can think of and more, truly powerful vocalists are hard to come by in this, or any other, scene. We are, however, blessed with a handful of vocal performers who, in the great tradition of soul-stirring singers the world over, are capable of stopping listeners dead in their tracks with their voices. While by no means exhaustive, here’s a short list of six of Saytown’s most arresting vocal talents.

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CURRENT • November 30-December 6, 2016 • sacurrent.com

Alyson Alonzo Perhaps the reigning champ of vocal acrobatics in San Antonio, neo-soul/electro-r&b singer-songwriter Alyson Alonzo has a voice that is hallmarked by power and finesse, in equal measure.

Oft compared to Joni Mitchell or Billie Holliday, two obvious influences, Alonzo’s vocal prowess, whether on the solo r&b tip or with her soul band Sugar Skulls, is the real deal.

And, the experience is as cathartic for the listener as it seems to be for the singer. (Disclosure: Polly Anna Rocha is an occasional columnist for both the Current and Out in SA.)

Nina Diaz (Girl in a Coma) Nina Diaz is the undisputed (at least not by us) punk princess of San Anto rock. Diaz, who just released her ambitious first solo album Polly Anna Rocha While and is taking a brief break electro-acoustic singerfrom her longtime popsongwriter Polly Anna punk powerhouse Girl Rocha is known to cite in a Coma, is an adroit Amy Winehouse as a major guitar player, a fiery and influence, her generous, engaging performer, and smooth and lilting croon, a consistently strong capable of conveying songwriter. But it’s her emotion in a more sincere voice, which perhaps isn’t and direct way than the praised enough for its theatrical Winehouse, is ability to be rough and no sheer act of homage. beautiful all at once, that Homegirl can straight proves the most haunting up sing her heart out. element in her work.

Nick Long (Lonely Horse) Lonely Horse frontman Nick Long may not have a technically gorgeous voice, in the way that others on this list do, but the imperfections and limitations of his unique vocal instrument scarcely matter. His voice has the holy gravity of incantation, soulful, smeared with pain and anger, and moving his tremendous songs forward with the pure, innocent, and towering energy of sheer human will.

Maddin, whose buoyant and golden falsetto has been one of the best parts of all of his projects throughout the years.

Alex Scheel (Pop Pistol, Xes Xes) Alex Scheel has, dare I say regrettably, been busy on guitar and electronics in the new age-electro act Femina-X over the past couple years, largely eschewing his role as lead man of the dynamic, atmospheric indie-rock band Pop Pistol. On the solo tip, Scheel has put Chris Maddin out some electronic works (FILMSTRIPS, Blowing under the moniker Xes Xes, Trees) Busy getting married but in them his beautifuland traversing Europe, if-nasally voice is often singer-songwriter Chris obscured. At the helm of Maddin, who fronted the Pop Pistol though, Scheel’s once-ubiquitous Blowing voice is given full reign, Trees back in the day, hasn’t frenetically leaping in and been too active of late. In out of the instrumentation January 2017, however, we and penetrating the can expect a new album foggy darkness with its (called Sterequiem) from wobbly warmth.

JADE HERNANDEAZ

Alyson Alonzo

JAMES COURTNEY

sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 41

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Not ready to wind down their busy year, Broncho is joining forces with Sports to promote their newest release, Double Vanity. Disaffected youths tinkering with indie instrumentation, the ruffians of Broncho ditched the dusty landscape of their Oklahoma home after their bassist Jonathan Ford booked a series of shows without their permission. But, what began as a loose recording session quickly took off, shooting the mischievous WED

This fucked up world needs Henry Rollins – the unflinching punk from D.C. who leapt on stage during the chaos of a Black Flag concert to perform alongside the band, shocking the arena with his raw talent and undeniable nerve. After lead singer Dez Cadena relented his reigns to the band’s vocal section, Rollins formally auditioned to take over the microphone and changed the group after joining their ranks in 1981. After Black Flag’s eventual diffusion five years later, he formed the Rollins Band and started recording his own material independently. Struggling to recapture the intense spirit of Black Flag, he stumbled upon the second breakthrough of his career at the inaugural Lollapolooza headlined by Jane’s Addiction in 1991. In the wake of his new exposure, Rollins began utilizing his band to experiment with pummeling variations of jazz in hard rock. (A workaholic forever on the grind, Rollins likewise dedicated himself to poetry and performing spoken word shows when he wasn’t penning columns or acting in films.) Rollins is a legend of modern rock – like a David Byrne that refused to submit to life’s sorrow. Synonymous with resilience and pointed intelligence, he channels the trauma of existence into unparalleled displays of passion and catharsis. 8pm, $35, Aztec Theater, 104 N. Saint Mary’s St. — Abby Mangel WED

30

rocks into humble prominence with commercial hits like “Class Historian.” Bright and amiable, the track bumbles around a knotty melody that feels like a kinetic romp through a field of flowers with Iggy Pop and Julian Casablancas. Similarly, Sports sounds like another crisp undercurrent of indie rock, matching Broncho with wistful numbers about searching for something that’s just out of reach. 8pm, $10, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. Saint Mary’s St. — AM

Visualize Lil Dicky taking his first steps into the codeine-laced streets of Screwston – that’s the strange essence of Ugly God. Like the viral YouTube rapper, Ugly God is aroused by ordinary life at its most uncouth. In crude and outlandish numbers like “I Beat My Meat,” we hear Ugly God reflect on masturbation to the unmistakable tune of a ringing iPhone. It’s an artless response to the glitzy hype that enshrouds the Billboard rappers who dominate radio. Self-depreciating to the extreme, Ugly God stands as a blunt foil to Kanye West’s colossal ego and Drake’s shallow ostentation. Just as his working moniker implies, he resonates like the deified incarnation of the unsophisticated facets of life that listeners encounter every day. 8pm, $10-15, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. Saint Mary’s St. — AM THU

1

UNDERGROUND SOUND When it comes to hip-hop, we tend to, even more than with other types of music perhaps, equate fame (or at least internet traction) with quality. While local and regional indie rock scenes often enjoy the support of mini-legions of fans, folks often cast, for just and unjust reason, a dubious side-eye upon unsigned and undiscovered hip-hop talent from their own neck of the woods. Thursday’s Underground Sound show, however, should prove a great chance for San Antonians to remedy this type of thinking. Boasting a regional lineup of six promising, underground hiphop artists, the show functions as a crash course in what’s good on the Lone Star/ Southern hip-hop scene. The lineup for this installment of the Underground Sound series includes Suave Dosto (Dallas), Proz Taylor (Mississippi), Mafioso and YNG (Houston), Jevonchi (San Antonio), and B. Sharpe (Brooklyn). Free, 10pm, Bottom Bracket Social Club, 1603 N Colorado St, (210) 267-9160. — James Courtney THU

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CURRENT • November 30-December 6, 2016 • sacurrent.com

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The refurnished rock venue housed inside Ventura is hosting Island & Tigers for this month’s iteration of its Patio Sessions. The folky band writes simple and unaffected melodies built on top of slacker riffs and swift-but-saccharine beats. Buried beneath a grainy layer of college rock grit, we hear jangly guitars colluding with the nostalgic textures of surf rock in lovelorn tracks like “Groundhog Day.” Saturated with stunning boy-girl harmonies, the band is marked by a refreshing degree of naiveté that resembles trending indie rock groups like Alvvays and Waxahatche. The warmth radiating from Island & Tigers stands in a sharp contrast to the cold night air in December – but, in all honesty, who’s opposed to a little burst of sunshine this winter season? 8pm, $5-8, Ventura SATX, 1011 Ave. B — AM THU

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Dark forces are at work in T.J. Cowgill’s King Dude.

Stark and prophetic, the Seattle folk project is steeped in sinister shades of the occult. Mumbling choruses with the quick reprise of a satanic incantation, King Dude concocts twisted numbers like “Lucifer Is the Light of the World.” Marked by Cowgill’s bottomless baritone – his vocal pitch floats somewhere between Johnny Cash and the wrathful god of the Old Testament – King Dude’s obscure variety of Americana plays out like campfire songs for the more outdoorsy sects of Luciferians.

7pm, $13, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. Saint Mary’s St. — AM FRI

2

KING DUDE

LEVEES Gary P. Nunn is the best damn Texas country singersongwriter that you’ve never heard of. Well, maybe that’s unfair. If you’ve been paying close attention to Texas country, you’ve probably at least heard his songs. The man—who is a Texas Musical Ambassador and inductee of the West Texas Hall of Fame, who’s been writing and picking alongside some of the more recognizable Texas country greats for over 50 years—has garnered heaps of acclaim from his peers, including Jerry Jeff Walker, SAT

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GARY P. NUNN

Michael Murphy, David Allan Coe, and Willie Nelson, all of whom have recorded versions of his songs throughout the years. Nunn, whose best (or at least most iconic) song “London Homesick Blues” just might be the perfect paean to Texas, will celebrate his 71st birthday, amid crowds of the devoted and curious alike, within the warm, beery, and friendly confines of Gruene Hall, on a stage that he’s graced countless times throughout the years. $15.00, 8:00pm, Gruene Hall, 1281 Gruene, New Braunfels, (830) 606-1281, gruenehall.com. — JC

Levees are celebrating their latest release, Another Medicine, following the debut of their eponymous EP from back in January.

Jetting down the freeway in their customary lane, the band continues to borrow notes from Charles Bradley by stripping down rock ‘n’ roll tunes to their more soulful blueprints. In tracks like “Broken Cups,” we hear brothers Kyle and Kody Anderson crafting spotless guitar parts that ricochet across the jagged soundscape of their rock bottom. “I’ve got nowhere left to go,” howls Kody Anderson with bravado. “My eyes stay so low.” But, layered with point-perfect harmonies and percussion, the opposite seems to be the case for Levees – things are looking up. 8pm, $5, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. Saint Mary’s St. — AM SAT

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MUSIC

MUSIC CALENDAR WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30 Acoustic Show La Hacienda de los Barrios hosts acoustic live music on Wednesday evenings. Free. La Hacienda De Los Barrios, 6-9pm Carolla Drinks presents A Night of Music & Comedy A night filled with stand-up comedy from Ryan Doon and George Perez, and live music by Laxi, The Vegabonds and The Heroine. Plus Mangria and Endless Rant IPA to keep the party going. $15. Jack’s Bar, 7-11pm Bru’s Tunes Live Acoustic Music by Bru‘s Tunes. Free. La Hacienda De Los Barrios, 6-9pm College Night: Wet-N-Wild Wednesday Every Wednesday night, the 18 and over crowd can enjoy DJ Bobby playing Top 40, dance, throwback, twerk and trap, plus more. Under 21: $10.00. The Bonham Exchange, 9pm-3am Double Vanity Tour 2016 The Double Vanity Tour features bands Broncho and Sports. $10. Paper Tiger, 8pm Fat Nick Fat Nick is joined by Lil’ Peep, Mikey the Magician and Don Krez. $20$25. The Korova, 7pm John Magaldi John Magaldi and the Prime Time Jazz Orchestra play their big band jazz sound at the Cove. Free. The Cove, 8pm The Numinous The Numinous are a poprock band playing in support of three singles and an upcoming debut album. $7-$30. Sam’s Burger Joint, 8:30pm Quince Wednesdays Every Wednesday DJs RiffleEffect and Isaac_TX team up for “the best damn dance party you’ve been to since you were 15.” Free. Hi-Tones, 10pm

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1 Crush Crush is The Thirsty Camel’s alternative/electronica dance night. Free.

Thirsty Camel, 10 pm-2am Jeremy Steding & The Rebellion Jeremy Steding and the Rebellion are vintage Texas country. Free. The Phoenix Saloon, 9pm Rockstarz Karaoke Sing the night away with Nicki from Rockstarz Karaoke.

Franky Diablo’s, 9:30pm-1:30am Sisters Morales The Sister Morales play a wide spectrum of music in both Spanish and English. $15-$60. Sam’s

Burger Joint, 8pm Studio Sessions: Luke Wade $25. Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 7:30pm Ugly God Ugly God hits SA on their “Bigger Booties in Texas” tour. $10-$15. Paper Tiger, 7pm

December 2 - Charlie Robison

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2 Bingo Players Bingo Players is a Dutch dance and electro house DJ. $10-$30.

Club Rio 9pm Charlie Robison Country artist Charlie Robison is joined by Koe Wetzel. $13-$23.

John T Floore’s Country Store, 10:30pm First Friday - The Get Down with DJs Gibby & Techneek The Get Down, curated

by Dj Gibb and Dj Techneek, happens every First and Third Friday. Food trucks, and two full bars. Happy Hours 5 to 9pm.

Free. Southown101, 10pm

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December 3 - Bonnie Bishop

Friday Night Fever with the Night Owls The Nightowls are a vintage nine-piece soul sensation with a classic sound. $10.

The Phoenix Saloon, 9pm The Juantanamos EP Release The Juantanamos release their EP and celebrate The Big Lebowski, performing songs from the film. $10-$50. Sam’s Burger Joint, 9pm

December 16 - The Bellamy Brothers

King Dude King Dude is joined by Foie Gras. $13. Paper Tiger, 7pm The Nirvana Experience The Nirvana Experience, a tribute to grunge favorites Nirvana, is joined by the Red Knot Chili Peppers -- you guessed it -- a Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute band. $10-$15.

Fitzgerald’s Bar & Live Music, 7pm

December 17 - Shinyribs

San Antonio Symphony: Handel’s Messiah $25. Coker United Methodist Church, 7-8:30pm The Wood Brothers Americana/Blues band The Wood Brothers are joined by Ben Sollee. $20. Gruene Hall, 8pm

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3 The Black Market Club CD Release Party The Black Market Club celebrates the release of their new EP, Move, with support from special guests Sound of Curves, Sioux & Fox, and Doral Clvb.

Cover charge includes a free CD. $10.

502 Bar, 8pm

December 31 - New Year’s Eve with Jon Wolfe

Bonnie Bishop Country artist Bonnie Bishop is joined by Saw Outlaw. $10-$12.

John T Floore’s Country Store, 9pm Crown the Empire Post-hardcore band Crown the Empire is joined by Blessthefall, New Years Day, Light up the Sky, and Too Close to Touch. $18. Alamo City Music Hall & Club, 5:30pm

14492 Old Bandera Rd Helotes, TX (210)695-8827

For tickets: liveatfloores.com sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 47

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CREATIVE COMMONS

MUSIC

Eyes of An Emperor Joined by Shaping the Legacy, Athanatos, Of Ruins, Cerebral Desecration, Darker By Design. $5-$12.

Fitzgerald’s Bar & Live Music, 7pm

jazz and gypsy music. Kontraband brings together traditions from around the globe into one melting pot. Free. San Fernando Cathedral, 7-8pm

Gary P. Nunn Birthday Bash Country artist Gary P. Nunn is joined by Silo Road. $15.

Gruene Hall, 9pm

Samantha Fish Singer-guitarist Samantha Fish brings her blues roots-rock sound to Sam’s after releasing her 2015 album, Wild Heart. $12-$50. Sam’s Burger Joint, 8pm

Jimmie Vaughan Austin-based electric blues man Jimmie Vaughan, the older and slightly less celebrated brother of Stevie Ray Vaughan, is a multiple Grammy winner, a dedicated student and practitioner of American rock ‘n’ roll, jazz and blues, and a guitar virtuoso par excellence. $22-$100. Sam’s Burger Joint, 9pm Marcus & The Boho Groove Marcus & The Boho Groove are soulful bluesy rock, joined by Deville San Ramos. Free. The Phoenix Saloon, 9pm PartyNextDoor Rapper PartyNextDoor is joined by R&B/hip-hop artist Jeremiah. $44-$74. Aztec Theatre, 8pm Tamales! Holiday Festival The Tamales!

Holiday Festival, presented by Dos Equis, as the Historic Pearl hosts its seventh annual celebration of culture, music and above all: Tamal. Free. 12-6pm

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4 Battle of Champions: Barber Battle and Concert Three-round barber battle featuring Blake, Mateo Sun, and Chris P. $15-$25. Alamo City Music Hall & Club, 3pm Chingadera Sundays DJ Aaron Iruegas (aka Heavensentpapi) spins cumbia y más every Sunday at Hi-Tones. Free. Hi-Tones, 9pm Ljova and the Kontrabanda Join Musical Bridges Around the World for Chicken Soup with New York ensemble Ljova and the Kontrabanda, who bring together influences from classical, klezmer, tango,

San Antonio Symphony: Handel’s Messiah $25. University United Methodist Church, 3-4:30pm Steve Vai $49.50-$65. Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 7pm ▲ Tony Bennett Tony Bennett is one of only a handful of artists to have new albums charting in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and aughts. He introduced a multitude of songs into the great American Songbook that have since become pop music classics. $50-$125.

The Majestic Theatre, 7:30pm

MONDAY, DECEMBER 5 Swing Nite with the Swingsters The Swingsters is a Western Swing band from Austin. $10. Sam’s Burger Joint, 8:30pm Zig Zags & Sweat Lodge with DJ Smoak Part metal, part punk, part high-school acid flashback, with Sweat Lodge (Austin), DJ Smoak & ACID Light Show. $7. K23 Gallery, 8-11pm

TITANIUM 4000, X AGAIN, BLACK PANTHER, MASTER ZONE, EXTEN ZONE, EXTREME DIAMOND, EXTRA ZONE, RHINO V5, RHINO X, MAX LOAD, MAX HARD, MAX STAMINA, RHINO BIG HORN, PURE, RED ZONE 3000, RHINO 7 (5000), RHINO BLACK 3K, POWER ZONE 3000, FUEL UP, FORBIDDEN TIGER, FIFTY SHADES, TRIPLE XXX, EREKT FOR WOMAN: KANGROO, SPARXXX, GEISHA

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6 Goo Goo Dolls $35-$1,250. Aztec Theatre, 8pm Jazz on the Rocks The St. Anthony Club’s weekly series combining live jazz, happy hour specials and complimentary small bites. Free. St. Anthony Hotel, 5-7pm Luke Bell Luke Bell is a honky-tonk country musician from Wyoming, who recently released a self-titled album. $10$35. Sam’s Burger Joint, 8pm

8373 CULEBRA STE. 103 • 210.521.4555 1639 BABCOCK RD. • 210.474.6005 sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 49

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SAVAGE LOVE

by Dan Savage

> My boyfriend of almost two years is wonderful, and we have had very few issues. But there is one thing that has almost been a deal breaker. He fiddles with his penis almost constantly—in front of me and in front of our roommates. I’ve confronted him about it a number of times. He said he should be able to fiddle with his dick in every room of the house if he wants to and he should feel comfortable doing so. I told him that he is being “comfortable” at the expense of the comfort of those around him. We’ve had a number of confrontations about this, and he does it a lot less, but he still does it. If he doesn’t stop when I tell him to, I just leave the room. My question to you: Is this behavior unacceptable or am I being unreasonable?

Frustrated With The Fiddling Until a few weeks ago, I would have said that neo-Nazis sieg-heiling around Washington, DC, was unacceptable and any elected official or pundit who didn’t immediately condemn neo-Nazis would be finished politically and professionally. But it turns out that neo-Nazism is just another example of IOIYAR—“it’s okay if you’re a Republican”—and relativism reigns.

In other words: “Unacceptable” is a relative concept, FWTF, not an objective one.

That said, FWTF, I don’t think you’re being unreasonable: Fiddling with your dick in every room of the house is inconsiderate and childish. It sounds like you’re doing a good job of socializing your boyfriend—better late than never—and I would encourage you to keep it up.

> I’m a straight man in a mostly healthy marriage. Our sex life is average, which I understand is better than some people can hope for, and we communicate well.

For example, I felt comfortable admitting to my wife a few weeks ago that I would like more blowjobs.

She in turn felt comfortable admitting to me that she would prefer if I showered more often. So we made a deal: I would shower every day and she would blow me twice a month. But the first month came and went with no blowjobs in sight. I’ve showered every single day. Should I bring this up to her?

Bathe Longer Or Withhold Sex Your wife doesn’t wanna suck your cock, BLOWS, squeaky clean or stinky cheese. I would recommend outsourcing non-birthday blowjobs—if your wife is okay with that, BLOWS, which she won’t be. > I am a queer trans woman in my mid-20s, and I am in a monogamous relationship with a queer cis woman.

We have been dating for about three months now. We have had an absolutely amazing sex life since day one, except for one caveat: She has never in her life had an orgasm. For most of the time she has been sexually active, she has felt ambivalent about getting off. It has only been in the past month that she has started feeling a “sexual awakening,” as she calls it. We have been making progress, but she has been having issues with getting caught up in her head when I am pleasuring her. This has been causing dysphoric feelings for her.

We have had a few discussions about what we can do about the situation, but we are feeling lost. We know there isn’t going to be a quick fix, but what do we do about this?

Confused And Nervous Truly Can’t Overcome Much Exasperation Pot. On the Lovecast, Dan chats with the kinksters from the NoSafeWord podcast: savagelovecast.com

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CURRENT • November 30-December 6, 2016 • sacurrent.com

1 Gymnast Dominique 6 Model who married David Bowie 10 No pros 14 Standing bolt upright 15 Broccoli ___ 16 India.___ 17 Amalgam, e.g.

18 Office bigwig, casually 19 Part of the underground economy?

20 Lummox 21 Actor who played the game show host in “Slumdog Millionaire” 23 Gambler’s “strategy” 25 Restaurant supply 26 Descend, in mountaineering 28 Gloomy 30 “___ Pretty” (“West Side Story” song) 31 Godsend 33 “Yeah, right!”

37 Atty. ___ 38 Popular ‘50s haircut (with help on the theme from 54-Across) 41 Sch. founded by Thomas Jefferson 42 1939 movie classic, briefl y 44 On the ___ (not on friendly terms) 45 Start over 47 Khloe Kardashian’s exhusband Lamar

49 Dash headlong 50 “Finding ___” 52 “Musical” slang term for money 54 Infidelity can signal them (with help on the theme from 38-Across) 57 Alternative to hot or blended 60 Level 61 Little or no effort 62 Bracelet locale 63 Part of AMA 64 Ready to do business 65 V formers 66 Root beer brand 67 “The Untouchables” crimefighter Eliot 68 Chemical term after poly-

DOWN

1 Without charge, like a battery 2 “Alice’s Restaurant” chronicler Guthrie 3 Like time that’s used productively 4 Subspecies adapted to a particular habitat 5 Pig residence 6 Jim Carrey fl ick “Me, Myself & ___” 7 “Hot 100” magazine 8 Biblical second son 9 Guitar part 10 Bitter Italian aperitif 11 Rigel’s constellation 12 Boys of Bolivia

13 Mystic 21 Natl. League city 22 Springfield Indian 24 “Note to ___ ...”

26 “Mystery!” host Diana 27 Two or three 28 Lowercase J parts 29 Artistic Yoko 31 “The Wizard of Oz” author Frank 32 1951 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Mel 34 Greyhound station purchase 35 Father of daredevil Robbie Knievel 36 “Modern” museum in London 39 Place to go in England?

40 Piper and Phoebe’s sister, on “Charmed” 43 “___ of the world, unite!”

46 White-furred weasels 48 Easter egg colorer 49 Marathoner’s time units, for short 50 Unnecessary hassle 51 Moved very slowly 52 Gelcaps, say 53 “Hee Haw” cohost Buck 54 Hot Pitt 55 Gaseous element 56 Smoke an e-cigarette 58 “What ___ is there to say?”

59 Animal seen jumping on a road sign 62 ID checker’s info

ETC.

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY by Rob Brezsny ARIES (MARCH 21-APRIL 19):

LEO (JULY 23-AUG. 22):

“I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow,” wrote naturalist Henry David Thoreau in Walden, “to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.” I’d love to see you summon that level of commitment to your important rendezvous in the coming weeks, Aries. Please keep in mind, though, that your “most important rendezvous” are more likely to be with wild things, unruly wisdom, or primal breakthroughs than with pillars of stability, committee meetings, and business-as-usual.

Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel García Márquez loved yellow roses. He often had a fresh bloom on his writing desk as he worked, placed there every morning by his wife Mercedes Barcha. In accordance with the astrological omens, I invite you to consider initiating a comparable ritual. Is there a touch of beauty you would like to inspire you on a regular basis?

It there a poetic gesture you could faithfully perform for a person you love?

TAURUS (APRIL 20-MAY 20): For you Tauruses, December is “I Accept and Love and Celebrate Myself Exactly How I Am Right Now” Month. To galvanize yourself, play around with this declaration by Oscar-winning Taurus actress Audrey Hepburn: “I’m a long way from the human being I’d like to be, but I’ve decided I’m not so bad after all.” Here are other thoughts to draw on during the festivities: 1.

“If you aren’t good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone.” - Barbara De Angelis. 2. “The hardest challenge is to be yourself in a world where everyone is trying to make you be somebody else.” - E. E. Cummings.

3. “To accept ourselves as we are means to value our imperfections as much as our perfections.”

- Sandra Bierig. 4. “We cannot change anything until we accept it.” - Carl Jung.

GEMINI (MAY 21-JUNE 20): Are your collaborative projects (including the romantic kind) evolving at a slower pace than you expected? Have they not grown as deep and strong as you’ve wished they would? If so, I hope you’re perturbed about it. Maybe that will motivate you to stop tolerating the stagnation.

Here’s my recommendation: Don’t adopt a more serious and intense attitude. Instead, get loose and frisky. Inject a dose of blithe spirits into your togetherness, maybe even some high jinks and rowdy experimentation. The cosmos has authorized you to initiate ingenious surprises.

CANCER (JUNE 21-JULY 22): I don’t recommend that you buy a cat-o’-ninetails and whip yourself in a misguided effort to exorcize your demons. The truth is, those insidious troublemakers exult when you abuse yourself. They draw perverse sustenance from it. In fact, their strategy is to fool you into treating yourself badly. So, no. If you hope to drive away the saboteurs huddled in the sacred temple of your psyche, your best bet is to shower yourself with tender care, even luxurious blessings. The pests won’t like that, and — if you commit to this crusade for an extended time — they will eventually flee.

VIRGO (AUG. 23-SEPT. 22): “For a year I watched as something entered and then left my body,” testified Jane Hirshfield in her poem “The Envoy.” What was that mysterious something? Terror or happiness? She didn’t know.

Nor could she decipher “how it came in” or “how it went out.” It hovered “where words could not reach it. It slept where light could not go.” Her experience led her to conclude that “There are openings in our lives of which we know nothing.”

I bring this meditation to your attention, Virgo, because I suspect you are about to tune in to a mysterious opening. But unlike Hirshfield, I think you’ll figure out what it is. And then you will respond to it with verve and intelligence.

LIBRA (SEPT. 23-OCT. 22): A reporter at the magazine Vanity Fair asked David Bowie, “What do you consider your greatest achievement?” Bowie didn’t name any of his albums, videos, or performances. Rather, he answered, “Discovering morning.” I suspect that you Libras will attract and generate marvels if you experiment with accomplishments like that in the coming weeks. So yes, try to discover or rediscover morning. Delve into the thrills of beginnings. Magnify your appreciation for natural wonders that you usually take for granted. Be seduced by sources that emanate light and heat.

Gravitate toward what’s fresh, blossoming, justin-its-early-stages.

yourself out of whatever cage you find yourself in.” He might have added, “Avoid the nutshells that anyone tries to put you in.” This is always fun work to attend to, of course, but I especially recommend it to you Sagittarians right now. You’re in the time of year that’s close to the moment when you first barged out of your mom’s womb, where you had been housed for months. The coming weeks will be an excellent phase to attempt a similar if somewhat less extravagant trick.

CAPRICORN (DEC. 22-JAN. 19): Hundreds of years ago, the Catholic Church’s observance of Lent imposed a heavy burden.

During this six-week period, extending from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, believers were expected to cleanse their sins through acts of self-denial. For example, they weren’t supposed to eat meat on Fridays. Their menus could include fish, however. And this loophole was expanded even further in the 17th century when the Church redefined beavers as being fish. (They swim well, after all.) I’m in favor of you contemplating a new loophole in regard to your own self-limiting behaviors, Capricorn. Is there a taboo you observe that no longer makes perfect sense?

Out of habit, do you deny yourself a pleasure or indulgence that might actually be good for you?

Wriggle free of the constraints.

AQUARIUS (JAN. 20-FEB. 18): “The Pacific Ocean was overflowing the borders of the map,” wrote Pablo Neruda in his poem “The Sea.” “There was no place to put it,” he continued. “It was so large, wild and blue that it didn’t fit anywhere. That’s why it was left in front of my window.” This passage is a lyrical approximation of what your life could be like in 2017. In other words, lavish, elemental, expansive experiences will be steadily available to you.

Adventures that may have seemed impossibly big and unwieldy in the past will be just the right size.

And it all begins soon.

PISCES (FEB. 19-MARCH 20): “I have a deep fear of being too much,” writes poet Michelle K. “That one day I will find my someone, and they will realize that I am a hurricane. That they will step back and be intimidated by my muchness.” Given the recent astrological omens, Pisces, I wouldn’t be shocked if you’ve been having similar feelings. But now here’s the good news: Given the astrological omens of the next nine months, I suspect the odds will be higher than usual that you’ll encounter brave souls who’ll be able to handle your muchness. They may or may not be soulmates or your one-and-only. I suggest you welcome them as they are, with all of their muchness.

THIS MODERN WORLD by Tom Tomorrow

SCORPIO (OCT. 23-NOV. 21): According to traditional astrology, you Scorpios are not prone to optimism. You’re more often portrayed as connoisseurs of smoldering enigmas and shadowy intrigue and deep questions. But one of the most creative and successful Scorpios of the 20th century did not completely fit this description. French artist Claude Monet was renowned for his delightful paintings of sensuous outdoor landscapes. “Every day I discover even more beautiful things,” he testified. “It is intoxicating me, and I want to paint it all. My head is bursting.” Monet is your patron saint in the coming weeks. You will have more potential to see as he did than you’ve had in a long time.

SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22-DEC. 21): A journalist dared composer John Cage to “summarize himself in a nutshell.” Cage said, “Get

sacurrent.com • November 30-December 6, 2016 • CURRENT 53

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