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CURRENT | August 1-7, 2018 | sacurrent.com

in this issue San Antonio Current

Issue 18_31 /// August 1-7, 2018

Publisher: Michael Wagner Editor-in-Chief: Greg Jefferson

Editorial

Senior Editors: Bryan Rindfuss, Jessica Elizarraras Art Director: Carlos Aguilar Food & Nightlife Editor: Jessica Elizarraras Staff Writers: Chris Conde, Sanford Nowlin Digital Content Editor: Sarah Martinez Contributors: Alexis Alvarez , Ron Bechtol, Erik Casarez, James Courtney, Callie Enlow, Jose Garza, Dan R. Goddard, Alejandra Lopez Gonzalez, Lance Higdon, Steven G. Kellman, Hannah Lorence, Michelle C. Lorentzen, Abby Mangel, Kiko Martínez, Jeremy Martin, Kelly Merka Nelson, M. Solis, Gary Sweeney, J.D. Swerzenski, Kelsey Valadez, Erin Winch Editorial Interns: Tehua Cruz, Alex Czaja, Alisa Pierce, Megan Rodriguez, Lori Salazar, Camille Sauers, Victoria Wilson

Advertising

Sales Director: Mallory Jochen Senior Multimedia Account Executive: Sarah Estrada Account Executive: Krystal Little, April Miller Sales + Events Coordinator: Tarah Martinez

Marketing and Events

Marketing and Events Director: Cassandra Yardeni Events Manager: Chelsea Bourque Sales + Events Coordinator: Tarah Martinez Marketing and Events Interns: Julia Aguillon, Charo Nagafuchi, Frankie Parra, Sergio Ramirez

Zereshk

07 News

Take a Deep Breath

Creative Services

Non-attainment may put an economic squeeze on San Antonio, but the real story is about public health

Circulation

Glitter Political

Creative Services Manager: Tina Corbeil Graphic Designer: Samantha Serna Graphic Design Interns: Sara Jane Filippini, Noemi Solis Circulation Manager: Justin Giles

Business

Clear the Aisle – Rep. Ina Minjarez Is Crossing It

Euclid Media Group

Separation Anxiety… and Chaos

Operations Manager: Sarah Estrada Business Support Specialist: Samantha Lopez

Chief Executive Officer: Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers: Chris Keating, Michael Wagner VP of Digital Services: Stacy Volhein Creative Director: Tom Carlson Digital Operations Coordinator: Jaime Monzon Senior Marketing and Events Director: Cassandra Yardeni www.euclidmediagroup.com National Advertising: Voice Media Group 1-888-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com San Antonio Current 915 Dallas San Antonio, Texas 78215 sacurrent.com Editorial - (210) 227-0044 / Fax - (210) 227-7755 Display Advertising - (210) 227-0044 Fax - (210) 227-7733 Classified - (210) 227-CLAS / Fax - (210) 227-7733 The San Antonio Current is published by Euclid Media Group Verified Audit Member San Antonio Distribution – The Current is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. Get listed 1. Visit sacurrent.com 2. Click “Calendar” and then “Submit an Event” 3. Follow the steps to submit your event details Please allow 48 hours for review and approval. Event submissions are not accepted by phone. Copyright - The entire contents of the San Antonio Current are copyright 2018 by Euclid Media Group LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Publisher does not assume any liability for unsolicited manuscripts, materials, or other content. Any submission must include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. All editorial, advertising, and business correspondence should be mailed to the address listed above. Subscriptions - Additional copies or back issues may be purchased at the Current offices for $1. Six-month domestic subscriptions may be purchased for $75; one-year subscriptions for $125.

Group helping separated migrant families in South Texas can’t account for many

New Doggett Bill Would Let Feds Negotiate for Better Medicare Drug Prices

18 Calendar

Our top picks for the week

23 Arts

Artist on Artist

Gary Sweeney Interviews Mari Hernandez

Serving San Antonio Pride in Gay Paris

John Barrera and Pablo Cruz to rep the Alamo City at the Gay Games

29 Screens Local Flavor

After 24 years, SAFILM continues to give a platform to creative San Antonio moviemakers

13 Feature

A Bad Trade

Dennis Nixon built IBC Bank on NAFTA. So what’s he doing in Donald Trump’s pocket? BY G R E G J E F F E R SO N On Schedule

10 feature films to fill your festival lineup

Prodigal Son

46 Etc

Savage Love, Crossword Puzzle, Astrology, This Modern World

Actor and SA native Jesse Borrego on his legacy after 30 years in Hollywood

33 Food

The Big Spoon

Is there a right way to open a restaurant?

Dough Doubles Down

Pizza restaurant delights tourists and locals alike with downtown outpost

Love and Yeast

Couple pairs science, sustainability with search for local yeasts

39 Music

Council Will Spotlight S.A. Tunes. Musicians Respond with a Chorus of ‘Meh’ Music Top Picks

In this week’s issue, Gary Sweeney reboots his Artist on Artist series by interviewing Mari Hernandez, whose constructed self-portraits explore issues of identity and challenge dominant historical narratives. Cover Photo: Mari Hernandez Art direction: Carlos Aguilar sacurrent.com | August 1-7, 2018 | CURRENT

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news

Take a Deep Breath Non-attainment may put an economic squeeze on San Antonio, but the real story is about public health BY SANFORD NOWLIN

s Bexar County teetered on the brink of violating federal air quality standards for almost two decades, community leaders and chambers of commerce warned that slipping into so-called “non-attainment” status would trigger economic calamity. After all, Environmental Protection Agency rules restrict new highway construction and some factory expansions in non-attainment areas. Plus, consumers can expect higher gasoline prices and maybe even pricy emissions tests for their cars. All of that’s true, of course. As is the fact that San Antonio tumbled into nonattainment earlier this month. But what’s largely absent from discussion of the new federal regulations is how they’ll help the city breathe easier. Curbs on ozone emissions can prevent dozens of deaths, thousands of hospitalizations and millions of dollars in lost productivity yearly, according to health experts. “The decision to put communities in non-attainment isn’t taken lightly by regulators,” said Adrian Shelley, Texas director for watchdog group Public Citizen. “The consequences to a city from high ozone levels are great, and they need to be addressed. Pollution is a major contributor to lost productivity, to health problems and to quality of life.” Smog-causing ozone presents signiﬁcant health risks to people suﬀering from asthma and other respiratory problems. A 12-year study of 911 calls in the non-attainment city of Houston found that a 20-parts-per-billion increase in ozone levels over a three-day period resulted in a 4 percent increase in cardiac arrests and a 5 percent increase in asthma attacks, for example. Those stats should be especially daunting in Bexar County, where child hospitalizations due to asthma exceed the state average. In 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, 14.7 of 10,000 children 17 or under were hospitalized for asthma, well above the Texas average of 8.3 per 10,000. “When it comes to clean air, I tell people chances are someone you know or the child

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of someone you know has asthma,” Shelley said. “This affects everyone.” Plus, respiratory attacks mean missed work, missed school and lost productivity, all of which have a dollars-and-cents impact. The EPA took those factors and more into account in a cost-benefit analysis that predicts the Clean Air Act will result in a $2 trillion economic benefit by 2020, compared to the $65 billion governments and business pay in compliance costs.

to business, added 122,000 jobs over the 12-month period ended in May, for a 3.4 percent growth rate. What’s more, there are few signs that cities’ non-attainment status frightens away major corporate suitors. Among the 20 finalist cities for Amazon’s second corporate headquarters — arguably the decade’s most coveted economic development prize – the majority are in non-attainment.

Comparing Costs

ven so, during recent maneuvers to keep S.A. out of non-attainment, local and state leaders argued the additional regulations would crush economic growth prospects. But the fact is San Antonio was among the few metro areas that hadn’t yet slipped into non-attainment, and none of those already there have transformed jobless urban wastelands. “Has economic development or population growth in Dallas or Houston been brought to a screeching halt because of their nonattainment status?” asks Heywood Sanders, a professor of public policy at the University of Texas at San Antonio. “And the answer to that, of course, is no.” The Houston metro remains a petrochemical hub, and for the 12-month period ended in June, it created 94,600 jobs, a 3.1 percent increase over a year prior. Dallas, also no slouch when it comes

Outward Expansion

f course, metros in non-attainment can improve their air quality to shrug oﬀ the federal yoke. To that point, acting EPA Administrator Scott Wheeler earlier this month said San Antonio has made progress toward that goal. Mayor Ron Nirenberg’s plan to modernize San Antonio’s transit system could be a step in that direction, since much of the city’s ozone woes come down to vehicle emissions. But if the city’s serious about slashing greenhouse gas production, it should think not just about transit but how it develops. Continued outward expansion will only result in more vehicles on the road for longer periods of time. “Our employment centers are seriously dispersed,” Sanders said. “We don’t have a downtown central business district that serves as our employment hub. That’s a situation that’s tough, if not impossible, to change.”

Find more news coverage every day at sacurrent.com

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CURRENT | August 1-7, 2018 | sacurrent.com

news | glitter political Clear the Aisle – Rep. Ina Minjarez Is Crossing It BY JADE ESTEBAN ESTRADA

tate Rep. Ina Minjarez hesitates before posting a photo on social media of the taco she’s about to eat. Though her Facebook page is personable, and the essence of her personality comes across in her posts, she admits sharing online is hard because she’s an introvert who enjoyed the privacy she had before being catapulted into elected office. “My staff often tell me, ‘Rep., it’s OK to post that taco that you’re eating. People like that,’” the San Antonio Democrat says. Clearly, she’s still trying to strike that balance between what she’s comfortable sharing and what she considers her private life. One-on-one, however, Minjarez shares the story of her life and career with cheerful enthusiasm. The 43-yearold lawmaker and attorney recounts how she hit the ground running after her 2015 special-election victory for the seat vacated by Jose Menendez. She walked into the last 30 days of the 84th legislature, the busiest time of the session. “You win. You leave your life behind. You get to the Capitol and you figure out where you’re going to stay [during] the busiest time of the session,” she recalls. When she arrived in Austin, she flipped on the lights to find an empty office. “It’s not like [Menendez] left me [with a note that read], ‘Here are some files to help you do your job.’ I had to be proactive and figure it out.” Part of figuring it out meant getting to know her new Texas House colleagues. She went the extra mile by sitting next to a different representative every morning in the Pink Dome dining room where Minjarez says one can get a mean huevos rancheros plate. “I have no problem crossing the aisle,” says Minjarez, who pledged to take a bipartisan approach during her campaign. “It’s the only way to be effective and get things done.” Minjarez remembers the advice of a friend who had worked in the legislature. “‘You’re setting your reputation as soon as you get there,’ they said. ‘Will

you be a hard worker? A woman who commands respect? Or are you going to go to Austin and party?’” Minjarez adds: “You make the choice of who you want to be.” Her friend’s advice stuck with her. “First impressions are everything,” she says. “There are older members that are inappropriate,” she says in measured tones. “They have made inappropriate comments. They see how far they can push it. It’s like a high school at the Capitol. Gossip is rampant. Everyone’s competing. People get threatened by successes. There have been staff members that say they don’t understand how I’ve been able to accomplish what I’ve been able to accomplish – that I don’t deserve the recognition.” Because you’re new? I ask. “Because I’m new and I’m female,” she replies. “[But] I can either take it and focus and allow it to energize me, or I can grow resentful. I’d rather be productive.” Minjarez says she’s also seen representatives come into the Texas House “hating everything their rival party members stand for.” She considers this a counter-productive mindset. “Working together is the purpose of government,” the El Paso native says. As we spend the afternoon in her San Antonio office hopping from her experience at St. Mary’s Law School to her unsuccessful 2000 judicial campaign and back again, she credits her mother with her early trajectory. “When I was little and I wanted to go outside and play, [my mother] had me watching the Iran-Contra hearings,” she says. “She wanted me to be informed. She told me that I needed to know what’s going on in the world.” Her mother encouraged the development of her voice. “She said, ‘If you see something wrong, you have to say something.’” Minjarez remembers her first meeting with outgoing House Speaker Joe Straus, a San Antonio Republican. He welcomed her and took the time to find out what her interests were and assured her that, though it was a particularly “crazy

Jade Esteban Estrada

time,” she would settle in just fine. Straus also named her to the Transportation and State Affairs committees, the same committees on which her predecessor served. “He’s always given me incredible opportunities, and he never had to do that,” she says. “I think it’s OK to work across the aisle,” she says. “Maybe I’m one of the few who thinks that now, but I think that’s how you become effective. I think that’s good government.” Whether she’s on a panel or at the mic, Minjarez also stands by the importance of making a clear and concise argument and getting to the point immediately. “In a trial, you’re gonna lose a jury’s attention in three or four minutes if you don’t get to the point. It’s the rule of three. What are the three things we want to talk about?” Minjarez compares the culture of the Texas House to the TV show Game of Thrones. “You’ve got to have a strategy.” Do you think you’re good at the art of governing? I ask. “I think I’m good at [it] but I think I’m still honing my craft,” she says pointedly. “You’ve got to have some instinct. You’ve got to be able to listen and observe.”

She thinks that some politicians enjoy hearing the sound of their own amplified voices. She believes this causes more harm than good. “Think about it,” she explains. “If you’re in a room of 149 other representatives, and you want to take that mic every single time the mic’s available [just] because you just want to hear yourself talk, [other representatives] lose respect for you. When you want to make a valid point, they’re not listening to you anymore. And if you get on the mic just to get on the mic, you’re gonna tick ’em off, and they’re gonna vote no on your bill ’cause you ticked them off. You got to know when to be effective and when to shut-up.” To relax from the stress of Texas politics, Minjarez has a brow-raising guilty pleasure – watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. “I love Lisa Vanderpump.” Minjarez says her husband – Leo Gomez, president and CEO of Brooks on the Southeast Side – wonders how she can “be so serious and then watch that [show].” “It gives me relief,” she says with a laugh. “I love watching other people’s lives explode. It’s crazy. I love it.” Now that would make an engaging Facebook post. sacurrent.com | August 1-7, 2018 | CURRENT

news

Separation Anxiety… and Chaos

Group helping separated migrant families in South Texas can’t account for many BY SANFORD NOWLIN

day after the federal government’s July 26 deadline to reunite immigrant families, officials with the Texas Civil Rights Project said they were still trying to figure out how many have actually been brought back together. The organization could only confirm that 76 of the 382 families it’s worked with have been reunited and released after being separated under the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy. Some were reunited in South Texas detention centers, but it was unable to account for others. “These incidents point to major, ongoing problems,” said Efren Olivares, TCRP’s director for racial and economic justice. “They highlight the mismanagement of the process and the further trauma it’s causing. And they underscore the government’s utter failure to plan for timely, humane reunification when it tore families apart.” One mother represented by the group was given the wrong child, according to Olivares, although that issue was later resolved. Some parents slept in cars because they were released from detention

before their children arrived, while others received release orders but still hadn’t been allowed to leave their detention centers. At least seven TCRP clients were deported without the children taken from them at the border, Olivares said. He feared that number would grow as the group learns the whereabouts of more of the people it represents. A federal court ordered the Trump administration to reunite all migrant families by midnight Thursday, July 26. Shortly before the deadline, officials said they had reunited more than 1,800 children 5 years and older, but another 700 remain separated, including 431 who were deported. Olivares said he was concerned groups such as his and San Antonio-based RAICES are bearing the brunt of the reunification work, putting significant strain on their resources. “Nonprofit groups are now forced to fill in the gaps left by the government’s haphazard efforts,” he said. “They are working tirelessly to provide food and clothing, essential information, the ability to communicate with their legal counsel and loved ones, and assistance with travel.”

Sanford Nowlin

CURRENT | August 1-7, 2018 | sacurrent.com

Courtesy Photo

New Doggett Bill Would Let Feds Negotiate for Better Medicare Drug Prices

an Antonio-Austin Rep. Lloyd Doggett and two other Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill designed to give the feds a heavy stick when enticing pharmaceutical companies to negotiate Medicare drug prices. The measure, introduced last week, would let the feds negotiate on behalf of Medicare — something President Trump promised to do on the campaign trail but has yet to delver on. The proposed legislation also would authorize the Department of Health and Human Services to seek licenses for lower-cost generics if negotiations fail, thereby using competition to drive down prices. More than 72 Democratic cosponsors have signed on to back the legislation. “This bill calls the President’s bluff on his drug pricing promises,” Doggett said in a press statement. “It would give him the very bidding authority to save billions that he promised and back that authority up with the power of good ol’ American competition through competitive licensing. Patients cannot wait.” In May, Trump unveiled his long-touted “blueprint” to lower drug prices, but many of its key points were vague and need congressional action. Democrats criticized the president for not keeping his campaign promise of requiring the government to negotiate Medicare drug prices. Doggett’s bill is modeled after a century-old statute which permits federal agencies to use patents held by a private company so long as the government compensates the patent-holder. Under the new measure, all drug companies would receive compensation for use of their patents. —Sanford nowlin

sacurrent.com | August 1-7, 2018 | CURRENT

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BY GREG JEFFERSON

ast week, the electronic billboard peeking over I-10 East near Northwest Loop 410 read: “IBC Supports NAFTA.” Which is true. The Laredo-based bank’s CEO and chairman, Dennis Nixon, fought for passage of the sweeping trade agreement with Mexico and Canada in the early 1990s, and he’s been one of its strongest defenders ever since. But the full story of International Commerce Bank’s relationship with NAFTA would require a second billboard, one that read: “But IBC’s Dennis Nixon also supports President Trump, who considers NAFTA one of the world’s worst trade deals and has repeatedly threatened to walk away from it.” A third billboard might be helpful, too: “Trump has also demonized immigrants from Mexico, calling them rapists, drug dealers, the worst sort of people, and threatened to shut down the federal government if he doesn’t get his border wall. His attacks surely don’t sit well with many of IBC’s Latino customers.” A little more than two years ago, after Trump had eﬀectively clinched the Republican nomination for president by winning the Indiana primary, Nixon and San Antonio developer and former UT Regent Gene Powell co-hosted a

fundraiser for the candidate at Oak Hills Country Club. Powell’s involvement barely caused a murmur. But Nixon – that looked bizarre to anyone familiar with his bank but not his political agenda. The following is an excerpt from Nixon’s fundraising letter that, at ﬁrst glance, looked like it was for Trump, but was actually against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton: “First, we will NOT get the regulatory relief we need to get our economy moving again, and second, we will get MORE burdensome regulations, MORE bad decisions from a liberal Supreme Court and MORE spending on social programs, driving us deeper into debt.” At the time, most of the political commentariat assumed Trump’s racism, misogyny, overall obliviousness and lack of discipline would lead the GOP to a spectacular disaster on Election Day. He certainly hadn’t given trade-minded business leaders like Nixon much to like. And by that stage in the race for president – after a year of Trump’s simplistic attacks on U.S. trade deals and commercial dealings with other countries – nobody had any real reason to believe the candidate was faking it to cheat blue-collar workers or the economically insecure middle class out of their votes. The smart thing was to take Trump at

his word, which, granted, seemed like something only a chump would do. But he really does hate NAFTA. Nixon’s solution? Give Trump a good talking-to about the value of free trade at the June 17, 2016, fundraiser in San Antonio. The controversy over his support for Trump was intense enough that the company issued a letter before the event saying he would take a stand on free trade. The Texas Tribune picked it up from there, reporting: “Mr. Trump, we must support trade, but I agree we need fair trade,” Nixon said, according to an audio recording of the event obtained by the Texas Tribune. “And here in South Texas, NAFTA meets the definition,” Nixon added, referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement that Trump has railed against throughout his campaign. Obviously, Nixon’s lecture didn’t stick. In fact, the impact didn’t even make the trip from San Antonio to The Woodlands where Trump had another fundraiser later that day. Again from the Texas Tribune: He attacked Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, for signing NAFTA into law, calling it “maybe the worst economic development transaction ever signed in the history of our country.”

He also dramatically imitated someone questioning his conservative credentials due to his trade positions. “’You are not a conservative because you don’t believe in free trade?’” Trump said, switching back to his normal voice. “Who cares?” Nixon did not respond to the Current’s interview request. But in an interview published Monday in the San Antonio Express-News, he explained why he threw his support behind Trump in 2016. “The choices I made were that I agreed with probably 70 or 80 percent of what he’s doing and I agree with 70 or 80 percent of what he’s doing now,” he told the Express-News. “We have differences. I would suspect that in any kind of political campaign you have differences. I had about a 90 percent difference with Obama and Hillary, so I have to narrow the field of where my differences are. “I’ve continued to work and tried to influence change in [Trump’s] thinking and his administration’s thinking on my issues. We’re big NAFTA [supporters], we’re big free traders.” Another way of looking at it is that executives like Nixon who supported Trump – business people who hated overweening regulations like their guy, but also loved free trade – failed to understand how seriously injured his base felt by the globalized economy. sacurrent.com | August 1-7, 2018 | CURRENT

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news | their town IBC Bank chief executive Dennis Nixon....

Many of Bernie Sanders’ supporters felt the same way. Trump’s business supporters had largely beneﬁted from unfettered trade. Their customers and employees had not, and they were the ones Trump courted.

The Elusive Nixon

nternational Bancshares Corp., the holding company for IBC Bank and subsidiaries, may be headquartered in Laredo, but Nixon is a power in San Antonio’s political circles. Finding Nixon schmoozing at fundraisers or other candidate events, however, is as rare as chupacabra sightings. A longtime GOP campaign operative said he’s never seen Nixon on the local scene. “Dennis is kind of an elusive ﬁgure,” he said. “He’s shied away from the lower levels of politics… I’ve never met him.” Nixon was one of the business leaders who signed a letter urging Mayor Ron Nirenberg to reconsider his oppo-

sition to bidding on the 2020 Republican National Convention three months ago, according to the Rivard Report. The other signatories were billionaire B.J. “Red” McCombs, lobbyist and former state Sen. John Montford and Eddie Aldrete, IBC’s senior vice president in San Antonio. Yet no one I spoke with for this story recalled Nixon participating in any of the meetings to advocate for the convention. He’s a staunch Republican, and an early and loyal supporter of Congressman Will Hurd, who faces a stiff challenge from San Antonio Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones in his border district. “I’d classify him as a big player in the GOP, especially when it comes to financial and immigration issues,” Republican County Commissioner Kevin Wolff said. “He’s very direct, which can be

off-putting to some folks. But I actually appreciate that.” Nixon contributed $36,100 to the Trump Victory political action committee in June 2016 after earlier giving $2,700 each to GOP presidential candidates he apparently preferred over Trump – first Ohio Gov. John Kasich, then Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, according to Federal Election Commission records. Since Trump took office, Nixon has contributed $33,900 to the Republican National Committee, $5,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and $5,000 to Vice President Mike Pence’s leadership PAC, the Great America Committee. However, Nixon is also pragmatic, writing checks to business-friendly Democratic lawmakers on the border as well as GOP candidates and incumbents. County Judge Nelson Wolff, a Democrat, knows Nixon from the early 1990s when the banker was cheerleading the effort to pass NAFTA and Wolff lorded over City Hall as mayor. After he left office in 1995 because of term limits, IBC asked him to serve on the board of its San Antonio bank – a seat he still holds despite his position as county government’s highest elected official. To avoid conflicts, he said, bank officials agreed not to seek county business. “He’s a very strong person, and he’s very outspoken about what he believes in,” Wolff said, mentioning free trade and a reasonable, non-draconian immigration policy. “It was Dennis’

position that he could change Donald Trump’s mind. I’m not sure how well that’s worked out.” Wolﬀ chuckled.

Feeding on NAFTA

ixon built IBC into the biggest bank rooted on the Texas-Mexico border, with $12 billion in assets as of March 31, on the strength of NAFTA. The bank does business mostly in South, Central and Southeast Texas, including San Antonio, Austin and Houston, but also reaches into the Metroplex and Oklahoma. IBC earned a profit of $157 million in 2017. Border cities haven’t achieved the same degree of success under NAFTA as their biggest regional banker, but they’ve benefitted, too. In a 2016 report, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas concluded that McAllen, Laredo, Brownsville and El Paso offset initial factory job losses caused by the trade agreement with new jobs, many of them generated by foreign investors. They’ve also been driving down their unemployment rates and making progress in closing yawning income gaps with the rest of the country. “Texas border cities have been largely able to adjust to trade, taking advantage of geographic location to exploit NAFTA-derived opportunities and growth in northern Mexico,” the report’s author said. Steve Ahlenius, president of the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, gives Nixon a lot of credit for border cities’ gains under NAFTA. “IBC has been at the forefront of promoting trade with Mexico,” he said.

... and the NAFTA-hating president he supports.

Gino Santa Maria

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news | their town IBC’s main oﬃce in San Antonio. IBC’s Nixon is a force in the city’s political circles.

Zereshk

“Dennis Nixon understood the dynamics and what it means for the region.”

Bluster and Consequences

o far, there’s been only upside for IBC from Trump’s handling of the economy and his push to slash regulations. The bank’s profits have continued to climb, and its stock price zoomed from $29.90 on October 31, 2016, a week before Trump’s election, to $44.60 on Friday, July 27. That was just a quarter off its all-time high, also reached in July. Juiced by the massive tax cuts championed by Trump – which benefit the rich far more than anybody else – the government reported a growth spurt of four percent in the nation’s gross domestic product, also on July 27. Nixon and other bankers have also gotten at least a down payment on what they’d wanted most from a Trump presidency – relief from the DoddFrank financial reform act on banks, passed amid the wreckage of the 2008 financial crisis. The rules required banks to increase their capital reserves to guard against insolvency, and to undergo rigorous “stress tests.” In May, Trump signed a bill into law that helps small and midsize banks such as IBC by relaxing reporting requirements for

mortgage loan data and freeing many of them from stress-testing. The law, which drew rare bipartisan support in Congress, also changed the threshold for lenders considered institutions that are “too big to fail,” crucial to the country’s ﬁnancial system – and therefore subject to stricter oversight – from $50 billion in assets to $250 billion. Bankers, including Nixon, have been complaining about the cost of complying with Dodd-Frank rules since they became law under President Barack Obama – even before then, in fact. But the regulations clearly haven’t derailed IBC’s success. One of the keys to that success is trade with Mexico. A recent IBC ﬁling with the Securities and Exchange Commission makes clear how important Mexico is to its business. “The Company is very active in facilitating trade along the United States border with Mexico. The Company does a large amount of business with customers domiciled in Mexico. Deposits from persons and entities domiciled in Mexico comprise a large and stable portion of the deposit base of the Company’s bank subsidiaries. The Company also serves the growing Hispanic population

through the Company’s facilities located throughout South, Central and Southeast Texas and the State of Oklahoma.” That passage is boilerplate, appearing in every quarterly ﬁling IBC makes to the Securities and Exchange Commission. It’s boilerplate because that’s how important business with Mexico and Hispanic customers are to IBC’s prospects. IBC and its investors should be nervous.

Trump’s obsessive push for a border wall, his harsh “zero-tolerance” policy on illegal immigration and the trash he’s talked about Mexican immigrants, not to mention his decision to re-negotiate NAFTA – well, it turns out these might wind up hurting the border economy. In McAllen, Ahlenius said he’s seeing fewer Mexicans crossing the border legally to shop or sight-see. And companies north of the border are sitting tight, waiting for some hint about Trump’s real objective for trade with Mexico. The election of lefty ﬁrebrand Andrés Manuel López Obrador as Mexico’s next president is another worry among companies trading with our neighbor to the south. But at least Obrador has pressed Trump to restart NAFTA negotiations. “When there’s that much uncertainty, it causes a lot of people to step back, to reconsider their investments,” Ahlenius said. Referring to Trump’s wall talk and his immigration crackdown, he added: “It has our attention. We’re seeing the impact of that rhetoric – people not wanting to [cross the border]. It’s reverberating through our retail sector.” Nixon and many of Trump’s other business supporters may be in for a bruising lesson on the law of unintended consequences.

A border wall – Trump loves the idea, IBC’s Nixon not so much.

Shutterstock

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THU | 8/2 SUN | 8/5

Feld Entertainment SPECIAL EVEN T

MARVEL UNIVERSE LIVE!

If you’re still crying your eyes out about how Avengers: Infinity War ended, this live-action extravaganza on the Alamodome’s arena floor is sure to keep your mind off the fact that your favorite superhero was disintegrated only a few months ago. While all the superheroes might not be resurrected in the Marvel cinematic world in the future, Marvel Universe Live! promises to reunite more than 25 superheroes and villains for six performances — from staples like Iron Man, Captain America, Spider-Man and Black Panther to lesser-known characters like Iron Fist, Black Cat and Lizard. Along with appearances from the comic-book icons, Marvel Universe Live! prides itself for its pyrotechnics and special effects, motorcycle tricks, fight choreography and parkour performers who execute many of the high-flying stunts. The show was created for fans of all ages, but if you’re a 36-year-old nerd, don’t ruin it for the 6-year-old sitting next to you by exclaiming halfway through the show that the story isn’t following the correct Marvel timeline. We just might have to call Thanos on you to clear a few things up. $31-$116, 7pm Thu-Fri 7pm, 11am, 3pm & 7pm Sat, 3pm Sun, Alamodome, 100 Montana St., (210) 207-3663, alamodome.com.– Kiko Martinez

THU | 8/2 FRI | 8/3 ART

‘VITRIFIED’ \ University of Texas at San Antonio

Evidenced by such ancient curiosities as the 29,000-year-

old Venus of Dolní Věstonice figurine, ceramics boast a fascinating history as one of the oldest forms of artistic expression. But with that nearly unparalleled history comes a fairly nebulous identity due in part to its flexibility as a medium for both functional and decorative objects. Clouding the issue further, arty types are quick to categorize ceramics as “craft” over fine art. Uniting UTSA students, faculty and alumni, the summer group show “Vitrified” tackles these and other conundrums in an effort to prove that “ceramics are not limited to the familiar dinnerware.” Designed to “promote the importance of the ceramic arts,” the exhibition borrows its name from the firing process that renders clay impermeable. Co-curated by Juan Vallejo and Ed Escobedo, the wide-ranging showcase puts varied contemporary practices and concepts into play, addressing everything from faith and fragility to plastic pollution and pop culture through the eyes of artists Cassia Allen, Mary Wuest, Elyse Grams and Ovidio Giberga, among others. Free, opening reception 6-9pm Thu-Fri, on view noon-5pm Thu-Sat through August 18, Terminal 136, 136 Blue Star, (210) 458-4391, art.utsa.edu/terminal-136. — Bryan Rindfuss

FRI | 8/3 FILM

RUSHMORE E

The 1998 cult classic Rushmore was not Wes Anderson’s feature directorial debut – that distinction goes to 1996’s Bottle Rocket – but it was, unquestionably, his arrival proper. To date, the quirky dramedy remains one of the di-

rector’s most adored films and perhaps the best known among casual viewers unfamiliar with Anderson’s entire body of work. The movie follows the heroically eccentric, brilliant mess Max Fischer, played by Jason Schwartzman (in his debut), as he navigates his fancy prep school, engaging in all the extracurriculars, shrugging off academics and striking up a hilarious friendship with mogul Herman Blume (played by Bill Murray in top form). You can catch an outdoor screening of the film that jump-started the acclaimed Austin auteur’s career this weekend as a part of Slab Cinema’s ongoing Wes Fest. Free, 7:30pm, San Antonio College, 1819 N. Main Ave., (210) 212-9373, wesandersonfilmfestival.com. — James Courtney

PRESENTS

@EMPIRE

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entertainment by contrasting the polished format of his Comedy Central special with rougher late-night spots at clubs like New York City’s Comedy Cellar, which sometimes require him to shout down hecklers. “It’s raw, but people need to see that,” says the comic, who first got laughs as a class clown and by impersonating his college football teammates. “Comedy is an ugly sport.” $20, 8pm & 10:15pm Fri-Sat, 8pm Sun, Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, 618 NW Loop 410, (210) 541-8805, lolsanantonio.com. — Jeremy Martin

SAT | 8/4 DRAG

RETRO BLOODBATH 5

Buena Vista Pictures

FRI | 8/3 SUN | 8/5 COMEDY

GODFREY 5

I’m African,” says comedian Godfrey, the child of Nigerian immigrants. “I know you don’t believe me ’cause I have clothes on and shit.” The perception problem — says the Chicago-raised stand-up and actor who can be seen in Zoolander, Soul Plane, 30 Rock and Louie — comes from news reports and documentaries that exploit underdeveloped parts of the world for cheap, quick pathos: “Poverty is lucrative.” Godfrey’s web series The Village Idiot examines the difference between reality and the way it’s packaged and presented for

Billed as “San Antonio’s newest monthly alternative drag show,” Shawn Benét’s MadHouse returns to Web House for a Retro Bloodbath — a gory affair headlined by James Majesty, the controversial runner-up on season two of The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula: Search for the World’s Next Drag Supermonster (a series that’s been likened to a “rowdy, filthy alternative to RuPaul’s Drag Race”). In January, The Stranger reported on some of the “countless nasty gossip surrounding” Seattle-based Majesty — including that “Redditers vehemently spread the rumor that she fucked her porn star brother” Taylor Reign and therefore got pegged as “the incest one”

Courtesy of Godfrey

James Majesty

on Dragula. Speaking to Out magazine this summer about the release of Pervert (a debut album inspired by “horny teenage angst”), the outlandish, outspoken, sex-positive performer explained that “music was [her] escape growing up.” The title track, she said, “takes a comical look at [her] past of being a sex worker,” and she related adolescent struggles to “the sounds of queer-punk artists, drag queens and porn.” Several of those disciplines are destined to collide in Majesty’s forthcoming endeavors aiming to “mix the drag and porn worlds together to help educate more queer youth on safe sex.” Inviting guests to don their “best club-kid attire,” Majesty’s San Antonio appearance features performances by “long-term MadHouse patients” Shawn Benét, Paradox Rei, Mystere Lopez, Nova Cain, Britni Lebosavich, Ms. Anne Thrope and The Puberty Sisters, plus “new arrivals” Kooder Parker, Gena Cyde, Mehgan D. Lux, Demonica St. Nick and Paris Ite. $10-$15, 10pm-2am, Web House, 320 Blanco Road, (210) 531-0100, facebook.com/ shawnbenetsmadhouse. — BR

WITH A SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

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JASON MEWES 5

SPECIAL EVEN T

Courtesy of Extreme Midget Wrestling

EXTREME MIDGET WRESTLING

Billing itself as the “baddest lil show on earth,” Fort Worth-based promotion Extreme Midget Wrestling (or, as we’re significantly more comfortable calling it, EMW) obviously isn’t looking to score any points for political correctness. But “professional” wrestling at its best has always been about taking the worst aspects of human nature (bloodlust, xenophobia, spandex, etc.) and repackaging them into a semi-safe, somewhat controlled sports-entertainment experience. The question with all sports (and most entertainment) isn’t whether someone’s being exploited but how much control they have over how they’re being exploited. EMW’s wrestler roster — which includes afro’d kung-fu aficionado Bruce Lee Roy, crown-sporting Baby Jesus, self-described wrestler/stripper Rampage, and the self-explanatory Nasty Boy, Eddie Vato and Redneck Brawler — is more diverse and interesting than most of what you’ll see on Monday Night Raw nowadays, and they seem to be having way more fun than Mickey Rourke in that movie where he sticks his hand in a meat slicer. $20-$50, 8pm, San Antonio Shrine Auditorium, 901 N. Loop 1604 W., (210) 496-6334, extrememidgetwrestling.com..— jm

SAT | 8/4 SUN | 8/5

While he will forever be known as the vocal half of Jay and Silent Bob, the indie cult duo made famous in a handful of filmmaker Kevin Smith’s movies in the ’90s like Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy, actor and comedian Jason Mewes is getting more attention these days for the live, on-location podcast he co-hosts with longtime friend Smith — aptly titled Jay & Silent Bob Get Old. Named one of the best podcasts of 2010 by iTunes, Jay & Silent Bob Get Old was created by Smith as a “weekly intervention” to help Mewes kick his drug addiction. The show, which is currently on its 223rd episode, features Mewes and Smith shootin’ the shit in front of a live audience about everything from TV shows and comic books to Mewes’ past indiscretions. One of the podcast’s most popular segments is called “Let Us Fuck,” in which audience members are invited on stage to simulate intercourse with Mewes in sex positions based on the city they are performing in (i.e. “Georgia on My Behind”). That should keep Mewes fairly busy, at least until his new flick Jay and Silent Bob Reboot starts filming this fall. $22.50-$45, 8pm, Improv San Antonio, 849 E. Commerce St., (210) 229-1420, rivercitycomedyclub.com. – KM

SPECIAL EVENT

DOG DAYS OF SUMMER 5

The “dog days” of summer technically refer to the position of Sirius (the “dog star”) in the night sky and, as National Geographic pointed out in 2015, they “don’t correspond neatly with the heat” since they can occur at different times based on latitude. Yet the phrase has been firmly redefined over the years to simply signify the hottest days

San Antonio Botanical Garden

of July or August — when dogs (and their owners) can appear deflated, incapacitated, even crazy from the heat. An annual favorite benefiting local animal welfare organizations, the Dog Days of Summer invites four-legged friends to blow off some of that seasonal steam while sniffing and exploring nearly all 38 acres of the serene San Antonio Botanical Garden, enhanced for the occasion with an abundance of water bowls. While the Culinary Garden, the Family Adventure Garden and the Children’s Vegetable Garden are off limits to pups, the Texas Native Trail, the Rose Garden, the East Texas Pinewoods and Lake are all free to roam. In addition to “dog activities,” the weekend outing includes information tables provided by Animal Care Services and pet adoptions facilitated by SNIPSA and the San Antonio Humane Society. $9-$12 + $5 per leashed dog, 9am-5pm Sat-Sun, San Antonio Botanical Garden, 555 Funston Pl., (210) 5361400, sabot.org. — BR

Twentieth Century Fox FILM

FANTASTIC MR. FOX L

When 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox was first announced, Wes Anderson fans were eager, but cautiously so. Stop-motion animation? A Roald Dahl adaptation? Some worried this might be the beloved director’s tipping point in terms of preciousness. It was not. The film, easily one of Anderson’s finest, is tender, witty, emotionally wrenching and full of levity. The titular Mr. Fox, a go-forbroke schemer and chicken thief-turned family fox, returns to his wily and mischievous old ways with disastrous consequences for his family and entire animal community. But Mr. Fox (voiced to perfection by George Clooney) harnesses his wild animal mojo and, with the help of a crack team, saves the day. Along the way, such unforgetta-

Courtesy of Jason Mewes

ble characters as Willem Dafoe’s drunk, knife-wielding rat, Meryl Streep’s pragmatic and patient Mrs. Fox and Owen Wilson’s meditating, karate-fighting, whackbat ace Kristofferson, Mr. Fox’s nephew, among others, practically steal the show from the magnetic protagonist. This screening will be the final entry in Wes Fest, which has been a delight this summer, bringing all the director’s movies to ideal outdoor venues around town. Free, 8pm, Travis Park, 301 E. Travis St., (210) 212-9373, wesandersonfilmfestival.com. — JC FI LM

TOKYO STORY p

What will we do with our parents? Or to put it another way: what will become of us? This question is at the heart of Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953), as an aging couple pay a round of visits to their adult children and realize everyone is too occupied with their own cares and worries to have time for them. Conceived as a Japanese remake of Leo McCarey’s equally brilliant Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), which Orson Welles said would make a stone cry, Tokyo Story has come to be regarded as the masterpiece of Ozu’s understated late style, which stringently observes family relations from a series of precisely observed vantage points. It’s a classic example of the specific microcosm serving as a universal statement as it opens our eyes to the world around us. In this case, it’s a world we still live in, while Ozu’s magic is to turn its piercing sense of loss and disconnection into wounded beauty. $10-$15 suggested donation, 7:30pm, Santikos Bijou, 4522 Fredericksburg Road, (210) 614-8977, tprcinema.org. — Michael Barrett

BFI Distribution

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arts

Artist on Artist Gary Sweeney Interviews Mari Hernandez

ari Hernandez is a multidisciplinary artist whose recent Southwest School of Art photography installation “What Remains” was a knockout exploration of identity and construction of the self. A San Antonio native, Hernandez received a BA in English Literature from UTSA, but began to use art as a means of exploring her Chicana aesthetic. She and several women artists founded the art collective Más Rudas, which challenged the lack of representation of women of color in the local art community. Inspired by appearance-altering photographers and early Mexican-American artists, she began experimenting with self-portraiture to address questions about identity. Hernandez’s work is currently featured in “The Other Side of the Alamo: Art Against the Myth,” a group exhibition on view at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center through September 29. Do you remember your first experience with art? I consider my ﬁrst experience with art my exposure to the murals made by San Anto Cultural Arts on the West Side. Sure, I looked at art before then, but to experience and realize a piece of art is diﬀerent from simply looking.

to have a DIY all-female art exhibition out of a friend’s house called “Our Debut.” We each created new work by responding to the quinceañera as a theme. After that show, we decided to form a collective and continued to work together and create installations from 2009 to 2016.

Was there one particular artwork or artist that inspired you to become an artist? There was no one artist or artwork but the communities I was involved in that inspired me to become an artist. At the same time, I was learning about muralismo through San Anto Cultural Arts, I was also being introduced to contemporary art via Artpace. It was the clashing and meshing of these two seemingly contrasting worlds that informed my artistic path.

Did you ever have a mentor? I have many mentors. Some of them may not even know I consider them as such. I have had many people, mostly women, guide me throughout my creative path. The most signiﬁcant piece of advice a mentor has given me was to take my seat at the table, and to insert myself into spaces that lacked representation of women of color.

How did your early art collaboration Más Rudas come about? The ﬁrst time Más Rudas worked together was in the fall of 2009. We came together

How would you describe your artwork to someone who has never seen it? I make photographic self-portraits that explore issues of identity. Using costumes, wigs, facial prosthetics and makeup, I alter my appearance and construct characters. These characters are

Sweeney with Hernandez at her exhibition “What Remains”

subjects and collectively create narratives. My work is rooted in representation. Do you struggle with the creative process, or does it flow out of you easily? My creative process is always evolving but there are elements within my process that are constant. I spend the majority of my time researching. I’ve realized the steps it takes to harness energy and transform that into making. Once that occurs, the process seems to ﬂow. I’ve also learned to trust my creative intuition. I know if I hit a wall that my intention will eventually manifest if I stick to the static steps of my process. Do you feel that San Antonio is more receptive to Latinx artists than other places? I feel that the arts community in San Antonio has made some eﬀort to consider representa-

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arts

Artist on Artist Gary Sweeney Interviews Mari Hernandez

How did your early art collaboration Más Rudas come about? The ﬁrst time Más Rudas worked together was in the fall of 2009. We came together

Sweeney with Hernandez at her exhibition “What Remains”

Find more arts coverage every day at sacurrent.com

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Charlie Kitchen

color are challenged with all across the nation. The majority of our city is brown — Latino, Latinx, Mexican American, or however you prefer to identify. Do our artistic spaces reﬂect that? If you take into consideration the artists being shown, and given opportunities, are those artists an equitable reﬂection of the city’s artistic producers? The real action and response is being done in DIY communities and artist-run spaces. There is a lot of work to be done around these issues still.

tion of Latinx artists, but concrete institutional change is slow. In my experience, representation is an issue that artists of

If you could change the gallery system, what would you do? Make diversity and equity training mandatory for all staﬀ. I would also work at identifying barriers for audiences and artists and break them down. Some people see art as an exclusive luxury or entertainment. I see art as a necessity for healthy development that should be inclusive. Tell me something that would surprise your friends to know.

Clockwise from bottom left: Socorro to Provide Relief, Epidemic, The Signing, installation view of “What Remains.”

I started going to clubs at a really young age and danced to freestyle. Back in the day, what is now Paper Tiger used to be a freestyle club called Club Spice. It was dark and hot, and I saw many questionable things there. I had a VIP pass and would go every weekend. My mom would drop me oﬀ and sometimes when I wasn’t outside at the end of the night she would have me paged over the intercom — embarrassing. That club was wild. I’m not sure if my 13-year-old self should have been there or not, but I can still get down to some freestyle. Shout-out to my cousin Debbie who got me into freestyle! Puro DJ Laz. Tell me about the photos you showed at the Southwest School of Art. How did you discover your materials? Primarily, the work I make is heavy in

context and addresses serious issues. So my goal was to present the work in a way that eased the viewer into the real meaning. The photographs are printed on a lightweight fabric. It flows and has an organic movement that brings the photographs to life. The lightness of the fabric creates a calm atmosphere, although the work is heavy in circumstance. They also mimic flags in their presentation and in terms of symbolism. If you could own any piece of art, what would it be? Any work by María Izquierdo. Name three of your favorite things. Large bodies of water. Opening up all the detergent bottles at the grocery store and taking a big whiff of each one! Holiday horror films. sacurrent.com | August 1-7, 2018 | CURRENT

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The Drag Destination

arts Serving San Antonio Pride in Gay Paris John Barrera and Pablo Cruz to rep the Alamo City at the Gay Games BY BRYAN RINDFUSS “We hope to come back with a gold medal,” realtor and fitness instructor John Barrera tells me on the Brackenridge High School tennis courts. “They’re very nice,” chimes in Barrera’s doubles partner, Pablo Cruz, who’s worked as an AT&T project manager for 25 years and counting. Rightfully giddy with excitement, the two University of Texas at San Antonio alums are gearing up for the 10th edition of the Gay Games in Paris (August 4-12), where they’ll compete against players from across the globe – donning custom-made, accessorized outfits, no less. With an air of confidence, Barrera adds, “We’ll make it to the finals, so we’ll play five days.” Barrera, a Houston native who grew up on the courts but took a 16-year hiatus from tennis, and Cruz, a tennis newcomer from the tiny Rio Grande Valley town of Roma who served in the U.S. Navy and entered San Antonio’s gay sports arena via Diablos Outsports, have been playing together for two and half years as part of the Tennis Club of San Antonio (TCSA), a proudly “all-inclusive” nonprofit organization launched three years ago. “I would say probably half our members are heterosexual,” Barrera says of TCSA’s membership, which has grown from roughly 20 to 125 individuals encompassing everyone from “beginners who’ve never held a racket to advanced players.” Beyond weekly tennis socials and its annual Alamo City Tennis Classic tournament in April (certified for the last two years as a “Masters Series” by the Gay and Lesbian Tennis Alliance), TCSA prides itself on giving back to San Antonio’s LGBTQ* community. “We give to Thrive Youth Center [and] the San Antonio AIDS Foundation,” Barrera explains. “We gave four scholarships out yesterday: one for $1,250, one for $1,000, one for $750 and one for $500

John Barrera and Pablo Cruz photographed by Bryan Rindfuss

to four students — one from Clark High School, two from Brackenridge High School and one from Health Careers.” In anticipation of their athletic adventures in gay Paris, we quizzed the dynamic duo about their competition strategy and what else they have planned in the City of Lights. What does it take to get into the Gay Games? JB: Well, you have to quickly apply, as I’ve learned. Tennis and golf are the first two sports to sell out. There are really no requirements. It’s a diverse group of people: You can be gay, bisexual, transgender, asexual or heterosexual. For example, we’re playing together and we’re both gay. But Pablo’s husband will be playing sand volleyball, and his partner is straight and married. So it’s a very diverse culture of athletes. I would say the vast majority will be gay, [and] there are 36 different sporting events. We’re playing singles and doubles. We’ll be playing on red clay there in Paris. You’re ranked according to the United States Tennis Association and GLTA because it’s a GLTA-sanctioned event. We’re both in the C category and we’re also playing in the over-50 division. So we’re doing this for the first time ever, because we typically play at our level in tournaments throughout the United States. So this’ll be our first time to play over 50 at an international tournament. Do you have any particular strategy in play? PC: We’ve always had the mentality [that]

we have nothing to lose. And when we take that mentality, we’ve won tournaments we weren’t supposed to win. We’ve taken the first, second and third seats out. JB: We play aggressively. We communicate well on and off the court. And when one of us is not playing at our best level, the other one motivates you to really kick it in. So we understand each other’s chemistry on the court. There are times when we communicate. We talk. We’ll say, “Reset.” We’ll mention our tennis coach Leo [and] remember to follow through. PC: So we’re very supportive where we’ll see other doubles team members fighting within themselves. Tell me about the custom shirts you ordered. JB: We’ve got a couple of custom shirts being done. One is being done locally. It’s a white T-shirt that says “Love” and the “O” will be a tennis ball. Underneath that blue logo of “Love” will be “Paris Gay Games” in red letters and then on the sleeve we have “First Serve Tennis,” who sponsored us. They’re a local tennis store in Castle Hills. We also have another Lacoste shirt that will arrive while we’re in Paris, which is a white polo. The big alligator is the United States flag. You mentioned you’d be competing in diamond tennis bracelets? JB: I haven’t told Pablo about this [laughs]. So Joseph Torres and I were talking a couple of weeks ago, and we thought it could be a new trend to set

for gay men — or straight men — to start wearing women’s tennis bracelets. So I’m going home this weekend, and my mother has four of them. And I’m getting one of them, and I’m wearing it in Paris. So Pablo has to find one now. JB: Yes [laughs]. PC: You know, he’s very [fashion-conscious]. And I’m more like, just put whatever shirt on and just go. What else do you guys plan to do while you’re in Paris? JB: This is my second time in Paris … I love doing tourist stuff. He and his husband have never been so I’m going to do touristy things with them — go to the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, museums, biking, a boat ride on the Seine. You’re going biking in the city or outside the city? PC: Within the city and outside the city as well. There is a bike tour at Versailles. You can actually bike around the castle and the area and also the small town [where the train station is]. Anything else you’d like to add? PC: There will be opening ceremonies just like in the Olympics. Within the United States, every state is represented. So the Texas folks will have a specific shirt with Texas and U.S. flags. JB: Except for us. We’re actually wearing one of our custom shirts. We’re not wearing what everyone else is wearing. It’ll be a surprise. You have to stand out somehow. sacurrent.com | August 1-7, 2018 | CURRENT

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CURRENT | August 1-7, 2018 | sacurrent.com

screens

A still from Alexia Salingaros’ film Junction

Local Flavor

After 24 years, SAFILM continues to give a platform to creative San Antonio moviemakers BY KIKO MARTINEZ

ooner or later, San Antonio Film Festival (SAFILM) director and founder Adam Rocha thinks a hometown filmmaker will emerge to tell stories about the Alamo City, much like Spike Lee does with Brooklyn, New York, and Kevin Smith with Red Bank, New Jersey. “We want to give birth to a filmmaker from San Antonio who can do the same,” Rocha told the Current. “We want someone to tell the great stories we have here.” Celebrating its 24th year in the community, SAFILM has seen a host of local filmmakers like Ya’Ke Smith (Katrina’s Son), Bryan Ortiz (Doctor S Battles the Sex Crazed Reefer Zombies) and Eric Fonseca (Funeral March for a Marionette) compete with movies from around the world during the festival. This year, the festival, which takes place August 1-5, is no different. Rocha said the number of projects directed by San Antonio filmmakers is at one of the highest levels he’s ever seen. Some of these local films include Tía Chuck: A Portrait of Chuck Ramirez by Angela and Mark Walley; Cornyation by Dave Sims; and Mr. Zoot Suit by Chan’Cellore Makanjuola. The jury is still out on whether this year’s

group will produce the next big-name director like Lee or Smith, but the hunger of local filmmakers is more evident each year SAFILM comes around. “I’m really happy and excited about all the San Antonio filmmakers we have screening their work this year,” Rocha said. “The filmmaking community is definitely growing.” Another local filmmaker participating in SAFILM this year is Alexia Salingaros. Currently studying film at New York University, Salingaros is a graduate of Saint Mary’s Hall. Her new short film Junction gives viewers a surreal glimpse into the loving, albeit painful, relationship between two women who find themselves on an emotional journey with one another. Salingaros flew from New York to San Antonio with a “micro-team” of five crew members to shoot Junction in her hometown. “My hope for this film is that it may connect with each viewer uniquely,” Salingaros said. “This film marks my transition into a higher level of filmmaking — from high school to college. This is a film that does not shy away from getting lost in a fantastical yet brutally honest world. I can’t wait to share it with the community.” For local filmmaker Raymond Ramos, SAFILM is a platform where he can showcase his work as a filmmaker who is looking to “invoke feelings” with the films he creates. In his new short project ADAM, Ramos tells the true story of the events that led to the suicide of a bullied high school student inside his classroom and how his death affected one of his friends. “Filmmaking is about getting a reaction from your audience,” Ramos said. “I want to make films that leave you thinking about them after you see them.” Also screening his new movie is local film-

maker Sam Lerma. Recently, Lerma stepped away from his position as an instructor and director of production at the Film School of San Antonio at Harlandale after eight years, so he could focus more attention on his film and commercial career. In his half-hour film Eastpoint: An Art Documentary, Lerma centers his story on the art curriculum in the Eastpoint public schools and shows how arts education “helps nurture creativity and leads to better student performance.” “As an art lover, and a creative myself, I feel it was important to document the impact of art on the children in Eastpoint,” Lerma said. “Art is an important component to a child’s education. I feel it deserves more respect than it’s given, especially in the current climate. We need art in the classroom. It should be a part of every child’s curriculum.” Local filmmaker Kaitlyn Rosas is someone who benefited from going to a school where art was a key element in her education. A recent graduate of the North East School of the Arts, she is screening Holy Ground, a short documentary on the Canary Islanders of Villa de San Fernando and the deep roots they have in San Antonio. As an 11th generation descendent of the Canary Islands, Rosas encourages others to become curious about family history and ask questions about their origins. She looks forward to telling more of these stories in the future as a San Antonio-based filmmaker. “Our town is so creative and beautifully influenced by the diversity of our cultures,” Rosas said. “I feel it really comes into play with what we bring to the table as filmmakers. We may not be as big as some Texas towns when it comes to film, but I truly believe we are on the rise.”

Find more film stories at sacurrent.com

screens On Schedule

10 feature films to fill your festival lineup BY KIKO MARTINEZ

an Antonio filmmakers will be well-represented at this year’s SAFILM, but with more than 150 feature and short films on the schedule, local filmmakers aren’t the only game in town. Here’s a quick look at a few of the feature films screening at the Tobin from August 1-5. For the full lineup, visit safilm.com.

Tilapia Film

Trine Films

Rodents of Unusual Size

The House, the Hand and the Hatchet

Local fisherman-turned-bounty hunter Thomas Gonzales teams up with director Chris Metzler in a documentary about a group of gigantic swamp rats that are destroying the coastal wetlands in Louisiana. 3pm Thu, August 2

Directed by Austin Lottimer, this documentary follows American sculptor James Surls during 2015 as he creates new large-scale bronze, steel and wooden sculptures and travels around the world to install them. 9pm Fri, August 3

An American in Texas

An American in Texas A group of defiant, punk-rock teenagers try to find a way to use their music to escape their small Texas town and head to Los Angeles in the 1990s. 9pm Sat, August 4

Student Debt Crisis Film La Maroma

They Call Me King Tiger This Mexican documentary from director Ángel Estrada Soto tells the story of Chicano activist Reies Lopez Tijerina, who commanded an armed raid on the court of Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, in 1967. 6pm Wed, August 1

Stillman Films

York Media

Fail State This documentary exposé explores the rise of predatory for-profit colleges and the connection they have to the worlds of politics and business. The film is executive-produced by news legend Dan Rather. 3pm Thu, August 2

Up to Snuff

Buckshot

Friends and collaborators, including Aaron Sorkin, Martin Sheen, Tom Arnold and Fred Savage, share personal stories about American musician and composer W.G. “Snuffy” Walden in a documentary about his career in the entertainment industry. 3pm Sat, August 4

A struggling country singer from New Jersey, Charlie Stillman (Conor Murphy) travels to Nashville to follow in his late father’s footsteps to become a country music star in this dark comedy by director Joshua J. Smith. 4pm Sun, August 5

San Antonio Film Festival $11-$16 single movie ticket, $39 one-day pass, $75 weekend badge, $139 VIP badge 212 Berlin

8th House Entertainment Related Pictures

Witkin & Witkin Directed by Trisha Ziff, this documentary follows identical twins Joel and Jerome Witkin — one a renowned photographer and the other a painter and life-long educator. Although twins, their lives couldn’t be more different. 8pm Wed, August 1 30

CURRENT | August 1-7, 2018 | sacurrent.com

Frank and Ava Actors Rico Simonini and Emily Elicia Low star as Hollywood icons Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner during their tumultuous love affair in the 1950s. Frank and Ava marks the final screen performance by the late Harry Dean Stanton. 7pm Thu, August 2

Stella’s Last Weekend Actress Polly Draper (TV’s Thirtysomething) directs her two real-life sons Nat Wolff (Paper Towns) and Alex Wolff (Hereditary) in a comedy about two brothers who learn they are in love with the same girl. 9pm Sat, August 4

August 1-5 Tobin Center for the Performing Arts 100 Auditorium Circle (210) 223-8624 safilm.com

screens Prodigal Son

Actor and SA native Jesse Borrego on his legacy after 30 years in Hollywood BY KIKO MARTINEZ

ctor Jesse Borrego (Blood In Blood Out, Lone Star, Con Air) will be presented with the Legacy Award on August 4 at SAFILM. His new film Closer to Bottom, which he directed and stars in, screens on August 5. Along with Closer to Bottom, four of Borrego’s past films will also screen: 1994’s Bienvenido-Welcome (2pm Sun, August 5), 1995’s Tecumseh: The Last Word (6pm Wed, August 1), 1996’s Follow Me Home (9pm Thu, August 2) and the world premiere of the 2018 romantic dramedy Colossal Youth (9pm Fri, August 3). The Current caught up with Borrego last week to talk about how he defines his legacy and how that has changed over the years. How does it feel to be receiving the Legacy Award from SAFILM? I’m honored. A lot of times, I think about what “legacy” means. Am I on the back half of my career, or what? [Laughs] I think what it means is that people appreciate your work. I’m quite proud that I’m receiving this award and proud to showcase some of the pieces that represent the less-known legacy of my career. When you think back 25 years to Blood In, Blood Out, what stands out to you the most? I was at the pinnacle of my career. It was the early ’90s and the Latino wave was only being talked about. [Director] Taylor Hackford really embraced the Latino culture. There was a lot of energy put behind it. Taylor was really banking on me to bring a lot of authenticity to the project. Then, the [Los Angeles] riots happened and that completely changed the landscape for distribution. I think a lot of our hard work got lost when Hollywood tried to squash this project because they were afraid of the ramifications. After that, you ended up doing a lot of independent work, right? Yes. I was the best-kept secret in Latino Hollywood. I loved it that way. During most of the ’90s, I labored and just

Jesse Borrego

tried to do relevant films like Mi Vida Loca and I Like It Like That and Follow Me Home, which was directed by Peter Bratt. That film was way ahead of the curve and did really well at Sundance, but it didn’t get any love from Hollywood. So, once again, my legacy got pushed into cult, indie [status]. It’s been an illustrious career, but I should be richer than I am. [Laughs] What are some examples of roles you’ve passed on in your career? Well, if you tried to fit me into a character mold, I wasn’t going to be a drug dealer or a rapist or the idiot. I said no because I felt my brand was authenticity. My characters had to have heart. So I held out. I didn’t want that to be my legacy.

For our full interview with Jesse Borrego, visit sacurrent.com. sacurrent.com | August 1-7, 2018 | CURRENT

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CURRENT | August 1-7, 2018 | sacurrent.com

food

THE BIG SPOON

Is there a right way to open a restaurant? BY JESS ELIZARRARAS

ver the past five years, I’ve watched several hundred restaurants open, and probably as many restaurants close. It’s not a pretty picture, but here’s the usual story arc: A person with little-to-no restaurant knowledge decides to take their family recipes and invest in a cook who makes great food. Having gone way over budget outfitting the restaurant and leasing a cool location, the doors open and … crickets. (I’m not trying to pick on people who may not have experience – even the pros fail.) As Food and Nightlife editor, I keep my ear to the ground for new restaurants, as do my pair of freelancers. I scour sales tax records. I drive around and look for “coming soon” signs, and I keep an eye on social media. Given that it’s the Wild West in terms of restaurant openings in San Antonio, the hardest part is watching restaurants open their doors without telling anyone about it. That’s why restaurants and shops should have a plan. Email me so I can tell readers about your newness (flavor@sacurrent.com), email other publications, email TV stations and tell them your story. Set up a social-media presence and let someone who knows how to use it manage the story-telling for you. Tease out what your best dishes will look like and how they’ll set you apart from the rest. The easiest ways for business owners to understand the power of a great plan is to see this in action. I have to point to two of San Antonio’s newest restaurants as guides to how to nail an opening. Brew’s Lee Tea Station owners Billy and Frances Lee rolled out their social-media presence two months before opening the doors to their cute, all-too-Instagrammable space with fresh-brewed teas. They

Jess Elizarraras

invited local foodies to taste iridescent teas on weekends leading up to the November opening. Their opening was a packed affair with hundreds lining up to try their take on bubble tea. Since then, their social-media prowess has continued. New menu items are added and shared on each platform. Frances re-shares fans’ images with permission, and thanks them for coming each time. On the city’s West Side, Cornelius and Lattoia Massey introduced their concept of Chef Nicola Blaque’s The Jerk Shack this May. But their work began years ago after Lattoia graduated from the Culinary Institute of America-San Antonio and launched a small mealprep delivery business that relied on their vast network. The military vets teamed up with Christian Reed-Ogba and husband Uchennaya of BethanyEast PR along the way as vendors for the couple’s event and public relations. When they found their location on the West Side, the pair set out to renovate the space, and get on their neighbors’ radar. Reed-Ogba said the Masseys made sure the staff and students at Our Lady of the Lake University knew about them, and handed out fliers during pick-up at the neighboring KIPP Academy. “We had fliers, were cooking up food that smelled really good, had music blasting,” Reed-Ogba said. The public tour de force included establish-

L PR specialists Christian Reed-Ogba and husband Uchennaya help get the word out about The Jerk Shack.

ing relationships with vendors, reaching out to local groups individually, inviting media (traditional and social) to meet the Masseys and introducing them to their story and food. They also recorded a video for a local news station that has now garnered 2 million views. When opening day finally came, the small kitchen was met with massive lines that began at 9:30 a.m., which led to some rough Yelp and Facebook reviews. But the staff used the experience to tweak their processes so that customers don’t have to wait several hours for their food. Corneilus responds to each negative review by listening to people’s plight, apologizing and adding personality. The lines are still there, but the couple has added call-in orders and will soon participate in UberEats. “You have to create your word-of-mouth whether it’s in a full email, in a full conversation, and stick with your word,” Reed-Obga said. That new word-of-mouth might mean the difference between a long-lasting business and closing your doors within six months.

Contact the author: flavor@sacurrent.com

Find more food & drink news at sacurrent.com

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food Dough Doubles Down

Pizza restaurant delights tourists and locals alike with downtown outpost BY RON BECHTOL

Dough’s signature Truffle Burrata oug Horn feels it will take a puts the stretchy cheese front and cenlittle while longer to tame the ter, filling it with truffle mascarpone Southtown spores that have and plating the lobe with tomatoes historically colonized the and drizzles of a rosemary balsamic corner of Hemisfair Park that now hosts Dough Downtown. Yoda of Yeast that he reduction. Truffle flavorings can easily get out of hand, but the hand was light is, Horn has long since come to a workin this instance. Don’t be fooled by ing accommodation with the leavening sensitive seasoning, however; this is agents that inhabit his and his wife Loundeniably a Lucullan presentation. ri’s first Dough at 410 and Blanco, so we New to the menu since DD’s opening are convinced that, in time, a relationis an antipasto consisting of mozzaship will flower here as well. rella wrapped with silky prosciutto Lacking Horn’s refined sensibilities and sauced with a robust marinara. If in the arena of leavening dough, I sharing pizza weren’t reason enough would have assumed the relationship to do Dough with a already to have been friend or two, this spieconsummated with dini plate, consisting the arrival of my first Dough Downtown of three, cigar-shaped pizza out of the new, 518 S. Alamo St. cylinders, would easily copper penny-clad (210) 227-2900 add another; no reaoven, that essential sonable person should engine of the genuine, doughpizzeria.com attempt to consume it Neapolitan product in Hours (subject to change): all before attacking the all its sanctioned glory. 5- exhaustion of fresh mozbetter part of a pie. The crust had that zarella Tue-Thu; noon-end of And yet, Dough’s beautiful, just-shortfresh mozzarella Fri-Sun take-home pizza box of-burnt corona, the Pizzas: $9.50 small to $22.50 comes complete with topping (it was a daily large. reheating instructions. special) sported sopI’ve been doing it wrong pressata, house-pulled for years. (Hint: it mozzarella, teardrop employs a frying pan, not the oven—and peppers, a basil cream and artichoke it works.) So this turns out, after all, to hearts. It seemed a match made in pizbe an apology for eating alone at the za paradise, and I don’t even much like bar. There’s always somebody to talk to canned artichoke hearts. if you’re in the mood; taking a magazine Since pie one, I’ve sampled several works if you’re not. Service at the bar is others, and I’d be lying if I said I could quicker, more direct, and likely more detect any, even incremental, improveavailable at peak, early evening hours. ments in the crust; they all seemed And stool seating somehow seems fine to me. An “artisanal” pepperoni to be an invitation to explore Dough’s with seared mushrooms gave the superlative wine list. It’s firmly planted much-abused adjective back some of in Southern Italy, and everything is its credibility: no alarmingly orange available by the glass. Pericolo — but oil slicks here. The classic Margherita what the hell. I had a primitivo, the aldemonstrated the value of a perfect, leged precursor of zinfandel, followed and perfectly simple, tomato sauce — by an exquisitely concentrated Appasagain paired with house-made mozsimento Rosso Salento, a full-bodied zarella and fresh basil. (Though there are other origin histories, the party line wine that blends primitivo with negro amaro and seemed tailor-made for my has it that a particularly obsequious pizza’s caramelized onion with balsamNeapolitan pizza-maker created the ic, mushrooms and fontina. After this pie in honor of Queen Consort of Italy, mash note to southern reds, it should Margherita of Savoy. That his creation be mentioned that Italians often prefer is also the colors of the Italian flag may birra with their pizza, and here Dough or may not be incidental.)

Jess Elizarraras

Best bets: The pizza of your choosing, from minimalist Margherita to maximalist Pork Love; truffle burrata; spiedini of mozzarella and prosciutto; any of the wine list’s red wines by the glass.

The Skinny: Dough Downtown is the second San Antonio outpost of Dough Castle

Hills (there’s also a Dough in Plano), and it hews to the same standards as the strictly Neapolitan-certified original — though with a slightly smaller menu and reduced hours at the opening.

rides to the rescue with a concentration on Texas brews. Consider Alamo Brewery’s unfiltered Belgian white, or either of HighWheel’s offerings, the bright and bouncy Betty and the deeper (think caramelized onions and mushrooms) Porter. Determining to take home half your pizza (yes, even solo diners should order a large; the small can come across

as ungenerous and un-Italian) also opens the door to dessert, IMHO, especially if that indulgence is gianduja, a lush chocolate and hazelnut gelato. Its two flavors work together as well as that other classic, Italian couple— minus the tragic outcome. And you’ll want something cold to launch you back out into the searing heat of a San Antonio summer. sacurrent.com | August 1-7, 2018 | CURRENT

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food | nightlife

Mara and Rob Green, of Texas Cultures Laboratories, are taking their love of hikes and science to a new level with their at-home yeast laboratory, that curates cultures for local breweries.

Love and Yeast

Photos courtesy of Texas Cultures Laboratories

Couple pairs science, sustainability with search for local yeasts BY LANCE HIGDON

or their third date, Texas Cultures Laboratories founders Mara and Rob Green spent a week camping in Colorado Bend. Last month, they got married there. Such excursions have become a centerpiece of their relationship and the engine of their professional passion: hunting down the microorganisms that will fuel the future of Texas craft beer. Trained as a theologian and biologist, respectively, at the University of the Incarnate Word, Mara and Rob started Texas Cultures in 2016. During a conversation at their home/laboratory in Olmos Park Terrace, Rob cited a chat from his time working at the Granary ‘Cue & Brew as the genesis of this yeast quest.

“As the exact conversation would go, I one day asked Alex [Rattay, thenhead brewer at the Granary] about the origin of barleywine yeast,” Rob said. “As he explained its English roots, I wondered if all beers could possess their own terroir — and where are all the American yeasts?” To answer those questions, the Greens began blending their love of the outdoors with their passion for science, sustainability and the promise of truly singular yeasts for Texas brewers. Rather than capturing yeast via coolship or other traditional methods, Texas Cultures gathers specimens in sterilized collection vials. Using what Mara describes as the “pick-shovepop-snap” method, yeast hunters can

bottle up any natural source of sugar — flowers, fruit, tree sap — then send it back to the lab for analysis and, if the yeast passes muster, cultivate it in a propagation tank. The results literally capture flavors and functions particular to a single time and place, a fact that the Greens highlight in profiles for each yeast, complete with brewing specs, flavor, profiles and pictures of the source plant. There are ecological advantages also. “Locally-produced yeast reduces the environmental impact of shipping yeast in from California, usually an overnight shipment,” Rob said. “This allows for a healthier yeast, lower yeast prices and a much shorter production lead time in ordering.” Texas Cultures use saisons as the control for brewing yeast candidates. As we sampled several bottles over the course of our interview (in the name of science, of course), strains gathered from across the state revealed a breathtaking diversity. One yeast harvested off a cactus blossom in Big Bend delivered bright springtime flavors; another, collected from a yucca plant just 70 miles away, favored an earthy profile. A personal favorite was the Buttercup, which carried all the floral sweetness of its namesake. Texas Cultures has already won admirers in the brewing community. They include fellow scientist/brewer Tim Castaneda of Black Laboratory Brewing, who pitched one of the lab’s early strains in a citrusy, dry pale ale. He sees a demand for locally-produced and housed yeast, both for creativity and quality control reasons.

“Most big laboratories will make a lot of yeast and store it in their cooler, where it has a shelf life of up to several months, but as each week passes a certain percentage of yeast begins to die and will go dormant,” Castaneda said in an email to the Current. “Texas Cultures prepares your order when you order it, meaning that you get 100 percent viability and it is typically still highly active and ready to be pitched.” Texas Cultures contributes to non-brewing applications for yeast as well. The Greens are currently conducting field research in the Big Thicket and Government Canyon to collect yeasts that consume sugars so fast they might prove a natural foil to plant-killing fungi and molds. Both Greens are going to graduate school in the fall — he for biotechnology, she for environmental sustainability — in order to support the lab’s longterm dreams. Those dreams include a community yeast bank sourced from Texas and beyond, as well as hiring staff to oversee day-to-day operations — which would allow the Greens to spend lots of quality time together out in the field. So, what should a first-time collector look for when foraging? “You want the one that’s farthest away from people, and not in baking 102-degree weather, in slightly dappled sunlight, and a little bit more humid and the butterflies are going to that one,” Mara said, laughing. “You’re like, ‘That’s the one.’ The one the butterflies are drinking from, that’s the one!” sacurrent.com | August 1-7, 2018 | CURRENT

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music

Council Will Spotlight S.A. Tunes. Musicians Respond with a Chorus of ‘Meh’ BY SANFORD NOWLIN AND CHRIS CONDE

t seems like something musicians would like the sound of — a city program dreamed up by Mayor Ron Nirenberg that promotes local artists by playing snippets of their songs at each Council meeting. But the newly launched Local Music Spotlight program hasn’t grabbed a fan following. At least not yet. Local musicians say they appreciate the city’s intent but doubt how much value they’ll get from it. A chief concern is whether the snippet — just 30 to 45 seconds of music played at the start of each Council session — is enough to make any real impression. Plus, the City’s not paying for its use. “I fall into the category of people who think any publicity is good,” said Jason Christopher Treviño, who’s performed both in bands and as a solo artist in S.A. for 25 years. “But the people who I see benefitting from this aren’t really the musicians, it’s the politicians who can present themselves as being friendly to local music.” Treviño’s skepticism stems from past experience. One of his outfits, the power pop band Rosedale Highs, was featured on a city website several years ago. Even though the page included a link to download more of the band’s music, Treviño saw no appreciable boost in traffic. R&B singer and producer Alyson Alonzo put it more bluntly. “If you wanna use our music, pay us,” she said. “Even if it is a $50 H-E-B gift card, we could use the groceries. That’s bullshit that’s there’s no budget [to pay musicians for use of their music].”

How it works

nder Local Music Spotlight, a panel of musicians will select songs from online submissions by local artists. The snippets will play both in the Council Chamber and as intro music for the city’s cable access and lifestream broadcasts of the meetings. As in a music video, the name of the artist and the song would appear on the bottom of the screen.

Jason Christopher Trevino’s Facebook

Federico Chavez Blanco will be the first, with his song “Celebration” featured at the Aug. 2, 9 a.m. session. Little surprise here: the song is the official score to S.A.’s Tricentennial and was featured during its New Year’s Eve fireworks display. The only stipulation for song entries is that music must be an original, by a San Antonio-based artist and free of offensive lyrics. But other than that, the City’s open to any genre and lyrics sung in any language. “We feel like it’s a good way to showcase just how diverse music is in San Antonio,” said Krystal Jones, San Antonio’s film and music commissioner.

Whether exposure

hat said, it’s hard to imagine any panel thinking San Antonio’s most grating or experimental musical exports — say, Cannibal Bitch, for example — would make an appropriate curtain raiser to a Council meeting. Musicians also question whether playing new music to a few dozen people more worried about property taxes or urban sprawl is reaching the ideal market. “Maybe the City should curate a Spotify playlist of all this good local music they want to promote,” suggested singer-songwriter Garrett T. Capps. “That might get more exposure than playing it at a Council meeting.” Capps knows a little about exposure. After his Tex-Mex rocker “Born in San Antone” was featured as the season-opening song for Showtime drama series Billions this spring, Spotify plays of the tune hit 100,000 and mail orders for his merch jetted into high gear. While Capps said he appreciates Nirenberg’s sentiments, he’d love to see the City foster a program that helps local musicians afford health insurance. After all, despite his recent success, he’s still schlepping at a day job. For his part, Wayne Holtz, a queer-identifying indie-pop artist, said he’s willing to take

the promotion. Even if it may not be in the ideal form. “It’ll be interesting for the people watching these meetings to experience part of the city — us artists that they might not know even existed,” he said. “But are there better ways? Of course there are better ways.” Still, to Holtz’s mind, Nirenberg is doing more for the music scene than any other recent politician: “He’s trying.”

A larger plan

fter the Internet blew up all the recording industry’s old delivery models, the problem for most musicians isn’t necessarily exposure but getting compensation for their endless hours of practicing, gigging and recording. The average professional musician (not part-timers or weekend dabblers) makes between $20,000 and $25,000 annually, according to a recent Music Industry Research Association survey — and that amount has held flat for the past six years. What’s more, 61 percent of those surveyed said music-related income “isn’t sufficient to meet their living expenses.” But Jones said Local Music Spotlight is just an initial step of a larger effort to promote and sustain San Antonio’s music scene. The City’s Music Commission hosted recent sessions with local musicians and venue operators to collect feedback on how it can help raise their profiles. And in coming weeks, it will launch a website that includes a toolbox for local artists plus a free directory of performers, promoters and venues. As for Capp’s suggestion for a Spotify playlist, Jones said that’s in the works. So is an iTunes playist. “This is just one piece of a larger plan,” Jones said. Local musicians say they hope that’s the case. Because good intentions don’t go very far. Especially when they’re doled out in 30-second increments.

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M OMAR APOLLO

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Wednesday, August 1

Omar Apollo’s forlorn crooning and seductive falsetto have him slated for success and as much fan adoration as he gives the subjects of his music. The Indiana native infuses his bedroom pop with a mixture of old-school soul, funk and R&B grooves on his debut EP Stereo, released earlier this summer. He keeps his love songs from being stale or sticky, with swaggering textures, clever guitar and a peppering of Spanish. It’s as if young Justin Timberlake was lo-fi, Chicano and came of age after Brockhampton and Bruno Mars. Catch him at the Paper Tiger with San Francisco-based introspective R&B and hip-hop artist Rosehardt. $12-$14, 8pm, Paper Tiger, 2410 N St. Mary’s, papertigersatx.com. – Camille Sauers

FITNESS, WILD MOCCASINS

Friday, August 3 It’s a hell of a night at Paper Tiger when a show like this one is the small draw. We feel for all those like us who fall right in the center of the Venn diagram of Lil B fans and Wild Moccasins fans. It’s a tough life. On the real, though, Wild Moccasins is a splendid indie pop band from Houston with a fantastically engrossing live show. Pure pop bliss with a flair for the dramatic and a 1980s synth dark side, Wild Moccasins’ music works as well for fans of Metric as for fans of Beach House. The group comes to town supporting its excellent third LP Look Together, which came out in June. In the supporting role on this bill, surprisingly enough, is Fitness, the new alternative/dark synth-pop duo comprised of Eve 6 (yes, that Eve 6) frontman Max Collins and former AWOLNATION keyboardist Kenny Carkeet. $12, 9pm, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. – james courtney

MHICKOIDS, THE GENZALES Saturday, August 4

6 SALES, NO VACATION Thursday, August 2

After a strong couple of years of dropping singles and producing a tight debut LP, Sales’ latest endeavor Forever & Ever, released earlier this month, offers pretty and precise percussive indie pop songs that don’t stray from the butterfly-in-your-stomach atmosphere that the band built its foundations on. The Orlando-based duo’s commitment to creating songs without cracks and Lauren Morgan’s textured and raspy voice separates the band from the rest of the woozy, reverb-heavy, post-Mac Demarco ilk. The band will be performing with No Vacation, who will be bringing more wavy, bedroom pop for you to sway to, and Elnuh, the always wistful local surf rock act. $16, 8pm, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. – CS

mystical force in the world of American pop culture (especially hip-hop), even said to have the ability to hex athletes (and others) that deride him (the curse is real, y’all). Needless to say, a chance to see Lil B live is like the millennial rap-head’s equivalent of a visit to a sought-after seer or sage. Just such a chance, a rarity in our neck of the woods, arrives this weekend, as BasedGod is out reppin’ his two most recent releases, 2017’s Black Ken and 2018’s Platinum Flame. $22-$25, 9pm, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. – JC

Topshelf Records

E LIL B

Friday, August 3

It seems impossible that cloud rapper, producer, new-age guru, pop gadfly, oddball outsider and allaround postmodern renaissance man Lil B the BasedGod is only 28 years

Fool’s Gold Records

old. Maybe it’s because the dude has dropped a literal metric shit ton of music. Maybe it’s his ubiquity in indie internet consciousness, or maybe it’s his radiant playfulness and Zenlike unpredictability. Whatever the case may be, he’s become an almost

This pair of bands are exactly the sound of summer in South Texas: swampy, scuzzy, sweaty, (somehow also) sexy and vacillating between angst and agony. Veteran ATX cowpunk crew Hickoids, for starters, is a high-octane, full-throttle garage rock band that splits the difference between a messy punk sound and a heady psych sound. Houston’s The Genzales, meanwhile, are a garage punk band that melds swanky guitar god vibes with a glam-punk heart, to devastating and unhinged effect. Taken together, these two fine acts represent the kind of delirious musical fusion that Texas does best. So give in to the primal call of summer’s cauldron, and get ready to sweat out all those toxins as fast as you can take them in. $3, 9pm, The Bang Bang Bar, 119 El Mio Dr, (210) 320-1187, thebangbangbartx.com. – JC 43 6 sacurrent.com | August 1-7, 2018 | CURRENT

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M ERASURE Sunday, August 5

With all the classic rock acts announcing tour dates, we were bound to get an ‘80s electronic group in the mix. That’s sort of what just happened. English synthpop duo Erasure just announced a North American tour with a stop in San Antonio. The twosome returns to the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday, August 5, following their latest effort World Be Gone (which is incredible – I’ve been listening as I write this) released last May on Mute Records (Moby, Depeche Mode, New Order). Formed in London between singer Andy Bell and keyboardist Vince Clarke, Erasure entered the music scene with 1985’s “Who Needs Love Like That.” The song eventually went on to top the UK singles charts, helping Erasure become one of the most successful groups of the late 1980s and mid-’90s. $39-$79.50, 7:30pm, The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, tobincenter.org – Chris Conde

q OTEP

Sunday, August 5

Jumping into the tail-end of the nu-metal scene, L.A.’s Otep (named after lead vocalist’s Otep Shamaya’s stage name) was one of the only bands in the genre with a female lead vocalist leading the charge. Alongside the likes of Kittie, Shamaya’s

Ocean Allen

vocals were a breath of fresh air amid the sausage-fest that was most of metal, especially in the early 2000s. And Shamaya wasn’t just serving up a healthy batch of snarls, shrieks and guttural roars. The singer spun some fresh hip-hop bars in the mix. Yeah, Otep made a huge impact in the rap-metal world, and, though they’re sound is more active rock (like many a metal band with careers lasting longer than a decade), it’s not that big of a surprise that they’ve managed to stay in the game this long. $15, 7pm, The Rock Box, 1223 E. Houston St., (210) 677-9453, therockboxsa.com. – CC

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Listening to Emby Alexander, I hear an array of influences. On Sunlight (In the Back of Your Head), released in July, I hear an amalgamation of the Beatles, Elliott Smith, Broken Social Scene and Belle & Sebastian. It’s pretty great stuff, and well-mixed for how much shit is going on in the song. It’s poppy without being too happy. In fact, there’s sort of a stoic, nonchalant vibe wrapped up in Alexander’s vocals. Overall, the sound is cool, sparkly, indie-pop with a pinch of psychedelic, and a little reminiscent of ’90s indie rock. $5, 8pm, Ventura, 1011 avenue b, venturasatx.com. – CC

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music WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1 2018 Carver Summer DJ Camp At the heart of the AM Project approach is teaching young people how to work as DJs. The best DJs and artists know how to research, think critically, apply mathematical concepts and engage the creative and analytic portions of their brains. These are skills creative young people can use in the DJ booth, in the classroom and in the business world. $135. Carver Community Cultural Center, July 30-Aug. 3, 8:30am4pm. Chris Cuevas Project Adriel Cuevas, Zeke Galvan and Chris Villanuev of the Chris Cuevas Project will perform blues, soul and jazz. Free. Sancho’s Cantina, 6:308:30pm. Chris Duarte Group Rock ’n’ roll-blues band the Chris Duarte Group is performing live with country-rock artist Beth Lee. $10-$45. Sam’s Burger Joint, 8pm. Omar Apollo Jazz and R&B artist Omar Apollo, whose debut album is Stereo, is performing live. $12. Paper Tiger, 8pm. Ruben V Ruben V is performing an intimate rock and blues set. Free. Sancho’s Cantina, 9-11pm.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 2 The Blues Lawyer Live blues from the Blues Lawyer every Thursday at Hidden Tavern. The band will perform covers from Clapton, B.B. King, Muddy Waters and others. Free. Hidden Tavern, 8-10pm. Chief & the Doomsday Device Austin based hip-hop group performs with local psych-cumbia band Pochos Chidos and hip-hop group Spy MC. Limelight, 9pm. Marcy Grace Band Singer-songwriter from San Antonio is known in Americana for her big and unique voice. Free. The Rustic, 8:30-10pm. Sales, No Vacation A guitar-based pop band from Orlando, Florida, its members are musicians Lauren Morgan and Jordan Shih. They’ll be joined by nostalgic bedroom pop band No Vacation and Elnuh. $16-$18. Paper Tiger, 7pm. T.S. Pfeiffer Folk musician T.S. Pfeiffer is performing alongside South Texan artist Bryan Richardson. $5-$30. Sam’s Burger Joint, 7:30pm.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 3 All Stories End Alternative rock band All Stories End performs live with rock ’n’ roll talent Marila Voe, No Hitter and more. Limelight, 8pm. The Georges Rockabilly band the Georges is performing live at Floore’s Country Store. Free. John T Floore’s Country Store, 9pm. Jackie Venson Originally a classic pianist at Berklee College of Music, Jackie Venson’s

musical style took a drastic leap from classical concertos to the raw, gritty flow of blues and R&B. $20. Gruene Hall, 8pm. Lil B Brandon Christopher McCartney, known as Lil B and as his alter ego “The BasedGod,” is a rapper from Berkeley, California. Lil B performs with special guests Keyboard Kid, Beautiful Lou, Amber London and Xanaxfanclub. $22-$25. Paper Tiger, 8pm. Meyers Anderson Duo The Meyers Anderson Duo will feature everything from early twangy country music to some of the newest Nashville pop tunes. Free. Quarry Hofbrau, 9pm-1am. New Orleans Night Poree South Texas jazz musician Doc Watkins is joined by Pierre Poree of New Orleans and friends to perform live $10-$30. Jazz, TX, 8:30-11:30pm.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 4 Deadset Alamo City Music Hall is hosting an assortment of Hip-Hop, rap and rock bands. The show will include performances by Deadset, Idknotsure, and other local bands. $10. Alamo City Music Hall & Club, 5pm-1am. Deft-Ones - A Tribute To Deftones DeftOnes, a tribute band to the alternative metal band Deftones, is performing live at the Aztec Theatre. $12.50-$15.50. Aztec Theatre, 8pm. Johnny P and The Wiseguys Trumpeter and crooner Johnny Panzarella leads the popular San Antonio jazz band that features old standards and original tunes. $10. Jazz, TX, 8:30-11:30pm. Parker McCollum Americana musician Parker McCollum is performing live at Floore’s Country Store. $17.50. John T Floore’s Country Store, 9pm. SPF 2018 The Summer Pachanga Festival is being held at Brick at Blue Star with vendors, live music and food. Musical performers include Eddie & The Valiants, Pavel Demon and The Revenant, Sketchy Trench, The Lucky Odds and more. $5. Brick at Blue Star, 2pm-midnight

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SUNDAY, AUGUST 5 Erasure Erasure returns to the Tobin Center with special guest Reed & Caroline, on the heels of their latest release World Be Gone, their 17th studio album. $39.50$79.50. Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 7:30pm. Otep Heavy metal band Otep is performing live at the Rock Box with Dropout Kings and Ragdoll. $15. The Rock Box, 7pm. Pimpinela The Argentinian singing duo is performing live at the Aztec Theatre. Known for their romantic tunes, Pimpinela has sold over 25 million albums. $39-$129. Aztec Theatre, 7 p.m.

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I’m gay and have been dating a guy for 10 months. He’s great overall, and I would say for the most part we both want it to work out. But I am having a problem with his friends and other lifestyle choices. All of his friends are straight, and almost all of them are women. All of my friends have always been gay men, like me, so I find this strange. I don’t have any problem with women, but I don’t hang out with any women, and neither do most of my friends. He makes dinner plans for us with his straight friends almost every week, and I grin and bear it. They’re always old coworkers, so the whole conversation is them talking about old times or straighty talk about their children. It’s incredibly boring. He’s met my friends, and he likes some of them but dislikes others. It’s obvious that he is not comfortable relating to gay men, generally speaking. He does not seem knowledgeable about gay history or culture. For example, he strongly dislikes drag queens and never goes to gay bars. There is one woman in particular he makes dinner for every Friday night. It’s a standing date that he’s only occasionally been flexible about changing to accommodate plans for the two of us. Now he’s planning a weeklong vacation with her. When he first mentioned this trip, he asked if I would want to spend a week camping. I said no, because I don’t like camping. He immediately went forward with planning it with her. I’m pretty sure the two of them had already hatched this plan, and I don’t think he ever really wanted me to go. I think it’s WEIRD to want to go camping for an entire week with some old lady. He does other weird things, too, like belonging to a strange new-age church, which is definitely at odds with my strongly held anti-religious views. He has asked me to attend; I went once, and it made me EXTREMELY uncomfortable. The fact that I didn’t like it just turned into a seemingly unsolvable problem between us. He says I’m not being “supportive.” I need some advice on how to get past my intense feelings of aversion to the weirdness. How can I not let our differences completely destroy the relationship? Hopelessly Odd Man Out Differences don’t have to destroy a relationship. Differences can actually enhance and help sustain a relationship. But for differences to have that effect, HOMO, both partners have to appreciate each other for their differences. You don’t sound appreciative – you sound contemptuous. And that’s a problem. According to Dr. John Gottman of the Gottman Institute (a research institution dedicated to studying and strengthening marriages and other interpersonal relationships) – who says he can accurately predict divorce in 90 percent of cases – contempt is the leading predictor of

divorce. “When contempt begins to overwhelm your relationship, you tend to forget entirely your partner’s positive qualities,” he writes in Why Marriages Succeed or Fail. Contempt, Gottman argues, destroys whatever bonds hold a couple together. You’ve been together only 10 months, HOMO, and you’re not married, but it sounds like contempt has already overwhelmed your relationship. It’s not just that you dislike his friends, you’re contemptuous of them; it’s not just that you don’t share his spiritual beliefs, you’re contemptuous of them; it’s not just that his gayness is expressed in a different-than-yours-but-stillperfectly-valid way, you’re contemptuous of him as a gay man. Because he doesn’t watch Drag Race or hang out in gay bars. Because he’s got a lot of female friends. Because he’s happy to sit and talk with his friends about their kids. (There’s nothing “straighty” about kid conversations. Gay parents take part in those conversations, too. And while we’re in this parenthesis: I can’t understand why anyone would waste their time actively disliking drag queens. But being a gay male correlates more strongly with liking dick than it does with liking drag.) This relationship might work if you were capable of appreciating the areas where you two overlap – your shared interests (including your shared interest in each other) – and content to let him go off and enjoy his friends, his new-age church and his standing Friday-night dinner date. A growing body of research shows that divergent interests + some time away from each other + mutual respect = long-term relationship success. You’re missing the “mutual respect” part – and where this formula is concerned, HOMO, two out of three ain’t enough. Here’s how it might look if you could appreciate your differences: You’d do the things you enjoy doing together – like, say, each other – but on Friday nights, he makes dinner for his bestie and you hit the gay bars with your gay friends and catch a drag show. You would go on vacations together, but once in a while he’d go on vacation with one of his “straighty” friends, and once in a while you’d go on vacation with your gay friends. On Sundays, he’d go to woo-woo church and you’d sleep in or binge-watch Pose. You’d be happy to let him be him, and he’d be happy to let you be you—and together the two of you would add up to an interesting, harmonious, compelling “we.” But I honestly don’t think you have it in you.

mail@savagelove.net @FakeDanSavage on Twitter www.ITMFA.org

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Tesoro Companies, Inc., an Andeavor Company, is hiring for the following: Lead Solution Architect-PTP/PFR (delivery of information -technology solutions that are aligned with the SAP enterprise system’s Procure To Pay (PTP) and Plan For Reliability (PFR) business capabilities and processes. Req ID 74281); Senior SAP Developer IT (enhancing and developing moderately complex applications, partnering with business analysts to develop, implement, solve issues, and enhance technical solutions/options. Req ID 74282); Senior Functional Analyst-PTP (serves as a liaison among business partners and other stakeholders to effectively analyze, communicate, and validate functional and system requirements for changes to business processes and systems. Req ID 74145). Please visit our career website www.andeavor.com/careers and apply online. EOE: Veteran / Disability San Antonio, TX. Production Manager: rsp. for overall dly. mang. of Prod. Dept. & prod. of all finished goods, supv. 2 subordinates & overall resp. for hiring/training of all prod. pers. Min. req.: 4 yrs exp. or BS Ind. Eng./rltd. & 2 yrs. prof. exp. in similar post. CL/R: Alliance Wire and Steel, Inc., 9500 W. Commerce St., San Antonio, TX 78227.

“Bounce Back”– take a left at the circle... ACROSS 1 Chamillionaire hit parodied by Weird Al 6 Kermit-flailing-his-arms noise 9 Air Force One occupant, for short 14 “Fur ___” (Beethoven piece) 15 Purpose 16 Siskel was his partner 17 Good deeds 19 Maker of Posturepedic mattresses 20 “Como ___ usted?” 21 Printer adjunct, maybe 23 Feel remorse for 24 Its subtitle is “Day-O” 28 Ren Faire underlings 30 Children of a Lesser God Oscar winner 31 Tart glassful 36 Pre-euro electronic currency 37 DeVry or University of Phoenix 41 Quilting event 42 Distrustful about 43 The Suez Canal can take you there 46 Item increasingly made from recyclable material 50 Latkes and boxties, e.g. 55 It’s not a prime number 56 Fires up 57 Aquarium organism 58 Show disdain for

61 Manned crafts involved in atmospheric reentry 63 Having regressed 64 Fabric dye brand 65 “Chasing Pavements” singer 66 Declined 67 Sue Grafton’s ___ for Silence 68 Jay-Z’s music service DOWN 1 Alludes (to) 2 “If you do that... see you in court!” 3 Mike Myers character who hosted “Sprockets” 4 Insecure star Rae 5 Duck Hunt console, for short 6 Desert plant related to the asparagus 7 Take ___ at (guess) 8 Question type with only two answers 9 Pre-euro coin 10 Conor of Bright Eyes 11 Rooibos, for one 12 It contains (at least) two forward slashes 13 Pigpen 18 Amino acid asparagine, for short 22 To wit 24 “Yeah, right”

25 Couturier Cassini 26 “Yeah, right on!” 27 Wildebeest 29 Progressive spokesperson 32 Alyssa of Who’s the Boss? 33 When aout occurs 34 Term used in both golf and tennis 35 Cannes Film Festival’s Camera ___ 37 Amanda of “Brockmire” 38 Decorate differently 39 At a ___ (stumped) 40 Direct deposit payment, for short 41 Strapped support 44 Hardly dense 45 Made, as money 47 Like some oats 48 Bassett of Black Panther 49 Pop performer? 51 Prompt givers 52 Computer code used to create some lo-fi artwork 53 John who wrote “Ode on a Grecian Urn” 54 Paranormal skill, supposedly 57 “Truth in Engineering” automaker 58 Stockholm’s country (abbr.) 59 Corn remainder 60 Poetic sphere 62 Took a load off ANSWER ON PAGE 21

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etc FREE WILL ASTROLOGY BY ROB BREZNY ARIES (March 21-April 19): I predict that August will be a Golden Age for you. That’s mostly very good. Golden opportunities will arise, and you’ll come into possession of lead that can be transmuted into gold. But it’s also important to be prudent about your dealings with gold. Consider the fable of the golden goose. The bird’s owner grew impatient because it laid only one gold egg per day; he foolishly slaughtered his prize animal to get all the gold immediately. That didn’t work out well. Or consider the fact that to the ancient Aztecs, the word teocuitlatl referred to gold, even though its literally translation was “excrement of the gods.” Moral of the story: If handled with care and integrity, gold can be a blessing. TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus socialite Stephen Tennant (1906-1987) was such an interesting luminary that three major novelists created fictional characters modeled after him. As a boy, when he was asked what he’d like to be when he grew up, he replied, “I want to be a great beauty.” I’d love to hear those words spill out of your mouth, Taurus. What? You say you’re already all grown up? I doubt it. In my opinion, you’ve still got a lot of stretching and expansion and transformation to accomplish during the coming decades. So yes: I hope you can find it in your wild heart to proclaim, “When I grow up, I want to be a great beauty.” (P.S. Your ability to become increasingly beautiful will be at a peak during the next fourteen months.) GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “Manage with bread and butter until God sends the honey,” advises a Moroccan proverb. Let’s analyze how this advice might apply to you. First thing I want to know is, have you been managing well with bread and butter? Have you refrained from whining about your simple provisions, resting content and grateful? If you haven’t, I doubt that any honey will arrive, ether from God or any other source. But if you have been celebrating your modest gifts, feeling free of greed and displeasure, then I expect at least some honey will show up soon. CANCER (June 21-July 22): Don’t worry your beautiful head about praying to the gods of luck and fate. I’ll take care of that for you. Your job is to propitiate the gods of fluid discipline and hard but smart work. To win the favor of these divine helpers, act on the assumption that you now have the power and the right to ask for more of their assistance than you have before. Proceed with the understanding that they are willing to provide you with the stamina, persistence, and attention to detail you will need to accomplish your next breakthrough. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Sometimes, I feel the

past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present at all.” A character named Julia says that in Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited. I bring it to your attention as an inspiring irritant, as a prod to get you motivated. I hope it will mobilize you to rise up and refuse to allow your past and your future to press so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present. It’s a favorable time for you to fully claim the glory of being right here, right now. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I’m not an ascetic who believes all our valuable lessons emerge from suffering. Nor am I a pop-nihilist who sneers at pretty flowers, smiling children, and sunny days. On the contrary: I’m devoted to the hypothesis that life is usually at least 51 percent wonderful. But I dance the rain dance when there’s an emotional drought in my personal life, and I dance the pain dance when it’s time to deal with difficulties I’ve ignored. How about you, Virgo? I suspect that now is one of those times when you need to have compassionate heart-to-heart conversations with your fears, struggles, and aches. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Do you absolutely need orchids, sweet elixirs, dark chocolate, alluring new music, dances on soft grass, sensual massages, nine hours of sleep per night, and a steady stream of soulful conversations? No. Not really. In the coming days, life will be a good ride for you even if you fail to procure those indulgences. But here are further questions and answers: Do you deserve the orchids, elixirs, and the rest? My answer is yes, definitely. And would the arrival of these delights spur you to come up with imaginative solutions to your top two riddles? I’m pretty sure it would. So I conclude this horoscope by recommending that you do indeed arrange to revel in your equivalent of the delights I named.

generosity and compassion. Not just because I know it’s the right thing to do, but also because I know it will make me healthy and honest and unflappable. Do you have any sage advice? -Ambitious Sagittarius.” Dear Ambitious: I’ve noticed that many Sagittarians are feeling an unprecedented curiosity about how to enhance their lives by boosting the benevolence they express. Here’s a tip from astrologer Chani Nicholas: “Source your sense of self from your integrity in every interaction.” Here’s another tip from Anais Nin: “The worse the state of the world grows, the more intensely I try for inner perfection and power. I fight for a small world of humanity and tenderness.”

you’ve been asking aren’t bad or wrong. But they’re not exactly relevant or helpful, either. That’s why the answers you’ve been receiving aren’t of maximum use. Try these questions instead. 1. What experience or information would you need to heal your divided sense of loyalty? 2. How can you attract an influence that would motivate you to make changes you can’t quite accomplish under your own power? 3. Can you ignore or even dismiss the 95 percent of your fear that’s imaginary so you’ll be able to focus on the five percent that’s truly worth meditating on? 4. If I assured you that you have the intelligence to beautify an ugly part of your world, how would you begin?

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Time does not necessarily heal all wounds. If you wait around passively, hoping that the mere passage of months will magically fix your twists and smooth out your tweaks, you’re shirking your responsibility. The truth is, you need to be fully engaged in the process. You’ve got to feel deeply and think hard about how to diminish your pain, and then take practical action when your wisdom shows you what will actually work. Now is an excellent time to upgrade your commitment to this sacred quest.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): A scuffle you’ve been waging turns out to be the wrong scuffle. It has distracted you from giving your full attention to a more winnable and worthwhile tussle. My advice? Don’t waste energy feeling remorse about the energy you’ve wasted. In fact, be grateful for the training you’ve received. The skills you’ve been honing while wrestling with the misleading complication will serve you well when you switch your focus to the more important issue. So are you ready to shift gears? Start mobilizing your crusade to engage with the more winnable and worthwhile tussle.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The questions

THIS MODERN WORLD BY TOM TOMORROW

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “Don’t try to steer the river,” writes Deepak Chopra. Most of the time, I agree with that idea. It’s arrogant to think that we have the power to control the forces of nature or the flow of destiny or the song of creation. Our goal should be to get an intuitive read on the crazy-making miracle of life, and adapt ourselves ingeniously to its ever-shifting patterns and rhythms. But wait! Set aside everything I just said. An exception to the usual rule has arrived. Sometimes, when your personal power is extra flexible and robust – like now, for you – you may indeed be able to steer the river a bit. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “Dear Astrologer: Recently I’ve been weirdly obsessed with wondering how to increase my levels of sacurrent.com | August 1-7, 2018 | CURRENT

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