San Antonio Current – September 11, 2019

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APOCALYPSE

NOW

WHY PASTOR JOHN HAGEE’S NEVER BEEN MORE POLITICALLY POWERFUL — OR TERRIFYING

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in this issue San Antonio Current

Issue 18_19 /// September 11-24, 2019

Review: Undone Unravels San Antonio

Publisher: Michael Wagner Editor-in-Chief: Sanford Nowlin

Editorial

Food & Nightlife Editor: Lea Thompson Calendar Editor: Kelly Merka Nelson Contributing Arts Editor: Bryan Rindfuss Staff Writer: Chris Conde Digital Content Editor: Sarah Martinez Contributors: Ron Bechtol, Daniel Conrad, James Courtney, Jade Esteban Estrada, Dan R. Goddard, Lance Higdon, Steven G. Kellman, Hannah Lorence, Kiko Martinez, M. Solis, Gary Sweeney Editorial Interns: Diana Amaya, Brianna Espinoza, Georgie Riggs

41 Food

After the Lege

New Texas laws bring changes for entrepreneurs, brewers and foodies

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Advertising

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Marketing and Events

40 years on, the roadhouse-style standby delivers the hits — and also some misses

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11 Feature

The White House

Prophet of Doom

Why Pastor John Hagee’s never been more politically powerful — or terrifying

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BY SANFORD NOWLIN

07 News

Great Moments in Magical Thinking: ‘Bigger Than HemisFair’ Judge Rosie Speedlin Gonzalez is Holding — and Improving — Court

16 Calendar 27 Arts

Tacos (and Other Things)

Now back in his hometown, bestselling author Shea Serrano drops another book

Studio Visits

Iowa transplant Justin Korver on tweaking gender stereotypes and finding his way as a fabricator

35 Screens

Runner’s High

Brittany Runs a Marathon wins big with an honest lead performance

Finger Lickin’ Good

Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! may be gimmicky, but Morgan Spurlock succeeds as a showman

Animating the Alamo City

Undone co-creator and San Antonio native Kate Purdy delves into the roots of Amazon Studios’ reality-warping new series

APOCALYPSE

NOW

WHY PASTOR JOHN HAGEE’S NEVER BEEN MORE POLITICALLY POWERFUL — OR TERRIFYING

On The Cover: Pastor John Hagee has found new political clout with the Trump administration, and that’s got observers worried about his apocalyptic endgame.

Illustration: Jeremiah Teutsch Art direction: Samantha Serna

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CITY SCRAPES

Great Moments in Magical Thinking: ‘Bigger Than HemisFair’

BY HEYWOOD SANDERS Editor’s Note: The following is CityScrapes, a column of opinion and analysis.

“T

his is bigger than anything you could imagine,” then-mayor Henry Cisneros crowed in early January 1985. “It’s bigger than HemisFair and represents a major decision for our city.”

Cisneros was making the grand announcement that Sea World would build a big new park in San Antonio. And with Texas Gov. Mark White and an array of civic and political leaders in attendance, Sea World chief William Jovanovich, chairman of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc., attributed the choice of San Antonio primarily to Cisneros: “He’s a helluva salesman. He closed the deal without even asking us.”

On that January day, the promise of the new aquatic theme park was breathtaking. Jovanovich promised the attraction would be open year-round, drawing 3 million annual visitors.

That forecast number would put the new Sea World park at No. 4 in the nation in terms of attendance, “behind Disney World, Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm,” according to the Express-News.

And when the new park opened in spring 1988, the enthusiasm was no less, with Sea World of Texas chief George Becker reinforcing the 3 million annual attendance estimate and touting the $10 million the park had already spent on marketing. Indeed, when Becker

addressed St. Mary’s University students that November, he offered the judgment that San Antonio and South Texas could rival Southern California and Central Florida as a “world-class destination point.”

Both Becker and Jovanovich often contended that there was no feasibility study for the San Antonio Sea World — that Henry Cisneros’ salesmanship and their belief in Texas and the city had been enough to commit to the project.

But, in fact, there had been a feasibility analysis commissioned prior to the 1985 announcement. Harrison “Buzz” Price, who had done the market analysis for both Disneyland and Disney World and was the most respected consultant in the industry, had been hired by Sea World executive Frank Powell to do a “preliminary appraisal” of the San Antonio park plan.

Price’s report, dated January 2, 1985 — days before the official announcement of the new Sea World — offered a starkly different forecast about the planned San Antonio park than Jovanovich’s. Price noted that both the San Diego and Orlando parks relied on the immediate area — within 50 miles — for much of their business: 22% for Orlando, where the Disney attractions were a major national draw, and 43% for San Diego. Based on those figures and San Antonio’s size, Price estimated first year attendance for a San Antonio Sea World at 1.25 million.

As Price would later put it, “I think Mr. Jovanovich took my numbers as a personal

affront.” So Jovanovich fired both Frank Powell, who had hired Price, and Powell’s boss, Robert Hillebrecht. Jovanovich would run Sea World by himself.

Boosted by the $10 million marketing blitz, Sea World racked up first-year attendance of 2.87 million. The second year attendance dropped to 2.3 million. The next year, 1990, it only pulled in 1.68 million attendees. Sea World’s initial success was the result of “papering the market,” offering season pass deals and discounts.

In 1989, all of the Sea World parks were sold to St. Louis brewer Anheuser-Busch.

As for the promise of ranking fourth in attendance, the 2018 Index report of the Themed Entertainment Association lists the top 20 amusement and theme parks in North America.

The list is topped by Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando, with 20.8 million attendees. Disneyland in Anaheim is second at almost 19 million.

The top Sea World park, in Orlando, ranked sixth with 4.6 million attendees. And San Diego’s Sea World came in at No. 14. Hersheypark in Pennsylvania and Six Flags Great America outside Chicago ranked 19th and 20th, with attendance of just over 3 million each.

San Antonio’s Sea World didn’t make the list.

Our city’s leadership has long looked outside for economic salvation, expecting that some grand project — the Alamodome, perhaps, or a San Antonio River canal to the Gulf or a train to Austin — or outside force will bring prosperity and economic advance. That kind of magical thinking is enticing, as it relieves us of the need to seriously deal in what will actually improve this community, and what that will cost.

The reality is that in 2019, just as in 1989, Disney isn’t going to come. We’re not going to be the next Orlando. We have to set about fixing and building a viable, inclusive, sustainable community on our own. Now. Heywood Sanders is a professor of public policy at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Find more newsmore coverage Find news every day at sacurrent.com

news GLITTER POLITICAL

Judge Rosie Speedlin Gonzalez is Holding — and Improving — Court

BY JADE ESTEBAN ESTRADA

T

he brightly colored dishes spread between Judge Rosie Speedlin Gonzalez and I at Mi Tierra Restaurant match her flamboyant aesthetic. She’s wearing a sky-blue jacket, dangling earrings and stylistically varied bracelets that draw my attention to the vibrant tattoo on her forearm.

Though people in San Antonio’s LGBTQ+ community recognize the Brownsville native as a longtime advocate and leader, many locals first got their introduction to Speedlin Gonzalez when she was elected judge for Bexar County Court at Law 13.

Last year, the bilingual Democrat became the first openly gay judge to be elected in Bexar County, earning 57 percent of the vote in part of the bluewave pushback at President Donald Trump. “[Being on the bench] is a much more sedentary existence,” Speedlin Gonzalez says. “It’s been six months, and I already feel like my health is taking a hit because I’m sitting for so long.”

She’d run for office before, but the third time was the charm.

In 2010, Speedlin Gonzalez, who has a background in social work and family law, was endorsed by the Victory Fund in her unsuccessful campaign for judge of Bexar County’s 436th District Court.

Four years later, Speedlin Gonzalez undertook her first campaign for the seat she now holds. Out of the handful of Democratic LGBTQ+ candidates running that year, she was the only one to make it to the general election, although Republican opponent Crystal Chandler ultimately won the seat.

Undeterred, Speedlin Gonzalez continued to seek office — and made headlines along the way.

In 2015, over a two-month period, she was hired and fired a total of three times as Von Ormy’s city attorney. And, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling on marriage equality later that year, she became an ordained minister and offered to marry same-sex couples at no cost.

In recent weeks, Speedlin Gonzalez has again popped up on news feeds, this time for her role in creating a pilot drug court she hopes will decrease domestic violence by interceding when people enter the criminal justice system with a drug or domestic violence charge.

Though Gov. Greg Abbott signed off on the

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Jade Esteban Estrada

program, his blessing didn’t come with the necessary funding. So, Speedlin Gonzalez is making the rounds herself to drum up the $1 million to finance the court, which would provide supervised drug treatment.

So far, she’s received a pledge of $100,000 in grant money from Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff. She’s also garnered the support of District 2 Councilwoman Jada Andrews-Sullivan, who has asked the city to assist. Andrews-Sullivan is a survivor of domestic violence.

Bexar County has a high number of reported domestic violence cases. Among its tragic statistics is the sister-in-law of Precinct 2 Bexar County Commissioner Justin Rodriguez, who was murdered, along with her 11-year-old daughter, in 2018 by a man she was dating.

Speedlin Gonzalez has come under fire from conservatives for displaying an LGBTQ+ flag in her courtroom alongside the Texas and U.S. flags. The flag was a gift from the local LGBT LULAC council.

She’s still waiting to hear back from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct on whether it can stay.

I ask how being on the bench has changed her.

“It definitely has made me more mindful,” she says, adding that as an attorney, her role was to advocate and make sure her client’s voice was heard. That role, she says, has been completely reconfigured.

“As a judge, your role is not to advocate, activate or

motivate. Your role is to ensure that justice is done,” she says. “In very simple terms, a judge is an umpire.

We call balls. We call strikes and, when necessary, we call fouls. And we keep everybody honest in court and make sure the victim’s voice is heard [and] that the defendant’s rights are not trampled on.”

She pauses for a moment. “Sometimes, justice isn’t what we think it’s going to be. Sometimes, justice doesn’t come immediately. Sometimes, it comes later.”

Speedlin Gonzalez acknowledges that some leave the courthouse feeling that they were denied justice.

But she believes justice may arrive for them some time after that appearance in court.

“I always used to tell my clients, ‘It’s gonna be what it’s gonna be today. I always leave it in God’s hands. And just remember, God’s clock ticks at a different pace than our clock.”

She adds: “It was very hard to get that idea into [the minds of] folks who are in the emotional throes of the battle of their lives.”

Now, as a judge, Speedlin Gonzalez finds herself offering pearls of wisdom to attorneys as she once did for clients. For one, she reminds them that they could make the difference between freedom and incarceration for the people they represent. Or make the difference between someone keeping or losing custody of a child. “[Now], I feel like I can help a lot more people from the bench, as opposed to one client at a time.”

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Prophet of Doom John Hagee was once just another preacher pushing the prosperity gospel. Now he’s got the president’s ear, and critics say he’s egging on a war with Iran to bring the Second Coming

BY SANFORD NOWLIN

“I

t is God’s desire for you to prosper,” John Hagee told his flock on a recent Sunday morning.

The inference at the heart of the statement is key to the so-called prosperity theology pushed by the San Antonio preacher: if you want the Almighty’s blessing, you’d better tithe.

On cue, ushers with offering plates descended the aisles of Hagee’s 5,400seat Cornerstone Church. As cash and checks fell into the burnished metal plates, Hagee urged viewers watching him on television to donate by clicking an onscreen button or calling an 800 number. Camera operators walked the aisles, capturing footage of congregants kicking in.

After the collection was done, music erupted from the stage. A swaying gospel choir and young, well-coiffed singers led the congregation in a parade of praise hits. A quartet of video screens displayed the lyrics for anyone who wanted to sing along.

Like other TV preachers, Hagee and ministry have elevated fundraising to a feel-good art form. But what sets Hagee apart from the Joel Osteens of the world is the 79-year-old pastor’s ability to apply his marketing magic to politics.

It’s evidenced in the clout he now wields with the administration of President Donald Trump, which has enjoyed deep support from Christian evangelicals like Hagee’s followers.

The White House

Hagee also founded one of the largest pro-Israel lobbying groups, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), and disseminates books and videos telling his church members who to vote for.

He’s even displayed an appetite for local politics, recently urging followers to vote against Mayor Ron Nirenberg over city council’s decision to cut Chick-fil-A out of on an airport concessions contract.

Of most alarm to political observers, though, is the confluence of Hagee’s political power and his repeated claims that Christ’s return is imminent. In sermons, the pastor says the end times will be preceded by war and bloodshed, and he’s repeatedly called for a U.S. first strike on Iran, which he’s likened to the Nazi Germany of 1938.

“In CUFI’s philosophy, war and violence are celebrated as harbingers of the end times,” said Rabbi Alissa Wise, a critic of Hagee’s meddling in Middle East affairs. “That’s extremely frightening to me. It should be extremely frightening to all of us. This kind of religious extremism empowered by those with the ability to make U.S. foreign policy is alarming.”

The Current reached out to Hagee for comment on this article and was referred to CUFI spokesman Ari Morgenstern. Morgenstern declined to schedule an interview, demanding instead that the paper send questions in writing. Once the queries were

Pastor John Hagee (right) shakes the hand of Vice President Mike Pence at the CUFI summit in July.

M

submitted, he declined to answer them, saying they displayed a “complete lack of research.”

“This is deeply unprofessional and as such CUFI will not grant your interview request,” Morgenstern wrote.

Even so, in the email, Morgenstern denied that Hagee has advocated an attack on Iran to speed up Armageddon. As proof, he linked to a “near decade-old piece debunking this fabricated quote.”

The editorial, posted to the rightwing blog American Thinker, was written by Morgenstern himself.

‘Israel Lives!’

In reality, Hagee’s saber rattling about Iran doesn’t derive from a single quote. Recordings of multiple Hagee speeches show him advocating a U.S. strike on Iran. Indeed, he once likened President Barack Obama’s signing of the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran to a “finger in the eye of God.” “Iran is a clear and present danger to the survival of Israel, to the United States of America and the Western

world,” Hagee said in a 2005 clip aired on PBS’ Bill Moyers Journal. “Therefore, it is time for America to embrace the words of Senator Joseph Lieberman and consider a military preemptive strike against Iran to prevent a nuclear holocaust in Israel and a nuclear attack in America.”

There’s little doubt that message has been heard in the Trump White House.

At CUFI’s annual summit this summer in Washington D.C., Vice President Mike Pence and hawkish Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were among the five high-level attendees from the administration.

Hagee’s invitation to give the closing speech at the May 14 dedication of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem is also a clear sign of his favor with Trump’s camp. The pastor used his time to deliver a blustery putdown to Iran.

At no point during his speech did he address Palestinians’ outrage over the embassy’s relocation or mention the 55 Palestinians who were killed and hundreds wounded by Israeli police during protests.

“We stand reminding the dictators of the world that the United States of America and Israel are forever united,” Hagee proclaimed. “Let every Islamic terrorist hear this message: Israel lives! … Let it echo down the marble halls of the presidential palace in Iran: Israel lives!”

That bellicose rhetoric comes amid flaring tensions following 12 6

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6 11 Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

On September 7, Tehran announced it’s now using advanced centrifuges prohibited under the deal and will produce weapons-grade uranium.

“The current administration is in sync with John Hagee,” said Rabbi James Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious advisor. “I think we’re seeing an affinity between Hagee’s ideology and the political actions of the Trump administration. … He’s emerged, as we saw in Jerusalem, as one of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders.”

The numbers seem to back that up.

On its website, Cornerstone boasts that it has 22,000 members and reaches tens of millions more around the world via cable TV and streaming services. CUFI bills itself as the largest pro-Israel organization in the United States, claiming more than 7 million members.

One need only look at Hagee’s Instagram feed to see his clout in conservative political circles outside of the White House. He’s shown mugging with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, author Dinesh D’Souza, former Texas governor Rick Perry and talk show host Dennis Prager, whose online university peddles far-right ideology denying climate change and claiming the U.S. has done too much for its black population.

Politics from the Pulpit During a recent Sunday service, it was Hagee’s son Matt who did the majority of the talking while the patriarch watched from his throne-like seat. Beyond laying out a clear line of succession, the sermon made it clear that the son shares his father’s appetite for politicizing the pulpit.

With the title “Daily Bread or Deadly Bread” projected on a massive screen behind him, Matt Hagee warned that God-fearing Christians need to provide for themselves, not look for government handouts. Socialism, after all,

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makes the government into god, and Christians can only serve one master.

And “socialism” even extends to student loan forgiveness and government-provided healthcare, both of which Matt Hagee catalogued as violations of God’s will. He likened the government’s control over people on public assistance to Egypt’s enslavement of the Israelites.

“I have to applaud our president when he stood before our House and Senate and said America will never be a socialist country,” the younger Hagee said in one of the sermon’s biggest applause lines. A standing ovation followed, with some of the faithful throwing back their heads and stretching their arms to the sky.

Of course, those familiar with John Hagee’s rise over the past few decades

might find the sermon’s sentiments comparatively mild.

After all, the elder pastor made headlines in 2014 by claiming Ebola was probably God’s retribution for Obama’s alleged attempts to “divide Jerusalem.”

He also claimed in a church-distributed video that the Harry Potter series convinced him the Antichrist would soon arrive. “Even Harry Potter’s forehead is marked with the lightning bolt of the Hitler SS,” he cited as evidence.

Hagee made more recent headlines with the release of a book and documentary claiming the four blood moons — known as lunar eclipses to those unafraid of science — appearing in the sky between April 2014 and September 2015 signaled God’s return.

The last of those eclipses came on September 28, 2015, with no rapturous

incident.

But, for many, the most egregious of Hagee’s statements was a claim he made during a late 1990s sermon that Adolf Hitler qualified as a divine agent because his extermination of European Jews prompted the creation of Israel.

“Then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you,” Hagee said. “Hitler was a hunter. …

Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.”

After a recording of the sermon surfaced in 2008, Sen. John McCain, who’d previously been cozy with Hagee, rejected the preacher’s endorsement of his presidential bid, calling the remark “deeply offensive and indefensible.”

Hagee has repeatedly said the state-

news

ment was taken out of context, but critics charge that it’s evidence of the antisemitism at the core of Hagee’s philosophy — which also holds that Jews who don’t repent when the apocalypse arrives will roast in Hell.

“His philosophy isn’t about love for the Jewish people but a theology that requires Jewish settlement on that land for the end times to come,” said Rabbi Wise, who serves as acting co-executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace.

“Both Jews and Muslims are reduced to end-time pawns in CUFI’s philosophy.”

Money Machine A quick drive around Cornerstone Church’s enclave in the pricey Stone Oak neighborhood suggests that Hagee’s prosperity theology has served him well.

With its white-brick buildings and meticulously manicured vegetation, the 28-acre property could easily be mistaken for a small liberal arts college. A cluster of satellite dishes beam its television broadcasts to the outside world, a hotel adjoins the property and roughly a dozen buses are tucked into the back of the sprawling parking lot.

Cornerstone Christian Schools, which Hagee also founded, sits on a $100 million campus nearby, delivering what the church’s website calls a “Bible-based education of the future generation.”

The church’s website also offers up dozens of DVDs, gospel CDs and books — nearly all authored by John Hagee, son Matt or wife Diana.

But the extravagance doesn’t end at the church property.

In 2000, the John C. Hagee Royalty Trust — an entity whose trustee is Hagee’s brother-in-law, Scott Farhart — paid more than $5.5 million for a 7,600-acre ranch in Brackettville, Texas.

The site raises cattle in a partnership with the Texas Israel Agricultural Research Foundation, a nonprofit also run by the pastor. It also charges a pretty penny for visitors to hunt exotic game on site.

Photographs of the property posted

by a real estate group representing the ranch show a sprawling limestone and wood-timber estate decorated with enough taxidermy and antlers to rival downtown San Antonio’s Buckhorn Hall of Horns. The massive kitchen outfitted with stainless steel appliances is larger than that of many restaurants.

The ranch — equipped with a private airstrip — even earned the distinction of being named Field & Stream magazine’s Lodge of the Month in August 2006.

“Accommodations are first-rate, with a huge lodge, well-appointed bunk rooms and meals cooked by a full-time chef,” the review gushed.

According to the Bexar County Appraisal District, Hagee and his wife also own three separate single-family homes inside the Dominion, an exclusive north San Antonio enclave favored by San Antonio Spurs and the city’s most successful business executives. The structures range in value from $345,000 to $735,000.

Additionally, Hagee’s enterprises have owned at least two private jets since the mid-2000s. Federal aviation records show that John Hagee Ministries purchased a Cessna 650, a business jet that typically seats up to eight people, and later upgraded to a Dassault Aviation Mystere-Falcon 50, a three-engine jet that sells for more than $20 million when purchased new.

Opaque Earnings While public records hint at the scope of Hagee’s wealth, they offer an incomplete view of how much his organizations and family own, how much they earn and how donors’ money is being spent.

And that’s precisely the way his organization wants it, critics charge.

Hagee converted his nonprofit group Global Evangelism Television into a church in 2004, freeing him of the requirement to file publicly accessible tax returns. The maneuver came after the San Antonio Express-News revealed the pastor’s $1 million-a-year salary made him highest-paid nonprofit

executive in the city.

While federal law requires nonprofits to file publicly accessible 990 tax forms detailing their finances, there’s no such requirement for churches. That level of secrecy surrounding Hagee’s many holdings doesn’t sit well with Pete Evans, an investigator for the Trinity Foundation, a Dallas-based nonprofit that roots out financial fraud at religious organizations.

“I would never give money to an organization that’s this financially opaque,” said Evans, a player in the ’90s probes that brought down Dallas-based evangelist Robert Tilton.

“Hagee’s multitude of organizations are not at all transparent.”

Evans prepared a report on Hagee as part of 2007 testimony before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee on televangelists’ financial excesses. The document chronicles a litany of assumed names, or DBAs, for Hagee’s church and at least three active for-profit corporations founded by the pastor.

“When we look at Hagee’s organization and see a lot of similar names and DBAs going back and forth, it raises red flags,” Evans said. “It leaves the door wide open for self-dealing. It appears as though there’s a huge opportunity to transfer nonprofit assets into for-profit enterprises.”

That lack of transparency also extends to CUFI. While the lobbying arm of the organization, called the Citizens United for Israel Action Fund, files 990 tax forms with the Internal Revenue Service, CUFI itself is organized under Hagee’s church umbrella.

That also should be a warning to potential donors, said John Burnam, a principal at Burnam|Gray, a San Antonio-based group that consults on nonprofit issues. “[W]hile not illegal, it is generally poor practice on the part of a nonprofit to have their board comprised solely of family members and individuals with close business relationships to each other,” Burnam said. “The fact that CUFI’s board is comprised of individuals with such close connections to the founder — personal and business

— should be another flag to donors.”

CUFI Action Fund’s tax documents show its fortunes on the rise. The group posted revenue of $1.8 million in 2017, the most recent year for which it’s filed a 990. That’s up from the $508,000 reported for 2016.

The Action Fund spent $120,000 lobbying U.S. lawmakers on pro-Israel issues in both 2018 and 2017, according to figures from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. It looks to be on track to do the same this year, having reported $30,000 in spending for the first quarter.

But the numbers just tell part of the story. Part of the organization’s strength relies on the way it dispatches the faithful during its annual Washington gathering to meet with lawmakers and push points of shared interest between evangelicals and the Israeli right wing.

“Every group goes to every senator and every congressman with the same talking points about things we want them to be concerned about in relationship to Israel,” Hagee said in a Facebook video about the conference.

“And I can assure you that the strength of what we do has caused a political earthquake in Washington from time to time.”

God’s Country While a veil of secrecy surrounds CUFI, that could be pierced during the discovery phase of a lawsuit in federal district court in Washington D.C. The petition, filed by Palestinian families who say they’ve lost land to illegal Jewish settlements, accuses Hagee, casino magnate Sheldon Adelstein and other prominent Israel boosters of breaking the law by donating to settlements in the West Bank and Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The suit alleges that Hagee’s organizations raised and transferred some $100 million across international borders to bankroll criminal activity.

Doing so, the petition argues, violates federal money laundering statutes.

sacurrent.com | September 11-24, 2019 | CURRENT

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To Be Honest: Voices on Islam from an American City

A one-act play by Habiba Noor, Sarah Beth Kaufman, and William Christ Directed by Stacey Connelly.

The performance is sponsored by Dr. GP Singh and Winkey Singh and Sikh Spirit Foundation in partnership with Trinity University and Texas Public Radio’s Dare to Listen Campaign.

Sat., Sept. 21, 2019 6:30 p.m. | Sun., Sept. 22, 2019 2 p.m.

Tobin Center, Carlos Alvarez Studio Theater Free and open to the public. Reserve tickets at gotu.us/tobehonest

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CURRENT | September 11-24, 2019 | sacurrent.com

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“That activity includes arms trafficking, theft and malicious property destruction, the forced expulsion of the entire local Palestinian population living near the settlements, and the promotion of wholesale violence on the part of armed settler militia to be directed at their Palestinian neighbors (poisoning water wells and livestock, malicious wounding, sporadic live target practice),” the suit alleges.

A 2010 New York Times investigation found that American groups have collected more than $200 million in tax-deductible gifts that have benefitted Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the prior decade. Much of the money went to schools, synagogues and facilities permitted under U.S. tax law. However, the probe also found that some of the money paid for “more legally questionable commodities,” such as bulletproof vests, rifle scopes and vehicles used to patrol settlements.

Hagee’s associates told the Times that the majority of his donations were made within Israel’s 1967 boundaries.

However, a sports complex in the West Bank settlement of Ariel is named after the pastor, the paper reported. Officials at the West Bank’s Har Bracha settlement also told the Times Hagee donated $250,000 to expand a dorm there. “[The] Palestinians have never owned the land,” Hagee said in 2005. “I want you to hear this very clearly. The land of Israel was given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their seed in an eternal covenant. It is recorded in the book of Genesis. The boundaries are there in the Bible. And that land belongs to the Jewish people today, tomorrow and

Hagee (second from right) meets with religious leaders at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

M

forever because it is their covenant by the word of God.” That dictate appears to make any kind of two-state solution impossible in CUFI’s worldview. And that worries observers, who say Hagee has no interest in seeing peace in the region but in adhering to his version of how the end times play out.

“He has this death cult and this indifference about the consequences of his political agenda,” said Judith Norman, a Trinity University philosophy professor and Middle East peace activist. “I can’t think of anything more dangerous.”

Still, Hagee continues to win Israeli support, in part by assuring leaders that his interest isn’t in trying to convert Jews to Christianity, the American Jewish Committee’s Rudin said. But the rabbi points out that many in the Jewish community are outraged by Hagee’s Islamophobia, long record of anti-LGBTQ+ comments and warlike rhetoric.

Even so, Rudin warns against writing off the pastor and his followers as a political force. Doing so underestimates how many American evangelicals cling to his apocalyptic vision.

“Don’t underestimate him,” Rudin said. “John Hagee represents the sentiments of millions of Americans. They may not know his name, but they certainly share his philosophy. John Hagee has tapped into that stream.”

sacurrent.com | September 11-24, 2019 | CURRENT

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Courtesy of The Aztec Theatre

THU | 9/12 COMEDY

JAY LENO

On the lookout for obscure vintage car references? Searching for the perfect political jokes that find a way to offend both sides with their tepidness? Wanting to enjoy comedy but just haven’t been able to ever since people under 50 started hosting late night television?

Look no further than veteran comedian Jay Leno, who’s stopping by San Antonio this month as a part of a nationwide tour that no one was anticipating. If this is the first you’re hearing of it, you’re likely not the only one. We can’t promise that the former Tonight Show host and his infamous chin’s set will make you laugh, but at least your grandma will know who you’re talking about when you give her the rundown at the next family dinner. $55-$125, 7:30 p.m., Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. — Georgie Riggs

THU | 9/12 – SAT | 9/14 OPERA

TOSCA

OPERA San Antonio’s latest production stages Giacomo Puccini’s famous tale of political intrigue and shocking violence.

Against the backdrop of the Napoleonic conquest of Italy, Tosca’s eponymous protagonist, a soprano who lives for art, is thrust into the conflict between her lover, the painter and revolutionary Mario Cavaradossi, and the scheming chief of police Baron Scarpia. The through-composed opera makes liberal use of the Wagnerian leitmotif technique, in which musical cues are assigned to certain characters and themes — think “The One Ring” melody from the Lord of the Rings films — and features notable arias including “Vissi d’arte,” “Recondita armonia,” and 16

CURRENT | Septmeber 11-24, 2019 | sacurrent.com

“E lucevan le stelle.” OPERA San Antonio’s production of the enduringly popular opera is directed by E. Loren Meeker, who was behind the company’s productions of Giaochino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and another Puccini favorite, La bohème. $38.50-$187.50, 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Saturday, H-E-B Performance Hall, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org.

— Kelly Merka Nelson

FRI | 9/13 – SUN | 9/22 THEATER

AND THEN THERE WERE SOME

Whodunnits are having a bit of a comeback lately, with Netflix releasing Murder Mystery starring Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler this summer and the star-studded film Knives Out hitting theaters later this fall. San Antonio’s Overtime Theater is getting in on the fun with an interactive murder mystery play. Set in a dilapidated theater, Overtime’s version of the Agatha Christie novel And Then There Were None pits a witch, a local fixer and private detectives against a seemingly uncatchable killer.

Along the way, the audience gets to vote twice to determine who makes it out alive — so choose wisely. $10-$15, 8 p.m.

Fridays and Saturdays through October 5; 3 p.m. Sunday, September 22; 7 p.m. Sunday, September 29; Overtime Theater, 5409 Bandera Road, Ste 205, (210) 577-7562, theovertimetheater.org. — GR

FRI | 9/13 FOTOSEPTIEMBRE

‘#UNTITLED’

As part of this year’s Fotoseptiembre, Clamp Light Artist Studios and Gallery is presenting a solo exhibition by Venezuelan artist Hayfer Brea. In “#Untitled,” Brea photographs everyday items paint-

Courtesy of Ana Hernandez

SAT | 9/14 ART

‘REGIONAL BULL’

In “Regional Bull,” Ana Hernandez “explores and celebrates the certainties and ambiguities of interpersonal relationships and the human condition.” Rendered in oil, acrylic and pastel, her surrealistic paintings abstract the portrait into metaphor, crafting a vividly colorful autobiographical narrative populated by hybridized, multi-limbed creatures. Hernandez juxtaposes realistic detail with expressionistic washes of color that integrate into the image via the suggestion of shape, relying on the viewer’s subconscious impressions and experiences to coalesce each figure into a perceived whole. Free, 7-11 p.m. (on view by appointment through October 12), Freight Gallery & Studios, 1913 S. Flores St., (757) 3733313, freightsatx.com. — KMN

ed in the familiar colors of the American flag. A red plastic cup against a bright, blue tire swing takes on a new layer of meaning when captured by Brea’s camera. “I am able to focus on objects and situations that are unusual for me, but are perhaps common and insignificant for the local,” he says. In 2019, Brea was one of the participating artists in the New York Foundation for the Arts’

Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program in San Antonio, which resulted in the widely praised exhibition “Admitted:USA” at Centro de Artes. In “#Untitled,” Brea continues the conversation on what it means to be an immigrant living in the United States. Free, 7 p.m. (on view by appointment through October 5), Clamp Light Artist Studios, 1704 Blanco Road, (512) 734-3706, clamplightsa.com. — Marco Aquino

COMEDY

JOEY DIAZ

calendar

SAT | 9/14

Cuban-American actor, stand-up comedian and podcast host Joey “Coco” Diaz will bring his 56 and Still Slinging Dick Tour to San Antonio for a night of what we hope won’t literally be slinging dick. But who knows these days with Diaz. He turned 56 last February, but looks to have the vitality of a Patibarcino while performing on stage.

Last year, he appeared on a couple of episodes of the now-cancelled Showtime series I’m Dying Up Here, co-executive produced by actor-comedian Jim Carrey, as well as two episodes of the anthology comedy series The Guest Book on TBS. He also landed on Netflix as one of the six comedians invited to star in their own episode of the stand-up series The Degenerates. On his special, Diaz admits to being a degenerate, but a “degenerate with morals.” Then, there’s Diaz’s podcast, The Church of What’s Happening Now, where he shoots the shit with co-host Lee Syatt and his entourage of celebrity friends twice a week. This year’s guests have included Tom Segura, Andrew “Dice” Clay, Mike Tyson and others. Sounds like a lot of slinging dick, if you ask us. $28.50-$35, 6 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — Kiko Martinez

Courtesy of The Aztec Theatre

SAT | 9/14 FI LM

AVENGERS: ENDGAME

Two decades and 21 movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans were champing at the bit for the epic culmination of the Avengers’ story … and then, for some of us, life got out of control and before we knew it Endgame

wasn’t in theaters anymore. Well, never fear: Mission Marquee Plaza is here! Superhero cinephiles can watch — or re-watch — the culmination of the legendary battle between big bad Thanos and Marvel’s greatest heroes on the Mission Marquee’s big screen. And best of all, it’s free. The pet-friendly screening means that viewers’ friendly neighborhood canines can also attend the showing, and chronic

nail-biters can grab snacks from the on-site food trucks to chew their way through the story’s stressful conclusion without ruining their manicures. Free, 7-10 p.m., Mission Marquee Plaza, 3100 Roosevelt Ave., (210) 207-8612, missionmarquee.com. — KMN

TUE | 9/17 – SUN | 9/22 TH EATER

LES MISERABLES

Courtesy of The Majestic Theatre

Published in 1862, Victor Hugo’s magnum opus Les Misérables is considered one of the greatest French novels of the 19th century. Adapted into a musical in 1980, Les Misérables has graced stages globally for almost 40 years. Set in France during a period of revolutionary upheaval, the story follows former prisoner Jean Valjean as he redeems himself in a world full of love, loss, politics — and a lot of singing. The latest touring production features new staging, including reimagined scenery based on the original paintings of Hugo himself. Classic songs “I Dreamed a Dream,” “On My Own” and “Bring Him Home” may end up stuck in your head for weeks to come. $49.50-$160, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sunday; The Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 2263333, majesticempire.com. — Brianna Espinoza

OCT

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calendar WED | 9/18 ART

‘LISTENING TO BERLIN’

“Listening to Berlin,” Ethel Shipton’s latest show at Ruiz-Healy Art, captures the sights and sounds of Germany’s capital city. Shipton, who was selected for Blue Star Contemporary’s three month residency at Berlin’s Künstlerhaus Bethanien in 2018, draws from her trip in a series of prints, mixed-media works and interactive sculpture. A city rich in history and culture, Berlin has much to offer the traveling artist. While there, Shipton took interest in the vast graffiti culture and street art Berlin has become known for. “I started taking pictures of the graffiti, and the graffiti took me to look at other parts of the city that were interesting to me,” Shipton said in a statement.

Among the highlights in this show is a sculptural piece where gallery visitors can sit and listen to the sounds of the city. Like much of Shipton’s work, “Listening to Berlin” focuses on bringing passing, everyday objects into sharp focus during moments of contemplation. In an era filled with constant distractions, Shipton’s work gives viewers permission to truly engage

their surroundings. Free, 6 p.m.

Wednesday, on view 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

Tuesdays-Saturdays through October 26, Ruiz-Healy Art, 201A E. Olmos Dr., (210) 804-2219, ruizhealyart. com. — MA

Courtesy of Queer Queens of Qomedy

FRI | 9/20 COMEDY

QUEER QUEENS OF QOMEDY

Courtesy of Ruiz-Healy Art

Lords and ladies, bow down to the Queer Queens of Qomedy as they make their fourth return to San Antonio, bringing a fresh round of laughs. Pillaging Texas on a six-day tour, this year’s trio consists of comedy royalty Poppy Champlin, Sandra Valls and Vickie Shaw. Once crowned as America’s Funniest Real Woman on The Joan Rivers Show, Champlin has also graced LOGO, Comedy Central and the Oprah Winfrey Network with her comedic prowess. Hailing from Laredo, Sandra Valls has appeared on BET’s Comic View and co-wrote and co-stars in The Latina Christmas Special. Vickie Shaw — seen on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend or her special You Can Take The Girl Out of Texas! — rounds out the royal court with relatable Southern humor. The Queer Queens clearly aren’t afraid to use comedy to conquer the politically charged Lone Star State. $30-$45, 8 p.m., Beethoven Hall, 420 S. Alamo Street, (512) 736-5191, facebook.com/queerqueens. — BE

FRI | 9/20 FILM

SELENA

Actress Constance Marie might have shown little Selena how to do the washing machine in the 1997 biopic Selena, but local fitness company Mix Fit SA has a few more advanced dance moves for those interested in working out before the free screening of the beloved film on the life and career of late Queen of Tejano Selena Quintanilla-Pérez. At 6:30 p.m., Mix Fit SA trainers will be out at the Mission Marquee Plaza to tone up moviegoers with a free “Como la Flor” Zumba class. Break a little sweat before the movie and feel guilt-free later when you decide to eat from one of the food trucks parked at the event. Maybe there will even a pizza truck, so you can chow down with J-Lo during her pizza-eating scene. “I eat medium pizzas all by myself with lots of pepperoni,” she memorably

tells actor Jon Seda. “And I drink Cokes and scarf Doritos and never exercise.”

We’re not sure if Mix Fit SA would promote that diet, but maybe a few extra cumbia steps will burn the extra calories. Free, 8 p.m., Mission Marquee Plaza, 3100 Roosevelt Ave., (210) 207-8612, missionmarquee.com. — Kiko Martinez

sacurrent.com | Septmeber 11-24, 2019 | CURRENT

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CURRENT | Septmeber 11-24, 2019 | sacurrent.com

calendar | art pick 9/11 - 9/25 ART PICK

ALEX DE LEÓN & ELIZABETH MCGRATH

Bryan Rindfuss

As it prepares for what promises to be a memorable 25th anniversary in 2020, Artpace is thoughtfully looking back at its infancy — a period guided by its founder, the late artist, collector and philanthropist Linda Pace. Following in the same reflective vein as the 2018 group show “Then and Now,” which brought together works by local Artpace residency alumni Ken Little, Kathy Vargas, Constance Lowe and Ángel Rodríguez Díaz, the influential institution’s latest offerings turn back the clock to celebrate the work of two somewhat unsung artists whose connections to the organization extend back to the start of its residency program.

Installed in the street-level Main Space in an arrangement that’s sure to spark the curiosity of passersby, a capsule collection of pieces created by former San Antonio resident Elizabeth McGrath is anchored by Broken, a conceptual sculpture she created during her 1996 Artpace residency. Comprised of a weathered wooden chair enveloped in crocheted silk that stretches to the ceiling like a spider’s web, it’s flanked by unrelated but equally curious sculptures — an organic-looking object pieced together from found wood and Bondo putty, and a snakelike coil fashioned from what appears to be a stuffed floral bedsheet. Behaving almost as conversation prompts for anyone who happens upon them in Artpace’s Main Avenue windows, these odd experiments with materials hard and soft may suggest alternate streams of discourse when viewers learn that McGrath long ago shifted her professional focus from art to psychotherapy.

Delivering a poppier, punchier counterpoint to this blast from the past, the work of late Alamo City legend Alex de León lines walls and cases upstairs in Artpace’s Hudson Showroom. Like McGrath, de León represented San Antonio as an International Artist-in-Residence in 1996 and both participated in Artpace’s London Studio Program in 1995, but the similarities seem to end there — and this pairing of exhibitions makes no pretense of connection outside of space and time.

An Edinburg native who studied printmaking at Kansas City Art Institute, de León left bold marks on San Antonio from the 1980s until his passing in 2012. Although ceramics emerged as his strong suit and his signature 25 6

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sacurrent.com | Septmeber 11-24, 2019 | CURRENT

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CURRENT | Septmeber 11-24, 2019 | sacurrent.com

calendar | art pick 6 23 style got pegged as folk art, he didn’t consider himself a ceramicist or a folk artist. In true pop fashion, his work often relied on the repetition of popular imagery and landed on local T-shirts and Hollywood film sets alike.

Assembled from a number of local collections, his new self-titled exhibition looks and feels like a tight retrospective for a pioneer of the San Antonio aesthetic. Beyond a playful, even cheery color palette that adorns everything from expertly rendered enamel paintings on steel to functional clay vessels and covetable shot glasses, de León’s pieces are tied together with a visual vocabulary punctuated by police cars, hearses, skulls, beer cans, cigarette packs and steaks on the grill. Although the subject matter is often immediately funny, the pieces’ titles paint a clearer picture of his sharp sense of humor: the 1995 painting Surprized Anything Gets Done As Much As He Drinks depicts a mess of tools, car parts and empty beer bottles scattered around a garage; and a classic pink convertible is parked amid a storm of cigarette butts, booze bottles, martini glasses and musical instruments in the 1997 ceramic bowl She Shoulda Tooka Cab. While it may look like the odd man out, a small cardboard house perched in a corner is taken from the body of work that inspired Artpace Executive Director Riley Robinson to revisit de León’s work in a contemporary context.

Taken from his 2004-era “Welcome Home Series,” the ramshackle sculpture was built from materials de León purchased from down-and-out individuals: signs emblazoned with pleas such as “Homeless and Hungry. Please Help If You Can,” “Mother of Three Struggling From Earlier Layoff. Need Help Please” and “Homeless Vet. Please Help. God Bless You.” Free, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, noon-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday through Dec. 29, Artpace, 445 N. Main Ave., (210) 212-4900, artpace.org. — Bryan Rindfuss

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arts

Tacos (and Other Things) Now back in his hometown, bestselling author Shea Serrano drops another book

BY JAMES COURTNEY Shea Serrano’s new book Movies (and Other Things) hits shelves October 8, and much suggests it will continue the SA author’s winning streak.

The tome follows up two New York Times Bestsellers, 2015’s The Rap Year Book and 2017’s Basketball (and Other Things), both sharp and accessible books that mix illustrations by artist Arturo Torres with informative lists and charts, plus plenty of smart, funny writing.

If you’re among those books’ legions of fans, you’re aware of Serrano’s easygoing genius for pulling together disparate threads of commentary into a whole that’s as entertaining as it is thought-provoking, as insightful as it can be delightfully absurd.

His Twitter game is fire too. He’s amassed a gang of followers, collectively dubbed the “FOH Army,” that spread the word about his projects and participate in his frequent spontaneous giving endeavors, the kind of crowdsourced acts that almost make you want to believe in humanity.

The string of successes might appear natural for Serrano. After all, he’s a badass young sports and media writer with sick crossover capabilities. He moved quickly from writing for Houston Press, where he met rapper Bun B with whom he co-penned his first book Bun B’s Rap Coloring and Activity Book, to writing for outlets like Grantland and The Ringer, publishing books and moonlighting all over.

But, Serrano, 38, tells a different story: a story that’s mostly about will and wits — and maybe a dash of luck.

In 2007, ya boy, who is originally de San Anto and moved back in 2018, was teaching middle school science in Houston when complications with his wife Larami’s pregnancy forced her to stop working. In need of money, Serrano applied for jobs at places like Walmart, Target and Pappadeaux.

He was turned down due to the lack of flexibility in his teaching schedule.

It was then that Serrano decided he would be a writer, despite the fact that “writing was not something [he] liked to do or looked forward to in school.”

“I was just Googling work-from-home jobs and ‘writer’ came up, and I was like, ‘Oh, I can do this on my own time from home, and I don’t have to, like, be at a place,’” Serrano said.

“I didn’t even know what a freelance writer was, so I started researching and picked up this antiquated book on it that was like, ‘Type up a letter and fucking mail it.’ But it did have some good stuff about how to pitch and what editors

Twitter / @SheaSerrano

are looking for.”

He submitted pitches to every rag in H-town before getting the chance to contribute a few sports stories for the Near Northwest Banner.

“Not even the Northwest Banner, but the Near Fucking Northwest Banner,” he joked.

Serrano managed to parlay the clips into freelance work with the Houston Press, where the editors taught him how to write a story and “really opened up everything.”

The rest is quickly unfurling history, though Serrano reflects fondly on his nine-year teaching experience.

“Teaching was the best job I ever had. Writing is good for my ego. You know, people tell you all the time ‘this is so good’ or ‘this is so funny’ or ‘I wish I could do that’... it makes you feel big-headed. So, writing is good for my ego. Teaching was good for my heart. I just felt important without anyone having to tell me I was important.”

After the success of Basketball (and Other Things), Serrano signed on for two more books in the And Other Things series. While the third in the trilogy doesn’t even have a subject yet — he’s leaning towards music or TV — Movies (and Other Things) will follow the same quirky and engaging, question-based chapter flow and again feature

Torres’ illustrations.

After having been away from San Antonio for 19 years, Serrano said it feels like this is where he and his family belong.

“For the first time in my life it feels like I am adding something to San Antonio, and that feels good,” he said.

His three favorite things about being home?

“Number one: Mendez Cafe on Bartholomew.

The best tacos I’ve ever had in my life. Get a bean and cheese, a carne guisada, a Big Red and a whole bunch of green salsa. It’s my favorite restaurant.

“Number two: I like that my sons and I go to Spurs games, just like I went with my dad.

“The third thing… I don’t know if this is controversial or not. I like walking around the city and seeing that so many people look like I look. I like to see Mexican faces. It makes me feel comfortable, it makes me feel like I belong here — especially with all the shit you have going on with immigrant targeting and the border stuff.”

Pausing, he reassessed his list.

“Shit, I guess I probably should have said the last two before the taco spot.”

We’re happy to have Serrano back and glad he’s got his priorities straight.

Find more artsmore coverage Find news every day at sacurrent.com

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arts

Bryan Rindfuss

Studio Visits

Iowa transplant Justin Korver on tweaking gender stereotypes and finding his way as a fabricator BRYAN RINDFUSS Did you know you can take a sewing machine onto an airplane? That fancy chickens live in suburbia? Or that Vincent Van Gogh ate paint? These are but a few of the unusual factoids that bubbled up in conversation during our recent studio visit with Justin Korver, a talented multimedia artist who made his way to San Antonio from a tiny town in northwestern Iowa.

Born in the Dutch community of Sioux City, Korver got an unlikely introduction to art from a high school gym teacher.

“To his credit,” Korver said, “he did recognize that I was passionate and let me do what I wanted to do.”

What the young Korver “wanted to do” entailed repeating art classes he’d already passed and printing photographs in the school darkroom during study hall. With assistance from “a terrible guidance counselor who will remain unnamed,” Korver found his next academic chapter at Hope College, a small liberal arts school in Holland, Michigan. (Fun fact: San Antonio-based artists Nate Cassie, Karen Mahaffy and Eden Collins

also attended Hope College.)

“So I moved from one small Dutch community to another slightly larger, small Dutch community,” Korver mused. At Hope, he worked through the inevitable phases associated with finding oneself as an artist.

“A lot of [my work] was trash, because you’re in undergrad,” he said with a laugh. “You have to work through all that angsty ‘I have too many feelings and not enough skills.’”

In the midst of his undergrad frustration, Korver arrived at a crossroads by challenging himself to bypass some of the formalities of art.

“My dad is a carpenter and a contractor, and my brother is now a contractor too and has worked in factories,” he explained. “So I was like, ‘What if I just made things that were more like building? So it’s less like making art and more like fabricating things.”

Not fond of working exclusively with paint, clay or any other single medium, Korver began embracing the possibilities of fabrication and shifted away from brushes

to tools one might find in a garage or hardware store.

In the process of adopting skills and practices he associated with his father, Korver began exploring themes associated with masculinity. He had always hated shoveling snow, mowing the lawn and other “dude jobs” around the house.

“I realized that most of the reason I disliked them is because they’re isolating … And I don’t really like to be alone,” he confessed.

Instead he was drawn to chores that entailed a human connection like cooking and other tasks often stereotyped as feminine.

Expanding on both personal experiences and expectations associated with gender, Korver began creating sculptures with techniques and materials associated with home construction — lumber, sheetrock, carpet padding, fiberglass insulation, fluorescent lighting, extension cords and latex paint.

With encouragement from a sculpture professor who’s friendly with local artist and educator Ken Little, Korver applied to a graduate program at UTSA and moved to San Antonio without ever having visited Texas.

Studying under Little, Korver further developed the work he began during undergrad but was also pushed out of his sculptural comfort zone to explore other media such as video and performance work.

In 2016, Korver blipped the C urrent’s radar with “Accessories of Modern Men,”

an MFA thesis exhibition built around the trinity of masculinity, domesticity and modernism.

“I actually still think those three things got really closely linked,” Korver said of his thesis. “The definition of ‘great art’ in the modern period was masculine genius … So I wanted to make things that kind of made fun of that.”

Although anchored by a visually arresting, wall-sized collage of archery targets, the solo show contained quieter curiosities including To M ale P hysiq ue, a series of reconfigured and relabeled trophies topped with athletic-looking men, and The R ag Y ou C lean Y our B rush O n, an installation of artfully stained towels hung from two adjacent towel racks. While it might not have been apparent to viewers, one of those towels was stained in the vein of a Mark Rothko painting and the piece was named after Alberto Giacometti’s suggestion that the real challenge of abstract painting is to create something as good as the rag you clean your brushes on.

Speaking about the various components of “Accessories of Modern Men,” Korver said, “I’m hesitant to use this word, but I do think it’s what I’m doing: it’s the ‘queering’ of the object. And the reason I’m hesitant about it is that I don’t want to be appropriative of that idea, but I think that my work comes so much out of feminist critique that it is that — ‘queering’ is the most productive intellectual space for the analysis of masculinity from a feminist perspective.”

Korver is now a full-time lecturer at Texas A&M San Antonio and among the handful of local artists who work out of Beacon Hill’s Clamp Light Artist Studios and Gallery.

Upon entering Korver’s studio — which he shares with his “supportive, amazing” fiancée Alyssa Richards — the first elements to make an impression quickly echo his self-acceptance as a “fabricator.” A large circular saw dominates the room while drills, handheld saws, pliers, screwdrivers, wrenches and vice grips hang neatly on pegboard.

Plastic bins are labeled “Electrical,” “Rope,” “Bungees,” “Sanding” and “Safety.”

On the walls are photographs Korver shot in the suburbs of San Antonio — printed on mesh and framed in a fashion that evokes picket fencing. The aforementioned fancy chickens were among the surprises he encountered while working on these pieces for a group show exploring the increasingly pervasive concept of surveillance.

On the floor, work gloves Korver cast in concrete are lined up like severed appendages in Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory — leftovers from his participation in the Tricentennial exhibition series “Common Currents.” Given the year 1901 as a point of departure, Korver found a newspa31 6

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arts

The Dancing Princesses Bryan Rindfuss

6 29 per article from that year titled “Artist Dies From Hunger.” In addition to a painted concrete glove, his contribution to “Common Currents” featured an empty lunch bag on which he wrote “They say Vincent Van Gogh ate his paints.” Combined with his affection for absinthe, Van Gogh’s alleged habit of ingesting turpentine and — specifically yellow — paint may have contributed to his insanity and bizarre behavior.

“To me it’s like that untenable thing,” Korver said. “We create this cult of the ‘starving bohemian artist,’ which makes us all starving bohemian artists, and makes people not value what we do. We’re kind of perpetuating that myth — and it also creates this whole fantasy where [being] mentally ill is somehow a good thing for your work, which we know it’s not.

It wasn’t for Van Gogh. So it became about lots of things.”

Bringing to mind an eclectic garage sale, a small table along the back wall of Korver’s studio is stacked with colorful flags he fashioned during recent artist residencies in Berlin, through Blue Star Contemporary, and Mexico City, through Casa Lu. By the time he departed San Antonio for Germany on what was his first international trip, Korver had already decided that his time in Berlin would be spent sewing flags and therefore opted to travel with a sewing machine.

“You can take a sewing machine in a carry-on bag, which I was shocked by,” he said. “You have to take the needle out, but you can take the sewing machine.”

Pieced together from intentionally mismatched fabrics and destined for a Blue Star show next year, Korver’s flags are creative responses to conversations about nationalism and woes of the Trump era.

“One of the phrases I wrote in my sketchbook while I was thinking about it in Germany was, ‘Maybe nationalism is a kind of homophobia … the fear of the penetration of the border of the body of the state that causes all of these other things,” he said.

Possibly the strangest thing on display in Korver’s studio is an unopened package of Special Golden Estrus — “fresh and super-premium doe urine” hunters use to lure bucks to their death. That, along with a copy of D eer & D eer Hunter magazine Korver strategically punctured with metal grommets, is research for a forthcoming hunting-themed exhibition Korver will unveil in October at Palo Alto College.

Though he only recently moved into Clamp Light, Korver has already likes the feel.

“Lots of artists love to be alone in a studio and just focus and pour themselves into the work all day … That’s not what I want at all,” he said. “My ideal situation would be sitting with at least one other person in the studio while you’re both working, or chatting, or gossiping, or arguing about something. I even like to convince other people to do that with me. I’ve done trades with people where I tell them, ‘I’ll be your assistant if you’ll be my assistant.’ And honestly, it’s nice to have help, but it’s also because I love to have somebody else [around].”

Those people Korver likes having around should consider themselves lucky. Not only is he a bright, funny, insightful individual with a wealth of knowledge and colorful anecdotes, he delights in working collaboratively.

“For me, [making art is] a lot about connectedness,” he said. “It’s a lot about the people that you get to know, about getting to go and do exciting new things with people — [that’s] half the reason to be an artist.” Unsurprisingly, he also geeks out on problem-solving. “I find it really satisfying to find the exact piece of hardware to do something,” he said. “Even the tools, like finding the simplest way to do something is really gratifying to me. I love when somebody has a problem putting something together and I’m like, ‘What if you just did it like this?’ That’s my favorite feeling in the world.”

Saturday, September 28th 7:30 PM & Sunday, September 29th 3:00 PM Carver Community Cultural Center This production is not a presentation of the Carver Community Cultural Center or the Carver Development Board Tickets are available through Ticketmaster, Ticketmaster.com, the Alamodome and the Carver Community Cultural Center Box Office.

Alamo Arts Ballet Theatre is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization | www.alamoartsballet.org

sacurrent.com | September 11-24, 2019 | CURRENT

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CURRENT | Septmeber 11-24, 2019 | sacurrent.com

Brittany Runs a Marathon wins big with an honest lead performance

BY KIKO MARTINEZ New York City resident Brittany Forgler is unhappy. She’s unfulfilled at her job as a greeter at a small theater. She wastes time gawking at other people’s extravagant lives on social media. Her dating prospects are nonexistent.

And based on her most recent visit to the doctor, which doesn’t yield the stimulants she was hoping for, she’s overweight.

“I feel like you totally missed the point of those Dove ads,” Brittany quips when her doctor explains why she’s on the wrong side of the Body Mass Index.

In Brittany Runs a Marathon, the “broke and fat” title character (Jillian Bell) attempts to reinvent herself by taking her physician’s advice and losing 45-55 pounds. Or, as Brittany puts it, “the weight of a Siberian Husky.” When she realizes she can’t afford a gym membership — “Is there a sliding scale for people in debt up to their tits?”

— she decides the best and cheapest thing she can do is run the NYC sidewalks on her own.

What starts off as a slow and steady, oneblock jog turns into Brittany joining a running group recommended by fellow tenant and now fellow runner Catherine (Michaela Watkins).

Although self-conscious at first, she befriends Seth (Micah Stock), a gay dad whose leisurely

Courtesy of Amazon Studios

pace matches well with hers. Soon, the trio of new running buddies are motivating one another, shedding pounds and even talking each other into training for the upcoming New York City Marathon in a little less than a year. The support is definitely something Brittany needs, especially with a petite roommate and best friend who tells her at one point in the film that just because she’s losing weight doesn’t mean she should throw away her “fat clothes.”

While the running aspect of Brittany Runs a Marathon is genuine and watching Bell actually lose 40 lbs. during the making of the movie is inspirational, first-time feature writer-director Paul Downs Colaizzo, who wrote the script based on the true story of his friend Brittany O’Neill, includes a conventional rom-com storyline that causes the picture to pull up limp on occasion. There’s no good reason for Brittany to

Finger Lickin’ Good

Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! may be gimmicky, but Morgan Spurlock succeeds as a showman

BY KIKO MARTINEZ As the Chick-fil-A vs. Popeye’s chicken sandwich debate rages on, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) has inadvertently found his way into the center of the fast-food feud with the release of Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!

The sequel brings Spurlock back for seconds, this time setting his sights on the innerworkings of the fiercely competitive U.S. chicken industry.

Of course, Super Size Me 2 is a follow up to Spurlock’s well-received original documentary that delivered a gut punch to hamburger titan McDonald’s when it appeared in theaters 15 years ago. Six weeks after the first film’s release, McDonald’s eliminated the option to supersize its meals.

Fast-food chains went into defense mode, realizing consumers were starting to demand healthier menu options. In a sense, Super Size Me did to fast food what the 2013 documentary Blackfish did to SeaWorld. It made patrons feel guilty for going —

screens

Runner’s High

and sometimes that’s all it takes.

In Super Size Me 2, Spurlock sticks to his gimmicky presentation style, but it’s one that fits his personality and talent. What’s more, it’s entertaining as hell. PETA activists probably won’t

Courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films

have a love interest aside from its convenience as a formula to create extra drama, grief and conflict for the two main participants. It also provides a familiar hurdle for Brittany to clear before she crosses the proverbial finish line.

That said, Bell dominates Brittany Runs a Marathon with an honest performance. Refreshingly, the film doesn’t depict her as a flawless character simply trying to get her life together.

There are shades to Brittany, and some of them aren’t likeable. But like the saying goes, “The person who starts the race is not the same person who finishes it.” Audiences will feel those endorphins kick in just in time to hail Brittany Runs a Marathon an undisputed winner.

Brittany Runs a Marathon is currently playing at the Santikos Bijou Cinema Bistro.

be amused by a slow-motion scene showing baby chicks being tossed into bins as “Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker Suite plays in the background. However, most viewers will be hard-pressed not to smile. Note: Super Size Me 2 isn’t a doc about the plight of chickens, just so we’re clear.

In Spurlock’s first film on fast-food franchises, he went on an all-McDonald’s diet to demonstrate how harmful it can be to eat Quarter Pounders every day. Here he takes a different approach. Spurlock makes it his mission to open his own fast-food chicken restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, and follow a farm-to-table process.

The process reveals just how vindictive and manipulative the system can be with chicken growers who step out of line.

It’s not always a pretty picture — the chicken autopsy scene, for example, is a little bizarre — but Spurlock uses humor and buckets of information to hammer home his message. Comedian and TV host John Oliver called attention to the same issue during a 2015 episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, but in film form, Spurlock has more free range to fool around and make things fun.

Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! hits VOD platforms September 13.

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Animating the Alamo City

Undone co-creator and San Antonio native Kate Purdy delves into the roots of Amazon Studios’ reality-warping new series

BY KELLY MERKA NELSON San Antonians got a surprise from San Diego Comic Con this summer, when Amazon Studios revealed a teaser trailer for the show Undone that opened with an overhead shot of our downtown skyline. As it turns out, Undone co-creator and BoJack Horseman co-executive producer Kate Purdy is an Alamo City native, and she decided San Anto was the perfect setting for the genre-bending series.

The show’s production was tight knit despite being spread across the planet — the actors were filmed in L.A., then their performances were rotoscoped in Austin, Texas, at Minnow Mountain, all while series director Hisko Hulsing and his team at Submarine in Amsterdam did everything from creating original oil paintings of the backgrounds to crafting and compositing the two- and three-dimensional animation that formed the final product.

We caught up with Purdy over the phone to talk about Undone’s underpinnings, from location scouting and the show’s diverse cast of characters to her deeply personal connection to the story.

What led you to partner with BoJack Horseman colleague Raphael Bob-Waksberg to create Undone?

The impetus for this project came as a result of an episode I wrote in season one of BoJack Horseman, which is called “Downer Ending.” It’s an episode in which BoJack goes on this drug trip, and he experiences an alternate reality — a life that he could have lived if he had made less 38

CURRENT | Septmeber 11-24, 2019 | sacurrent.com

selfish choices. After writing that episode, Raphael approached me and said we should really think about doing a show together that explores these kinds of ideas and themes and emotionality. That’s where the project came from.

Unlike NBC’s The Night Shift, which tried to pass off Albuquerque as San Anto, Undone puts the Alamo City front and center, featuring both tourist attractions like the River Walk and highway interchanges that only locals would recognize. Knowing that the final product would be animated, what was the location scouting process like, and how much input did you give, both as a writer and a San Antonio native?

The location scouting process was really me going with a camera along with my partner Alex Maloutas, and we took photos and video of San Antonio and put together Pinterest pages and sent over all the photos and the video to Amsterdam for Hisko [Hulsing]. Then we reviewed those materials and I talked about each location, what the backgrounds would look like and how the city looks and feels, and he was inspired by that in terms of his work. He created this lush, beautiful interpretation, which I love.

For a story that’s about the fragmentation of reality, the production process had its own level of fragmentation geographically. Between filming in Los Angeles, converting the performances into rotoscope

Courtesy of Amazon Studios

animation in Austin, and the background and final animation work done in Amsterdam, what challenges did this long-distance creative process pose, and how involved were you in the different stages?

Tommy Pallotta is one of our executive producers, and he works with Richard Linklater — he did A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life. So, right away, when we decided to do rotoscoping animation, Hisko suggested that we work with Tommy because he had worked successfully with Tommy on another rotoscoping project.

Tommy is a fantastic producer and was responsible for putting together the production pipeline, which of course is very complex. He created this

screens screens Review: Undone Unravels San Antonio

BY KELLY MERKA NELSON

Courtesy of Amazon Studios

internal system in which we would see on a pretty much daily basis all the rotoscoping in fragments — like seconds-long fragments — from Minnow Mountain, and then we would see the painted version of those fragments, and then the background paintings. At each step we would see each of the pieces and give approval, saying like, “this looks good, this looks great, this looks beautiful,” or “actually, [Alma’s] cochlear implant would look like this here,” or “technically San Antonio freeways have more greenery in this location.”

We were weighing in and having conversations at every step, so that required Skype calls and emailing and a lot of WhatsApping to different places around the world. But we were able to do it — I think, really, to the credit of Tommy, who kept the pipeline running and was always doing what he could to fix it when things didn’t work as smoothly as they could have. It’s definitely a difficult process and a learning process for all of us, but I think everyone involved are such fantastic collaborators and such incredible artists that we’ve all been very dedicated to making the best version of this that we could together.

That’s one of the refreshing things about Undone — that it puts realistic Latinx characters and other people of color, like Alma’s boyfriend Sam, who’s played by Siddharth Dhananjay, front and center. How much of the composition of the cast was put in place during the writing process, and how much evolved as you moved into casting?

In terms of their cultural and ancestral backgrounds, we really knew that in the writing. We wanted to have as much inclusion as possible, but we also didn’t want that to be the defining aspect of who these characters are. We wanted it to be a piece of who they are, so it was an early decision to be as inclusive and natural as possible.

Read an extended version of this interview at sacurrent.com.

This must be what it feels like for New Yorkers and Angelenos to watch TV. Amazon Studios’ new animated series Undone, which will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on Friday, September 13, immediately foregrounds its San Antonio setting. The first episode opens with a vividly painted image of downtown — the Tower of the Americas poking through our relatively understated skyline, with Highway 281 and the Alamodome visible on the left.

From highway interchanges to popular tourist haunts, it’s such a treat to see San Anto depicted accurately onscreen that it’s hard to resist googling even the most basic locations to check whether they have real life counterparts. Even the characters’ homes look the part — architectural details from bathroom tile to hardwood floors carry the familiarity of all the done-up early-20th century houses for rent in neighborhoods north of downtown. And, yes, the River Walk and Alamo both make appearances, as well as less-famous landmarks like Fiesta Texas and the Witte Museum.

While it’s refreshing to see our city rendered so faithfully, Undone is much more than its setting.

The show centers on Alma (Rosa Salazar), who feels trapped in a quotidian life measured out by a montage of repetitive rituals — waking up next to her boyfriend, getting ready in the bathroom, eating breakfast, driving to work.

“I’m so bored of living,” she tells her sister.

After a nearly fatal car wreck, Alma starts having visions of her dead father, Jacob (Bob Odenkirk). A Virgil to Alma’s Dante, he guides her into a new, more fluid understanding of time and reality as Alma’s experiences and memories twist, loop and fall to pieces.

While Alma becomes unmoored from daily life, the show is kept anchored by Salazar and her co-stars’ performances. Each relationship onscreen has a palpable chemistry. Tipsy pillow talk between Alma and her affable boyfriend Sam, played by Siddarth Dhananjay, carries with it the comfort of a years-long connection, and a lifetime of growing frustration between Alma, her mother (Constance Marie) and her sister Becca (Angelique Cabral) crackles beneath the surface of every conversation.

Salazar imbues Alma with a deep pathos, both before and after her world begins to disintegrate. As Jacob, Odenkirk is often positioned as a didactic guide, but he pushes Alma to develop her newfound abilities with a barely concealed urgency.

The actors are aided by the true-to-life feel of the show’s dialogue, which follows a natural ebb and flow that never veers too far either into incessant banter or heavy-handed exposition. With writing like this, it’s no surprise that Undone co-creators Purdy and Raphael Bob-Waksberg are alumni of another, often emotionally raw series: Netflix’s BoJack Horseman.

Undone is far from the first production to use rotoscope — a technique in which animators trace over film footage frame by frame — but it is the first television series to be rotoscoped in full. Known to many from

Richard Linklater’s Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, the technique allows Undone to have its cake and eat it too. The shifting nuances of the actors’ expressions and movements are preserved onscreen — albeit a bit flattened out by watercolor-esque washes of pigment — while the surrounding animation allows for fluid progression of oft-fantastical action, unmarred by the perceptible seams that would exist between live action and CGI. And, boy howdy, does Undone lean into the possibilities afforded to it by animation. Imaginative edits populate the show in moments both big and small, from brief time skips as a drunken pre-crash Alma undresses at home to the transforming and collapsing scenery that flashes between warring realities of past memories and present confrontations.

Although the score is deployed sparingly, it also bears mention. The soundtrack indelibly sets the series’ tone, creeping in most evidently during moments of high emotion and unreality — from gentle chamber orchestra accompaniment to shrieking metallic ringing — while the more mundane, present-day scenes and conversations often play out with little to no music, barring some tinny mariachi on the River Walk and vague no-name rock in the background of the characters’ favorite bar.

A show like Undone runs the risk of falling into the territory of movies like Fight Club and Shutter Island, in which the sudden revelation of a character’s mental illness is mere fodder for a plot twist. Entertaining as that may be — both of those films are mega-popular, after all — these “gotchas” often ring hollow, particularly since they rely on wildly inaccurate portrayals of mental illness.

Undone sidesteps this problem by foregrounding the ambiguity. Has Alma, like Kurt Vonnegut’s Billy Pilgrim, “come unstuck in time”? Or, has the wreck triggered a psychotic break in which she fixates on her one wish: that she could go back and change the Halloween night on which her father died? As the story unfolds, the viewer can pore over a wealth of details in search of their favored outcome. But, by the end of the fifth episode — the last one provided to reviewers — there are still no easy answers.

Admittedly, Alma’s wreck-induced traumatic brain injury does provide one easy out — for the writers, that is. She loses her memory of the few days preceding the crash, conveniently setting the stage for interpersonal conflict. That said, T.B.I. can cause memory loss and damage to short-term memory, so all things told, the story doesn’t play too fast and loose with facts.

Some Alamo City details may be missing from Undone — like the ever-present balls of moss that litter sidewalks — but it’s imaginatively rendered, strongly written and cathartically performed. And, while it would be unfair to characterize the show as an ode to San Antonio, it’s nice to find our city’s melody interwoven into the larger harmonies of this inventive new series. sacurrent.com | Septmeber 11-24, 2019 | CURRENT

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CURRENT | September 11-24, 2019 | sacurrent.com

food

After the Lege

New Texas laws bring changes for entrepreneurs, brewers and foodies

BY LEA THOMPSON Gov. Greg Abbott signed several bills into law during Texas’ most recent legislative session that promise change the way we eat and drink in the state.

Among the changes coming September 1 are the ability for craft breweries to offer beer to go, for certain businesses to make alcohol deliveries and for food entrepreneurs to sell directly to customers.

All those changes arrived on September 1.

Here’s what’s new:

Texas Cottage Food Law Under the Texas Cottage Food Law, entrepreneurs can manage some types of food businesses from home – legally creating products and selling them directly to customers. The restrictive law hadn’t changed much since its passage in 2011.

In one of the biggest cottage law revisions to date, Texas lawmakers expanded the list of approved items to include more pickled and fermented foods, all non-perishable foods and even select frozen produce.

The law previously restricted many products, allowing only the specifically listed items — pickled cucumbers were included, while pickled okra was not — and that made business tough for many operators.

“This is great news for local entrepreneurs,” said Leslie Provence, vice president of the Food Policy Council of San Antonio.

Provence’s group has reached out to local organizations and neighborhood groups to spread awareness about the revisions.

The law change also allows cottage food internet sales, which were previously banned. Operators can take orders and payment online, but they must personally deliver the product to ensure direct contact. The businesses also must provide food label information prior to payment.

“If we can make [locals] aware of these changes, they could potentially start a business that allows them to make up to $50,000 a year, as part of their annual household income,” Provence said.

“That’s a lot of banana bread.”

Beer-to-Go Sales Thanks to the most prominent of the new laws, beer lovers are now able to take home a case from their favorite local craft breweries.

Legislators passed the new rule as an amendment to HB 1545, which renewed the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission.

John Saeyong Ra

Despite some pushback from large brewers and wholesale beer distributors, the change is expected to bring more tourists and revenue to craft breweries. The number of craft brewers in the state in the has grown to 283 from fewer than 60 eight years ago, according to the National Brewers Association.

Texas was the last remaining state to restrict onsite brewery sales. The new bill allows brewers to sell a single 24-pack of beer to each customer per day, or nine crowlers, 32-ounce cans that have replaced the familiar glass-jug growlers.

Most San Antonio brewpubs, which produce and sell up to 10,000 barrels on- and off-site annually, already have licenses to sell their brews on premises. But for local manufacturing breweries like Alamo Beer and Dorcol Distilling + Brewing, which produce up to 225,000 barrels each year, the beer-to-go provision is a welcome change.

“To finally be able to send folks home with a sixer of Betty, our most popular beer, will have an impact on brand recognition, marketing and overall growth for us at Dorćol,” brewery co-founder Boyan Kalusevic told the Current.

Dorćol recently celebrated the milestone legislation with the release of its first canned Betty, inviting locals to enjoy brews and live music during its monthly Music for Advanced Listeners event.

Though there aren’t many local breweries

affected by the change, it’s still a victory that beer lovers can take home what they sample, said Dustin Baker, head brewer for San Antonio’s Roadmap Brewery.

“This is still great news for the local beer community and for beer lovers,” Baker said.

Alcohol Delivery With the passage of SB 1232, thousands of Texas retailers were also able to deliver beer and wine to customers’ homes.

Under the new bill, retailers — including restaurants and coffee shops — can apply for permits to deliver orders or contract the delivery to outside companies like Instacart.

Of course, the delivery process will require both customers and employees to be over 21.

Lemonade Stands Thanks to the passage of HB234, unlicensed lemonade stands operated by children are officially legal. The bill, which only applies to those under 18, essentially provides a waiver to health codes that could be used to ban the stands. Now, not even neighborhood associations — nor Neighborhood ecky — can prohibit the sale of non-alcoholic beverages on private property, according to the new rules.

Find more Findfood more& drink news everynews day at sacurrent.com

r o v a S s! the

SEPT

e t Da

2 6 THRU 29

WINE + FOOD F E S T I VA L

BECKER VINEYARDS+ LA CANTERA RESORT & SPA

It’s the place to see San Antonio’s best chefs all in one place and all you pay is the price of admission to rub elbows with some of the brightest stars in our city. Not to mention, taste, taste and taste some more of the culinary creations they’ve designed. Add to the flavors your choice of wine, beer or cocktail and the setting of the Texas Hill Country and your weekend is complete at this year’s Culinaria Festival.

Cheers to 20 Years Tickets + Details At Culinariasa.org

42

CURRENT | September 11-24, 2019 | sacurrent.com

food

The Take Away: Talking Culinary Competitions with the Petroleum Club’s Vanguelis Pablopulos

YOUR HOMETOWN SPICE COMPANY SINCE 1985.

Name: Vanguelis Pablopulos Title: Executive Sous Chef at the Petroleum Club Age: 32 Birthplace: Santiago, Chile Industry Experience: 19 years Money quote: “I started from the bottom. I was washing dishes and cooking in fast-food kitchens for years before I became a chef for fine dining restaurants.”

Tell us about your background and how you got where you are.

I was 13 years old when I moved from Chile to Florida, and I soon began working in local kitchens as a dishwasher.

I was cooking at an Applebee’s in 2009 when I met a chef from The Columbia, a well-respected fine dining restauCourtesy Vanguelis Pablopulos rant in Florida. The meeting inspired me to dive into [the culinary world] headfirst and learn everything I could. I started from the bottom. I was washing dishes and cooking in fast-food kitchens for years before I became a chef for fine dining restaurants. I worked for several upscale restaurants in Florida before I was recruited to take over at The Argyle in San Antonio, nearly four years ago. I recently joined the Petroleum Club, a private dining club located inside the Energy Plaza Building.

What’s your current signature dish?

Crispy skin branzino served with mango salsa and baby carrots. I’ve been working with molecular gastronomy, so I’ve added shapes to the dish that are inspired by ocean coral and filled with squid ink flavor.

You’re headed to the 2019 World Food Championships in Dallas next month.

What inspires you to compete?

All my life I’ve had this competitive edge; whatever I do, I try to be the best. I like to keep learning as much as possible, and I think competing gives me a better understanding of other chefs. I entered another contest, the Texas Super Chef Throwdown in 2018 and won a Golden Ticket that allowed me to join the competitive team at the World Food Championships. I didn’t even know about the event before that.

This year, I’ll be competing in the event with pastry chef Kelley Benson. We’ve been working together for more than a year — I’m a strong front of line, while she’s strongest on pastries — and we work well together. There’s going to be thousands of contestants, but there will be individual and team events that allow us to tell our sides of the story. We’ve competed at the WFC once before now and have a clearer vision of what to do, and how to create that “wow factor” in our presentation. I’m a little nervous, but we hope to make it to top 10, so we can represent San Antonio and bring home that prize.

SOUTH TEXAS SPICE CO. Retail - Institutional - Specialty Blends 8oz. - 300lbs. or more

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CURRENT | September 11-24, 2019 | sacurrent.com

food Whole Lotta Whataburger

BY LEA THOMPSON

l Plate l a m S By the

N

s umber

For many Texans, Whataburger is more than a burger chain: it’s a dining institution.

Entrepreneur Harmon Dobson opened the first Whataburger location in Corpus Christi, in 1950, selling burgers for 25 cents. After the entrepreneur died in 1967, his children and wife Grace worked to continue his legacy. Whataburger has since expanded to 830 locations across the country, eventually becoming part of pop culture thanks to TV shows like King of the Hill and Friday Night Lights.

Today, Whataburger is headquartered in San Antonio. While its orange-andwhite iconography remains synonymous with Texas, the company is continuing its aggressive out-of-state expansion.

Here’s a by-the-numbers look at how much people love this Texas icon. Every year, Whataburger serves:

WHATABURGER 36,864 POSSIBLE COMBINATIONS

Your Favorite Neighborhood Bar,

!

Now Openn!

Open at Noon on Sundays for College Football on the Big Screen!

1160 E Commerce St, San Antonio, TX 78205 Open Daily 'Til 2 am • Happy Hour All Day Sun + Mon, 4-8 PM Tues-Sat

5 MILLION POUNDS OF ONIONS

17 MILLION POUNDS OF KETCHUP

580 MILLION PICKLE SLICES

11 MILLION POUNDS OF CHEESE

350,000

GALLONS OF MUSTARD

7 MILLION HEADS OF LETTUCE

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210.369.9192 | FRANCISBOGSIDE.COM | 803 S ST. MARY’S STREET |

Source: Whataburger

sacurrent.com | September 11-24, 2019 | CURRENT

45

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CURRENT | September 11-24, 2019 | sacurrent.com

h a n z o b a r . c o m | M O N D A Y - S U N D A Y: 4 P M - 2 A M

H A P P Y H O U R S U N D A Y & M O N D A Y A l l D A Y | T U E S D A Y - F R I D A Y: 4 - 7 P M | R E V E R S E H A P P Y H O U R E V E R Y D A Y: 1 1 P M - 2 A M

food Josephine St. Revisited 40 years on, the roadhouse-style standby delivers the hits — and also some misses

BY RON BECHTOL An iconic local restaurant is celebrating a landmark anniversary this year.

“40 Years and Still Rammin’,” proclaims Josephine St., which opened its doors in 1979. The milestone also marks the beginning of my food writing career, when Rick Casey, then editor of SA Magazine, assigned a precocious 15-year old to write a story on the new “steaks and whisky” joint. Casey went on to enjoy a distinguished journalistic career, while I am still sorta hangin’.

Much has happened in both the national and local food scenes since 1979.

We’ve mostly moved beyond the notion of stodgy country-club and snooty-waiter cuisine as the apex of fine dining, tapas have come and gone, sushi can be found at neighborhood supermarkets and we’ve embraced fusion cuisine, tasting menus and food pop-ups as art, finding fashion in everything from cocktails to barbecue.

Yet, Josephine St., perhaps the epitome of a laid-back Texas café, endures unrepentantly unchanged. Almost. I recently revisited that first review to compare then with now, starting with the salad.

In 1979, the restaurant’s salad was filled with fresh, crisp iceberg lettuce that was perplexingly billed as “wilted” with tomatoes and green olives that were not subdued by hot, flavorful bacon fat.

Today, The Wilt — as the salad is known — offers the same ingredients sans mention of bacon fat, but the greens are so overwhelmed by a lemon and garlic dressing they might as well be called “The Swamp.”

My food knowledge has grown since my cub reporter days, but I admit that I still appreciate iceberg for its neutral crunchiness, a quality The Wilt does not exploit.

Josephine’s original menu was “a simple chalkboard affair” that featured six items including the chopped sirloin at $3.45 and the broiled chicken breast at $4.45, served with French fries of heroic proportions and the best homemade onion rings in town.

Lea Thompson

Prices have gone up, and the menu has long-escaped the bounds of a single chalkboard to offer seafood, burgers and nostalgic plates — including the original broiled chicken breast, which I revisited.

It’s still as “moist and [reasonably] flavorful” as it was 40 years ago.

I don’t personally need to have it again, but I recognize that at $10.95, a dish that offends almost nobody doesn’t necessarily need to change. Order it with the original onion rings, a hot ticket item that fights back in a way the chicken never could.

In retrospect, it seems odd that Josephine St. didn’t lead its original roadhouse-style menu with a chicken fried steak, but the error has since been corrected. CFS is a condition of Texas citizenship, after all. With a crust as craggy as the snoot of a weather-worn cowpoke, Josephine’s CFS is duded up with just enough pepper-flecked cream gravy to fill in some of the arroyos. This I’d order again. I’d also repeat house-fried spuds and coleslaw spiked with serrano — as arid in its judicious dressing as the wilt was daunting in dampness.

The green beans offer standard tomato and bacon sidekicks in a punchy potlikker that more than compensates for the beans’ just-short-of-mushy texture.

However, the 10 oz. bone-in strip steak — replacing a boneless original that, like most of the meat selections in that original review, “benefitted by a discreet application of A-1 Sauce” — arrived undercooked for medium rare and with unexceptional zest. The menu claims the gristle along the bone “adds extra flavor,” but the kitchen doesn’t believe it either as A-1 is still on the table. A-1 is not the answer.

The debut menu offered one dessert, a Sara Lee cheesecake tarted out with strawberries. Josephine’s eventually got me with a “fresh baked” peach cobbler that now shares space with the likes of Jack Daniel’s pecan pie and a Toll House cookie bar. Yes, I now know a cobbler offered year-round will be made from canned or frozen fruit, but many a mighty fine cobbler has been made out of season. This, served barely warm and swamped in cinnamon, just wasn’t one of them.

It seems reasonable to ask if a vastly expanded menu is necessarily a better menu. Both the question and the answer may also be irrelevant. The place was already full at 6:45 p.m. on a Wednesday, while cars outside played parking roulette for the closest available space.

Many may visit out of habit or nostalgia, to pay homage to the eatery’s

truncated pecan tree or the neon Fincke’s Market sign that reveals the name of the building’s previous occupant — a butcher who would surely be shocked at a $25.95 Prime NY Strip and the baller-bait Silver Oak Cabernet ($95.00) that could accompany it.

Restaurant criticism is likely the last thing on these diners’ minds, which is a conundrum.

If the food world has become broader and more sophisticated, the task of the restaurant critic has become both easier and more difficult. In those uncertain early days, it was enough to have a reasonable knowledge of food, to be willing to try anything — and to know a woman with a large purse and possess a certain sense of petty larceny.

The internet, of course, changed everything. Not only is news of the latest food fad immediately available to the world at large, but the danger is that the loudest voice becomes the one most heard. The posting of food porn on Instagram is not going away any time soon, but neither is serious, experience-based criticism.

According to Casey, a critic is someone who observes a battle from the safety of a mountain top, then descends to the valley after it’s over to dispatch the wounded. Not true. I sometimes bring bandages.

Often, they’re not enough.

sacurrent.com | September 11-24, 2019 | CURRENT

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Monday

HAPPY HOUR A LL DAY

+ Live Music By C hris Cr uz | 10P - 2A

Tuesday

17803 La Cantera terrace #1200 Sa, TX 78256 | (210) 310-3733

HAPPY HOUR TIL MIDNIGHT + Open Mic | 9:30P - 2A

Wednesday

Music by C liff Crawford

Thursday

VAMO S A TEQUILA! ME NU + DJ Biig Mike

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Introducing Firemans Light. The Real Light Beer for All Y’all.

48

CURRENT | September 11-24, 2019 | sacurrent.com

11888 STARCREST | 210 496-7092 CHARLIE-BROWNS.COM

sacurrent.com | September 11-24, 2019 | CURRENT

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CURRENT Septmeber 11-24, 2019 | sacurrent.com

venues

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Sound of Summer fails to deliver its full lineup, pointing to harsh realities about promoting music festivals

BY CHRIS CONDE

S

an Antonio’s Sound of Summer Fest billed itself as a premiere hip-hop and EDM showcase, in May announcing a roster of more than a dozen national acts.

But once the event took place August 30-31 at Nelson Wolff Stadium, it was apparent I-35 Live — the Texas-based production company behind the event — hadn’t been able to deliver on that star-studded lineup.

“Taste” rapper Tyga and dubstep duo Boombox Cartel were slated to perform Friday, August 30, but both announced cancellations via social media earlier in the day. That left SOS without a third of its headliners. What’s more, Chicklet and Maleni, a pair of Instagram celebs scheduled to host the event, also warned that they’d be MIA. I-35 Live official Ervin Lee said the festival honored its contracts with all of the scheduled artists.

“It’s legal matters at this point, so we must decline to comment farther,” he said in an email.

“Lastly, we did this for San Antonio, our love for the city and the people that want to spread good vibes and positivity.”

However, when asked in the email whether concertgoers would receive a refund after the headliners failed to show, Lee’s response was full of anything but good vibes and positivity.

“Lol you’re a joke,” he wrote. “Your story will fall on deaf ears [sic] no one cared that the people that weren’t there didn’t show up. Completely [sic] lie of a story. Expect to hear from my lawyer.”

It’s unclear where things fell apart for the artists, since none of them responded to interview requests. Most were vague about the cancellations in their social media posts.

Tyga announced via Instagram that the cancellation was “due to circumstances out of my control.”

“Due to circumstances beyond my control I’ve had to cancel my set at tonight’s Sound of Summer festival,” BoomBox Cartel wrote. “I was not confident that the production provided by the festival would allow me to deliver a performance up to my standards.”

“Yo, for those that were expecting us at the sound of summer event — we’re not there because we landed in Texas and we’ve not got nothing,” Chicklet said in an Instagram video. “Nobody’s hit us up, said what time — nothing has happened since we’ve been in Texas. The last time someone spoke to us was 5 p.m. yesterday [Thursday, August 29], but that’s why we’re not there.”

SOS ticketholders complained on social media that they weren’t informed of the cancellations and only learned about them through posts on the stars’ accounts. “@sosmusicfest_ Fucking bust ass fest I want a

music

S.O.S. Fest

Shutterstock

refund,” @paytonslansky posted on Twitter.

“No @boomboxCartel or Tyga MAN FUCK YALL @ sosmusicfest_,” @DankieQ tweeted.

Festival Fails Sound of Summer is hardly the first Texas music festival to experience woes.

San Antonio’s River City Rockfest and Gonzales’ Float Fest were both cancelled this year, and Houston’s Day for Night quietly went into the night in 2018. Two years ago, Austin’s Sound on Sound Fest pulled the plug five weeks before its scheduled date after a key investor pulled out.

And the tribulations aren’t limited to Texas.

Woodstock 50, scheduled for August, cancelled amid reports of late artist deposits and uncleared permits. Heavy-hitters such as Miley Cyrus, Jay-Z and the Raconteurs were slated to play the event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the storied concert. “[Festival organizers] get in over their heads,” explained former Paper Tiger talent buyer Ryan Brummet.

Since SOS was a new festival, artist management might have felt less inclined to take a chance with organizers they haven’t worked with before, added Brummet, now music director for New York venue Le Poisson Rouge and LPR Presents, which books 34 other live music spots in that city.

“I don’t know specifically what happened [at Sound of Summer Fest], but it seems like ticket sales weren’t where they needed to be, [and] maybe some deposits didn’t get sent out,” he said.

Austin concert promoter Graham Williams, who helped run the now-defunct Fun Fun Fun Fest, said last-minute artist cancellations can happen for many reasons.

“Because so many other festivals have fallen through over the years, I do know a lot of booking agents, bands and managers are real gun-shy on

events when they feel like something feels strange or is not going right,” he said.

Williams added that an initial lineup announcement for SOS featured numerous empty slots on the bill. That could have caused managers to grow wary about sending their artists onstage.

Changing Business Williams says that it doesn’t really matter how much experience someone has promoting festivals, because the business is changing quickly and drastically. “[People] aren’t going out for $250 to see a festival as much as they used to, and a big part about it is that there’s just so many festivals,” he said.

That proliferation of festivals has meant tough competition for ticket dollars, said Robert Scherer, dean of Trinity University’s school of business.

“There’s competition among festivals and among venues,” he said. “In some of the concerts and some of the big festivals, they include a lot of the same artists, so there’s a lot of overlap. And maybe some of the same artists are playing in San Antonio at more than one festival or maybe at a concert venue and then a festival.”

Plus, with binge-watching seasons of TV now as American as apple pie, Scherer said that some people would rather stay home and experience live music via concert-streaming services like Nugs.net.

“The cost is going to be a lot cheaper,” he said.

“So, people might think twice about going to the live festival for cost issues, comfort issues and convenience issues.”

At the end of the day, the festival business is risky — even for experienced promoters.

“A well-branded, well-curated event is first and foremost,” Williams said. “But, yeah, it’s kind of like playing poker: You can be good at it, but in the end, if you don’t get the cards, you don’t get the cards.”

Find more musicmore coverage Find news every day at sacurrent.com

music | music Picks top pick

Thursday, September 12

Saturday, September 14

AESTHETIC PERFECTION, EMPATHY TEST

JOE ELY

While Aesthetic Perfection’s hard-hitting headbangers are contrasted by Empathy Test’s ethereal melodies, both of these acts feature electronic elements that audiences are sure to feel deep in their chests. Recommended for those who enjoy synth music that makes you feel like you’re falling in love with a robot. $ 1 5 -$ 2 0 , 8 p.m., Amp R oom, 2 4 0 7 N. St. M ary’s St., ( 2 1 0 ) 3 2 0 -2 1 2 2 , theamproom.com. — RC

AARON STEPHENS Facebook/Adam Ehrens

ADAM AHRENS, VANESSA DEL FIERRO Thursday, September 12

Clothing purveyor Richter Goods is launching its Listen music series with a pairing of Del Fierro’s Mex-American corridos and Ahrens’ diverse approach to fingerstyle guitar. The idea behind Listen is to present intimate acoustic pop-up concerts showcasing Texas artists. As if that wasn’t sweet enough on its own, distillery Desert Door Sotol will provide tastings prior to the show and during intermission.

Space is limited, so guests are encouraged to reserve seats through advance payment via PayPal. If tickets remain, they’ll be available at the door. $10, 9 p.m., Broadway News, 2202 Broadway St., (210) 223-2034, facebook.com/ events/445123139407458. — Sanford Nowlin

Wednesday, September 11

GIRL ULTRA, CLUBZ

Characterized by dreamy riffs, snappy melodies and dance-ready basslines, Girl Ultra and Clubz are the ultimate dream team from the Latin-focused label Finesse Records. If you’re into neo-experimental Latinx music that serves smooth beats and sensual artistry in equal parts, this show may be just what you needed. $ 1 6 , 7 p.m., R ock B ox, 1 2 2 3 E. Houston St., ( 2 1 0 ) 6 7 7 9 4 5 3 , therock boxsa.com. — Rhyma Castillo

RITT MOMNEY

Since 1977, singer-songwriter Joe Ely has been delivering rhythmic roots numbers that you can’t help but shake your hips to. The Texas legend is gracing San Antonio with his presence just in time for audience members to dance away the sadness of summer’s departure. $ 2 5 -$ 1 0 0 , 7 p.m., Sam’s B urger J oint, 3 3 0 E. G rayson St., ( 2 1 0 ) 2 2 3 -2 8 3 0 , samsburgerj oint. com. — RC

McAllen-based Stephens is a singer-songwriter working in the soul genre. He cites both classic artists like Stevie Wonder and Al Green and more contemporary fare like John Mayer and Derek Trucks among his influences. $ 7 $ 4 0 , 7 :3 0 p.m., Sam’s B urger J oint, 3 3 0 E. G rayson St., (2 1 0 ) 2 2 3 -2 8 3 0 , samsburgerj oint.com. — Mike McMahan

Friday, September 13

DEAD ANIMAL ASSEMBLY, CURSE MACKEY, LUCID DEMENTIA

This bill — appropriately scheduled for Friday the 13th and a full moon — brings together Portland’s Dead Animal Assembly with Austin’s Curse Mackey (ex-Evil Mothers, Pigface) and Lucid Dementia with San Antonio’s Requiem Rust, XIII and the Sons of Providence. Consider it a hardcore lament for the past and a revealing of horrors yet to come. $ 1 3 , 7 p.m., Fitz gerald’s B ar and L ive M usic, 4 3 7 McCarty Road, (210) 607-7007, fitzrockssa.com. — SS

POPA CHUBBY

This Bronx-bred guitarist and singer’s name may derive from arguably the most banally icky slang for getting an erection, but his musical chops in the realm of blues rock are worth taking seriously. $ 1 8 -$ 6 0 , 9 p.m., Sam’s B urger J oint, 3 3 0 E. G rayson St., (2 1 0 ) 2 2 3 -2 8 3 0 , samsburgerj oint.com. — James Courtney

BENJAMIN FRANCIS LEFTWICH

English singer-songwriter Leftwich hits San Antonio as a stop on an ambitious coast-to-coast tour in support of his most recent release, G ratitude. His sound invites introspection, though the record’s generally sparse production also incorporates elements of electronic enhancement. $ 1 5 -$ 1 8 , 8 p.m., P aper Tiger, 2 4 1 0 N. St. M ary’s St., papertigersatx. com. — MM

JOJO SIWA

If you’ve got kids interested in seeing reality TV and YouTube personality JoJo Siwa live, you’ve heard all about this. If not, stop reading and consider yourself lucky. For those who don’t know her, Siwa is a star of… well… screen and — more importantly — merch.

7 p.m., AT&T C enter, 1 AT&T C enter P ark way, ( 2 1 0 ) 4 4 0 -5 0 0 0 , attcenter.com. — MM

SUNNY SWEENEY

Sweeny’s bittersweet tales of infidelity and drunken heartache are put into motion via swooning, twangy melodies that can be as open as the Texas sky and as emotionally tense as the whine of a steel guitar. $ 1 5 -$ 7 5 , 7 p.m., J ohn T. Floore C ountry Store, 1 4 4 9 2 O ld B andera R oad, ( 2 1 0 ) 6 9 5 -8 8 2 7 , liveatfloores.com. — SS

top pick

BLACK FLAG, THE LINECUTTERS Friday, September 13

Breaking up is hard, especially when it’s with your girlfriend and Mormonism. Those are just two of the concepts 19-year-old Jack Rutter — frontman of the sometimes-full-band-sometimes-solo-bedroom-meditation Ritt Momney — spills his guts about in songs that display wise-beyond-his-years metaphorical storytelling. At its best, this is music as chilling as the winters of Rutter’s home state of Utah. Summer Friend and Samantha Flowers round out the bill. $ 5 , 8 p.m., L imelight, 2 7 1 9 N. St. M ary’s St., ( 2 1 0 ) 7 3 5 -7 7 7 5 , thelimelightsa.com. — Shannon Sweet

Formed in the mid-1970s, Black Flag is a punk force of towering proportions. It boasts a rabid following and a legacy impossible for anyone in the genre to ignore. Love Black Flag or hate Black Flag, everybody working in punk or its offshoots has borrowed from this seminal act. This incarnation of the band features only guitarist and songwriter Greg Ginn from its best-remembered ’80s lineup, but Ginn has long been the group’s only constant. Shortly after its stop in San Antonio, Black Flag will head to Europe, marking the first time in more than three decades that the band has crossed the pond for a tour. Only time will tell if this version of the band will bear recorded fruit, as with the 2013 lineup that resulted in the release of What The..., its first new album in 28 years.

But, for some fans, the opportunity to see Ginn and company live right now will more than suffice. $21, 7 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — JC

NORTHLANE, ERRA

Northlane understand the history, sound and vision of what metal music should be. After replacing the band’s founding vocalist, these Aussies evolved from MySpace-variety metalcore into a futuristic take on nu-metal. Don’t laugh, the oft-mocked subgenre is actually experiencing a nu-renaissance. $ 1 8 , 6 p.m., P aper Tiger, 2 4 1 0 N. St. M ary’s St., papertigersatx. com. — SS 52

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3 3 0 e g r ay s o n s t

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top pick

FRI • SEPTEMBER 13 COPPER CHIEF WITH JUDSON COLE BAND

THE HAYRIDE HOP WITH JOEL HOFMANN

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music | music Picks

Wednesday, September 18

top pick

THE GODDAMN GALLOWS

This psychobilly-punk act from the Rust Belt knows how to make audiences atone for their mortal sins in the catchiest way possible. Punctuated by haunting banjo riffs and that special Southern twang, this group’s sound seems to have been forged in the fires of Hell by Ol’ Scratch himself. $17, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 841-3771, papertigersatx.com. — RC

top pick

Francesca-Ludikar

NONPOINT, HYRO THE HERO, MADAME MAYHEM AND MORE Thursday, September 19

Nonpoint formed in Florida during the midst of the late ’90s nu-metal uprising, and it may be convenient to file the band under that dubious heading. However, Nonpoint is wilder, less self-conscious and more substantive than most of its contemporaries. The band emerged with more of an underground rawness than the mainstream acts you might be thinking of right now, and they’ve maintained that grit — over the course of 10 albums and 20 years — via sheer stubbornness. The band comes through on the heels of a 20th anniversary live LP, so expect a career-spanning set. It’s also joined by like-minded acts, including Houston’s Hyro the Hero, an intense and inventive rap-metal artist whose sound somehow makes it seem like this hybrid genre could, maybe, still have interesting places to go in 2019. $17, 6 p.m., Rock Box, 1223 E. Houston St., (210) 677-9453, therockboxsa.com. — JC

Sunday, September 15

Tuesday, September 17

IN THIS MOMENT, NEW YEARS DAY

LORD HURON

Those into hell-bent hard rock hysterics probably won’t want to miss this lineup. Maria Brink and Ash Costello, the respective frontwomen of In This Moment and New Years Day, are known for serving up phenomenal performances that pair powerful vocals with hard-hitting instrumental work. $ 3 5 -$ 5 5 , 5 :3 0 p.m., Az tec Theatre, 1 0 4 N. St. M ary’s St., ( 2 1 0 ) 8 1 2 -4 3 5 5 , theaz tectheater.com. — RC

DADWEED, WHATEVER?, JUST FINE, BEAMED OUT Canadian slacker pop outfit Dadweed, touring behind a new album, is teaming up with like-minded locals for a good, old-fashioned skuzzy rawk fest. $7, 9 p.m., Limelight, 2718 N. St. Mary’s St., thelimelightsa.com. — JC

top pick

Soundtrack appearances on everything from CW teen dramas to Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why haven’t tarnished the indie cred of Lord Huron. The folksy rockers remain moving and authentic balladeers. $30-$49.50, 6:30 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — SS

DADDY LONG LEGS

Brooklyn’s Daddy Long Legs is reminiscent of the Stray Cats in that it’s a three-piece rockabilly outfit sporting greased-back pompadours. Its music is an eclectic mix of authentic-sounding throwbacks and genuinely jamming songs perfect for wreaking havoc on a Saturday (or Tuesday) night. $10, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — SS

STEREOLAB

Thursday, September 19

Avant-pop stalwarts Stereolab may not have released a new album since 2008, but that didn’t stop lovers of indie music from going giddy at the announcement that the English-French band would tour the U.S. this fall. The tour, which coincides with the band’s yearlong, seven-album remastered reissue series, follows up a hugely successful European run and will bring Stereolab to San Antonio for the first time.

The show is already sold out, of course, but you may have luck finding tickets through StubHub. Since its 1990s start, Stereolab has kept its sound a state of evolution, drifting from hazy krautrock cabaret to glitchy, loopy and experimental jazz-pop. The band’s music remains enduring and influential because it’s complex and forward thinking without being intellectual. The chance to experience its innovative approach live may be worth the hassle of finding the tickets. $30-$32, 7:30pm, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — JC Steve Double

Tementiy Pronov

JINJER, THE BROWNING, SUMO CYCO Saturday, September 21

Ukrainian metal outfit Jinjer was one the acts booked into this year’s canceled River City Rockfest — and it appears the band simply swapped out that date for a more intimate stop at the Rock Box. It shouldn’t be surprising Jinjer was originally tapped for the RCRF, even though the fest’s lineup tends to skew more toward older, tried-and-true hard rock stalwarts.

Despite its relatively short life, the band has won raves in the U.S. and Europe for breathing life into the tired sub-subgenres of groove metal and metalcore by infusing them with soul and R&B touches. What really closes the deal, though, is the delivery of frontwoman Tatiana Shmailyuk, who bobs between a soulful clean vocals and terrifying death growls with an impressive dexterity. 7 p.m., $17.50, Rock Box, 1223 E. Houston St., (210) 677-9453, therockboxsa.com. — SN

ALEJANDRO SANZ

It seems like everything Alejandro Sanz caresses turns to gold — or, in this case, platinum. Witness his multiple Grammy wins. But don’t let Sanz’s daytime soap star good looks and high-profile collaborations fool you, Sanz has penned nearly every song in his discography, proving that the Latin pop sensation is more than just swoonworthy. $34-$300, 7:30 p.m., Illusions Theatre at the Alamodome, 100 Montana St., (210) 207-3663, alamodome.com. — SS

EMILY GIMBLE TRIO

A third-generation musician from a family of influential Texans, including revered fiddler Johnny Gimble, Emily Gimble is eager to keep a musical legacy alive. An accomplished pianist and vocalist, her soulful voice can convey heartbreak and triumph in one breathy swoop, and her group’s solid backing help prove the point that she’s a talent in her own right. Free, 5:30 p.m., Jazz TX, 312 Pearl Pkwy, (210) 332-9386, jazztx.com. — SS sacurrent.com | Septmeber 11-24, 2019 | CURRENT

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MIJARES

Dropping his first name from his stage name — it’s “Manuel” for the uninitiated — Latino pop singer Mijares has enjoyed a long and fruitful career. His most successful album, Maria Bonita, a collection of boleros, was released in 1992. He also was featured on three Spanish-language Elton John songs featured in the DreamWorks film The Road to El Dorado. $49-$154, 7:30 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., theaztectheatre. com. — MM

plenty of free samples. Fronted by former Spur Brent Barry and tidily summed up by the self-deprecating hashtag #dadrock, Panic! at the Costco is the musical equivalent to a slice of Costco’s famed pizza — cheesy, surprising and totally satisfying.

Free, 8 p.m., P igpen, 1 0 6 P ershing Ave., (2 1 0 ) 2 6 7 -9 1 3 6 , thepigpensa.com. — SS

HAIL THE SUN

Friday, September 20

This California outfit that walks the line between emo and prog is heading into town after dropping a blistering new single at the start of the month. $17-$20, 6:30pm, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx. com. — JC

BROTHERTIGER

Sunday, September 22

Brothertiger sounds like the soundtrack to a cruise along the coast in a neon-drenched simulated version of what the 1980s drawn from a dream. The music perfectly captures the breezy synths of that era of excess but filters them through the chilled-out consciousness of a modern indie musician. $ 1 0 , 8 p.m., P aper Tiger, 2 4 1 0 N. St. M ary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — SS

BARBUTO

Get ready to dance, as ATX-by-way-of-Australia Barbuto takes over the wheels of steel.

Clearly, he’s an artist making inroads in the electronica scene, as his schedule this month also includes an opening gig with trailblazer Mark Farina. $ 5 , 8 p.m., 2 1 + , L imelight, 2 7 1 8 N. St. M ary’s, thelimelightsa.com. — MM

Saturday, September 21

PANIC! AT THE COSTCO

Like its punny band name suggests, Panic! at the Costco delivers wholesale giggles and

top pick

FRI, SEPT 13TH

CAT CLUB FRIDAY THE 13TH EDITION

DJs, Tarot Card Reading, Flash Tattoos & More

ANGE K, ROBERT CARTER

Soul is distinctly American music, so it’s appropriate that Soul Sessions — a talented group that includes singers Ange K and Robert Carter — is bringing it to a Texas dance hall. Free, 5 p.m., Gruene Hall, 1281 Gruene Road, (830) 606-1281, gruenehall. com. — SS

GUTTER DEMONS, SICK CITY DAGGERS, GRIM FOLKS

Latin pop veteran Paulina Rubio is coming to the Aztec on the heels of the release of a special edition of her 2018 album D eseo. $ 5 9 -$ 1 2 9 , 7 p.m., Az tec Theatre, 1 0 4 N. St. M ary’s St., (2 1 0 ) 8 1 2 -4 3 5 5 , theaz tectheatre. com. — JC

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DOOBIE BROTHERS

Tuesday, September 24 It would be interesting to know whether Millennials’ ironic fascination with yacht rock has helped the Doobie Brothers move any more tickets as they tour as a nostalgia act. After all, the Doobies were one of the mid-to-late ’70s radio staples most responsible for making rock music safe for dentists’ waiting rooms. Walking pop-culture punchline Michael McDonald — arguably the man most responsible from transforming the Doobies from a low-calorie boogie outfit into a soft-rock hit machine — doesn’t appear to be in this incarnation of the band. And that may or may not be a selling point to those who still care. Even so, expect one of touring sidemen to attempt McDonald’s signature warble as the three remaining Bros ladle out the pre-chewed hits that keep their gravy train rolling. 7:30 p.m., $59.50$115, Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-5700, majesticempire.com. — SN Courtesy Doobie Brothers

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FRI, SEPT 19TH

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They all wear one ACROSS 1 Technique taught at the Groundlings and UCB 7 Here, in Paris 10 Like 7 or 13 13 Airport serving Tokyo 14 Magnetic metal 15 “La ___ en Rose” 16 ___ Berry Farm (California theme park) 17 1991 De Niro thriller, or what you shouldn’t have when answering the theme clues?

19 “Caribbean” plant more commonly called allspice 21 Holy Roman leader (abbr.)

22 Golf course supply 23 Piano exercises 26 “I’m off!”

28 Chiwetel Ejiofor, in 2019’s “The Lion King” 31 Donut maneuver 32 Start of many rap names 35 Cracker in sleeves 37 ___ Wonder (Robin’s nickname) 38 Puzzle activities where you want to leave?

41 Film street of nightmares 43 Turn from bad to mad, maybe?

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YouTube) 49 “Diary of ___ Black Woman” (2005 film) 53 Phobic 55 Old saying 58 Drink that may be pale or Scotch 59 Key ingredients in boba tea 63 1990s web browser now owned by Verizon 65 Silent film’s successor 66 Olive loved by Popeye 67 Scott Turow memoir about law school 68 More malevolent 69 Small, in Scotland 70 Former M&M hue 71 Can’t stand DOWN 1 Type of computer printer 2 Bahrain’s capital (not to be confused with a Central American country) 3 On time 4 “One Day at a Time” star Moreno 5 Super Bowl XXV MVP Anderson 6 Explorer ___ da Gama 7 “Dies ___” (“Day of Wrath”) 8 Duracell battery feature 9 Unskillful 10 Adds vocals to, maybe 11 ___ de los Muertos 12 ___ Spiegel 14 Gathering of the Juggalos band, to fans 18 Family conflict

20 Freemium game breaks, often 24 “Achtung Baby” co-producer Brian 25 Tough section of a jigsaw puzzle, maybe 27 “Happy Days” hangout 29 Minotaur’s island 30 Go on the radio 33 Neat drink’s lack 34 “The People’s Princess” 36 Where zebras may be spotted 38 Fortify for fighting 39 Pizzeria order 40 “Pulp Fiction” role 41 “Nurse Jackie” settings 42 “Star Trek” captain Jean-___ Picard 46 Notable timespans 48 Org. with wands and X-ray machines 50 The Duchess of Sussex’s original surname 51 Partners 52 Dry zone 54 Center of Disney World 56 Director Michael of the “Up” series (now at “63 Up” in 2019) 57 Make on a loom 60 Amenable 61 Cartoon unit 62 Hit the ground 63 Right this moment 64 Knack for detail ANSWER ON PAGE 21

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