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register by september 3, 2020 at worldheritagefestival.org 2020 World Heritage Festival - September 8-13 JOIN THE CELEBRATION! The City of San Antonio World Heritage Office presents this 5th annual festival in commemoration of San Antonio's Missions designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015.

For the safety and well-being of the community, this year's World Heritage Festival will include a series of virtual events.

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CURRENT | August 26 – September 8, 2020 | sacurrent.com

in this issue San Antonio Current

Issue 20-18 /// August 26 – September 8, 2020

21 Music

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

Pop Goes the World

Editorial

Hyperbubble drops unexpected cover album plus a sneak preview of its upcoming movie

Digital Content Editor: Kelly Merka Nelson Contributing Arts Editor: Bryan Rindfuss Food and Nightlife Writer: Nina Rangel Contributors: Ron Bechtol, Chris Conde, Daniel Conrad, Jade Esteban Estrada, Dan R. Goddard, Lance Higdon, Steven G. Kellman, Hannah Lorence, Kiko Martinez, M. Solis, Gary Sweeney, Leah Thompson Editorial Interns: Brianna Espinoza, Trevor Flynn, Steve Hargis Katie Hennessey, Darian Mendez, Laura Morales, Dana Nichols Kayla Padilla, Deanna Wilson

Monstrously Accessible

San Antonio’s Heartless the Monster moves beyond hip-hop and into pop for new single

Advertising

Advertising Director: Michael Wagner

Marketing and Events

Marketing and Events Director: Cassandra Yardeni Events Manager: Chelsea Bourque Marketing Interns: Julia Bentley

Creative Services

Graphic Designer: Samantha Serna Production Interns: Pedro Macias

Circulation

Circulation Manager: Justin Giles

Euclid Media Group

Chief Executive Officer: Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers: Chris Keating, Michael Wagner VP of Digital Services: Stacy Volhein Digital Operations Coordinator: Jaime Monzon Senior Marketing and Events Director: Cassandra Yardeni www.euclidmediagroup.com National Advertising: Voice Media Group (888) 278-9866, vmgadvertising.com

12 Feature

Courtesy Photo / Texas Governor’s Office

War on the Cities!

How Texas GOP leaders continue to punish municipalities during the pandemic

San Antonio Current 915 Dallas San Antonio, Texas 78215 sacurrent.com Editorial: (210) 227-0044 / Fax - (210) 227-7755 Display Advertising: (210) 227-0044 Fax: (210) 227-7733 Classified: (210) 227-CLAS / Fax - (210) 227-7733 The San Antonio Current is published by Euclid Media Group

06 News

The Opener News in Brief

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Glitter Political

Precinct 1 Commissioner Candidate Rebeca Clay-Flores Is Praying for a Win

Long Fight Ahead

Members of the Coalition for Police Accountability find common ground but no quick answers

CityScrapes

A Tale of Two Schools

13 Calendar Calendar Picks

14 Arts

Pink Toilets, Beer Bottles and Blow Dryers

Victoria Suescum puts her ‘Folk Pop’ into context

17 Screens

Reaper Madness

Death actor returns for an encore performance in Bill & Ted Face the Music

19 Food

Restaurant Revival?

A regulatory change in Texas allows some bars to reopen as restaurants, but they still face challenges

On the Cover: San Antonio illustrator Jeremiah Teutsch imagines Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton and House Speaker Dennis Bonnen as grunts in a war comic. Design by Samantha Serna.

M

That Rocks/That Sucks

H

An official with the American Postal Workers Local 195 last week told the Express-News that his colleagues were ordered to hide large piles of mail before U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro’s tour of a U.S. Postal Service here facility last Wednesday. Castro called the conduct “outrageous” if true and demanded an explanation from post office leadership and an immediate reversal of mail delays.

H

Culture warriors suffered a legal setback last week when Texas’ Fourth Court of Appeals tossed out a suit by conservative activists who claimed the City of San Antonio damaged their religious freedom by making the business decision to exclude fast food chain Chick-fil-A from an airport concessions contract.

H

Only 26 Republicans crossed the aisle Saturday to vote for a House bill offering $25 billion in additional funding to the U.S. Postal Service and temporarily halting changes that have slowed mail deliveries ahead of the election. The GOP-controlled Senate is unlikely to take up the bill and President Donald Trump has promised a veto.

Bexar County is prepping for a massive voter turnout in November by securing new, large-scale voting sites in each of its four districts. It’s already lined up three: the AT&T Center on the East Side, the Alzafar Shrine Temple on the North Side and Mission Concepción Sports Park on the South Side. A West Side location is still in the works.

— Abe Asher

YOU SAID IT!

“No mask, no tacos.”

— a homemade sign on the door of Ruthie’s Mexican Restaurant in San Antonio.

6

CURRENT | August 26 – September 8, 2020 | sacurrent.com

Courtesy Photo / Texas Governor’s Office

ASSCLOWN ALERT

Greg Abbott Conservatives are supposed to be about sensible spending and cutting costs, right? Apparently, in Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s book, that doesn’t apply to police budgets.

Abbott last week announced he’ll push for a law during the next legislative session that freezes tax revenue for cities that reduce their police budgets.

The move comes after Austin scooped money out of its police funding so it can better support social

programs such as violence prevention.

As the pandemic drags on, municipalities across the state face budget shortfalls, and many have little choice but to look at police funding as they take out their scalpels. After all, Abbott himself told state agencies to whittle 5% off of their budgets due to declining tax revenue from the COVID crisis.

If such a bill actually moves forward next session, it should be interesting to see Abbott squirm as lawmakers question how micromanaging the fuck out of cashstrapped cities in their districts fits with his less-government philosophy. But, then, there’s a pretty good chance the proposal will go nowhere quick.

If the latter is the case, it was just a political stunt. And an assclown one at that. — Sanford Nowlin

Tony Gonzales will be the Republican nominee in the race to replace retiring GOP U.S. Rep. Will Hurd. Gonzales was initially declared the winner of his July 14 runoff against Raul Reyes by just 45 votes, and a recount of the district’s largest counties had only narrowed that margin by six votes as of Friday. Gonzalez will face Democrat Gina Ortiz-Jones in November.

The San Antonio City Council has officially declared racism a public health crisis, passing a resolution last week that calls on city and community leaders to combat systemic racism and fight for equality in the city. The resolution passed 9-0.

District 10 councilman Clayton Perry abstained due to “divisive” language in the measure, and District 8’s Manny Pelaez wasn’t present.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, indicted for felony securities fraud, has failed in his attempt to remove a Democratic judge from presiding over his case. The judge, Jason Luong, will now decide whether to keep Paxton’s case in Harris County or move it back to the AG’s native Collin County.

Twitter / Tony Gonzales

With police conduct across the country under the microscope, a San Antonio Police Department detective was suspended for 30 days over a social media post asking “When can we kill this terrorist sympathizer?” about former NFL quarterback and racial justice activist Colin Kaepernick.

Detective Joseph Fech posted the comment in January and served his suspension starting in early July, according to documents obtained by KSAT. — Abe Asher

Precinct 1 Commissioner Candidate Rebeca Clay-Flores Is Praying for a Win

BY JADE ESTEBAN ESTRADA

I

n March, Rebeca “Becky” Clay-Flores raised a few eyebrows when she forced Sergio “Chico” Rodriguez into a primary runoff for Precinct 1 Bexar County Commissioner. Last month, she was thrust further into the spotlight when she won the primary runoff, essentially ending the administration of her long-serving opponent.

Last year, influential political figures advised her against the run.

“I’m glad I didn’t listen to them,” she tells me via video chat. “I was out there pushing myself for 12 hours straight a day. I was just really grateful that all of our hard work paid off.”

In November, Clay-Flores will challenge Republican opponent Gabriel Lara, potentially becoming the first woman of color to serve on the Commissioners Court. Regardless of the results, Clay-Flores seems content.

“It has already been so worth the journey,” she says.

Huge and richly diverse, Precinct 1 is Bexar County’s largest precinct. It spans all of the South and Southwest Side, also extending far enough up the Northwest Side to include Alamo Ranch. Clay-Flores’ purple-and-yellow campaign signs — the colors of her alma mater, Brackenridge High School — dot the district.

“So, my mom is from Mexico,” she says.

“From San Luis Potosi, Mexico, so I’m Black and Mexican. Blaxican.”

Prayer and hard work became a maxim for Clay-Flores early on. Growing up, her mother would take her and her two older brothers to do missionary work in her native Mexico.

“It was those experiences that really taught me how to be grateful for everything,” she says. “My mother really instilled in us that in this country we had two things that were free: freedom of religion and a free public-school education. So, I really worked to take advantage of every educational opportunity afforded me at my neighborhood inner-city schools — coupled with prayer.”

Clay-Flores says that experiencing poverty and homelessness can be a traumatic experience, especially for children. At a young age, she realized the cards were stacked against her.

But, by the age of 12, she gleaned that education would help her succeed. If she was going to work hard, she decided, she may as well aim for a full scholarship at a top school.

“So, when I was 13, at the end of eighth

news

GLITTER POLITICAL

Jade Esteban Estrada

grade, I started praying for a full scholarship at Harvard, Yale or Princeton. “My faith and my education [are] two things have guided my entire life since I was a child.”

In the end, she ended up at Princeton for her undergraduate studies and earned her masters at Harvard. Choosing her majors was a no-brainer: religion and education.

Though she experienced racism, classism and sexism, she says studying those issues in an academic environment allowed her to put a name to the experience and see how people are sometimes labeled unfairly.

“I think one of the key issues is that Americans want to put a label on you because therefore they know how to treat you,” she says. “And with me? You can’t just label me, because then I’ll confuse you.”

She continues: “So you see my twists or my braids and you say, “Oh, she’s Black, so let me treat her as a Black woman, and she’s probably an angry Black woman ... and I will go off on you in Spanish. And I don’t know how or when this happened, [but] there’s this assumption that if you’re Christian you’re supposed to be Republican? I am a practicing Christian and I’m a Democrat. There are these notions of who I’m supposed to be. Just because I’m a Christian, don’t make an assumption about my political association.”

When it came time to run, Clay-Flores wanted to approach voters, which she did before the pandemic. She tells me about speaking to a Rodriguez supporter at the polls and then later, earning her vote. The woman returned the next day with a handmade bracelet for good luck.

“I was so appreciative of that,” she says. “I don’t believe in luck. I believe in prayer and hard work. “[But] it’s things like that that gave me the energy to continue to exhaust

myself day after day, and my community is worth that and more.”

Though Saturdays are traditionally a big day for block walking, Clay-Flores, a Seventh Day Adventist, kept the sabbath from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, when she focused on God, her family and nature.

A photo of her and her students from when she taught in Tennessee hangs on the wall behind her. It prompts us to talk about her life in teaching and leadership. Indeed, ClayFlores feels that she’s always been a leader.

“I had a very traumatic childhood, and I think kids who often have trauma in their childhood, they have to grow up early,” she adds.

Clay-Flores has worked at San Antonio Metro Health for the past five years.

“Right now, I process the contracts for the health department, but with COVID, everyone is doing things outside their normal job currently,” she explains.

Particular scriptures have helped guide Clay-Flores through different seasons in her life. One of those is written atop a Precinct 1 map at her headquarters. I ask her to recite it.

It’s from 2 Samuel 5:19: “David asked the Lord, ‘Should I attack the Philistines? Will you let me win?’ The Lord told David, ‘Attack.

I shall let you win.’”

After the recitation, she becomes pensive.

“This is just for me. I haven’t really said that to people. I think that’s the first time I’ve shared that with someone outside of my immediate team.”

A few days later, I photograph her at Mission San Juan Capistrano, with the white church in the background: a portrait of a Black Mexican woman with everything going for her.

Find more news coverage every day at sacurrent.com

news Long Fight Ahead Members of the Coalition for Police Accountability find common ground but no quick answers

BY MICHELLE DEL REY

F

ormer city councilman Mario Salas launched the San Antonio Coalition for Police Accountability this summer with one goal in mind: to make Alamo City safer for its Black residents.

The coalition is the first of its kind in the city. Born in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, it consists of local Black leaders and activist organizations focused on taking a stand against police violence against people of color.

Though the group has made strides by engaging in community and political events, it’s clear there’s much more to do. Two Sundays ago, roughly a dozen members, mostly Black, met inside a Northeast San Antonio community center to work through how they plan to reach their goal.

The ideas circulated during the discussion included creating a legal defense fund, planning additional protests and gathering signatures for a petition to carve out some of the San Antonio Police Department’s funding for social programs.

One suggestion came from businessman Christopher Herring, 51, executive director of Global Chamber San Antonio, who asked the group to consider holding events in tourism hotspots to send a clear message to city leaders.

“I think it’s important for people who are coming to San Antonio to know our city is either safe for Black folks or it’s not,” he said.

Meetings and Vigil Rethinking police funding — or “defunding the police,” as it’s been sloganized — has been at the forefront of the coalition’s agenda. Last week, leaders held a press conference downtown to condemn the city’s plan to increase SAPD spending by $8 million.

The group dismissed the proposed increase as a “complete disregard for our lives and our tax dollars” after spending weeks advocating for cuts to the budget.

The prior Saturday, the group also organized a vigil at La Villita Historic Arts Village to honor six people of color killed by San Antonio police. The event drew more than 100 people and garnered local media attention. Deborah Bush, aunt of Marquise Jones, one of the men remembered that night, spoke at the gathering.

“For you young people to come in now, recognizing the families, showing us love, putting our stories out there, all of us are so grateful,” she said, expressing 8

CURRENT | August 26 – September 8, 2020 | sacurrent.com

Michelle Del Rey

her gratitude at the Sunday meeting.

Understanding the Process SACPA reflects a mix of generations. Some began engaging in civil activism this year, others decades ago. During Sunday’s meeting, Salas — a college professor and former city councilman — told members he’s been fighting for police reform since the 1960s.

At one point, he did so as a member of the Black Panther Party.

Standing at a podium draped with a Black Lives Matter flag, State Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, D-San Antonio, praised her ancestors who fought for civil liberties when she was a child. A member of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, she explained the status of the George Floyd Act, unveiled last week by lawmakers with the aim of banning chokeholds and restricting police use of force statewide.

Although the act can be filed as early as November, it won’t be heard by Texas Legislature until February or March, Hawkins cautioned. And in a state house dominated by Republicans, Hawkins said it’ll be difficult to get the bill passed.

“Once you understand the process, once you understand the rules of the game, you can play,” she said. “If you don’t know the rules, you’re not gonna win.”

Long Road Ahead During their comments, both Hawkins and Salas wanted younger coalition members to understand they’re running is a marathon not a sprint as they demand more police accountability.

Jolene Garcia, leader of Reliable Revolutionaries, a Black Lives Matter organization, asked if the group could go to Austin and filibuster the house. The suggestion was met with an enthusiastic response from the 20-somethings in the room.

Among those was Pharaoh Clark, an outspoken coalition member, who in June handed Mayor Ron Nirenberg a list of demands aimed at tackling systemic racism in the city. Clark said he’s dedicated his life to the long-haul the older members described.

“I truly feel like what Ms. Barbara said, that it is a marathon, and not a sprint,” he said. “I’m here to be a part of that marathon.”

Toward the end of the meeting, Salas asked coalition members to go around the room and introduce themselves. Each cited his or her own story of grief or experiences with racism as the reason they attended.

Jeaux Parks, a single mother of three, said she didn’t have an active voice at the start of the Black Lives Matter movement.

But now, as a leader of the Reliable Revolutionaries activist group, she said the lack of Black leadership at Black Lives Matter protests motivated her to speak out.

She told the group she hasn’t been able to watch the video of George Floyd’s death in its entirety.

“I’m a mother who has had to bury her son, and I can only imagine how his family felt watching a grown adult man call out for his mother in the last few minutes of his life,” she said.

She added: “Everybody keeps telling me how strong I am, and how impassioned. That passion you see is fear.”

CITYSCRAPES

A Tale of Two Schools What San Antonio’s different treatment of elementaries on the same block tells us about our city

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

T

he coronavirus pandemic has revealed a great deal about San Antonio and its residents.

Our people have demonstrated a remarkable degree of compassion, resilience and charity.

Our local governments have demonstrated a willingness to recognize the seriousness of the community’s needs and the imperative to implement a response.

But the pandemic has also revealed the depths of differences, inequality and human need in this community. In 1993, local nonprofit the Partnership for Hope produced an analysis titled “Growth Without Prosperity” that highlights San Antonio’s lack of economic opportunity even as it expanded.

That this community has grown, attracting new residents and spreading outward, is obvious. Yet it remains, in many ways, far from prosperous. And as it has spread, it has remained fundamentally divided. It is all too easy to live here in splendid isolation, viewing a great many problems and needs as simply something on “that side of town.”

Describing San Antonio in 1938, the WPA Guide to the city presented a tour of the “Trans-San Pedro Mexican Quarter,” noting “For more than two centuries, San Pedro Creek has been a line of demarcation. … In the Latin-American quarter spreading out from here, manners and tastes, faces and customs differ so greatly from those in the remainder of the city that but for a few strictly local adaptations, the entire section may well have been transplanted from across the Rio Grande.”

And just as the “Mexican Quarter” — the West Side — appeared much like the nation to our south, public services and public facilities were far from the norm in the rest of the city. But the “Latin-Americans” described in the WPA report did not only reside in the “Mexican Quarter.” And where they were close, there were other means of separating, segregating, and sustaining differences and inequality — institutional means.

In my neighborhood, right near my house, two school buildings are situated on the same long block.

Facebook / Gonzales Early Childhood Education Center

One, now the Ruble Center of Trinity Baptist Church, was the San Antonio School District’s McKinley Elementary School. And at the other end of the block was the District’s Gonzales Elementary, now the Gonzales Early Childhood Education Center.

The names say it all.

Gonzales Elementary was opened as the Rock Quarry School in 1908, to serve the families in the Rock Quarry district, the neighborhood of the first Alamo Cement plant and later the city incinerator and dump, where more than 50 “Mexican” families lived “in tin shacks built from materials salvaged from the city garbage.”

When the city’s public schools were surveyed in 1915, Gonzales was rated along with the others. “In the matter of retardation,” Gonzales came in next to the bottom, according to that report. Navarro School, on South Pecos serving the West Side, came at the bottom, and with the state’s compulsory education law, “the city cannot escape caring for these retarded children who are within the prescribed ages.”

As the neighborhoods of Summit Place, Laurel Heights and Laurel Heights Terrace — what is now the Monte Vista Historic District — began to be developed next door to the quarry district in the 1910s and 1920s, the new residents deemed Gonzales an unsuitable school for their children.

The San Antonio school board built a new elementary, the McKinley School, on Magnolia just down from Gonzales in 1924. Three years later, a student survey showed Gonzales with 203 students, 100% with Spanish surnames. McKinley, on the other hand, had just 107 students, and just 15% had Spanish surnames.

The McKinley parents were quite vocal in supporting the school and pressing their needs.

A committee of neighborhood parents, led by W. W. McAllister — yes, that former Mayor McAllister,

for whom McAllister Freeway is named — then living on East Huisache Avenue, approached the school board in 1928, asking that a two-room building at the Gonzales School be moved to McKinley to provide for a fifth grade.

McAllister and his neighbors got their school improvements. And they also managed to assure, through attendance lines neatly designed to exclude the rock quarry families, their school’s character.

By 1939, Gonzales remained 98.7% “Latin-American” — the highest proportion in the city — while McKinley was overwhelmingly Anglo. And that stark difference and separation remained the case for decades.

In 1964, San Antonio School District officials were denying that the district practiced segregation, in the face of an argument by local attorney Phillip Montalbo that “two elementaries, a block apart, were on a virtual segregated basis.”

Montalbo noted that all students at Gonzales the previous year were of “Mexican descent,” while down the street at McKinley all students but 20 were Anglos. School officials contended that it was simply that elementary schools were “zoned,” neatly split by a boundary line down the middle of Magnolia Avenue, running straight north.

Decade after decade, generation after generation, the San Antonio district managed to offer very separate educations, in separate schools, to students and families who lived less than a block apart. One school for the McAllisters, another for the Garcias and the Morenos.

That’s what systematic, institutionalized racism looks like in San Antonio. That’s what we need to redeem.

Heywood Sanders is a professor of public policy at the University of Texas at San Antonio. sacurrent.com | August 26 – September 8, 2020 | CURRENT

9

news War on the Cities!

How Texas GOP leaders continue to punish municipalities during the pandemic

BY SANFORD NOWLIN

C

OVID-19 has frayed all sorts of relationships: husbands and wives who aren’t used to spending so much time cooped up together, parents and kids with differing opinions on how safe to play it during a global pandemic.

And, to be sure, it’s worsened the already fractious relationship between Texas’ Republican leadership and leaders of the state’s largest municipalities, the majority of which are under blue control. What’s been a long-running cold war has escalated — at least rhetorically — into a shooting war over the past few months.

In a June appearance on national news show 60 Minutes, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg dismissed a letter from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton telling the city to loosen its restrictions on religious gatherings as an effort to “score cheap political points, which [Paxton’s] been doing his entire career.”

And it’s not uncommon during nightly coronavirus briefings to hear Bexar County judge Nelson Wolff jab at Gov. Greg Abbott for tying the hands of local officials as they try to contain the pandemic. The targets of Wolff’s ire have included the governor’s weeks-long resistance to issuing a mask order and a flurry of legal memos from Paxton telling cities that state orders supersede their own.

While localities cleared a major hurdle on July 2 after Abbott finally handed down an almost-statewide mask order, Wolff said the tension persists. For example, Abbott’s decision not to accept prisoners into state penitentiaries during the pandemic and his refusal to let local judges expand release for some people who can’t pay bail has resulted in dangerous overcrowding in local jails.

“Although we’ve worked through some issues, we’re still at odds on plenty of others,” Wolff said.

“We’re really getting screwed at the jail because they’re sticking us with inmates that should be headed to the prisons.”

And, to be sure, San Antonio isn’t the only large Texas city under fire from the capitol amid the health crisis.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s frequent sparring with Abbott over local stay-at-home orders and school reopenings has made headlines. And the governor continues to resist calls from Rio Grande Valley officials to issue a stay-at-home order, even as that region’s COVID-19 surge overwhelms its hospitals.

‘Not a Novelty’ Tensions over the limits of local control are noth10

CURRENT | August 26 – September 8, 2020 | sacurrent.com

Courtesy Photo / Office of the Governor

ing new in Texas. The pandemic has simply poured salt in old wounds.

That tension was apparent when Abbott six years ago shut down Denton’s plan to ban fracking, and when he fought Laredo all the way to the Texas Supreme Court to overturn its ban on plastic bags.

It also came into sharp focus when the governor entered into a pre-pandemic pissing match with the city of Austin over how it handles its homeless population.

But with Texas now surpassing 12,000 COVID-19 fatalities, the stakes are no longer economic or environmental, they’re life and death. The escalation in rhetoric is understandable, political observers say.

“This question over who’s in control isn’t a novelty,” said St. Mary’s University political scientist Arturo Vega. “This is a continuation of an existing tension between state and local government. They flare up occasionally under certain circumstances, which is what we’re seeing right now.”

For decades, the political logic in Texas was that municipalities couldn’t count on the state for much in the way of money, but in return, it largely kept its hands off their affairs. That changed with the rise of the Tea Party, which has managed to turn tree ordinances, plastic bag bans — and now masks — into culture-war issues.

“The state started saying to blue cities, ‘You guys are systematically flirting with socialism, and we’re going to put a stop to it,’” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. “It’s a

partial reversal, in that it says to the cities, ‘You’re not going to have the discretion you used to.’”

As if there was any doubt of that, Republican Dennis Bonnen, speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, drew headlines after he was caught on tape last year mocking city and county leaders who opposed a bill designed to limit how local governments raise and spend cash.

“Any mayor, county judge that was dumbass enough to come meet with me, I told them with great clarity, my goal is for this to be the worst session in the history of the Legislature for cities and counties,” Bonnen said on the recording. He added that the 2021 session would be even worse for municipalities.

Leading by Executive Order During the opening stages of the pandemic, Abbott took a hands-off approach, largely allowing local leaders to guide their own reaction to the worsening health crisis. That changed once he determined it was time for Texas’ economy to reopen.

Despite a pledge to let “doctors and data” drive the economic restart, Abbott charged ahead at a breakneck pace — aided by an advisory group consisting primarily of rich campaign donors. He moved ahead on the phased reopening even as local leaders raised concerns and the state fell well short of his goal of 30,000 coronavirus tests a day.

Rather than call a special legislative session to allow more input, Abbott has largely gone it alone

as the state grapples with one of the most profound crises in its history. It’s a path that seems at odds with Abbott’s history as state attorney general, when he repeatedly sued the federal government, arguing that local control is preferable to a top-down approach.

Now, with schools set to reopen, potentially touching off a fresh wave of infections, Abbott has told municipalities that school boards, not local public health officials should have final call on reopening plans.

The governor’s actions certainly seem to confirm an opinion Republican State Rep. Sarah Davis shared with Texas Monthly writer Christopher Hooks in 2018: “[Abbott’s] concept of governing is ordering people around.”

Contradictions and Confusion Compounding the problem, political observers say, is Abbott’s unwillingness to stand up to the right wing of his own party, which has politicized the pandemic, turning mask mandates and stay-at-home orders into threats to individual liberty.

In late May, when handing down what amounted to a stay-at-home order to curb the spread of the virus, Abbott engaged in all manner of ass-backwards explanation to call it something else — verbal gymnastics intended to avoid criticism from the God, guns and guts crowd.

Shortly after, he was forced to post an online video to clear up his murky explanation: it was, in fact, a stay-at-home order, just called something else.

Faced with criticism from the right, Abbott also backed down on enforcing that same order. After Tea Party stalwarts including Ted Cruz rallied around Dallas beautician Shelley Luther, who faced fines and jail time for refusing to close her business, Abbott canceled the penalties he’d implemented a few weeks earlier.

Abbott is trying to walk a narrow tightrope, said Juan Sepulveda, a political science professor at Trinity University. In addition to keeping the right flank of his party happy, he’s also trying to manage his future political aspirations and appease President Donald Trump, who’s punished governors unwilling to quickly reopen.

If municipalities stand in the way of those goals, he’s willing to ride roughshod over them.

“People are now trying to figure out the mixed messages coming at the state level,” Sepulveda said. “‘What am I supposed to be doing? Who am I supposed to be listening to?’ That’s the unfortunate outcome of it all.”

Political Fallout So far, the consequences of rhetorical war between Texas’ GOP officials and its big cities over the COVID crisis seem far more damning for Abbott than for San Antonio’s local leaders.

Just 38% of Texans approve of the governor’s pandemic response, according to a survey conducted in July by Harvard, Northeastern, Northwestern and Rutgers universities. In April, his approval on the

Facebook / Dennis Bonnen

issue stood at 61%, and it’s slipped every month since.

A late June survey by polling group Bexar Facts showed Nirenberg with a 67% approval rating and a 27% disapproval rating with county voters, while Wolff had an approval of 63% and a disapproval of 24%. In the same poll, Abbott had a slightly lower approval — 61% — and at 35%, considerably higher disapproval.

“I certainly don’t think he’s come out ahead on this,” Wolff said.

Even so, Abbott seems to have doubled down on his fight with local governments. Last week, in response to Austin’s plan to slash its police budget, Abbott called a press conference to announce he’ll support legislation capping tax revenue for municipalities

that reduce spending on their police.

Despite the slipping poll numbers, Vega of St. Mary’s University isn’t sure Abbott will see significant consequences when he’s up for reelection in November 2022.

Time could erase some memories of how Abbott’s handled the pandemic since then, the professor points out. Plus, Texas remains a conservative state, especially its rural communities.

“This is what happens when you have one party controlling all the levers of power in Austin,” San Antonio Mayor Nirenberg said. “My hope is that voters realize that’s the case. When municipalities can’t control their own destinies, it isn’t something that just hurts Democrats or Republicans. It hurts everyone.” sacurrent.com | August 26 – September 8, 2020 | CURRENT

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CURRENT | August 26 – September 8, 2020 | sacurrent.com

CLASSICAL MUSIC

AGARITA + CLEMENTINE

Chamber ensemble Agarita is putting on a streaming concert that will let audience members sate their cravings for classical music and delicious food all in one go. Agarita teamed up with Chefs John and Elise Russ of Clementine to pair a five-course meal with music by Franz Schubert, Gabriel Fauré, Amédée-Ernest Chausson and Johannes Sebastian Bach along with selections from contemporary composers John Nováček and Jessica Meyer. The accompanying menu includes courses of English pea and shrimp veloute, fancy pasta, snap pea ragout as well as a choice between three main courses — snapper en papillote, chicken legs en molé or summer corn risotto — capped off with a dessert of classic vanilla bean creme bruleé. The event can be enjoyed in a few different ways. The pre-recorded concert, which was filmed in the restaurant, will be made available at 5:30 p.m. for anyone to access, and via a 7:30 p.m. Facebook Watch Party for anyone who wants to experience it in a more communal setting. San Antonio foodies who want to get their hands dirty can either prepare the multi-course meal from home with recipes provided by Clementine and Agarita, or purchase the food from Clementine for curbside pickup from 5-7 p.m. on August 28. The meal is $25 per person and orders can be placed either via calling (210) 503-5121 or emailing the restaurant at hello@clementine-sa. com. Free, 5:30-8:30 p.m., Friday, August 28, Facebook and agarita.org. — Courtesy of Agarita Kelly Merka Nelson

FRI | 08.28 SAT | 08.29 SPECIAL EVEN T

SUMMER DRIVE-IN FILM FESTIVAL: VALLEY GIRL AND APRIL FOOL’S DAY

Anthony Michael Hall may have left the building, but EVO Entertainment is back with more ’80s celebrity goodness. Next in their lineup of celebrity-hosted drive-in events, EVO is bringing ’80s icon Deborah Foreman to host a weekend of double features at two EVO theaters in the San Antonio area. On Friday, August 28 at EVO Schertz and Saturday, August 29 at EVO Kyle, Foreman will be on site for a double screening of two of her films — romantic comedy Valley Girl and cult hit slasher April Fool’s Day. Following each screening will be an interactive Q&A session with Foreman, as well as socially-distanced photo opportunities and autographs for VIP ticket-holders. Foreman is the latest ’80s star to partner with EVO for their Summer Drive-In Film Fest event series after Hall.

Known for his roles in John Hughes movies, Hall hosted a five-week soldout series of double-features at EVO’s Schertz and Kyle locations, bringing along guest stars Kelly MGM

LeBrock, Sean Astin and Robert Patrick for Q&A sessions with audience members. $25-$35, 8:30 p.m. Friday, August 28, EVO Entertainment Schertz, 18658 I-35, (210) 7646986, 8:30 p.m. Saturday, August 29, EVO Entertainment Kyle, 3200 Kyle Crossing, (512) 523-9009, evocinemas.com/ driveinfilmfest. — Dana Nichols

SAT | 08.29 LIVE MUSIC

METALLICA

After several top-billed country artists tested the waters, Metallica has become the first major rock draw to broadcast a live performance to a few hundred drive-in theaters around the country. The veteran metal act will be gigging from a spot near its Northern California stomping grounds. Tickets are on sale through Ticketmaster and run $115 per vehicle with up to six people inside. That’s $15 more than Garth Brooks charged for similar drive-in show in June. Of the two San Antonio venues airing the concert, Fiesta Texas in San Antonio has already sold out, but the Stars and Stripes in New Braunfels still had tickets available at press time.

Watching a movie screen through a car window seems like a far cry from headbanging to Metallica when the young-and-hungry thrashers played a multi-night stand at SA’s Cameo Theater back in 1985. But, considering that the band requested beer sales end before it took the stage at its last Alamo City gig — a 2017 Alamodome concert — this arrangement may actually allow enterprising fans to sneak in a few cold ones. Not that we’d recommend folks at a metal show break the rules or anything. $115, 8:20 p.m., Stars and Stripes Drive-In, 1178 Kroesche Lane, New Braunfels, (830) 620-7469, ticketmaster.com.

Facebook / Metallica — Sanford Nowlin

SUN | 08.30 LIVE MUSIC

INTOCABLE

Veteran Tejano-Norteño band Intocable is the latest act to bring a drive-in concert to San Antonio. Unlike Metallica, though, the group will actually perform live rather than beaming the show onto outdoor movie screens. Intocable will hold a concert in the Freeman Coliseum parking lot on Sunday, August 30, allowing fans to take in chart-topping tunes such as “No Te Vayas” and “Y Todo Para Que?” from the safety of their vehicles.

Tickets run $150 to $400 per car and are available online.

The show gets underway at 7 p.m. Intocable, which hails from the town of Zapata, played several other South Texas drive-in concerts before taking time off after five members came down with COVID-19 in July, according to a Laredo Morning Times report. “I assure that our fellow band members of Intocable that got infected with the virus was not due to any of our performances but rather they got infected during their own personal time,” singer Ricky Muñoz said Facebook / Intocable

calendar

FRI | 08.28

in an Instagram post. $150-$400, 7 p.m., Freeman Coliseum, 3201 E. Houston St., (210) 226-1177, ljconciertos.com/ events/35. — Sanford Nowlin

MON | 09.01 TUE | 09.08 ART

FOTOSEPTIEMBRE USA

SAFOTO, the San Antonio-based artist community responsible for the annual Fotoseptiembre USA festival, will kick off online exhibitions for its 2020 installment on September 1. Fotoseptiembre is a media festival focused on showcasing photographic work in venues around San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country during the month of — you guessed it — September. While online exhibitions will be available starting September 1, physical exhibitions at venues in San Antonio, New Braunfels and Comfort will open September 3. Fotoseptiembre USA 2020 will feature work from the winners of the San Antonio River Authority’s 3rd Annual River Clicks Photo Contest, the New Braunfels Photographic Society’s 2020 Fall Exhibition and festival founder and director Michael Mehl, among others. Times and Locations Vary, September 1-30, fotoseptiembreusa. com. — Nina Rangel

Courtesy of FOTOSEPTIEMBRE USA / Karen Zimmerly

THU | 09.03 FRI | 09.04 FILM

FRENCH NEW WAVE FILM FESTIVAL

With its summer Noir Mondays film series coming to a close, Slab Cinema will thematically shift gears for September — and up its events to two films a week. On Thursdays and Fridays throughout the month, Slab Cinema will screen French New Wave films for San Antonio classic movie buffs. The socially distanced outdoor film series will kick off at Ivy Hall on Thursday, September 3 with a double feature of two French Left Bank films, Agnès Varda’s Cléo de 5 à 7 and Chris Marker’s science fiction featurette La Jetée. Later screenings will include films such as Hiroshima Mon Amour, Le Bonheur, Last Year at Marianbad, 400 Blows, Band of Outsiders, Jules and Jim and Alphaville. While individual tickets are available for $8 for each screening, cinephiles can order discounted tickets in bulk for a reserved table at either the Thursday screenings, Friday screenings or all eight movie nights. However, if mid-20th century experimental French cinema isn’t your jam, you merely need wait for Slab Cinema to shake things up again in late September for a slate of spooky screenings at St. Paul Square in Sunset Station. The Halloween fare will open with the 1959 Roger Corman flick A Bucket of Blood on September 30. $8, 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays September 3-25, Ivy Hall, 1127 S. St. Mary’s St., slabcinemaarthouse.com.

— Kelly Merka Nelson

Criterion Collection

Reminder:

Although live events have returned, the COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. Check with venues to make sure scheduled events are still happening, and please follow all health and safety guidelines.

Courtesy Photo / The McNay

Pink Toilets, Beer Bottles and Blow Dryers Victoria Suescum puts her ‘Folk Pop’ into context

BY BRYAN RINDFUSS

A

Find more arts coverage every day at sacurrent.com

s a teenager growing up in Panama, Victoria Suescum experienced one of her first real-world art encounters in the unlikeliest of places: outside a hole-in-the-wall bar.

A far cry from the paintings she’d seen in books, the artwork in question was a six-foot beer bottle being painted on the exterior of a bodega. “[The painter] was putting the sparkle on a little drop of sweat on the beer bottle,” Suescum recalled. “And I was blown away. … [That] was the first time I saw somebody actually make magic.”

The irony of this memory isn’t lost on Suescum, a widely exhibited artist who’s made a name for herself with exuberant paintings that recreate — and riff on — quirky, hand-painted advertisements that grace beauty salons, hardware stores, restaurants and other small businesses in South Texas, Mexico and Latin America.

Born in Washington D.C. and raised between the U.S. and Panama, Suescum relocated to San Antonio in 1989 when Panama was under the rule of Manuel Noriega. “[Noriega] was getting very violent because, as we are going to find out in this country, dictators don’t like to lose power,” Suescum said. “I left Panama because it was

so violent, and I didn’t want to become a statistic. … It’s a long story, but to make it short, I ended up at UTSA.” While earning her MFA there, Suescum experimented with various styles and themes.

The jungle scenes she’d painted in Panama gave way to a black-and-white period sparked by the dictatorship she’d escaped.

“I worked on that until about 1996,” she explained. “And then I had a son and it changed my outlook on life. I started [painting in] monochrome and then slowly built my way back to a full palette.”

Around that same time, Suescum began to photograph hand-painted advertisements as source material for paintings she calls “tienditas.” Interpretations of low-tech signs she’s captured in Texas, Mexico and Panama, these playful paintings pay tribute to the unassuming products and services they depict — raspas, paletas, tacos, tires, toilets, hairstyles, manicures and more, often accompanied by Spanglish phrases — as well as the overlooked tradition of hand-painted signs and the largely anonymous creators behind them.

“I celebrate these images,” Suescum said. “I study from them as seriously as I was taught to study Bonnard or Matisse or Renoir or Rembrandt.”

Although Suescum has exhibited everywhere from San Antonio’s bygone Museo Alameda to the Venice Biennale, her recently opened McNay Art Museum exhibition “Folk Pop” marks a milestone in her career. Housed in the McNay’s Charles Butt Paperworks Gallery, it’s also something of a departure for the museum as Suescum’s unframed works are fastened to the walls with thumbtacks.

During our preview of the exhibition, McNay Curator of Collections Lyle Williams described the paintings as “memory triggers” he hopes will resonate with viewers.

“As a kid growing up in South Texas, I would often spend weekends in Nuevo Laredo,” Williams said. “I remember walking on those hot sidewalks and smelling those smells and looking at these signs. … I wanted people to have that sensory-overload experience like you do in Mexico … smells and visuals and everything. I wanted to have that sense of environmental immersion. Of course, we can’t pipe in the smells.”

In hopes of learning more about the inspirations and stories behind “Folk Pop,” we scheduled a Zoom interview with Suescum, who is rightfully animated by recent developments in her career. “The planets must be lining up for me,” she said. Beyond her McNay show (on view through January 10, 2021), Suescum is in the planning stages for an exhibition at Galería Mateo Sariel in Panama, an international Latin festival at Austin Community College (where she has taught for the last 14 years) and a guest spot at “Brilla,” a leadership development program designed to empower Latina high school students in New London, Connecticut. Condensed excerpts from our conversation follow.

No. … It was around 1996 that I started photographing the tienditas. … One of my absolute favorites actually went to Honduras for a symposium about women in the arts in Latin America. … That summer, somebody all along the Pan-American Highway had been painting pink toilets (laughs).

It’s just hilarious to me because as I’m painting these things, I’m thinking a lot [about] what went through the mind of the person who created the image.

So, somebody painted a pink toilet and somebody else says, “Oh that is a really good idea. I want a pink toilet on my hardware store.” Isn’t that crazy that someone would think a pink toilet is what [they] need to get customers through the door?

a big deal in several places. … I love it when I see an idea repeated. … One of my top-notch favorite images is a little salt shaker pouring chile on a corn cob. And [it] still exists at Frutería Los Valles — they haven’t gotten around to repainting the side of the building, thank goodness. … Blow dryers [are another San Antonio favorite]. … The thing about the blow dryers is, I think they are the subject matter that art history missed.

You know, we have odalisques, and still lifes of fruit, but art history skipped the blow dryer.

Courtesy Photo / The McNay

FAMILY TALK ABOUT DR INKING

How did the McNay show come about?

I’ve known Lyle [Williams, McNay curator,] for a very long time. … And I invited him to my studio about two years ago. … And so, it’s something that has been in the works for a long time. Can I tell you something that’s really important to me? For a long time [after] I got to Do you see the tradition of hand-painted San Antonio, my work was politically signage diminishing? minded. And when I was in Panama for That is really an interesting question, the dictatorship, I was doing protest because you would think it would be art, painting on the streets, all kinds of completely replaced by digital images. stuff. And so, when I started working But every single year that I go back to on these colorful paintings, I thought, Panama or take a drive through the ‘Oh, they’re not political.’ But what’s reWest Side, I see new ones. … So, they’re ally interesting is that especially in this continuing to be made. What I think climate in the United is very important is States right now that they tug culturwhere we’re being ally at one’s heart. … told go home, and I think they sell the people don’t want product in a way that me here … you know a photograph canin what way my work not. Because they’re is very political that very welcoming. I matters to me? If see those images we — people from and I know I can Mexico and from afford what’s in the Latin America — are store. But indeed, for being called rapists example, Frutería Los and murderers, the Valles here in San Anonly people who can tonio, used to have really believe that the most fabulous Courtesy Photo / The McNay are people who don’t painting of aguas know us. But if peofrescas all across the ple then get to know us, then there is a top. And they just replaced it about glimmer of hope that they will learn to two years ago — total photographs. value us. By merely existing right now, … So, there are fewer made as media I’m a political statement. But my work becomes more affordable, but they’re at the McNay, by celebrating these definitely continuing to be created. painting that come from the poorest What are some of your favorite examples neighborhoods and putting them in one of the most expensive art salons, in San Antonio?

I love the mattresses — twin y queen. His it causes people to value them. If there and hers — who knew? It’s actually a set can be any healing, this is my little drop in the bucket. of [pink and blue] mattresses, and it’s

“STAY INVOLVED IN THEIR LIVES TO PREVENT

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Has your work always been inspired by hand-painted signage?

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screens

Courtesy Photo / The American Standard Film Co.

Reaper Madness

Death actor returns for an encore performance in Bill & Ted Face the Music

BY KIKO MARTINEZ

W

hen audiences last saw actor William Sadler’s Grim Reaper during the end credits of the 1991 sci-fi comedy Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, he was on his way to a space station to play a concert as the bass player of the fictional band Wyld Stallyns.

Although Death tried to break out on his own as a musician, his bass-only solo album was a flop. He was also caught up in a lip-syncing scandal that hurt his career. In the aftermath, Death split from the band and has been living a lonely existence in Hell for the past three decades.

In Bill & Ted Face the Music — the third installment of the cult-classic movie franchise — Sadler’s Death reunites with his time-traveling former bandmates Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) to save the world while rockin’ out.

During an interview with the Current last week, Sadler, 70, best known for The Shawshank Redemption and the TV series Roswell, talked about reprising his role as the Grim Reaper nearly 30 years later, what a spin-off movie starring his character would look like and what he plans on telling Death when his time has come.

Bill & Ted Face the Music will be released at theaters and on VOD August 28.

had been talk about it, but that was years ago. When I talked to the writers and they said they were working on a script, that’s when it became real.

What was your initial reaction when you found out a third Bill & Ted movie was happening and that they wanted you to reprise your role as Death?

When I auditioned for Bogus Journey, the role said “Death,” and that’s it. It didn’t suggest an accent of any kind. But I knew they wanted him to be funny. I couldn’t find a way to make him funny just using my own accent from Buffalo. So, I reached back and grabbed this Czechoslovakian accent that I

(Laughs) I was astonished. I wasn’t expecting it at all. It’s like finding out you’re pregnant again when you’re in your 50s. I mean, there

In the new film, we really don’t learn what Death has been doing for the last three decades. How do you imagine he has been keeping busy all this time?

I think he’s had a really rough time in the music business. I think he’s put out album after album after album, but they’re all bass.

It’s all about the bass — no treble. So, the albums have bombed, and the critics have been beating him up. When we meet him [in Bill & Ted Face the Music], he’s a little bitter and bent out of shape. He’s not handled it well. He’s had a rough couple of decades, so he’s in a bad place.

How do you think Death has changed over the years? Also, do you think Death ages? Or is he ageless like Keanu?

I would hope he’s like Keanu and is kind of timeless. I think [Death] has been around for millions of years, so I think his personality is pretty much set by now — this petulant, needy, insecure guy.

How did you originally come to the decision to give Death an accent?

learned from an actor back in New York, who is Czechoslovakian by the way. Then, everything he said was funny. The character just came to life.

What kinds of music do you listen to these days? Do you like songs with 45-minute bass solos like Death does?

No, I don’t. That sounds like self-indulgent horse crap. I don’t even like the Grateful Dead when they do 17-minute guitar solos.

I mean, if you can’t say it in a few minutes, you don’t really know what you’re saying. I’ve been listening to a lot of John Prine lately. For some reason, he wasn’t on my radar for most of his life. A year or so ago I discovered him, and then he died. I’ve been having a lot of fun learning and singing his songs.

Death, of course, will visit everyone sooner or later. What would you tell it when your time comes?

I’d like to think I wouldn’t be afraid. It’s been a really remarkable ride. I have this wonderful career. I have a family that loves me. It’s really been lovely. I would tell him, “Just make it quick, OK? Let’s not stretch it out. C’mon, let me get hit by a bus or something.”

If Death were to get his own film, what would a movie like that look like?

First of all, I think the movie would be called Reaper Madness. Maybe it would follow his musical career and the difficulty of being a bass player who doesn’t have anyone else in the band.

Lastly, you do some voice work on the Showtime animated series Our Cartoon President.

How are you able to make Mitch McConnell sound so turtle-y?

(Laughs) … (Impersonating Mitch McConnell) That’s unusual, isn’t it — that he has [a normal] voice? Sometimes, you just take a shot at it. If you do the voice and everyone in the room starts laughing, then you know you’ve nailed it.

Find more film stories at sacurrent.com

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food

Restaurant Revival?

A regulatory change in Texas allows some bars to reopen as restaurants, but they still face challenges

BY NINA RANGEL

W

hen Chris and Jennifer Cobb opened Kuhlman Cellars in October 2014, they viewed their north-of-San Antonio winery as the next stage of their “wine life,” not a foray into the restaurant trade.

But, now, as the COVID-19 pandemic wreaks havoc on their industry, the Cobbs have little choice but to get into that business.

To meet new Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission guidelines that allow bars, breweries and wineries to reclassify as restaurants and stay open during the pandemic, the Cobbs have amped up their food game.

“If you’d asked me before the pandemic if I wanted Kuhlman to be a restaurant, I’d have said, ‘absolutely not!’” Jennifer Cobb said.

“Now, [TABC says], ‘you have to be a restaurant to serve your wine to guests,’ so I’m thinking, ‘OK, let’s do this.’”

From its inception, the winery has offered bite-sized nibbles to complement tastings of its products. But the food items, developed by local chef Chris Cook, weren’t exactly meant to be the star of the show.

“Before, we thought it would be too challenging, logistically, to offer food in a larger format,” Cobb said. “We just had to figure out. In tough times, you figure it out.”

Cobb says expanding Kuhlman’s tasting bites into full-size entrees so it could reopen its tasting room was a “no-brainer.”

“It fit our brand and gave us the opportunity to meet the need of guests who have been asking for this for a long time,” she said. “It also allows us to adhere to new legislation, which in turn allows us to serve our wine.”

For the team at Kuhlman, an upgrade to the tasting menu took creativity and overcoming logistical challenges — namely the fact that its food-prep facilities were never intended to prepare full meals.

Operating Challenges Even for bars with full kitchens, reconfiguring to become a restaurant isn’t exactly easy.

Joseph Valenzuela, co-owner of the Northside beer haven Hoppy Monk, said he welcomes the recent rule change but warns that the damage was already been done after

Courtesy Photo / Kuhlman Cellars

Gov. Greg Abbott closed bars for a second time on June 26.

“The Texas government isn’t doing us any favors in terms of allowing us to contribute to the economy in a positive way,” said Valenzuela, whose establishment serves lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch.

Only in the last few days has the Hoppy Monk been able to offer to-go sales of any of the 99 beers it offers on tap.

After almost five months of sitting idle, the product housed inside its massive beer cooler is in danger of going stale, effectively becoming costly wasted product for the business.

“Draft beer is the center point of our business,” Valenzuela said. “At this point, I’m sure that we’re going to find that a number of kegs will no longer be fit to sell.”

‘None of It Makes Sense’ Such a substantial loss of product would be another devastating blow to the business.

“We are sitting on a large amount of beer inventory,” Hoppy Monk General Manager Amanda Casas said.

In July, State Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, and State Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, penned a letter to Governor Abbott, requesting adjustment of his executive order that would allow a businesses such as Hoppy Monk to operate as a restaurant.

Though the document was signed by 14 state senators — including José Rodríguez from Valenzuela’s hometown of El Paso — and 50 state reps, its authors have yet to receive a response.

“What [Gov. Abbott] doesn’t understand is, this is a perishable product,” Valenzuela said.

“Despite having this proposal on his desk, he’s failed to address it.”

In the meantime, the Hoppy Monk has reopened to serve food and drink curbside so it can get its employees back to work.

“A lot of our people have been very anxious,” Casas said. “We’ve been trying to give them as many updates as we can, because this all has taken such a toll on them mentally.”

Focus on Safety As establishments such as Kuhlman Cellars and the Hoppy Monk shake up their operations to survive, their owners say consumers should recognize the dedication to safety they’re showing as they reopen.

“We had to take a break and regroup, and we’ve done a lot of research on how to safely reopen,” Casas said. “It’s complicated to try to explain the technicalities of our licensing to consumers. But we’ve got to do what we can to get our team back to work.”

Kuhlman’s Cobb said her team worked tirelessly to develop specific plans to ensure safety when serving the new entree items, including packaging the fare in individual containers.

“We are so proud of our team, because this whole process has been stressful in many different ways,” she said. “Even if it’s a little bit different than it was before, we’re just excited to share all of these new things with our customer base — to feel sort of normal again.”

Find more food & drink news at sacurrent.com

20 CURRENT | August 26 – September 8, 2020 | sacurrent.com

music

Pop Goes the World Hyperbubble drops unexpected cover album plus a sneak preview of its upcoming movie

BY SANFORD NOWLIN

L

ong-running synth pop act Hyperbubble is popping off to new a home base in St. Louis, but not before gifting San Antonio with an album of covers and teasing the release of its long-awaited movie Cowgirls & Synthesizers.

In case you hadn’t heard, the duo — composed of husband-wife team Jeff DeCuir and Jessica Barnett DeCuir — are pulling up stakes so they can be closer to Jessica’s aging parents in Missouri. She’s already made the move while Jeff stays behind to tie up loose ends — which apparently includes dropping the new eight-song release Love and Bionics.

Hyperbubble, which launched in the early 2000s, had planned to release the album in a heart-shaped box on Valentine’s Day. However, the pandemic prompted the duo to speed up the release — and offer it as a free download.

“The world needs some positivity right now,” Jessica said. “It’s a way to lift people’s spirits.”

“Now that money’s super-tight, there’s an immediacy to getting it out to people, especially for free,” Jeff added.

Most of the tracks on Love and Bionics have previously appeared on compilation albums, which undoubtedly made it easier to move up the release.

The end result is a three-bean-salad of an album spanning from expected synth pop homages such as Men Without Hats’ “Pop Goes the World” to less-obvious choices including “You’re the One That I Want” from the Grease soundtrack and obscure ’70s folk rocker Paul Parrish’s “Tiny Alice.”

Where Hyperbubble is most successful at the reinterpretations is when they reveal something new about the source material.

For example, the dirgy, almost post-punk spin on Dead or Alive’s 1984 dancefloor favorite “You Spin Me Round” reveals just how creepy its lyrics are (“If I get to know your name, well, I could trace your private number, baby”). And a vocoder-laced retreading of “Jamie’s Cryin’” highlights that for all its machismo and instrumental histrionics, Van Halen was as much a pop act as it was a hard rock band.

While the album was quick to come together, not so for Hyperbubble’s movie

Courtesy Image / Hyperbubble

project, Cowgirls & Synthesizers — a sort-of documentary chronicling the band’s trek to Nashville to record Western Wear, its 2017 country album.

The film has been in the works for four years and is finally headed to the festival circuit early next year.

Like much of what Hyperbubble does, it blurs the line between fantasy and reality, mixing concert performances and interviews with surrealist comedy and fictional elements.

The first public glimpse of Cowgirls & Synthesizers will come September 1 when the band debuts a video for its version of Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy,” which is excerpted from the film.

“It’s sort of our little goodbye to San Antonio,” said Jeff, who’s now going through the process of licensing songs for the movie’s final release.

The “Rhinestone Cowboy” clip shows San Antonio dancer and performance artist S.T. Shimi in a red cowboy hat and hot pants hula hooping against a backdrop of bubbles while the DeCuirs, decked out in fancy Western

duds, perform the song.

With the Campbell’s mid-’70s Nashville veneer replaced by a minimalist synth track, the lyrics are inescapable — the story of a veteran singer who’s paid his dues yet keeps hitting the road because he knows one day, he’ll get his big break.

The lyrics could well apply to Hyperbubble, which has self-released a catalogue of more than a dozen albums, toured Europe a few times and amassed a cult following for its winking, self-aware take on synth pop.

“The movie’s got a do-it-yourself message,” Jessica said. “We really want to impress that on younger people: if you’re thinking of starting a band, go do it and see where it takes you.”

As Hyperbubble enters its second decade of performing and recording, there is one line in “Rhinestone Cowboy” that doesn’t fully apply: there hasn’t been a load compromising on the road to the duo’s horizon.

It’s clear Hyperbubble is doing exactly what it wants to do and will keep right on doing it — whether based in SA, St. Louis or elsewhere.

Find more music coverage every day at sacurrent.com

E M P LOY M E N T San Antonio, TX –Pulm.& Critic. Care Phys. needed to provide pt. care in San Antonio, TX. Reqs.: Deg. in Med., Med. Residency, pulm./critic. care fellowship, TX Med. Lic., bd. eligible/certified.

Send C.V. to: Pulmonary Consultants of San Antonio, P.A., Attn: Arturo Homma, 10007 Huebner Rd., Ste. 402, San Antonio, TX 78240

music

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AUTO AUCTION The vehicles listed below were impounded by San Antonio Police Dept. and will be auctioned Online at Joyrideautos.com on

OCT. 14, 2020 at 3:00P at

SAN ANTONIO VEHICLE IMPOUND FACILITY

Registered owners may pick up vehicles by showing proof of ownership & paying all towing and storage fees prior to Auction.

F EE A RE SUBJ ECT TO CHA N GE .

ID#

YEAR

MAKE

MODEL

VIN

CHARGES

3248923

2001

BOAT

BOAT

NO VIN

$9 ,02 9 .85

3604614

1991

NISSAN

PI C KU P

NO VIN

$ 4 ,92 3 .05

2730183

2000

OTHER

PR OPERTY

4216406493

$15,79 1 . 35

3699006

2000

TRAILER

T RAI L ER

5KTUS1411JF547582

$ 3 , 2 56 .00

3656748

2000

CHEVY

SI LVERAD O

BURNT

$ 4 , 2 9 5. 2 0

3713417

2000

DODGE

RAM 15 00

BURNT

$ 3 ,515.80

3722305

2017

LINCOLN

CONT I NENT L

BURNT

$ 3 , 2 56 .00

3626667

2001

DODGE

RAM

1B7HC16X81S257238

$ 4 ,6 63 . 2 5

3732300

2007

TAO TAO

ATV

C 5 N AT M C T 7 7 T 0 7 6 1 4 4

$ 2 ,82 1 . 2 0

2850567

1900

TRAILER

T RAI L ER

NO VIN

$13 ,6 48.00

3625143

2000

OTHER

MI NI BI K E

NOT VISIBLE

$ 4 ,6 63 . 2 5

3791358

2000

WINNEBAG O

MOTOR H OME

NO VIN

$1 ,92 3 .45

3795579

2000

OTHER

T RAI L ER

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3794872

2000

OTHER

OT H ER

NO VIN

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3763496

1988

TOYOTA

4 RU NNER

JT3VN66W2J0000044

$ 2 , 32 5.05

3762637

1998

HONDA

ODYSSEY

JHMRA3848WC013453

$ 2 , 3 46 .70

3774163

2003

CHEVY

TAH OE

1GNEK13V03J112283

$ 2 ,108.55

3794528

2000

FORD

EXPED I T I ON

1FMFU18L2YLC42121

$1 ,740.50

3834581

2018

OTHER- NOT IN LIST

MOPED

L9NTCBAF8J1010131

$1 ,019 . 35

3781494

2010

OTHER- NOT IN LIST

MOTOR C YC L E

1 5 N T C B PA 7 A 1 7 0 0 9 9 9

$1 ,92 8.65

3722414

2000

OTHER- NOT IN LIST

GOL F C ART

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3867404

2000

MINI

OT H ER

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3625 Growdon Rd. San Antonio, TX | 210.881.8440 22

CURRENT | August 26 – September 8, 2020 | sacurrent.com

Courtesy Photo / Heartless the Monster

Monstrously Accessible

San Antonio’s Heartless the Monster moves beyond hip-hop and into pop for new single

BY CHRIS CONDE

T

hrough a consistent string of releases, Alamo City-based rapper Heartless the Monster has captivated listeners with smooth, baritone vocals and lyrics that dissect love and relationships.

Now, on his most recent single “Guava,” the artist is moonwalking into pop territory while still retaining his intoxicating rap pheromones. The move seems to be paying off: the track’s racked up 40,000 streams on Spotify since its June 29 release.

When asked about swimming into more accessible waters with the new single, Heartless explained that he felt restricted as a hip-hop artist. A move toward pop brings greater opportunity for self-expression.

“Hip-hop is one of those genres that doesn’t want you to do anything else,” said the rapper, who was born Nigel Williams. “If you’re a pop star, you’re allowed to do whatever the fuck you want. Ed Sheeran can sing a ballad about his wife and no one bats an eye, and then he can rap and do a cover of [Blackstreet’s] “No Diggity” with [Passenger] and everyone’s cool with that. Justin Bieber can drop a rap verse whenever he wants to. Ariana Grande

can drop a rap verse on “7 Rings” if she wants to. Or she can drop a Christmas album. Or she can do a sexy, sultry R&B thing. If you’re a pop star, you can do whatever you want.”

And on “Guava” Williams puts that notion to the test. The track starts off with reverberating vocal melodies and distant steel drums before he enters singing, “I don’t play no games and you don’t say you’re sorry / If you don’t feel the same, tell me what you want from me.”

A pulsating bass drum travels under Williams’ vocals as he segues into a rap.

The juxtaposition of vocal styles adds more texture and depth to the song, which is rounded out by a solid mix.

All told, the track sounds like it could slide onto the airwaves between hits from the aforementioned Sheeran and Grande.

“Guava” is the first single off Heartless the Monster’s forthcoming album Confetty, due out next Valentine’s Day. Until then, the artist will be releasing a new track off the album more-or-less monthly, along with accompanying visuals. The next, “Say What You Say,” is expected to drop Tuesday, September 8, on all streaming platforms.

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