San Antonio Current — September 9, 2020

SEPT. 9-22, 2020

sacurrent.com | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | CURRENT

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CURRENT | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | sacurrent.com

SOMETHING

FOR

E V E RYO N E

in this issue San Antonio Current

Issue 20-19 /// September 9 – September 22, 2020

25 Music

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

Old Souls

Editorial

Jason Kane & the Jive’s Soggy Noggin delivers a retro-rock blast free of the usual cliches

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

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 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

12 Feature

Smoking Gun

A study shows Bexar County has the state’s second-highest number of officer-involved shootings. Black residents are disproportionately in the crosshairs.

07 News

The Opener News in Brief

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Jaime Monzon

Glitter Political

Precinct 1 Commissioner Candidate Gabriel Lara Wants to Bring Your Attention Back to Local Issues

Waiting Game

The COVID-19 crisis also takes its toll on San Antonio’s day laborers

15 Calendar Calendar Picks

16 Arts

Sidewalk Storyteller

Artist Anne Wallace still cementing the history of Lavaca, San Antonio’s oldest neighborhood

19 Screens

Laughter in Two Languages

Comedian Felipe Esparza brings groundbreaking specials Bad Decisions and Malas Decisiones to Netflix

21 Food

Mixtli Man

Celebrated local chef Rico Torres dishes on culture, techniques and ingredients

Buzz on the Go

Canned cocktails make an easy pandemic drinking option, but some are better than others

On the Cover: Cover designer Samantha Serna used photographic imagery to illustrate this week’s cover story on an extensive study analyzing data on officer-involved shootings in Texas.

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September 9 – September 22, 2020

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CURRENT | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | sacurrent.com

news

That Rocks/That Sucks

H

Texas health officials have proposed slashing some $4 million from programs that provide contraception and cancer screenings for low-income Texans. The proposed cuts come in response to Gov. Greg Abbott’s request that state agencies rein in budgets due to COVID-induced shortfalls. Turns out those reductions are selective, though: Alternatives to Abortion, a program that discourages people from having abortions and distributes items such as car seats and baby formula, was spared.

H

Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales on Tuesday dropped felony assault charges against Mathias Ometu — a Black man arrested and jailed last week when SAPD officers misidentified him as a suspect and forced him into the back of a patrol vehicle. Gonzales said that the arresting officers requested that the charges against Ometu be dismissed in “the interest of justice.”

H

With children across Texas returning to in-person school this week, it’s become clear the state has no plan to test students and staff frequently to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks. Epidemiologists warn that without routine testing, asymptomatic and presymptomatic students could attend school without knowing they’re infected and spread the virus.

In past years, Bexar County voters hoping to cast their ballots by mail had to request an application from the county. Not this year. With an unprecedented general election fast approaching, county commissioners last week approved mailing applications to all voters 65 and over in an effort to protect their health and cut down on wait times at polling places. — Abe Asher

Wikimedia Commons / Gage Skidmore

ASSCLOWN ALERT

Ted Cruz In addition to shutting down the U.S. government to make a point and engaging in pointless Twitter snits with celebrities, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz likes to consider himself an expert on women’s health.

Last Monday, the Texas Republican led a group of 20 senators in sending a letter to the FDA asking it to ban a pill used in nearly 40% of U.S. abortions. Despite a wealth of scientific studies showing medication abortion seldom results in complications, the lawmakers want the pill mifepristone declared an “imminent hazard to public health.”

“Pregnancy is not a life-threatening illness,

and the abortion pill does not cure or prevent any disease,” Cruz tweeted last week, quoted from his letter.

The online backlash to the senator’s handwavy science was swift. Multiple people responded with stats on just how many women die during childbirth. The 2018 U.S. maternal mortality rate was 17.4 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, according to the CDC. Others, such as Ilyse Hogue, president of reproductive rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America, suggested that data and science were never a consideration for Cruz when he fired off his letter.

“Medication abortion is incredibly safe. Ted Cruz knows this,” she tweeted. “Fear and lies are all they have to push their unpopular agenda.

And politicians who push ideology over science to shape public policy are precisely the ones who got us a disastrous response to COVID. It has to end now.”— Sanford Nowlin

YOU SAID IT!

“I was physically, emotionally and mentally harmed, and that has to be addressed. Multiple cops either not knowing or ignoring the rights of Texas residents — this has to be addressed.”

— Mathias Ometu ,

on his arrest by SAPD officers after he was stopped while jogging.

The U.S. Army has appointed a new commander to lead its investigation into the death of Spc. Vanessa Guillén at Fort Hood and shaken up its leadership on the Texas base. Guillén, who reportedly told family members that she was being harassed on the base, was missing for three months before her remains were found in Bell County.

The Texas Democratic Party is ratcheting up voter engagement efforts with less than two months to go before the election, attempting to contact 1 million unregistered voters, seen as key to turning the state blue in November. The final day Texans can register to vote is October 5.

Paul Rusesabagina, the San Antonio resident whose actions saved the lives of more than 1,000 Rwandans from genocide in 1994, is being held by state authorities in Rwanda on charges of terrorism, arson and murder.

Rusesabagina is a longtime critic of Rwandan president Paul Kagame, who has led the country since 2000 and has been accused of a number of serious human rights abuses. — Abe Asher Courtesy Photo / DreamWeek

Find more news coverage every day at sacurrent.com

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CURRENT | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | sacurrent.com

news GLITTER POLITICAL

Precinct 1 Commissioner Candidate Gabriel Lara Wants to Bring Your Attention Back to Local Issues

BY JADE ESTEBAN ESTRADA

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ive years ago, 38-year-old Vanessa Puente, an art teacher at Southwest High School, was killed by a hit-and-run driver, within walking distance from the far Northwest Side home of retired paramedic Gabriel Lara.

After unanswered calls to Bexar County Commissioner Sergio “Chico” Rodriguez to do something about the speeding cars on that street, Lara decided to devote himself to the task of getting the representation he felt the people of Precinct 1 deserved.

Lara recounts the story during our video interview.

As the uncontested Republican nominee for Bexar County Commissioner, Precinct 1, he tells me that, until recently, he hadn’t received very many interview requests.

I ask him why he thinks that is.

“Because I’m fairly new to politics, or because I don’t have any friends in politics,” he responds.

He theorizes it could also be because he’s running as a Republican in a Democratic stronghold. As he tells me about his upbringing, I can see how the party’s fiscal policies might have attracted him.

Lara, the sixth of 10 children, grew up on the South Side in a two-bedroom, one- bathroom home.

“We grew up poor, but we didn’t know it,” he says.

When he and his brothers weren’t working in restaurants or pumping gas and his sisters weren’t ironing clothes or cleaning houses, the entire family spent summers in South Texas or California picking crops.

“We had the government cheese, the government beans, the mystery meat,” he says. His parents refused the food-stamp option, though. “I think they were really proud.”

And frugal.

“My mom would bring packages of ketchup and she would pour them in the bottle,” he says.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Lara joined the military.

“You know, growing up there was no talk about going to college,” he says, explaining that learning a high-demand trade during the service paid off for him. Though he enlisted in the Navy with hopes of seeing the world, he spent his entire four-year hitch in San Diego, where he worked as a nurse and pharmacy tech.

Once he left the Navy, Lara returned home to seek work and found it as a paramedic with the San Antonio Fire Department, where he stayed for the next 34 years. Tough, on-the-scene decision-making was part

Jade Esteban Estrada

of the daily grind.

“Whether it be in a house fire or in a traffic accident or multiple victims from a shooting, it’s just two of you,” he explains. “And to take really good care of one patient requires two paramedics. It’s hard to maintain an airway, it’s hard to stop the bleeding with just one person per patient. When you have four or five people strewn across the highway you look at their color. You feel for their pulse. You see if they’re breathing. There are things that you look at and you can tell, ‘This individual is not gonna make it.’

Seven years after his retirement, some of those images are seared in his memory.

I ask what he learned from those experiences.

“That life is precious. Life is short. You don’t know when you’re coming home, [so] hug you wife, kiss your significant other, because you just don’t know.”

Lara’s granddaughter is doing her homework next to him as we speak.

Though Lara’s two previous runs as an independent were unsuccessful, they were educational. In 2016, he ran against Rodriguez. Then, in 2018, he ran against Nelson Wolff for Bexar County judge.

“I had to get my name on the ballot in the general election, and I thought running as a Republican was the best way to do it,” he said of his political shift.

Lara chose to align himself with the GOP because its platform was closer to his own values. However, he’s quick to point out that his take on local issues doesn’t necessarily reflect what’s happening on the national stage.

“So, I don’t know what it means to be a Republi-

can,” he says. “I’m not sure what they’re looking for. I don’t have any friends in the party.”

And the fact that he doesn’t attend many local Republican events doesn’t seem to keep him up at night.

“I’m not looking to represent a party. I’m looking to represent the people that I’ve worked with for a long time,” he says. “We are supposed to manage [just under] $2 billion of your tax dollars regardless of what affiliation you have. It’s not about red or blue, it’s about you.”

I ask if he’s watching the Republican National Convention. When he replies that he’s not, I ask why.

“I’m busy working,” he replies.

When I ask what the biggest joy in his life is, he tells me that’s an easy answer.

“So, we’ve fostered three kids,” he begins after a long, emotion-driven pause. “About 12 years ago, the first one was a three-year-old girl. We knew she was going home to her grandma.”

He recalls the day the next two children entered his and his wife’s lives.

“We get the call on a Saturday, ‘Hey, we’re bringing you an eight-month-old boy and his sister, a threeyear-old girl.’ And those are our kids,” he says, his eyes now welling with tears.

A few days later, Lara invites me to his home to take his photograph. After the shoot, he takes me on a short walk to the spot where Puente was killed five years before.

“There’s a memorial there,” he says quietly, pointing to the right side of the road. sacurrent.com | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | CURRENT

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CURRENT | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | sacurrent.com

Peanut Butter, Cereal, Tuna, Beans, Rice, Mac & Cheese, Canned Soups & Stews, Chili, Canned Luncheon Meats, Full Meals Canned/Boxed, Pop Top Food Items Food donations are critical to the ongoing mission of collecting and redistributing millions of pounds of food to individuals and families in Southwest Texas who don’t know where their next meals are coming from. By donating today, you’ll be helping a network of 58,000 individuals we serve weekly

Alamo Quarry Market is committed to giving back to the San Antonio community. Your donations are truly appreciated!

news Waiting Game

The COVID-19 crisis also takes its toll on San Antonio’s day laborers

BY MICHELLE DEL REY

C

arlos Vasquez was eight years old when his parents left behind their village in Zacatecas, Mexico, 732 miles from the Texas border, and carried him and his siblings across the Rio Grande on a black inner tube.

A decade later, Vasquez, 36, became a U.S. citizen. That makes the mason stand out among the undocumented day laborers gathered outside a San Antonio Home Depot in the early hours of the morning as they wait for anyone willing to offer them construction work.

These days, Vasquez joins Ignacio, Joe, Saliaz and Martin — all of whom declined to give their full names due to their undocumented status — as they wait with their few possessions for someone to hire them. If there’s no work by mid-morning, the men head home again.

Before COVID-19 hit, the men routinely earned as much as $180 a day. But things have gotten tight, as they have for many of the people who would normally pay them for their work. Now, their income barely provides enough for rent, food or a new pair of work shoes.

Making matters worse, the pandemic has the Mexican economy teetering on collapse, igniting a financial crisis unheard of since the Great Depression. U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials worry that deteriorating economic conditions in Mexico and Central America could send a surge of migrants northward.

That would bring more competition for these day laborers.

On this morning, the first client arrives around 8 a.m. in a pickup truck, seeking someone to help frame a new building. Saliaz hops into the bed, and the vehicle zooms off.

The other men stand in a dirt divider next to a fast food drive-thru, waiting, hoping they’ll get as lucky as their friend.

‘No Loitering’ Two months ago, the men say, Home Depot erected a sign next to their old waiting spot that reads, “No Loitering Police Enforced.” In Spanish, “No se permite vagabundos se llamara la policia.” The men simply moved across the parking lot to the restaurant grounds.

Vasquez says the restaurant manager lets them sit outside, as long as they keep the place tidy. Their old spot is now monitored by around-the-clock security.

For some of the waiting workers, today’s breakfast is a can of beer and a cigarette — a little something to take the edge off. As the men bake in the August heat, gossip becomes a form of entertainment.

The men talk about one day laborer who used to haul cocaine around the state and joke that the man is crazy.

The talk seldom turns to how they ended up in San Antonio. However, some mention they only recently fled desperate circumstances in their home countries in Latin America. Others have been seeking day labor gigs

Michelle Del Rey

at the Home Depot for two decades. For both groups, the work they get here provides their only shot at making a living.

Daily Threat A car pulls up around 10 a.m. The driver offers $50 for a construction job. For a moment, Joe, who just woke up from a nap, stumbles over to consider the offer.

“Take it,” Ignacio advises.

Joe shakes his head. “It’s not much,” he replies.

In this tumultuous environment, Vasquez knows that as a U.S. citizen he’s luckier than the others. Unlike the undocumented men, he’s less worried about whether his employer will pay him on time or will call Immigration and Customs Enforcement. If an undocumented worker experiences wage theft, there’s little they can do without potentially putting themselves in danger of deportation.

It’s a threat Alfonso faces every day. The construction worker says he left his wife and four children behind in Mazatenango, Guatemala, four years ago for the same reason most migrants leave their families: a better life.

“I sacrificed myself for my family,” he said.

Alfonso, 49, trekked for two months through Guatemala and Mexico, until he reached the United States, paying his traffickers $8,000 for the journey. Like many migrants, he says his smugglers exploited him, quoting

a lower price in the beginning, then raising it over time until demanding the gigantic sum.

“What could I do?” the short, thin-framed man said, looking down at his blue flip-flops as he recalled the ordeal.

Not Enough Before COVID-19, Alfonso earned enough money applying cement to unpaved roads to provide his children in Guatemala with a quality education. Now, he worries he’ll be evicted from the home he shares with a handful of other migrant workers.

He pays $250 a month for a small room. But since the pandemic hit, he hasn’t been able to scrape together the rent money and now owes his landlord $700.

“There was no work for three months,” he said.

Due to COVID-19, the World Bank predicts remittances to Latin America will fall 20% this year.

Alfonso’s since been able to land odd jobs here and there, he says. But it’s not enough to pay the growing stack of bills — or send money to his family back home.

With no other clients showing up, Vasquez heads to a bus stop so he can catch a ride to his home on the South Side. Ignacio and Joe stay on, with a slim expectation that something might turn up.

For now, all they can do is wait. sacurrent.com | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | CURRENT

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news

Jaime Monzon

Smoking Gun

A study shows Bexar County has the state’s second-highest number of officer-involved shootings. Black residents are disproportionately in the crosshairs.

BY SANFORD NOWLIN

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fficer-involved shootings of civilians in Bexar County were the second highest of any county in the state from 2016-2019, and their frequency increased in three of those four years, according to a new report by the nonprofit group Texas Justice Initiative.

What’s more, while more white people were shot by law enforcement officers in Bexar County during that time, Black people were both shot and killed at a disproportionate rate, according to the data, which was culled from reports filed with the Texas Attorney General’s Office.

TJI’s report comes amid a nationwide reckoning on police reform and racial justice with activists calling out departments for disproportionate use of force that targets people of color.

Such issues came into even sharper focus locally when a Bexar County Sheriff’s deputy on August 25 shot and killed former Army sergeant Damian Lamar Daniels, a 30-year-old Black man, as deputies tried to detain him for mental health treatment. John A. Rodriguez, the deputy who fired on Daniels, also shot and killed another person 10 years prior who was suffering a mental health crisis, an Express-News investigation revealed.

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CURRENT | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | sacurrent.com

The same day as Daniels’ shooting, San Antonio Police Department officers wrestled Black jogger Mathias Ometu into the back of a squad car on an incorrect suspicion that he was a domestic violence suspect.

“When I look at the data in this report, my deepest suspicion — and probably my deepest fear — is that we’re seeing a cultural problem inside police departments,” said Gerald Reamey, a St. Mary’s Law School professor who tracks policing issues. “It’s troubling that we’re seeing so many of these incidents in Bexar County.”

Big Numbers, Big Disparity The data broken out in TJI’s report includes both numbers from each county’s sheriff’s office plus every police department operating there, offering an overview of big-city, rural and suburban departments.

A total of 72 civilians were shot by sworn law officers in Bexar over the previous four years, and 2019 marked the only one of those years that officer-involved shootings decreased, falling to 19 from 20 the prior year. Of that total, 38 of the civilians shot — more than half — died of their wounds.

Statewide, the total number of civilians shot during

officer-involved incidents increased between 2016 and 2019. At the same time, the survival rate of those shot decreased, according to TJI’s analysis.

The data also shows that Black people made up a disproportionate percentage of the civilians shot by police in Bexar over that time, accounting for 13.9% of the total, even though they make up just 7.3% of the county’s population, according to U.S. Census data.

In contrast, Hispanic people made up 59.7% of the total number of civilians shot, roughly equivalent to the 60.3% they make up of the overall population.

Whites made up just 22.2% of those shot, while they account for 27.3% of the overall population.

On that front, Bexar’s statistics mirrored that of other big Texas cities, according to TJI. Black civilians were overrepresented in officer-involved shooting incidents in each of the five most populous counties.

Data and Facts San Antonio police-reform activists say the numbers back up what they have long argued: that Black people are more likely to face violence during encounters with law enforcement. The report, they add, is more evidence that San Antonio must shift funding away from its police department and into social programs.

“This report is not just someone’s opinion or skewed to one side — this is data and facts,” said Ananda Tomas, community organizer for police-reform group Fix SAPD. “It bolsters our argument and shows that something substantial needs to change.”

Valerie Reiffert, who leads Radical Registrars, a group that works to increase voter registration, said the disparity highlighted in the report is evidence of systemic racism in police departments. Those struc-

tural issues can’t be solved through minor reforms, she said — communities need to rethink law enforcement from the ground up.

“Black people are unsafe in our own city because of how they’re treated during police interactions,” she said. “I don’t know what could make it any clearer than the recent incidents involving Sgt. Daniels and [Mathias Ometu],” she added.

Picking Apart the Numbers TJI’s study doesn’t offer critiques of policing practices, nor does it lay blame for the rise in officer-involved shootings. However, TJI Executive Director Eva Ruth Moravec said the trends it highlights should drive analysis and debate by policymakers, citizens and law enforcement officials.

“It shows that, unfortunately, these numbers haven’t slowed down,” said Moravec, who covered criminal justice in Texas for more than a decade in the media, including a stint at the Express-News. “That’s why it’s important to collect this data, to analyze it, to pick it apart and discuss it.”

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said the numbers in the report don’t necessarily indicate local law enforcement officials are too quick to shoot, adding that crime trends and demographic factors also drive up a county’s numbers.

Even so, he said he’s taking note.

“Any time an organization is willing to crunch the numbers and do a deep dive into the data, it would be irresponsible for us not to look and see what we can glean,” Salazar said. “I’m asking my folks to look at the report and see what we can pull from it.”

When reached for comment by the Current, an SAPD spokeswoman said no one was available for an interview on the study. Instead, she provided an online link to the department’s filings with the AG’s office.

Use of Force Reamey of St. Mary’s said a shift in police culture since the 1980s has likely contributed to Texas’ rise in officer-involved shootings. In addition, the departments’ purchases of heavier firepower and high-capacity magazines have made shootings more deadly for civilians.

“Between the early 1980s and now, police have adopted this belief that failure to comply is a capital offense — if you don’t comply, you could be killed or at least taken down,” said Reamey, who spent nearly three decades offering legal training for police departments. “That’s a very fatal flaw when you’re trying to deal with the public.”

The incident with Ometu, the Black jogger, ended with Bexar County DA Joe Gonzales dropping the felony assault charges filed against him for allegedly kicking officers when they forced him into the patrol vehicle. However, Reamey said the interaction could have taken a lethal turn.

“Once officers start on the path to escalation, the logical conclusion very often is deadly force,” he added.

On at least one front, there has been some im-

provement in the way local law enforcement interacts “In a situation where you know someone is armed with the public, experts point out. SAPD has revised or could be more dangerous than most, you can’t just the way it addresses mental illness, including crisis send in a mental health worker,” Salazar said. “You intervention training for could end up with a dead all cadets and establishmental health worker or ing a special unit to dia hostage situation.” vert people to treatment Even so, Salazar said instead of jail. increased training, inEven so, Moravec said cluding in de-escalation introducing guns into tactics, can help reduce situations where somethe number of officer-inone is suffering a breakvolved shootings. down can be a recipe for To that end, he doudisaster. That argument bled the number of is echoed by local poin-service training hours lice-reform activists who required of his deputies call for shifting police after becoming sheriff, funding into mental raising the total to 40 a health programs. year. He also instituted a “I know San Antonew ethics policy, which nio has done a lot for extends to the handling homelessness and mental of calls, and has put more illness and gotten accofocus on the mental lades for that,” Moravec health of his deputies. said. “But there’s still a However, police-relot of discussion about form activists say trainwhether when someone ing won’t solve the probis having a mental health lem if it doesn’t change crisis the best person officers’ mindsets. to go out on that call is Part of the problem, Twitter / S. Lee Merritt someone with a weapon. they argue, is that cops Army veteran Damian Lamar Daniels In some of these cases, have been conditioned to what ends up happening see violence as a key tool was shot and killed by a Bexar County is suicide by cop.” at their disposal. sheriff’s deputy late last month.

“I don’t care how much training [a department] More Training? requires for its officers, the training is part of the problem,” Tomas of Fix SAPD said. “It pushes the idea Sheriff Salazar declined to discuss specific details that every interaction with the public is a life-orof the Daniels shooting since it’s still under investideath situation, and that isn’t the case.” gation. However, he said reducing officer-involved The full TJI study is available for download at the shootings during mental-health calls isn’t as simple organization’s website: texasjusticeinitiative.org. as dispatching social workers instead of cops.

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sacurrent.com | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | CURRENT

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435,000 of our neighbors are at risk of hunger this year.

57,000 are kids

Act to Feed Your Community safoodbank.org 14

CURRENT | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | sacurrent.com

SPECIAL EVEN T

PECHAKUCHA SAN ANTONIO VOL. 39

PechaKucha San Antonio’s switch to streaming for its most recent event went so nice that they’re doing it twice. The arts and culture series will return to the web for its 39th edition with a slate of speakers sharing their passions in PechaKucha’s trademark 20 image x 20 second presentation format. The digital event will be livestreamed on PechaKucha SA’s YouTube and Facebook pages. Volume 39 features six new local speakers, including San Antonio Food Bank President and CEO Eric Cooper, Folklores Coffee House owners Emilie and Tatu Herrera, Black Outside Executive Director Angelica Holmes, Texas House District 121 candidate Celina Montoya, epidemiologist and CEO of the San Antonio AIDS Foundation Cherise Rohr-Allegrini and musician Marc Anthony Smith. Christian Reed-Ogba — a local publicist and former PechaKucha SA presenter — will emcee the evening, which will also feature a performance by local band Dreambored. Though the event is free, donations are encouraged to help support voter mobilization group MOVE Texas and fund PechaKucha SA. Anyone who donates is entered to win a gift basket that includes local goodies such as a Sage & Honey grazing box, a Ben Yanto Visuals porch photo session certificate, Tio Pelon’s Salsita, Wildflower Caramels, Lone Star Rio Jade Beer and Twang premium salts and seasonings. Donations can be made online at lascasasfoundation.org/pksa.

Free, 7 p.m. Thursday, September 10, YouTube and Facebook, pechakucha.com/cities/san-antonio. — Steve Hargis

After months of quarantine, the idea of home as a personal sanctuary has a whole new meaning for many of us. This month, Clamp Light Gallery will debut the exhibition “Home Sick,” which aims to make viewers think about how our relationships with our homes has changed in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. Curated

by Sarah Fox, “Home Sick” features a selection of pieces from three artists that, when taken together, represent how — for some of us — an obsession with cleanliness and the interior of our homes has grown since the beginning of quarantine. The exhibition includes distorted homeware collages by Alissa Polan, hermetically sealed furniture and plants by Joyce Lin, a furry bath tub by Erin Stafford and more. “At once sanctuary and jail cell, our homes have grown into us this year,” the gallery said in a statement. “‘Home Sick,’ funny, dark, and lovely — thinks about the affecting relationship we find ourselves living in.” “Home Sick” will be on view September 11-October 4 by appointment only, though it can also be seen from the street through the gallery’s large window. To make an appointment, call (832) 2593530, email clamplightstudios@gmail.com or send a message to Clamp Light’s Facebook or Instagram. Free, On View by Appointment September 11-October 4, Clamp Light Artist Studios and Gallery, 1704 Blanco Rd., (832) 2593530, clamplightstudios.com. — Emily DiTomasso

calendar

THU | 09.10

private link to the streaming event. Virtual gates open at 5:30 p.m. $10, 6-8 p.m. Saturday, September 19, Asociación de Charros de San Antonio, sacharros.org. — Steve Hargis

Facebook / Associación de Charros de San Antonio

SAT | 09.19 LIVE MUSIC

INTOCABLE

Tejano-Norteño band Intocable’s drive-in concert at Freeman Coliseum, originally planned for August 30, hit a hurricane-sized snag. On August 27, the band announced on social media that it was postponing the planned concert due to the conversion of Freeman’s parking lot into a makeshift hospital for evacuee patients fleeing Hurricane Laura. The concert is now slated to take place on Saturday, September 19. Tickets already purchased will be valid for the new date, and anyone that missed out on the originally scheduled performance can still buy tickets online. $150-$400, 7 p.m., Freeman Coliseum, 3201 E. Houston St., (210) 226-1177, ljconciertos.com/events/35. — Kelly Merka Nelson

Courtesy of Clamp Light Artist Studios and Gallery

SAT | 09.19 SPECIAL EVEN T

CHARREADA DE LAS FIESTAS PATRIAS

Josh Huskin

FRI | 09.11 SAT | 09.22 ART

‘HOME SICK’

Fun fact: Charrería, not soccer, is Mexico’s only official sport. Rooted in the hacienda culture of Mexico, charrería is analogous to the American rodeo tradition, but with a lot more artistic flair. This month, the Alamo City’s resident charros — the Asociación de Charros San Antonio — aren’t letting COVID-19 prevent them from showcasing this time-honored tradition. On Saturday, September 19, the SA Charros will host the Charreada de las Fiestas Patrias online in celebration of Mexico’s Independence Day. Attendees can enjoy the spectacle of events from the comfort of home as men and women decked out in iconic charro outfits showcase the equine-centric sport. Tickets are available for purchase on Eventbrite. Upon registration, attendees will receive a

Reminder:

Facebook / Intocable

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.

Sidewalk Storyteller

Artist Anne Wallace still cementing the history of Lavaca, San Antonio’s oldest neighborhood

BY BRYAN RINDFUSS

J

ust before the turn of the last century, artist Anne Wallace won a commission to embark on a years-long public art project exploring the rich history of Lavaca — San Antonio’s oldest continuously inhabited neighborhood.

However, that commission came with an

unusual stipulation: her artwork needed to be integrated into the sidewalks.

Taking cues from Ed Gaida’s 1999 book Sidewalks of San Antonio — a pictorial history that documents insignias left behind by concrete crews — Wallace set out to cement an enduring portrait of the neighborhood.

In search of stories that would illustrate Lavaca’s fascinating past lives, she conducted research at the Institute of Texan Cultures and the San Antonio Public Library’s Texana collection, combed through old city directories and Sanborn maps, attended neighborhood association meetings and spread the word organically. Her primary goal was to locate and interview residents with clear memories of how things once were — especially before urban renewal projects like the Victoria Courts and Hemisfair forced out ethnically diverse families and forever altered the flow between Lavaca and downtown San Antonio.

“I really wanted to find stories of people that remembered that far back,” Wallace said.

1. Bryan Rindfuss

4. Anne Wallace

3. Angela Martinez

5. Anne Wallace

7. Kat McColley Doucette 1. Artist Anne Wallace brushes mineral oil on a concrete stamp held by her helpful friend Antwan Nicholson.

Find more arts coverage every day at sacurrent.com

2. Wallace uses her body weight and a sledgehammer to ensure the stamp makes an even impression in the wet concrete.

3. Freshly restored, a beloved anecdote reads “My

mother’s father was in Mexico City in Don Porfirio Diaz’ Army. My father’s father and his grandpa were under Pancho Villa’s command. They fought the federales like my grandpa! I was born in La Villita.

4. During the planning stages of the project, Wallace happened upon a man who shared this powerful anecdote: “I remember when they pulled the last old lady

out. She was in a wheelchair. When they tore everything down for HemisFair, that’s when I became familiar with eminent domain.”

5. This anecdote about a watering hole in the vicinity of Bar America is rightfully among the fan favorites of The Unofficial Story. “The clientele was the questionable people of that area. Men who knifed others, women who

“Little by little … I started finding people who’d been in the neighborhood a long time. … It was really amazing.

The emotion of older people of the neighborhood getting cut off from downtown by Victoria Courts and by Hemisfair was pretty powerful. I got this real sense of this constant motion back and forth, where everyone in this part of town socialized downtown, shopped downtown, walked to events downtown, and that all just kind of got cut off by these urban renewal projects.

Of course, the courts and Hemisfair razed big chunks of the neighborhood and forced all those people out.”

From the oral histories she collected, Wallace created The Unofficial Story — a poignant collection of anecdotes she stamped into sidewalks that border the neighborhood’s quaint pocket parks.

Although visually unassuming, these curious slices of life can conjure vivid scenes: a family going to view Geronimo as he was being held as a prisoner of war at Fort Sam Houston; a San Antonio native whose grandfathers fought on opposing sides of the Mexican Revolution; oompah music filling the air; segregated dances being held at the Municipal Auditorium; a “block party” atmosphere shared by German,

Hispanic, Czech and Jewish neighbors.

Mentions of food also abound: beans, tamales, tortillas, oxtail, rabbit, squirrel, beef brains and scrambled eggs.

As complements to the anecdotes, Wallace created symbolic stamps to reference languages spoken in the neighborhood — Coahuiltecan, English, Spanish, German, Polish, Chinese — and the area’s use as croplands for the Alamo.

She also etched historic photographs into the concrete, including an exterior image of the Garden Fruit Store in the 1920s, a Mexican American family gathered around the dinner table in

the 1930s and a man serving coffee at the Pig Stand in the 1950s.

Now two decades after The Unofficial Story began taking shape, Wallace recently got her portable typesetting system back out to recreate a portion of the project that was destroyed when sidewalks were torn out as part of a condo development on Florida Street.

In addition to photographing the restoration process, we took the opportunity to speak to Wallace about the project’s enduring highlights and its unique ability to convey place and time.

2. Bryan Rindfuss

6. Anne Wallace carried guns, people who could drink a case of beer and not even wobble.” With a laugh, Wallace confessed, “I was afraid the city would tell me I couldn’t use it!”

6. This photoengraving depicts the Beltrán Espinoza family in the 1930s. Through interviews with family members, Wallace learned about the

8. Bryan Rindfuss Xochimilco Social Club, a group that gathered in the Beltrán Espinoza’s backyard for gorditas and good times.

7. Attorney Kat McColley Doucette purchased the Beltrán Espinoza family’s 1910 home and found the Xochimilco Social Club’s original sign in a dilapidated garage. After learning that the

club was mentioned in The Unofficial Story, she photographed the sign and recently sent the picture to Wallace. “It makes me very happy that the sidewalk project is connecting people across time, space and generations,” Wallace said.

8. From left: Ricardo Torres, Jairo Torres, Juan Carlos Reyes Bautista and Erik Jonas Reyes

represent three generations who all work for the family business Bautista Concrete Work.

Although they were hired to pour the sidewalks, they were unaware of Wallace’s restoration project. “[They] had no idea they were expected to work with me on this,” Wallace said. “It was hot as hell out there … [but] they were wonderful.”

sacurrent.com | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | CURRENT

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CURRENT | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | sacurrent.com

Comedian Felipe Esparza brings groundbreaking specials Bad Decisions and Malas Decisiones to Netflix

BY KIKO MARTINEZ

A

s much as stand-up comedian Felipe Esparza likes to say the phrase “fuck you,” there’s no doubt in his mind that it’s funnier in Spanish.

“If I were to tell you, ‘Fuck you,’ I can’t really say it in a funny way,” Esparza, 44, told the Current during a phone interview late last month. “I can’t sing it in a song like, ‘Fuuuuuuck you!’ It just doesn’t sound funny!

But if I were to say, ‘Chinga tu madre, güey!’ It just sounds funnier.”

Now, Esparza gets to test which language really is funnier with a pair of Netflix comedy specials released last week — Felipe Esparza: Bad Decisions and Felipe Esparza: Malas Decisiones. This marks the first time Netflix has simultaneously released two comedy specials by one comedian — one in English and one in Spanish.

During our interview, Esparza, who was born in Sinaloa, Mexico, and raised in Los Angeles, talked about how he prepared to perform an entire comedy special in Spanish and why it’s OK if audiences don’t laugh during the part of the specials where he jokes about the domestic abuse he experienced as a child.

In early July, you were the first comedian to postpone a show at the Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club citing COVID-19 as the reason. How did you come to that decision?

I was emailing some of the waitstaff from San Antonio because they’re my friends. They told me how bad things had gotten in San Antonio. My agent said, “I don’t know if you should go over there, man. Joe Rogan already canceled one of his shows.” I said, “Well, I better cancel my show, too, because I don’t have as much money as he does.”

Both the English and Spanish versions of your special are basically the same. The arrangement and some of the words you use are a little different. How did you decide which jokes would work in both languages and which would not?

I already had my one-hour [special] recorded in English. When I started working out the jokes in Spanish in San Diego, everything was working the way it was supposed to work.

But once I crossed the border and performed

screens

Laughter in Two Languages

Felipe Esparza / Netflix

in Tijuana, Mexico, some of the jokes did not cross over. The people who were bilingual got the jokes and laughed. Spanish speakers didn’t get it, so I had to do some arranging. A lot of the play on words I do in English, didn’t play well in Spanish, so I got rid of them.

Can you give me an example of something you had to cut from your Spanish special because it got lost in translation?

You know how you are talking to a girl and some other guy comes in and takes her from you? I had a joke where I used the slang word “cockblocked,” but I didn’t know how to say “cockblocked” in Spanish.

As a bilingual comedian who performs in English, how did you prepare yourself to do an entire set in Spanish?

When I started performing in Spanish, I started from the bottom. When I did Spanish shows in San Diego, I was the opener. I wasn’t headlining. I was opening for someone else who was gonna do an hour in Spanish. So, I got to know those [Spanish-speaking] comedians, and they became my friends. They told me about these comedy nights in Tijuana, so I started performing there twice a month.

During your specials, some of the stories you tell about the domestic violence you experienced as a child receive audible groans from the audience. Although there are punchlines to those jokes, I’m sure they can be uncomfortable for some people to hear. As a comedian, do you welcome those groans as much as laughs?

Those stories are personal to me. I had to get comfortable saying them. At first, I was too sentimental and agüitado (bummed out) and emotional because of those jokes. Once I got used to it, I didn’t care about the groans.

It’s my experience and it [hurt] at the time. I think I was able to get over it because I kept adding things to the joke, so I could just keep going and take it to the next level. But you know, those jokes kill in Spanish. I think those jokes are funnier in Spanish than they are in English.

You’re known for not getting too political with your comedy. With the new specials, you touch on politics a bit when you poke fun of the slogan “Make America Great Again” by changing it to “Make America Great for Mexicans Again.”

Can you expand on that idea since Election Day is only a couple of months away?

The president says Mexicans are taking jobs from Americans. I thought, “You know how funny it would be if a Mexican was saying that?” Like if there was an angry, conservative Mexican somewhere — like Archie Bunker in All in the Family but Mexican — who was complaining about the other immigrants who came in after him.

You mention in your specials that you have a white stepson named Miklo. I’m assuming that is a Blood In, Blood Out reference.

Yeah, his name isn’t really Miklo. He’s 15 now.

I’ve known him since he was two years old, so I helped raise him. We look like Harry Potter and that fat guy.

Find more film stories at sacurrent.com

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Offer valid for dine-in or to-go at participating restaurants.

Stay tuned for more info and a full list of restaurants at: SanAntonioTacoWeek.com 20

CURRENT | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | sacurrent.com

Celebrated local chef Rico Torres dishes on culture, techniques and ingredients

BY NINA RANGEL

T

his has been a big year for chef Rico Torres, co-owner of Mixtli Progressive Mexican Culinaria, the San Antonio restaurant widely lauded for its creative spin on interior Mexican cuisine.

First, he got national media exposure through an appearance on the inaugural episode of Taste the Nation, a Hulu series hosted

by Top Chef’s Padma Lakshmi which launched in June.

Then, weeks later, he and business partner Diego Galicia unveiled plans to move their eatery from its current home in a converted boxcar in Olmos Park into more expansive Southtown digs this fall.

The new spot will feature not just a larger dining room but an open kitchen and a full bar complete with a separate menu. Also on tap is an agave-spirits cart that will circulate the restaurant, allowing guests to select the spirit of their choice and a salt to complete the experience.

Service at the Olmos Park location will continue through September, and guests will be able to make reservations through its website. The new Mixtli, located at 812 South Alamo St., will open its doors sometime after.

Mixtli will continue to rotate menus every 45 days, focusing on a different Mexican region with each iteration.

Less of a region and more of a time and place.

The Current caught up with Torres last I’m always fascinated by the story of the week to talk about how the COVID-19 panconquest of Mexico. It was a pivotal point in demic has complicated his history that fundamentalbusiness, where he sees his ly changed the world. The career heading and what stories from this time are Rico Torres — Vital Stats ingredients and techniques incredible.

Job title: Co-owner and he’s picked up through his chef at Mixtli Progressive extensive study of Mexico’s Mexican Culinaria What would you say is the rich and varied regional Birthplace: El Paso dominant feeling regarding cuisines.

Years in food service: 20 expanding to a new space amid Accolades: A Food & Wine the COVID-19 pandemic?

Best New Chef and a Tell us about how you got to It’s going to be great!

James Beard Foundation this stage in your career. semifinalist I let my creativity and obsesWhat regions are you most sions take the wheel. Plus, Little-known fact: “I love to excited about sharing with I’m just not made to work dance.”

Mixtli guests after the new for someone else, so my only spot opens? options were to make it on I think we’re past just my own. I look for gratitude focusing on regions and and lessons in every experience, and that has are more excited to share the experiences of been an invaluable tool in growing. I’ve also what we’ve learned and continue to discover. surrounded myself with people that are more UTSA Library’s Special Collections has been talented, and sometimes more driven, than a wonderful resource to continue researchme. ing Mexico’s gastronomy. We’re excited to continue sharing that history and the stories through our food.

What’s been your favorite region of Mexico to

showcase in your Mixtli menus?

food

Mixtli Man

Courtesy Photo / Mixtli

What are you most looking forward to once the pandemic passes?

I’m not sure the pandemic will ever truly pass or that the normalcy we remember will come back. We are different people now. I do miss hugs and concerts, and I look forward to seeing my sons hanging out with their friends and having healthy social lives again.

Speaking of, what’s your favorite dish to make for your kiddo?

Kingston loves charcuterie boards. It might be the easiest way I can get him to try new things. However, now he insists on duck prosciutto, honey and gorgonzola, cinnamon cashews — and please don’t try to substitute Parmigiano Reggiano with anything else. He’ll know.

What’s your favorite ingredient to cook with and why?

In my pantry we always have maple syrup for our coffee and smoky chiles for our barbecue.

Do you have a favorite cooking technique? If so, what is it, and why?

Slow and low. Good things come to those who wait.

Find more food & drink news at sacurrent.com

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CURRENT | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | sacurrent.com

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food Buzz on the Go

Canned cocktails make an easy pandemic drinking option, but some are better than others

BY RON BECHTOL

T

he first ready-to-drink canned cocktail appeared long before this pesky pandemic made us wonder if we’d ever see the inside of a bar again. Among the first I remember was an Old Fashioned — not an especially difficult to drink to execute, but that was not the point. Graband-go convenience was more likely the issue.

If there’s still an audience not all that familiar with RTD cocktails, those folks may be blinded by the exploding hard-seltzer phenomenon. It’s a growing category born, perhaps, of a kind of desperate, if temporary, necessity. Pandemic aside, slamming a can or bottle into a tub of ice is especially easy in summertime.

Besides, as I recently found, some of them are actually good.

Tip Top Proper Cocktails are new to the San Antonio market. The brand offers three classic drinks in a series packaged in — there’s no other word for it — cute 100-mililiter cans. At 37% alcohol by volume, the Old Fashioned is the highest proof ready-to-drink cocktail I tested — and, consisting only of spicy whiskey, sugar and bitters, it may have been the best. You can drink this one straight from the can, but it’s portioned to serve well in a rocks glass over a single large cube.

The Tip Top Manhattan affords the same sipfrom-the-can option. It’s just bitter enough and its vermouth component stands up to the rye. If feeling fancy, you could add a Luxardo cherry. To the Negroni, I’d add more gin. When making my own, I always upend the classic formula, which is equal parts gin, Campari and sweet vermouth. For me, this was the least successful Tip Top offering. The “red bitters” component didn’t equal a good slug of Campari. But at 26% alcohol, I’d also feel less guilty about popping a tab on more than one.

Keeping with cans and icy tubs, the Finnish Long Drink was the first canned cocktail I came across. The original Long Drink, inspired by a Finnish post-war classic, is gin-based with juniper and citrus flavors, and it’s very bracing in a sauna-meets-snow kind of way. Except that, again, I wanted a little more gin taste. The cranberry version may even be better and is well worth tossing in the tub.

I had the same needs-more-gin thoughts about G&J Greenall’s Sicilian Lemon spritzer, which blends British gin, lemon and soda “with natural flavors and artificial color.” It’s tart-sweet and lemonade, and at 6% ABV, easy to sip on a summer afternoon. Even so, I added Sipsmith gin to my tall glass with ice and an additional squeeze of lemon.

Breaking news: I much prefer gin to vodka in most tall drinks — most, but not all. The 7% ABV Fugu

Ron Bechtol

Vodka Mule employs copper can colors to evoke the mug the drink is traditionally served in. And the can does the drink no disservice — especially for ginger fans, as that’s the flavor that comes roaring through.

A “splash of bitters” gives it a little more complexity.

Fancier packaging of pre-made cocktails in bottles doesn’t necessarily yield a better product. I tried two “naturally flavoured” Austin Cocktails, actually made in Kentucky. “Tastes like pancakes!” one taster said of the Fred’s Peppered Maple Blood Orange Bourbon Cocktail. Yes, it did. Although the pepper, brought into focus by an added squirt of lemon, helped balance the drink.

AC’s New School Gin Mule didn’t have a syrup issue, but I’m not convinced that gin was the better choice than vodka here. And the lime tasted artificial to me, overwhelming the modest ginger component.

It’s also not necessarily the case that bottled classic cocktails should work better than a drink created expressly for bottling — but that’s what happened in this limited sampling. The On the Rocks Premium

Cocktails collection comes in a corked bottle you might actually display, and the 35% ABV Knob Creek Old Fashioned would taste fine over a honking big cube, no improvements needed.

OTR’s Larios Gin Aviation missed the classic mark due to subbing “natural flavors” for the usual crème de violette and Luxardo cherry liqueurs — and reducing the ABV to 20% as a consequence. Adding lemon changed the slightly cloying “natural” violet aspect immensely. Moral: keep lemons on hand.

Occupying an in-between ground is the Bloody Buddy Bloody Mary with Vodka. Packaged in a fourpack of 200-militer plastic bottles and made in Dripping Springs, it needs only a celery stick and some ice to be a more than perfectly respectable brunch-into-lazy afternoon companion.

Or just shake it up and drink straight from the chilled bottle. We don’t judge.

Note: Cocktails were sourced from Total Wine, Twin and Spec’s Liquors, none of which will have all the mentioned products. sacurrent.com | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | CURRENT

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CURRENT | September 9 – September 22, 2020 | sacurrent.com

music

Old Souls

Jason Kane & the Jive’s Soggy Noggin delivers a retro-rock blast free of the usual cliches

BY SANFORD NOWLIN

F

rom the grunge-era wash of Soundgarden clones to the present-day glut of soundalike stoner rock bands, plenty of acts make the incorrect assumption that channeling ’70s arena rock swagger is just about closing your eyes and riding a cool riff.

Turns out, that’s only part of the job.

The bands of that era that stood the test — whether we’re talking Sabbath, Led Zep, BOC or Deep Purple — knew a thing or two about songcraft and hooks. They also were unafraid to throw a little variety into their sound.

San Antonio’s Jason Kane & the Jive get that. And it’s abundantly clear on the trio’s newish self-released album Soggy Noggin.

While the COVID-19 pandemic kept the band from giving the disk the bleary-but-beautiful release party and promotional tour it deserves, it’s nonetheless out there and worthy of some love — even from folks normally wary of retro rock.

The band’s core is made up of singer-guitarist-keyboardist and principal songwriter Kane plus bassist Jason Nick Jive, augmented by rotating drummers. While only in their mid-20s, the pair possess a songwriting maturity and understanding of their source that suggest they could have been flogging the road opening for Uriah Heep back in the day.

Some of that no doubt comes down to Kane growing up under the tutelage of a dad who played in Chicago metal bands and a mom who turned him on to some of the mellower sounds of the Me Decade.

Beyond being versed in the classics, retro rock is hard to pull off, though. Good retro rock anyway. It tends to become an all-too-easy game of spot-the-influence (Greta Van Fleet, anyone?) or an exercise in Camaros-and-cowbells cock rock cliches.

The key to Soggy Noggin’s success is the trio’s ability to synthesize those influences of yesteryear and shape them into something new — something that sounds like, well, Jason Kane & the Jive.

And, truth be told, a little kick-ass musi-

Courtesy Jason Kane & the Jive

cianship helps seal the deal.

Tracks such as the opener “Machine of Dreams” and the knotty “Chica Boom” deliver the expected boogie and bombast, replete with snappy rhythm section workouts and blazing guitar solos. Unlike a lot of bands mining this territory, Kane can actually sing, and his clear and soulful voice is a good match for the material.

If that’s all the band could deliver on, they’d still have crafted a worthy release. But where the album actually slips into the sublime is on its surprising side trips into psychedelia, soul and prog — none of which come across as twee or forced.

“Smooth Operator” Courtesy Jason Kane & the Jive — no, not a cover of the Sade song — evokes the chunky organ chords of the Doors’ “Moonlight Drive” while weaving in the jazzy, sax-driven elements of Traffic’s “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.”

And that’s just before it darts into a dou-

ble-time middle section that evokes vintage Gentle Giant.

With an assist from the Top Shelf Brass Band, the album closer “Bossman” nestles into a greasy groove somewhere between Humble Pie, Little Feat, and Sly and the Family Stone. A genuinely funky middle breakdown pulls it all together and makes you almost forgive Kane for momentarily quoting a Steve Miller lyric.

While most live support for Soggy Noggin is off the table as the pandemic grinds on, Kane and Company have holed up to work on a fourth album. Still, based on the band’s willingness to work the road — it spent two months touring last year — it’s hard to imagine the dudes sitting still once it’s safe to get back to the clubs.

Given Jason Kane & the Jive’s relative youth and strong work ethic, perhaps the most exciting thing about Soggy Noggin is the suggestion that there’s still room to grow, that even better work is yet to come.

But even if that’s not the case — doubtful, sure, but always a possibility — the album is plenty rewarding in the here and now, yielding new rewards with subsequent spins. And that’s not just the riffs talking.

Find more music coverage every day at sacurrent.com

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AUTO AUCTION All vehicles listed below were impounded by San Antonio Police Dept. and will be sold via Joyrideauctos.com.

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BURNT

$4,619.95

3713417

2000

DODGE

RAM 1500

BURNT

$3,840.55

3722305

2017

LINCOLN

CONTINENTL

BURNT

$3,580.75

3626667

2001

DODGE

RAM

1B7HC16X81S257238

$4,988.00

3732300

2007

TAO TAO

ATV

C5NATMCT77T076144

$3,145.95

2850567

1900

TRAILER

TRAILER

NO VIN

$13,972.75

3625143

2000

OTHER

MINI BIKE

NOT VISIBLE

$4,988.00

3791358

2000

WINNEBAGO

MOTOR HOME

NO VIN

$2,248.20

3795579

2000

OTHER

TRAILER

NO VIN

$1,437.40

3794872

2000

OTHER

OTHER

NO VIN

$1,913.70

3763496

1988

TOYOTA

4 RUNNER

JT3VN66W2J0000044

$2,649.80

3762637

1998

HONDA

ODYSSEY

JHMRA3848WC013453

$2,671.45

3774163

2003

CHEVY

TAHOE

1GNEK13V03J112283

$2,433.30

3794528

2000

FORD

EXPEDITION

1FMFU18L2YLC42121

$2,065.25

3834581

2018

OTHER-NOT IN LIST

MOPED

L9NTCBAF8J1010131

$1,344.10

3781494

2010

OTHER-NOT IN LIST

MOTORCYCLE

15NTCBPA7A1700999

$2,253.40

3722414

2000

OTHER-NOT IN LIST

GOLF CART

NOT VISIBLE

$3,580.75

3867404

2000

MINI

OTHER

L5AM2BBE9JWA00913

$896.10

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