San Antonio Current — September 8, 2021

AT&T'S TIE TO THE ABORTION BAN | SAN ANTONIO-BORN SCARES | INSIDE A MUSICAL TIME CAPSULE SEPT. 8 - SEPT. 21, 2021

Cosmic Road Trip

Located west of San Antonio, the White Shaman is an overlooked Texas marvel

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in this issue

Issue 21-18 /// September 8 – September 21, 2021

San Antonio Current

Editor-in-Chief: Sanford Nowlin General Manager: Chelsea Bourque

Editorial

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, Lea Thompson, Abe Asher, Mackenzie Cook Editorial Interns: Katelyn Earhart, Yukiko Yamazaki

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18 Feature

Cosmic Road Trip

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Located west of San Antonio, the White Shaman is an overlooked Texas marvel

09 News

The Opener News in Brief

CityScrapes

Baltimore’s ‘success story’ should offer warnings for San Antonio as it attempts urban renewal projects

Ban Backers

Companies including Dallas-based AT&T funneled millions to the lawmakers behind Texas’ new abortion law

14 Calendar Calendar Picks

18 Arts

All in the Details

A peek inside the Pearl’s new home and kitchen store Rancho Diaz

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Death Trap

San Antonio author Max Booth III’s debut horror film We Need to Do Something hits TV and movie screens

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27Food

Ship Shape

Former Coast Guard looks to build community with Gather Brewing

Hot Dish

31 Music

Musical Time Capsule Dellview Music stays true to six decades-old mission of creativity and community

Music Listings

O

n the Cover: This week’s cover reimagines Texas’ White Shaman Preserve, a significant site for prehistoric rock art, as a roadside attraction. Design by Samantha Serna.

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Healthcare workers are facing an onslaught of verbal and physical attacks in San Antonio and across the state with tensions running high over mask and screening protocols as COVID-19 cases again fill hospitals, according the Texas Tribune reports. “Our staff have been cursed at, screamed at, threatened with bodily harm and even had knives pulled on them,” said Jane McCurley, chief nursing executive for San Antonio’s Methodist Healthcare System.

H

Jazz, TX and the Tobin Center are teaming up to put on a celebrity boxing match to raise money for uninsured San Antonio musicians.

The Doc Watkins Classic: A Charity Boxing Gala will take place October 22 and consist of six bouts, with all proceeds going to the San Antonio Musicians Medical Aid Fund. The fighters include jazz pianist Watkins, Tejano and blues artist Bob Ram, chef Geronimo Lopez and others.

H

San Antonio is delaying the kickoff of its $154 million jobs program until next year as officials finalize details and recruit more trainees.

SA Ready to Work, approved by voters last November, is designed to help workers access better-paying jobs. The four-year program is paid for through a 1/8 cent sales tax.

The San Antonio Food Bank sent its first truckload of food and supplies to Louisiana last week as that state tries to recover from Hurricane Ida. The shipment is the first of many planned to assist Louisianans, and the food bank working in conjunction with Feeding America to get supplies to badly hit areas. The food bank hasn’t yet called for local donations to the effort but could do so in the coming weeks. — Abe Asher

YOU SAID IT!

“I don’t know what it’s a solution to. I don’t know what the problem was to start with.”

— James McLaughlin, executive director of the Texas Police Chiefs Association, to the Texas Tribune about the state’s new open carry law

ASSCLOWN ALERT

Replaying the 2020 election with Sen. Paul Bettencourt Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.

Apparently, rewriting Texas voting laws to make it harder for people of color to cast ballots wasn’t enough for State Sen. Paul Bettencourt.

With the special session of the Texas Legislature winding down, the Houston Republican last week introduced Senate Bill 97, which proposed setting up a new civil process to dispute the results of the 2020 election and other contests going forward, the Houston Chronicle reports.

Bettencourt’s proposal failed to pass given its late introduction. But this assclown still deserves ridicule for even attempting it. His turd of a bill was both unnecessary and dangerous.

Texas already has a process to investigate possible election irregularities and address them through criminal complaints. Bettencourt’s bill would have set up separate civil track under which candidates, political parties’ county chairs and others could demand audits of counties’ election results.

Under the failed legislation, individuals could demand county elections officials explain election outcomes with which they disagree, according to the Chronicle. If the party requesting the explanation didn’t like it, they could then request the Texas Secretary of State audit the election — at the county’s expense.

One can imagine the flood of frivolous complaints, not to mention outright intimidation, such a boneheaded process would open. Not

In what some are calling the biggest change to abortion rights in the United States since the Roe v. Wade decision nearly a half-century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court last week declined a request to block a Texas law effectively banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The bill, passed in the Texas Legislature and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott, also allows private citizens to sue anyone they believe has violated the law.

It’s the strictest anti-abortion measure in the country.

After a quorum-breaking walkout by Democrats, Republicans in the Texas Legislature last week passed a controversial bill making it even harder to vote in the state. While the measure includes some changes from the version GOP lawmakers tried to pass in the spring, voting rights activists said its intent is still to suppress the votes of people of color. They’re expected to challenge the law in federal court.

news

That Rocks/That Sucks

Facebook / Paul Bettencourt

to mention the expenses that would rack up as counties were forced to pay for audits demanded by aggrieved party chairs.

What’s clear from Bettencourt’s bill is that he and other members of the Texas GOP are more concerned with fighting election outcomes than winning elections. After all, the latter looks to be increasingly tall order given the raft of damaging legislation they’re intent on forcing down Texans’ throats. — Sanford Nowlin

The Archdiocese of San Antonio last week said it doesn’t find COVID-19 vaccinations “morally objectionable” and won’t grant religious exemptions to those who refuse to get vaccinated. “Being vaccinated safely against COVID-19 should be considered an act of love of our neighbor and part of our moral responsibility for the common good,” Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller said in a message on the archdiocese’s website. — Abe Asher

Instagram / @abishopgustavo

Find more news coverage every day at sacurrent.com

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news

Baltimore’s flagging Harborplace is on the left, and San Antonio’s Rivercenter Mall is on the right. Notice any similarities?

a

Wikimedia Commons / TastyPoutine (left) Michael Barera (right)

CITYSCRAPES

Baltimore’s ‘success story’ should offer warnings for San Antonio as it attempts urban renewal projects

BY HEYWOOD SANDERS The following is CityScrapes, a column of opinion and analysis.

I

n the annals of urban revitalization success stories, few places are as regularly recognized and touted as Baltimore. From the rebuilding of its downtown core with the Charles Center renewal project to the refashioning of its decaying Inner Harbor into a collection of visitor magnets and attractions, the city is widely cited as a model example. When scholars Edward Hill and Hal Wolman surveyed urban experts, Baltimore landed second on their list of “successfully revitalizing” cities from 1980 to 1990, and among the top for the period from 1990 to 2000.

The centerpiece of Baltimore’s apparent success was the Inner Harbor, deemed by British planning scholar Peter Hall together with Boston’s waterfront as “the two great showcases of urban revitalization in its first phase.”

And the focal point of Baltimore’s revitalized harbor was Harborplace — two glass-walled pavilions of retail shops and restaurants facing the waterfront.

They were built by renowned mall developer James Rouse, who also constructed San Antonio’s North Star Mall, among other shopping meccas.

Based on Harborplace’s apparent success, other cities imitated Baltimore by “just adding water” to new downtown malls.

Rouse insisted that the stores and food at Harborplace be unique and local, going so far as tasting the food court offerings and aiding local shop owners. The idea was to make the venture a distinctly Baltimore destination that could attract locals. By 1982, its second year of operation, it was attracting more than 16 million visitors a year.

But Rouse also needed out-of-town visitors and shoppers, so he insisted on building the complex between the new Baltimore Convention Center, a Hyatt hotel and the water. As Alexander Garvin notes in The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t, “One reason for the initial success of retail shopping at the Inner Harbor was that a year earlier

the 425,000-square foot Baltimore Convention Center had opened, bringing tens of thousands of tourists downtown.” Joined by an aquarium and two sports stadiums, “these palaces for the people provide an avalanche of customers.”

To keep that “avalanche” of tourists and visitors, Baltimore expanded its convention center in 1997. The forecast was that the venue, then drawing about 180,000 convention attendees annually, would boom to at least 330,000, and potentially top 500,000.

That didn’t happen.

The Baltimore Convention Center hosted 250,000 conventiongoers in 2001, and just 220,000 the following year. In June 2002 the Baltimore Sun summed things up by headlining an article “Baltimore Built It — They Didn’t Come.”

The response by the chief of Baltimore’s convention and visitors bureau?

The city needed a large headquarters hotel next door to the center.

In 2005, the city’s development arm, the Baltimore Development Corporation, pitched the idea of a city-financed and -owned hotel as the answer to the convention center’s failings. And with a consultant study that promised a boom in convention attendance, the city went into the hotel business, backing the bonds for the new, 750-room Baltimore Hilton with citywide hotel tax revenues.

As the city was trying to redeem its underperforming convention center, Rouse in 2004 sold Harborplace, along with its other malls, to General Growth Properties. The buyer, as buyers often do, promised new life and new ten-

ants. But by mid-2009, the Sun noted in a story headined “Making an Exit” that both Harborplace and its acrossthe-street companion the Gallery at Harborplace were losing major tenants such as White House Black Market and J. Crew. Two years later, Phillips Seafood, Harborplace’s anchor restaurant and the last of its original tenants, announced it too was leaving.

The new Hilton convention headquarters hotel opened in August 2008.

And with the convention and hotel business nationally buffeted by the recession, it too fell short. The convention center managed 221,600 attendees in 2012, roughly the same as 20 years earlier. By 2019, that number was down to 204,166. Harborplace struggled as well, and in 2012 it was sold to Ashkenazy Acquisitions of New York along with other Rouse trophy properties including Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston.

The Baltimore Sun heralded the new owners as “Hope at Harborplace.” But Ashkenazy didn’t begin promised renovations until late 2016, and work dragged on for two years.

That effort proved too little, too late.

Ashkenazy brought some national chains to the complex — Johnny Rockets, Hooters, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. — but finally defaulted on its mortgage in May 2019. The complex was put in the hands of a receiver.

Now, with Harborplace 60% vacant, some Baltimore officials hope for new local owners, while others recommend simply demolishing the buildings and creating open space.

Baltimore’s situation offers a wealth of lessons about urban revitalization “success” — its fragility, the need for constant reinvention, the limits of national ownership, the perils of imitating what worked in other cities. And there are lessons about the convention business, with Baltimore and elsewhere struggling well before the pandemic.

Those lessons should be resonant for San Antonio. After all, Ashkenazy Acquisitions is the owner of downtown’s sparsely occupied Rivercenter Mall.

Heywood Sanders is a professor of public policy at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

sacurrent.com | September 8 – September 21, 2021 | CURRENT

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BIKE RIDE

WALK & RUN

7:00 a.m.

Mission Park Pavilion #1 6030 Padre Drive San Antonio, Texas 78214

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JOIN THE CELEBRATION! The City of San Antonio World Heritage Office and its collaborative partners present this 6th annual festival in commemoration of San Antonio's Missions as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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news Ban Backers

Companies including Dallas-based AT&T funneled millions to the lawmakers behind Texas’ new abortion law

BY SANFORD NOWLIN

A

s Texas enacts its radical ban on nearly all abortions, a women’s advocacy group is recommending that consumers direct some of their anger at corporations that bankrolled the controversial law’s backers.

From 2020 to 2021, dozens of companies in the top tier of the Fortune 500 funneled $5.9 million into the campaigns of Texas lawmakers who sponsored or cosponsored Senate Bill 8, according to research by UltraViolet, a group that advocates against sexism in politics and culture.

The seven largest of those 86 donors, which range from Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate to oil company Chevron, made up nearly $1.1 million of the total. Dallas-based AT&T dug the deepest, doling out $291,042 to sponsors and co-sponsors of the legislation, which effectively bans abortion at six weeks — even in cases of rape and incest.

“Consumers have a lot of power here,” said Sonja Spoo, director of reproductive rights campaigns for UltraViolet. “They have a lot of options when it comes to letting these corporations know that they’re aware where their dollars are going.”

Those outraged about SB 8’s passage can send a strong signal by contacting companies that funded the law’s backers and asking executives to cut off the flow of cash, Spoo said. Consumers can also cancel services with those firms or boycott their products.

If someone chooses the latter option, Spoo said the decision will have the biggest impact if they reach out to the company and be specific about the reason they’re no longer willing to do business with them.

AT&T’s agenda Due to the scope of its campaign

contributions, UltraViolet specifically targeted AT&T prior to the passage of SB 8 and asked — to no avail — to meet and discuss its political spending.

Meanwhile, the advocacy group has posted an online petition asking the company to stop donating to politicians who support abortion bans.

The petition is accessible at act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/HB1515_ATT/.

UltraViolet’s numbers show that AT&T’s massive contributions to the Texas Legislature over the least two years were heavily skewed toward anti-abortion lawmakers, including Republican State Sens. Jane Nelson, Bryan Hughes and Larry Taylor, whom Spoo accused of pushing a “radical, anti-woman agenda.”

The telecom provider, which employs tens of thousands of people in Texas, didn’t respond to the Current’s request for comment.

“While AT&T may say that there’s a business justification for making those

contributions, those same people are passing laws that directly harm their workers’ and consumers’ livelihoods and bodily autonomy,” Spoo said. “That legislative lineage cannot be ignored.”

Speaking with cash The cancellation of cell phone contracts over Texas’ abortion law may not seem like much to a company that reported global revenues of $172 billion last year. But Spoo said polling shows that younger consumers in particular give weight to a company’s political stance when making buying decisions.

About two-thirds of millennials say they have boycotted a brand that took the opposing stance on an issue they feel strongly about, and 62% favor products that align with their political and social beliefs, according to a 2020 survey by New York-based public relations firm 5WPR. Pulling back the curtain on AT&T’s

political contributions could also harm its ability to recruit workers. The company has long prided itself on workforce diversity, and critics point out that Texas’ abortion ban will likely have the most profound effect on women of color.

Polling also suggests abortion rights play into peoples’ expectations about their employers.

A 2018 survey by NARAL Pro-Choice America and The Harris Poll found that 67% of Americans said it’s at least somewhat important for their employer to take a stand on reproductive freedom. About 1 in 4 in the survey said it’s extremely important.

Spoo said she hopes UltraViolet’s research helps both consumers and job seekers make informed decisions as Texas cuts off reproductive health choices for its residents.

“All of this is about educating people so they can make the best choices with their dollars,” she said.

sacurrent.com | September 8 – September 21, 2021 | CURRENT

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FRI | 09.10 SUN | 09.19 THEATER

TICK, TICK... BOOM! The Public’s 2021-2022 season opener is bound to be explosive as the company debuts Jonathan Larson’s hit autobiographical rock musical tick, tick… BOOM! If that name sounds familiar, it might be because of another Larson opus — a little musical called RENT. Set in 1990, tick, tick… BOOM! tells a tale as old as time: that of the aspiring artist — in this case, a man named Jon — struggling to make do in a hostile world while time keeps moving onward. In Jon’s case, those seconds are audibly ticking by. “The sound you are hearing is not a technical problem,” he says by way of introduction. “It is not a musical cue. It is not a joke. It is the sound of one man’s mounting anxiety. I ... am that man.” $17-$47, 7:30 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and select Thursdays, 2 p.m. Sundays September 10-October 17, Public Theater of San Antonio, 800 W. Ashby Place, (210) 733-7258, thepublicsa.org. — KMN Courtesy of LOL Comedy Club

THU | 09.09 SUN | 09.12 COMEDY

CARLOS MENCIA

There’s no shortage of stand-up comics working the circuit right now, but few have reached Carlos Mencia’s level of name recognition. Maybe Mencia’s just used to vying for attention, since he grew up in Honduras as the 17th of 18 children. Maybe it’s his pedigree, having gotten his start at the legendary Laugh Factory. Maybe it’s his persistence. Mencia’s been around long enough that he had early career appearances on In Living Color and The Arsenio Hall Show back in the day. Of course, he’s also had the requisite HBO special and starred in the popular Comedy Central show Mind of Mencia. And then, maybe that recognition stems from him being as notorious as he is famous. He’s endured accusations of racism and joke stealing, charges that prompted a lengthy feud with controversial podcaster and fellow stand-up Joe Rogan. Mencia was accused of “borrowing” some of Bill Cosby’s material, an accusation and association that, ahem, hasn’t aged well. $60-$180, 8 p.m. Thursday, 7:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. Friday, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, 618 Northwest Loop 410, (210) 541-8805, improvtx.com/sanantonio. — Mike McMahan

Daniel Baumer

FRI | 09.10 FI LM

JULIE TAYMOR’S A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM This isn’t your average movie night. The Tobin Center’s latest free out-

THU | 09.09 MON | 09.20

WED | 09.08 THU | 09.09

door film screening features Julie Taymor’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a live recording of the director’s sold-out 2013 London production of the beloved Shakespearean comedy. Known for her groundbreaking 1997 Broadway production of Disney’s The Lion King, as well as the films Frida and Across the Universe, Taymor’s inventive and colorful staging

TH EATER

is a favorite among theater aficionados. Even Spider-Man: Turn Off the

AS YOU LIKE IT

ART

PROJECTION/PROJEKTION

Dark, her widely panned superhero musical collaboration with U2’s

A Midsummer Night’s Dream isn’t Shakespeare’s only work featuring

Bono and the Edge, has its own fanbase. With minimalist staging,

Blue Star Contemporary collaborated with Germany’s Darmstädter

lovelorn youths prancing around a forest. As You Like It may lack fairies

actors’ acrobatics and digital projections displayed on a giant screen,

Sezession to curate this exhibition of short films that will debut in two

and magic flowers, but the play makes up for it with other follies. After

Taymor’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream draws the audience into a dream-

screenings held at the Mission Marquee Plaza as part of this year’s 6th

being expelled from court, Rosalind disguises herself as a man called

scape populated by feuding fairies, wistful lovers and a guy who’s just

Annual World Heritage Festival. The screening will feature a shortlist

Ganymede and flees to the Forest of Arden with her close friend Celia,

a bit of an ass. “The course of true love never did run smooth,” but it

of films by 12 San Antonio artists, including Barbara Felix’s “Liminality

sure is fun to watch as mortals and immortals alike follow twists and

of Self Reflections of Color Culture,” Juan Flores’ “Satellite,” Domeinic

turns in its pursuit. Free, 8 p.m., Will Naylor Smith River Walk Plaza, Tobin

Jimenez’s “10 Seconds” and Guillermina Zabala’s “Amalia Ortiz: La

Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624,

Valiente.” On Thursday, one of the 12 finalists will be awarded a $6,000

tobincenter.com. — KMN

prize. Films from Darmstädter Sezession members, including the winner of the sister event Projektion Darmstadt, will screen alongside the locals’ works on the program. Free, 7 p.m., Mission Marquee Plaza, 3100 Roosevelt Ave., (210) 227-6960, bluestarcontemporary.org. — Kelly Merka Nelson

Courtesy of Classic Theatre

who takes on the identity of a woman named Aliena. In the forest, shepherds, nobles and fools alike find themselves at the mercy of their feelings, and love triangles abound. For an added touch of atmosphere, the Classic Theatre’s production is fittingly staged in the verdant San Antonio Botanical Garden. $24-$39, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, September 8 and 16, Friday, September 10, 17 and 24, Sunday, September 12, 19 and 26, Monday, September 20, San Antonio Botanical Garden, 555 Funston Place, Guillermina Zabala

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CURRENT | September 8 – September 21, 2021 | sacurrent.com

(210) 589-8450, classictheatre.org.— KMN

BOND360

COMEDY

D. L. HUGHLEY

calendar

FRI | 09.17 SUN | 09.19

and Slab Cinema are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the

also might argue there’s nothing funny about Schneider, at

landmark film with a free screening at the historic Mission

least since the early ’90s. “I don’t want to force my opinion

Marquee Plaza. Free, gates at 7 p.m., Mission Marquee Plaza,

on people, but I think you have to challenge them and get

3100 Roosevelt Ave., (210) 212-9373, slabcinema.com. — Kiko

them to laugh at the same time,” Schneider told the Current

Martinez

in 2017. Good luck with the latter, Deuce. $38-$63, 7:30 p.m., Bud Light Courtyard at AT&T Center, 1 AT&T Center Parkway,

After bursting onto the scene in the ’90s with Original Kings of Comedy and The Hughleys, D. L. Hughley has maintained a solid, decades-long career as one of the most successful stand-ups out there. An impressive achievement for a young

SAT | 09.18

(210) 444-5140, attcenter.com. — KM

MON | 09.20

DANCE

man who survived tough formative experiences, including

BALLET IN THE PARK

involvement in LA’s notorious Bloods street gang. Following

Audiences will have a chance to gather under the stars for

Hughley’s run of ’90s successes, he’s also branched out into

Ballet San Antonio’s free preview of its 2021-2022 season. The

radio and print. He even managed to have a quintessential

upcoming season will feature classics such as a variety show

A CONVERSATION WITH STACEY ABRAMS

modern experience, having contracted COVID in 2020,

including excerpts from Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty

Democratic political leader Stacey Abrams will speak can-

which led to an onstage collapse from exhaustion. He was

(October 22-24), a holiday run of The Nutcracker (December

didly about politics, social justice and everything in between

just keeping it contemporary, y’all! Perhaps this inspired a

3-5 and 10-12) and Don Quixote in March 2022. Get a first

during this interactive talk in San Antonio. Abrams entered

recent segment on his radio show in which he lambasted

glimpse at what these performances will have in store at this

the national spotlight in 2018 when she ran for governor of

SPECIAL EVEN T

Florida’s COVID response as — to be generous — serious-

Georgia after serving in the state’s House of Representatives

ly lacking. Hughley’s extensive resume includes a stint

for a decade. Though she came up short in that contest, she’s

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continued to speak about the importance of voter rights

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WEST SIDE STORY

to the “You can do it!” townie in The Waterboy, comedian

The last time the Current spoke to actress Rita Moreno, who

Rob Schneider has made a career out of playing dumbasses.

won an Academy Award for her supporting role as Anita

Unfortunately, he also fills that role in real life, too. This

in the 1961 film West Side Story, it was 2019 and the Puerto

past summer, the Razzie Award winner went on Twitter

Rican legend was speaking from the set of Steven Spielberg’s

to spread disinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine by

remake of the classic film, which hits theaters this Decem-

calling it “unapproved experimental gene therapy.” He also

ber. During that conversation, Moreno said she’d just met

called masking kids during school akin to “child abuse.”

the cast that morning and they had tons of questions for

Hopefully, most people know that taking medical advice

her. “I told them anecdotes about the making of the original

Courtesy of Tobin Center

TUE | 09.21 TH EATER

movie,” said Moreno, who has a small role in the remake.

“The wonderful thing is that all the actors who were playing

MY FAIR LADY

the Sharks are, in fact, Hispanic. It wasn’t that way before.”

This fall, touring Broadway productions return to San

When Moreno starred in the original film, not only did

Antonio’s Majestic Theatre with the Lincoln Center Theater’s

white actors wear dark makeup to play Puerto Rican char-

acclaimed production of Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady.

acters, her skin, too, was darkened for her role. Despite the

This revival of the classic musical was nominated for mul-

way Hollywood functioned back then, many still consider

tiple Tonys and won five Outer Critics Circle Awards. Since

West Side Story one of the best musicals in cinematic history.

we’ve all been in various states of isolation and awkward-

It won 10 Oscars, including Best Picture, and was added to

ness during the pandemic, it can’t hurt to brush up on our

the National Film Registry in 1997 for being a “culturally significant” movie. The San Antonio World Heritage Office

elocution skills alongside Eliza Doolittle as she quests to Courtesy of AT&T Center

speak like a proper lady. $45-$125, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thurs-

from Deuce Bigelow is a bad idea and have looked elsewhere

day, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sunday,

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times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than those who have received the shot. Also, approximately 98% of recent COVID-19 deaths are unvaccinated people. Sorry (not sorry) if this doesn’t sound like a recommendation to go watch Schneider tell jokes at a venue where it’s likely that many of his fans are listening to his reckless opinions.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

There’s nothing funny about getting people sick. Some folks

Courtesy of Broadway in San Antonio

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.

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CURRENT | September 8 – September 21, 2021 | sacurrent.com

Located west of San Antonio, the White Shaman is an overlooked Texas marvel

BY BILL BAIRD

A

bout 200 miles west of San Antonio, a stone’s throw from the Pecos River bridge over U.S. Highway 90, lies the White Shaman preserve. The site’s centerpiece, a rock art mural dating back some 3,000 years, lays out a cosmology so sophisticated that some consider it to be North America’s first “book.”

Owned and maintained by San Antonio’s Witte Museum, the mural is one of many situated along the Lower Pecos Canyonlands — a confluence of the Rio Grande, Pecos and Devils river systems. While these artistic relics have been long revered by archaeologists and anthropologists, many Texans are unaware they even exist.

That may change since the National Park Service in January 2021 declared the Lower Pecos Canyonlands region a National Historic Landmark, something that may raise awareness of a historic jewel the Lone Star State should be proud to claim.

“The first feeling you get [when seeing White Shaman] is a feeling of awe, of going back in time,” said legendary Texas archaeologist Harry Shafer, the Witte’s curator of archaeology. “It really is wonderful, and we are proud to be a part of it.”

While the White Shaman preserve may not draw a lot of San Antonio visitors, some residents may have experienced the site indirectly through a recreation in the Witte Museum’s “People of the Pecos” exhibit.

Indeed, the museum’s entire second floor is a recreation of the area, from the rock floor to displays depicting the mural perched above the Pecos.

Preservation of the original site was a decades-long affair involving the Witte and other scholars, and work continues to this day to prevent the degradation of the artwork.

Taken together, the mural and the museum exhibit are essential to Texans’ understanding our place in the world, scholars such as Shafer argue. While the White Shaman hasn’t drawn the same level of recognition as the cave paintings of Lascaux or Altamira, it’s nonetheless a similar historical document located in our own backyard.

Visiting the site I made the drive to White Shaman early one Friday morning, after stopping for a dip in Del Rio’s San Felipe spring. My guides that day were Aimee Spana, the 18

CURRENT | September 8 - September 21, 2021 | sacurrent.com

Witte Museum’s vice president of visitor engagement, and Chester Leeds, an affable and loquacious volunteer who’s an encyclopedia of cave art knowledge.

“I used to go to Big Bend,” Leeds told me with a laugh. “But I saw the rock art out here, and now I can’t get any further than the Pecos!”

The site’s entrance is easy to miss — just a wroughtiron gate on Highway 90, the last driveway west of the Pecos River Bridge. After a short haul down a bumpy road — nothing a normal car can’t handle at slow speed — we parked and embarked. Reaching the mural takes a bit of a walk, and as we did, Leeds talked me through the site’s history.

“This plateau has been occupied for 14,000 years.

Only 20 to 25 people could live here at a time. Just not enough resources.” He pointed out a rock circle.

“That’s an earth oven. They roasted lechuguilla bulbs in the ovens, lived in brush huts nearby. The tuna of the cactus was also a main food source.”

He held up a mussel shell. “‘Finding a mussel shell on this plateau is like finding a turtle on a fencepost — it didn’t get up here by itself.”

The plateau above the mural is a thorny, dry and unforgiving landscape, degraded by 200 years of overgrazing. As we descended through a small canyon into a lush riparian habitat alongside the Pecos, Spana and I took stock of the scene.

“This is all part of it — the context of the art in this place, the walk to get there,” she said. “It’s all part of what makes White Shaman so special.”

Descending the canyon’s rocky steps, I saw my first rock art at the site — red linear and monochromatic figures. While striking, they’re not as advanced as the White Shaman mural. They looked more like simple stick figures, while the White Shaman feels sophisticated, advanced, almost contemporary. Even though it’s 3,000 years old.

Leeds explained that the White Shaman is polychromatic in composition. Its four colors were layered on each other, requiring the artist or artists to sketch it out well in advance.

“You had to know what you were doing,” he said.

“And the binder in the paint was animal fat, very hard to come by out here. That shows the importance of these murals. They gave up their most calorie-dense food source for the paint. Some folks might think of the mural as the hallucination scribbling of a shaman high on something. ... But it ain’t.”

Eventually, we ascended steep, rocky stairs to our destination. The White Shaman mural was tucked beneath an overhang, nestled in a natural amphitheater open to the river. Taken as a whole, it was jaw-dropping.

The painting depicts a creation myth of the People of the Lower Pecos, a group of hunter gatherers that occupied the land for thousands of years. Even though the mural’s symbols defied my easy understanding, I got the sense that it depicted something playing out around me — a natural world in constant creation. The story felt stunning in its complexity and execution. Something like a West Texas Sistine Chapel.

“This site, specifically, is unique because there is no evidence of occupation, which indicates its use as a ceremonial spot,” Spana said. “They didn’t have a written language, that we know of, so this would be considered a codex: one of their books.”

A layered universe Perhaps the most intriguing thing about the site is its alignment with celestial cycles. As the sun goes down during the winter solstice, a shadow rises from below, appearing to behead the white shaman figure from which the site derives its name.

“This site is connected to the night sky,” Spana said. “Researchers believe there are more celestial markings. Other calendar connections are being researched, connecting the site to the solstices.”

I stared at the mural, puzzled, for a good 10 minutes. Gradually, I got the slightest inkling of its intended meaning. Having a museum tour guide explaining things didn’t hurt, though.

Turns out, the art’s creation myth depicts the birth of the sun. The painted symbols represent the burned mountain (Quemado) and the ceremonial gathering of peyote using deer antlers. Five elders depicted in the mural help lead the journey from darkness to light.

Strewn throughout are depictions of people falling into holes — a journey into the underworld. The people of the Lower Pecos revered springs and water as sacred, which makes sense given the unforgiving Texas summers. Springs and sinkholes were considered gateways into the watery underworld where their ancestors resided. 20

arts Courtesy Photo / Witte Museum

Find more arts coverage every day at sacurrent.com

arts

18 “They believed in a layered universe,” Spana said. “The watery underworld below, the world inhabited by humans, and the ether above, the heavens.”

To see an entire belief system rendered in such exquisite detail — and in such an awe-inspiring natural setting — put the air-conditioned, carpeted Protestant church of my youth to shame. As I took in the mural, I got the sense that this was how to experience the wonder of the divine.

Natural amphitheater Despite the references to peyote in the mural, shamans of the Lower Pecos primarily made use of datura and mountain laurel berries, the area’s primary hallucinogens. Yes, in the case of the latter, those are the same red berries strewn through yards across San Antonio. Don’t go gobbling them down, though.

They’re poisonous, and an incorrect dose can prove fatal.

“Some college kids came out here, heard that datura is a hallucinogen and couple of them ODed on it,” Leeds said. “One of them died.”

He pointed out the wild hair of a figure on one of the murals. “One of the effects of datura – it makes your hair feel like it’s up on end. Hence that hairstyle.”

Gesturing to the cliffs opposite the site, Leeds floated a hypothesis about why the creation mural was created on this spot.

“The White Shaman is a natural amphitheater. It carries sound outward,” he said. “It’s almost like that cliff over there, folks could sit and listen while somebody stood in here, telling them the creation myth that’s written on the wall.”

But Leeds concedes, researchers haven’t yet amassed enough evidence to strongly postulate that was the case.

“I call this mural the ‘Rosetta Stone,’ because if we could figure this out, we could figure out all the Pecos River murals,” he added. “And it’d probably tell us something about ourselves.”

Deep history Archaeological research into the Lower Pecos region began in the 1930s when the Witte, the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Texas at Austin all undertook excavations. Among their initial finds were the famed Shumla Caves, whose staggering wealth of artifacts included thousands of relics, some dating back 6,000 years. The arid climate helped preserve the finds, which included not just tools, baskets and shoes but entire human skeletons with hair still on their heads.

During this time, Forrest and Lula Kirkland, married artists and inveterate explorers, first documented the major rock art sites of the region and painstakingly copied each mural in watercolor. As founder of the Dallas Archaeological Society and a top dog at the West Texas Historical and Scientific Society and Texas Archaeological Society, Forrest Kirkland was critical in spreading the word about Lower Pecos rock art. Though he died in 1942, the couple’s work eventually found publication in 1967’s The Rock Art of 20

CURRENT | September 8 - September 21, 2021 | sacurrent.com

Texas Indians. Other early explorers and advocates for the preservation of Lower Pecos rock art included the Witte’s Emma Gutzeit and Virginia Carson as well as San Antonio journalist A.T. Jackson.

In the ’50s, the federal government began plans for Amistad Reservoir, establishing an office of “archaeological salvage” to document Lower Pecos sites before they were flooded. This period yielded the earliest documentation of the White Shaman.

National Park Service archaeologists John Graham and William Davis visited the site, and using the Smithsonian’s trinomial numbering system, labelled it VV127. They painted the identifier on the wall next to the original mural. Interestingly, their number is already fading, while the mural itself, created thousands of years prior, maintains its visibility.

Though the river basins survey first visited the White Shaman, it was archaeologist Mark Parsons who recognized its importance. He even bestowed the rock art creation with its first proper name, the Jefferson Davis Mural, named for adjacent Highway

ing factors when the preservation group decided on a partner.

McDermott envisioned the second floor of the Witte as an integration of the museum’s previously acquired Shumla Caves relics with the White Shaman site. Transforming that section of the museum, which now includes the Kittie West Nelson Ferguson People of the Pecos Gallery, the Patty and Robert Hayes Habitation diorama, the George Williams Fate Bell Shelter, the Nancy Smith Hurd Rock Art Lab, the Capital Group Companies Outdoor Lab, and the Lifeways Lab, was a monumental undertaking that lasted four years, according to Witte officials.

To execute that grand vision, McDermott enlisted Shafer — quoted early in this article — a first-hand witness to the unfolding discovery of the Lower Pecos, to oversee the project.

By the time Shafer arrived at the Witte, he’d already led an illustrious career. Besides setting a University of Texas at Austin archaeology department record for earning his PhD in three years and starting Texas

Courtesy Photo / Chester Leeds

90, the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway.

The name stuck until the early ’90s, when San Antonio photographer Jim Zintgraff bestowed the site with its current moniker. Zintgraff was so struck by the murals of the people of the Lower Pecos that he formed the Rock Art Foundation (RAF) to preserve and protect them for future research and public access. In 1993, at Zintgraff’s urging, Texas oilman and philanthropist Gale Galloway purchased the land around the White Shaman and granted it to the RAF for preservation.

The mural site would likely not exist — for public viewing at least — if not for the advocacy of Zintgraff and the organization he founded, scholars point out.

In the Witte’s hands In 2016, after courting several suitors, RAF partnered with the Witte to maintain the White Shaman, and the group remains involved in the site’s preservation. The museum had been energized under the leadership of CEO Marise McDermott, and her personal touch and fundraising skill became decid-

A&M’s archaeology program, Shafer surveyed the Lower Pecos in 1962. That work was done in the final days before Lake Amistad swallowed up many of the murals.

“We were down in the Pecos River, Devils River and the Rio Grande before the dam,” Shafer said. “And that’s what hurt. We saw that beautiful landscape being inundated. … My God. If they knew then what we know now, I doubt that project would have happened.”

Shafer was part of a UT surveying team racing against the clock, documenting rock art sites before the lake swallowed them.

“There were three or four sites right under the White Shaman,” Shafer recalled. “They’re all underwater. We know that Amistad Reservoir covered 300 or 400 sites, at least, on the Texas side. Who knows how many on the Mexican side? Our reservoir salvage work was minuscule in terms of what was really there.

But it did give us a beginning baseline. There have been a number of studies done since then.”

Shafer led much of that research throughout the ’70s and ’80s, which helped piece together what life in the Lower Pecos was like thousands of years ago.

“We have some pretty good material records of the people who lived in those dry caves, going back 9,500 years,” he said. “All kinds of materials. It tells almost a complete story of their material world.”

After his career at Texas A&M, Shafer took the Witte job as a mellow retirement gig. Little did he know what he’d signed up for.

“It was the most challenging archaeological project I’ve ever done without digging a hole,” he said.

‘Top of the list’ The Witte’s second-floor gallery focuses on the Pecos River peoples of 2,000 to 4,000 years ago, the time of the polychromatic style of the art at the White Shaman site. Walking through the exhibit, one is literally immersed in a recreation of the rock shelter there. It extends from the floor to the walls to the ceiling. As visitors watch an informational video, they even sit on an ersatz boulder.

“Steven Alvarez from National Geographic Society

wandered into the gallery.

“They were painstaking to produce … and expensive. We could only afford nine of them,” Shafer said with a laugh.

Talking with Shafer, it’s clear he’s not just a researcher; he’s a passionate storyteller. Speaking to him for even a few moments paints a vivid picture of the ancient world he’s documenting.

“If you could imagine some of those canyons, every overhang with limestone would provide a canvas, there would be a painting,” he said. “And any waterhole. If it had a spring, if there was a tinaja, it related to their spiritual beliefs — to the underground, where their ancestors lived.”

Visual text Shafer is careful to make the distinction between material archaeology — his specialty — and the belief system contained within the paintings themselves. On the latter point, he defers to Carolyn Boyd,

in hieroglyphics. Written by Mesoamerican peoples including the Mixtec, Zapotec, Maya and Nahua (Aztec), the codices bear a striking connection to the White Shaman mural. It’s Boyd’s contention that the White Shaman is their precursor, making it the oldest known “book” in North America.

Just as intriguing is the mural’s possible connection to the modern-day Huichol tribe of Northern Mexico.

When a Huichol priest visited the White Shaman mural, he burst into tears, my guide Chester Leeds told me on my visit to the site.

“This is our creation myth,” the priest reportedly said.

“Although the names of the actors are different, the basic story line is virtually identical,” Boyd wrote in her 2016 book The White Shaman Mural. “Thus, whether informed by Nahua (Aztec) or Huichol mythologies, the reading of the White Shaman mural is the same. It is a visual text documenting the birth of the sun and the establishment of time.”

The Shumla Center has sought to document all Lower Pecos rock art sites in yet another race against the clock. Since Amistad’s construction, surface evaporation from the lake has added humidity to the desert air and accelerated the murals’ deterioration.

The effort to document the sites, called the Alexandria Project, is named for the ancient Egyptian library, whose destruction was an incalculable loss to world knowledge. Boyd sees the South Texas murals in similar terms. Each is an ancient book, and together, these riverside murals form a library.

“There is an urgent need to expediently document as many sites as possible before they are lost forever,” Boyd told The Art Newspaper earlier this year.

‘The power of the site’

Courtesy Photo / Witte Museum

was doing a special on rock art in North America and made a list of places to see,” Shafer said of the immersive showcase. “He said this gallery was at the top of the list — the best museum exhibit he’d ever seen to experience rock art. Top of the list.”

Right on cue, dozens of excited schoolchildren on a fieldtrip burst into the exhibit, chattering, laughing, absorbing the artifacts and atmosphere.

Shafer cracked a mile-wide smile. “That is what this is all about.”

To be sure, construction of the gallery was a painstaking process.

“The main challenge was creating the people themselves,” Shafer recalls. “We had examples of tools, dress, food remains, we had all the aspects of their lives, but we had to put it into a context. And to put it in proper context, we had to create the people.

We had to create the hair color, the eye color, the skin tone, the degree of wear on the feet.”

Shafer and his team combed through thousands of 19th century photographs of hunter gatherers from Northern Mexico for the background they needed.

The results are remarkably lifelike, prone to give one a double take to make sure a shirtless man hadn’t

Bill Baird

Left to right: Details of the rock art at the White Shaman preserve; lifelike figures in the Witte Museum’s second-floor exhibit; a closeup of the multicolored images at the White Shaman site.

M

founder of the Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center in Comstock.

“These are idiographic representations of their belief systems,” Shafer said. “And Carolyn Boyd has come close to figuring out stories in these paintings that relate to later codices in Central Mexico.”

Experts say Boyd delved the deepest into the belief system conveyed in the White Shaman, connecting their ancient cosmology to that of more recent peoples. In her own words, she founded Shumla to “use advanced science and technology in our fight to preserve the information held in the oldest ‘books’ in North America — the endangered murals of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas.”

Pre-Columbian books were known as codices and consisted of exquisitely rendered graphic writing.

Their pictures conveyed ideas, not words or letters as

My trek to the White Shaman site convinced me that experiencing it firsthand is optimum. Once you have done that — assuming you can — then come back and marvel at the Witte. Taken together, the preserve and the exhibit are an affirmation of humanity over the eons, of our need to tell stories, to create beauty, to reflect the world, to hold a mirror to nature. You feel the ancient people who created these images weren’t so different from us.

“These are the stories of their emergence, the stories of the cosmos, the stories of the stars in the sky.

This is the power of this site,” Shafer said.

Indeed, for San Antonio, a city that prides itself on its history, the White Shaman might be the most historic of all sites available to us. And there’s still so much to learn.

“While we do know a lot, there’s still so much left to discover,” guide Aimee Spana said. “And that is part of the beauty.”

Guided tours of the White Shaman site are available every Saturday at 12:30 p.m. from September through May. Reservations are required, and spaces are limited.

The Witte also offers seasonal guided tours to additional prehistoric and historic sites in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands Archaeological District. Reservations can be made online at wittemuseum.org/rock-art-tour-calendar, or by calling (210) 357-1910. sacurrent.com | September 8 - September 21, 2021 | CURRENT

21

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The Divas of Eastwood Saturday, OCT. 23, 2021

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Hiplet Ballerinas Saturday, JAN. 22, 2022

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CURRENT | September 8 - September 21, 2021 | sacurrent.com

arts All in the Details

A peek inside the Pearl’s new home and kitchen store Rancho Diaz

BY BRYAN RINDFUSS

D

iving even deeper into the realm of brick-and-mortar retail may sound like a risky game plan in the midst of a pandemic that’s seen iconic American companies file for bankruptcy and independent businesses shutter permanently. Yet that’s precisely what Ginger and Mario Diaz have bravely done by opening Rancho Diaz — a sizable new Pearl outpost that aims to cater to locals and tourists alike with a smartly curated mix of kitchenware and artsy home decor.

Although built on the success of their bright and bubbly Olmos Park gift shop Feliz Modern and its playful Pearl offshoot Feliz Modern Pop, Rancho Diaz is perhaps a more accurate reflection of the couple’s interests: he’s a foodie, she’s into home decor and they both love art and travel.

Travel, as it turns out, is essentially the germinating seed for Rancho Diaz — and it arrived in the form of a brass donkey Ginger picked up from a vintage store while road-tripping through New Mexico, Colorado and West Texas.

“I spent way more on him than I would ever spend at home,” she confessed. “But I always like to buy one trinket from each place [I visit] that only I would know is from that spot. In all the little nooks around my house are things from each trip.”

On the drive back to San Antonio, the little donkey got Ginger daydreaming about opening another store — one that would carry high-end merchandise and artisanal wares that might not fly in the context of Feliz Modern.

The Pearl space previously inhabited

by Austin-based accessories designer Leighelena had become available and with that in mind, Ginger texted about 10 people to ask them what they felt was missing from the complex.

“The majority wrote back and said, ‘vintage, kitchen, home,’ and that’s what I was thinking too,” she said.

That exchange got the wheels in motion for Rancho Diaz and future trips to Mexico to source merchandise and meet with artisans.

“When we travel to Mexico, there are

always these beautiful pieces that we don’t have room to bring back or are too fragile to bring back,” she said. “If we feel like that then a lot of other people do too. … Our goal is to carry things [at Rancho Diaz] that you can’t find online … things that are not really cost-effective for Amazon or other places to carry — really nice hand-hammered copper or huge trees of life direct from the artisans. You’re never going to find something like that online that’s easily shippable.”

Opened in mid-August, Rancho Diaz is already living up to that goal. In addition to the aforementioned ceramic trees of life — arboles de vida that get carefully packed in Mexico and driven to San Antonio by car — there’s an array of treasures that would be either risky to ship or difficult to find online.

Among those are intricately carved Oaxacan candles, heavy skull planters chiseled from stone blocks by Mexico City designer Piedrafuego, vibrantly patterned Huichol skulls coated in beeswax and thread, Otomi textiles sewn by an artisanal women’s collective in Hidalgo and majolica pottery from Gorky González — a well-known Guanajuato artist who’s creating samesex versions of his signature wedding plates especially for Rancho Diaz.

Beyond the artisanal, affordable options for home cooks and nesters abound, including colorful tableware and kitchen utensils, a wide assortment of charcuterie boards, salsa from local upstart Sierra Diablo, niche cookbooks, houseplants from New Braunfels-based Wild Roots Nursery and vintage finds provided by Tex Mex Dance Party, a pop-up concept from San Antonio-based Rose Reyes. As a complement to her vintage merchandise, Reyes brings her Tex Mex Dance Party to life with a monthly tardeada — complete with beer, dancing and vintage vinyl spinning — on Rancho Diaz’s front patio.

“The front patio is where we’re going to have all our activations,” Ginger said.

“We’re going to have tequila tastings, cooking demonstrations and other surprises.”

Rancho Diaz

Feliz Modern co-owners Ginger and Mario Diaz recently opened Rancho Diaz at the Pearl.

M

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CURRENT | September 8 - September 21, 2020 | sacurrent.com

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San Antonio author Max Booth III’s debut horror film We Need to Do Something hits TV and movie screens

BY KIKO MARTINEZ

T

here was no room for screenwriter and executive producer Max Booth III to hang out in the bathroom during the filming of We Need to Do Something.

What we mean by that is a bathroom happens to be the primary setting of Booth’s debut horror feature, which is based on his novella of the same name. And even if there was room, the confining metro Detroit soundstage was simply too much for him.

“It was claustrophobic as hell,” Booth told the Current during a recent interview.

“Despite [the bathroom] looking big when it’s empty, when you have a cast and a camera and a director in that room, there was no space at all.”

Booth — a San Antonio-based horror author, occasional Current contributor and co-owner of indie horror fiction press Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing — joked that despite his best efforts, he was unable to secure a spot in the vintage-looking lavatory.

“I did request multiple times that they let me play the toilet,” he said. “All those emails were ignored.”

We Need to Do Something, which is currently showing in limited theaters and available on demand, tells the story of a dysfunctional family that becomes trapped inside a bathroom when a tornado causes a tree to fall through the house and block the door. With no way out, the stress and panic intensify, and as the hours tick away, questions arise about an evil that may be lurking outside.

During our interview, Booth discussed the cast’s dynamic on the set, why he enjoys practical effects more than CGI and why negative reviews don’t bother him.

As people watch this movie, do you want them to think about ways they’d try to get out of the bathroom?

No. (Laughs.) To me, the point of the movie and the book wasn’t about the escape itself.

I’m pretty sure if anyone really thought about it, they could come up with an easy way to get out of the bathroom. The whole logistics of trying to escape was never the biggest priority to me. I’m sure any critic or audience member could easily point out plot holes with the structure of it, and that’s OK.

You were on set for the film’s production.

I’m assuming actor Pat Healy, who plays a

screens

Death Trap

IFC Midnight

sort of manic father, didn’t stay in character during the entire shoot, right?

No, he didn’t stay in character the whole time. He played this loud and violent and unpredictable husband and father, but between takes, he and the rest of the cast were singing songs and joking around. It was a really funny juxtaposition of this angry family and these co-workers kickin’ it between takes.

Tell us something about the snake that finds its way into the bathroom.

It was a puppet. We had almost all practical effects in the movie. [Creature effects creator] Dan Rebert is the guy who designed it and handled it. When the snake comes into the bathroom, [Dan’s] in the bathroom too, controlling the puppet with rods. I was told the second assistant director on the movie is terrified of snakes, so when we had to shoot a scene with the snake — even though it was a puppet — he would not go on set. It was too realistic for him.

Were you happy they decided to go with practical effects?

I was thrilled. The moment [the movie] felt like it was a real thing happening was when Dan started sending us test footage of a tongue he was building in his garage. I’ve always preferred practical effects. They look so much better to me, plus you get stronger performances from the cast because they’re not

just looking at a green tennis ball. They’re so much better than anything you could do on a computer.

That tongue was great.

The tongue is so much cooler than I ever visualized. It moves in the movie! I didn’t write it to move! When I saw that, I almost shit my pants in joy. It was like a [David] Cronenberg creation come to life.

I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say that I love when a movie ends vaguely. However, in my experience, most people don’t.

Trust me, I am discovering this. (Laughs.)

People don’t like ambiguity in movies. They want things spelled out. That’s OK. I’m not complaining about that. Publishing books for almost a decade has prepared me for negative reviews. They don’t really impact me, and I’m OK with reading them. It’s always interesting to see what someone will say is a negative thing and someone else will say is a positive.

I don’t know what you have planned next, but I could see you doing a horror anthology series.

Yeah, Tales from the Booth. That’s my website’s name. I came up with it when I was 12, and I don’t regret anything.

Find more film stories at sacurrent.com

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food

Ship Shape

Former Coast Guard looks to build community with Gather Brewing

BY NINA RANGEL

C

oast Guard veteran Mike Voeller loves beer.

So much so that while working as a cook on a polar icebreaker, the thing he missed most — other than spending time with his wife Rachel — was checking on his fermenting homebrews and sharing his homemade suds with other Coasties.

Now, with his military retirement four years behind him, Voeller is working to open Gather Brewing Co. in Universal City in October. The family-friendly, indoor/outdoor brewpub will marry his decades of culinary experience as a Coast Guard chef with his love of brewing.

Located just outside the main gate of Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, the new spot will offer craft beer, chef-prepared menu items and space to gather with friends. We talked with Voeller about his journey from Coastie life to entrepreneur — which kicked off with a humble homebrew kit.

How did the journey to Gather Brewing start?

[My wife Rachel and I] discovered beer gardens and brewpubs in the Northeast, and eventually, we weren’t spending our entire paychecks on trying new beers, but it was pretty close. In 2014, my mother-in-law gave me a homebrew kit for Christmas, and I started brewing beer on my stove. I was on a polar icebreaker at the time, so I would go underway for weeks, sometimes months, but when I got back, I’d check on my beer and hook up the guys on the boat. A few years later, we needed to decide whether I was going to get out [of the military] or stay in. So, in September of 2018, I retired, and we moved back to San Antonio and started planning the brewpub. I started experimenting with smallbatch beers and would invite friends and family over for tasting parties at the house.

We would have one every six to eight weeks for the year of 2019, and we got up to around 50 people in our 1,600-square-foot home.

What we loved about it was that people were off their phones and meeting people they wouldn’t have otherwise known if not for that gathering. Of course, the cramped quarters may have had something to do with that! So, that’s where Gather started. We started shopping for a building in November of 2019 and went under contract for what was da Bunker Bar in December.

Tell me about this building, the former

Courtesy Photo / Gather Brewing

da Bunker Bar space. I remember camouflage-painted walls.

Let me tell you, it needed all of the TLC. My wife downloaded a free trial of a 3D walkthrough software, and we took our plans to the Universal City Economic Development Council, where we were told the property lies in an Economic Development Zone. In these zones, the city works to make improvements to storefronts in the area, so they gave us a big chunk of money that made all of this construction possible. We spend a certain amount, and they refund us some of it, because they want businesses to thrive in the community. Of course, the timing was brutal. We closed on the building in February of 2020, and in early March, we realized we couldn’t really do anything with people quarantining. So, I started getting 40-foot dumpsters delivered to the space and tearing everything out. It gave my brother-in-law and I something to do other than be frustrated, sitting at home. It was a great use of that time.

We really put in some sweat equity … and now we’re just a few weeks away from being ready to open.

I’ve noticed that there are multiple seating options for future guests. What were your intentions in creating so many different spaces to hang out?

Our main focus was to recreate the community seating you would see at a beer garden, with the long table right in the middle of the taproom. It’s meant for people to pull up with a pint and meet someone new, you know, but there’s room for friends to come together and “gather.”

We’ll have about 85 to 90 seats inside, but outside on the main patio, we should have

another 150 seats. So, there will be plenty of space for people to spread out. We have two kids, and as parents, we always look for somewhere where we can sit and have a beer without being on edge, waiting for someone to fall off a swing. We also have a side patio, which we intend to use to section off space for folks to hold events, like military retirements. There are a lot of people on base here in town who are in their twilight tour, and we want to be able to provide a special place for them to celebrate their careers.

So, when you guys do open, what can folks expect to see on tap?

The first style we fell in love with was Belgian-style beer. We love saisons, IPAs, tripels.

So, that’s something that’s probably going to take up half of our menu at any given time.

We’ll definitely do a Belgian tripel, and the Mango Milkshake IPA we’ve poured at our pop-ups has been received really well. The IPA does have lactose in it, so it has a little sweetness. The heavily hopped [IPAs] are more of a niche market, but we definitely want to have one that’s a middle-of-the-road IPA, around 6-7% ABV range, and heavy on the tropical hops — something that’s bright, refreshing. I also love a quadruple ale, at the other end of the tapline, to provide those coffee, chocolate notes. We’re collaborating with [Selma-based] Steel Toe Coffee Co. and Ranger Creek Brewing to source bourbon barrels for future projects, which we’ll have more of once it cools down. I did a crash course with a brewer that has experience with big brands like Sierra Nevada, and he told me, “Brew what you love, and let it evolve from there.” So, that’s what we’re starting with: what we love.

Find more food & drink news at sacurrent.com

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CURRENT | September 8 – September 21, 2021 | sacurrent.com

food

Verve Pie, a new spot serving specialty vegan pizzas and ice cream, is now open in Cibolo.

After shuttering its Southtown store and taking a hiatus, vegan cheeseburger joint Blissful Burgers has reopened near the Medical Center.

San Antonio chefs Stephen Paprocki and Adrian Cruz have opened Gunslingers at the Los Patios complex. The new spot focuses on elevated fast-casual favorites.

Mobile coffee outfit Olla Express Café has opened a brick-and-mortar location in Northeast San Antonio.

Days after its grand opening, San Antonio’s first Mochinut — a chain serving Korean-style doughnuts — closed temporarily, citing lack of equipment. It’s slated to reopen this month.

San Antonio beer joint Brooster’s Backyard says it will open a Southside multi-sport complex with space for softball, sand volleyball, pickleball and more.

NEWS SA chef Steve McHugh will head an Oktoberfest-inspired San Antonio Food & Wine Alliance fundraising dinner at his renowned Cured at the

Pearl on Sunday, September 19.

The Slackers Arcade Bar mini-chain will take over now-defunct music venue Limelight on the St. Mary’s Strip.

Boerne BierFest will return Saturday, September 25 with a variety of craft brewers, artisans, food trucks and — naturally — a homebrew contest.

San Antonio International Airport will add a Whataburger outpost inside Terminal A next spring. Welcome to Texas!

Three flavors of San Antonio-born Quick Sip Cold Brew Coffee are now available at all Central Market locations and some H-E-B stores.

Local startup Wholesome Meats is now supplying sustainably raised beef to more than a dozen San Antonio H-E-B locations.

Southtown-area Künstler Brewing donated $2,500 to LGBTQ+ organization Fiesta Youth collected during the brewery’s June 19 Pride event.

Texas country music artist Randy Rogers has launched a new booze brand called Bahnbrëcker, inspired by his hometown of New Braunfels. Its first release is a Hefeweizen-inspired whiskey.

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Dellview Music stays true to six decades-old mission of creativity and community

BY BILL BAIRD

T

ucked into a virtually untouched 1950s shopping center near Castle Hills, Dellview Music Center has served as a training ground for generations of local musicians.

Founded in 1960 by legendary San Antonio guitarist Spud Goodall, the store was shortly taken over by Don and Gayle Pack, who taught lessons there until Don’s 2018 death.

Hundreds of local players took lessons at Dellview, 122 Latch Dr., cementing its role in local music history.

While the death of a longtime owner often spells the demise of homespun local businesses, Dellview got a new lease on life that same year after Gayle sold the shop to recent San Antonio transplants Nick Visser and Andrew Walker.

“Don and Gayle were a package,” Walker said. “Gayle ran the front of house and was the brains out front — scheduling, dealing with money, dealing with customers, lesson tracking, while Don was the charisma and the talent behind the lessons.”

While both Visser and Walker are musicians and instructors, they didn’t see themselves as business owners until they found out the store was for sale through mutual connections. The father of Walker’s girlfriend drummed for Don Pack during the last 10 years of the shop owner’s life.

“We didn’t feel like the most likely candi-

dates and had no idea what we were doing,” Walker said. “But we both love teaching. So, it made sense in many ways.”

Walker and Visser met while roommates during their freshman year of college at Central Michigan University. After teaching abroad, Walker moved back to the states, eventually landing a job in San Antonio in 2015.

“I moved down here thinking I’d travel to Austin all the time, but I fell in love with San Antonio and had no desire to go up there,” he said.

Visser lived in Chicago at that time, and after experiencing a pair of especially harsh winters, it didn’t take much convincing for Walker to draw him to the Alamo City.

“I called him up and could hear him shivering,” Walker said. “Told him, ‘Hey, it’s October and I’m in shorts.’”

Visser moved down two weeks later. The duo formed the vocal harmony group Midwest Armadillo and set out to become part of the community.

“I fell in love with the city,” Visser said. “People in San Antonio are really kind, the food is great, and it’s a tight-knit community. Folks from here have a lot of love for this city, a lot of pride.”

Although initially hesitant to take over Dellview after learning it was for sale, the store charmed the two friends, in no small

music

Musical Time Capsule

Bill Baird

part due to Gayle Pack herself.

“When we pulled up, Gayle was watering a plant. ‘Hello boys,’ she said,” Visser recalled with a laugh. “From the minute we walked in, we fell in love with this place. We were grinning ear to ear.”

“Gayle is an amazing human being,” Walker added. “She lives just down the road. We check on her frequently. She’s our adopted grandma, and more than anything, she’s a force. She set the tone for this place.”

It’s a tone the new owners are intent on keeping intact. Although with the addition of some youthful energy.

“This is a time capsule as much as a business, and we have a responsibility of being true to the legacy,” Walker said.

Six-string lineage Perhaps it’s fitting to show that kind of reverence to a shop founded by Goodall, one of the greatest guitar players Texas produced — even if he’s not among the most recognized. After stints with Tex Ritter and Willie Nelson, and even rubbing elbows with Les Paul, Goodall settled in San Antonio, playing with the legendary Jim Cullum Jazz Band.

After starting Dellview, Goodall eventually recruited Don Pack as an instructor. Pack’s skills on the pedal steel were formidable, landing him work with Willie Nelson, Hank Thompson, Tony Booth and Slim Roberts.

But Goodall and Pack weren’t the only guitar heavyweights involved with Dellview. Another of its instructors, Galen Niles, played with San Antonio garage rock greats including The Outcasts, The Mind’s Eye, Homer and Ultra. 33

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CURRENT | September 8 – September 21, 2021 | sacurrent.com

music calendar Thursday, September 9

Harry Styles After getting his start as “the cutest one” in boy-pop band One Direction, Styles eventually grew into an acclaimed solo singer adored by girls, boys and everyone in-between. On this previously postponed tour, Styles rolls off his 2019 album Fine Line which includes nods to the psychedelic, progressive sounds of the ’60s and ’70s. We’re guessing there will be plenty of screaming from both new teenage fans and those that have grown up to become adult superfans. $453-$698, 8 p.m., AT&T Center, 1 AT&T Center Parkway, (210) 444-5000, attcenter.com. — Brianna Espinoza

Friday, September 10 Garrett T. Capps, Santiago Jimenez Jr. and More Even when planning a record-release show, space cowboy Garrett T. Capps continues to show his appreciation for all things San Antone. How else to explain the inspired bill for the release of his latest release, “I Love San Antonio?” After all, the stacked bill includes not just Capps and his band but bona fide conjunto legend Santiago Jimenez Jr., twangy garage rockers Mitch Webb & the Swindles and country singer and actual rodeo queen Madelyn Victoria? Capps is billing the free show as an “album release fiesta,” and we’d be hard pressed to disagree. Also, note that the show has been relocated to the Paper Tiger to accommodate what’s likely to be a big turnout.

Free, 6 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — Sanford Nowlin Leon Bridges Fort Worth-raised, Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, record producer and guitarist Leon Bridges has emerged as one of today’s most compelling R&B artists. Bridges’ powerful yet gentle voice allows him to carry the torch for the soul sounds of the ’50s and ’60s into modern times. $175-$348, 8 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — BE

Saturday, September 11 City and Colour Dallas Green, former vocalist of post-hardcore pioneers Alexisonfire, is returning to the 210 with his current and internationally lauded project City and Colour. Green’s unmistakable airy voice and hauntingly beautiful alternative ballads have moved a lot of records, and they certainly translate live as well. Tejano soul newcomers Nuevo open the evening. $39-$72.50, 8 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St. theaztectheatre.com. — Enrique Bonilla

Sunday, September 12 Esmé Patterson Often described as “folk and roll,” Patterson — a former member of the band Paper Bird — brings a minimal production aesthetic with a strumming, good-times vibe on her 2020 release There Will Soon Come Soft Rains. Clearly,

Van Morrison is a key musical influence, though her strong pro-mask, pro-vaccine stance guarantees she won’t be sharing a moondance with him anytime soon. $13, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. – Mike McMahan

31 “The history of this place is kind of mindboggling,” Walker said. “It kind of dwarfs us in a way, but we are happy to be part of it.”

Garrett T. Capps

Time-capsule vibe

Monday, September 13 Provoker Gothy, synthy, post-punk rockers Provoker fall into a weird category: their songs could appeal to the youngsters of today who dress E-girl style or those who mimic the fashion of the late ’90s. Either way, this bass-heavy band sets itself apart from others mining similar territory thanks to an unexpected display of vocal range. $10-$15, 7 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — BE

Tuesday, September 14 Herbie Hancock Truly a man who needs no introduction, jazz icon Hancock is back on the road after a pandemic-inspired layoff. The keyboardist’s career has included a stint with Miles Davis, a run of trailblazing, ’70s fusion/funk records, duo recordings with Wayne Shorter and even a synth-driven ’80s mega-hit (“Rockit”). His accessible style is a great intro for those who haven’t ever jumped into live jazz. $31.60-$89.50, 7:30 p.m., Tobin Center, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. — MM

Wednesday, September 15 Immortal Guardian While progressive power metal act Immortal Guardian uses Vegas as a home base now, the group originally hailed from the Valley — Harlingen, to be exact — and it’s no stranger to San Antonio. This return to those Alamo City stomping grounds is to showcase the band’s second full-length release, Psychosomatic. $12, 7 p.m., Vibes Underground, 1211 E. Houston St., facebook.com/vibeseventcenter. — EB Earth, Wind & Fire From numerous Grammys on their shelves to their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, soul and R&B heavyweights Earth, Wind & Fire are easily one of the most commercially successful acts of the 20th century. Expect to relive old times or look forward to new ones as the band trots out its cavalcade of infectious hits. $100-$521, 8 p.m., Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-5700, majesticempire. com. — EB

Thursday, September 16 Cold War Kids California natives Cold War Kids made waves in the early 2000s by infusing blues into their take on the indie genre. Singer Nathan Willett’s high, vibrato-heavy vocals may not work for everybody, but the band has proved through the years that it can bounce from soulful melodies to light, poppy rhythms. $25, 7 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx. com. — BE

Courtesy Photo Garrett T. Capps

Friday, September 17 Van Wilks Wilks’ name should ring a bell for fans of classic blues and rock ’n’ roll. A revered live performer, he’s been voted best guitarist four times in the Austin Chronicle Music Awards and inducted into the Texas Music Hall of Fame. Bonus: he’s playing for free. Free, 7 p.m., Gruene Hall, 1281 Gruene Road, (830) 606-1281, gruenehall.com.

— EB

Saturday, September 18 Soulfly Fronted by South American metal legend Max Cavalera, formerly of Sepultura, Soulfly’s ranks are currently fleshed out by Fear Factory’s Dino Cazares, who’s filling in for departed guitarist Marc Rizzo. Cavalera is the embodiment of 21st-century metal’s international vibe, a spirit he really embodied when he led Sepultura through its Roots LP in the mid ’90s. If extreme metal has a Bob Marley-esque figure, it’s Calavera. $21, 7:30 p.m., Rock Box, 1223 E. Houston St., (210) 255-3833, therockboxsa.com. — MM Bully Bully frontwoman Alicia Bognanno interned with legendary indie curmudgeon Steve Albini, and the band also released an acclaimed cover of Nirvana’s “About a Girl” last year. Despite its clear ’90s foundation, the Nashville-based band is very much of the now. The group is supporting its most recent LP Sugaregg, and Bognanno has been burning up social media with her joy from being back on the road. No living in the past here. $18, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com.

— MM

Sunday, September 19 Jackyl What’s that sound? Is that a … chainsaw? In the afternoon? Yes, it is a chainsaw and, yes, that is Jackyl playing an afternoon show. Somehow, the hard rock band has managed to carve a decades-long career out of its 1992 novelty hit “The Lumberjack,” which featured frontman Jesse James Dupree soloing on the aforementioned power tool. The band has continued to release music, even if the world has moved on from its style. They revisited their previous muse on 2012’s Best in Show LP, which included the single — and we shit you not — “Screwdriver.” $15-$35, 2 p.m., River Road Ice House, 1791 Hueco Springs Loop Road, New Braunfels, (830) 626-1335, riverroadicehouse.com. — MM

Walking into Dellview, it’s easy to understand that enthusiasm. The shop feels like something out of a Wes Anderson film set in San Antonio — an immaculately curated and preserved slice of Americana.

“We repainted the interior based on the color scheme from a 1960s Fender Mustang guitar,” Visser said, pointing out the walls’ retro seafoam green stripes. “We were a little worried, but [Gayle] came in after our remodel and said, ‘It looks exactly the same!’”

The repainted walls are still lined with photos of former students, complete with soft focus, feathered hair and double exposures. It’s like a vintage JCPenney photoshoot taken on the Dazed and Confused movie set.

Though lessons remain Dellview’s bread and butter, the shop stocks a collection of guitars and ukuleles.

Little Stage Although much about the business remains unchanged, Walker and Visser have added one twist of their own. The pair’s focus on community led them to establish the Little Stage concert series two years ago, hosting sets by performers ranging from local musical veteran Claude “Butch” Morgan to fast-rising alt-country talent Garrett T. Capps.

When the pandemic hit, the concerts went online. They continue in a livestream format.

However, the COVID crisis forced not just a shift in the live shows but also how Dellview offers lessons.

“It’s strange to say, but shutting down in-person lessons made me a better teacher,” Visser said. “Remote teaching forces you to be really clear in your language and your resources. You have to really be organized.”

Not many folks would see the pandemic in such an optimistic light, but that’s the nature of Dellview’s new proprietors — optimistic and forward-thinking.

“Running a small business is an insane amount of time and effort,” Walker said. “We made it through this last year and kept the lights on. Now it can only get better. We are going to continue community building and continue giving great music lessons.”

sacurrent.com | September 8 – September 21, 2021 | CURRENT

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