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in this issue
08 Bad Takes
07 News
The Opener News in Brief
Bad Takes
Whether from right or left, militant protest deserves mercy, not mass incarceration ‘Authoritarian Rampage’
Elon Musk’s federal downsizing plans could close as many as 450 Texas facilities
Beyond Belief
When it comes to school vouchers, Gov. Greg Abbott weaves the kinds of lies one researcher warns are jeopardizing democracy
Cityscrapes
Why are San Antonio’s city leaders so apparently ambivalent about Project Marvel?
23 Arts
Finding the Funny
Jeremy Piven’s pivot to stand-up comedy a natural progression as entertainer
25 Screens
Making a Killing
Melonie Diaz takes back power as vengeful crypto investor in thriller Cold Wallet
27 Food
Dinner and a Show
Watching wizards make your food is part of the fun at San Antonio’s Noodles & Dumplings
Cool Concept
Houston restaurateur Levi Goode dishes on what to expect from Otto’s Ice House, his new Pearl project
Chill Time
Our picks of things to do
San Antonio Icehouse Week, which runs through March 2, features deals at local icehouses, bars and eateries
Instagram govabbott
HEALTHYMOM. HEALTHYBABY. HEALTHY M HEALTHY B O AB
Bla die
You are in control of your pregnancy, and your concerns are valid.
M. Y.
Blackwomen intheUSare 3X morelikelythan Whitewomen to diefrom complicationssurroundingpregnancy&childbirth.
men irth.
Blackwomen have higherrates ofpreterm&lowbirthweightbirths.
Trust your instincts and speak up if something does not feel right.
Black women higher rates of preterm does & low birthweight births.
Scan the QR code to learn about maternal warning signs and available resources.
Death rates for infants born to Black women higher than infants born to White women.
That Rocks/That Sucks
HA Texas judge last week ordered a New York doctor to pay more than $100,000 in penalties for prescribing abortion pills to a woman in the Dallas area, as a court ba le escalates over laws in Democrat-controlled states that protect doctors who provide abortion care. An average of 2,800 Texans obtain abortion-inducing medications through the mail each month, according to the Society of Family Planning.
Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez announced last week that he and his husband Nathan are expecting a child through a surrogate. “We’re overjoyed to be welcoming a precious baby girl into our family, a beautiful reminder that love grows in the most magical ways,” McKee-Rodriguez wrote in a Facebook post. McKee-Rodriguez has a busy year ahead: he’s up for re-election for his final council term in May, and the baby is due in July.
Our Lady of the Lake University is cu ing jobs and academic programs as grapples with a budget shortfall. The decision to make cuts at the West Side university follows a two-year study from its trustees. The university hasn’t yet provided details on what programs or jobs will be cut or when. However, tuition — currently around $30,000 — won’t go up, officials said.
A Boston-based federal appeals court last week rejected a Trump administration appeal to reinstate its sweeping pause on federal funding. The White House issued its memo pausing all federal grants and loans in late January, but a lower court blocked the move. As of last week the administration still hadn’t restored all grants and loans — a situation Judge John McConnell ordered the administration to “immediately take every step necessary” to rectify. — Abe Asher
Cheering on Trump as he shits all over Texans with Attorney General Ken Paxton
Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.
Texas A orney General Ken Paxton sure does smirk a lot when he has his photo taken.
Seems likely the Republican culture warrior’s state of perpetually snide amusement comes down to Texans reelecting him three times despite his complete disdain for their needs. During his time as the state’s top cop, Paxton’s shown more interest in engaging in divisive politics and furthering his own ambitions than looking out for the regular folks who keep voting for him.
For a second, let’s leave aside Paxton’s impeachment in the Texas House, the since-dropped felony securities fraud case against him and his laughable Supreme Court lawsuit to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election.
Sleazy to be sure, but let’s focus on the here and now. In recent days, Paxton had two big chances to show just where his allegiances lie. In both, he demonstrated that they lie squarely with Trump — and the people of Texas can go fuck themselves using lube they spent their own hard-earned cash to buy.
Exhibit A is a lawsuit Democratic a orneys general from 22 states filed against the Trump administration to block a National Institutes of Health policy change that would decimate research budgets for universities, medical centers and other institutions. Within hours, a federal judge issued a temporary halt to the order and set a hearing to determine its ultimate legality.
The NIH order endangers $444 million in support for Lone Star State research institutions that create jobs, intellectual property and contribute to the economy, according to a Texas Tribune report.
Even so, Paxton was nowhere to be seen.
Even if he didn’t want to throw in with Democrat
AGs, he could have filed his own suit to protect Texas. But he didn’t. For someone who’s taken such delight in suing the feds over the years, it was a chickenshit move.
Then there’s Paxton’s response to growing concerns that unelected billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) accessed Americans’ most-sensitive private data as its staff parsed through Treasury Department records.
Nineteen AGs filed suit in response, but once again, Paxton — who’s previously gone after tech companies for purported invasions of Texans’ privacy — sat on the sidelines. No, scratch that. Kenny Boy didn’t just sit on the sidelines, he cheered from the sidelines.
When the Express-News sought a statement from Paxton on DOGE’s ransacking of sensitive data, he fired off what amounted to an a aboy for Trump’s tech bro BFF.
“Elon Musk and the DOGE team are doing incredible work to cut the wasteful spending that Washington politicians have forced Americans to pay for year after year,” Paxton told the daily.
Until Texans get off their asses and vote out this assclown who so clearly considers them secondary to his blind allegiance to Trump, expect that smirk
YOU SAID IT!
“If you ever wondered what buffoonery looks like, here is Exhibit A.”
— CityCouncilmanMannyPelaez, amayoralcandidate,inatweetresponding tocouncilcolleagueJohnCourage announcingplanstoseekthecity’s highestelectedofficeafterdropping from the race in December.
Gov. Greg Abbo last week said that Texas could sell or lease more than 100 miles of borderland to the federal government as part of the state’s partnership with the Trump administration aimed at curtailing migration. The land Abbo discussed handing over to the feds includes more than 50 miles of constructed border wall, nearly 20 miles of planned border wall and easements to build more barriers along with military beds and jail cells.
A judge in Cameron County approved a petition last week clearing the way for employees of Elon Musk’s SpaceX to hold an election to decide whether to make the company’s Starbase headquarters a new city. The proposed town, which
would be home to around 500 residents living in homes owned almost exclusively by SpaceX, is located some 25 miles east of Brownsville.
The Texas Education Agency has declined to renew the charter of a San Antonio charter school dealing with multiple controversies. The Gathering Place, founded in 2020, emphasizes experiential learning and social justice. The school struggled with substandard test scores and a high rate of student turnover, according to news reports. The campus also faced financial challenges and reportedly hired special education staff who lacked required certifications. — Abe Asher
Wikimedia / Gage Skidmore
Call it what it is: Trump and Abbott are tearing down DEI to undermine Blacks, Latinos and other minorities
BY KEVIN SANCHEZ
Bad Takes is a column of opinion and analysis.
Whites, it must frankly be said, are not pu ing in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so li le to learn.
— Martin Luther King Jr., “Where Do We Go From Here?”, 1967
In one of history’s unforgiving ironies, President Donald Trump’s second inauguration fell on Martin Luther King Day.
“In his honor, we will strive together to make his dream a reality,” Trump declared to thunderous applause. “We will make his dream come true.”
Safe to say Trump’s bygone vision of national greatness would count among King’s worst nightmares.
Where King inspired us to “develop a world perspective,” Trump touts America First. Where King preached nonviolence, Trump fomented a riotous mob to storm the Capitol. And on his first day in office, Trump ordered the termination of all “diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility” programs, abbreviated as DEIA, or more commonly, DEI.
“What lawful DEIA programs actually do is expand recruitment efforts — interviewing not just at the Ivy League but also at state universities, community colleges and historically Black colleges and universities, for example — so that a broader cross-section of talent can compete for job opportunities,” civil rights a orney Karla Gilbride, former counsel for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, wrote in Slate magazine.
“[DEIA programs] also remove barriers that would make it difficult for some workers to advance, like offering training and networking opportunities at different times of day rather than only in the evenings when people with caregiving responsibilities would have a hard time a ending. And [they] seek to make sure
that all workers are valued and supported, such as by having floating holidays that allow people with different religious observances to take off from work.
Lawful DEIA efforts could also involve ensuring that any company systems accessed by employees are compatible with assistive technology used by people with disabilities ... which hits particularly close to home for me as a blind person.”
Even so, those affordances to create welcoming places to work and to learn are what Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order maligned as “shameful discrimination.”
Once again following Trump’s lead, Texas Gov. Greg Abbo seconded that false framing in his Feb. 2 State of the State address.
“We must purge DEI from every corner of our schools and return the focus to merit,” Abbo asserted.
In Texas as elsewhere, DEI has served as a convenient pretext for defunding public schools and dismantling higher education — axes that reactionaries would grind regardless of whatever buzzwords were popular.
Yet who would presume that accommodating a person in a wheelchair, for example, discriminates against those more able-bodied? As Gilbride noted in her Slate article, former President Joe Biden’s DEI orders, since rescinded by Trump, “covered such topics as making sure federal office buildings were physically accessible to people with disabilities.”
Must a meritocracy be a needlessly difficult society to get around in?
If “the Biden Administration forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs ... into virtually all aspects of the federal government,” as Trump’s order alleged, we’d surely expect to mark the effect on our nation’s largest workforce: federal employees.
However, the numbers tell a different story. More than 75% of senior executives in government jobs are white and more than 62% are men. Would truly merit-based hiring mean an even greater percentage of white men with anything less supplying knock-down proof of socalled reverse racism or sexism?
“DEI has become the new N-word,” progressive broadcaster Mehdi Hasan opined in The Guardian this month.
Hasan is now the editor-in-chief at Zeteo, an independent news organization he started after MSNBC cancelled his show around the same time he stepped up his uncompromising coverage of the decimation of Gaza. In other words, he’s an actually someone who persevered in the face of cancel culture.
As evidence that DEI functions as a coded slur, Hasan quoted Trump advisor Alina Habba, who claimed during a Fox News appearance that Biden’s White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre “was put in there for DEI reasons.”
Jean-Pierre earned a master’s degree from Columbia University and went on to lecture in international and public affairs. She also worked on the successful presidential bids of Barack Obama. Call her a dummy if you like, but she’s far from unqualified. It seems obvious she’s ripe for targeting by MAGA mouthpieces because she’s Black and gay.
Indeed, the last time “DEI” was trending as high as right now on Google internet searches was back in July 2024. That’s when Republicans including Tennessee Congressman Tim Burche delighted in calling Vice President Kamala Harris a “DEI hire” shortly after she became the Democratic nominee. Whatever her shortcomings, unbiased political observers would put her credentials up against most any of Trump’s cabinet picks, who were chosen more for their loyalty and capacity to troll than on their merits.
For Hasan, DEI “is thrown around ... for the express purpose of undermining Black people in public life.” And the term’s loose deployment has overshot the absurd.
DEI,” Hasan lampooned, linking to receipt after receipt. “This isn’t a good-faith critique of diversity policies — whether they actually work or not; whether they restrict free speech; whether they are corporate box-ticking exercises. No, this is the weaponization of a three-le er term to denigrate Black people and pretend the political and economic advancement of minority communities over the past 60 years was a mistake.”
MLK devoted his life to that advancement. Now, an Office of Management and Budget memo sent out on the administration’s seventh day proclaimed, “The use of federal resources to advance Marxist equity ... is a waste of taxpayer dollars.”
“It is worth noting that Abraham Lincoln warmly welcomed the support of Karl Marx during the Civil War and corresponded with him freely,” King accurately stated in 1968 at an event honoring what would have been the 100th birthday of one of his mentors, W.E.B. Du Bois, the father of American sociology.
“It is time to cease muting the fact that Dr. Du Bois was a genius and chose to be a communist,” King continued. “Our irrational obsessive anti-communism has led us into too many quagmires to be retained as if it were a mode of scientific thinking.”
Although minority outreach and boring sensitivity orientations hardly qualify as Marxist, the right-wing clickbait machine’s stoking outrage over DEI appears to be goosestepping us straight into real danger.
A “DEI Watch List” now circulating on MAGA websites features photos, names and personal info of state health workers, mostly Black employees within the Department of Health and Human Services.
“It’s clear racism,” Dr. Georges Benja-
Instagram / govabbott
min, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told NBC News. “This is a scare tactic to try to intimidate people who are trying to do their work and do it admirably.”
“Racism exists, always has, always will, unfortunately. It’s a disaster,” NBA legend Charles Barkley lamented on an Inside The NBA special devoted to MLK Day. “And I wish people would understand that politicians do a good job of making us fight with each other. They try to make it about Black, white, immigration, homosexuality and all these different things, but what it is, is rich people making people not like each other. And until we address that, we’re never gonna be successful.”
That’s actually a central thesis of Du Bois’ magnum opus, Black Reconstruction, the history of how newly emancipated Blacks and their Republican allies tried to expand our democracy, only to fall short as wealthy elites from both North and South colluded to strategically divide and re-conquer.
President Andrew Johnson, for example, terminated the Freedmen’s Bureau, intended to help the formerly enslaved establish homesteads and find jobs, due to objections over — you guessed it — alleged discrimination against whites.
One need not be an eminent historian to draw a line from Johnson to Trump’s recent edicts.
Not that the old-school civil rights guard is taking all this laying down. Ninety-four-year-old labor leader Dolores Huerta, who helped found the United Farm Workers, has called for a “Latino freeze” to boyco companies that
cravenly rolled back their DEI initiatives after Trump’s election.
While anti-woke di oheads target the nation’s caregivers for harassment, real anti-racists target their civil disobedience at the largest corporations on Earth.
DEI programs are not reparations for slavery and segregation — something supported by more than 75% of Black Americans — nor even John F. Kennedy’s now-discarded idea of affirmative action. We can exhaust a lot of energy debunking willful disinformation claiming DEI somehow lowers standards or imposes quotas — the la er of which have been illegal since the 1970s. Every air traffic controller, every surgeon, every student still had to pass the same tests as before.
And while DEI is a painfully long way from healing the injustices of the past, if we can’t even defend half-measures, what hope do we have of laying a sturdier foundation for an egalitarian future?
“In closing it would be well to remind white America of its debt to Dr. Du Bois,” King summed up the commemoration of his friend. “When they corrupted African American history, they distorted American history, because we’re too big a part of the building of this nation to be written out of it ... . White America, drenched with lies, has lived too long in a fog of ignorance. Dr. Du Bois gave them a gift of truth for which they should eternally be indebted to him.”
Until we repair the tattered remains of MLK’s dream, Donald Trump has every intention of stopping payment on that check.
Wikimedia Commons Rowland Scherman
‘Authoritarian Rampage’
Elon Musk’s federal downsizing plans could close as many as 450 Texas facilities
BY SANFORD NOWLIN
Billionaire Elon Musk’s chainsaw diet for the U.S. government could shu er nearly 450 federal offices across Texas that do anything from assisting ailing veterans to answering questions about retirement and disability benefits, records show.
The closures, which also could include as many as 25 San Antonio properties, would gut the government’s ability to deliver vital services Texans access daily, critics charge. Sites on the chopping block include offices of the Social Security Administration, the Farm Service Agency and the Small Business Administration along with Veterans Administration facilities, according to a federal website listing holdings by the General Services Administration, the government’s real estate arm.
“Elon Musk is on an authoritarian rampage through the federal government,” said Rob Weissman, co-president of watchdog group Public Citizen, which as of press time has filed at least three lawsuits to rein in the billionaire Trump donor’s DOGE, or Department of Government Efficiency.
“While Musk tried to say that this is all about improving efficiency, it’s not efficient to get rid of government offices that directly serve the public and play an important function,” Weissman added. “It’s completely arbitrary, dangerous and puts the cost back on all of us.”
As evidence of the closures’ unintended consequences, critics point to the Musk’s downsizing efforts at the Department of Energy, which were paused over fears they could affect the nation’s nuclear defense programs.
Widespread closures
Citing communications from
Trump administration officials, the Washington Post reports that DOGE’s plans to slash government spending include eliminating half of all federal nonmilitary real estate nationwide. Those cuts are planned on top of personnel reductions that have already taken place, including a mass firing of thousands of probationary employees on the job for fewer than two years.
At present, more than 70 federal agencies have facilities across the San Antonio metro, according to Texas AFL-CIO Executive Board Member Marinella Murillo. Some 240,000 jobs in Bexar and surrounding counties are directly or indirectly related to the U.S. government, she added.
A sweeping closure of those facilities would mean a less responsive government and more frustration for those who rely on federal facilities for everyday services, from veterans seeking mental health assistance to rural residents seeking farm loans, experts said.
“Government employees aren’t out there loafing,” said Murillo, a retired
federal employee who served in both the SBA and the Housing and Urban Development. “Their work effects the lives of everyday people across San Antonio on a daily basis. It’s a hard pill to swallow.”
Should Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency carry through with its plans, Texas would be hit especially hard. The Lone Star State is home to 894 federal offices, at least 50 of them in San Antonio, according to the GSA’s online inventory. That means up to 447 statewide could be on Musk’s chopping block.
Four people with knowledge of internal GSA talks told the Post that the property selloff is part of DOGE’s effort to force federal field workers to quit by decimating morale.
“We’ve heard from them that they want to make the buildings so crappy that people will leave,” one senior GSA official told the paper. “I think that’s the larger goal here, which is bring everybody back, the buildings are going to suck, their commutes are
MProtesters demonstrate against Elon Musk and DOGE in San Antonio last week.
going to suck.”
Trinity University economist David Macpherson said a widespread closure of government offices would result in a glut of vacant space across San Antonio and other affected cities. However, he said the larger impact would come from the hemorrhaging of government employees, whose salaries and buying dollars play a significant role in local economies.
“It will increase unemployment, decrease spending and harm the city,” he said. “Economically, it can’t possibly do any good.”
<No sign of backing down
While Trump has trumpeted DOGE as a means to rein in deficits, cutting the government workforce by
Anthony Dominic Tamayo
Mone-fourth would only reduce federal spending by roughly 1%, according to a Washington Post analysis.
Multiple courts have intervened to temporarily stop Musk’s drastic downsizing moves, and the Trump administration now faces dozens of lawsuits over its power grabs. More than a dozen sued late last week to nullify DOGE over its unconstitutional actions, asking a federal judge to stop the entity’s takeover of federal agencies and their data.
Even so, Musk and Trump have shown no sign of backing off from their attempts to dismantle the federal government. Experts said the moves set up what could be one the biggest court fights over presidential power in U.S. history.
Without offering any proof, Musk told reporters last week in an Oval Office press conference that federal employees have somehow used taxpayer money to make themselves richer than their salaries could allow.
“We find it sort of rather odd that there are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have ostensibly a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow manage to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position,” he said, offering no further
proof.
The claim is offensive to AFL-CIO’s Murillo, who said most federal employees are driven by a desire to serve their country, not a desire to become rich.
While Musk has made vague claims about using technology and AI to fill vacant government positions, she said those can’t replace those who use their expertise to answer complex questions for everyday people.
She worries San Antonio, which has a large veteran population and is grappling with issues of poverty and housing affordability, will be especially hard hit if federal agencies pull up stakes.
“There will be serious consequences from this, serious repercussions,” Murillo added.
Weissman of Public Citizen said his group is poised to file more suits to put the brakes on Musk and DOGE. However, he said the ba le can’t be waged in the courts alone. Members of the Republican-controlled Congress must recognize the damage being done in their home districts and stand up to Trump.
“There’s both an arrogance to what Musk is doing and a complete lack of understanding how government actually works,” he said.
Sanford Nowlin
San Antonians enter the Social Security office downtown.
•
OPEN THE DOOR TO
Beyond Belief
When it comes to school vouchers, Gov. Greg Abbott weaves the kinds of lies one researcher warns are jeopardizing democracy
BY MICHAEL KARLIS
The following story is a piece of opinion and analysis.
Politicians lie. Always have. However, it looks Trump’s second term has emboldened certain GOP politicos, especially in Texas, to fire off increasingly bold falsehoods with an increasing lack of hesitancy.
Take Gov. Greg Abbott, who’s employed some stunning whoppers in recent weeks as forges ahead with his campaign to force school vouchers on Texans, whether they want them or not.
In a Feb. 13 tweet, for example, Abbott declared “school choice doesn’t take a penny from public schools.”
Of course, that’s utter bullshit. Academic researchers, public school advocates and common sense all tell us that if parents are incentivized to pull their kids out of public schools and stick them in private ones, public school districts lose money. After all, public school funding in Texas is based on enrollment and attendance.
Don’t believe it? That’s fine, because Abbott himself admitted during the same week that his school voucher plan — which will allocate $10,000 in taxpayer funds for families who opt to enroll their kids in private campuses — will lead to less funding for public schools.
“The people ‘defunding’ public schools are PARENTS choosing a better option than what their assigned school provides,” Abbott wrote in a separate Feb. 12 tweet. “When they leave, the funding for that child leaves too. Democrats want to FORCE families to stay in government mandated schools against their will.”
So, which is it, governor? Do vouch-
ers drain money to public schools or don’t they?
Abbott was caught in another whopper earlier this month during a pro-school voucher rally in Athens, Texas. During that appearance, he spun an improbable — read “untrue” — tale about a public school principal in Dallas who quit her job and moved to Amarillo because her previous district banned the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.
“She said the school where she came from, they were not doing that anymore,” Abbott recalled with such passion it almost sounded like he’s bought into his own falsehood. “She believed in patriotism and knew that was a fundamental tenet of educating our kids, so she moved out to Amarillo to do that.”
Here’s the problem: students in Texas public schools have been required by state law since 2017 to say the Pledge of Allegiance — both to the U.S. flag and the Texas flag.
Seems like Abbott would be aware of that, since, yanno, he signed that bill into law.
Beyond the Big Lie
But Abbott isn’t the only Texas Republican apparently allergic to the truth.
Last month, during an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box, U.S. Sen. Ted
Trump’s conspiracy that the 2020 election was stolen. Our nation is still suffering the consequences of that dangerous fabrication.
Indeed, the type of lying Trump regularly engages in is inherently dangerous to our democracy.
Money and motivations
When Democrats lie, it’s because they believe they’ll get away with it, according to Adair’s research.
“They make a calculation — am I going to gain more from making this statement that is false than I’m going to lose?” Adair told the Harvard Gazette . “It’s that simple.”
However, when Republicans lie, they view it as part of an epic struggle, and in that struggle, anything is OK as long as the outcome benefits the politician and the party, according to Adair.
Cruz declared that “thousands and thousands” of Americans died building the Panama Canal.
In reality, only 300 or so U.S.-born workers died during the canal’s construction, according to most academic researchers. What’s more, the vast majority of those who perished during the canal’s construction were workers from the Caribbean.
If it seems like GOP politicians’ aversion to the truth is getting worse, that’s because it is.
Bill Adair, the founder of Pulitzer-Prize-winning fact-checking website Politifact, found that Republicans lie more than their counterparts across the aisle. What’s more, their lies are getting more absurd and dangerous, he asserts in his 2024 book Beyond the Big Lie: The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could Burn Down Our Democracy.
Democrats do lie, but the consequences of their lies are far less dangerous, Adair argues.
For example, President Joe Biden lied when he said inflation was 9% when he took office. In reality, it was 1.4%.
While that’s certainly not a good look for Ol’ Joe, it’s the kind of puffery politicians have engaged in for ages to make their records look better than they actually are. The lie’s ramifications are far less severe than
Which begs the question: What epic struggle is Abbott hoping to win by repeatedly lying about school vouchers? Why would he be so willing to shred his own credibility to score a win on an issue?
Of course, it could be he thinks a win would be giving constituents what they want. After all, 65% of Texans in a 2024 Hobby School of Public Affairs poll said they support vouchers. But Abbott’s efforts to stamp out local control and engage in open warfare with the city’s largest metro areas don’t suggest pleasing large groups is a key motivator for the governor.
It’s also hard to believe Abbott actually cares much about education, given the dismal track record the state’s had on his watch when it comes to funding schools. Texas ranked eighth from the bottom in per-pupil funding last year, according to statistics site World Population Review. Watch out, Tennessee!
We do know this, however. Over the past six months, Abbott’s campaign received a $19 million influx in donations, according to his latest Texas Ethics Commission filing. That windfall included $6 million from Jeff Yass, a pro-voucher Pennsylvania billionaire — a donation the governor’s own campaign touted as the “largest in Texas history.”
Money’s always been a strong motivator. Strong enough, in fact, to make people spin enormous fabrications, consequences be damned.
Wikimedia / Commons Larry D. Moore
Why are San Antonio’s city leaders so apparently ambivalent about
Project Marvel?
BY HEYWOOD SANDERS
Cityscrapes is a column of opinion and analysis.
As sparse details have trickled out about “Project Marvel,” the city’s grand scheme for a new Spurs arena at Hemisfair, a convention center expansion, a new hotel, Alamodome improvements and a new highway deck, one thing has been conspicuously absent.
No one has stood up and announced what greater purpose the project serves, why it’s necessary for our community and why they support it.
Sure, lame duck Mayor Nirenberg and some downtown folks have made sounds of support, and we’ve heard murmurs of agreement from some city council members and a seeming acquiescence from County Judge Sakai.
A dozen or candidates for the mayor’s job will be on the May ballot, and none seems to be screaming out support for Project Marvel.
To point, no local elected officials or major candidates have emerged as energetic promoters and salespeople for the vision of creating a grand new “sports and entertainment district” downtown.
That relative silence is despite the stellar rhetoric that’s been part of city staff presentations on the proposed district.
“Potential transformative and iconic effects,” “quality of life for residents,” “new visitation” and “enhanced connectivity” are just some of the promises touted as staffers revealed early details of Project Marvel in presentations.
Yet it still remains a mystery as to what exactly will be transformed, what an “iconic effect” actually is or how having a new arena could possibly im-
prove San Antonio’s quality of life.
We’ve heard the promise of “new visitation” before — namely every time the city extends tax breaks to a new hospitality property. And while we now have a whole bunch of new hotels all around downtown, our economy has remained remarkably unchanged and the city center primarily remains a destination for tourists.
As for the “enhanced connectivity” part, lots of our neighborhoods are still waiting for sidewalks or decently paved streets.
The contrast between Project Marvel and San Antonio’s grand public development projects of the past couldn’t be more stark.
The push and politicking for the Alamodome was clearly a product of then-Mayor Henry Cisneros. He made the quest for an NFL team — a goal long sought by city business leaders — a key goal early in his second term.
Cisneros pressed one financing plan after another — a restaurant tax, a private development scheme — in a bid to win broad support while finding a way to pay for the stadium without raising property taxes or going to a bond vote. He finally landed on the idea of using a portion of VIA’s sales taxing authority, although that would require approval by the Texas Legislature.
The campaign for the dome was all about Henry Cisneros, an effort he dubbed a “holy war” over the vision for and future direction of the city.
He touted the dome as a “multipurpose convention and sports facility” that would bring new meetings and conventions to town and boost job creation.
Whether the dome actually delivered on the promises of convention success and job creation is debatable. It certainly failed to win San Antonio an NFL team. But its realization was thoroughly a product of Henry Cisneros.
The saga of the AT&T Center’s birth was much the same.
The Spurs organization made no secret of its unhappiness over playing at one end of the Alamodome. Built for football, the dome’s abundant seating and sightlines simply didn’t suit basketball.
The Spurs searched for both a site for a new venue and a way of paying for it. The team joined the push for state “venue tax” legislation that offered a way to fund an arena with taxes on hotels and car rentals. And with a hug from County Judge Cyndi Krier to then-Spurs honcho Peter Holt, county officials fully backed the arena deal and the “Saddles & Spurs” campaign that sold it to voters.
More recently, Julián Castro proclaimed and pressed for the “Decade of Downtown” during his time as San Antonio mayor. Castro made the case to the community for boosting downtown public investment and for subsidizing new downtown housing that ostensibly would transform our
MHenry Cisneros was the public face of the Alamodome. Who’s doing the same for Project Marvel?
central core.
So, where are our local politicos as the public still remains in the dark about the cost of a new Spurs arena, the future for the Frost Bank Center and the full tab for all of Project Marvel’s wonders? And why are we being denied the opportunity to consider all the possible projects and public investments that the venue tax might support across our entire community?
Nirenberg will become a private citizen in June without the megaphone of the mayor’s office. Now, we need to hear from all the mayoral candidates and those vying for council seats about where they stand on both the new arena and the larger Project Marvel.
If the need for a new arena is so imperative, surely there are public officials and local business leaders who could help explain how Project Marvel will serve this community. Similarly, the Spurs’ owners could speak publicly about what they’re commi ed to contribute.
If no community leaders have the courage to speak up and endorse this grand vision, that speaks volumes.
Heywood Sanders is a professor emeritus of public administration at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
ONGOING - THU | 02.06THU | 03.27
VISUAL ART
‘FOR FRAN’
The spectacular remembrance of art historian, critic and curator Fran Colpitt through exhibition continues with this group show curated by Hills Snyder. Joining Artpace’s Songs for Fran and Donny, Ruby City’s Synthesis & Subversion Redux and UTSA Main Art Gallery’s Do you really believe that?, For Fran showcases artists Colpitt worked with in the 1990s, including Jesse Amado, Ricky Armendariz, Nate Cassie, Bill Davenport, Alejandro Diaz, Constance Lowe, Jack Massing, Katie Pell, Chuck Ramirez, Riley Robinson, Ethel Shipton and Kate Terrell. Snyder recently o ered this remembrance of Colpitt: ”As the evening waned at the TCU opening of Do You Really Believe That? in Ft. Worth last August, I was treated to a brief but incisively focused conversation with Sharon Engelstein and Aaron Parazette, in which Aaron revealed to me a most wonderful quote about Fran, in which he paraphrased artist Dennis Hollingsworth: ‘She was a modernist hit by a post-modernist meteorite.’” Free, 11 a.m.- 4 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays and by appointment, Ruiz-Healy Art, 201-A E. Olmos Drive, (210) 804-2219, ruizhealyart.com. — Neil Fauerso
Interested in looking for your African American roots but daunted by how to begin? Sylvia Reyna of the San Antonio Public Library’s Texana/Genealogy Department will share the tools — including the proper use of databases, books and other resources — needed to create a rich and meaningful family archive. The Texana/Genealogy Department is located on the sixth floor of the Central Library, which is currently undergoing renovations. However, the staff has organized a selection of special collections so they’re still available to researchers in their first-floor interim location. Following this workshop, researchers may access the resources, which include local newspapers on microfilm, the department’s current periodical subscriptions, San Antonio city directories and microfilm documents including court records, church records, cemetery readings, local histories, military records, passenger lists and more. The Texana/Genealogy Department holds events and workshops regularly, which are listed on the SAPL website. Free, 10:30-11:30 a.m., Schaefer Branch Library, 6322 U.S. Highway 87 East, (210) 207-2500, mysapl.org. — Anjali Gupta
Courtesy Ruiz-Healy Art, New York | San Antonio
SAT | 03.01
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
GLORY GONE
San Antonio composer Nathan Felix is known for his immersive and experimental operas, and his latest at the Radius Center sounds like a doozy. Following a beloved Hispanic pop singer who is brutally a acked by an obsessed fan and ultimately seeks revenge, Glory Gone echoes the tragic and untimely death of Selena, the martyred Queen of Tejano, who was murdered by her own fan club leader 30 years ago. Felix's works are heightened and intense, almost hallucinogenic at times, and Glory Gone is a special opportunity to see cu ing-edge music in San Antonio. Like a flash mob, performers will weave their way through the Radius Center and the audience, erasing divisions between stage, performer and observer. Free but donations welcome, 7 p.m., Radius Center, 106 Auditorium Circle #120, (512) 731-0314, radiuscenter.org. — NF
SAT | 03.01
FILM
THE PRINCESS BRIDE: AN INCONCEIVABLE EVENING WITH
CARY ELWES
Join actor Cary Elwes for a behind-the-scenes look at life on and o the set of The Princess Bride, a rare eternal classic for all ages — beguiling and imaginative when you’re a kid, witty and droll as an adult. Elwes made a splash playing the heroic Westley in the 1987 film. It’s a role he’s never really topped, but what a role! Elwes, known as quite the raconteur, will participate in a moderated discussion after the film, which promises to be filled with fun and wild anecdotes. Produced by Rob Reiner, Princess Bride brought together an astonishing amount of talent that also included Robin Wright, Wallace Shawn, Mandy Patinkin, Peter Falk, Billy Crystal, Carol Kane, Christopher Guest, William Goldman and Andre the Giant. A limited number of VIP packages are available and include prime seats, a “meet and greet” and a signed copy of Elwes’ best-selling book As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride. $29.50 and up, 7:30-9:30 p.m., Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. — NF
Courtesy Photo Nathan Felix
SUN | 03.02
SPORTS SPURS VS. THUNDER
Following a three-team trade that sent Spurs reserves Zach Collins and Tre Jones to the Chicago Bulls, new team member De’Aaron Fox makes his hometown debut on Sunday night against the Oklahoma City Thunder. The former All-Star and Clutch Player of the Year is averaging almost 25 points per game this season, becoming the first Spurs guard to hit that scoring mark since Hall of Famer George Gervin. After a tough stretch that included 12 games away from the Frost Bank Center, the Spurs return home to face league MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and a young Thunder squad that leads the Western Conference standings. Gilgeous-Alexander led all scorers with 32 points in a 104-110 loss to the Spurs back in November. During that game, Keldon Johnson paced San Antonio with 22 points. It will take a united front to limit Gilgeous-Alexander this time, starting with Rookie of the Year candidate Stephon Castle on the perimeter and All-Star Victor Wembanyama patrolling the paint. $42 and up, 6 p.m., Frost Bank Center, 1 Frost Bank Center Drive, (210) 444-5140, frostbankcenter.com, Fanduel Sports Network-Southwest. — M. Solis
TUE | 03.04
FILM
THE IN BETWEEN
The arrival of spring means hope, renewal, new life — in other words, revolution. The Mexican American Civil Rights Institute (MACRI), in partnership with the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM San Antonio), American Indians of Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions (AIT SCM) and the film organization MonteVideo will kick off their Latina Spring film series with 2024’s The In Between. Directed by Texas filmmaker Robie Flores, the 82-minute movie that illustrates what happens when a fronteriza filmmaker returns to her hometown after the death of her brother, seeking to capture its in-betweenness at a moment of particular liminality in her own life. It’s a story of kids growing up Mexican American that brings the town of Eagle Pass—a key filming location in John Sayles’ 1996 borderlands slice-of-life classic Lone Star, and a key staging location in Gov. Greg Abbo ’s destructive billion-dollar border-solidifying Operation Lone Star—to life. The series runs through the end of the month, and RSVPs are available on MACRI’s website, listed in the event details. Free, 6:30 p.m., UNAM San Antonio, 600 Hemisfair Plaza Way, (210) 810-4093, somosmacri.org. — Dean Zach
EXHIBITION ON VIEW THROUGH
Culture Commons Gallery January 16, 2026
Abel Aguirre • Kat Cadena • Manuel Davila • Douglas Galloway
Jeremy Piven’s pivot to stand-up comedy a natural progression as entertainer
BY KIKO MARTINEZ
Actor and comedian Jeremy Piven has been entertaining audiences for most of his life. His late parents were stage actors, so he found his way into the spotlight at a young age.
“The reality is, I’ve been on stage since I was 8 years old,” Piven, 59, told the Current during a recent interview. “I’ve been doing comedy ever since — in one way or another.”
Some of the comedy work Piven is best known for is his award-winning performance on the HBO series Entourage, and for movies including Very Bad Things, Old School and Smokin’ Aces
Along with his career in TV and film, Piven has been performing as a stand-up comedian for eight years. He’ll take the stage at the Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club Feb. 21-22. Friday’s shows are at 7:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m., and Saturday’s are at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
During our interview, Piven talked about his relationship with comedy, his mother’s impact on his career and his experience working with filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, a San Antonio native.
You’ve been in the entertainment industry for nearly 40 years. How has your sense of humor changed since you started?
The great thing about stand-up is that it trains your brain to think in terms of finding the funny in any situation and, in a weird way, without sounding pretentious. I think that that’s a very healthy way to live. It’s very easy to get caught up in our feelings. For so many years, I really didn’t necessarily see life as a comedy. We have to see it that way. We have to be able to laugh at ourselves.
It sounds like your relationship with comedy has evolved a lot.
Listen, I can be a very serious person and very emotionally available. I think it’s part of what makes me an actor. That’s one of the dualities about artists. I think we are misunderstood because we seem like li le bitches. The reality is that we are very vulnerable people. We feel everything. We’re asked to turn it on and connect with that vulnerability and then turn it off immediately. It’s not that easy. One of the great ways to do that is through humor. That’s why I love stand-up comedy.
I saw a video of you doing stand-up for the first time way back in 2008, but you really didn’t start taking it seriously until a few years ago, right? I’m going to be very honest with you, since my mother, Joyce Piven, passed away last week, I don’t
have the energy to kind of dance around anything. I’m just going to give it to you straight. I’m not interested in timelines. All that does is create certain expectations. In the early ’90s, I started professionally doing sketch comedy with Chris Farley at Second City. It’s very hard to categorize me as a stand-up for the amount of time I’ve been doing it.
I didn’t know about your mother. My condolences. I saw an interview with you where you described yourself as a mama’s boy, so I’m sure it’s been difficult.
I am a mama’s boy. I was lucky. There’s no love like a mother’s love. She was an incredible human being. [Our family] was broke, but I thought I was the richest kid on the block because I got to get up on stage and perform and make people laugh. My parents would say, “You can say whatever you want as long as it’s funny” and “remember you are enough.” That was so empowering as a kid. I owe everything to them.
You’ve worked on a couple of movies with director Robert Rodriguez, who is originally from San Antonio. What makes him a special filmmaker? It’s time that we all celebrate our guy. He posted up in Austin before it was popular. He created his own li le corner of the world where he had his autonomy and could create anything he wanted in his studio. He’s a true maverick, is wildly prolific and has figured out a way to navigate creatively on the highest level without being subservient to other influences. He’s a really fascinating dude.
Do you have any insight into your movie All-Star Weekend, which was originally supposed to be released in 2018? I know it was delayed because Robert Downey Jr. plays a Mexican man in it. That’s a question for [the film’s director] Jamie Foxx. I ran into him recently. He’s someone that has a new perspective on life … because he had a near-death experience. [All-Star Weekend] was something he wrote and directed. It’s an incredible cast with the two of us, Eva Longoria, Gerard Butler, Robert Downey Jr. and Benicio del Toro. I think Jamie’s been si ing on it long enough.
$60 (table for two) and up, Friday-Saturday Feb. 21-22, Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, 618 NW Loop 410, (210) 541-8805, improvtx.com.
Frankie Leal
Making a Killing
Melonie Diaz takes back power as vengeful crypto investor in thriller Cold Wallet
BY KIKO MARTINEZ
In the heist thriller Cold Wallet, actress Melonie Diaz (Fruitvale Station) plays Eva, the brains of a ragtag team of vigilantes who seek revenge against a billionaire after he destroys their lives in a cryptocurrency scam.
Coincidentally, around the same time Diaz was going to make the movie, her husband invested in GameStop when the 2021 short squeeze happened. Diaz didn’t know much about the stock market, but was fascinated by the fact that an online community on Reddit were the ones that triggered the market’s volatility.
“We got to see the highs and the lows and the fact that normal people can control the amount of money you make or don’t make,” Diaz, 40, told the Current. “Stocks and crypto and all this stuff have always been a game of the elite.”
During our interview, Diaz talked about what she likes about her character in Cold Wallet, why it took her a few years to get back to feature films and why making movies featuring Latino narratives is so important to her.
Cold Wallet will be available on VOD on Feb. 28, 2025.
Why do you think crypto lends itself to a thriller? Anytime I read about the topic, it goes over my head.
When I first read the script, it was also over my head. I mean, I hear these buzz words, but I still don’t know what it means. Can anybody explain it? But that made me more interested in the world.
What was going on in your mind when you saw what was happening with the GameStop stock?
I remember a lot of people were going on Reddit and were like, “Keep going! Keep going! We’re going to keep the power!” I was really a racted to the idea of a group of people be ing against these Wall Street guys. I was really interested in that aspect.
So, did you keep going? No, we stopped. I grew up pre y poor, so I was like, “I’m happy with what I have.” It wasn’t for us, but I can see how people get really addicted to it. It’s like gambling.
What did you like most about your character in Cold Wallet?
I thought it was really interesting that my character is a normal person who decided to take her power back. She can control what she needs to control. She’s a badass. There wasn’t any kind of character description when I read the script. She was just a strong character on the page. She’s the smartest person there. She knows what she’s doing.
Do you naturally gravitate to strong female characters?
I think I do. I played a witch on Charmed. She was pre y strong, but not like this. [Cold Wallet] was new territory for me, which is also why
I wanted to be a part of the movie. I had never really seen somebody like her before.
You haven’t been in a feature film since 2018’s First Purge. Was that because of your shooting schedule for Charmed?
We shot Charmed for 10 months of the year. There were 22 episodes the first two seasons and the last season was 18. It takes a lot of time. Also, during the last season, I had a baby. So, [Cold Wallet] is my first feature since then.
What else catches your attention when you read a script?
I really gravitate towards characters and stories that move the narrative for Latino people. I think the choices that we make are super important. When I was growing up, I didn’t see characters that reflected people like me. I need to play parts and be part of worlds that are positive for us; worlds that reflect different sides. I don’t want to keep playing the Marias and the nannies and the house cleaners. I think Eva is so much more than that. She’s a really complex character. I’m looking to play more people like that.
Since you’re on the inside, does it feel like the industry is becoming more diverse? The numbers really aren’t increasing when you look at studies of Latino stories in Hollywood.
I feel like sometimes there’s a lack of opportunity. But I also feel like you have to keep fighting for the things you want. For a while, it felt like there was this wave of diversity in TV and film, and it was really saturated. Now, it feels like nobody gives a shit fuck anymore. I don’t know how to change that. We have to really encourage writers and showrunners to keep creating be er stories.
screens
Find more fi lm stories at sacurrent.com
Dinner and a Show
Watching wizards make your food is part of the fun at San Antonio’s Noodles & Dumplings
BY RON BECHTOL
With its emphasis on foods that suggest longevity and prosperity, Chinese New Year makes a good excuse to revisit a cuisine that often gets shunted aside in favor of the latest culinary trend.
Of course, not everyone buys into the notion that noodles lead to a long life, but the arrival of the lunar new year, the celebration of which ran from Jan. 29 through Feb. 12, drew me to Noodles & Dumplings, an El Paso-based chain that made its San Antonio debut last spring.
Seductively fragrant from a fistful of garlic, the bowl of Spicy Yo Pu Noodles that hit our table at Noodles & Dumplings seemed to imply longevity that stretched into infinity. At one point, my fellow diners and I were convinced that the dish consisted of a single broad and bouncy noodle with no end in sight.
But the endless noodle came by its length not through magic but at the hands of a true craftsman. Behind a cinematically broad pane of glass in the restaurant, a real master performed his aerial ballet of stretching, tossing and thwacking a formless lump of dough into silken strands.
And said strands were the best part of the Yo Pu dish. Despite the alluring aroma and cohort of colorful vegetables accompanying its sliced meat — we chose the beef option — there was li le actual zest. The condition was easily remedied by diverting a li le of the vinegar-based dipping sauce that comes with an order of Green Onion Pancakes.
Less dramatic in their creation, the pancake’s preparation nevertheless requires skill and patience. Traditionally made from a hot-water dough, the pancakes are rolled repeatedly to achieve a lamination that’s somewhat like that of a croissant. Scallions go into the dough — just enough and just at the right time — and the pancakes are lightly fried. I can’t vouch for meticulous hand fabrication, but the result at Noodles & Dumplings is both flaky and chewy, and it’s bright with the contrasting green onion.
Bao seems to be a somewhat slippery definition in Cantonese cuisine. Most often the name refers to a doughy white bun stuffed with filling. Apparently, though, steaming is
also a defining factor. The xiaolongbao are neither doughy nor pillowy but form a delicate, pleated “purse.” Often called soup dumplings, these bao aren’t meant for floating and actually contain soup inside.
Magic, or so it seems. However, once again, the trick comes down to skill and culinary wizardry rather than witchcraft.
The combo set at Noodles & Dumplings is composed of three chicken and three pork dumpling-like bao. The wrapping process of the ground meat stuffing is easy to imagine, but the soupy component? Turns out it’s usually a stock-based gelatin that melts with the steaming.
The packets are served in a bamboo container with a pair of large spoons and a dipping sauce that could use just a tad more ginger. The spoon-plus-bao duo is just large enough to allow for consuming the package in a single bite — for maximum soup reveal, of course. It’s a li le unwieldy, but you’ll figure it out. The experience is highly recommended however you work it.
The menu cautions that diners should expect a 15-minute wait on all dumplings.
That suggests they’re hand-fabricated to order — something we confirmed on our visit.
The restaurant’s dumpling lady stood next to the noodle slinging guy, although her work was overshadowed by his more dramatic performance.
NOODLES & DUMPLINGS
During out visit we also sampled the Colorful Combo Dumpling, which offered two each of chicken, pork, beef with scallion, and vegetable. They can be ordered steamed or panfried.
The fried option arrives linked together under a lacy skin that allows some bashful color to peek through. For no obvious reason, pale purple equals chicken, while the green tint standing for the vegetable option was more expected. The veg option proved to be the most flavorful of the four, though all are worth your a ention.
food
Soup is naturally another showcase for noodles, especially of the hand-pulled variety. As reported last October in our review of Mian Noodles & Dumplings, the Northern Chinese city of Lanzhou is a kind of noodle ground zero, making Lanzhou noodle soup a legend in its own right.
Mian’s clear-broth approach is somewhat purist, though that restaurant offers three noodle options. At Noodles & Dumplings there’s no choice, but the broth is augmented with tomatoes, broccoli and chickpeas, all bolstering a choice of sliced beef, chicken or shrimp. I have yet to try this version, but it will be the first thing I will order when I return for soup and a show.
The remainder of the menu doesn’t exert the same siren song. Dishes such as deep-fried pork chops, General Tso’s Chicken and “lightly ba ered protein” served with lemon or orange sauce may be perfectly good, but they’re more universally available.
Hours: 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday Best Bets: Green Onion Pancake, Colorful Combo Dumpling, Xiaolongbao Combo
The Lowdown: Noodles & Dumplings is a Texas-based chain that entered San Antonio last spring. The décor of its local outpost isn’t especially remarkable, but service is practiced and efficient. The real draw, however, is the hand-pulled noodles. If you arrive at a propitious time, you’ll see the noodle wrangler slinging his lasso-like strands behind a large plate-glass window — and you’ll order said noodles in plate dishes or soup bowls. The restaurant’s handmade dumplings are equally billed and equally desirable. Try various combos, then concentrate on what pleases you most.
Ron Bechtol.
Ron Bechtol.
food
Cool Concept
Houston restaurateur
Levi Goode dishes on what to expect from Otto’s Ice House, his new Pearl project
BY KAT STINSON
Houston chef-restaurateur
Levi Goode saw the icehouse, a South Texas staple, as the perfect fit for his inaugural San Antonio venture.
Slated to debut this April, O o’s Ice House pays homage to wily Alamo City brewing magnate O o Koehler, whose spirit Goode wants to keep alive with his project at the Pearl. Koehler served as president of the San Antonio Brewing Association — later known as the Pearl Brewery — and scandalous liaisons ultimately led to his death.
“It’s been a journey for me, finding out about what a colorful character O o Koehler was,” Goode told the Current
A fifth-generation Texan and two-time James Beard Award nominee, Goode’s own culinary story began at his father’s barbecue restaurant in the late 1970s. As Jim Goode kept the mesquite fires smoking, Levi Goode learned the ropes of restaurant operations, working every position he could, from the back of the kitchen to front-of-house.
Now he leads his family business, the Goode Co., as CEO, in addition to his own personal brand, which owns and operates the restaurant Credence and Sidebar, a speakeasy.
“I grew up in this business,” Goode said.
Beyond helping him grow into one of Houston’s most-recognized business leaders, the restaurant industry cemented a deep passion within Goode for bringing people together through food, he added.
So why an icehouse?
Back before refrigerators existed, Southerners needed a way to keep their food cold. Enter the icehouse — a space for locals to obtain block ice and cold water from natural sources. Seizing on the opportunity, entrepreneurs started selling food and beverages at the businesses, evolving a concept bred
from basic survival needs into a place for communities to gather over food and drink.
“O o’s will be an homage to traditional Texas icehouses,” Goode said. “Icehouses were a communal place, and that’s what I always aim for — creating spaces to facilitate human connection in a way that brings people together.”
So, what can locals expect from O o’s Ice House when it debuts this spring?
“O o’s is going to be focused on the post-prohibition era,” Goode said. “The world was [at] a slower place, so there was more a ention to detail. We’ve had a lot of fun creating the menu — it’ll be casual and comfortable food with freshly baked breads, a wood-fire grill and a rotisserie.”
Ice-cold beer was also a must for O o’s Icehouse, Goode said.
“You can’t have an ice house without selling the coldest beers in the state,”
he added. “We’ll serve up our beers in frozen glasses and schooners. The drink menu will also have a great selection of spirits, and signature drinks like our spin on the ranch water, a couple of frozen options and icebox shots.”
The venture will offer ample indoor and outdoor seating and feature bars both inside and on the outdoor patio. Goode plans to stage live music on the outdoor patio three days a week from the get-go. Sports fans will have be able to catch the latest game on multiple TV screens.
Goode also wants to host rotating events, like steak nights and crawfish boils.
The Houston-based restaurateur isn’t ruling out adding further San Antonio concepts following O o’s — but at the moment, he’s dedicated to providing the best quality experience at the Pearl-area icehouse.
That appears to be in stark contrast
to the project’s namesake, who found the energy to be an entrepreneur and a cad who had relationships with three different women named Emma.
The comic irony of O o’s Ice House being located within striking distance of the Hotel Emma — named for one of those ladies — isn’t lost on Goode.
“We’re looking forward to weaving in subtle nods to O o Koehler throughout the icehouse,” he explained.
One clear reference is on the drink menu — there’s a beverage cheekily named, “O o’s Last Shot.” For those who haven’t followed the history, Koehler died at age 59 after being shot by one of his alleged mistresses.
Historical jokes aside, Goode remains commi ed to quality.
“I’ve been a longtime fan of the Pearl,” he said. “It’s a very unique and special place in our state.”
Jody Horton
food
Chill Time
San Antonio Icehouse Week, which runs through March 2, features deals at local icehouses, bars and eateries
BY TRAVIS E.
POLING
It shouldn’t take much arm twisting for Alamo City residents to turn out for specials on cold beer and stiff drinks during the Fourth Annual San Antonio Icehouse Week. Throw in a chance to win up to $500 in prizes and the fact that the celebration — which runs Saturday, Feb. 15, through Sunday, March 2 — raises money for the Animal Defense League of Texas makes participation a no-brainer.
Patrons of South Texas’ many icehouses no longer swing by to pick up the blocks of ice that give the neighborhood spots their name. Even so, the accompanying tradition of grabbing a frosty beer while engaging in friendly conversation remains a draw.
This year, at least a dozen locations are participating in Icehouse Week with more joining the list before Saturday’s launch. The promotion is put on by the SanAntonioCurrentand made possible through sponsorships from new beer brand Texas Special, Kiolbassa Smoked Meats and Local Culture Creative Marketing.
Last year’s San Antonio Burger Week stretched the definition of “week” to 11 days, but Icehouse Week has that misnomer handily beat by spreading the love across 16. And why not?
February weather can be fickle, sometimes treating Alamo City residents to freezes at the beginning of the week and demanding full-blast AC a few days later. However, forecasts show moderate tem-
peratures and sunny skies perfect for propping up elbows on a picnic table under Live Oak trees.
Jody Newman of the Friendly Spot and Bruno’s Dive Bar along with Kent Oliver of Dakota East Side Icehouse teamed up with the Current in 2021 to launch Icehouse Week. Then as now, the intent is to celebrate SA tradition while supporting locally owned small businesses.
“It’s a slow time for food and beverage, so we take the weeks to put the focus on hyper-local icehouses,” Newman said. “Small businesses have been in a very odd place since the pandemic, and some have closed. We need to do anything we can to keep the focus on small business and public awareness of it.”
The Friendly Spot will stage a “Beer Break” at the celebration’s Saturday, Feb. 22, midpoint. The gathering will feature samples from 20 breweries along with tastings of tequila and Kiolbassa smoked meats.
In addition to the Friendly Spot, participants in Icehouse Week 2025 include Bruno’s Dive Bar, Burgerteca, La Tuna, Ladybird Beer Garden, Louie’s Icehouse, Rino River North Icehouse, Texas Star Inn and others.
The Icehouse Week website — saicehouseweek.com — will include frequent updates, and participating businesses will use social media to communicate specials and events throughout the run. The website also lets customers download an official app to track visits to participating businesses and enter a chance to win prizes worth up to $500.
Michael Karlis
PARTNERING WITH DOZENS OF SAN ANTONIO’S FAVORITE ICEHOUSES, PUBS, BARS, RESTAURANTS, AND WATERING HOLES TO BRING YOU ICECOLD BEER SPECIALS INVITING BEER LOVERS TO EXPLORE NEW SPOTS OR SUPPORT THEIR LOCAL FAVORITES.
FEB. 15-MAR. 2
SPONSORED BY:
SAN ANTONIANS WILL HAVE ACCESS TO BEER SPECIALS, GIVEAWAYS, AND PRIZES ACROSS ALL PARTICIPATING SAN ANTONIO ICEHOUSE WEEK PARTICIPANTS.
PARTICIPANTS
TANDEM
BROOSTER’S BACKYARD ICEHOUSE
OLD MAIN ICE HOUSE
BURGERTECA
RIVER NORTH ICEHOUSE
HILLS AND DALES
MCINTYER’S
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Rah! Rah! Ready to rock
Recently opened San Antonio music venue wants local talent to be front and center
BY JEPH DUARTE
Since its 2016 opening, the Bang Bang Bar — a funky San Pedro Avenue dive nestled between a hot dog stand, a tire shop and a gun store — has emerged as one of the hippest hangouts just north of downtown.
Late last year, owners Phanie Diaz and Jamie Hoppe launched a separate spot across the street designed to raise the profile of artists creating music in San Antonio.
With an indoor capacity of 300 and an outdoor stage with space for 1000, the Rah! Rah! Room rivals venues such as Paper Tiger and The Rock Box. What Diaz hopes will set it apart from those well-established spaces, is that it’s geared toward expanding the homegrown scene rather than focusing on touring acts.
“I don’t think there’s many venues this size created toward supporting local bands,” said Diaz, a born-and-raised San Antonian who drums for rock bands Girl in a Coma and Fea. “Paper Tiger’s more geared toward nationals, and then they’ll bring on a local to open for that national. The same goes for Rock Box.”
To lay Rah! Rah! Room’s locally focused foundation, Diaz started by reaching out to local promoters and bands looking to perform in a larger, be er-equipped room.
“It’s so new a lot of people haven’t been seen it or go en a feel for the stage,” she said. “We’re trying to get the word out that there’s another option in town to play.”
Diaz’s first step in that direction was the creation of Loud & Local, a Thursday concert series bringing together like-minded bands. For example, on Feb. 20, the night will feature the raucous punk sounds of The Dispicables, Bat Allison and The Panix. The following week will bring together indie acts Twin Camrys, Brisbane and Blackfoot Daisy.
In addition to the Thursday night series, the Rah! Rah! Room is pu ing together special bills such an evening of female-fronted local bands on Friday, Feb. 21. A Saturday, March 8, show celebrating San Antonio ska pioneers Spies Like Us’ 30th anniversary is nearly sold out.
‘Made
for the bands’
Diaz, who’s been active as a musician since the early 2000s, said booking has become the latest facet of that long-running career.
“I know there’s a lot of bands out there, and I want them to have a place to go,” she said.
Rah! Rah! Room hosted its soft opening last December with a live performance from the recently reunited Girl In A Coma.
Shortly thereafter, the venue shut down to reassess the space and give specific a ention to its atmosphere and audio capabilities. The ownership reached out to established live music techs to optimize the room for bands and fans alike.
“Rah! Rah! has a whole lighting system and a projector,” Diaz said. “It’s made for the bands.”
During earlier lives, the San Pedro Avenue location was home to nightclubs including Jack Rabbits, The Rec Room and most recently Cielo.
Throughout those incarnations, Diaz and Hoppe continued to size up the property for a future venture of their own.
“We always had our eye on that location,” Diaz said. “It was a nightclub kind of vibe going on, and we always thought it be cool to have something there.”
Although Diaz has embraced her new offstage role in the music biz, she added that the work has been eye-opening, she added.
“I’m learning that a lot of bands don’t know how to self-promote,” she said. “Push people, invite people, create fliers. It’s almost like a give and take. I’m learning who’s doing what in the scene, and I feel like I’m teaching: this is how you promote your band.”
Diverse booking policy
Though Diaz is steeped in punk and alter-
native rock, the venue is branching out to the many genres that define the Alamo City music scene.
“I’m working with someone who’s trying to bring in a cumbia night, and I am open to jazz bands that want to come in. Really, I’m open to every genre — metal, punk, indie, whatever, as long as you’re excited about your night,” she said. “If somebody comes to me and I’m booking you as the headliner for the night, I want you to help me curate the show.”
Working directly with artists bridges the interests of the musicians and the venue, she added. And, ultimately, that will be reflected in the clientele who determine Rah! Rah!’s impact on the scene.
“Tell me who you like to play with,” Diaz said. “I’ve been on bills where they’ve put us with bands that make no sense. Sometimes it can fun, but sometimes it can be disastrous.”
Bands set the door price at Rah! Rah! Room, and they take home the lion’s share the cover that’s collected — something not always common among larger venues.
“I want to encourage you to promote your night, because you’re the one doing the work,” Diaz said. Although it may seem counterintuitive to have two bars on the same block, Rah! Rah! Room wasn’t designed to compete with Diaz’s and Hoppe’s flagship bar but rather to complement it. The hope is that when a Rah! Rah! Room show is over, patrons will head to Bang Bang to extend their evening.
“If you want to stay out, you can go right across the street,” Diaz said.
Find more music coverage every day at sacurrent.com
Jaime Monzon
critics’ picks
Thursday, Feb. 20
Cursive, Pile
Indie-rock outfi t Cursive enters its third decade buoyed by the strength of last September’s album Devourer . Although the band’s emo and post-hardcore sound seems distant from its Omaha, Nebraska, roots, Tim Kasher’s piercing lyrics feed on our common, everyday anxieties. Cursive provides no comfort as time marches on, choosing to challenge its audience with driving rhythms balanced against the cello and horns that have been a staple of its sound since 2003’s The Ugly Organ $25, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — Danny Cervantes
Friday, Feb. 21
Gipsy Kings featuring Nicolas Reyes, Adelaide Nicolas Reyes, the co-founder and voice of the Gipsy Kings, has traveled hard for three decades as the group’s blend of rumba, fl amenco and pop found a global audience. As a sign of the act’s power and accessibility, it has two of the best needle drops in recent soundtrack history — the Spanish-language covers of “Hotel California” in The Big Lebowski and “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” in Toy Story 3. $49.50-$200, 8 p.m., Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. — DC
The Texases
If you have a soft spot for country music from the ’90s on back, you’ll be hard pressed to do better than San Antonio cover band The Texases. From Brooks & Dunn to Alabama, Dwight Yoakam to George Strait, this group plays the faves that will make your boots feel like they’re fi xin’ to catch fi re. $10, 9 p.m., Lonesome Rose, 2114 N. St. Mary’s St., thelonesomerose.com. — Stephanie Koithan
Saturday, Feb. 22
Gary P. Nunn
The refrain of Gary P. Nunn’s “London Homesick Blues” greeted viewers of the Austin City Limits TV show for decades, which probably alone is enough to make him Texas country royalty. However, the singer-songwriter’s credentials extend further back than that. His Lubbock garage band The Sparkles appeared on the legendary Nuggets garage-psych comp, and he’s even penned a few songs about San Antonio during the country career that followed. In the ’80s, Nunn moved to Oklahoma to run a cattle ranch — yes, he’s also a real cowboy — but he found himself back in the Lone Star State in 2003. $20, 8 p.m., Floore’s Country Store, 14492 Old Bandera Road, Helotes, liveatfloores.com. — Bill Baird
KPSA Radio Anniversary with Masters of Love, La Chicada, West of Rome Internet radio station KPSA has been broad-
casting from the Blue Star Arts Complex to promote the best music San Antonio music has to o er. In the three years since it fl ipped the switch, it’s become a creative hub and a voice for myriad local acts. In celebration, one of KPSA’s founders, Anthony Garcia, will play this special show with his band La Chicada. Also on the bill are West of Rome, a newish band comprised of longtime scene vets, and Masters of Love, which might be San Antonio’s best — and least rehearsed — rock band. $5, 8 p.m., Hermann Sons Rathskeller Bar, 525 S. St. Mary’s St., (512) 660-1706, hermannsonshall.com. — BB
Favorite Son
Consisting of puro-SA musicians Cooper Greenberg, Ramon Botello, Andres Ovalle and Joseph Cantu, Favorite Son fuse rock, blues, jazz and the West Side sound into an inimitable whole. This special performance by the group will include guest appearances by a host of other heavy hitters, including Brandon Padier (Black Gold), Isa Paillao (Chavela), Anthony Soriano (The Bluprint) and Jordan Stern (The Professor). $25, 8 p.m., Little Carver Theater at Carver Community Cultural Center, 226 N. Hackberry St., thecarver.org. — BB
Wednesday, Feb. 26
Clem Snide
Clem Snide, the Americana band led by songwriter Eef Barzelay, derives its name from a William S. Burroughs character — a fact that might give some indication of the
erudite, slightly twisted nature of the group’s songs. With a lineage dating back to the ’90s, the band has consistently released compelling, thought-provoking independent music for decades. This tour supports Clem Snide’s 2024 album Oh Smokey $20, 8 p.m., Sam’s Burger Joint, 330 E. Grayson St., samsburgerjoint.com. — BB
Thursday, Feb. 27
Tim Kile, Moon Tokki
Former Arcade Fire founding member Tim Kile forged his own path with the band Wild Light. Now, after numerous tours supporting heavy hitters such as MGMT, LCD Sound System and The Killers, he’s working as a solo act, delivering taut, focused indie-rock under his own name. San Antonio “awk-rock” outfi t Moon Tokki opens this show with its own intriguing mix of pop, rock and new-wave infl uences. $10, 9 p.m., The Lonesome Rose, 2114 N. St. Mary’s St., thelonesomerose.com. — BB
Jerry Cantrell
While Jerry Cantrell is still best known for his time as lead guitarist and chief songwriter for’90s rock phenom Alice in Chains, he’s crafted an impressive solo career since then. After dabbling with Americana and Southern rock on the 2021 release Brighten, Cantrell has returned to a darker, more metal-infl uenced sound with his latest album I Want Blood . Never idle, Cantrell has also collaborated with legends such as Danzig and Ozzy Osbourne while also contributing tracks
to fi lms including Jerry Maguire and John Wick: Chapter 2. $37.75-$164.60, 8 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — DC
Friday, Feb. 28
Gary Clark Jr., Grace Bowers
A sold-out Aztec Theater show serves as testimony to the power of guitar master Gary Clark Jr. Known for his compelling fusion of blues, rock, soul and funk, Clark released the album JPEG Raw a year ago, which featured collaborations with his heroes Stevie Wonder and George Clinton. Scour the secondary market for tickets to catch this incendiary evening, which will kick o with a set by rising Nashville guitarist Grace Bowers. S old out, 7:30 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — DC
Saturday, March 1
Bright Eyes
Bright Eyes are back. Did they ever leave? Though some older music fans might have outgrown Conor Oberst’s Midwestern emo project, one listen is likely to suck those same folks back to their alienated teen years. Oberst has proven himself a remarkably adept songwriter, fronting numerous other projects since the Bright Eyes days. Still, for much of the world, he’ll always be Bright Eyes’ bewildered, overly literate, and, yes, very emo frontman. $40, 7 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — BB
Courtesy Photo Gary Clark Jr.
Come Visit us During Icehouse Week and go see Larry Ramirez at United We Brunch Representing Brunos Dive Bar at the Bloody Mary Competition.
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Assistant Worship Director (San Antonio, TX), Duties incl: Manage, direct, & coordinate the worship teams comprising the vocal choir & band team; Manage, direct, & coordinate the Student Ministry band; Coach individual instrumentalists, & vocalists; Plan weekly services & special gatherings in collab w/the church leadership; Attract, recruit, & motivate volunteers in the worship team; Lead devotionals occasionally for church sta & band & tech teams; Attend missions & outreach whenever they are planned by the church leadership; & plan & coordinate w/guest gospel artists invited to minister in the church. Spec Skills: leading corp. worship in a culturally diverse congregation; play multiple musical instruments; musical skills; videography; video editin, & graphic design; communication skills; time mgmt; organizational; & leadership skills. Should have basic understanding of Yoruba & Igbo. A Bach’s deg in Mgmt or Admin reltd eld + 5 yrs exp in Worship leadership is req’d. Send resume to Bethel Covenant Assembly of God 10802 W. Loop 1604 N., San Antonio, TX 78254
Director, Business A airs – San Antonio, Texas. iHeartMedia Management Services, Inc. seeks candidates for the position of Director, Business A airs responsible for supporting multiple divisions across iHeartMedia’s media business, handling transactions, negotiating agreements & providing legal guidance regarding business activities. Interested candidates should respond to Req. 35002 at https://www.iheartmedia.com/careers.
H-E-B seeks Mgr Business Analysis. in San Antonio, TX for technical IT and analysis. E-Mail resumes to: Marisa Alcorta, at Recruiting10@heb.com
