Contributors Abe Asher, Bill Baird, Ron Bechtol, Danny Cervantes, Amber Esparza, Brianna Espinoza, Anjali Gupta, Colin Houston, Kiko Martinez, Mike McMahan, Kevin Sanchez, M. Solis, Dean Zach
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in this issue
Issue 26-12/// June 10 - 23, 2026
13 ’A Special Place in Hell’ San Antonio residents push back against far West Side data center
07 News The Opener News in Brief
Bad Takes
Texas’ maternal care crisis is a tragedy of the state’s own making
Chilling Effect
White House memo changing green card application process sowing chaos in immigration system, San Antonio attorneys say
18 Calendar
Our picks of things to do powerful
Ram Jam Returns
The annual festival commemorating Taco Land’s late proprietor is packed with San Antonio acts
Critics’ Picks
Auditor’s Certification:
23Arts Incredible, Tragic, Hilarious Existence
Stormy Daniels talks comedy, death threats and mushrooms ahead of tour stop in S.A.
Tejano Queen New Briscoe Museum exhibition
showcases photos of South Texas music icon Selena taken during her meteoric rise
29Screens
Moral Divide
Broken Land explores humanity, difficult choices on Texas border
31Food Hunger Buster
The 8th Annual San Antonio Burger Week brings it back to basics while feeding hungry residents
More Than Fair
Ro-Ho Pork & Bread’s new Fair Avenue satellite operation offers plenty of reasons to brave the drive-thru
39Music ‘Part of You Leaves With Them’
Americana icon Alejandro Escovedo heading to Stable Hall after dropping album reinterpreting earlier work
On the Cover: San Antonio residents spoke up late last month at a public hearing about a new data center going into Westover Hills. Concerns are growing about the data center boom nationwide. Cover design: Ana Paula Gutierrez.
Stephanie Koithan
aioli, arugula, vodka sauce, stracciatella, on a garlic bread bun.
That Rocks/That Sucks
The U.S. Department of Agriculture last week confirmed that the nation’s first case of New World screwworm has been found in a three-week-old calf in Zavala County. The parasitic blowfly, which embeds its larvae in the flesh of mammals, was eradicated in the U.S. in the 1960s but has resurfaced in recent years in countries such as Panama and Mexico Its presence in Texas could imperil the state’s $15 billion cattle industry.
Spurs fans aren’t the only ones enjoying the team reaching the NBA Finals this spring. San Antonio restaurants and bars are getting a boost in traffic thanks to the additional playoff games and buzz around the team — a much-needed boost given the difficult economic climate. “It’s been hugely beneficial for the city and for us to have this increased business in the otherwise slow season of summer,” said Aaron Peña, co-owner of Bar Gimme Gimme
Three years after its passage, confusion still reigns around the enforcement of Texas’ so-called “Death Star Bill,” the Republican proposal written to prevent cities from enacting progressive policies. Last week, supporters and opponents of the law testified to a Texas House committee that it remains unclear exactly which kinds of local rules are prohibited under the law. Nevertheless, some say the bill has had a chilling effect on municipal policymaking.
Councilwoman Sukh Kaur filed a resolution last week to rename a stretch of North Main Avenue after the late drag performer Erica Andrews, who lived in San Antonio for two decades. “While transgender rights are increasingly under scrutiny across the state and nation, San Antonio has an opportunity to affirm its values of inclusion and recognition,” Kaur said. — Abe Asher
Going out with a pathetic whimper like U.S. Sen. John Cornyn
Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.
John Cornyn had a chance to go out with a bang like fellow Republican Senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who also had their reelection campaigns sandbagged by the president.
Instead, Texas’ senior GOP senator appears determined to leave Washington with a whimper. Cornyn suffered the political humiliation of his career last month, losing the Republican primary to Ken Paxton after spending years bending himself into increasingly awkward shapes to accommodate Trump’s demands. With the president’s political shiv protruding from his ribs, it seems like now would be the prime time for Cornyn to rediscover an independent streak.
The political press even gave the phenomenon a name: the “YOLO Caucus,” a loose collection of Republicans who have either retired, lost primaries or otherwise escaped Trump’s electoral leash. Freed from the ire of angry primary voters, some have started voting their consciences, challenging the president on his most egregious nominations, spending demands and policy proposals.
Not Cornyn.
Nope. Cornyn sided with Senate Republican leadership on every major vote during this week’s immigration funding fight, according to the Texas Tribune — even as other Republicans pushed back on controversial provisions tied to the Trump agenda.
That’s what makes Cornyn such an unusually pathetic political figure. He spent years pandering for Trump’s approval, only to watch the object of his sycophancy endorse Paxton anyway.
The senator who’d once styled himself as a sensible, pro-business institutionalist embraced the president’s most extreme rhetoric and even flip-flopped on his support of the filibuster after the Great Orange Leader decided it was an
obstacle to his rule.
Yet when the moment came, loyalty proved to be a one-way street.
Still, after being kicked squarely in the nuts by the wannabe dictator he groveled so desperately to appease, Cornyn still seems unwilling to grow a spine. The result is a political career ending not in redemption, righteousness or even revenge but irrelevance.
Maybe that’s a fitting end. Cornyn kept himself in office for decades by proving himself to be a malleable establishment figure. Never out loud and out front, but always willing to get in line. That approach didn’t leave much behind.
It remains to be seen whether political observers will remember scandal-ridden Paxton’s victory as an audacious political move or a moment of hubris that cost the GOP an otherwise winnable seat in the general election.
But it increasingly looks as though they’ll view Cornyn’s legacy as that of a cowardly, irrelevant and ultimately broken Trump lackey.
— Sanford Nowlin
YOU SAID IT!
“I learned a long time ago, you can’t teach courage, you can’t teach class, and Mr. Barkley reminds us of that.”
Texas’ aggressive approach to taking over control of local school districts is raising alarms across the state. The Texas Education Agency has installed leaders at eight school districts since 2020, including four this year. To run the districts, the state is increasingly turning to officials with ties to Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles — who has been the target of protests due to privatization measures, firing of teachers and strict adherence to scripted lessons.
The national Democratic Party has its sights set on numerous Texas House seats this fall. Last week, the Democratic Legislative Campaign
Committee added 12 new districts to its target list for November, in addition to three seats it had already targeted. If the Democrats can flip 13 seats and retain the seats they currently hold, they’ll retake control of the Texas House for the first time in more than two decades.
The fan who dashed onto the court during Game 1 of the NBA Finals to take a selfie with Victor Wembanyama faces a lifetime ban from league arenas and a charge of criminal trespass in Bexar County. The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office isn’t naming the suspect because he’s a minor. — Abe Asher
Wikimedia Commons / USDAgov
Texas’ maternal care crisis is a tragedy of the state’s own making
BY KEVIN SANCHEZ
Texans love to chuckle at California’s expense.
For example, we mustered up enormous amounts of schadenfreude as the Lakers were swept from this year’s NBA playoffs and as a reality TV personality emerged as a serious contender to be LA’s next mayor.
One set of statistics should humble us, however.
The percentage of expectant mothers who received inadequate prenatal care in Texas is 23%, compared to California’s 9%, according to the March of Dimes’ most recent report card. The preterm birth rate is 12% in Bexar County, and 11% for the state as a whole — worse than the previous year. In 2024, more than 43,000 Texan babies were born at least three weeks early.
Texas women’s risk of maternal death was 155% higher than in California, nonprofit research institute GEPI reported last spring. The organization pointed out that the Golden State offers public money for contraception along with a year of postpartum health coverage for moms and their babies. As a result, California had the lowest maternal mortality rate of any reporting U.S. state in 2023.
Unlike 40 other states, Texas still refuses to accept federal funds from the 2014 Medicaid expansion, which offered greater access to preventive care during pregnancy. Nor has Texas, unlike 27 other states, enacted doula reimbursement for the trained professionals who provide continuous physical, emotional and informative support to mothers before and after childbirth.
Despite California’s regularly mocked budgetary woes, the state managed to pass both policies.
Expansion aside, between March 2025 and this February, almost 24,000 pregnant patients in Texas waited more than 60 days for the state to process their basic Medicaid applications, according to Texas Health and Human Services Commission data.
Fittingly, a new Consumer Affairs analysis ranked Texas the 10th-worst state in which to have a baby and dead last in maternal healthcare access. California was 12th-best on both counts.
Here and across the country, African American mothers continue to bear a disproportionate share of the burden. This April marked the 10th anniversary of Black Maternal Health Week, yet soberingly, Black women remain three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes.
Obstetrician Dr. Donna Adams-Pickett, born the youngest of 10 children, describes herself as a women’s health warrior.
“My paternal grandmother died in childbirth,” Adams-Pickett recounted during an online interview with grassroots women’s organizing group Red Wine & Blue. “I am a daddy’s girl, through and through, and was always riding shotgun with him everywhere. He didn’t tell me the story about his mother dying until I was about 12, because, for him, that was about the age when his life changed. And I have to say the conversation changed me. Because, essentially, his mother went to go deliver his baby sister and never returned. And from my perspective, what if my dad left and never returned? You know, my whole world would be shattered.”
Adams-Pickett’s baby sister never returned either, she explained.
“For me to hear that when, in the early 1980s, all I knew about babies was that it was a happy event, something everyone looked forward to,” she said. “It never occurred to me that there would be fear around having a baby.”
Eventually, the experience led Adams-Pickett to dedicate her life to ensuring “no father should have to tell their daughter that story again.”
Although the physician first suspected her grandmother’s death was due to the state of healthcare knowledge in North Carolina of the 1940s, she realized that hospitals treating Black patients lacked necessary resources to care for patients in event of emergencies.
“And the more I became engaged in my field, I realized things aren’t a whole lot different than what they were in 1943 in the 2020s,” Adams-Pickett said.
To her point, a Kaiser Family Foundation report from last year on racial disparities in maternal and infant health lamented numerous Trump White House rollbacks, including “laying off most staff in the Centers for Disease Control’s Division of Reproductive Health, halting community-based maternal health grants, closing several federal offices that supported state and localefforts to address racial disparities in maternal care.”
Beyond that, the administration eliminated the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, “which for decades tracked maternal experiences to inform evidence-based policies,” and the Safe to Sleep Campaign, which works to combat sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) “at a time when sleep-related infant deaths have risen, with SIDS among Black infants increasing by 15% in 2020.”
In April, U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pennsylvania, grilled U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the backsliding.
“Your agency told grant programs to remove a list of nearly 200 words and
phrases from their funding applications, including the word ‘Black’,” she observed. “Do you have an idea of how we could solve the Black maternal mortality crisis if we can’t say ‘Black’?”
“President Trump is trying to end division in this country, not sow division,” RFK replied.
So, to even name the crisis — to so much as acknowledge racial disparities in healthcare — means medical experts are “sowing division?”
We should contrast the White House’s lack of seriousness with U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico’s proposal, reported in an exclusive with The Grio magazine last month. The Texas Democrat wants to increase investment in maternal health research and insurance coverage for doula and midwife services, while expanding access to telemedicine and supporting workforce development for maternal care providers, especially those from underserved communities.
Talarico also wants guaranteed paid maternity leave — already the gold standard in most every other rich democracy on Earth.
Should Texas once again fail to correct course this November, the joke won’t be on California. It will be on us.
Unsplash / Nathana Rebouças
Chilling Effect
White House memo changing green card application process sowing chaos in immigration system, San Antonio attorneys say
BY JULIANNA PLEWES
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Canadian-born Tania Warner and her 7-year-old daughter in March of this year even though Warner’s green card was pending.
When she asked the officials detaining her for a phone call, an agent snickered.
“He said, ‘You don’t get a phone call. You’ve been watching too many movies,’” Warner said, recounting the traffic stop that led to her detention at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center south of San Antonio.
Warner and her daughter spent 19 days in ICE custody despite obtaining a formal extension to be in the country legally while her documents are being processed. Now, two months later, she remains in San Antonio wearing an ankle monitor, her green card application in limbo.
Further complicating her situation is the Trump administration’s May 22 memorandum on green card applications.
The memo states that green card applicants — immigrants seeking permanent residence and work status — must go through consular processing, applying at a consulate office outside the U.S., regardless of whether they already live in the U.S. Filing within the country should be reserved for extraordinary cases, the memorandum says.
While Warner believes her protected status should remain despite the memo, she’s uncertain of what happens next.
“I’m in uncharted, uncertain waters right now, and they just leave you that way, just to wonder,” Warner said. Warner isn’t alone. Tens of thousands of green card applicants were sent scrambling by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) memorandum on consular processing.
San Antonio-area immigration attorneys said they’re also trying to make sense of the memo. Attorney Vanessa Alonso isn’t telling clients to panic, but she said her office is certainly not treating the memo as business as usual.
The memo presents itself as a reminder that applications are reviewed on a case-by-case basis. However, Alonso said that’s not how things are actually playing out. Rather, the White House communication is putting new pressure on asylum officers to scrutinize applications in ways they never have before.
“Officers may now look more heavily at discretion-
ary factors in the person’s case and could deny adjustment of status even where the person otherwise qualifies,” Alonso said.
Javier Hidalgo, public affairs director at immigration justice nonprofit RAICES, had a similar takeaway. The memo is less about a change in position than it is an effort to push asylum officers to fall in line with the administration’s interests in greatly curtailing migration.
“If you want to communicate a directive to your asylum officers without explicitly saying it, that’s basically what they’ve done,” Hidalgo said. “They’re signaling how they want asylum officers or the immigration judges to exercise their discretion rather than actually doing that in an independent way.”
Both Alonso and Hidalgo said clients are already noticing an impact.
With its inconsistent information and discretionary nature, the White House memo adds new confusion to an already complex immigration system, advocates argue. Alonso said the new uncertainty is the whole point.
“The message immigrants receive is: even if you follow the rules, the process may change, become more discretionary, or become more uncertain,” she said. “That kind of chaos has a chilling effect. It discourages people from applying, from traveling, from trusting the system and sometimes even from seeking legal relief they may be entitled to.”
And green card applicants aren’t the only ones seeing the effect.
The memo contributes to a growing perception of arbitrariness and distrust of the immigration system as a whole, undermining its very integrity as an institution, Hidalgo maintains. Placed in the context of ICE enforcement actions across the country, the
announcement fits into a broader pattern of sowing fear and chaos.
“You couple all that together, it’s really creating this atmosphere of fear, of pushing folks into the shadows, discouraging them from trying,” Hidalgo said. “If you imagine someone that’s seeking safety, now essentially what the government is communicating is that it might be worse for you, you might be harmed more if you try and access these protections.”
Attorneys have already filed legal challenges to the memo. While it’s possible the courts ultimately may reject the administration’s changes, Hidalgo said great damage has already been done to the nation’s immigration system.
In the meantime, Hidalgo said RAICES is advising clients to gather all evidence showing why their case should be considered an exception to consular processing. Regardless of the uncertainty surrounding the memo, he said applications remain on a case-bycase basis, and applicants should be ready to provide a factual basis for why they need to apply from within the U.S.
Warner, the former ICE detainee, said she’s still in the dark about the future of her green card application. Though she’s wearing an ankle monitor, her case seems to have disappeared from the immigration court system, along with her hearing date.
She now awaits a June 23 check-in with ICE, hoping agents will provide more information about her status. Always in the back of her mind, though, is the fear that she may be detained again and estranged from her child.
“We have a life here. My daughter has autism … she’s finally in a place where she’s getting the support she needs, and that rug just feels like it’s going to get ripped out,” Warner said. “I’m in a very dark place right now.”
Jaime Monzon
’A Special Place in Hell’ San Antonio residents push back against far West Side data center
BY STEPHANIE KOITHAN
Tempers flared during a late May public hearing about whether San Antonio residents wanted another data center in their far West Side neighborhood.
“There are already three data centers in my backyard,” one middle-aged woman railed during her time at the podium. “Now the light is in my bedroom every night. I don’t sleep. I listen to the hum of the air conditioners.”
A man with long hair and glasses looked directly at executives with the company operating the new center as he delivered his stinging message of disapproval.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for, because there is a special place in hell for all of you,” he said.
Held May 28 in a Marriott ballroom near Sea World — and right across from the data center in question — the hearing mirrored debates playing out in communities nationwide. Amid a boom in data centers, residents are pushing back against the operations, their use of public resources and their impacts on daily life.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) held the meeting to gather input on the pending approval of an air-quality permit for the new
Westover Hills facility, developed and run by Denver-based Vantage Data Centers.
This was the first public hearing on the center, located at 5207 Rogers Road, which is already constructed and partly operational, company officials told the crowd.
The center spans 360,000 square feet and rises three stories tall. It cost an estimated $157 million to construct, according to pre-build projections on Vantage’s website. The building provides data processing and server hosting for a number of confidential “hyperscaler” clients, or large cloud-computing providers that build and manage global networks.
Though the hearing was convened to discuss Vantage’s air-permit application, it quickly became a public airing of grievances for an array of concerns around AI and data centers writ large.
Dozens of angry residents lined up behind the podium to ask why this was the first public hearing for a center that’s already “partly operational.”
Westover Hills residents complained during comments that they woke up one morning and trees
construction. Others asked what the facility was for, whether it was for AI and whether it would benefit the surrounding community in any way.
Vantage representatives said the company’s list of clients is confidential, but such digital infrastructure giants, often referred to as a “hyperscalers,” include Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Google Cloud, IBM, Apple and others.
“Do you feel like you’re taking advantage of our community right now by attempting this while we have these loose regulations?” a young woman asked Vantage representatives during the town hall.
Michael Duplantis, the company’s vice president of environmental health and safety, responded.
“I’ll answer the question directly,” he said. “No, we don’t feel like we’re taking advantage of you.”
However, as concerns rise about the drain data centers place on resources and the paucity of jobs they create for local residents, public resistance is growing nationwide.
Residents who attended the San Antonio hearing peppered the Vantage executives with questions about the site’s water and power usage, including how they cool their racks of heavy-duty computers.
A Vantage representative said the center’s cooling method would be closed-loop, utilizing a glycolic liquid, and so water usage would be “virtually zero.”
Murky disclosure
Stephanie Koithan
HENBIT
Data center operators aren’t legally required to answer detailed questions about their water usage or the methods used to cool their racks. Instead, the companies typically treat that information as proprietary.
Environmental advocates argue that kind of opacity is harming Vantage’s introduction to an already hostile community.
Adrian Shelley, Texas director for advocacy nonprofit Public Citizen, said the company’s projection of “virtually zero” water usage at the new San Antonio site doesn’t account for what he called the “water hungry” gas plant powering the facility.
Shelley said the data center appears as less of a resource draw and pollution source on paper thanks to a regulatory loophole that treats the collocated gas plant powering it — operated by Houston-based company VoltaGrid — as a separate facility.
Therefore, at face value, the data center itself is categorized as a “minor New Source Review,” under Clean Air Act compliance standards — or a commercial facility whose potential air emissions fall below the thresholds that could cause it to be considered a major pollution source.
Shelley also argued that closed-loop cooling systems use considerably more energy than those using the water-intensive evaporative method.
In addition to the collocated gas plant powering the new facility and one other Vantage data center on Omicron Drive, the data centers also will rely on backup diesel generators for power in the event of emergencies such as a severe storm-induced power outage.
The Rogers Road data center has 65 backup diesel generators and the nearby Vantage site on Omicron Drive has 86.
Residents raised concerns about the potential health hazards of burning diesel regularly in their backyard. They requested clarity on what Vantage considers an emergency situation.
Once again, Vantage representatives demurred on the details but said the generators would only be used in an “actual emergency,” not just to counteract power-rate fluctuations.
Environmental advocates at last month’s meeting noted that the new Vantage data center is located next to Aspire Allergy & Sinus Center along with assisted living facilities, a major hospital, a community college, two residential subdivisions, apartment complexes and two hotels, including the Marriott.
In other words, the site is located inside a high concentration of people, including some who already have respiratory sensitivities to air pollutants.
In an interview with the Current, Rachel Hanes, policy manager for the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance (GEAA) noted that diesel generators at the new center would release volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, various particulate matters and other hazardous air pollutants.
Those pollutants are linked to a multitude of adverse health impacts, such as heart and lung disease, respiratory mortality, developmental problems and different types of cancer, she added.
San Antonio-Austin boom
The mounting concerns about the Vantage site come as the San Antonio area is already awash in data centers. Fifteen are clustered in District 6, where the new data center is located — and dozens more are spread throughout the city, according to Councilman Ric Galvan, who represents the district.
Indeed, the San Antonio-Austin corridor is experiencing the nation’s most rapid growth in data centers, according to environmental experts.
During the Vantage hearing, Shelley and other advocates spoke from the podium about the unknown cumulative effects of concentrating so many of the centers in one area.
“There’s not really any mechanism at the state level to address cumulative impacts,” Shelley told the Current. “This has been a point of contention with us in the regulation of air and water pollution for a long time: that they look at these facilities in isolation.”
Hanes told the Current that part of the difficulty in overseeing the industry is the opaque nature of their operations and the fact that each data center is different.
“I really think the data center operators are not doing themselves a service by not releasing information and being transparent,” Hanes said. “And so it seems to people that they’re just getting run roughshod over.”
During the hearing, a resident pointed out that the data center abuts a creek and queried whether the body of water would become a dump site. Data centers are known to produce wastewater that may contain PFOS, a toxic “forever chemical” linked to contamination of waterways.
Vantage execs insisted the center would generate zero wastewater.
However, Hanes questioned whether Vantage representatives were being truthful when they said the new operation will have minimal environmental impact.
“I still find it interesting that they are not discharging any wastewater, which could be true, but that doesn’t quite make sense to me,” Hanes said.
To dump wastewater in the nearby creek, the facility would need to obtain a Texas Pollution Discharge Elimination System (TPDES) permit from the state, otherwise known as a wastewater permit.
However, Vantage representatives at the hearing said the center would also be connected to the city’s sewage system.
If any wastewater is released from the center, it would likely enter city sewers, where it would be handled by a San Antonio Water System wastewater treatment plant.
“Wastewater can contain heavy metals, corrosion inhibitors, salts, minerals and .... potential forever chemicals,” Hanes said. “So, we don’t know exactly what’s in that wastewater. Hopefully SAWS would have that answer. But if they happen to contain those existing contaminants [...] that’s obviously a concern.”
Vantage has been evasive about how many times the glycolic fluid can be recycled through the facility’s closed-loop cooling system and how much water will be needed to supply both the data center and the VoltaGrid gas plant, among other questions, she added.
Hanes said she witnessed an official from another data
Stephanie Koithan
news
center operator admit during a Texas House State Affairs hearing that its site switched to an evaporative method from closed loop depending on the temperature.
“When it is really hot outside, there becomes a point where the closed loop system is no longer as efficient and it becomes more efficient for them to switch over to evaporative,” Hanes said.
However, she added that she doesn’t know what that temperature threshold is, or even whether the Vantage data center might operate the same way.
Regulatory blindspot
Data center operators are keeping GEAA and other environmental groups in the dark as they attempt to educate lawmakers and the public, Hanes complained.
“When each data center is different or potentially different, and when details are not available to the public, it makes, of course, our lives and our attempts to provide recommendations and insight much more difficult,” she said.
Also raising concern, neither Texas’ current water-usage plan nor an adopted 2027 plan account for data centers’ consumption. And though the previous session of the Texas Legislature separately addressed the growing water crisis in drought-stricken Texas, lawmakers presented no bills specifically addressing data center water usage, advocates caution.
However, given the growing bipartisan public outcry against data centers throughout Texas, Hanes is hopeful that will change with the next session, which starts in January. To that end, the GEAA is working directly with lawmakers to draft meaningful legislation and address this regulatory blindspot at the state level.
At the local level, Councilman Galvan submitted a proposal last fall calling for a comprehensive discussion on the data center industry’s impacts on the city.
In a conversation with the Current, he pointed out that since the area where Vantage built is zoned for the appropriate commercial use, the company needed no city permission to open the facility.
“Data centers are vital to our digital life and economy, but their growth has far outpaced public policy,” Galvan wrote when he submitted his proposal, which still requires more hearings before it faces a vote by the full council. “We must understand how the recent and rapid data center expansion affects our electric grid, water supply and neighborhoods — and ensure San Antonio is planning responsibly for the future.”
However, Public Citizen’s Shelley said that Galvan’s proposal doesn’t go far enough to stop data centers before they are built — or to regulate those already operating here.
“[It’s] mostly about data gathering. You know, getting more of an understanding of how this industry is impacting the state or the city,” he said. “It’s not a proposal to regulate. So while I think it’s a great first step, I do not think it goes far enough. And I think the city is going to need to go further.”
Unlike many cities, San Antonio owns the public utilities supplying such facilities. Shelley wondered whether officials at SAWS and City Public Service could reject a commercial use application if it’s determined to be against the public’s interest.
Galvan said that while it is unknown how many jobs the data center would bring to the area, that number is under 20 for a facility representing an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars. That, coupled with the job losses caused by AI, makes this a
labor issue as well as a health and environmental one, Galvan said.
“There’s a shared concern about how negatively our workforce is going to be impacted by this,” Galvan said, adding that even his Republican colleague Misty Spears has proposed a CCR about preparing the workforce for the negative impacts of AI.
Also, Galvan added, such centers often bring in specialists to perform specific technical tasks at the data center, meaning locals might not get hired for many of those jobs, other than the temporary construction work to build the center.
Given the little recourse state and local officials currently have to stop such facilities, Hanes projected that Texas will become the epicenter of a data center gold rush. Developers are likely to move quickly to build over the next few months so they can be grandfathered in ahead of impending regulations, she predicted.
There’s no real hope of stopping the new Vantage data center from becoming fully operational, Shelley said. All that remains is some customary paperwork, he said, which is bound to be rubber stamped by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, a state agency environmentalists have long complained is in the back pocket of big business.
Meanwhile, San Antonio residents can only raise their voices in opposition, joining with those of countless other communities nationwide.
“People feel like they’re not being heard,” Shelley said. “They feel like they’re being actively silenced. These are just administrative exercises. They’re boxes to be checked in order to satisfy federal permitting requirements. And from that perspective, the entire process is a sham, and it’s meaningless.”
Stephanie Koithan
Stephanie Koithan
SAT | 06.13 - SUN | 06.14
SPECIAL EVENT
TURNIP THEATER PRESENTS: VIEWPOINTS AND CLOWNING TRAINING INTENSIVE
Clowning around is another way to say “goofing off,” but actual clowning is serious business. How often do you get to increase your understanding of character-based movements that prioritize physical spontaneity and spatial awareness? What kind of performer are you? Traditional? Slap happy? Morose verging on (gasp) mime-adjacent territory a la Shakes the Clown? If you’re interested in the clowning art form, Turnip Theater’s workshops Viewpoints and Clowning can help set you on your path, whatever that may be. The Viewpoints workshop is based on a clowning approach often compared to the Strasberg Method and is taught by NYU-trained Ruthie Buescher, an expert in physical theater and artistic director of the Turnip ensemble. Meanwhile, Clowning will be led by Julia Fae, a working clown and physical theater artist. $90 for one day or $180 for both days (full and partial scholarships available), 9:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m. both days, Urban-15, 2500 S. Presa St., (210) 538-4936, turniptheater.com. — Anjali Gupta
SUN | 06.14
PRIDE OUT AT THE TOBIN
PRIDE BRUNCH
Back in the spotlight where she belongs, beloved San Antonio drag star Kristi Waters returns to host the Tobin’s Pride Month favorite. Having previously tapped Texan pageant legend CoCo Montrese and Canadian bombshell Brooke Lynn Hytes as headliners, the event keeps the RuPaul’s Drag Race star power flowing by importing Australian diva Courtney Act. With a cheeky name meant to evoke “caught in the act,” the Brisbane native made a name for herself on Australian Idol before entering the Drag Race Werk Room back in 2014. The strong singing voice that landed Courtney on Idol gave her a leg up on Drag Race, where she won the first-ever “Rusical” challenge and finished as a runner-up without ever having to lip sync for her life. Reality TV has become a constant for Courtney, who went on to win Celebrity Big Brother and compete on Dancing with the Stars and The Masked Singer. Here’s hoping she’ll bust out one of her original tracks like “Mean Gays” or “Boys Like Me” on the Tobin stage. Courtney may be a hard act to follow, but the Texas queens sharing the bill seem up for the challenge. Hailed as “the diva of Houston,” Reign LaRue started performing in 2017 and has racked up pageant titles spanning from Miss Gay Yellow Rose USofA at Large to Miss Gay Houston USofA at Large. Described by fans as “the Latina doll of San Antonio,” rising showgirl Kylie Gorgeous is a member of the Haus of Dlux and does Mother Mehgan proud with high kicks, splits and death drops. Word to the wise: Out at the Tobin is an 18-and-up event with six ticket pricing tiers — some of which include access to a brunch buffet. Brunch items and “inspired cocktails” will also be available for purchase at the Naylor Bar. $33.50-$222.50, ages 18 and up, doors at 10:30 a.m., show at noon, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. — Bryan Rindfuss
THU
| 06.18
PERFORMANCE POETRY CRUSH
Gemini Ink celebrates Pride Month 2026 with a self-described “lovestruck” event. Poetry Crush invites multiple generations of queer poets to read their work, as well as works by their literary crushes. Showcased artists include Dee Lalo Garcia, Lace Garcia, Marcela Hernandez, Barbie Huerta and Debra Munoz-Bratina. The event also features writing prompts for the audience, a community open mic, refreshments, entertainment by DJ Mexistentialism and a dance party. The event is designed to introduce the community to emerging queer authors — some reading in public for the first time — while celebrating writers past and present. Free, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Coates Chapel, UTSA Southwest Campus, 300 Augusta St,, (210) 734-9673, geminiink.org — AG
Mitch Major
| 06.20
READING
CJ LEEDE IN CONVERSATION WITH JOHNNY COMPTON
Join bestselling horror writer CJ Leede and fellow Bram Stoker Award-nominated author Johnny Compton for a reading and discussion of Leede’s latest book, Headlights. Hailed as a breakout work of fiction along the lines of Stephen King’s seminal work The Shining, Headlights follows a true crime format before delving into the realm of the supernatural — a liminal space where the story remains until its shocking conclusion. Leede’s debut novel Maeve Fly won both the Golden Poppy Octavia E. Butler and Splatterpunk awards as well as a Bram Stoker nomination. Her discussion with acclaimed San Antonio scribe Compton should be more than enough to get horror fans’ asses off the couch. Free, 6-7 p.m., Nowhere Bookshop, 5154 Broadway, (210) 640-7260, nowherebookshop.com. — AG
SUN | 06.21
SPECIAL EVENT
MUSIC BINGO: HEAVY METAL
Music Bingo, much like heavy metal, is a subgenre in and of itself. Forget the glitz of stadium rock, the glitter of glam, the insouciance of punk, post-punk, hardcore, grindcore, blah blah blah … Heavy metal stands alone, and this town — the so-called Heavy Metal Capital of the World — folks know their shit. How, pray tell, does this translate to bingo? Well, simply substitute band names and songs for numbers — not exactly an easy task, but as any music enthusiast will tell you, it’s all about the playlist. And as odd as it might sound, librarians might be frighteningly adept at creating a challenging anthology — a compendium worthy enough to test our collective beer-soaked brains. This could turn out to be an event for the record books, or the start of a marvelously ridiculous series. Free, 2-3 p.m., Collins Garden Branch Library, 200 N. Park Blvd., (210) 207-9120, mysapl.org. — AG
TUES | 06.23
KOYAANISQATSI
A cautionary tale with no dialogue, Koyaanisqatsi is a collaboration between bizarre yet concordant co-conspirators: a former monk and activist concerned about technology’s effect on privacy — director Godfrey Reggio — along with cinematographer Ron Fricke ( Chronos , 1985) and preeminent composer Philip Glass. Presented as part of Texas Public Radio’s Cinema Tuesdays series, this non-narrative documentary, comprised of juxtapositions of lyrical time-lapse footage, is demarcated by acute shifts in Glass’ soundtrack — 13 interludes in all. Each builds upon the previous, edging toward a call for humankind to rekindle its relationship with the natural world. $12, 7-9:30 p.m., Alamo Drafthouse Park North, 618 Northwest Loop 410, (210) 614-8977 x 300, tpr.org. — AG
Tor Nightfire
Jaime Monzon
Incredible, Tragic, Hilarious Existence
Stormy Daniels talks comedy, death threats and mushrooms ahead of tour stop in S.A.
BY MARCELO GARZA
When brainstorming titles for her new comedy tour, Stormy Daniels wanted to choose something that wouldn’t immediately reference her previous career in the adult entertainment industry.
That meant instantly discarding pun-heavy options like Partly Stormy and The Perfect Stormy.
“I wanted words that, if you Googled them, didn’t bring up any of my adult movies,” Daniels, 47, told the Current during a recent interview. “I didn’t want somebody to Google the wrong thing. I wanted to make sure my [comedy tour] came up.”
What Daniels ultimately landed on was Unicorns in the Kitchen, a comedy show that blends stories from her years in adult entertainment with reflections on her life as a wife and mother, along with candid takes on politics, scandal and everything in between.
Daniels became a household name in early 2018 after reports surfaced about a hush-money payment tied to her alleged sexual encounter with Donald Trump in 2006, which later became a highly publicized storyline during the 2016 presidential election.
The reports led to investigations into whether Trump made hush-money payments that violated campaign finance laws. A New York court eventually found him guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records tied to the arrangement.
With her past behind her, Daniels brings Unicorns in the Kitchen to Woodlawn Comedy on Friday, June 12. She ends each show with a live Q&A with the audience.
During our interview, Daniels talked about the meaning behind Unicorns in the Kitchen and the kinds of crazy questions audiences ask her at her shows. She also revisited her memoir and how she managed to piss off Mario Kart enthusiasts and mushroom farmers with a single sentence.
Besides wanting the title of your comedy tour to be easily searchable online, what’s the story behind it?
Unicorns in the Kitchen started when my daughter was three or four years old. She
blamed a unicorn for a hole she put in her daddy’s birthday cake with her tiny finger. She said, “Well, there’s just one hole in it, mommy. It might’ve been a unicorn.” So, that’s been the running joke.
Your name was constantly in the headlines during the 2016 elections. When you’re on stage, does it feel like you’re reclaiming your own narrative?
Absolutely. For years, people used me as fodder, and now I’m using them as fodder. I’ve actually been doing comedy since 2019. There was, obviously, a break in the middle because of COVID, and because I had to testify in a little trial, if you remember. But this is not my first tour. I write all my own material. The show is not all political. The best part of the show is the Q&A at the end. I always say, “Don’t ask me something you don’t want to know the answer to!”
What kinds of questions do you get?
The content of questions never ceases to amaze me. It’s everything from the size of the president’s anatomy to horse training tips to dating advice to stuff that happens on an adult film set. It’s always very entertaining.
What kinds of questions do you wish people would ask?
I wish they would ask me about the President trying to make me sign another NDA two years ago that specifically said that I would not do stand-up comedy or speaking engagements. When I said no, they shadow banned me. Most people, even those who follow me, don’t see my posts about my comedy tour. So, I think of every ticket purchased as a way people are helping me out.
Was there a moment when you realized that your life had become part of American political theater?
A big moment is when I got to say, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” That was a huge deal. It was my dream to be a writer for Saturday Night Live growing up. One of the bad [moments] was the first time someone woke me up at 1 a.m. with a death threat and started saying terrible things about my daughter. I had to start wearing a bulletproof vest. I also got doxxed, and my horse got shot with a rubber bullet. There’s good and bad in life all the time.
Where do you find the humor in the bad stuff that’s happened to you?
You know, coming from the adult business, you have to have a pretty good sense of humor. Human existence is pretty ridiculous. We’re all pretty ridiculous creatures when you think about it. If I can frame that in a way that people can identify with, but also find humorous, that’s what I like. If I can go up on stage and laugh at my incredible, tragic, hilarious existence, it makes it OK for audiences to laugh too.
In your memoir, Full Disclosure, you described your encounter with Trump in a way that probably ruined Mario Kart for everyone…
That’s one of my claims to fame! I somehow managed to piss off Mario Kart enthusiasts and mushroom farmers in the same fucking sentence! I got hate mail from both!
Looking back, do you think those details help clarify your experience or did it overshadow it?
Or was it just a good reason to laugh at him?
You know, I was able to describe [Trump’s penis] in a way that people could envision, but also in a way where I wasn’t claiming to be a victim or part of #MeToo. I didn’t want the book to lean into trauma. Also, I needed a way to describe something in such detail that it was accurate and descriptive and proof that I was telling the truth. I didn’t want to body shame anyone, but he called me a liar. The only way to prove I was telling the truth was to specifically describe something. You and I both know that if I was lying, he’d have dropped his pants and showed us all a long time ago. Prove me wrong, bitch.
Find more arts coverage every day at sacurrent.com
Courtesy Photo / Stormy Daniels
arts Tejano Queen
New Briscoe Museum exhibition showcases photos of South Texas music icon Selena taken during her meteoric rise
BY KAT MCKINNEY
The photo exhibition “Selena Forever/Siempre Selena” now open at the Briscoe Western Art Museum offers a riveting view of the late Tejano star Selena as she rose to international fame.
Featured in the museum’s Kat Marmion Gallery, the show gathers images which San Antonio photographer John Dyer captured of the iconic South Texas performer between 1992 and 1994. The photos include some of the most recognizable portraits of Selena ever published, along with boutique photographs, magazine covers and rarely seen ephemera.
Together, the pieces represent the most complete large-scale exhibition of Dyer’s Selena work to date according to Briscoe officials.
“You cannot get a better example of contemporary influence of an amazing Tejana than Selena. With the tie to San Antonio, the fact that she’s from South Texas, the exhibit was just a natural fit for us,” Briscoe spokeswoman Dawn Robinette said. “She’s the fantastic showcase of how the Tejano influence is alive today. It still impacts our culture, and it’s still shaping the American West.”
The show will run through Jan. 4, 2027. It offers an intimate look at the artist whose charisma and cultural pride charmed the nation and helped to redefine representation for Mexican American women in pop music. The Briscoe emphasizes that Selena’s story aligns with the museum’s broader mission to explore the American West through the people who shaped it.
opportunity to photograph Selena within that time period,” Robinette said. “These photos are some of her most iconic, and of course, unfortunately, we lost her not long after. It’s a shame, however, these images really show how she was on the path to stardom.”
To complement the exhibition, the Briscoe has launched its annual summer film series titled “Siempre Tejano,” which will spotlight movies about Selena and the cultural currents that shaped her career. Screenings will take place on the third Sundays of June, July and August, and entrance is included with general admission tickets.
For the June event, which falls on June 21, Father’s Day, the Briscoe is providing free admission to all father figures, and there will be a tequila tasting to accompany the screening of the 2025 documentary Selena y Los Dinos.
Dyer’s portraits, shot in San Antonio and across South Texas, capture the blend of confidence and authenticity central to Selena’s singular brand. His work documenting the star has appeared in museums nationwide, including the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
“It’s fortuitous that John Dyer had the
The exhibition arrives during a busy summer for the Briscoe, which will also open “Tejano Legacy: Another American Origin Story” on July 24. The museum calls it the most ambitious exhibition in its history. The major historical showcase will trace 400 years of Tejano presence in American Western culture.
$8-$16, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday-Monday through Jan. 4, 2027, Briscoe Western Art Museum, 210 W. Market St., (210) 2994499, briscoemuseum.org.
Courtesy Image / Briscoe Museum of Western Art
Moral Divide
BrokenLandexplores humanity, difficult choices on Texas border
BY KIKO MARTINEZ
While spending summers on his grandparents’ cattle ranch in Freer, 60 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, writer-director Joseph T. Walker often saw migrants crossing through the South Texas brush country, driven by hopes of a better life in America. When migrants knocked on the screen door asking for water, his grandfather never turned them away. Sometimes, his grandmother would make them a home-cooked meal.
As Walker grew older, he came to realize that the sensationalized stories surrounding immigration often stripped away the humanity of the people at the center of the story.
Walker sought to challenge that narrative with his first feature film, Broken Land The drama follows a Texas rancher (David Morse) whose solitary life along the border is upended after he accidentally shoots a young migrant woman (Jaklyn Bejarano) crossing his property.
Injured and desperate to reach San Antonio so she can catch a bus to Colorado, the woman turns to the rancher for help. Faced with an impossible choice, he must decide whether to help her continue her journey or turn her over to his estranged son (Bill Heck), a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
During a recent interview with the Current, Walker and Morse, who’s best known for films including The Green Mile and The Hurt Locker, talked about working with first-time actress Jaklyn Bejarano, shooting the film at Walker’s grandparents’ ranch in Freer, and what they hope audiences understand from the timely immigration storyline.
Broken Land will become available on demand June 12.
JT, where did you find actress Jaklyn Bejarano? She was amazing!
Joseph T. Walker: She’s a stage actress from Mexico City. This was her first film. We looked at a bunch of Mexican American and Latino American actresses. It was very hard to find someone who didn’t sound like Spanish was their second language. So, we did a search in Mexico. One of our producers had a friend in the Mexican film industry. I met Jaklyn in Mexico City. I wish her audition was in the movie because it was so damn good. It made the casting director cry. She’s absolutely amazing! Spread the word!
David, since you’re a vet in this industry, what was it like working across from somebody who had never been in a film before?
David Morse: It’s a gift when you work with somebody as completely truthful and alive as Jaklyn is in [Broken Land]. She brought me to life in our scenes, and that’s what you want. You want to be present. Working with Jaklyn, you don’t have to pretend you’re in that world. You have to give yourself over to the landscape and to this fantastic woman.
David, you’re originally from Boston. What did it take to become a Texan in this movie?
DM: I went down [to Texas] early and lived on one of the ranches where we shot. I spent a lot of time helping take care of the animals. It was a great way to transition into that world. It also helped to have a script that JT wrote that felt like it came out of the Texas earth.
JT, how did shooting in Freer help with the authenticity of the film?
JTW: Yeah, I think there’s one stoplight in that town. We shot at my grandparents’ ranch. That house has been abandoned for about 20 years. You don’t have to pretend. You’re saturated in that environment. I love interacting with environments and having them impinge themselves on the film. The world is enlivening what you’re doing. When we got a dust storm, we were like, “Oh, cool, let’s go shoot!”
JT, how do you hope audiences respond to this storyline, especially given how timely these debates on immigration are right now?
JTW: I wanted to tell a story that I was fascinated by. I’m happy that there’s an opportunity for the film to reflect what’s happening, but it wasn’t the original intention. In terms of the environment we’re in, I hope people watch the movie and see that it’s about how the politics dissolve away in light of this connection between these two human beings. It’s really about these two characters. As they get to know each other, the labels dissolve. Politics are still politics, but you still have to make decisions.
Hunger Buster
The 8th Annual San Antonio Burger Week gets back to basics while feeding hungry residents
BY KATHERINE STINSON
Prepare your appetites: San Antonio Burger Week is back.
From Wednesday, June 10, through Sunday, June 21, the Current-sponsored event enables Alamo City residents to indulge in affordable and delicious burger specials at participating restaurants to raise money for a good cause.
Sales proceeds from the specials will go to the San Antonio Food Bank, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting food insecurity in the area. Most of the burger specials during San Antonio Burger Week range from $10 to $15.
While previous Burger Week participants experimented with fiery spices, exotic meats and unusual toppings, the 2026 edition appears to be bringing it back to burger basics – with a few exceptions.
For example, local chain Burger Boy is sticking with its classic $10 Working Man special: a double-meat cheeseburger with all the traditional fixings, served with fries and a choice of drink. Meanwhile, Benjie’s Munch is sticking with its famous grilled cheeseburger for $11.99, complete with candied jalapeños and a housemade “V-Boom” sauce.
But for those craving something unconven-
tional, Burger Week 2026 has that too.
Killer Burger’s two SA locations are offering sandos doctored up with peanut butter. More accurately titled the Peanut Butter Bacon Pickle Burger, the special is “sweet, tangy and weird in all the best ways,” according to Killer Burger. The burger is cooked with a peanut butter sauce and topped off with bacon, mayo, pickles and grilled onions.
And while the Peanut Butter Bacon Pickle Burger is a regular menu item at Killer Burger, many of the specials offered during the annual fundraiser are specially created limited-time options.
Other Burger Week deals this year include: Bombay Bicycle Club’s Jack & Smoke Burger, which features scratch-made whiskey barbecue sauce, herbed Jack and cheddar cheeses, and it’s served with a side of Cajun-seasoned fries.
The Dogfather’s The Stinger, which features 44 Farms Angus beef, bacon, feta, roasted serrano chimichurri sauce, arugula and honey.
The Lion & Rose’s Beefeater, complete with patties served on a toasted Kaiser roll with traditional fixings and a top-secret special aioli.
Other participating restaurants this goround include Bar America, Henbit, Breakaway Brewing Company, Dos Sirenos Brewing, The Pullman Market, Chris Madrid’s, Little Woodrow’s and more. A full list is available on the Burger Week website: satxburgerweek.com.
Like past editions of San Antonio Burger Week, this year’s festivities include a free San Antonio Burger Week app. Participants are encouraged to download the app to track their
burger-eating progress — and the chance to win $500.
San Antonio Burger Week also has a list of commandments that organizers ask diners to follow.
The rules? Understand that the restaurants may run out of the specials during the day of your visit. You can always return the next day. Due to high demand, some of the burgers also may be 86’d before close of business. You can always order different things off the menu and support local establishments regardless. Most of the participating restaurants have extensive menus beyond their burger specials.
Beyond that, understand there will likely be a line, tip generously and purchase more than the burger special. In other words — be a great customer, not a jerk!
Participating San Antonio Burger Week restaurants have been encouraged to share wait-times and availability for their specials on social media channels, so make sure to check before heading out for a burger. Participating diners are also encouraged to share their favorite burger finds online with the hashtag #sanantonioburgerweek.
There’s even an official San Antonio Burger Week Instagram: instagram.com/sanantonioburgerweek. Finally, check whether your burger restaurant of choice is offering their special dine-in, to-go or both. Event organizers have tried to mark which is which on the San Antonio Burger Week app and on the corresponding website. Basically, plan ahead and be ready to wait a bit for a great burger and great cause.
Courtesy Photo / Burger Boy
Courtesy Photo / Killer Burger
Early Bird Tickets Now On Sale!
Friday, Aug 21 | 7pm VIP | 8pm GA
Experience San Antonio’s premier whiskey tasting event, hosted at the legendary riverfront Witte Museum.
Benefiting
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Savor
More Than Fair
Ro-Ho Pork & Bread’s new Fair Avenue satellite operation offers plenty of reasons to brave the drive-thru
BY RON BECHTOL
Keep an eye peeled for a small red box of a building on the South Side. Turns out it’s the new drive-thru-only manifestation of Ro-Ho Pork & Bread, a San Antonio shop renowned for its Mexican-style sandos.
Turn in off Fair Avenue, then make a quick hook to the right, proceeding around the tiny structure to the menu at the back. Remember your choices, though. At the diminutive order window, there’s nothing to jog your memory.
It’s been years since I’ve been to a drive-thru of my own volition. But I’ve liked Ro-Ho since its first days near the Sanitary Tortilla Factory just west of town. I followed the restaurant to its current iteration at 8617 N. New Braunfels Ave.
The new Fair Avenue spot appears to be the business’ first foray into a drive-thru-only operation. And the first to be painted totally red.
There was a certain DIY aspect to all my orders — for various reasons that will become apparent to the patient. We can start with the double-wrapped and carnitas-stuffed Taco Chilango. The base model is just two corn tortillas and pulled pork.
Fully accessorized, it becomes almost luxurious. The most important upgrade comes in the form of crushed chicharrones that are, first and foremost, the perfect crunchy counterpoint to the pliant pork. Adding them yourself once you get home ensures they won’t become
soggy in transit. Also don’t be shy about also adding the included avocado crema and the chopped onion and cilantro. It’s all good.
Ro-Ho’s Taco al Pastor is said to be made from “rotisserie marinated pork,” and since it’s impossible to see the inside the red box, I had to take the restaurant at its word. The color of the pork — red with achiote and dried chiles — is right, and there are lots of crisp edges.
The traditional pastor spins on a device called a trompo crowned with pineapple, which in my to-go pack appeared to be unroasted. Yet the fruit’s brightness played well against the pork. Diced red onion is added to the accessory mix. Again, just add it all, followed by a squeeze of lime.
Ro-Ho’s Gringa Taco uses the same meat and extras, adds Jack cheese, and employs flour tortillas in lieu of corn.
While takeout tacos are the ultimate meal-on-the-run, Ro-Ho’s signature Torta Ahogada — or “drowned” sandwich — requires a little more engineering. Not to mention a some-assembly-required state of mind.
Beyond that, you have to make a crucial decision at
the order window: pork butt carnitas, pork stomach (buche), cuerito (pork skin) or a mixture of the above. There’s also a vegetarian version. I chose a mix of buche and cuerito.
When you get home, there’s another decision to be made. Your choice of filling will have been stuffed into a birote, a close cousin of the Mexican bolillo roll, that’s been sliced lengthwise, then cut in half across its equator. In street food fashion, a mild tomato-based sauce comes in a small plastic bag, its top knotted shut. This is the medium in which to “drown” the torta.
I suppose you could just open the bag and pour the thin sauce over the sandwich while it’s still prone in the polystyrene container. Turning as required, you could wait for the bread to get good and soaked — and employ a knife and fork if necessary.
But this just seems wrong.
Another option is to find a shallow bowl, heat the sauce, stand the halved tortas upright as a pair of tawny icebergs and pour the goodness all around. This way, using your fingers, you can keep dunking as you bite your way toward the pointed end. Less mess. More ceremony. I like to enhance the sauce with the two red salsas, killers in their own right, that the restaurant provides in tiny plastic cups.
But whatever the manner of consumption, it’s a beautiful sandwich.
The restaurant’s Ahogada hails from Guadalajara, but the Chilakillers may come mostly from the creative mind of chef-owner Jorge Rojas. Whatever the origin, here’s what you get: a mountain of toasty tortilla chips slathered with bean puree, generous portions of your choice of meat — I chose carnitas — a more modest amount of sour cream, feta, pickled onion and another tied bag of the lightly spicy tomato sauce. Once again, a little salsa enhancement may be a good idea.
Now pour the sauce over the tumbled pile — basically fancy nachos — and have at it. It’s less messy than you might imagine.
There’s one dessert on the Ro-Ho menu. It’s called Jericalla. Also a Jalisco native, it’s basically a lighter flan, cooked in a water bath and broiled a bit to achieve a browned crust. I ate this one straight out of its crinkled aluminum cup. No ceremony there, but it made a satisfying end to an admittedly excessive meal.
RO-HO PORK & BREAD SOUTH DRIVE-THRU
618FairAve.,(210)800-3487,ro-hoporkandbread.com.
Hours: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Thursday-Tuesday
Price range: $5-$14
The lowdown: It’s all more than fair at Ro-Ho Pork & Bread’s tiny drive-thru satellite operation on Fair Avenue, though you’ll have to do a little work yourself once you get home. This is all to the good, since adding the chicharrones yourself to the Taco Chilango ensures they’ll stay crisp. Meanwhile, adding the tomato sauce to the Torta Ahogada achieves just the opposite: a satisfying level of soak to the “drowned” birote bread. Don’t skip Ro-Ho’s take on a Taco al Pastor either. Its pork is edgy and flavorful. And even if the Chilakillers are effectively fancy nachos bathed in more tomato sauce, it won’t kill you to give them a try.
Ron Bechtol
Ron Bechtol
June 10-June 21
Our smashburger sliders are pressed hot on the grill for crispy, golden edges and a juicy center, then layered with melty cheese and finished with rich garlic aioli that oozes into every bite. (Two per order)
‘Part of You Leaves With Them’
Americana icon Alejandro Escovedo heading to Stable Hall after dropping album reinterpreting earlier work
BY DAVE GIL DE RUBIO
As a recording artist, if you hang around long enough, you get to look back at your body of work.
And if you’re really lucky, you not only get to revisit your canon but get a shot at reinterpreting and reimagining the fruits of your earlier labor.
That’s what Austin’s Alejandro Escovedo has done with his latest album Echo Dancing. It finds the singer-songwriter, scheduled to play San Antonio’s Stable Hall on Friday, June 12, using the past to shape the future.
The idea was spawned in part when the 75-year-old Americana icon took a listen to Por Vida: A Tribute to Alejandro Escovedo, a 32-cut compilation featuring a wide array of artists covering the songs of the album’s namesake. It was released to help him cover medical bills incurred while he was recovering from hepatitis C.
Among the friends and famous fans who participated were Lucinda Williams, Rosie Flores, Son Volt, the Cowboy Junkies, the Jayhawks and Ian Hunter. One cover in particular caught Escovedo’s ear.
“I came across a song done by Calexico, called ‘Wave,’” Escovedo said. “I just loved it. I started listening to that record a little more, and I thought it would be cool to join the excavation of songs, see what’s down there and see what we could salvage and put a new paint job on. Maybe just fix it up and see what happens. I had a lot of fun doing it. It was really interesting how it came about. It just happened by chance, but once it started to roll, it was really, really easy and a lot of fun to do.”
As the next step, Escovedo decamped to the Italian countryside, where he joined forces with musicians Don Antonio and Nicola Peruch. Escovedo had worked with Antonio on 2018’s The Crossing, a concept album about two young refugees — one Italian, one Mexican — who bond over their mutual love of punk rock while they struggle with racism and discrimination as they try to immigrate to America.
Escovedo gladly leaned into this musical partnership as he spent November 2022 in
Europe working on Echo Dancing at the duo’s recording studio. The facility is located inside a 15th-century stone mill overlooking vineyards and olive orchards.
“Don Antonio and Nicola Peruch were the perfect partners in this endeavor, because they were just very open to whatever I was going to do, no matter what,” Escovedo said. “The idea was that we were going to create an album that was totally improvisational — just start playing, start singing and see what happens. Then we changed gears and got into this mode and it worked out OK. They were perfect for the job.
It’s amazing.”
He added: “Antonio and I wrote The Crossing together and worked on The Crossing together with that band — his band. I was accustomed to working with them, and they were accustomed to working with me, so it worked out.”
In hopping on his musical time machine, Escovedo not only went through his solo canon, but included selections from other groups and projects he was involved with, specifically Buick MacKane (“John Conquest”) and the True Believers (“Outside Your Door”).
But rather than do a by-the-numbers rendition, Escovedo and his cohorts reimagined the original material using sonics and electronics in a manner that was a tip of the cap to influences such as pioneering electro-punk duo Suicide.
Echo Dancing also arrives at a time when Escovedo is taking stock of his life and mortality. Part of it involves a recent move back to Austin after spending four years living in the Belmont Hotel in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas.
“I spent most of my life in hotels and wanted to get back to the country,” he explained.
Escovedo’s oldest brother, Manuel, died the day before our interview. The passing left him in an understandably introspective mood, and Escovedo revealed he’s also working on a memoir that he hopes to use as source material for a one-man show within the year.
“Manuel was a good man in his 90s, and he was just a great older brother,” Escovedo said.
“It’s funny with family. I come from a very large family — 13 kids. As they all began to leave us, part of you leaves with them. Second in line is Pete [Editor’s Note: He happens to be Sheila E’s dad], and he’s in his 80s. He’s still playing, and he’s still a beautiful man and so inspirational. Then I’m next in line after Pete.
“It’s weird, you know. You’re queueing up for this role. I don’t know, it’s strange. Thankfully, the beauty of the sexuality and sensuality of rock ’n’ roll [continues to inspire me] — the kind of outlaw rebel nature of rock ’n’ roll, when it was true to its form and the willingness to kind of just be who you are.”
$37, 8 p.m. Friday, June 12, Stable Hall, 307 Pearl Parkway, stablehall.com.
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Nancy Rankin
Ram Jam Returns
The annual festival commemorating Taco Land’s late proprietor is packed with San Antonio acts
BY BRIANNA ESPINOZA
Twenty-one years in, Ram Jam is still doing what it does best: packing the stage with San Antonio misfits, lifers and underground legends to honor Taco Land icon Ramiro “Ram” Ayala. Scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, June 20-21, at the Corn Pound, the event will include live performances by bands including Buttercup, Thunder Horse, The
Infidels, Los #3 Dinners, Hickoids, Donella Drive, Mechanical Walking Robot Boy and Snowbyrd, plus a reunion of the White Heat.
An outdoor screening of the documentary The Sons of Hercules: Three Decades of Spittin’ Fire will also close out the first night. Ram Jam originated in 2005 to pay tribute to Taco Land proprietor Ayala and doorman “Gypsy Doug” Morgan, both of whom died in a shooting at the bar.
For the uninitiated, Ayala’s nightspot near the Pearl Brewery emerged as one of Texas’ longest-running — and most colorful — punk and underground music venues. During its decades-long run, the club hosted acts as varied as GWAR, the Jesus Lizard, Yo La Tengo, the Dead Milkmen and El Vez.
In addition to the stacked musical bill, this year’s Ram Jam will feature live art performances, vendor booths, DJ sets and plenty of camaraderie for SA scenesters eager to celebrate the man who opened his club to generations of DIY musicians.
Free (donations accepted), noon-11:15 p.m. Saturday, June 20, noon-8:50 p.m. Sunday, June 21, The Corn Pound, 6336 Montgomery Drive, facebook.com/nightrockerpresents.
Courtesy Photo / Erik Sanden
THE GORGON’S WRATH
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breakawaybrewing.us | 1518 E Grayson St. | Tues-Sat 11am-9pm
critics’ picks
Thursday, June 11
Bill Schoening & Friends, Jeph Duarte Band, Jacob Tobey
The radio voice of the Spurs for more than two decades, Bill Schoening spent his nights painting images in the minds of Spurs fans throughout south Texas. Since retiring, Schoening has more time for his own storytelling as a blue-eyed soul singer fronting a great Austin-based band. He’s celebrating the release of his Collaborations EP, which includes work with other artists, including Spurs television playby-play announcer and singer Jacob Tobey. Tobey will open the show with an acoustic set of his own. Bonus: expect door prizes and Spurs swag giveaways. $16.56-$41.03. 6:30 p.m., Sam’s Burger Joint, 330 E. Grayson St., (210) 223-2830, samsburgerjoint.com. — Danny Cervantes
with formal attire strongly recommended. Expect founding members Sisqó and Nokio to set the mood with hits including “Never Make a Promise” and “How Deep Is Your Love.”
$39.00-$224.00. 8 p.m., Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. — DC
Saturday, June 13
Nekromantix
Started in Denmark in 1989, horror-themed psychobilly act Nekromantix is led by vocalist-bassist and sole original member Kim Nekroman, who’s known for thumping along on his coffin-shaped instrument. The band’s fast-paced backbeat, slew of oh-woah vocals and warbling guitar melodies may give you the urge to slap on an extra handful of pomade to scoop your pompadour to new heights. $33.34-$232.45, 8 p.m., Sam’s Burger Joint, 330 E. Grayson St., (210) 223-2830, samsburgerjoint.com. — Brianna Espinoza
Monday, June 15
Kittie, Kingdom of Giants, Gore
After a roughly 10-year hiatus, Canada’s hard-riffing Kittie is back on tour. Although once considered part of the nu-metal explosion, the all-woman band has its own distinctive claws-out style. Sisters Morgan and Mercedes Lander remain from the band’s iconic lineup. $59-$63.70, 7:30 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — BE
Wednesday, June 17
Tim Kasher
Friday, June 12
Robert Rodriguez’s Chingon Band
Before you let out a groan about another Hollywood guy dabbling in music, realize San Antonio-raised filmmaker Robert Rodriguez isn’t engaging in bland white-guy blues. His band’s moody and attitude-filled Latin rock comes across as something more vital than another celebrity ego trip. Originally formed to perform on the soundtrack to Rodriguez’s Once Upon a Time in Mexico, the group since provided music for other independent films. $35-$140, 7 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — BB
Saturday, June 13
Dru Hill
Urban R&B outfit Dru Hill will bring 30 years of slow jams to town for a “Black Tie Concert”
group The Nazz in the ’60s, the multifaceted musical maverick burst onto the scene with the album Something/Anything, on which he impressively played every instrument. The followup A Wizard, A True Star took listeners on a deeply psychedelic rock journey that proved heavily influential on Tame Impala and other groups. Along the way, Rundgren has fronted other groups and served as producer to iconic musical acts as diverse as Meat Loaf, Hall and Oates, The Band, XTC and The New York Dolls. $63, 7:30 p.m., Tobin Center for the Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, tobincenter.org. — BB
Friday,
June 19
Joe Jackson
Known for hits including “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” and “Steppin’ Out,” Joe Jackson launched a second British Invasion with his legendary 1979 new wave album Look Sharp! Nearly five decades later, Jackson is bringing a diverse catalog of rock, jazz and electronica with him as he celebrates the release of his newest album Hope and Fury. Tour setlists feature a blend of the new material with classic material. $62.39-$135.59, 7:30 p.m., Empire Theatre, 226 N St. Mary’s St., (210) 226-5700, majesticempire.com. — DC
Sunday, June 21
Killswitch Engage, Machine Head, Havoc, Iron Reagan
Tim Kasher is Omaha, Nebraska’s finest alt-rock export, having led the outfits Cursive and the Good Life before his solo career. As leader of those outfits, Kasher provided the ultimate life soundtrack for a certain generation of angst-ridden teens. He’s still cranking out compelling anthems delivered with his distinctive voice. $21, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — BB
Thursday, June 18
Freedom! The Soundtrack of 250 Years
This celebration of African-American culture and music brings together two talented groups — the San Antonio Gospel Heritage Choir and the Grammy-nominated Sounds of Blackness — and promises to provide a soulful and moving experience. The show is organized by the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum. $25, 7 p.m., Tobin Center for the Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, tobincenter.org. — BB
Friday, June 19
Todd Rundgren
When Todd Rundgren is good, there’s nobody better. After launching pioneering power-pop
Grammy-nominated metalcore act Killswitch Engage has carved its name into the metal history book. The band is touring behind long-awaited album This Consequence, which released early last year. However, since Killswitch Engage has a catalog dating back to 1999, expect to hear it mix new material with the catchy, melodic and hardcore-tinged tracks that longtime fans adore. And based on the strength of the three other bands on the lineup, it’s a good bet the venue is going to get a moshed-out baptism in sweat and beer. $62.69-$121.82, 6:30 p.m., Boeing Center at Tech Port, 3331 General Hudnell Drive, (210) 600-3699, boeingcentertechport.com. — BE
Monday, June 22
Phantom Planet, Augustana
Early alt-rock acts Phantom Planet and Augustana are collaborating on a co-headlined tour. Phantom Planet — best known for its hit “California,” the theme song for TV series The OC — is currently working on its sixth studio album. Meanwhile, Augustana and founding frontman Daniel Layus will play their debut album All The Stars and Boulevards in its entirety in honor of its 20-year anniversary. $36.55-$59.08, 8 p.m., Stable Hall, 307 Pearl Parkway, stablehall.com. — DC
Joe Jackson
Courtesy Photo / Joe Jackson
“Congratulations!”--there are a few in the grid. by Matt Jones
7. Band with the 2007 album “Oracular Spectacular”
11. Full-bore, on a musical score
14. For each one
15. Blues guitarist Robert
16. Louis XIV, par exemple
17. Steal a D+, perhaps?
19. Coffee vessel
20. Unflavored
21. Levitate
22. Flier in many Oregon Coast festivals
23. “Choosin’ Texas” singer Langle
24. Three-sided sails
25. Arrive
26. Curtain holder
27. “Civilization” developer Meier
28. Ring newbie, maybe
30. “Have I Got News For You” airer
31. Lost it
32. Symbols representing Saint Petersburg two name changes ago?
36. Cushining material for floors
37. Oil drilling structure
38. Work on getting a head?
39. Achieve
40. Do some tailoring
43. Gather
44. “By gum!”
46. Island near Molokai
47. Speaker maker
48. Kicked out of competition, for short
49. Put on the appearance of 50. Choice connections
51. Singer Rawls evened out a yard?
53. Peace sign
54. Nearly spill over 55. “Semper Fi” follower
56. Mag figures
57. “West Side Story” gang 58. Declared Down
1. ___Collins Publishers
2. 1960s-’70s space program
3. Coarsely irreverent
4. “Where the Crawdads Sing” author Owens
5. Arthur Laffer’s specialty, for short
6. Novel
7. Periodic fast-food offering with pickles
8. Like some dairy animals
9. Crafted
10. Actor Sheridan of “Ready Player One”
11. Bag lunch item in plastic
12. Like ruby anniversaries and South Dakota
13. Gemstone quality
18. Electrical system
22. Saxophonist with a 1987 instrumental hit
24. Song in an ad
25. Olympic sprinting gold medalist Justin
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27. Underwater characters of ‘80s Saturday morning TV
29. Michaelson asked last-minute to sing backup for Paul McCartney on the season finale of “SNL”
30. Clothing line 31. Method
32. Place higher than 33. Smitten
34. Some QB highlights
35. Exit with expletives, maybe?
39. ___ Wilson, aka Deadpool
40. “Yeah, I ___!”
41. One of the “Schitt’s Creek” Levys
42. Spent after a run
45. Antiseptic targets
46. Ben Stiller’s mom Anne
48. Canadian comedian Jon
49. “Animal House” group
51. Great Society monogram
52. Ball club VIPs
Answers on page 29.
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