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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11 Joe McCarthy’s Ghost
How Texas officials' bullying tactics chill free speech and cost taxpayers Issue 25-23/// Nov 12 - 25, 2025
07 News
The Opener News in Brief Pain Points
Mamdani’s victory sure is triggering the f—k out of Texas Republicans
16 Calendar
Our picks of things to do powerful
21 Arts Go, Bam, Go
Jesse Rodríguez, San Antonio’s lowprofile boxing champion, faces his toughest test yet
25 Screens
Steering a Star
Central Catholic grad Cesar Flores trains Matthew McConaughey for The Lost Bus
27 Food
Savor This
The CIA’s training restaurant at the Pearl is anything but amateur-hour dining
Cooking Up Conversation
Chef Max Mackinnon of Petit Coquin knows customers are looking for a comfortable experience
31 Music
Celebrating a Metal Pioneer
Death to All, a tribute to late Death
frontman Chuck Schuldiner, bringing tour to San Antonio
Jump-Roping on Stardust
Remembering Wayne Holtz, San Antonio’s unapologetic pop prince
Critics’ Picks
On the Cover: This week’s cover story looks at the chilling effect Texas leaders’ crackdown on dissent has had on free speech. Under a Creative Commons license, designer David Loyola altered a famous Los Angeles Times photo of U.S. Sen. Joe McCarthy, who led the 1950s “Red Scare” witch hunt, to place Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick by his side.
That Rocks/That Sucks
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling that blocked enforcement of Texas’ ban on drag, meaning the statewide ban is now in effect. It is the first time the ban, passed during the 2023 legislative session, is in effect. The ban targets only drag performances that are deemed “sexually explicit,” but drag performers and civil rights activists have warned that the standard is murky and can be selectively enforced.
Texas voters approved the state’s largest-ever investment in its water infrastructure last Tuesday, passing Proposition 4 by an overwhelming margin. The measure authorizes the Texas Legislature to spend $20 billion of existing sales tax revenue on various water projects over the next two decades. It’s a significant investment, but it may only be a start: one recent report found the state will need to spend nearly $154 billion over the next 50 years on water infrastructure.
The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have signed two agreements that will allow some DPS officers to effectively operate as ICE agents, the Texas Observer reported last week. Under the terms of the agreements, select DPS officers will be able to interrogate people about legal status, execute warrants for immigration violations and arrest anyone they believe is in the country illegally and may escape before a warrant can be obtained.
Standup comic Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias collected a record-breaking 16,000 pounds of food for the San Antonio Food Bank at a benefit show held earlier this month. Iglesias, performing at the Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, asked for donations of canned food to help the food bank prepare for the effects of the Trump administration’s refusal to fund SNAP benefits this month amid the ongoing government shutdown. — Abe Asher
Fighting ‘religious discrimination’
while spreading anti-Muslim hate with former
Texas Rep. Nate Schatzline
AssclownAlertisacolumnofopinion,analysis and snark.
First, let’s say this: it’s an absolute relief that Christian Nationalist state Rep. Nate Schatzline isn’t seeking another term in the Texas Legislature.
However, that relief is counterbalanced by the unfortunate news that this squawking shithead has accepted a position with the National Faith Advisory Board, created by televangelist and Trump White House advisor Paula WhiteCain to fight alleged discrimination against religious people.
Par for the course with Schatzline, just two days after his appointment to a group ostensibly about preventing discrimination against people of faith, he took to his Wake Up Church podcast to unleash a torrent of Islamophobic conspiracy theories.
During the podscast, first reported on by Right Wing Watch, Schatzline — a former pastor at Mercy Culture Church — asserted that Islam is ”a death cult” and that Muslims in public office are involved in a shadowy bid to take over the government and enslave Christians. Why? Because “the Muslim false god of Allah commands Muslims to lie,” he asserted.
“[I]n 50 to 100 years, maybe sooner, when Islam rules as the prime law of the land and we see things like the Ten Commandments and our biblical foundation thrown out the window, then Christians and Jews are in complete submission to the Muslims in power, because they control our social welfare programs,” Schatzline said.
But don’t call that claim a conspiracy theory, he cautioned. “I’m trying to expose the evil and the darkness that is surrounding this.”
If there’s any consolation to be had it’s that Schatzline, for all his bile and bigotry, was a dud of lawmaker.
After being elected in 2022 as a Republican representing a Tarrant County district, Schatzline filed a flurry of culture war-focused bills, most of which never got a hearing and only two of which passed, according to the Texas Observer. The fact that he’s throwing in his towel on elected office so soon suggests his second term didn’t amount to much either.
Let’s hope this assclown’s tenure with National Faith Advisory Board proves to be a similarly pathetic flameout. — Sanford Nowlin
YOU SAID IT!
Look, last night was a disaster. It was an electoral blowout. The results in New Jersey were disastrous, the results in Virginia were terrible.
— U.S. Sen.Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Democrats’ sweepofthefirstmajorelectionsincethestart ofthesecondTrumpadministration.
Bexar County voters last week narrowly approved using money collected from the county’s visitor tax to partially fund a new downtown arena for the San Antonio Spurs at Hemisfair. Proposition B clears the use of $311 million in hotel and rental-car tax dollars to help fund the $1.3 billion basketball facility. Proposition A, which also passed in the election, would pump $192 million into turning the Frost Bank Center, which the NBA team will vacate for the new downtown site, and surrounding facilities into year-round rodeo grounds.
Texas’ mid-decade redistricting gambit was answered emphatically in California last Tuesday night, where voters overwhelmingly approved
their own new congressional map that would likely erase the Republicans’ increased advantage in the Lone Star State. Californians passed the proposition by a larger margin than they voted for Kamala Harris for president. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who led the redistricting push, rallied with Texas Democrats Saturday in Houston
Texas voters approved all 17 constitutional amendments on the ballot last Tuesday, which include series of new tax exemptions. Among the most controversial of those was an amendment that would give parents unprecedented power to meddle with what teachers say in the classroom and another that would give Gov. Greg Abbott more sway over judicial conduct. — Abe Asher
Facebook / Nate Schatzline
Pain Points
Mamdani’s victory sure is triggering the f—k out of Texas Republicans
BY SANFORD NOWLIN
The following is a piece of opinion and analysis.
Judging by the sounds emanating from the Texas GOP after the New York City mayoral election, one would think Zohran Mamdani magically shut down every barbecue joint in the Lone Star State and ordered cable carriers here to cancel reruns of Walker Texas Ranger .
Take Gov. Greg Abbott, who fired off a tweet last Wednesday portraying the win by Mamdani, a democratic socialist, as a threat to free enterprise itself.
“The battle lines between capitalism and socialism were clearly drawn last night,” Abbott declared. “We will secure capitalism for the future of our country and deny the expansion of socialism that is creeping across the US.”
The MAGA-acolyte governor even suggested Texas would be the key bulwark in the coming fight, calling our state the “unrivaled HQ for capitalism in the U.S.”
Drama much, Greg?
And then there are U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. Rep. Chip Roy — the Tweedledum and Tweedledummer of Texas right-wing politics. Both of these bloviating buttheads have leaned into unfounded claims that Mamdani, the first Muslim elected New York mayor, is an Islamist radical intent on toppling Western Civilization.
In a series of tweets that began in June, Cruz has hyperventilated over the prospect of a Mamdani win, smearing the then-candidate with Islamophobic slurs and encouraging New Yorkers to flee to Texas.
“To all my friends in New York who are not communists; come to Texas! We love freedom & we’re not nuts,” the senator urged in one tweet. Cruz ratcheted up the anti-Muslim fervor even further the night before the election, sharing a meme depict -
ing a voter deciding between two ballot choices.
The first option, an apparent reference to chief Mamdani rival Andrew Cuomo reads: “A Democrat. Just a Democrat.” The second, obviously meant to represent Mamdani, reads:
“An actual communist jihadist. A literal Karl Marx-quoting, America-hating jihadist.”
It’s hard to imagine how “fellow” jihadis would reconcile Mamdani’s fervent support of LGBTQ+ rights, but Cruz has never been one to let the facts get the way of a good ol’ stackthe-bullshit-high Texas tall tale.
Not to be outdone in the anti-Muslim hysteria department, Roy last month shared an op-ed with rightwing website The Federalist tagged with the provocative-yet-absurd headline “Mamdani’s rise signals the Islamic revolution remaking the United States.”
Yes, that’s the same The Federalist that came under fire for peddling pseudoscience, conspiracy theories and utter falsehoods about public
health recommendations made during the COVID-19 pandemic. And also the same The Federalist that’s recycled debunked claims about the 2020 election being stolen.
Here’s a spoiler about Roy’s op-ed: it maintains The Federalist’s high standard of fact-free reporting. In the piece, Roy claims without proof that Mamdani’s pro-immigration stance is actually a disguise for his ultimate agenda of bringing “Islamic cultural revolution” to the U.S.
Let’s put aside the pearl clutching for a moment and get to reality: Abbott, Cruz and Roy don’t believe any of this shit. They’re educated men who understand how politics and the law work, and they’re fully goddamn aware the United States isn’t teetering toward Leninism or sharia law.
Like other Republican politicos who have hitched their political fate to President Donald Trump, they’re scared shitless right now.
Not of a 34-year-old New York politician with an infectious smile and an understanding that voters are strug-
gling with the rising cost of living. Instead, they’re terrified that voters have woken up to the fact that their party and the increasingly unpopular president to which its tethered itself haven’t done jack shit to remedy the economic pain of ordinary Americans.
Shortly before launching into another anti-Mamdani screed on Fox News Wednesday night, Cruz took a rare moment to share a truthful statement about the dire straits in which he and other Republicans now find themselves.
“Look, last night was a disaster. It was an electoral blowout,” the senator said of Tuesday’s broader election outcome. “The results in New Jersey were disastrous, the results in Virginia were terrible.”
That moment aside, no one’s ever accused Cruz — much less Abbott or Roy — of being good at self reflection. As the midterms grow closer, expect to see all three to continue holding up Mamdani as a convenient distraction.
Shutterstock / Ron Adar
Joe McCarthy’s Ghost
How Texas officials' bullying tactics chill free speech and cost taxpayers
BY KEVIN SANCHEZ
“Fascists are afraid of free speech, public gatherings and civil liberties; they’re afraid and insecure, because they know they’re wrong, so they crush it.” — Trump White House Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Dan Bongino on his former podcast
On December 27, 1963, Texas law enforcement officers knocked on the door of known communist John Stanford, warrant in hand. Issued under the pretext of the Communist Control Act of 1954, the warrant allowed authorities to search the premises for subversive literature.
In the ensuing U.S. Supreme Court case over the seizure of Stanford’s possessions, Justice Potter Stewart
described the Act as “a sweeping and many-faceted law, which outlaws the Communist Party and creates various individual criminal offenses, each punishable by imprisonment for up to 20 years.”
Among the wrongthink Texas law enforcement officials confiscated from Stanford were works by Karl Marx, Jean Paul Sartre, Fidel Castro, Pope John XXIII, and even the then-sitting Justice Hugo Black.
“The Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee to John Stanford that no official of the State shall ransack his home and seize his books and papers under the unbridled authority of a general warrant,” Stewart wrote in the unanimous decision. “No less a standard could be faithful to First Amendment freedoms.”
Stanford died in 2013 at the age of 88, but the Communist Control Act
nist “Red Scare.” Even though many of the allegations he lobbed against Americans were spurious at best, his targets frequently lost their jobs and found themselves unable to work, their lives in shambles.
Such witch hunts seem to be in vogue again. To hear President Trump tell it, a communist just won the mayorship of our nation’s largest city.
For the record, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, whom a majority of New York City voters cast their ballots for on Nov. 4, describes himself as a democratic socialist. So too did the last century’s fiercest critic of totalitarianism, George Orwell.
In a letter to a friend sent after recovering from a near-fatal bullet he took to the throat while fighting on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War, Orwell wrote, “After what I have seen in Spain, I have come to
the overthrow of capitalism, starting, of course, in one’s own country.”
Big Brother comes to Texas
A radical stance by contemporary standards, to be sure, but notice that word: “overthrow.” Orwell was clearly not advocating violent coups in countries with long histories of elections like the U.S. or the United Kingdom. Yet that’s the exact same term that got Thomas Alter fired last month from his professorship at Texas State University in San Marcos for supposedly “inciting violence.”
A labor historian, Alter had spoken to an online socialist conference over the summer, only to discover months later a self-described “anti-communist cult leader” uploaded video of the Zoom meeting to YouTube. Ironically, in context, Alter had been criticizing
news
insurrectionary anarchists who, in his view, seem uninterested in building a popular mass movement.
“Without a party organization,” Alter asked, “how can anyone expect to overthrow the most bloodthirsty, profit-mad organization in the history of the world — that of the US government?”
That mere question, not even broached in a classroom setting, resulted in Alter’s hasty firing from Texas State.
Whether or not you agree that civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1967 appraisal of the United States as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world” still applies today, plenty of regimes have been overthrown through nonviolent means yet definitionally overthrown nonetheless — from the Carnation Revolution in Portugal to the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia.
Had Orwell’s 1937 letter been found and published by red-baiters, would the author of classics works of literature such as Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm have been unable to hold down a job at Texas State University?
“It sets a very chilling and dangerous precedent,” Alter, the fired professor, told David Griscom on the Left Reckoning podcast. “Not only across the state of Texas, but across the entire country. Here, in an unprecedented manner without following any means of due process, a university president has terminated a tenured professor.” And in an interview released just last week, Alter noted forebodingly, “this echoes fascist Italy in the 1920s and the beginnings of the Third Reich, the purging of universities of Marxist and leftist professors.”
Target-rich environment
Here in Texas, one need not be a leftie academic to find oneself abruptly canned.
After the gruesome assassination of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk, hundreds of complaints were filed against teachers over their reactions on social media, with state investigations ongoing.
Derek Woods, for example, a football coach at Klein Independent School District in Houston, commented on Facebook, “I don’t get why anyone is sad... . Yes, he is leaving behind
two beautiful little girls and I pray for them, but that man was a horrible fucking human being.” He added, “You reap what you sow.”
Crass perhaps, but isn’t Woods entitled to his own opinion? Evidently not. He was terminated immediately over his comment, according to media reports.
After ABC fired late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel over his much-misinterpreted remarks on Kirk’s murder, Republican U.S. Ted Cruz of Texas explained the danger of targeting the comedian over his comment.
“If the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like,’ that will end up bad for conservatives,” he said.
Cruz compared the thinly veiled threats to ABC’s broadcast license made by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to behavior befitting a mafia boss. Trump, Carr’s higher-up, has even suggested that disproportionately negative media coverage of him is “illegal.”
Kimmel, a well-known and deep-pocketed celebrity, at least returned to work after public outcry.
Humble educators like Alter and Woods were not so fortunate.
Unfortunately, getting fired doesn’t appear to be the worst fate authorities can exact on those who still act like
we reside in a free country. Ask Larry Bushart, a Tennessee man incarcerated for more than a month after he posted a meme about Charlie Kirk’s death, which simply re-quoted Trump’s own response to an Iowa school shooting: “We have to get over it.”
That’s all.
And for pointing out the alleged hypocrisy, a sheriff awarded Bushart 40 days behind bars. Although charges were later dropped, he still did the time, and he lost his job too, of course.
Non-citizens have had it even worse than that.
A June story by news site Popular Information ran down the most egregious episodes: “Mahmoud Khalil, who is a legal permanent resident, was arrested in March by immigration agents for his leadership role in pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University. Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, was taken into ICE custody for his statements about Palestine. In March, Rümeysa Öztürk, a PhD student at Tufts University, was detained by ICE for writing an op-ed criticizing the university’s response to the war.”
Indeed, the State Department has revoked the visas of some 800 international students, many of whom voiced opposition to the U.S.-funded genocide in Gaza, according to the New York Times’ reporting. Not exactly a
world-inspiring example of encouraging open debate from the shining city upon a hill.
How Fascism Works
So, on the heels of Constitution Day in mid-September and Banned Books Week early last month, it’s worth asking, what’s the state of free expression today in the U.S. and Texas?
One disquieting sign may be that scholars who study fascism have been abandoning ship. In March, former Yale professor Jason Stanley, who wrote the book How Fascism Works, fled to Canada, Mother Jones reports. And in October, Mark Bray, a Rutgers professor who studied Antifa, hopped a flight to Spain after Turning Point USA, which Charlie Kirk co-founded, circulated a petition calling for his firing and his family began receiving death threats.
Closer to home, professors at three separate state universities in Texas said they’re already encountering problems recruiting qualified faculty candidates because prospective employees are worried about the state’s clampdown on academic freedom. The scholars who spoke to the Current about the hiring issues all asked not to be named for fear of being targeted by the state or administrators.
The president of Princeton Uni -
Shutterstock University of College
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versity, Christopher Eisgruber, appeared on CBS Sunday Morning last week to discuss how institutions of higher learning are grappling with the myriad challenges to academic freedom.
“We’ve got an American crisis where we are having trouble talking to one another across political differences,” Eisgruber told interviewer Robert Costa. “Campuses are part of that and they’re a place where civil discussions are especially important.”
Eisgruber also expressed sorrow about the campus shooting of Kirk at Utah Valley University and what it portends.
“Whatever else is true and whatever political views one may have, we have got to be a country where people can have discussions without the threat of assassination and political violence,” he added.
Trump claims to agree, despite his mass-pardoning of cop-pummeling Jan. 6 rioters.
“It’s long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree — day after day, year after year — in the most hateful and despicable way possible,” he said in a White House address on the day Kirk was gunned down. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
Except this is coming from the same man who promised New Hampshire rally-goers in November 2023 to undertake a purge of anyone who happens to hold political views outside his version of the mainstream.
“We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country,” Trump said. Sounds like that meets the definition of “hateful rhetoric.”
Trump also repeatedly referred to beaten 2024 rival Kamala Harris as “a fascist,” in spite of the umbrage many ultra-conservatives take at being similarly labeled.
What’s more, libertarian think tank the Cato Institute found that, excluding 9/11, some 63% of politically-motivated murders in the U.S. since 1975 were carried out right-wingers. That compares to just 10% by those espous-
ing leftist causes.
Global data of nearly 72,000 attacks analyzed by University of Maryland researchers confirms the discrepant lethality of right-wing domestic terrorism. A Department of Justice study which reached the same conclusion was tossed down the Orwellian memory-hole by Trump’s DOJ in early September, mysteriously vanishing from the government’s own website.
The ideological disparity of political violence stands in stark contrast to National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, signed by Trump on Sept. 25.
“The focus on speech is evident throughout NSPM-7,” independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported two days later. “A ‘pre-crime’ endeavor,” he wrote, referencing sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report, which sets about “retooling the counter-terror apparatus to go after Americans at home” and “monitoring political activity, or speech, as an investigative method to discover ‘radicalism’.”
Welcome home, Joe McCarthy.
In an interview with Klippenstein, Nathan Robinson, the editor of Current Affairs warned that few of us appear safe:
“Groups like the Democratic Socialists of America might think, ‘OK, well, obviously we’re completely nonviolent so we don’t have anything to fear’,” but the list of preemptive ‘indicators’ includes “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, support for the overthrow of the U.S. government, anyone who supports more liberal immigration policies, anyone who says racism exists, anyone who’s pro-transgender, or expresses hostility towards traditional American views on family, religion, or morality. Really so broad.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, co-founded by card-carrying communist Elizabeth Flynn Gurley, described the national security directive as “a fever dream of conspiracies.” Beyond that, the Brennan Center for Justice — named for Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, who helped set the Stanford precedent — stated the directive was “threatening to turn the full force of the federal government to rooting out a conjured-up left-wing conspiracy of political violence.”
In Klippenstein’s simpler words, NSPM-7 is a “declaration of war on anyone who does not support the
Trump administration and its agenda.”
And we all pay
Even when culture wars amount to performative government overreach unlikely to stand up to court challenges, they’re never waged on the cheap. In 2023, community advocate Nathalie Herpin got curious about how much money and time were spent reviewing books targeted for book bans, for instance. She filed a records request with Spring Branch ISD west of Houston and shockingly discovered that $30,119 and 226 staff hours — split between 16 district employees — were wasted on a single book, The Black Friend by Frederick Joseph, who was Comic-Con’s Humanitarian of the Year in 2018.
Couldn’t we have put those funds into, I don’t know, teaching kids to read?
Extrapolating from an estimate Lewisville ISD provided to the Texas Education Agency in 2021, EveryLibrary, the nation’s first and only 501(c)4 organization lobbying for libraries, gave a low-ball figure of “more than $3.6 million dollars to ban books in Texas.”
“Texans spent a staggering $112 million last year to manage culturally divisive conflicts in schools,” Rachel White, professor of educational leadership at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote in an op-ed in the Austin American-Statesman. “The costs include the money and staff time spent on librarians sorting through challenges to hundreds of books” as well as “turnover of school employees, triggering costs to hire and retain new staff,” which “further squeeze already cash-strapped Texas school districts.”
Upon surveying hundreds of school superintendents across the nation, White and her colleagues scored districts based on their number of culture war skirmishes. A full 28% of school districts fell into the most frequent category.
“On average, a school district serving 10,000 students and experiencing high levels of culturally divisive conflict is spending $812,000,” which included hiring additional security after threats of violence and staff time dealing with misinformed parents and right-wing activists, “funds that could otherwise be spent enriching students’
education.”
Overall, “the cost of conflict for the nation’s public schools in 2023-24 was approximately $3.2 billion,” the researchers summarized.
So, when Gov. Greg Abbott campaigns next year on returning education “back to the basics,” voters should tell him to heed his own advice. The billions saved simply by lowering the temperature on divisiveness could expand access to after-school programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics or ensure every child receives a nutritious breakfast and lunch daily. Fiscal conservatism and the stoking of culture war nonsense are as incongruous as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Learning to discuss controversial topics peaceably is a crucial part of what it means to be a citizen in the world’s oldest democracy, so-called. But one in four teachers confided to the RAND Corp. for a recent study that school districts instructed them to curtail discussions surrounding race, gender and other social and political issues, with 2 out of 3 teachers doing so of their own accord for fear of backlash.
That’s a chilling effect.
Just as in the aftermath of the McCarthy era, what can never be precisely calculated are the opportunity costs of the more tolerant society we could have been, had the lurch rightward been averted. And none of us can be sure how deep authoritarian rabbit-holes will go.
“Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others,” the poet and author Charles Bukowski wrote when he discovered one of his collections of short stories had been pulled from the shelves of a public library in Holland, of all places.
The witch-hunters’ fear, Bukowski concluded, “is only their inability to face what is real, and I can’t vent any anger against them. I only feel this appalling sadness.”
Tellingly, many of the same right wingers in Texas and elsewhere who only yesterday touted themselves as free speech absolutists are now exacerbating this appallingly sad state repression.
As Bukowski signed at the end of his reply, “may we all get better together.”
ONGOING-SUN | 11.30
VISUAL ART
‘MR.
CELLOPHANE: A VANITY SHOW’
“This month I am treating myself to a solo show in my own studio. Because I can,” reads Tim Olsen’s hilariously succinct press release. Olsen, known for his drawing, collage and assemblage, is more than capable of carrying a solo show of any size, despite the fact that many of his works can fit in the palm of one’s hand. Alternately charming and slightly creepy, there’s an undeniable preciousness and melancholia to the work that lingers — a gentle frisson. True to form, Olsen’s press release feels like a double entendre as high-rise condos continue to surround the arts district: he’s doing it because he can. At least for now. Free, by appointment, The Upstairs Studios at Blue Star, 1420 S. Alamo St., (210) 259-6222, geogalleries. com. — Anjali Gupta
FRI | 11.14 - SUN | 11.16
COMEDY
D.L. HUGHLEY
With so many irons in the fire, it’s a little surprising to see veteran standup D.L. Hughley spending so much time on the road. After all, his prior set of San Antonio appearances came last year around this time. However he manages to make it all work, Hughley is one busy dude. After his run with the ABC/UPN sitcom The Hughleys and his performance in The Original Kings of Comedy, CNN tapped the comic to host its D.L. Hughley Breaks the News show. His afternoon radio program
The DL Hughley Show is nationally syndicated in more than 60 cities, and he’s somehow found time to crank out four books and 11 standup specials for a variety of cable channels and streaming services. Somehow, through it all, Hughley remains topical with his standup routines and isn’t afraid to tell it like it is. Tables $99.38 - $396.02, 7:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. Friday, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, 618 NW Loop 410, (210) 541-8805, improvtx.com. — Sanford Nowlin
Courtesy Image Tim Olsen
Courtesy Photo D.L. Hughley
SAT | 11.15
FILM
THUNDERHEART
In February 2025, Leonard Peltier walked out of prison after five decades of incarceration. His harrowing story as a former leader of AIM, the American Indian Movement, forms the underpinnings of Thunderheart (1992) starring the late, lamented Graham Greene, Val Kilmer, Sam Shepard and Fred Ward. Although fictional, the events depicted in Thunderheart loosely parallel a series of violent conflicts between the federal government and AIM on the Pine Ridge Reservation and in the town of Wounded Knee in 1970s South Dakota. The last installment of this season’s Native Film Series at The Briscoe Western Art Museum, Thunderheart is framed as a murder mystery-meets-thriller with a spiritual awakening component, but themes of corporate collusion and government exploitation of Native lands can’t help but seep to the surface. In the meantime — and in the real world — Peltier will remain under house arrest until his passing. Free with online reservation, 1:30-4 p.m., Briscoe Western Art Museum, 210 W Market St., (210) 2994499, briscoemuseum.org. — AG
SAT | 11.15
SPECIAL EVENT
EARN-A-BIKE BUILD DAY
Almost anyone with children — or who happens to be an ex-BMXer — has a pile of Frankenbike parts piled in the corner of their garage. While bent stems and rusty chains do little to bolster a child’s self-esteem, actively retrofitting parts into rideable machines can help ignite confidence. Earn-A-Bike Build Day works in tandem with underserved schools across the city, inviting students, community volunteers and trained mentors to partner up in order to get kids’ bikes back on the road. This is a hands-on collaborative effort that helps children build self-assurance and gives them the tools to move toward healthy lifestyle changes. The event concludes in a two-mile group ride — the culmination of a job well done. Free, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Eduardo Villarreal Elementary School, 2902 White Tail Drive, (210) 397-5800, eabsa.org. — AG
Courtesy Photo Earn-a-Bike Day
TristarPictures
SUN | 11.16
SPECIAL EVENT
INTERNATIONAL DAY OF FLAMENCO
Celebrate the International Day of Flamenco with a performance by dance troupe Arte Y Pasion at Main Plaza featuring Geneviève Obregon, Celeia Cellars and Jose Manuel Tejeda. Flamenco emerged in Southern Spain, born on the streets and alleyways by the descendants of people who migrated from Northern India: gitanos, the Spanish Romani. Flamenco eventually fused with the surrounding Andalusian culture, creating further hybridization, including the influx of Moorish influences. The form fuses song (cante), dance (baile) and musicianship (toque) including percussive hand clapping (palmas), finger snapping (pitos) and foot stomping. Each gesture holds meaning and references a range of human emotions — defiance, longing, sympathy or sorrow — including the call and response participation of the audience (jaleo), which is a sign of solidarity, support and a thing of beauty. UNESCO recognizes flamenco as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Free, 3-5 p.m., Main Plaza, 115 N. Main St., (210) 281-4339, mainplaza.org. — AG
| 11.22
SPECIAL EVENT STAR PARTY
Founded in 1974, the San Antonio Astronomical Association (SAAA) is a NASA accredited organization dedicated to the promotion and study of astronomy and related sciences. One of the most active organizations of its kind in the country, SAAA partners with San Antonio Parks & Recreation and area schools to reach thousands of participants annually. The group’s November Star Party is geared toward observers of all ages interested in actively exploring the cosmos with the assistance of experts and equipment, enabling the hands-on, stress-free pursuit of an enhanced understanding of the celestial bodies in our solar system and beyond. Arrive just before dark and dress for the weather. Free, 6-8 p.m., Eisenhower Park, 19399 NW Military Highway, (210) 207-5323, sanantonio.gov/ParksAndRec. — AG
Miguel Flores / City of San Antonio Arts & Culture
Courtesy Photo SAAA
Go, Bam, Go
Jesse Rodríguez, San Antonio’s low-profile boxing champion, faces his toughest test yet
BY ENRIQUE LOPETEGUI
“Boxing is dead,” those into sports that allow the savage beating of someone who is already knocked down like to say.
Without dissecting the fact that the socalled “Mixed Martial Arts” have nothing to do with the true spirit of martial arts, or that the MMA/UFC or whatever it’s called lack the basic aesthetic richness of true combat sports and art, the main problem with cage fighting is that, unlike other combat arts such as boxing and, say, Muay Thai, it breaks the basic rule of honorable combat: you don’t punch a fighter who’s down. Period.
Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed watching, say, Amanda Nunes’ methodical chopping of Ronda Rousey, but she did it through relentless boxing combinations, not through never-ending grappling or other similarly
ugly UFC techniques.
True, boxing has its own set of endless holding and boring fights, but there is nothing like a good boxing fight. Nothing. And every decade’s had enough great boxing champions who dignified the sport and overcame its historical corruption through raw talent: the ’60s and ’70’s had Ali, Frazier and Foreman; the ’80s had Sugar Ray, Mano e’ Piedra, Hearns, Hagler and Iron Mike; the ’90s had J. C. Chávez, Manny and Floyd. The list is endless all the way to our times — see Canelo, Crawford and Inoue.
San Antonio’s had world champions before: Bam Bam Johnson, the late Pikin Quiroga, Jesse James Leija, Mario Barrios.
But none like Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez.
The 25-year-old, who grew up around Loop 1604 and Culebra Road and now resides in the Brackenridge area, is 22-0 with 15 KOs and, at the time of this writing, is ranked No. 6 in the pound-per-pound list of The Ring
magazine, the legendary “Bible of Boxing”. Only Terence Crawford, Oleksander Usyk, Naoya Inoue, Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev are above Bam.
Now, the San Antonian will face his toughest challenge on Saturday, Nov. 22, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, against Argentina’s Fernando “Puma” Martínez (18-0, with 9 KOs). It’s a winner-take-all affair: Bam’s WBC and WBO and Martínez’s WBA super-flyweight belts will be on the line.
“I’ve been writing about boxing for 15 years, and over that period, I saw two young fighters who were far and away above everybody else in the sport,” Adam Abramowitz, a top boxing analyst with saturdaynightboxing.com and member of the The Ring’s rating panel, said. “One was Bam Rodríguez. The other was [WBC bantamweight champion] Junto Nakatani [31-0 with 24 KOs, ranked at #7 in the poundper-pound list]. I hope they fight each other at some point.”
Praise for Bam’s skills are unanimous, starting with that of his trainer Robert García, who was in the corner of 16 world champions and has trained Bam since age 15.
“His talent. His skills. His footwork really meant a lot to me,” García told Abramowitz in Saturday Night Boxing in 2024. “Bam was beautiful at what he did from day one. We knew
Find more arts coverage every day at sacurrent.com
Ed Mulholland / Matchroom Boxing
that this kid was going to be special.”
Former SA world champion Jesse James Leija agrees.
“He’s just a phenomenal fighter,” Leija, who beat the great Azumah Nelson twice, told the Current at the Leija Boxing and Fitness gym in Alamo Heights.
“He just … ” Leija started, shaking his head as he tried to find the words. “His movement, his speed, his power… . He has it all, and I think he should be at least No. 5 in the pound-per-pound ranking.”
Some could argue he’s the greatest pressure fighter since Julio César Chávez, but Abramowitz disagrees.
“Chávez’s pressure was ferocious and unrelenting, but Bam has much faster foot speed,” he told the Current during a Zoom meeting. “[Bam] can do more things, and I don’t think he has to struggle the same way [as Chávez] to get in close. I don’t see Bam as someone who [needs] to take a lot of shots to get where he’s going.”
Tough opponent ahead
After a successful amateur career that included back-to back junior national championship and a silver medal at the junior World championship in 2015, Bam in 2022 won the vacant WBC super-flyweight title by outpointing former champion Carlos Cuadras. After two defenses, in 2023 Bam took the vacant WBO flyweight title on points against Christian González and the IBF flyweight from then-undefeated Sunny Edwards, who retired on round 9. The San Antonio fighter knocked out former champion Juan Francisco Estrada in 2024 for the WBC flyweight title and, in July of this year, scored a TKO in round 10 against then-undefeated Phumelele Cafu, taking his WBO super-flyweight belt.
“Puma” Martínez is Bam’s toughest test, and the Argentine is already trashtalking.
“Instead of ‘Bam Bam’ I’ll give him ‘Boom Boom’,” Martínez said during an interview with Argentine radio Urbana Play earlier this year.
In September, he went even further. “It’ll be a strategical fight, like a chess match,” he told Mexico’s hall of famer Juan Manuel Márquez in September on the YouTube channel ProBox TV Español. “But I’m going to knock him out.” Martinez could be right — he’s no bum. With a 50% KO ratio, the Argentine won’t be intimidated and will
throw accurate bomb after accurate bomb. In his past two fights, he convincingly outpointed former WBA super flyweight champion Kazuto Ioka in his home turf of Japan, which is no easy feat.
“He’s a very good fighter,” Abramowitz told the Current. “His victories in Japan have been well-earned. I think it’ll be a close fight. I don’t expect this to be easy, Bam’s not going to blow Puma out of the water by any stretch, but I think in the last third of the fight Bam’s pedigree over time will prevail. (If you read Abramowitz’s fight prediction archive, you’ll see he usually nails it.)
Both athletes command enough skills to win, but they also have potential weaknesses.
Just like Bam, Martínez has been knocked down once, but unlike Bam, he’s been in several wars and, at 34-years-old, it’s still to be seen whether he’ll be able to keep up with Bam’s youthful energy. On the other hand, Bam is vulnerable when he gets careless for a split second, as was the case in the sixth round of the 2024 fight against Estrada.
“He got caught by a double jab and a right hand,” said Abramowitz. “There was nothing so particularly clever or amazing about the combination. After the fight, [Bam’s trainer] Robert [García] was concerned that Bam, on occasion, loses focus and doesn’t always understand the threat in front of him.” To his credit, Bam immediately got up and knocked out Estrada in round 7.
Bigger arsenal
It’s an intriguing matchup, but most experts give Bam the slight edge.
“I think they’re both going to be aggressive,” Abramowitz said. “But Bam has more punches in his arsenal, more angles that he could play with. That side-to-side footwork up close is going to be very important, especially if Bam can get some uppercuts.”
Yes, Bam will be all over Martínez’s ass, but this fight feels like the equivalent of two trains colliding head-on. Neither will run from the other. It’s the type of fight with two champions on or near their prime that boxing fans crave, and it bears the scent of an instant classic and potential trilogy.
Neither Bam nor his father are too worried, though.
“Bam doesn’t care [about Martínez’s trash talk],” Jesse Rodríguez said.
That’s Jesse Rodriguez, period, no senior attached.
“He’s Bam, I’m Jesse Rodriguez,” he told me. “Of course [Martínez’s camp] will say anything, they need to sell the fight. No disrespect, but I don’t think he’ll have too many problems with Martínez. The only real threat to him is [Naoya] Inoue. I hope one day we can make the fight. I’ve been saying this for years. That’s the fight, and that’s when we’ll see the best Bam.”
To be sure, Bam will need to bring the big guns to that one. Inoue is a WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO and The Ring super bantamweight champ and holds a 31-0 record with 27 KOs.
Man of few words
Inside the ring, Bam doesn’t let an opponent think, going after them relentlessly. However, outside, he’s an elusive champ — a rarity in these times of trash talk and say-anything-to-sell-the fight nonsense.
“I don’t know what’s up with him, he rarely gives one-on-one interviews,” a boxer at a local gym told me on condition of anonymity. “He’s like a recluse.”
“He’s very quiet, a man of very few words,” Bam’s father explained. “He’s all about training and family.”
I tried getting to Bam through different means: by contacting his promoter (Matchroom Boxing), by visiting the Top Dog gym and speaking to Bam’s brother, Joshua Franco (himself a former super-flyweight world champion), and even begging attorney Joseph
Gamez from Gamez Law, Bam’s sponsor. The closest I was to Bam was when I showed up unannounced to Top Dog and Rodríguez called Bam to his training camp in Moreno Valley, California. He spoke to Bam in front of me.
“He says he’ll do it, but not today,” Rodríguez said. “He’ll call you. He wants to do it.”
As of this writing, Bam still hasn’t called.
“You can talk to him anytime you find him at the gym or doing press conferences, but he’s very low key, he’s so focused on the fight,” brother Joshua Franco said.
Besides his natural talent, perhaps that’s what makes Bam so great: at a time when fighters are eager to babble their asses off, Bam prefers to let his fists do the talking. Sure, there’s room for improvement, but what he’s done so far is enough to make one believe the hype.
“[Bam’s] physical tools are all there,” Abramowitz wrote in Saturday Night Boxing after the Estrada fight. “His boxing skills are sublime, but it’s that final part of his development that needs a bit more refining.
“If he can reach that next precipice,” the writer concluded, “there could be no stopping him.”
Ring IV: Night of Champions starts on Sat. Nov 22 at 10 a.m. Main fight: David Benavídez vs Anthony Yarde for the WBC light heavyweight title. Other fights include Bam Rodriguez vs Fernando Martínez (super flyweight title), Abdullah Mason vs Sam Noakes (WBO super lightweight title) and Brian Norman Jr. vs Devin Haney (WBO welterweight title). Watch it on DAZN. PPV $59.99 (subscription required).
Instagram 210bam
Steering a Star
Central Catholic grad
Cesar Flores trains
Matthew
McConaughey
for The Lost Bus
BY KIKO MARTINEZ
San Antonio native Cesar Flores never thought his role as the director of transportation at a school district would put him on a path to Hollywood.
Although he currently works for New Braunfels ISD, Flores was the director of transportation for Santa Fe Public Schools in New Mexico when location scouts from Hollywood showed up to his office asking if they could shoot a film there.
“I told them about the schedule that our school buses run and that it was going to be hard to film a movie in between the hours we’re not running buses,” Flores, 42, told the Current during a recent interview.
Instead, the production crew used Flores’ transportation office as a model to create their own set for the survival drama The Lost Bus
“They took pictures of everything,” Flores said. “Once they got a good feel of how everything looked, they built their own set and made it look as authentic as possible.”
Set during the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California, The Lost Bus tells the true story of Kevin McKay (Matthew McConaughey), a driver who navigates a bus carrying 22 children and their teacher to safety through the deadliest fire in California history.
Flores, a 2001 graduate of Central Catholic High School, thought his brush with Hollywood was over once the production crew took photos and asked a few questions. But they had one more question for Flores.
“They asked if I would be willing to train one of their actors,” Flores said. “And, of course, I said, ‘Sure!’”
Flores said the production team couldn’t tell him at the time who the actor was that he would be training, but were able to tell him his initials were M.M.
“My team and I started joking around about who it could be,” Flores said. “I said, ‘Maybe it’s Matthew McConaughey.’ One of the [studio reps] heard us talking and said, ‘All right, all right, all right.’ So, at that point, we knew it was Matthew McConaughey.”
During our interview, Flores talked about getting McConaughey behind the wheel of a school bus and about how he ended up in the movie too. The Lost Bus, directed by Academy
Award-nominated director Paul Greengrass (United 93), is available on AppleTV+.
What was it like when Matthew McConaughey showed up at your office for training?
Well, at first we were like, “We’ll believe it when we see it,” but he showed up. It was cool seeing him in the flesh and getting to work with him and telling him everything we do. He was a very humble [and] a nice guy. He listened to everything and took everything in. It was cool to see his process of developing his character.
What did the training entail?
First, we did the hands-on stuff. We walked around the bus, and I showed him how everything worked and made sure he was comfortable driving it. Then, we talked in my office for probably two hours and answered all his questions. He tried to learn everything he could. He was absorbing everything.
Was he a natural behind the wheel of a school bus, or did it takes some time to get it right?
We were surprised how easy it was for him to jump on the bus and drive it. We thought he was going to be nervous about activating the lights and the door. But he took to it immediately. He told us he had driven a camper across the country before and that he had a CDL (Commercial Driver’s License) already. He didn’t need a whole lot of coaching in that respect.
It must have felt good to know they were making a movie about a hero bus driver. Yeah, because you don’t see that every day. It’s a great story about the heroics of a bus driver who saved those children from the wildfire. I think it’s something any of our bus drivers would do. They’re always trying to do what they can to take care of their kids. I think it shows the compassion they have. It was neat to see that in a movie.
Not only did you serve as a technical advisor, but you are also in the film too, yes?
Yes, I was in the film. They asked if I wanted to be a background character, and I agreed. But the producers and the director started asking me how different characters should say certain lines. They were asking how they should use the radio and how they should look something up on the computer. Eventually, they’re like, “Hey, let’s just do that line with Cesar.” Before I knew it, I had some lines in the movie.
What surprised you about how movies are made?
Well, I knew it was hard work, but I didn’t know exactly how much went into it. It was truly amazing. The hard work that all these people put into it was just astounding. We work long days in the transportation department, but it was cool to see just how much effort and dedication they have and how much it really takes to make a film. It’s something I will hold onto forever.
screens
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Courtesy Photo Cesar Flores
Savor This
The CIA’s training restaurant at the Pearl is anything but amateur-hour dining
BY RON BECHTOL
If you’re a fan of food, fraternity and fun, you must do this: round up three of your best and most convivial friends, book a table at Savor and order one of everything on the menu.
At Savor, the Culinary Institute of America’s training restaurant at the Pearl, you may not love all dishes equally, but for my group, the ratio of hits to near misses was high — 87.5% by actual calculation.
The foursome suggestion isn’t arbitrary. Not only does a table of four work beautifully for lively conversation, but the menu is conveniently dived into four courses, each with a quartet of options. The numbers align. You have the option of three courses at $57 or four at $64, so the answer is obvious: go for four.
Savor’s menu changes quarterly, and we happened to arrive just after the launch of a new one blending Indian and Mexican flavors and techniques. That it was Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, only added to the sense of new possibilities.
Topping the first course list was a dish that could stand as an emblem of the entire evening: Lamb Keema Empanadas.
The format was familiar, of course, but the filling and accompaniments — spiced, ground lamb with tart tamarind mole, cool beet raita, and a red cabbage slaw with golden raisins — worked beautifully without seeming gimmicky or forced.
Tiny and briny Beausoleil oysters from Eastern Canada played with the classic mignonette by adding bracing passion fruit and a whisper of curry leaf oil. They were superb.
SAVOR
Yes, the Cocoa-Spiced Lentil and Black Bean Soup was stiffer than any soup of recent memory, but the flavors, not shy on cumin, were augmented by a mushroom-lentil chorizo and cooling yogurt, all topped by crisp tortilla strips.
And when was the last time you thrilled to a salad? Who knew that charred snap peas and chickpeas could be so appealing when paired with fennel and caramelized onion?
200 E. Grayson St., Suite #117, (210) 554-6484, savorcia.com.
Hours: 5-8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday
Prices: $57-$64 prix fixe
Best bets: Throw a dart
The lowdown: Savor is the restaurant training ground for San Antonio’s Culinary Institute of America cooking school, but it’s far from amateur hour. The menu changes quarterly, and a recent iteration blended flavors of India and Mexico to excellent effect. The evening proved that the advanced students and their mentors can turn out a tasting menu to rival the best of them. A suggestion: round up three food-fanatic friends, reserve a table for four, and order everything. You won’t be disappointed.
One course down and three to go.
The first dish that wasn’t an outright winner was the Chaat Ceviche. The issue lay not with the pomegranate, baby mint and serrano pepper garnishes but in the fish itself. Impeccably fresh, the halibut needed something more to counteract its inherent blandness.
Thankfully, the pace picked right back up with a plate I didn’t give much thought to at first. Crispy Paneer with Date Glaze made any fried mozzarella stick you have ever had blush with shame, and the corn cream with pickled onions and raisins was also far from shabby.
An achiote-rubbed quail on broken rice with corn and avocado crema, and a taco take on the familiar Indian samosa with sweet and tart tamarind piloncillo sauce rounded out the course with flair.
Carnivore, pescatarian, vegetarian — there’s something for almost everyone in each course, and round three was no exception. We continued to express amazement at how good everything was, and it’s not that we started with extra-low expectations.
Yes, the duck breast could have been the slightest shade less cooked, but in combination with mango chutney mole, a puree of often-overlooked chayote, enoki mushrooms and more mango in pickled form, the handsomely plated dish sang. Only to be almost outshone by a buttery beef tenderloin with butternut mole and a “Kashmiri “ jus. (Don’t ask. I don’t know either.)
Coconut Achiote Curry performed its task of bedding sea bass beautifully, and a puree of sweet potato paired with saag-style spinach easily held its own. Saag and poblano paired up in a dish of dimpled chochoyotes adrift in a spicy lentil pool. Usually served in a broth where their honesty is welcome, these masa dumplings came across as merely plain.
It should be mentioned at some point, so why not here, that students appear to be getting a fully rounded culinary education at both school and Savor. Not only is the food generally excellent, but the presentation, on an array of serving pieces, is creative without being overly tweezered.
We did learn much of the life story of our student server, but the reveal seemed appropriate in context. And the pleasant space had even been thematically decorated in a style that might be thought of as Diwali meets Day of the Dead. Without the skeletons.
Getting back to the meal, dessert time didn’t disappoint. A warmly spiced tres leches basked in saffron chantilly allowed a little French technique to creep into the mix. Meanwhile, dark chocolate mingled with coconut, chickpea and cherry in the Chocolate Spice Cream Pie.
Saffron turned up again, bolstered by orange blossom crème and hibiscus coulis, in the Churro Baba, and it all came to a conclusion with puffed Halwa Puri accessorized with pistachios and pineapple.
If you aren’t tempted to make reservations by now, I give up.
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Ron Bechtol
food Cooking Up Conversation
Chef Max Mackinnon of Petit Coquin knows customers are looking for a comfortable experience
BY KAT STINSON
Each week, Cooking Up Conversation highlights chefs, bakers, bartenders and other culinary creatives shaping San Antonio’s dining scene. This week, we spoke with Chef Max Mackinnon of Petit Coquin, a cozy six-table French bistro at 1012 South Presa St., known for its seasonal menu and extensive wine list.
Culinary education: I started working in kitchens in college, then completed a nine-month program at the French Culinary Institute.
Years in Food/Beverage Industry: 20 years Hometown: Norwich, Vermont
Claim to fame: Before moving to San Antonio, Mackinnon was a cross-continental chef and sommelier, serving as chef-partner for restaurants in New York City and Vermont and as wine director for several acclaimed eateries. Last book read: Coffee, Pizza, and Wine Cookbook
Watching on TV: The Great British Baking Show
Favorite local spots: Barbaro, Hot Joy Go-to drink: Sparkling water or a glass of white wine
Money Quote: “You just need to accept people when they walk through the door. Hospitality is about making people feel comfortable and welcome so they’ll come back again.”
You’ve worked all over — what brought you to San Antonio?
I met Chad Carey [the CEO of the Empty Stomach Group, which includes Petit Coquin] through my wife about seven or eight years ago when I was cooking at a restaurant in San Francisco. We ended up partnering on a wine bar in
Brooklyn about two years ago. We had planned to stay in New York longer, but when the opportunity came up to work with Chad on the San Antonio project, we decided to make the move. My wife and I relocated at the end of last year.
Tell us about Petit Coquin’s concept.
It’s a six-table French bistro. Previously, we offered a prix-fixe menu Tuesday through Saturday — three dishes for $65. The main courses always feature a classic French sauce and food that complements the wine list. We’ve built up a selection of more than 225 wines.
You added special themed nights too, right?
Yes. We do $25 steak frites on Mondays and a French version of a Sunday roast on Fridays for $49. For the first six months, it was just me in the kitchen. Now we’ve built a small, strong team.
How often do you change the menu? We write the menu every morning. There are dishes that we’ve served consistently, but we like changing things up a few times a week.
You opened a restaurant in Vermont before this. What did that experience teach you?
I opened a restaurant in Vermont in 2011, and whenever we had a special event, we’d serve roast chicken. That taught me the power of a simple, well-executed dish — and that’s something I still carry with me today.
How has the San Antonio dining community responded so far?
The excitement people have shown for Petit Coquin has been amazing. I don’t take it for granted. I’m grateful for how interested and excited people have been about what we’re doing.
You’re still involved with the Brooklyn wine bar Plus du Vin. How do you manage both?
We have a solid group back in Brooklyn, and we go back every few weeks to check in. Trusting our team there has been key. Changing the menu has been the most challenging part — but also one of the most fun parts.
Do you notice any big differences between diners in San Antonio and New York?
There might be little things, like people not eating as late — but overall, I think people are looking for the same type of experience: great food, hospitality and a relaxed atmosphere. As I’ve gained experience, I’ve learned to loosen up. I used to think when I’d travel overseas, “They eat cheese after dinner in France, so we have to serve cheese after dinner!” Now I realize it doesn’t have to be that way, so rigid.
Courtesy Photo Max Mackinnon
Celebrating a Metal Pioneer
Death
to All, a tribute to late Death frontman Chuck Schuldiner, bringing tour to San Antonio
BY MIKE MCMAHAN
When Chuck Schuldiner, frontman for the pioneering death metal band Death, died at 34, he left behind a legacy most musicians who live decades longer can only dream of.
Schuldiner and a rotating cast of musicians laid down the template for one of metal’s most enduring subgenres.
Not only can they be credited for creating death metal with the punishing riffs, barked
vocals and morbid themes explored on their earlier albums, their later, more refined incorporations of fusion and prog paved the way for technical death metal and helped define that scene as well.
Some of the musicians who played with Schuldiner, who died of a brain tumor in 2001, have teamed up to keep that influential music alive. Their band, Death to All, will hit San Antonio’s Vibes Event Center on Saturday, Nov. 22, to celebrate two of the band’s landmark albums, Spiritual Healing (1990) and Symbolic (1995).
The Current spoke with drummer Gene Hoglan on Zoom about the tour, his time with Schuldiner, and the complex rhythms that define Death’s music. We also considered whether this band offers the metal community at large a chance to honor Schuldiner’s outsized influence.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What would you say to someone who says, “I’m not familiar with Death. Where do I start?”
Well, since Death has had such a very historical musical evolution, I would probably have them pick a song from album No. 1, which was Scream Bloody Gore, and then
take that all the way, play a song from Sound of Perseverance, [the band’s final LP]. And you could hear the musical journey of the band. And then, work your way inwards and see the evolution, from one side over to the other side. I would tell somebody, “Hey, check out where the band started when they were teenagers, and then see where they ended up when they were in their later 20s.”
In the documentary DeathbyMetal, Chuck has an Iron Maiden shirt on. And when you think of today’s death metal contenders, you usually see band members wearing shirts for more underground bands. Not that everybody doesn’t have a respect and love for Maiden, he seemed to have a sense of larger stages.
Well, Chuck was always a staunch proponent of the traditional metal. He was always all about it. And especially when it was around the Symbolic era. There was always tunes playing somewhere. At that time, it was like all the latest Dio stuff. Like I think the Dio album Strange Highways might have been the one that was out at the time. You know, which led to Angry Machines after that, which, you know, Chuck was one that brought me back to Dio. I admit, I was probably kind of veering away from the traditional stuff, because what
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Alex Solca
music
I was finding — back in like ’94, ’95 — was that I was excited to create the next level of music, whatever it was. And so, for me, traditional metal at that point, wasn’t quite exciting me the way it was Chuck. But Chuck was just an absolute purist when it comes to that stuff, listening to tons of Japanese stuff. He’s like, “Check out the productions on these albums.” This is just good — good players on good records and having good engineers using good studios and good microphones and good equipment, you know. And it’s a marvel what can be done with that sort of approach. But Chuck was definitely leaning away from the same interests that he had when he was in his late teens writing Death material. I’ve mentioned this before. When Symbolic came out, it was a head scratcher for a lot of people. It was not immediately addressed as, “This is an all-time classic.” A lot of the old hardcores wanted their death metal to be like Cannibal Corpse and Deicide and Morbid Angel, Obituary, whatever. But Chuck was like, “I’m not the same person I was almost a decade ago when I wrote stuff. I’m on my musical journey, and I’m going to write from my musical perspective.”
Something that always struck me about Death and Chuck’s riffs, especially as the band progressed, is that they’re very deliberate. There may be a time when it feels like it should be a riff in 7/4, and he pushes it to 9/4 or whatever. Is Death’s music difficult to feel for you? Do you have to be deliberate and count?
I am a feel person. I count very little. I count as little as I need to. So, I definitely feel things, and I’m pretty quick to hear if something’s in a five or a seven or a nine, and then just work on it from there. And I’m not musically trained at all. I’m completely self-taught as a drummer, as a guitarist. So that’s one thing that I’m not sure that ever gets pointed out, or perhaps maybe it’s even overlooked, but a lot of Chuck’s riffs were just deceptively simple. They weren’t in crazy time signatures. It was all the players behind it doing all this wacky stuff, all this crazy stuff that makes it sound like it’s really complicated. But you can pick up any Death album and play the riffs just straight across with it. Richard Christy, for instance, going out of his mind playing the drums that he does. Just complete-
ly unplugging that brain of his and making the most technical, psychotic, busiest drum beats imaginable over some pretty simple riffing. So that’s one thing I’ve always noticed about the Death catalog … is that Chuck was a pretty traditional writer. Chuck was self-taught as well. Most of us were.
It’s all a matter of feel. Sure, I can count. There are times when you have to count, but for the most part, it’s just like, yeah, you feel the pulses. That was kind of the reason why I picked up all the material on guitar. That was my sheet music for it, I guess, or my charts. It’s like, I can play the riff. Okay, now I can just think about that riff. I’m good at visualizing. I can write an entire album of drums without playing any drums. I don’t think that’s anything that spectacular or anything, but that’s one thing I’ve done on many an occasion, where I don’t get to rehearse something. I have to show up in the studio knowing what I’m doing and I’m on a plane as I’m learning the material.
has elements of some bouncy musicality, definitely, but at the bottom line, it’s understandable. It’s gettable. You can cover it. You can copy it.
I get this sense that fans know Death and Chuck much better now than when all these records were new in the ’90s. Are the Death to All shows bigger than the Death shows were back in the day?
You know what? I would have to say yes, because I’ve done both. When we were putting out Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic, both albums were rather mildly accepted. Journalists understood it, and you’d have a small pocket of fans that are like, “Hey man, I’m here for the band. I get it.”
Death has always struck me in a way as the Velvet Underground of extreme metal. Maybe enough people didn’t hear them the first time around, but everybody that did hear them formed a band themselves and their influence is sort oversized as a result of that.
The Death to All approach is that the music is in the now. If there are different patterns or different fills or whatever that come about with this group of musicians, you’re open to the music sort of living and breathing, right?
Absolutely. And so, one thing I do try to do — say, if I’m playing a Sean Reinert song — I try to emulate Sean’s style as much as I can. Because for me, it’s kind of like, if you’re going to play a Rush song, you’re not going to put your own spin on Neil Peart. That’s just as an example. Neil Peart, for me, was a very understandable drummer. He pushed the limits of what he was doing, but it was always really gettable. That’s why Neil was, like, my favorite prog drummer, because I can get him. Guys like Terry Bozzio, and in certain elements of like, Bill Bruford, it’s like, “Wow, you guys play some crazy stuff. I can emulate as good as I can, but…” Neil Peart was just always 100% meat-and-potatoes prog drumming, which was killer. It’s understandable. It
Indeed. I understand that analogy perfectly. I mean, look what Velvet Underground went and influenced, you know, a lot of music that I love. I admit, man, Velvet Underground, that wasn’t my scene, but all the bands that listened to them, and took their cues from that, I love a lot of those bands.
Given this monstrous presence, why isn’t Death better known?
There was a nickname that was placed upon Chuck that he was never comfortable with and that was the “Godfather of Death Metal,” and he was like, “Man, there were bands doing this kind of stuff before me. I love Possessed, I love Slayer, I love Venom, I love Mercyful Fate, you know, bands that were playing this sort of stuff. He was a huge Possessed fan. The lineage of much death metal, of course, goes back to Chuck, but Chuck would always try to pass that lineage back. He would talk about Venom, Mercyful Fate, Possessed, you name it. There was a great advertising tagline, I remember, on the Spiritual Healing album. It said, “Death, the first word in death metal,” and I was like, “Wow, whoever came up with that is a genius. That’s great!”
$44.67, 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 22, Vibes Event Center, 1223 E. Houston St., (210) 255-3833, vibeseventcenter.com.
Creative Commons Griffyguy
Jump-Roping on Stardust
Remembering Wayne Holtz, San Antonio’s unapologetic pop prince
BY CHRIS CONDE
“Idon’t think any of us were ready for the ceiling to open up and witness a celestial being descend upon the crowd in a shower of neon rainbow lights and pulsing bass drum kicks,” I wrote in 2016 for the Current’s LGBTQ+ sister publication, Out in SA.
“I’m at a Wayne Holtz show at Paper Tiger, and a single thought has established itself the leader of all other
thoughts firing through my consciousness: ‘This motherfucker is jump-roping on stage.’”
Now, nine years later, that stellar performer is gone. Late last month, news trickled in that Holtz, who’d since relocated to Saranac Lake, New York, had died unexpectedly on a West Coast trip to visit friends.
Many in San Antonio are still trying to make sense of the loss.
With a baritone croon that echoed Joy Division’s Ian Curtis’ Holtz commanded
the stage as a solo performer, delivering full-throttle shows no matter the size of the venue. Each was accompanied by a whirlwind of costume changes that could rival your favorite drag queen, VMAs-ready choreography and an electronic-pop soundtrack that could teleport you straight to famed Berlin nightclub Berghain.
At the point I wrote my Out in SA piece on Holtz, I had only met him as a choreographer and a photographer who documented the city’s indie-rock landscape. That night, however, I witnessed the sheer star power he possessed as a performer.
That understanding grew deeper as I became part of an emerging queer music scene in San Antonio that included not just Holtz but singer Alyson Alonzo, electro outfit Pink Leche and
vogue performance collective House of Kenzo. We regularly collaborated and booked each other for events at venues such as the now-shuttered La Botanica, Brick at Blue Star and Paper Tiger.
No question, Holtz made a huge impact as we worked to build that community.
“He did something that nobody else was doing,” Alonzo said of our late friend. “I’ll always think of him as someone who just had it. People talk about [having] that thing, and he had it. He was such a star.”
Unabashed and androgynous, Holtz radiated brilliance wherever he was. Even when he wasn’t onstage, he boasted a wardrobe worthy of his concert performances — dresses, elaborate headpieces, ensembles fit for a Disney villainess. But it wasn’t just his art and fashion that made a lasting and glit-
Erik Casarez
music
tering imprint on San Antonio. Holtz’s charm, humility and determination to lift up other artists made him someone you could easily fall into a friendship with.
“Wayne was such a sweetie, you know? Humble,” said Travis Buffkin, vocalist and guitarist for country act The Texases and one-time music editor for the Current.
Buffkin befriended Holtz after writing an article about him for the Current and went on to feature him in a music video for the song “Doin’ Life.”
Buffkin likened Holtz’ larger-than-life stage persona to the discipline of drag artists, performers who are expected to put on a multifaceted show drawing on many talents.
“You just see these queens that are really brilliant and they have all these skills,” he said. “They’re comedic geniuses and they’re making their own costumes and doing their own makeup, you know? They’re like pop culture polymaths. And that’s to me what Wayne was. Capable of doing a fucking podcast, getting huge stars on there, being compelling, doing pop and doing it really well, you know?”
Beyond that, Buffkin recalls his friend as a “cheerleader for the whole San Antonio scene.”
“I’m like oh my God, we didn’t deserve him.”
San Antonio Poet Laureate 2020-2023 Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson remembers Holtz’ generous spirit. Even amid the chaos of producing his elaborate shows, he hung onto an admirable calmness and was able to offer encouragement to others.
“Somewhere in between all of this, you would find him in a greenroom giving a pep talk to someone having a minor meltdown or some seasoned life advice for an artist questioning their value. Myself included,” she said. “I was at a show with Wayne one time where he danced so hard he split his pants right at the crotch seam. He kept right on working, split pants and all.”
However, Holtz’s legacy extends beyond his charisma and pop-star prowess. His role in queering Alamo City culture demands recognition and reverence. As an unapologetically queer Black man writing pop music in South Texas, Holtz used his music to tell stories of his intersecting layers of identity and marginalization. His performances and persona carved out space for others like him to live freely and openly.
“Going out looking glam in a good dress / Boys thinking that I’m looking like a hot mess,” Holtz sang on his tune “Black Attack.” “They’re saying, ‘Hey isn’t he black?’/ dressed up like a sissy, and isn’t that wack?”
“Watching him inspire and encourage people to be themselves, especially in the queer community has been an ongoing formative experience,” said Bobby Rivas, Holtz’s former guitar player and current member of self-described “party punk” outfit HoneyBunny. “His life was one of the greatest things I’ve ever witnessed, and I can’t believe I was a part of it.”
Girl in a Coma’s Nina Diaz told the Current that Holtz actually helped choreograph the music video for her pop-leaning 2016 solo track “Trick Candle.” At the time, she was struggling to find her footing without a guitar in hand, and Holtz’s guidance helped her
feel grounded and sure of herself.
“He helped me get in touch with my body again,” Diaz said. “He just made you feel you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing.”
Even after Holtz relocated to New York, he continued to be supportive of the San Antonio musicscene. After starting up music gathering Fall Fun Fest in his newly adopted town, he invited Diaz, Rivas, Alonzo and Nicky Diamonds of Lonely Horse to play the festivals’ 2024 and 2025 installments.
“He was on a mission to do what he does best: to bring the community together,” Holtz’s cousin Alex Jefferson Daring said. “[Fall Fun Fest] was just one example of this.”
Cultural architect, fashion maven and beloved friend to so many, Holtz’s memory will remain with those whose lives he touched. That includes not just friends and family but anyone lucky
enough to witness the extraordinary spectacle of a live performance.
Diaz recalls watching Holtz’s set at the inaugural Fall Fun Fest and being struck again by just how extraordinary he was, especially against the beautiful natural backdrop of the stage.
“The forest and fall leaves were behind him,” she said. “The sun was beautiful and he’s dancing, and there’s little children around and it’s like, ‘This is Wayne! He is a magical creature and he’s here in his element just being amazing and out of this world.’”
A public memorial celebrating Holtz’s life will take place at 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 22, at Brick at the Blue Star. The gathering will include live music and displays of Holtz’s art in addition to food and drink. For more information, contact Alexandra Jefferson Darring at alexjdarring@gmail.com or Kat Trujillo at music@kattrujillo.com.
Zachary Smith
critics’ picks
Thursday, Nov. 13-Sunday, Nov. 16
Lonesome Rose Anniversary Weekend
Seven years ago, St. Mary’s Strip honky tonk and more Lonesome Rose stepped up for San Antonio’s independent music scene, providing a crucial stop for touring Americana acts. Part-owned by local emissary Garrett T. Capps, the club has since expanded beyond roots to embrace metal, psych, garage, conjunto and anything in between. Simply put, the place has become a music-community linchpin. For its anniversary weekend, the club has assembled a Who’s Who of performers to celebrate: Capps himself, Rattlesnake Milk, Santiago Jimenez Jr., Chavela, Los Juanos, Elnuh and more. Check the website for a full schedule. $10-$20, 8 p.m., Lonesome Rose, 2114 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 4550233, thelonesomerosesa.com. — Bill Baird
Friday, Nov. 14
Andy Bell, Savannah Pope
You can’t say synth-pop and not think of the feel good vibes of British duo Erasure, whom Andy Bell sang for. Now working as a solo artist, Bell is coming to town with a setlist comprised of his own songs and Erasure staples. His most recent release, Ten Crowns, dropped in May with “Breaking Thru the Interstellar” as its lead single. $75.50, 8 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — Danny Cervantes
Saturday, Nov. 15
grandson, Ho99o9
Self-described as the “soundtrack to your revolution,” grandson hit big with the raw drive of 2018’s “Blood // Water” and followed with the pulsing anthem “Dirty” from the 2020 pandemic release Death Of An Optimist. Frontman Jordan Benjamin’s unique vocals give grandson a desperate edge and a style that lies somewhere between rap and alt-rock. The act’s latest album Inertia, dropped in September with lyrics highlighting contemporary issues such as gun violence. $34.23, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — DC
Sunday, Nov. 16
Margo Price
Margo Price is a fixture of East Nashville’s thriving music scene — where the real musicians hang out after cutting obnoxious bro-country hits down on Music Row. Price has carved her own outlaw path, as attested by her work with Jack White’s Third Man Records. She draws from a broad swath of influences, including Tom Petty and Bonnie Raitt, two other American artists who moved easily between roots and rock music. $34, 7:30 p.m., John T. Floore’s Country Store, 14492 Old Bandera Road, (210) 695-8827, liveatfloores.com. — BB
Margo Price
Monday, Nov. 17
Dutch interior, Font
LA’s Dutch Interior is part of an emerging musical trend that blends elements of indie-rock with the rootsy feel and honest songwriting of the Americana scene. Which is to say the band isn’t trying to rock your socks off, but its gently emotive and clever songwriting will give you feels, especially if you’re an alt-country fan. With six members, Dutch Interior often appears crammed onto the stage, and that’s also part of the charm. Austin’s Font opens with sharp, pointy post-punk. $15, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — BB
Wednesday, Nov. 19
Royal Jesters Celebration with Eddie and the Valiants
For many, the Royal Jesters represent the pinnacle of San Antonio’s famed West Side Sound – a soulful fusing of Mexican American and Black music with early rock n’ roll. On the 60th birthday of the group’s iconic single “We Go Together,” contemporary West Side soul act Eddie and the Valiants are putting together a heartfelt tribute. Perhaps more than any other single, “We Go Together” encapsulates the trademarks of the West Side Sound, including sweet vocal harmonies, a memorable melody and a mega-groovy bassline. Bones Aragon
and Luvine Elias Jr. of the Jesters will be in attendance at this special celebration. $13, 6 p.m., Jaime’s Place, 1514 W. Commerce St., jaimesplace.pub. — BB
Friday, Nov. 21
Mavis Staples
Mavis Staples, the last surviving member of the Staples Singers, is an American icon whom NPR called “one of America’s defining voices of freedom and peace.” The singer and civil rights activist is known for the group’s enduring hits “I’ll Take You There” and “Let’s Do It Again,” and she’s also lent her voice to acts ranging from Aretha Franklin and Prince to David Byrne and Arcade Fire. Consider this show essential for lovers of soul, gospel, R&B, American roots music or, hell, any type of music at all. $40, p.m., Carver Cultural Community Center, 226 N. Hackberry St., thecarver.org. — BB
The Band of Heathens
Austin rock and blues outfit The Band of Heathens is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a two-set evening in San Antonio. Best known for their 2016 hit “Hurricane,” the group endures with founding members Ed Jurdi and Gurdy Quist still at the helm. The Band of Heathens enthralls loyal followers with deeply emotional lyrics and a rollicking sound highlighted on the recently released live album All That Remains.
$31.17-$76.21, 8 p.m., Stable Hall, 307 Pearl Parkway, stablehall.com. — DC
Monday, Nov. 24
Neko Case, John Grant
If Neko Case had stopped after founding The New Pornographers, her indie-rock legacy would have been complete. Instead, she’s continued on an inspired songwriting journey that’s spanned Americana, indie, punk, folk and more. She’s brilliant — one of the best out there — and is in town to promote her latest album, Neon Grey Midnight Green. Opener John Grant has carved a similarly compelling path through indie-rock songwriting to much critical acclaim. $48, 7:30 p.m., Tobin Center, 100 Auditorium Circle, tobincenter.org. — BB
Tuesday, Nov. 25
Two Tons of Steel
Long-running San Antonio rockabilly country act Two Tons of Steel is turning its “Two Ton Tuesdays” at Gruene Hall into a Thanksgiving Food Drive. Expect a lively affair that will get fans out on the dance floor while helping those in need. And due to the government shutdown and the White House’s cuts to food assistance, the need is greater than ever. $15, 8:30 p.m., Gruene Hall, 1281 Gruene Road, New Braunfels, (830) 606-1281, gruenehall.com. — DC
20. Sax mouthpiece that’s mostly caramel and sugar?
23. Address a crowd
24. Unknowns in a linear equation
25. Heat source?
28. Neuralgia, e.g.
30. Unit of resistance
31. Overachieving high schooler?
38. Tapioca balls
40. Dr. on “The Muppet Show”
41. Last Ivy alphabetically
42. Super Bowl-winning coach Ewbank, if he had a team of arachnids?
45. ___-mo
46. Adopt-___ (shelter program)
47. Frequently
49. ___ de terre (potato, in French)
52. Mob
55. Flinging something at your parents in the front because you want the road trip to be over?
60. Pleasant
61. Accord promoter
62. Week seven, e.g.
64. Clinic group, casually
65. Held title to
66. Tax-exempt bond, for short
67. Future M.D.’s course
68. Brings up 69. Corp. boss
Down
1. Sought office
2. Idle of Monty Python
3. John Wooden’s sch.
4. Young star athlete
5. Beach, in Barcelona
6. Irritate
7. Raisin, formerly 8. Nervous noise
9. Stadium sound
10. Purchaser’s protection
11. Joan of Arc site
12. “___ to tell you something ...”
13. One of the Roosevelts
21. Stylish clothing selection
22. Way out
25. Unruly crowds
26. “Breakfast All Day” chain
27. Prefix that means “both”
28. Buttigieg who ran for president
29. Hurt
32. Raison d’___ (reason for being)
33. Take a break
34. Not a lot
35. Vane heading
36. Allure competitor
37. Sign filler
39. Batman portrayer on TV
43. Olympic weapon
44. Physical form
48. “I’m hungry!”
49. “Kung Fu ___”
50. Constellation with a belt
51. Magnet for visitors
52. Dye used for temporary tattoos
53. Counter request?
54. Scans in
56. Marvel superhero from Asgard
57. Hockey Hall of Famer Gordie
58. French waters
59. Actress Daly of “Cagney & Lacey”
63. Editor’s disclaimer
Answers on page 23.
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