San Antonio Current — November 2, 2022

HAPPENED TO TRISH DEBERRY?

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10 Feature What Happened to Trish DeBerry?

One of San Antonio’s savviest political operators may have become her own worst enemy

News The Opener News in Brief

Toxic Water?

Contamination in the Edwards Aquifer has long been a concern.

But the treatment of San Antonio’s drinking water also has health risks, including cancer.

Bad Takes

Donald Trump’s Big Lie reeks of Orwellian ‘doublethink,’ and it’s not a victimless offense

Calendar

Arts

A Tale of Two Cities

Gallerist Patricia Ruiz-Healy champions Latinx and South Texas artists in both San Antonio and Manhattan

Screens

Retro Cinematic Vibe

Owner of San Antonio’s new retro bar Be Kind & Rewind discusses his love for movies

32 Food All in the Mesquite

Old Forester Distilling taps iconic King Ranch to debut a whiskey with distinct South Texas terroir Fiery South

Thai Buri offers a taste of the Southeast Asian culinary powerhouse’s regional cuisine

37 Music

Chasing the Dragon

Catching up with Trivium ahead of the band’s Aztec Theatre performance

Billy Bremner of legendary UK group Rockpile bringing pub rock sounds to the Lonesome Rose

Garrett T. Capps & NASA Country’s People Are Beautiful is an uplifting cosmic ride

Critics’ Picks

WHAT HAPPENED TO TRISH DEBERRY?

On the Cover: Political observers are questioning the wisdom of Bexar County judge candidate Trish DeBerry’s increasingly confrontaional campaign. Design: Rob Dobi.

Facebook / Trish DeBerry for Bexar County Judge

CONGRATULATIONS JULIO FUENTES

JULIO FUENTES IS A LONG TIME RESIDENT OF SAN ANTONIO AND ART ENTHUSIAST. JULIO IS A HUSBAND AND DAD. BY DAY, JULIO WORKS AT A NON-PROFIT CALLED PROJECT QUEST AND IS ALSO A CAREER COACH. BY NIGHT JULIO ENJOYS DABBLING IN THE ARTS.

Julio states, “I believe that our art is a representation of who we are and gives us all a voice to tell our stories. My Voodoo Ranger rendition represents my experience as a San Antonio resident and the love we all share for this city that is like no other. From our late Mexican Elvis, The Alamo, The Spurs and our beloved Selena. Our culture and our love for each other is rich and pure and I am grateful that I can be a part of it. I hope that my piece encourages and inspires someone to tell their story through the expression of art. Like many I have always doubted my artistic talents and always refrained myself from using the word “artist” when speaking about myself. But today I am here as an “artist” and it is all thanks to my loved ones and other artists that encourage me and inspire me to keep my art alive. Thank you New Belgium and SA Current for giving me the opportunity to be here and have my story be seen and to my wife Alyssa and my daughter Simone. Viva San Antonio!!”

That Rocks/That Sucks

HGov. Greg Abbo is pulling $359.6 million from the state’s prison budget to keep his Operation Lone Star border security mission running for another 10 months. The militarized immigration crackdown has been beset with problems since the Republican governor launched it a year-and-a-half ago. Meanwhile, Texas’ prison system is dealing with serious staffing and cost issues.

HA new report found that the University of Texas at San Antonio is among the top universities in the nation in awarding degrees to Hispanic students. According to Hispanic Outlook on Education magazine, UTSA awarded 3,691 four-year degrees to Hispanic students during the 2020-21 academic year — the eighth highest number in the country. The school ranked 13th for number of master’s degrees conferred to Hispanic students as well.

HTexas’ energy grid hasn’t significantly improved and is still vulnerable to failure in extreme winter weather, a revised report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found. If the state is hit with a storm comparable to 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, the grid’s operators would be forced to make similar power cuts — contradicting Gov. Greg Abbo ’s recent claim the system is “stronger than ever before.”

Sen. Ted Cruz got a predictably hostile welcome when he ventured into Yankee Stadium to watch the Houston Astros face New York’s home team in the recently concluded American League Championship Series. Cruz was relentlessly jeered by Yankees fans, several of whom were pictured flipping him off and one of whom yelled at Texas’ junior senator to “Go back to Cancún.” Cruz also made headlines for seeming to applaud a José Altuve strikeout despite claiming to be an Astros fan. — Abe Asher

Ted Cruz

Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.

Earlier this month, Sen. Ted Cruz once again vied for the title of Biggest Prick on Twi er — an award for which there’s no shortage of competition.

This time, the rabidly anti-LGBTQ+ Texas Republican invaded the privacy of a transgender preschool teacher by exposing his personal details on social media.

Cruz was among several conservatives who retweeted a social media post from right-wing economist and political organizer Phil Kerpen, which included screen shots of an email sent to the parents of kids enrolled at an exclusive Washington D.C. preschool, news site LGBTQ

At a public meeting last week, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw insisted he won’t resign and that his department didn’t fail Uvalde families during the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School. The beleaguered director admi ed that his department was not “without fault” for the botched police response to the shooting. “I can tell you this right now: DPS as an institution, right now, did not fail the community — plain and simple,” he said.

Nation reported.

The email informed parents that a transgender teacher at the school was pregnant. It included tips on how to explain pregnancy to their kids, especially since some may associate pregnancies with only certain genders, according to LGBTQ Nation.

The screenshot of the email exposed the teacher’s name and school, meaning Cruz shared those sensitive details with his 5.3 million followers. Kerpen’s tweet has since been deleted, but the senator’s remains up — only now without the sensitive data a ached.

Since Cruz first retweeted Kerpen, Twi er users have dogpiled the senator over his decision to reveal the teacher’s identity, warning that it could expose a private citizen to harassment and violence.

Apparently, when you’re an assclown of Cruz’s stature, that’s a risk you’re willing to take if it helps score cheap political points with the right-wing base. — Michael Karlis

news

— U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales onTwitter, becoming the first majorTexas Republican official to demand McCraw step down.

The campaign of Bexar County District A orney Joe Gonzales asked area television stations to stop running an ad from Republican candidate Marc LaHood claiming that Gonzales has declined to prosecute cases involving possession of hard drugs like heroin and fentanyl. The ad goes after Gonzales for a cite-and-release program for small drug offenses that was developed in partnership with the San Antonio Police Department. Gonzales campaign manager Laura Barberena called the ad “completely false.”

A lawyer for the family of Erik Cantu, the 17-year-old critically injured in a police shooting in early October, is calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the shooting. Cantu’s parents have asked Bexar County to bring murder charges against the former San Antonio police officer who shot their son, and the family’s high-profile a orney Ben Crump said they’ll also petition the Justice Department to open a probe into whether Cantu was racially profiled.

— Abe Asher

SAID IT!

“DPS Director McCraw should RESIGN immediately.”

ASSCLOWN ALERT

Wikimedia Commons / Gage Skidmore

Michael Karlis

What Happened to Trish DeBerry?

One of San Antonio’s savviest political operators may have become her own worst enemy

BY SANFORD NOWLIN

It didn’t take long for Republican Trish DeBerry’s campaign for Bexar County judge to veer from her typically measured approach to politics.

Over the summer, the public relations veteran unleashed a flurry of news releases accusing her Democratic opponent Peter Sakai of all manner of shenanigans, suggesting, for example, that he might be “compromised” by a hefty $100,000 donation from philanthropist Kym Rapier Vere e. Then came the early October press conference at which DeBerry, without proof, accused personal injury a orney Thomas J. Henry and ad agency head Bob Wills of targeting her with $259,000 in dark money ads. Both deny the claim, and Henry staged his own presser to slap down DeBerry’s claim that he’d gone

after her because of her gender.

Later that same month, DeBerry drew condemnation from Asian American and Pacific Islander groups for referring to Sakai, a Japanese American former district judge, as “Dr. No” twice during a confrontational candidate forum.

DeBerry’s campaign said the slam was meant to show her opponent’s unwillingness to fund bold county projects. However, local AAPI groups labeled it “racist” and “deplorable.” Dr. No, the half-Chinese villain in the first James Bond movie, is widely perceived by contemporary critics as a racist caricature, they noted.

“No ma er what you think of Trish DeBerry politically, she has been professional, methodical and

disciplined throughout her career — words which do not seem to describe the course of her current campaign,” San Antonio-based Republican political consultant Kelton Morgan said.

In the past, DeBerry — who resigned from her seat representing Precinct 3 on Bexar County Commissioners Court to mount her run — has been perceived as a forceful yet savvy political hand. This time around, she’s emerged as a wild card, lobbing accusations, grabbing for a ention and staking out what critics call markedly contradictory positions.

DeBerry’s conduct makes headlines and adheres to the current GOP playbook. However, local political observers say it increasingly reeks of desperation. They also warn it’s obscuring her stand on campaign issues and may cause her long-term damage, both politically and professionally.

“I think sometimes on these campaigns, you end up in an echo chamber of advisors, and as the campaign moves, you get down these paths that are hard to come back from,” said one observer close to DeBerry. DeBerry was unavailable for comment on this story. However, her campaign advisor — former councilman and two-time mayoral candidate Greg Brockhouse — fired back at claims that his client has taken her run into negative territory or veered from the issues.

“She’s driven an idea-focused campaign, and then it went negative — not at Trish DeBerry’s hands, but through supporters, friends and the team of Peter Sakai,” he said. “They took this negative on Sept. 19.”

Sept. 19 was the date the dark money ads began airing on local TV.

Whose dark money?

Indeed, the most significant sign of DeBerry’s shift in strategy came during the blustery Oct. 3 press conference where she accused Wills and Henry of funding the a ack ads against her.

With supporters holding signs reading “Pete in your pocket” and “Who wants to buy Peter Sakai,” DeBerry struck a combative tone. She accused Henry of preying on the poor to build his wealth and of preying on women through his alleged funding of the ads against her. She also suggested not only that Sakai knew who the funders were but that his campaign was conspiring with them.

“This is a dark money corporation, the likes of which we’ve never seen playing in politics here before that hides behind the curtain,” DeBerry said. “So, I’m pulling back the curtain, and I’m exposing the folks that are responsible for this.”

DeBerry brought up her credentials as a former TV journalist, saying “multiple sources” in business, journalism and the political sphere had identified Henry and Wills as the players behind the ads — a charge they’d soon vociferously deny. When pressed by reporters to identify her sources, she would not, only saying that she would file collusion and corruption charges with the district a orney’s office and with the Texas a orney general.

“There are cowards at play here today, folks,” she said.

Even though DeBerry was unwilling to name

Facebook / Trish DeBerry for Bexar County Judge

names, Brockhouse told the Current that one of her sources was Express-News Publisher Mark Medici, who allegedly told her that Wills wanted to purchase a ack ads against her in the daily.

In a Sept. 28 tweet, Medici announced that he’d met DeBerry that day at an editorial board meeting and that the he was “proud” the paper had rejected dark money ads against her.

Contacted by the Current, Medici denied Brockhouse’s claim that he’d outed the people behind the ads to DeBerry, however.

“That is categorically false,” he said. “One-hundred percent false.”

Critics say other actions by the DeBerry campaign appear to fly in the face of her eagerness to cry foul over the influx of dark money.

Less than a month after her press event denouncing TV spots funded by the group Friends of Bexar LLC, DeBerry unleashed a ack ads of her own — albeit with their funding out in the open. Launched last week, the ad buy accuses Sakai of making a bad call from the bench that left a 2-year-old child dead.

The 18-year-old case she resurrected involved a young mother who lost custody of her infant daughter after testing positive for drugs. On the recommendation of caseworkers and others, Sakai — a long-serving and respected family court judge — ordered the pair reunited. The mother reportedly beat the girl, who later died.

After the incident, Sakai took a soul-searching leave of absence. Even so, a court-ordered probe blamed the tragic outcome on systemic problems, including Texas’ lack of support for Child Protective Services.

Beyond those new a ack ads, media investigations from earlier this year suggest DeBerry, for all her vitriol about the evils of dark money, has surrounded herself with people willing to use it.

Documents list both Brockhouse and Colin Strother, another veteran political consultant on her campaign, as board members of dark money group the Voter Education Foundation. Earlier this year, that group funded a ack ads against U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar’s Democratic primary challenger, Jessica Cisneros. Public records also show Tom Marks, DeBerry’s chief of staff when she was on Commissioners Court, served as one of the Voter Education Foundation’s officers.

Brockhouse denied that the Voter Education Foundation was secretive about its participants, pointing to the names listed in filings.

Further, he said the DeBerry campaign’s ads against Sakai aren’t intended to be personal smears. Instead, they question whether he’s the right person to be making CEO-level decisions for the county.

“I think people are uncomfortable, you know, [they say], ‘Peter’s a nice guy,’” Brockhouse said. “Nobody’s disputing that Peter’s a nice guy. What we are disputing is his preparedness to be the Bexar County judge.”

Underdog campaign

Although a longtime operative and one-time mayoral candidate, DeBerry has painted herself in her present campaign as a political outsider. At appearances, she’s touted her experience as a small business CEO, saying it’s prepped her to make tough calls

about the county’s $2.8 billion budget.

This summer, DeBerry reportedly sold her entire stake in the PR firm she led, talkStrategy, after critics questioned whether its high-profile client list amounted to a conflict of interest. Among others, the firm worked for H-E-B, the San Antonio Water System and Spurs Sports & Entertainment.

From the start, it was clear that DeBerry’s run for county judge would be a longshot.

She represented Precinct 3 — the only dependably Republican district of the four served by the Bexar County Commissioners Court — while the top slot has long been considered a reliably blue seat. The spot is being vacated by Democrat Nelson Wolff, who’s retiring after holding it for 21 years. He hasn’t faced a viable GOP challenge since 2006.

Observers said it was apparent early on that Brockhouse — himself a scrappy political underdog — was playing a prominent role in DeBerry’s campaign. The former councilman was reportedly present when she filed to run.

“He’s the best retail politician I’ve ever come across,” DeBerry said of Brockhouse in a 2021 Express-News profile tied to his second mayoral campaign.

People familiar with the campaign said close associates tried to talk DeBerry out of running, warning that she was giving up a seat she could continue to hold for years in exchange for a political pipedream. But Brockhouse and Strother both encouraged her to pursue the job, those observers added.

Brockhouse vehemently denied that he pushed DeBerry into running, saying that people who suggest otherwise are taking part in a sexist whisper campaign against the candidate.

“That’s the epitome of misogyny and sexism in politics,” he said. “These people are saying the only way an accomplished woman who’s been highly successful for 25 years could run for Bexar County judge is if a

man made her.”

Just the same, DeBerry paid for polling prior to announcing her run that suggested she was up against long odds in the race.

In a phone survey conducted last November, likely Bexar County voters broke 53% to 40% in favor of giving the position to a Democrat, according to a copy of the poll obtained by the Current. Further, the report showed DeBerry’s favorable name recognition lagging five of the seven other people then considered potential contenders in the race.

DeBerry also threw her hat into the ring after completing less than a year on Commissioners Court — hardly the amount of time needed to improve her name recognition or amass a substantial record, political observers maintain.

“When pre y much everyone in the political world tried to tell her this was a suicide mission, she let Greg Brockhouse and Colin Strother convince her that the move was in her best interest,” GOP consultant Morgan said.

Again, Brockouse disputes that narrative, saying the polling numbers showed that DeBerry had a path to victory. He also said some people close to DeBerry who now say she shouldn’t have run initially encouraged her to pursue the seat.

“Trish is a very analytical person,” he said. “She’s a numbers- and data-driven consultant herself. We knew when we delivered our message and our polling that we would win the Bexar County judge’s race, running away, because Peter doesn’t have the skill set or knowledge to do the job.”

Sanford Nowlin

MDeBerry campaign advisor Greg Brockhouse poses with fans during his first unsuccessful run for mayor.

The Brockhouse factor

And then there’s the ma er of Brockhouse himself, a tireless campaigner whose Trumpian populism and grievance-filled approach to local politics seems at odds with DeBerry’s background as a methodical insider and image of a political moderate.

Further confounding observers are allegations of domestic abuse that have dogged Brockhouse.

During his first mayoral run, the Express-News reported that Brockhouse had twice been accused of domestic violence. One of those calls came from his third and current wife, who called the police in 2009, while a 2006 incident stemmed from a call during his second marriage.

Brockhouse maintains that he was the complainant in the 2006 incident. He also said the second was later retracted and expunged.

DeBerry’s recent finance reports show that her campaign has paid tens of thousands of dollars to Brockhouse and his company Everest Marketing. Her expenses during that time also include a single $200 donation to Family Violence Prevention.

Brockhouse’s presence feels like odd baggage for DeBerry to lug given her image while on Commissioners Court as a crusader for women’s rights. She weathered a barrage of misogynistic online a acks this spring after she resisted the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office request to fund the purchase of a new boat. Ultimately, Wolff rallied to her support, issuing a le er to Sheriff Javier Salazar urging him to publicly push back at “one of the ugliest and most blatant displays of sexism and personal a acks.”

Earlier this month, DeBerry also leveled accusations of sexist reporting and bias against Express-News reporter Bruce Selcraig, which he said were largely based on two questions he asked while working on a profile of her. One was whether she planned to marry again, Selcraig said, and the other was about her relationship with Brockhouse.

DeBerry met with Express-News higher ups before the story ever ran, prompting the daily to kill the veteran journo’s profile and hand off the story to other staffers, Selcraig alleges. He lost his job days later, after declining to meet with publisher Medici over the ma er.

“The women I’ve worked with and respected would have seen through Trish DeBerry’s tactics. It’s a shame Mark Medici could not,” Selcraig said.

Brockhouse defends the campaign’s decision to go to the mat over Selcraig’s reporting, alleging that his questions were inappropriate and sexist in nature.

Big ideas lost

Tess Coody, who was a partner with DeBerry in Guerra DeBerry Coody, a PR firm that amicably split in 2012, said the two haven’t discussed the campaign. However, she said today’s divisive political climate and the latent sexism built into politics have clearly presented challenges for DeBerry.

“Oftentimes, that creates a situation where the candidate is fla ened, and we’re looking at them through a narrow lens,” Coody said.

Critics are less forgiving. One longtime political observer familiar with the campaign said the longshot nature of DeBerry’s run may have given her no choice but to ally with Brockhouse. Just the same, his unsuccessful track record chasing the mayor’s office should have been a warning sign.

While Brockhouse forced a runoff against Mayor Ron Nirenberg in 2019, he ended his 2021 rematch with just 31.5% of the vote to the incumbent’s 61.9%. A onetime consultant to San Antonio’s police union, Brockhouse has since been replaced in that role, and many in local political circles view his reputation as toxic.

“It’s starting to look like if Greg Brockhouse is involved with your campaign, that’s the touch of death,” one political observer said.

Other wonks say Brockhouse’s divisive reputation may be rubbing off on DeBerry. They said she should worry about its lasting effect on her political ambitions and her ability to get back into the public relations business, assuming she chooses to do so.

Brockhouse disagrees, again saying that forces within the Alamo City’s tight-knit political community are holding DeBerry to campaigning standards they wouldn’t expect of male candidates. He disputes that the campaign has taken what he called a “turn for the worse.”

“We’re pu ing up our thoughts on what Peter’s record is, and Trish is talking about his decision making and his judgment — or lack thereof,” he added. “It’s all fair game in the realm of political policy and decision-making when you’re asking to be the Bexar County judge.”

Despite Brockhouse’s assurances, people close to

DeBerry said the brawling and name-calling draw a ention away from the fact that she’s a serious and thoughtful candidate who brings real ideas to the race.

“If the result of all this is that all of her good ideas aren’t allowed to bubble up and come to voters’ a ention, then that’s a shame,” one longtime DeBerry associate said. “Particularly given that she’s running against a very thoughtful and well-regarded opponent.”

And to be sure, real issues face Bexar County. DeBerry and Sakai, for example, are split on whether to move the county jail out of a West Side zip code that’s one of the city’s most destitute, potentially opening new economic development opportunities. DeBerry champions the idea, while Sakai argues it would leave county taxpayers on the hook for billions.

There are also lingering questions about how Bexar County should spend its federal pandemic relief dollars, how it funds public safety as its populace continues to grow and whether there should be additional city-county collaboration on big-ticket projects.

And with time ticking down on the election and so much of the season squandered on personal a acks, political intrigue and bare-knuckle brawls, Bexar County voters may never know what DeBerry might bring to the role.

Twitter / @trish4judge

MTrish DeBerry speaks to potential voters at evangelical bastion Cornerstone Church during a recent campaign appearance.

Toxic Water?

Contamination in the Edwards Aquifer has long been a concern. But the treatment of San Antonio’s drinking water also has health risks, including cancer.

BY JASON BUCH

For decades, stewards of the Edwards Aquifer have strived to limit development over San Antonio’s key source of drinking water.

Waste from people, pets and agriculture creates the potential for biological contaminants in the aquifer that stretches under 8,000 square miles in Central Texas. Impermeable cover such as roads and parking lots channels that waste into creeks and sinkholes and, ultimately, the aquifer. That can result in blooms of bacteria including coliform and E. coli with the potential to seriously sicken humans.

Public health experts aren’t just concerned about those organic contaminants but what happens when the Edwards’ water is treated for public consumption. New a ention is being paid to contaminants that are byproducts of that treatment — compounds

with tongue-tying names like trihalomethanes that are created when chlorine eliminates organic ma er from treated water.

Many of those compounds are unregulated, even though some are associated with increased cancer risk.

“What’s legal and what’s allowed in the water does not necessarily mean safe,” said Sydney Evans, a science analyst with nonprofit advocacy organization the Environmental Working Group. “There are health risks between the health guidelines and the legal limits.”

Though these compounds show up in San Antonio tap water, they’re either unregulated or appearing at limits below those set by the Environmental Protection Agency. But public health experts are concerned there’s not enough information about them, and what happens when a multitude of

contaminants are present in drinking water.

An analysis by the Environmental Working Group, which offers tap water safety recommendations that are far more stringent than the EPA’s, reports that there are 15 contaminants in San Antonio Water System water that exceed its suggested levels, almost all of them potentially cancer-causing.

Evans said byproducts of decontamination are often associated with bladder cancer, while other contaminants in San Antonio water are associated with bone and colorectal cancer. The Environmental Working Group guidelines are stringent — the recommendations for trihalomethanes “represents a one-in-one-million lifetime cancer risk level” according to the database — but Evans said those risks increase with each type of contaminant found in the water.

“The higher those levels, even at legal limits, there’s a health risk there,” Evans said. “And reducing those is what we’d like to see, because the regulations need to be updated to keep up with the science.”

Double-edged sword

The Alamo City has been blessed with an exceptional source of water. With pools 3,000 feet below the

surface and hundreds of fast-flowing artesian wells, the karst carbonate Edwards Aquifer provides most of the water used by the San Antonio Water System and some smaller utilities in the region.

Any Hill Country resident who’s dug a post hole has probably come across a slab of limestone that looks like a cross section of a giant, worm-eaten apple. That’s because rainwater is mildly acidic and slowly eats through the carbonate limestone under the Hill Country, creating uncounted pathways for water, some tiny, some huge.

For a water source to nearly 2 million people, this can be a boon. The aquifer quickly replenishes itself.

But it’s also “a double-edged sword,” said Ron Green, a groundwater hydrologist and president of the board of the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance. Edwards water and anything washed into it by recent rain moves quickly through those “preferential flow paths” — the wormways through the limestone.

“These contaminants that get slushed into the aquifer somehow, they can get into these public supply wells and be disseminated in the community within hours to days,” Green said. “It’s a prolific aquifer, and it responds very quickly to rain events. It’s not being dewatered like other aquifers. After a good rain, it’s going to come back to

Shutterstock.com / fizkes

good levels quickly. But the downside is that if you get some sort of a pathogen washed into the aquifer, it can go right into the public water supply in San Antonio in a very short time.”

SAWS is required to monitor tap water, but it also monitors the wells at its source. If bacteria levels spike, the utility can cut off one well and has a diverse enough water supply to replace it with others, officials said.

Of its nearly 100 Edwards Aquifer wells, SAWS officials said those at most risk are those it inherited from the old BexarMet Water District — which the utility absorbed in 2012 along with some of its wells with a smaller protected area around them — and those near the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone, a 1,250-square-mile strip that passes through northwest Bexar County where faults and fractures let water plunge into the aquifer.

To track water quality, “we’re doing a substantial amount of monitoring within the system that is beyond what we’re actually required to do,” said Kirk Nixon, SAWS’s manager for resource, protection and compliance.

Nitrate and nitrate — associated with fertilizer, septic tanks and urban runoff — both appear in San Antonio tap water at levels above those recommended by the Environmental Working Group and at levels higher than state and national averages. Even so, the amount is still lower than what’s allowed by the EPA.

However, the byproducts of adding chlorine to eliminate dangerous bacteria and other organic ma er account for most of the contaminants found in SAWS tap water, according to experts. “If the source water is somewhat contaminated, it has some organic ma ers, then these organic ma ers and the chlorine react and then produce these disinfectant byproducts,” said Taehyun Roh, an assistant professor at the Texas A&M School of Public Health’s department of epidemiology and biostatistics.

In January, the EPA will begin a twoyear analysis of contaminants it doesn’t regulate, such as bromodichloromethane and dibromoacetic acid, byproducts of disinfection associated with cancer that appear in SAWS water at levels above the national average.

More chlorine, new contaminants

The Environmental Working Group maintains a tap water database, using data from regulatory agencies to track

Contaminants Detected in San Antonio’s Water Supply

Nonprofit advocacy organization Environmental Working Group reports that these chemicals were detected in San Antonio Water System’s supply in 20172019.

Bromochloroacetic acid139x Not Available

Bromodichloromethane106x Cancer

Bromoform 4.7x Cancer

Chloroform 13x Cancer

Chromium (hexavalent) 6.8x Cancer

Dibromoacetic acid 62x Not Available

Dibromochloromethane62x Cancer

Dichloroacetic acid 17x Cancer

Haloacetic acids (HAA5)83x Cancer

Haloacetic acids (HAA9)161x Cancer

Nitrate 12x Cancer

Nitrate and nitrite 12x Cancer

Radium, combined (-226 & -228) 7.4x Cancer

Total trihalomethanes (TTHMs) 208x Cancer

Trichloroacetic acid 13x Not Available

the amount of contaminants in public drinking water and comparing those to its own recommendations.

But the nonprofit’s focus on filters as a solution has garnered criticism. SAWS communications manager Anne Hayden said some filter companies use scare tactics to sell unnecessary products to consumers, specifically targeting low-income neighborhoods.

While there remains a lack of data about the impact of many drinking water contaminants, the EPA’s regulations aren’t based solely on health impacts, A&M’s Roh said. The regulatory agency considers other factors, like how many water systems in which a contaminant is found and the potential cost of more stringent limits.

What’s more, the EPA has limited data about the cocktails of contaminants that are showing up in drinking water more frequently.

“We don’t have enough information

about long-term exposure,” Roh said. “At the same time, we are not just exposed to single water contaminants.”

He noted that many of the Environmental Working Group’s recommendations are nonbinding goals set by California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.

While EWG does promote filters, Evans cautioned against relying on bottled water. She said the most important way to improve water quality is to get at what’s contaminating source water.

To that end, the City of San Antonio and SAWS have invested in purchasing easements to reduce development over the recharge zone. They also have a review process for building permits where the recharge zone lies within city limits. SAWS’s Nixon said the utility takes steps to ensure treated water doesn’t sit in pipes for too long, when chlorine can continue to react with harmless organic material and create

new disinfectant byproducts.

Green, the San Antonio hydrologist, said he’s collected decades of waterquality data from state regulators, which he plans to analyze to see if he can document an increase in bacteria and other pathogens.

“High density development is going to degrade the quality of water recharge,” he said. “Once we get that information compiled, we want to see if there are already increases in pathogens and contaminants being detected in the San Antonio Water System.”

He added: “Unfortunately, water utilities and state regulators are not compiling that summary information.”

Like so many environmental issues, global warming looms over water quality as well.

“Usually, the problem is when the water temperature increases, the bacteria level can be increased,” Roh said. “Then we need to use more chlorine.”

Source: Environmental Working Group

Chemical Amount Over EWG’s GuidelinesPotential E ect

Donald Trump’s Big Lie reeks of Orwellian ‘doublethink,’ and it’s not a victimless offense

BY KEVIN SANCHEZ

Editor’s Note: Bad Takes is a column of opinion and analysis.

There are two staples of Anglo American culture that conservatives can’t seem to do without. The first is the Pledge of Allegiance, which most kids recite countless times before they graduate. The second is the British novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, which you also may recall from your school days.

What many conservatives don’t know is both were wri en by avowed socialists: Francis Bellamy and George Orwell, respectively. Bellamy lionized the United States as a free, egalitarian republic. Orwell described a future dystopia ruled by torture and “doublethink.” The pair of writings comprise, on one end, an aspiration, and on the other, a cautionary tale that could happen here — if we’re not careful.

Orwell defined doublethink as “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” Bingeing the Jan. 6 Commi ee hearings — the ninth installment of which wrapped up a couple weeks ago — I couldn’t help but ask myself a simple question: does Donald Jehovah Trump believe he received more votes in 2020 than President Joe Biden? Or did he just spout the Big Lie of a stolen election as a cynical ploy to stay in power?

“The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality,” Orwell wrote, “but by the exercise of DOUBLETHINK he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process must be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also must be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.”

More than half of GOP nominees on the ballot this November — 291 candi-

dates in all — deny that Trump legitimately lost the White House. And some 70% of Republican voters continue to express the same sentiment, according to an aggregate of recent polls.

Yet there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Judges, including those appointed by Republicans, have repeatedly rejected those claims.

That’s why it’s tempting to agree with Washington Post columnist Philip Bump. “For Trump, the issue was never whether the election was stolen, it was whether he could convince people it might have been,” he wrote.

However, I disagree. It seems more likely that Trump and his most diehard supporters simply couldn’t conceive of him losing, any more than Nineteen Eighty-Four’s Party faithful could conceive that Oceania might not always have been at war with Eastasia.

And yet, Trump evidently planned to refuse to admit defeat regardless of the vote totals, which implies premeditation. How can someone conspire to steal an election, then instigate a mob to “stop the steal”? The suspicious absence of cognitive dissonance goes far beyond Trump himself.

One of Daily Show correspondent Jordan Klepper’s interview montages with Trump rally a endees illustrates the disconnect. When faced with visual proof that Trump’s A orney General William Barr as well as the former president’s own daughter said claims of election fraud were “bullshit,” one MAGA devotee alleged that the deposition video had been deceptively “edited” while another suggested the person under oath who very much resembled Ivanka Trump “might be a clone.”

That’s doublethink for you. But are the rest of us any be er? According to a New York Times/Siena College survey,

71% of voters think democracy was at risk. However, “just 7% identified that as the most important problem facing the country.” Seems a bit li le like obsessing over your next chess move knowing full well your opponent intends to flip over the board. Without aspiring to even act like a voting republic, how can we ever hope to address all our other pressing issues?

Lest we imagine the dangers of doublethink are literary or hypothetical, or akin to a sports fanatic who genuinely believes their hometown team never commits a foul, the consequences of the MAGA reality distortion field are deadly serious. Before early voting began this month, the Texas Tribune ran a lengthy investigation detailing unprecedented harassment and threats of violence targeting poll workers.

Another question pops up whenever pundits on both the right and left dismissively refer to Jan. 6 as “a three-hour riot.” What if Vice President Mike Pence had been lynched? Would that change how we now think and talk about the abortive putsch?

As the hearings revealed, at one point those shouting “Hang Mike Pence” were a mere 20 feet from the target of their scorn. Recordings document that members of the Secret Service detail sworn to protect Pence called their loved ones to say goodbye.

A former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers militia didn’t mince words before the commi ee.

“What Jan. 6 was going to be was an armed revolution,” Jason Van Tatenhove testified. “People died that day. Law enforcement officers died. There was a gallows set up in front of the Capitol. This could have been the spark

that started a new civil war.”

One of the defining characteristics of historical fascism was the stoking — and, ultimately, deputizing — of paramilitary vigilantes who could operate with impunity, plausible deniability and sadistic cruelty. The same holds true for neofascism today.

What most readers vividly remember about Nineteen Eighty-Four is the scary part involving the main character Winston’s fear of rats. A common misconception about Winston’s torturer, O’Brien, was that he mouthed the words of Party ideology as an excuse to conduct his sadistic work. The truth is the opposite.

“The exaltation, the lunatic enthusiasm was still in O’Brien’s face,” Orwell wrote. “He is not pretending, thought Winston, he is not a hypocrite, he believes every word he says.”

O’Brien was himself a victim of Big Brother, a true believer. That’s how he could rationalize his manipulation and abuse.

The most salient fact of political life in the U.S. is one party concedes when they lose while a critical mass of the other party would rather go out in an enthusiastic blaze of suicidal glory. Impenetrable conspiracism and the precipice of authoritarianism follow naturally from there.

But anyone who would cast a ballot for leaders so craven as to refuse to condemn the willful subversion of our elections, and yet still recites the Pledge or sympathetically references the work of George Orwell, is deeply ensnared in doublethink.

And is there any be er example of Orwellian newspeak than our calling such people “republicans”?

Wikimedia Commons / Tyler Merbler

SUN | 11.05

PAGLIACCI

“But doctor, I am Pagliacci!” — or so the punchline goes. Though the “depressed clown” joke predates Ruggero Leoncavallo’s 1892 opera, after Pagliacci entered the zeitgeist as “that story with the sad clowns,” the joke eventually came to use its title. In the opera, Canio, the leader of a traveling troupe of actors, suspects his wife Nedda of infidelity. Though she spurns the advances of the amorous Tonio, Nedda does indeed have a lover — Silvio. And, as it just so happens, the commedia troupe’s current production stars Canio as Pagliaccio, a character who suspects his wife Colombina — played by Nedda — of infidelity. Sound familiar? During the troupe’s performance, fiction and truth bleed together, and Canio as Pagliaccio is overcome by jealousy, culminat ing in an onstage tragedy. OPERA San Antonio opens its 2022-2023 season with the famous two-act opera, directed by OSA Artistic Advisor Garne Bruce, with music direction by Francesco Milioto. The produc tion stars Jonathan Burton as Canio, Sara Gartland as Nedda, Ricardo Jose Rivera as Silvio and Gordon Hawkins as Tonio. “This short opera really packs a big punch,” Milioto said in a statement. “The audience immediately gets pulled into the drama as if they are part of the crowd watching on stage.” Pagliacci will be performed in Italian with English translations, and each performance will feature a pre-show educational lecture. $40-$195, 7 p.m. Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. — Kelly Nelson

turn visit to San Antonio after her standout performance this summer in Arte y Pasión’s production of Sombra y Luz. Set against a backdrop of human tragedy and loss, Sombra y Luz featured the dance troupe as they emerge triumphantly in a performance emphasizing solidarity and flamenco’s ability to showcase both joy and sorrow. The WeFlamenco Fest encourages community and collaboration while showcasing long-standing cultural traditions and highlighting the many powerful and diverse voices of the local flamenco performance community. This year’s festival also includes a Sunday, Nov. 6 performance by Los Flamencos de San Antonio at Market Square followed by a flamenco flash mob and “sevillanas challenge,” while on Wednesday, Nov. 9, the Li le Carver will screen Gurumbé, a film exploring Afro-Andalucian contributions to flamenco. For a full list of events, visit WeFlamenco Fest’s Facebook page. $15-$30, 7 p.m., Brick at Blue Star, 108 Blue Star, arte-y-pasion.com.

— Marco Aquino

FRI | 11.04SUN | 11.13

SPECIAL EVENT WURSTFEST

For more than 60 years, New Braunfels has celebrated Wurstfest, a be loved two-week festival of German culture, food and music. This year, the annual celebration will ring in the month of November, a season of gratitude, and revelers will rejoice in their heritage against the beau tiful backdrop of the Comal River. Guests will enjoy carnival rides, live entertainment, games, dancing, beer and — of course — lots of sausage.

Most of the festivities will take place in the Marktplatz Building, rebuilt after the original was destroyed by a fire in 2019. The Wurstwagen shut tle service will be available to all guests in need of transportation assis tance. Those looking to join the party are encouraged to reserve tickets online for a discount price. Children ages 12 and under are admi ed for free. $18-$20, 4-11 p.m. Friday, Nov. 4, 11 a.m.-midnight Saturday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday, 5-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 5-11 p.m. Friday, 120 Landa St., New Braunfels, (830) 625-9167, wurstfest.com. — Caroline WolFF

FRI | 11.04

COMEDY MARC MARON

Comedian Marc Maron hosts a podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, which pre y much sums up his a itude towards existence. Maron has made a career out of ge ing worked up about life’s absurdities and has also shown a knack for commenting on drugs and recovery. While first and foremost a stand-up, Maron is also a writer, actor and musician. He even landed a small role in Todd Philips’ 2019 flick Joker and has been nominated for awards for his portrayal of a curmudgeonly pro-wrest ing promoter on the Netflix series GLOW $65, 8 p.m. (Sold Out) and 10 p.m., Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. — Mike McMahan

THU | 11.03

FLAMENCO MERCURIA

Now in its 13th year, San Antonio’s WeFlamenco Festival returns for a week of performances and celebrations. Among this year’s highlights, Arte y Pasión’s Mercuria pays homage to the strength of women and features internationally renowned dancer Belén Maya. The production furthers Arte y Pasión’s commitment to shine a spotlight on societal concerns through movement and dance. In 1995, Maya starred in Carlos Saura’s influential film Flamenco, which brought masters of the genre such as Paco de Lucía together with emerging talents. Maya makes a re

FRI | 11.04

SPORTS SPURS VS. CLIPPERS

After si ing out last season recovering from a torn ACL, former Spur Kawhi Leonard returns to San Antonio this Friday with a loaded Clip pers team looking to reach the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history. Leonard’s visit comes during a tough stretch for the Spurs, who also face home showdowns against the Nuggets, Grizzlies and Bucks, before taking on the Warriors in San Francisco. Fielding a roster with an average age of 23, including four teenagers, youth continues to be served in San Antonio. Following an opening night rout at the hands of the Hornets, Coach Gregg Popovich’s young charges responded with back-to-back wins against the Pacers in Indiana and 76ers in Philadel phia. Fueled by a frenetic pace, crisp passing and timely shooting from

Jonathan Burton

Courtesy Photo / Arte y Pasión

Jaime Monzon

Courtesy of Tobin Center for the Performing Arts

SAT | 11.05

SPECIAL EVENT

DIWALI SA

calendar

veterans Josh Richardson and Doug McDermo , the pair of wins also showcased the evolution of Keldon Johnson as a scorer and per Popovich, the “courage” of Jakob Poeltl, who both landed in San Antonio by way of the Leonard trade. $13 and up, 7 p.m., AT&T Center, One AT&T Center, (210) 444-5000, a center.com, Bally Sports SW-SA. — M. Solis

FRI | 11.04SAT | 11.26

THEATER OVERLAP

After her theatrical awakening in The Big Apple and a move to Virginia, San Antonio native playwright and actor Catie Carlisle is paying homage to her Texas roots in Overlap, a sci-fi drama that follows an odd phenomenon experienced by characters residing in a sleepy West Texas town. A UTSA graduate, Carlisle tells the story of a cast experiencing deja-vu, personality and physical changes — not to mention the emotional toll those burdens bring in the rugged terrain of the area. “Over the pandemic, I worked in the medical field and kept incredibly busy between work and studying science. I wanted to challenge myself to write a new work in a new genre,” Carlisle said. Under the direction of theater educator Bryan Stanton, the play explores how once friendly strangers must mature their relationships and work together to overcome their inexplicable ailments or face

dire consequences. “Overlap explores what one man will do in a moment of grief,” Stanton said. $12-$18, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 20, The Overtime Theater, 5409 Bandera Rd., Ste. 205, (210) 577-7562, theovertimetheater.org. — Karly Williams

Reminder:

Although live events have returned, the COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. Check with venues to make sure scheduled events are still happening, and please follow all health and safety guidelines.

Diwali, the annual Indian celebration of the victory of light over darkness and good over evil, returns to downtown San Antonio at Hemisfair and the Arneson River Theatre. While Diwali is technically a five-day festival of lights, this event will condense the revelry into a single night of live performances, food vendors, handicrafts and a DJ playing the latest Bollywood hits. A river parade will take place on the River Walk from 5-6 p.m., and participants will take part in the ceremonial release of 2,000 floating candles (diyas) to commemorate the occasion. That’s not the only way Diwali will be lighting up the night, though. Fittingly, the event will conclude with a brilliant fireworks display. Free, 4:30 p.m.-midnight, Hemisfair (434 Alamo St. and Arneson River Theatre (418 Villita St.), anujasa.com/diwali-sa. — Macks Cook

Courtesy Photo / Anuja SA

San Antonio Spurs /Reginald Thomas II.

Courtesy Photo / Overtime Theater

FRI | 11.04

ART ‘LOOKING THROUGH THE MIRROR’

Bringing new perspectives on a space not always discussed in “polite company,” Not For You Gallery’s (N4U) show “Looking Through the Mirror” compiles work about the once-taboo bathroom space. Perhaps offering a commentary on the state of contemporary art, the exhibition draws to mind Duchamp’s notorious Fountain sculpture — a readymade urinal placed in an art exhibition in 1917. N4U’s show is curated by Emily Sandoval and features artists including Nikita Trevino, Alina De Leon, Raisa Melendez, MEGZ GLITTER, Aphro Oner, Kylie Nash, Alicia Inman, Madeline Hernandez, Leby Byles, Drew McDonald, Nate Zen, Mary Margeret Johnson and Sandoval herself. “Looking Through The Mirror” will be on view Nov. 4-26. Free, 7-11 p.m., Not For You Gallery, 1420 S. Alamo St., Studio 215, notforyougallery.com. — Ashley Allen

SAT | 11.05

COMEDY

LEWIS BLACK

It’s hard to dispute that the world’s in a mess right now. Tightly wound comedian Lewis Black knows it. Further, he’s unhappy about it. And he’s willing to share those thoughts, loudly and passionately, which makes him the King of Rant. Black has unleashed his acid tongue on the world in a bevy of specials on HBO, Showtime, Comedy Central and

WED | 11.09

SPORTS SPURS VS. GRIZZLIES

Memphis Grizzlies phenom Ja Morant delivered the signature performance of the early NBA season last month, scoring 49 points, including 15 from beyond the arc, and helping his team land a 129-122 win against the Houston Rockets. Morant dropped 52 points against the Spurs last season, posterizing center Jakob Poeltl and sinking a buzzer-beating alley-oop to boot. With Dejounte Murray trading buckets with Trae Young in Atlanta, it will take a team e ort to slow down Morant, who’s overtaken Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo as the most electrifying player in the league. In recent victories, San Antonio’s one-two scoring combo of Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell has steadied a Spurs o ense that has looked out of sync in stretches. Also in his fourth campaign, Johnson has increased his scoring average by almost four points per season and looks on pace to do the same this year. If Vassell can consistently string together 20-point games, San Antonio’s grueling schedule looks slightly less bleak. $10 and up, 7 p.m., AT&T Center, One AT&T Center Parkway, (210) 444-5000, attcenter.com, Bally Sports SW-SA. — MS

Epix. In his topical standup appearances, Black is unafraid of tackling weighty subjects such as the Bible, abortion, gun control, or baby boomers. $45-$106, 8 p.m., Charline McCombs Empire Theatre, 226 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. — MM

SAT | 11.05

SPECIAL EVENT

AKI MATSURI

The Japan-America Society of San Antonio’s Aki Matsuri, or fall festival, is returning for the first time since before the pandemic to celebrate the arrival of the harvest season. Previously held at at locations including the San Antonio Botanical Garden and the Wi e, this year’s iteration will take place at Raymond Russell Park. The event promises food vendors and a variety of performances celebrating Japanese culture. A cosplay contest with prizes will give those with a creative streak a chance to show off costumes based on their favorite Japanese TV or video game characters. Competitors must register in advance on JASSA’s website. Free, 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Raymond Russell Park, 20644 I-10 West Frontage Road, jas-sa.org.— MC

Drew McDonald

San Antonio Spurs / Reginald Thomas II.

Joey L. for ACLU

Shutterstock / kuremo

Soy

The Guadalupe Cultural

The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center’s dance company has created an original production

by Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche, the special exhibition currently on view at

San Antonio Museum of Art.

Photo by Edward Benavides

SUN | 11.06

COMEDY THE PIFF AND PUDDLES MISERY LOVES COMPANY TOUR

Two self-described “losers” from America’s Got Talent! are ready to serve up music, comedy and magic on this double-billed tour. The Piff and Puddles Misery Loves Company Tour features Puddles Pity Party, a sad but not-so-spooky clown, who also happens to be a favorite entertainer of comedy legends Weird Al and Jack Black. Puddles is joined by Piff the Magic Dragon and his performing chihuahua sidekick Mr. Piffles. The costumed trio’s show builds on the success of Piff’s long-running residency at Vegas’ Flamingo Hotel & Casino and Puddle’s notoriety gained from a massive YouTube following and successful national tour. $29.50-$179, 7 p.m., Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org — KW

THU | 11.10SAT | 11.12

COMEDY

CHRIS ROCK

When there’s a non-zero chance that Will Smith will show up and slap the headliner, it gives a comedy tour a certain edge. The headliner to whom we refer is one Chris Rock, the guy on the receiving end of the Academy Awards slap heard around the world — a face that launched a thousand memes. While that recent incident may have spurred extra

TUE | 11.15

CLERKS III: THE CONVENIENCE TOUR

If you’re Gen X, you likely identified — maybe even over-identified — with the foul-mouthed employees of Kevin Smith’s low-budget comedy Clerks when it debuted in 1994. It was a hit at a time when many from the slacker generation first joined the workforce and snappy, snarky movie dialogue was king. Fast forward a few decades, and Smith has returned with a second sequel. In it, he’s moved on from the convenience store counter into a “real” job, and it’s making and promoting movies. Since he shows up and does his job with minimal complaining, Smith himself will be in San Antonio hosting this screening of the film and appearing afterwards for what promises to be a colorful Q&A. The writer-director also became the star of his own feel-good story after he dropped a ton of weight a few years ago, post-heart attack. Clerks III reportedly ends the film saga. But hey, so did Return of the King, and you see where we are now. $39.50-$150, 7 p.m., Charline McCombs Empire Theatre, 226 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 226-5700, majesticempire.com. — MM

interest in Rock’s latest tour, he was a top draw well before. First gaining prominence in the early ’90s on Saturday Night Live, the actor and comedian catapulted from that success into a massive stand-up career and copious movie appearances. Rock is topical in his comedy — particularly on the ma er of race — but also adds an engaging autobiographical element by talking about his formative years. $299-$420, 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. — MM

FRI | 11.11SUN | 01.08

SPECIAL EVENT LIGHTSCAPE

Returning for its second year in San Antonio, Lightscape invites families and people of all ages to explore an alluring wonderland composed of more than a million colorful, twinkling lights radiating with holiday spirit. The outdoor exhibition, which sold out in the U.K. and Chicago as well as multiple nights last year in the Alamo City, spans a one-mile trail through the San Antonio Botanical Garden, with lights winding their way up trees, illuminating paths and adorning sculptures. Fan favorites from last year such as the Winter Cathedral and Field of Bluebonnets will return, featured alongside new additions by local and

international artists. Tickets and parking must be reserved online in advance. Visitors are encouraged to arrive approximately 15 minutes before their entry time to allow for parking and check-in. Outside food and drink are prohibited, but festive concessions including s’mores will be available at the venue. $16-$60, entry times every 15 minutes from 5:30-9 p.m., Friday, Nov. 11-Sunday, Jan. 8, San Antonio Botanical Garden, 555 Funston Place, (210) 536-1400, sabot.org/light-scape. — CW

Courtesy Photo / Tobin Center for the Performing Arts

FILM

Lionsgate

Courtesy Photo / Majestic Theatre

Courtesy Photo / San Antonio Botanical Garden

Bryson Brown Brown

10

Maddy Smith

NOV 18-20

Brendan Schaub

NOV 3-5

Cristela Alonzo

NOV 25-27

Fahim Anwar

NOV 11-13

A Tale of Two Cities

BY BRYAN RINDFUSS

Raised on a ranch in Sonora, Mexico, Patricia Ruiz-Healy developed a fondness for books around the age of 4.

“I was a li le nerd growing up,” she admitted. “And growing up on a ranch, there are not a lot of books.”

While studying English in London just after high school, Ruiz-Healy experienced a lightbulb moment at the Courtald Museum. Gazing at Édouard Manet’s mysterious 1882 painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, she realized she wanted to study art history.

That pivotal discovery sparked Ruiz-Healy to earn numerous degrees, the most recent being a Ph. D. in Latin American studies — with an unsurprising concentration in art history — from the University of Texas at Austin in 2017.

A San Antonio fixture since the 1990s, Ruiz-Healy turned her passion into a business in 2006 by establishing Ruiz-Healy Art — an Olmos Park gallery dedicated to showcasing Latin American, Latinx and South Texas artists. In 2019, she expanded her scope by opening a New York City gallery that frequently places San Antonio artists on a global platform. Beyond her gallery program, RuizHealy is the exclusive representative of the estate of Chuck Ramirez, a late local legend who left indelible impressions on his native San Antonio.

We recently caught up with Ruiz-Healy to chat about recent exhibitions at both her galleries, her experience at New York’s renowned Armory Show, and her forthcoming fall showcase for California-based textile artist Consuelo Jimenez Underwood.

Repping San Antonio in New York

Situated on Manha an’s Upper East Side, Ruiz-Healy’s New York gallery has done San Antonio proud since day one, opening its doors with a photography exhibition pairing Chuck Ramirez with Peruvian artist Cecilia Paredes.

“I don’t remember receiving so many flowers in a long time,” Ruiz-Healy recalled. “Everybody was so excited for us to be open there.”

Since then, her East Coast gallery has hosted solo exhibitions for San Antonio artists Jennifer Ling Datchuk (2019’s “Don’t Tell Me

to Smile”) and César A. Martínez (2021’s “Mi Gente”) and a two-person show uniting Jesse Amado and Alejandro Diaz (2020’s “Double Pleasure”).

“Jesse and Alejandro have been friends forever, but they hadn’t exhibited together for a long time,” Ruiz-Healy said of the show uniting San Antonio-based Amado and New York-based Diaz, an Alamo City native.

Timed with this year’s Hispanic Heritage Month, the New York gallery’s “Contemporary Latinx and Latin American Printmakers” exhibition included works by San Antonio artists including Juan de Dios Mora, Richard Armendariz and Michael Menchaca.

‘One Nation Underground’

Keeping Chuck’s legacy alive

In September of this year, Ruiz-Healy Art was among the 200-plus exhibitors at New York’s Armory Show — a fair The Art Newspaper summed up as “an increasingly global juggernaut.”

Free, Opening reception 6-8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9

On view 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday, through Jan. 28 Ruiz-Healy Art, 201-A E. Olmos Drive (210) 804-2219, ruizhealyart.com

Sweetening the deal, Ruiz-Healy consistently sells San Antonio-created work in New York. While Chuck Ramirez’s stark yet poignant photographs of downtrodden everyday objects and César A. Martinez’s hybridized Chicano portraits are among her heaviest hi ers, Ruiz-Healy says she’s made sales for all the artists she represents.

Facilitated by her presence in what’s arguably the center of the art world, Ruiz-Healy also connects with game-changing curators and institutions. A shining example of this moving and shaking is New York’s iconic El Museo del Barrio purchasing San Antonio artist Ethel Shipton’s 2020-piece Change/Cambio — a riff on the Coca-Cola logo rendered in house paint and vinyl.

arts

“It really worked well because they had a focus of Latinx and Latin American artists,” Ruiz-Healy said of her first time participating in the art fair. “The curator reached out to us and said she was interested in the gallery program.”

After brainstorming with her daughter Pa i, who serves as director of the New York gallery, Ruiz-Healy decided to use the invitation as an opportunity to celebrate one of Chuck Ramirez’s lesser-known projects.

“One of the duties of the estate is to show works that have not been seen as much,” she explained. “So we thought about ‘Long-Term Survivor.’ This is the first time it has been replicated since 1999. It has been shown here and there in sections — but not entirely.”

Originally presented at Artpace, the project illustrated issues Ramirez faced as a gay man living with AIDS. Using photography,

more arts coverage every day at sacurrent.com

Gallerist Patricia Ruiz-Healy champions Latinx and South Texas artists in both San Antonio and Manhattan

MPatricia Ruiz-Healy poses with San Antonio-born artist Alejandro Diaz in her New York City gallery.

Courtesy Photo / Ruiz-Healy Art

video, wit and cynicism, Ramirez laid things bare in his signature style: leather chaps, a day-by-day pill organizer and a spinning cock ring — the la er of which Ruiz-Healy admits she had to practice saying with confidence.

In his review of the Armory Show for The Art Newspaper, writer Daniel Cassidy highlighted the enduring relevance of Ramirez’s work: “The most poignant works here are two large-scale photos depicting his daily ‘cocktail,’ the drugs he took to keep the condition at bay. In each daily compartment in the plastic pillbox, the shadow of expensive, hard-to-get and lifesaving drugs is a reminder that just this week a conservative judge in Texas ruled that drugs that prevent HIV infection can no longer be given out for free as part of the Affordable Care Act because they ‘could infringe upon the rights of employers under a law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act,’ according to a Reuters report.”

Photographic time capsule

The same month as the Armory Show, Ruiz-Healy revived an entirely different time capsule back in San Antonio with Arlington-based photographer Celia Álvarez Muñoz’s “Semejantes Personajes/Significant Personalities.” Originally created for a Fotoseptiembre 2002 exhibition at Blue Star, the series is at once nostalgic, funny and bi ersweet.

“This collection of 41 portraits of San Antonio Latino visual artists is yet another experiment: a courtship between old and new technologies, and old and new friends,” Álvarez Muñoz wrote in her artist’s statement.

Shot entirely on an unpredictable, low-fi plastic Holga camera then digitally stitched into cinematic strips, her “Semejantes Personajes/Significant Personalities” series captures many recognizable San Antonio artists in their element — from homegrown art stars Vincent Valdez, Franco Mondini-Ruiz and Cruz Ortiz to Ruiz-Healy mainstays Chuck Ramirez, Ethel Shipton, César A. Martinez and Jesse Amado.

Exemplifying the power and importance of photography, the series also preserves the memories of

gone but not forgo en talents such as Mel Casas, Alberto Mijangos, Adan Hernandez and Alex de Leon.

Reassuring evidence that some things never change, flamboyant San Antonio icon David Zamora Casas arrived at the opening reception sca ering rose petals and looking just as eccentric and youthful as he did in the portrait Álvarez Muñoz took of him two decades prior.

Double header

Ruiz-Healy’s latest endeavor is so big that it simply wouldn’t fit into one gallery — so she’s stretching it from San Antonio to New York.

Titled “One Nation Underground” in San Antonio and “Threads from Border-landia” in New York, the exhibition serves as a two-city showcase for Consuelo Jimenez Underwood — a widely exhibited textile artist represented in the Smithsonian Institution’s vast collection. As luck would have it, Ruiz-Healy happened upon the artist’s name while reading an essay on Artnet.

“It was kind of a review, a look back at what has happened in the last two or three years for Latinx representation specifically,” Ruiz-Healy said. “I was very honored that they mentioned the two galleries [since we represent] Latino and Latinx artists. And then they mentioned a Duke University Press book about Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, and I was intrigued that I didn’t know who she was. So, I put on my art historian hat and started researching about her and her work. I have always been a big admirer of textile art — it’s one of the arts that is now being taken more into consideration. For years, it was [considered] craft.”

Not long after contacting Jimenez Underwood through her website, Ruiz-Healy was on the phone with the artist and se ing up a visit to her studio in Gualala, California.

“She lives in this place that is really magical,” RuizHealy said. “It’s surrounded by nature — very tall trees and a big river.”

Following the visit, Jimenez Underwood and RuizHealy made a collaborative selection of roughly 25 pieces to display between the two galleries.

Although at times soft in appearance, Jimenez Underwood’s works have serious teeth, addressing themes of immigration, ecology, feminism and indigenous identity.

Closely tied to her Smithsonian piece Run, Jane, Run! — which is woven with linen, yellow caution tape and barbed wire — Jimenez Underwood’s C. Jane Run is a quilt-like tapestry of fabrics pinned together and silkscreened with images of the running family from the so-called immigration sign once found along highways near the U.S.-Mexico border.

“She uses a lot of pins to put together the work as a way of [illustrating] how frail life is,” Ruiz-Healy said. “And C. Jane Run is huge — it’s 120 by 204 inches.” The piece will take up the be er part of a wall in her San Antonio gallery.

One theme sure to pervade both shows is Jimenez Underwood’s creative interpretation of flags, which can be seen in her Border Flowers Flag (2008) and her tellingly titled One Nation Underground (2013) — a hybrid of U.S. and Mexican flags embroidered with an outline of the Aztec goddess Coatlicue.

“She has very interesting, incredible names,” RuizHealy said of the artist’s pointed use of words.

That aspect of Jimenez Underwood’s work hits a high note with a sculptural piece headed for San Antonio.

“She calls it Undocumented Tortilla Basket,” RuizHealy said with a laugh.

Rendered in aluminum, steel and barbed wire, the piece is a shining example of the artist’s ability to create something extraordinary from ordinary materials.

“A lot of my gallery program is about these boundaries,” Ruiz-Healy said. “It’s not just about the border as a geographical site. It’s also about the border between different art types, between craft and high art.”

Courtesy Photo / Ruiz-Healy Art

Courtesy Photo / Ruiz-Healy Art

MFrom left: Artist David Zamora Casas scatters rose pedals at an opening reception for a recent exhibition; the titular piece from Consuelo Jimenez Underwood’s 2013 flag OneNationUnderground.

Caption: Alfredo Ramos Martínez (Mexican, 1871–1946), La Malinche (Young Girl of Yalala, Oaxaca), 1940. Oil paint on canvas; 50 x 40 1/2 in.

Retro Cinematic Vibe

Owner of San Antonio’s new retro bar Be Kind & Rewind discusses his love for movies

BY KIKO MARTINEZ

As a kid born on Halloween in 1984, Alex Amaro, 38, saw a lot of horror movies growing up.

Mostly because his two older siblings would pop casse es such as Killer Klowns from Outer Space into the family’s VCR.

Some of those memories have crept into the aesthetic of Amaro’s new downtown bar Be Kind & Rewind, which opened last Friday. The nightspot’s name refers to the request the now-defunct rental chain Blockbuster Video made to its customers when returning VHS movies.

Be Kind & Rewind, 115 Alamo Plaza, is designed with 1980s through 2000s pop culture as its theme, and there’s a video wall featuring clips of movies from that era, including A Nightmare on Elm Street, Die Hard and Peewee’s Big Adventure

A section of the bar also displays vintage toys from Amaro’s collection, including action figures from the movies Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Exorcist. Is that the Xenomorph from Alien a acking Toy Story’s Woody? It sure is.

At one of the entrances of Be Kind & Rewind, Amaro also displays dozens of original VHS covers from the films of his childhood. They include Teen Wolf, Big, Back to the Future, Footloose, Bull Durham and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

We caught up with Amaro last week to talk about his movie memories and his plans for movie-themed events.

What’s your relationship like with movies of the 1980s?

I’m a first-generation Mexican American, so I watched a lot of movies with my mom and dad in Spanish. I’m a Halloween baby, so I remember my brother and sister, who were 10 years older than me, always watching scary shit. I remember one of the first movies I watched was Poltergeist. I’ve always gravitated towards horror movies.

Were you scared of the movies they’d show you?

I was scared! But I’ve always liked the genre. I remember watching Creepshow when I was li le and loving it. It creeped me out.

screens

Are there non-horror movies from the 1980s that you like?

I like the classics like The Breakfast Club. You know, doing research to put all this together, I was surprised at how many films that could be from either the ’80s or ’90s — movies from 1989 or 1991. For example, Look Who’s Talking is an ’80s movie. It was interesting to see how ’80s and ’90s movies all had their own style.

What kind of research did you do?

I really wanted to make sure the bar’s aesthetic was right when I started tying in the ’80s and ’90s video culture. We watched a lot of movies. We started chiseling down which movies we wanted to feature on the menus, which are all designed to look like VHS tapes.

Most of them are my favorites, like Scream. So, it was a fun research project but a lot of work, too. We really wanted to evoke those memories of people’s favorite movies. I’ve seen a lot of people excited about the menu that has Jawbreaker on it.

Are you planning to do any movie-themed events here?

We are planning to do movie trivia nights on

Mondays. We want to program that as soon as we can. I know trivia is big, so it’ll be cool to tie it into our theme. I think it’s going to be something unique, especially for downtown.

What about movie screenings?

You know, I’d like to do that. We have a lot of screens here and the sound system is great. I’m open to the idea, for sure. I think that would be a lot of fun.

I know you have a background in building escape rooms. Were there any adventure movies that you loved as a kid?

I loved Labyrinth. I loved Goonies. The whole adventure aspect of it was fun and watching all the friends helping each other out. We would watch that one over and over. Believe it or not, I really didn’t get into Star Wars.

We’re around the same age, and neither did I. I guess we lose some of our street cred since we’re not StarWars nerds. Yeah, I missed it, and then it just never happened for me. I’ve seen the movies, but people are shocked that I’m not [a Star Wars nerd].

Find more fi lm stories at sacurrent.com

Kiko Martinez

All in the Mesquite

Old Forester Distilling taps iconic King Ranch to debut a whiskey with distinct South Texas terroir

BY NINA RANGEL

Under a night sky unaffected by city light pollution, flames from a bonfire flickering languidly, the faraway lowing of King Ranch Santa Gertudis ca le mingled with conversation between a dozen food writers at the iconic Kingsville-area ranch.

The evening’s topic? Texas whiskey. Not just any whiskey, mind you, but an exclusive collaboration from Old Forester Distilling and King Ranch, a pair of American brands with 300 years of history between them. The whiskey ties two legendary names together for what will likely make a splash in the whiskey biz — the first of its kind for both brands.

Kentucky’s Old Forester Distilling released King Ranch bourbon, a spirit available only in the Lone Star State, on Nov. 1. Just in time for bonfire weather, the collaborative bourbon offers a lingering, warming finish and notes of molasses, leather, cherry, nuts

and vanilla. The complex flavors are a result of a proprietary filtration method, which passes the bourbon through charcoal made with mesquite wood from the King Ranch property.

With the release, the ranch — known far and wide for its sprawling ca le breeding operation, Kentucky Derby champion quarter horses and a line of gadget-heavy Ford F-150 trucks — makes its debut in the alcohol market.

“The King Ranch has been approached through the years by various brands to create things such as seltzers, ranch waters, and so on, but nothing seemed like the right fit until we started talking with Old Forester,” King Ranch CEO and President Robert Hodgen said.

As for the flavor of the charcoal-filtered whiskey, if you envision sipping sauce that somehow incorporates the black lumps your tío used when he fired up the barbecue pit, rest assured that’s not what we’re

talking about here.

“When we decided that this was the direction we wanted this whiskey to go, I said, ‘I need wood from the property that’s at least five years old,’” Old Forester Senior Scientist Cole Irvin said at King Ranch. “[King Ranch CEO Hodgen] said, ‘How about Texas mesquite that’s been aged about seven years?’ And it all fell together.”

For decades, ranch hands have cut down and collected mesquite from all over the sprawling 825,000acre ranch in an a empt to curb the invasive species’ unrelenting growth. While the trees provide ample shade for King Ranch’s 35,000 prized Santa Gertrudis ca le and unmatched smokiness to Texas barbecue, that’s about all they’re good for, ranch environmental stewardship officials said. Left unchecked, mesquite pushes out natural grasses and creates grazing land that’s barren and difficult for livestock to navigate.

Armed with a seemingly unlimited supply of mesquite with which to experiment, Irvin became deadset on developing a method for creating the charcoal. Eventually, he and a dedicated team of ranchers nailed down the process, smoking the cut wood over indirect heat for 12 to 15 hours in a handcrafted steel kiln.

The finished product — rectangular, jet-black charcoal chips — are shipped to Old Forester Distilling’s headquarters in Louisville, where bourbon sits, aging patiently in intensely charred oak barrels. The last

Courtesy Photo / Old Forester

step before bo ling, and really what makes this expression unique, is passing the booze through layers of the mesquite charcoal, imparting dark chocolate and toasted pecan flavors.

“When I first tasted it, I got flavors of leather, tobacco and baking spices,” King Ranch CEO Hodgen said. “It’s a product we think really speaks to the partnership, and the legacy each of us wants to leave behind.”

At first glance, the two brands didn’t seem to have very much in common, but further investigation proves each company already boasts its fair share of history. And that word “legacy,” one that has the potential to sound cliché and contrived, is actually a true point of commonality.

Old Forester was founded in 1870 by George Garvin Brown, who is responsible for other whiskey milestones such as the first double-barreled bourbon — a happy accident that was the result of a fire in 1910. It remains the only bourbon continually sold by the same company before, during and after Prohibition. The “during” part was possible because it marketed the spirit as medicine.

Now, parent company Brown-Forman oversees multiple popular brands including Jack Daniel’s products, Korbel, el Jimador and Woodford Reserve. Campbell P. Brown, a great-great grandson of George Garvin Brown, now serves as chair of the corporation’s board.

The King Ranch’s story dates back even farther. In 1852, Captain Richard King and business partner Gideon “Legs” Lewis purchased a 15,500-acre Mexican land grant, then known as the Rincon de Santa Gertrudis, along the Santa Gertrudis Creek. Now King Ranch is the largest operating ranch in the United States, covering an area larger than Rhode Island. Several members of the King family serve on the ranch’s board and have a hand in the company’s operations.

“Bourbon lovers across Texas are in for a rare and special treat that both whiskey connoisseurs and hardworking people can savor,” said King Ranch CEO Hodgen. “This has been a partnership in the making for quite some time, and we’re thrilled with the finished product.”

While Old Forester’s line of products are sold in over 170 countries worldwide, the King Ranch expression will remain available only in the Lone Star State. The new sauce will be a permanent fixture on the Kentucky-based brand’s lineup, and joins a slew of other new whiskies made available to bourbon-loving Texans in 2022.

If you drink barrel-aged spirits in Texas, you know that the state’s whiskey market is booming, clocking in at more than a dozen releases from local distilleries in the past 10 months alone. And it’s not slowing down.

“What makes Texas whiskey so interesting is that the area and different environments of the state are so varied that distillers have so many opportunities to experiment. Texas

distillers can really have fun,” whiskey expert Clay Risen told the Current Risen, a reporter and editor for the New York Times, is also the author of the bestseller American Whiskey, Bourbon & Rye: A Guide to the Nation’s Favorite Spirit, as well as an upcoming book, Bourbon: The Story of Kentucky Whiskey.

One could say he knows his shit.

“I’m excited to see where Texas whiskey goes in the next five, 10 years,” Risen added. “The next chapter of American whiskey has the potential to present a very robust, multi-faceted landscape.”

That September evening, as Old Forester bourbon authority Cole Irvin presented the

specialty spirit beneath massive, ultra-bright stars, the bonfire crackled and provided background noise for conversations that echoed Risen’s sentiment.

“I could nerd out all day about how to create new ways to develop whiskey,” Irvin said. “This kind of project gets the wheels turning, opens new doors. We’re making our own charcoal out here. You know, there’s no telling what’s next.”

Exciting, indeed.

more food & drink news

Nina Rangel

MOld Forester’s Cole Irvin shows off charcoal in its finished form as he stands next to a special kiln.

food

Fiery South

Thai Buri offers a taste of the Southeast Asian culinary powerhouse’s regional cuisine

BY RON BECHTOL

Many diners think of cuisines of any given country as being monolithic. Italy equals pasta and pizza, France means fancy sauces and foie gras, and Mexico … well, don’t get me started.

Which explains why some foreign governments have even picked up on the branding advantages to be had by peddling certain emblematic dishes. Take pad Thai, for example.

But even a relatively small country such as Thailand is diverse enough to spawn distinctive regional variations. Northern Thailand, with its proximity to Laos, Burma and China, is influenced by both those neighbors and the region’s cooler climate. The coastal South, with Malaysia and Java close at hand, leans ho er in both senses.

In San Antonio, for a taste of that country’s searing South, we need go no further than North Side eatery Thai Buri. Its operators are obsessed with chili and levels of spiciness.

Nowhere on the menu — on which unavailable items are inventively redacted with decorated bandaids — is this affinity for heat more apparent that in a dish called kua kling, billed as a “dried” curry. And dry it is. The unadorned pla er of coarsely ground pork is nevertheless redolent of lime leaf, lemon grass, shrimp paste and, of course, chilies.

After a lengthy negotiation with the server, I’m still not sure whether I got the medium-plus or hot version, but the resultant spice level left just enough room for lubricating the dish with generous splashes of the house fish sauce amplified with lime, salt and more chili. Not a morsel of the flavor-infused pork remained by meal’s end.

You don’t need to leap straight into the inferno, however. Pyramid spring rolls are likely one of the least challenging items on the menu, but the delicate and beautifully fried triangles — their filling based on potato and starchy taro root — were a perfect foil for any of the sauces then on the table.

Soft shell crabs, emblematic of the South’s coastal environment, were also beautifully fried and encased in a thin ba er coating. However, the crunchy shell didn’t quite compensate for an almost-mushy interior and a green chili sauce that was pleasant but lacked the expected punch.

Soups such as the justly famed tom yum are almost as ubiquitous on Thai menus as pad Thai — and, yes, Thai Buri does offer both. Dipping into a Southern-style bowl is highly recommended. The restaurant’s Thai chicken turmeric with slices of the bird adrift in a clear broth was delicious but not for reasons of an elevated heat level. This is a soup that

conquers through the subtlety of its combination of flavors: thinly sliced turmeric, lemongrass, scallion, cilantro and onion. Surely, it’s also good for what ails you.

I’m a sucker for som tum, a crunchy salad of green papaya, and Thai Buri’s is one of the best — embellished with just enough tiny dried shrimp to make you take notice, further studded with chilies and then cooled with multi-color grape tomatoes. It’s a classic for a reason. You’ll have to negotiate heat level on this one as well. Just don’t wimp out and choose medium.

Duck may be more common, and Chinese-influenced, in Northern Thailand than the South, but in any case, I was hoping for a regional take with the Thai Buri duck. The spin, such as it was, was more of a wobble. The boned half bird was beautifully roasted, but the soupy “homemade savory red sauce” it was

served in, along with handsomely cut carrots and potatoes, did it no special favors.

Thai Buri’s interior design seems more like that of an upscale ice cream parlor than any Thai restaurant most of us have been to. So much for both decorative and culinary stereotypes. Whatever the inspiration, it’s a perfect environment to sample the house ice creams. Coconut is an obvious choice as Southern Thailand is its natural home. I nevertheless picked the Thai tea version. In sync with the se ing, it was served in a tall, soda-shop glass with a dab of whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles.

To be honest, my taste buds didn’t immediately signal Thai, either North or South. But they did react with pleasure at the haunting, almost-floral flavor and the creamy-chalky texture. Pleasure knows no regional boundaries — but you already knew that.

Ron Bechtol

Chasing the Dragon

Catching up with Trivium ahead of the band’s Aztec Theatre performance

BY BRIANNA ESPINOZA

San Antonio audiences are well acquainted with metalcore outfit Trivium thanks to the band’s frequent tour stops here.

Now, on the heels of two recent-ish album releases and a stint on the road supporting Iron Maiden, the band is headed to the Aztec Theatre on Saturday, Nov. 5.

The show will likely draw the largest crowd the band has played for as a headliner in the Alamo City. Between the Buried and Me, Whitechapel and Khemmis open.

Now past its second decade, the Florida-based band continues to hone a sound that mixes the brutality of metalcore with thrash, technical death metal and prog elements.

Critics have lauded its 10th and most recent album, In the Court of the Dragon, for its seamless distillation of those influences.

We caught up with Trivium guitarist Corey Beaulieu to talk about developing a setlist for the tour, its latest album and why water seems to pop up so often in its lyrical themes.

It seems like Trivium comes through San Antonio every tour.

Yeah, we’ve had a lot of really good shows. Basically, all the places in Texas have been really good for us over the years. We always have a lot of fun playing there.

You guys started out playing at the White Rabbit, a larger club-sized venue, and now are playing at the considerably larger Aztec Theatre, which you haven’t played before.

We haven’t. I’ve seen pictures of the place, so I thought we did. I remember the White Rabbit. The last couple times — I can’t remember the name of the venue, but I can picture the place — it was always a really, really hot show. It will be nice to hit a new spot in San Antonio we haven’t played before. I’m looking forward to it. [Bassist] Paolo [Gregole o] assured us that we had never been there. He usually remembers all that stuff.

This tour is in support of Trivium’s two most recent albums, What the Dead Men Say and IntheCourtoftheDragon. With two albums to represent at once, was it difficult choosing songs for the setlist? Since What the Dead Men Say came out right

when everything was peak lockdown, or right at the beginning of it, we never got to tour really for it, up until recently. We had no idea how long that was gonna last and when we were gonna be able to tour again. So, we figured if we’re shut down for a while, once we went back out on tour, it would be nice to have something new to promote instead of going out to tour a couple-year-old record. We used the time off to be productive and put out a new record. We’re doing the double-release promo thing and tying everything together. With the headlining tour, we have more time, so that helps picking out songs.

We have so much of our catalog learned and ready to play that we kind of picked a handful of songs. Every night, we’re rotating and playing different songs. One night we’ll play an extra song from What the Dead Men Say and another night we might play an extra song from In the Court of the Dragon.

What’s the song you’d want to be remembered for?

Oh, geez, that’s hard to pick. There’s 10 albums worth of songs — it’s hard to pick one.

It’s also fun because we’re so collaborative as a band that if someone brings in a demo idea, everyone else puts their stamp or DNA on the song. Even if you bring in the initial idea, it becomes everyone’s song.

IntheCourtoftheDragon feels massive and epic. It feels like it might resonate right now because of the new Game of Thrones spinoff show HouseoftheDragon. I know of the show, but I have never seen it. I know what you’re talking about though. There were a few people when we were

doing press for the album that said the same thing — it had a Game of Thrones vibe. Now the House of the Dragon, they just need to put one of our songs in the show and we can have a Stranger Things moment. It just kind of turned out that way when we were writing and that’s what I was hoping to do at one point. We had Ihsahn from Emperor do the orchestration within the songs to give them texture and atmosphere. It was cool to finally have that. He did a really good job.

You have a lot of water-related songs. Is there a reason behind that, or is it just coincidence?

I guess it’s just a good metaphor to describe stuff. Maybe because being from Florida it’s just on your mind. You know, hurricanes, storms and we have a lot of songs that have to do with storms and drowning. That was never done on purpose, it just kind of happened. We always joked about it, because sometimes we’d play outdoor festivals and during our set it would rain and then, after, it would be sunny again. That’s what we get for having so many songs about water, we’re the only band that gets rained on during a festival.

If you could choose one album to listen to for the rest of your life, what would it be? It would probably be Iron Maiden’s Somewhere in Time or Megadeth’s Rust in Peace. It depends on the mood. Especially since we were just on tour with Maiden, I’m on an Iron Maiden kick.

$41.50-$86, 7 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 5, Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com.

music

Reminder:

Although live events have returned, the COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. Check with venues to make sure scheduled events are still happening, and please follow all health and safety guidelines.

Courtesy Photo / Trivium

music

Billy Bremner of legendary UK group Rockpile bringing pub rock sounds to the Lonesome Rose

BY BILL BAIRD

If you’re a rock fan, you have likely heard Billy Bremner’s guitar playing, even if you don’t know it.

One of the greatest six-stringers to emerge during the new wave era, Bremner was a member of legendary UK group Rockpile and did session work with Li le Richard, Johnny Cash, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Brenda Lee, Elvis Costello, Duane Eddy and Huey Lewis to name a few. Need another frame of reference? He played the lead guitar lines on the Pretenders’ “Back on the Chain Gang,” arguably one of the best rock songs of the ’80s.

On Thursday, Nov. 3, San Antonio’s Lonesome Rose will host Bremner and his touring group Rockfiles for a master class in shaking all over.

While with Rockpile, an outfit formed by Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds — iconic British rockers in their own rights — Bremner was enmeshed in the UK’s 1970s pub rock scene, whose

unfiltered, no-frills approach flew in the face of bloated major label excess and prog-rock pontifications. While similar in spirit to punk, the strippeddown subgenre eschewed the former’s nihilism and found inspiration in the early spirit of rock ’n’ roll.

Rockpile’s sole album, 1980’s Seconds of Pleasure, was the culmination of the pub rock movement and an instant classic. After the group’s breakup, its members continued to collaborate on projects together.

For the tour hi ing SA, Bremner’s Rockfiles will perform selections from Seconds of Pleasure as well as other classics spanning the guitarist’s career. Expect to hear plenty of timeless-sounding tunes that crackle with both rock energy and pop hooks — all with Bremner’s punchy yet tasteful guitarwork leading the way.

San Antonio power pop band the Krayolas will open the show. The pairing is a reunion of sorts since the

Garrett T. Capps & NASA Country’s People Are Beautiful is an uplifting cosmic ride

At this point in his burgeoning career, it might be easy for alt-country artist Garre T. Capps to se le into being the “I Love San Antone” Guy.

After all, many folks’ introduction to the Alamo City-based singer-songwriter was through tunes that extol the virtues his hometown while channeling the infectious sounds of some of its finest musical exports, notably the late Doug Sahm.

Fortunately, the new album People Are Beautiful (Spaceflight Records) by Capps and his cosmically inclined band NASA Country is yet more proof that he’s not so easy to pigeonhole.

The eight-song release is the final installment of Capps’ Shadows Trilogy, in which he takes Texas’ cosmic cowboy mantel literally by layering elements of

space rock and ambient music underneath the twang.

Wri en during the early days of the pandemic and recorded a few months after, there’s plenty of soul searching in the lyrics, which the kaleidoscopic musical approach helps amplify. Even on the more straight-ahead numbers, the wavery steel guitar and electronic treatments lend a shimmering ambiance, as if Brian Eno decided to move to Nashville instead of composing music for airports.

Credit Justin Boyd on modular synthesizer, Torin Metz on guitar lap steel and vocals, odie on bass and vocals,

Krayolas once opened for Rockpile on an early string of dates. Indeed, it was Rockpile that introduced the band to the phrase “best riffs only,” later nicked

and Kory Cook on percussion for being able to add an experimental bent to the proceedings without losing sight of the songs’ honkytonk heart.

Only on the mid-album track “Time Will Tell” does the music fully turn away from its classic country roots into something approaching Krautrock — think Neu! — while the extended outro of “Time Will Tell” chugs along into Hawkwind territory.

Aside from a couple of clunky moonspoon rhyming schemes early in the album, Capps shows himself to be an adept lyricist, opening up about his own failings, fears and insecurities

for an album title.

$15, 8 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 4, The Lonesome Rose, 2114 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 455-0233, thelonesomerose.com.

while looking for hope around the corner. “Stay cool, it’s ge in’ be er / Just go a hold it all together,” he urges the listener in “Ge in’ Be er,” the album’s two-step ready opener.

In the title track, Capps’ rapid-fire vocals tick off a list of things that make people infuriating before flipping things around at the chorus in an apparent reminder that our incongruities are what make us human. “Our love is irrefutable / Cosmically inscrutable / Certain facts are immutable / But people are beautiful.”

It’s easy to see how the uncertainty of early 2020 was wearing on Capps when he was writing People Are Beautiful. While largely upbeat, the album doesn’t flinch from observing the darkness all around. Capps’ authentic and always-easy delivery also keeps it miles away from self-help book territory.

The world can be an ugly place, and sometimes we need a cosmic messenger to remind us not to let it get us down.

People Are Beautiful is available now on CD and vinyl or via digital download.

— Sanford Nowlin

Rosa Sundahl

Courtesy Image / Garrett T. Capps

critics’ picks

Friday, Nov. 4

Myriam Hernandez and Her Full Band

Before heading to Vegas in mid-November, where she will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Latin Grammys, Myriam Hernandez will make a stop in the Alamo City. The Chilean singer-songwriter known for her romantic ballads is touring behind her latest album Sinergia. “I want to continue singing about love,” she recently told Billboard. “In this album, I refreshed my sound with more rhythmic sounds, but I think that I’m still betting on love, and on making music like before. I’ll be singing to love until the day I die.” $59.75-$133.75, 8 p.m., Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire. com. — Marco Aquino

W.A.S.P., Michael Schenker, Armored Saint

He may look a lot like your grandmother these days, but W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless sure doesn’t sound like her. Well, unless your granny got famous writing songs like “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast).” Yes, the poster kids for the ’80s rock menace are still kicking it live, although Lawless is the only original member remaining for this 40th anniversary tour. Expect songs like “I Wanna Be Somebody” and the banger “Blind In Texas.” Don’t get your hopes up about “Animal,” though, because Lawless won’t perform it now that he’s a reportedly born-again Christian. Guitar hero Michael Schenker, who’s still got the goods, and LA’s Armored Saint, who imported the New Wave of British Heavy Metal sound to the States, round out the bill. $29.50-$64.50, 8 p.m., Tech Port Center + Arena, 3331 General Hudnell Drive, (210) 600-3699, techportcenter.com. — Mike McMahan

Saturday Nov. 5

Greta Van Fleet, Durand Jones & The Indicators, Crown Lands

From the band’s inception in Frankenmuth, Michigan, Greta Van Fleet has drawn repeated comparisons to Led Zeppelin — particularly the vocal stylings of frontman Josh Kiszka. In a 2018 interview, Robert Plant added validity to this claim, paying the ultimate compliment: “They are Led Zeppelin I.” With his twin brother Jake on guitar, younger sibling Sam on bass and keyboards and longtime friend Danny Wagner on drums, Kiszka’s piercing vocals combine hard rock with a shade of the blues. In 2019, the group earned four Grammy nominations, with From The Fires winning Best Rock Album. Expect an electric set featuring many songs from the band’s second studio release, 2021’s Battle at Garden’s Gate $49.50 and up, 7 p.m., AT&T Center, 1 AT&T Center Parkway, (210) 440-5000, attcenter.com. — Danny Cervantes

Sunday, Nov. 6

Yuridia

With her 2005 debut album La Voz de un Ángel, Yuridia became one of Mexico’s biggest selling artists. After getting her start on that country’s popular singing competition show La Academia, Yuridia is now a coach on La Voz, its version of The Voice. On her just-released album Pa’ Luego Es Tarde, Yuridia embraces regional Mexican sounds, covering a classic by Chalino Sánchez and including a duet with Ángela Aguilar. $54.45-$184.45, 7 p.m., Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. — MA

Tuesday, Nov. 8

Gipsy Kings

Although the members of the Gipsy Kings were born in France, their bloodline is Spanish Romani. In 1987, the group’s self-titled third album was among few Spanish-language albums to make it onto the Billboard 200 albums chart. With the classic hits “Bamboléo” and “Un Amor,” the Gipsy Kings brought flamenco’s rumba sub-genre to a worldwide audience. From appearing in Burger King commercials to The Peanuts Movie, “Bamboléo” and other Gipsy Kings songs continue to saturate every aspect of American culture. $42-$285, 7:30 p.m., Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. — MA

Hatebreed, Gatecreeper, Bodysnatcher, Dying Wish

One of the first bands to help put metalcore on the map, Hatebreed is still bringing the “core” action, through its lightning-fast beats and almost-spoken vocals. Newcomers beware, since the pit is likely to get so crazy that you may just lose a shoe. This tour commemorates the 20th anniversary of the band’s second album, Perseverance. Plenty of buzz has built around old-school death metal merchants Gatecreeper, making the band a worthy addition to the bill. $30-$35, 7 p.m., Vibes Event Center, 1223 E. Houston St., (210) 255-3833, vibeseventcenter. com. — Brianna Espinoza

Wednesday Nov. 9

Igor & Red Elvises

The German-born, Ukrainian-raised singer Igor Yuzov studied in the Soviet Union and left for the States as soon as possible with his self-described “folk ’n’ roll” band Limpopo. In 1993, the band won TV talent show Star Search, giving a boost to its popularity. A 1995 dream involving Elvis Presley prompted Yuzov to turn up the rock component and change the band’s name to Red Elvises. Large street performances on the Santa Monica promenade built on the troupe’s kitschy charm. The band’s raucous live sets still get audiences moving thanks to infec-

Yuridia

tious grooves and a big shot of humor. $12-$50, 8:30 p.m., Sam’s Burger Joint, 330 E. Grayson St., (210) 223-2830, samsburgerjoint.com. — DC

Thursday, Nov. 10

Belinda Carlisle

Belinda Carlisle rose to prominence as the singer for ’80s “girl group” The Go-Go’s, then also managed to strike gold with a solo career that followed. While the Go-Go’s came up at the edge of the punk scene, Carlisle had fully embraced pop by the time she released her solo debut Belinda in 1986. Her solo hits “Mad About You” and “Heaven is a Place on Earth” became inescapable radio staples around that time. This show looks likely to include tunes from both sides of Carlisle’s career, since she’s performed a handful of Go-Go’s tunes at prior stops on this tour. $36.50-$74.50, 7:30 p.m., Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter. org. — MM

Friday, Nov. 11

Turnstile, Snail Mail, Fugitive If you’re gonna attend a multi-band bill, it’s always a treat when the acts aren’t too similar. That can be a high bar to clear given the way tours are packaged, but rapidly rising East Coast hardcore outfit Turnstile has embraced variety by taking ’90s-inflected indie darlings Snail Mail on the road for its latest tour. Turnstile has been on a winning streak any band would envy, having garnered accolades for its amazing 2021 release Glow On and landing opening spots with My Chemical Romance and the upcoming Green Day and Blink-182 tour. But don’t kid yourself: they’re the real deal and got to this point the old-fashioned way. And if they want to mix up their own tour’s bill, more power to them. $50 and up, 7 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 8124355, theaztectheatre.com. — MM

Making Movies

Rock act Making Movies mixes up a diverse sound drawing from cumbia, psychedelia and

Americana roots — but somehow makes it all work together. That diversity may be explained by the fact that the band members originally hail from Panama, Mexico and the U.S. The group is a big proponent of Latinx activism and has collaborated with salsa legend Rubén Blades, also no stranger to mixing music and politics. Steve Berlin of Los Lobos produced three of Making Movies’ albums, adding to its Latin rock credentials. $16-$18, 7 p.m., Vibes Underground, 1223 E. Houston St., (210) 2553833, therockboxsa.com. — BE

Sunday, Nov. 13

Ginger Root, Vicky Farewell

Ginger Root is the aggressive elevator soul project of multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter Cameron Lew, who records solo, creating sonic soundscapes driven by bouncy rhythms and gauzy lyrics. The act’s latest EP Nisemono is built on the concept of Ginger Root being thrust into the spotlight after a fictitious Japanese pop star quits before an appearance on a late-night show. Opener Vicky Farewell will set a chill mood with her mellow, downtempo soul. $18, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — DC

Monday, Nov. 14

Amon Amarth, Carcass, Obituary, Cattle Decapitation

With a band name lifted from J.R.R. Tolkien and lyrics steeped in Viking history, Sweden’s Amon Amarth creates an appropriately epic sound. Its chugging ri s and singalong choruses seem constructed to serve as the soundtrack for plunderers rowing a longship. Riding high on its new album The Great Heathen Army, Amon Amarth has also put together a package tour that acts as a sampler of some of the best the death metal genre has to o er — including Carcass’ ferocious-yet-melodic take on the genre, Obituary’s down-and-dirty old-school approach and Cattle Decapitation’s environmentally conscious deathgrind. $49.50-$159.50, 6:30 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — BE

Courtesy Photo / Yuridia

EMPLOYMENT

Business Analyst, Order to Cash Analytics, 3M, San Antonio, TX. Apply leading techniques, interpret data, & understand implications for bus. function strategy, tactics, & ongoing ops. Create & manage complex dashboards, using insights from data exploration to build comprehensive findings w/ advanced visualizations (using Tableau and PowerBI). Develop actionable insights for business partners. Must have Bach in Comp. Sci., Info Mgmt, or Stats & 2 yrs exp. in reporting or analytics role: (i) Navigating large & complex data sets while providing statistical analysis & identifying relevant patterns for end users; (ii) Analyzing data w/ R, Python, & SQL; & (iii) Providing bus. strategy consultation & developing bus. reqs. Of exp. reqd, must have 2 yrs exp. in data modeling & clustering & creating visualizations using Tableau, Microsoft PowerBI, & SAP Business Objects. Exp. may be gained concurrently. Position may be eligible for telecommuting from any location in US. Apply online: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/careers-us/.

Cacheaux Cavazos Newton LLP seeks a Mexican Legal Consultant to work in San Antonio, Texas. Must prepare legal documents including Mexican bylaws and articles of incorporation, minutes from meetings of Mexican corporations, applications and petitions to be filed before Mexican legal authorities. Responsible for evaluating and translating legal documents from English to Spanish. Must submit resumes to rbarnett@ccn-law.com. Must put MLC2022 on resume.

EMPLOYMENT

Navistar, Inc. is seeking a Project Engineer Sr. in San Antonio, TX with the following requirements: Master’s degree in Engineering or Engineering Technology and at least 6 years of experience in product design/development, including at least 1 year leading others in engineer/design activities OR Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or Engineering Technology and at least 8 years of experience in product design/development, including at least 1 year leading others in engineer/design activities OR PhD in Engineering or Engineering Technology and at least 3 years of experience in product design/development, including at least 1 year leading others in engineer/design activities Required Skills: Develop Engineering processes, systems and specifications for full truck assembly, such as cab sheet metal and closure, Interior trim, Paint performance with respect to industry best practices (i.e. FMVSS 205, 208, SAE J810, J2334, AWS A3.0, D8.1, D8.7) (3 yrs); Manage sheet metal assembly tools & fixtures, Paint objections (orange peeling, sagging, flaking) and upgrades (paint 1K vs 2K), including Cab-in-white (structural analysis) & closures projects (Door mechanism and window regulators), paint schematics (create and apply 3D designs onto the cab, hood and roof) (3 yrs); Manage and develop an engineering team responsible for application of R&D projects including interim corrective actions (substitutions/deviations) and permanent corrective actions, (CAD updates, BOM updates, Design objections and improvements) as they pertain to launching new products into the assembly plant (3 yrs); Develop Engineering action plans with managers and engineers to identify risks and improvements using design tools (GD&T, DFMEA and PFMEA), Lean Manufacturing tools including disciplined problem-solving tools (G8D) and Six Sigma techniques (Poka-yoke, error proofing and 5why documentation), Standardized work instructions, takt time optimization, and lead engineers in the training of these practices (3 yrs)

Apply at https://careers.navistar.com/jobs. Refer to Job # 52790 EOE