San Antonio Current — March 22, 2023

San Antonio Current

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13 Feature

No Free Lunch

School lunch programs in San Antonio are at a crisis point

07 News

The Opener News in Brief

Bad Takes

Yes, Texas Republicans’ obsession with drag is a distraction, but it will do real harm

Texas Trip

The future of psychedelic therapy was a hot topic at SXSW 2023

16 Calendar

Calendar Picks

23 Arts

Collaborative Curation

An all-female team organized the McNay Art Museum’s era-spanning exhibition “Womanish: Audacious, Courageous, Willful Art”

27 Screens

Heated Debate

Eva Longoria’s film on the creation

of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos took SXSW by storm. But is the story true?

29 Food

Eye Opener

The Pearl’s Full Goods Diner may not be the cheapest brunch in town, but its value stacks up

Table Talk

Michele McCurdy-Buonacorsi dishes on cookbook chronicling Joseph’s Storehouse Baking Company

Hot Dish

35 Music

British Invasion

Guitarist Joanne Shaw Taylor may hail from across the pond, but she’s all about American blues

Critics’ Picks

On the Cover: School lunch programs are already on unsteady economic footing, and that will get worse when a federal reimbursement bill expires in July. Design: Samantha Serna.

National Nutrition Month ®

March is National Nutrition Month! Metro Health wants to remind you that good nutrition is fuel for the future. Making healthy food and drink choices will provide your body with the energy it needs to feel great! Metro Health offers information and resources to help you and your family “eat with the future in mind”.

Learn More:

Republican -sponsored bills in both the Texas House and Senate would bar municipalities from adopting ordinances that safeguard workers. Backers of the bills argue that they want regulatory consistency for small businesses, but critics charge that the measures are intended to give corporations a free ride in state that already lags others in protecting residents while they’re on the job.

Despite Texas ’ abortion ban, Planned Parenthood South Texas last week opened a new, privately funded clinic on San Antonio’s West Side . The facility at 235 Richland Hills will offer services including cervical cancer screenings, birth control, wellness exams and STD screenings. It won’t provide abortion care, however.

A child was left in critical condition after a tree limb fell on a group of two adults and five kids visiting the San Antonio Zoo last week. While six of those struck were only treated for minor injuries, the family of Jordyn Rodriguez said in an online fundraiser that she’s suffering from brain bleed another injuries.

Kaleidoscopic video installation S an Antonio | The Saga will once again be projected onto San Fernando Cathedral . The free evening show was shut down in January so crews could repair the downtown landmark’s roof. The projection will now take place Tuesdays through Sundays at 9 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

— Sanford Nowlin

Destroying free speech with Texas State Rep.

Steve Toth

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

Apparently, in some Texas Republicans’ view, it’s just not enough to stop people from having abortions — it’s also necessary to quash their rights to free speech so they can’t even talk about abortions.

State Rep. Steve Toth — one of the Lege’s most tireless and tiresome culture warriors — has filed a bill that would prevent the sale of abortion medications including mife pristone and misoprostol. Then for good measure, the proposal would make it illegal to “provide information on how to obtain an abortion-inducing drug.”

The Houston-area Republican’s HB 2690 would ban individuals from starting, running, hosting or even registering a domain name for a website that explains how to obtain abortion medication. It specifically mentions sites operated by Aid Access, Hey Jane, Plan C and other organizations that help women buy medication via mail to end their pregnancies.

However, beyond that, Toth’s bill would require internet service providers such as phone and cable companies to “make every reasonable and technologically feasible effort” to block users’ access to online information about how to get abortion pills.

Understandably, Toth’s proposal has already drawn harsh criticism from free-speech group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which warned that it would create “glaring” free speech issues with “dire” outcomes.

Much like Senate Bill 8 — the controversial law that effectively ended abortion in Texas after the first six weeks of pregnancy — Toth’s measure would use civil courts for enforcement. In a move the EFF cautions would stifle free speech, his proposal encourages anyone and everyone to file lawsuits against people who speak about abortion medication — even if they’re not directly supplying it.

“The bill is carefully designed to scare people into silence,” the EFF writes. “First, HB 2690 encourages individuals to sue people or organizations that violate the proposed law. An ‘interactive computer service’ can also be sued if it ‘allows residents of [Texas] to access information or material that assists or facilitates efforts to obtain elective abortions or abortion-inducing drugs.’”

Of course, Toth has repeatedly shown he doesn’t give a shit about free speech so long as he’s able to file bills that score points with the most extreme fringe of the GOP base. He recently made headlines with a separate proposal that would let pretty much anyone with a pulse sue any person who hosts a drag show or performs in drag where a child is in attendance. And remember that bill from the 2021 session that by banned teachers from making any mention of Critical Race Theory? Toth wrote the House version.

In other words: this assclown has no concern for the First Amendment. We can only hope other legislators do and stand in the way of his latest dangerous, undemocratic proposal.

— Sanford Nowlin

Following a deadly dog attack last month, San Antonio’s Animal Control Services is stepping up penalties for owners of dangerous canines, according to a memo from City Manager Erik Walsh. Instead of civil penalties, ACS will issue criminal citations to the owners of dogs who leave their property and bite residents, among other changes.

Families of some victims slain or injured during the massacre at Robb Elementary School have asked a judge to add them as plaintiffs to a lawsuit seeking to force the Texas Department of Public Safety to release public records about the shooting. News organizations originally filed the suit, saying DPS has closed off information about the state’s worst school shooting.

The owner of downtown San Antonio bar Moses Rose’s Hideout, who recently refused a $4 million offer from the state to buy the

site to make way for the development of the Alamo Visitor Center, last year valued his property at around $530,000 in a Bexar County tax document, the Express-News reports. Bar owner Vince Cantu claimed the valuation last year to protest his tax bill on the property. He’s since argued the state is making lowball offers on his bar, which he’s publicly stated is worth $17 million.

— Sanford Nowlin

YOU SAID IT!

“The power of initiative is reserved to the people, not granted to them.”

— Texas Supreme Court

Justice Jane N. Bland in the majority opinion rejecting a challenge to the San Antonio Justice Charter.

Michel Karlis

JonMallard

Yes, Texas Republicans’ obsession with drag is a distraction, but it will do real harm

BY KEVIN SANCHEZ

Bad Takes is a column of opinion and analysis.

“Gay people, we are painted as child molesters. I want to talk about that. I want to talk about the fact that in this state 95% of child molesters are heterosexual. I want to talk about the fact that some 30% of all marriages contain domestic violence. Clean up your own house before you start telling lies about gays.

The fact is that more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, my friends, is the true perversion.” — Harvey Milk, “That’s

What America Is,” 1978

“We find that our legislators end up spending millions of dollars and years of their lives trying to legislate morality. That money, that time, that energy should be spent in making the city a place for all people.

Let my minister and not some police officer worry about my moral life. Worry about gun control and not marijuana control. Worry about childcare centers and not what books I want to read. Worry about becoming a human being and not about how you can prevent others from enjoying their lives because of your own inabilities to adjust.” — Harvey Milk, “Address to the ILW Union,” 1973

Not since the “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show have religious conservatives and the politicians who pander to them been in this much of a tizzy. Of all the crap to worry about, from nuclear brinkmanship to climate breakdown to deregulation-induced train derailments and bank failures, drag queens shouldn’t be a concern. Yet on the GOP-dominated Texas Lege’s docket this session — replete with trans-bashing of every

kind and assorted “culture war” inanity — are multiple bills that target drag shows and may leave a lot of collateral damage in their wake.

Whenever “a performer exhibits a gender identity that is different than the performer’s gender assigned at birth,” House Bill 1266 states, the venue shall be designated a “sexually oriented business.” So, if a trans folk musician or classical composer — not artists typically known for their «lascivious» dance skills — played a set at the Paper Tiger or the Tobin Center, would those establishments need to register as strip clubs?

“The bill is so broad it could theoretically apply to a trans person singing the national anthem at a San Antonio Spurs game,” civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo wrote for Slate magazine.

House Bill 4378 goes even zanier, permitting $5,000 lawsuits — plus court costs and emotional damages — against anyone “who knowingly promotes, conducts, or participates as a performer” in any drag performance in front of anyone under the age of 18 in any way that’s “offensive to community standards of decency.” If you share a Facebook invite to the musical Peter Pan, the lead of which is often played by a woman, and a 17-year-old happens to be in the audience, could you find yourself the subject of legal action? Being accompanied by a parent or guardian is no defense, according to the bill’s wording.

So much for the party of parental rights.

Presidential candidates’ and state legislatures’ rhetorical and legislative arms race over who is less “woke” may seem like little more than a pointless distraction from the real challenges

facing working families. Trouble is, even distractions can cause physical injury. Already this month, neo-Nazis stormed a drag queen story hour in Ohio.

In December, right here in San Antonio, armed right-wing militias came out in force to harass a Christmas-themed drag show at the Aztec Theatre.

Conservative readers who have managed to get this far into this column may accuse me of gaslighting. It’s a fair guess they’ve been fed a steady drip of decontextualized clickbait hate-spewing online accounts such as Libs of TikTok.

Allow me to concede that, in the course of human events, there may indeed have been age-inappropriate drag shows that featured cringeworthy crotch gyrations in front of toddlers and their parents. But if someone posted footage of a bikini contest for prepubescents, or a father bringing a baby carriage to the men’s club, that shouldn’t compel us to urgently disband all high school cheerleading squads or criminalize all beauty pageants.

Non-hyperventilating adults are capable of drawing these distinctions without wasting the government’s valuable time.

You may also have been exposed to the hidden maestro behind many of the MAGA movement’s pet moral panics, Christopher Rufo, and his dubious chronicling of the history of drag back to “the sex dungeons of San Francisco.”

In addition to his claims presenting

a skewed sense of reality, they in no way justify enacting heavy-handed laws barring any kind of gender-bending performance.

It’s like refusing to hire a clown for your kid’s birthday party because of Stephen King’s It.

“Are you afraid your children will become clowns?” comedian Sarah Silverman joked. “I would be more afraid of a clown grooming my children than a drag queen. Clowns are fucking terrifying!”

As entertainment, gender-bending performances date to Ancient Greece and earlier. They continued on from Shakespeare comedies to Madea’s Family Reunion

The brains of children are all-too-frequently splattered on classroom walls by firearms that Republicans decline to adequately regulate, yet they freak out at heartwarming tales about gay penguins.

Here’s the bottom line: Mrs. Doubtfire isn’t a horror flick about a divorced father trying to “sexualize” his own kids, and if it’s illegal for RuPaul to read to elementary school students at the public library, we are slouching toward theocracy.

Now can we talk about the millions of Texans who can’t afford to visit a doctor?

Michael Karlis

MSan Antonians counterprotest an armed militia group’s demonstration against a drag show in December.

Texas Trip

The future of psychedelic therapy was a hot topic at SXSW 2023

BY MICHAEL KARLIS

Although the topics at Austin’s annual SXSW festival tend to skew toward tech and pop culture, this year’s was awash in discussions on the future of psychedelic therapy.

At least 20 separate keynote speaker sessions addressed the topic, ranging from “Open Minds: Innovations in Consciousness, Psychedelics & Mental Health” to “Psychedelic Tech: Consciousness in the Modern Age.” There was even a psychedelics-related networking event.

“It’s definitely the future of therapeutic healing,” said Alexander Hill, an Austin-based health and wellness entrepreneur, at an Inc. Magazine-sponsored gathering for startup executives.

The future envisioned by medical experts and entrepreneurs at SXSW doesn’t involve bringing magic mushrooms or blotter acid into dispensaries operating in states that have already legalized recreational cannabis. Instead, they see psychedelic therapy replacing America’s dependence on overprescribed antidepressants.

It’s a shift already underway, even in conservative Texas, they maintain.

How it Works

“The things that are not normally processed, the unconscious material, those are normally below our level of conscious awareness,” psychedelics guru David Nichols explained to a packed SXSW conference room. “But that material can be accessed by these neuronal cells when they’re more excitable.”

Administered in a clinical environment, psychedelics can excite those cells, added Nichols, a distinguished professor emeritus at the Purdue University College of Pharmacy. He’s spent decades researching the potential health benefits of psychedelics, working on projects in collaboration with the private sector and the U.S. government.

Once those neurons are stimulated, it allows a patient to access memories in explicit detail from the past, Nichols continued. The memories can be good, bad or even traumatic. But reliving those memories is the most important part of the therapy, especially for end-of-life patients, those with substance abuse disorders and those with PTSD.

“For someone who is at the end of their life in existential distress, I don’t believe that you’re ever going to be able to give them a pill that will take away the fear of death and all the anxiety that they have,” Nichols said. “When they get a psychedelic experience,

they go back and do a life review. They look at their relationships with their siblings and parents. They look at the meaningfulness of their life — what they’ve done and what they have contributed.”

Citing a New York University study, Nichols discussed a patient who used psychedelic therapy to overcome his alcohol dependency.

During the patient’s trip, he went back to the time when he began drinking heavily, allowing him to understand what triggered his descent into alcoholism. The patient also examined how his drinking problem had affected his family and personal relationships.

“That’s an insight he got from the psychedelic experience, which I don’t think he’ll get from a pill,” Nichols said.

Available in San Antonio

Similar therapy is already going on in Texas, including San Antonio.

Jaime, a local man who declined to give his last name for fear of stigma, was encouraged to try out hallucinogenic therapy at San Antonio’s IKARE, Mood, Trauma, and Recovery Center by his doctor. Traditional SSRIs and mood stabilizers failed to treat his Bipolar II disorder.

Jaime participated in two Ketamine treatment sessions at IKARE. In the weeks following his treatment, Jamie said he felt considerably better, was able to focus better on tasks and was “generally more at ease.”

“Meds had never really worked very well, and it [ketamine] was probably the only treatment I’ve had that seemed to have an immediate benefit,” he said.

However, after his second treatment, Jaime’s insurance company said they would no longer pay for the treatments, which cost upwards of $230 per session.

Not For Everyone

Nichols told miraculous stories of patients overcoming substance abuse addiction, and Jamie said that he would recommend Ketamine treatments to people suffering from manic depressive disorders. However, experts caution that hallucinogenic therapy isn’t for everyone.

“When a patient takes a psychedelic, before they take it, they have to be prepared for it,” Rachel Yehuda, a professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Mount Sinai Hospital, said during a SXSW discussion. “An important thing to understand when using psychedelic-assisted therapy in a clinical context is that one of the things that is going to determine what people are thinking about and processing during their psychedelic journey is what their intention is.”

When patients enroll in psychedelic therapy, they may be forced to encounter unpleasant and even

harmful memories. That said, psychedelic therapy isn’t about reliving trauma but confronting it and overcoming that source of fear and distress, Yehuda said. Even so, bad trips do happen.

When Jaimie was at one of his Ketamine therapy sessions in San Antonio, he recalled hearing someone screaming in the next room, likely the result of an unpleasant experience on the drug.

Such bad trips are why experts recommend against self-medicating with psychedelics.

As Hill, the psychedelic entrepreneur from Austin, told the Current, if someone purchases shrooms on the street with the wrong mindset and dosage, it can be as dangerous as driving a Ferrari at high speeds down the Interstate.

Nixon’s Drug War

Given the growing interest in psychedelic therapy and the growing evidence it can help treat a variety of psychological conditions, why are so many just now hearing about its potential?

Blame Richard Nixon, psychedelic guru Nichols said.

“Nixon’s drug war started in 1970,” he explained. “Now you’re hearing the questions about how [psychedelics] work and how good they are. This is the result of 50 years of suppressed research on psychedelics.”

Psychedelic therapeutics research could be decades ahead if Nixon hadn’t waged war on psychedelics, which were embraced by the 1960s counterculture. As a result, Big Pharma pumped out SSRIs and antidepressants, which were overprescribed by the medical community, Nichols said.

However, states including Texas are becoming more receptive to alternative forms of therapy.

Last legislative session, the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature allocated funding to study the potential benefits of psychedelics on military veterans.

This session, three Democratic lawmakers are taking things a step further. A bill proposed by State Rep. Richard Pena Raymond would allow Texas to officially license a facility to offer psychedelic therapy to veterans and expand the existing study to include those who might benefit from hallucinogens other than veterans.

Another bill proposed by State Rep. Josey Garcia would create a state-run Psilocybin Research Advisory Council, while a bill filed by State Rep. Julie Johnson proposes the creation of an Alternative Mental Health Therapy Research Consortium, charged with researching alternative mental health treatments.

While Nichols and Yehuda admit that there’s still a long way to go in psychedelic research, widening its availability moves the field forward.

“The problem with running trials on mice is that mice don’t naturally have schizophrenia,” Nichols said.

Pexels Cottonbro Studio

No Free Lunch

School lunch programs in San Antonio are at a crisis point

BY BRANDON RODRIGUEZ

For nearly eight decades, the National School Lunch Program has helped ensure that every student in the U.S. public education system has access to at least one nutritious meal daily.

Now that guarantee looks considerably less certain. Since the end of pandemic-era federal waivers that offered free lunch to 50 million kids nationwide, public school meal programs face rising food costs, staffing shortages, supply chain issues and a growing pile of unpaid debt.

Experts including the School Nutrition Association (SNA), a national organization representing 50,000 members, warn that those pressures could build into

a full-blown financial crisis as early as this July.

That’s when Congress’ post-pandemic Keep Kids Fed Act will expire. The act’s goal was to combat cost and supply issues with federal reimbursement for lunch programs for the 2022-2023 school year. However, the fiscal help fell short, according to some school nutrition directors.

And without any additional federal help — however meager — school lunch programs in San Antonio and across the country could be face unprecedented financial struggles.

“We are really concerned [whether] we will be financially stable,” said Sharon Glosson, executive director of school nutrition at North East Independent

School District. “We are expected to be self-sustaining and profitable, but we don’t have a safety net.”

NEISD alone serves 60,000 meals daily, spread across breakfast, lunch and dinner, according to Glosson. Some 3 million Texas students rely on the National School Lunch Program.

Unless federal lawmakers decide to intervene, nutritional directors in San Antonio and other parts of the country may be left with the dilemma of turning kids away from the lunch lines or finding ways to pay off mounting debt.

So far, districts nationwide appear to be opting for the latter, experts say. But with public school lunch programs becoming a potential drain on schools’ finances, that could put educational necessities such as textbooks, computers and teacher pay at risk.

14

LStudents line up for school lunches at a North East Indepedent School District campus.

A school district in Central Kansas has already racked up $85,000 in unpaid meal debt, for example. With the school year far from over, the district is considering plans to dip into its general fund to cover the money.

Covering costs

Exacerbating the financial woes is a federal rule that lunch programs can’t carry over debt from the previous school year.

School lunch programs generally try to provide meals for students who show up without money, even those who don’t qualify for a free lunch because of their family’s income level. Many districts are seeing the numbers for those unpaid meals go up, escalating their debt.

That means some districts may be stuck covering for meals while they’re also on the hook for vendor tabs that can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. All as the academic year closes out.

“Schools are permitted to carry meal debt through the school year as they work to collect funds owed from families,” SNA spokesperson Diane PrattHeavner told the Current via email. “Having the district pay off the debt won’t be required until the end of the school year.”

During the current school year, eight states offer free meals to all students, according to SNA data. Texas isn’t one of them. In other words, Texas isn’t legally required to provide free meals, regardless of circumstances.

“If a student is not eligible for free school meals and enrolled in the program, and the child does not have money to pay for a meal, there is no federal

mandate to serve the child a meal,” Pratt-Heavner explained. “However, several states have passed legislation mandating the service of school meals to any child who requests one.”

According to the Texas Education code, Texas schools are “given a grace period for charging meals when they no longer have funds in their student account.” Each district sets its own grace period, meaning there’s no statewide guarantee of how long that may last.

Post-pandemic turmoil

Like private businesses, school lunch programs are being roiled by the economic uncertainty that came during the winddown of the pandemic — among them supply shortages, labor issues and inflation.

During the height of the health crisis, federal lawmakers made public school lunch free to more than 50 million students nationwide — at the cost of roughly $11 billion annually. The program was a clear-cut solution to ensure every child, no matter the family’s income level, got fed at least once a day. No questions asked.

For a moment, the unprecedented move gave families a sliver of food security during one of the most unstable times in recent memory.

However, federal lawmakers nixed the program just before the start of the 2022-2023 school year. When it vanished, school meal programs experienced a rise in families unable to keep money in their kids’ meal accounts.

The average cost of a school lunch is roughly $3.81 nationally. At NEISD, elementary school lunches run $2.40. While the meals are inexpensive, it’s still easy to understand how cash-strapped families might not

be able to keep their kids’ accounts up to date.

Since the federal free-lunch guarantee ended, schools in San Antonio have been forced to return to an income-based model stemming from the 76-yearold National School Lunch Act.

Under those guidelines, children from families whose income is 130% of the federal poverty line receive a free lunch. Those whose families struggle financially but are further above the poverty line qualify for a reduced-cost lunch, while the rest must pay full price.

The USDA reimburses lunch programs monthly for each meal sold to a student at the checkout line. Each prepared meal that goes unsold contributes to the school’s debt load since federal reimbursement doesn’t cover those.

The National School Lunch Act doesn’t consider factors such as the cost of living, inflation or familial relationships when determining its payouts. That’s becoming increasingly problematic as families struggle with rising prices and economic uncertainty, experts maintain.

Counting pennies

Even under Congress’ Keep Kids Fed Act, which was designed to address inflation and other pressures, reimbursement under the program often runs a few cents short of what it costs to produce a school lunch, according to NEISD’s Glosson. Scaled up across an entire district, those pennies start to add up.

According to a recent SNA survey, 56.6% of school lunch programs said reimbursement rates under the Keep Kids Fed Act failed to cover their cost of producing meals.

NEISD’s Glosson and others worry the shortfall will only grow once Keep Kids Fed expires in July.

SNA officials said the most vulnerable children are those of families who slightly miss the National School Lunch Act’s financial cutoff and don’t attend a district that the federal government deems economically disadvantaged. In those districts with that designation, all students qualify for free meals.

“Some families can miss the income requirement by as little as $100,” SNA’s Pratt-Heavner said of the kids in districts that don’t qualify for across-theboard free lunches.

Further complicating matters, not all parents whose children should qualify for free meals fill out the paperwork to enroll. According to SNA, 90.6% of programs that must collect meal applications reported a challenge getting families to submit the forms.

Along with income verification, the forms request sensitive information such as income verification and Social Security numbers. Social Security numbers also are unavailable to undocumented immigrant families.

Louisa R. Kates, director of school nutrition services at NEISD, said the requirement for income-based forms bears some of the blame for dwindling participation in school lunch programs.

“I’ve seen a 10-15% drop in meals [purchased] since before pandemic era times,” she said.

With that large of a drop in student participation in the program, Kates’ biggest fear is that students are simply not eating.

Fewer meals, fewer funds

For NEISD, that drop in meal purchases translates to a 10-15% drop in federal reimbursement funds. The government money goes to cover everything from operation costs, equipment repairs and staff pay.

The looming loss of those federal funds also comes as NEISD and other districts grapple with the same kind of staffing, supply and inflation issues hammering the restaurant industry.

NEISD has been forced to close some lunch lines due to a lack of staff, leading to longer wait times and more strain on already overworked and understaffed cafeterias.

“Prior to [COVID] we had seven serving lines. Now we have four,” Kates said, referring to one particularly hard-hit campus.

In 2020, NEISD paid $57.35 for a 40-pound box of ground beef, according to district officials. Three years later, that same box is running $141.93. Nonedible items such as paper goods have also cut into the bottom line.

Just as restaurants have raised menu prices over

the past couple of years to avoid going into the red, schools are being forced to do the same.

Desperate measures

Districts nationwide are making cuts to keep their lunch programs solvent and zero out debt at the end of the school year. Some have even requested financial assistance from strangers.

Schools in Central Kansas’ Salina County are buried under $85,000 in unpaid school lunch debt, forcing the district to ponder tough cutbacks, according to a recent Salina Journal report. Local churches and private individuals offered donations to ease some of the schools’ unpaid debt.

More than 70% of the debt in Salina County is from families on full-pay status, according to the report.

Jefferson County public schools in Louisville, Kentucky, are facing similar issues. The nine schools not considered economically disadvantaged in that district have racked up $53,000 in unpaid meal debt this year, according to a report in trade industry publication Food Service Direct

That debt is expected to rise to nearly $100,000 by the end of the school year, the district’s assistant director of nutrition, Dan Ellnor, told the news outlet.

Some districts have become so saddled with debt

that they have reportedly resorted to seeking help through GoFundMe campaigns and social media posts.

In January, a teacher at Rocky Mountain Middle School in Heber City, Utah, posted a TikTok video requesting donations to cover that school’s meal debt. The clip garnered more than $30,000 in donations, according to a recent ABC News report.

Spreading to SA?

San Antonio’s school districts haven’t reached that level of worry. Not yet, anyway. NEISD’s meal debt hovers at around $9,000, according to officials there. San Antonio’s comparatively low levels of unpaid school lunch debt comes down to the number of schools or entire districts in the city that that the feds consider economically disadvantaged, experts said. However, events unfolding in other states may offer warning signs for schools that don’t qualify for free lunches for all students.

For nutritional directors in San Antonio and around the country, the answer is for Congress to bring back universal free lunches, or failing that, to raise reimbursement rates to adequate levels.

Congressional help?

SNA’s Pratt-Heavner told the Current her organization is urging federal lawmakers to consider reinstating the pandemic-era free lunch program.

Even if such a sweeping change doesn’t occur, two bills introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives aim to provide better reimbursement.

U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Massachusetts, introduced the Healthy Meals Help Kids Learn Act, which will permanently increase the federal reimbursement level for all free, reduced-price and paidrate school meals. The rate would go up by 45 cents for every lunch served and 28 cents for every breakfast served, including a yearly adjustment.

U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Virginia, and U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pennsylvania, also introduced the Help Schools Feed Students Act. Their bill will assist schools as they continue to provide meals to students and insulate them from the impacts of inflation.

“Congress must advance these proposals quickly to avert the financial crisis in July,” Pratt-Heavner said.

Despite the promise of those two bills, Congress has yet to pass anything affecting next year’s reimbursement rates. As a result, many districts are left wondering when help will arrive, if at all.

The longer federal lawmakers wait to address issue, the greater the potential children will go hungry.

“I personally would like to see expansion of all students eating at no charge: universal feeding,” NEISD’s Kates said. “[That way,] we don’t have to worry about meal debt and having to cut off children who cannot pay. The worst day in any cafeteria worker’s life is saying, ‘You have to get an alternative meal. You can’t get what you want.’”

S. Glosson

many ethnicities that settled in Texas and sponsored by the City of San Antonio’s Department of Arts and Culture, this 65th annual event will offer something from nearly every continent. Expect ethnic dances from Europe, a hip-hop showcase, hula presentations and martial arts stunts as groups such as the Ukrainian Society SA, the Komenka Ethnic Dance and Music Ensemble of New Orleans and McAllen’s Baile Folklorico South Texas College provide lively entertainment. Classes are scheduled for Our Lady of the Lake University while the performance-centric portion of the festival will take place at Rolling Oaks Mall. Free, noon-5:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Rolling Oaks Mall, 6909 N. Loop 1604 East, safdf.org. — DG

FRI | 03.24

COMEDY

TAYLOR TOMLINSON: THE HAVE IT ALL TOUR

Comedian Taylor Tomlinson appeals to her audience by creating relatable content. She’s not just trying to appeal to the 20- and 30-something women that match her demographic but to a wider audience that can relate to her stories of growing older, addressing mental health and dealing with the ups and downs of each new era in her life. Her first two Netflix stand-up specials — Quarter-Life Crisis (2020) and Look at You (2022) — center on the trials and triumphs of her 20s. Now, she’s addressing the next decade of her life. Expect her to work the crowd while bringing them along on engrossing stories, this time about the quest to “have it all” that comes when many people hit their 30s. $39.75 and up, 7 p.m. and 9:30

SAT | 03.25

SPECIAL EVENT

UFC FIGHT NIGHT

The world’s foremost combat sports promotion is returning to San Antonio with a Fight Night card that may

$100 and up, 3 p.m., AT&T Center, One AT&T Center, attcenter.com. — Brandon Rodriguez

SAT | 03.25

COMEDY

FELIPE ESPARZA: THE BIGFOO TOUR

Mexican comedian Felipe Esparza will swing into San Antonio on The BigFoo Tour, his latest set of road dates. Esparza has grown in popularity since his big break winning NBCs Last Comic Standing in 2010. Since that achievement, the raspy-voiced Esparza has continued to hone his self-deprecating humor, offering audiences glimpses into his life as a teen and young man living on Los Angeles’ West Side. He’s also gained a following for

Courtesy Photo / Majestic Theatre

Courtesy Photo / San Antonio Folklife & Dance Festival

Courtesy Photo / AT&T Center

Courtesy Photo / Majestic Theatre

creating comedy based on the Latino experience. “I could never be a terrorist. I’m Mexican, you gotta be there on time,” he joked during one stand-up performance. “I’ll sleep in, let’s do it tomorrow.” Esparza even named his 2012 stand-up special They’re Not Gonna Laugh at You after his mother’s retort when he told her he was nervous about crews filming the performance. $34.50 and up, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. — BR

SAT | 03.25 –

SUN | 03.26

SPECIAL EVENT

MONARCH FEST

As spring starts to come into full bloom, it’s time for nature lovers to celebrate all things monarch, milkweed and migration. This twoday event promotes the conservation of the monarch butterflies and celebrates their role as pollinators as they migrate. The all-ages event includes photo opportunities, animal ambassadors, plant chats, seed giveaways, games, dance parties and more. The festival’s Monarch Practice Tagging workshop will show guests how to properly hold butterflies and explain

THU | 03.30

SAT | 04.01

OPERA

ROMEO AND JULIET

First premiering in Paris at the Théâtre-Lyrique Impérial du Châtelet in 1867, French composer Charles Gounod’s rendition of Shakespeare’s classic love story Romeo and Juliet remains a widely popular opera to this day. For two nights this spring, the timeless tale of tragic love is coming to the Tobin Center courtesy of Opera San Antonio. In collaboration with Classical Music Institute musicians and six dancers from Ballet San Antonio with choreography by Rafael Ferreras, Opera SA is facilitating a merging of the worlds of music, dance and storytelling. The production features lyric soprano Jacqueline Echols as Juliet and tenor Duke Kim as Romeo. Opera San Antonio’s E. Loren Meeker acts as artistic and stage director for the opera, which will be performed in French with English translations. An hour before the show, a free lecture for ticket holders in the Tobin Center’s Feik Rotunda will help audience members gain a better understanding of the performance they’re about to experience. $40-$195, 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Saturday, H-E-B Performance Hall, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. — Macks Cook

season during the Warriors’ climb back up the NBA mountaintop, “If you can’t maintain your culture during the down times, then you don’t really have a culture.” $14 and up, 7 p.m., AT&T Center, One AT&T Center Parkway, (210) 4445000, attcenter.com, Bally Sports SW-SA. — M. Solis

THU | 03.30 –SUN | 04.02

SPECIAL EVENT

how they’re tagged with identification stickers to track their migration. Meanwhile, a separate activity invites guests to guess which animals are pollinators. Additional paid experiences at the zoo coincide with the celebration, including the John & Greli Less Butterfly Rainforest ($4 per guest) and the Project Selva 4D Theater Showing ($6 per guest). $27.99-$31.99, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, San Antonio Zoo, 3903 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 734-7184, sazoo.org. — Christianna Davies

WED | 03.29

SPORTS

SPURS VS. JAZZ

After failing to reach the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season, the Spurs’ 50th anniversary campaign winds down this Friday against the Jazz in the team’s last San Antonio game of the season. As part of the franchise’s ongoing efforts to engage and expand its fanbase, the Spurs’ final two home games will take place at

Austin’s Moody Center. When the two teams squared off last month in Salt Lake City, Keldon Johnson proved sterling down the stretch for the Spurs, finishing the night with 25 points to secure a 102-94 win and snap a franchise record 16-game losing skid. With a 14% chance at drafting generational talent Victor Wembanyama seemingly secure, all eyes are on the NBA draft lottery, which takes place Tuesday, May 16 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. As former Spur Steve Kerr reminded the league last

THE AMAZING ACRO-CATS

Everyone knows dogs can do tricks. Apparently, cats can too. Having appeared in the Netflix series Cat People and on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, CBS Sunday Morning and NOVA: Cat Tales, the Acro-Cats are strutting their way into San Antonio for a weekend of feline spectacles. They’ll be riding skateboards, jumping through hoops, balancing on balls and performing even more daring feats. For the finale, the agile critters will even play instruments as the all-feline

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 / Opera San Antonio

Courtesy Photo / San Antonio Zoo

San Antonio Spurs

Courtesy Photo / Amazing Acro-Cats

band Tuna and the Rock Cats. The Amazing Acro-Cats show promotes the importance of bonding and training of cats through positive reinforcement, and it also benefits rescue and adoption through its support of the nonprofit Rock Cats Rescue Inc. Multiple tiers of tickets are available for the show, including perks such as better seats and meet-and-greets with the cats. A portion of each ticket sold benefits the San Antonio Feral Cat Coalition. $25-$55, 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday, 1 p.m. Sunday, Josephine Theatre, 339 W. Josephine St., (210) 734-4646, rockcatsrescue.org. — CD

SAT | 04.01 –

SUN | 04.02

COMEDY

HEATHER McMAHAN: THE COMEBACK TOUR

Unfiltered and self-deprecating, comedian Heather McMahan speaks openly about finding humor amid the struggles of daily life. Makes sense considering her career took off during one of the darkest moments in her life. After her father died, she moved from Los Angeles back into her mother’s Atlanta home. “I thought I had made plans for myself with everything figured out, and life happens,” McMahan said in an interview with Philadelphia Weekly. “And sometimes you have to do some hard pivots. You have to survive.” Being able to make light in the dark is a hallmark of her comedy and part of what makes it so appealing, as evidenced by her Instagram following of more than 744,000 and the success of her podcast Absolutely Not. “With age comes wisdom, and with that, some ridiculous reflection when you realize the mistakes that you’ve made along the way,” McMahan also told Philadelphia Weekly. Beyond her current tour, McMahan has an NBC sitcom in the works based on her experience living with both her elderly mother and her husband. $55.75-$95.75, 8 p.m. Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday, Charline McCombs Empire Theatre, 226 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. — Dana Nichols

FRI | 03.31

SPECIAL EVENT

CAM

CLOSING CELEBRATION

To close out each year’s Contemporary Art Month (CAM), the local nonprofit puts together a ceremony to recognize participating artists for their visions and accomplishments. The gathering presents both the annual CAMMIE Awards and three micro-grants to help specific Alamo City artists pursue projects. The 2023 closing ceremony will take place at Space C7, an artist-run contemporary art and music venue on the South Side. DJ Novasoul will provide musical entertainment for the evening. Additionally, in conjunction with Space C7’s CAM exhibition “The Art Mob’s Out Tonight,” several artists from SAGE studio — an Austin gallery for artists with disabilities — will be on hand to sign limited-edition posters of their works. Free, 6-9 p.m. Friday, Space C7, 2450 Roosevelt Ave., (210) contemporaryartmonth.org. — DG

FRI | 03.31 –

SUN | 04.23

THEATER

THE PAJAMA GAME

At the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory, workers sew garments at breakneck speed and in sweltering heat, all for pennies per hour. That is, until passionate and proactive employee Catherine “Babe” Williams (Alyx Irene Gonzales) abandons her post on the assembly line to start the Union Grievance Committee and fight for fair wages. Nothing can throw Babe off her game, except perhaps a budding, reluctant fondness for Sid Sorokin (Grant

Bryan), Sleep-Tite’s superintendent. As an emotional bond flourishes between the pair, they find themselves on opposite ends of an impending strike, leading Babe and Sid to question where their loyalties lie. Exploring the intersections of sexism, misogyny, racism and class inequities, the topics in this 1954 musical remain relevant today. The Public Theater’s production, directed by Diana Wyenn, will feature a handful of community nights, including post-show conversations, ASL-interpreted performances and a sensory-friendly presentation. $15$45, 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, The Public Theater of San Antonio, 800 W. Ashby Place, (210) 733-7258, thepublicsa.org. —

Caroline WolFF

SAT | 04.01

COMEDY

KATT WILLIAMS

Emmy-winning comedian Katt Williams is bringing his

swagger, rhythmic delivery and bad-boy brand of comedy to the Alamo City on his 2023 and Me Tour. While many know Williams from his scorching putdowns on Comedy Central roasts, his move from comedy clubs to theaters and large arenas shows his comedic chops include more than just trash talk. On his World War III Netflix stand-up special, Williams flexes his ability to joke on the fly, riffing for a solid 10 minutes on the town where he’s performing — Jacksonville, Florida — before delving into no-holds-barred political jabs and raunchy sex jokes. One has to wonder what Williams will find humorous about the Alamo City when he takes the stage. Whatever it ends up being, best come with a thick skin and an ability to laugh. $62-$78, 8 p.m., Freeman Coliseum, 3201 E. Houston St., freemancoliseum.com. — Michael Karlis

Courtesy Photo / Empire Theatre

Courtesy Photo / AT&T Center

Gav Sears, courtesy of Space C7

Courtesy Photo / The Public Theater of San Antonio

With over 100 locally owned shops, you’ll find cultural curios and artifacts, handcrafted leather goods, and a diverse collection of traditional apparel. Visit our website for more information on our weekend entertainment.

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514 W. Commerce St.

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LIVE MUSIC

MAIN STAGE

Finding Friday

7pm & 9:30pm

Rick Cavender

6pm & 8pm

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Stereomonde

5:30pm & 9:30pm

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The Regimes TBD

323d Army Band TBD

Mariachi band 5:30pm

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Fun, family friendly, official Fiesta event with 80+ booths filled with great food, drink, entertainment, games & rides for the entire San Antonio community!

ADMISSION

$20 Adults | $5 Ages 12-17 | $5 w/ Valid Student ID

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Available parking can be found at 4 FREE park and ride locations and across on the south side of Hildebrand from the campus. Shuttles start at 5pm.

Collaborative Curation

An all-female team organized the McNay Art Museum’s era-spanning exhibition

“Womanish: Audacious, Courageous, Willful Art”

BY BRYAN RINDFUSS

Exhibitions drawn from museum collections can be tiresome affairs — at times boastful displays of unrelated objects or themeless reconfigurations that leave viewers with a distinct sense of déjà vu. The McNay Art Museum handily defies those expectations with “Womanish: Audacious, Courageous, Willful Art” — a powerful and engaging exhibition organized entirely by women.

Presented as a second chapter to 2010’s “Neither Model Nor Muse: Women as Artists,” a broad showcase built on the collection of artist and museum founder Marion Koogler McNay, “Womanish” is an expansive celebration that unites 80 artists and spans a century — bookended by a 1919 drawing by Laura Knight and a 2022 costume design by Margaret Mitchell. Rightfully peppered throughout are works by San Antonio artists including Marilyn Lanfear, Leigh Anne Lester, Kelly O’Connor, Antonia Padilla, Katie Pell, Eva Marengo Sanchez, Ethel Shipton and Liz Ward.

As for the show’s slightly quirky title, it’s borrowed from Pulitzer-winning author Alice Walker’s In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose, a 1983 collection exploring womanhood, womanist theory and unsung heroines. Notably, the collection removes the derogatory connotations of the word “womanish” and reclaims it as a term of empowerment.

During a media preview on Mar. 1, recently appointed McNay Director Matthew McLendon told the crowd that the timing of “Womanish” opening just after his arrival in San Antonio “couldn’t have been more ideal.”

“It is such a wonderful entree for me as I get to learn the McNay and learn our collection, to go to these galleries, and really understand the long commitment and legacy the McNay has had to supporting women artists and collecting women artists and bringing their voices into our permanent collection,” McLendon said. “It’s been an absolute treat for me, wandering through during the installation, seeing artists that I have long loved and admired, but also seeing a lot of artists that are new to me, particularly San Antonio and Texas artists. I’m thrilled to start learning

about them and their important work.”

Perhaps more importantly, McLendon stressed the collaborative nature in which “Womanish” came together and congratulated the curatorial team of McNay Assistant Curator Lauren Thompson, Collections Manager Liz Paris, Tobin Theatre Arts Fund Assistant Curator Kim Neptune and Semmes Foundation Intern Paula Contreras.

“It’s a real testament to how museums are trying to work today, which is much more collaboratively within departments,” McLendon said. “We know that that kind of collaborative working method produces a very strong product when you bring different voices, different perspectives, different visions together in this way. And I think ‘Womanish’ really shows how strong that collaborative approach can be.”

Before passing the reins to Lauren Thompson to begin a walkthrough of the Tobin Exhibition Galleries, McNay Head of Curatorial Affairs René Paul Barilleaux — a key figure at the museum since 2005 — offered a bit of

historical context.

“From our founding in 1954, we’ve always championed the work of women artists — we were founded by a woman who collected the work of women artists.”

Diverse depictions

As Thompson explained, “Womanish” is not organized chronologically but by themes that shift from room to room — beginning with depictions of women and finishing with diverse interpretations of domesticity.

“In each of the gallery spaces, we really want to encourage our viewers to think about why the works of art are grouped together,” Thompson said.

Simultaneously alluring and confrontational, self-taught Pittsburgh artist Vanessa German’s 2020 assemblage Black Girl With Snakes anchors the introductory section, welcoming museum-goers with a wealth of imagery and symbols to unpack and interpret.

“This work of art was created during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Thompson continued. “Vanessa German often creates assemblages from objects that she finds within her neighborhood. The theme of this work of art is rebirth and renewal. So you’ll

© vanessa german

MVanessa German’s altar-like Black Girl with Snakes welcomes museum-goers into “Womanish.”

see snakes throughout the work. Snakes shed their skin. And so it’s this very optimistic look at the [post-pandemic] future.”

Commanding attention between works by Fort Worth-based Letitia Huckaby and former San Antonio fixture Bettie Ward, German’s altar-like Black Girl With Snakes is also the McNay’s 2023 “Spotlight.” Launched in 2013, that program each year welcomes thousands of students, educators and families to creatively explore a specific work in the museum’s collection.

Another early standout is a selection of screenprints viewers may recall from the McNay’s vibrant 2012 exhibition “Estampas de la Raza: Contemporary Prints from the Romo Collection.” Representing four artists, the arrangement includes El Paso-born Barbara Carrasco’s 2002 portrait of labor leader Dolores Huerta and Los Angeles-based Shizu Saldamando’s snapshot-like Poster Girl — a 2000 print that helped inspire the exhibition’s bold blue walls. When asked about its subject — a woman sporting a sharp black bob, red lipstick and retro shades — Thompson explained that Saldamando based the print on a photograph she took of a friend waiting in line for Morrissey’s autograph. “It doesn’t get much more San Antonio than that,” she said with a laugh.”

Moving pictures

Beyond its thematic construct, “Womanish” provides an enlightening view of all corners of the McNay’s growing collection — which encompasses modern and contemporary art, works on paper and theater arts — with a keen focus on acquisitions of the last dozen years. Intriguingly, those acquisitions include a fair amount of video works, three of which are featured in “Womanish.”

Held in the Smithsonian’s collection and previously shown at the McNay during 2019’s “Transamerica/n: Gender, Identity, Appearance Today,” Brooklyn-based Martine Gutierrez’s three-minute video Clubbing lays down a groovy ’60s soundtrack as the artist dons both masculine and feminine attire — not to mention surrealist eye makeup — and dances with parallel versions of herself. Speaking to New

York magazine in 2017, the trans Latinx artist explained, “My work continues to inform how I see myself or want to be seen — it is the only way I have found to validate my beauty and my expression of gender without being manipulated by social constructs.”

Expressive movement continues in Kakyoung Lee’s Dance, Dance, Dance, a 2011 video that opens a window into the New York-based Korean artist’s creative process. Set to esoteric music by sound artist Natacha Diels, the animated short layers 348 drypoint prints of a dancing female figure — until the stacked images obscure the foreground into a chaotic jumble of lines. Writing about Dance, Dance, Dance for a University of Maryland exhibition, Nick Duque offered, “Both the process and the cathartic result of this work reflect a pattern of intense study and relief, and suggest the necessity for meditation and creative action to support mental health.”

If it’s meditation you’re after, look no further than nearby Botanic 3 — a hypnotic digital animation by Los Angeles-based installation artist Jennifer Steinkamp. Part of a dazzling series that activated a Times Square Jumbotron in 2016, the large-scale work depicts intricately rendered flowers blowing about, colliding and breaking apart against a background as dark as the night sky. In her statement about the looped video, Steinkamp writes, “Plants have a wonderful way of responding to their environment. My work draws our attention to the atmosphere around us. As plants move, they reveal the invisible currents of the air.”

Inspired pairings and presentations

Beyond the smart selection of artwork, “Womanish” excels with thought-provoking pairings, deft use of color and tight geometric arrangements. Conversations emerge between objects, the wall colors — avocado green and the aforementioned deep blue — play exceptionally well with the work, and certain framed pieces are presented in meticulous configurations, at times with no space at all between them.

A gleaming highlight of the gallery exploring domestic trappings, late San Antonio artist Katie Pell’s lowrider-inspired Candy Dryer (2006) beckons from a corner, accompanied by Peri Schwartz’s 2015 aquatint Bottles and Jars III and The Big Suit — an oversized costume Lesley Dill designed for a production dubbed Worst Case Scenario. Agnes Martin’s 30-piece print suite On a Clear Day (1973) is hung in a fashion the late grid-obsessed artist would surely approve of. And San Antonio-based Kelly O’Connor’s retro-fabulous mixed-media collage Magnetic Fields (2009) looks entirely at home on a green wall evocative of a 1960s refrigerator.

Hidden treasures

Further kudos to co-curators Thompson, Paris, Neptune and Contreras, “Womanish” is organized in a way that prompts investigation and discovery. Nuances, secrets and humorous flourishes emerge when considering the placement of works.

Situated near the entrance, San Antonio artist Leigh Anne Lester’s painted wood and plexiglass duo Residuum of a Variety of Forms Recovering From Transubstantiated Clarity (2016) is hung high in a corner, suggesting her alienesque organisms could be sprouting from the wall.

Speed through the show and you’ll miss them, but two mysterious boxes

installed in the galleries invite viewers to crouch down and peer through a tiny viewing window. Inside are tiny dioramas — painstakingly created by members of the McNay’s education department — inspired by nearby artworks.

In a shining example of the bold creativity that went into curating “Womanish,” the team split apart the 15 components of Laredo-born San Antonio artist Ethel Shipton’s print suite Another Fifteen Minutes (2011) and dispersed them among the galleries. As a result, Shipton’s series — which nods to Andy Warhol’s iconic quote and aptly celebrates everyday objects — seems to be around every corner. As viewers navigate the space, these scattered puzzle pieces might bring to mind an artsy scavenger hunt — which is exactly the point. As guests arrive, they’re invited to pick up a free postcard and check off each Shipton print they find. Those who complete the challenge can report to the front desk and have their postcards stamped in ink.

When asked about this interactive component, Thompson replied, “Ethel considers Another Fifteen Minutes a playful series, so we decided to have fun with it.”

Courtesy Photo / McNay Art Museum

MKatie Pell’s Candy Dryer takes cues from lowrider culture.

“Womanish: Audacious, Courageous, Willful

Heated Debate

Eva Longoria’s film on the creation of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos took SXSW by storm. But is the story true?

BY MICHAEL KARLIS

Among the most torrid movie premieres at Austin’s SXSW film festival this year was Flamin’ Hot, billed as the “true” story behind the invention of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos — one of San Antonio’s most beloved snack foods.

Thanks to its subject matter and its direction by Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria — who also happens to be a South Texas native and the former wife of San Antonio Spur Tony Parker — the feel-good comedy is likely to find an Alamo City audience once it hits Hulu and Disney+ on June 9.

Just the same, controversy is heating up about the veracity of Flamin’ Hot’s rags-toriches narrative, which depicts a Latino janitor at Frito-Lay as the snack’s creator. A key concern? Frito-Lay says the events portrayed in the film never happened.

Some facts aren’t in dispute, however.

Flamin’ Hot, which premiered March 11 at

Austin’s Paramount Theatre, follows the story of Richard Montañez, the janitor who maintains he’s the grand papi of Hot Cheetos.

After several run-ins with the law, Montañez — played by Quinceanera star Jesse Garcia — applies for a janitorial job at the Frito-Lay factory, begging a manager to hire him because he has a PhD: “Poor, hungry and determined.”

The scene sets the tone for the cheeky humor that plays out through the film.

Once at the factory, the ambitious Montañez convinces a floor engineer to help him learn mechanics with the hopes of one day moving up the corporate ladder. However, it’s not long before the turbulent ’80s economy threatens to shut down the factory.

In a desperate attempt to save Frito-Lay, Roger Enrico — then the head honcho of its parent company, PepsiCo — sends a video to his workers asking them to get creative and “think like a CEO.”

While eating chips covered in tajin in a park, Montañez has his lightbulb moment and embarks on creating the perfect snack for Frito-Lay. Like the chips he munches in the park, these will be crunchy, hot and slightly sweet. They’ll be Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

The rest is history. Or is it?

The film is based on Montañez’s memoir Flamin’ Hot: The Incredible True Story of One Man’s Rise from Janitor to Top Executive. However, according to a 2021 Los Angeles Times investigation, Montañez’s story is just that: a story.

“None of our records show that Richard was involved in any capacity in the Flamin’ Hot test market,” Frito-Lay officials wrote in a statement to the Times. “We have interviewed multiple personnel who were involved in the test market, and all of them indicate that Richard was not involved in any capacity in the test market.”

According to the Times, a junior employee with an MBA named Lynne Greenfeld was assigned to develop the spicy red snack. She even came up with its name, the paper reports.

Even so, Montañez began taking credit for the snack that took the nation by storm in the late 2000s, according to the Times. He was able to demand steep speaking fees to appear at marketing events at Target and Walmart, along with Harvard and the University of Southern California.

So, is Montañez running an elaborate and lucrative con? Or is corporate America trying to undermine the achievements of a creative, hard-working person of color who started at the bottom?

More debate is bound to ensue once the movie hits streaming platforms.

Whatever the outcome, it’s a safe bet that plenty of San Antonians will be streaming it this summer, probably while chowing down on Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

MFlamin’Hot head honcho Eva Longoria.

taniavolobueva/ Shutterstock

Eye Opener

The Pearl’s Full Goods Diner may not be the cheapest brunch in town, but its value stacks up

BY RON BECHTOL

Before you get all bent out of shape about dropping $24 on a plate of steak and eggs at the Pearl’s newish Full Goods Diner — which I admittedly did at first — let’s take a deep breath. And then let’s take a quick look at what’s happened to restaurant prices, post-pandemic. They’ve gone up everywhere. At Patty’s Taco House on South Hackberry, for example, a similar-sounding plate with strip steak, two eggs, beans, potatoes and two tortillas will set one back $18.29 — and in a setting that makes no pretense of being Pearl-polished.

So, factoring in Full Goods Diner’s low-key but pleasant environment and warm, attentive service — not to mention the vastly more upscale setting of Pearl — it’s not such a bad deal.

The steak, looking and acting like flank, came cooked to medium rare as requested, had a respectable chew and was well-served by its peanut salsa macha — the sauce trailed a rusty oil slick as it typically does. Some might have rejected the scrambled eggs, complaining that they verged on dry. But they stood up gamely to the steak and sauce.

The plate’s two stars were separated by a huevos divorciados-like barricade of semi-caramelized onion and chiles that, despite their billing on the menu, were almost the star of the show. The tortillas, both corn and flour, are likely better at your favorite breakfast taco hangout, but aren’t really needed anyway.

That plate is the most expensive item on Full Goods Diner’s all-day breakfast, brunch and lunch menu, which bottoms out at $8 for cinnamon toast with whipped mascarpone. It’s a menu that one could exhaust fairly quickly with just a few visits. Apart from the bacon expected a breakfast spot, chicken and pork shoulder are the only other meaty proteins.

The pork finds its best expression in a carnitas torta served in a toasted bolillo with zingy roasted garlic mayo, avocado and pickled onion. Less successful is the more-lubricated version billed as Texas hash and served with a few shards of kale, cubed sweet potato and a bedding of pecan mole that added little to the equation. Feel free to call this hearty. Heavy is more my take.

Chicken, fried and crackling, appeared atop the Hill Country salad. Full disclosure: I took this one home as takeout, so the fact that

the craggy breast retained its defiant crunch is testimony to a job well done. Another disclosure: I’m not a fan of strawberries in salads, usually finding them inappropriately sweet or out-of-season bland. The berries here didn’t detract as much here as usual, but they also didn’t add as much as the measured sweetness and textural snap of the candied pecans, the mellowness of the sliced white cheddar and the roasted tomatoes. And we won’t even get into the punch of the poblano-inflected ranch dressing.

The crispy chicken and poblano ranch make another appearance in torta guise, along with pepper Jack spread — but no strawberries. No reason that shouldn’t also be good as well.

Full Goods’ covered patio is a perfect earlyin-the-day hangout this time of year. Patrons have also figured out that it is supremely dog-friendly, so take that into account one way or another.

If thinking brunch — or have no self-imposed restrictions on what time serious drinking can start — know that the restaurant

FULL GOODS DINER

MFull Goods Diner’s take on brunch favorites range from steak and eggs to hedonistic pastries.

has a full bar, making it possible to pair, for example, a frozen paloma with a contrastingly virtuous granola bowl.

Throwing virtue to the wind, I can testify to the hedonistic pleasures of the pastry list’s chocolate hazelnut “cruffin.” It’s basically puff pastry spread with a Nutella-like mixture augmented with chopped hazelnuts and rolled into a muffin cup — a kind of constrained croissant.

The cruffin could have used less surface-applied sugar without sacrificing indulgence points, but it went well with a simple drip coffee — which staff will keep refilling. Maybe, in tit-for-tat response, keep ordering pastries such as the mango chili lime pop tart or the strawberry rhubarb hand pie.

No quarrel with the strawberries in this context.

200 E. Grayson St. | fullgoodsdiner.com | (210) 819-4226 | Monday-Thursday 8 a.m.-2 p.m., Friday-Sunday 8 a.m.-3 p.m.

Price range: $8-$24

Best bets: Carnitas torta, Hill Country salad, steak and eggs, chocolate hazelnut cruffin

The skinny: Full Goods is currently open only for breakfast, brunch and lunch, with occasional evening events to tantalize an all-day structure. The “American” menu is accordingly short, but standouts include a carnitas torta, a loaded Hill Country salad and an indulgent steak and eggs plate, all available until closing. The covered patio is especially pleasant on temperate days. Service appears to be both efficient and pleasant at all times.

Courtesy Photo / Full Goods Diner

Michele McCurdy-Buonacorsi dishes on cookbook chronicling Joseph’s Storehouse Baking Company

Name: Michele McCurdy-Buonacorsi

Job:  Real estate agent and author of Joseph’s Storehouse Baking Company: From My Heart to Yours

Age: 65

Birthplace: San Antonio

Industry Experience: McCurdy-Buonacorsi began as a home baker and eventually developed the recipes behind beloved local restaurant Joseph’s Storehouse Baking Company.

Until its 2013 closure, Joseph’s Storehouse Baking Company provided San Antonians with soulful home-cooked sustenance. Tucked into a strip center near Brackenridge Park, the restaurant and bakery became a go-to for meatloaf, buttery yeast rolls and sweets such as carrot cake and fudgy chocolate cupcakes.

Michele McCurdy-Buonacorsi, the mind behind the food that kept fans returning to Joseph’s, recently compiled those recipes and others into a 475-page cookbook she calls a scrapbook of 40 years in the kitchen.

We sat down with her to chat about the evolution of the restaurant and how her food has touched generations.

The introduction of your book says the food life found you. Was your intent always to build a restaurant?

My ex-husband was a pastor, and we, in 1987, decided to leave the mainline denomination and start a little Christian fellowship. It was a small congregation, since there were times — I mean, months — when we didn’t get paid. And it got really serious. I’d always been a stay-at-home mom, I had four kids at the time, and I loved to bake. I heard about this lady in Alamo Heights that was buying organic wheat from Montana. It would come in these big 50-gallon buckets, and she would mill it into fresh flour and make this awesome homemade whole-wheat bread out of it.

So, I called her and asked her if she would teach me how to make it. She agreed, and I eventually started milling my own wheat, and gave [the bread] to my friends, who were saying, “Michele, this bread is so good. You need to sell it.” I had never planned on selling the bread, but things got pretty dire, and Christmas was coming. At first, all I could think was, “Oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing. How humiliating.” But that day, I made my first $100. Over the following months, people were ordering bread and asking me to cater lunches, so I ended up renting commercial kitchen space to keep up with the demand. We finally landed on the North St. Mary’s Street building.

And from there, it grew into more than bread? This cookbook is huge, so the menu had to have been extensive.

I was never trained as a chef, I have no formal culinary training, so people would come in and ask me, “Do you make this? Do you make that?” And I would just answer, “Sure, I make that,” and then I’d go dig around, do some research and make a lot of mistakes … throw a lot of food away, unfortunately. But within three months, the place was packed. There was a line around the door. It never occurred to us that right across the street was an office building and a bank. It was perfect because people would walk in from across the street, have us cater their lunches. Then I noticed I was starting to get really tired, which, you know, why wouldn’t I be? But I found out I was pregnant again.

So, this is baby number five, three months into the opening?

Yes, those days it was like trying to stay on a wild bull. I’d get up at two in the morning, get the two little ones up, the new baby and my four-year-old, and bring them with me too. I had a little closet that I made into a little baby area, with places for them to sleep. I’d get all the baked goods done by six in the morning, then would rush home to get the older kids up, get them to school, rush back to the restaurant and have it ready for lunch by 11. Lunch would last until 2 in the afternoon, before you ever even caught

your breath. Then you try to grab a bite to eat and have to start on payroll and all the book work. We opened in 1993, and I did that until 2002. And in my divorce, he was awarded the restaurant. And it broke my heart because I’d done a lot. That was my vision, it was my baby. They were all my recipes. But I had to walk away from there, and I never was able to go back. After he sold the restaurant, I think in 2014, I told him I was going to write a cookbook.

What does it mean to you to leave a legacy that’s so close to your heart?

I self-published it with the intention of only doing 25 copies, planning to just give away 14 of them to our kids. I had like 10 books left and then I got COVID during the first two weeks of January. And I had had an awful lot of cough medicine and I was feeling it, and so I thought, “You know, I’m just gonna post something on Facebook and say, ‘Hey, anybody remember Joseph’s? Well, I’m Michele McCurdy, I just published a cookbook, and it’s got most all of Joseph’s recipes in it.’” I’ve had message after message of people saying, “Oh, my God, Joseph’s meant so much to me. I remember we took our kids there every week.” Or, “We were there all the time.” And I realized that ... in trying to leave a legacy for my kids, I left a legacy for the people of San Antonio as well. I have been so touched it makes me want to cry.

Nina Rangel

NEWS

Fiesta San Antonio’s official kickoff party, Taste of the Republic, is returning to the Alamo grounds for the first time since 2017. The gathering includes sample bites from more than a dozen participating chefs, and a portion of proceeds go to the Fiesta Commission and the Remember the Alamo Foundation. tasteoftherepublic.com.

Local Mexican food staple Rosario’s has closed its location at 9715 San Pedro Ave. Employees at the restaurant were offered a chance to relocate to the new Southtown Rosario’s. 722 S. St. Mary’s St., (210) 223-1806, rosariossa.com.

Longtime north-of-downtown diner Mary Ann’s Pig Stand restaurant has closed. The last outlet of what was once a multi-state chain served San Antonio for 101 years.

OPENINGS

The food hall at the Pearl has two new tenants: barbecue spot Three Six General and the Pasta Factory, an Italian-inspired eatery from the team behind Chilaquil. Both are open now. bottlingdepartment.com.

Mimosa Gossip will open this spring in the Stone Oak neighborhood. The brunch-focused spot purportedly will serve 25 varieties of its namesake juice-and-champagne cocktail. 2907 N. Loop 1604 East, instagram.com/mimosagossip.

Vegan taco spot Plantaqueria is now open in downtown San Antonio, slinging plant-based renditions of classic taqueria fare, including tortillas made in house. 124 Broadway, plantaqueria.com.

Ukrainian food trailer European Dumplings

Cafe has opened its first brick-and-mortar location, bringing potato-stuffed pierogi, Ukrainianstyle borscht and other favorites to Castle Hills. 2211 N.W. Military Highway, (503) 484-7549, europeandumplings.com.

The Jinya Ramen Bar chain has opened its first San Antonio location, which is now serving lunch and dinner on the city’s Northwest quadrant. 5311 N. Loop 1604 West, Suite 101, (210) 251-2519, jinyaramenbar.com.

Nicha’s Comida Mexicana has opened a third location, this one near Churchill High School. The new Nicha’s serves breakfast, lunch and dinner and features a large patio space. 12403 West Ave., (210) 310-3886, nichas.com.

Texas Dog Co. & Beer Garden is now serving people and their pups near insurance giant USAA’s headquarters. The new spot offers amenities such as multiple dog runs, a food truck park and sand volleyball courts. 4302 Hyatt Place Drive, texasdog.co.

Austin’s Royal Blue Grocery has expanded its Alamo City footprint with a new food trailer, now serving near the Southtown site that once housed Francis Bogside. The company also has plans for a second storefront. 116 Madison St., royalbluegrocery.com.

Home Room, a new patio bar from the owners of Pacific Moon and Charlie Brown’s Neighborhood Bar, has opened on the near East Side. 517 Live Oak Street, instagram.com/homeroomsa.

qOutdoor games abound at new bar Home Room.

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS NOTICE

Date: March 22, 2023

Request for competitive sealed proposal for bids for rental vans and non-CDL box trucks

The San Antonio Food Bank is soliciting bids to furnish the following rental vehicles:

Non-CDL Cargo/Panel Vans. These vehicles will be utilized by the San Antonio Food Bank staff members for our children’s feeding program and will be in service from 05/29/23 to 08/18/23. Please include all associated costs (i.e. mileage, physical damage, liability etc.) Only Non-CDL vehicles listed above will be considered for this solicitation. Please note all bids and contracts are subject to review by TDA.

Bid Due Date and Time: Friday, April 7, 2023 by 10 AM Central Time

Bid Opening Date and Time: Bids will be opened on Friday, April 14, 2023, at 10 AM Central Time, at the San Antonio Food Bank (address below). Bidding organization representative welcome to attend opening.

Bid Delivery Procedures: Sealed bids must be hand delivered by time and date listed above to Natalie Rendon or Heather Guzman. If mailed, bids must be sent via United States Postal Service Certified

Mail To:

San Antonio Food Bank C/O: Natalie Rendon 5200 Historic Old Hwy 90 San Antonio, TX 78227

Evaluation/Voting Members:

George Cox: Procurement Manager, San Antonio Food Bank

Natalie Rendon: Procurement Coordinator, San Antonio Food Bank

Heather Guzman: Children’s Program Manager, San Antonio Food Bank

Questions on this communication may be directed via e-mail to:

Natalie Rendon: Procurement Coordinator, San Antonio Food Bank

nrendon@safoodbank.org until Sunday, April 16, 2023 by 10 AM Central Time

Sanford Nowlin

British Invasion

Guitarist Joanne Shaw Taylor may hail from across the pond, but she’s all about American blues

BY MIKE MCMAHAN

Trends come and go in pop music. But one thing that hasn’t diminished over the past 100 or so years is the power of a guitarist who can make their instrument sing. If that’s your thing, Joanne Shaw Taylor should be on your radar. Although there’s a good chance she is already.

Taylor — a critically acclaimed blues guitarist, singer and bandleader — will perform Friday, March 24 at San Antonio’s Charline McCombs Empire Theater.

Though she’s lived in the U.S. for 15 years, much of it in Nashville and Detroit, Taylor spent her formative years in England, where she first discovered the blues. During her 20-plus-year career exploring the art form, she’s emerged as not just a searing guitarist but also a powerful songwriter and vocalist.

The Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart recognized that potential early on, drafting Taylor into his band when she was still a teen. Since then, she’s released her own music as well as collaborating with the likes of Joe Bonamas sa and Stewart’s Eurythmics bandmate Annie Lennox.

Now in her late 30s, Taylor has exceed ed that early potential, cutting a series of records that place her among the likes of Bonnie Raitt and Susan Tedeschi: powerhouse guitarists who can hold their own in front of a mic. Her most recent album, dropped in October.

Taylor spoke to the Current in Nashville.

You’ve mentioned Stevie Ray Vaughn and Albert Collins as early influences. It’s interesting that your primary influences are American when your home country boasts blues legends such as Eric Clapton and Peter Green. Would you consider yourself more an American-style player?

My early influences were predominantly American. The Vaughan brothers, Albert Collins, Freddie King, Billy Gibbons. I’m definitely in that school. I love some of the British guys. I love Jeff Beck. I love Paul Kossoff. It took me a while to appreciate that, which is quite funny. I was joking with Joe [Bonamassa] that he was a boy in upstate New York obsessed with the Brits and I was a girl in Britain obsessed with the States.

You pull other styles into your music, but the blues serves as the connective tissue. How do you honor that tradition but also have something new to say?

It’s something you’re very conscious of as a young person. This music form came from a very oppressed group of people. By carrying it forward — and allowing yourself to grow and be the artist that you are and gathering fans — and then talking about the blues guys in interviews. I give them their credit. I think that’s what you can do, to be honest.

Dave Stewart discovered you as a teenager. You’ve played with Annie Lennox. What’s the most important lesson you learned from working with them?

with everyone at that venue, and thanking everyone at that venue, then I’ve got no excuse not to.

I remember when “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” hit MTV. Annie Lennox just exuded confidence. Her look is striking even now. In those days, she might as well have been from another planet. And she owned that look.

Dave told me a story once. I think it was the first time they came to America. TSA wouldn’t let Annie in. They looked at her passport and it said “female,” but she looked like a guy. Not to be crude, but she got her boobs out. She certainly has enough balls. (Laughs.) But to see a strong female is always a benefit.

How did Dave Stewart become aware of you? When he first heard you, you were quite young. Yeah, I was gigging around London and Birmingham at the time, and I was asked to do a charity show. I had done a little demo CD, and a guy there asked for a copy. He was a

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

critics’ picks

Wednesday, March 22

Urban Heat, Holy Wire, Vermin the Villain Austin-based darkwave act Urban Heat evokes the industrial-electro sounds of the late ’80s, yet with apocalyptic lyrics to match the current era. Hence its self-applied label of “second wave post-punk.” Since Urban Heat is an official SXSW 2023 artist, consider this show in the basement of Vice Coffee, a spillover show. Austin-based Holy Wire and SA-based Vermin the Villain round out the bill. $15, Vice Versa, 123 Heiman St., (210) 977-0566, instagram.com/viceversa.sanantonio. — Dalia Gulca

Saturday, March 25

Ready Revolution, Pasenger, Emily Monsen

Who says rock is dead? San Antonio’s Diego and Emilio Navaira — sons of the late Tejano powerhouse Emilio Navaira — defiantly rage against the cliches with a reboot of their group Ready Revolution. On Let It Out, the band’s first new release since 2015, the brothers deliver a rollicking indie-rock album that throws back to the golden years of the Foo Fighters and the Toadies. Expect a high-energy show from the Navairas, who are better known for their other ensemble, The Last Bandoleros. $10-$15, 9 p.m., 502 Bar, 502 Embassy Oaks Road, Suite 138, (210) 257-8125, 502bar.com.

— Danny Cervantes

K. Michelle

Nashville-born singer K. Michelle rose to fame on the VH1 reality show Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta before signing to Atlantic Records in 2012. Her high-charting debut album Rebellious Soul was the first of five LPs showcasing her witty take on soulful R&B. The singer’s current 22-city I’m the Problem Tour is reportedly in support of her final R&B album before she ventures into country music. $37.50-$79.50, 8 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. —

Marco Aquino

Kem, Ledisi, Musiq Soulchild

Since the release of his debut album Kemistry in 2003, singer-songwriter Kem has given us five more studio albums and eight No. 1 singles on Billboard’s Adult R&B singles. Meanwhile, R&B and jazz singer Ledisi has racked up 14 Grammy nominations and one win. The two vocalists’ Soul II Soul Tour makes a powerful pairing, especially with up-and-comer Musiq Soulchild joining for support. $62- $253, 8 p.m., Freeman Coliseum, 3201 E. Houston St., (210) 226-1177, freemancoliseum.com. — MA

Saturday, March 27

Badvril, Elnuh, Cement Diver, Killing Seasons

Those searching for a dose of melancholic shoegaze could do a lot worse than this lineup, which seems to showcase multiple facets of the indie-rock subgenre. San Francisco-based Badvril traffics in atmospheric sounds buoyed by wistful vocals and fuzzy guitars, while San Antonio-based Elnuh’s stripped-down version of dream pop focuses on velvety vocals and sparse, echoey instrumental accompaniment. Cement Diver brings a harder edge thanks to a grungy sound and droning vocals. Killing Seasons’ folksy

Depeche Mode

After two decades in the business, Hawthorne Heights — one of the biggest successes of the early 2000s emo wave — has shown time and again that it can keep up with the younger generations of bands that have sprung up its wake. Smudgy makeup is the theme for the night, and if you’re not good at recreating the look, don’t worry: the band will surely have you in tears thinking about that toxic ex who left an indelible scar. $28-$103, 7:30 p.m., Vibes Event Center, 1223 E. Houston St., (210) 255-3833, facebook.com/ vibeseventcenter. — BE

Maná

Drawing on a sound that fused funk, pop, ska and even calypso, Maná became one of the biggest-selling rock bands to come out of Latin America during the ’90s and early 2000s. Its nine albums during that period moved more than 40 million copies. Little surprise then that the band had to add a second Alamo City date on its México Lindo y Querido Tour — which will return to the AT&T Center on Sept. 2. $79.50 and up, 8 p.m., AT&T Center, One AT&T Center Parkway, (210) 444-5000, attcenter.com. — MA

Sunday, April 2

Depeche Mode

vibe gives it the feeling of wistful Americana. $7-$10, 7:30 p.m., The Starlighter, 1910 Fredericksburg Road, thestarlighter.com. — DG

Wednesday, March 29

Exciter, Night Cobra, Sadistic Force, Tiny, Viole Pioneering Canadian speed metal act Exciter will tear through town for a night of metal madness. Think of fire-andbrimstone ’80s bands like Grim Reaper — but on steroids. If you decide to join in what’s bound to be a wild mosh pit, try not to knock down any of the older guys in the crowd. They might be pissed if you get their battle vests dirty. $20-$27, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com.

— Brianna Espinoza

Friday, March 31

beabadoobee

It would be a crime to underestimate Beatrice Kristi Laus based on her Instagram-born pseudonym beabadoobee. Her voice straddles so many styles, it’s almost impossible to categorize the 22-year-old Filipino British singer. Her sound encompasses anything from folk to indie rock to bossa nova soul. The daydream-inducing vocals on her track “Coffee” even got sampled by Canadian rapper Powfu, placing her in yet another genre. With a longing voice reminiscent of Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval or Morcheeba’s Skye Edwards, Expect beabadoobee — or Beatrice — to continue making a name for herself. $130 and up, 8 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — DC

Saturday, April 1

Hawthorne Heights, Armor for Sleep

Depeche Mode, arguably among the godfathers of synthpop, are returning to San Antonio for the first time since 2018. And so much has changed for the band in those five years. For one, the band got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but more shocking was the sudden death of keyboardist and founding member Andy Fletcher last May at age 60. Dave Gahan and Martin Gore pressed on with the development of Depeche Mode’s 15th studio release, Memento Mori, which dropped on March 24. Themes of death and loss are sure to hang heavy on the new tracks, but there will surely be moments of musical familiarity to get the crowd moving $170 and up, 7 p.m., AT&T Center, One AT&T Center Parkway, (210) 444-5000, attcenter.com. — DC

Eric Johnson

Exemplary guitarists are often recognizable by their tone alone. Perhaps one of the best examples is Austin guitar hero Eric Johnson, whose signature piece “Cliffs of Dover” is a masterclass in how to coax a warm and inviting sound from a stringed instrument. Since that song appeared on Johnson’s 1990 album Ah Via Musicom, he’s racked up a decades-long career producing accessible, blues-based rock and pop that highlights songwriting over six-string heroics. $25-$45, 8 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — Mike McMahan

Tuesday, April 4

Screaming Females, Generacion Suicida, Heavy Comforter

Screaming Females’ borderline-goofy name, gritty guitars and punkish vocals give the band something of a primitive feel, but there’s definitely craft lurking underneath all the madness. Marissa Paternoster’s forceful, almost crisp vocals and her tough guitar heroics are at the forefront of smartly written, expertly delivered hard-rock tunes. $18-$20, 7:30 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx. com. — BE

AG WIlson/Shutterstock

Hosting. We’re

Becton, Dickinson & Co. seeks a Technical Team Lead in San Antonio, TX to lead day-to-day activities required for the Technical Support Center (TSC) to handle customer issues properly. This includes both technical and communication skills, managing resources, distribution of workload, and growth and development of agents. Reqs. MS + 2 yrs. exp. To apply mail resume to Becton, Dickinson and Company, Attn: Cecilia Sam, 3750 Torrey View Ct., San Diego, CA 92130. Must reference Job Title & Job Code: 001047. EOE.

Roadway Design Engineer sought by Jacobs Engineering Group Inc, San Antonio, TX: Lead design teams. Perform preliminary and final design engineering. Send Resumes to Miriam Garcia at 818 Town And Country Blvd Ste 500, Houston, TX 77024. Refer to Job Code: 0123TJ.

Global Sr. Salesforce Administrator, 3M, San Antonio, TX. Collaborate w/ Product Owners, Bus. Analysts, Functional Leads, & Technical Leads to understand rqrmnts to author & dvlp quality solutions. Design scalable solutions to leverage functionality of Salesforce platform, incl. security models, custom object creation, automation leveraging flows & triggers. Provide technical end-user support for native Salesforce functionality as well as 3rd-party integrated apps & managed packages. Bach in Electrical Eng’g, Comp. Sci., CIS, or MIS req’d. Must have 3 yrs exp. in Salesforce administrator or functional role: (i) configuring Salesforce reports & dashboards & using workflows, validation rules, roles & profiles for either Sales Cloud, Health Cloud, or Exp. Cloud; (ii) conducting complex Salesforce deployments; and (iii) developing data mgmnt, reporting, & analytics through SOQL or Tableau. Of exp. req’d, must have 1 yr exp. utilizing & interpreting Apex code for solution dvlpmnt. Exp. may be gained concurrently. Must also possess Salesforce Administrator & Advanced Administrator certs. Position may be eligible for telecommuting within proximity of a major U.S. airport. Apply online: 3m.com/3M/en_US/careers-us/.