ROBBERY IN PROGRESS
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in this issue
08 Robbery in Progress
Texas GOP forges ahead on school vouchers as local districts su er from lack of state dollars Issue 25-03 /// February 5 - 18, 2025
07 News
The Opener News in Brief
Living on the Fringes
San Antonio’s most-recent Pointin-Time Count included visits to the city’s many homeless encampments
Bad Takes
Whether from right or left, militant protest deserves mercy, not mass incarceration
16 Calendar
Our picks of things to do
21 Arts
Making History
New Witte Museum CEO Michelle Cuellar Everidge wants to expand its appeal, celebrate 100 years of learning
23 Screens
Sisters in Arms Ariela and Libe Barer jump into cinematic trenches together for first time in Disfluency
25 Food Supper’s Slow Evolution
The seasonal approach to Hotel Emma’s main restaurant hasn’t yet made it worthy of destination dining
Rise and Shine
United We Brunch moves to Rock at La Cantera for ninth installment — and tickets are still available
29 Music
Stripping It Down
The Fixations’ three-chord rock anthems crackle with timeless attitude
Growing Reggae Roots
For San Antonio singer Sgt. Remo, island music is more than a form of entertainment
Critics’ Picks
On the Cover: The Republicancontrolled Texas Legislature is moving ahead with a voucher bill, even though public-school advocates warn the plan would drain education coffers. Cover design: David Loyola.
Sanford Nowlin
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That Rocks/That Sucks
HAt least six children under the age of 12 had to travel outside Texas to obtain abortions in 2023, the Express-News reported last week. The total number of children under 12 who received out-of-state abortions in that year is likely higher since only data from the first half of the year is currently available. Texas’ near-total abortion ban, which went into effect in 2022, makes no exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has agreed to purchase 2,000 acres of land on the Colorado River in Burnet County to create a new state park. The land, which the state is purchasing for $35 million, is located across from Colorado Bend State Park The development of the site will be financed with money from the $1 billion fund voters approved two years ago to create new state parks.
Many new Lone Star State mothers are unaware they qualify for a year of Medicaid coverage, doctors told the Texas Tribune last week. The Texas Legislature voted to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage to a full year in 2023, and while the number of pregnant and postpartum Texans enrolled in the program has nearly doubled since the pandemic to 265,000, some don’t know the coverage window was extended while others are struggling to receive services.
San Antonio advocacy nonprofit Close to Home landed a $22 million grant last week to support its work combating homelessness in Bexar County The grant, distributed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, represents a 25% increase in funding over what the organization received in 2023. The grant will fund a variety of housing and rehousing programs along with programs to support youth and veterans experiencing homelessness and more. — Abe Asher
YOU SAID IT!
“Trump
illegally fired 17 independent public servants whose job is to expose corruption. One was investigating Trump’s newest billionaire buddy, Elon Musk. Republican officials and billionaires are colluding to break the law and create the most corrupt administration in history.”
— U.S.Rep.GregCasarinaJan.31tweet.
Puckering up to the ass of the Great Orange Leader with U.S. Sen. John Cornyn
Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.
Back in 2008, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn tro ed out a campaign video featuring a rewri en version of the country classic “Big Bad John” playing over footage of the Texas Republican on horseback in a cowboy hat and a fringed jacket.
If the clip were to remake the clip this year, it would be hard to justify labeling the four-term Texas Republican as anything other than “Whimpering Whipped-Dog John.”
Although never one to make waves or express thoughts contrary to those of his deep-pocketed business donors, Cornyn has dragged himself into new lows of bootlicking subservience during the opening days of the second Trump administration.
After Don the Con pardoned 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants, Cornyn fell right in line when ABC News questioned him whether it was appropriate for the president to pardon rioters accused of physically assaulting police officers.
“That’s not the question,” came the senator’s meek and marble-mouthed reply. “The question is who has the authority, and the president has the authority.”
When queried about whether he’d support the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, despite a long and troubling history of spreading unfounded rumors about the dangers of vaccines, Cornyn again groveled before the Great Orange Leader.
“[Kennedy] told me he is not anti-vaccine,” Cornyn told Politico. “He is pro-vaccine safety, which strikes me as a rational position to take.”
Most recently, Cornyn — a member of the Senate Intelligence Commi ee — revealed that he’ll vote for Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick to serve as director of national intelligence. This despite Gabbard’s
San Antonio’s Ethics Review Board voted unanimously last week to sanction Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez over his a empt to block the construction of a big-rig dealership during a council meeting last October. McKee-Rodriguez will receive a le er of admonishment and a referral to ethics training but will keep his council seat. The ethics complaint was filed by Oscar A. Zepeda, a donor to Councilman Manny Pelaez, a Mc-Kee Rodriguez political rival and a current mayoral candidate.
Gov. Greg Abbo signed a series of executive orders last week directing Texas state agencies to cooperate with President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign and work with the federal
disastrous hearing before the commi ee, which left other GOP senators openly questioning why she should be trusted in the role.
“Having won the election decisively, I believe President Trump has earned the right to appoint his own Cabinet, absent extraordinary circumstances,” Cornyn said of Gabbard, again suggesting that whatever Big Boss Trump wants, Big Boss Trump shall get.
Cornyn is going into the new Trump term concerned that showing any hint of a backbone will result in the president targeting him in a primary when he runs again in 2026. And rumors are swirling that Texas A orney General Ken Paxton — one of Trump’s most unctuous allies — just might have his sights on Cornyn’s job.
However, before Cornyn slides himself too deep up Donnie Dumpshit’s bronzer-slathered backside, perhaps he should remember that his years of subservience to Mitch McConnell in hopes of succeeding the Kentuckian as Senate Majority Leader didn’t exactly pay off with a win.
Despite all of Cornyn’s assclown maneuvering, GOP senators voted in November to give that leadership position to Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. Even Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas’ other Republican senator, declined to support Cornyn in the first round of voting and later declined to say whether he’d back him in the runoff with Thune.
Once a doormat, always a doormat. — Sanford Nowlin
government to deploy more security infrastructure on the border with Mexico. Abbo also ordered the state’s criminal justice agency to identify land and facilities that could be used to hold migrants awaiting deportation.
San Antonio ISD last week informed parents it’s investigating allegations that a staffer at one of its schools voiced support for ICE raids online. The allegation concerns a comment made in response to a TikTok video featuring the ICE logo. The commenting user, who’s reportedly a pre-K teacher at Lorenzo de Zavala Elementary School, wrote “Come to San Antonio TX please.” There have been no reports to date of ICE conducting operations at area schools. — Abe Asher
Shutterstock / Christopher Halloran
Robbery in Progress
Texas GOP forges ahead on school vouchers as local districts suffer from lack of state dollars
BY MICHAEL KARLIS
San Antonio Independent School District, now grappling with a $50 million budget deficit, has closed campuses, struggled to keep schools heated during winter and is dealing with low teacher morale.
All those problems could get worse, education advocates warn, if Gov. Greg Abbo is able to ramrod a bill creating school vouchers though the Texas Legislature.
During his State of the State speech last Sunday, Abbo declared vouchers an emergency item, something Lt. Dan Patrick, who controls the agenda of the Texas Senate, said could enable the upper chamber to pass its version of a voucher bill in a ma er of days.
Former San Antonio mayor Ed Garza, a member of SAISD’s Board of Trustees, told the Current that the Republican-controlled legislature’s passage of vouchers is a ma er of “not if, but when.”
A bipartisan cohort of pro-public education lawmakers, including San Antonio GOP Rep. Steve Allison, killed Abbo ’s previous voucher bill in the 2023 legislative session, warning it would rob the state’s public education coffers to give the rich a break on the bills for their kids’ private school tuitions.
Abbo spent the past election cycle backing primary challenges to members of his own party who dared to stand against vouchers. As a result, Allison lost his seat representing Texas’ 121st District to criminal defense a orney Marc LaHood, an Abbo ally.
Although Patrick is convinced this session’s voucher bill will pass the Texas Senate, it still must clear the House. Lawmakers from both sides of the lower chamber’s aisle continue to question the merits of vouchers, which many education experts have denounced as having disastrous results in other states.
MLamar Elementary School was one of 15 campuses San Antonio ISD closed amid budget concerns.
State Rep. Diego Bernal, a Democrat who represents downtown San Antonio and the inner North Side, said he and other voucher opponents aren’t going down without a fight.
“To say, ‘Here’s tax dollars to go somewhere where not every kid can get in, not every kid can afford it, it’s not even geographically available to everybody, and you don’t have to take the [the state’s standardized achievement tests]?’ It’s a fucking scam,” Bernal said.
Already underfunded
During a cold spell earlier this month, SAISD was forced to shift students between buildings because some classrooms couldn’t be heated beyond 50 degrees, according to media reports.
The incident came roughly a year after the district was forced to close all of its schools for two days due to HVAC issues. An audit of its heating and cooling systems published in May reported that it would have cost the district more $500 million to get the aging equipment up to par.
The deferred maintenance comes down to a lack of funding, SAISD trustee Garza said. Like many serving the inner city, the district faces declining enrollment, which led to a controversial decision to close 15 SAISD campuses last year.
Falling birthrates, the rise of charter schools and a lack of affordable housing within the district have left SAISD underfunded and on the ropes.
“You start to add all those up together, and that’s when you start seeing the impact it has, especially when you’re talking about older districts that had built schools for 80,000 students, and now you’re serving 40,000 students,” Garza said.
The state hasn’t been much help either. Due to its falling enrollment, SAISD is
projected to receive $36,533 in total daily funding this fiscal year — about $1,600 less than last year’s budget. And it isn’t the only Texas district watching its funding drain away.
The Lone Star State only spends $10,387 per public school pupil, ranking it 41st in the nation on that metric. The current funding level also amounts to a 12.9% decline when adjusted for inflation for the past decade, according to a study from the Texas American Federation for Teachers.
San Antonio State Rep. Bernal told the Current the state’s per-pupil expenditure also doesn’t explain the whole story.
“That figure should really be broken down into the classroom spending,” he said. ”Classroom spending is different than paying for busing or school lunch and school breakfast. That’s the number that people push, but even less [of the total] is being spent in the classroom.”
And the number will drop sharply if vouchers pass this legislative session, Bernal warns.
Sanford Nowlin
NOTICE OF PROPOSED ACTION ON APPLICATION FOR CONVERSION OF BASE IRRIGATION
GROUNDWATER TO UNRESTRICTED IRRIGATION GROUNDWATER
The General Manager of the Edwards Aquifer Authority (“EAA”) proposes to grant applications to convert Base Irrigation Groundwater to Unrestricted Irrigation Groundwater under § 711.342(c) of the EAA’s Rules. A copy of the applications, the technical summaries, the General Manager’s proposed actions, and the proposed amended regular permits are available for public inspection at the EAA’s offices at 900 E. Quincy Street, San Antonio, Texas Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Electronic copies may also be obtained by request to Jennifer Wong-Esparza at jesparza@edwardsaquifer.org or (210) 2222204.
The General Manager proposes to approve the following applications to convert Base Irrigation Groundwater to Unrestricted Irrigation Groundwater under § 711.342(c) of the EAA’s Rules:
Lennar Homes of Texas Land and Construction, Ltd. – Filed application on February 26, 2024. The application seeks to convert 39.970 acre-feet of Base Irrigation Groundwater to Unrestricted Irrigation Groundwater based on the development of the Historically Irrigated Land (HIL).
The applicants or any other Edwards Aquifer permit holder may file a written request for a contested case hearing on the proposed action with the EAA by no later than Monday, March 10, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. in accordance with § 707.603 of the EAA’s Rules. The EAA’s Board of Directors will consider approval of the applications and issuance of the proposed amended regular permits within 60 days of publication of this notice unless a request for contested case hearing is timely filed. If no timely requests for contested case hearing are filed, the applications will be presented to the EAA’s Board on the date of the hearing for final action.
This notice is issued pursuant to § 707.525 of the EAA’s Rules.
ISSUED THIS 5th DAY OF FEBRUARY 2025
Swindle in progress
Although Abbo and Patrick appear convinced of a voucher victory this session, observers said a bill’s fortune in the House is far from guaranteed.
The legislation voucher proponents are hanging their hopes on is Senate Bill 2, authored by Republican State Sen. Brandon Creighton of Conroe. That proposal would give families a $10,000 tax-funded voucher to pay for private school. The amount would rise to $11,500 for students with disabilities, and those who homeschool their children would be eligible for $2,000.
However, the bill leaves out additional funding for public schools that will see enrollment declines as more parents shift their kids to private campuses.
“What’s been communicated to me from the lieutenant governor’s and governor’s offices is that there will not be any school-finance improvements for districts like SAISD unless they are in conjunction with, or on a parallel track with, a voucher bill,” Bernal said.
While Abbo has suggested in public comments that he’s eliminated enough voucher skeptics in his own party to ensure a bill’s passage, Bernal said he may be misreading the room. Even after the governor’s purge, some rural Republican lawmakers remain opposed to vouchers, cautioning that they’ll ruin already underfunded small-town public school systems.
Bernal, a graduate of San Antonio’s Thomas Jefferson High School whose own kids a end SAISD, sees vouchers as welfare for the urban elite.
“There’s no requirement that these schools that accept vouchers educate students with special needs, no requirement that they don’t curate the student body and they don’t have to take the STAAR,” Bernal said, referring to the state’s
Mstandardized tests that assess students’ achievements and knowledge.
Bernal said his biggest concern with Abbo ’s voucher plan is that includes no oversight for new private schools that pop up.
“I think you will see a new co age industry of private schools designed to take that voucher with no accountability, no standards, no oversight, no testing, no accessibility to students with different needs or backgrounds,” he said.
While San Antonio is a large city, it’s made up of many small districts. That means they’re especially vulnerable to the funding shortfalls a voucher program would bring on, Bernal said.
“There is not another major city in the country that has the jigsaw, redline-following district lines that San Antonio does,” Bernal said. “It’s not [the districts’] fault, but the state has failed to engage the districts, and the funding mechanisms are exacerbated by the unnecessarily large number of districts we have.”
Alejandra Lopez, the president of the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel., said it’s more important than ever for educators and parents to call their lawmakers and demand more public school funding and teacher pay be included in whatever voucher legislation the legislature passes.
She said the Republicans’ full-court press for vouchers amid a public education funding crisis is an insult to teachers and parents alike.
“It really is a slap in the face for everyone who works in public schools and cares about public education,” she said.
Facebook Diego Bernal
State Rep. Diego Bernal poses with his daughter at the Texas Capitol.
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Living on the Fringes
San Antonio’s mostrecent Point-in-Time Count included visits to the city’s many homeless encampments
BY STEPHANIE KOITHAN
Volunteers in fluorescent green vests crawled down steep, rain-slicked embankments in Southeast San Antonio just before sunrise.
Their flashlights were trained on a man at the bo om of the drainage culvert who pushed a torrent of water around with a broom.
The long stretch of ditch parallel to Commercial Avenue between I-37 and Southwest Military Drive cut through a quasi-suburban neighborhood well away from the city center.
The volunteers climbed, crab-walked and slipped down the slick embankment on Wednesday, Jan. 22, to count the homeless camps spread throughout the city. The effort was part of the annual census of San Antonio’s unhoused population, called the Pointin-Time Count.
The 36-year-old man fighting the quixotic ba le against the never-ending stream of rainwater was named Efrain, and he was happy to pause his work and answer the volunteers’ questions.
They were conducting the survey to collect data that informs both local and national homelessness statistics, helping the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) identify trends in the transient community.
The morning’s encampment data would eventually be combined with numbers collected during the previous night’s canvassing of unhoused residents on the streets, as well as shelter totals.
Together, the totals help pull together the closest thing to an accurate annual snapshot of homelessness, both locally and nationally.
Other members of Efrain’s encampment — a barefoot woman rocking
back and forth in a lawn chair and a crouched man eating a piece of stale bread and smoking a cigare e — were also amenable to answering the group’s questions.
Under the bridge, wooden pallets provided a platform that raised makeshift dwellings — an assemblage of blankets and tarps — out of the water. More than anything, these walled enclosures appeared to create the illusion of privacy in a public space.
Sweeping the problem under the rug
However meager, many of the belongings that make up such camps end up discarded during city-run abatements — or “sweeps” — which take place five to six times daily in San Antonio, according to officials at the city’s Department of Human Services. The abatements break up camps of homeless residents, often without moving them to an established shelter.
While the abatements were temporarily paused to conduct the Pointin-Time Count and as recent freezes
gripped the area, they were expected to resume shortly after.
The city’s 2025 fiscal budget sets aside funding for 1,300 encampment abatements this year, nearly double its goal of 700 the previous year. However, the city’s interactive dashboard shows it far surpassed last year’s objective, carrying out 1,152 abatements.
The sweeps — jointly conducted by the San Antonio Police Department and Solid Waste Management — displace people like Efrain, whom advocates say are often forced to discard their possessions when they’re moved along. With city shelters overrun and limited permanent solutions and affordable housing available, those caught up in the sweeps often just establish another encampment.
“There’s a degree to which it’s a bo om-up policy,” said volunteer Greg Zlotnick, suggesting the city is responding to public pressure to ramp up the sweeps. “It’s human nature to not want to see what they view in their minds as disorder.”
Zlotnick said displacing people
without housing them doesn’t solve the problem. However, there seems to be a public disagreement about what the problem actually is.
“For some, the mere sight of people living outside is the whole problem,” he added.
Before moving on during last Wednesday’s count, the team handed Efrain and members of his encampment necessary items such as hygiene products and gloves.
Would these end up thrown out too in the next sweep?
Life on the edge
On the edge of the culvert, behind a Family Dollar, a man and a woman huddled inside a tent. The man politely answered the volunteers’ questions through the tent flap while the woman coughed profusely inside.
The man told volunteers he has Medicaid but the pain in his hands prevents him from pushing a broom like he once did to earn money.
“What would help you find stabili-
Stephanie Koithan
ty?” Zlotnick asked, posing a question from the survey app on his phone.
“A job,” the man replied simply.
By day, Zlotnick is a law professor specializing in eviction protections. He’s also a board member of Close to Home, the continuum of care organization that conducts the PIT Count. He wants to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place.
Earlier in January, Close to Home was awarded a $22 million federal grant that includes funds earmarked for initiatives such as housing first programs. Housing first initiatives eliminate barriers to entry for those who need to find permanent housing.
An emphasis on housing first is one of the reasons Houston is beating San Antonio when comes to addressing homelessness, even though the East Texas metro is three times our size, according to Zlotnick.
Recent numbers placed San Antonio at No. 2 in state for the size of its homeless population behind Dallas. The New York Times and other media outlets have held up Houston as a national model for working to solve homelessness.
Zlotnick was joined in the early morning count by Zebediah Micah Amparan, a towering man resembling a Viking who works as a case manager for HUD-VASH, Veterans Affairs’ supportive housing program. Marsha Perez — an employee at the Endeavors Supportive Services for Veterans Program, rounded out the crew. She had also participated in the previous evening’s street count.
In the misty morning, the team moved on to yet another bridge in the cement ravine, where a fire glowed from inside a tent. A loaded shopping cart was parked next to the structure.
The sides of the tent had been we ed down to prevent it from catching fire, SAPD escort Officer Victor Moreno told the volunteers. Moreno, who’s been on the force for 25 years, much of it patrolling this particular area, knows many of the ditch-dwelling folk by name.
Two women emerged from the tent. One of them, sporting a Nike hat and throat ta oos, said she’d been homeless for six years.
Before ending up homeless, she’d done fracking work in West Texas and had her own vehicle and place. Like the man in the orange tent, all it took was one debilitating medical emergency to put her on the street.
“I had to take medical leave because I
fractured my back,” she said.
Harsh Conditions
While the two women politely answered the survey questions, a man in a Punisher T-shirt a empted to push the never-ending stream of rainwater out
of the tent. The water flowing into their shared dwelling brought floating trash with it.
The man didn’t have a broom, so he’d stuck a piece of cardboard through the tines of a rake. Working with the makeshift tool ultimately turned out to be another exercise in futility. Water
was going to flow through the tent as long as the rain persisted.
Right before January 2024’s PIT Count, rains were so intense that they reportedly swept away five unhoused people who dwelled in drainage tunnels. A separate incident in November of that year also swept away two people camped in the tunnels.
Last year, a record-breaking 364 people died in San Antonio, according to SAMM Ministries — an average of a death per day. Many met their end due to harsh weather conditions.
After fighting his losing ba le against the rainwater, the man in the Punisher shirt retreated to shelter inside a fortress of cardboard, which seemed like a living room for the encampment, and answered the volunteers’ questions.
What did he need right now, they asked. He responded not with what he needed but what the people he looked out for needed, which was winter clothing.
“They’re going to end up dying out here, because it’s the worst time of year,” he said. “They’e going to die.”
Stephanie Koithan
Stephanie Koithan
Whether from right or left, militant protest deserves mercy, not mass incarceration
BY KEVIN SANCHEZ
Bad Takes is a column of opinion and analysis.
Afew short years after the U.S. won independence from the British Empire, a violent anti-government protest erupted in Massachuse s, the very state that had set the tone for the revolution.
Some 4,000 newly minted Americans, mostly veterans and farmers, took up arms as coastal elites began repossessing their land in payment of debts. Four insurrectionists were killed during a confrontation with the state militia on January 25, 1787, and Shays’ Rebellion was summarily put down.
“Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem,” Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison five days later. Translation: “I prefer dangerous freedom to peaceful servitude.”
“I hold it that a li le rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical,” Jefferson reasoned. “An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much.”
Passing months didn’t temper his apologetics. In a le er to John Adams’ son-in-law that November, Jefferson defended the honor of the uprising as “founded in ignorance, not wickedness. ... The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.”
Instead he proposed, “The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. ”The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
Let’s honestly acknowledge that Jefferson’s stance here is radical, even by today’s standards. Few would agree
that a bloody insurrection every couple decades is a sign of a healthy democracy. One wonders if Jefferson would have held onto this belief had he witnessed the hundreds of thousands killed in the Civil War, which finally ended the institution of slavery he chose to practice until his dying day.
Within hours of assuming his second term in office, President Donald Trump issued a “complete and unconditional pardon to all individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.” The pardon covered 1,500 people, some serving lengthy sentences for seditious conspiracy. The rabble included at least two San Antonians, one accused of yelling “Kill ‘em” as rioters a acked Capitol police.
Neither Gov. Greg Abbo , Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick nor A orney General Ken Paxton responded to the Current’s inquiry last month about whether they supported Trump’s blanket clemency.
Sen. Ted Cruz initially called Jan. 6 “a violent terrorist a ack.” He repeated appraisals like these for a year, before flip-flopping to jibe with a run for the GOP nomination. Nevertheless, he persisted in drawing the red line that “anyone who violently assaults a police officer should go to jail for a very long time.”
“Daniel Rodriguez used an electro-shock weapon against a policeman who was dragged out of the defensive line by plunging it into the officer’s neck. He was in prison, sentenced to 12 years, 7 months. He got a pardon,” CBS News reporter Margaret Brennan recounted to Vice President JD Vance in his first post-election interview.
“Ronald McAbee hit a cop while wearing reinforced brass knuckle gloves, and he held one down on the ground as other rioters assailed the officer for over 20 seconds, causing a concussion. If you stand with law enforcement, how can you call these people unjustly imprisoned?” she asked.
“We’re not saying that everybody did everything perfectly,” the Veep replied.
“It’s just very funny,” Canadian journalist Aaron Maté explained on the Useful Idiots podcast, “because these same people campaigned against the Black Lives Ma er protests and were angry that there weren’t more people arrested for that.”
After all, “more than 10,000 protesters were arrested in just the first 10 days after George Floyd’s death on May 25,” 2020, according to the Associated Press. Among them were hundreds of journalists jailed or assaulted by riot cops, according to the Commi ee to Protect Journalists.
Yet, in the aftermath, “more than 120 defendants were convicted at trial of federal crimes including rioting, arson and conspiracy,” the AP reports. Those sentenced so far got an average sentence of “about 27 months behind bars,” and at least 10 received five years or more.
Where are their pardons? The state of Texas would not even grant a posthumous pardon to George Floyd for a 2004 drug arrest.
And while ICE started rounding up undocumented migrants with rap sheets, NPR identified dozens of Jan. 6 defendants with prior convictions for crimes including narcotics trafficking, child sex abuse and domestic violence.
The lesson in moral consistency appears to be, when you agree with a cause, those thrown in prison for it are heroic martyrs facing down the weaponization of justice. But when you disagree with a cause, those thrown in prison for it are terrorists ge ing their just deserts. It
seems unlikely conservatives will scrape either the “Trump 2024” or the “Back the Blue” stickers off their bumpers in the wake of the president’s pardon.
The hypocrisy has been bipartisan, however.
“As progressives, I thought we’re not supposed to be big fans of the carceral state,” Canadian journalist Maté even-handedly added to his criticism. He expressed confidence that “there are people who were freed from prison who didn’t deserve to be there, who were there simply for trespassing on Jan. 6, which I don’t think should land you in prison for this long length of time.”
How did supposed critics of mass incarceration — liberals who ever-so-briefly marched alongside prison abolitionists — come to desire nothing more magnanimous than to lock their political opponents up and throw away the key?
Pamela Hemphill, also known as the “MAGA Granny,” served three months for her participation in Jan. 6. Following Jefferson, we might say, at least she was civically engaged. Even so, she adamantly refused Trump’s pardon.
“I pleaded guilty because I was guilty,” she told the British Broadcasting Corporation. “Accepting a pardon would only insult the Capitol police officers, rule of law and, of course, our nation. We were wrong that day.”
We ought to commend integrity like that as we head into the fascist-y maelstrom of a second Trump presidency, lest we forget the principles for which we stand.
Shutterstock / Sebastian Portillo
FRI | 02.07 - FRI | 03.02
THEATER
9 TO 5: THE MUSICAL
Based on the 1980 hit film starring Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton and Dabney Coleman, 9 to 5: The Musical is a timeless tale of inequity with a twist. A hilarious take on gender bias and discrimination, the slippery balance of power in the workplace gets pushed beyond the point of no return. Three unlikely coworkers unite after finding themselves in an untenable situation: do they continue to hold their sexist, deceitful, duplicitous, bigot of a boss hostage or go to straight to jail? $18-$32, 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays, Wonder Theatre, 4522 Fredericksburg Road, Suite A-90, (210) 267-8388, wondertheatre.org. — Anjali Gupta
THU | 02.06 - THU | 02.20
CUERPO
GUILLERMINA ZABALA
Before Europeans colonized the South Texas region, the Payaya people, a Coahuiltecan group of Native Americans, lived in the valley around the San Antonio River Valley, or the Yanaguana River, as they referred to it. Ahāuh, which means "body" in Coahuiltecan, is a dynamic exhibition by San Antonio artist Guillermina Zabala of linocut prints, mixed media photography and digital video that reflects on womanhood, aging and identity. Also accompanying the exhibition, from 7-10 p.m. Friday, Feb. 7, Destiny Hernandez will perform a traditional Coahuiltecan fancy shawl dance meant to reflect the flow of the river. Un Grito Gallery Upstairs Studios at Blue Star, 1420 S. Alamo St., instagram.com/ungritogallery. — Neil Fauerso
Courtesy Image Wonder Theatre
Courtesy Photo Un Grito Gallery
In 2015, UNESCO designated San Antonio’s five Spanish missions as a World Heritage site, enshrining them as places with outstanding, universal value to human history and culture. Ten years later, the city of San Antonio will cement the historic structures’ legacy with the opening of a dedicated visitor center and community event space in a lavishly designed $9 million building just a stone’s throw away from Mission Marquee Plaza. Exhibits inside the building, developed by the Wi e Museum with community input, will tell the story of the area’s Indigenous residents and their forced conversion and rese lement by Spanish colonizers, along with the rich blended cultural and design legacy of the missions and the enduring significance they hold for the city today. Guests at the grand opening can expect a ribbon-cu ing, performances, a reception, a legacy gift dedication to celebrate the tricentennial of the missions’ founding and ample opportunities to wander through the space, which also includes locally produced artwork and video testimonials from mission descendants. Mayor Ron Nirenberg and District 3 Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran are also expected to speak. Free, 10 a.m.-noon, World Heritage Center, 3106 Roosevelt Ave., (210) 207-2111, sanantonio.gov/worldheritage. — Dean Zach
TUE | 02.11
SPECIAL EVENT
WORTH REPEATING: LEASHED
Texas Public Radio’s live storytelling event series Worth Repeating gives people seven minutes to tell a great story onstage, often to sold-out crowds. This month’s installment, the provocatively titled Leashed, covers topics as far flung as pets, bondage and helicopter relationships — things we hold close to us, in one way or another. This season is made possible by the 80/20 Foundation, San Antonio’s Department of Arts and Culture and the Lifshutz Foundation. $10, 7:30 p.m., Malú and Carlos Alvarez Theater, 321 W. Commerce St., (210) 614-8977, tpr.org. — AG
| 02.10
The Parman Library’s Indecisive Book Club is a fun and engaging community read- along project that chooses books from wildly different genres and styles. This month’s pick is a recent bestseller in the Nordic Noir genre: Reykjavik, co-wri en by Ragnar Jonasson and Katrin Jakobsdo ir, the Prime Minister Of Iceland. Reykjavik concerns an unresolved missing person case during the Iceland’s 200th anniversary celebration. Expect brooding landscapes, dark pasts and eagle-eyed journalists determined to solve the mystery. Fans of Stieg Larsson’s Girl Withthe Dragon Ta oo books may want to join along in exploring the book. Free, 6:30 p.m., Parman Library at Stone Oak, 20735 Wilderness Oak, (210) 207-2703, mysapl.org. — NF
Unsplash Nish Gupta
Courtesy Photo World Heritage Center
FRI | 02.14
VISUAL ART
ROMANCE & RUIN: VALENTINE’S DAY TOURS AT SAMA
THU | 02.13
COMMUNITY EVENT
NEWLYWED BLOCK PARTY AND VALENTINE’S DAY MIDNIGHT WEDDINGS
Join Main Plaza Conservancy, Bexar County and SA Local Market for their groups’ annual Newlywed Block Party. This late-night event is a celebration in anticipation of the midnight Valentine’s Day group weddings that occur on the Bexar County Courthouse steps. The Honorable Lucy Adame-Clark performs the ceremony for dozens of couples as well-wishers congratulate them on their vows. The Newlywed Block Party includes a late-night market featuring arts, crafts, keepsakes and food along with DJs, live entertainment and giveaways donated by downtown San Antonio businesses. Those interested in taking part in the midnight weddings should connect with the County Clerk’s o ce ahead of time. Registration must be done in advance. Free 10 p.m., Main Plaza, (210) 225-9800, mainplaza.org. — AG
Tired of the usual pre-fixe dinner for a Valentine’s Day celebration? Try one of San Antonio Museum of Art’s inventive Valentine’s Day tours instead. The Romance tour will cover the love stories behind some of the museum’s most beguiling works, while the Ruin tour will look at works with salacious and tragic backstories of love gone wrong. Afterwards, a endees will enjoy complimentary wine and make a keepsake sacred heart to take home. $30-$35, 5:30 p.m., 200 W. Jones Ave., (210) 978-8100, samuseum.org. — NF
Bexar County Clerk’s O ce
Courtesy Photo Kyle Kinane
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Making History
New Witte Museum CEO Michelle
Cuellar Everidge wants to expand its appeal, celebrate 100 years of learning
BY SANFORD NOWLIN
The Wi e Museum’s new CEO, Michelle Cuellar Everidge, comes on as the institution prepares to celebrate its 100th birthday in 2026.
Everidge, who’s been with the Wi e for the past 15 years, stepped into the role Feb. 1, succeeding Dirk Elmendorf. Elmendorf served as transitional leader following the departure of Marise McDermo , who stepped aside at the end of 2023 after 20 years in the museum’s top position.
Everidge, who previously served as the Wi e’s deputy director, grew up in San Antonio and credits her childhood visits to the museum for a lifelong love of history.
After starting at the Wi e as a grant writer, she moved on to positions in fundraising, finance, curation, collections and more. She spearheaded projects including the acclaimed “Black Cowboys: An American Story” exhibition and the museum’s 2024 Conference on Texas, which examined the history of slavery in the Lone Star State.
We caught up with Everidge to talk about the museum’s centennial celebration, the changes she’d like to bring as CEO and an endowment she plans to spearhead to keep the institution funded well into the future.
Under your leadership, the Witte will be launching a major endowment initiative that will shape its future for generations to come. What will that entail?
Well, we are gearing up for that at this point. So, we’re turning a hundred in 2026, and as a part of that, we’ll have a full year of celebrations, including a big birthday bash. We’ll have exhibitions and programming and an endowment campaign that will launch in 2026. So, we are sort of assembling the building blocks for it now, but we’re very excited to be able to have that kind of foundational support for the museum.
Has there ever been an endowment to support the Witte before?
We currently have one, but it’s small. And so as a part of our plans for a long, sustainable future, that’s something that we’ve always wanted to build. And we’ve built this beautiful new Wi e Museum, so now it’s time to start that process.
How much larger would the new endowment be than the one that supports the museum right now?
Well, I think I should probably save some of this endowment conversation for a later date, because we really are in the quiet phase right now as we are
sort of gearing up for it. … We will probably be able to communicate more to you about what that’s going to look like within the next year, but it’s not really shaped up at this point.
Could you talk a little bit about the exhibitions and content that people are going to see during the centennial year?
Absolutely. We’re planning for that centennial year now. We only turn 100 once, so we’ve got a lot of work to do to make sure that we are celebrating in a way that really honors the museum and that 100 years of history here in San Antonio.
We are going to be working with the community this year to help develop some of those exhibitions. And many of them will feature our collection and tell the history of the Wi e Museum. Some will feature new discoveries and the scientific progress that we’re making, especially in the fields of paleontology and geology.
And then we will have a big exhibition in the Gunn Gallery that will be focused on food and culture here in San Antonio and throughout Texas. That will be immersive. It will have interactive activities and it also will include elements from the Wi e’s collection, which is really strong in the everyday artifacts that were used by Texans for many generations.
You grew up going to the Witte and enjoying it as a child. What perspective does that bring to your leadership at the museum?
I grew up here in San Antonio and came to the Wi e many times. … It helped me to fall in love with museums as spaces for discovery and spaces to explore. And that’s really what I love most about the Wi e now.
I think the Wi e at its best is full of visitors and children, and it’s a loud museum, and it’s a place where you can really get hands-on and experience — things that you may not have other opportunities to experience. You can see artifacts and prima-
ry-source evidence of life millions of years ago that you wouldn’t have another opportunity to see. So, that sort of magic of museums has always stuck with me since my childhood coming to the Wi e.
And that’s something that I — in my tenure as a leader of the museum — will strive to continue for the children … that magic of discovery that really stays with you.
Really, that’s what keeps children and visitors of all ages interested in learning more. So, it’s a way of transforming their thinking about the things that they’re interested in, the things that they really want to keep pursuing. It’s these inspiring moments that you can have here at the museum, at the Wi e.
Yeah, it sounds like you’re saying that you’d like to see the Witte get even louder and even more hands-on.
That’s right. We love when the museum is alive with people. And I think that’s definitely something we’d like to pursue more in the future, having the museum filled with children and filled with people.
As you come into this leadership role, are there areas you think the museum could improve?
Well, I would hope that people have felt engaged with the museum, but I think we have some growing to do to make sure that everybody really feels welcome and that they feel represented in the galleries.
So, one of the things that we’ll be working on through this year in preparation for 2026 is thinking about how we can get that feedback from our community. People who visit all the time and are members and the people that are here, we know how to reach. But there’s a whole other part of San Antonio that doesn’t come to the museum. And so we’d love to find ways to reach out to them, see how we can serve them as part of our community and make sure that everybody feels welcome to be here.
Courtesy Photo The Witte Museum
Sisters in Arms
Ariela and Libe Barer jump into cinematic trenches together for first time in Disfluency
BY KIKO MARTINEZ
Actress Ariela Barer remembers fighting with older sister and fellow actress Libe when she was a li le girl.
They were separated by seven years, agewise, and their conflict seemed like something all siblings go through when they’re children.
“We were not friends growing up,” Libe Barer, 33, told the Current during a recent interview.
Despite the tension, the sisters have a few happy memories that have stayed with them over the years, such as the time Libe prepared a spa day for her sister, which included cucumbers for her eyes and a macaroni and cheese meal.
“It was the best thing in the world,” said Ariela, 26. “I remember I wanted to do a spa day for her too, but I didn’t know how to make mac and cheese yet. I really thought you had to end the spa day with mac and cheese!”
The Barer sisters are now looking forward to making new memories together in Hollywood. For the first time in their professional careers, they share the screen with one another in Disfluency.
In the film, Libe plays Jane, a young woman who moves back home after failing her college finals. There, she reconnects with her sister
Lacey (Ariela) who’s worried about her. Lacey doesn’t know that Libe is struggling with trauma she experienced at school.
During our interview, Libe and Ariela discussed their experience working together for the first time and shared more fond childhood memories.
Disfluency is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
Ariela, you’re younger than Libe, but in Disfluency, you play her older sister. What was it like to switch roles?
Ariela Barer: It was difficult swapping ages. I think I have such li le-sister energy. I think older sisters are God’s strongest soldiers. I would not be the person I am today without Libe being my older sister, telling me what to do and pu ing me in my place. So, having to channel the reverse was a challenge.
Libe Barer: Maybe everyone should do it as an experiment, pretend you’re an older sister with your sibling. It does create a different level of compassion and understanding. I feel like I opened myself up to Ariela.
Libe, do you remember what it was like when your parents came home with baby Ariela?
LB: It’s interesting to live your first years as an only child, and then a sibling comes along. We mess with each other, but … as we’ve gotten older, we struck a genuine friendship.
AB: Before you went off to college, you took me to a movie at the silent movie theater in LA, and that was the first time we ever really hung out. We came together a lot more once we moved out of the house and had to make the active choice to remain friends.
Who started acting first?
LB: We both did children’s theater. I guess I did it first because I’m older, but we both started doing it professionally around the same time.
AB: That’s not true. I remember because you signed with a manager who met with both of us. She asked me to read a commercial script for Jell-O. Instead of reading it, I went on a tangent about how Jell-O is made out of horses. She was like, “You’re not ready.”
LB: I think she signed you a year later. It’s been a gift that we’ve been doing the same things at the same time. As kids, we were doing it in different worlds. It didn’t feel like we were in the trenches together. As we got older, we started having similar experiences.
What are some of your earliest movie memories?
AB: We had very different but intense relationships with Disney princesses. [Libe was] an Ariel (TheLi leMermaid) girl, and I was Snow White.
LB: No, I was Snow White!
AB: I mean, I guess we both were. I just remember there’s a video of me standing in front of the TV watching Snow White and singing, “I’m wishing. I’m wishing.”
LB: (Laughs.) I do remember that!
AB: You made very creative Ariel costumes.
LB: That’s true. I would tie a T-shirt on my head and pretend it was my hair.
Libe, how did you confront the darker elements of Disfluency?
LB: I really wanted to do service to it. I wanted to make sure that I was holding the weight of this thing. I really felt like I went through something making this movie in a way that was pre y profound. For such a heavy subject ma er, it was a really amazing experience.
Ariela, would you like to star in another movie with Libe?
AB: I’d be so happy to keep … working together in different capacities — Libe directing and writing, and me producing or casting each other in projects. I want to keep working with Libe forever!
Find more fi lm stories at sacurrent.com
Bu alo 8 Distribution
Supper’s Slow Evolution
The seasonal approach to Hotel Emma’s main restaurant hasn’t yet made it worthy of destination dining
BY RON BECHTOL
The kitchen at Hotel Emma’s Supper has long been dependable but rarely exciting.
Understandably, last October’s announcement that the two-Michelin Key-rated. hotel had hired Geronimo Lopez, formerly of nearby fusion hotspot Botika, to helm its food operations sparked hope change might be in the works.
Supper touted a “seasonally driven” and “mindfully sourced” approach under the new leadership, bolstered by a farm-to-table ethic in which “every dish celebrated the best of our state’s bounty.” Lopez himself has expressed interest in returning to classics and “oldschool cooking.”
The twain can certainly meet, but the proof is in the pudding — or perhaps the plate of truffled riso o.
Though there was an effort by a French enterprise years ago to make the Hill Country into a truffle-producing paradise, I don’t know of any current cultivation. Supper’s truffled riso o served during Culinaria’s Restaurant Weeks did boast “wild local mushrooms,” and there’s at least one source in Elmendorf for exotic and wild-foraged varieties. The riso o came with a sliced duck breast, and yes, ducks can be found live in San Antonio.
But those sourcing details don’t ma er to most diners. The prime question for most is: Does it taste good? In this case, the answer is yes.
The same goes for the single-bone pork chop on Supper’s Culinaria menu. There are dedicated hog farmers within spi in’ distance of San Antonio, and I hope the pork came from one of them. Served with an apple-andpear “succotash,” the chop stopped just short of succulence, but the regular menu offers a double-bone chop, and I suspect that’s a more rewarding cut.
I returned on another night to the plumb regular menu for signs of evolution. Eschewing steaks, I se led on two dishes of French origin. The Market Soup is said to utilize “local ingredients and seasonal produce” — a farmto-table motherlode. That evening’s soup was billed as “cassoulet.”
Classic cassoulet is a hearty, seasonal dish from Southwestern France. One that takes time and effort to prepare. Pork, sausage, white beans and a confit of duck or goose among the major ingredients. Once assembled, it’s baked
until a dark crust develops. The dish’s texture may vary, but soup it’s not. Supper’s soupy rendition did feature white beans, chewy lardons and sausage, and it substituted lamb — maybe Texan? — for the poultry.
Was it good? Mostly. But classic cassoulet? No.
A ballotine was one of the first fancy French dishes I learned to make from an early Julia Child cookbook. The recipe starts with the deboning of a small turkey or large chicken. The cook is then require to spread on a stuffing, sew up the carcass, tie it with twine and roast it. Usually served sliced and still hot, it can also be chilled. Either way, it’s a showstopper.
Supper offers a petite chicken ballotine but apparently debones only a leg or a leg and thigh. The restaurant’s version also omits the obligatory stuffing.
Again, was it a good dish regardless of expectations or sourcing? Sure, though hardly exciting. And barely a ballotine.
I was told there’s a new pastry chef at Supper, and apparently he’s finding it easier to experiment than the kitchen as a whole. Supper’s take on a classic crème brulée added
SUPPER AT HOTEL EMMA
a shortbread-like disc, a berry compote and a pillowy quenelle. It all sounds excessive but eats just right.
The bar at Supper has been inventive all along, and the Earl is a good example. Built on Earl Grey infused gin, it layers on bergamot liqueur, crème de cacao and more for a subtle but beautifully balanced drink. Using Austin-based bourbon, the mellow, barrel-aged Manha an is about as Texan as a Manhattanite can get.
There’s also a new wine guy at Supper. Many local winos will recognize Sco Ota from High Street and other venues. His mandate, he explained, is centered on the mindful and ethical sourcing of wines from around the globe. He reckons it will take two years to complete his makeover of the restaurant’s wine program. Let’s hope a couple Texas wines sneak in.
As admirable as Supper’s goal of mixing Texas-sourced ingredients with classic dishes sounds, it’s a necessary but not sufficient part of the equation, as a physics professor once said. Perhaps the entire team pulling together can solve that equation in favor of fun. And in less than two years.
136 E. Grayson St., (210) 448-8351, supper@emma.com
Hours: 7 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 7 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday Dinner prices: $12-$95
The lowdown: Supper serves all day long, but it’s the dinner menu that provides a bellwether for the kitchen’s prowess. Despite a new executive chef, progress has been slow in turning a menu of Texas-sourced products into one worthy of destination dining. But there are signs of hope. Desserts are especially inventive, the bar can be counted on for creative cocktails, and a new wine honcho promises a list of responsibly sourced bo les from around the world. Stay tuned.
Ron Bechtol
Rise and Shine
United We Brunch moves to Rock at La Cantera for ninth installment — and tickets are still available
BY
KAT STINSON
San Antonio’s premiere brunch event, United We Brunch, has found a new home for its ninth installment.
United We Brunch 2025 will take place Saturday, Feb. 22, at Frost Plaza at the Rock at La Cantera, home of the San Antonio Spurs’ training facility. Guests must be 21 or older to enter the festival, which will run 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
A endees will partake in bites from top Alamo City food and drink vendors, including Tu Asador Mexican Steakhouse, Full Goods Diner, Gusto Group USA (Toro Kitchen + Bar, Cuishe Cocina Mexicana), Magnolia Pancake Haus and Roca & Martillo, among others.
Other featured restaurants, small businesses and bakeries will include Southtown’s BLUSH, Cosmic Cakery, Sugar Clouds Co on Candy, Maiz Cocina Mexicana, Cakes by Felicia LLC and more.
Texas-based coffee chain Summer Moon also will be onsite to serve guests in need of a caffeine boost. Live music and mimosas will flow throughout the gathering.
As with previous United We Brunch installments, the Tito’s Vodka Bloody Mary competition will serve as an event centerpiece. As guests enjoy brunch samples, local bartenders will duke it out to see who can craft the most over-the-top version of the signature sunup cocktail.
It’s a crowd-pleasing contest first introduced at United We Brunch 2020.
Restaurants participating in United We Brunch also will compete for the title of Best Brunch Bite.
VIP tickets are sold out as of publication, but advance general admission tickets are still available for $65. Each ticket includes noon admission and the chance to enjoy brunch bites and beverages from every participating vendor — and the chance to watch the bloody mary competition.
Proceeds from United We Brunch benefit the United Way of San Antonio. The nonprofit supports community initiatives that provide support for those in need at all stages in life, advocating for a more prosperous world for all.
The Frost Plaza at the Rock at La Cantera is located at 1 Spurs Way. Tickets are available for purchase at unitedwebrunchsa.com.
Jaime Monzon
Stripping It Down
The Fixations’ three-chord rock anthems crackle with timeless attitude
BY SANFORD NOWLIN
If bashing out three-chord rock ’n’ roll that sounds mean, vital and anthemic was easy, then every high school garage band would be AC/DC, the Ramones or the Saints.
Suffice to say, those three bands achieved their legendary status precisely because sticking to such a basic approach is deceptively fucking hard
Fans may not be u ering the name of The Fixations in the same breath as AC/DC — at least not yet. But the latest album by the San Antonio four-piece shows its well-honed skill at whipping three chords into timeless, a itude-drenched rock classics.
TheFixationsAreWhoYouThoughtThey Were, a sophomore release dropped late last year, brings together 10 high-octane tracks that walk the line between punk, metal and hard rock while wielding the requisite hooks to get casual listeners singing along and pumping fists.
“I just always loved just rock ’n’ roll with an ass-kicking a itude,” singer-guitarist MF Jones said of the Fixations’ approach. “There’s that thing whenever I would listen to Bon Sco -era AC/DC that made me feel like it’s punk rock somehow, and I think that’s part of why they have the appeal that they still do to this day. Whenever someone asks what we sound like, I always tell them, ‘Just imagine punk rockers playing AC/DC.’”
“What punk rocker doesn’t like AC/DC? Show me one,” drummer James Flores added. “There are none.”
The Fixations will display that genre-straddling approach when the band performs Saturday, Feb. 8, as a headliner of the First Annual Pinche Punx Fest at El Luchador, 622 Roosevelt Ave. The all-day event will feature acts including the Lockdowns, the Dispicables, the Walkouts, Pachuco Cabras and more.
More than ri s
The Fixations’ aggressive approach to its stripped-down material is part of why the music lands with the power of a right hook.
Drummer Flores and bassist Rusty Nails lay down a foundational pulse, allowing the slashing guitars of Jones and Dr. Cream Jeans — or the Doc — to veer between punk aggression and tasteful, blues-drenched solo work. Jones’ voice cuts through the mix with authority, clear and easy to understand, but with a convincing dose of snarl and grit.
However, talk to the members of the Fixations and they’ll tell you the musicianship is only part of the package. A key reason AreWhoYouThought TheyWere works so solidly is its grounding in songcraft.
For the past six years, Jones and the Doc — neighbors and longtime pals — have made a weekly ritual of ge ing together to write songs separate from full-band rehearsals. Jones said he was drawn to the idea after a friend invited him into a songwriters’ group that challenged members to pen a tune every week.
“We realized at some point that we can both write good songs separately, but if we write them together, it’s just a be er song,” Jones said. “So we learned to kind of say, ‘Fuck all that ego shit. Let’s do what’s best for the song.’ … We just decided that we were going to just be ourselves, and I think it’s really served us well.”
To be sure, the duo’s songwriting subtleties bring enough variety to AreWhoYouThoughtThey Were that the album never bogs down in repetition. It’s full of nods to great practitioners of downand-dirty rock while standing as its own thing.
Opener “’Til I’m Gone” sounds like it could be an ou ake from an early Saxon album, while country-tinged lead work brings an unexpected dynamic to the sing-along ready “Strike (While the Iron Is Hot).” With its Old West imagery, incendiary guitar work and fatalistic lyrics (“The dying part is easy, it’s the living that’s hard”), mid-tempo album closer “Tombstone Ra le” evokes classic Motörhead. AreWhoYouThoughtTheyWere even pulled an eight-of-ten review from ClassicRockMagazine — no mean feat for a self-released album. The publication gushed about the band’s “heroic, chest-thumping up-all-night anthems with mas-
music
sive riffs and effortless confidence.”
Balancing act
So, how do The Fixations top Are Who You ThoughtTheyWere? Certainly not by complicating things. The group is already working on its third album, and the members said they’re looking to refine the songwriting rather than clu er up a good thing.
“It’s a balancing act,” the Doc said. “You don’t want to do something brand fucking new every time, but you don’t want to go and cut the same exact album, where you’re just using a template. So you’ve got to find that middle ground — ‘What’s our sound? How do we make sure we’re retaining that? Can we say some new shit in there while we’re doing it?’ So, that’s the goal for this one.”
Based on the strength of its Classic Rock review and a growing amount of correspondence from overseas fans, the band also wants to take the show on the road, specifically to Europe.
Most of the Fixations’ members are in their 50s — the Doc is the baby at 37 — and they’ve been rocking so long they have no interest in ge ing off the ride. Especially not now that they’ve come so close to dialing in the ultimate bad boy boogie.
“My kids are grown,” Nails said. “I’ve been doing this so long, and it’s so deeply embedded in my identity that I just don’t have a lot of faith that the guidance counselor thing’s going to work out for me. So, I’m kind of fucked. I’m a lifer, man. That’s it.”
Pinche Punx Fest, $15 cover, 2 p.m.- 2 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 8, El Luchador, 622 Roosevelt Ave., (210) 9883385, instagram.com/luchadorbarsa.
Find more music coverage every day at sacurrent.com
Courtest Photo The Fixations
music
Growing Reggae Roots
For San Antonio singer Sgt. Remo, island music is more than a form of entertainment
BY JEPH DUARTE
From Tejano to country, browneyed soul to heavy metal, San Antonio is a music town with deep roots and dedicated fans.
However, reggae is one genre that doesn’t readily jump to mind when it comes to the Alamo City.
Budding singer-bandleader Sgt. Remo, 48, is on a mission to change that.
While Juarez, Mexico, Sgt. Remo’s birthplace, and El Paso, where he a ended high school, may not seem like reggae hotbeds either, that’s where a friend turned him on to the genre.
“The story of struggle, the story of hardship, the story of poverty — those are the things that drew me in. I just connected with it,” he said. “I’ve been listening to reggae since then. It just became my life.”
On Saturday, Feb. 8, Sgt. Remo and his band the Vibratones will kick off the 2025 San Antonio Coffee Festival at HemisFair Park with a 10 a.m. performance. It’s not his first time bringing Caribbean vibes to the event.
“We played the Coffee Fest a couple of times before through the years,” he said. “I think [the organizers] do a great job of reaching out to all the local talent and giving everybody an opportunity to play.”
Sgt. Remo was initially drawn to reggae by the distinctive ’80s dancehall sounds of Shabba Ranks and Buju Banton, and his vocal style draws heavily on toasting, or speaking over the beat — a style similar to rap. However, the Vibratones’ instrumentation is steeped in the more organic sound of rocksteady and roots reggae, popularized by elder statesmen Burning Spear and Steel Pulse.
It’s stylistic fusion that’s evolved over time, Sgt. Remo explained.
“Eventually, I as I got to know more about the history of reggae music and some the great artists, I felt more comfortable doing real reggae music,” he said.
From fan to artist
At first, Sgt. Remo had no real interest
in performing, being more than happy to enjoy the music as. fan. But during in his time in the U.S. Navy, he met guys from Guyana and Jamaica who shared his affinity for reggae. As they made recordings for fun in their spare time, the creative process unlocked his interest in pursuing music more seriously.
By the time Sgt. Remo retired in 2014 in San Antonio, the last place he was stationed, the transformation from enthusiast to artist was complete.
“The reggae community is fairly small, so when I came to San Antonio, I had some contacts,” he said. “And as soon as I got here, I started playing.”
Within a year, Sgt. Remo was spreading his talent through regular live shows around the community.
“In the beginning, it was more like dancehall, a li le bit more hip-hop aligned,” he said. “The music was fun — it was party music, it wasn’t really spiritual. It was young-people music for the club, for the party.”
However, Sgt. Remo became a father and discovered his daughter’s passion for the music mirrored his own. As he observed her singing along, he reevaluated his direction, altering his writing to become what he describes as “more respectful.”
He also shifted his musical approach
away from a digitally oriented style and embraced sounds more rooted in the sound of traditional reggae performed with a live band. The Vibratones bring together some of the city’s best reggae musicians, including Sgt. Remo’s son on trumpet and trombone.
Sgt. Remo said the live experience is the culmination of his effort to spread a positive message through music. He sees himself not just a band leader but an ambassador for reggae culture.
”I’m becoming more aware of the world and how we fit into it,” he said. “You can see that maturing in my music.”
International following
These days, Sgt. Remo is recognized as a roots-reggae artist with socially conscious lyrics. While San Antonio remains his home base, his musical reach has grown internationally.
The singer has toured Mexico and last year branched out into Colombia. Most recently, he traveled to Chile to record in collaboration with producer Kutral Dub and complete a short tour of that country.
“It is a responsibility of mine to try and share some of the things I’ve learned. You know, reggae music is
much more than just entertainment. It can actually serve a purpose,” Sgt. Remo said. “It’s been present for generations and different movements, and I understand the power of it. So, I try to make music that is going to uplift people.”
In 2011, Sgt. Remo began serving as executive producer for Reggae SoulJahs Worldwide, a series of compilation releases that recently dropped its fifth volume. What’s more, he operates a YouTube channel showcasing his own recordings along with those of artists from King Remo Music, the label he created.
From 7-9 p.m. every Friday, he hosts Reggae Sessions Radio on 90.1 KSYM-FM, and he recently signed on to curate a new reggae show for KPSARadio.com.
As if all that isn’t keeping him busy enough, he owns and operates his own screen printing company and operates a custom sound system.
“It’s part of a bigger goal to really reach a mass audience,” Sgt. Remo said of his busy schedule. “We’re gonna take this music to another level. That’s the vision.”
San Antonio Coffee Festival, $15-$40, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 8, Civic Park at Hemisfair, 210 S. Alamo St., sacoffeefest.com.
Coutresy Photo Sgt. Remo
critics’ picks
Wednesday, Feb. 5
Judy Collins
Singer-songwriter Judy Collins emerged as one of the luminaries of America’s 1960s folk revival. Known for her stirring cover of “Both Sides Now” along with classics such as “Send in the Clowns” and “Since You Asked,” she brought a refi nement to the style that refl ects an upbringing in musical theater. The end result was an operatic sensibility that’s more Bertolt Brecht than Woody Guthrie yet still respected the source material. And if anyone needs one more excuse to respect her, she introduced Leonard Cohen to the world, for crying out lout. There aren’t as many music legends around these days; take advantage while you still can. $49-$156, Charline McCombs Empire Theatre, 226 N. St Mary’s St., majesticempire.com. — Bill Baird
Ya Dig? Featuring Daniel Monaco, DJ Speculator, DJ Kinn, Adam Madrigal
This free event celebrating vinyl and DJ culture will dive deep into the hippest of electronica and mash-up culture. It’s danceable but coming from far enough in left fi eld to ensure it’s a blast for adventurous listeners. This Ya Dig? installment will bring together Daniel Monaco, who’s known to augment his DJ sets with live bass playing, with DJ Speculator, DJ Kinn and SA’s own Adam Madrigal. At a price like this, you have zero reason to not show up and support homegrown electronic culture. Free, 8 p.m., Tony’s Siesta, 206 Brooklyn Ave., tonyssiesta.com. — BB
Thursday, Feb. 6
Gregory Alan Isakov
Grammy-nominated folk singer-songwriter
Gregory Alan Isakov brings his passion for horticulture to his musical with rich and introspective lyrics that seem born of the Earth itself. Isakov owns and operates a small-scale farm in Boulder County, Colorado, and that lifestyle keeps his music grounded. Indeed, his barn served as the recording studio for his past three albums, including 2023’s Appaloosa B ones. Sold out, 8 p.m., Stable Hall, 307 Pearl Parkway, stablehall.com. — Danny Cervantes
Saturday, Feb. 8
idontknowje ery
Je ery Harper, known to fans as idontknowje ery, emerged from East Memphis’ underground rap scene with aggressive and abrasive lyrics that o end and delight in equal measure. Since making his SoundCloud debut in 2015, the rapper has dropped more than a dozen albums, most recently 2023’s The Je ery LP. Brace yourself for a bombastic evening and check your sensitivities at the door. $20-$120, 7 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — DC
Thursday, Feb. 13
Tommy Castro and the Painkillers, Marcia Ball
This show brings together two of blues’ modern greats. Top-billed Tommy Castro puts a San Francisco spin on the blues, delivering his soulful approach to the music with searing guitar work and more than a little showmanship. That approach has racked up numerous accolades, including the 2008 Blues Music Award for Entertainer of the Year. Meanwhile, Texas treasure Marcia Ball is a both a killer pianist and singer with numerous accolades of her own, including multiple Grammy nominations. USA Today has called her “a sensation,” and we can’t argue. $62-$99, 8 p.m., Sam’s Burger Joint, 330 E. Grayson St., samsburgerjoint.com. — BB
Maria José
Mexican pop singer Maria José is a bonafi de superstar in her native country, where she’s also excelled as a dancer, athlete and TV star. Yep, a renaissance woman — and one who’s performed with international music draws including Gwen Stefani and released records on both major and indie labels. While José’s music is defi nitely on the more commercial
side of things, she delivers it with passion to spare, and nobody can question her sterling vocal chops. $34-$162, 8 p.m., Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. — BB
Friday, Feb. 14
Los Juanos, Strawberry Jams Celebrate Valentine’s Day by with some musical love from a pair of puro SA luminaries. Los Juanos bring a fresh, young energy to Tejano, a genre not always known for breaking boundaries. The band infuses its take on the South Texas sound with an indie-rock spirit and electronics, but it’s most notable for the sheer joy of its performances. Strawberry Jams will show why it’s one of the city’s most sought-after DJ groups for rock shows, keeping the spirit high and the love fl owing. $12, 9 p.m., Lonesome Rose, 2114 N. St. Mary’s St., thelonesomerose.com. — BB
Saturday, Feb. 15
Destroy Lonely, Lil 88
Atlanta’s Destroy Lonely exploded onto the rap scene in the late 2010s thanks to an
o -kilter cadence and eclectic beats. The son of I-20, a rapper who frequently collaborates with Ludacris and is signed to the Disturbing tha Peace label, Destroy Lonely last year followed up his 2023 double-album debut If Looks Could Kill with another double album, Love Lasts Forever. Clearly, this emcee is a creative force who continues to fl ow. $71$182.90, 8 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — DC
Sunday, Feb. 16
Dream Theater
Progressive-metal pioneers Dream Theater are celebrating their 40th anniversary with a North American tour featuring original drummer Mike Portnoy. It’s the fi rst time in 14 years that Portnoy — a rhythmic heavyweight of the prog-metal scene — has hit the road with the group. With Portnoy back in the fold, Dream Theater is also working on its 16th studio album, which is likely to build on its legacy as a vital progenitor of the dense and demanding genre. $39.50-$645.00, 7:30p.m., Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. — DC
Marcia Ball
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Drink local
Meet us at the Friendly Spot for a “Beer Break” 20 Beers/Breweries • 1 Margarita station El Perrito • Kilobassa • Music
Celebrating Icehouse Week
Event Date:Feb 22 3pm-6pm
Free Event 21 and up for Samples
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• 50+ BEERS
• FULL BAR
• DOG FRIENDLY PATIO
• FOOD TRUCK
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Come Visit us During Icehouse Week and go see Larry Ramirez at United We Brunch Representing Brunos Dive Bar at the Bloody Mary Competition. @brunosdive MON-FRI 4PM-2AM SAT & SUN 11AM-2AM
LINERS
12 WORLD-CLASS WINES
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“We’re Golden”--at least, hiding in the long answers. by Matt Jones
© 2025 Matt Jones
Across
1. Classic auto, for short
6. Pancake order
11. Keeps in the loop, in a way
14. In ___ fertilization
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15. Ali’s boxing daughter
16. Panama, e.g.
17. Easter egg found within a subway system?
19. Former Notre Dame coach Parseghian
20. Nonspeci c number
21. Mauritians of long ago
22. Bashful coworker?
24. Sidekick
25. Puts down on paper
26. Herb speci cally designated for a tomato sauce?
32. Makes level
33. 2000s corporate scandal subject
34. Spit some bars
37. Scan the print
38. Notions
39. Circle dance at some weddings
40. Onetime Dirk Benedict costar
41. Ordinary
42. Ring-collecting Sega character
43. Atypically sunny weather at the highest peak of the Alps?
46. Donnie ___, 1997 Johnny Depp role
48. Surprised cry
49. Not as frequent
50. “Let’s Make ___”
53. ___ Lankan
56. Media attention
57. Short break from reading fables?
60. Bronze, for one
61. Cliched
62. Adjusts accurately
63. Badminton divider
64. Clear, as a whiteboard
65. Striped equine
Down
1. “Severance” rating
2. “Muy ___”
3. Teensy
4. Telugu-language 2022 movie that was big in the U.S.
5. ingamabobs
6. Wheelless vehicle
7. Salsa holder
8. Pretentious manner
9. Progressive Field team, onscoreboards
10. “Agatha All Along” star Hahn
11. Book opener?
12. “___ diem”
13. Lingers
18. Without help
23. Goal
24. Fishing hole
25. “___ gonna tell them?”
26. Long-lasting hairstyle
27. Walkie-talkie signo
28. Place to stake out some steaks
29. Do the audio again
30. Shaq’s surname
31. Cheery refrain
35. Operatic performance
36. Agreement
38. “It ___ laugh”
39. Ding Dong alternative
41. Remove from a large container
42. “ e beer that made Milwaukee famous”
44. Sugary su x
frequently-
46. “Family Guy” dog
47. Grazing area
50. Continent with the longest coastline
51. ey may get connected
52. Fencing sword
53. Concertgoer’s souvenir
54. Someone sorry
55. “Insecure” actress Rae
58. Need correction
59. in Lizzy’s “ e Boys ___ Back in Town”
Answers on page 27.
45. Baumbach who
works with Adam Driver
