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25
CONTENTS June 24-30, 2015
41
Bonham Blues Some in SA’s LGBT community wonder if an old fave has sold out Forgotten In-Betweens Remember the “Bs” in LGBT? They lament not feeling welcome
10 NEWS
No Freudian Slip Those rebels known as pansexuals are used to explaining themselves
In Her Own Right Ivy Taylor talks about her historic election win and upcoming challenges as mayor
Political Pride Wanted: more members of the LGBT community to run for office
College Degree Overrated? Drought of young workers threatens bluecollar trades
36 CALENDAR
Our top picks for the week
17 PRIDE Waiting To Wed LGBT couples in SA just want to be able to say two words: “I do” Needing The Green Light Republican Bexar County clerk is a proud same-sex marriage supporter Love Is All You Need The Good Lord doesn’t discriminate, some local church leaders say The Young And The Restless Their mentors need to get with the times on gay marriage, young conservatives say The Artist Within Nina Donley’s Mayan-themed art finds its niche in SA Happy Memories We’re thankful for Gene Elder’s documenthoarding ways 8 CURRENT • June 24-30, 2015 • sacurrent.com
41 ARTS
10
Still The Same Third time’s the charm for Luther’s Cafe Culinary Calendar 7 ways to get your drink/grub on this week
55 NIGHTLIFE Pearl Of Brews History meets hops once again at Southerleigh
58 MUSIC For The March Of Dimes Remembering Taco Land a decade after the murder of owner Ram Ayala ¡Viva La Bandolera! SA singer Patricia Vonne returns with new compendium of hits en español
Peachy Teachin’ The wild life of queer icon Peaches comes to light in a new photo book
Music Calendar What to see and hear this week
Greg Hinojosa Takes Center Stage The Woodlawn’s artistic director on La Cage Aux Folles, RuPaul’s Drag Race and Mary Poppins
69 ETC.
45 SCREENS Teen Tragicomedy Mortality through a quirky lens in Alfonso GomezRejon’s Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
47 FOOD Pier, Pints & Pretzels Smooth sailing at Southerleigh Fine Food & Brewery
Savage Love Free Will Astrology Jonesin’ Crossword This Modern World
ON THE COVER
Our annual Pride issue comes at a crucial juncture in U.S. history: We’re on the cusp of the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage Photographer: Lizzy Flowers Models: Sara Luna Ellis & Shelby Rocca Art Direction by Eli Miller
sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 9
NEWS
SARA LUNA ELLIS
IN HER OWN RIGHT New Mayor’s Top Challenges In Taking Over The Reins Of SA MARK REAGAN/@210REAGAN
Aspiring young African-Americans in SA with political ambition, take note. Follow in Ivy Taylor’s footsteps and you just may get far. Despite being labeled as an inexperienced underdog, proud East Sider Taylor just became the first elected black mayor in Alamo City history after defeating former State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte in a heated runoff election. Taylor sat down for an in-depth interview with the San Antonio Current in her office a week after her victory. What is your vision going forward? I’m not a typical politician who will have some signature thing that’s going to have my name on it and go down in history. We have a strong economy. Jobs are growing. But all San Antonians don’t have the opportunity to capitalize on that momentum. So I want to find ways to invest in human infrastructure so more San Antonians have the education and skills to qualify for jobs. Similarly, I want to retain and attract young people. Are negotiations with the police and fire unions your most pressing matter? It’s pretty urgent. And we need to get to a resolution. On Sunday, after the election dust settled, I called Mike Helle, who is the police union president and said I’d like to chat about a path forward. He agreed to that and we’re meeting and want to get back to the table. Is the lawsuit against the police and fire union’s “Evergreen Clause,” which keeps the current collective-bargaining agreement valid, still on the table? The lawsuit is still a key component in our strategy. The Evergreen Clause is a deterrent to negotiations and litigation is ongoing. Some of your colleagues on the council, including District 2’s Alan E. Warrick II, backed your opponent. Is it fair to say you may now have difficulty forging consensus? Yeah, I think, really, that has been overstated. I don’t expect that in a democracy you find 11 people that would be lockstep and unanimous in their opinion every single time they meet, every single day of the week. If that’s the expectation from some parties, they’ll be disappointed. As mayor, I don’t expect to run 10 CURRENT • June 24-30, 2015 • sacurrent.com
After SA voters told her she can stay on the job, Ivy Taylor faces a slew of tough issues, from union contracts to ride-sharing.
over people to have them fall in line with whatever my assessment is. They have a constituency and come with their own unique perspectives and views. I expect to have conversations and debates and will be informed and guided by my staff on my options. Then we’ll work out the best solutions. Initially, you were a streetcar advocate. Then you helped kill the plan. Now that the election is over, is a streetcar plan on the table again? Anything that the citizens want to see can be an option. In talking with San Antonians, especially folks who are more seasoned citizens, they remember when we had streetcar and describe it as inconvenient. Right now, we have a transportation plan we’re developing and need to think about what’s feasible from a cost perspective. Given our pattern of development, streetcars might not make sense because of our city’s density. We would love to be able to better connect the various nodes that we have around town and rail will be talked about in that discussion. There’s still a demand for ride-share services in San Antonio. Will you sit down with Uber and Lyft in an attempt to bring them back? We are thinking and trying to re-engage. We are starting some discussions behind the scenes. I recognize that this is a service that people here want and something out-of-towners are accustomed to having and expect San Antonio to have.
What is the status of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, which you created to streamline the intake and processing of complaints filed under the Non-Discrimination Ordinance (NDO)? So far everything is going well. As we come into budget season, I’ll be advocating to build that out more. I want the community to see it as a resource and the focus is on all protected classes and ensuring people understand the laws and helping local businesses navigate through any questions … the idea isn’t just about checking off boxes, but truly embracing everyone in our community. Do you think police body-cameras are beneficial despite rapidly changing technology and potential high costs for video storage? I say yes, cautiously. But at this point, I believe the public demands that accountability and we want to be proactive. We haven’t seen the kind of incidents that have occurred in other cities. I also think the body cameras provides accountability in a two-way fashion — for citizens and for police. So we’re going to have to wade through it as we go along. There are questions about storage of data, when it can be retrieved, accessibility for the public and how it all plays into the legal system. Check out the full interview at sacurrent.com. mreagan@sacurrent.com San Antonio’s 2015 mayoral race grew more heated
NEWS
STEADY AS SHE GOES Ivy Taylor: I’m No Politician And Being Mayor Won’t Change That MARK REAGAN/@210REAGAN SARA LUNA ELLIS
— and ugly — as election day in May approached. When the dust settled, Ivy Taylor and Leticia Van de Putte came out on top, sparking a bruising extended campaign leading to the June 13 runoff election. She beat Van de Putte by 3,331 votes. “The negativity was a little disappointing, but it’s time to turn the page and move on,” Taylor told the San Antonio Current. Perhaps the pinnacle of kidney shots came when an unidentified, and most certainly pro-union, homicide detective with the San Antonio Police Department called the San Antonio Express-News to tell a columnist that when Taylor’s husband’s bailbond business took was shot up SA Mayor Ivy Taylor: “I’m not a hardcore politician.” during a drive-by last year, her husband, Rodney, didn’t file a complaint. you know, I don’t have the attitude of Police say Jacquay Howard, 31, an do or say anything to win at all cost.” alleged gang member who fired an Taylor also thought media coverage of assault rifle into a crowd of people her candidacy was skewed. in January, killing two, was also “In a general way, I don’t believe the responsible for the drive-by. coverage was fair or objective,” she said. The unidentified homicide detective But it’s over. And now she’s the told the Express-News that since first African-American — and second a complaint wasn’t filed, the case woman — elected to San Antonio’s went cold. highest office. Van de Putte accused the Taylors of “When I spend a little time thinking refusing to put violent criminals behind about what is special about my position bars during a Texas Public Radio debate. is that it’s a source of inspiration for That debate ended with Taylor young minorities who turn the news on refusing to shake Van de Putte’s hand. at night and see my face,” Taylor said. Taylor later tweeted that in Texas, if “Maybe they’ll say, ‘If she can do it, I someone attacks her family for political can pursue my dreams too.’” gain, she’s not going to shake that But for the most part, she doesn’t person’s hand. view her accomplishment in a Last week, Taylor told the Current glamorous light. that she learned a lot from the race “You know, on a day-to-day basis, I about staying true to herself. feel like it just means business “I think what was confirmed for me is as usual.” that I’m not a hardcore politician. And mreagan@sacurrent.com I’m fine with that,” she said. “Because,
sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 11
12 CURRENT • June 24-30, 2015 • sacurrent.com
NEWS
Employers Push To Get SA Millennials Into Blue-Collar Trades MICHAEL MARKS/@MICHAELPMARKS
It’s hard to imagine the city ditching its blue-collar roots. Just ask Rey Chavez, president of the San Antonio Manufacturers Association. There are over 1,600 manufacturers in the Alamo City. Yet he has growing concerns over meeting future workforce demands. Chavez said their workforce is getting older and there aren’t enough youngsters to replace them. “I have employers who are 75 years old and 80 still working,” Chavez said. “[I ask] Why are you doing this? Why aren’t you playing golf? Playing with grandkids, great-grandkids? ‘Can’t. There’s nobody that can replace us,’ they say.” And it’s not just manufacturing. Leaders in fields such as construction, plumbing and carpentry are also worried. Many members of their aging workforce are ready to hang up the work belt, but there aren’t enough young workers with skills to replace them. “The people who are my age are retiring. There’s a void in the pipeline. You turn on the water and nothing’s coming through,” said Michael McIver, vice president of manufacturing at Pressure Systems International, a San Antonio-based manufacturer of truck tire inflation equipment. Many of these jobs actually offer good salaries. Plumbers and electricians in Texas make about $45,000 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Others, such as aircraft mechanics, average closer to $60,000 — not including benefits. There are a number of reasons for all the talent drought: a decades-long push to route high school students to go to college, the social stigma attached to blue-collar professions and the disappearance of shop classes have all
SARA LUNA ELLIS
COLLEGE DEGREE OVERRATED?
played a part. But whatever the reasons, experts and industry members agree that moving more young people into blue-collar jobs is critical to the San Antonio economy. Richard Butler, a professor of economics at Trinity University and former head of the Alamo Area Academies, a non-profit job skills program, said that recruiting new blood to skilled trades is a market necessity. “It’s really pretty darn scary,” Butler said. “Regions that set out to create skilled workforces will be the ones where the high-paying jobs are going to go. If we don’t create that workforce … we won’t have those jobs.”
College For All? Gene Bowman followed Butler as Alamo Area Academies director, a post he’s held since 2006. The program offers training to high schoolers in industries such as aerospace engineering, heavy equipment operation and manufacturing. Students participate in paid internships, earn credit toward college or professional certificates. Some even net job offers right out of high school — all free of charge. Still, recruiting was an “uphill battle” at the start, as Bowman tried to sway parents and high school counselors determined to send every kid on a path toward a bachelor’s degree. “That was pretty much the mantra,” Bowman said. “Everyone should go to college. Everyone is going to graduate from college in four years. They’re going to become a CEO and they’re going to be making six figures overnight.” There are certainly advantages to earning a four-year degree. Bachelor’s degree holders experience lower levels of unemployment and tend to make more money than those with associate’s degrees or lower in the long run. But mountains of debt often accompany such advanced degrees, with no guarantee of a full-time job. Almost half of all bacherlor’s degree holders in their 20s are underemployed, meaning they are working jobs that don’t actually require a degree, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “It’s a terrible culture to cultivate,” said Bowman. “I’m not trying to be facetious, but … companies like Toyota can’t find the necessary skills to produce enough Tundra trucks for people who want to buy them.” Manufacturing was the only sector
SA employers like Pressure Systems International want Millennials to pursue well-paying trade jobs.
of the San Antonio workforce whose population decreased between April 2014 and April 2015, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Another problem is the stigma attached to blue-collar jobs — they’re often perceived as physically taxing, too simple or less important than gigs requiring a bachelor’s degree. Employers list shaking that impression as one of their chief challenges in attracting young talent. “It’s an image issue,” said Chavez. “A lot of folks probably think it’s shoveling coal into a furnace. It’s dirty. It doesn’t pay a lot of money.” It may seem as unfair, but it’s a notion that Frank Southers, who runs the apprenticeship training program at Local Union 142, combats daily. The union’s membership encompasses a range of trades such as plumbing, pipefitting, HV/AC repair and welding. The apprentice program, which lasts five years, is free. Apprentices attend classes for four hours twice per week on evenings and work in their trade full-time during the day. And they actually come out ready to earn good money. Yet Southers lamented he has trouble recruiting. “There’s no other place in this town
where you can go to school for free two nights a week for five years and come out making $30.40 an hour ($63,232 a year). Why do they not see it, I don’t know,” Southers said. “Somebody has to put the bridge together, somebody has to put the piping system together. We have to make it interesting.” The average age of a plumber in Texas is in the upper 50s. Lacey Crockett, 20, just completed her first semester as an apprentice plumber. The San Antonio native never considered plumbing as a profession in high school, but now she loves it — particularly the opportunity to solve problems each day. “It’s just one of those things I never thought about,” Crockett said. “I know I’ve got a lot to learn ... but I just want to build upon it.”
Hope Up Ahead There are some signs that more young people could see what Crockett sees. And some employers have taken matters into their hands to bridge their talent gap. McIver is working with Workforce Solutions Alamo, a career resource center, to develop a training curriculum CONTINUED ON PAGE 15 ►
sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 13
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NEWS
◄ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13 (BLUE COLLAR TRADES) SARA LUNA ELLIS
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specifically for the needs of Pressure Systems International. The company recently purchased new, more advanced equipment, but desperately needs younger people who know how to operate it. “It creates a dilemma for me because as the tooling gets more technical, I don’t have the workforce. I’m creating a problem for myself. I see this problem existing for 10 more years,” McIver said. There are also city and statesponsored programs to address the problem. San Antonio, in partnership with several sponsors including Alamo Area Colleges, recently launched a job training program for 300 East Side residents through the Promise Zone to Work initiative. The initiative offers free training in trades such as heavy equipment operation, manufacturing and information technology with the promise of job placement after completing the program. The initiative is part of the broader Promise Zone program, a federallybacked project to help reduce poverty and expand economic and educational opportunities in select neighborhoods across the country. High school students in the Promise Zone have had the first crack at the 300 slots. At a recent orientation at Sam Houston High School, more than 60 students signed up for the program.
Mayor Ivy Taylor, the daughter of a printing press operator, said at the program’s kickoff that the idea is to lay “the groundwork to ensure that these industries have a steady flow of well-prepared individuals for current employment needs in San Antonio.” Robyn Corbett, 27, signed up for one of the Promise Zone to Work slots to study information technology. She said she was intimidated at first by the challenge of learning a new skill — an unfounded fear keeping many of her peers away. “Some of them are maybe afraid to change their status quo. They probably think that they can’t do it,” Corbett said. On the state level, others point to a piece of legislation that Texas lawmakers approved in 2013 as a key piece to moving young people into skilled trades. The measure dramatically altered the structure of public education in Texas. It provided students with multiple paths to graduation, including tracks for technical skills, which schools had neglected for decades. “If you want to go to college, if you want to learn a skill — it didn’t make one better than the other, it just raised awareness,” Bowman said. He said that since the law was enacted, his program reached full capacity — with a waiting list — for the first time ever. mmarks@sacurrent.com
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sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 15
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PRIDE
WAITING TO WED Same-Sex Couples Ready For Court Ruling Allowing Them To Marry MICHAEL MARKS/@MICHAELPMARKS
The U.S. Supreme Court will make history in late June, and change the lives of every samesex couple — for better or for worse. The court will rule later this month on two key questions: whether bans on gay marriage are legal and whether states which do not allow the practice must recognize marriages from other states. If the bans are struck down, it will open the door for same-sex couples to marry nationwide. But if they’re upheld, it would be a major setback to their rights, with no set timeline to reconsider the question. Despite the uncertainty, at least one congregation in town, Unity Church of San Antonio, has banked on the court striking down the bans. Unity Church plans to perform marriages for same-sex couples all day on Saturday, July 4. The church plans to marry up to 26 same-sex couples at the event, dubbed “Freedom to Say I Do.” One of those couples is Kathleen Riexinger and Annette Ewer. Riexinger and Ewer met in 1995 when they lived near Philadelphia. They had a commitment ceremony at a Unity Church in Pennsylvania in 1998 and have lived in San Antonio since 2000. Now, the Alamo City feels like home to the Keystone Staters. For Riexinger, who manages a private training company, and Ewer, the traffic director at Texas Public Radio, marriage isn’t about bolstering their commitment or proving the strength of their relationship to the outside world — it’s about obtaining the legal rights and privileges that accompany a marriage license. “We’re very interested in having the same protections and benefits of other
Left: SA Couples Annette Ewer (left) and Kathleen Riexinger. Right: Felicia Gutierrez (left) and Lynda Prado. They all plan to get married on July 4.
couples that, up until now, we did not have access to,” Riexinger said. The couple is most concerned about the right to make decisions for the other should they fall ill or become handicapped. “If either of us becomes vulnerable ... we want to make sure that we are respected as the life partner and spouse of the other and be given that opportunity to make decisions for the other,” Riexinger said. On the other end of the longevity spectrum are Lynda Prado and Felicia Gutierrez. Prado and Gutierrez, both 24, met online and say they’ve been best friends practically ever since. Although they’ve been together just a year and half, Prado and Gutierrez discussed marriage for months. The two California natives said the decision to take the plunge was a simple conversation. “It was very easy,” Gutierrez said. “Like ... ‘You want to get married?’ ‘Ok.’” They weren’t sure about the timing or finances, though. They initially planned
to save up for a wedding in California. But that changed when they learned that same-sex marriage could become legal nationwide, and when they heard about the Unity Church ceremony. “We thought we were going to have to wait years to go to California and plan this. It is a little sudden, we know that, but we don’t want to pass up this chance,” Gutierrez said. For Prado, the ceremony isn’t necessarily an extraordinary or historic event. She just wants her relationship and her marriage to be seen like anyone else’s. “We want to be just as a regular couple,” Prado said. “It shouldn’t matter if we’re black, purple, yellow, blue. Whatever we are, we’re all the same, we should all be equal.” But even if the Supreme Court’s ruling allows that to happen, there’s a fear that Texas lawmakers will try to challenge the decision, further complicating and delaying plans for impending nuptials. Rev. Lorelei Starbuck, an ordained nondenominational minister who’s married more than 600 same-sex couples, said that many couples in Texas are eager to
legally tie the knot but question whether the state will let them. “There’s a great deal of skepticism on how Texas is going to react to [the court’s ruling],” Starbuck said. “You have an atmosphere in Texas that does not lend itself to actually honoring that agreement.” The state Legislature proposed several measures this year to block same-sex marriages, though none gained enough traction to become law. Ewer said she’ll feel “sadness” if the Supreme Court allows states to impose same-sex marriage bans, or if Texas officials challenge the ruling. But she and Riexinger feel optimistic that the court will rule in their favor. For them, it only seems fair to do so. That’s what it’s all about, these couples insist — simple fairness. “A marriage license is something that’s available to any couple if you’re heterosexual, to give you legal rights and legal bounds,” said Ewer. She added: “We’ve been together for 20 years now. Why should we not have those rights as well?” mmarks@sacurrent.com sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 17
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Bexar County Clerk Gerard “Gerry” Rickhoff has already de-gendered language on marriage licenses. And if the Supreme Court rules that Texas’ same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional, he’ll keep his doors opened until couples eager to get married keep lining up. “We’ve made preparations to stay open late until there are no lines so that we serve the citizens that may come,” Rickhoff told the San Antonio Current last week. “There is pent-up demand that has been building for decades.” Rickhoff is a Republican and he is well-known for making no bones about wanting to open up the doors to all couples who want to get married, not just heterosexuals. “I’m very tired of violating these peoples’ civil rights,” he said. “I’m personally very tired. We’re going to embrace it.” The Supreme Court is expected to take up the case of national same-sex marriage bans any day. According to the popular SCOTUS blog, judges will likely rule that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional. “I don’t know what the language is going to be from the Supreme Court, and I’ll be in close communication with … (District Attorney) Nico LaHood and we’re communicating on speculation that it will overrule the Texas ban,” Rickhoff said. The fact is, times are changing and wide support has grown for same-sex couples used to battling a long history of discrimination. A poll published June 15 by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 55 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage and that 65 percent
of citizens think the Supreme Court will overturn the bans. The United States allows same-sex marriage — mainly because of 26 court rulings in favor of same-sex couples. Of the 37 states where gays and lesbians can marry, legislatures in eight states legalized it and three states did so by popular votes, according to procon.org. Just 13 states — including Texas— ban same-sex couples from wedding each other. Rickhoff expects some Lone Star State clerks will refuse to issue licenses to same-sex couples as acts of “civil disobedience,” but that could be a boon for Bexar County. “Often times, people come to Bexar for medical treatment because we have these large hospitals,” Rickhoff said. “I think it would be like that. If they are refused in some of the more conservative parts of the state … they’ll drive down here.” And that’s just fine by him. He’ll open them with open arms. mreagan@sacurrent.com
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Rev. Linda Martella-Whitsett (left) of Unity Church of SA can’t wait to wed same-sex couples.
LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED Yes, In God-Fearing Texas, There Are LGBT-Friendly Churches MARK REAGAN/@210REAGAN
Same-sex couples’ right to marry is now closer than ever. But in Texas — like in other conservative states — religious officials like to warn their flocks of the danger, calamity and brimstone legal marriage for gays and lesbians is likely to rain down on the God-fearing masses because of the sinners. San Antonio is no different. Take John Hagee, pastor of Cornerstone, one of the largest megachurches in the Lone Star State, who, as a side note, is constantly predicting the end of the world because of “blood moons.” The senior pastor thinks same-sex couples who want to marry are nothing but two disturbed people playing house. “The concept is just absolutely staggering. The Bible’s requirements for getting married are these: One, that you marry someone of the opposite sex,” Hagee said during his show — not the Onion — Hagee Hotline, in January 2013. Because the good Lord knows, love has nothing to do with marriage. Luckily for Bexar County, there are plenty of inclusive churches that welcome all walks of life into their sanctuaries. Rev. Linda Martella-Whitsett, of the 20 CURRENT • June 24-30, 2015 • sacurrent.com
non-demoninational Unity Church of San Antonio, admits that not all Christian churches here are that friendly. “I don’t know a church that doesn’t say ‘everybody is welcome,’” she said. “You are welcome to come in and be who you are not.” If the Supreme Court does overturn same-sex couple marriage bans, she’s prepared to officiate marriages. She said Unity Church is a safe place for gay couples who want to worship as her congregation is inclusive of everyone. For Martella-Whitsett — and many members of all walks of faith-based communities — worship, at its core, boils down to love without limits. “We have the most positive and joyful experience in life when we are good to other people,” she said. There are many welcoming churches in San Antonio — too many to list here. According to Out In SA’s directory, River City Living Church [202 Holland Ave. 210-822-1121], Metropolitan Community Church [611 E. Myrtle 210472-3597] and Lutheran Church of the Good Shepard [1630 Goliad Rd. 210333-0460] are all judgment-free zones for anyone who wants to worship — gays and lesbians included. mreagan@sacurrent.com
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Conservative Millennials Want GOP Reversal On Same-Sex Marriage HERNÁN ROZEMBERG/@SCRIBEHERNAN David Puentes seems to have impeccable credentials for the type of political activist the Republican Party would want to take under its wings. The 26-year-old from Round Rock is a first-generation Mexican-American. He’s well educated and embraces conservative politics. He’s also gay. And he just does not get why his party is so off-target on gay marriage. “My generation is accepting of same-sex marriage and I Many young Republicans support same-sex marriage. want my colleagues to be more accepting,” he told the San children to play with theirs? We should Antonio Current this month. be loving and accepting.” “I needed to get involved to get others It seems hard to argue against the to back us and get the party to hear Young Conservatives’ point that the our collective voice.” GOP also stands to gain politically by He’s referring to Young Conservatives changing its platform. The party would for the Freedom to Marry, a nonprofit get many converts, from independents group set on a $1 million public push and even some Democrats. to change the anti-LGBT national GOP So far, the campaign has achieved platform on gay marriage. some success — 200 Republican Group members are fanning across community and political leaders have the country to spread their gospel. signed on. They included San Antonio among SA’s Guillermo Nicolas is one of them. their Texas stops. No easy feat to try “There’s nothing conservative about to change Texans’ minds on this issue, discrimination,” said Nicolas, president as the Lone Star State continues to be of 3N Group, whose father started the one of a shrinking count of holdouts Spanish-language TV network that later adamantly opposing same-sex marriage. turned into Univisión. Alas, they’re a determined bunch — Other local leading political voices fueled by the notion that they just have also chimed in, such as outspoken to get their Republican brethren to see Bexar County Clerk Gerry Rickoff, who their errant ways. has pledged to keep his doors open “This is a gateway issue,” Jerri Ann as long as necessary to marry couples Henry, 32, in charge of the campaign, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of told the Current. “If you can’t get this gay marriage. one right, you’re not human. It’s the civil The issue is a no-brainer for the rights movement of our time.” GOP’s libertarian wing. Henry, a Dallas native whose dad “So when Liberty Republicans is from SA and still has a ranch in hear ‘How can you call yourself Atascosa County, understands that a Republican and support gay religious conservatives may struggle marriage?!’ this is doubly puzzling,” with the issue. according to the Bexar County But they have to accept that times Republican Liberty Caucus. “The have changed. correct response should be ‘How can “They can deal with God as to what you stand against equal application of they want to believe,” said Henry, the law and call yourself a Republican?’ “but soon they may have married gay hernan@sacurrent.com neighbors. Will they not allow their
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HAPPY MEMORIES Activist Gene Elder’s Mission To Preserve SA’s LGBT History BRYAN RINDFUSS/@BRYANRINDFUSS
Named in honor of developer, entrepreneur and arts advocate Arthur “Hap” Veltman and housed in the same historic building as The Bonham Exchange, The Happy Foundation is a non-profit archive dedicated to the preservation of LGBT history. Focused on, but not limited to, San Antonio and Texas, the foundation is funded by the Bonham and operated by local artist, activist and archivist Gene Elder. An eccentric and witty complement to the periodicals, books and jam-packed filing cabinets, Elder is a wealth of knowledge with a long and unusual list of accomplishments. Consider: Writing and staging the camp ballet Fairies Fiasco (a creative response to military raids at the San Antonio Country, a legendary gay disco Veltman and Elder co-owned); running for SA mayor in 1979 (on the “Party Party” ticket); being arrested on the steps of the Supreme Court (for civil disobedience during the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights); curating works by 100 local artists 10 poets for a time capsule housed at the San Antonio Museum of Art; stirring up controversy at Blue Star (by painting on the American flag as part of the 1989 exhibition “Loaded”); and appearing on the cover of The Wall Street Journal in 1999 (for a Fluxus art project involving sneaking into hundreds of tourists’ photos in front of the Alamo). In observance of LGBT Pride, the San Antonio Current visited the Happy Foundation to chat with Elder, who donated 21 journals (spanning from 1943 to 2014) last year to the University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections.
Gene Elder (left) with one of his LGBT history plates; archive photos of SA native and famed Marilyn Monroe impersonator Jimmy James.
What provided the spark leading to the creation of the Happy Foundation? Well, it’s named after Arthur “Hap“ Veltman, who everybody called “Happy.” He died in 1988 and we started the archives ... Happy had wanted to start a foundation in his will, but it hadn’t really been defined. He sort of saw it as a support for legal issues which was, at that time, on the front burner ... I was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that as our friends were dying of AIDS, their families would come in and ... any gay publications and any pictures of their friends in drag at birthday parties — all that just got thrown in the trash ... It blossomed in my mind that we [needed] to start saving our history. How do you determine what’s worth saving? As you can see, I save everything ... all the things the various religions have protested or supported ... ex-gay and Jerry Falwell and Metropolitan Community Church ... politics and the various groups that have been politically active ... Queer Nation and the Texas Gay Task Force. Then other files on things like the Boy Scouts. Of course, big files on marriage ... stuff on other archives ... artists and the military and theater and sports. Name a topic and I’ve started a file on it. In a recent email, you mentioned keeping files on gay
Republicans and gay Democrats, looking at both sides of the debate. The lesson that I’ve learned from being an archivist is that you have to put your prejudices aside. Because as you know, the Stonewall Democrats aren’t keeping any files on the [Log Cabin] Republicans and the Republicans don’t give a shit about the Democrats. The various little groups like the Esperanza have kept files on themselves but they don’t keep files on anybody else, especially anybody they don’t like. It’s amazing how little groups don’t like the other little groups who may be doing something differently and certainly aren’t keeping files on the religious groups who are opposing them. They just kind of have that in their memory … how long does that last? I came to the realization that as a librarian and as an archivist, you cannot properly collect a history if you’re going to start editing out people that you don’t like. How does San Antonio’s drag community factor into the Happy Foundation? I don’t really keep up with it too much anymore ’cause I don’t really go out at night anymore. But in 1973, when we started the San Antonio Country, the one thing I can say about the drag community is that they were so knowledgeable about politics. I was just always amazed because that’s always a topic that you talk about in the gay
community — who’s doing what and who’s trying to stop us. The drag queens always were current with politics and voting and stuff ... they were always so bright and they just got it and could articulate their opinions well ... You kind of think drag queens are just going to be airheads, wanting to dress up and that’s it. But they’re really quite smart. When did you start Political Art Month? In 2010, the very year Contemporary Art Month [moved from] July to March. I just declared [July] Political Art Month ... There’s fabulous political art going on all year, so it’s not like you had to ghetto it into July, but I thought July would be a great time to write some good articles about what’s happened ... But it’s turned out people don’t want to do anything in July. Tell me about your ceramics. Wesley Harvey helped me do them ... He was doing his decals of Tom of Finland [and] one day, it just struck me. I thought, I need to be firing these newspaper articles on plates ... and so I started going through my files and pulling out famous newspaper articles that documented the gay civil rights movement — people and places and marches and everything ... I decided that they were the perfect china pattern for the gay couple who has everything. brindfuss@sacurrent.com sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 25
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THE ARTIST WITHIN The Odyssey Of Nina Donley And Zac Cimi Arte JAMES COURTNEY
Nina Donley, prolific artist and owner of the Zac Cimi Arte gallery, creates art on various hard surfaces that makes you feel like you’ve been teleported to a primal rave in the neon-haunted blackness of an ancient Mayan ruin. Her work begins in raw emotional and cultural inspiration and ends in vibrant abstraction. Donley arrived at art by means of revelation after repeated misfortune. Taken from an abusive home in Dallas by authorities at a young age, she spent time in a Kentucky foster home and orphanage before trying her hand at college, dropping out and becoming homeless. Finding herself on the streets and addicted to drugs, she realized she was a lesbian and, after continued hardships, landed in San Antonio. In an interview this month with the San Antonio Current, Donley spoke about feeling transformed after she “discovered art as therapy.” After painstakingly tracking down her biological parents seven years ago while in search of her identity, Donley was awoken to the excruciating yet liberating fact that she, like so many others, would have to construct her own life without the guiding light of a family willing to see her through the darkness. With her bright, gleefully idiosyncratic art — heavily influenced by her studies of (especially Mexican) pre-Hispanic art — as her focus, she gained a wellearned, and fortunately well-connected supporter, Leonard Rodriguez. Now, working from and residing at a live/work space in the Gardens at San Juan on South Zarzamora, Donley is
Nina Donley surrounded by her artwork at her West Side gallery, Zac Cimi Arte.
creating endlessly and seeking to grow her fledgling gallery, Zac Cimi Arte. In our recent chat, we talked about her background, the unique and appropriate name of her gallery, her altruistic aims and her methods as an artist and gallery owner. On her opportunity to live and work at the Gardens at San Juan: “A guy named Leonard Rodriguez [Westside Development Corporation president] approached me as a fan of my work and someone who appreciated my story. He asked if I might want to have a gallery and live at the San Juan Gardens and, of course, I accepted.” On her service-minded approach: “I am a big believer in paying it forward and in uplifting the community around you. I know what it’s like to struggle. I know what it’s like to not have a mom or dad. I know what it’s like to be homeless. So I have this message board
and these pamphlets and I want to plan non-profit events and take donations. I want to be active in the area around me. As I came out as gay, art was the only place I could go to and I want to give people something like that.”
abstract. So I usually work on surfaces and with inks that dry very quickly and force me to get my ideas out quickly. And then, as I think is clear, I am fascinated in and deeply inspired by all types of pre-Hispanic art.”
On the Zac Cimi name: “Zac Cimi comes from Mayan mythology. The creator gods had four sons that were giants called Bacabs and their job was to hold up the four corners of the world. And the giant who held up the west side of the world was called Zac Cimi. So he was like a protector of the people and their part of the world. It seemed to complement my interests in pre-Hispanic culture and my sense of my role.”
On her ultimate goals: “I would love to become a nonprofit. I want to use my art and wow people with my art to draw them to communitycentered events. I want to also provide a place for classes and resources to help people who are struggling, whatever they might be struggling with.” Through a mix of beaming positivity, non-profit events, community service, gallery exhibitions, performances and her own art, Donley hopes to see the seeds she has planted bloom and enrich the surrounding soil. In July, the gallery will be showcasing work by artist Blair Wilson. Anyone interested in showcasing, organizing an event at Zac Cimi, or visiting can contact Donley at zaccimiarte@gmail.com.
On her un-academic and organic process of creation: “I don’t like to paint at all. I don’t have patience for things that take too long to dry. I’m not good at blending or shading or making things look realistic. I like the
sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 27
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Still going, but has its clientele shifted significantly over the years? The venerable Bonham Exchange faces criticism of no longer being a bona fide gay club.
BONHAM BLUES Has SA’s LGBT Mainstay Nightclub Lost Its Way? LUKE ANTHONY SCHULTE
Since its inception in 1891, it has served as a gymnasium, a USO office and a storage facility for the U.S. Postal Service. But the building at 411 Bonham Street is probably best known as one of San Antonio’s oldest gay and lesbian social hotspots. Inspired by Alamo Hero James Bonham, the Bonham Exchange opened its doors in July 1981 after local development visionary Arthur “Hap” Veltman bought the building after the sale of his previous club, the San Antonio Country. Veltman’s impact on San Antonio’s architecture scene can still be seen today. His legacy continues as the Blue Star Art Complex, Aztec Theatre and Riverwalk continue to flourish. A plaque under the Crockett Street Bridge near the Hyatt Regency Riverwalk Hotel commemorates
Veltman’s contributions to San Antonio. On December 3, 1988, less than a decade after opening the Bonham, Veltman lost his battle with HIV/AIDS. His vision for the club, however, continued to thrive. The club’s ownership transferred to Veltman’s partner, Kenneth Garrett, who still owns the club today. In its 34 years, the Bonham Exchange has played host to some of the hottest names in music. Mega celebrities like Tina Turner, the Ramones, Iggy Pop, Deborah Harry, Martha Wash, Taylor Dane and RuPaul have drawn crowds of straight, gay, lesbian and trans folk to the three-story brick façade and its internal historic walls. These days, headliners and pop starts have been replaced by the typical nightly bar shtick — recurring gimmicks meant to boost sales. On Wednesdays, there is karaoke. Thursday nights are reserved for a lip sync battle that offers the winner a $100 prize. Male guests can show off their pecs on Fridays for a chance to win some money. On Saturdays, 94.1 KTFM broadcasts live from the Bonham all night. And on Sundays, Natasha Von York hosts the Sassy Show (a drag revue). Despite its history as a juggernaut, some say a combination of factors seem to have gradually begun to rob the institution of its pull within the LGBT community. In fact, many now see the Bonham Exchange as antiquated and refer to it (with implied disdain) as a straight bar.
Area actor, singer and poet Dino Foxx, who performs as Foxxy Blue Orchid (a fabulous bearded drag queen and burlesque performer), cites the opening of newer, more exciting bars like Sparky’s Pub as one of the reasons the local LGBT crowd remains on the Strip. “I think it would take something really major to have hundreds of people flock to the Bonham again and be willing to deal with parking, the smell that hits you when you walk in the door and drinking from plastic cups like you were in college on spring break again,” Foxx told the San Antonio Current. Erick Larue, a trans man and former Master Male Illusionist winner, says he hasn’t been to the Bonham in nearly a decade. “I didn’t like the management and their lack of judgment with patrons,” Larue said. The daily $2 and $3 drink specials and a $200 VIP gold card that allows up to four people over the age of 21 to skip the proverbial velvet rope without paying cover for over a year no longer seem to catch the attention of would-be patrons. Jeannette Mann-Chavez, a straight mother of two, calls her last visit to the Bonham in 1993 “raunchy and ridiculous.” “It became more of a straight bar than anything else. ’Straight nights’ had tasteless contests ... More like who showed more ‘TNA.’ If I wanted to see that, I could have gone to a strip club. It simply lost what it once was ... the sparkle
was gone,” Mann-Chavez lamented. According to Bonham Exchange General Manager “Niecy,” (who asked to be referred to only as such), she isn’t sure where this public perception has come from. As far as she sees it, the joint has stuck to its roots. “The Bonham is and always has been a gay nightclub,” she told the Current, affirming that the bar has always been “gay owned and operated.” Niecy went on to explain that there are no set gay or straight nights at the Bonham Exchange and that patrons can still expect a mixture of people of all orientations. Its Facebook and Yelp pages are not short of reviews and contrary to popular belief, there are literally hundreds of fourand five-star reviews (far outnumbering the lower rank reviews). The general consensus of the 1,958 reviews on both sites seems to be that those who frequented the Bonham in decades past feel the bar has atrophied, while millennials and 20-somethings experiencing the club for the first time find the dance music and drink prices enticing enough to return. While the Bonham is not ready to announce its plans for its 34th anniversary celebration later this summer, it does plan to celebrate Pride as it always has. The bar will once again host the annual Pride Pageant and participate in the Pride Bigger than Texas event on July 4th at Crockett Park. sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 29
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JADE ESTEBAN ESTRADA
FORGOTTEN IN-BETWEENS Bisexuals Still Trying To Find Their Place Within LGBT Family JADE ESTEBAN ESTRADA
Perennially cast in the background of the annual Pride family tableau and arguably the most quietly misunderstood of the four-lettered acronym wavers, there stands the self-identified American bisexual. Caught between a long history of Eurocentric and national heterosexism and the growing might of Bravo TV-infused lesbian and gay influence, contemporary members of this tribe have continued to use their age-old powers of invisibility to weather the wrath of haters. This month, as we commemorate New York’s 1969 Stonewall riots with a yearly worldwide Gay Pride celebration, some bisexuals feel the time has come to reclaim their place in the march for social equality under a pink umbrella that they say should have enough room for everyone. Coming out as a lesbian was certainly a challenge for SA’s Erica Campos, 37, but “coming out as bisexual was a whole other process.” She recognized she didn’t know much about bisexuality when she began her civic engagement in the local LGBT community, but what she had heard wasn’t good. “Bisexuality is a bad word in the gay community,” she said. “Lesbians saw it as disgusting. They didn’t want to be with a woman who was also with men.” Because she knew some gay people still experience discrimination, she expected lesbians in her circle to be more “tolerant” when she came out. Instead, she got a lesson in social pecking order. “Gay people generally look down on [bisexuality] because it gives them the right to look down on someone. ‘I may be gay but at least I’m not bisexual,’” she remembered someone once told her. Campos was attracted to men but she found it difficult to find guys with whom she could establish an emotional connection. She gained new clarity after attending a seminar on bisexuality. With every given question that ranked her attraction to male and female subjects, she landed smack in the middle. She related with the speaker, right down to the fear of discussing bisexuality, which she learned was common. “It was a defining moment for me [yet] it was something I always knew,” she says. “It wasn’t until then that I felt a sense of wholeness and realness.” 30 CURRENT • June 24-30, 2015 • sacurrent.com
Diamond Mason: “Bisexuality is a bad word.”
Erica Campos: Accused of not being a “real lesbian”
After coming out to a “very prominent woman in the gay community,” Campos found it unsettling to hear the luminary tell her that her bisexuality claim was “just a cop-out.” It was but one more critique bisexuals have become accustomed to hearing: “Oh, that’s not real.” “You can’t decide.” “You’re promiscuous.” “You’re just going through a phase.” “Oh, you’re straight.” And the list goes on. But Campos vehemently defended her right to celebrate LGBT Pride Month as something that belongs to her, too. “Who am I to tell you what your identity is? I don’t belong in the straight world. I don’t belong in the gay world. I belong in the middle,” she affirmed. Even though Campos is now monogamously married to a man, she doesn’t think that should take away from her coming-out experience: “There’s no better feeling than being true to yourself.” When asked where he falls between the gay and heterosexual worlds, Matt, who’s in his early 40s and agreed to an interview on the condition of anonymity, lets out a heavy sigh. “Both sides give you shit because you don’t pick a side,” he said. His secret to survival is to just “go with the flow.” That means playing the field accordingly, mostly keeping a low profile. “That’s when I go to the gay place in my head and work from that table,” he said. “When I’m with people who are predominately straight, I work from that table. In a mixed crowd, I let the chips fall where they may.” For a bisexual male, the inevitable result will be a polyamorous relationship, Matt said. He feels fortunate to have a boyfriend and a girlfriend who are pretty happy with the arrangement. As far as he sees it, bisexual women have an unfair advantage being out. “If you tell a man that his
girlfriend is bi, ‘that’s hot’,” he says. “[But] if you tell a woman that her boyfriend likes that dick, too? All hell breaks loose.” Unlike Matt, Diamond Mason isn’t keeping quiet about her bisexuality. “I think clarification is necessary,” she said. “I’m not going to shut up about it just because someone doesn’t understand.” Mason, 22, was recently accused of not being “a real lesbian” because she’s ignorant of the issues they have to deal with. “I think that statement in and of itself proves how much of a struggle bisexuals go through, because we’re not completely accepted by the lesbian community and we’re questioned by the straight community.” So, basically, it’s like being left in a no man’s land — or no woman’s land, take your pick. When she goes to a Pride event with her boyfriend, people assume she’s a straight ally. “But if they know that I’m a bisexual with a boyfriend?” Well, she just doesn’t feel like dealing with the jokes or questions. “Those are comments that people think are not offensive but they really are.” Because bisexuals can sometimes weave in and out of social circles, they can effectively avoid such subcultural warfare with little effort. The price of admission to the LGBT big top is a visibility that strips them of their stealthy powers. Whether losing that cultural anonymity is worth it or not would depend on the individual’s need for inclusion within the established post-Ellen world. “People really need to stop worrying about what consenting adults do,” Matt said. “As soon as people get their head around that [idea], we’re going to be a happier species as a whole.”
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32 CURRENT • June 24-30, 2015 • sacurrent.com
PRIDE
NO FREUDIAN SLIP Is Pansexuality The Next Big Thing In LGBT Circles? JADE ESTEBAN ESTRADA
When 33-year-old Monique Martin attends a Pride event, she does so as an out and proud pansexual. Right on queue, the questions start pouring in the moment she utters the word. Not that she’s got a ready-to-go, concise answer. “It means I fall for all kinds of people and that’s a hard concept for people to wrap their head around,” she told the San Antonio Current. “It’s about being able to love whoever you want without boundaries.” Martin is part of the growing movement in San Antonio that is literally attracted to every adult human under the rainbow. Pansexuality (sometimes also known as omnisexuality) is derived from the Greek prefix pan, which means “all.” Martin feels there are many limitations to “living as straight. I believe in following my heart rather than anything else. My sexual identity just makes sense.” Before she ever makes it down to the Pride funnel cakes, she finds it easier to explain all of the things that pansexuality isn’t. “Being pansexual doesn’t mean you want to bang everyone that you see,” she clarified. “For me, pansexuality is about acknowledging that sexuality and gender don’t fall under a binary scale.” That touches on a common misconception that perhaps should be addressed. Sure, it’s about keeping an open mind, but it’s not about exploring beyond the human species. “Some people think pansexuality has something do with goats,” she said with a chuckle. “Falling in love with anybody, regardless of identity, has nothing to do with animals.” And there are many who would categorize pansexuality as something that sprang exclusively from kink culture. Back off with the electrical nipple clamps — not quite. “I don’t see it as that,” Martin said. “As consenting adults, we can love whoever we want. Kink has nothing do with it. Kink is purely sexual. I don’t think pansexuality is purely sexual, just like it’s not only a
sexual thing in heterosexual relationships.” Like most people, she had to go through certain growing pains before discovering her true identity. “It wasn’t until my late 20s that I identified as [pansexual],” said Martin, a military brat and longtime member of the local comedy troupe Comedia A Go-Go. “I think people are starting to understand that the [arts and] humanities are complicated things and we should be accepting of everyone and how they choose to identify,” she added. Martin said in SA the LGBT response to her pansexuality has been positive. Perhaps it’s due to the mainstream revival and newness of the word in the American vernacular. Sigmund Freud first coined the term “pansexual” by using it to define sexuality as the basic motive for all human interaction. But the current usage of the word gained popularity in the early 20th century and, according to Google Trends, the word pansexual has been on the steady rise as a search term since 2007. The really big letters in the queer alphabet soup include heterosexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality. But some, like Martin, fall in between. “I can only speak for myself,” she said. “I can understand how someone would identify as LGBT, but you can be on the cusp.” Pansexual is simply the best way she has found to describe herself. It’s also a term that makes sense to Bernard Taylor, though he offered a semantic twist on the designation. “It should be called pan-romanticism,” said Taylor, who’s originally from South Africa and lived many years in England before moving to the Alamo City in 2001. “People should feel free to follow their romantic and sexual urges.” Taylor said he feels caught between two worlds. “I’ve always been pulled in both directions,” he told the Current, explaining that calling himself bisexual never felt quite right. Across the board, pansexuals, like Taylor, have expressed being attracted
Even within LBGT circles, Monique Martin says she has to explain identifying as a pansexual.
to someone with their hearts first, rather than physically. “It depends on the person,” he said. Taylor, who declined to share his age, certainly has experience on the relationship front. He’s had four wives. However, his current relationship, with a man named Jerry, is the first to ever make him feel emotionally settled. “I haven’t looked outside the relationship,” said Taylor, adding that he likes guys slightly on the gentle side but not effeminate. “I’ve always been honest. My last wife knew from the beginning that my first romance was with a man.” Lesbians and gay men, too, may feel uncomfortable dating pansexuals because they often feel they cannot compete with the competition. So even to this day, Taylor cannot find a neat little box to check for his sexual
identity. But that isn’t an issue for him. “I don’t like labels of any kind,” he said. His long journey to try to understand where he falls within the LGBT umbrella led him to write a self-published book entitled Beyond Gay Stereotypes in 2011. “There are screaming queens on one side and bears on the other,” he said. “I felt like gay people defined themselves by these stereotypes.” At least in the land of the free, some see a beauty in the spinning diversity of glittering queens, endearing bears and those in between. But today’s use of the word diversity may seem pretty square in the decades to come. It could be that the rise of pansexuality will one day be viewed as a bridge between the dominant heterosexual world and everyone else under Gilbert Baker’s (benevolent) rainbow flag. sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 33
34 CURRENT • June 24-30, 2015 • sacurrent.com
PRIDE
POLITICAL PRIDE
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SA’s Robert Salcido Helps Push LGBT Candidates Into Office
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San Antonio LGBT advocate Robert Salcido went back to school in May. He attended a fourday Candidate and Campaign Training workshop in Florida, part of the yearlong training and mentoring program organized The Victory Fund wants more LGBT members running for office. by the Victory Fund and Institute. Salcido joins other fellowship becoming a “single-issue” candidate. recipients forming part of the institute’s The Victory Fund was established in inaugural fellow program class. 1991, after a network of LGBT activists Salcido is currently a field organizer for saw the success of Emily’s List, an Equality Texas and also serves as Chair organization designed to advance the of Pride Center San Antonio, President presence of women in politics. The Fund of Orgullo de San Antonio (LGBT was instrumental in helping elect both the LULAC Council 22198), Vice President nation’s first African-American lesbian city of the San Antonio LGBT Chamber of council member (Sherry Harris of Seattle) Commerce and he’s also a member of the and the first openly lesbian in U.S. Senate mayor’s LGBT advisory team. history (Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin). The fellowship is a yearlong In partnership with the International mentorship program that includes Network of Lesbian and Gay Officials, training in both campaign the Victory Fund launched its training management and effective political institute in 2004 and has gone on candidacy. Its goal is to advance to help elect more than 120 LGBT LGBT rights and boost the number members into municipal, state and of gay, lesbian and transgender federal government positions. representatives in elected office. While he doesn’t yet know whether The institute will offer another he’ll seek political office, Salcido does intensive four-day workshop later in hope this fellowship will allow him to the summer in San Antonio. Even in further his current involvement with city its infancy, the project has already and statewide politics. produced tangible results: A testimonial Salcido has already helped to create on the organization’s website credits and launch the city’s Non Discrimination the course with helping elect the first Ordinance website and is entrusted openly lesbian sheriff in the country with helping promote the new Office (Lupe Valdez of Dallas County). of Diversity and Inclusion created by “The program itself gives you the Ivy Taylor, who was just elected to skills necessary to hold office or run permanently hold the mayor’s seat. campaigns,” Salcido told the San When asked what other members Antonio Current. of the LGBT community can do to help He explained that the course included further gay and lesbian rights, Salcido a mock campaign scenario in which said: “Be present. Be aware of what’s participants learned about fundraising, going on, aware of initiatives. Join drafting a solid campaign message and local organizations. Education is the navigating a political career without biggest thing.”
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CALENDAR
WED
24
Ginger Minj DRAG
Arriving on season seven of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Ginger Minj introduced herself as an “overweight, asthmatic, chain-smoking cross-dresser” and a “glamour toad,” but quickly emerged as what TV Guide dubbed “the queen to beat.” Although Minj (born Joshua Eads in Leesburg, Florida) sashayed away sans the title of America’s Next Drag Superstar, the upset hasn’t exactly burst her bubble. Less than a week before setting out on tour with her production Crossdresser for Christ The Musical, A Drag Queen Confessional, the plus-size diva performs at the Heat courtesy of Rey Lopez Entertainment. $10$20, 11:30pm, Heat Nightclub, 1500 N. Main Ave., (210) 386-4537, heatsa.com. — Bryan Rindfuss
36 CURRENT • June 24-30, 2015 • sacurrent.com
THU
25
Hank Williams Jr. MUSIC
Hank Williams Jr. could have made a career for himself based on his name alone. However, Bocephus has spent just as much time setting himself up in opposition to his daddy’s brand of country as he has embracing it. Williams Jr., now 66, has had an illustrious if spotty career, reinventing himself frequently to fit the changing interests of a diverse fanbase. His heady blend of rebellion and tradition, Southern-fried rock and country, have made him a fan favorite for more than 40 years. One thing’s for sure: The man can put on one hell of a show. $36.49-$1,625.87, 7pm, Whitewater Amphitheater, 11860 FM 306, New Braunfels, (830) 964-3800, whitewaterrocks.com. — James Courtney
THU-SAT
25-27
Moon City ART
San Anto via Pittsburgh outfit Miniature Curiosa conjures nostalgic, slightly twisted spectacles that combine puppetry, narration, video projections and original animation. Set in a swampy locale and based loosely on the life of entrepreneur/roller coaster designer Frederick Ingersoll, the tiny troupe’s “liveaction comic book” Moon City packs an entire amusement park into less than 10 feet of space. Reviewing Moon City’s recent début at South Carolina’s Piccolo Spoleto Festival, Charleston City Paper wrote: “It’s like Tim Burton befriended Tom Waits as a child and taught him to make home movies with dolls and play sets.” $15, 8pm Thu-Sat, Brick, 108 Blue Star, miniaturecuriosa.com. — BR
FRI
26
Impractical Jokers COMEDY
TruTV’s Impractical Jokers is sort of like America’s Funniest Home Videos if you replace the toddler whacking dad in the groin with a whiffle ball bat with a Candid Camera feed of the dad hitting himself in the junk in front of perplexed passersby. That’s too reductive of the improvised prank show, but one bit did require a Joker to shoot free throws until he sank a basket; when he missed, a little girl hit him in the shin with a plastic bat. How many times do you laugh? If the answer is “every time,” seeing the Jokers live will no doubt be a hoot. $49.75–$200, 7:30pm, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. — Jeremy Martin
CALENDAR
FRI
26
All-American Picnic SPECIAL EVENT
The San Antonio Museum of Art will close out “Jamie Wyeth,” a comprehensive retrospective of the painter’s work filled with portraits (John F. Kennedy and Andy Warhol among them), landscapes and idyllic still lifes, with a bash. Take a tour from 7-7:45 p.m. prior to a Slab Cinema screening of Wes Anderson’s ode to simpler times and summer love, Moonrise Kingdom. You’ll want to pack a picnic to enjoy on SAMA’s lush lawn along with music by El Campo. American wines and sweet sips by The Lemonade Company will be available for purchase. Free with “Jamie Wyeth” exhibition admission ($15-$20), 7-11pm, San Antonio Museum of Art, (210) 978-8100, samuseum.org. – Jessica Elizarraras
FRI-SUN
26-28
Mary Poppins THEATER
Following two raucous children and the magical nanny that swoops in to save their family, Mary Poppins brings laughter, music and flight to the Woodlawn. With the theater’s largest ensemble to date, artistic director Greg Hinojosa enlists choreographer Eric Mota and special effects artists to create a spectacle that’s truly “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” Adapted for the stage by the Sherman Brothers and Julian Fellowes, the musical draws from both the 1964 film and the P.L. Travers books, the rights to which it took Walt Disney more than 20 years to obtain. $17-$26, 7:30pm Fri-Sat, 3pm Sun, Woodlawn Theatre, 1920 Fredericksburg Rd., (210) 267-8388, woodlawntheatre.org. — Murphi Cook
SAT
27
We’re All Mad BURLESQUE
From knives and fire to snakes and whips, the ladies of Le Strange combine the most daring elements of sideshow, burlesque and vaudeville to prove they’re anything but your typical troupe. And now, Texas’ premiere all-female sideshow review brings its talents to the big top with We’re All Mad, an evening of circusthemed thrills featuring feats of fire from Lady Luna and other special guests (Tifa Tittlywinks, Emma D’Lemma, Bunny Galore and Zombie Bazaar Belly Dance, to name a few), plus live music courtesy of The Phantomatics and Black Water Revival. Houston’s Nick T’Vegan emcees. $10-$15, 8:30pm, The Korova, 107 E. Martin St., facebook.com/ lestrangesideshow. — MC
MON
29
Tom Green COMEDY
Since breaking out in the U.S. in the late ’90s with MTV’s The Tom Green Show, which featured the titular host staging a series of controversial pranks, the Canadian man-child, now 43, has experimented with a number of talk show formats and has also found his way back to his stand-up roots. “As you get older, you start to get more opinionated about things,” Green told the San Antonio Current in a phone interview last week to promote his stand-up début in SA. “Standup is definitely a great forum for opinions.” Read our full interview with Green at sacurrent.com. $20, 7pm, Rivercenter Comedy Club, 849 E. Commerce St., (210) 229-1420, rivercentercomedyclub. com. – Kiko Martínez
sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 37
CALENDAR
THU
25
Finding Vivian Maier
THU
In an era saturated with iPhone photographers and disposable celebrities “famous for being famous,” the mysterious story of Vivian Maier reads as stranger than fiction. Flying intentionally beneath the radar during her lifetime and now heralded by The New York Times as one of “the great American midcentury street photographers,” Maier referred to herself as a “spy” and created more than 100,000 photographs with a medium-format Rolleiflex while working as a nanny for upper-crust families in New York and Chicago. In 2007, realtor-turned-amateur historian John Maloof snapped up the contents of Maier’s derelict storage unit (for $380) and embarked on a research project that led to his 2014 documentary Finding Vivan Maier. Co-directed by Charlie Siskel (nephew of the late film critic Gene Siskel), the Oscar-nominated doc screens as part of the McNay’s Get Reel Film Series. Free, 6:30pm, McNay Art Museum, 6000 N. New Braunfels Ave., (210) 824-5368, mcnayart.org. — Bryan Rindfuss
Art
Art opening: “Fireworks” Musical Bridges
Around the World Gallery celebrates the opening of local artist Rex Hausmann’s “Fireworks” with a performance by the Flying Balalaika Brothers, beer from Freetail and food truck fare from Mi Taquito Arandas Jalisco. Free, 5-8pm Friday; Musical Bridges Around the World Gallery, 23705 I-10 W., (210) 464-1534.
RAW San Antonio: “Splendor” The latest
chapter of RAW takes over the Aztec Lounge with a collaborative showcase uniting more than 40 artists working in varied disciplines. $15-$20, 7-11:30pm Wednesday; Aztec Lounge, 280 W. Crockett, (210) 201-3301.
Film
Mary Poppins Diney’s Oscar-winning Mary
Poppins follows the musical antics of a nanny (Julie Andrews) who descends from the windy skies to work her magic on a dysfunctional London family. Slab Cinema screens the 1964 classic in Travis Park as part of its Movies by Moonlight series (weather permitting). Free, 8:30pm Tuesday; Travis Park, 301 E. Travis St., (210) 207-3677.
The Freshman Texas Public Radio’s Cinema Tuesdays series rewinds to 1925 for a screening of directors Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor’s silent slapstick gem starring Harold Lloyd as a new college student determined to get the girl and become the Big Man on Campus. $10-$15, 7:30pm Tuesday; Santikos Bijou, 4522 Fredericksburg Rd., (210) 614-8977.
38 CURRENT • June 24-30, 2015 • sacurrent.com
Theater
A Life (Asleep) Written and directed by
Sophie Bolles, A Life (Asleep) follows the increasingly strange dream-life of an ordinary young woman as she navigates everything from the office to the apocalypse. $10-14, 8pm ThursdaySaturday; The Overtime Theater, 1203 Camden St., (210) 557-7562.
Nosferatu The Vampire Performing Arts
San Antonio tackles Bernard J. Taylor’s operatic take on F. W. Murnau’s 1920sera adaptation of Dracula. $18-$25, 8pm Friday-Saturday, 3pm Sunday; Performing Arts San Antonio, 15705 San Pedro Ave., (210) 557-1187.
Words
Sarah Cortez: Goodbye, Mexico In 2000,
Houston native Sarah Cortez made waves with her poetry collection How to Undress a Cop, which notably included an “Ode to Body Armor.” For the anthology Goodbye, Mexico: Poems of Remembrance, Cortez curated more than 70 unpublished works inspired by nostalgia for Mexico’s pre-narco era. Free, 7-9pm Saturday; The Twig Book Shop, 306 Pearl Pkwy, (210) 826-6411.
Comedy
Mary Lynn Rajskub Although best known for
portraying computer genius Chloe O’Brian on the Fox series 24, Detroit-born actress and stand-up Mary Lynn Rajskub boasts a long list of credits that includes such TV shows and films as Arrested Development, Californication, Little Miss Sunshine and Julie & Julia. $20, 8pm & 10:15pm Friday-Saturday,
25
Glitch: A Night of Art & Arcades
Although the official grand opening of the new West Side arcade Dreamonoid’s is still a few months away, according to owner Christian P. Rios, the San Antonio community is invited to a sneak peek of the space, which will feature works from local artists, including Megan Solis, David Almaguer and Louie Chavez, who created the somewhat controversial mural on the facade of what was once a health services nonprofit. After purchasing the building last year, Rios, 25, got some pushback and online detractors when he commissioned Chavez to paint over the decade-old mural “Seeds of Solidarity” by artists Mary Agnes Rodriguez and José Cosme. With images of iconic Latino leaders now replaced by a goopy slime monster (and other renovations near completion), Rios’ next order of business is to continue to fill the venue with a lot more machines. He hopes his arcade can be a place that will keep kids off the streets and out of trouble. “I’ve always wanted to work in an arcade, so to own one is a dream come true,” Rios told the San Antonio Current last week. “It’s been an awesome journey so far.” Free, 7-11pm, Dreamonoid’s, 1711 Guadalupe St., (210) 262-4489, dreamonoids.com. — Kiko Martínez
8pm Sunday; Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, 618 NW Loop 410, (210) 541-8805.
Talks Plus
“Black and Brown Sounds in Tejas”
UTSA’s third annual Cultural Afromestizaje Mini Symposium and Concert combines a panel with scholars and musicians (including Marco Cervantes, Micaela Díaz-Sánchez and Gloria Gonzales) and a performance by Houston’s Archie Bell and members of The Sunliners Band, best known for the 1968 funk classic “Tighten Up.” Free, 6-9pm Friday; UTSA Buena Vista Theater, 501 W. César Chávez Blvd., (210) 458-4011.
“Jurassic World: Dinosaurs in Movies and Their Influence on Society and Science”
In conjunction with the Louis A. and Frances B. Wagner Series, Dr. Thomas Adams (the Witte’s curator of paleontology and geology) and an expert panel examine dinosaur specimens and explore the role of new fossil discoveries and innovative scientific interpretations within popular culture. Free, 6:30-8:30pm Wednesday; Witte Museum, 3801 Broadway, (210) 357-1900.
“The Environment, Arts and Socioeconomy” Inspired in part by
studies in Mexico, artist/educator Rachael F. Brown’s gallery talk “The Environment, Arts and Socioeconomy: Interdependence and Success in Ancient and Modern Mexico” offers an oral complement to Bihl Haus Arts’ environmentally focused group exhibition “Nature on the Edge.” Free, 2pm Saturday; Bihl Haus Arts, 2803 Fredericksburg Rd., (210) 383-9723.
LGBT
Cry OUT Andrez Y’Barbo from the youth
support group Project Embrace discusses the difficult process some parents experience when their children come out. Free, 6-7:30pm Wednesday; Great Northwest Branch Library, 9050 Wellwood St., (210) 207-9210.
Miss Gay San Antonio at Large Hosted
by Valerie Paris, the Miss San Antonio at Large pageant promises fire-themed performances by red-hot drag divas Layla Larue, Alayna Marquez, Beyonce Mykels and Anny Conda, among others. Free, 10:30pm Wednesday; Pegasus, 1402 N. Main St., (210) 299-4222.
Rock OUT Soul siren Alyson Alonzo and folk-
rapper Chris Conde perform at Central Library in celebration of Pride Month. Free, 10:30-11:30am Saturday; Central Library, 600 Soledad St., (210) 207-2500.
sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 39
Kids Summer
FILM FESTIVAL Tuesday & Wednesday @ 10am
June 23 & 24 Megamind July 7 & 8 Despicable Me 2 July 14 & 15 Annie July 21 & 22 Rio 2 July 28 & 29 Sponge Bob: Sponge Out of Water
Free tickets to all shows are available at the City Base Cinema box-office only,on the morning of the event and tickets are on a “first come, first served” distribution basis.
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ARTS
PEACHY TEACHIN’ Gender-Bending Icon Releases New Photo Book MATT STIEB/@MATTHEWSTIEB
For electroclash and performance artist Peaches, the body and all its politics — gender, orientation, sexual identity — are there to be toyed with. Playing rough with taboo, a Peaches show cuts through the doublespeak of sexual politics and gets into something real and vividly fun. For her Seussian costumes, raving fanbase and fearless attitude toward the body, I can think of no better candidate than this Toronto romp-roller for a hardcover photo tome. What Else Is In The Teaches Of Peaches takes its name from “Fuck The Pain Away,” a Peaches single featured in Lost In Translation and Jackass (an inspired club in Brighton, England, also took the title as its name). Like the ’00 single, the book is full of grit, sweat and dripping sexuality. Shot by Holger Talinski, a young photographer out of Berlin, Teaches of Peaches covers a prolific 2009 to 2014 span in the singer’s career. From stressed out hotel shots to carnival stage shows, a performance of Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece to a one-woman electro-rock opera Peaches Does Herself, the book is an extensive look into the life of a transgressive master. What Else Is In The Teaches Of Peaches opens with an image of the artist backstage. In a pink-puff, upside down tulip jacket, gold hood and luchador mask, Peaches is utterly serious, prepared for the battle ahead. A few pages later, we find her in the same outfit, knee-high combat boots visible now, as she crowdsurfs with her legs splayed out like a goal post. Way deep in the crowd, Talinski’s light travels from pink to green in the frame. Peaches, née Merrill Nisker, has been at it since 1995, releasing five efforts of brilliant, electronic smut. But her material finds its true life on the stage, in no small part due to her elaborate, ever-evolving attire. As Peaches describes her I Feel Cream tour in the foreword: “Images of myself singing backup were projected onto my winged sleeves when I lifted my arms. There were costume changes galore where I would start with huge outfits and slowly, during the show, strip down layer by layer like a Russian matryoshka doll.”
Peaches with Yoko Ono at London’s Meltdown Festival in 2013 (left); spraying the crowd with fake blood in Brooklyn in 2009.
In her costume choices, Peaches shares Bakhtin’s love of the orifice, worshipping at the spewing altars of the body. Another backstage shot finds Peaches in an off-white bodysuit with chrome breasts and a comic satyr phallus. The prosthetic shlong casts a perfect, laughable shadow on the industrial equipment behind her. In front of a massive outdoor festival crowd, Peaches and her dancers don huge, balloon-shaped breasts. Peaches, in a giraffe mask, is covered in 30 of the carnival mammaries. Inevitably, the music morphed into performance and theatrical art. In 2012, after running Peaches Christ Superstar, a one-woman adaptation of Jesus Christ Superstar, Nisker debuted Peaches Does Herself, a mythical history of her roots. Talinski captures both shows in their absurd, gutbucket splendor. Like all good performance art, it’s not an empty dance. In each frame, Peaches carries a fire in her eyes. As R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe says, in one of the book’s guest essays: “She is brave enough to be completely current, human, vulnerable.” In 2013, at the Meltdown Festival in London, Yoko Ono invited Peaches to perform Ono’s Cut Piece. First performed by Ono in 1964, the work invites audience members to cut away the actor’s clothing until nothing remains. In Talinski’s Cut Piece photos, Peaches is left naked against a black background, with remnant scraps of clothing dotted around her. “She sat quietly but her body was expressing a
universe,” writes Ono. “Cut Piece will never be performed again with such eloquence.” In front of the camera, a few more celebrities make their way into Teaches of Peaches. Nisker and Iggy Pop share a candid moment, in which The Idiot shows off his suspiciously white teeth (they’re certainly looking a lot nicer than his 1981 shoot with Robert Mapplethorpe). In a stairwell, Peaches struts with Pussy Riot, the controversial protest-punk Russian outfit undoubtedly informed by Peaches’ daring feminism. A crucial figure in music in the new millennium, Peaches’ greatest influence is in her role as a queer performer. A Peaches show is a space of sexual freedom, where taboos are looked in the eyes and crumble in the gaze of electro-rock ‘n’ roll. “For a 16-year-old gay person, she offered something that I could not find elsewhere,” writes Ellen Page, in the book’s best essay. “A voice that said, Fuck shame, fuck the male-dominated perspectives of sex, fuck gender stereotypes, fuck not embracing your desires and fuck not owning yourself.”
What Else Is In The Teaches Of Peaches Peaches and Holger Talinski Akashic Books $27.95 160pp
GAUGUIN, PICASSO, & VAN GOGH HAVE A SAN ANTONIO HOME. And it’s only ten minutes from the Riverwalk. Vincent van Gogh, Women Crossing the Fields (detail),1890. Oil on paper, Bequest of Marion Koogler McNay
mcnayart.org sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 41
YOU AND A GUEST ARE INVITED TO A SPECIAL ADVANCE SCREENING TUESDAY, JULY 7 – 7:30 PM – SANTIKOS PALLADIUM
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IN THEATERS FRIDAY, JULY 10 42 CURRENT • June 24-30, 2015 • sacurrent.com
ARTS
GREG HINOJOSA TAKES CENTER STAGE The Woodlawn’s Artistic Director Talks Drag, Acceptance And Mary Poppins MURPHI COOK
A descendant of the old carpas of San Antonio, Greg Hinojosa’s grandparents and great-grandparents traveled the country as trapeze artists, contortionists and clowns, doing whatever they could to convince audiences to come see their show. So, suffice it to say, for Hinojosa, theater isn’t just his job — it’s his birth rite. Today, Hinojosa sits at the helm of the Woodlawn Theatre. In his four-year tenure as artistic director, the theater’s diverse seasons have included a range of high-quality shows from familyfriendly musicals (Mary Poppins opens June 26) to the now-famous annual production of Rocky Horror that stars contestants from RuPaul’s Drag Race. It’s an impressive balancing act that Hinojosa credits to a supportive board and an accepting audience that always shivers in anticipation. What made you decide to put Drag Race contestants in Rocky Horror? Face it, it’s a cult classic, people are going to see it no matter what, and you can do it traditionally, or you can choose to be a little bit more creative … Someone suggested bringing in one of the contestants with RuPaul’s Drag Race down and I thought, “now, that’s not a bad idea.” Do you find it frustrating as an artistic director that we don’t see plays that reflect the voices of the LGBT community? I don’t know if I would say it’s frustrating, it’s certainly challenging. One of the reasons why I wanted to do La Cage Aux Folles on the main stage, was that I wanted the story to have a broad audience ... because it shows a nontraditional family that’s really rooted in good morals and love thrust into a society that is very judgmental towards them. I think a lot of that has to do
Hinojosa as Zaza in La Cage Aux Folles.
with fear. What we don’t understand, we fear. And until we’re able to break through that fear we’re never going to be able to coexist with one another. Can we expect any non-traditional stylistic twists on Mary Poppins? Everybody knows the movie. Everybody knows the song. When you see the Wizard of Oz onstage, you expect to see and hear Judy Garland sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and if you don’t give the audience as close to that as possible, they’re not with you … So with Mary Poppins I have to give the audience a little bit of what they expect and a little bit of the unexpected — which is what makes it exciting to work on. Any teasers? You’ll have to come see the show. I can tell you there’s flying, but I won’t tell you exactly how it’s going to be done or where Mary Poppins is going to go, but it’s going to be a lot of fun. sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 43
VISIT SANTIKOS.COM FOR SHOWTIMES & MORE
SPECIAL ENGAGEMENTS the children’s shelter presents JULY 7 AND 8 JUNE 9 - AUG 19
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NEW FILMS AT THE BIJOU THOMAS MANN
RJ CYLER
MEandEARL
GIRL
and the dying
High schooler, who spends most of his time making parodies of classic movies with his co-worker, finds his outlook forever altered after befriending a classmate diagnosed with cancer. KATE WINSLET MATTHIAS SCHOENAERTS
A LITTLE CHAOS Two talented landscape artists become romantically entangled while building a garden in King Louis XIV's palace at Versailles.
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TEEN TRAGICOMEDY Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Plucks The Heartstrings, Tickles The Funny Bone JEFF MEYERS
Winner of both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Laredo native Alfonso GomezRejon’s sophomore feature had exactly the kind of low-key sentimentality and quirky teen personality to ignite a bidding war between distributors. It also represents everything good and bad that Sundance features have become. On the one hand, you have an energetically directed, well-acted, and reasonably smart film that gently plucks the heartstrings and tickles the funny bone. On the other hand, it’s a movie infected by a hipster’s version of racism, one where the filmmakers think its multi-hued cast gives it diversity cred while neglecting to notice that its black and female costars (Earl and the Dying Girl) exist solely to make a young white male with no actual problems feel better about himself. Yay. Greg (Thomas Mann), the movie’s lead character (aka the “me” in the title), is a morose teen who has spent four years positioning himself as the neutral party in a high school carved into the reductive cliques and cultures (jocks, goths, theater geeks, nerds, etc.) Hollywood has been imagining for decades. Self-centered in a shouldershrugging, self-deprecating way, Greg is suspicious of attachment and has exactly one friend, Earl (RJ Cyler), who is black and lives on the other side of town. The two share a fondness for Criterion Collection-style films, which they remake as straight-faced spoofs with such titles as: The 400 Bros, Senior Citizen Kane, and Pooping Tom. It’s the kind of quirky, neverhappen-in-real-life hobby that makes hardcore film fans salivate, but is really a copy cat concept of Be Kind Rewind’s
High schoolers Greg (Thomas Mann) and Rachel (Olivia Cooke) grapple with mortality in the Sundance sweeper Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.
‘Sweded’ movies. The dying girl is Rachel (Olivia Cooke), whose struggle with leukemia has caused her to drop out of school. This inspires Greg’s mom (Connie Britton) to insist that the socially awkward teen provide her with friendship and support. His tenured, lay-about dad (Nick Offerman) agrees. Filled with resentment, Greg visits Rachel and the two agree to suffer through each other’s company, at least until Greg’s mom finally backs off. Needless to say, the two end up forging a close relationship, one that forces Greg to become a better person and Rachel to ... well ... I guess she gets some company. And Earl, he’s there too. But not much. Mostly, he collaborates with Greg on a special film project for Rachel and, um, advises his moviemaking partner to go for “dem titties.” It’s this relationship that holds the most potential and that fails so completely. Earl, as depicted, is barely a character, mostly present to give Greg some texture and, ultimately, to dare him to stop navel-gazing. At first, there’s a hint that the film intends to confront whiter-than-white Greg’s alienation from
an ever-growing multicultural fabric. He even insists on referring to Earl as his colleague instead of his friend. But nothing advances from that setup and, though the two young actors have an easy rapport, the focus of their friendship is dramatically lopsided in favor of the white kid. The film’s plot comes courtesy of Jesse Andrews’ novel, which he, in turn, adapted for the screen. For its first half, it acknowledges young adult clichés that accompany teen cancer plots by carving the story into cheekily-titled chapters such as “The Part Where I Meet a Dying Girl” or “Day One of Doomed Friendship.” Andrews is a witty writer who does a decent job of balancing humor and emotion. But some of the jokes are overplayed — most especially Molly Shannon’s boozy Mrs. Robinson routine, which is only saved by flashes of genuine grief. There’s also something refreshing about the way Gomez-Rejon utilizes real Pittsburgh homes and streets (Greg’s family lives in the home where Andrews grew up). The random clutter of everyday life grounds an otherwise twee tale in reality. But as Me and Earl And the Dying
Girl meanders up to its tearjerker finale (which is handled, thankfully, with coy deftness), it becomes clear that both Rachel and Earl ultimately exist to help Greg become a better person, a better filmmaker and, hell, get into college (Earl’s plans for the future are notably ignored). The process of growing up is learning that the world does not exist to serve your narrative alone, that you are not the narcissistic center of the universe. The irony of Andrews and Gomez-Rejon’s film is that even as Greg learns to think about someone other than himself, Me and Earl And the Dying Girl really doesn’t bother to follow suit. The dying Jewish girl and the streetsmart black kid are really just cogs in the machinery of Greg, thus suggesting that the movie’s title should have been shortened to its first two letters.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (PG13) 105 min. Dir. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon; writ. Jesse Andrews; feat. Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler, Olivia Cooke, Connie Britton, Nick Offerman, Molly Shannon Opens June 26 at Santikos Bijou
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PIER, PINTS & PRETZELS So Much More Than Seaside Bites At Southerleigh JESSICA ELIZARRARAS/@JESSELIZARRARAS
To say that the buzz surrounding The Pearl’s latest eatery was deafening would be a bit of an understatement (and I say that as a willing participant). But the math on the equation that is Southerleigh Fine Food & Brewery was simple. Chef’s track record? Good. Pearl’s track record? Solid. Historic building to add a certain je ne sais quoi? Oh, yes. And just two months after opening, it’s safe to say the eatery is getting close to meeting astronomical expectations. Opened by chef Jeff Balfour and what seems like an army of cooks, servers, bartenders and beer-makers, Southerleigh is the chef’s ode to growing up on the Galveston coast. The result of surf meets turf is this history-riddled place where badass beers like the everchanging Darwinian IPA mingle with upscale cross-cultural fare in a leather furniture-filled casual setting. Anyone’s first visit includes an at-times strong scent of malt mash — if you’re lucky, you may hear a gentle whirr coming from the tanks on brew days. Props are due to Austin architects, Clayton & Little, and interior designer Joel Mozersky of Joel Mozersky Design, for turning the 7,900-square-foot space into several distinct but cohesive eateries. There’s an expansive patio (which will come in handy this fall), a country clubesque dining room, an open kitchen, a very exposed upstairs brewery, bar seating and yet another dining room for slightly more formal sit-downs. Come
daytime — Southerleigh is open for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. — photo-friendly natural light floods just about every corner of the dining area. I’ll go on record — that lighting is essential for all the Instagramming you’re going to do. My first official visit to Southerleigh was during said lunchtime. Always a sucker for excellent food at wallet-friendly prices, I immediately zeroed in on the Cellerman’s Pail ($12). Not to be confused with a chum bucket, the CP included tender roast beef, topped with thin and crisp shallot and a choice of side. Already a big fan of the jalapeño cheddar grits (were I Oprah, I would give them away as one of my faves), I opted for the gulf crab spiked mac ‘n’ cheese, to dreamy results. The market salad, also an option with the Cellerman’s, was drizzled with fun vinaigrette and helped round out the meal. It’s pertinent to note one secret ingredient to the Southerleigh formula I’d be remiss to not include in this review: General manager extraordinaire Philippe Place, who — forgive my analogy — is the human equivalent of the service-obsessed candlestick in Beauty & The Beast. You can’t have a bad time if he’s around. My second lunch visit, complete with lunch-size beer pours, included another Cellerman’s, this time with a velvety shrimp bisque to start and the soft-shell crab po’boy delicately battered, fried and accompanied by house-made okra, pickles and a citrusy aioli. Though it’s easy to keep things relatively inexpensive, dinner at
Start digging — rich and meaty treasures are found inside the fried snapper throats.
Southerleigh almost calls for blowing your budget. Here’s a breakdown of my dinner visit on an unexpectedly packed Wednesday night: Start with the deviled eggs because you’ll want to take in the onion marmalade sweetness as it meets the bacon crumbles. Follow it up with the snapper throats. If you’re going to have snapper throats on the menu, your staff has to be ready to answer some pretty silly questions. Thankfully, server Andy guided us through taking down one of these surprisingly meaty numbers. Take your time and savor the richness, though don’t forget to add a dab of Crystal aioli. Snack away your dinner — dishes are all family-style and the pretzel rack is too enticing to pass on the doughy goodness and crack-like beer cheese — or go for
broke with one of the larger helpings on the menu. Loncito’s pork cutlet hit whatever spot was left to hit, with a sweet mustard seed demi-glace that came together with roasted pork belly bites and sugary, bulbous onions. Though I went home plenty satisfied, there were two minor grumbles. Toocool pull-apart rolls interrupted our carb party, though they couldn’t have been more picture-perfect. The other was an aesthetic note — I couldn’t crack the Bananas Foster crème brûlée’s caramel with the giant spoon we were given. Philippe Place would surely have found that appalling. There’s plenty left to explore on the menu and I’m not about to let a spoon keep me from being a guest at Southerleigh. flavor@sacurrent.com
Southerleigh Fine Food & Brewery 136 E. Grayson St., Suite 120, (210) 455-5701, southerleigh.com Skinny Pearl’s latest hits its stride as Southerleigh combines the historic brewhouse’s charm with well-seasoned, casual and enticing eats. Best Bets Wood-fired pretzel, snapper throats, anything Cellerman’s, mac ‘n’ cheese, jalapeño cheddar grits Hours 11am-midnight Mon-Thu; 11am-1am Fri; 2pm-1am Sat Price $3-$55
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Luther’s Café Moves — Again — But Doesn’t Stray From Its Successful Ways JESSICA ELIZARRARAS/@JESSELIZARRARAS
Not every restaurant is afforded Luther’s competitive. the luxury of relocating twice You’ll find the menu very familiar — while managing to retain a loyal the same signature burgers, salads customer base. and home-cooked fare as before. But Since opening in the late 1940s, chef Mendelson gets to play around Luther’s Café has seen its fair share with flavors in the daily specials, of owners and now locations after the turning them into unique items. Our original was bulldozed in 2012 to make visit featured bean- and quinoa-filled room for San Antonio College’s growing burgers, grilled chicken with Greek housing. The gay-friendly burger haven tzatziki, a watermelon salad and a then spent two years inside the corner seafood-loaded cake. space adjacent to Sparky’s, also owned But it’s hard to pass on those damn by Texas Heat Investments, and has finally burgers. The Route 66, still as good landed at 1503 N. Main Ave. on the first as ever, beckoned me, while my office floor of the Tobin Lofts. lunch partners took on the tuna melt But unlike the second location, which and a brisket burger. The former was a always seemed temporary, Luther’s reserved and standard sandwich filled new digs are homier and much more just right and enveloped between Texas inviting. The airiness of the space, all toast, while the latter was a structural 5,000 square feet of it, hearkens to marvel that featured a thick brisket its original location as a replica of the patty, bacon, cheese and guacamole in awning now doubles as the centerpiece a pretzel bun. Don’t worry, they opted in the corner dining room. A large bar for sweet potato fries to help balance commands attention as well, but we were the caloric load. busy taking in the newness of the space The patio kicked back into full gear that immediately felt cozy. The all-glass last weekend with folks taking advantage exterior walls with ready-to-roll up garage of the open-air bar (frozen drinks, 20 doors are also a nice nod to Luther’s past. beers on tap and just as many available One mainstay that has remained in bottles). The dozen or so TVs (good intact — aside from the neon beer, for games, but better for Ru Paul’s Drag liquor and Pride signage that lingered Race viewing parties) helped round from both previous iterations — is chef out the joint, which has seen so many David Mendelson. Already with changes given the different the company for more than four locations yet has never strayed Luther’s Café years, Mendelson has used his from its foundation. Keeps us 1503 N. Main Ave. Culinary Institute of Americafeeling good in the gayborhood. (210) 223-7727 Hyde Park training to help keep flavor@sacurrent.com lutherscafe.com
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7 Ways To Get Your Drink/Grub On This Week JESSICA ELIZARRARAS/@JESSELIZARRARAS
Yo Soy Un Berliner Release: How’s this for a throwback? Freetail’s latest, Yo Soy Un Berliner, pays homage to John F. Kennedy’s famous 1963 flub in which he referred to himself as a jelly doughnut. Freetail’s iteration follows that tart and sour style. The shop will add herbal green syrup or raspberry hibiscus syrup by Chamoy City Limits to help cut that tartness and round out the flavors. Prices vary, 7pm, 11224 Huebner Rd., Suite 204, (210) 877-9663, facebook.com/bighopshuebner. Saturday, June 27 First Year Celebration: Was but merely a year since Missions Untapped opened its doors and taps off Broadway. Celebrate with the staff and other beer aficionados as they tap a cask from New Braunfels Brewing Co., featuring the Bironga Bros with a beer chat along with starchy-cheese-filled goodness from The Spud Wagon. Make sure to score your limited pint glass and pours in advance; supplies are limited. $20, includes glass and three pours, noon, 8123 Broadway, (210) 320-0486, missionsuntapped.com. Rolling With My OMies: Join Mobile Om’s first-ever yoga/bike/beer extravaganza. The four-hour event will include a short yoga practice, a ride through downtown with stops at Alchemy Kombucha and Culture, Big Hops The Bridge and The Friendly Spot Ice House. Extra bikes will be available through Early Morning Adventures outdoor equipment rentals. $25, includes yoga class, bike ride and three drink tickets, 4-8pm, 1114 S. St. Mary’s St., Suite 210, (210) 816-0936, facebook.com/MobileOm. Sunday, June 28 OM Plate: Learn about the eclectic menu at Pharm Table and get your yoga on with Mobile Om during this Yoga & Eats event that includes yoga and meditation practice and a nutritious three-course community brunch. This is a BYOB event — pack your favorite bubbles or beer. $30, 11am-1pm, 1114 S. St. Mary’s St., Suite 210, (210) 816-0936, facebook.com/MobileOm. Tim Doi Moi: Take in Southeast Asian fare with a modern lean. The six-course meal will be presented by chefs Jerald Head and Kane Sorrells of Arcade Midtown Kitchen and will include Asian-inspired cocktails by Milan & Turin consulting group. Expect to find cured fish with sprouts, lacquered quail, variations of fungus and a “shaking beef” with soy gastrique, desiccated shallots, onion shoots and watercress. $75, 6pm, 226 E. Olmos Dr., RSVP through KWSorrells@gmail.com. Monday, June 29 Wine Discovery Series: Serve only the best wines on Independence Day with tips from the experts at Central Market. The demonstration will include tastings of featured wines with samples of Mimi en Provence Rose; Domaine J Guneau Sancerre; Cava Vibracions; Matthew Fritz Chardonnay; Doppio Passo Primitivo and Juana del Sol Malbec. $10, 6:30-7:30pm, 4821 Broadway, (210) 368-8600, centralmarket.com. Send food- and booze-related news to flavor@sacurrent.com
BRITNEY FINES
Friday, June 26 2015 Summer Cask Series: Let’s get weird with our beers. Busted Sandal Brewing Company has added fresh raspberries to a barrel of its 210 Ale for its first cask session in a series of four through September. Prices vary, 5-9pm, 7114 Oaklawn Dr., (210) 872-1486, facebook.com/ bustedsandalbrewing.
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1032 S. Presa · TacoHavenSouthTown.com
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Covered Patio • Beer and Wine
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boba-ology NOW OPEN boba tea ∙ fresh juice bar
7220 Louis Pasteur Dr. # 125 210.854.4771 sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 51
I!
KAIL OREX E) D APPETIT
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3938 S Zarzamora St SA,TX | 210.932.2500 | Alamopizza.net 52 CURRENT • June 24-30, 2015 • sacurrent.com
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Boutique bowling sounds like a blast.
FLAVOR FILE
Bowl & Barrel Heads To The Rim And New Salsa Company Takes Crowdfunding Route
KEEP COOL ON OUR NEW PATIO, AND SEE WHY WE ARE THE BEST IN SAN ANTONIO!
JESSICA ELIZARRARAS/@JESSELIZARRARAS BETWEEN 8A-2P | 210.737.8646
The Rim has seen some serious growth in the last few years and the shopping mecca is still gaining traction with developers. The latest attraction to open will be the second location of Bowl & Barrel (17619 La Cantera Pkwy., Suite 102), a Dallas-based boutique bowling facility, European beer hall and à la minute restaurant. The bowling alley opens to the public on Thursday (11 a.m. to midnight and 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays) with charcuterie boards, bites, burgers, pizza and a rotating list of European brews. The 15-lane bowling alley occupies 12,000 square feet and will drive home the boutique angle with hi-tech bowling system, shoe drop-off service and hourly reservations for lanes. Owner Kyle Noonan and business partner Josh Sepkowitz have opened a slew of eateries under FreeRange Concepts; they’re speedily making their way across the state with another Bowl & Barrel heading to Houston. FreeRange Concepts will also add General Public to the mix this July, next door to Bowl & Barrel. The eatery is housed in a swanky GQ-esque space with black and white chevron floors, navy wood and copper tile ceilings and comfy seating. It will feature traditional, familiar recipes with a modern, cleaner touch, so expect to find burgers, a pork and greens dish with oven-roasted kale, cornbread crumbles and a bacon aioli, along with oven-roasted cauliflower and a candle-laden Birthday Cake dessert.
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In product news, local Rackers Dominic Mendiola along with wife Susie are working on Dom’s Chop Salsa. It combines mesquite-fired veggies and fruits with a secret “DCS” spice mix to produce traditional mild, happy medium and “scorpion hot” flavors. In order for the salsas to hit the market, the couple and their partner are fundraising through IndieGoGo in order to have a $50,000 custom-made stainless steel grill that would increase production by 1,000 percent. Perk packages start at $5 and go up to $5,000 for DCS Founders. As of press time, the campaign had raised $4,510 with 29 days left to hit its goal. You’ll be able to guzzle down your favorite locally made lemonades without having to track them down at area farmers markets and events. The Lemonade Company is distributing 16-ounce bottles of their two most popular flavors, classic and strawberry lemonade, to A La Mode Gelato (1420 S. Alamo St.), Rosella Coffee Co. (203 E. Jones Ave., Suite 101), Altitude Trampoline Park (11075 I-10 W, Suite 126), Smoke Shack Trailer (2347 Nacogdoches) and Jimbo’s Slice of Heaven food truck (mobile). flavor@sacurrent.com ICY CONFECTIONS by the CHILI QUEENS sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 53
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MCNAY SECOND THURSDAY’S COORS LIGHT FREE CONCERT SERIES FIRST FRIDAY SPECIAL EVENTS GRAND OPENINGS FESTIVALS CONCERTS 54 CURRENT • June 24-30, 2015 • sacurrent.com
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INTERESTED IN HAVING US AT YOUR NEXT EVENT OR BECOMING A PROMO TEAM MEMBER? EMAIL NINA DURAN AT NINA@SACURRENT.COM
NIGHTLIFE
Pride of the Pearl: The list of homemade brews on tap evolves daily at Southerleigh.
PEARL OF BREWS Southerleigh Revives Former Brewery’s Raison D’Etre LANCE HIGDON
Gallons of ink and millions of pixels have been spilled crowning the Pearl as the center of San Antonio’s blossoming cool. Tourists may still hustle their fanny packs to Alamo Plaza and watertaxi River Walk tours. But for the growing numbers of young, gifted and rad people settling in downtown environs, it’s the urbanist playground surrounding a 132-year-old brewery that serves as shorthand for Saytown’s cultural renaissance. As elsewhere, this development has grown handin-mug with San Antonio’s proliferation of well-crafted brews. The Granary ‘Cue-&-Brew planted its fermenting flag in the complex in 2012, producing small-batch suds to pair with its award-winning barbecue program, while fine-dining establishments like the Boiler House have ensured a consistently interesting curation of beers for thousands of guests. It was a sad irony, then, that the jewel in the crown of the complex — the original brewing quarters of the Pearl Brewing Company — sat unused, an empty cathedral awaiting some kind of poetic renewal. Southerleigh was the fulfillment of that wait. With
chef Jeff Balfour helming the kitchen and brewmaster Les Locke overseeing the brewery, the “Brewing Department” that overhangs the restaurant’s entrance became entirely apropos. After accepting Balfour’s offer to assume control of beer operations in early 2014, Locke assembled his team, bringing assistant brewer J.C. Norris and brewer’s assistant Bryan Perriman with him from Branchline Brewing and hiring Kasey McCullough to apply his Oregon State degree in brewing science to Southerleigh’s yeasts. Tyler Applegate, Ashley Cooper and Trouper Green all assist as cellarmen. After beginning brewery operations in February, Southerleigh began offering its first fruits on April 2. There are about a dozen offerings out of Southerleigh’s tanks on the beer list, with a few of the freshest available off-menu upon request. Tasting flights come in fours or eights, with the option to opt for a recommended tasting order or create your own (the menu helpfully delineates ABVs, IBUs and USD levels to guide your choice). This diversity allowed me to taste everything on the menu, along with some lucky breaks catching a few that hadn’t hit the chalkboard yet. A quick jaunt to the bathroom leads to one of the most tantalizing sights in the whole place: a dozen barrels, ranging from wine to mezcal, each sporting a sign denoting the beer inside and its barreled-on date. I visited a few times during the last three months to sample the spectrum of Southerleigh’s inaugural production. What emerged from this series of samplings was Locke’s self-professed commitment to the juxtaposition and a balance of genre in Southerleigh’s
taps: the Irish moss-inflected and honey-hopped Scofflaw Imperial IPA sat next to the Fanny Porter, which incorporated coconut and a pantry’s worth of South Indian spices into a one of most sophisticated (and tasty) San Antonio beers I have ever had. On my most recent return, I snagged samples of Putin’s Revenge, a Russian Imperial Stout that started strong and finished dry, as well as Songs Of Freedom, which ran a rummy rinse over the braggot before finishing with a kiss of Tupelo booze — no mean feat for 12 percent ABV. As with other brewpubs, growlers are available for take-home drinking and Locke hints at an immanent packaging program set to produce bottles and tall-boy cans year-round. The weight of San Antonio’s newest brewery operating out of the city’s oldest brewing establishment is not lost on Locke and his team. Perriman cited the sight of the Pearl spire from his childhood as an icon of his ongoing evolution as a brewer, while Locke recalled Southerleigh’s very immediate connection with the Pearl’s past. “It is the highest and hugest honor to literally brew where [Pearl’s] equipment stood for over a century,” Locke told the San Antonio Current. “We have a huge connection to many people for various reasons with this building. We get retired Pearl people in all the time, amazed not only with the space and what we’ve done but our love of how we craft our beer and the food,” Locke continued. “They see in us the drive for making a new chapter within this building. I feel it’s our job to share as much as we can with the public about this amazing building and the honor we have to be able to brew within its confines.” sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 55
Happy Hours Happy Hour of the Week
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Kimura
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Club Sirius
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North Central Slackers
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VISIT HAPPYHOURS.SACURRENT.COM 56 CURRENT • June 24-30, 2015 • sacurrent.com
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Smitty’s Pub
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Wurzbach Ice House
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Twenty Grand
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Shenanygans
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Highlander Bar & Grill
Mon-Sat: 7am - 4pm $3.25 Import Drafts & Mini Margaritas $2.75 Domestic Drafts Tue- $3.25 Mini Hurricanes Thu- $3.25 Premium Vodka Specials Sun- $.75 Wings & $3 Sunday Specials 4-8pm: $1 off mixed drinks & appetizers!
Northeast Charlie Brown’s Neighborhood Beer Goggles HH 2p-8p: 2 tecate & heineken Bar & Grill 3.25 domestics bottle/draft Charlie-Browns.com • 210-496-7092 Mon.-Fri. until 7pm $2.75 well drinks, $8.00 domestic pitchers $2.75 domestic longnecks Mon.-Fri. 2-6pm 60¢ Wings
Spanky’s Clubhouse
6pm-2am, Closed Sundays Featuring TEXAS Booze and Brews Happy Hour 6-9pm: $2.25 Domestics $3 Premium Beers $2 Smirnoff Moonshine Mondays Texas Tues. $2.50 All Drafts & Keep the Glass Wed $3 You call it Thurs. $3 All Tequilas Fri.- $3 Fireball Sat.- Ladies Night $3 Margs & Martinis Try our Texas Vodka Infusions
3.25 shiner&dos xx, $3 wells Plus Daily Specials
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Enjoy Responsibly
©2014 A-B, Bud Light® Beer, St. Louis, MO
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sacurrent.com • June 24-30,Trim: 2015 • CURRENT 57 Closing Date: 5/19/14 5.070" x 10.182" QC: CS
Publication: San Antonio
Bleed: none Live: 4.82 x 9.932"
MUSIC
RYAN PARKER
FOR THE MARCH OF DIMES An Oral History Of Taco Land 10 Years After Ram Ayala’s Death
Ever the prickly character, those that knew him well said Taco Land club founder Ram Ayala, murdered a decade ago, was a teddy bear on the inside. MATT STIEB/@MATTHEWSTIEB
On the night of June 23 a decade ago, the San Antonio Spurs bested Detroit for the second championship of the Duncan-GinobiliParker era. As the city celebrated the new Finals bling, the rock ‘n’ roll community mourned the death of Ram Ayala, killed that night in a robbery of his bar, Taco Land. Creative in his profanity and saturated with beer, Ayala had a hard shell — like a near-frozen, potentially sour can at the back of the fridge — covering a generous and giving heart. His libertine candor, a libertarian booking policy and dangerously cheap tallboys made Taco Land a haven for touring and native rock ‘n’ rollers. A decade after Ayala’s death, the San Antonio Current caught up with some Taco Land regulars: Roland “Nightrocker” Fuentes, Taco Land employee: We met when I was underaged, probably like most everybody else. Trying to sneak into the bar. Erik Sanden, Buttercup: I met Ram at the bar in 1989. I was 17. He did not know that. Phil Luna, Shit City Dream Girls / Employee: I was in high school, had a band. We were scared of Taco Land, it was a dark, divey place. After about four gigs, we called and said ‘hey, can I speak to Ram? This is Phil from the —’ he just cut me off. ‘I know who you are, pussy. What do you want?’ Kory Cook, Sons of Hercules: Well, Ram called everybody pussy, as a term 58 CURRENT • June 24-30, 2015 • sacurrent.com
of endearment. But for me, it was ‘Austin pussy.’ And that was more endearing than anything else he could have called me.
time, the now-swank Pearl neighborhood had yet to see the redemption of a developer’s pocketbook.
Current: Ayala could fill a book with offensive, unforgettable catch phrases. But political correctness, basic hygiene and TABC considerations wouldn’t have made the cut. In 2002, the San Antonio Current published a list of Ram-isms, including “one more time for the march of dimes,” a request for the band to play on.
Jeff Smith, Hickoids: I would describe it as a shabby, dis-used, industrial part of town.
Phil Luna: He carried a water or soda bottle filled at the start of the night with gin. As he drank it and people brought in bottles, people would pour whatever they had into his water bottle. So it’d have four or five different liquors in it and he’d say, ‘kiss The Baby, motherfucker!’ And you’d have to take a drink and it was usually really good. Erik Sanden: He only had a license to sell beer, but he’d have The Baby every night. And he’d pour whiskey and schnapps in there when it already had gin. odie. (mononymic), Buttercup: It wasn’t a glass bottle. It was like a Sprite bottle. Current: A projectionist at the Aztec Theatre earlier in life, Ayala opened Taco Land in 1965, selling 10-cent tacos to scrape a profit. In 1969, he bought the little building at 103 West Grayson. By the late ’70s, there were no more tacos, only beer and bikers. But as punk hit San Antonio like a tattered fist, Ayala began hosting shows in the early ’80s. At the
odie.: It was the industrial zone. I wouldn’t say scary, but it was dicey. If you fell over the side by the river, there was like 10 years of beer cans and dead leaves to break your fall. Erik Sanden: It was not a perfect place, at all. In a lot of ways, it was a shithole. And full of all the attendant problems. I got beat up there, I know people who got shot there, and of course Ram. It was not ‘Taco Land: the perfect place.’ Racist song on the jukebox. Phil Luna: He hated the Current. They did a review of a show one time and he had this jukebox with albums from the ’50s & ’60s — great fucking juke box. But he had some David Allan Coe in there, “She Ran Off With a Nigger.” Loved it, he played it all the time. And he said ‘nigger’ all the time. So the Current, of course, called him racist and he was like, ‘aw, my family reads this, that’s not me. Fuck you, you don’t know me.’ So he wouldn’t deal with the Current for years. Current: As the owner of a rough-andtumble bar, Ayala had a hard exterior. But once you broke through it, he was a good ally to have. Kory Cook: I’ve always been
fascinated by the fact that people respected him and loved him. He was a scary, mean man. He may have had love in his heart, but you couldn’t really see it unless you really got to know him. I think it comes down to the fact that people respect other people who are transparent and will be exactly who they are businesswise. He didn’t have to go to work and be nice and be fake. And when people saw that, they respected it. Denise Koger, bartender: He was very macho and blunt, but at the same time he was a teddy bear. Phil Luna: If we needed money, or the car broke down or the house needed a repair — and it wasn’t just me, it was anybody — we could always count on Ram. He’d buy people PA systems for their bands, whatever they needed. Current: Eventually, Ayala’s altruism and laissez-faire attitude established Taco Land as a home — literally — for rock ‘n’ roll in San Antonio. Phil Luna: There was a two-car garage behind the bar. Ram cut it in half and made me a recording studio. I kinda lived there. Erik Sanden: There was a chop-shop in there. I’m gonna use quotes on the word ‘mechanic.’ What’s the opposite of a mechanic? Someone who breaks things? Dead Milkmen, “Taco Land,” 1987: Taco Land, it’s a panacea / Taco Land, they’re always glad to see ya.
MUSIC
JUSTIN PARR
died that same night; Douglas lived for three more weeks before succumbing to his injuries. Current: Ten years after the murder, Gamboa is on death row, while Najera is serving a 50-year sentence. After Ayala’s death at 73, a void opened in the San Antonio music scene, finding it difficult to recreate the magic of Taco Land. Phil Luna: Every band that had been playing there thought, ‘What do we do now?’ Half the bands never played again for that reason, they just cut it dead. ‘Cause most of the bands had been created, or morphed into, just playing Taco Land. You created your style for that room and that audience. Joe Reyes, Buttercup, The Swindles: Irreverent isn’t even the right word. Iconoclast? He ran it the way he wanted it, but it was perfect. We had free reign musically forever. It was always, ‘that’s not weird enough, be weirder.’ Jeff Smith: I was heartbroken. Taco Land really provided the only continuity in the rock ‘n’ roll scene in San Antonio between 1982 and 2005.
A makeshift memorial for Ram Ayala was set up outside Taco Land after his murder in 2005.
Denise Koger: He was a punk rock angel. He helped everyone and he gave everyone a chance to play their music. It didn’t matter what type of music it was or what type of band it was. He really, really enjoyed life and people being around him and he was a blessing to the world.
Nightrocker: Taco Land is everything people say about it, the good the bad and the ugly. Taco Land was our CBGB’s and Ram didn’t set out to make it that. Very few businesses are so organic to the point like Taco Land was that it was just kinda there and it built itself.
Jeff Smith: Taco Land had a magic quality because of Ram. It really transcended the facility itself.
Current: After 40 years running Taco Land, on June 23, 2005, Joseph Gamboa and Jose Najera entered the bar with the intent of cleaning the register at gunpoint.
Erik Sanden: His booking policy was yes; it made for incredible mashups of strange types of music playing together. We’d play Taco Land and the phone would ring super loud. In the middle of while we were playing, you could hear it. It was a payphone. That was the phone he’d use for the bar. He’d yell at us ‘shut the fuck up pussy I can’t hear the phone!’ That phone would ring louder than the band.
Gamboa’s Death Row Appeal: On the night of June 23, 2005, Ramiro “Ram” Ayala, the owner of a San Antonio bar named Taco Land, was working alongside employees Denise Koger and Douglas Morgan. Denise Koger: I had to go check outside on the people on the patio and when I came back inside, the guy was
leaning into Ram, talking real close to his ear. I walked up to the bar and I heard Ram say ‘fuck you’ and then the gun went off and he shot Ram right in the stomach. He fell back and Doug Morgan was behind the bar, so I hid with him. And the bad people came behind the bar. They grabbed Doug and they told him to open the register. But he didn’t know how, so they shot him. Najera told Gamboa to ‘make the bitch do it.’ So, I guess that was me. He grabbed me by my hair, he pulled me up and told me to open the register. I gave him the money, but I didn’t realize they had been watching me the whole time. And I had put some money aside with the cigarettes we sold. He dragged me over to where the other money was stashed. I gave him that money and he shot me. Gamboa’s Death Row Appeal: Ram
Current: In 2014, Taco Land reopened as Tacoland, under the direction of Chris Erck, proprietor of Swig Martini Bar. A Sunday-best version of the original, Tacoland has taken some heat — “Taco Bland,” reads a Bottom Bracket Social Club T-shirt — but many patrons of the old spot harbor no ill will. Denise Koger: I have nothing against the new Tacoland. Some people do, I don’t. I’m sure Ram would be very happy to know people are still enjoying that little part of the world. Even if they don’t remember him – he wasn’t that vain – he’d be glad to know Taco Land is still there. It’s still a place for people to get together and enjoy life. Phil Luna: We used to go on anniversaries and sit there and have a drink and it would deteriorate every year. That sucks. Now you can have a beer there, have a drink. The owner shouldn’t have anything to do with the old spot, that’s impossible. It was a world and it’s gone. So do whatever you want. mstieb@sacurrent.com sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 59
SPORTS•KARAOKE•POOL•DARTS T B A RH E B E IN UNI S T S T VER A SA F F LC
Charlie Brown’s Neighborhood Bar & Grill
ITY
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LIVE MUSIC Friday: Mojo Savage
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MUSIC
LINDA HUGHES
¡VIVA LA BANDOLERA! Patricia Vonne Brings It On Home With Sixth Album JAMES COURTNEY
The reveries of childhood, when fired by ambition, wanderlust and earned confidence, can catalyze explosive breakthroughs. As a little girl, growing up in Monte Vista with nine siblings including acclaimed movie director Robert Rodriguez, Patricia Vonne dreamed of connecting more deeply with her ancestors. Through her mother’s music and her father’s storytelling, Vonne developed a rich and colorful sense of her roots in Mexico and, back over nine generations, tracing them to Spain. In her work, the wild drama and joy, the exuberance and defiance, el orgullo y la tristeza of these cultures, manifest in songs with cultural personalities all their own. But, it was only after 11 frustrating years spent chasing various artistic ambitions in New York that Vonne — who adopted her middle name as surname to stave off the discrimination she encountered in the Big Apple — came to the realization that she should come back home and forge her own path in music. Thankfully, while in New York, Vonne had already recruited a solid band of fellow Texas transplants to support her musical endeavors. Through her first five albums, most notably 2005’s Guitars and Castanets and 2013’s Rattle My Cage, Vonne proved herself an adept musical storyteller, an emotive and deceptively straightforward songwriter who chooses collaborators that accentuate her strengths, as well as a student of the great mestizo tradition known as Tex-Mex. Amassing accolades and winning fans worldwide (with a staunchly loyal following in Europe), Vonne has put out music of consistent quality that draws on the divergent themes that populate her cultural memory. With her strong, soaring and seductive vocals at its core, her sound incorporates elements of Spanish flamenco and Gypsy music, Mexican balladry and contemporary rock with blues hues. Now, at 45, Vonne is ready to release
her sixth album. Named Viva Bandolera, it’s actually a compilation of the Spanish songs from Vonne’s first five efforts, so it feels a tad inaccurate to call it her finest work to date. But, technicalities aside, it is exactly that. While her earlier releases featured the humorous, moody, sumptuous, empowering and stubborn Spanish works as side dishes — accompaniments to her powerful, but often less ripe English language tunes — these mestizo gems are the constantly impressive main course on Bandolera. In an interview last week, Vonne told the San Antonio Current that, taken as a whole, the album is “about Mexico, Spain, my grandma and grandpa, my favorite poet, Federico García Lorca and a lot of other things, too.” Vonne described the feeling of releasing her first Spanish-only album as “a celebration of [her] heritage.” Officially released yesterday, she dedicated it to her parents, who always fostered creative thinking and cultural pride in all of their kids. Three of the finest and most poignant songs on Bandolera, focus, at least in part, on female empowerment and deepening awareness of issues facing women. The title track plays off of Vonne’s popular “girl Zorro or bandolera” character Dallas from her brother’s Sin City films. Vonne identifies with this character as “a symbol of women’s capability to do what men do.” In a similar vein, “Torera” (“Female Matador”) envisions a woman doing battle in the bullring, which is seen as a symbol for masculine domination. “It’s about women struggling, but also just about struggling in general,” Vonne said. Meanwhile, the prayerful dirge “Mujeres Desaparecidas” (“Missing Women”) focuses on “the missing women of Juarez, Mexico,” vanished into the hell-fog of borderland chaos across the Rio Grande from El Paso. Vonne explained that a documentary moved her to write the song as a “prayer or a
San Anto singer Patricia Vonne, unveils a new Spanish-only album at Olmos Bharmacy.
battle cry for families of these victims write about oppressed people even in that feel forgotten.” the face of danger.” Slightly lighter fare on the album It’s appropriate that Vonne brings this includes career highlights like the release, with its lyrical and sonic embrace flamenco-twinged and tortured of her homeland and its pursuit of love love song “Traeme Paz,” (“Bring Me and justice, to the Olmos Bharmacy for a Peace”) the sultry Andalusian special performance. Like many Gypsy jig “Fiesta Sangria” and San Antonians, Vonne fondly Patricia Vonne two marvelous and surprisingly remembers growing up enjoying Album Release representative songs about family milkshake runs to the old $10 7pm Fri, June 26 Lorca. incarnation of the historic place. Olmos Bharmacy Vonne explained that “This is really me going back to 3902 McCullough Lorca inspired her with his the beginning,” Vonne beamed. (210) 822-1188 olmosrx.com “compassion and courage to Home sweet home, indeed. sacurrent.com • June 24-30, 2015 • CURRENT 61
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MUSIC
WED
24
Bone Thugs-n-Harmony
No Offense to Easy Duz It, but West Coast pioneer Eazy-E’s greatest gift to hip-hop was as a scout for talent, signing Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and a very young will.i.am to his Ruthless label in its golden era run. In 1994, Eazy-E plucked Bone Thugs-n-Harmony from the rap void of Cleveland, putting the Ruthless stamp on Bone Thugs’ debut Creepin on ah Come Up. With the album’s 21st birthday in June, Creepin is a seminal blast in the genre. “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” is a shirtless g-funk wonder, with each member of the quintet taking home run swings at the big California rhythm. Half-sung and weaving in and out of double-time, the early Bone Thug hits laid down the concrete for the sing-song interstate that Drake, ILoveMakonnen and A$AP Rocky cruise down in 2015. There’s no “Tuesday” without “1st of tha Month.” With Chedda Da Connect, Dorrough Music, T-Wayne. $10, 6pm, Fiesta Event Center, 7503 W. US Highway 90, (210) 290-4900, thebeatsa.com – Matt Stieb, mstieb@sacurrent.com
Wednesday, June 24
Brother Dege Describing his tunes as
“Psyouthern Delta World Punk Rock,” Louisiana’s Brother Dege broke out his bayou microgenre with a spot on the soundtrack of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained in 2012. Called “Too Old to Die Young,” the tune is a stomping slide guitar anthem, perfect for the violence and audacity of Tarantino. 502 Bar, 9pm
Bruk Out! A term of celebration in dancehall
culture, Bruk Out! visits the legendary reverb and airhorns of the Jamaican genre. Concrete Jungle, 10pm
Midtown Jazz Sound Drummer John
Fernandez, leader of Midtown Jazz Sound, returns to Soho for the sixth year of residency at the downtown club. Soho, 10:30pm
Run DMT Once upon a time, there were two
bands dueling for the name Run DMT — an EDM producer from Austin (playing San Anto on Tuesday) and a psych-popper from Baltimore. The Maryland homie lost and switched to Salvia Plath, which is a testament to just how many drug/ celebrity portmanteaus exist in this world. Greenhouse Rooftop, 10pm
Teenage Bottlerocket Brothers Ray and Brandon Carlisle lead pop-punkers Teenage Bottlerocket in a skatefriendly, Fat Wreck Chords style. With The Copyrights, Knockin’ Chucks. The Korova, 7pm
Wild Party, Deer Vibes Through 12 songs
of brightly lit guitar pop, Wild Party’s debut Phantom Pop throws a bash of hi-fi six-string, toe-tapping keyboards and counter-melodic bass, all with heavy emphasis on a 16th beat hi-hat shuffle. Each ditty is surprisingly elastic, changing
attitudes, styles or decades between parts. Take “When I Get Older,” the opening cut from Wild Party’s first album Phantom Pop. Introduced by a guitar that sounds like a worthy update to Hall and Oates’ “You Make My Dreams Come True,” singer and Boerne native Lincoln Kreifels approaches a verse with precise weighting of syllables. As Deer Vibes leader Michael Carrillo picks up steam with his side project Michael J and the Foxes, don’t expect the indie rock big band to get dropped anytime soon. With Swimming With Bears. Paper Tiger, 7pm
June 26 - Band of Heathens
July 11 - Shinyribs
July 18 - Bob Schneider
July 23 - Randy Rogers & Wade Bowen
Thursday, June 25
Chris Perez As the widower of tejano pop
queen Selena, Chris Perez is de facto San Anto royalty. But the SA native is also a tremendously talented guitar player, marching forward in his career with songs like “Todo es Diferente” and “Best I Can.” With Vallejo. 210 Kapone’s, 7pm
July 24 | Jamey Johnson
Hank Williams, Jr. The son of the legendary
Hillbilly Shakespeare, Hank Williams, Jr. has become a country institution in his own right with more than 70 million albums sold worldwide. Whitewater Amphitheater, 7pm
Michael McDonald In the 40-Year-Old
Virgin, Paul Rudd’s consumer electronics salesman character retorts, after two years of nothing but Michael McDonald playing on the store’s TVs, “Nothing against him, but if I have to be ‘Yah Mo Be There’ one more time, I’m going to Yah Mo burn this place to the ground.” Which is pretty much how I feel about Michael McDonald. Except for the Steely Dan stuff, that stuff is undeniably tight. Aja? Come on, man. Tobin Center, 7:30pm
The Suite feat. DJ Gibb and Donnie Dee Two of SA’s finest soul and funk jockeys
Sept 25 - The Mavericks
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MUSIC
deliver a Thursday night soundtrack in original funky drummers. Southtown 101, 10pm
Friday, June 26
Avett Brothers Producer Rick Rubin
is certainly one for crossing genre boundaries, but he took one of his biggest leaps with brothers Scott and Seth Avett to bring to life I and Love and You, the Avett Brothers 2009 major label debut. With Old Crow Medicine Show. Whitewater Amphitheater, 7:30pm
Henry + The Invisibles SA’s own Henry +
the Invisibles continues to turn in soulful, ridiculously costumed one-man shows. Rebar, 10pm
Uncle Lucius In June, Austin Americana
band Uncle Lucius released a lovely debut, The Light, on Boo Clap Records. Gruene Hall, 8pm
Single Lash, Advance Cassette On their
self-titled 2015 lark, Single Lash whips ahead at the speed of post-punk with the expanse and texture of shoegaze. Plain View, the debut EP from local alt-rockers Advance Cassette, is full of feedback and fuzz, ferocity and feeling. Capturing the punk-addled and emotive feel of some of your favorite 1990’s bands, the four tracks on this EP are also, importantly, impossible to pin down. With Junkie. Paper Tiger, 9pm
Slaughter & the Dogs One of the first UK
punk bands to sign with a major label (Decca), Manchester punks Slaughter & the Dogs penned one of the all-time great punk singles with “Cranked Up Really High,” featuring a singularly English bass cranked way the fuck up. With Bad Cop/Bad Cop, Decent Criminal. The Korova, 7pm
Saturday, June 27
Alejando Escovedo On “San Antonio Rain,”
from Alejandro Escovedo’s 2012 LP Big Station, the Texas rock deity interprets his experience of leaving his childhood in the Alamo City. After a mid-’70s stint with the Nuns, one of San Francisco’s original punk bands, Escovedo holed up in Austin until his ’91 solo stunner Gravity, followed by 13 more albums. “The rain don’t wanna
come,” he sings on the hook for “San Antonio Rain.” It appears those days are long gone. Sam’s Burger Joint, 8pm
Dizzy Wright A nephew of Layzie and Flesh-
n-Bone from Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Dizzy Wright has a nepotistic dose of talent, though he’s skewed the major label interest he’s encountered so far. With Jahni Denver. Alamo City Music Hall, 7pm
Ellis Redon Earlier this spring, Ellis Redon
quietly released one of the best collections of songs to hit San Antonio in 2015, sounding like if Bradford Cox of Deerhunter took a ketamine nap on his synthesizer. With Calico Club, Pink Leche, Nag Champa. The Ten Eleven, 9pm
June 24th Flipside
The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, Filthy If
June 25th
you’re into heavy music in San Antonio, the combo of instrumental metal outfit The Grasshopper Lies Heavy and noise pollutants Filthy are not to miss. With P I N K O, Ghost Bones. Paper Tiger, 8pm
Jonathan Moody
June 26th
Sunday, June 28
Vans Warped Tour Vans Warped Tour has
a keen understanding of its largely-teen audience, growing their EDM lineups year after year in parking lots and stadiums that used to be filled exclusively with punk and post-hardcore. AT&T Center, 11am
Mixtape
June 27th
Monday, June 29
Jim Cullum Jazz Band Playing the music
The New Waves
of King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet and Bix Beiderbecke, cornetist Jim Cullum is a leader among a growing community of trad jazz players. Tucker’s Kozy Korner, 7pm
June 29th
Tuesday, June 30
Human Traffic From Kansas City, Human
Traffic is a vicious noise pop project with compositions as dark as you’d expect from a band named after such an affront to life. With Snakeoids. Paper Tiger, 9pm
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June 30th
Ryan Wymbish
Theory of a Deadman What is it about
Canada that makes it such a breeding ground for bad alt-rock (Nickelback, Three Days Grace, Finger Eleven, Theory of a Deadman). Are you okay, Canada? Do you need to talk? Aztec Theatre, 7pm
210 Kapone’s 1223 E. Houston, (210) 279-9430, 210kapones.com 502 Bar 502 Embassy Oaks, (210) 257-8125, 502bar. com Alamo City Music Hall 1305 E. Houston, alamocitymusichall.com AT&T Center 1 AT&T Center, (210) 444-5000, attcenter.com Aztec Theatre 201 E. Commerce, (210) 760-2196, theaztectheatre.com Concrete Jungle 1628 S. Presa, (210) 373-9907 Floore’s Country Store 14492 Old Bandera, Helotes, (210) 695-8827, liveatfloores.com Greenhouse Rooftop 4553 1604 W Gruene Hall 1281 Gruene, (830) 606-1281, gruenehall.com Paper TIger 2410 N. St. Mary’s, papertiger.queueapp.com Rebar 8134 Broadway, (210) 320-4091, rebarsatx.com Sam’s Burger Joint 330 E. Grayson, (210) 223-2830, samsburgerjoint.com Soho 214 W. Crockett, (210) 444-1000 Southtown 101 101 Pereida Street, (210) 263-9880 The Ten Eleven 1011 Avenue B, (210) 320-9080, theteneleven.com The Korova 107 E. Martin, (210) 2265070, thekorova.com Tobin Center 100 Auditorium, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org Tucker’s Kozy Korner 1338 E. Houston, (210) 320-2192, tuckerskozykorner.com Urban Taco 290 E. Basse, (210) 332-5149, dinedsrg.com Whitewater Amphitheater 11860 FM 306, New Braunfels, (830) 964-3800, whitewaterrocks.com
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BETTER OFF WITHOUT
I am a male grad student who is technically engaged to a female grad student. She has numerous positive qualities, but she is repulsed by sex. She is very sensitive about her repulsion and becomes distraught when I broach the subject. She says that even the thought of doing anything sexual with me elicits a panic attack. She also insists that she is “broken” because, in the hopes of preventing me from leaving her, she forced herself to go further than she felt comfortable. We are both virgin and the furthest that we ever went sexually was cunnilingus. She has never seen me completely naked or expressed any interest in making love to me. When she revealed that any form of sexual affection prompted panic attacks and psychological distress, I decided to call off our engagement. She proceeded to threaten to kill herself and blame me for her aversion to sex. I agreed to continue the relationship but insisted that we postpone marriage. She refuses to go to couples counseling. I love her and enjoy her companionship, but my sexual self-esteem is devastated. I feel rejected and bitter, and I am still with her mainly because of guilt. Although she denies that this contributes to the situation, she also holds strong religious convictions. She claims that she always had a weak libido and that
SAVAGE LOVE by Dan Savage
bodily fluids (especially semen) disgust her. Finally, despite her use of oral contraceptives, she fears pregnancy. She also disapproves of my family and friends, my interest in science, my distrust of religion and my use of antidepressants. My questions: (1) If I did cause or contribute to her sexual aversion, do I have a lifelong obligation to remain with her? (2) Barring cheating, the impetus for her decision to break up with a previous boyfriend, what other options do I have? (3) Could her sexual aversion ever dissipate? (4) Could her sexual aversion stem from asexuality? Gradually Escalating Threats Obligate Unending Togetherness 1. You are not obligated to stay with this unpleasant woman for the next 50 years just because you made the mistake of proposing to her. And even if she started fucking you, GETOUT, do you really want to be with her? 2. Why bar cheating? If taking herself hostage is so intimidating that it prevents you from breaking up with her (threatening to kill herself = taking herself hostage), then go ahead and cheat on her, or pretend to cheat on her and let her break up with you. 3. Her sexual aversion may dissipate over time. Or it may not. But someone who doesn’t want to fuck someone — and she clearly doesn’t want to fuck you — rarely starts wanting to fuck that someone down the road. So she may get over her sexual aversion in time, but she’ll probably be fucking someone else when she does … even if she’s married to you. 4. Could be that, sure. But unless you’re willing to live a sexless life with a manipulative spouse who disapproves of your family, friends, meds, etc., the root cause of her sexual aversion is irrelevant. On the Lovecast, Dan and the infinitely delightful Jason Schwartzman chat and chat and chat: savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter
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1 Bread spreads 6 Squeal (on) 9 Office-inappropriate, in web shorthand 13 Get ready for a bodybuilding competition 14 “Here ___ Again” (1987 #1 hit) 15 Moved a rowboat 17 With 20-Across, 1840s slogan in the Oregon border dispute 19 Address a crowd 20 See 17-Across 22 Business priority 25 Abbr. on a lotion bottle 26 Parisian pronoun 27 Topmost point 28 “Dig in!” 31 Game pieces 33 Circulation improver 34 Doughnut shape 36 “Star Wars” home of Jar Jar Binks 40 Sold extremely quickly 43 College applicant’s creation 44 Carell of “The Office” 45 “Go on, scat!” 46 Abbr. on old Eurasian maps 48 Real ending in London?
49 Signal “Hello!” 50 2012 Facebook event 53 Ball bearer 55 Declutter 57 Sports figure in a 2015 sports scandal 61 “Help!” actor Ringo 62 Repetitive Beach Boys hit 66 “Golly!” 67 Cyan finish? 68 As a result of 69 Affirmative votes 70 Setting for Christmas in NYC 71 Air beyond the clouds
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8
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY by Rob Brezsny ARIES (MARCH 21-APRIL 19):
LEO (JULY 23-AUG. 22):
During my regular hikes along my favorite trails, I’ve gotten to know the local boulders quite intimately. It might sound daft, but I’ve come to love them. I’ve even given some of them names. They symbolize stability and constancy to me. When I gaze at them or sit on them, I feel my own resolve grow stronger. They teach me about how to be steadfast and unflappable in all kinds of weather. I draw inspiration from the way they are so purely themselves, forever true to their own nature. Now would be an excellent time for you to hang out with your own stony allies, Aries. You could use a boost in your ability to express the qualities they embody.
One summer afternoon when I was seven years old, my friend Billy and I grabbed an empty jar from my kitchen and went looking for ants. Near the creek we found an anthill swarming with black ants, and scooped a bunch of them in the jar. A little later we came upon a caravan of red ants, and shoved many of them in with the black ants. Would they fight? Naturally. It was mayhem. Looking back now, I’m sorry I participated in that stunt. Why stir up a pointless war? In that spirit, Leo, I urge you to avoid unnecessary conflicts. Don’t do anything remotely comparable to putting red ants and black ants in the same jar.
TAURUS (APRIL 20-MAY 20):
In order for everyone in your sphere to meet their appointed destinies, you must cultivate your skills as a party animal. I’m only slightly joking. At least for now, it’s your destiny to be the catalyst of conviviality, the ringleader of the festivities, the engineer of fun and games. To fulfill your assignment, you may have to instigate events that encourage your allies to leave their comfort zones and follow you into the frontiers of collaborative amusement.
“Man’s being is like a vast mansion,” observed philosopher Colin Wilson, “yet he seems to prefer to live in a single room in the basement.” Wilson wasn’t just referring to Capricorns. He meant everybody. Most of us commit the sin of self-limitation on a regular basis. That’s the bad news. The good news, Capricorn, is that you’re entering a time when you’re more likely to rebel against the unconscious restrictions you have placed on yourself. You will have extra motivation to question and overrule the rationales that you used in the past to inhibit your primal energy. Won’t it be fun to venture out of your basement nook and go explore the rest of your domain?
LIBRA (SEPT. 23-OCT. 22):
AQUARIUS (JAN. 20-FEB. 18):
“Everyone is a genius at least once a year,” wrote German aphorist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. “The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.” According to my astrological analysis, Taurus, your oncea-year explosion of genius is imminent. It’s even possible you will experience a series of eruptions that continue for weeks. The latter scenario is most likely if you unleash the dormant parts of your intelligence through activities like these: having long, rambling conversations with big thinkers; taking long, rambling walks all over creation; enjoying long, rambling sex while listening to provocative music.
GEMINI (MAY 21-JUNE 20): “I think if we didn’t contradict ourselves, it would be awfully boring,” says author Paul Auster. “It would be tedious to be alive.” But he goes even further in his defense of inconsistency, adding, “Changing your mind is probably one of the most beautiful things people can do.” This bold assertion may not apply to everyone all the time, but it does for you in the coming weeks, Gemini. You should feel free to explore and experiment with the high art of changing your mind. I dare you to use it to generate extravagant amounts of beauty.
CANCER (JUNE 21-JULY 22): In its early days, the band Depeche Mode had the infinitely boring name Composition of Sound. Humphrey Bogart’s and Ingrid Bergman’s classic 1942 film Casablanca was dangerously close to being called Everybody Come to Rick’s. And before Charles Dickens published his novel Bleak House, a scathing critique of the 19th-century British judicial system, he considered eleven other possible titles, including the unfortunate Tom-all-Alone’s. The Solitary House that was always shut up and never Lighted. I bring this to your attention, Cancerian, as the seeding phase of your personal cycle gets underway. The imprints you put on your budding creations will have a major impact on their future. Name them well. Give them a potent start.
VIRGO (AUG. 23-SEPT. 22):
Your symbolic object of the week is a magic wand. I recommend that you visualize yourself as the star of a fairy tale in which you do indeed have a wand at your disposal. See yourself wielding it to carry out a series of fantastic tricks, like materializing a pile of gold coins or giving yourself an extraordinary power to concentrate or creating an enchanted drink that allows you to heal your toughest wound. I think this playful imaginative exercise will subtly enhance your ability to perform actual magic in the real world.
not any of those things, right? So there shouldn’t be a major problem. The purpose of these subterranean adventures and divine interventions is to teach you to make nerveracking leaps of faith, whether or not you believe you’re ready. Here’s one piece of advice that I think will help: Don’t resist and resent the tests as they appear. Rather, welcome them as blessings you don’t understand yet. Be alert for the liberations they will offer.
CAPRICORN (DEC. 22-JAN. 19):
“An obscure moth from Latin America saved
Australia’s pasture-land from the overgrowth of cactus,” writes biologist Edward O. Wilson. “A Madagascar ‘weed,’ the rosy periwinkle, provided the cure for Hodgkin’s disease and childhood leukemia,” he adds, while “a chemical from the saliva of leeches dissolves blood clots during surgery,” and a “Norwegian fungus made possible the organ transplant industry.” I think these are all great metaphors for the kind of healing that will be available for you in the coming weeks, Aquarius: humble, simple, seemingly insignificant things whose power to bring transformation has, up until now, been secret or unknown.
PISCES (FEB. 19-MARCH 20): Annie Edson Taylor needed money. She was 63 years old, and didn’t have any savings. She came up with a plan: to be the first person to tuck herself inside a barrel and ride over Niagara Falls. (This was back in 1901.) She reasoned that her stunt would make her wealthy as she toured the country speaking about it. I recommend that you consider out-ofthe-box ideas like hers, Pisces. It’s an excellent time to get extra creative in your approach to raising revenue. APRIL FOOL! I half-lied. It’s true that now is a favorable time to be imaginative about your financial life. But don’t try outlandish escapades like hers.
THIS MODERN WORLD by Tom Tomorrow
SCORPIO (OCT. 23-NOV. 21): The taskmaster planet Saturn wove its way through the sign of Scorpio from October 2012 until the end of 2014. Now it has slipped back into your sign for a last hurrah. Between now and mid-September. I urge you to milk its rigorous help in every way you can imagine. For example, cut away any last residues of trivial desires and frivolous ambitions. Hone your focus and streamline your self-discipline. Once and for all, withdraw your precious energy from activities that waste your time and resist your full engagement. And if you’re serious about capitalizing on Saturn’s demanding gifts, try this ritual: Write either “I will never squander my riches” or “I will make full use of my riches” twenty times -whichever motivates you most.
SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22-DEC. 21): The advanced lessons on tap in the coming days are not for the squeamish, the timid, the lazy, or the stubborn. But then you’re
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