What are you doing Tuesday evening?

Chances are, you're not familiar with the Texas primary-caucus system. It's internecine and requires degrees in Euclidean geometry and genetics to fully comprehend. A little ESP skill doesn't hurt, either, since the process involves a seance with Democratic ghosts of elections past (this year, For Whom the Chris Bell Tolls). Fortunately those smarty-pants lefties up the road at the Texas Observer have put together a handy guide to getting involved in the Democratic caucus. Note: You must vote in the March 4 Democratic primary to be eligible for the caucus, which means if you weren't one of the record early voters in Bexar County, you must get yourself to the polls Tuesday.

On the Street

Letters (Delivered to the On the Street Penthouse Suite via the Ether, Pigeons, and All Methods In between)

#1.  

An On the Street long time reader with close ties to Brazilian street grappling the medical field (someone we will now obliquely refer to as Homes) sent this astounding clip.  As with many of the messages sent to the Penthouse Suite, humor is mixed with sadness.  The clip has the feel of Old World vaudeville, or perhaps I am simply projecting that onto the clip because it is from the far reaches of Europe, and of course, who doesn't love the idea of vaudeville.  

At one point I thought it was a lost Roberto Benigni/Jim Jarmusch clip, which ultimately only reinforces my point.

Observe...




The host's reaction is so completely wrong and inappropriate it can only be considered human.    The last 15 seconds of silence bring unexpected pathos.

#2.

Congressman Al sent these clips in at various times during the week.  Given that his dedication to On the Street does not waver by being in another state,  it is only fair if we now refer to him as On the Street Mountain Time Zone Correspondent Congressman Al.


(2A.)

Old time fans of the Nature Boy will be happy to see him inject himself into the current presidential election.  The Nature Boy, combined with Chuck Norris, gives Mike Huckabee a Kinky Friedman-esque assemblage of unlikely, lovable losers in his political corner.



Ric Flair held onto his championship reign with the cliched iron fist.  Unfortunately, Mike Huckabee (and his campaign) are drifting into defeat.  I really appreciate having Mike Huckabee on the campaign trail battling McCain.  Though Huckabee is probably waiting in vain for McCain to have his "macaca" moment of self-implosion, the idea that McCain could screw up his chances are not that out of the picture.  Scandals begin to whirl around him.  Stories of his evil temper now begin to surface.  Some have even questioned if he should be eligible for President because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone and not on the 50 states, however Arizona didn't become a state until shockingly recently, and by recently I mean 1912.

McCain's situation does not bode well for the health of the country.  Ostracized by his base for past statements and views, he now seems to be trying to appease his base through his stance on military and the empire.  The People don't want 100 more years of Iraq, yet these are the outlandish statements he has made to smooth things over with the people of his party.  I can't imagine this going over well with the majority of people, but then what do I know?  

He might do better than most people first think, however, I can't imagine most people wanting to have a beer with him, which is always my most important criteria when choosing a President.  What kind of beer are we going to order?  If he is afraid to order international, is he then also afraid to order micro-brew?  Are we going to have just one round?   Do we order several pitchers?  It looks bad either way.  Do we get drunk and discuss and the Spurs vs. the Suns in the 2007 playoffs?  And if we do, then is his temper able to handle it when I bring up the Robert Horry hipcheck?




Yeah, probably not.  And that is why I want Mike Huckabee to somehow find a way to stay in the race.  He's the Jimmy Carter of the Right.  His presence in the Presidential debate would force a much more interesting and "nuanced" course of discussion.  

The dude just wants to play his bass guitar...



(2B.)

And as easily as politics drifts into music, sports drifts into politics.  This also from the desk of On the Street Mountain Time Zone Correspondent Congressman Al...

The joker tells the truth, and the serious commentator responds like a clown?



Cracking the Pecan King



A few days ago an On the Street associate from the Austin film scene came through town to do photographic research for the ACLU for something connected to Emma Tenayuca - most likely for one of the many commemorations.  

Having left the Institute of Texan Cultures we met nearby at Rosario's. Rosario's has a good racket going on with the tourists.  The food is good in a delicate, crafted sort of way but everything could be several dollars cheaper.  Nonetheless, it exists in its own bubble and people have a good time there. It strikes me as the kind of place where when you ask the waiter what he reccomends he'll make up something, usually choosing the more expensive option, which is pretty much what happened when I went there.  Carrying a camera probably gave me away for the Iowan tourist I've always wanted to be.

A beer was later had at Beethoven's.   The old timers weren't in yet.  I was hoping to show my friend a glimpse of the German scene but it wasn't meant to be.  The auslanders were right at home.


A Quiet Storm Band Called Bedroom E.T.A.

Based on the positive response from the audio clip from last week ("Ditchweed" aka "Don't Ask.  Okay, Go Ahead and Ask") we bring this follow up. Having tracked down the origins, it seems this a clip from an upcoming Matador Records comedy album.  Very unusual.  On the Street Insider Erin wonders about  their connection to Catpower.  Again, very unusual...





True Men Don't Kill Coyotes

It seems Alamo Heights has a coyote problem.  I take a sick pleasure in rejoicing when nature rears its ugly head.  Mountain Lions terrorizing Colorado suburbs reminds that we live in a world larger than ourselves.  I can just imagine a Denver suburbanite getting attacked, and as the camera dollies in his last words are something like "...we left the city so we can be around people like us and have better schools...and then a fucking tiger gets me.  This isn't how I wanted to go out!"  

An OTS insider went to a recent AH city council type meeting and listened to the trapper discuss the coyote issue.  Evidently there are 5 key players and they like to nest in a field over by McCullough and Basse.  At night they make their way east towards 09.  Killing coyotes, supposedly, isn't the solution because they will continue to breed to replace lost soldiers.  It seems like an epic battle they way its being described, though of course the only real issue is a few pets going missing but still...



On the Tracks



In between Vance Jackson and Lockhill-Selma is an obscure but convenient cross street called Orsinger.  I happened across it not too long ago.




This seems to be the same track that bifurcates Alta Vista and Beacon Hill to the south.



About 20 yards from the tracks I found this makeshift memorial.



It seems as if several different people contributed to this memorial.  A cross, a plaque, a trash can...



June 18, 2005.  I tried to think what I was doing on that day.  Oddly, I can remember perfectly.  I was in LA.  I just got hired via telephone for a bizarre marketing job where I was to drive across the country in a Penske truck full of electronics equipment.  I was to deliver the goods to a hotel, help set them up for a training session for the local salespeople, then two days later put it back on the truck with the help of day laborers.  It was probably the greatest job I ever had because: 1) I did almost no work, maybe 8 hours a week, 2) I was paid better than any job ever before, including, alas, even this high paying job...3) I got to drive around the country, 4) I never met my supervisors (until the truck ran into a low-hanging tree, but that's another story).  The next day Robert Horry (him again) won Game 5 of the NBA Finals with his 4th quarter/overtime heroics.

It was painful to connect one of the best days of my life (that job was the motivation to finally leave LA) with someone else's death.

I googled Michael G. Twist and found this...

"A memorial scholarship fund has been established for Michael G. Twist ’05. Michael, a recent graduate of St. Anthony Catholic High School died when his car crashed on June 19, 2005. He was active in community volunteer-ism, he was an Alter boy, a Eucharistic Minister and sang and played guitar in the school choir during Mass while attending St. Anthony. He was a caring young man who always volunteered his time, talents and treasures. The family established the fund to help pay tuition for a St. Anthony Catholic High School student. Anyone interested in participating in the scholarship fund should send their gift to: The Michael Twist Scholarship Fund, St. Anthony Catholic High School, 3200 McCullough Ave. San Antonio, TX 78212 or call (210) 805-5832 for more information"

A Conversation with On the Street Mountain Time Zone Correspondent Congressman Al

For this week we discuss the Spurs, focusing on the Brent Barry trade and all the esoteric details.




Save the Neurons?

After thoroughly analyzing the local coffee scene in a previous article, I'm actually happy to see another contestant in the game of shocking San Antonio's nervous system.  Put another way, will our collective neurons burst into flames from all the stimulation?  It's a valid question.  Has there ever been a point in San Antonio history where good, strong coffee was so easily available?

Witness the latest player in the game...



Okay, this is actually a before picture from a few months back (from the OTS foto archives) from the previous business.  I still never heard back about those Nigerian orphans.



Here is the same window taken a few days ago.  I'm most intrigued by the industrial, gear-looking design.   Based on that alone, I'm somehow extrapolating this knee-jerk opinion - "The Foundry will be the best coffee shop in San Antonio."  I have a good feeling about this.  My only concern is that a few too many bad open mic nights from the community could be the death knell, but I think The Foundry will withstand it.  I'm not sure when they'll open yet.  From what I saw through the window, it will be at least a few more weeks.

If I'm completely wrong on this one don't expect to hear me mention it again.  But if I'm right...




Meet the New On the Street Foreign Correspondents

People want to know how to become an On the Street Correspondent.   A few random, contradictory requirements might be:

1. Overeducated and underskilled
2. Possession of highly esoteric knowledge
3. Willingness to buy me a drink
4. "I don't know what" qualities
5. A lack of training in journalism

(Of course there are other prerequisite levels beneath the Correspondent level, such as: "Long Time Reader", "Insider", "Huggy Bear", "Associate".  I'm not sure yet of the order of those.)

With that in mind I'm proud to introduce two new full level On the Street Foreign Correspondents, both of whom contradict several of those aforementioned 5 rules.  It's a total score for OTS with their experience with NPR, the BBC, Texas Monthly, not to mention the awards they've won through the years.

Bear Guerra and Rux Guidi.  

They will be giving monthly updates from "On the Streets" of Bolivia, most likely La Paz.  The only surprise about this is that it hasn't happened sooner.  It was the obvious next step for On the Street - Bolivia.

I'm looking for a California and NYC Correspondent, as well as Europe and SE Asia.  


While Shopping For Brass Knuckles...


(sin permiso)

...I missed an Obama sign making party at a local artist's house.  I wasn't invited, and as I mentioned, I was busy at an antique store at the time helping a friend shop for vintage brass knuckles, but then somehow I found this image in the On the Street flickr page which made everything surreal.  It's as if I was there.  


(sin permiso tambien)

Here is the Spurs' own Bruce Bowen speaking in support of Obama.  Look closely at Bruce Bowen's face.  And tell me if you don't see a resemblance to a singer from a 70s Irish rock band.  Hold that thought.  Evidence to follow below.


Smoke Mixed with Music



Saturday night I stopped by the Mix to hear Big Soy and Kick It.  Big Soy is shown here on stage though one half of the band is hidden to the right behind a streak of light.

Evidently, Big Soy is about to head off for an Irish (European) tour.  My On the Street informant tells me this is going to be a pivotal tour for the band. What this means I'm not yet sure.  Possibly, this could somehow be a fact finding mission to answer the eternal question of Irish rock: who is better, Thin Lizzy or U2?  



I thought I had made that up until I found this.



Outside on the patio... it was somehow still smoky.   Here the local organization known as The Roosevelt High School Alumni Big Soy Appreciation Club (TRHSABSAC) took a break from the music to go over the group minutes.



Later that night, local band Kick It played to an excited crowd.  The drumming was the quiet (as in, under appreciated) highlight of the performance. People went wild.  

A security guard who was making a beat between the Mix, Joey's, and his pickup truck parked next door at the Greek restaurant, was not short of odd expressions as people kept slamming into him as he stood stoically by the door.



Tell me their singer doesn't look like Bruce Bowen with a huge afro.   I'm waiting...


And so goes another week on the streets of San Antonio.  As always, to be continued...

The Acme Candidate Selectorama 2008 is here!

Let's say -- totally hypothetically speaking, of course -- that you wanted to select a presidential candidate in Tuesday's primary based on something more than a vague desire for "change" or a preference for "experience." Something like, ah, issues, say. Well, the EU's here to help (And why not? The prime-minister model doesn't lend itself as easily to the distracting politics of personality) with a fun, 36-question quiz on gut-check topics ranging from gun control to terrorism/security to health care. At the end of the survey, a chart positions you on an economic and social axis (I thought perhaps I was getting more economically conservative in my late 30s, but nope, there I was in the lefty-left quadrant). According to my results, Barack Obama should be my candidate if I'm voting on issues, and Huckabee is policy anathema. You can also select individual issues in the results phase, in case you care more about the uninsured than the border. Thanks to the VU Amsterdam for creating this helpful gizmo -- via which they're no doubt compiling data about the impulsive,  erratic American voting public (they want as many respondents from Texas as possible) -- perhaps to make a case for kicking us out of the UN.

Whip it good

Jump rope:

Swing back to your office:

I Hate Over Acting

This past Saturday, a friend and I made the pilgrimage to see I Hate Hamlet over at Ruben’s Café on Blanco road, off Basse in an area where every shopping center we passed looked exactly the same. It was my first dinner-theater experience and I was open to anything that Damian Gillen and The Company Theatre threw at me. I went through a gamut of emotions—and was rewarded with a cookie during intermission for my hard work. (Well, actually the people at Ruben’s offered dessert, so that explains it.)

In a nutshell, Andrew Rally, our anti-hero, is a TV actor that is offered to play the role of Hamlet in a Shakespeare in the Park performance. Deidre McDavey, his doting virginal girlfriend, goes crazy with delight over the possibility of her boyfriend playing a Shakespearean character actor … Rally not so much, that is until the ghost of John Barrymore arrives and hilarity ensues.

I had a somewhat love-hate relationship for Daniel Sparks’ character of Andrew. His “Oh, Brother” facial expressions were a bit stale and unrealistic. He did show range towards the second act. His character fully developed and instead of being a money-hungry faded TV- star man-boy he morphed into a once-faded TV-star man. Deidre is played awkwardly by Becky Matthews; now let me explain … to understand Deidre is to understand that she’s a hopeless romantic, a girl who believes in fairytales, anxiously waiting for her Prince Charming to whisk her off her feet. Instead, she’s paired with Andrew, a mediocre mate she adores. Her awe-shucks appeal may leave some audience members queasy. It could be a result of overacting— whatever the case it didn’t fare well with me, but the audience ate it up.

Gallien is flawless in his role as the ghost of Barrymore. His accent, his presence, his libido are in the spotlight and are definitely the reason why the show is so well received. I also loved the immensely low budget props. The Company made the scant space work with only one setting.

It was an interesting show to check out and it’s always nice to see small dinner theaters bringing in large crowds (with a string of sold-out performances, including a packed house the night we attended). The Company’s Dinnerbox series (which I Hate Hamlet is part of) has consistently delivered out-of-the-ordinary performances showcasing Gallien’s superb acting and the group’s range of comedic talents.

I Hate Hamlet
Dinner 7:15pm
Show 8pm
March 1 (last performance)
$15-25
Ruben’s Café
14357 Blanco Rd.
1-800-838-3006
thecompanytheatre.org/

Ralph and Matt

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have spent considerable time in San Antonio over the last two weeks, but a deeper South Texas connection to this presidential race slipped past many people busily eyeing Tuesday's Texas primary.
On Thursday, Ralph Nader, making the latest in a string of insurgent presidential bids, named Matt Gonzalez, former San Francisco supervisor and mayoral candidate, to be his running mate. Gonzalez grew up in the Valley and attended high school in McAllen (where his family continues to live), before attending Columbia University. It'll be interesting to see if he can help Nader make a dent in the Valley, a historical Democratic Party stronghold. 

Honor guard

Following a second request from the Texas Republican Party, Representative Rick Noriega, Democratic candidate for John Cornyn's U.S. Senate seat and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, today released military records to the public. We've provided the link here in case his campaign's fear that the Republicans are planning to swift boat him prove true -- you'll be able to judge the raw material yourself.

One Officer Evaluation Report summary begins "The intent of this OER is to reflect an officer at the very top, in terms of both performance and potential," and goes on to praise Noriega's leadership and relationship-building skills and unlimited potential. The move may backfire in more than one respect, since the phone-in press conference gave Noriega the opportunity to talk about Cornyn's spotty attention to veterans' issues.

The five-time Houston State Rep faces Ray McMurrey, Rhett Smith, and Gene Kelly in the March 4 primary. Still not sure where to vote or what else is on the ballot? Check with the Bexar County Elections Department. All you need is your address.

The Snook Book

The Grade Book, post #2: Dress down dos

I used to have a friend who would ask me for the recipes for desserts she'd tried at my house. "That coconut cake was fantastic," she'd say. "Can you tell me how to make it?"
I'd give her the step-by-step instructions, a detailed ingredient list, and helpful tips.
Without fail, she'd eventually tell me, "I tried making that cake, and it turned out terrible."
So, I'd start the postmortem: "Did you use fresh eggs?" "Did you cream the butter and sugar first?"
Eventually it'd come to light that she'd skipped some crucial step because it just seemed like too much trouble.
"Why do I have to sift the flour before I measure it?" she'd ask, for instance. "That just seems like an extra step." Or, "I didn't have any pastry flour, so I just used all regular."
Finally I convinced her to make quick breads, which don't require the same dedication to detail.
The point? If you're trying to replicate Grandma's famous pound cake, and you're lucky enough to possess the recipe, just follow the damn thing. To the letter.

I bring this up as a prelude to a dare: 210sa, I hereby throw down the fashion gauntlet. I double-dog dare you to do the Wardrobe Warrior right.
Since you started directly ripping off New York's Look Book in December (which inspired my last rant on the subject), you've settled into the form a little. You're having something resembling a conversation with your subjects, which is an improvement.

But you're still picking ordinary-looking people. This isn't an insult to your subjects. I'm ordinary-looking, as are the vast majority of Americans who don't live in LA or New York (sorry, Austin). Outside of the girl who said she was wearing all Baby Phat (which sticks in my mind because I wondered, via linear thinking, if the line offers underwear, too [yes]), I can't recall a single subject from your weekly photo shoot. Last week's subject -- so Pat Benatar '80s -- is the closest you've come to the ideal. The point of this particular sort of feature -- if it exists for any reason other than to lure retail advertisers -- is to photograph extraordinary looking individuals or individuals who are a particularly salient visual example of their social subset.

Note: It's helpful if you look for them in places besides the mall.

You can't cheat by calling up people you know have a cool look, or by going to clubs at night. You're looking for people who sport their glorious inner strange when the rest of us are wearing our conformist work faces. For example: One afternoon on Broadway, not three blocks from your corporate HQ, I saw a tall black man wearing an electric-blue suit and a zoot-suit-style hat, climbing into a vintage car. Who the hell is that guy? I'd sure like to know. He might even inspire a corporate suit or two to step out next time they're shopping lapels. This morning, outside my apartment complex (and again, not a mile from your Hearst/Express-News offices), a Golden Girls dame in enormous Coco Chanel-esque shades and a floral skirt stared me down at the corner. She looked interesting. Or how about the guy who walked into Whole Foods on a recent Saturday with a full scalp and neck tattoo -- like chain maille --  rocking his biker look.  Not your stereotypical SA Whole Foods customer.

But I don't have any faith in you Wardrobe Warrior -- you're more like a Wardrobe Serf, slave to convention and the mild derivations that pass for style for most of us. That same morning at WF, I waited for juice behind a tweener sporting a Takashi Murakami Louis Vuitton bag (or a good facsimile thereof). She was fashionable in a completely uninteresting way, but at this point I have to assume that, given the choice between these two WF customers, you'd go safe.
Come on, prove me wrong.

Of course, I like the new video version of NY's Look Book so much that we might just start knocking it off ourselves.

Obama-mania

Have you jumped on the political bandwagon yet? If so, and if Obama’s your candidate, go check out Thursday’s silk screening party down at Ruta Maya, info below:

COME to a fun and funky gathering of artists in support of Barack Obama where you can:

CHANGE YOUR SHIRT! Bring a T-shirt and the amazing Cruz Ortiz will silkscreen it with an original Obama design for $5!

VOICE YOUR CHANGE!! Bring your songs, your poems, other people's songs and poems that speak to change, your rants against Bush, your odes to Obama, your whatever you wanna say that takes five minutes or less to an open mic hosted by poets Jenny Browne and Naomi Shihab Nye.

AND DONATE YOUR CHANGE FOR CHANGE!!! Bring your spare change to put in our piggy bank for Obama and your big and small bills to buy Ruta Maya goodies! Ruta Maya will donate a portion of proceeds to the Obama campaign and we're donating the whole piggy bank.

Bring your kids! Bring your voices! Bring your votes! Bring your hope! Bring your friends! Bring anything you think deserves another exclamation point!!!!

WHEN: Thursday February, 28th, 6-8 pm
WHERE: Ruta Maya Coffeehouse 107 E. Martin

Here are a few images of Obama signs that local artists have been working on.


The process begins ...




Red, white, and blue gets a new twist.



Signs everywhere!

In other arts news, I spoke with Luminarias officials today and was assured we will have more information regarding the Arts Night by mid-week. Check out Curblog throughout the week for any further developments. Also, be on the lookout for a sneak peak of the reopening of the Greek and Roman galleries at the San Antonio Museum of Arts (with pictures included!) and a brief review of I Hate Hamlet, we promise it’ll be fair and balance.

Real retail therapy

I'd been meaning to stop in Florame, the aromatherapy and skincare shop on Broadway, for months, but it's so easy to zip by the turn-in for that little strip center just north of Hildebrand. It's well-worth the turnaround, though.

During my lost years in Austin, I worked on and off at an aromatherapy shop called Sabia, so I'm an intolerant snob when it comes to lesser-quality essential oils, and artificially fragranced products that label themselves aromatherapy flip my rant switch. True aromatherapy uses distilled plant oils for therapeutic and purely pleasurable purposes, from running off a cold to easing flu symptoms to relieving work stress. Although it has been practiced since antiquity in one form or another, the modern version was discovered/invented in France by a perfumer who devoted his work to understanding the molecular properties of EOs. Wikipedia has a reasonably accurate account.

The Florame shop on Broadway is the first U.S. outpost of a reputable French company, which produces EOs from organic wildcrafted and cultivated plants. No, they're not as cheap as the perfectly decent brands at Whole Foods, but you can smell the difference. They also carry high-end and rare precious oils, such as true Rose and Helichrysum, and carrier oils such as Grapeseed, for making your own massage oils, etc. If you're not the DIY sort, you can explore the company's extensive skincare line. Highly recommended: Geranium floral water. The flu/cold bug that's been making the rounds this winter hasn't been entirely vanquished, either, so pick up a bottle of Ravintsara, which smells like a cross between cinnamon and eucalyptus and fights the spread of viral infections. I bought one of their small wooden diffusers and Grapefruit oil -- relaxing and euphoric -- for my office.

Don't be shy if it's all new to you: Shopkeeper Alain, from Paris by way of Mexico City, is friendly and informative.

Florame USA
4400 Broadway
(210) 821-4100

On the Street

Letters (Sent to the OTS Penthouse Suite)

With success comes a price.  For all the "awards" we've won with On the Street, it makes sense that sooner or later it would get back to Africa.  And the Isle of Wales.

Here is the first letter that came in this week...

Exhibit A - The Case of the Late Great Cocoa Merchant 

From: Nina Douala
Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire.                      
Email *&&^##$@yahoo.co.jp                      


Dear One,

Good day I am Nina Douala. From Abidjan Cote d'ivoire, I wish to request for your urgent assistance in my investment plans in your base, I am calling in respect of the transfer of money ($6.500,000) Six Million Five houndred thousand united states dollars only deposit in the bank by my late Father Mr Joseph Douala who was a wealthy Cocoa Merchant here in Ivory Coast. I wish to invest this money in manufacturing and real estate management in your base,this is because I inheritated an important sum from my late father who died in recent political crisis in Cote d'Ivoire here.

Before the death of my father he informed me near his hospital bed at chu- teaching hospital, that he has saved the in one of the bank here in cote d Ivoire with my name, and I have made every inquired to confirm the existence of the deposit.
This money was been deposited for my social security and for fruitful international investment.That is why I need you to keep this transaction highly confidential and trustworthy person who will assist me to receive this money overseas for investment establishment purposeindurities and lucratives profitable ventures.

Further directives and details about the deposit and on how to move the money successfully into your private bank account in your country will be given to you as soon as I get your response, Thanks and anticipating to hear from you immediately you recieve this mail. God bless.

Yours Faithfully.
Nina Douala.

I realize Nina wanted to keep this matter between us but I felt it was too important to keep a secret.

And if that letter wasn't enough, I then received this following letter a record 17 times in 30 minutes, setting off a new wave of Welsh spammers philanthropists...


Exhibit B - Pioneer Days

From
Andrew David Office
David Consultant Intl
12, Vic, Ave,
N.S.W, 2110
Sydney, Australia
Tel: +61 (02) 800 #$%%##
E-mail: ##%#@#@live.com


Dear Jones,

Final Notification of Bequest,

Congratulation On behalf of the Trustees and Executor of the estate of Late Engr. James Jones, I once again try to notify you as my earlier letter to you through the Post Office was returned undelivered, therefore I now attempt to reach you via your email address as it appears to be the next and the only option left explored.

Engr. James Jones (late), made you a beneficiary in his Will, he left properties worth of Two Million United States Dollars (US$2.000.000.00) to you in the codicil and last testament to his Will. My client, Engr. James Jones, was a pioneer and member of STARBAG CONSTRUCTION CO.LTD, a dedicated Christian and Philanthropist. He died on 2004 and his Will is now ready for execution.

Please If I reach you as hopeful I will, endeavor to get back to me as soon as possible to enable me conclude my job, you should forward along your current telephone and Fax numbers, your current mailing address.

Once again, I congratulate you for this is a significant honor indeed, as it behooves you herefore to act at once in other to avoid risk of forfeiture to the deceased family.

Yours Sincerely,

Andrew David (Sectional Head)
Co - Partner of the New South Wales


These first two letters are obviously serious business of commerce and finance.  Luckily, longtime reader Michael sent this mp3 document to lighten the mood.  It dovetails nicely with his previous contribution of last week.  

To fully enjoy this following clip one need not know the previous work of the Jerky Boys, nor have read Norman Mailer's forgotten essay from 1957 called "The White Negro".  However, there's no reason one shouldn't.

As with the last clip from longtime reader Michael, this is NSFW, again, unless of course you work out at sea, as baseball coach, or most appropriately, a used car salesman...

Exhibit C : PT Cruising




The Problem with Knight Rider

It seems a new  Knight Rider television show is about to premier.  Of course this is great.  Observe the new trailer...





However, there seems to be something missing.  It's as if Knight Rider 2000 the television movie is completely being avoided in the discussion. Observe the trailer for this forgotten (but culturally significant) tv movie.







I realize this a bit of a step, but walk with me.  Watch the first and last seconds of that trailer again.  If you do, then you'll realize that this movie was shot in San Antonio.  

The smoking gun?

The last shot of the trailer shows a car chase/explosion happen right in front of Tacoland.  Let me restate that: the Hoff filmed a Knight Rider car chase in front of Tacoland!  This is too good to be true.

Hoff can enjoy his recent foray into nostalgia with the Knight Rider franchise but it should be remembered that it was the city of San Antonio that opened up its doors to him when Knight Rider was not cool, Baywatch had yet to be born, and he was basically a joke (which of course, is much different than now.  Completely different.)

In all this discussion, the ridiculous assumptions of the Knight Rider 2000 shouldn't be overlooked.  It's the same argument from the 1970s that only criminals carry guns, cops can only carry toy water pistols, society has completely fallen apart, and if only a hero could restore order and save us from this chaos...


And Then There's This Chaos





Deep chaos.  Now almost forgotten, Godspeed You Black Emperor  made music feel like cinema, and with this video I stumbled upon, one of their most famous "songs" is now complemented with visuals.  I feel wrong in calling it a Ken Burns film of an apocalypse yet to be documented but that's what it feels like.  Except that its much more artistic and nuanced.  And at the end, does it almost seem like that it's an alternate version of KITT driving through he wasteland?


But There's Hope?



On Saturday, instead of lunch at Garcia's I was told of some sort of Obama rally happening downtown.  I had heard but forgotten that the campaign office is next to the Lake/Flato office around 3rd street somewhere.

I'm too cynical to get overly excited about Obama.  I had thought he might be too thin - not because of the smoking issue and appetite suppressants but on issues in general.

After 8 years in Siberia who wouldn't get excited for something new?   However, I'm glad that Hillary is giving him a strong fight.  I say that because I completely disagree with the widely held notion that the two Democratic candidates need to work together and find a consensus as soon as possible.   The process needs to play itself out until the convention if needed.  If that isn't what the convention is for then what's the point of these institutions of democracy.  


(the interior was packed and humid.  my glasses fogged over.  i hung outside instead.)

Also, in 2004 Kerry got a free pass by the left on everything and was pushed into the forefront way too quickly.  He was able to give lip service to the left on many issues and didn't fully serve his base.  I think the two candidates now need to put themselves on record as much as possible on what they intend to do, which for politicians probably just means more slogans and less reality, but to me the real hope for change is that something meaningful will come out of this.

Bones

The recent trade by the Spurs sending out Elson and more importantly Brent Barry has had a deep impact for On the Street.  Though the team improved its defense and rebounding, my main issue is where are we going to find a someone of his wit to match his surfing skills as well as inside connections to the band Pearl Jam?  This is actually a serious question.  

Barry may have been injured for good, but if so I think we would have heard about it, especially because we sent him to Spurs v2.0 in Seattle with Sam Presti and PJ Carlesimo (the other PJ in Seattle) where he isn't expected to have much of an impact with a young, struggling team that is only looking towards next year when his contract expires.

I suppose if I had a press pass with the Spurs I would be able to get to the bottom of this...alas for now I can only call upon years of armchair psychology and an innate sense of things (whatever the German word for that is.)

To conclude, more on the Barry trade next week when there is more perspective.  

And so goes another week on the streets of San Antonio.  As always, to be continued...

Put on a happy face

The City of San Antonio says it plans to rewrite the portions of the City Parade Ordinance Judge Xavier Rodriguez labeled unconstitutional yesterday as early as the first part of March. Council passed the new ordinance in late November, and the San Antonio Free Speech Coalition immediately filed a lawsuit objecting to several provisions, including the seemingly arbitrary method for assessing permit fees and the lack of options for groups who can't pay the estimated traffic-control and cleanup costs. Judge Rodriguez's order prevents the City from enforcing the ordinance as it is written.

Rodriguez issued the preliminary injunction based on three provisions he found unconstitutional: the wide discretion accorded the police chief in assessing costs, the conflation of traffic-control costs with "security" costs, and the exemption of funeral processions and government agencies operating within the scope of their functions.

"We're actually pleased with the decision, those are easy fixes," City Attorney Michael Bernard told the Current. "We'll have to take out the exemptions for funerals and government entities, [and] we have to make clear that the costs will be solely for traffic control, not safety -- which we thought we had done ... that was the intent."

The City can ask the court to review the revamped ordinance and lift the injunction if the judge's objections have been met. Free Speech Coalition attorney Amy Kastely said that even if the City successfully corrects those terms, they will proceed with the suit on the grounds that the ordinance favors some First Amendment marches over others, and doesn't provide adequate alternatives for indigent groups. The plaintiffs have been gathering evidence for their October 14 trial date, which, Kastely says, shows a pattern of favoritism and inconsistent fee assessment.

Bernard says he's not worried.

"All that is under the old ordinance, when much more discretion was granted," he said. "That was the point [of the new ordinance]."

Bernard is, it seems, a confident guy in general, telling the Current (who was foolish enough to ask whether the City would be seeking guidance as it works to make its Parade Ordinance constitutional -- after all, it's not like after eight years of Bush we're all super-fresh on the full potential of the word): "I can read the court order. I don't particularly need advice."

Non sequitur:
Do you need advice? I sure do sometimes.
Try Dear Uncle Mat: free input and reflection on dating, sex, gender identity, pets, and art -- all from a guy with actual experience in all of the above. Plus: anonymity guaranteed. Email dearunclemat@sacurrent.com.

Big Tex testing underway

It's a winter afternoon in San Antonio (which is to say it's 82 degrees and blindlingly sunny). The light glints off the windowpanes of the restored King William mansions across the river, and makes it difficult to look square on at the EPA contractors in their white suits and yellow booties. Eric Delgado, EPA on-scene coordinator for the Big Tex Libby site, is mercifully dressed in a blue EPA Emergency Response Team shirt.

The word "emergency" reads ironic in this context: local residents have been waiting for more than three years for some agency, any agency, to fully screen the site for the presence of Libby asbestos, a pernicious form of tremolite asbestos whose tiny fibers have sickened hundreds of residents of Libby, Montana, where contaminated vermiculite was mined by W.R. Grace for decades and shipped to more than 200 processing facilities throughout the country, including Big Tex. Libby was added to the National Priorities List of the Superfund program in 2002.

Between now and next Tuesday, Delgado's team will take soil samples from approximately 300 locations on the 7.5-acre site, based on preliminary testing completed in 2006 and old site maps. Those preliminary tests found concentrations of as much as 4 percent near some structures on the site. Delgado expects to get the results from these samples in about 21 days. The EPA will use the findings to determine where they need to conduct activity-based sampling. Results from those tests, which will be used to determine the extent and method of remediation, will be several more weeks in coming.

Still, it's encouraging to see progress. The property has sat vacant for more than a year, since the last of the art-silo tenants were booted in the spring of 2006. Owner James Lifshutz plans to build urban living and retail spaces overlooking the restored Eagleland segment of the San Antonio River Improvement Project, but the development has been on hold since community activists began pushing for testing and cleanup in 2005.

You can follow the EPA's updates on the official Big Tex cleanup site, epaosc.net/bigtex.

Round one to the public

Round one in the fight between Esperanza and the City over the new Parade Ordinance goes to Esperanza and the San Antonio Free Speech Coalition. The groups claim that the ordinance, passed in late November by council, is unconstitutional because, among other offenses, it allows the chief of police to discriminate against groups based on content by charging for "security" at his discretion, and subsidizes the costs of some First Amendment marches, but not others.

U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez issued a ruling this afternoon that grants the plaintiffs' request for a temporary injunction, finding that the ordinance as written is unconstitional on three counts:
• It grants the chief of police overly broad discretion in assessing costs
• It doesn't clearly distinguish between traffic-control costs and security costs
• It exempts funeral processions and government agencies operating within the scope of their functions

"Basically, he did the right thing," said plaintiffs' attorney Amy Kastely. The ruling addresses one of the coalition's main concerns, that the police could price groups with less-popular or controversial messages or memberships out of a permit by assessing high "security" costs.

But Rodriguez sided with the City on some key issues that Kastely says they will address more fully when they go to trial this fall. The Court did not object to the City subsidizing specified events, such as the annual MLK march, or the assessment of traffic-control and cleanup costs. The ruling also found that the ordinance provides sufficient alternatives for groups that cannot afford the permitting process (read: sidewalks).

Kastely says the coalition has new evidence to present regarding permit-fee waivers. "We just looked at the permit applications for the first five years," she said. "The practice is much more extensive than just the three in the ordinance." She also expressed dismay at the judge's position on parade alternatives for poor or indigent groups. "On that one we're just disappointed," Kastely said. "We will bring out at the trial the lack of viability of sidewalk marches -- for the elderly, for anybody who's got physical challenges at all."

Between now and the trial date -- currently set for October 14 -- the City could choose to address the portions of the ordinance the judge identified as unconstitutional, and ask the court to lift the temporary injunction, but Kastely says the coalition will be back in front of the bench either way. In the meantime, "What it means is that the International Women's Day March will go on as a march in the streets."

The Current has calls into the City seeking comment.

Read Judge Rodriguez's order in pdf:

To download click here

There Will Be Heckling

Border wall ballads: installment no. 1

Current staff writer Greg Harman checks in from the border this week, where he is working on a series about the proposed border wall and the communities, individuals, and ecosystems it will impact. Keep track of his blog posts here and at murodelodio.wordpress.com, and watch for next week's cover story in the Current. And while you're online, check out this week's story about new findings (including work by OLLU researchers) that show an increasingly strong link between mercury emissions from manufacturing and coal plants and autism.

You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe

After our press deadline yesterday, the Current got its mits on actual numbers from a poll conducted, we're told, for folks in the rental-car industry who were contemplating a media campaign opposing the visitor-tax extension that will appear on this May's ballot in the guise of four major projects:

• $110 million to remake the Municipal Auditorium into the Bexar County Performing Arts Center, $6 million for the Alameda     Theater renovation, and $4 million for the Briscoe Western Art Museum

• $100 million to update the Freeman Coliseum and stock-show facilities, and upgrade the technology, infrastructure, and meeting facilities at the AT&T Center when it turns 10 in 2012

• $125 million to complete the River Improvements Project, including restoring the river's natural course in the Mission Reach, restoring Wetlands at the Witte in the Park Segment, and connect the downtown River Walk directly to the Mission Reach hike-and-bike trails

• $80 million to build amateur-sports facilities, including 46 soccer fields, 53 softball/baseball diamonds, and a new fencing facility

Voter approval would continue the 1.75% hotel-occupancy tax and the short-term 5% motor-vehicle rental tax, first approved in 1999 to build the AT&T Center, for another 20-30 years, for a total investment of $415 million.

On Monday, the Express-News reported that Enterprise Rent-a-Car, which had reportedly told County Judge Nelson Wolff they were willing to spend up to $1 million to defeat the proposal, had decided to sit out the local election and concentrate its anti-visitor-tax efforts at the national level. The daily speculated that Enterprise's internal polling must have given them a case of the cold, hard pragmatics, but as Queque reported today, we had seen different numbers. For your perusal, here's a core sampling, taken from questions that are not, as Judge Wolff characterized them, very pushy. (Incidentally, Mayor Phil Hardberger, Judge Wolff, and the San Antonio Spurs are all pretty darn popular with the folks who participated in this survey, with the Spurs taking the crown, Hardberger playing runner up, and Wolff following in a strong third place.)

• 95.5% of respondents said tourism is "important," with 76.5% responding "very important."

• 47.8% either strongly favor or somewhat favor extending term limits. 44.5% somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the idea.

• 65% of respondents favor allocating $125 million to river improvements

• 56.8% of respondents favor allocating $110 million to renovate the Municipal Auditorium into a state-of-the-art performing art center

• Respondents were split on the proposal to allocate $80 million to amateur-sports facilities, with 46.2 percent favoring the idea, and 47% opposing it

• Asked how they felt about allocating $75 million to AT&T Center improvements, $15 million for rodeo buildings, and $10 to the Freeman Coliseum, only 37% responded favorably, while 55.2% either somewhat or strongly opposed the idea.

Keep in mind this poll was conducted before any official campaigning by the A.C.T. political-action committee established to lobby in favor of the measure. 

Later questions in the poll these numbers are taken from characterize the AT&T Center as privately owned -- which results in even lower approval ratings for the AT&T improvements. As Wolff told the Current yesterday, tax-extension advocates "get better support when we remind people that we own it."

The County claims to have more favorable numbers. They belong to the Spurs, we've been told, but the Current has asked if we could pretty-please have a copy for comparison.

The Queque: Republican attactic dogs special edition

RED TIDE
 
“It’s not whether you get knocked down,” said the great patron coach of the football field. “It’s whether you get back up.” The Queque notes approvingly that U.S. Senate candidate and Texas State Rep Rick Noriega is animated with Lombardi’s fighting spirit as he anticipates a Swift Boat attack in the Grand Orifice Party tradition of Max Cleland and John Kerry. Last week the Texas Republican Party sent a hardball followup letter demanding Noriega release his military records — copied, for good measure, to Noriega’s three opponents in the March 4 primary (the winner of which will take on John Cornyn in November. Please tell us you’re on top of this.)
“This is the first shot across the bow, in a dishonorable way, to try to impugn my integrity or character,” said Noriega on Monday. His campaign will release the records later this week, says his office, after it’s all clear with the JAG. “To the American public,” adds Noriega, “not to some political operatives that have agendas and a dishonorable intent.”

On the Street

Letters (to the OTS Penthouse Suite)

A longtime reader from Austin sent this cryptic video.  There was no description.  The words in the video speaks for itself but ultimately raise several questions.  

The video is completely safe for work, as long as you work out at sea, as a prison guard, or as a Division II baseball coach.  Otherwise, not so much.




Aside from the obvious culture clash occuring (and unintentional comedy), a deep sadness permeates this whole thing.  Who does she want to bump with?  What happened on the school yard to provoke this?  And where the hell was the assistant principal when this all went down?  I think this coverup is only going to get worse.


The  influence of street culture permeates isotropically.  

Consider this scenario out west in Los Angeles.  Apparently, rival paparazzi agencies are now arming Bloods and Crips with cameras to get premium shots of Britney Spears.  Terms such as 'drive by shooting' are  being used in new contexts.  Of course this couldn't be another case of Los Angeles fear, paranoia, and misrepresentation.  Somewhere in the background Mike Davis is taking notes.  



The Twilight's Last Gleaming



Longtime OTS reader and San Antonio champion Ben Lynn recently left town for The Land of Oz the Emerald City.  



On Sunday at San Pedro Park a memorial kickball game occured.  Dogs, guitars, frisbees all intermingled.  Bogged down in books I showed up late but in time for dramatic photographic lighting.



To the west the sun finally fell and people drifted away.  A 2 liter of Coke was left behind for the next group of explorers.  




It was a fitting point of departure - the literal birth springs of San Antonio.  Cabeza de Vaca may have first stayed here in 1535.  473 years later we played kickball.


(Courtesy)

A scene from the road, heading west towards Marfa, Texas.  

Here, Ben takes time from the road to reflect on the nature of San Antonio.  Much of what defines it is through what it lacks, which then begins the question of how to make it whole.  A perpetual San Antonio cycle.





microcinema



Monday night Leslie of Potter Belmar fame hosted another film screening at UTSA downtown.  Patrick Kwiatkowski of microcinema came through town and played selected experimental films from the microcinema collection.  

The landscape is shifting and daunting.  Usually this applies to the filmmakers but for niche distribution as well.  However, I felt more at ease than Patrick was out there trying to make things happen.  




Patrick, in the front, took questions from the crowd.  He seemed excited for submissions of videos to microcinema.  If I heard correctly, he was only charging $5 to submit, which in the whole scam scheme of film festivals and other boondoggles, is rather low and appealing.  

Though some were curious as to the exact process of how to get their work on microcinema, Patrick, to me, came across as quite affable and straightforward, though I suppose anyone compared to the shadow puppets of the LA film scene will come across in a much better light.

Working in experimental film, microcinema, low budget art films (whatever you want to call it) is a daunting undertaking.  So, again, I was happy to see someone making a go of it.

Italian Food (and the other Leaning Tower)



While walking up to the tower to meet people for a drink, a phone call came in, and before I knew it I was across town on San Pedro at Stefania's Country Italian restaurant.  They were about to close, it was an off night, yet despite all that (or perhaps because of it) I fully enjoyed my limited experience there.  The space is open and large yet feels right, even if that goes against a previous theory I had been working on a few weeks back.

I only had a glass of wine and a small appetizer.  A larger extrapolation would be wrong.  I thought the prices seemed a touch high, but I get the sense that there is often music and other entertainment that helps explain the situation.

The whole time I kept thinking the location used to be a movie theater where I saw Airplane in 1980.  I feel confident about this one.





Joe Harry and Your Momma's Place



Wednesday night I was invited to the Rodeo on one of its last nights.  Rock memory Staind was to perform.




While my group went inside to find our seats for the rodeo I hurried over to the carnival to get textbook magic hour shots.




It had been 20 something years since my last trip to the rodeo.  The presence of the AT&T Center certainly cleaned up the image and atmosphere of the event.  This isn't a good thing.



I was afraid to think that all the games might actually be on the up and up.  I'm not sure if there is an indirect correlation but attendance seemed to be down.  Perhaps most of the people had already come in days previous.  



On the other hand, the amount of flashing lights was impressive enough.  

I was in a rush so I didn't get a chance to shoot a few free throws and sample a few games.



The sun finally went completely down.  I rushed back inside.  I'm not sure what goes on inside the Freeman Coliseum.  Perhaps a juried calf show?




Inside, explosions and pyrotechnics and loudness (not the Japanese Heavy Metal band.)








As the smoke died down, the cavalry came out.  With a more trained eye I would have been able to discern the details of the horse riding skills (isn't there a technical word for this?)



There was not a shortage of flags on hand.




Nor was there a shortage of...dopplegangers?  While talking to a friend I heard the MC tell the audience to rise for the National Anthem sung by Mark Jones, which is odd because that's my name.  As much as I wanted to magically pull a wireless mic out from jacket and begin singing, it wasn't meant to be.  




The other Mark Jones.

Afterwards, there was an amazing assortment of (wo)man versus nature competitions.

I think my battery was dying so I stood pat with this last image.


Outtakes



Thursday night I went to the McNay to see a performance art (performance) by Bunnyphonic, yet this time without the accordion.





The setting had the feel of a lost scene from a Sophia Coppola film.  There was red wine, palatial grounds, women in costume, an artistic sound design drifting in the background.  As people were waiting for the performance to begin, a man in a seersucker suit came towards Bunnyphonic (in red by the fountain) and shot her three times with a (toy) pistol.  At each shot, a balloon was released to the sky.

Behind me was a deer tent/blind.  Inside were hunters' candles, silver bullets, a coyote/Beatles soundscape, and two chairs to listen to the moment. (Happiness is a Warm Gun).

Themes of hunting, killing, lost love were intertwined.  A discussion of the performance occurred directly afterwards.  The event was sparse in its approach but oddly appropriate in its timing for Valentine's Day.  The timing of twilight added much to the mystery shooting.



Later that night at Soho wine bar Franco Mondini-Ruiz held a party.  People from the McNay Bunnyphonic performance joined forces for a spirited evening.  Free drink tickets were passed more casually than secrets.  I think I recall someone wearing an LBJ stetson hat. And here, an impressive display of cupcakes drew people in closely, only too close at times, as the pink painting in the background kept falling on top of people.


And from the Twilight's Last Gleaming to a Viking Funeral

In the much anticipated fire side chat with Congressman Al we break down the San Antonio Spurs season to date, make a diagnosis for what happens next, and then bittersweetly discussed the viking funeral of Matt Bonner.





And so goes another week on the streets of San Antonio.  As always, to be continued...

Small favors

Um, all that stuff we said in my last post about the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission being populated by closeted,  goat-sucking, vampyric creeps, well that may or may not be exactly right.

Just a week after state, local, and national citizens groups started filing legal complaints with the agency, the NRC did a grand and melifluous curtsy -- issuing a "Notice Withdrawing the Hearing Notice Regarding the Application for a Combined Operating License for South Texas Project Units 3 and 4."

All clear?

What it means is that folks with gripes against San Antonio's nuke buddies at NRG Energy have an open window to seek "intervener" status with the agency. Prior to the legal fluffle, the NRC had set a firm deadline of February 25 for concerned citizens to convince the Feds they had good reason to scuttle (or at least consider scuttling) the deal. All that performance pressure and the applicant hadn't even supplied major portions of its application!

"The NRC agreed with our petition that the application really wasn't complete," said state Sierra Club spokesman Cyrus Reed (not to be mixed up with that other Cyrus sponging off his performing Disney spawn). "The company itself said we can't supply you with the information."

In that very precise legal language the NRC agreed to "indefinitely suspend the deadline." A new date will be set when the South Texas Nuke Contingent is ready to submit a REAL application.

So, is this a victory for the process?

Is this the end of those nasty goat-sucking rumors?

"This puts the nuclear industry and the NRC on notice that the process they've set up doesn't work," Reed said.

And so what time's the overhaul? We'll keep you posted.

... and the poets mourn

It brings much sadness to announce the death of San Antonio-born poet and hero raúlsalinas.

Last night he passed on and left his mark on not only the Chicano poetry movement but the many causes he fought for. As his site labeled him “the Cockroach poet,” he paved the way for poets set out on a mission. His contributions to such causes as human rights and social justice reflect a life of constant struggle to better society.

We applaud his tireless efforts and our thoughts are with his family. Check the Current for more information and a tribute to him in an upcoming issue.

UPDATED INFO
Visitation
Friday Feb. 15, 2008
6pm – 8pm
Wilke Clay Fish Funeral Home
2620 South Congress Ave.
Austin, Tex. 78704
512-442-1446


Memorial Service
Saturday Feb. 16, 2008
2pm
Wilke Clay Fish Funeral Home
2620 South Congress Ave.
512-442-1446


*followed by*
Gravesite Service
Assumption Cemetery
3650 South I – 35 (@ Woodward St.)
Austin, Tex. 78704
512-442-4252

Please send flowers to Wilke Clay Fish Funeral Home.

And send cards to:
Resistencia Bookstore
1801-A South First St.
Austin, Tex. 78704


If you need any more information, please call 512-416-8885 &/or e-mail revolu@swbell.net.

NRC-Saw

Frustrating those who question the wisdom of expanding the South Texas Nuclear Project, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted the application to build and operated two new nukes at the Matagorda site. That is, they accepted the application despite finding major gaps in it that have frozen the review process.

While that may delay the potential permitting by a year or so, NRC officials have not offered to leave the door open for the public to comment on the new information as it comes in. Smitty Smith, Public Citizen's resident bulldog in the state, harped on the NRC reps repeatedly on this point at last week's Bay City hearing.

Others were concerned that the application fails to identify alternatives to new nuclear power for San Antonio, Houston, and the deregulated market in the Lone Star State.
Austin, a 16-percent partner in STNP nuke plants 1&2, said the expansion it too risky to join.

Three days after the February 5 hearings, the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition (SEED), Public Citizen, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), Beyond Nuclear, and the Sierra Club called on the NRC to stop the clock on the public's right to comment on the application.

It's almost comical. NRG chose to go with an already-permitted, older model of power plant because they thought it would grease their way through the NRC. However, CPS officials told me months back that the NRC had reordered its staff with expectations that the rush for new nuke permits following the billions in incentives from Congress would naturally zero in on the safer, more reliable New Generation plants. Instead, the Feds had to scramble to reorder their seats again after the unexpected older plant model chosen by NRG. And now it appears the application was so rushed that it is deemed, if not technically "incomplete," at least unworkable.

According to the February 8 petition filed by Public Citizen and crew:


So the question is, how can the public understand, much less challenge or comment upon an incomplete application? Still the deadline of February 25 looms for any would-be challenge or request for a public hearing on the application.

San Antonio's Southwest Worker's Union joined the legal resistance this week, urging the NRC to halt its license review and extend public comment through the summer, and maybe then some.

Their attorney Lanny Sinkin writes:


If you haven't endured enough nuke legalese yet, check out the NRG/CPS's application (such as it is) online with the NRC. Scroll down until you see South Texas Project toward the bottom of the first column.

In other energy news, two-fisted NRG, trying to whallop us with a left-handed nuke deal, is also pursuing a kinder, gentler, renewable Texas with a West Texas wind investment along with British Petroleum.



Of course, they also can't keep their hands out of the coal (gasification) bin.


Remember, NRG is Hillary's campaign cash bundler of at least $100,000. And Obama is knee-deep with raging nuke pollutor Excellon, now pursuing a plant outside Corpus Christi.

Both Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were nastier than we thought.

But, hey, y'all are the public. You get to decide all this stuff in the end.

Just don't say no one warned you.

Art in the City

During the day, I have a limited amount of time to scan the internet for frivolous news items such as a story of Woody Allen's favorite typeface or search through the Library of Congress' flickr page.

Of course, I lie… to an extent. I believe my editor has glanced over at my computer to find me in a trance while reading the latest news on PerezHilton.com. (Blast! My ultimate guilty pleasure is revealed.) However, I'm doing research and as unbelievable as that may sound — it's true.

Last week, my research led me to an interesting finding. Sarah Jessica Parker, of Square Pegs fame, is about to pull a Tyra, Heidi, Paula, Donald, and any other celebrity jumping on the reality-show bandwagon. Now, I don't hate Mrs. Parker one bit. I may be condemned for life for not being an avid Sex and the City viewer, having (gasp) never seen a show in its entirety. But since the first time I saw Girls Just Want to Have Fun I've enjoyed her work … well, some of her work.

According to the Huffington Post, the show's description is as follows: "Potential skein would pit a dozen aspiring artists against one another, following the group as they attempt to produce various kinds of artwork — from painting and photography to sculpting and industrial design. Pieces would be rated by a panel of judges, as well as by the contestants themselves."

Reports online add that prizes may include the chance to win a gallery show, cash prize, and a tour around the U.S.

I say the show should one-up every reality show with a one-of-a-kind panel of judges. How's about the ghosts of artists? What better way to critique artists by the real artists — nothing against SJP, I mean that bond she formed with Nicolas Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas was really something. But I'd love to see Picasso, Warhol, O'Keefe, van Gogh, and Kahlo judging artists. Would Warhol side with any Pop Art lover? Or would his 15 minutes of fame mantra make him the Simon Cowell of the show? The world will have no other choice but to wait and see what develops.

Spiral Jetty update:  Spiral Jetty news has now seeped its way onto national news sources, such as the New York Times. Plus, here's an interesting take on the underlying meaning of the Spiral Jetty.

 …and your moment of what will they think of next? A modern ballet inspired by the fall of Britney Spears. C'mon now.

Tinseltown tell-all

Hi there, Curblog readers! Ash here. I'm out in Los Angeles for the
NEA/USC theater-writing fellowship. The LA weather is perfect (I wish
I could send you pictures and a jar of the unusually smog-free air!),
the classes and lectures informative, and the hotel bed I'm writing
from is essentially a queen-sized cloud. Things are going well.

Best of all, the fellowship has allowed me to witness professional
theater every night (we have to have something to write about, after
all). On Thursday we trekked it over to Redcat Theater for the
Wooster Group's Hamlet, and wow. Wooster's been going at it since the
'60s under Elizabeth LeCompte, doing wild multimedia shit, but this is
their first classical theater production. (But trust me, there was
nothing classical about it.)

Here are my thoughts from my first real assignment:

Well, fuck me, Hamlet. If you've ever wondered what the billionth
production of Shakespeare's greatest tragedy could possibly bring to
the table — why do it again? — then the Wooster Group's interpretation
is for you. If you haven't, it's still for you, but I suggest a little
pre-show homework. Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
In the case that you've never witnessed a traditional portrayal of
Hamlet, pick up a copy of Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 film version and
treat yourself. Ninety-nine times. Got that out of the way? Good. It's
been done like that on stage again and again, and quite frankly I'm of
the opinion that if we can't do something mind-blowing with "the
canon," then the time-and-again performances should be kept in a
museum, where they belong, not in the theater.

Imagine a Hamlet with elements of an indie-rock concert and Rocky
Horror, where your eyes never want for another place to look, and
where your brain cannot stop for sifting through layers and layers of
meaning. The Wooster Group's deeply cognitive production of Hamlet
exploits its play-within-a-play signature feature by adding a third
dimension, the screen. In doing so, their Hamlet becomes a commentary on
the art of remaking. What new thing can be brought to a very old
story? How can it be made relevant?

So many contemporary interpretations of Shakespeare's plays have
addressed these quandaries by merely resetting them in the present, or
if not that, then turn-of-the-century Europe, as if those stylish
tactics do anything but confuse us most times. By presenting a
mechanical, dance-like rendering of Hamlet — one which needs the stage
—before Richard Burton's 1964 production (and momentarily, before a
few recent film versions), the Wooster Group acknowledges all of the
Hamlets which came before, all of the ghosts that haunt, all of the
baggage the theater lover, the actor — or even fervent movie watcher —
must drag with him or herself to a performance. So, yes, there is a
certain audience in mind here, but that does not mean, with a little
research, anyone can't enjoy Wooster's Hamlet. That is, anyone who
doesn't mind putting forth a little effort to be entertained. It is
well worth it.

So the Wooster Group giveth, but what have they taken away? Emotion,
surely. The bodies of the players mimic not only their onscreen
counterparts as closely as possible — they are actors playing actors
reenacting a filmed play — but they jerk musically when the film jumps
(the rhythmic nature of their movement segues beautifully into songs
by Fischerspooner), consistently canceling our opportunities to
empathize.

The illusion of false reality has been stripped away to great effect:
Everything is exposed — lights, wires, mic transmitters. As a result,
we are able to understand anew words we've heard ad nauseam. Hamlet's
line about theater-makers holding a mirror up to nature is made deeply
ironic. Wooster's Hamlet is exactly what Claudius accuses Laertes of
being: but a painting of sorrow, a face without much of a heart.
That heartlessness would be the real tragedy of Wooster's Hamlet, if
not for its big, juicy brain — a vital organ theater should be asking
us to utilize now and then.

On the Street

Another Letter (Sent to the OTS Penthouse Suite)

Hey Mark, one thing I like more than art in many forms is history (especially Asian history).

When I was studying for my Associates Degree, my history classes would only catch my full attention when we would discuss Southeast Asia. What is interesting is that the further back I go with Asian history, the closer I get to Africa.

One of the most fascinating things I've read about are the facts on the Olmecs. Although they lived on what is now America, they greatly predate the Native Americans. According to archaeologist and scientist, the Olmecs mixing with the Chinese produced both Mexicans and Native Americans. Anyway, below are a couple interesting reads that I sent to my Filipino friends on myspace. I thought you might find it interesting as well...




While on Youtube I looked to see if they had any clips of Kidlat Tahimik's monumentally important film Perfumed Nightmare.  They didn't. However, I noticed Les Blanks is distributing the film, which is encouraging.  Perfumed Nightmare is a no-budget Super8 personal documentary/narrative film about a Filipino's (mock?) obsession with American culture.  The film is an intersection of many things - the independent film, the personal documentary, Third World cinema - all into one brilliant combination.  I imagine if an OTS reader liked Sherman's March, then they should equally enjoy Perfumed Nightmare, though for vastly different reasons, and for vastly different obsessions with American Culture.  But other than that the similarities are endless.





Evacuation Routes



On Thursday I was notified on an event going on that night at Artpace.  I wasn't sure what to expect but certain keywords were thrown at me - video, feminism, performance...



The artist - Kate Gilmore.  The show - Girl Fight.  I arrived like many thinking there was going to be some sort of performance involving...things getting smashed?  The image at the top is of a previous video wherein Gilmore tries to break out of a bucket of cement with a hammer (or something close enough.)  There wasn't a live performance that night but there was a talk with the artist and a debut of a new video made for Artpace entitled Endurance Makes Gold.  



Her work is usually mentioned in regards to feminism.  This is obviously true because Gilmore mentioned those connections, but if I was to see the work without being put in that mindset I wonder if I would immediately be drawn to that same conclusion. I'm not so sure.  

The videos share a consistent struggle for escape.  The acts have an existential quality but more than anything I see in them a youthful curiosity, partly because the predicaments, as seen literally, are a navigation of a confusing adult world.   How else to understand their simplicity?  Who gets their foot stuck in a bucket? If that is true, then these scenarios are potentially much more than only one interpretation.  (However, the videos could also be the opposite in that they aren't enough of one thing to be anything, but that's a path I'm not informed enough to travel.)

In analyzing the situations one can see an absurdist quality (as mentioned, getting one's foot out of a bucket, trying to climb out of a shaft...) and for some reason to me they seem more in line with Buster Keaton's stone-faced slapstick scenarios.  Like Keaton, the appeal to these videos would be in the lack of specifics. However, the more Gilmore talked and the more she gave away in the discussion, the less I saw her connections.  Though the videos are basically silent, her added details gave me more than I needed, which is unusual because the talks with the artists are almost always the best part of Artpace openings.  

Perhaps the videos spoke for themselves and didn't need any introduction.  Yet, if she said nothing it would have felt like a let down.  Such a demanding balance to be met...     





With Renewed Vigor (A Return to First Friday)



On First Friday cactus bra Space presented Jared Theis with Sheet Music Drawings & Quantum Mechanics.



Many of the shows that night shared an architectural focus.  I don't think this was the intention here but I began to see castles and other ancient invisible cities.



I can't claim to have absorbed all the nuances but with the help of macro-lens photography, the details do seem magnificent.



Next door at 3 Walls the personal architectural journey continued with Josh Welker's Can You Pay the Gas Bill?, which may or may not have been a rhetorical question.  



Structural forms took on new contexts.  In randomness lies innovation.  




In an email, I received this statement...

According to the artist: 

"Through sculpture, I interrogate the integrity and constitution of forms that have served manifold purposes throughout art and human history. Currently, my interrogation is aimed at two specific forms, common in both use and the discourse of contemporary art: the pedestal and the architectural support. I do this in order to enact a process of reproduction, performed under self-enforced rules and restraints. Working procedurally and somewhat serially, each new sculpture—each new incarnation of a specific form—is the formal reconsideration of a previous incarnation."

So I wasn't completely wrong with the architectural connection, however the degree that the forms are 'formally reconsidered' is the question, as well as the crux of the show. And for that I have no answer.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch (UTSA)



There was a group show at the UTSA sattelite space.  It was a lesson in dichotomoy, however the two artists didn't negate each other so much as go in two completely disconnected directions.  Maybe this was a good thing.



One on hand - hidden messages...



...and primary colors.  I believe there is historical precedent to this approach.



And then on the other part of the room there were several paintings in this intricate style.  The details were specific.  From afar they seemed like ancient tapestries.



Up close, the details told stories within stories.


The Big House



At the Bluestar main gallery many people had their eyes on a poor young soul who had vomited on the floor.  I tried to stay away not to embarrass her further but later wondered if anyone had tried to give her medical attention.  A security guard stood over her while the wail of sirens grew louder, but I'm not sure if anyone actually made an effort to see how she was doing.  Psychologists call this diffusion of responsibility (or something like that) and I was guilty as well.



On the other side of the room I noticed this foto which conjured thoughts of something between Marfa and Mexico City.  Architectural 'things' were everywhere in the main gallery.  


One Last Thing



At Joan Grona Gallery were these paintings by J. Derrick Durham.   There was a competing sense of movement with stagnation, simplicity with grandeur.



Random trivia question #323. If anyone can name this person I'll give you a nickel.  



In the back nook of the gallery, a nook I actually never knew existed, I came across works by Tim Olson.  I wonder if other intriguing work has been hiding in the back for months.  Quite possibly.



There were several impressive pieces made on a small scale.  Textures, illustrations, big words - all intermingling.

Super Tuesday

Both parties in dissarray.  Exactly what the people needed?

Another discussion with the people's politician, "Congressman Al".  (As a side product of these award winning fireside chats, I've noticed an insane amount of breathing into the telephone on my part.)





And so goes another week on the streets of San Antonio.  As always, to be continued...

Available everywhere ... except YouTube

Parts two and three of the TigerTV homelessness documentary that caused the City a YouTube panic attack will air on February 22 and March 14 at 3pm.  Non Trinity University students can catch the show on cable channel 98, educational access (available with Basic Reception Service).

Another update: TigerTV station manager Kaatie Cooper posted a comment to the original blog today saying that Trinity has added the original Newswave program containing the first segment of the homelessness in SA series to its web archives. Given that Wehrman, according to Nowitz (and seconded by the Department of Community Initiatives account), wasn't told that the program might appear on the internet, period, it makes us wonder what the Trinity TigerTV policy actually is:

1. Only air broadcasts on media outlets to which the subjects have explicitly agreed.
2. Air broadcasts on any media outlet so long as they're not YouTube, because YouTube freaks out some people.
3. Air the broadcasts on any media outlet so long as no subjects object.
4. Whatever you do, don't piss off City officials.
5. Any and all of the above, as needed.

Bay City Trollers

Streams and rivers move past us to the Gulf, mixing into the countless brackish bays and reed-chocked estuaries where millions upon millions of crusted and scaly aquatic infants spill into the greater coastal system each year.

We follow the watershed's coastward slump from San Antonio for nearly 200 miles. Against us is the Gulf's returning wind, three flags ripple a northern line over the Bay City Convention Center as about 200 gather to talk nukes.

Not far from here a massive pool holds decades of used-up uranium fuel rods and wastewater. This waste with nowhere to go is thoughtlessly engaged in a stabilization process, known as decay, that will take tens of thousands of years. Until that point, the ionizing radiation this material gives off will remain deadly.

That doesn't bother the mayor here. Or their state Rep. Or the sheriff. Don't even mention the economic boosters who would just as soon chew up those rods and crap 'em into their personal swimming pools than lose the prospect of another multi-year blizzard of construction.

Although the two units operating at the South Texas Nuclear Project outside of town, in which San Antonio holds a 40 percent stake, almost bankrupt the partner city of Austin by coming in over budget and years behind schedule, local business and governmental leaders took turns behind the microphone insisting two more plants would turn this quiet coastal town's economy around.

With uranium mining activity heating up in South Texas and up-and-coming radioactive waste repository (with aspirations of national dump status) in the Panhandle, the face of Texas is already changing to reflect the Bush Administration's continued championing of a resurgence for the nuclear industry. There is no indication that any of the surviving presidential candidates would set out to change that. Not voluntarily.

It's been almost 30 years since the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted a new construction license. STNP, rather primary owners NRG Energy and CPS Energy, want to change that. On Tuesday, teams of NRC representatives are busily padding all about the oversized, sparklingly clean center gripping hands and directing human traffic between the tables of agency literature.

Texas Rep. Mike O'Day said he was proud to have his "pleasure home" within sight of STNP, that he had never felt "in danger," and even had friends who worked there.

Matagorda County Sheriff James Mitchell boasted his deputies got their SWAT training at the plant.
"I not only welcome units three and four, I look forward to them."

Georgia Rice Harris, who served on the city council when Units 1&2 were first approved, gave notice that a fault line does run through Matagorda, but surmised: "I think we can handle it… I don't know any industry that is absolutely safe. How many people have been killed in refineries blowing up? I mean, something happens somewhere all the time."

What's the difference between an explosion in Texas City or Bay City? Things get rebuilt. Employees return. (That's not considering the potential incineration of Bay City under a 'worst case' scenario or the contamination of a good portion of Texas via that strong Gulf breeze. These are things the NRC doesn't talk about any more.)

A woman who during the first plant's construction told me that folks on site back then were working 16 hours a day trying to get things running. She didn't consider the risks involved in their work, but she didn't appreciate it when a manager threw a telephone across the room at her and soon quit.
But some in Bay City today would like to see that stockpiled waste moved somewhere before new cooling towers are planted at the site. Others suggested that the nuclear era had already passed and it was time to focus on solar and wind projects on the Coast.

"I don't think our time spent here is much better than free therapy," said one.

A local nurse said she had been living peacefully with the current nuke plant. "But my problem is, I do have concern about building more nuclear power plants as opposed to looking for alternative choices," she said. "I have concern that our monies are being directed into something that is seducing our citizenry."

She worried over water.

"If we are going to be taking water from the Colorado River and giving 3,935 gallons-per-minute to cool new nuclear reactors we're also going to be compromising our need for water for San Antonio.
"Everybody's coming to Matagorda because they love our fishing, but we're not going to have fish, we're not going to have shrimp, we're not going to have anything if we're not protecting our water."

Water forecasts in fast-growing are anything but rosy, and municipalities across the state have water hit squads beating the barrens for reliable (unclaimed) groundwater reserves. Then we have this cursed bugabear of Global Warming to contend with.

Texas A&M's recent projections for the coming century are not optimistic on that front.
"In the short run, this result implies greater risk of flooding and increases in rainfall intensity will exacerbate any increased runoff due to paving of bare-soils as watersheds undergo urbanization," Venkatesh Uddameri and Gomathishankar Parvathinathan write in the chapter dedicated to climate change's impact on water resources in The Changing Climate of South Texas, 1900 – 2100.
"Increased runoff would also indicate reduced infiltration which in the long run will lead to reduced groundwater recharge and lesser availability of water."

Despite concerns about magma activity below and water streams within Yucca Mountain, the U.S. Department of Energy is exerting another strong push to get the potential waste site back on track for a high-level radioactive waste site.

Thankfully, the four NRC men seated at front (only one of which sporadically dozes behind a sheltering hand) tell us they are not the DOE.

"We are not here to promote nuclear power," the deputy director overseeing the environmental review of NRG/CPS's application says.

However, the agency's mission is not only to ensure "adequate protection of the public health and safety" from nuclear materials, but also to "promote the common defense and security," as well.

In this era of increasing fear, panicked Americans have chosen abandon much of their political rights in exchange for an open-ended War on Evil. Tragically, the terrorists that have failed to dramatically reappear on U.S. soil have been replaced by fellow American immigrants from the South. Meanwhile, either three-dollar gallon of gasoline or the approaching 4,000 dead in Iraq have sparked a call for energy independence that has likewise turned against us by a renegging on supposed clean coal demo project FutureGen and funneling government dollars (more than $8 billion of them) over to the most expensive and least stable form of domestic energy generation: nuclear.

If you still haven't read one of many sustainable alternative proposals, please check out: A Solar Grand Plan.

Homeless programming

A Trinity University television program documenting the state of homelessness in San Antonio was pulled from YouTube at midnight February 6. The segment's producer, Trinity student Josh Nowitz, voluntarily removed the program, part one in a three-part series, after a City employee who appeared in the documentary said she had consented to appear only in the television broadcast, which aired on Trinity's TigerTV Friday, February 1. Janice Wehrman, social-services manager for the City's Department of Community Initiatives, appears briefly in the segment discussing the size of the San Antonio homeless population.

"I'm curious why you're calling to find out," Wehrman retorted, when the Current asked why she requested the clip be removed from YouTube. "I'm not refusing to talk to you,"she added, "it's just my directive" to send press inquiries to the PR department.

Happily, not PR but Assistant Director for Community Initiatives Melody Woosley called back to say that "There's not an issue with the content," but merely a concern that YouTube videos can be "downloaded, edited, and put back up." Wehrman thought the program would only be airing on TrinityTV, said Woosley.

But according to Nowitz, Wehrman didn't inquire about the program until she was already sitting for the interview. Nowitz says he "may have neglected" to tell Wehrman that the program would also be posted to YouTube when she asked what the interview was for. Although Nowitz says the consensus of Trinity Department of Communication staff was that Wehrman had no legal grounds to demand the clip be pulled from the video-sharing site, he agreed to remove it.

"My understanding is that the reporter didn't get permission to distribute it on the internet," said TigerTV advisor and Trinity staff James Bynum. "It's our policy to totally tell them the distribution methods," he added. "We normally put all of our shows on the internet, so that's what he should have told her." Bynum says the department doesn't recognize a difference between public officials and private individuals, or between news and non-news in this regard.

Navarra Williams, president and CEO of SAMM Ministries, which coordinated the local volunteers for last Thursday's annual Point in Time homeless head count -- featured in the segment -- said he did not know why the City wanted the clip removed from YouTube. Although an anonymous source says Williams was copied on Wehrman's original email, Williams says he has not spoken with the City about their objection. At the very end of the segment, during the Point in Time head count, the volunteers Nowitz is accompanying come upon a vacant building that has been forcibly opened by people who were using it as a temporary shelter. After a few minutes of looking around, they realize that it's one of the buildings slated for the Haven for Hope social-services campus under construction on the near West Side.

Wehrman also appears in the second and third episodes of the series, says Nowitz, but his understanding is that she does not object to those segments airing on TigerTV. Check the CurBlog for the schedule for those shows.

TigerTV programs are archived as space allows on the station's website, and Nowitz says, "it's up for discussion right now" whether the homelessness programs featuring Wehrman will appear on the site. Bynum thinks they might: "She just asked it be removed from YouTube is my understanding." Unfortunately, the site is still looking for solutions that will allow it to support more archived programming.

Council gets personal

    It felt like Ex-Mayors Day at the San Antonio City Council's January 31 meeting, with Nelson Wolff detailing the planned consolidation of city and county health systems (a measure unanimously passed by the council) and Lila Cockrell updating councilmembers on renovations to the historic Japanese Tea Garden.
    Cockrell quickly ceded the floor to another face familiar in the chambers, former councilwoman Bonnie Connor. During her slide-show presentation, Connor noted that phase one of the restoration is nearly complete, with a re-opening celebration expected within a month. Along the way, she also talked about Alpine Drive, an SA landmark which Connor described as the place where young men used to take their "sweethearts" to get a panoramic view of the city, among other things.
    When Connor asked councilmembers if they'd heard of the spot, District 5 councilwoman Lourdes Galvan responded by raising her hand. Moments later, Mayor Phil Hardberger could not resist asking Galvan, "It does raise the question: Were you ever on Alpine Drive?" "Yes, sir," she replied sheepishly. "Junior prom. Sorry, mom."   

Spiral Jetty update

If you've never heard of Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty by the end of this blog you'll know all you'll need to — and probably send a letter of protest to save its existence.

Created in 1970 in Utah, Smithson's earthwork creation is 1,500-feet long and 15-feet wide — it's a masterpiece that has gained worldwide attention. However, this unique addition to Utah is being threatened of being destroyed.

courtesy: artwatchinternational.org

ArtJournal.com is keeping track of all Spiral Jetty happenings, from the first post from Nancy Holt, Robert Smithson's widow stating the problem at hand — plans for drilling oil on the Salt Lake near the Spiral Jetty — to the most recent post a statement from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Luckily, the deadline has been extended to February 13 (that is next Wednesday, people). According to the January 31 post, the state of Utah has already received 1,000 comments.

To do your part, check out the following:
If you want to send a letter of protest to save the beautiful, natural Utah environment around the Spiral Jetty from oil drilling, the emails or calls of protest go to Jonathan Jemming 801-537-9023 jjemming@utah.gov . Please refer to Application # 8853. Every letter makes a big difference; they do take a lot of notice and know that publicity may follow. Since the Spiral Jetty has global significance, emails from foreign countries would be of special value.