April Scene and Heard

It’s hard to get San Antonians too worked up about second-tier pro football teams, but the optimists of the United Football League are back, pitching the idea like mad. Prediction: not gonna happen.  For big league sporst fans, however, this year’s Fiesta brings good news. This town’s going pro right now with something completely different. Something (ahem) wicket. Yes! Put your hands together for professional croquet. For years now, Sister Odilia Koronek, Sylvia Aguilar and their colleagues at Blessed Sacrament Academy have put on Fiesta’s Sticky Wickets croquet tournament to raise money for their historic South Side school. It’s a charming event, with hat and costume contests, a silent auction and a lot of folks whacking croquet balls around. This year, they’ve changed their game plan and upped the ante, going pro. Sticky Wickets is now the first official US Croquet Association club in South Texas. Blessed Sacrament’s nuns (check them out at www.netnuns.com) are taking their Fiesta tourney at the Red Berry Mansion pro-am, with cash prizes for the pros and the “ams” in the event. To stir up more interest they’ve been putting on Croquet Fridays for months down at Rene Guerrero’s Friendly Spot on South Alamo. Aguilar says croquet pros (really) from around the U.S. are already signed on, and there’s a big surge of Gen-X interest, too – lots of collegiate types love the retro fun, and have started their own amateur teams. There’s a fee to register your team, but the April 18 event is free to all non-players, with Southtown food booths, live jazz, a silent auction and arts vendors. Ladies and gentlemen, brandish your mallets!

Fiesta is the hottest thing in town this month, and this year, the big parades should stir up lots of SA spirit.  The Fiesta Flambeau parade is  always a rockin’ good time, and this year’s stars – Vikki Carr and Sonny Ozuna (surely you remember Sonny and the Sunliners?) really represent the sounds of our town. Spurs vet David Robinson will be standing tall as grand marshal of the Texas Cavaliers’ River parade, and the grandmama of them all, the Battle of Flowers Parade, will feature two folks who have touched thousands of hearts in this town – Gordon Hartman, whose labor of love, the fully accessible Morgan’s Wonderland, opened last month, and “Elf Louise” Locker, whose recently diagnosed breast cancer has moved a grateful city to rally to her support. For a parade that started with a “battle,” this year’s line-up is all about love.

While Fiesta illuminates SA each April, every month here has its own big celebrations.    March had a new one this year; Contemporary Art Month (CAM), moved from its former July spot on the civic calendar. Cool move, too, not least because it places SA’s spectacular one-night Luminaria smack in the middle of the month, and cools off  the hundreds of hot happenings that make up the popular month-long artapalooza.  CAM’s official kickoff this year was at Blue Star Contemporary Art Center, where it began with ,  a single annual show back in 1986.  Back then, Blue Star was virtually alone, with a few art studios and lofts around it. Now it’s the center of a booming arts complex. Outside, strolling guests bopped up and down to blasting dance tunes and lined up at the Sweet Cupcake truck. Inside, the show was a cool kickoff for the month’s hot art happenings. Guests took turns sitting down in Matt Kubo’s “No Talking, Just Typing,” a participation-piece featuring two people sitting at office-style destks and typing madly, filling the air with the amplified, nearly-forgotten sound of clattering typewriter keys. (“All that’s missing is an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts,” noted Gwynn Griffith, who remembers.)  Blue Star jefe Bill Fitzgibbons and his wife Anne waxed poetic about Bill’s recent big show in Iceland, and touted an upcoming visit by sculptor John Henry, who’s working on an 8-story piece to stand in front of the Vidorra downtown. SA-born media pro and former Texas Monthly writer Terry McDevitt was among those who sat in, and she kept her typed pages as a memento. Artist Justin Parr kept an eye on a huge pile of paper airplanes in the middle of the floor. Folded from hundreds of his signed prints, they were made to be flown by onlookers – and they were. Holly and Brooks Bryson, whose outfits would have been at home in “Alice in Wonderland,” manned their faux art studio, and soft-spoken artist Bora led guests through her evocative web of long crocheted hangings “I crocheted all the time for months,” she said. Franco Mondini and Chuck Ramirez circulated, handing out invites to their “Are You Ready For Fiesta” art show.  “I’m working on Luminaria right now,” Rodriguez grinned, “and that’s a whole space of it’s own. Like the Twilight Zone. The Luminaria zone.”

Think the Blue Star’s show sounds like a wild scene? The scene was just as wild at a local resale boutique’s annual sale last month. When Barbara Allison and her staff at Encore  opened the doors to their yearly clearance event on a Thursday afternoon, there were 85 well-dressed women, from late teens to 70s, massed outside. They descended like a horde of locusts, stripping the racks of  jeans and frocks as fast as the staff could refill them. The Encore clearance is an annual pilgrimage for some (disclosure: myself included), who develop a kind of shopping wars camaraderie over the years. The first year I went it was so wild that somebody bought the clothes I wore in while I was trying others on. Artist Heather Edwards, Susan Shaw and Sylvia Maddox were among the veterans on hand this year, while ur own Scene People editor Leslie Foley was one of the new recruits.  Salutamos, coutoure-iori!

The hard-core gourmets, gastronomes and oenophiles of S.A.’s Chaine de Rotisseurs toasted their Valentines with food and wine at a recent dinner affair. Joe Buonocontri’s Restaurant Luce at the Strand was packed to the rafters with silver-palated “Chevaliers,” and “Dames” as members are called, and their guests for the popular party. Southwest leader (in Chaine-speak, “Bailli Provincial” Joel Kline with his wife Carol, Bill Salomon, Larry and Rebecca Cohen and Gary and Vivian Barnes were among the group officers toasting their mutual appetites,  talking up an “Iron Chef” style competition for budding Southwest chefs held here in mid-March, coordinated by longtime Chaine member and Boudro’s co-owner Randy Matthews, and speculating on tasty changes in S.A.’s food scene they expect from the Culinary Institute school at Pearl. Other regulars at the Valentine’s fete included S.A. culinary columnist (and a stalwart of the city’s Dames de Escoffier) Pat Mozersky with her hubby David, Carolyn and & David Hoelscher, Steve and Carmen Goldberg, Penny and Ed Einstein, and Dennis Martinez. If you’re going to get passionate about something, food and wine are great choices. Or at least great ways to get started.

Olivier “The Wine Guy” Bourgoin is always enthusiastic about his work. But some experiences, like some vintages,  are more memorable than others. That’s how it was when Burgoin met winemaker David Long at a recent vintner’s dinner at the Grey Moss Inn.  Long, the proprietor of Napa Valley’s David Arthur Vineyards, is a little like Burgoin. They’re both the exact opposites of the stereotypical “wine snob.”  Long was traveling the country with a crew of “roadies,” promoting his wines, in a huge blinged-out rock-star-style tour bus with “Tour Meritaggio” emblazoned across it.  He and Burgoin bonded, and the next day Olivier hopped ion the bus as Long made a short run to the Westin la Cantera to do some business. When the eye-catching bus got to a security gate and the guard asked the reason for their visit, Long replied happily, “We’re just here to steal stuff!”  Not your typical wine snob at all.

Spurs star Tony Parker’s broken hand – and the weeks he’ll have to spend on the bench  aling up – is a bummer for Spurs fans. But at least the right-hand break won’t mess up his wedding ring. Just days before the fateful Grizzlies game that sidelined Parker, his wife Eva Longoria, guesting on Jerry Seinfeld’s new “Marriage Ref” show,  dished about talking Tony into having his wedding band tattooed on, since he couldn’t wear it can while playing ball. “If you are Tony and you dunk or something, you get caught, and your finger can come off,” she explained. Hey, a broken hand is bad enough – guess Spurs fans should be thankful Parker still has all his digits. The “Desperate Housewives” star also revealed that her Spurs star hubby is no more pro than most guys when it comes to household help. “He can’t even change a lightbulb,” she giggled. For a few weeks, at least, he’ll have an excuse.

Speaking of S.A. stars, cheers to our own Bruce McGill. The S.A.–born Hollywood veteran has a hot new TV role alongside Dallas-born “Law and Order” actress Angie Harmon and NCIS’ Sasha Alexander in “Rizzoli and Isles,” a new series based on Tess Gerritsen’s hot mystery novels, that debuts on the TNT network this summer.  His role – the “gruff but lovable” Detective Vince Korsak. McGill may play gruff well, but he sure was lovable when he visited the scene of one of his early theatrical hits – Incarnate Word University. When longtime Incarnate Word booster Dick McCracken heard that UIW’s theater department was staging the classic “The Lady’s Not for Burning,” he contacted McGill to invite him to come home to see the show. McCracken remembered that when McGill was a bright young budding star at MacArthur High in the ‘60s, he had a lead role in the same play. (Since Incarnate Word College was a girls’ school back then,  talented local boys filled male roles for the school’s plays.) .McGill brought his mom, beloved S.A. artist Adriel McGill, to the Sunday matinee, and came back the next day to speak to star-struck students. We liked this bit of advice:  “Actors must have the soul of a baby, and the skin of a rhinoceros.”

March was Women’s History Month, and this year that wonderfully witty, wise woman  Colleen Grissom emceed a stellar evening honoring some of SA’s own “she-roes.”  The fifth annual “Beyond the Glass Ceiling” reception kicked off a month full of Women’s History events. The party drew a diverse crowd to the S.A. Country Club to honor Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade, former SA mayor Lila Cockrell, City Manager Sheryl Sculley, Las Casas founder Joci Straus and a number of history-making women from the past. The audience included plenty of female movers and shakers;  Maria Ferrier, president of SA’s new Texas A&M affiliate; OLLU prez Tessa Martinez-Pollock; Accion Texas founder Janie Barrera;  Mary Kelly; Donna Muslin, Linda Valdez, Dora Salinas, Linda Elliott and Norma Rodriguez were among the guests.  Diana Geis and Kathy Quiroz of Oppenheimer, Blend Harrison and Tate; Regnier Valdez partners Lisa Owens and Cat Wilson; Frost Bank’s  Suzanne Peterson, Stacy Pozza and Sallie Newman and the S.A. Business Journal’s Linda Tuttle were among members of the planning committee on hand at the reception. Grissom, who is famous for her  witty  delivery, tossed in plenty of bon mots to keep the ladies laughing. For instance: “From birth to 18, a girl needs good parents. From 18 to 35, she needs good looks. From 35 to 55, she needs a good personality. From 55 on, she needs good cash.”(Sophie Tucker); and character Vera Donovan’s s memorable advice in Stephen King’s Dolores Claiborne: “Sometimes all you have to fall back on is being a bitch.”  But Grissom got serious as she praised the honorees who were there, and vividly evoked those who earned their place in history long ago (even if they didn’t get a place in the history books). Those included Artemesia Bowden, who turned a day school for African-American children into what is now  St. Philips College; sisters Katherine and Marjorie Stinson, who were barred from serving as army pilots in World War I, but trained many male pilots for America’s defense and  Clara Driscoll, who put up the dough to save the Alamo ($65,000!) after the Texas lege declined to help. Rancher and longtime S.A. Livestock Exposition leader Mary Nan West, S.A. Conservation Society founders Emily Edwards and Mary Maverick Green; art patron Marion Koogler McNay and the original San Antonio Chili Queens rounded out the honoree list. Brava!

San Antonio native Percy Sutton, who left his hometown to become a  champion of  civil rights, Malcolm X’s attorney, a powerful politician, arts patron who revived Harlem’s Apollo Theater and founded the Inner City Broadcasting empire, died at 89 in his adopted home of New York City the day after Christmas last year. It wasn’t until late February that a memorial service was held in for him S.A., at S.A.’s historic Second Baptist Church.  It was the day after the funeral of Essie Sutton, the last of the 12 Sutton siblings who survived to adulthood. Rev. Robert Jemerson, Mayor Julian Castro;  State Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon; a dozen elderly Tuskegee Airmen there to honor their comrade in arms; community leaders and extended family all spoke of Percy Sutton’s life and legacy. Between speakers, Sutton’s huge New York funeral was shown on a big screen behind the altar. Stevie Wonder sang for Sutton’s funeral. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton spoke. Attorney General Eric Holder talked of standing on Sutton’s shoulders. At the end, Sutton’s nephew, S.,A.’s Charles Andrews,  added one more thing: Sutton had asked his son,  who is also a pilot, to fly over the old family farm oon the Southeast Side and sprinkle his ashes there. “The way the wind was blowing, some of them might have settled here on this church,: Andrews said. After nearly 75 years of fighting good fights, Percy Sutton had come home at last to rest. Now his legacy lives on.

Carlos Guerra is NOT dead. But last month the longtime S.A. columnist had to call a lot of his friends and relatives to tell them so, after learning that a rumor he had passed away was spreading like wildfire. “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” Carlos told me, a la Mark Twain, when he called.  Guerra said he never figured out how the  story started. But after making a lot of calls, he took to Facebook to be sure it got stopped. “Rumors have apparently spread that I died yesterday,” Guerra’s post read. “If I did, I can still access Facebook from the beyond….and my Iphone still works. In fact, I have no plans for expiring anytime soon. My long-term plans are to grow into a crochety old fart who continually raises troublesome questions that people in power have trouble answering.” Guerra’s friend and former Express-News colleague Cary Clack, posted a philosophical coda: “Isn’t refuting a rumor that you’re dead the ultimate Facebook status update?”

For years, Austin folks have proudly displayed their city’s unofficial motto on T-shirts, buttons and bumper stickers: “Keep Austin Weird.” Now some local wits have coined their own wry slogan for S.A. We spotted it on T-shirts at several Contemporary Arts Month events:  “Keep San Antonio Lame.”

Speaking of slogans, have you seen the new tagline on Toyota ads? I love Toyotas; I drive one. But with all the talk about sudden acceleration problems, “Toyota – Moving Forward” may be the most misbegotten marketing ploy since Chevy introduced the Nova to Mexico.