All the cool kids are playing the ukulele. Yes, really.
Aug. 3, 2018 San Antonio Express-News
Adalynn Cuevas and Ella Mathias, both 8-year-old students at Leon Springs Elementary School, pluck the C string on their ukuleles in unison. Intensely focused, they shift to the E string. Adalynn shakes out her hand to loosen up her fingers. It’s hard work, this instrument.
As they continue their efforts, a plucky cover of “When the Saints Go Marching In” emerges. Their instructor, a ukulele player from Hawaii named Kainoa Kamaka, gives them a high five. After almost two months of ukulele lessons in the living room of Ella’s home, the girls can add another song to their repertoire, right next to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”
​
Both Adalynn and Ella played the ukulele in their music class at school last year, and both loved it so much they each asked for one for their birthdays. The recorder, and its old fashioned “Hot Cross Buns” tune, will have to wait until the third grade.
​
Thanks to an unlikely cast of musicians and to Grace VanderWaal, the ukulele-playing preteen winner of season 11 of “America’s Got Talent,” the instrument once associated with novelty acts and beachside jams is being picked up by the cool kids.
​
VanderWaal’s audition video, in which she performed a spunky original ukulele tune, has more than 86 million views on the site.
“‘Look! She plays it!’” Adalynn’s mother, Stepfanie Cuevas, remembers her daughter saying as they watched. “‘She plays it and I can get a strap like her.’”
​
VanderWaal is now touring the nation with the chart-topping band Imagine Dragons.
​
The instrument’s newfound appeal to younger players is a part of larger, longer lasting revival, said Gary Smith, a sales manager at Alamo Music Center.
​
Smith said he used to sell about 25 ukuleles a year. But over the past five years, he’s sold more than 450 annually. According to the National Association of Music Merchants, in 2013 almost a million ukuleles were sold nationwide. Last year, almost 2 million were sold.
​
VanderWaal has attracted a new generation of girls to ukuleles in a way that Taylor Swift attracted young girls to guitars, said Greg Olwell, the editor of Ukulele Magazine. His said his own 10-year-old daughter was disinterested in the instrument that fueled her father’s livelihood until she saw a video of the young ukulele star.
​
Even the magazine, which has about 2,000 unique online visitors, is an unlikely testament to the girl-power potential of the ukulele. The publication’s social media followings are split almost evenly between males and females. That parity is very unusual for instrumental magazines, which tend to have a predominately male readership, Olwell said.
​
And though the magazine’s subscribers skew older, the publication’s Instagram is especially attractive to younger audiences, he said.“Instagram is filled with young people learning songs,” he said. “The internet has really helped spread it, I think.”
​
VanderWaal’s audition video is part of a large catalog of ukulele videos on YouTube. Elise Ecklund, a young ukulele expert, has at least two videos that have been viewed more than a million times.
​
With the help of the internet, Adalynn learned a ukulele rendition of “Remember Me,” the hit song from the animated movie “Coco.” Ella has a ukulele app that showed her the chords of the alphabet song and “Happy Birthday to You.”
​
Young girls are an unlikely group of admirers for an instrument once associated with Tiny Tim, the long-haired 1960s performer. When his ukulele version of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” which he sang in a falsetto voice, became a novelty hit, it solidified the instrument’s place as a joke for many years after.
​
“It really didn’t do the ukulele any favors at all,” Smith said.
​
But kids today aren’t corrupted by Tiny Tim — in fact, they probably don’t know who he is. They only thing they know is this new, cool ukulele, the one that even rock stars take seriously.
​
VanderWaal is only the latest on a roster of popular musicians who helped save the soul of the instrument. In the early 2000s, Jake Shimabukuro, a ukulele virtuoso, posted a popular Beatles cover on YouTube. And while his ukulele gently wept, Jason Mraz came out with a chart-topping ukulele hit “I’m Yours.”
​
And then Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam surprised his rock fan base by accurately naming his second solo album “Ukulele Songs,” without a hint of irony. Though Vedder and Mraz may be before Adalynn’s and Ella’s time, they are part of an epic comeback story that results in two 8-year-olds strumming on a summer morning.
​
In the ukulele, kids have found a friend. Compared with the guitar, the strings are gentler and it’s easily learned.
“It almost feels like a toy. Kids put it on, they almost feel like rock stars,” Kamaka said.
​
And when Kamaka puts on the instrument, he is a rock star in his own right.
He shimmies and skips onstage at talent shows and festivals while performing a rocking uke rendition of “Johnny B. Goode.” He said it’s always been considered a “bona fide instrument” in Hawaii, no matter how it has been viewed elsewhere.
The girls’ mothers are hoping Kamaka will give a performance with their daughters at their school’s talent show next year. Before she began ukulele lessons, Ella avoided piano classes out of fear of the recitals, but maybe with Adalynn and their teacher by her side, and with a ukulele in hand, the spotlight wouldn’t be so bad.
​
S.A Legal Eagle Flies
June 25, 2018 San Antonio Express-News
As he was running the Casper, Wyoming marathon June 3, Mike Barry could sense the pressure rising. If he ran this race right, he would complete his six-year quest of running a marathon in under four hours in all 50 states. But everything was going wrong.
A race course error made the track a half-mile too long. His body was exhausted from running a marathon the week before in Vermont. The elevation was high and the heat was stifling. And a failed attempt in 2016 to finish this route in under four hours haunted him.
But by this point in his quest, Barry had run through it all. Driving rain storms, steaming heat and biting cold.
And so, with the western sun beating down on him, Barry kept running in Wyoming, determined to complete the race in under four hours this time. And he did, crossing the finish line in a nail- biting three hours and fifty-four minutes.
He took a deep breath at the finish line and enjoyed a well-earned chocolate milk and Dr Pepper.
​
“You have to be able to put that all aside and put down the left foot and then the right foot and keep running,” Barry, 50, said. And then he went to Yellowstone with his family and “did nothing for three days.”
​
With this final race, his 67th, Barry, the assistant dean of St. Mary’s Law School, would now apply to the 50sub4 club, a group of elite runners all striving to complete marathons in 50 states in under four hours.
​
The club began after founder Jeff Hill completed his own personal 50sub4 goal. Hill guessed that there were more runners pursuing the same objective, and started the club in 2009 with 20 members.
Prospective runners can apply to be on the 50sub4 roster after completing marathons in 10 states in under four hours. But of its 360-person roster, only 105 names are bolded. These are the finishers, and Mike Barry will soon be among them. He superstitiously chose to apply only after completing all the races.
​
“There’s something about jinxing it,” he said. “Until I knew I was able to do it, I didn’t want to put it out there.”
​
The club doesn’t have dues or meetings and when a runner completes the challenge, there is no ceremony or medal. Just a certificate that comes in the mail. For Barry, that’s enough.
​
“I don’t want a trophy on the wall that says, ‘I ran a marathon in every state in under four hours,’” he said. His bolded name is all the recognition he needs to justify years of hard work.
​
In his early adult life, Barry religiously rode a stationary bike and preferred hitting the gym over hitting the pavement. But that all changed at the age of 35 when his sister convinced him to participate in a 10K run.
​
“The whole process of putting on the bib and going out to the start line and seeing all of these people doing an individual sport, but doing it collectively ...There was just a neat dynamic,” he said. He was intrigued.
​
After that race, he immediately enrolled in a marathon training program in Richmond, Virginia, where he lived at the time. He ran the city’s marathon in 2002 and was again moved by the sportsmanship of the event. Now, he was hooked.
​
His main objective for several years after was to run the Boston Marathon. After qualifying in 2009 and running it in 2010, he was suddenly in need of a new goal.
​
“Let’s do 50 states,” he said to himself in 2012. As he trekked around the country, one marathon at a time, he realized he had a knack for completing the races in under four hours. So, he made himself a new goal: run the 50 marathons “sub four.”
​
To meet this new goal, Barry had to rerun two marathons, in Oklahoma and New Mexico, to achieve sub four. It was when he was rerunning his marathon in Tulsa in 2014 that he first spotted a “50 minus four” running jersey. He realized then that he was not alone in his mission.
​
Most 50sub4 runners take five or ten years to accomplish the club’s goal, said its founder Hill. Members of the club are often “left-brain types,” or people who have a freakish ability to focus. They are often accountants, engineers or professors.
​
“Come on, everybody thinks it’s crazy,” Barry’s wife, Lee, said with a laugh, referring to her husband’s 50sub4 challenge. “But it meant so much to him ...this is just the sort of thing he likes to do. He likes to make lists and check things off.”
Jean Traub, who Barry jokingly refers to as his “running spouse,” has run 20 marathons with Barry. She is not shocked by his latest accomplishment.
​
“When Mike wants to do something, he does it well,” she said.
​
During his pursuit of 50sub4, Barry once ran two marathons in one weekend (Connecticut on Saturday, Rhode Island on Sunday) and would run 45 miles a week during peak training periods. And he did feel a “great relief” every time he could check off another training run, another state.
​
Each marathon is a memory and his medals are postcards from his unique cross-country travels. He said there’s nothing like the Boston Marathon, a race he’s now completed seven times. He ran it in 2013, the year of a bomb went off near the race track and killed three people. Barry was just three blocks away from the explosion at a hotel.
​
He saw people outside, looking shell-shocked with horror. But he also felt a resiliency among the runners and the people of Boston. He went back in 2014 to run the marathon again, to stand with the others and send a message: “We will not allow someone to take our tradition.”
​
Barry finds each marathon moving and “ridiculously” challenging. Twenty-six miles is a long way to go, even for a 50sub4 finisher who has run almost 19,000 miles in his lifetime. “You have to respect the distance,” he said.
​
Women On Adventures
July 9, 2018 San Antonio Express-News
In early June, Bobbie Blouin and her three friends cracked open some ciders from their kayak seats in Galveston Bay. They had just completed the first half of a two-hour kayaking tour and figured they deserved a drink.
​
Besides a single whitewater rafting trip 14 years ago, Blouin had no experience with long-distance paddling. Her friends weren’t experienced kayakers, either. But when they turned around to complete their journey, they helped one another as they paddled back toward a golden sunset.
​
“All four of us got it done,” Blouin, 44, said. “Together, we did it.”
​
Such is the philosophy of Women on Adventures, a company that organizes monthly adventures for groups of women around the country, with San Antonio the latest outpost. Each outpost has an ambassador responsible for at least one outing a month for local members. Whether it’s paddle-boarding, backpacking or brunch, the planned adventures must encourage members to get out of their routine.
​
“I feel like women get stuck in their labels,” said Blouin, the ambassador of San Antonio’s outpost. “Wife, mother, sister, daughter, employee, employer. You get so lost in what other people are expecting for you. Do you know who you are outside of that little box?”
​
Women on Adventures provides a comforting space for women to find out, she said. The San Antonio outpost, the first in Texas, will host its first official outing, a simple meet-up over tea, on Saturday. The group already has five members.
​
There are more than 200 members across the country, and they vary in age and profession, said company founder Jenny Fink. They are college graduates, freelancers, professional women and stay-at-home moms. But they all have one thing in common: They want to go out and do more.
​
Zink said her company appeals to members because women feel “safe” to seek adventure when they are surrounded by other women.
​
“When women are in the thick of it, when we’re figuring stuff out, we support each other and lift each other up,” she said.
​
Members can sign up for a monthly ($5), yearly ($49) or lifetime subscription ($97) and gain access to the company’s online magazine and the outposts’ adventure calendars. There are eight outposts across the country manned by nine ambassadors.
The company was one of the 102 small businesses awarded the 2018 Small Business Champion Award by SCORE, a nonprofit that mentors small businesses around the country.
​
“I think (Zink’s) premise is right,” said Cece Smith, the former president of San Antonio’s National Association of Women Business Owners chapter. “I think there is a huge opportunity for getting women to go out and do things that they normally wouldn’t do.”
Smith said it can be difficult to persuade women to adventure on their own. To have someone plan for them is a savvy business model. The company makes most of its money on memberships.
​
In addition to membership costs, each member must pay for the adventures organized by their ambassador. The prices and difficulty levels vary. Colorado members once went on a weekend-long adventure, for $200, that included dog-sledding lessons, a hot springs visit and a yoga class. The cost and the type of adventure depends mostly on the preferences of local ambassadors and members.
​
Blouin hopes to keep each outing for her members under $50. Her kayaking trip in June was a Groupon offer that cost $25 per person.
​
“Knowing how I felt after that kayak trip, if I can help one woman feel that way about herself … that’ll be a success,” she said.
Blouin first heard about Women on Adventures late last year when Zink posted about the company on a Facebook page for entrepreneurs. Blouin was inspired by the business’s premise and impressed with Zink’s courage.
​
Blouin, an office manager at MHD Financial who has lived in the San Antonio area for most of her life, followed Zink’s social media and messaged her: “You need an outpost in Texas.” In May, Blouin told Zink she would lead a San Antonio outpost.
​
Zink, 46, recognized her own need three years earlier in Phoenix. After she and her fiancé moved to the city from Iowa, she felt a new era dawning. One of her sons was starting college and the other was about to graduate from high school. She was a freelance photographer looking for new experiences but didn’t know where to begin.
​
She looked on Meetup, a website that connects people through community groups and hangouts, for potential outings, but she was disappointed with the lack of variety. She wanted to join a club that had more to offer than just paddleboarding or hiking. She wanted a mix of activities.
​
In 2015, she created her own Meetup posting under the name Women on Adventures. She organized a variety of adventures, never focusing too much on a specific activity. Within six months, more than 2,000 people joined, and in 2016, it became its own business.
“I just saw this need,” Zink said. “Women wanted do something, they wanted this variety, and they wanted to try new experiences.”
That’s what inspired Dodie Maddox, a lifetime member, to go on that kayak tour with Blouin in early June. She joined Women on Adventures in May after Blouin, a childhood friend, told her about it.
​
Between being a single mother of two children and working as a technology director at Southwest ISD, Maddox had no “me time.” She needed a push, a motivation to say that it’s OK to leave the kids with the sitter at home and to do something just for herself.
The kayaking trip with Blouin was the push she needed.
​
“Being out of your comfort zone is kind of a personal experience,” Maddox said. “And when you trust someone enough to step out of your comfort zone in a group like that, it is very empowering.”
Women On Adventures
In early June, Bobbie Blouin and her three friends cracked open some ciders from their kayak seats in Galveston Bay. They had just completed the first half of a two-hour kayaking tour and figured they deserved a drink.
​
Besides a single whitewater rafting trip 14 years ago, Blouin had no experience with long-distance paddling. Her friends weren’t experienced kayakers, either. But when they turned around to complete their journey, they helped one another as they paddled back toward a golden sunset.
​
“All four of us got it done,” Blouin, 44, said. “Together, we did it.”
​
Such is the philosophy of Women on Adventures, a company that organizes monthly adventures for groups of women around the country, with San Antonio the latest outpost. Each outpost has an ambassador responsible for at least one outing a month for local members. Whether it’s paddle-boarding, backpacking or brunch, the planned adventures must encourage members to get out of their routine.
​
“I feel like women get stuck in their labels,” said Blouin, the ambassador of San Antonio’s outpost. “Wife, mother, sister, daughter, employee, employer. You get so lost in what other people are expecting for you. Do you know who you are outside of that little box?”
​
Women on Adventures provides a comforting space for women to find out, she said. The San Antonio outpost, the first in Texas, will host its first official outing, a simple meet-up over tea, on Saturday. The group already has five members.
​
There are more than 200 members across the country, and they vary in age and profession, said company founder Jenny Fink. They are college graduates, freelancers, professional women and stay-at-home moms. But they all have one thing in common: They want to go out and do more.
​
Zink said her company appeals to members because women feel “safe” to seek adventure when they are surrounded by other women.
​
“When women are in the thick of it, when we’re figuring stuff out, we support each other and lift each other up,” she said.
​
Members can sign up for a monthly ($5), yearly ($49) or lifetime subscription ($97) and gain access to the company’s online magazine and the outposts’ adventure calendars. There are eight outposts across the country manned by nine ambassadors.
The company was one of the 102 small businesses awarded the 2018 Small Business Champion Award by SCORE, a nonprofit that mentors small businesses around the country.
​
“I think (Zink’s) premise is right,” said Cece Smith, the former president of San Antonio’s National Association of Women Business Owners chapter. “I think there is a huge opportunity for getting women to go out and do things that they normally wouldn’t do.”
Smith said it can be difficult to persuade women to adventure on their own. To have someone plan for them is a savvy business model. The company makes most of its money on memberships.
​
In addition to membership costs, each member must pay for the adventures organized by their ambassador. The prices and difficulty levels vary. Colorado members once went on a weekend-long adventure, for $200, that included dog-sledding lessons, a hot springs visit and a yoga class. The cost and the type of adventure depends mostly on the preferences of local ambassadors and members.
​
Blouin hopes to keep each outing for her members under $50. Her kayaking trip in June was a Groupon offer that cost $25 per person.
​
“Knowing how I felt after that kayak trip, if I can help one woman feel that way about herself … that’ll be a success,” she said.
Blouin first heard about Women on Adventures late last year when Zink posted about the company on a Facebook page for entrepreneurs. Blouin was inspired by the business’s premise and impressed with Zink’s courage.
​
Blouin, an office manager at MHD Financial who has lived in the San Antonio area for most of her life, followed Zink’s social media and messaged her: “You need an outpost in Texas.” In May, Blouin told Zink she would lead a San Antonio outpost.
​
Zink, 46, recognized her own need three years earlier in Phoenix. After she and her fiancé moved to the city from Iowa, she felt a new era dawning. One of her sons was starting college and the other was about to graduate from high school. She was a freelance photographer looking for new experiences but didn’t know where to begin.
​
She looked on Meetup, a website that connects people through community groups and hangouts, for potential outings, but she was disappointed with the lack of variety. She wanted to join a club that had more to offer than just paddleboarding or hiking. She wanted a mix of activities.
​
In 2015, she created her own Meetup posting under the name Women on Adventures. She organized a variety of adventures, never focusing too much on a specific activity. Within six months, more than 2,000 people joined, and in 2016, it became its own business.
“I just saw this need,” Zink said. “Women wanted do something, they wanted this variety, and they wanted to try new experiences.”
That’s what inspired Dodie Maddox, a lifetime member, to go on that kayak tour with Blouin in early June. She joined Women on Adventures in May after Blouin, a childhood friend, told her about it.
​
Between being a single mother of two children and working as a technology director at Southwest ISD, Maddox had no “me time.” She needed a push, a motivation to say that it’s OK to leave the kids with the sitter at home and to do something just for herself.
The kayaking trip with Blouin was the push she needed.
​
“Being out of your comfort zone is kind of a personal experience,” Maddox said. “And when you trust someone enough to step out of your comfort zone in a group like that, it is very empowering.”
End of An Era: Warped Tour
July 5, 2018 San Antonio Express-News
Bowling for Soup, a quirky rock band from Wichita Falls, was greeted offstage with some good news last year at the Vans Warped Tour stop in San Antonio.
​
Drummer Gary Wiseman, who had skipped the Texas leg of the tour because he was expecting the birth of his child, had just become a father.
​
The Vans Warped Tour always has had a family atmosphere. Countless bands — pop-punk, emo, metal and more, including young, soon-to-be-stars such as No Doubt, Blink-182 and Paramore — found their footing in this close-knit traveling tour of misfits. But after 24 years, the longest-running touring musical festival in the United States is making its final cross-country tour. It stops in San Antonio for the last time Saturday.
​
This year’s lineup showcases the tour’s “friends from throughout the years,” including returning artists Reel Big Fish, Bowling for Soup and We the Kings. Beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday, almost 60 bands will rock out in the AT&T Center parking lot.
“San Antonio was there at the beginning,” said tour founder Kevin Lyman.
​
The city welcomed the festival in its first year, 1995, when not many people wanted an alternative pop-punk festival playing in their neighborhood. The lineup included Sublime (on the verge of stardom) and Sick of it All (L7 called in sick), and the bands and a contingent of extreme athletes performed at Sunken Garden Theater, suffering through the Texas heat then just as Warped Tour bands do now.
​
Since then, the Warped Tour has become a launching pad for lesser-known artists who gain a summer’s worth of exposure to mostly teenage audiences. It was a summer staple for San Antonio teens, who have sweated in the sun every year, waiting to see favorite indie artists such as Less Than Jake, Mayday Parade and Yellowcard.
​
The festival is like a summer camp for bands, Bowling for Soup’s Reddick said. It’s hot, band members can make new friends, and they can strengthen friendships. “There’s not a lot of ego,” he said.
​
When asked why San Antonio was one of the tour’s mainstays and not Austin, its festival-friendly neighbor, Lyman said the Alamo City essentially called dibs in 1995. “You guys were first!”
​
“I’ve been pretty loyal in this business,” he said. “Loyal with people, loyal to things and loyal to cities.”
​
Dependably cheap tickets and a laid-back atmosphere contributed to the Warped Tour’s rise in popularity. Concertgoers younger than 16 with a ticket can bring a parent for free, and their folks can supervise from the adult chill zone known as the “Reverse Daycare Tent.”
​
“If you can make a fan in teenage years, you have them for a lifetime,” Lyman said. “And you meet them by not charging VIP tickets.”
​
The festival business has grown and perhaps outpaced the accessible philosophy of Warped Tour. Big-name events such as the Austin City Limits Music Festival and Coachella have changed the way fans and bands communicate with each other at festivals.
It is unlikely that artists at these giant venues “just hang out” backstage with fans, like they did at Warped, said John Christianson, a trumpet player for Reel Big Fish.
​
“I think people are losing an affordable festival that is really accessible to everybody,” said Christianson, who is also known as Johnny Christmas. “How many people that are 16 have 200 bucks or more to go to Coachella for one day?”
​
When the last band exits the stage at the AT&T Center on Saturday, and the mosh-pitters and mohawk-wearers head out of the parking lot, an era will come to a close.
​
“We grew up with the Warped Tour,” Reddick said. And so did many of the tour’s fans. “But all good things must end, right?”
End of An Era: Warped Tour
July 5, 2018 San Antonio Express-News
Bowling for Soup, a quirky rock band from Wichita Falls, was greeted offstage with some good news last year at the Vans Warped Tour stop in San Antonio.
​
Drummer Gary Wiseman, who had skipped the Texas leg of the tour because he was expecting the birth of his child, had just become a father.
​
The Vans Warped Tour always has had a family atmosphere. Countless bands — pop-punk, emo, metal and more, including young, soon-to-be-stars such as No Doubt, Blink-182 and Paramore — found their footing in this close-knit traveling tour of misfits. But after 24 years, the longest-running touring musical festival in the United States is making its final cross-country tour. It stops in San Antonio for the last time Saturday.
​
This year’s lineup showcases the tour’s “friends from throughout the years,” including returning artists Reel Big Fish, Bowling for Soup and We the Kings. Beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday, almost 60 bands will rock out in the AT&T Center parking lot.
“San Antonio was there at the beginning,” said tour founder Kevin Lyman.
​
The city welcomed the festival in its first year, 1995, when not many people wanted an alternative pop-punk festival playing in their neighborhood. The lineup included Sublime (on the verge of stardom) and Sick of it All (L7 called in sick), and the bands and a contingent of extreme athletes performed at Sunken Garden Theater, suffering through the Texas heat then just as Warped Tour bands do now.
​
Since then, the Warped Tour has become a launching pad for lesser-known artists who gain a summer’s worth of exposure to mostly teenage audiences. It was a summer staple for San Antonio teens, who have sweated in the sun every year, waiting to see favorite indie artists such as Less Than Jake, Mayday Parade and Yellowcard.
​
The festival is like a summer camp for bands, Bowling for Soup’s Reddick said. It’s hot, band members can make new friends, and they can strengthen friendships. “There’s not a lot of ego,” he said.
​
When asked why San Antonio was one of the tour’s mainstays and not Austin, its festival-friendly neighbor, Lyman said the Alamo City essentially called dibs in 1995. “You guys were first!”
​
“I’ve been pretty loyal in this business,” he said. “Loyal with people, loyal to things and loyal to cities.”
​
Dependably cheap tickets and a laid-back atmosphere contributed to the Warped Tour’s rise in popularity. Concertgoers younger than 16 with a ticket can bring a parent for free, and their folks can supervise from the adult chill zone known as the “Reverse Daycare Tent.”
​
“If you can make a fan in teenage years, you have them for a lifetime,” Lyman said. “And you meet them by not charging VIP tickets.”
​
The festival business has grown and perhaps outpaced the accessible philosophy of Warped Tour. Big-name events such as the Austin City Limits Music Festival and Coachella have changed the way fans and bands communicate with each other at festivals.
It is unlikely that artists at these giant venues “just hang out” backstage with fans, like they did at Warped, said John Christianson, a trumpet player for Reel Big Fish.
​
“I think people are losing an affordable festival that is really accessible to everybody,” said Christianson, who is also known as Johnny Christmas. “How many people that are 16 have 200 bucks or more to go to Coachella for one day?”
​
When the last band exits the stage at the AT&T Center on Saturday, and the mosh-pitters and mohawk-wearers head out of the parking lot, an era will come to a close.
​
“We grew up with the Warped Tour,” Reddick said. And so did many of the tour’s fans. “But all good things must end, right?”
Giant David Robinson and Lydia Mendoza to parade through the Pearl
June 29, 2018 San Antonio Express-News
Outside the sculpture studio at the Southwest School of Art, a large model of Lydia Mendoza’s head sits on a 10-foot-tall frame. The Tejano music star holds a guitar fit for a giant and smiles at no one in particular in the summer sun.
​
Inside, a crafted head of David Robinson is getting his teeth whitened with paint. His Spurs uniform, sewn to fit his 11-foot frame, is laid out in the other room next to Mendoza’s sweeping hoop skirt and hair bow.
​
These big, friendly giants will make their debut in a parade Saturday as part of Olé, San Antonio, a Spanish-themed festival happening at the Pearl to celebrate the city’s Tricentennial. Dancers from the Guadalupe Dance Company will don the figures’ wooden frames and walk through the Pearl’s farmers market in the festival’s Cabezudos y Gigantes Parade.
​
The parade is a traditional Spanish procession of giant figures (gigantes) and big-headed characters (cabezudos). The giants are traditionally modeled after important people in the community, while the big-headed characters are usually iconic figures who represent the host region. The big heads featured in San Antonio’s parade are a Franciscan friar, a cowboy modeled after John Wayne and a Native American woman.
​
All of the characters for the parade were created by volunteers and artists at the Southwest School of Art during a nine-session workshop led by Spanish artists David Ventura and Neus Hosta.
​
“I’ve told everyone about it,” Joann Diaz said of the workshop.
​
Diaz, 68, is a volunteer who helped create the Native American’s head. Her only art experience before this workshop was the crafts she had done at the Lions Field Senior Center downtown. When she saw the ad for the free sessions in the La Voz de Esperanza newsletter, she told her friend from the center, Diane Zavala, who then told her mom, Dolores.
​
“My daughter pushed me in here,” said Dolores Zavala, 74. She told her daughter that she liked to cook and to clean the house, not to do arts and crafts. But once she found out that the workshop was free, she was on board. “I am very grateful for this,” she said.
The Southwest School of Art brought Ventura and Hosta to town to lead the workshop in partnership with the Pearl. Both artists have extensive experience in making these colorful figures.
​
Robinson’s head was crafted almost entirely by a volunteer named Michael Tejeda.
​
When the volunteers were choosing heads on the first day, Tejeda, an art teacher for 15 years, said he “jumped at the chance.”
The parade will begin at 10 a.m. at the Pearl’s farmers market, 312 Pearl Parkway. For more information about the parade and about Olé, San Antonio, go to the Pearl’s website, atpearl.com.
July 24, 2018 San Antonio Express-News
July 24, 2018 San Antonio Express-News
A new chapter for Macondo
Sandra Cisneros was unhappy. It was the autumn of 1988, and the MacArthur Fellow and award-winning author of “The House on Mango Street” was teaching at the University of California, Berkeley.
​
“Supposedly, I had the most brilliant students,” Cisneros said in a recent phone interview. “But I found them very dispassionate.”
So dispiriting was her experience that she told herself that one day she was going to lead a writing workshop of her own, where she could handpick the students.
​
“That was how Macondo was born in my head,” she said.
​
The Macondo Writers Workshop, a San Antonio-based master’s literary workshop, was founded in 1995 when Cisneros invited a group of writers to her purple home in the King William district. Gathered in her dining room, the writers held an informal workshop where they swapped stories and critiqued ideas. They had total control over the direction of their makeshift seminar. It was Cisneros’ dream come true.
​
Macondo — the program is named for the the fictional town in Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” — continued to host nationally recognized writers at its San Antonio workshops for more than two decades.
After several leadership changes and a two-year pause, Macondo has returned with a workshop at the Texas A&M San Antonio campus that runs through Sunday.
​
In addition to the classes exclusive to Macondo members, this year’s workshop will include free and public seminars on publishing and writing techniques on Friday and Saturday. But the main public event is a fundraiser featuring Cisneros, who will read from new and selected works and sign books.
​
The workshop marks a new chapter in Macondo’s 23-years history.
​
This year’s event is the first organized by Macondo’s new six-person advisory board. Cisneros retreated from her leadership position in 2013 when she moved to Mexico. The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center took over for a time before Macondo members decided it was best for the organization to be independently run. Cisneros’ reading will be her first time returning to a Macondo workshop since her departure.
​
“It is an undertaking,” said advisory board member Natalia Treviño, a teacher, author and poet who lives in San Antonio.
All of the board members and their assistants have voluntarily given up their time to continue Macondo’s legacy. Treviño said she believes this upcoming workshop will be a “revival” of the original, autonomous Macondo.
​
As a member for more than 10 years, she said she has seen firsthand how the workshop has made San Antonio a literary center. Notable Macondo alumni include Texas Poet Laureate Laurie Ann Guerrero, inaugural poet Richard Blanco and National Book Award-winner John Phillip Santos, who will introduce Cisneros on Friday.
​
There are 200 Macondo members nationwide, who refer to themselves affectionately as “Macondistas.” Although the workshops are not exclusive to any group of people, its mission is to serve marginalized authors who view writing as a tool for social activism.
​
Prospective members are expected to be accomplished writers who either have been published or have completed a full manuscript. New members usually are chosen through a blind application process. Once they are admitted to a workshop, they are members for life.
​
“Often in academic workshops, there is a lot of ego,” Treviño said. It was Cisneros’ vision that Macondo be a place where writers offer advice and critique with kindness, she added. “We are really trying to help each other. And I think people want to keep that alive.”
​
Reggie Scott Young, author of “Yardbirds Squawking at the Moon,” has been a Macondista for eight years. He said the workshops have provided him an inclusive and encouraging space to explore different styles of work.
​
“Throughout my career as a university professor, I’ve been a token,” he said. “Not only racially and culturally, but in terms of my writing interests. At Macondo, we are who we are. We are ourselves. Whatever we write is true to us, and true to our experiences.”
​
Young, who will be participating in this year’s nonfiction workshop for members, said Macondo changed during its time with the Guadalupe. He felt it was more localized and less multicultural than in the beginning. This year’s workshop, led by Macondistas for Macondistas, is a return to the organization’s roots, he said. “I think our gathering this year will be a new beginning.”
Sandra Cisneros was unhappy. It was the autumn of 1988, and the MacArthur Fellow and award-winning author of “The House on Mango Street” was teaching at the University of California, Berkeley.
​
“Supposedly, I had the most brilliant students,” Cisneros said in a recent phone interview. “But I found them very dispassionate.”
So dispiriting was her experience that she told herself that one day she was going to lead a writing workshop of her own, where she could handpick the students.
​
“That was how Macondo was born in my head,” she said.
​
The Macondo Writers Workshop, a San Antonio-based master’s literary workshop, was founded in 1995 when Cisneros invited a group of writers to her purple home in the King William district. Gathered in her dining room, the writers held an informal workshop where they swapped stories and critiqued ideas. They had total control over the direction of their makeshift seminar. It was Cisneros’ dream come true.
​
Macondo — the program is named for the the fictional town in Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” — continued to host nationally recognized writers at its San Antonio workshops for more than two decades.
After several leadership changes and a two-year pause, Macondo has returned with a workshop at the Texas A&M San Antonio campus that runs through Sunday.
​
In addition to the classes exclusive to Macondo members, this year’s workshop will include free and public seminars on publishing and writing techniques on Friday and Saturday. But the main public event is a fundraiser featuring Cisneros, who will read from new and selected works and sign books.
​
The workshop marks a new chapter in Macondo’s 23-years history.
​
This year’s event is the first organized by Macondo’s new six-person advisory board. Cisneros retreated from her leadership position in 2013 when she moved to Mexico. The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center took over for a time before Macondo members decided it was best for the organization to be independently run. Cisneros’ reading will be her first time returning to a Macondo workshop since her departure.
​
“It is an undertaking,” said advisory board member Natalia Treviño, a teacher, author and poet who lives in San Antonio.
All of the board members and their assistants have voluntarily given up their time to continue Macondo’s legacy. Treviño said she believes this upcoming workshop will be a “revival” of the original, autonomous Macondo.
​
As a member for more than 10 years, she said she has seen firsthand how the workshop has made San Antonio a literary center. Notable Macondo alumni include Texas Poet Laureate Laurie Ann Guerrero, inaugural poet Richard Blanco and National Book Award-winner John Phillip Santos, who will introduce Cisneros on Friday.
​
There are 200 Macondo members nationwide, who refer to themselves affectionately as “Macondistas.” Although the workshops are not exclusive to any group of people, its mission is to serve marginalized authors who view writing as a tool for social activism.
​
Prospective members are expected to be accomplished writers who either have been published or have completed a full manuscript. New members usually are chosen through a blind application process. Once they are admitted to a workshop, they are members for life.
​
“Often in academic workshops, there is a lot of ego,” Treviño said. It was Cisneros’ vision that Macondo be a place where writers offer advice and critique with kindness, she added. “We are really trying to help each other. And I think people want to keep that alive.”
​
Reggie Scott Young, author of “Yardbirds Squawking at the Moon,” has been a Macondista for eight years. He said the workshops have provided him an inclusive and encouraging space to explore different styles of work.
​
“Throughout my career as a university professor, I’ve been a token,” he said. “Not only racially and culturally, but in terms of my writing interests. At Macondo, we are who we are. We are ourselves. Whatever we write is true to us, and true to our experiences.”
​
Young, who will be participating in this year’s nonfiction workshop for members, said Macondo changed during its time with the Guadalupe. He felt it was more localized and less multicultural than in the beginning. This year’s workshop, led by Macondistas for Macondistas, is a return to the organization’s roots, he said. “I think our gathering this year will be a new beginning.”
Uniform 300
June 27, 2018 San Antonio Express-News
You can get art with a side of fries and a milkshake Thursday at the Uniform 300 pop-up photography exhibit at the downtown Whataburger.
​
Uniform 300, an official partner of the San Antonio Tricentennial, is a photography project that explores the city’s diversity by capturing San Antonio residents in their personal uniforms. Whether it’s a flamenco dress, a red H-E-B polo or a Spurs hat, the clothes the subjects wear to work are meant to emphasize the city’s expansive mix of cultural identities. In the fall, 50 of the portraits will be shown in free exhibitions throughout the city.
​
Rahm Carrington, the project’s photographer, will preview a sample of the exhibit’s portraits from 2 to 4 p.m. Thursday at the Whataburger at 412 E. Commerce St. The pop-up event will include music and free salted caramel milkshake samples, and some visitors will have the opportunity to be photographed by Carrington.
“We really respect what (Whataburger does) as a corporation and their culture,” said Alice Carrington Foultz, Carrington’s mother and the project’s producer and curator.
​
Foultz, a curator and member of the city’s Public Art Board, said it was fitting that the first glimpse of this community project would be at a beloved Texas restaurant.
​
Two Whataburger employees whom Carrington photographed for the project in their restaurant uniforms will be highlighted at the event on Thursday.
​
“I feel honored that we feature … all these legendary local businesses,” Carrington said.
​
He has taken a just more than 100 portraits since the project launched last fall. All of the portraits and its subjects’ stories can be found on Uniform 300’s website and Facebook page. Carrington hopes to reach his goal of 300 portraits by January.
​
Some uniforms featured in the project are traditional — an Air Force pilot’s military uniform, a Bill Miller Bar-B-Q employee’s work uniform — while others focus more on personal expression.
​
Cord Maldonado, better known as Spurs Jesus, wears a jacket decorated with Spurs patches and a hat that says, “Spurs Dynasty.” Nationally recognized San Antonio chef Johnny Hernandez was photographed in his work shirt and apron.
​
All the portraits were taken against a white backdrop, each with the same casual format and dimensions. The sameness is an intentional spin on the project’s theme.
​
“There’s no hierarchy,” Foultz said. “I want to treat everybody in a uniform manner.”
​
Both Carrington and Foultz consider San Antonio to be a vibrant, colorful city. Foultz has lived here since 1980 and has been involved in the city’s art scene for more than 15 years. She said she has long wanted to do something creative with uniforms but struggled to find the correct medium and place for a showcase.
​
And then, as her son’s career in marketing gave way to a new line of work, film photography, she saw an opportunity for a collaboration. After discussing the idea, they knew they wanted to photograph uniforms but didn’t have a clear direction until they talked about San Antonio’s Tricentennial.
​
“We realized it fit. It gives us a number, 300, and it gave us San Antonio to focus on,” Carrington said.
​
Both knew the city well, and they decided to use the six Tricentennial pillars — religion, military, history and education, arts and culture, world heritage and community service — as a guiding theme for the uniforms they photograph.
While all the photos are made available online as they are taken, the Uniform 300 exhibit will showcase 50 portraits on life-size canvases.
​
“Overall, it’s all about the community, it’s about being inclusive,” Foultz said.
​
Her dream is that these photos will continue to be exhibited in the city, installed in places frequented by tourists so they can immediately see “what San Antonio looks like.”
​
For more information about the project, visit uniform300.com or the Uniform 300 Facebook page.