Franco Mondini-Ruiz; Joan Frederick; Vincent Valdez (with a trumpet instead of a brush); Joaquin Abrego with Los Nahuatalatos; Terry Ybanez, Deborah Vasquez, David Zamora Casas, Rita Contreras, Rolando Briseno, Dee Murff, and many many more, came together at Bihl Haus Arts to celebrate the 5th Anniversary of Bihl Haus Arts, one of San Antonio's cultural centers and gathering place for some of the city's most interesting and best artists. It was a night of ART. LITERATURE. MUSICA! BAILE. Over 40 visual artists created original covers for the first Chicana novel published by the University of Texas Press, "Golondrina, why did you leave me?" by Barbara Renaud Gonzalez. It was a humbling noche that left me hallucinated by the beauty of what we can make together.

She calls them viboras, the men who deny her stature as one of the world's best accordionists. She lives here, in San Antonio, and she doesn't have a car and is worried about her taxes. Eva has played in New York City, and yet no one in San Antonio seems to want to pay her what she deserves. Enough to live on. The other day Eva played me a new composition, it's called Eco de Mujer. The song is haunted, a polka-tango-blues of a woman's pain and loneliness, betrayal and it sounds exactly like when my mother used to cry at the clothesline under the hot Texas sky. Like she was on fire and there was nowhere for her to go -- except to hang up more of my father's workshirts. My mother listened to Lydia Mendoza. I listen to Eva Ybarra. On Thursday evening, I finally get to read from my novel, with her accordion accompanying me. Though it is really Eva, her music, and that voice of hers that I wish I could put down on paper: That voice made of hard, dusty, gravelly,...

THE KRAYOLAS AND THEIR NEW CD “LA CONQUISTADORA” What if you could be a teenager again at the baile and the cutest guy with hazel eyes or the girl with the longest black hair slow-danced with you? Remember how it made you feel, all bubbly and dreamy and how life swirled us in Kool-aid colors, sweet and tangy, how life stained our tongues and white shirts in ways we can’t forget? That’s how it is when I hear Hector Saldana (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, harmonica) singing rock-n-roll in that strawberry milkshake-voice of his with The Krayolas. Now a grown-up baby boomer, he and his brother David Saldana (vocals, percussion and more), are proving that midlife gives you another chance to meet your destiny in the production of their new album “La Conquistadora.” And conquer they do, featuring Augie Meyers, Van Baines (harmony vocals, lead guitar, pedal steel guitar) , Joe Sarli (harmony vocals and electric bass, and The West Side Horns. Dressed in their sleek, black, retro-Beatles...

It's true, San Anto is puro-party . Someone somewhere tonight is celebrating something , and I'm invited. But this week, I'm not goin no-where. It's Fiesta!, the biggest ten-day pachangalooza you'll ever see, and frankly, I'm tired of dancing on my grave. Let me explain. On April 21, 1836, the Texan rebels - led by General Sam Houston, defeated the Mexicans at the Battle of San Jacinto. It was a massacre. (Sweet revenge for the preceeding Anglo deaths at the Alamo and Goliad). And of course, there was a woman involved. There is a legend about a Yellow Rose - whom my friend Denise McVea has researched extensively, and it's a wet-dream myth about a mulatta whore in Mexican General Santa Anna's bed seducing and betraying him for the Anglo Texans - and she's discovered the origin of this myth. I've always been repulsed by this story, as have most women... But it's party-time now, and the past is pasado , right? Yes. And no. I think, a...