Local Artist Decks the Walls at Bijou

It is Thursday, March 25, and I find myself thinking about the past. It’s always there, I suppose, somewhere beneath the gauze of elapsed time in my mind, but this time it’s coming to me, really coming to me, in the form of an artist I once knew:  Alex Chagoya.

When I produced Echo for my modest, though devout, audience of readers two years ago, Alex was one of many people who made the publication memorable. His artwork graced covers and pages, and his creative vision was unique and true.

I hear it still is.

I am waiting for Alex now because his vision is so true that a bulk of his work will be featured the entire month of April at the Bijou Cinema Crossroads, and because it’s my turn to support an old friend.

Alex and I never met in person prior to this moment, prior to him walking into a crowded bar during happy hour on a Thursday. He is humble in appearance; demeanor, reserved. We shake hands for the first time and sit down to a couple of drinks. As a sea of blurred noise surrounds us, he talks about school, his final year as an undergraduate majoring in psychology, and I question his motives for pursuing that field when art is his passion, but Alex is practical and assures me of a future in which he envisions art therapy; he wants to fuse his love of helping others with his love of art.

When he was young, Alex would trace comic books and get in trouble in class for drawing Dragonball Z characters. His teachers, while disapproving of his misuse of class time, encouraged him to continue drawing, just at more appropriate junctions. In college, his artistic potential increased after a particularly engaging Art History course, and he switched from drawing to painting in 2008.

Since then, Alex has worked primarily in acrylics, layering and mixing colors to create his structured visions upon canvas. He admits one of his favorite things about working with acrylic is its longer dry time, which allows him opportunity for touch-up and additions, showcasing his interest in manipulating the temporal existence of his work. “What is art to you?” I ask him. After a few moments, he responds resolutely, “Life, time, and space.”

He cites Magritte as one of his favorite painters, an artist whose manipulation of time and space within paintings, which – as well as the the pop surrealism of such painters as Todd Schorr and Robert Williams – has inspired Chagoya. And the influence is evident in Chagoya’s work, which contain baffling images, beautifully overlapped colors, recurring themes of our planet, and mysterious roads that end in unexpected places. His love for psychology and a consciousness of the self seems hazardously disregarded within his work, unless it is the consciousness of a self yet unexplored.

Toeing the waters of my own passion, I ask him about the connection between art and music, both in general and specifically for him. He identifies music as a different form of artistic expression, and suggests it is a driving force behind visual art: an emotionally-charged, auditory representation of image. He admits to painting while music plays, though is careful not to let the energy of music sway his creative process; Chagoya’s paintings are intentional depictions of his imaginative world and not entirely subject to instantaneous emotions.

From April 1 to April 30, 2010, Alex Chagoya’s work will adorn the walls of the Bijou’s main hallway. The exhibit is a two-year retrospective of his progression as a young artist, and individual pieces will be for sale. While this is not the first time Chagoya’s work has sold or been displayed, it is his first solo installation, one of which he is tremendously proud.

Alex departs the bar shortly after our conversation, leaving me to finish my drink in thoughtful silence. “Life, time, and space,” I whisper to myself at last, suddenly aware that I have spoken aloud. There is so much of each, and yet so little. I pay my tab and exit.

The sun is almost down when I step outside.

- N. Gonzales

Not So Silent Night for Bad Pop/Rock

You may have scoffed at — or attended, if you’re a girl with bad tastes in music or a dude who likes Texas high school football – Mix 96.1′s Not So Silent Night, a concert event it’s been hyping for the last two weeks plus.  What you may not have scoffed at — or attended — was Phoenix‘s performance at the Hard Rock Cafe Riverwalk; that’s because you probably didn’t know about it.

Yes, Mix’s best kept indie secret was Phoenix‘s 3pm performance yesterday, December 16, at the Hard Rock, a small concert sponsored by one of San Antonio’s most annoying radio stations in support of its Not So Silent Night event at Hemisfair Park scheduled to take place later that evening.

Don’t worry, you didn’t miss much (other than S.A.’s display of not knowing alternative from Big Red).  The French quartet played alongside Blue October, 3OH!3, and lyaz.  We’re actually fairly sure it was a fluke on Mix’s part to have Phoenix there, the most accurately labeled indie group of the event.  This belief is further supported by the idea that Mix’s Kidd Kraddick and Co. were ill-prepared to encounter French culture, asking Phoenix post-performance if Jean-Claude (yes, van Damme) was one of the more prominent French actors.  That’s just Kraddick-ulous!

What Mix 96.1 knows better is how to promote miserable excuses for mainstream pop disguised as indie music (see The Fray, Boys Like Girls, etc.) for its concert Wednesday night at Hemisfair.  What’s worse is that attendees had to fork over $30 for it all.  You should’ve gone to see Phoenix at an intimate setting for free instead…

…if you’d known about it.

Fear not.  Attend Phoenix‘s well-publicized concert tonight at La Zona Rosa in Austin, a city who knows a real thing or two about indie music.

The Pedicab Proper

I’m thinking about finding pleasure in toothache, perhaps more than a century too late, and while I’m no Doestoevsky, I can’t help but think of the immediacy of the past.  Always.  What I mean is my wisdom teeth are raging inside of my head on a Sunday night as I drive to The Pedicab to speak with its owner, Michael Urbano.

This is my groan.

It’s a quiet evening at The Pedicab when I meet Michael.  Like his bar, he’s cool and calm, respectable and respectful.  He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would have driven cabs in New York City for 8 years, but maybe I’ve been watching too many movies.  In reality, every cab I’ve ever been in has had a nonchalant driver who primarily kept to himself and mumbled monotonously into the Bluetooth attached to his ear.  So I change my mind; I can see Michael driving cabs in New York City.

And like so many people who relocate to different cities, Michael and his wife left New York in search of that all-too-elusive change.  After researching a few different major Texas cities, they decided on San Antonio.  Against the advice of friends and other do-gooders, Michael bypassed Austin to make his home here because he, unlike so many non-Texans — and unlike so many San Antonians, too — saw potential.  While everyone else buried their heads in the sand of the “Keep San Antonio Lame” mentality, Michael set right to work making a positive impact on his new home.

In a word, Michael’s plan is progress.  As a seasoned cabby, it was no stretch for one of his first business ventures to be a pedicab service in S.A.  He did his homework on Austin’s success and even the former success of San Antonio’s pedicab service when the Spurs inhabited the Alamodome.  It made sense for him to introduce the pedicabs to a city that had none, especially now when the green movement is in full swing, but it’s been an uphill battle most of the way struggling against city ordinances and curfews.  Undaunted, however, Michael continues to operate his cab service and continues to find ways to challenge some of those antiquated regulations that keep San Antonio a step behind 2009.

What started as a pedicab service led to something more.  In April of this year, Michael opened a bar on the storage site for his pedicabs.  The name of the bar?  The Pedicab.  His vision of The Pedicab is a community-friendly environment that caters not only to beer drinkers, but to art and music lovers; his vision is unique.  Stocking over 100 different brands of beer, Michael keeps his patrons curious about what else there is beyond their comfort zones.  He admits that at the end of the day, his regulars will stick to their Bud Light and Miller Lite, but that they at least have myriad options is the most important thing, and all at affordable prices.

Drinking isn’t the only option at The Pedicab, either.  From Wednesday to Saturday, The Pedicab offers delicious gourmet hamburgers also at very accessible prices.  With Angus beef and ingredients crumbled right into the patty, these hamburgers are sure to please the pallette of any burger fanatic, and if it’s only spice you crave, then try the “410 Burger,” a concoction of habanero peppers, serrano peppers, jalapenos, and chile piquin that will have you come down with a case of exploding head. 

But The Pedicab isn’t just accessible to spend-thrifty beer and burger lovers, it’s also accessible to those who love bicycles.  A good community of riders frequent the bar and Michael makes them his first priority; after all, cycling is the theme of his bar.  As mentioned, Michael wants to make a positive impact on his community, and he wants to use The Pedicab as a launch pad for community involvement centered around activity and art.  As we talk, a former employee comes to our table and suggests Michael have a bicycle sale at his bar and talks about the success of one he previously attended.  Michael is intrigued and eager for the help of his former employee and friend to make such a bike sale a reality.  Perhaps it’s Michael’s openness and willingness to new ideas that makes him so unlike San Antonio, but it’s what also makes him just what the city needs.

Several paintings adorn the walls of Michael’s bar and he charges the artists nothing to display their work.  This way, artists aren’t obligated to over charge for their work to compensate for the high cost of public display, and it also opens the doors to a broader range of artists.  This may come as a shock to most, but some artists, especially budding artists, don’t have a lot of disposable income to show their art when most of it goes to supplies and materials.  Michael appreciates this and offers his establishment as a safe haven from the greed of other venues eager to squeeze a dime out of anyone in any way they can.

He feels the same way about musicians.  As a no-cover venue, The Pedicab doesn’t take part in driving away new audiences with stiff admission.  Furthermore, Michael is not interested in pigeonholing himself into a certain wedge of the scene, and leaves his booking wide open to any genre of music.  His pay-out is fair and his establishment is a lot nicer than most of San Antonio’s age-old bars that are still hanging on to the glory days of some long-past era very few remember.  Most importantly, Michael is wary of many of the local promoters who have corrupted the music scene and who have been tossed from venue to venue like trash.  You know who you are.

Michael admits to me that he doesn’t want to get rich off The Pedicab.  He even admits that it may not even be a possibility.  This isn’t defeatism, it’s awareness.  Michael, as a business owner, is in touch with something that so many small business owners are not:  reality.  He is comfortable with the moderate success of his other ventures: the pedicab service and his downtown segway tours.  The Pedicab is merely something fun for him, something that should be fun for its patrons, as well.  It’s less of a bar and more of a message; a message of support; an answer to the emptiness.

It has a hint of something altruistic, a hint of something from the past, as progressive as it is.  It calls to mind a San Antonio that few defended because they saw potential instead of just giving up and slapping a “Keep San Antonio Lame” sticker on a vehicle and admitting defeat.  It reminds me of a time when there was more to S.A.’s underground scene than image.  I’m keeping Michael’s vision close.  I believe in it.  ”While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavement’s gray, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”

I drive back home on a Sunday night, smiling to myself about finding pleasure in toothache.

- N. Gonzales