Brian Kenneth Swain

Sometime late last summer I was listening to a radio interview and they happened to mention an organization here in the Alamo City known as the San Antonio Mastersingers. I had never heard of such a thing, but I decided to check it out. I had done a bit of choral singing way back in my high school days and in more recent years spent time occasionally playing my guitar and singing for my dogs. As luck would have it, auditions for the fall season were just getting going around the time I heard the radio piece and so I gave it a shot. A few weeks later I was the newest member of the baritone section, one of the 120 or so singers who make up the group. During the audition, and in the weeks of rehearsal that followed, I had the distinct ...

We’ve written about many nonprofits in these pages—everything from home renovators to military working dogs to golf tournaments for cancer research funding. But one thing we have most decidedly never done is present a charity that was started by a brothel owner. But, because we’re all about breaking barriers, that is precisely where we are headed this month. Specifically, our story is about a San Antonio organization called Providence Place, led by Dr. Judith Bell; and yes, the organization was started way back in 1895 by none other than brothel owner Madame Mary Volino, a woman who, after several years of what one imagines was a successful commercial venture, happened to overhear the words of a street preacher and decided on the ...

USAF Brigadier General Caroline Miller Commander, Joint Base San Antonio/502nd Air Base Wing In past articles, I’ve mentioned that my very first trip from my Maine home was to Lackland Air Force Base for USAF basic training way back in . . . well, a long time ago. And now, after decades of traveling the globe for work and leisure, I’ve found myself right back here, calling San Antonio my home. Turns out, though, that I’m not the only person with that sort of circular life story. USAF Brigadier General Caroline Miller tells a similar story, except that in her case it was her parents who got married back in the mid-sixties at the Lackland AFB chapel. Now, all these years later, she is back in the Alamo City in command of the 502nd Air ...

I first met Texas Public Radio (TPR) President and CEO Joyce Slocum in 2016, when she was a speaker at the TEDxSanAntonio annual conference. She was the final speaker of the daylong event, and quipped that the slot was a challenging one, as she was the only thing standing between the 800-plus audience members and “adult beverages.” With this admission, Joyce proceeded to spell out the philosophy that has allowed her to be successful in her professional and personal life, a philosophy she summed up with the two simple words “be nice.” In the brief but compelling remarks that followed, she provided numerous examples of how her life had taken unexpected but advantageous turns through a combination of personal civility and seizing on ...

One of my casual comments to Pearl Chief Marketing Officer Elizabeth Fauerso went something like this: “If the Pearl keeps adding high-quality restaurants, shops, and other facilities at the rate that it has in its first twenty years, it’s only a matter of time before out-of-towners start associating San Antonio with not only the Alamo and the Riverwalk, but the Pearl as well.” Upon reflection, it was clear that I underestimated the impact that this twenty-two acre development has had on the city, its residents/visitors, and on local economics, as Elizabeth observed by responding that the Pearl was already very much a part of what visitors associate with the city. Point conceded. However, in order to fully appreciate the ...

An olive green car with a white star on the door pulls up to the curb, and right away she knows. Everyone on her street knows. It is a time of war and it is his job to tell her that the man she loves is gone. He will walk up to her door, each measured step more painful than the one before. He has done this ninety seven times so far. He feels the weight of each one as though it was his own father or husband or son. He will read the letter. He will take her hand. He will convey the sadness and gratitude of a nation. Then he will walk away from the house, smiling wanly at the young boys in the yard as they chase one another with their cap guns and argue over who is dead and who is not. July 4, 2021 Brian Kenneth ...

An important question every professional athlete must wrestle with at some point in their career is ‘what comes next?’ once their time in the big leagues is over. This is true whether your sports career lasts only a short time (4.5 years is the average for the NBA, 2.5 for the NFL), or whether you’re fortunate enough to play on for a decade or more. Some aspire to coaching, others to broadcasting. But with supporting sports opportunities far less numerous than actual playing roles, the majority of former pro athletes eventually find themselves doing something that has little or nothing to do with their athletic experience. And so naturally this was one of the first things I asked about when I sat down to speak with former San Antonio ...

Am I my brother’s keeper? Well, let’s have a think about that. Yeah, so we had a disagreement. But how are we supposed to sort things like that out? It’s not as if any rules have been handed down, or voted on, or whatever. After all, it’s still pretty early days for humanity, what with there being just the four of us at this point. And so, I suppose you could argue that I killed a quarter of humanity. But it’s not like we have any laws or government yet. Hell, we won’t even have ten commandments to go by until Deuteronomy or whatever. Where are the guardrails, you know? You run around handing out free will and then get pissed when people use it. What’s that about?   So what’s a guy to do? Did I overreact? Okay, ...

God says we will spend eternity reaping the rewards of our life. That could be a problem. Only then the astronomer says that time began at the start of the universe, and will inexorably end with the universe’s demise. So that there’s no such thing as eternity. God bless astronomers. And then one day, to muddy things up a bit more, Einstein tells us that time itself is nothing but an illusion. So why all the fuss about eternity anyway? All of which leaves us pondering just what to believe. No time. No eternity. No nothing. They have a word for that. Something ism. Damn it. I’ll be forever remembering that. April 27, 2021 Brian Kenneth ...

We talk with some regularity in these pages about the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), and rightly so, what with it being one of San Antonio’s marquis educational destinations. Indeed, the CIA is widely regarded as the best preparatory school in the world for those aspiring to careers in the culinary arts. And while the school’s graduates routinely end up working at (and frequently starting) the world’s finest eateries, it’s always gratifying when one of the Alamo City’s native sons returns to share his culinary gifts with his home town. Such is the case with CIA-trained Chef Johnny Hernandez, lifelong San Antonian and far and away the most successful and best-known culinarian in the city. Chef Hernandez currently owns nine ...