Brian Kenneth Swain

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 ...

Does life have to stop because our half of the earth is dark? Don DeLillo (White Noise)   I imagine that, like all of us, it needs a break now and then. It’s a big job, after all, lighting and warming us all, growing the veggies and flowers. And with a family of nine to look after, not to mention two hundred-fourteen grandkids. It’s a lot. So I don’t begrudge the sun its respite. It is a thoughtful guardian, leaving behind in its absence a soothing nightlight and a promise of return the same time each morning. I do, though, hope that it’s not all work and sleep. I hope that once the working day is done it goes out at least once in a while to grab a drink with friends, maybe take in a movie. It’s important to mix it up from ...

In a time of cars and planes, cell phones and internet, how to explain to someone under fifty the wonder of the singing cowboy?   But sing they did, Gene and Roy sitting tall in the saddle resplendent in suits of white, strumming their guitars, as they sauntered off into the sunset.   My dad had all Gene’s 78’s, with their pops and crackles, the hiss of the needle dragging heavy over old vinyl. I found an old Victrola— the kind you wind up— to play his records on.   And though dad rode off long ago in his own blaze of glory, his records live on, Gene’s voice ringing through the hiss and static of years, reminder of a time when the good guy won every gunfight, always got the girl, and never missed a ...

“It went from running away from the police to shaking their hands and saying, ‘Thanks for watching our wall while we’re not here.’ Back in the day, we would see a building or a wall and call someone asking for permission to paint there. Now they’re calling us and asking us to do it. Hell, and commissioning us to do it!” Funny how life turns around sometimes, particularly when you’re a street artist who grew up doing something many people regarded as little more than vandalism. David (Shek) Vega, one of San Antonio’s best known urban artists, fondly recalls the marked differences between the San Antonio of his teenage years and today. “These days, Nik (artistic collaborator Nik Soupé) and I are free to create as much art ...

Hey, I think that was our turn back there.   This line has languished in the unseen recesses of my poetry working folder for over a decade. It does not want for company in that literary hospice. Yet I cannot but feel the cold resentment of a fragment of potential as it wastes away, unfulfilled, unloved. I keep it around because of a promise I made through the simple act of noting the line in the first place, writing it down, giving it its own document, with a name and a date. I take it out every few months to stare at the words, and they back at me, neither of us certain how this will all end. Only then, it’s back into the folder, perhaps to couple inadvertently with another unused phrase or idea, but probably doomed to just linger ...

San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo 2021   Let’s get the bad news out of the way right from the get-go, shall we? Contrary to what you may have heard from friends, colleagues, or certain political figures running for office, 2021 is not magically going to see the end of the pandemic, at least not for a few more months. There will still be masks and Zoom calls and daily case counts on the news. But it’s not all doom and gloom. It looks like there are vaccines right around the corner (and who doesn’t enjoy a good shot in the arm?) and, with luck, many of the annual events we had learned to take for granted before 2020 will begin making comebacks, albeit cautiously. One such event will be the 2021 San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, ...