Riverwalk named Best Tourist Destination by SA Current
At a prestiguous awards ceremony held in the San Antonio west side offices of SA Current, Visit The Riverwalk President and CEO John Barton could not be present – or be seen in such a violent neighborhood – but sent his second-in-command Vicky Lopez to retrieve the award. Flanked by bodyguards, Vicky entered into the editor’s office using a service entrance, in order to avoid heavily-armed crowds attracted by the promise of free Rudy’s BBQ.
It was an emotional moment for the Riverwalk, which has long been the favorite and therefore best tourist destination in Texas. Although it’s one of the few guaranteed awards we can expect, along with the annual Least Likely to Need a Repeat Visit award from our cynical sister city of Austin, the offices at Visit The Riverwalk have been growing in recent months and there has been a notable absence of doorsteps. With the predictability of a Riverboat ride yet the frenetic frenzy of a Mariachi’s metronome, we always look forward to our winning of the annual award and beating out Sea World, which isn’t even from San Antonio.
“The San Antonio Current is Democracy.”
One of the greatest things about the SA Current’s Best of San Antonio awards is that they are chosen by Riverwalkers and San Antonians, striving to use their democratic chance to select, literally, the Best Of. Whereas other rags give people a choice from a pre-selected range of alternatives, like some sort of bizarre multiple choice test where there is no right answer, the Current believes that we, the people, get to think about who to present the award to, regardless of IQ.
We also take our hats off to the Current for not bowing to pressure from advertisers like that other sleazy excuse for journalism, the San Antonian Express. The Express not only expects to be paid for their papers but they would also sell their mothers for a chance to charge $2.95 for an online article after 6 weeks – and they’d probably ship her UPS Ground in an airsealed box to afford the buyer minimum hassle from their maternal purchase. Meanwhile, the Current holds its head up high, a little shakily from a big night that seems a distant memory, and says, “No, we will NOT be corporate whores: we will give the people the chance to speak, even if it decimates our advertising revenue.”
SA Current: Best Of The Newspapers
In response to receiving the Best Tourist Attraction award, we at the Visit The Riverwalk offices, scratching our collective head in prestigeous luxury in the Casino Club building, decided to create an award called Best Of The Newspapers.
We had a few secret criteria to help make the decision, which we would like to explain in full here:
- Food & Entertainment: SA Current has that glorious gem, Ron Bechtol, who much like an aged-but-beloved-and-possible-senile grandfather who might say the darnedest of things, can always be relied upon for good old-fashioned opinionated truth-telling. Babbling ceaselessly like a cross between a Micro Machines commercial and Woody Allen after a crate of Red Bull, Ron is happy to vere off reviewing restaurants and wines and start talking about almost anything else – from cup sizes to cuckoo clocks – and still write a negative review. That takes big brass sphericals, which the Express simply doesn’t have. Winner: SA Current.
- Filling Column Inches: SA Express rehashes every shooting, suicide or spelling bee like the Riverwalk doesn’t even matter. As sure as Summer Glau is trying to change her birth certificate, you can place a banana skin on the senior-infested sidewalks of Alamo Heights and an Express journalist will be ready to report there faster than a porcupine gets escorted out of a balloon factory. The Current meanwhile provides us with relevance where it matters with its Ask A Mexican column, providing an important cultural exchange between those who shop at Home Depot and those who stand outside it. Winner: SA Current.
- Heart of San Antonio: a newspaper is merely a loss-making environmental disaster posing as an economic anachronism without a direct needle into the heart of its readers. The SA Express takes the triple heart-bypass option, and refuses to communicate with the people in San Antonio who matter: the tourists. We suspect the Express doesn’t even know where the world-famous Riverwalk is and, judging by the size of its corrections page, would probably not even verify its own half-assed facts if it was asked. The Current meanwhile not only has its fingers clamped onto the pulse of popular culture, but knows when the boom-boom-boom noise stops that it’s time to shake the patient to life, prepare for the ABCs of cardiac arrest, and defend all the major orifices from the plagues of necrophiliacs on the Riverwalk. Winner: SA Current.
We salute the San Antonio Current for their fine Riverwalk courage, and present our virtual Best Of The Newspapers award to their dedicated staff, while we simultaneously spank the Express for their blatent disregard of all things Riverwalk.
