At The Times, Corrections Are Stories in Their Own Right...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

NEW YORK, N.Y. - It is the world's newspaper-of-record, so maybe that's why editors at The New York Times believe mistakes in its pages must be corrected - no matter how small. This morning, there on page A-2 was this tidbit: "An article on Saturday about a mixed-income condominium in Harlem misstated the name of one resident. He is Raymond Daniel Medina, not Ray Medina Hernandez."

Well, that must have pleased Mssr. Medina. And it set the record straight, of course.

You can read The Times daily and always know you're getting your money's worth. It is a jewel of a newspaper, its sections as interesting and well-written as you'll find on the planet. Sports is there at the back-end of the Business Day Front. Arts has its own section. The National News goes inside the A-Section, as does the New York page. International stuff is mixed in there, as well. In all, it is a book being published daily, so, yes, mistakes do crop-in from time to time.

Like this one: "An article on June 18 about programs to teach families to sail misidentified the function of the steel railings on a boat used by a family taking lessons offered by the Offshore Sailing School at Liberty State Park. They are intended to protect passengers from falling overboard, not to keep the boat from tipping over."

And from the Saturday, June 26 edition: "A report in the In Transit column on Page 2 this weekend about Pierre Koffmann's new eponymous restaurant at the Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge, London, includes an erroneous date from a hotel publicist for the restaurant's opening. After the section had gone to press, the date was moved back to mid-July; the restaurant will not open Monday."

I know. It's hardly earth-shattering stuff. The world kept spinning, yes. Still, I get a kick out how meticulous, almost annoying, The Times can be with these corrections. It says something. It says not all Journalism is dead, or cheap, or smalltown...

- 30 -

VIGNETTE: Of Big-Time Basketball, Bad Teachers and Stuff Somewhere Else...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

NEW YORK, N.Y. - The most serious news here centers on the basketball player many say may be the best in the world, one LeBron James. It is said Mssr. James alone can save the pitiful New York Knicks, most recently doormats of the National Basketball Association. Who knows? Dreams of getting the spectacular James to play for the Knicks has New Yorkers in a tizzy; that, and, oh yeah, morbid fear that the messy oil plumes currently savaging the country's Gulf Coast will begin to slide around Florida and ooze up the Atlantic Coast.

Next in line on the news-of-the-day ledger is a story in the New York Times that would absolutely rock any small town or state battling budget woes, namely a tale of this city's practice of sending troubled schoolteachers (suspensions) to something called the Rubber Room, where they sit and play cards all day long while remaining on the payroll. A few have been known to master the Rubik's Cube thingee, others to leave at the end of the day with a completed Times crossword puzzle. As of today, however, the Rubber Room is out of business. The end of an era, thanks to a compromise agreed-to by the Department of Education and the powerful New York Teachers Union. And so it went for an astonishing 700 teachers who found themselves battling charges of transgressions that ranged from abusing students to persistent tardiness to sexually harassing students.

"We're pretty much the epitome of uselessness," one teacher told the Times as the last day came to a close. In a corner of one of the rooms, according to the Times, a teacher who'd taken up the guitar while on suspension began to play "Let It Be," which, in turn, led a fellow teacher to say, to him, "You sound like a sick cat." All will now be re-assigned. As he was being told to leave for the last time, the guitar-playing teacher unloaded the words that fit the occasion perfectly: "Once a reject, always a reject."

It was the end of Monday in the city.

And nowhere was anyone talking about the Texas-Mexico border, about the drug cartels bloodying each other, about some Mexican politician being assassinated, about the season's first hurricane making land by mid-week. All that was someplace else, over there, far, far away...

- 30 -   

Notes From A Faraway Place...

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away..." - An American Song

By RON MEXICO
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - "Had the love been real?" Rachel was asking as she fought back a king-sized desire to pull the trigger. It was almost dark and the silver-blue reflection of her pistol coming off the motel mirror threw a rather lovely light on Patrick's head. He wanted no part of dying, but now believed he'd likely go quickly, some brightened, blooming cloud of smoke being the last thing he'd ever see. Rachel pushed her arm forward and ran a hand through his tussled hair. It was an ending, Patrick was driven to say. This drew a snicker of sorts from Rachel, who then said, "I'm gonna hate not seeing that hair ever again." Her fingers worked his scalp and Patrick could only nod in agreement. It wasn't confirmation of her loss, no. He thought of the saddle he'd ordered for his horse, and how now who'd pick it up?

"Was it something I did?" he asked, moving his neck a bit to loosen the rope she'd tied around it and then to a chair where she had thrown their clothing. Naked and tied and having a gun to his head felt too-Cuban, he thought. But, then, Rachel had walked out of her jeans and panties and now sat at the end of the saggy motel bed wearing only a yellow halter top, her legs crossed but not so that he couldn't see her luxuriant patch of auburned pubic hair. She cleared her throat and he waited on her reply. Had anyone else been in the room and asked Patrick why he would ask such a thing, Patrick would have said, "I take it she's had me followed..."

"Nope," Rachel threw out.

"Then, what's this all about?"

"Just," she told him.

He wanted to ask, but he knew her well-enough to know that dancing around the Mulberry bush was Rachel's specialty, the one thing everyone in town would have said about her anyway. Instead of chasing a losing angle to a falling conversation, he chose to say: "Why don't you sing me a song?"

"You're naked!" she shot back, frowning.

There was little to make of that, and so he decided that perhaps silence would bring something telling, something he'd be able to assess and hash-out with her. Dying seemed a waste. Dying naked was crazy, not that he'd never thought of it, except that when he had it had been about perhaps dying while making hard love to some energetic young thing unable to satisfy herself before dawn.

"Do you love me, Patrick?" Rachel asked next.

He laughed softly and then said, "I love trick questions..."

Rachel cocked the gun and stared at him. Patrick smiled.

"No, don't smile," she growled. "Stop it! Frown! Stop smiling at me. It makes me want you..."

Patrick raised his head and back as high as they would go. Rachel stiffened her arm and kept the pistol inches from his head. Would she fire, he asked himself. There was little else to say here two hours into his capture. Patrick reached back far into the recesses of his brain for something from their past to maybe bring Rachel to her senses. She was a sucker for memories and, of course, he knew she could recall every little lovely thing he'd ever whispered in her ear.

"May I see your breasts?" he said and, at hearing that, Rachel lowered the gun...

- 30 -

On Brooklyn's Coney Island, A Sight For Sore Eyes...

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Out In The Bronx, Thoughts Go To The Bombers and A Bar...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

NEW YORK, N.Y. - The Bronx Bombers were in Los Angeles last night, losing 9-4 to the Dodgers. Here, the trains rolled past the lot where Old Yankee Stadium once stood in all its glory, there not far from New Yankee Stadium. I remember the old joint, the rightfield bleachers especially, 'cause that's where I went to cheer-on the pinstriped boys during my days with the NY Post here in the early 1990s. It is a piece of ground so hallowed that millions raised Hell when the hated Boston Red Sox once tried to soil it by burying a David Ortiz jersey in the foundation of the new ballpark.

That's recent lore.

We always began our treks to the stadium by catching an early train and spending some good time at Bauer's, a noisy bar along a drag across from the rightfield entrance gates. Bauer's was named after former Yank Hank Bauer, shown in photo above at right, with storied manager Casey Stengel. Bauer, number 25 on the roster in the late-40s to the 1950s, was never a superstar. He was the proverbial hard-as-nails rightfielder, right, hence the location of the bar. His fame came in the 1958 World Series, when he hit four homers against the Milwaukee Braves. Other than that, his effort was defined by hustle of the likes you don't see in the today's game. Bauer arrived at the ballpark with his uniform already dirtied. Legend has it he did his own laundry, or, as his teammates said, rarely did it.

Anyway, we liked to drink beer at Bauer's and then and go raise hell from the seats in the bleachers, there along with workabouts who knew every name on the team and just about every opposing rightfielder who came to town. The home club's Reggie Jackson, of course, was the favorite.

Well, we sorta wished last night that the Dodgers, once from nearby Brooklyn, would have been in town. They weren't, but that's life. We also wished that Bauer's Bar still did business in the shadow of the outfield stands. It doesn't, but that, too, is life.

We'll rest on the words of Mickey Mantle. Number 7 said this about Hank Bauer: "He taught me how to dress, how to talk and how to drink.” And, yes, the Mick did drink...

- 30 -

In Gotham City, A Day For Nothing & For Everything...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

New York, N.Y. - It's only a few blocks from the Havana NY restaurant on W. 38th Street to the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue, yet there is a neat disconnect between what you find inside both buildings. The eatery offered a hefty and thoroughly-enjoyable plate of Ropa Vieja (shredded beef, white rice, black beans), while the library threw a bad dish of Nazi whippings in World War II France. It was a day for stuffing the tummy and, then later, feeding the brain. I love Cuban food with my history lessons.

Ana was our waitress. She's a peppy 20-year-old transplant from Mexico City by way of Los Angeles. Her lively, raven eyes alone are worth flying here from Texas, yes. Petite is in when the day's activities include checking out anything French. Miguel, the bus boy from the Mexican state of Guerrero, chatted nicely about living and working in The Big Apple. Ana was up for flirting, but as it so happened, I was dining with my daughter, and she does not like to see her old man in the hunt for romance.

In any case, we had our usual lunch treat in what is becoming my latest Culinary Tour. Twenty-nine dollars and change for lunch. I paid, my daughter Gabrielle left the tip (her Old Man does not believe in tipping, forever noting that it lets restaurant owners off the pay scale hook). So, that done, we bid farewell to Ana and her lovely, lovely smile and walked back out to W. 38th before walking toward Fifth Ave.

The New York Public Library is many things to many patrons. It was hosting an exhibition of All-Gayness on the third floor. We hung around the first floor, where we popped-in to check out a spectacular display of French and German memorabilia being offered as "Between Collaboration and Resistance: French Literary Life Under Nazi Occupation."

Right up my alley, I know, I know.

And so we hung around for more than hour, looking at and reading the many elements of the free exhibit. There were great black and white photographs, sad, sad letters and a collection of notebook pages from manuscripts that later became great books - like "The Lover" by French writer Marguerite Duras, a favorite of mine. The book was made into a movie, and that one, too, is worth the time and money.

Yet, the collection sent a singular message: life for writers under Adolf Hitler was no looking out a window for inspiration. Many Frenchmen, including writers, fought with the resistance even after the Germs invaded and conquered France. There was the writing, but there also was courage from book printers and publishers who took to the underground to make sure France would not be seen by the world as merely cowering to the brutes from Berlin. A handful of diaries also are on exhibit, as are now-grainy films made during the Nazi invasion and the resulting occupation. In stirring accounts (translated on accompanying wall mountings), the French writers told of being forced to leave their creative comfort, easy travel, freedom to say or write anything. In a series of bombings and tank assaults, those freedoms vanished from one day to the next. The Winter of 1943-44 was especially rough, with food being rationed. Travel was reduced to forced travel: prisoners being led to concentration camps erected by the occupying Nazis. Censorship cropped-up, as did a paper shortage. France's writers could only inhale and hope for an invasion by the Allies. Many of them took up arms. The story of writer Robert Antelme, Duras's husband, is particularly wild. He survived, but only after being held prisoner. As love would have it, his wife later divorced him and took up with his film director friend. But, yeah, what else is new? Even in the worst of times, well, the heart must be fed. Marguerite Duras fought off loneliness in her own way - in the arms of her husband's friend.

Still, she wrote this to Antelme when she was told he had survived the camps: "You are alive! You are alive! I, too, am coming back from I know not where. How long have I remained in this Hell? ...Be prudent. No alcohol, not a drop. The weather's beautiful. It's peace. I think I would have died of your death."

Women are funny that way, eh?

The evening would fall fast, a cool breeze sailing in from the Atlantic. We were headed for The White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village at sundown. It's all I needed to know. I was sure of this: Something nagged me about whether I'd rather have gone back to the Cuban restaurant for another smile from Ana, the attractive waitress, or perhaps spent much more time reading about French writers living in fear of Hitler.

I fully enjoyed both - like some Guy at a bordello taking two sweethearts and then having to choose one or the other with the last of the cash...

- 30 -

In New York, Gorgeous Memories of Another Time, Another Gal...

"All girls really want
is someone to want them back..."
- Anonymous

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

NEW YORK, N.Y. - She would leave a note on my desk and say she would be stopping for shrimp at a bodega near her place on the Upper East Side, E. 85th Street, halfway up the block and across from a fire station, third floor. I grew to look for those notes from Kathy that year when I wrote some sensationalistic stuff for The New York Post - a tabloid newspaper most New Yorkers picked up on their way into the subway and threw away when they exited. I must say it was a fun time traipsing up and down crowded Manhattan, with friends and new faces - all the possibilities imaginable.

I'd call her from the newsroom and ask, "Wok, right?" and she'd say, "Yep...you bring the wine."

She worked as a copy editor in the Features Department of The Post. Katie had come to me by way of a copy editor friend on the news side, David Bartlett, who'd walked over to introduce himself to me as a fellow Texan my first week on the job. I went on to write about wild Mafia murders, hit men on the loose, boozing teens in neighboring New Jersey, etc., etc. After deadline, we'd usually hang out at some bar. Katie would show-up sooner or later and we'd chat, always somewhat cooly. One night, David called from Greenwich Village and said he had tickets to a Willie Colon concert and would leave one at the door for me. I popped out and took the subway all the way down, walking into the club to find it filled with smoke and tough-looking Puerto Ricans. David and his wife Melanie waved me over and we grabbed a few beers while waiting for the music to burst out.

I hadn't seen her walk in, but a half-hour later, Katie was standing next to me, poking me on the shoulder. I turned to see her smiling. The music was savagely great, inspirational and making me want to work the whole night. Clubs in NYC do not close at 2 Ayem, so that always was an idea to think about. She wore a fashionable black leather jacket, thick sweater, short skirt and ankle-high boots. I watched her when she walked off to the bar and knew this one would be a fighter in the sack.

Katie's Jewishness included a certain joy for life. Her apartment was no bigger than a North Dallas closet and her bed was a futon she folded out out at night time. We took a cab back to her place, me kissing on her exposed legs right above the knee while the cabbie whistled some annoying tune. The walk up the stairs and down the hallway that led to her apartment was lost in the anticipation.

We were making love 15 minutes later, going great guns after the fondling and the groping...when the fire station alarms across the street tore at the silence of the cold, winter night. In a way, I grew to like those fire response interruptions, perhaps because it elongated the pleasure...

- 30 -

"Yeah, Hoss, I do wish we could do better in this one-horse town. Sho' nuff do. You reckon it'll happen?..."

By JUNIOR BONNER
Special to The Tribune

HARLINGEN, Texas - The rampant rumor here is that the morning is coming when the sun will skip Harlingen and thus confirm the fact that this is a town adrift in the darkest of times. Who knows about that, but this much is true: Thousands of local brains are working overtime trying like crazy to come up with some magical tourist-draw, some place where outsiders would bring wheelbarrows of cash, have a grand time and then go home and spread the news that there is a place in South Texas worth a visit.

So far, the ideas being offered are, well, underwhelming.

There is the suggestion that Harlingen steal a piece of uppity Dallas, one that has the city birthing its own bar-driven entertainment district, one settling for a fishing & hunting retail store, one for the funding and construction of the first domed football stadium south of San Antonio. Dreams die hard here, goes the line. Still, people are doing just that, letting their sun-baked brains explore the outer ranges of intelligence. Will it come? Will that best, great new capital venture ever come to town?

The next few months and years will settle that. For now, Harlingen endures life-on-a-stick, heavy breathing that comes not from doing, but from expecting. It is the worst of times for a Rio Grande Valley city unable to shake its doldrums, its rep as a destination for elderly northerners looking for nothing more than trailer park space and an eatery soft-banking on senior citizen discounts.

In Brownsville, some 25 miles to the east, the only game in town is dumping on city officials dreaming, yes, but dreamers more likely to get things done than the ones in this waltzing community of ragged chinos and Izods doing their best to look alive. If Brownsville is Laurel, Harlingen is Hardy. If Brownsville is Sonny, Harlingen is Cher. If Brownsville is the Captain, Harlingen is Tennille. You could go on for days. If Brownsville is Tarzan, Harlingen is Jane. That stuff.

McAllen, meanwhile, is getting things done. They're not even looking eastward anymore. That's the poor side of the Valley, the wrong side of the tracks, the home of the Bad Eggs. Life is funny that way. If McAllen is cool & smooth Frank Sinatra, Brownsville is Chicano-funny Cheech and Harlingen is stone-goofy Chong...

- 30 -      

NO SALE: Stories That Find Little Interest in The Rio Grande Valley...

By RON MEXICO
Special to The Tribune

McALLEN, Texas - This close to the Mexican border, you'd stand a better chance of finding conversation if you threw out the name of, say, disgraced Hidalgo County Commissioner Sylvia Handy than if you ventured Joran Van Der Sloot's. The former is well-known in the isolated RGV; the latter a name for the world to ponder.

Van der Sloot (shown in photo above) is the main suspect in the May 30th killing of Stephany Flores in a Lima, Peru hotel, and, of course any news junkie will tell you, he's suspected of being the killer of U.S. teen Natalee Holloway on Aruba. But ask around in any Valley town and what you'll get is a shake of the head or the face of a clown, a clown ignorant to the doings of anything outside Hidalgo and Cameron counties.

Such is stuff when it splashes across the front pages of the world's largest newspapers, but has little connection to anyone this far south in the country. No one here can tell you how many Americans died in the recent rains that swamped the Midwest, nor can anyone tell you who, for example, authored that legislative proposal in Arizona aimed at denying citizenship to babies born in that state to undocumented immigrants.

It is the local version of the Stockholm Syndrome, the psychological prison that says you eventually become the mental hostage of your surroundings and your oppressors. The results of a Man-on-The-Street survey related to news events can be comical and sad. We asked a few questions.

The replies we got in return left us gun-shy. How, we asked ourselves, can an entire region be as ignorant as beans? How, in this day of 24-hour news on the Cable channels, can someone in town not know the name Haley Barbour? How can someone in the town over to the east not be aware of that runaway British Petroleum (BP) oil well? Our question: Do you know where the BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is located? Answer 1: "In Louisiana." Answer 2: "Near Galveston somewhere."

When we asked: Have you ever heard of Lady Gaga? Answer 1: "Who?" Answer 2: "No. You?"

You can venture out into any RGV city or town with a middle school test on all-things-American and get your brain bashed-in by nonsense and by ignorance. No one we approached knew a whit about Rafael Nadal, the Number 1 ranked tennis player in the world. And not one person we met had any inkling on who is running against Gov. Rick Perry in the next election. Are you for or against SB 1070, we asked, referring to Arizona's harsh anti-immigrant law. Answer 1: "I don't know." Answer 2: "Tell me about it first."

It was almost noon and we were somewhat hungry. We asked: Where can we get some good tacos? Answer 1: "Raul Longoria Boulevard in Pharr!" Answer 2: "Business 83, from Mission to Brownsville. There is a good one in San Juan and a better one in Weslaco. But the best ones are in Brownsville. Tacos El Campeon, man! In Mission, Tacos Maria. In Edinburg, check out The Moonlight cafe."

And so it went...

- 30 -  

THE COMATOSE TOWN: How I Saved Brownsville, Texas From Itself...

By CHILI PALMER
Special to The Tribune

BROWNSVILLE, TX - The story goes that a tourist came here looking for something new and different, and when he left what he said was that it appeared locals saw entertainment as merely standing around, as in, his wife went on, "...people just there, just being there, only there is no there there."

What is it about Brownsville that draws harsh descriptions from outsiders? Why is it so easy to pluck this chicken's feathers? We could simply laugh and get on down the road, but there has to be something about Brownsville to allow for an occasional good word. What would that be, however?

Can you crow about the anachronistic bars seemingly straight out of some Border Narco-Movie? Can you raise your voice and note that high school soccer is huge here? Can you waltz up and down downtown streets and say, no scream, that here, here!, anyone can feel the essence of both the U.S. and Mexico from one street to the next? What is it about Brownsville? Juan N. Cortina's adopted hometown? Is that the ethnic schtick here, that and a monthly uttering about some unique anthropological connection to anything Aztec? What? Where, Tlacaelel, where?

Who can say what this town's claim-to-fame may be? That its low-flying politics is hilarious? That anyone can be a star in anything local, the so-called Big Fish in a small pond? What is it about Brownsville? What dreams live here, if any? Who will answer?

In many ways, it is the perfect country & western town - one sad, alcoholed song after another.

Maybe that's it. Maybe that's what this town is - a song about Ma, about beer, about trains, about rain, about dogs, about pickup trucks. Play it. Throw in an excitable accordion so that you can feel that tight connection to the local culture, absolutely...

 - 30 -  

Port Isabel Bus Rider Busted For Ogling Playboy...

By RON MEXICO

Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - A man from Port Isabel was arrested here earlier today after passengers aboard a city bus he was riding complained about his magazine. Pedro "El Atrevido" Lozano was caught reading a copy of Playboy by a heavyset woman who said she was shocked and made to "feel like a piece of meat."

Brownsville police described the woman's anger as a "distinctly feminist nightmare" of the sort rarely seen in this bordertown, where the word is that women generally take it and take it and take it without ever complaining. Lozano, a 38-year-old unemployed butcher, reportedly told police he was merely looking at the photos of naked women in a professional manner. "I know shanks and rump and that sort of stuff about beef," he is said to have told investigators. "I can translate my butcher's eye to the female naked body. I wasn't being cute or funny or looking for laughs. I was totallly thinking butchering. You know, in case I get a job."

The bus driver was quoted in the police report as telling Lozano to stop leafing the magazine in a way that forced other passengers to see the sexy photography. The complainant was seated next to Lozano and could not avoid seeing nude photos of Miss March, police said. In the issue, Miss March is "cavorting atop a black horse," said Brownsville Police Department spokesman Henry "Champagne" King.

Lozano was booked into the county jail and will be arraigned on Monday. A check of his arrest record indicates he was busted once before - for stealing and eating seedless grapes at a Brownsville H-E-B in 2003. He faces Disturbing the Peace charges, according to the detention order...

- 30 -

HANGING WITH DP-M: He's Back At Work, On Novel "Made In Mexico"...

By RON MEXICO
Staff Writer

MONTERREY, Mexico - When he travelled the roads and airports of this country for The Houston Post, DP-M liked to tell people he was moving in love - with its traditions, its food, its music, its women. On a variety of occasions, he tasted a little bit of everything in places such as Puerto Vallarta, Los Mochis, Taxco, San Miguel De Allende and here, the city that welcomed him more than once.

DP-M is back in Monterrey. This time, however, he is not working Journalism, but working on his next novel, Made in Mexico.

It is, he tells this reporter during a recent visit, the layered story of a proud Mexican family rooted here in its violent history, but spread across its neighboring country to the north. He agreed to meet with me after I promised to deliver a case of his favorite wine, Châteauneuf-du-Pape. And so, we met at a downtown restaurant where the aroma was absolutely captivating, so much so that only those who favor excellent Guacamole know the runaway sensory acrobatics great, fresh avocado brings to the palate. He was sitting with a woman he later said was the owner of the place, a second-floor walkup not far from the Hotel Ancira.

"I got the idea from a Mexican prostitute who told me she had relatives in Chicago," he began. "The more she talked about her extended famly, the more I grew interested in telling it. She has a cousin in New Jersey, a guy who works groundskeeping for the New York Mets and a brother who owns a convenience bodega in East Los Angeles. Her mother, still alive, lives with her here in Monterrey. The old man was killed by a rogue cop in Dallas, where he had lived an undocumented status while working a Deep Ellum cafe. The threads that bind these people are wild, absolutely riveting."

He plans to stay in Monterrey for the remainder of the year, occasionally making trips to the USA to see his two daughters. And while working on this new book, he awaits the release next month of his latest Border novel, The Scorpion's Son - an epic reflective tale of love and regret.

"See those guys over there?" he asks, pointing toward a strolling mariachi arriving to play for the evening crowd. "I know them. Two of those boys worked in the states. One was working for a meat packing company in Nebraska, where he was abused all to Hell, and the other worked as a drug-pushing, go-between guy in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Yet, here they are, in another frickin' world altogether. I find that malarious..."

It is this strange, but obvious "layering" of lifestyles he says will be the mark of Made In Mexico.

We ask him: "And the girlfriend?"

"I never like to have her around when I am writing," he notes. "For that I need a different kind of woman, one without strings. Not prostitutes, but not a clinger. I may indulge from time to time, although my baby will fly-in when needed. Every man needs that emotional anchor, as much as we like to think we don't. Well, we absolutely do..."

He waves the well-attired mariachi over and asks them too play a favorite song.

"In New York, I like Phil Collins," he adds, smiling like a boy. "Here, in my Mexico, I go for the best of Jose Alfredo Jimenez."

The boys played on...

 - 30 -

In Brownsville, A Faded Rock Star Looks Askance at Harlingen...

By COSMO INFANTE
Special to The Tribune

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - When I fell from the upper reaches of rock 'n' roll stardom, thanks in great part to my addiction to Cocaine, my friends here said I'd be able to live-out my life in relative quiet. It hasn't happened. Gone is the noise in my ears. Now, however, I find myself addicted to this mess over in Harlingen, where, if I look at it all sideways, I start thinking about my days of boozing, using and, well, feasting on groupies.

What's with Harlingen, I asked my neighbor yesterday afternoon, when I spotted her setting up a Hibachi outside her apartment. "What?" she said at first, before handing me a rather in-depth analysis of the town up the highway, over toward McAllen or somewheres out there in the western hinterlands of my beloved Rio Grande Valley. Then, while she dropped a New York Strip on the hot grill, she sat me down on the concrete balcony and went at it, telling me about how awful it was back when she'd been a high school kid in Harlingen.

"Rough?" I asked, sorta knowing.

"We were so bored we'd go to Rio Hondo and yell at those Rubes," she said next. My eyes were on the steak being grilled, yes. But they cut across her nice legs as I panned the scenery. I love those loose-flowing gym shorts young women wear today. They remind me of so, so much...

Anyway, we talked some more and then she said her meal was ready and wouldn't I like to share it? The steak was one of those for-one steaks, so I declined. She got up, slapped at her butt to wipe off the dirt and then reached for a plate and tongs she'd set on a small fold-up chair alongside the grill.

"Why so hung-up on Harlingen?" she asked while holding her steak in a plate with one hand and the metal tongs with the other. Her eyes radiated true interest in my response. I could tell she was genuinely concerned that I was concerned. I'd heard from a friend who'd heard from someone who'd heard from someone else that newcomers to the Valley shouldn't get so involved with local politics.

"I take these long sideways looks at it and I tell myself things can't be that shitty anywhere," I replied, finally.

She nodded, said something about maybe sharing a bottle of wine later in the evening, and bolted for her apartment. I went into my place, threw on a pair of faded jeans and strapped on my boots before reaching for my favorite, black Henley shirt. Then I drove downtown and saw a crowd of people in 1950s clothing staring into store windows featuring 1950s appliances, TVs and Art.

Reading stuff about Harlingen does that to you - blows you into a backwards Time Warp to places and events that colored the world in grays and blue-grays and charcoals and fog...

- 30 -

[Editor's Note: Writer Cosmo Infante was the original frontman for the band Journey. He was later replaced by Steve Perry, who brought the band its signature sound. Mssr. Infante resides in the Las Prietas subdivision of Brownsville with his horse, Leafy...]

As The World of Harlingen Turns: Meeting of The City Commission Yields Yawns and a Call for the Herding of Bars...

By JUNIOR BONNER
Special to The Tribune

HARLINGEN, Texas - Hump Day here brought yet another installment of the local soap opera that is the Harlingen City Commission, only in this episode the always dramatic cast of local politicians went through the motions without their usual histrionics. In between yawns, the audience breathed sighs of relief. Gone for the moment was any fear of seeing their elected reps explode in multi-framed camera shots of insolence or childishness. For many in town, it was about time.

As with civic doings Mid-Valley style, the elected body traipsed through marshmallow-soft decisions on creating a veterans advisory board and one for local senior citizens. Both constituencies were said to have slept better following yesterday afternoon's unanimous votes.

Of more interest to a town saddled with DWI and Public Intoxication problems (see HPD statistics on jail bookings) was a proposal by City Commissioners Jerry Prepejchal and Gus Ruiz that downtown bars not be prohibited from being too close to each other. The commissioner wondered if ridding the city of the 100-foot spacing stipulation might not allow business-strapped Harlingen to follow McAllen's lead and create an entertainment district of its own, as the City of Palms has done successfully.

At present, bars in Harlingen are spaced out just enough so that dueling bartenders cannot eyeball each other. Conversely, town drunks say this spacing is exactly why they get in trouble when walking - er, stumbling - from one bar to the next one. No one from the HPD arrived to speak about the issue at last night's meeting - one characterized in local Blogs as being, well, boring and the equivalent of an overdose of Sominex...

- 30 -  

For The Sluggish Rio Grande Valley, A Backpack of Seemingly Road-Weary Politicians...Some Good, Most Bad.

By RON MEXICO
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - The starting line-up of Rio Grande Valley politicians forever in search of the publicity spotlight begins with the mayor of this border town - Pat Ahumada. Only, it must be said that he is followed closely in line by the likes of Charlie Atkinson, a commissioner with no taste for criticism and a manmountain desire for acceptance.

There are others, of course.

We preface this report by saying our assessment is our assessment and nothing more. We are certain the individuals we note here have their supporters, friends and relatives who would swear they are the best thing that has come to town since green salsa and accompanying triangle-shaped tortilla chips.

THE BAD:

1.) Mayor Chris Boswell, Harlingen - He supposedly leads a city so troubled and needy that it must float a $28 million bond issue to attract a national hunting & fishing supplies company with enough anecdotal negatives to make it a wildly suspect investment. Mssr. Boswell, an attorney, hasn't said much publicly about the Bass Pro Shop dealings, and perhaps that is a major clue. He is the quintessential passive leader, there aboard his fine horse, ambivalently holding back while watching his army make the battle ahead.

2.) City Commissioner Charlie Atkinson, Brownsville - This one appears to have only two of six cylinders working for the community. Mssr. Atkinson is good when he whacks at local bloggers in harsh missives that do carry some verbal clout. But when it comes to serving the city with positive work on the commission, he comes across as just another pickle in the pickle jar. Atkinson has been on the commission long enough to have made a difference. What that may be is anybody's guess - and that's the problem.

3.) Mayor Pat Ahumada, Brownsville - One would think that a former shrimp boat captain such as Ahumada would be able to steer a mere city, yet Ahumada's legacy will likely be his outings with beer and driving. The mayor who took the anti-Border Wall battle to the nation's capital can't find his way home - home being that place in a politician's gleam where great things are accomplished. Que lastima.

4.) Commissioner Kori Marra, Harlingen - The fish-out-of-water imagery comes into play with this novice politico. Ms. Marra, a native of West Texas, where politics is a middle school undertaking, cannot seem to find her legs in the quicksand geography that is Harlingen politics. At once bright and dumb, she insists on being taken seriously when serious is not a word one thinks of when considering anything to do with her. Of late, she has exhibited a certain no-no in declining to field criticism, leaving the fight to her backers and at least one Blogger in town. Perhaps there is still time for Ms. Marra. Bright would mean she recognizes that her political life is just beginning. Dumb would be her insistence on being seen as something special. Not yet, no.

THE GOOD:

1.) Mayor Richard Cortez, McAllen - He has the personality of a palm frond, but perhaps that serves the City of Palms well. Cortez leads a city acknowledged as the most progressive in the Rio Grande Valley. He speaks to high school graduates. He speaks the college kids. Cortez, unlike his fellow mayors in Harlingen and Brownsvile, is everywhere when civic duty calls. His only stumbling block in recent months was his handling of the proposed tennis courts park. Cortez sided by a plan whereby the city would raze its anbandoned botanical gardens in favor of the tennis center. The voters beat him, but Cortez's popularity rating remains high in town.

2.) Commissioner Melissa Zamora, Brownsville - Her legacy is yet to be written, but hers is the promise of true change for a city long the property & playground of Macho Patrones. With few exceptions, Brownsville has been ruled - some say whipped - by men more interested in themselves or in preserving the perception elsewhere in the state that Brownsville is a falling town. Commissioner Zamora, an outsider from Pleasanton, has yet to flex her political muscles. That isn't necssarily a bad thing for a politician in only her second year of public service. She's young. Her older critics will begin to die-off. It'll be clear sailing in the near future, says this writer.

3.) Commissioner Robert Leftwich, Harlingen -  We go on what we hear about Mssr. Leftwich. He is roundly seen in town as an up-and-comer, a politician not a member of the so-called Old Guard here. Leftwich has not as yet made his mark. Fronting creation of an advisory board for Senior Citizens is not going to gain him a great, great victory, but perhaps he's just dancing around the ring ahead of the 15-round brawl. We hope that is the case, as mouldy Harlingen remains the Most Under-Achieving city in the Rio Grande Valley. It'll take more than handing Bass Pro Shop many millions for residents of other RGV cities to take Harlingen seriously. We believe Mssr. Leftwich can tangle with those Ghosts of Harlingen Past, however many rounds that noble fight may require. There's the bell for the first round...

4.) City Commissioners, McAllen - Collectively, this crowd wins the proverbial Miss Congeniality contest. None is a well-known name, although none is a grandstander. We know. We have watched the McAllen City Commission's meetings on local Cable-TV and can report its service is very civilized with business conducted without the drama and dissonance we see in commission meetings over in Harlingen and Brownsville.

- 30 -

In McAllen, The Act We've Known For All These Years...

By SPEEDY AYALA
Special to The Tribune

McALLEN - The police chief here fielded questions from the press today about the weekend shooting outside a chicken wings joint that left a man dead at the scene. What Chief Victor Rodriguez said was that he was growing more and more alarmed at the boldness exhibited by fearless killers coming over from Mexico. "They seem to think they can just come over, kill someone, and then run back," Rodriguez explained.

That Ol' Running For The Border Act has been around for many, many years. Criminals bent on evading U.S. law have to navigate barely 11 miles to get from downtown McAllen to the international bridge that takes people across the border to Reynosa, a sprawling, ungovernable city where they can easily melt into the large population.

Rodriguez noted that the four shooters in the Chicken Wings Murder Case apparently stalked their male victim to the parking lot of a popular N. 10th Street eatery just a few doors down from the Barnes & Noble bookstore. Patrons told police their munchings were interrupted by loud voices and then louder gunfire. The victim died alongside his vehicle.

From there, the killers fled south on busy 10th Street toward the intersection of Expressway 83 and past La Plaza Mall and the grounds of McAllen International Airport. According to the chief, several witnesses to the chase joined the hunt, some pointing at the fleeing vehicle as cops began and stayed with the pursuit. The killers were captured at the border bridge in Hidalgo, only yards from Mexico. It was not the first time Mexican criminals have used that simplistic ploy: drive into town, do the deed, and beat feet back to Mexico.

Of late, law enforcement officials up and down the Rio Grande Valley have made mention of the international crime arriving at their doorsteps. It's not a spree, the chief noted with a certain terseness in his voice.

"Not yet!" this reporter said aloud...

- 30 -

[Editor's Note: Reporter Speedy Ayala is a newcomer to the Rio Grande Valley, but has years of experience covering border and Mexico crime. He hails from El Paso and now resides in Hidalgo with his bulldog, Lazlo. This is his second dispatch for The Tribune...]

The Business of The Rio Grande Valley is Waiting on Business...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor of The Tribune

HARLINGEN, Texas - Here's the difference in the portraits of the Rio Grande Valley's three largest cities, as things relate to new business anyway: In Brownsville, Barcelona Nights opens downtown after several weeks that followed the strange fire-bombing of an adjacent hotel that damaged its pizza & chicken wings operation; in Harlingen, the elusive dream comes in a proposed taxpayer-financed new Bass Pro Shop that may or may not come; in McAllen it is a new $10 million restaurant set to be completed in late-July.

A $10 million restaurant! No foolin'. Ten million bucks. There is no other dining destination in the entire RGV approaching it. This one is Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen, a highly-regarded restaurant better known upstate. By comparison, the latest Red Lobster in McAllen was built for a mere $3 million. It opened three months after ground was broken on far N. 10th Street and is now as crowded as Yankee Stadium on Old Timers Night, when Berra and Reggie and Mattingly and Guidry and Gossage show up to thrill the fans in the hallowed grounds of the Bronx.

The wide range of offerings to the citizens of the three RGV cities is yet another measure of their progress. Brownsville wallows in attracting mid-level businesses, such as Denny's and Starbucks and Holiday Inn Express. Harlingen pushes its hometown downtown, where mom & pop shops reign as if it's still 1972. Its best-known tourist attraction? A baseball park featuring a minor league team.

In McAllen, Pappadeauxs is sparing no money in bringing a cathedral of a restaurant. It will seat 504 in the main room and another 30 or so at the ornate bar. It will draw families who will oooooh and aaaaah at seeing its $130,000 water fountain in what will be the table-waiting area, there alongside a $100,000 bar availing, yes, my favorite Shiraz vino. And that doesn't even speak of its seafood, no doubt the best that will ever have come to fajita-happy McAllen and the rest of the region. It'll be found there near the old El Centro Mall off U.S. 83. For the Houston-based Pappas family, it is a promising venture.

In cahoots with McAllen's much-ballyhooed Downtown Entertainment District, the new restaurant, which opens in September, will afford locals and visitors yet another First Class attraction. For the City of Palms, it is a time for going all-out, for soliciting businesses that long-thought the Valley market simply could not support the very best. It seems to be doing it just fine. Amberjack's, the pride and joy of South Padre Island, opened an eatery in McAllen, on busy N. 23rd Street, a few weeks back. El Pastor and La Fogata, legendary in Reynosa, Mexico across the Rio Grande, are doing gangbusters business in McAllen and Sharyland respectively.

Brownsville has apparently pulled-in, opting to push for a slow approach to any new businesses downtown. Ruling that economic roost are a number of used clothing stores anchoring prime real estate, colorfully-named hair salons, noisy bars and a sprinkling of Tex-Mex cafes. Not that there is an absence of provincial pride in town; the return of Barcelona Nights drew coverage in the local newspaper. Harlingen's main drag, 77 Sunshine Strip, has its attractions, only it must be said that there is nothing spectacular to make, say, someone from McAllen drive the 30 harrowing miles they'd need to drive to get there.

Operators of the Pappadeaux's restaurant are pretty sure it will draw discerning diners - and the curious - from all points in the Rio Grande Valley. Bucolic Brownsville, meanwhile, awaits the return of Pan Am Airlines, while dream-challenged Harlingen is ready to provide Bass Pro Shops with the bounty of a $25 million to $28 million bond sale...

- 30 -     

Brownsville Dreams Of A Day When Its Colonias and Shacks Disappear...

By RON MEXICO
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - A casual drive across this town never has been one for the eyes. The dominant Catholic Church in town likes to say Brownsville residents suffer the harsh local geography in payment for the sins of their fathers and because to not suffer would be to not deserve Heaven. Who knows about that. The boys in the bars say everything looks awful because politicians have no other mental image of what a community can be, can offer.

There are colonias in the area, horrible places for living, for raising children, but there they are. And there are neighborhoods where the word "poor" does not do justice to the pain and poverty being endured. Shoeless kids play in the unkempt streets. Mangy dogs amble about as if on Cocaine or as if on their last legs. The elderly wonder about where yesterday went. The young ask for divine intervention that never comes.

Welcome to Hard Times. The book depicting life in this God-abandoned town would be written in no less than 600 long chapters. Wheelbarrows would be needed to wheel one out of the library.

We ask: When will it end? When will residents of this love-starved bordertown of 120,000 souls see progress? Colonias symbolize the worst, but there is still more bad than good in a town that could never define - or paint - good.

There is no vision for tomorrow, no dreaming the impossible dream.

We could throw out suggestions about resolving the colonia and shack housing you see from one end of the Rio Grande Valley to the other. Not that politicians would buy them. No, one has to look far and wide for ideas - the Big Cities are trying even the wildest solutions to housing problems.

In New York, the State Assembly recently adopted a new loft law that affects thousands of people unable to pay the expensive apartment leases in Manhattan. The new law protects loft tenants from unfair rent hikes and eviction. This includes those people who move into abandoned warehouses, in Brooklyn especially, and fix up the place to create individual housing.

This means that thousands of people living in factories and warehouses from Brooklyn to the Bronx could now become rent-stabilized. “It's a huge win for keeping the middle class in the city,” said Jean Grillo, a TriBeCa playwright and loft tenant. “Thank God - it’s been a long time coming.”

So, we again ask: Why cannot some bold Rio Grande Valley elected official (Hell-o, Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos) dare to dream? Why not help the poor living in despicable and shameful housing in the outlying areas of Brownsville? Why not find houses in disrepair or abandoned by owners and hand them over to the poor. They would certainly take the help and, soon, these houses would be fixed-up, thus allowing the new owners to become members of civilization and not of a world where they are more animals than Human Beings.

Such an effort by elected officials would be novel, and it too would be a grand example of doing something positive for the constituency. That's a rarity, we know...

- 30 -

Sunday Editorial: Away With Words...

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Special to The Tribune

McALLEN, Texas - Back in the mid-1980s, when I was bureau chief for the Houston Post's Galveston office, I wrote a story about the mayor of little Santa Fe, a town out in Galveston County not known for anything in particular. The story, as I recall, centered on the veteran mayor's bid for re-election, his umpteenth, as happens in rural Texas. Well, I wrote the story, in which I described him as a tireless politician and all that. But somewhere in there, I got a little silly and called him "the fajita-faced mayor."

The story was sent to Houston, where it went into the next day's editions. It was early when I got a call from my editor, Tom Nelson.

"Morning," he said, and I returned the greeting.

"Hey," he went on. "If you get a call from your fajita-faced mayor, well, I want you to have him call me."

"Sure," I said. "You think he'll call?"

"Oh, he'll call...and he'll threaten to file a lawsuit against the newspaper. I know those people out there."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and I just don't want you to get into it with him," he said next. "He'd not take it right if you went into that literature-in-a-hurry thing you like to use about newspapers." Tom was laughing. I said okay, sure. Whatever. There were other stories on my plate. Galveston was a rocking town for news. Oil spills and trash on the beach. Wandering winos. Big U.T. hospital. Tourists decrying the lack of toilets on the beach. Local politics. The journalism gamut.

The mayor called late in the morning.

"I saw the story," he began. I readied myself to give him Tom Nelson's number at The Post.

"My wife read it," he said as I cleared my throat. Then, after a second or two, he added, "...and she's still laughing. She can't get over the image of me being a fajita-faced mayor. I haven't seen her laugh so much in a decade. I just, well, wanted to thank you. I enjoyed the story."

I ran my pen several times over Tom's direct number on the notepad in front of me. I'd not need it.

"Here," the mayor said, "I'll let the wife talk to you..."

She talked and laughed and talked. And it made me laugh in a certain other way. My story had been pretty dry, except for the fajita face reference. And as I'd sat there after Tom's call, it did strike me that the description had not been necessary. The story was the story, with it or without it.

Moral: Words do take on meaning when they're used in print. Newspapers take great care in not being silly, although the smaller the newspaper the less the care. Bloggers, on the other hand, seem eager to blast, to stomp, to posture, to humiliate. This is in large part due to the fact that Blog visitors come to the sites voluntarily; that is, no one forces them to visit this or that Blog. You find what you find and that's that.

My feeling on all that is that, here in the Rio Grande Valley, news is wild and silly enough without the hyperbole, without the adjectives, and without the boots-to-the-face. Fajita-faced mayor? We haven't used that descriptive phrase here...but all of us know it could be used daily...

- 30 -  

From Down & Out Brownsville, A Flaccid Water Balloon Sails Toward Stunned Harlingen...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

HARLINGEN, Texas - In the low-rent movie version of this border cantina brawl, Jerry McHale is the third tourist from the left - a known rabble-rouser arriving in town to do his dastardlty deed. Yep, that Blogging prankster from down the road in Brownsville, where he is known to lash hometown characters mercilessly, with seeming impunity, where his reputation comes with the understanding that half of the joke is on his Blog, El Rocinante.com. How else to look at it? One would think that enough naked women have been paraded on that Blog to fill the town's largest public venue twice-over with dangling breasts and sexy, leggy sweethearts. Indeed, if sheer numbers alone are any indication, well, the vagina has been chewed beyond recognition on El Rocinante.com.

And so, it brings us to this: Should Harlingen get bent out of shape when El Rocinante attacks, as it did all day today? The Blog spared no pejorative, no bad adjective in assailing Harlingen as a racist town inhabited by ignorant goobers. Should Harlingen have made it a Big Deal, as it did on several of its Blogs?

There is no Big Deal. El Rocinante's assault is just another example of the notorious Blogosphere doing what it does best, namely availing the venue for such cross-county whippings. We then ask a bigger question: Can readers depend on Bloggers for objective, truth-based news? Or is what we have here in this tirade against Harlingen just another wanton shotgunning whose sole motivation is to titillate with loaded language, to dress others in the threads profanity and ridicule.

Well, Bloggers are definitely not "journalists;" they are, however, reporters - individuals "reporting" what they've heard or seen or imagined, often the latter. Opinion is a huge part of Blogging. Often, these opinions are extremely critical, disconnected with fact, or even ill-intentioned on purpose. So you ask yourself, "Is the Blog I follow dependable?" The answer is this: You decide. Just as you decided to plunk those two quarters into the news box to get the daily newspaper. A Blog may not be objective. Most are not. Most need that free shot at the community they serve to survive, either as a cartoonish version of the local newspaper or as an outright sledgehammer, no apologies offered.

The latest offerings coming from ElRocinante (note: the Blog does afford visitors the opportunity to opt out on its explicit material) pertaining to the city of Harlingen can be categorized as nothing more than free shots, writing steeped in semblances and rumor of history. That Bloggers in Harlingen quickly slammed El Rocinante in return is no surprise. They openly wondered about that Blog's motives, some noting that El Rocinante has enough material to fill a 12-part volume of God-awful tales to do with its own town. Yet, therein lies the beauty of Blogging: One can Blog about anywhere from anywhere. That's the Computer Age coming at you, baby.

We have done it. We have Blogged from airports, from Dallas, from New York and elsewhere on several occasions, all for material we used on The Tribune here in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. It's not right and it's not wrong - it's the Electronic Age we live in. So, should Harlingen residents have been bent out of shape at reading today's skull-whacking posts on El Rocinante.com? Of course not.

Why? Well, for one you can again thank the Computer Age. The Internet is the hungriest of beasts and Bloggers know that readers demand fresh material every day. El Rocinante will trot onward blithely, quickly forgetting Harlingen like it forgets the people it whips in Brownsville, like it even forgets itself from time to time...

- 30 -     

REFLECTIONS FROM THE TOWN CHARCO: Lleno De Rosas Y Amor...

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Special to The Tribune

SAN JUAN, Texas - When I was 10 years old, my grandfather sold my bicycle with the promise that I would get a new one the following week. He got $15 for it, or at least that's what I was told. Who knows? A kid that age can only look forward to the next day. I did get a new bike, but not until about a year later. It was a neat, basic bike. No special features on it, like a night light or horn or streamers for the handlebars. I rode that damned bike everywhere, to school, Little League practice, the store, my friend's house and even downtown. I loved that bike, but, as with many, many things that came later in Life, I got over it.

My family likes to remind me that I do not have the "care" gene so prevalent in my siblings. They say I can take or leave family reunions, that I give no value to birthdays, anniversaries, graduations or marriages. I've not been to one marriage for any of my siblings or nieces and nephews. I used to think it all came from my days as a boy, when my two brothers would beat me to a pulp and leave me crying on the living room floor. My mother would storm in, scold them loudly and they'd run-off. She'd tell me to be tough, but I'd stay on the floor, crying, knowing I'd never be able to defend myself against them. Yet, it always has been easy for me to love, to romance a woman. Now, when they get to see me, my brothers will hug me and smile smiles the size of Montana. What a world, eh? Yes, my relationships mentor was my grandfather, a man who had his favorite watering hole, a grandfather who took his grandson along to learn the best of ropes. That may explain my fondness for waitresses of all sorts. For me, they are the most exotic of birds.

So, when I mosey into a bar and spot a young couple sitting together, sipping their alcohol, holding hands, looking into their eyes, I bring back my own memories of women who fell into my world. I write about this stuff in my new book - The Scorpion's Son. I write about my grandfather's silly, flirtatious ways. I write about a bar waitress he befriended and later loved. I write about how when he died my grandmother found this woman's photo in his wallet, and not one of her. I write about the reflection of coming home after many years abroad, and, for Valleyites, even Dallas is abroad. In a certain, sure way, this book allowed me the chance to unload a lot of my youth in novel form. Did I capture all of it? Nope.

It is a funny thing how looking backward, insisting on flashbacking to another time in clear imagery, helps the tired soul. The book is 300-plus pages, yet I feel as though much was left out of the story. Life is amazing. So much to be accounted for, to be explained, to be remembered, to be forgotten, to be regretted. Who were those people who ambled into my life? And why did they leave? Tell me, Lord, where are my women?

The photo above grabbed me for a variety of reasons, one being the simplicity of the moment these two are enjoying. She may or may not be his wife. She may or may not love this guy. He may be married to another woman, or he may simply have bopped-in and offered to buy her drink. They could be the chosen couple of the universe for this particular night, two lonely souls looking for something special inside a place that offers little other than refuge from the cultural storms. Where will they go after the bar closes? 

I dunno, I dunno. My place is on the Moon,  and I miss it. Perhaps I have been here too long, here being the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Read my book...

 - 30- 

[EDITOR'S NOTE:..This story was posted here back in April. We are watching the World Cup today and cannot come out to play. Enjoy...]

LAST CALL FOR ALCOHOL: Harlingen Battles Boozers, Cops Log Large Number of Arrests...

By LESTER CANTU
Special to The Tribune

HARLINGEN, Texas - So, you're driving the streets of this Mid-Valley town and you spot a few cop cars merely rolling up and down the streets, officers aboard seemingly out for an air-conditioned cruise, and you start thinking those guys are looking for a donut shop. Well, maybe.

But if you see an officer making an arrest, chances are he or she is busting someone for either Driving While Under The Influence (DWI) or Public Intoxication (P.I.). How do we know? One out of every three arrests made so far this month have been for either DWI or P.I., or so says the Harlingen Police Department's accounting Jail List. Bookings have totaled 147 through this morning, with 48 of those being for the aforementioned reasons.

That's almost 33% of all arrests.

For a city that wears its Republican clothing with some kind of public morality pride, all that boozing would seem to be a bit out of character. Drinking in the Rio Grande Valley is a Brownsville thang, as they like to mouth in Rap music. Quien Sobby? Quien? All we know is that these statistics sort of surprised us. One would have surmised that, with Harlingen's reputation as the Gray, Old Lady of The Valley, that, yeah, the bigger portion of arrests would have been for, well, talking or chewing gum in line - something Middle America like that.

But boozing? Well, we don't know if every one of these individuals nabbed by local fuzz actually reside in Harlingen. They just could be wandering dudes and fun-starved chicks driving over from Brownsville, yeah. In any case, it caught my attention and my editor - Patrick Alcatraz - said something about it being Friday and, well there it went...

- 30 -

[Editor's Note: The photo accompanying this story is of a woman arrested in Colleyville, a Dallas suburb, where the city posts mugs of all DWI/Public Intoxication busts on a website, perhaps wishing to shame them. The City of El Paso also does it: http://www.elpasotexas.gov/ - see police department...]

It's Hot, The Summer Scorch Begins, And, In Brownsville, The Time To Go Naked Is Now...

By PAUL HARASIM
Special to The Tribune

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Oh, boy. Maybe a torrid drug war flaring only blocks away isn't enough to scare the fajitas out of this town. Or, well, perhaps that is the very reason behind a woman's desire to undress, to say "To Hell with everything!" and hit the cool waters of a local fountain for a little R & R. The local fuzz, ever the quick responders to naked women in public, arrested her bare butt early Wednesday night.

Going nude is suddenly in here. Earlier this week, a young streaker cut across Pace High School's graduation, in his own way making a public statement against local ennui.

In the case of the brazen skinny dipper, cops arrested 27-year-old Priscilla Falduto and charged her with indecent exposure for allegedly swimming nude in the Washington Park fountain. No description was given about her - ahem - body style, bosom or hair preference.

Falduto didn't see strict punishment on the flirtation, but outstanding warrants allowed officers to transport her to the popular Carrizalez-Rucker Detention Center, said police spokesman Sgt. Jimmy Manrrique.

The young woman blames the day's hot temperatures and admitted that she regularly hit the resacas in the buff. But, as in all things young & old, several elderly residents spotted her splashings in the drink and called police, saying they were, yes, offended...

- 30 -

In Tiny Sullivan City, Bad News From The Police Department...

By SPEEDY AYALA
Special to The Tribune

SULLIVAN CITY, Texas - Imagine a miniature version of Brownsville, except with loads more dust and less goofy-looking people and you have this town, out in the western outs of the Rio Grande Valley, on the road to Rio Grande City. It isn't known for any damned thing. Well, some say this is where the word "Orale!" was invented and where no holiday season passes without some resident calling a neighbor to say she's seen the face of Jesus Christ on a tortilla.

Now comes police Chief Hernan Guerra to blow it. Or so it would seem after his arrest on Wednesday by FBI agents arriving here as part of a national drug-pusher/dealer sweep. Guerra, say the feds, is alleged to have been wheeling & dealing with Mexico’s drug cartels. Agents aren't talking, but here they came in the pre-dawn hours to bust Guerra and occupy the police department. Files were confiscated. Records were impounded. Sullivan City quickly found itself at the end of a frayed rope, as they say in westerns.

Operation Deliverance is what the feds are calling their sweep, with busts also coming in Atlanta, Houston, New York and other cities, presumably all on the Marijuana and Cocaine highways.

For the little town used to being ignored and used to existing as if in a time warp, news of the chief's arrest moved across town like one of those rolling earthquakes you see in Japanese B-movies. Eyebrows went to the clouds. Some shook their heads and wondered what else God had in store for the poor village where nothing fun ever happens. "It's always drugs," said Johanna Jentete, a yard worker. "We can't get a break, man. Once, just once, I'd like to see some good news come to Sullivan City."

City Manager Rolando Gonzalez agreed. He told the press this: “It gives us a bad name. But he (Chief Guerra) is just one individual. He is not the entire organization.”

As Thursday arrived this morning, it was an ill wind that blew into town in more than just meteorological terms...

- 30 -

For Little Brownsville, Life Sucks And Then The Crickets Chime-In...

By RON MEXICO

Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - It wasn't that long ago that the local daily newspaper outed a school politician for claiming to be a medical doctor when all he had was a few years of study at a Mexican university. Then, into the pomp of a recent high school graduation, came a teenager in nothing but a jockstrap to rev-up the graduates and the audience. This morning, the silly war between the local branch of the University of Texas and a pack of wild-eyed bloggers continues unabated, its march symbolic of nothing else except ingratitude.

In its place, I would suggest, should come a roundhouse "thank you" to every single educator from every citizen of this falling town, for the word elsewhere is that Brownsville, home to some 120,000 under-achieving Americans, is damned lucky to have a college at all.

Yet, like diarrhea-on-a-schedule, the Bloggers persist in damning the one insitution that can get them out of the sinkhole that is border life. Pitiful is worn proudly around here, as is the adjective pathetic. The look on the faces of locals tells it all: Gimme something, gimme something now, and gimme it for free.

The target of the bloggers is University of Texas-Brownsville and Texas Southmost College President Dr. Julieta Garcia. At issue for the Hoi Polloi of the Internet are student fees, supposed educational dominance on the part of Garcia, school politics, favoritism and the annoying, to some, fact that Dr. Garcia serves both the four-year college (UT-B) and the minor league TSC. As Arne Duncan might say, "Boys, whoop-de-dooo."

The world is falling apart for little Brownsville. Bigger issues abound. Unemployment is now listed as a tourist destination in town. Jobs are scarce. Men who want to work are scarcer. Indeed, the one outlet that  is doing gangbusters business is the city library, where free computers bring the power of the Internet to a host of idle residents. And so they come, to whittle away their time, to network with the outside world, to waste another day posting inane commentary on blogs from here to Borneo. Life is cheap in Brownsville, and, as they say in the South Pacific, it's as if everyone is on downers.

Lucky is a word they hate in Brownsville. And they hate it because lucky they are, as in lucky to have anything worth a damn, as in lucky to be considered America, as in lucky to exist. If ever a town needed to be named Rotten, Texas, perhaps it is this one. Tales of government corruption ring back through the decades like cowbells on a herd of cows that just won't die gracefully.

The mess between the bloggers and the colleges is a mirage, sham to the core. True, there are problems with UT-B and TSC. But, truth be told, there are problems with damned near everything here, from drinking-and-driving, to packs of stray animals, to horrible unemployment, to life-sucking politics, to long lines at the computer check-out booth at the city library.

Education? Education at UT-B and TSC?

Get real...

- 30 -