People Who Mattered In 2010: A Retired Journalist Dons Pads And Becomes The City's Fullback...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

HARLINGEN, Texas - Perhaps it's not the best of times to use football analogies around here now that the vaunted Harlingen Cardinals have been sent packing by yet another San Antonio high school football squad, but Blogger Jerry Deal has known what it feels like to dive head-first into the end zone, also known journalistically around here as La Zona Final.

Deal has spent the better part of the year being hounded by the blogging opposition. He has made plays and blown plays. As tireless editor of MyLeaderNews.com, the heady 78-year-old sparkplug has never asked to be taken out of the game, even when the opposition has piled-on with relish. Without question, Deal has broken more stories here than Capone broke fingers in 1920s Chicago. He has played offense and defense, and he has bludgeoned his chief rival to the point that that same opponent has dropped a level in district play.

"Jerry Deal may be an old coot," said one resident of this much-whipped town. "He may be from another era or planet or whatever, but there are days when he's all we got. Without Deal, there is no independent reporting."

Fair enough. For that alone, we concur with our Winter Texan readership and add Jerry Deal to our People Who Mattered in 2010 list.

We firmly believe that Deal fumbled the ball in that sad episode to do with his padding his own reader comments, but we also must note that he recovered deftly and kept setting sail for that fabled Zona Final. He's up to the job of being, at the very least, a dependable Harlingen news source, and, come Hell or High Water, he'll muster-up for the daily fray. Plus, really, we cannot imagine goofy minor league baseball in the RGVofTexas without Mssr. Deal. In that world, it could be said that he occasionally strikes out, but, all in all, the bizarre Jose Canseco summer freak show aside, Deal keeps hacking away at all offerings...

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People Who Mattered In 2010: For Blogger Jerry McHale, It Was One More Year Of Whipping A Lousy Bordertown Into Shape...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

MATAMOROS, Mexico - Once, while walking home down one of this bordertown's worst streets in the dead of night, Jerry McHale came up on an old woman walking her menudo-fattened dog. Stumbling while out of his gourd and slurring like some American soldier back in Saigon for a little self-whipping, he neared the woman, and then said, "Nice pig you got there..."

"It's a dog, you drunken asshole!" the chubby woman said in reply.

McHale gulped a wad of Tequila-flavored saliva before firing back: "I was talking to the dog..."

Such is the legend of the heartless man who saw his year sink in a nano-second when his beloved blog - El Rocinante - was yanked off the Internet, ending a 30-year, generation-of-swine run that came with thousands of stories to do with cheap local politics and photography that could not be seen as anything other than brutal porno. But, like Richard M. Nixon, he came back with a new venture - The Brownsville Literary Review, a blog not unlike El Rocinante, only with an intellectual-sounding name. It's still the alley-walking El Rocinnate, in our opinion.

And although we'd not do things his way, McHale, shown at left in photo atop this story, serves a purpose in low-rent Brownsville. It appears he sees his job in the same manner that Stalin saw his needy, post-war Moscow: It absolutely needed a daily spanking. Local politicians and bureaucrats have come to expect seeing their names alongside vicious vocabulary and, at times, alongside a gaping Vagina or erect Cock. Brownsville, in McHale's world, is about wanton sex. Indeed, he likes to tell outsiders his hometown always smells like sperm, and that it remains a town where men are men and women are for men.

And so, because we believe Brownsville still needs a daily whipping, we add Mssr. McHale to our list of People Who Mattered in 2010.

Now, all bets will be off if we hear that he's been to the county jail for a visit with imprisoned blogger Juan Montoya. And it wouldn't be because we'd be against one loyal pal visiting another; it's just that a Jerry McHale exhibiting such acceptable human feelings, well, is not the Jerry McHale the falling town's known for all these years. Oh, yeah, and we still remember the night he tipped a lanky prostitute outside La Rata Muerta bar at the local Boy's Town.

If our memory serves us right, he handed her an ancient 5 peso bill and said, "You work on not falling off the bed while I'm inside you and there'll be more where that came from..."

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People Who Mattered In 2010: Brownsville City Commissioner Melissa Zamora Learning On The Job...But Thoughtfully Stepping-Up...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ

Editor-In-Chief

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Border politics forever brings out the harsh opposition, the envious and the never-satisfied. For many here, that game is a cheap exercise in mindless mudslinging. On nights when the City Commission meets, regular folks come out to lob biting commentary at their public servants - some of it deserved, most of it inane. Creative vocabulary does not know a better venue in town. It is something to behold.

In that receiving bunch is City Commissioner Melissa Zamora, a woman who has seen the worst of mud aimed her way. And we won't excuse her every political move, but we do believe this lady has done a few things that we can roundly endorse. Last Summer, she introduced a resolution against the hated anti-immigrant law being entertained in Arizona. No other city or town in the RGVofTexas did that, which was surprising. And she championed the abandonment of plastic bags at the grocery store - a point for her environmental concerns.

In a year that saw a myriad of issues hit City Hall, she also pushed the idea of re-vamping the Brownsville Convention and Visitors Bureau. For many years, the BCVB had a one-page contract with the City that said nothing about how the city would benefit from the arrangement. She wrote, proposed and passed a plan and contract requiring the BCVB Board to include members of the tourism industry. As with all change that comes to town, she caught political heat for eliminating the entity's penchant for doing business Compadre-style - an approach centering on outright favoritism. The BCVB is now making major strides.


On another front, she fought against unbridled funding of the controversial Sports Park, noting that its budget comes from sales tax revenues. Commissioner Zamora's way was to let the community know that more than 90-percent of alloted quality-of-life tax revenue funding of it unjustly went to the Sports Park. As she put it, this left crumbs for the City's museums, the remaining 20-plus parks, etc., etc.

Attracting business for this struggling city of more than 140,000 residents also appears to be one of her interests. She can be found working with the BEDC and meeting with prospective businesses during their site visits. Ms. Zamora brought KIDFISH to the City of Brownsville in partnership with a local non-profit. This all-free event drew more than 1,500 people, and more than 600 children received free fishing rods, goodie bags, giveaways, food, etc. For many families, it was their first fishing experience. KIDFISH is now an annual event.

Shoes grabbed her attention, as well. After reading a newspaper report about the Valley's state mental hospital's need for 150 pairs of shoes, she worked with  local businesses to locate various shoe donation sites. Recently, she organized a volunteer committee to help collect toys for foster children, toys that will be dispensed at a Christmas Party expected to draw 750 of Cameron County's foster children.

And this year, she asked City administrative staff to seek consideration for a Texas Municipal League award. For the first time, Brownsville received the "Community Spirit" Award at the TML Conference - an award that came thanks to the efforts of the City Commission, the City staff and community related to environmental and health initiatives.

The aformentioned is enough for The Tribune to include City Commissioner Melissa Zamora (shown in photo above) among its list of People Who Mattered in 2010.

Now, if only she will expand her list of things to tackle next year. In the Valley, it is too-easy for a public servant to merely go through the motions, to spout great plans that never see fruition, to act as if things are being accomplished at City Hall. We do not agree with everything Ms. Zamora has done this year, yet we still believe her few years in politics are only the beginning of a career that should eventually show more positives than negatives. This much is true: Legacies allow time for a little on-the-job-learning...

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On This Thanksgiving Day, A Time For Reflection and For Giving Thanks...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

McALLEN, Texas - We pause on this clammy day from the daily hubbub of all that is wrong with this Great Land to give thanks for much that has come our way this year. And, we trust things have gone well in the lives of all who join us here from time to time. May you and yours enjoy this special, special day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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People Who Mattered In 2010: Harlingen's Joe Rubio, A Private Investigator Who Investigated...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

HARLINGEN, Texas - He's the only one who's publicly gone after wrongdoing at City Hall, actually been the tireless gumshoe doing the legwork local bloggers and other ever-concerned residents didn't do. He's gone after Mayor Chris Boswell, after City Commissioner Kori Marra, after a slew of local bureaucracies falling short on service or accomplishment.

And he's taken on the city police department - his former employer - on a variety of cases he says were worked badly, or never worked. A presence at most local socio-political functions, he was even accused of raiding a botana at one such gathering, reportedly scarfing more than his share of free tamales. Nothing wrong with that when you're doing pro bono work for your community, says this observer.

For those reasons alone, The Tribune today names local Private Investigator Joe Rubio as one of its People Who Mattered in 2010...

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In Cameron County, The News Is There Is No News...County Judge's Job Still Up in The Air...Reporters Flock to Powerlines...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Journalists with even one year of field reporting experience know of the trade's chief competitive phenomenon: when one news outlet gets wind of a story and hustles to get it, the other media outfits in the area will quickly flock to the same scene. It is known as the "Blackbirds-on-the-Powerline Theory," and it is found to be true time and time again.

The ongoing canvassing of election votes at the Cameron County Courthouse here drew representatives from just about every news media company in the RGVofTexas, bloggers included. It was the story of the day. Questions moved across the city's geography like worker ants. Reporters arrived early Monday morning with satchels full of notebooks and extra pens. They were ready for info, for news that, at last, a winner would be named in the race for county judge.

It's been three weeks today since county voters walked to their respective precincts to cast their ballots. Much has and hasn't happened in the interim. The incumbent, portly Carlos Cascos, a rare Hispanic Republican, was declared the winner in initial tabulations. However, as with any B-movie worth its weight in low-rent mystery, something happened and more votes were then found for his opponent, the Democrat John Wood, who was then said to be the real winner. Late yesterday, someone found 69 votes someone else had lost and, just as fast as you can say "Que diablos!", there was Cascos back in the lead.

With a plot - and sub-plots - worthy of a Tom Clancy novel, the story has weaved in and out of credibility for days. Rumors continue to spike like weeds rising against lawnmowers. "The fix is in, and there's a whore involved!" crowed Jerry McHale in his oddly-named political blog, Brownsville Literary Review. Others, such as Brownsville Voice and Harlingen's My Leader News, chimed-in with immediate assessments and a litany of emotional reader pronouncements that came easily, but arrived with few facts. The contest is not yet over. One more precinct box remains to be counted, and its contents will not be revealed until this afternoon. Yesterday's desayuno session at the courthouse was said to be contentious, rivaling the infighting seen aboard the Mayflower as it sailed into what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. Cascos played the aggrieved character in full-disbelief; Wood was said to be spectacular in his part as alleged foil for his party's boss, one Gilberto Hinojosa.

It'll all shake out, not that many county residents would seem to care. This is a political scrap, meaningless to the thousands of unemployed residents who'd rather hear about jobs, useless to those who work a 9-to-5 day and don't have time for games and bullshit, ridiculous to those living better lives in neighboring counties.

But we are taken by the energy displayed on the blogs and in the suddenly-excitable newsroom of the Brownsville Herald. If only it amounted to something positive. Reporting on a fight only benefits the fighters. We have yet to see anything in the daily newspapers - or in the Blogs - about what it would mean to the citizenry if, say, John Wood wins the job. Will it mean anything different than if Cascos is re-elected?

Who knows?

The blackbirds are busy fluttering their wings as they do their damndest to swoop past craggy mesquite branches to find a place on the county powerline...

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Me & My Flea Market:...How I Found A Place In The Sun...Need A Giant Taco?...Underwear...Clothes...Tools...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

SAN JUAN, Texas - The day broke sunny, one of those late-November days with high humidity and temperatures in the low-90s. A wispy cloud or two angled-in, perhaps thinking should I stop somewhere here, or should I slide over toward cooler Alpine out west? Steady, moist-heavy winds crashed through tree branches and palm fronds, no doubt believing there was just no one to stop them. Life is funny that way in the rainy, cloudy, muggy, blowing world of meteorology. No damned respect for human feelings from those guys.

But it was morning and church was done and the football games were hours away. The destination seemed a worthy one: morning at the flea market.

Welcome to the shopping mall as something from the Cro-Magnon Era. Neanderthals walking in any day now. I jest. Flea markets are too-damned-cute. Life all around. Voices rising from behind makeshift displays of music CDs, baby clothes, Mexican pan dulce, tools, shoes, blue jeans, bridal gear, voices coming at you in differing tones, but in the same manner: "Pasele, pasele!" Come on in, son. That $6 straw cowboy hat'll look killer on you. Hey, here's a leather vest from Guanajuato, Mexico - the real deal.

It's a taste of Old Mexico, although you can find flea markets just about everywhere in this country. The mother of all flea markets - Trader's Village in Grand Prairie between Dallas and Fort Worth - is a monster-sized enterprise that surely is about the same size as Harlingen. Los Lobos play there once ayear. So do Los Lonely Boys. Helicopter rides. Chili cook-offs. Patsy Cline and Selena impersonators.

Here, here in San Juan's no-frills flea market off Expressway 83, it is not quite as profitable an undertaking. Booths are basic. Plywood on blocks everywhere, some fold-out tables. A woman selling plants is saying something about the ferns she is selling. Her customer says three bucks and the woman says no, five. Down the row of sun-shaded stalls lives a taco stand selling pillow-sized tacos for $12. You can feed a family of five with those stunningly gargantuan things. Had to be a dozen tomatoes in it, maybe three lettuces. Around the bend loomed an economic shop trading on lingerie. A blue, butterfly panty for $4, ready to be boxed and wrapped for Xmas. You can almost hear it: "Here, hon. Merry Christmas. Got it at Dillard's...put it on. Lemme see ya in it..."

They're up and down the RGVofTexas, from Rio Grande City to Brownsville on the eastern fringe. Want a five-pound bag of peanuts? Over there. Stuffed toys for the kids now living with their stingy stepfather? No problem. Need a used tire? It'll even be installed at no extra charge by the guys working the car repair area.

It's rather enjoyable, like going to Paris and watching European TV. The picture is familiar, only something's very different. All this sort of belongs here, however. Fresh-faced families are all over the place and the parking lots are packed. You'll find a minimal admission price, to perhaps pay for the security cops. It'll stay open til sundown, a time in the day when the winds have died down and the packing and folding and accounting of the day's receipts ends another stab at capitalism. Taxes, we presume, will be tabulated and forwarded to the city and state. We wonder, yes.

Life is daily...

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The Thrum Of History:...Why Cameron County's Ditzy Elections Serve Only A Few...You Can Count Votes Forever, But Nothing Changes...

"Since Freud, the center of man is not where we thought it was; one has to go on from there..." - Jacques Lacan


By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - The thought crossed my mind as I wondered about this elections mess that has the Cameron County Judge's position in limbo: Would things be better in this oft-whipped town if it banned all men. A City of Women; that may be the only solution for those wishing to rid dirt-poor Brownsville of its rotten politics, the same crooked politics that's always had this dusty bordertown on its knees. Such a banning of the Macho male would go a long way toward saving a chained population subjected to decades of mental beat-downs.

Yep, I always thought that the best Texas-Mexico border novel would not be about any person or personality, but about a bordertown itself. What a biography one could write about Brownsville! You would start with a scene at a motel where the wife of a local luminary is getting her kicks in the company of a mid-level bureaucrat half her age. And then you could segue into a scene where the ever-drunken mayor is being busted by city cops barely a block away. In the newsroom of the local newspaper, a young, naive reporter would get into it with the publisher about why the big stories were forever ignored. A fiery election would soon follow and the town's people would agonize over some alleged vote-count mischief, only that would pass quickly and nothing would ever come of it. Somewhere in there, a do-gooder Blogger would be arrested and jailed. Eyes would go to the ceiling; mouths would freeze in wonderment. Smalltown vignettes, someone would throw out, are juicy and sexy. The well-hipped woman shagging in the motel would next be seen waltzing into another motel room, this time with a high-ranking police official carrying a bag of sex toys, the handle of his weathered whip clearly visible even from the motel office.

Night would come, followed by rain. It would rain in every damned chapter - perhaps offered by the author as a metaphor for the citizen's desire to clean-up after fucking around all day and again look forward to the following just-as-stupid day.

It is in a ragged world such as this that any politician plying his trade in Brownsville acts out the required drama. You wish to run for office? Well, son, you better bring your A-game, i.e. dirty tricks. And check in with your party chairman. You a Democrat? That'll be Mssr. Gilberto Hinojosa. Drop-in on him. Tell him you have this freakin' hunger for public service. Tell him you want to serve the entire county. Tell him you're clean. Tell him you hate Republicans. Tell him all Republicans suck elephant cocks. Tell him you know your county political history. Tell him you're ready to throw punches. Tell him you've seen Eddie Lucio, the state senator, in action for more than a decade. Tell him you want to be just like the State Rep. Rene Oliveira, the career politician whose nickname of "The Plump Partridge" speaks to his goddamned comfortable standing in life thanks to the voters. Tell the party chairman whatever the Hell it is you have to tell him. It's the prize that matters, isn't it?

Damned county is falling apart. It could move itself south of the Rio Grande and fall in with Mexico in all facets of the game, food, music, culture, law and bullshit without skippinga  beat. Why any self-respecting Human Being able to think would want to spend any length of time in Cameron County is the mystery. It must be something to wake up in Brownsville and know exactly where you are, and know it isn't a nice place, and know that the city is the city dump. When people elsewhere talk about Brownsville, it's about its soiled lifestyle, its adultery, its inability to accomplish dreams that, well, are not dreams elsewhere in the country because they are quite attainable. The problem is not the factual aspects of the community. There is a geographic city, with city boundaries and distinguishable entities such as the police department and City Hall. And there are enough innocents to let the politicians play their shitty games. Genoveva at the tortilla factory won't get in the way, and neither will Julio at the finance company. It's politics, but it's not fair. The few brains in town have enslaved the remaining larger portion of the population. It's nothing new; it's the city's back pages - the mark of its under-achieving history.

So write the county's biography and focus on Brownsville for the major part of the book. You might start by hanging out at the Cameron County Courthouse here all day Monday. They'll be counting votes. To declare a winner in that county judge's race. You know the sordid story: residents voted on Nov. 2nd and then waited and waited and waited through a series of shitty moves related to the vote tabulation that initially gave the job to one guy and then took it from him, to give it to the other guy - the Democrat.

And, you are correct: no woman was involved in that conspiracy, or so it would seem. Storylines have a nasty habit of going where they want to go, so perhaps some woman will surface to take the fall, to do some Macho's bidding, to move the can down the unpaved road.

I know, I know. It's just a bunch of flawed, self-serving guys acting-out a tired stage play they've known for all years. Their practiced lines are known by everyone in town, their Homey faces pasted on the ravines and outer edges of everybody's brain, there alongside the mugs of more-famous oppressors, villains, dictators, abusers and fakers.

Bastards...

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As Another Year Ends, We Shine The Light on The Best & The Worst...In People and Politicians...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

McALLEN, Texas - Yes, it's been a wild and wooly year in the RGVofTexas, but, lads and lassies, we're not yet done with unrolling this salsa-splattered red carpet that is Life around here. This coming week is the week we will spotlight our winners in the Person-Of-The-Year and Worst-Valley-Politician categories.

The Year 2010 will go down as one of those God-awful examples of all that is wrong with Valley society. Like arriving episodes of a bad Egyptian soap opera, the daily and weekly installments of Bullshit we saw and endured can only be described as coming directly from the root of the region's problem - apathy.

Elected officials seemed as if from some uncharted colonia, as if devoid of brains, as if here simply to make things worse.

But there were bright spots, and we shall note those, as well.

Stop by and pull up a chair. Sit a spell with us. Coffee's on The Tribune. The conversational duties will fall on you...

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The Proud Highway:...When Poor Families Get Good Publicity...Yeah, Let's Find the Worst Of Poverty...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

HARLINGEN, Texas - That ruffling sound you hear coming from the innards of all area newsrooms is as familiar at this time of the year as is the jingling of Christmas bells at the local shopping malls - reporters are fast-rifling through their roll-o-dexes in search of old numbers.

Their targets?

Poor families, the poorer the better. Yes, it's the annual Hunt for Maria & Her rag-attired Kids. Yeah, over at some dirt-poor colonia on the outs of town. They are there, of course. They are there all year-round.

But comes the Holiday Season and the air-conditioned boys in the press stroll out to collar some poor family for a Front Page sob story (with color photographs) or the lead tale on the evening television news. Perhaps it's a good gesture; it just plays out so cheaply, lame. It is a damned shame, is what it is.

We recall one photo in The McAllen Monitor published ahead of last Christmas that showed a group of blue-haired Winter Texans unloading a chrome-plated BBQ grill in front of a battered mobile home. Also in the photo were the residents of the rusting abode, a husband, a wife and three kiddoes. They appeared to be grateful, but what exactly that would bring the family, other than perhaps a rare clean fajita burning, was never told. The holidays faded and the family likely went about its business. And we suspect that sparkling grill does not look that shiny anymore.

Still, we know the area's crackerjack corps of reporters will be out in force in the next few weeks, each doing their damndest to bring the worst of the worst to their readers and viewers. Say something gut-wrenching, Pedro. Yeah, into the microphone.

Nevermind that those families are poor the entire year. There must be something about why the press ignores these people, say, on Easter Sunday, or on Labor Day. Christmas it will be, and that must have something to do with either guilt or the strength of the Catholic Church around here.

Really, it would be much better if we could, at least just once, see robe-attired priests handing out BBQ grills up and down the Valley. Maybe then we could better understand the damnable idea of fake, seasonal benevolence...

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The Final Solution:...Harlingen Looks To National Guard As It Battles Decaying Buildings...Soldiers Will Now Clean Up The Town's Mess...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

HARLINGEN, Texas - So, really, how low has this struggling town fallen? Well, this low: Officials are enlisting the help of the National Guard in their ever-dogged march against the town's many dilapidated and abandoned buildings. In the process, the city hopes it can rid itself of a crippling image that has it looking like a repository for pilgrims, pawns, paupers and punks.

Is it a good idea?

Says recently-hired City Manager Carlos Yerena, "More than anything what the city is trying to do is trying to jump start the economy so we could have developers and contractors that would go out there and build homes and revitalize the neighborhoods."

As explained during last night's meeting of the City Commission, Harlingen will now ask the Texas National Guard to send troops for a job that is expected to be completed by next April or May. According to Yerena, locals will see the axe-wielding, fatigue-clad troops arrive within the next two weeks.


The giddy Yerena, a career bureaucrat forever looking at new ways to solve old problems, sees it as a win-win situation. Cost would be zero to the property owner, and the city would pay only for hauling of the debris to the city dump.

Interestingly, Yerena finds a connection between the demolitions and the region's illegal drug trade. "It's drug money that if they go out there and they get some seizures they are funded through that," Yerena noted, without laughing. "Their target is specifically to go out there and demolish those unsafe structures that have a direct nexus to drugs and criminal activity."

Indeed, these are tough times for the city of 74,000 jobs-starved souls. Without question, Harlingen is the portrait of a falling, decaying town, especially when one drives its downtown streets, where it is said that there are as many winos out and about on any given night as there are decaying buildings on their way down.

As with all decisions made by bureaucrats, this one will be interesting to watch unfold. Something sad arrives when a town cannot clean-up its own mess...

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Pushing The Rope:...When All Reporters Can Do Is Work The Phones...Roger Ortiz Goes Mum...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - There's something wildly hilarious when reading a string of mildly-serious stories in a newspaper that long-ago ceded its right to raise Hell. The local daily here is a prime example. It gets its hair in a frizz from time to time, only its history of doing little creeps up on its sudden angst.

In the ongoing bungalow saga that is the vote count in the county judge contest, The Brownsville Herald, in no way connected to the New York Times, flashes a bit of drama when its two reporters, Emma Perez-Trevino (shown in photo wearing hat) and Laura B. Martinez, agree on the following line in their bylined story published in today's edition.

"Elections Administrator Roger Ortiz has failed to return numerous telephone calls from The Brownsville Herald as to what action he will take on the recount of ballots in the election for county judge."

It would be something to ask Ortiz about, him being a public servant, but the relationship between The Herald and local government, from City Hall to the county operation, is such that these people largely ignore the newspaper. Numerous phone calls? Numerous phone calls, they wrote!!!

Where have these numerous phone calls been all along, Emma? Laura, my dear? (Shown at right)

Their newsroom complaint rings damned hollow. Phone calls? Phone calls! Why not get your lovely butts over to Roger's office and camp out there until the man has to talk to you. Yell at him if you have to. Numerous phone calls. Oh, boy.

It reminds me of the editor of an Arkansas newspaper who arrived at a newspapering convention to crow about his reporting staff's investigative work on a bad neighborhood in his town. But he blew it when he said, "When my reporters made a drive-through the ghetto..." A drive-through? Yeah, same thing as numerous phone calls. The press expecting officialdom to be at its immediate disposal just because it says so and demands it is....yeah, laughable. Roger Ortiz likely knows The Herald is the least of his problems.

In a Macho world such as is lived in Brownsville, the newspaper holds no higher standing than the first-day mailman. The Herald should blame itself for the rude dismissal it gets from the town's leadership. Now, if it could rustle-up some crackerjack investigative reporting that would clear-up a few of the local governmental messes, well...then it could be as demanding as it seems to want to be in this case.

Two skirts chasing me for comment would get short shrift, absolutely.

The problem in Brownsville is not Roger Ortiz, although he may be part of it. At present, he's just the latest public servant to get a bit of the spotlight. It'll pass for Jolly Roger, as it has eventually passed for all the others who came before him and who also declined to take the newspaper reporter's telephone calls.

This recount is a mess, and it will play out a bit longer, but let's see how what The Herald offers in the way of journalism that comes from going to the scene of the mess and not from the eyes of an air-conditioned bystander...

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The Undefeated:...Elections Honcho Roger Ortiz Holds County Judge Job In His Hands...Will it be The Lady or The Tiger, Or Cascos or Wood?...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - So, we're at another of those border impasses, the Ol' Mexican Standoff. Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos, fresh off a stunning defeat at the hands of a recount, sits on his Republican cloth couch, awaiting finality. Lucky challenger John Wood, the surprise winner of the job Cascos has held in recent years, suddenly looms as the benefactor of something or another. How did it ever come to this?

Not with Roger Ortiz ramrodding the vote count! Roger Ortiz?

We remember Ortiz from our days - that lost year - at The Herald, when City Hall was our Beat and Ortiz our source at the tax appraiser's office he oversaw. At the time, I was dating his secretary, a woman named Ruth, and aside from being superb evening company, she often spoke about doings in the tax office. Ortiz, she would say, was a straight-up guy, a person averse to wrongdoing, to, say, cooking the books in favor of some taxpayer. I'd been working on a story about tax scofflaws at the time, which is why she and I spent a post-coital minute or two discussing it.

Part of the mess concerning the vote count in the Cascos-Wood fray will likely land on Ortiz's lap. Already, bloggers side with the idea that he surely must be at the center of a conspiracy that has former County Judge Gilberto Hinojosa pulling his strings, angling Ortiz this & that way, prodding him. Persuading him, so that, in the end, Democrat Wood will come out on top against the affable, but not as sharp Cascos. In Brownsville, where the count took place, and where the voting will be officially canvassed on Thursday, one move always leads to another - in sex, and in politics.

And so we shall wait.

If my former friend from that Winter of 1981 was correct in assessing Roger Ortiz as a man of high morals, well, the tabulation is on the up & up. But, then, it's been a few winters since '81. And perhaps Roger has been melded by the politics he has endured in the ensuing decades. It'll all shake out.

Ruth isn't around to give me an update, is what I hear. Too bad, for Ortiz and for me. All I know is that she seemed to be a nice Catholic girl who dressed well, loved her red lipstick and stayed in shape. I used to spread an American flag across my bed in those crazy days. For some reason, the imagery of that bedroom scene popped-up in my brain as I thought about her in the context of Ortiz's current perceived predicament.

I'd like to think that Roger did the right thing, yes...

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High Noon in Brownsville:...Vote Count in Race For County Judge Gives Job To Democrat John Wood...Some Are Incredulous...Some Just Laugh...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Politician Carlos Cascos cannot be faulted if he takes a head-first leap into his medicine cabinet and drowns himself in bottle after bottle after bottle of Pepto-Bismol. That race he thought he won Nov. 2nd for sure now has him in the spot Mexicans know well as, "Madre, que pedo?!"

And who could blame the guy?

The last few days - Weekend of the Recount - had Cascos doing electoral somersaults. One day, he had confirmation of a victory and the realization that he would continue to serve as Cameron County Judge; the next he didn't. No doubt it's been a rough two days for the Republican not known for public brawling. Will he take the latest tally that has opponent John Wood winnning the office by 5 votes calmly and simply walk away? Five votes! Wood, 20,576; Cascos, 20,571.

Already, the sound of cracking knuckles moves across Brownsville like a moving cantina punch-out. Someone, it is being said, will soon face the full-fury of the scorned Republican. That someone could be Cameron County Elections Administrator Roger Ortiz, the man who delivered the bad news to Cascos yesterday, as nice and cool a day as the Rio Grande Valley of Texas has enjoyed lately.

Said Mssr. Ortiz in the wake of the tally, "All I can tell you is that the only thing that matters is the integrity of the election — whichever way it goes."

Odd, that "integrity" thing. Around here, it is sprinkled liberally in post-elections commentary, especially by the cornered bureaucrats and the winners. The losers forever have another word they like, and that one is, yeah - Bullshit.

Interestingly, Wood had conceded the race a bit earlier yesterday, given it up in a congratulatory telephone call to Mssr. Cascos, who, even as the supposed final count sent the contest Wood's way, boldly issued a press release saying he was going ahead with plans to continue serving the people.

It all brought back images of the mess in Florida during the 2000 presidential election, when a myriad of questionable moves by vote counters tipped the race to then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush and sent Vice-President Al Gore packing. Those thousands of Africa-Americans living the Miami area whose votes never were counted are still angry, as are the thousands of senior citizens who thought they'd voted for Gore and saw their votes recorded for Bush. It's a game, yes, but it's a game for Big Boys willing to roll in the dirt and the in mud.

So, what is no-nonsense Republican Cascos' next move? Al Gore took the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court, where a 5-4 vote sided with Bush as the winner. It was, yep, 5 Republicans voting for Bush and 4 for Gore. Bullshit? Absolutely...

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The Year of The Swat:...How I Broke School Rules & Paid The Price...Three Swats At A Time...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

McALLEN, Texas - The plumpish secretary would look at me and say something like that my smile was not the smile of a kid about to be paddled by the principal. I'd say I know, I should smile more in class, but that Goddamned Mr. Stewart is such a dick that no one smiles in his history class. Who knows? Maybe it was just what a junior high school offered in the 1960s, old-fashioned teachers and swats.

The principal's name was Goelhke, a hard-ass, skinny German-American fond of pulling ears in the hallways; that or asking what it was we were saying in Spanish and following that by telling us no Spanish was allowed on school grounds. It was America's last shame, at least for me.

Anyway, Mr. Goelhke seemed to get a kick out of paddling. I say it was his hidden Nazi allegiance, but I didn't know it then. We had a pack of German educators at Travis Junior High on East Houston Street here. The head football coach was named Etnire and the assistant coach was a cruel fool named Zimmerman - two guys who would have looked just as comfortable in a Nazi death camp.

The swatting came behind closed doors. Mr. Goelhke would say some bullshit about it hurting him more than it would you. And then, he'd rear back and swing as if swinging for the Third Reich. At least he only asked you to lower your pants and not your underwear. The second swat would come with more force, and the third would push the air out of your lungs. I was - what? - 13.

He would finish me off by saying, "No more misbehaving, right?" That was followed by a killer stare of the sort Jews knew as bad news in Hitler's Germany. "Yes, sir," I'd say, throwing that fuckin' Stewart's rosy, pale face across my brain, thinking he'll pay at year's end.

And then I'd walk back to class, where I'd hand Mr. Stewart a note from the office saying I could re-join my classmates. Most of the boys - and some girls - in the room knew the swat drill. Junior high in the 1960s was one boring time, moved forward only by the arrival of the Rolling Stones and our belief that, surely, a rebellious time was coming for the entire country. It did, and it created the most ridiculous crisis for public schools - monitoring long hair, or, really, poking at boys and telling us a haircut was in order and that we risked being sent home to get one. I was sent home numerous times. For that!

Our high school leaders didn't swat as much as the junior high administrators; they simply suspended you for the silliest of reasons - kicking-in lockers, bringing a soda to class and purposely spilling it, showing a girl your tongue. My best effort along those lines was waiting for the teacher to turn her back as she went to the blackboard in Biology class and saying, loudly: "Black Power!"

She would whip around and ask the class who'd said it. I'd raise my hand and then walk myself to the principal's office to a round of applause, which she immediately shhhhed. It was high school, a time to throw a wrench into the bicycle spokes. Many of us knew the military awaited after graduation. Three swats or a three-day suspension seemed a minor price to pay for enjoying what could easily have been our last years on this God-abamdoned planet.

Mr. Goehlke and the coaches are likely dead. But the junior high school is still there. I drove by it the other day and told myself, "I can almost hear the sound of that wooden paddle smacking me in the ass."

It was a cool morning and school was in session. It struck me that the old school looked very much as it did all those years ago. I could imagine that paddle being passed-on from principal to principal as a new one took command of the school. I drove slowly, looking over as the row of classrooms moved passed me. My time there had been a bitch, one created largely by me.

I never did take the air out of Mr. Stewart's car's tires. One time, while home on leave from the Navy, I ran into a girl I'd known back then, and I'd asked her about our days at Travis Junior High. Her name is Ninfa and what she said was that she'd always thought that I'd enjoyed the paddling I'd received.

I smiled and threw out something I'd said to her many, many years earlier: "...May I see your breasts?" It would become my signature line when in college. Ninfa just stared at me and said, before walking away, "You better win the Medal of Honor if that's how you're going to live the rest of your life."

I didn't, of course.

Leaving the school behind as I rolled past it brought back a string of weird emotions. The lump in my throat would again surface on the day I walked off the U.S.S. Sperry for the last time at the submarine base in San Diego, and again when I signed my divorce papers, and again when my mother passed away three years ago.

There are friends and family members who openly believe that I should still be paddled - every day, in fact...

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NOBODY'S ANGEL: The Story of Leafy, The Rooster...How I Picked A Pet I Could Love...No Dogs, No Cats...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas - I'm riding the long and lonely road just east of here on my way back to Hidalgo County for a meeting with my evening cup of coffee when it hits me. Sure, a rooster! That could be my pet. A battlin' rooster, out to crow me awake in the morning. A rooster who would and wouldn't need me.

He would look sharp, confident, like the rooster in the photo atop this story.

His name would be Leafy.

Leafy would run roughshod over an eventual coop full of chickens I would construct somewhere out in the county in the same manner that Marijuana growers plant and harvest their crop far from the city. Some grassy piece of land with a rise and a meadow, a home for my flock, absolutely. Leafy would keep me apprised.

I've never been one for animals as pets, thinking they, too, are born free and, so, should live free in their element - the wilds. Leafy would get no instructions from me, other than to fight to the death if a killing coyote neared the flock. And I know Leafy would do it. Poor coyote would limp back to his kind and spread the word that there was a mean rooster in rural Hidalgo County no one - no one! - should mess with, not even the chief barbarian of the coyote empire.

I think it would be cool to own a rooster. There are, it would seem if morning sounds around here are any indication, a jillion roosters in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Indeed, I'd strike out and say there likely are a dozen roosters for every male, two dozen for every female.

The funny thing is that roosters are being outlawed in communities all across the country. Dallas is one. You can have cowboys and horses and cattle standing as symbols for Big D, but no rooster. You can, however, keep them in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where they amble about backyards forever in search of frisky chickens or chicken feed. The animal world knows no more sex-starved dude than the rooster, perhaps because he is usually outnumbered 100 to one by chickens in any chicken coop. I only wish they could smile. Then, we would know, we would know exactly how sexually satisfied Leafy might be.

So, you get a little chick and you wonder whether it is a male or female (rooster or chicken). Well, you often end up with roosters unexpectedly, because it’s very hard to tell the gender of a chicken until it’s fairly old. I wish I could tell you how long a rooster can live, but I don't know.

All I know is that they hate it when a second rooster is introduced to the coop, and they will fight any would-be Lothario until only one stands. Yeah, a whole, whole lot like Valley men.

The imagery of a rooster holding court with his chickies mirrors Valley life its ownself. They'll strut about while angling in for the hook-up at courtship. Roosters are cool about their mating approach. They won't threaten, they won't attack, they won't do anything that'll surprise the target of their affection. But they'll track-in and whisper sweet nothings into the chicken's ears (Do they have ears?) and the next thing you know, well, the rooster is looking like the portrait of satisfaction.

Chicken feathers left on the ground after the mating symbolize the coupling's drama. The more feathers humped off the chicken and left behind, the rougher the sex, is what I'm told. Roosters sex chickens so they stay sexed, absolutely.

I know Leafy would be the kind of rooster who would leave them smiling. That wink of the eye as he retreated would only mean that the chicken would know that he'd be back for more, that he'd be oh-so in it for her, as he was for himself.

That's my Leafy, always the gentleman...

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Done In By Romance:...The Life & Times Of A Pretentious Idea...Even Bad Endings Are Okay...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

PORT ISABEL, Texas - Someone once told me that any sort of writing about one's life had to be carried by the human emotion all of us know as pain. Graphic suffering, yes. And a bit of wheelhouse romance every other chapter, preferably with different lovers in different settings. Some appropriate musical soundtrack would help with the writing. Songs are something we assign to certain times in our life.

Okay, okay, I am writing.

It's going well some days and some days it sucks. But that's the trip. Words won't throw themselves on the page no matter how much you beg. It's been fun and work so far. My blogging here gets in the way, and I've tried to kill this website on two-three occasions, but my friends say it keeps them going. I do my best.

In backtracking to those earlier days, I find it is only the best memories that come back in living color. I never knew my life had been so fantastic. I suppose I've been lucky. Those of you who know of my work know of a website where most of those romantic entanglements can be found. Here it is for those of you who do not: http://www.Mainand83.blogspot.com/.

Enjoy it. I've wanted to kill that Blog, as well.

But it lives, perhaps out of some desire to see me in court someday, or maybe even to be there for the eventual Judgment Day, when someone way up there will open my ledger and wonder about allowing me into the best of whatever best could ever be. I'm feeling a bit sad these days. Maybe it's the annual end-of-the-year melancholy - an advance party for that which we know as the Holiday Blues. No, I'm not crying, just running a damaged film across the screen in my brain - trying like crazy to decide whether I've lived just-enough or too-much.

Do we ever account for ourselves and agree on punishment or praise?

Human Beings are a funny lot. Something brings out the best and worst in us, except when we go dusting the boxes that hold the facts, the details. We'll do all we can to dance away from bad memories, from things we said that we shouldn't have said, from things we did that we never should've done, from fights we staged that never should've been staged. I'm not alone in saying that as soon as I bring back the name or face of a friend I made along the way, some memory pops-up, something that will draw a frown or a smile. Regret walks in all dolled-up about here on the bad moments.

But can you ever go back and make things better? No. Life frames you and that's that. The girl you stood-up after she'd bought a new dress for that Friday night date, the old college chum abandoned without notice, the friend you burned for no reason, the love you gave freely and then pulled-back suddenly. It's not a pretty picture if you look at the canvas from side-to-side, and telling a story where you dive in and out of memories is worse than being on a doomed, low-flying cropduster caught in a sudden hailstorm. That barn you crashed into, you tell yourself as the blood drips down your face, was not supposed to be there.

Memories never censor themselves...

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The Man From Southmost: Journalist Juan Montoya And A Lifetime Of Brawling...He's In Jail, But That's Not His Legacy...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Perhaps Juan Montoya was born 100 years too late. Maybe he would have been a more-appreciated reporter had he offered his detailed writing about the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Juan, an old friend, is the last purist to be found along the scurrilous Texas-Mexico border.

Truth be known, we've had our differences lately. But that was about how we choose to approach our writing, how we choose to cover news here in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. I'd never do what Juan does on his Blog, RrunRrun.blogspot.com, but he'd likely say the same thing about me on The Tribune. It's a long story better suited for another time.

For now, we focus on Juan's recent jailing, this after being arrested earlier this week on charges of DWI and reckless driving. At present, we are told, he is being held in the Cameron County jail. We preface this by saying a Journalist in jail is never a good thing. Juan carved his reporting perimeter a bit wide, and that led to criticism that he was a "hired gun" for Brownsville politicians and not really the people's source for timely and dependable information. His knowledge of the local political geography can never be challenged; Juan knows his stuff.

We'd heard he'd been roughing it in town, but we hadn't seen him in a little more than a year, when he'd joined a handful of other friends at the 1-2-3 Lounge on tough 14th Street to drink a few chelas. He was the usual Juan, noting bullshit about the city's politicians as if talking about detailed baseball stats, laughing at the material in the manner that comedians laugh at their own jokes. We saw him briefly another time at a place called The Ice House on the road to the Port of Brownsville. He'd made fun of me that time, saying I still exhibited my penchant for interrupting people while they spoke and chiding me on my open contempt for the border. He was right on both counts.

An objective critic could find much to criticize Juan about. Brownsville is a low-flying town in many ways. Just as he could damn, well, those he damned always damned back. You had this idea that the scraps were a fun time for Juan. Who knows? As with most people in the cliquish Valley, he had people he liked and people he disliked. There is something to be said for a man who holds his ground, although Juan's ground was in a perpetual shake, like some mini-earthquake only he could feel there at his feet.

The jail sentence, we understand, has him incarcerated until the first days of 2011.

Something is lost. Something isn't the same. Small, insular towns can feel this readily. Brownsville without Juan Montoya is like North Fork without Lucas McCain, Virginia City without Ben Cartwright, San Francisco without Dirty Harry, Brownsville without Juan Cortina - Montoya's hero.

The days of this cooler season will arrive and roll-off all of us. Few will have Juan in mind when Thanksgiving comes along, when Christmas nears. He helped a slew of local politicians, such as hated former City Commissioner Ernie Hernandez and recently defeated Cameron County Judge candidate John Wood.

It'll be interesting to see if any of these politicos he helped across the line step up to help him. Knowing a bit about Brownsville, I'd find it novel if they did. A man behind bars is easily shunned aside.

Juan Montoya reminds me of another Journalist who danced across the border and lived his last days in Brownsville. Chuck Schwanitz was his name. Chuck was not the writer Juan became, but, like Juan, he liked to tip a cold one very now and then. It comes with the territory, he'd say back in the early 1980s, when Chuck's office was a back-wall table at La Palma Lounge, when his most powerful, across-the-bar utterance was, "Otro round!"

Let's believe that Juan Montoya can serve his time and make that turn toward a little better life. He's 56 and, as The Beatles sang in Sgt. Pepper's, "...it's getting very near the end..."

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In Troubled Harlingen, More Trouble...Rumor of Dishonest Blogging...The Recalcitrant Commissioner Keeps Whining...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

HARLINGEN, Texas - Man, it's been a vicious year for this small town in desperate need of help, help from anybody. Residents will tell you they get nothing from paralyzed City Hall these days, zip from the comatose newspaper, nada from the Heavens. If a town can be properly portrayed in accurate colors, it would be India ink and bistre-wash for this despair-white outpost midway between McAllen and Brownsville.

Now come two more killer uppercuts.

One concerns high-maintenance City Commissioner Kori Marra. The other is perhaps a bigger shock, namely reports that Editor Jerry Deal has been playing with his comments number on his popular Blog, MyLeaderNews.com. In a way, Ms. Marra's problems rather entertain this town of 74,000 success-starved souls. She's either the sure-shot Annie Oakley to some, or the ditzy Goldie Hawn to the others.

This week, she burst from the comfort of the world of Real Estate to lash Blogger Jerry Deal after MyLeaderNews.com posted a story about her troubles with the State of California involving a traffic violation. Ms. Marra, a single mother, did not take it lying down. She loaded her cannon and lobbed a terse note to Deal, demanding an explanation as to why MyLeaderNews.com considered that newsworthy.

Deal, however, saw it as a scoop in the highly-charged world of Blogging in Harlingen. About Ms. Marra's public angst, he wrote: "She also asks if she should be concerned, being on Facebook, where this publication got the ticket informaton. She claims concerns about putting photos she oks of her and her children on Facebook, wondering if she should be aware that that someone who hates her would do her or family great harm."

Nevermind that the world knows Facebook is no place to go hide.

And so Deal, unaccustomed to friendly fire, begs-off the complaint, writing, "Ok, come on Kori, you were already on Facebook and I do not believe a little article about a minor ticket is going to change your life or your children’s lives."

Of course not. The Commissioner has a knack for acting oddly. Her public service history is a wagon train of woe. As an elected official, she is subject to being written-about on matters she may feel are private or minute. As Lois Lane might say about here, "Honey, that is something the media decides, not you." Still, the idea that she is open to criticism has to register with her at some point. This, mind you, is a mature woman, in years anyway.

Jerry Deal's horrible problem, which he has yet to address on MyLeaderNews, is a survey undertaken by the critical HarlingenBlogs.com, which reports Deal may be inflating his "comments" numbers by - egads! - padding his blogger visitors with names he may be inventing himself.

The revelation, if true, is no small plate of refried beans in town. Jerry Deal recently crowed loudly about MyLeaderNews.com being the best online publication in the area. In claiming the lofty perch, Deal cited a review of local websites by unnamed journalists, adding that he also receives many more comments to his site than any other area blog. The investigation by HarlingenBlogs.com is damning. Deal's decision to ignore the information does not bode well for his effort, for his claim.

There is a mountain of problems that stall this city's progress. Word filters out this morning that a mysterious group is launching a recall election against City Commissioner Robert Leftwich. To that we say: Go ahead and kill yourself, Harlingen.

What else is left?...

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