WORD UP!: Why We Will Always Be News & Entertainment Addicts...

By ALVIN KARPIS
Special to The Tribune

McALLEN, Texas - The National Basketball Association's future - one LeBron James - took his act to Miami, Spain won the World Cup, Major League Baseball floats its annual All-Star Game tomorrow night and the British Open dawns on Thursday morning. We are a nation of groupies; we must be fed action, drama and spectacular news video.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is why we cannot wait to see silly Sarah Palin (see photo above) go nuts and run for the presidency. It's going to happen, if for no other reason than that the media want it, and when the media want something, well, the people fall in line to want it too. Promotion, see. You promote anything enough in this country and 50,000 rabid nobodies will show up to confirm your belief that passels of suckers are born in America every damned second.

That explains wrestling, doesn't it - the theatre of fools. That would explain the goofy octagon in that hybrid boxing-wrestling sport so popular lately. That would explain why The Lone Ranger would never gain audience in today's culture. Yep, there would have to be an episode in which the Lone One would have to take off his mask in the so-called dramatic end to the series. There was a time in this country's entertainment vein when a masked man could go masked without anyone seeing big bucks in his ripping it off his face. As they say in Detroit, "No mo..."

And so we shall tune in to catch the baseball summer classic, watch it and then wait on Tiger to tee-off in the British Open. Something just as huge will come next and then something bigger after that and so on and on and on.

America will get Obama-Palin's 15 rounds of body blows, jabbing, feigning and upper-cutting. Bets will be taken in Vegas. Pundits from coast to coast will lay it all out. The world will wait with bated breadth. It should be a dandy.

Get your chips and salsa, kiddoes. It's gonna happen...

- 30 -

Murder In Brownsville: Why He Offed Her Remains The Mystery...

By RICARDO KLEMENT

Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - The entire police department has been placed on alert here following the city's fourth murder of the year. Antsy cops, fearing anyone in town could be the next victim, are executing a massive manhunt for 42-year-old Gilbert Garza.

Garza is alleged to have offed his wife's best friend late Sunday night.

Weekend cops arrived at a domestic violence incident at 28 East Cowen Terrace hours after Spain defeated the Netherlands at the World Cup to find an unidentified 46-year-old woman dead at the scene. Cops were mum about a motive or other killing details, however. The rub: It was impossible to know whether the dead woman and the man's wife were lovers, or whether the dead woman and the killer were involved in an affair. Cops worked the scene without comment. According to bystanders, nothing came from neighbors. And no one reported hearing wild screams, gunfire or a noisy picking roaring away.

Police nonetheless issued an arrest warrant for the shifty Garza, who is said to have split into the night and vanished in the Brownsville darkness. He remains on the lam...

- 30 -

Postcard From Harlingen: The Week Everyone Demanded Answers...

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Special to The Tribune

HARLINGEN, Texas - The other day the city commissioner Robert Leftwich cut through a generous plate of fajita nachos at a popular eatery here. It was a night when the Harlingen City Commission met to hash-out the coming year's budget, and he was out early, early enough anyway to drop-in on friends at El Rancho on electric 77Sunshine Strip.

"Things go fast when Kori's not there," Leftwich was saying, referring to colleague Kori Marra. She'd missed her third consecutive commission meeting and some in town were jumping on the idea of getting her removed for unexplained absenteeism. Said to be the emerging leader of the commission's new winning vote-bloc, Leftwich wasn't interested in damning Ms. Marra, a second-year elected official whose tenure so far can properly be described as jagged service, in line with anyone's idea of failure. But to the extent that he recognizes she is on the outs in the commission's present form, Leftwich would only smile a knowing smile. He seems to know his growing power, one that goes head-on against the supposed leadership of Mayor Chris Boswell.

It is the story of the coming week. Will Commissioner Marra survive the controversy, only her latest and coming on the heels of her perceived clash with local veterans. If politics can ever be measured as are measured stocks on Wall Street, Ms. Marra's stock is said to be dropping at an alarming rate. That she refuses to answer her growing critics has not helped. Only a surprise visit to Harlingen by NBA superstar LeBron James will take the media spotlight off Commissioner Marra. That's not about to happen.

Leftwich is coy about assuming the city's leadership role, a move that would essentially further isolate headstrong Mayor Boswell. Still, there are those who say Boswell already has been emasculated politically; that is, that any notion he entertains of leading the city simply is laughable. His efforts to hog-tie the commission are well-known. His way of nudging other commmissioners to vote his way is seen at every meeting. His allegiance to the past could fill a whole chapter in any down-and-out London novel by Charles Dickens. Boswell sees his city sinking in rolling pity, under the weight of abandoned, decaying buildings, under the sad portrait of a desolate downtown, under the knowledge that many in town suffer unemployment, under the cloud that offers no promises...and still he ignores it all.

The week that dawns next will not be kind to Mayor Boswell and his sole ally, Commissioner Marra. The entire community is telling those two that Harlingen is danged tired of being Mayberry, RFD...

- 30 -       

In Tired Harlingen, Decaying Front Doors Tell The Story Of A Falling Downtown...

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Special to The Tribune

HARLINGEN, Texas - It has become fashionable to say that the beaten-down doorway is the Official Symbol of Harlingen, a place now offering itself as the Poster City for abandoned and decaying buildings, places where once the populace played at progress and commerce.

Not these days.

A drive along the downtown streets here is a drive into a literal ghost town, and the man people are blaming is Mayor Chris Boswell. It is Boswell, they say, who wants things as they are - falling or in the process of falling. Not that Downtown Harlingen is a lost cause. It retains the only downtown plaza to be found in the three largest cities in the Rio Grande Valley, one that comes with a new playground for kids. It is empty on a Friday night, as are the streets and the cafes and the bars.

What is happening to Harlingen?

Some here blame a small group of self-serving residents they call the Old Guard, people said to be interested in helping only their own and in fighting suggestions that Harlingen dream of becoming something better.

There are six customers at the Rest Area Lounge at the corner of E. and Harrison streets. A similar amount is found at the nearby Club 5.0. Leandro's Lounge has its bright neon light on the window, but there are three cars in the parking spaces out front. Nothing is moving. It is the begining of the noisy weekend in McAllen and Brownsville, time for partying, for shaking leg on the dance floor, for making a move, for lifting a six-pack of beer one at a time, for getting loud. Here, the end of the universe has come to town.

In a symphony of catcalls, Mayor Boswell has heard the song everyone here wants to sing. "Boswell," they roar. "...do something!"

A visionary could easily see that some of the falling buildings Harlingen counts in its downtown sector possibly could be turned into burgeoning businesses. There is Old Style architecture and construction from an era when buildings stood the test of time. Yet, orphaned, they have been allowed to die an unsightly death. It is as quiet as a cemetery as we move along Harrrison and Tyler Streets. Not even the cops can be seen. They are over on busy 77 Sunshine Strip, where restaurants like El Rancho do gangbusters business. The Hop Shop, a no-nonsense, economic rock joint on Commerce Street not far from the lonely offices of The Valley Morning Star, readies for a night of noise. Perhaps the patrons will arrive. That is the eternal hope.

At City Hall, the buzz centers on Mayor Boswell's recalcitrance, on his lack of desire to bend, on his wish for a Return to Yesteryear. His job is becoming tougher by the day, however. At present, following the most recent elections, he is outgunned by his fellow commissioners who have begun to vote in bloc - to go against everything the mayor pushes. These are not good times for Boswell. This week, he endured meetings that saw him humbled by the opposition. Gone for the last three meetings was his sole ally, Commissioner Kori Marra, said to be out-of-town on business.

Out-of-town on business.

That has a certain awful ring to it. What many residents here would rather hear is that Ms. Marra is out-of-town drumming up business for Harlingen. The scuttlebutt is that Commissioner Marra was doing business for her sole benefit while in Austin.

At the Rest Area Lounge, where patrons can see framed photos of Freddy Fender and Marilyn Monroe, bartender Margarita serves another beer as the clack-clacking sound of pooltable balls bouncing off each other yields the night's only noise.

Outside, the moon rises - cold & mineral...

- 30 -        

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW: In Brownsville, Civic Comedy Is Free...

By RON MEXICO
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Fernando Ruiz has a certain presence in front of a microphone. He will say things like this, "Listen to me! And you will never get elected again to this office. What's the matter with you? You're dreaming!"

And then he gets really angry: "Please do not interrupt me! I am not out-of-line!"

His stage: A meeting of the Brownsville City Commission.

Welcome to the funniest show in South Texas, a literal What-The-Hell-Can-Come-Next offering not seen in many places in the Free World. Need a bit of jousting between elected officials and the citizenry. Walk into a meeting here and be treated to a taste of border reality. Ruiz is not alone. Juan Mejia has a role in this rolling drama that plays out monthly here. While Ruiz is after the mayor's resignation for reasons to do with accusations earlier that he stole a $26,000 City of Brownsville check drafted for a vendor, Mejia came to harp about his property in nearby Olmito being looked-at as possible land for annexation by Btrownsville. Both came looking for a fight.

"Melissa," Mejia said in the direction of City Commissioner Melissa Zamora, "...this is in your district. Maybe you can do something for us there." Something about city requirements the affected property owners would have to deal with should they be annexed. He came, had his turgid say, and then yielded to the firebrand Ruiz, who arrived ready to hang a few city officials he felt had been derelict in providing the citizenry with sufficient facts to do with the mayor's involvement in the check mess. (To back up: Mayor Pat Ahumada went to trial after an investigation revealed he had deposited the check into his bank account. A jury rendered a not guilty verdict earlier this year).

Ruiz brought a certain act to the April 6 meeting, standing tall before the speaker's podium not more than 15 yards from the hostage City Commission. He blasted the timekeeper for cutting him short in previous appearances and, when he noticed smirking from a commisioner, said: "You know, this might be laughter for you. But, you know, what kind of people are you if you are cutting me short by half-a-minute?"

Like a hardened trailboss, he reared his emotions and stayed with the scolding. "This is how you get into trouble, mayor," he went on after asking for the resignation of City Manager Charles Cabler and his underlings for their role in the check snafu. "You don't know how to do things right! We still need an answer as to who gave you this check. This is how ignorant you are!"

And then he was gone, escorted by the police chief at the request of the mayor, his words pasted on the chamber walls, like rotten tortillas some joker had lobbed at the elected body. It was just another weekday night and there was little else going on town. For a few minutes, life had turned vicious. Respect had gone out the window. This was, it seemed to me, comedy of the first order. The First Amendment had done well in Brownsville, if "well" is a mixture of truth & bullshit.

Someone was heard to say, "This is better than what you see and hear at any 14th Street cantina."

Fernando Ruiz, quite satisfied by his sterling performance, walked down the hall and out the building's door...

- 30 -

LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL: There Is a Reason Why We Have To Be From Somewhere...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

FORT WORTH, Texas - It is said in travel magazines that flying into Texas does something to the palate. Writers familiar with this phenomenon point to the rich Texas food, Mexican especially. As one review maven wrote, "You can smell a spicy enchilada as soon as you clear St. Louis."

It is so.

And even though I know D/FW like the back of my girlfriend's lovely butt, I still enjoy dining in my Ol' Hometown. It is a cornucopia of Tex-Mex, from the outs of La Familia on Foch Street in the museum district to the sprinkling of first-rate restaurants in Sundance Square downtown.

But the Queen of All Tex-Mex is the fabled Joe T. Garcia's Restaurant on North Commerce Street, barely a stone's throw from the Stockyards, where one can still spot a however-fake trail drive moving up and down Exchange Drive, weary cows doing their damndest to look haggard & western for out-of-towners working the camera automatic drives. It is a neat cowboy postcard, yes.

In any case, Joe T. Garcia's is the place to go after being away from great Mexican grub for any length of time. It is the quintessential Old Time joint, its bright-green, frame building at the corner of Commerce and 22nd Street looking like it wants to go back to the 1950s. It is as popular an eatery as any found in the American Southwest, its parking lot as busy as its dining room. And that patio out back, well, let's just say it brings out the "eat" in me - even when the evening goes hot & humid on you, even when the line out front snakes around the block and you're standing behind an overweight woman too white to be believed, even when you hear that same woman say she's in town from New Jersey cause she read about Joe T.'s in a national magazine.

Inside, the place is anything but fancy (see photo above). "Cash only," the hostess at the door reminds everyone.

I have my dinner with a glass of red wine and nod a bit before asking myself why the Hell I'm going anywhere in the morning. And then that lovely voice coos out of my cellphone, asking about my whereabouts and about the last leg of my summer trip. I say I want to go to Santa Fe and I hear a distinctive no-no. She's right of course when she coyly brings up our physical relationship and so, yes, there I go again...

- 30 - 

TRAVEL DAY:...Some Of Us Arrive To Depart...

In The Year 2010, A Looksee Back Via Washed Photography...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

NEW YORK, N.Y. - They are called "Retratos Pintados" by artisans who have been around since the dawning of the photograph. Essentially, they are photos washed-over with water color so that the end result is a somewhat brightened funereal look that both harkens back to a certain moment in the life of the models and also offers a however-mournful memory for familial posterity.

You can find them in most Hispanic homes.

Here, it is at the Yossi Milo Gallery on W. 25th Street, between 10th and 11th avenues, that a collection of these photos is drawing crowds, the exhibit highlighting an earlier time in Brazil. The names of the photographers and artisans who work-over the photos seem not as important as are the many unique retratos. In all, the small gallery known for such off-the-beaten-path work has more than 150 painted photographs, ranging from the one above to those of children and the elderly forever personified by the abuelos - grandparents.

As explained in a gallery brochure, the artisans "embellished the likeness" of their many subjects with layers of colorful oil washes. In doing that, the artisans covered "boring clothing," as well as greying hairstyles, male baldness, lack of make-up in women, etc., etc.

The gallery characterizes these particular photos as being common to a region in Brazil.

But it could be any of a hundred other regions south of the U.S. border. In Mexico, similarly "washed" photos can be found applied atop thin pieces of plaster that raises the image, giving it a very elementary 3-D perception. Indeed, there are many photography studios in today's Mexico that will accept faded photographs and render a worthy "Retrato Pintado."

As galleries go here, Yossi Milo's is not anywhere near the top of the heap. But it is known, we were told, as one popular with the avant-garde, with art patrons shopping for something out of the ordinary and tourists out to merely look around.

The exhibit continues through September 18th...

- 30 -  

Heaven Only Knows I Don't Wanna Be...Just A Fool Passing Through...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ 
Editor-In-Chief

NEW YORK, N.Y. - I thought of her today somewhere between the A-Section of the newspaper and the Sports Page. Something about the oil spill still crippling the Gulf of Mexico and something about six New York Yankees making the American League's All-Star team. I like hard news that shakes-up the world, yes. And I like good, professional baseball.

But, dang it, I miss my baby.

I miss her warm eyes when I first see her for morning coffee, her lovely, always-radiant hair, her way of walking, her soft sit-downs, her clasping of the cup with both hands, her first words, her my-love smiles, her wonderment, her praise and criticism, her get-ups, her see-yous, her blown kisses in the parking lot, her drive-offs, her tomorrows.

The super-attentive girl at the small cafe, no doubt a veteran Employee-of-The-Month, swoops back around and re-fills my glass of iced tea. "Bagel?" she asks and I say, nope.

"Croissant, no butter."

My baby would know to add, as she has done many times before, "And please put it in a bag..."

- 30 -

JULY 4th: An American Birthday...

In The Local Newspaper War, Not A Single Issue Can Be Lost To Thieves...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

NEW YORK, N.Y. - The chubby kid behind the counter said something about the district manager saying the store couldn't keep losing the newspaper to thieves. In the local world of competitive newspapering and coffee shops, that is a big deal. Patrons drop-in, ask for their cup, step over to the newsrack to grab for the daily, and walk it to a corner for a little reading and sipping. It happens. Mostly, it is a learned activity, one of those peculiarly American habits.

So when a Starbucks store on the Upper West Side here recently began seeing their copies of The New York Times disappear, scolded employees took steps. As the sign shown above says, patrons must now ask for The Times. It's kept somewhere behind the counter.

The Wall Street Journal and USA Today remain in their slots. No one is stealing those. Crime is funny that way...

- 30 -  

THE MUNDANE BEAT: Summer Scorch & Hats & Vendors...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

NEW YORK, N.Y. - In the city, everything is fashion. You go with the flow. Need a scarf in the dead of winter? There's a guy selling them out in the streets. For $10, no tax. Same for ties, books, t-shirts, and skirts and shoes.

But it is the hats that get me. I know hats. I am a hat, especially in the long, hot summer, when a little shade for the Ol' noggin' does help.

So, here we are. Here, along the many shops on the Upper West Side. And, there, on the sidewalks is where you'll find a small army of hat vendors. Neat bargains, yes. Fashionable covers.

On the busy corner of  67th and Columbus (see photo above), you can get one for $20-$25 - with some haggling. Most tourists fork-over the stated price. New Yorkers will get the vendor to lower it by $5-$10, easy, take-it-or-leave-it. And some of these hats are of the $50-$100 variety you'd find at J.Crew in the Time Warner Shopping Center.

Yep. It's possible to pick up a shirt, shoes, belt, and hat for the evening date. Out on the sidewalks. And if the date falls-through, well there's the $1 copy of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby to read with that bottle of red wine. Read until the mood for boozing at the clubs pops-in and there you go again...

- 30 -

In Gotham City, A Bar Only Pushes You Toward Another Bar...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Shorts

NEW YORK, N.Y. - A part of me wanted to start this by using a lyric from a song one of my friends in Brownsville knows well. It is from country & western music that begins with this, "From a phone booth in Cheyenne..." Perhaps I had one too many drinks last night. Or it could be the movement of those moons on Jupiter that keep messing with my celestial balance. Yeah, the universal tugging we hear so much about on the History Channel - my second, well, third, addiction behind drinking and, absolutely, that. I come to you this morning full of verve, as they say in bachelorhood. Me, ready cash and verve generally have a good time.

But see, life is no competition for booze.

And when you fall into the world of alcohol in New York, you're dancing with the mistress of the Devil himself. One of the women I met here in the 1990s used to like to go to bed and then to a place called The Jukebox on the southern fringes of the ritzy Upper East Side, where, she would say between kisses, it was okay to pick up other couples. I went. And when we picked out the appropriate couple, well, I was asked if I was a Democrat. "No," I recall saying to the raven-haired beauty with the freckled chest, "I'm worse than that; I'm a Scorpio..."

A guy'll say anydamnedthing when drinking.

In any case, there's a bar here that will knock your Texas off. In a New York minute, as they say in lawsuits and rock 'n' roll. The joint is The White Horse Tavern at the corner of 11th Street and Hudson, there in the Village. The alcoholic poet Dylan Thomas drank there, not Gene Novogrodsky of El Rocinante fame. So did Bob Dylan, Mary Travers, Jim Morrison, Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, Seymour Krim, Delmore Schwartz, Richard Fariña, Jane Jacobs, and Hunter S. Thompson. Another notable was Edgar Allan Poe, a poet I like solely because he wrote The Raven.

The place has been modernized since it was discovered by Bohemians in the 1950s. It is now air-conditioned and features a shitty outdoor seating patio that, really, looks sad. The ancient bar inside alone is worth a visit, although the chicks you see there help the scene. Locals hate the place because it is so popular with tourists. They decry the crowds and blame the ambivalent service on visitors from passive Norway and Denmark and Japan and China. The rowdiness, then, is gone. You are more likely now to see a gang of four tourists, all bearing cameras, pull-up in cabs than to see them stumbling-in in wrinkled suits and dusty fedoras. Still, the booze flows.

You can spend a month hitting bars in Manhattan and never really decide which one is the best. I used to like a place no longer there. That would be The Lion's Head near Madison Square Garden, where the NY press liked to lift a few. You'd walk in with a pretty dame and even that lionized scribe Jimmy Breslin would walk up and say hell-o. Pete Hamill, the NY Post columnist and editor, liked to flash his company credit card when springing for drinks. My petite friend Laura Castro of Newsday and a former business writer for The San Antonio Express-News would drink herself silly and then ask to share a cab uptown. Laura had the loveliest...futon in her smallish apartment on E. 86th Street.

A guy saves his biggest mental documents file for those magical moments to do with booze. I knew Laura Castro well, and I know she'd wrap a huge hug around me if we ever saw each other again. But then she'd kick my ass for leaving her that one night, when I met this other, yeah, prettier woman.

I think I could write a damned good poem about The White Horse Tavern and drinking in Gotham City. I do. And I would do it, except that I'd want to use the word "raven" in it, but, dang it, that world-class drunk and Literary God's already done it...

- 30 -   

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...

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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 -