It Was Morning...And El Rocinante Was Still Gone...

By JUNIOR BONNER
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - News that thousands of Blogs across the country were wiped-out in a bizarre law enforcement sweep left many locals wondering if perhaps that is what's behind the overnight disappearance of ElRocinante.com. Complaints against the crusading Blog that brought you what is known in burlesque as tits & ass were numerous, some coming even from the town's diverse and forever-envious Blogging community. Still, it was a shock.

El Roci, as it is known here to peons, politicians and the few well-to-do, had been a staple for more than 30 years, there competing against every rock-thrower in the community of 120,000 love-starved souls, growing by leaps & bounds in bold content while the town grew itself into what it is now - a metropolitan-sized colonia unrivaled in the Western Hemisphere. Slowly, the town's gasp has moved toward incredulity. How can El Roci be gone, they asked in the laundromats and finance companies and cantinas and tortillerias and used clothing stores and cheap motels. How, Elena? Who did it? (sound it out: Whoooo deeeeed eeeeet?) But gone it is.

Some here took to the brain and said they thought El Rocinante's operator - one Jerry McHale - was merely toying with the poor, that he was re-designing his site and would soon be back. "Ees hees habit," said one resident as he waited for a bus at the bus terminal that would take him to a better place - Falfurrias. "Heee no want to stop. Naught now. He beeeee back..."

Others said yes, he's gone. They opined that it would take too much energy to re-start such a mind-blowing Blog, that McHale simply did not have the desire for such a big job. Johanna Luera, a hairstylist, said this: "Y yo que se? (I have my own opinion). Ese Bato siempre anda chingando! (That guy loves controversy.) Mira, guapo, espera unos dias y despues ven a verme. Te dire todo. (Look, stud, we all have our own fuckin' problems. Why don't you just get the Hell outta here and leave us alone).

And so it went. At one point, we got the idea that people were just shittin' us with their low-rent thoughts. You know, saying stuff we sorta understood and sorta didn't understand. But that disorientation was El Rocinante's style, so we didn't feel out of sorts.

No, people here have lived with rejection and disappointment for centuries. One less free treat won't mean squat around here, or as another resident put it, "Si se puede! (Yes, we hated it!). We walked to our car parked in front of a crowded downtown Tex-Mex cafe, got in, put the transmissson in D after starting the engine and were gone. As Jerry McHale would have said at the first traffic light : "Chinguen su madre todos los Crackers! (I'm Going to Disneyworld!)

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