The Dreams Of Harlingen:...Can The Local Ballclub Pull-off A Miracle?...

By MELITON BROWN
Tribune Sports Editor

HARLINGEN, Texas - In small, cash-strapped towns across America, sometimes it is the local minor league baseball club that gives a community a sense of belonging to something bigger, something with the promise of some victory. Here, such hopes head for the ballpark tonight.

There, inside the confines of humble Harlingen Field (see photo above), it'll be nine baseball players shouldering the idea that Harlingen, Harlingen!, can win the Big One. It is a certain time in town, a time rich in political strife and economic blows. Winning the title in the United Baseball League (yes, even that!) would go a long way toward bringing this struggling community of 74,000 souls one of those rare wins it has not seen in years in every aspect of Life.

The Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings, their season as much a roller-coaster ride as its hometown's disarray, carry a mediocre 47-45 record into a 3-game series against the powerful Amarillo Dillas, the league's No. 1-seeded club. Somewhere else, the Edinburg Roadrunners battle the Laredo Broncos in the other semi-final series. Winners of each series will then play for the title.

The games begin tonight at 7 p.m.

There is no word from low-key Mayor Chris Boswell about any plans for a championship parade...

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[EDITOR'S NOTE:...With this, his initial report for The Tribune, new Sports Editor Meliton Brown enters the Rio Grande Valley of Texas sportsworld. He will be covering a variety of athletic events in the region. Meliton is a graduate of the University of Texas - El Paso, where he earned a degree in Journalism. He also holds a Masters Degree in his field from The Sorbonne in France...]

THE PALACE CAT:...In Ever-Whining Brownsville, Eddie Lucio Shows Them His Way...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - When he was much younger and still in search of his political path, Eddie Lucio would go deer-hunting, bag a buck or two, get it dressed and packaged and head back here, where he would call up his friends in the press and gift them with a few pounds of the rough meat. It was taken and presumably enjoyed. Lucio, an affable man in his early-30s, would smile when doing it, see nothing questionable about the practice and go back to his job as Cameron County Commissioner.

In those days, Lucio would carry the political bucket for then-Co. Judge Ray Ramon, a politician perhaps too smart for the poor county, but a politician who would teach Lucio the ropes. Lucio learned well. This year, he goes into his 20th year of service in the Texas Senate, after four years as a state representative. Not too shabby for a poorboy from a poverty-stricken bordertown.

Only, it hasn't been the sort of confetti & pinata career one generally imagines for someone with so many years of service. The 64-year-old Lucio is openly damned and shamed in his hometown as a politician out for himself, this even as he has some accomplishments in bringing better education to the area. At the heart of the criticism is Lucio's seeming personal enrichment while in office, hefty incomes he does not explain yet account for ownership of some nice property and an extra-nice home. In sketchy bios, he is said to be the president of a marketing & advertising agency by the hardly-imaginative name of Rio Shelters, Inc.

And, of course, there is the much-publicized involvement in the so-called Bridge To Nowhere that many say cost the county some $21 million and allegedly further enriched Mr. Lucio. Investigations, however, were conducted, yet nothing stuck to any official or consultant regarding the violation of any law. The Bridge To Nowhere would have become yet another span connecting Brownsville to land across the Rio Grande in Mexico.

Lately, there have been more reports targeting Lucio, but, we ask: Why the angst?

The political climate in Brownsville - and South Texas - always has come with gusts of candidates and public servants somewhat uninterested in the whole as muc has they are in promoting & advancing themselves. Eddie Lucio is merely the latest politician to be stamped as a self-serving public servant. Everybody knows it, yet the scribbling sails out into the hit & humid environment of low-rent Journalism.

It would be something quite altogether different were Lucio the only elected official to ever fool the area's public, as his murder of critics like to note. He isn't, and he never has been that. Eddie Lucio has learned his craft, practiced winning politics and served in a manner of his choosing. Is it his fault that not everyone has been served? No. Is it his fault that he continues to remain in office? No. Is it his fault investigators never connect wrongdoing to him? No. Is it his fault that few, if any, challenge him on election day? No.

Eddie Lucio, to the utter dismay of those who hate him, is living the Great American Political Dream. If anyone is to blame for his standing in the world, it is the collective voter. A more worthwhile investigation into this man would be, not mere globs of pseudo-journalistic mud aimed his way, but a closer at look at why - and how - he wins election after election after election.

The Palace Cat is not to blame for his status in life. But he will take all the adulation and comforts lapped on him by his so-called Masters. Eddie Lucio will be The Palace Cat here until someone tells him he no longer has the job, and who can blame the guy for having the time of his life doing what he's done for decades?...

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Urged To Return, The Tribune Complies With A Sincere Request...

By JUAN JONES
Staff Writer

HOUSTON, Texas - Man, and I was just getting comfortable. It's a dog's life, Bro. But, it is as they say, so long as there are criminals and corrupt politicians and good booze and white women, well, Journalism has to hustle-on.

I got the call. "Tell'em The Tribune will be back online on Monday," wrote that irascible dude, Patrick Alcatraz, the editor of this mess. "And get down to Brownsville ASAP. There's trouble down there. Work a piece and file the story by dawn."

And then he told me to call everybody, as if I have the damned minutes on my cellphone.

Ron Mexico, Jr. in New York and awaiting his flight to Amsterdam, said, "You stroking me, or what!"

Eliot Elcomedor, packed and ready to board a speedboat to Havana out of Miami, sent his immediate regrets, saying he'd be in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas later in the week, after a few rounds with a  woman he used to know in Cuba. Stoney Hernandez got the part in the Mexican novela (playing a Mexican drug pusher), so he's out. Spike Torres is gone, as well, off to write his screenplay in Colorado. The Gay Blade, Rey Buckingham, also begged-off, saying he's met a guy from Barbados and thinks it's true love. Angelo Margarita may or may not come back. He said he hates the long, boring fuckin' drive down to South Texas. That stiff Kraut Ricardo Klement, the most lifeless dude I've ever met, said he was driving to some Supremacist gig in Utha, but promised to be back my mid-week. Klement looks like the back of a postage stamp, man. Pale fucka, yes.

"I just didn't get the whole Valley thing, Man," Buckingham said. "Those stubby, greasy men there never moved me. But do say hell-o to County Judge Carlos Cascos. The guy is interesting, but, sadly, too short for me. Tell Pat to call me in a few weeks. I could always write from here. Ha ha ha ha."

Is that everybody?

Man, I'm, as they say, with a honeybuns and, yeah, I be busy.

So, The Tribune returns bright & early tomorrow. What's that?

Be right there, Baby...

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[Editor's Note:...Former Tribune Sports Editor Doyle May was unavailable for comment. A woman answering the phone at his home said he was in Bristol, Conn., meeting with executives of ESPN about a job as a field reporter for NFL games. He will not return to The Tribune...]    

The Tribune Bids Farewell To A Charmed Land...

By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer

RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas - So, they left it up to me. Bastards! Me, the Nazi on the team, told to write an ending to this "Everything & Nothing" Blog. So, okay, they got me this room at a local motel with off-white towels as ragged as I've ever seen. I'll write this adios and be gone. Achtung, Baby, indeed!

The thing is our editor - Patrick Alcatraz - has no sense of pain. His feelings range from "Gimme to Goodbye," so he wasn't the one to ever write this. Ron Mexico would have been the one, but Alcatraz had him killed. So, it'll be me, the German with the Mt. Everest-sized WW II guilt. Klement kills again! It'll end someday. I dunno. I have applied for this obituary writer's job with The Jerusalem Post, so perhaps that would be a new beginning, although you never know with Jews.

"Tell them something about how we enjoyed our stay in the Valley, about how lovely the locals are, and about how we buried ourselves in the great food," wrote Alcatraz in his memo to me regarding this last assignment. "Oh, and don't forget to write something about us wishing everybody the Goddamned best. It's been a hoot..."

The Tribune, I know, lived to live. It had a grand dream, perhaps too big for the small sky around here. Who knows? Who really ever knows? Dammit...Who cares, yeah...

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[EDITOR'S NOTE:..Reporter Juan Jones announced plans to take a few days off before going back to Houston, to look for his Big Booty girlfriend, Sherika. Rey Buckingham isn't happy about The Tribune ending things, but he's ready to go back to Miami's livelier Gay Scene. Spike Torres is moving to Aspen, Colorado, to write a screenplay about life in Harlingen. Stoney Hernandez is auditioning for a role in a Mexican novela. Ron Mexico, Jr. is flying to Amsterdam, where his father was murdered, to continue Dad's sex-sex-sex lifestyle there. Doyle May has a shot at a job with Sports Illustrated, covering Tiger Woods. Eliot Elcomedor is flying to Havana for no real reason. Editor Patrick Alcatraz is off to train for that climb of Mt. St. Helens he can't get out of his head. Everybody else is staying in the Rio Grande Valley, to collect unemployment, yes. As the Spanish Adam put it best: "What Eva"...]

OUR SURVEY SAYS!: Best & Worst Pols in The Rio Grande Valley...

By RON MEXICO, Jr.
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - It seems like years ago that the mayor of this town at the end of the Rio Grande found himself in the news; in the news in a bad way, we mean. Hizzoner Pat Ahumada, shown in photo above, has become The Mellow Mayor of late - neither railing against the federal monstrosity known as The Border Wall rising south of town, nor being busted by local fuzz for drinking while driving. Ahumada has been the picture of calm & control most of this summer.

So, for that reason he gets our Top Spot on our list of Ascending Valley Politicians.

There are lingering issues in every danged city & town in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. But, as chroniclers of area action, we occasionally stop to rate our public servants. And so, here we go...

Politicians Going Places:

2.) Harlingen City Commissioner Kori Marra - She was broiled, roasted, rotisseried and grilled earlier this year by many in her hometown for being, well, a selfish and obnoxious public servant. My, how things have changed for the perky real estate lady. Central to her turning the wagons around was her recent vote for popular city manager candidate Carlos Yerena. Marra, daughter of the at-times prankish Texas west, sided with those who openly say they want change. In going against the wishes of her trusted ally and political mentor, Mayor Chris Boswell, Marra sent out a clear signal that she may be ready to contribute to the city's progress and not hold it down to its insular past. The next race for mayor is wide-open, and something tells us she knows it...


Politicians Going Nowhere:

1.)  McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez - This guy played Wiffle Ball all summerlong, and he struck out most of the time. First, he worked against keeping the city's beloved Botanical Gardens, asking voters to approve the idea of transforming the property into a world-class tennis center. Unswayed voters howled, "Nyet!" Then he proposed that the City of Palms rid itself of the centrally-located convention center by selling it to the highest bidder. Next, he said he wanted to sell Boeye Reservoir to some business entrepreneur. Same for a park on the city's west side. All this was roundly booed by the citizenry. Cortez then withdrew the park sale. Still, the booing continued. Cortez, never an excitable figure, suffers from that all-biz accountant's syndrome, which is his training. Like a politician reaching for a handy stick, he cited a drop in city tax revenues for the ideas. It has fallen like a Hindenburg in town, imagery that likely forms the portrait many in McAllen have of the boring mayor.

2.) Brownsville City Commissioner Melissa A. Zamora - We've held great hopes for this public servant, perhaps because we believe it'll be women politicians who will eventually take this region out of its forever corrupt and do-nothing sinkhole. But Ms. Zamora let us down when a certain issue hit the City Commisison fan recently, namely the blocking of Public Comments from the cable broadcast of City Hall meetings. We are fully aware of her comments following the initial discussion, but we wish she had been a bit more forceful. There was a time when Ms. Zamora was all about transparency. But that was before she won election. Perhaps there is still time for a comeback. Things have a habit of going from zero-to-60 in no time flat in Brownsville. Let us hope. Ms. Zamora may yet be in the running for The Tribune's Politician of The Year award...

3.) Harlingen Mayor Chris Boswell - If ever, as the poem says, there was public servant with soul so dead, it is Mssr. Boswell. Leader of a mid-Valley city with an avalanche of problems, he chooses to lead in the style of Ward Cleaver. Boswell is never seen in public, nor is he heard to say anything outside the City Commission chambers. Much is roiling in town, yet he sails along, as if aboard the S.S. Minnow in search of an uncharted island. Ditching it all seems to be his bent these days. Harlingen has taken a beating all summer, what with problems at the police department, controversial support of a national hunting & fishing outlet many say is a money pit for the city's taxpayers, and, just last week, Boswell saw the woeful power he wields firsthand, when the City Commission approved the hiring of a new city manager Mayor Boswell didn't endorse during the drawn-out selection process. Mostly, to us, he seems at odds with the idea of serving the public. Perhaps he would do more for the community as, say, manager of the local minor-league baseball team - the Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings. There, he could plot against the umpires and, really, no one in town would bitch about it...

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[EDITOR'S NOTE:...This is the latest in an occasional series of updates on the Rio Grande Valley's elected officials. We do this independently; that is, without bribery from anyone and without extending favor to anyone...] 

In Lonely Harlingen, A Night For Celebrating A Cheater...

By DOYLE MAY
Sports Editor

HARLINGEN, Texas - The entire city of fun-starved Harlingen turned-out last night to see disgraced baseballer Jose Canseco take the mound against the lowly locals - the Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings. Minor league action has found a home here. Canseco, unable to land a job in the Big Leagues perhaps due to his use of performance-enhancing drugs while a member of the Oakland Athletics, threw balls at home plate for his club, the mediocre Laredo Broncos of something calling itself the United Baseball League.

The crowd settled back and inhaled deeply between batters, as they waited for the bulky Canseco's turn at the plate. Said one roly-poly, fat-faced fan, "I am so juiced just being here! Ha ha ha ha..."

"Hey!" yelled another beer-guzzling fan at this reporter, "...tell them we want to see Yogi Berra next! Ha ha ha ha..."

The final score (Wingsters won) was irrelevant.

"I'm just tickled pink to be in the same stadium with Jose Canseco!" he threw out, clutching his ripped ticket stub. "Jose Canseco! I'm breathing the same air as Jose Canseco! Jose Canseco, man! Somebody peeeeeeench me! Ha ha ha ha..."

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BRAIN DRAIN: What The Jose Canseco Fawning Rendered...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor of The Tribune

PORT ISABEL, Texas - The Valley Brain, as it is often called in New England medical journals, is a study in combative wonderment. It is said that most everybody who lives this far south along the scurrilous Mexican border wishes for one thing - a return to calmer, less-demanding times. That is why, say pop sociologists, things stagnate and why many overly-sensitive residents find it easier to lump on anyone noting the area's many, many failings.

The photo above was taken here sometime in the 1930s. That decade and the two that followed are generally regarded as years in which the local brain suffered greatly, to the point of not regaining its full senses until decades later. And still, however, one reels at how this wildly-dependent region plays the Game of Life. Bring any sort of federal government aid and the people will smile, laugh, frolic, do cartwheels. Tell them their welfare checks will be cut or late...and the world comes to an end.

Never in the history of Mankind has a region so handed itself to more-ambitious outsiders.

There is nothing being invented here. There is no great contribution to society to pluck out of at the very least several such advances. It is a land devoid of drive. It is a community flatbed rolling down dusty roads while carrying ragged couches and battered General Electric refrigerators from one side of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas to the other. There is no needed mass transportation, unless you count the numerous U.S. Border Patrol paddy wagons. There is nothing approximating controlled growth. It is all willy-nilly; you build this taqueria here and I'll build my taqueria across the street. Then we'll branch-out to the next town and keep going. My uncle will build one in Harlingen and my aunt will build one in Brownsville.

The next thing you know we're taco moguls.

That is simplistic, but that logic plays itself across the societal spectrum here. It could be tacos, or it could be fruit, or it could be a gangbusters window-tinting business at the fleamarket. The approach is always rudimentary, forever without novel thought or grand scheme.

It also is why you see ridiculous stabs at belonging, why a psychic (a psychic!) hangs a sign that will read: "We now have a Christal Ball." A Christal Ball!

A new study of the region's gains and losses likely would fill the latter category way before the "gains" column would see anything resembling a list. People are starving, not for food - cause, as we said, there's always a cheap taqueria within buckteeth distance. No, they're starving for higher ground, for anything bringing something new & different, for a chance at the extra-special.

And that, boys & girls, is why the Valley Brain falls for a national joke such as Jose Canseco. The disgraced former major league ballplayer drew thousands of fools to the ballpark in struggling Harlingen this week. Most of these fawning fans set aside his use of performance-enhancing drugs and ambled in to watch him play. Canseco could not draw ten people anywhere else in the country, anywhere where a standard exists and that standard says you don't fall for cheap thrills...

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Disgraced Baseballer Jose Canseco Ignores Brownsville...God-Whipped Town Wonders Why...

By DOYLE MAY
Sports Editor

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - He looks pretty much like every damned body in this town, so some are asking why disgraced baseball star Jose Canseco couldn't drive over from Harlingen to sign a few autographs. It's been that kind of month for the City at The End of The Rio Grande. A proposed dock for cruiseliners at the Port of Brownsville has gone nowhere, the idea bringing wild laughter from all points north.

And then Canseco came to struggling Harlingen up the highway.

"Why not us?" asked a forlorn Jerry McHale as he sat inside Cobblestones, the town's most popular watering hole. "What are we - dogmeat?" McHale left after five hours of boozing, departing the bar without tipping the bartender. "Asshole," the barback was heard to say as McHale ambled out at an angle only Stephen Hawking or Linda Lovelace could ever interpret.

Brownsville, indeed, is dogmeat. In the ledger of American communities looking for any morsel of progress or goodness, Brownsville is at the top of the list. It gets nothing but pain. The 46-year-old Canseco, in Harlingen with his uber-minor league Laredo Broncos to play the woeful Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings, won't come to town, even as he makes his Last, Great Border Baseball Tour.

It is yet another stab in this under-achieving city's heart, this one coming from the back, the scene captured in Sam Peckinpah's version by twenty cameras looking at it from twenty angles, blood streaming like raging rivers, spooked horses trampling heavyset women and crying children on dusty Main Street, portly, mustachioed men flashing fajita-like faces full of fear, their bodies gyrating like drunken winos, arms akimbo as they do their damndest to stand erect.

Jose Canseco wouldn't come to town.

Goddammit...

 - 30 -

LESSONS FROM KATRINA: When America's President Turned His Back On Americans...

"This didn't feel like the United States; this didn't feel like home..." - NBC News Anchor Brian Williams, reporting from New Orleans in the days after Hurricane Katrina

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor of The Tribune

McALLEN, Texas - Five years ago this week, on Aug. 29, 2005, the United States got its chance to look inward after a major disaster. Thousands stood displaced, injured and left to fend for food & water after Huricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, flooding the Louisiana city and creating a mess so massive that only the federal government had the capacity to respond. Water and food eventually came from locals, but scenes captured by television news crews told of cold-hearted abandonment.

Blame quickly fell on President George W. Bush. Never a man at ease around poverty or someone else's needs, Bush was slow to roll the government's gear and aid forces. His initial idea was to fly-over the devastation aboard Air Force One (see photo). To this day, it remains a black mark on his presidency. This is the week that television - local, network and HBO - will return to the days and weeks after Katrina, to recall a time in America when the country let its own down. It is a clearcut example of shame and of that tenet among some in the country that the poor will always have to do for themselves. Much of the criticism rested with a commonly-held belief that New Orleans, being a city inhabited by a dominant African-American population, had been ignored because of race. Had the hurricane struck, say, Pensacola on the Florida Panhandle to the east, well, things would have been very different.

As weird as it sounds, there are those who say the country's response is dictated by exactly which of its citizens are victimized. George W. Bush being a Republican had much to do with the government's failure, critics charged. And so images sailed across television screens, images of children perspiring in the oppressive late-August heat and humidity, of the elderly left on sidewalks with medication notes on sheets of paper stapled to their clothing, of roaming police officers telling residents help was on its way, but that help was not the police department, of an overflowing Louisiana Superdome filled to the rim with families, many of them begging for water, scenes of despair all over the spacious stadium floor.

Katrina tested this country, and this country failed royally.

The country has suffered other calamities. Earthquakes in San Francisco and Galveston killed thousands, but those came early last century, when the nation did not have the resources it had when Katrina landed its powerful blow. No, this time, the government had the National Guard and its modern equipment that included helicopters. It had emergency mobile homes. It had military airplanes that could've dropped food & water in the hours after the hurricane moved through New Orleans. It had the capacity to help, and to help fast.

It didn't.

And that, then, is what the news media will broadcast all this coming week. It will not be a good day for the federal government, for a number of federal emergency response agencies, for a slew of so-called charity organizations that mine for donations, but rarely come through with equal vigor when needed.

But it will be worse for George W. Bush.

He failed miserably, and he absolutely knows it - like his country knows it...

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Sunday Editorial: Jose Canseco May Be The Better Hitter, But Mario G. Obledo Was The Better Man...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor of The Tribune

PORT ISABEL, Texas - In the era of grotesque publicity that we live in, it is easy to focus on the so-called celebrities, the made-for-TV types, the whiners who get ready airtime on national news programs, the bad eggs who do their deeds and continue to come calling for adulation. Yeah, Jose Canseco, current darling of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas press, could fit perfectly in any of those aforementioned categories. The disgraced Hispanic ballplayer is in town to play before fans largely ignorant of his awful history, and ready to shower him with cheers of the sort better-suited for real heroes.

But we spend too many words on Canseco.

Better words surface when we consider another Hispanic, this one being Mario G. Obledo.

The collective response from residents of the Valley: Mario who?

It is Mr. Obledo (shown in photo above), from Southern California, that Hispanics should cheer. He died this past Wednesday - at about the time news hit the region about Canseco's visits to area ballparks. Obledo did more in one day for the Hispanic community than Canseco could ever do - even if he dedicated the rest of his years to bandaging a horrible reputation as that once-Somebody major league baseball player who used illegal drugs to enhance his performance on the field.

There was no mention of Mr. Obledo's passing in area newspapers. Nothing, anyway, that would approximate any sort of mournful gratefulness. Canseco, on the other hand, was big news - in print and broadcast. Here, in a region inhabited mostly by Hispanic-Americans? Yep, here...

Mario Guerra Obledo began his life in San Antonio. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served aboard a ship during the Korean War, got his pharmacy degree from the University of Texas before earning a law degree from St. Mary's University. In his later years, he would join the Harvard Law School faculty as a teaching fellow. Most of his adult life was spent in California, where he served in various state government positions, including Secretary of Health & Welfare. Through it all, Mr. Obledo fought every slight he detected being aimed at Hispanics - from vigorously attacking Taco Bell's use of a chihuahua in its "Yo quiero Taco Bell" advertisements, to telling Anglos in California they could go back to Europe if they didn't like Hispanics.

Indeed, when then-President Bill Clinton presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998, Mr. Obledo was honored for having "created a powerful chorus for justice and equality." In fact, some called him the "Godfather of the Latino Movement" in the United States.

News reports of his day show that, always, Mr. Obledo took the discrimination fight to the streets, going public at every opportunity. In the 1990s, when someone put up a sign at the California border saying, "Illegal Immigration State," he threatened to burn it down, and do it personally. In radio interviews, he was brutally honest about his approach. In one instance, in 1998, he said that Hispanics would soon take all of California’s political institutions. When outrage ensued, he again launched his handy, favorite suggestion; that being, that those who didn't like it could go back to Europe.

But atop his mountain of accomplishments were creation of various important political and civil rights institutions that included the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the Hispanic National Bar Association, the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and the National Coalition of Hispanic Organizations. Mr. Obledo also served as president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and chairman of the National Rainbow Coalition, the leftist political organization that grew out of Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign.

There is no question that Mr. Obledo was not as well-known to South Texas residents - apparently, not anywhere near as known as former Oakland A's oufielder Canseco - and therein lies the sadness of this man's passing and the failure to acknowledge the many, many contributions he made to help an often-oppressed sector of the American citizenry.

Mr. Obledo was 78 at the time of his death in Sacramento.

Jose Canseco is in his mid-40s, for some damned reason drawing more adulation here than the entire region ever aimed at Mario G. Obledo. In the parlance of the sport that keeps supporting Mr. Canseco, Jose this week carries the under-achieving Laredo Broncos of something called the United Baseball League on his big, broad shoulders. Mario G. Obledo carried millions of Hispanics on his much-smaller shoulders for decades - fielding bigotry cleanly and hitting memorable, game-winning societal homeruns...

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EXCERPT: From "The Mariachi Played Penny Lane - And Other Short Stories..."

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor of The Tribune

McALLEN, Texas - Salvador Donaldo had been writing his novel for 30-some years, never putting it in writing, always keeping his plot & characters in his head. It had to be some 800 pages by now, he would tell his friends. It's up here, he would go on, pointing to the side of his head, to a spot directly above his right ear. When they would ask him what the book was about, Salvador would say it was about this middle-aged woman from the Boston suburbs who had come to the Texas-Mexico border to teach young Mexican kids the art and fancy of the piano.

"And then, but I'm flash-forwarding to near the novel's end, she composes this fantastic piece that at once bridges the style of the masters in Germany, Bach, Mozart, those guys, and the sounds of the Mexican mariachi, the strings and brass, that stuff," is what he would say, leaving it at that.

On the faces of his pals would grow looks of wonderment and concern.

Only, Salvador never cared for feedback on his work. It's the last thing a writer needs, he would say. Plus, you can never describe the contents of a novel in a short paragraph to friends, even if everybody is drinking beer. You were better-off  not saying anything. You could never hope to bring friends - or anyone - into the trip that was the writing of a novel. The engine pulled no passenger cars; yeah, that was it. Just the writer as train engineer. No one else aboard. They would get their chance to ride after the book was published. The thing is, he often tried to say, but never did, really because they were his friends, writers hate hangers-on, especially those who wish to be told of one's work before it was finished. No bookwriter liked doing that. No, the story, the novel, was like an old, but comfy jacket no one else could ever borrow, wear.

Indeed, something like that is what his main character, this woman from New England, says when she is asked about her music. And, she would go, don't even think of asking to play my piano. These keys can only feel my energy, perform my verve, release my innermost sounds. The desire to compose original music had entered the realm of possibilities for her only recently. She'd taught music, things like how to read it, at a Boston-area college for many years. Salvador had two names for her, unable to decide on which of the two best fit the character's quirky personality. One of the names was Elizabeth, which he liked. The other name was Margaret, which he thought lent itself more to the world of classical music - her one and only love in music. Margaret was the name he would have used, if only he was sitting down to write today, which he wasn't doing. The novel still swam the waters of that undiscovered ocean he thought would have looked lovely between the American Southwest and the Northeast - if only someone would rid the country of its middle, the so-called breadbasket, the boring heartland.

Margaret had taken nicely to the harsh geography of deep South Texas. She had moved her household belongings into a small house ("It came with a small swimming pool!") north of the Hidalgo County community of Edinburg. The widower who'd sold her the aging, three-bedroom ranch house had thrown-in the sixteen chickens he'd kept in a screened coop. A weathered barn off to the side of the house had been converted into the piano lessons classroom. Margaret had hired an insulation company to sound-proof the walls, not because she did not want to upset her neighbors, because she had none for miles, but because she thought the students' attempts at playing would upset her chickens.

In the story, Salvador created a second major character. That would be, he told himself, Genaro, the local who would tend to her yard, her weeds, and two the fifteen, or so rows of corn she had on the southern flank of the property. Genaro would be the stereotypical Mexican employee in the novel, a character to be admired and valued, but a character flawed to the extent that he would, from time to time, raid Margaret's freezer and take a few steaks. His background included a long trip from his native Chiapas in Southern Mexico to the U.S. side of the border. The illegal immigrant aspect of his presence did not bother Margaret. She had seen his tireless landscaping work and marveled at how much he did for the $50 she paid him.

But it was her students that Salvador had trouble defining. Yes, there was a pig-tailed, obnoxious kid whose parents were hotshot lawyers in town. And there was the lanky teen-age boy who had been told he could be the next Mozart and so had adopted the annoying Mozart idea of not playing the last note in the selections Margaret assigned. It aggravated her enough to go plunk the piano keys herself, to rid her brain of that last missing note wandering wildly in her mind.

And then would come the manager of a group of musicians who would say he needed help in getting his boys to play together, to play their best. They worked local restaurants as a strolling mariachi, asking for, and getting, five dollars for every song a customer requested. What to teach them, had been Margaret's challenge. All of them were from the interior of Mexico, familiar only with the traditional music of their country. The manager had asked for help in "spicing up" their sound, in making it more palatable for Americans. The manager's name was Pedro Fanques. He smoked Camels and liked colorful polyester shirts. His shoes were of the $40 variety, always purchased in Mexico and always black in color.

Margaret listened to him and then played songs from early Beatles albums. In three short weeks, she...

- 30 -     

[EDITOR'S NOTE:...The rest of the story will be available upon publication of this collection...]

FOUL BALL: How Harlingen Became The Latest Stop In A Baseball Fairy Tale...

"Hey, the baseball league wants him here and I work for the league. He drew about 4,000 a game in three games in Laredo so far, a club that had been averaging less than,1,100 a game. With concessions etc. the club grossed nearly $200,000 those days..." - JERRY DEAL, Director of Public Relations for the United Baseball League and editor of MyLeaderNews.com in Harlingen

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor of The Tribune

HARLINGEN, Texas - When last heard from, former Major League Baseball player and steroid-user Jose Canseco was boxing actor Danny Bonaduce of The Partridge Family television show - and all he got was a majority draw. Prior to that, he took a beating at the hands of a 7-2, 330-pound South Korean fellow (see photo above). Yeah, it's been one carnival ride after another for Canseco since big league clubs turned their back on him. That, however, is just the tip of the soiled iceberg for this guy.

He's coming to Harlingen next Monday as a member of the Laredo Broncos UBL squad. It is the Fairy Tale of the Year for Harlingen, although, to be sure, the usual group of people who arrive to watch the Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings play nine will swell to a few thousand. It'll be Monday. Action inside local bars will be slow. Gunfire downtown likely will not burst until later in the evening. Yeah, take me out to the ballgame...

Canseco coming to town is no treat. Yes, he'll be the attraction, as would be Charles Manson if the Laredo Broncos signed him to pitch for the very reason league spokesman Deal notes above. The same crowd would come for Joe, the Plumber, or for anyone with any semblance of publicity, whatever its source.

This Cuban-American is out of pro baseball for a damned good reason. He has said he wants to manage a Big League club, yet he is hounded at every turn by his use of steroids during seasons with the Oakland Athletics, when he and steroids-happy Mark McGwire homered pretty much every time they went to the plate. At present, Canseco plays sparingly for the Broncos. He's a mere shadow of the ballplayer he used to be, more a disappointing memory than anything else. Deal does note that Canseco is holding training camps for kids in Laredo. Good P.R. move, but, like his decision to stop taking the performance-enhancing drug, a bit late.

All this reminds us of another former Big Time athlete who came to the Rio Grande Valley of Texas - one Quincy Carter, ex-QB for the Dallas Cowboys who signed to play for the then-Rio Grande Valley Dorados. Carter had been run out of Big D after being caught with marijuana by city cops. Same thing happened in the RGV. Carter got a  shot with the NY Jets after that, but eventually ended up playing for a Nowheresville semi-pro team in Abilene.

These guys should not be seen as heroes or role models. When Canseco comes to town and is announced by the P.A. man as the next batter, the crowd of curious onlookers will cheer at seeing him carrying his lumber to the plate. Little kids will cheer, 'cause everybody's cheering.

But they will be cheering for a man who does not deserve it.

Jose Canseco struck out a long time ago...

 - 30 -  

In Brownsville, The Three Tacos Blog On...Tickled To Be Described as The Cyndi Lauper Cartel...

By RON MEXICO, Jr.
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Without freakin' question, they are the Last Three Bloggers of Note. Here, in the City at The End of The Rio Grande, they are being called the Cyndi Lauper Cartel: word-pushers of varying degrees, one pumping out reflective literature, one ceaselessly angry at the vet-care system and one indefatigably defending the Mexican Way.

But things aren't what they used to be around here. The Blog has suddenly been devalued in town, perhaps in keeping with the strong Mexican culture just a stone's throw to the south, in Old Mexico. Still, The Brownsville Literary Review, new to the Internet Bullshit scene, does its best to stir the waters of the menudo pot, its burner on the aging Kenmore stove set on non-offending low, however. And there's Brownsville Voice, the so-called King of Inanities, operated by a Blogger who claims carpal tunnel problems yet has published more than 1,000 stories in the last three years. Want some milquetoast writing? Check this out from a recent Brownsville Voice posting: "But to be clear I am so, so happy in this house. My dogs are so happy to have a big yard again. Boy do I love my dishwasher." 

The third taco in the verbiage trio is something calling itself El Rrun Rrun, a website breathlessly devoted to All-Things-Mexican. On El Rrun Rrun, one finds the ultimate in Maquiladora Journalism - this tidbit about the border bandit Juan Cortina, always laudatory; that morsel about the passing of a Chicanoe accordionist; some chunk of free government cheese about yet another obscure local. Yeah, bland nacho. Needs garlic.

Not one of the three is doing anything spectacular. The Literary Review, its lineage coming from the once-feared, but now-defunct El Rocinante, hasn't hit its stride. At best, it is a model for that stuff pushed by the AARP - sleepy stories of love, hate & regret. Not that it's a bad thing, for over at Brownsville Voice, the boring rains over the local geography. At last check, Brownsville Voice trails its two amigos in the "hits" category; that is, visitors to the site. Often a source of minutiae interesting only to its operator and his family, it has threatened to bring an end to its offering, yet it doesn't do it - to the everlasting dismay of the general population here, said to be some 140,000 cigar and cerveza aficionados.

Across town, somewhere south, we imagine, the grown man who operates El Rrun RRun is stuck on glorifying border bandits, obscure Mexican accordionists and miniscule, meaningless secrets of the 14th Street cantina scene. It is a work of wonder, its contributions akin to the writings of Helen Keller.

"These guys don't threaten anybody in town anymore," said a chubby woman rolling a grocery store shopping cart to her battered car. "Now those blogs in Harlingen. Hijole...those boys are shaking the tree, stirring shit up, lobbing it at the mayor and the commissioners and the chief of police and everybody & their mother. Brownsville blogs have gone for the siesta. Que lastima."

And so, the rolling, broiling saga that once included threats of lawsuits, porno, profanity and enough whinings to keep every military veteran in this country happy forever...has ended. The black & white film has rolled off the sprockets of the projector, the curtain covered the silverscreen and the ushers ambled in to clean the aisles of spilt soda, left-over popcorn and uneaten Milk Duds.

Roll the credits...

- 30 -

[EDITOR'S NOTE:...The operators of these Blogs are Dr. G.F. McHale-Scully of the BrownsvilleLiteraryReview.blogspot.com, Bobby Wightman-Cervantes of BrownsvilleVoice.blogspot.com and Juan Montoya of ElRrunRRun.blogspot.com. We do not know what RrunRrun means, but we're told it is a street term used in Mexican corridos to denote the use of accordions in songs, or that it could be slang for what happens when you eat bad enchiladas...yeah, WTF knows...]

RUMOR OF LOVE: Brownsville Buys Into McAllen's Idea...Again...

By IGNATIUS BECERRA
Staff Satirist

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - This city just wants to be seen as being a go-getter. And it is not going to idly stand by while its neighbors in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas aim high. After hearing of McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez's dogged desire to sell several high-profile properties to Big Business, a few locals here started their sun-parched noggins thinking: why not sell-off our properties? Yeah, hey...why not us?!

McAllen is dying to sell its ancient convention center. It languishes largely unused at the corner of S. 10th Street and the New Expressway, there near the busy, busy La Plaza Mall and on the crowded main drag for insatiable shoppers from Mexico. Cortez, no relation to Bernie Madoff, also wants to sell land on which now swims the Boeye Reservoir not more two miles south of the convention center and adjacent to the city's bustling airport. And the mayor is also seeking to sell the land on which sits peacful Westside Park. Cortez explains it all by saying city revenues have dropped and noting that less and less shoppers from Mexico are finding the City of Palms.

Here, in Brownsville, the City at The End of The Rio Grande, some elected folks at City Hall want to evict tenants of the La Ultima Cumbia Nursing Home so that they can sell it to something called The Clarence Thomas Boardinghouse for Negroes - a Philadelphia-based enterprise that has tendered a hefty offer for the land and the building. La Ultima Cumbia, where senior citizens lodge and party, currently houses some 75 residents - many of them descendants of the Mexican Revolution.

"It's an idea being batted-around," said a lanky, high-necked City Hall insider. "Mayor Pat Ahumada likes it, 'cause it again allows us to say we chase McAllen on damned near everything. Besides, there have been reports of wanton, all-night sex at La Ultima Cumbia for months now, so..."

Efforts to reach Brownsville City Commissioner Melissa A. Zamora for comment were unsuccessful. As we have heard many times before from her telephone answering machine, Zamora's lovely voice told us: "If this is The Tribune, I am not in. If this is about anything controversial, I am definitely not in. If this is Patrick Alcatraz of The Tribune, I am on an extended vacation - like for 30 years!"

Mayor Ahumada giggled when contacted for comment, then laughed, and then guffawed, and then fell on the floor after gargling this out: "I don't even know how to cumbia, man!"

At La Ultima Cumbia Nursing Home, an elderly man wearing an orange-and-blue Mervyn's shirt, faded cargo shorts and tire-sole sandals said: "Well, it'll be fine with all of us if they get us a place on the island. But why do we always have to be lapping onto McAllen. I hate that Goddamned town..."

- 30 -

[EDITOR'S NOTE:...We do not mean to denigrate the city's poor and slobbish Southmost Subdivision, where La Ultima Cumbia Nursing Home resides, with the publishing of this piece. Posterity will not be kind to us, we know, we know...]

PISSED TO SEE YOU: She Walked In From His Turbulent Past...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor of The Tribune

McALLEN, Texas - Slide a drink along the bar toward a pretty gal and the future flashes before her like some fairy tale where, in the end, she gets everything she wants - me, my dog, my car, my mind, my body and my money. I love women, but still do not understand them. They have something in their biology men do not have, some magical chemical, some advanced gene. I'm convinced.

Isabel is an old girlfriend from my days in Dallas. She preceded Rebecca, but always loomed like that neat turtleneck sweater to be thrown over my shouders on a cold, winter day. Did I ever love my beautiful, exotic Isabel? I mean, truly, truly, truly love her? Yes, of course. I have this talent for loving my women. I like to think I keep the best of my love in reserve, but what I give them is more than they'll ever get from some other bastard. Isabel's lanky body mesmerized me. Her legs stretched forever, especially when they wrapped around my naked waist during, yeah, those moments. I dunno, I dunno. These women, they drive me nuts.

Isabel called me last night. She still lives in that lovely two-story townhouse near the city's Methodist university, on the East side of N. Central Expressway, just past Mockingbird Lane. Still has her goofy, little dog, Slinky. I re-named him Lazlo, although she stopped calling him Lazlo after I left. These women. They're nuts. All I know is that neighborhood mutts didn't fuck with Lazlo, but they kicked Slinky's ass daily.

In any case, what Isabel was asking was whether I had a steady gal in my life. I said, "Yes, and no." She said, "What does that mean?" And I said, "I have her, but I don't have her..."

"You're still fucked-up?" she asked.

"No," I shot back, picturing her teasing me by walking naked into our bedroom after she'd disrobed to take a shower, feigning loss of something or another - her new loofa, her expensive, polka-dotted shower cap. "I have her when she's with me, and I don't have her when she's not."

"I want to see you..." Thrown out there to hang, like longjohns in western Colorado after the last winterblast has left the mountain. "I've been thinking about you, about everything..."

I didn't want to ask. I didn't want to get back into it with her. I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to be on the planet for the next hour. She cleared her beautiful throat, the one that had always pleased me. I have this thing for watching women swallow me. It's part of my Scorpio personality, is what my shrink said when I was doing that freakin' therapy that ultimately went nowhere.

"My dearest Isabel," I began. "I cheated on you..."

She cut me off, saying something about all that being bullshit under the bridge. The imagery of that made me laugh; the imagery of me cheating on Isabel made me remember Rebecca's nice, round ass. The conversation swam, me with the current and Isabel swimming against it. I had some experience with these types of years-later telephone calls. Women. They'll pick up the phone at the drop of a boyfriend. So, we talked for another hour and then Isabel asked if any other woman "from the Valley" had sucked my cock, and I said, "They're not good at it down here," and she laughed, cooing she would please me, celestially, in their stead.

I loved Isabel mountains during our brief affair, which is what it turned out to be. I mean, freakin' to-the-moon mountains. It hurt me to drive over to her house. It hurt me until I'd see her and kiss her and hug her for long minutes, minutes like they have in Outer Space, not the 60-second variety on Earth. And then she would walk upstairs, do something in her bedroom and come back to the top of the stairs to stand in her white panties. Up there. Teasing the Hell outta me, as guys say in confessionals.

When the call ended, what she said there near the end was that she thought it a good idea to see each other again, and what I said was, "Well, we'll pretty much have to wait and see..."

Frankly, I can't see it happening. No, I've been called the "Ray Charles of Second Chances" for a damned good reason...

 - 30 -

[EDITOR'S NOTE:...Excerpt from the autobiography titled, "HAIL, MARY: THE TOTAL RUINATION OF A ONCE-GOOD CATHOLIC BOY"...]

In Harlingen, A Crippling Blow For Passive Mayor Chris Boswell...

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Staff Writer

HARLINGEN, Texas - They voted for a new city manager here last night, and the lingering result isn't so much that the favorite got the job, but that the unanimous vote said something big about the local mayor's standing in town. Mayor Chris Boswell awoke this morning with Carlos Yerena as the new city manager, a man he did not exactly endorse - at least not publicly.

Boswell, often characterized as a lame-duck political figurehead with insular ideas from a bygone time, is said to have wanted Interim City Manager Gabriel Gonzalez. It did not happen,as the Harlingen City Commission, in rare consensus action, voted 5-0 for Yerena, the city manager of Kingsville until last night.

As expected, Yerena, a native of nearby San Juan and a former city manager of Donna, said what many expected him to say: “I just wanted to come back to the Valley. I want to be a community wide oriented city manger. I want to serve all the citizens of Harlingen with no dividing lines."

Welcome to a new dawning in town. That, at the very least, is the dream, here in a town often polarized by a battle between those who wish no change and those who wish a myriad of changes. For Boswell (shown in photo above this story), always aligned with the so-called Old Guard, the selection of Yerena looms as a crippling blow to his power in local politics. Even his staunchest ally, the novice Commissioner Kori Marra, voted for the 40-year-old Yerena. Boswell, as mayor, only votes when an issue draws a numerical tie. He reportedly took the vote in guarded stride, saying only that he hoped things would go well for Yerena and for the city.

Not lost on the struggling community that has seen itself fall in the area's standings on tax revenues is the perception that Boswell simply is not exhibiting any sort of leadership. His passive, Hugh Beaumont-style has seemed at odds with the many high-publicity problems that have danced into town in recent months. Boswell has largely ignored Harlingen's long, hot summer.

For Yerena, the challenge will be to rally an entire town. As is usually the case in appointed positions that rest on the whims of a vote, his job will go smoothly so long as he has the backing of a majority of the city commission. There are issues to resolve and Yerena jumps in feet-first, seemingly ready and able to tackle such issues as a police department in disarray, a lack of promotion of the city to big business and a perception in town and the area that Harlingen suffers from terminal malaise.

And so Yerena begins his moment in the loneliest cantina between McAllen and Brownsville. Will he take the little lady out on the dance floor, or will he assume the wallflower position at the far end of the bar? Much is riding on his ability to flirt, to parry, to move to the music...

- 30 -

THE JERRY DEAL STORY: Stuck on Marra, Stuck Hard...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor of The Tribune

HARLINGEN, Texas - They're throwing stones here. Big'uns. Scuds flying across town. Blogger Jerry Deal, editor of MyLeaderNews.com, has begun flaming his old friend, Tony Chapa, editor of MyHarlingenNews.com, in what is being labeled as the Mother Of All Blog Wars.

And all because of a woman, that being City Commissioner Kori Marra (shown in photo above).

Deal, a veteran newsman, has come out hard in defense of Ms. Marra after Chapa attacked her public service on his Blog ahead of this afternoon's crucial meeting of the Harlingen City Commission. At play will be the hiring of a new city manager and discussion of the city's annual budget. Chapa has been on Marra like a fly on a dying cow, relentlessly lobbing vicious salvos against her. Deal, meanwhile, has turned into the chivalrous blogger, defending her at every turn, using his Blog to blast Chapa's style and characterizing him as anything but a true journalist.

In the insular world once the exclusive domain of the Old Guard, Deal’s flaming of Chapa might fit – not today. Those days are gone. There, indeed, are many in Harlingen – Deal's readers primarily – who would love to see Chapa's MyHarlingenNews.com shut down. It’s the Old Guard that wishes to silence the town, to get things calm as they were in the past, to stifle criticism of their inaction. Chapa's backers say MyHarlingenNews is right in calling grammar-challenged Commissioner Marra on the carpet for missing a string of recent budget meetings.

The woman, sad to say, is said to be way over her head. Whatever political skills she may have, note critics, are buried so deep in her supple skin that it would take a killer sunray to bring them out, if that. Her public relations are a royal mess.

If Blogger Deal believes this woman is the answer to the city’s problem, well, say some in town, then Jerry’s mental state needs to be questioned. Deal claims respectability as a journalist, but he has yet to delve deeply into Marra’s public service. The bet in struggling Harlingen is that he won’t. I’ve met Jerry Deal and he seems to be a nice guy, but his Journalism is from another era in Harlingen. His elitist stab at knifing Tony Chapa is silly. MyHarlingenNews is a Blog, as is The Tribune.

As such, both go after news & info from their perspectives. Deal's MyLeaderNews is not a newspaper, nor is it the best & only source of info in Harlingen. It is simply another fountain of stuff Deal feels like throwing on his website – nothing more and nothing less. MyLeadernews, goes the line in the streets, would gain respectability a-hundredfold if it addressed Marra’s failings honestly and fairly.

Some have suggested that Jerry Deal break out his AP Stylebook if he wants to practice Objective Journalism. Knocking another source of information is never a good idea, especially when the raison d’etre is the same one, they note. They say, as they have done before, that he risks being labeled a mouthpiece for a novice politician whose main contribution to local public service has yet to surface.

Much about Marra's future will be decided in her telling votes this afternoon...

- 30 -

Bottom of the Ninth: The Bases Were Loaded and Robert Leftwich Was Up...

"In closing, we need an open, transparent and community inclusive city hall, one that values the diversity from throughout the community and adheres to the consensus of the voters. The opportunity for participation and the feeling of being taken seriously should foster the growth of community ownership." - The Platform of Robert Leftwich, May, 2007

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Staff Writer

HARLINGEN, Texas - They say few certainties come along twice. Opportunity, goes the thinking in the world of politics, is either an opportunity to succeed or to fail. Those who practice this calling often define themselves and their public service by what they choose to tackle, and what they choose to ignore.

Robert Leftwich, shown in photo above, finds himself at one of those crossroads. The Harlingen City Commissioner many say has his sights on the mayorship of this struggling, Mid-Valley community of some 74,000 will have his Kodak moment this afternoon, when the Harlingen City Commission votes on a new city manager.

Which of the three remaining candidates will it be?

Insiders say current Mayor Chris Boswell, a public servant battling low popularity ratings in town, wants Interim City Manager Gabriel Gonzalez to get the job, as apparently does City Commissioner Kori Marra. Leftwich is left to herd the other commissioners toward the crucial, late-afternoon vote, one that has applicant Carlos Yerena at the top of the list. Yerena is city manager for the City of Kingsville at present. Robert T. Herrera, the third candidate and city manager for the City of Hondo, Texas, is said to be a longshot. Can Leftwich do it? Is he interested in shaking the local political tree, a tree many say is rooted deeply in what they call Old Guard politics, i.e. the historical haves vs. have nots, the conservatives vs. the progressives, tomorrow vs. yesterday.

The vote will come sometime after 6 p.m.

Will Leftwich stay true to his platform statement that says it is the community's wishes that should rule actions at City Hall? Will he lead, or will he merely arrive to cast his sole vote and leave things to fate?

Robert Leftwich should be jumping with enthusiasm, should be gloriously antsy at getting the opportunity to lead...

- 30 -  

ON THE CLOCK: The Trials & Tribulations of The Literary Outlaw Jerry McHale...

By JUAN JONES
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - It is at times said that the cruel hoaxster who invented this Rio Grande Valley, which is no valley at all, quickly left town taking with him the entire idea of dreaming, of daring, of beauty, of words such as havoc, dissent, drama, satire, laughter and love. Left behind, it is further said, was pain, crying, corruption, bad fashion, ugliness, tortillas and disappointment.

Well, there is Jerry McHale. We feature the Valley's singular literary outlaw here on this slumberous mid-August morning of a memorable day in Rock 'n' Roll. We'll leave it to you to find out why we write the "memorable" tidbit. And now, Mssr. McHale, editor of the now-defunct El Rocinante and currently editing the Brownsville Literary Review, will take our questions:

Question: 1.) So, how goes it with the Brownsville Literary Review? And how difficult has it been to lose El Rocinante?

In terms of BLA and ER, I've lost an old love, but I've gained a new one. I wrote ER for 21 years, the time spent equally between a tabloid version and an on-line version. I evolved as a writer although my critics might insist I devolved. Through a long process, I believe I have arrived at a new level of objectivity - I take no prisoners and I believe this attitude won the hearts of my readers. Most commentators are either biased or afraid. When Google disabled ER initially, I felt lost, particularly because I have two years of work that I'm trying to retrieve. But BLA immediately surged as a solution and I like the new direction. There is a New Yorker simplicity to it. I, of course, will remain a Brownsville watchdog. That is my mero mole, but I turn 60 this year and I want, via my writing, to reflect on the past, frolic in the present and contemplate the future. Most importantly, I'm enjoying the new format. I write stories with the wild anticipation of posting a piece of art.

Question 2.): Your assessment of today's Brownsville? Socially & politically.

Brownsville has great, easy-going, fun-loving people. Unfortunately, they are an apathetic lot. They would rather drink beer, eat wings and watch the Dallas Cowboys than preoccupy themselves with local issues. When only 5,000 voters are coming to the polls for local elections in a city of 200,000, the dismal numbers speak for themselves. Politically, Brownsville's biggest drawback are its politicians who are blatantly self-serving. Since The Brownsville Herald doesn't keep them accountable, they rob from the taxpayers for the benefit of family and friends with impunity. There, however, is an awakening taking place. UTB/TSC's President Julieta Garcia, a Brownsville icon, lost her majority on the TSC Board, an indication that the community is growing tired of the "Old Guard" as they like to say in Harlingen. Brownsville needs to undertake two projects to turn itself into a player. We need to build a 10,000-seat arena on the city's northside and we need to turn historical and architecturally rich downtown into a French Quarter. I'm glad to report that there is a growing movement in that direction, particularly when locals observe the magic that McAllen is working with its 17th Street Entertainment District.

Question 3.): Do you believe in the Brownsville politician? Given a choice of all adjectives, which one would you choose to describe local public servants?

The Jazz Festival's George Ramirez, Sombrero Fest's Danny Loff and Judge Ben Neece are visionaries. With the city's beauty and history, they are endeavoring to turn Brownsville into a happening place. With Matamoros a battle ground and SPI too far to drive home drunk, more locals are staying at home and partying. While Brownsville is no McAllen - McAllen has two Barnes & Noble for starters and Brownsville doesn't have any - it hasn't been lost on Harlingen that there is substantial movement in the Border City while the Sunshine City stagnates. Politically, however, Brownsville is in the thralls of a corrupt and incompetent Democratic Party. The only vision that the likes of Congressman Solomon Ortiz, State Senator Eddie Lucio Jr., Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa and scores of their scalawags have is their continued control of the machine that allows them to divide the goodies among the millionaires and the insiders. And when you look at the upcoming generation of politicos led by Eddie Trevino, Rick Zayas, Ruben Cortez Jr., Oscar Garcia Jr., Ruben Gallegos Jr. and the rest of the sniveling and spoiled juniors that want to exploit an ignorant populace for the easy money there is little reason to be optimistic politically.

Question 4.) All in all, you being a California transplant, has life been good/bad in Brownsville? Speaking honestly, how many local women have you had, and, do you ever see them in town?

I have been in Brownsville for 35 years. I have taught in the BISD for 33 years, I have taken numerous Brownsville high school soccer teams to state, I have run for mayor and city commissioner, I am finishing my eighth book, a novel entitled The Trials & Tribulations of Tommy Tamaulipas, I have had my five children here and a little McHale girl lies buried in Brownsville soil. Besides the influence of my parents, Brownsville has been the most important factor in my development as a person. My fourth wife and I just celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary. If I were to delve more into my personal life, I would probably be dusting myself off and looking toward a fifth marriage.

Question 5.) What rock 'n' roll song would say is your soundtrack? Why that one?

I'm eclectic, Brazilian music presently ranking at the top of my list with the Blues a close second, but if I had to pick something right now to replace a cup of coffee as I ready myself this Monday morning for the new school year and a boring week of in-services, it would be Jimi Hendrix's version of Bob Dylan's All Along the Watch Tower. When two giants of their stature collaborate on one song, you know it's got to be special. And it always returns me to my halcyon days as a university student hanging out in San Franciso with my long hair blowing in the wind and having fun. And though I've grown bald with too many hairs sprouting from the wrong places, I still like to sit down and at least once a week and finish a bottle of wine, either in the good company of a friend or the good company of myself. I've grown very comfortable with spending time alone...

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In Harlingen, Picking A City Manager Looms As Crucial Move...

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Special to The Tribune

HARLINGEN, Texas - For a few days last week, the one question batted-about here was whether any United Baseball League team could stop the rampaging Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings. The Wingsters had taken a dozen of their previous 15 games and it appeared the squad would ride into the league playoffs with a full head of steam.

The Wings have cooled-off, and so another question has surfaced in this town of 74,000 disgruntled denizens seeking better municipal government. Question: Which one of the three remaining candidates for the City Manager's job will get the City Commission's nod this coming week? Will it be the interim City Manager Gabe Gonzalez, or will it be the current City Manager of Hondo, Texas, one Robert T. Herrera, or will it be Carlos Yerena, the only one among the trio with a Masters Degree, who happens to be the City Manager of country & western Kingsville up the highway a bit north of here?

The selection is a big deal here, rivaling the National Football League's draft and the string of questions that arrive with every dawning hurricane. Gonzalez. Herrera. Yerena. A literal Crosby, Stills & Nash trio. If the pundits who crowd local blogs here are any indication, Gonzalez is the longshot, with Yerena the front-runner.

Herrera's bid comes with publicity about a resignation from the City of La Porte in 2002 for ethics violations similar to ones that collared former Harlingen City Manager Craig Lonon. The 40-year-old Yerena, born in nearby San Juan, is said to know the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and the people in the Valley.

Those following the city commission's every move on this matter say the selection is crucial to the struggling city's future. "We pick the wrong guy and we're done," said a patron waiting on his coffee at the Starbucks store on Ed Carey Drive here earlier this morning. "This pick looms as the sort of decision that will make or break this city commission's legacy. I wouldn't want to be a commissioner if they pick the wrong applicant. From what I've read, Carlos Yerena seems to be the best candidate. But you also have to wonder about deals that have already been made, or will be made."

Trepidation snakes across this town. Some say commissioners walk on eggshells. Others believe the selection of Gonzalez will bring a second Dark Ages for little Harlingen. Gonzalez, they opine, has made a name for himself as an administrator who has done little about perceived problems at the Harlingen Police Department and for seeming to side with unpopular Mayor Chris Boswell on most matters.

"Gabe Gonzalez may get it," said another resident. "It'll be good for him, but bad for a whole lot of other people. It comes with the job, sure. We know about our smalltown politics, so will I be shocked by the winner? Naaaaaaah."

The winning applicant's name will be announced at midweek. If Yerena is picked, that sound of triumphant back-slappings moving from one city limits sign to another will roll like a cool tsunami. If it's either of the other two, Gonzalez or Herrera, the exploding, groaning geysers will enfold Harlingen in a nuclear winter that'll last a long, long time...

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THE SALSA FIELDS: Gluttony In Town, And Why Dreams Die Young...

"As fog conceals the rays of the sun, so heavy consumption of food darkens the mind..." - Evagrius Ponticus

By SPIKE TORRES
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - As it plays daily, Life in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas rarely chases the tenets of the Bible, or even those later inserts that came after the Big Book was written. Adultery is big here, as is greed and sloth and the rest of the Seven Deadly Sins.

But it is one - Gluttony - that appears to be the most violated by everyone. A cursory glance at bellies around here tells you gluttons abound, people who have bailed on the Christian belief that says too much eating is as much a sin as is coveting thy neighbor's wife. A hundred-plus taquerias attest to that. The body representing this God-abandoned town of some 120,000 residents is not a pretty sight. What sayeth thou, Oh, hallowed Catholic Church?

Not much.

The dominant church has said nothing about the local diet that has many bursting at the seams, ballooned tummies in ugly, unregulated bulges that cannot be seen as anything other than a horrible, horrible indictment of an entire town. Not that it is alone in this region. Food is readily available up and down the Valley, bellying up to the table or booth a literal sport. But at what price?

If eating too much darkens the mind, as is written atop this story, well, can one then point to that as the chief reason why so little gets done in this part of the country? Are minds around here slowed by tamales? Crippled by tacos? Rendered useless by enchiladas? Is that why grand dreams are rarely ventured, never accomplished. You can make a case for that very argument.

There is a certain sadness in it, this watching of people scarfing down food as if pigs, as if hogs.

Perhaps all is lost...

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NOTHING GOOD ON TV: City Fades Its Long-Running Cable Novela To Black...

By LESTER CANTU
Special to The Tribune

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - It was always the local, low-rent novela most residents here ignored - those long and energy-sapping meetings at City Hall, the ones where the mayor and his coterie of comfortable commissioners sailed through heady issues such as the menace of plastic bags, the headaches born from massage parlor shenanigans, the bitch of stray dogs and, for a little salsa, the rage engendering that anti-immigrant law roiling Arizona.

Really, the only interesting frames came when the citizenry rose to speak in the Public Comments moment of the Brownsville City Commission meetings. Well, no more. Because, now, city leaders, said to be wary of lawsuits, have put an end to televising that part of their meetings. It wasn't unanimous agreement on the often at-odds commission, but it was a done deal - the character actors that filled the cable channel airtime would no longer see themselves addressing the commission, no longer working on scripts that gave them the best lines, the best digs, the best of Chicanoe literature-in-a-hurry.

According to City Attorney Mark Sossi, Brownsville was risking a lawsuit when these speakers lashed-out at non-elected officials, which is a common practice in the Hispanic culture.

Besides, it was also said, the City of McAllen does not televise its Public Comments time. And Harlingen does not televise its meetings at all. So, what the...

Said one regular speaker, identified as Fernando Ruiz: "We don’t live in McAllen, and McAllen doesn’t have a Fernando Ruiz." Well, yeah, that is true. There is only one Fernando Ruiz, like this Fernando, in the entire Rio Grande Valley of Texas.

About the move, City Commissioner Melissa A. Zamora, credited as the proponent of the anti-Arizona law resolution earlier this summer, said this: "If we’re going to televise our meetings, I personally feel it’s poor form to turn off the cameras during public comment. Yes, there are times when misinformation is said by public commenters, and there are times when we get yelled at. It comes with the territory when one becomes a public servant. But there are also times when legitimate issues are brought before us that the community should be made aware of..."

Sossi, meanwhile, acknowledged that the Citizens Blackout was his idea. He said something about people rising to address the commission on faraway issues such as rampant starvation in Africa, and he also bemoaned the fact that many of the residents who arrived to speak usually "ignored" the mayor, when he spoke.

And, oh, sure, we can't have the mayor being ignored. No, no, no. Nuclear war could break out. The goofy international bridge linking lonely Brownsville to renegade Matamoros might be taken-over by cruel, women-beating, drug-dealing thugs while Fernando Ruiz is speaking. A giant, bulbous black spider might descend on the city at just the wrong portion of the Brownsville City Commission meeting. Mr. Amigo could show-up, and then what? Some famous Mexican composer no one knew lived in Rancho Viejo might arrive and start singing, international celebrities like that.

Gimme the remote...

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[EDITOR'S NOTE:...Writer Lester Cantu is the former owner of The Valdez Brothers Tire Shop in Brownsville...]