For Brownsville, It's "No" On Being Massage Capital of The Rio Grande Valley...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Back during the 1980s Urban Cowboy craze, and back when The Brownsville Herald was an afternoon newspaper allowing the reporting corps to mess-about after 3:00 p.m., we would bop over to a massage parlor off the main highway and take our afternoon siesta at the hands of one of the angels working the noble trade. I didn't pay, thanks to befriending the owner at some Central Blvd. joint that year. But my often-obnoxious Herald running buddy Dan Dalton and then-Dallas Times Herald reporter Guillermo X. Garcia did enjoy the scenery and the rubbing. I always got the Matador Special. Let your imagination wander on that one.

So, it was with a bit of reflection that I was somewhat struck by the city's desire to crackdown on illicit massage parlors. I think the one we went to was licit, although, well, it was the halcyon What A Time It Was Era, and, back then, one wink led to a, yeah that down there. Nothing too weird ever happened; it was just semi-naked chicks doing their best to please hard-working dudes. In the first inning, I got a pitcher of lemonade and a neat bright-red towel around my lower body. By the seventh-inning stretch, I was loose-as-a-goose, my back and thighs as relaxed as could be. The bottom of the ninth brought a gushing rally that sealed the deal. I love women who are good with their hands. This one was absolutely schooled in pleasure. The boys smiled and tipped well as they exited their rooms. It was a time for men being men and women being for men.

But who knows? Maybe Brownsville is simply not interested in being the Massage Capital of the Rio Grande Valley. It could be as simple as that, or it could be that some enterprising moralistic cop has been noseying around, written a report, and that report has been submitted to the City Commission. Yeah, I want a roll-call vote on thuis one, mayor. Poll the Commission at the deciding meeting. Let's see how the fun-loving Charlie Atkinson votes, how A-Rose-Is-A-Rose McGowen votes, how testy Troiani votes, how America's Commissioner Melissa Zamora votes. Up or down? What's it gonna be?

Fact is, the whole premise bugs me. This is the harsh Texas-Mexico border, where residents insist on their own music, food, language and law. Yes, the rules-playing massage parlours aren't the problem. But, as with the world of good & bad bars (cantinas, boys), there's always that ungovernable joint in every town that exists to feed the cops easy arrests and, on occasion, say to the community, "Yeah, at least you know you're alive!"

Massage parlours. The vote: Aye.

Illicit massage parlours. The vote here: Aye, and keep my name out of the newspaper...

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