Save Jerry McHale: Downtown Browntown

Downtown Browntown News
http://downbrowntownnews.blogspot.com/

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RAMIREZ WINS AGAIN!!!
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVbh-1c_PxlnxBOeTqYmQdHeztipWj-FF4P66el8LRYRQHMZjPDDWSSLT5VdHThV1GzTiR18PAQYETzeLv0EECxMIen3Cq6hDhwI2gpPlMbdJhFygM1uOEwdvQQsD1QwBwfRVH6MoXJ80/s1600/215737_168529066536044_156825587706392_337245_4775263_n.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5686167124875396754" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 332px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVbh-1c_PxlnxBOeTqYmQdHeztipWj-FF4P66el8LRYRQHMZjPDDWSSLT5VdHThV1GzTiR18PAQYETzeLv0EECxMIen3Cq6hDhwI2gpPlMbdJhFygM1uOEwdvQQsD1QwBwfRVH6MoXJ80/s400/215737_168529066536044_156825587706392_337245_4775263_n.jpg" border="0" /></a>The South Texas Independent Journalists Association (STIJA) has named George Ramirez its Brownsville Person of the Year. It marks the eighth consecutive year that Ramirez has captured the prestigious award. "It is well deserved," said Trey Mendez, the TSC trustee who finished second in the balloting. Adela Garza, a fellow trustee, followed at third. County Judge Carlos Cascos, entrepreneur Joe Kinney, BISD Trustee Caty Presas-Garcia, blogger Juan Montoya, City Commissioner John Villarreal, BCVB CEO Bean Ayala and new TSC President Lily Tercero rounded out the top ten. "Are the stooges from STUJA using me for their own political purposes against the one percent?" snapped Ramirez. "I appreciated the recognition the first time and the second time was a small ego boost, but the third time definitely was not a charm. STIJA is using me to divide our community. Please! I don't want it again next year. Dr. Robert Robles, my cardiologist, warned me that another award could kill me." "George was the clear winner again," said Anthony Starr, STIJA's longtime president. "Nobody is working harder at putting Brownsville on the map both musically and culturally than George. He also shares a common bond with the other finalists: They are working against overwhelming odds to make Brownsville a better place. "Spearheaded by Julieta 'La Santissima Putissima' Garcia, Mary Rose 'Miss Piggy' Cardenas, Carlos 'El Mago' Marin, Gilberto 'Hooters' Hinojosa, 'Sucio' Eddie Lucio, Bill 'El Borracho' Hudson, Harry 'The Rat' McNair, Ernie 'The Eel' Hernandez, Eddie 'Panocha' Trevino, Terry 'King' Ray, John 'The Rapist' Reed, Ruben 'El Gargajo' Gallegos, 'Slick' Rick Zayas, Ruben 'Caveman' Cortez and scores of other carpetbaggers and scalawags, this entrenched establishment wants to keep Brownsville a dusty Mexican town scratching out a miserable existence in Mananaville. "Ramirez and his revolutionaries are trying to save the beautiful while laboring to eliminate the ugly. He is a general in the army of the good in a bloodless yet lethal war against the forces of evil." "Please don't tell me that the ceremony honoring me is going to take place at the Crescent Moon Cantina and the Doc Scully Blues Band is providing the entertainment," pleaded a still testy Ramirez. "And please don't tell me that some politician is going to present me with a flag. It's the same bullshit every year. Enough is enough!" "We are donating the money that we would have used for George's fete to a needy family this Christmas," said Starr. "This is the George that we all love and cherish. Always true to himself, he would rather give than receive. We applaud him for his generosity. This gesture obviously puts him in the lead for the 2012 award."<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8975636851109159442-441096602710102738?l=downbrowntownnews.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://downbrowntownnews.blogspot.com/2011/12/ramirez-wins-again.html

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EVENING IN TORTILLA FLAT
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh596jgZArCZpX-O76VQ2fbKSoOA_Xl5Qzm6Gb6gZDMg9IozdFm_cs6AzRtLuBwFD5qpUkzPc3NaXWkiHgaQhbNOZ_WeqojsBKaehZC53Mcm2Jo0HSXIqBnl2KA51WQYcv3aGMaIgjI2VI/s1600/prostitute_Mexican.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5686156524972983058" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 350px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 350px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh596jgZArCZpX-O76VQ2fbKSoOA_Xl5Qzm6Gb6gZDMg9IozdFm_cs6AzRtLuBwFD5qpUkzPc3NaXWkiHgaQhbNOZ_WeqojsBKaehZC53Mcm2Jo0HSXIqBnl2KA51WQYcv3aGMaIgjI2VI/s400/prostitute_Mexican.jpg" border="0" /></a>Ricardo Klement, one of The Paz File's wide-ranging reporters, took a room at the Cameron Hotel for a long weekend. He expected a night life that might combine the elements of McAllen's 17th St. and Austin's 6th St. "If I were Charles Bukowski writing about drunks and whores, I might have found some inspiration for a short story around Market Square, but unless I'm loaded on sex pills, I don't take a walk on the wild side any more." To say the least, Klement was disappointed by downtown's night life. Here is his story: Working the basic life impulse has never been all that difficult here, is what the waitress was telling me after she beelined past rows of aging, wooden tables occupied by fat Mexicans getting stoned on cheap, warm beer. "They breathe and then they go for their unemployment check," she went on, laughing as she threw her big hair back like a javelin thrower and then fronted me a rack so enticing that I forgot my next question. "Like you said, any hole in the wall can be the next big thing in nightclubbing." To hear some locals, Brownsville is now very much Big D's Deep Ellum and Austin's Sixth Street rolled into one, with the added pungent smell of bad salsa being pumped in from every bar's kitchen. Throw in a blackjack table and this dusty, vulgar bordertown would see itself as the next Vegas. Of course, it isn't that. But those who live here can do nothing but fire-up their lousy existence. Paste a sexy-sounding name on a new bar and then paint is as exciting as Trader Vic's or Antone's. It'll sell. Throw a South Pacific name on another and believe you are actually there. It's the joke of the day along the Mexican border, a land exceedingly good at making itself look - or appear to be - better than it really is, faking it being the singular talent of the grass-whorled masses. The other night, a sultry one, I pulled into one of the city's new joints and was quickly bored to death. Amateur musicians playing rock 'n' roll standards in what was, well, mediocre style. It was me in Nicaragua all over again! There inside the Cantina Revolucionaria in lake-front Managua, doing the Funky Chicken with a woman just in from picking the beanfields in the unforgiving surrounding hills. Dump a few monster truckloads of dirt around Brownsville and imagine a killer mountain range. Have local women walk down from atop those hills dressed in their usual Big City copycat style at sundown and imagine an honest-to-goodness, thriving, fast-arriving party town. As yet, Brownsville is not that, no matter what every swinging dick here says - newspaper reporters, bloggers and bar owners, especially. You want a Party Town, go to Austin, or to New Orleans or to The Big Apple. What you get here at present is nothing more than a Mexican mirage, one that comes with great publicity, but horrible actuality. It is the 50-cent cinnamon roll without the frosting, the enchilada without the cheese, the tamale without the meat. Something, but not everything there, in other words. I've had better assignments in my long and storied journalism career. Brownsville is a lot of things, but it is not the next big thing in partying. For one, there are too many faded, gray-haired hippies parading as credible rockers when they look like they're two beers from the grave. Who wants to party with 66-year-old guys in pony tails? I mean, get real. That's "nursing home" material, if you get my drift. So, stay out of this town if you're in the mood for a genuine good time. And don't fall for the young beggars selling Pepto-Bismol outside these joints. You hear someone say the Bob Dylan song being butchered onstage is the best they've ever heard and you know you're dealing with some genuine rubes...<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8975636851109159442-8851055647356278016?l=downbrowntownnews.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://downbrowntownnews.blogspot.com/2011/12/evening-in-tortilla-flat.html

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Thursday, December 15, 2011

Downtown Browntown

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