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Blues War In Brownsville
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwDMrZw2j-8fk53_Y78BK6QmUwvrt1P3yRZPy1WtTTkbC5A8Fr0h-NFYzCqPl3ZVQM5nA6_Bw-jJbt5eT61BZersmL5k52VoKm-tiDLP_M_54CEI3CcFz8j7G-57rbPH7sUd_aA3Fx-QrR/s1600/singer.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 288px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5691558969960686674" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwDMrZw2j-8fk53_Y78BK6QmUwvrt1P3yRZPy1WtTTkbC5A8Fr0h-NFYzCqPl3ZVQM5nA6_Bw-jJbt5eT61BZersmL5k52VoKm-tiDLP_M_54CEI3CcFz8j7G-57rbPH7sUd_aA3Fx-QrR/s400/singer.jpg" /></a><em><span style="font-size:85%;"> "Art lies in concealing art..."</span></em> <strong><span style="font-size:85%;">- Ovid, <em>Art of Love</em></span></strong><br /><br /><strong>By JUNIOR BONNER</strong><br /><em>The Paz Files</em><br /><br /><strong>BROWNSVILLE, Texas -</strong> City fathers here are agonizing over a bizarre trend that has local bars and nightclubs pushing the blues. They say the dominant Mexican culture needs the traditional strolling musician to retain its true identity. To that end, this bordertown home to some 140,000 legal and illegal residents is asking the music sector to rally behind its move to bring back the celebrated street-ambling mariachi.<br /><br />"This crap about the Blues and the Jazz and the ha-ha-ha will simply kill us," said a worried City Hall insider. "We're Brownsville, Texas, not New Orleans or Memphis! We're more Mexico than Mississippi, more Chicano than Texan, more Vato than Redneck, more Chaparro than Negroe."<br /><br />Not since the border bandit Juan N. Cortina terrorized this part of the state has anything so unnerved Brownsville. Cortina's wild-flying bullets played a bad tune; the Blues now roil living room conversations here in the same manner that Cortina's maniacal assaults looped locals.<br /><br />"I can see maybe having some Blues records at the Mall," said Salvador "<em>El Bandolon</em>" Colunga, a resident of the poverty-stricken Southmost neighborhood. "But I want my corridos, my cumbias, my merengue, my Rigo Tovar, my Tejano before I want the Blues. My nagging wife is my Blues!"<br /><br />Yet, even as some wonder what the noise is all about, those pushing the Blues down local throats are doing it in warp-speed, coloring the idea with first-rate posters and writing up the mood in Blogs that approach the task with the zeal of a crackhead lighting up his next hit. It is at once comical and ridiculous. Brownsville's flirtation with the Blues is the equivalent of that now-gone flirtation with bordellos in neighboring Matamoros, Mexico. Came the time when city leaders there said enough is enough. The Bordello was shut down by the Mexican Army in a raid back in 1980. Here, the Blues are the new weed.<br /><br />"I'm hip to the trip," said Maria "<em>La Pelona</em>" Lopez, a 28-year-old divorcee interviewed at a downtown Tex-Mex cafe. "I partied in Austin one weekend and I found it absolutely exciting, like I was in another world. The Blues settle me down, not like Tejano, which is like being hit on the side of the head with a bottle of <strong><em>Coca-Cola</em></strong>. I'm for the Blues, yes."<br /><br />Another resident sees it as nothing more than the latest fad, something some in the city can say is something new coming to town, like the hula-hoop or the Davy Crockett coonskin cap.<br /><br />"We went apeshit with the Urban Cowboy craze," said Porfirio "<em>El Miserable</em>" Ochoa. "We had Disco and everybody went over to Mervyn's to buy the white Travolta shoes and nylon shirts. Then we had Rap and every freakin' young Mexican started talking like Black people and wearing their pants below their waist, like pendejos. That's who we are - followers, not trendsetters."<br /><br />Will the Blues find fertile ground in Brownsville?<br /><br />"It's just a few Old Geezers looking for it, writing it up," said Ninfa "<em>La Uva</em>" Jeantete, a local waitress. "They are harmless guys. Let them think what they want to think. My idea of the Blues is something else, but who am I to blow against the wind..."<br /><br /><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;">- 30 -</span></strong></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8418586410607151775-1625265499358236431?l=thepazfiles.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://thepazfiles.blogspot.com/2011/12/blues-war-in-brownsville.html
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