Those Little Town Blues

"I love Hell.
I can't wait to get back..."
- Malcolm Lowry

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - That year, one of the early ones in the 1980s, the day's kick was to write a newspaper story and hit a joint like The Palm Lounge or The Pilot Lounge or the original 1-2-3 Lounge for a few cold ones. Bullshit reigned supreme, with local reporters like Jerry McHale talking-up his latest hit piece in The Brownsville Times and Rey Guevara-Vasquez laughing at his own story in The Brownsville Herald. It was a fun time to be in Brownsville.

Much, I fear, never happened in the dusty bordertown at the end of the Rio Grande. I hear The Palm is still there, but that The Pilot is gone, as are most of the joints that made Market Square the place to party all night long for under $10. Going in, I found the town somewhat intriguing after completing college upstate. I mean, a City Hall surrounded by cheap bars and economical cafes? You could walk the second-floor hallway on your way to a City Commission meeting and keep an eye on the broads headed into and out of the bars. The smell of urine in the street gutters battled, but lost the war against the smell of bad Matamoros perfume moving with every Big Haired dame. Novelist Charles Dickens would have pulled up a folding chair and seen his depressing novels amble by, the butchered Spanglish of the streets no doubt bringing him great laughter.

I read about Brownsville from time to time, mainly in the blogs. And I see McHale's tireless rah-rahing of the seemingly spectacular local nightlife. At times, if I'm not careful, it's as if I'm reading about a better place, like Chicago of the 1920s or Paris of the 1930s. A handful of other blogs do their best to chase McHale's apparent lost chord, some chiming in with their assessment of the noise they heard last night at this & that bar - writing forever fattened by the sugared vocabulary of the fawning groupie.

My suspicions are that Brownsville remains a poor bordertown doing its damndest to survive bad times, a place with little yen for the luxuries of music, a place more in tune with salving familial pain and with buying that pound of hamburger meat at the local HEB grocery store. I could be wrong, although I've not seen a spread about Brownsville's much-ballyhooed Blues Revival in Travel & Leisure Magazine. Not a word in Texas Monthly, either. Or, really, any publication north of the ever-harsh Texas-Mexico border. Maybe the monthlies in neighboring Mexico, like, perhaps, Alarma! magazine.

It's not that I wish the town anything bad. Brownsville has its charm, but it is the charm of a Mexican past and not anything to do with the music of the Mississippi Delta. It should not be chasing a repeat of the French Quarter, as is often postured to loud laughter. It should glorify - no, scream! - the virtues of Mexican partying. Bluesman Peetie Whitestraw would be offended to hear that Brownsville musicians think they approach his sound. Peetie proudly christened himself, "The Devil's Son-In-Law," which, ironically, likely fits most of the deadbeat dads who call Brownsville home. Then again, those guys were a dime-a-dozen back when I wrote about city government for The Herald, so maybe that's more of a cultural badge than anything else.

What I say about small towns is that writers find a wealth of material in such locales, perhaps too much. The temptation to write something in a manner that elevates such a community is great. On the other hand, they also breed a certain depression, filling bored and idle minds with images not quite there. McHale may be hearing the Blues in his brain. That would explain part of it. Who knows? People who love to write can see a picture and dream-up an accompanying story in no-time-flat. I do it all the time. This blog, in fact, is more of a writing laboratory than anything else for me. It allows me to takes jabs at real life and at the one I imagine. Big deal.

So, weep not for whatever you see about Little Brownsville on this blog. It's just a goof, a stab at interrupting a little town's life impulse. We're accused of stomping on Brownsville from time to time, but folks in Harlingen would say this about the societal whippings it receives, "Goddammit, get in line, Brownsville!"

Still, some brave Brownsvillian should stand up against outright lies and fabrications. When you have grown men painting your community into something it is not, well, you should say something to those nutty funnyboys. Like most Humans, Brownsville residents of course know the score. They have eyes and can see the disappointment moving across town like an old, hole-filled Army blanket. They have ears and can clearly hear the wailing of their suddenly-unemployed neighbors. They have memories that remind them of the bad times they've endured. They have photo albums full of better times. They have records at the courthouse and at the police department to brand them this and that. They have relatives who have made it and who have blown it. They have stories to tell! Brownsville is not immune to pain and suffering, and some of these "writers" should pick up a guitar and document these "real" Blues.

Why climb on the back of artists from Memphis and other Blues cemeteries? Browntown is not an attractive shank of geography, but it is a unique place in the universe - a hangout for bearded bums and suit-and-tie speculators, a fertile breeding ground for more of the same for many more years to come.

Brownsville Blues are genuine.

You can see those haunting songs in the faces of pretty much everyone in town. Plus, there has to be a great story in the demise of The Pilot Lounge. Has to...

- 30 -