In Barton's World, The Calm Before The Pancakes...

"My blood runs cold
My memory has just been sold
My angel is the centerfold
Angel is the centerfold..."
- J. Geils Band, Centerfold

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Jim Barton threw a photo of a hot dog cart on his blog and then went on a confessional of sorts that had him, we think, explaining his reasons for blogging to St. Peter, St. Louis, St. Bernard and perhaps even to the patron saint of the laboring Mexican, San Cudo. The blogger who came in from the cold was, as they say at ringside on Lucha Libre Night all across Mexico, en fuego.

Coming after my own weekend diatribe about The Paz Files and its failings, Barton's Sunday afternoon at the front pew seemed to arrive as the flip side of my 45-rpm record. Well, Hell, good for Barton, is what I say. A little inner reflection is good for all Bloggers. Lord knows there is more to coming clean about law-breaking than simply writing about the workings of the county jail. Tell it all, brother. It's good for the soul. This bordertown, home to an equal number of urchins and angels, needs a daily cleansing, is my feeling. It is a town that ought to be spanked daily, there on the naked nalgas, there where excellence don't shine, as the old federal court interpreter Fred Kowalski used to say back in the day. A Mexican bearing the burden of crime and sin is not the Mexican God had in mind. Two things hobble a border Mexican, and I know, cause I'm Mexican: They harbor a tremendous fatalism that cripples any sense of dreaming for a better life, and they stick stubbornly to a diet that kills the brain.

Too much maize is no different than too much Valium. It dulls the brain.

So, give it up for Jim "Bad News" Barton. He's earned today's gold star on his class folder. A hot dog cart on his Blog? That is a spectacular intro to his confession that also came adorned with those Blue Corn tortilla tacos found pretty much everywhere in my beloved Santa Fe. What's next, Jimbo - a color photo of the quintessential Brownsville living-room couch? Throw a Mexican vato gordo on it and write a story about that trend, one that was originally labeled a "trend" in 1910, when locals dashed off to join the Mexican Revolution, got tired of no barbacoa and showers, and slinked back home to rest on the couch. They used to call them "Eslackers," is what the historian Estanislado Contreras wrote in one of his Poemas de la Revolucion. It was a beaut, Estan!

But what will Barton do next?

Will he walk the downtown streets and photograph sidewalk shoppers and note the fashions of the illegal aliens? Will he gather a smokecloud at his feet and storm a Charro Days stage? Will he stroll into a Blues bar and finally offer his readers a true and accurate account?

Or maybe he'll pluck a photo of casserole City Commissioner Melissa Zamora off the Internet and write about how this woman is forever taking photographs of herself with local men. We hardly know her, although often mentioned in connection with her name. It's an interesting style she practices. Photographs translate into perceptions, and, well, Jim Barton has shown a knack for fronting such a thing...

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