Orphano

Following some good people on Twitter lately and one of them is Orphano Band composed of Victor and Andres Mendoza. I will leave you their video here of one of their songs. Check it out!

 

Flautas La Unica

After some heavy christmas shopping, I enjoyed some flautas from La Unica.
  Poor me.

Broken

At times, everything seems to be going wrong and nothing seems to work like it should. Life is broken sometimes and it narrows our choices. Limitations can be so harrowing.

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Cowboy Fans

  
Years ago, I used to be a Dallas Cowboys fan. I cheered ecstatically when then won and cried in sorrow when they lost.

I endured the early 2000's along with the revolving door at the quarterback position. From Chad Hutchinson to Quincy Carter to baseball/football star Drew Hensen, the early part of last decade was an ugly time to be a Jerry Jones disciple.  I watched every game since 1988, had my share of player jerseys (hero-worship is funny) and even a Troy Aikman pillow (uuhh).

But, no matter how much a fan you think you are, there is always someone else out there that is a bigger fan.

Are these trucks factory sold this way, or is that a post-factory paint job? Well, does it matter? God bless the Boys'!

VideoMatic

One of the last remaining video stores in Laredo. Where have all the videos gone?

The Death of Heaven's Scent

It seems as if all the businesses I used to frequent in the 1990s are slowly  shuttering down and giving way to the inevitable, no doubt victims of the WalMart effect.

Over two years ago, I wrote a quick obituary to the video store of my adolescence, The Movie Palace. This business was located close to the Loop and Zapata Hwy. intersection. I can still fondly recall the many times that I perused throw the aisles of this venerable temple, searching for my favorite horror schlock on VHS. Sadly, the Movie Palace closed down several years ago. Now it turns out, another of the locally-owned businesses that I would frequent back in the day, has also shut down its doors, after years of serving customers.

All through the 90s, Heaven's Scent floral shop served many customers throughout the south side. I was one of them. Every birthday, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Graduation Day, or funeral that I had back then, it was Heaven's Scent shop that filled my flower needs. I must have spent over $800 dollars in flowers and arrangements there. Sadly, driving by there recently, I noticed they had closed down. I guess no one believes in love anymore. Heaven's Scent is just the latest casualty. I should by them flowers out of respect, right?

De Colores

I have always been fascinated by how some Laredoans pick the brightest colors for their homes or businesses. I mean, like the picture above, it is a very, very bright green and orange. There's a little bright yellow, too.

They even painted the little retaining wall by the sidewalk that same tone of orange.

I kinda like it. It brings something different to the normally bland stucco and beige seen around town.

Golf Carts at TAMIU

Our local university is not exactly the biggest college around when you compare it to those schools in el norte, like A&M and UT. But it has grown a lot in the last 10 years. So much, in fact, that they now have an army of golf carts ready and able to ferry folks around the now sprawling campus.

Personally, I like the one with the four bench seats. It's kinda like the stretch limo of golf carts.

Mexican Blood LP

Looking for some 70s pics of Laredo, I was fortunate to discover this awesome LP from a band called "Mexican Blood". According to the source, Mexican Blood was a 1970s band that recorded for the Crazy Cajun record label. Having heard the entire album, I can tell you that I rather enjoyed it. You can download the entire album and its artwork here.

Orale, where's the Schlitz, man?

If you have any other information on this album, write to me! Also, if you can't download the album, write to me and I can email it to you. (Gbfilms@ymail.com)

Eddie Macon runs to Netflix

One of the favorite movies from local bloggers has appeared on instant viewing for Netflix. Eddie Macon's Run, from 1983, is every local filmmakers wet dream, including yours truly. It has big Hollywood stars and more importantly, several scenes from the movie where filmed here in Laredo! Pretty neat. I imagine the local hoopla back in 1983 over this movie was akin to the hoopla over the much hyped Bordertown TV show. I was not around here in 1983, so maybe KeyRose or some of the other elder statesmen can enlighten us on that topic.

The official US DVD release is hard-to-find and it seems to be OOP, nonetheless, the Netflix version has a top-notch picture.

For those of you without Netflix access, it can also be rented on Amazon for three dollars.

Check

Just checking

TV Repair

Over by Springfield, you can still repair your old TV's. I had an elderly lady ask me if they could repair her 1998 Sony TV anywhere. I pointed her to Solano's, of course. But I warned her they would charge her $50-$75 probably. Even though they have 5 TV's in a 3 bedroom house and the cost of a new TV will be about $200, she might still go through with it. Hojala que no.

Buy Nothing Day

 I love the the holiday season. Thanksgiving and Christmas are both awesomely special days of the year. However, I have never bought into the buy all the junk you can't afford mentality. Thanksgiving is a great time for family and friends, at least for me. Best Buy is not my friend and I don't need to worship at their cathedral this holiday season. Yeay for me!

 

Sad

My favorite team lost again. Another season w/o a world series championship title. I'll be on a sabbatical for a while. Maybe I'll update again someday, but for now...   :(

World Series 2011: Go Rangers!

For the past three years, for various reasons, I have tried to ween off watching professional sports. I have my reasons, for sure. For the most part, it took time and effort, but I was able to get that monkey off my back. First, I stopped watching the Mavericks. I'd been following them since 1988, the days of Rolando Blackman and Mark Aguirre. Then, I just stopped watching them, stopped reading the highlights, stopped listening to the play-by-play on the radio.

Weening off the Cowboys was an altogether different matter. That took sheer will-power. I had lived and lost my mind with the Cowboys since the days of Tom Laundry. I learned the names of the 1988 Dallas Cowboys before I learned my multiplication tables. I hero-worshipped Michael Irvin and Jay Novacek. I cried when Aikman retired and cringed when I saw Emmitt in an Arizona uniform. Then, one day I woke up, and I no longer cared about them. It was like no longer loving the ex-wife. Just one day out of the blue, I became an ex-Cowboys fan. Maybe it was the Jerry Jones effect. Maybe it was that I stopped enjoying professional football. Maybe it was a lot of things. I'm not sure, but I watched my last complete game back in 2008. Curiously, that was the year that I was divorced from my starter wife. All you pop-psychologists out there are free to analyze that!

Walking away from the Mavericks was not difficult. No longer caring about the Cowboys was harder, and it hurt my soul, but I got it done. However, giving up watching the Texas Rangers is something I have yet to master. As a kid I watched all three sports, but the one that I always enjoyed the most was baseball. That was the game I stayed up late to watch, endured every gut-wrenching rain delays and suffered through endless losing seasons. Through it all, I continued to be a Texas Rangers fan, went to the ball games, cursed the TV when they lost and literally went into a depression when they traded away my all-time favorite sports player, Ruben Sierra back in 1992. Turning my back on the Texas Rangers proved to be impossible. I easily discarded my love for Dirk and Romo, even when Dirk and the Mavs were winning the Finals. I only watched with a passive interest. However, it has been almost impossible to ween off my first love, the Texas Rangers. I watch them on TV, listen to the radio broadcast, read the blog posts and now that they are in the World Series, the second in as many years, it is like a dream painted by Van Gogh.

Now that the #postseason is here and my #Rangers are close to winning the #WorldSeries, I can celebrate with the crazy 12 year old inside of me. Still, I'm still trying to ween-off all professional sports and maybe one day I will accomplish that, but for now, fuck it! Its the #postseason! And yes I'm cursing on my blog. The gloves are off. Go Rangers! Win or lose I'm going to wear my Nelson Cruz #Boomstick jersey and ya'll are going to have to accept it!