Brownsville (Brooklyn)

The Rocks Off 100: Walter Suhr, the Straw That Stirs Mango Punch!

Welcome to the Rocks Off 100, our portrait gallery of the most compelling profiles and personalities in the far-flung Houston music community -- a lot more than just musicians, but of course they're in there too. See the entire Rocks Off 100 at this link. With his signature panama hat and a wide sm ... More >>

Jose Rodriguez-Treto: Baby Seat Tipped Off Cops That He Wasn't A Cop

There's no bigger thrill, if you're one of these people who like to imitate cops, than to blast on the party lights and blow by some dweebs who have to pull over. (Well, we suppose a bigger thrill for these idiots would be pulling over a drunk, credulous woman with big cleavage, but we digress.) On ... More >>

No Requests

Five reasons EDM shows are better than rock concerts.

Kris Kristofferson's Favorite Place on Earth Is In Texas, But Not Houston

Rocks Off spoke to Kris Kristofferson by phone from his home in Hawaii where he describes living a life as spare and literal as the records he makes with producer Don Was. Twice he told us that he's old, once he told us that he's brain-damaged and then he told us that his favorite place on Earth is ... More >>

Liquid-Meth-In-The-Shampoo-Bottle Trick Doesn't Work for Women in Brownsville

You might say that law enforcement personnel assigned to the Brownsville bus station has seen it all, especially with the smuggling (or attempted transportation) of illegal substances. "With the U.S.-Mexico border being right there, there are a lot of drugs on the main highway and in the bus termi ... More >>

Spare Change: Armed Robbers Hold Up Convenience Store, Net $20

Police in Brownsville say two armed robbers entered a Stripes Convenience Store on Friday and robbed it at gunpoint. One of the two, wearing a "baby blue sweater with a hood" (aw, cute!), went behind the counter and pointed a gun at the cashier before grabbing about $20 in cash and change from the r ... More >>

State Criminal Justice System Group: "Texas Failing Traumatized Girls"

The state's juvenile justice system is failing the girls in its custody, according to a new report from the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. The findings of a one-day survey of approximately 100 girls at the Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex suggest that the residents, most of whom ... More >>

Houston-Bred Attorney Marc G. Rosenthal Wants His Federal Racketeering Trial Moved Here. Let the Circus Begin.

A Houston-bred attorney from a prominent local family wants to come home for the biggest day of his life: his upcoming 13-count federal racketeering trial. If the feds grant his change of venue request from Brownsville to Houston, Marc G. Rosenthal will bring one of the juiciest legal scandals in Te ... More >>

Robert Hedrick: Airline Owner's Child-Porn Defense Rejected By Jury, Ridiculed By Feds

Robert Hedrick was the guy who convinced some Brownsville residents he would make the city an international destination through his Pan Am Airlines: flights from Brownsville to Johannesburg! All that came crumbling down when he was arrested for child porn. A jury convicted him yesterday in less tha ... More >>

Domingo Quezada-Hernandez: Tries to Cross into U.S. with $610K in Spare Tire

Travel books tell you to take some extra cash for emergencies when making a trip, but try telling that to the Customs and Border Protection officers in Brownsville. Domingo Quezada-Hernandez was coming across from Mexico to visit our fair land and -- no doubt hearing we are a backward country that ... More >>

Luis Gonzalez: Drunk Off-Duty Border Patrol Agent Crashes into Taco Shop, Cops Say

An off-duty Border Patrol agent drunkenly drove his truck into a Brownsville taqueria in the early-morning hours Thursday, police say. Luis Alfredo Gonzalez, 24, faces DWI charges after driving into the popular local eatery called the Ultimo Taco Restaurant, the Brownsville Herald reported. "Gonza ... More >>

More Texas Cities Considering Bans on Plastic Grocery Bags

Brownsville set a trend last year when it became the first city in Texas to ban the use of plastic grocery bags in nearly all consumer settings. Brownsville mayor Pat Ahumada told the New York Times that the ban had eliminated 350,000 plastic bags per day, a decrease that "transformed our city from ... More >>

Ron Paul and Sci-Fi

Guillermo Villarreal & Leoncio Sanchez: Buying 17,000 Rounds of Ammo at Academy Stores Will Raise Eyebrows

If you live in Texas, or much of the South, you've probably heard the bouncy jingle "Academy Sports & Outdoors -- the right stuff, the right price!" This apparently holds true if you're in the market for a ton of ammunition to sneak into Mexico. Guillermo Enrique Villarreal, 37, of Brownsville, an ... More >>

Cops Sexually Abusing Teens Learning to Be Cops

​What could go wrong with young kids learning to be cops by hanging with them as they do their jobs? Lots, according to this week's cover story. The Explorer program is administered by Learning for Life, a subsidiary of the Boy Scouts of America. Teenage girls and boys take part all over the ... More >>

Bartender Chat: Sarah Daniel of The Davenport

It's early on a Friday night at The Davenport , but there's already a pretty decent crowd. The interior is dark, almost romantic, lit by candlelight and a faux fireplace. Throw a bearskin rug on the floor, and I bet some people would forget they're in public. A few folks are still in post-work att ... More >>

Om Prakash Budha: Faces Prison over Refusals to Fill Out Visa Forms

Man, Om Prakash Budha, 28, does not want to go back to Nepal. He was nabbed in October 2010 crossing the U.S. border at Brownsville without proper documentation. Fine, you got caught, go home and try again, right? Wrong. "On four separate occasions during a four-month period, Budha steadfastly ref ... More >>

TS Don: And Then, Depression Set In -- Tropical Storm Could Bear Down on Texas by Friday (Updated)

Courtesy National Hurricane CenterLittle Donnie is getting bigger.​The National Hurricane Center reconnaissance plane found winds strong enough in Invest 90 to declare it the fourth tropical depression tropical storm of the 2011 hurricane season -- their next full report is at 6 p.m. As we m ... More >>

Rene Huerta Jr.: Guesses Border Cops Will Forget the Secret Ammo-Holding Compartment In His Dashboard, Guesses Wrong

Hey, it's worth a shot.​It's difficult to say whether Rene Huerta Jr. was ballsy, dumb or maybe forced to do something against his will. But he dodged a huge bullet (ha HA!) in November 2010 when Customs and Border Protection inspected his car as it crossed over from Mexico to Brownsville. Th ... More >>

Luis Enrique Ramirez: Border Guard Admits Letting Coke and Aliens In

Right this way, and don't forget to tip your agent​A Border Patrol agent has admitted he waved through a car full of cocaine and helped aliens cross into the U.S. which, to be honest, is pretty clearly against the law. Luis Enrique Ramirez, 38, of Brownsville, entered a guilty plea today, say ... More >>

Mexican Pop Singer Fights Rape Allegations, Racism

​The latest chapter in Mexican pop singer Kalimba's life saddens us for a number of reasons, but the possibility of never hearing his music again is not one of them. If you haven't heard, while recording his latest album in El Paso, Kalimba was held by the U.S. Border Patrol on suspicion of ... More >>

Taco Palenque

Yet Another Study Says Houston Traffic Is Horrible

Cruising down the highway, Houston-style​If someone were to do a study of commuting traffic in 90 American cities, gauging cost and miles and hours wasted, where do you think Houston would rank? Would it be 90th? Maybe 89th? NO. We are not as bad as horror pits like San Jose (89) or Dallas ( ... More >>

UT-Brownsville Using Text Message to Warn Students of Violence

UT-Brownsville: text messaging to fight the drug cartels. ​UT-Brownsville is using a new tactic to keep its students safe from violence across the border: text messaging. Students, faculty and staff at the school are being asked to enter their cell phone numbers in a university database, so whenev ... More >>

Valley Sheriffs Want To Search Southbound Cars, Too

Be careful headin' south​Be careful if you're driving south with your guns and life savings. If some sheriffs have their way, county cops could take it all away.Late last week, sheriffs from Cameron County and El Paso County announced that they would love it if deputies started inspecting every ca ... More >>

People Think A Plastic-Bag Ban Is Terrible, Plastic-Bag Industry Reports

Brownsville is getting ready to implement a ban on plastic bags in supermarkets, under an ordinance passed earlier this year.You know who doesn't like that? The American Chemistry Council, which we're sure just deals with the wonders of chemistry and how it can improve lives, through the use of, say ... More >>

Rio Grande Mud: Cops, Mayors and Judges Busted For Corruption, DWI And Whoring All Over Valley

Froget it, Jake. It's just the Valley​On moving to Miami during that city's Cocaine Cowboy heyday, a friend once described the place thusly: "You are nobody here until you are under indictment."As the frontline for the drug war has shifted from Colombia and South Florida to Mexico and South Texas, ... More >>

Brownsville Chess Teams Get Some National Pub

HBO provides proof positive chess is a sport​It's been more than two years since the Houston Press wrote about the unlikely success of the collegiate and grade school chess programs in Brownsville, but now the big boys at HBO have caught up and will air a segment Tuesday night about the community' ... More >>

Concrete Dreams

Preemo paints his masterpiece, but who will wake up to listen?

Mario Alberto Gasca: Brownsville Teen Confesses To Horrific Puppy Slaughter

One sick puppy​Mario Alberto Gasca didn't like it when a group of people in his Brownsville neighborhood accused him of burglarizing a nearby house.In fact, the very idea he could be accused of something like that made him furious. How could he best show how much he was misunderstood? How could th ... More >>

Y'all Musta Forgot Are Gonna Forget: Preemo's Concrete Dreams

Houston's history is dotted with albums that, fairly or un, have been swept aside. We'll examine them here. Have an album that you think nobody knows about but should? Email sheaserrano@gmail.com. ​ Preemo is an enigmatic, velvet-voiced MC from Brownsville that now lives in Houston. He is both con ... More >>

June Trial Set For Brownsville Murder of Barry Horn, '70s Houston's Answer To Truman Capote

Photo courtesy Nueces County SOErnesto Martinez​A June trial date has been set for the suspect in the Brownsville murder of Barry Horn, a former Channel 13 TV news personality who was at the time of his death the executive director of the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art.The 59-year-old Horn, once ... More >>

Beef Vs. Chicken Battle Turns Violent In Valley Cafe

​When he sat down at his table at downtown Brownsville's El Rancho Alegre Café last Saturday night, all Esequiel Silva wanted was a plate of chicken milanesa enchiladas. Little did he know how just how much the Happy Ranch Cafe would fail to live up to its name.After taking a couple of bites, he ... More >>

PETA Be Buggin' About Blinged-Out Border Beetle

Photo courtesy CBP​Contraband along the Texas-Mexico border flows both ways. Drugs tend to come north. Desperados on the lam tend to flow south. But every now and then there's a novelty like this woman and her strange pet. The Brownsville Herald picks up the tale: It wasn't marijuana, co ... More >>

"Weird" and Proud, Preemo Understands the Meaning of "Hustle Town"

​ We think "Weird Al" Yankovic screwed it up for everybody. There aren't lots of times you can use the word "weird" in a good way. That's one of those words we need to take back, on the real, because when you put "weird" into the right context it can be a positive thing - a differentiator from th ... More >>

"Paper Or Plastic": You Won't Be Hearing That In Brownsville Anymore

​Brownsville is never going to be confused with Portland, San Franciscio or some other bucolic tree-hugging liberal city, but it's home to just as many crunchy ecological activists as any yurt-living commune, apparently.Yesterday its version of the city council voted to ban merchants from usin ... More >>

Mexican Marmalade

​My friend Ed Cooper is a financial consultant. I was hoping for a hot stock tip for Christmas, but instead he gave me Mexican fruits. Ed grew up in Brownsville eating these Conserva Valdez conserves. They are fairly unusual-looking, but quite good. The orange conserves contain big pieces of o ... More >>

Not So Clear Cut

What are you really eating when you order fajitas in a Tex-Mex restaurant?

June 1: And So It Begins......

NEWS FLASH!!!!!!!!! (MUST CREDIT HAIR BALLS!!!!!) Today is the beginning of the hurricane season.While the rest of the so-called mainstream media will ignore this important milestone simply because writing or airing stuff about hurricanes in Houston results in cheap increases in ratings and clic ... More >>

Swine Flu Death In Mystery Hospital

Photo by The Pug FatherThe first case of a death from swine flu has been reported -- and it's here in Houston.Of course, it's not exactly a Houstonian who, say, was attending an elementary school in HISD. It was an infant, born in Mexico, who got sick in Brownsville and was transported to Houston an ... More >>

Chess Masters at UT-Brownsville

An open-admissions university has become a national powerhouse in the collegiate game.

Immigration: Cubans Enter U.S. at Texas-Mexico Border

Who Is Sylvia?

A chef who loves Karl's on the Riverbend and Freddie Fender

Stranger than Fiction

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Letters

Off the "X", Beaching Out, The Low Down

The Bored Patrol

Border Patrol agents in South Texas contend they are getting paid to stay put as illegal immigrants go around them. Is this how the much-hyped crackdown along the Rio Grande is supposed to work?

Fed-up Feds

Will the "temp" United States Attorney exile dissidents to the border?

News of the Weird

Dish