BUDDHA

  If the sky is the limit for humanity in general, then diving into the black hole is the limit for a confessional writer. To be self-flagellating and masochistic, you must be brave and bold. Or maybe you are fooling yourself? You are on a kamikaze mission and you want to take down as many as possible before you self-destruct. As a journalist and an author, I am bound by court orders to refrain from discussing certain political and personal issues. I could be stripped of my pension, fined thousands and sent to prison. So much for free speech. So much for telling the real story. So much for writing my autobiography. For a writer of such little fame, my pen has been the sword that I have used on myself as I have dealt with the repercussions of my swash-buckling prose both at work and at home. As an unedited journalist and author, I can say that I have broken most of the rules. There are few sacred cows that I haven't milked. But it has cost me. It has cost me three families for start...

Will Brownsville escape its ignominious reputation as one of the most impoverished and ignorant cities in the United States? Will the few continue to prosper at the expense of the many who will be sentenced to wallow in misery? Will the exploding population spread like a cancer and turn this once tropical paradise into a wasteland of cheap housing and pot-hole streets? Will the blind lead the blind off the banks of the Rio Grande into its polluted and poisonous waters? Will the powerful Mexican-Americans like "Panocha," "Sucio" and "The Turd" treat their powerless brothers and sisters worse than the white masters treated their slaves before the Civil War? Will Brownsville promote the living museum that is downtown or will the economic development corporation repeat fast failures by subsidizing Muskrat and his minions with millions of taxpayer dollars? Will the county judge, mayor and the rest of the zombies finally die or are they destined to haunt Brownsv...

My father was born 100 years ago today. He was born January 13, 1925. Even though he was a great man, there will be no parades remembering him. No flags will fly at half-staff. No newspaper will regale him in spite of all the contributions he made to his family and country. He passed away more than twelve years ago. I pay my respects to him and my mother daily. Their photos sit on my mantle over the fireplace. His memory is burned deep into my soul. Donald Trump or Elon Musk or Eddie Lucio couldn't hold a candle to him. He never sought power. He believed in people. He had one pet peeve. He never liked being call "the old man." He couldn't look at yellow photographs without his eyes watering. He was everything that was "good" about a human being. I wish I were one-tenth the man he was in his long life:

You ask me if I'm alright?  How can anyone be alright, David, when the malignant tumor that is Trump metastasizes throughout the country now that he will be president even in the blue states? He is a malevolent cancer, but at least that piece of rat shit proves a convenient scapegoat for all my troubles.  I will never be alright. The person I most loved squeezed the life out of me. The person I most adored buried me. I have nightmares every night. No amount of pills and cough syrup bestow upon me peaceful rest.  I perceive nothing but a future of death and destruction. At present, I am suffering from sciatica. How many more illnesses and diseases await me before I reach the end of the line as Johnny Cash might sing? I am already experiencing the brutal truth that pleasure is nothing more than the absence of pain.  I could go on and on I reside in such a deep and dark hole. However, there are  enough good moments that serve as beacons of light in my endless night...

Without delving into the details because there are none as this work slowly takes shape in my mind, Death Worms is about a plague that sweeps the land as millions of infectious worms are crawling into people's beds at night and nestling in their brains. The hero, a doctor, discovers a medical solution to the infestation, but a corrupt government led by Trump will not allow him to implement his plan because the politicians are in bed with the pharmaceutical firms that will lose billions if this medication beats them to the punch.

Sitting in a folding chair on my balcony overlooking this wonder, I wrote a note to a dear friend: " The air is thick with death, I have finally escaped my nightmarish sleep. This April I will have resided in Brownsville 50 years. During these five decades the city has become filled with ghosts. I only pray that I pass before any of my three sons meet their inevitable fates. I'm sorry to start your week on such a dark note, but sometimes the cosmos rubs your face in the dust to which we'll return." I have learned enough from my Zen studies that there is only the moment. As I peer across the resaca at the college campus in the distance, this is the moment that I embrace each morning sipping a cup of coffee. I return to Mother Nature. We are children of something much bigger than ourselves and we must strive to be one with that breath-taking force. I have lived in many places in Brownsville. I've inhabited a dozen edifices downtown. I once rented an abandoned office...

I am in the middle of my ninth year retired from the BISD. I earn botana money from my scriptures on my blog and Facebook, but I  haven't worked a day during this period. I noticed that a convenience store five minutes from my domicile was advertising for a cashier. I inquired about the position with the owner. He offered me a fair sum of money, but it required me working Monday through Saturday from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. I accepted his offer and trained Friday and Saturday. I have been drinking too much lately. Combined with the two milligrams of Xanax I take every day to deal with reality and relax my body, the two have resulted in several falls in recent months. Last Wednesday I was in a bar and the next thing I knew I was waking up the following morning. One ear was caked in blood, my upper lip was cut and my neck ached. I have had a headache that hasn't abated. It hits me in cycles. "You're going to kill yourself if you continue abusing yourself in this matter," s...

With part of my penis lopped off and the remainder in a dormant state,  I continue down my wayward path, a few steps forward, a few steps back, most times staggering side to side, often times falling flat on my face, awakening, alone, covered in mud, but the sky takes pity (Or is it mocking me?) (Or is it God weeping over another failed experiment?) and it starts to rain and slowly struggling to my feet I stumble onward, but I ask myself if I've become disoriented and if I'm retracing my steps, unsure if I'm headed to where I began although I know enough about the absurdity and futility of my existence that there is really no difference between the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning when darkness engulfs everything and there is no light, only the incomprehensible urge to keep moving because death is waiting patiently to embrace me in its cold arms, warmth a pipe dream to keep me putting one foot in front of the other, the only option unless I want ...

The elections are over. We lost the big one, but when you play the game as long as I did as a coach, that's a consequence. You like to think that defeats pave the way for future victories, but that mentality isn't working currently. I see the glass as half empty at the moment. The Viagra and Xanax aren't working their usual magic. I'm fighting the usual depression that inspires my writing. It's time for a change of scenery that I hope will effect a dramatic swing in my mood. I know that if I continue along my present path, I will vanish into the brush or el monte as we like to say in South Texas.  There was the mysterious disappearance in the mid 1800s of the Oblate priest Father Peter Keralum who was the architect of the Immaculate Conception Cathedral in downtown Brownsville The Oblates were missionaries. The priest would ride for weeks at a time ministering to the rancherias along the Rio Grande and inland. He would range as far west as Laredo. He performed all h...

I am well aware that The Brownsville Observer's Jim Barton is featuring a sex scandal involving my second of five sisters and me when she was a sophomore and I was a senior in high school, which would have been in 1968. It has been two years since my sister sent him a letter denouncing me for sexual abuse. He called me and I told him I would appreciate it if he didn't print her lies. He chose to sensationalize her version instead.  I intend to tell the whole story in the near future. The truthful version deserves its 15 minutes of fame, but in a brief outline I will address some of the prevarications she promulgates. No fondling took place as she asserts. To her credit, she is kind enough to refrain from accusing me of rape. Her diatribe doesn't end with me. She avers that my parents told her there was nothing wrong with rape. She ranted that another sister nearly beat her to death and raved that a brother abused her son. She says that the rest of her siblings ostracized he...

"Hello, Pops." "Dylan!!!" "I sure wish we were throwing the football, Pops." "I miss those memories, but one day you may have a son with whom you can share those blessed and sacred moments." "I love you, Pops. "I love you, son. It's been so long since we've talked. Your voice is nothing short of a classical violin piece." "I've decided to put the past behind us. On my own, here at Texas State and more mature, I'm seeing things differently. I've been confused, but I'm beginning to see things more clearly. I want us to be one again." "Your words are music to my ears. I've missed you so much." "I'm kinda in a hurry." "No problem. I'm just thankful that you've taken the time to call me. I pray that we'll be communicating more frequently.: "We will. By the way, Pops. I'm a little short of cash with all the expenses of the spring semester. Can you hel...

"Gibson just passed away," texted Joaquin. "I'm sorry, son. He brings you much sorrow because he brought you much happiness. He even won my heart. He's the only dog I never kicked. You knew his time had come. We humans meet the same fate. Sometimes I believe we have pets, so we can learn about death. They certainly pave the path. When my father died at 87, I cried but I recovered quickly because I knew his time had come. Mourn for Gibson and then find a special place in your heart where he will live forever. Dogs are all about love. And for god's sake don't get a fucking cat. I could grab them by their tails and throw them against a wall they are such worthless, conniving predators. Dogs are about love. These savage creatures are greedy bastards who have never evolved from their wild, carnivorous states." "The weight of his loss is of a magnitude that supersedes his nine-pound body. He was Ali and I was a featherweight. I appreciate your words. ...

Ever since I put that jackass's hat on, not only have our country and our planet suffered as a result of Presidente Pendejo, my health has suffered dramatically too. I hope there will be time for more humor later. I have not felt well for a long time, but my body has stopped whispering to me and is now screaming at me. I thought I was having a stroke Sunday night because I had almost every symptom. My oldest son Carlos took me to the hospital immediately. I told mi Carlitos, or as his padrino Joe Perez used to call him, "Curly Toes," wouldn't it be ironic if I died in the same hospital in which he was born. He returned a grim smile and I remembered my own father's disgusted words at the dinner table many, many decades ago, "If that's humor, I'm sick!" I kept thinking that retired Dr. Lorenzo Pelly, my longtime friend and physician, would walk through the door and say, "Do you want the good news or the bad news first? "Give me the good n...

Trump and his haters will never accept that this little bit of heaven that is still the United States is quickly turning into a hell with President Satan burying his pitchfork into the American dream and turning our existences into a nightmare. Our country has never been so ruined since the Great Depression and Trump is the sole reason for our precipitous decline because he sows the seeds of hate and God punishes those who don't cultivate love. Trump's concept of love is screwing a porn star. He is a madman. He is beyond redemption. He does not represent the American people. He would be right at home in Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia. He is so evil that if Jeffrey Epstein were alive today, Trump would pardon him.

He was born Dennis Joaquin McHale-Esparza on January 31, 1990. His mother and I called him Joaquin, but his older brother by a few years, William Carlos, couldn't properly pronounce his name and called him Quisher. His mother and I would call him as time passed Quisher-Boy. By the time he entered junior high, his buddies had shortened his name to Quish, which they still salute him today. He had a normal Brownsville childhood with the exception that he had to endure the heartaches of his parents' divorce and the tragedy of losing his baby sister, Gabriela Cristina. Later in life when I remarried, he gained a baby brother baptized Michael Dante, whom he holds dear to his heart. Both he and Carlos were brought up around music with a white piano in the front room, acoustic guitars leaning against walls and harmonicas strewn throughout the house within easy reach. And there was the non-stop music blaring softly, ranging from country to jazz, from Spanish to rock. The turning point i...

GOOGLE: "The 'dog days of summer' is a phrase used to describe the hot and humid days of summer. It can be traced back thousands of years to the days of the Roman Empire. It refers to the dates from July 3 through August 11, which is 20 days prior and 20 days after the star Sirius rises and falls in conjunction with the sun." (EDITOR'S NOTE: I don't endure the heat because I reside in constant air-conditioning. My rent includes air-conditioning, so I have no need to suffer. In the late afternoon, particularly during the week when everyone is at work, I lie by the pool and embrace the first of the evening breezes sweeping off the Gulf. It is one of the most peaceful times in my day as I close my eyes and listen to the sounds swirling around me. I have not once dived into the water. I don't like to return to my place in wet trunks. Last year I swam regularly. I don't comprehend the change, but my subconscious must have its reasons. I try my best during t...

S ays the MAGA Maggot: "You have no problem spreading the hate, do you?" And you would probably have no problem with Trump grabbing your wife's pussy.  And if you raised a protest, you would probably have no problem with Trump shooting you in the head after your lovely lady had given him head.  Trump is a synonym for hate.  If you have no problems with him raping your wife or your daughter or your mother and then murdering you because you protested his criminal acts, then you are a sorry SOB, Maggot!  I love my country.  That is the reason I hate Trump.  I would hate to be you, Maggot, defending this monster who dreams of overthrowing our democracy and establishing his dictatorship.  He epitomizes the Ugly American. And God is speaking when he empties the skies upon us. Or would you prefer the fires of Sodom and Gomorrah?

You apologists for this sack of shit are saying that Trump is extending his condolences to the scores of Americans swept away into eternity by the Texas floods???!!! It is more likely that he is extending his puny penis to the bitch/witch Laura Looney Tune. Melania is sick and tired of a man whose hemorrhoids are bigger than his balls. We are all sick and tired of this horrible human being who spews nothing but feces from his feculent mouth. I'm listening to Stevie Ray Vaughn wailing, "It's flooding down in Texas." Does dumbass Trump even know the song??? Does Trump know anything but pussy and power? Instead, I'm sure he is preying on these poor families for political gain now that he has quit praying for them. Puto!!! Pendejo!!! When God resorts to a flood, you can deduce that he isn't pleased with Trump. When God starts taking the lives of innocents, you can deduce that he isn't pleased with the rabid Republicans. When God washes away a Christian camp fi...

I have intimate ties with the five most ignorant cities in the United States. Brownsville ranks number two and McAllen number three. They keep the Rio Grande Valley on the map. Visalia, Bakersfield and Modesto, California, are one, four and five and comprise a prominent part of the larger San Joaquin Valley. Of course, I know all these communities since they are a part of my life in every conceivable way. I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for these tarred-and-feathered towns, particularly Modesto and Brownsville. My children and wives have been products of the latter. Were picking spouses and having kids bad decisions as a result of being raised under such trying circumstances if the study has merit? And who am I to argue? As a longtime coach, I never dispute the numbers. At the end of the contest, they are the final word. I graduated from grammar school, high school and college in Modesto. When I was 24, after a long journey in Mexico, I arrived in Brownsville in 19...