We often lament that Brownsville is without visionaries which accounts for its designation as the Third World Capital of the United States. We confess to generalities because there is a particular exception. His name is George Ramirez.
Roots in Mexico City and Los Angeles, Ramirez, with the refreshing perspective of an outsider, sees Brownsville's beauty while natives wander around blind to the natural beauty and the living museum better known as downtown as well as to the city's cultural and historical significance.
Ramirez caught the attention of the community more than 20 years ago when he inaugurated the Latin Jazz Festival with the iconic Tito Puente headlining. Beginning tonight and running through Sunday, saxophonist Michel Machietto will entertain Thursday and guitarist Clay Moore will take the stage at the Half Moon Saloon on Friday.
The action moves outside Saturday and Sunday. The Street Jazz Party will fill Adams Street between 12th and 13th Saturday and the popular Dance Party returns to its traditional locale on Levee between 12th and 13th in the shadows of the venerable El Jardin Hotel.
"Everything is free this year," said Ramirez as he attended Ben Neece's Spanish Moon's grand opening. "We have abandoned the fancy gatherings at the Jacob Brown Auditorium and returned to the original concept to create a people's party where everyone from all walks of life rub shoulders. There is too much dissension in our ranks. From the richest neighborhoods to the poorest barrios, there has to be a commitment to realizing our potential.
"I have grown weary hearing about Brownsville's potential," scoffed Ramirez. "I had a very intelligent and handsome cousin with potential who accomplished nothing. Now he's dead. I don't desire that destiny for Brownsville."Ramirez, a successful businessman who travels throughout the world as part of his enterprise, is reopening the Half Moon Saloon. A few years ago the Half Moon Saloon anchored the downtown scene, but the bottom line wasn't there and he chose to close.
After a two-year hiatus, he is exploiting the Latin Jazz Festival to reinaugurate his club. It is the most upbeat establishment downtown and will add to the historical center's growing renaissance. To assure a successful venture, Ramirez has built a kitchen with an essential menu. He figures the trio of food, booze and music will assure him a more positive account for this undertaking.
Ramirez is the president of the Brownsville Society for the Performing Arts available at artsinbrownsville.org. And he's also its driving force and eternal inspiration. At 71, he still has that optimism of youth. At the BSPA, he has helped spearhead such endeavors as Handel's production of Messiah, the guitar ensemble festival of competition and sundry other events.
"Our most recent accomplish is KXIQ 105.1 FM," continued Ramirez as he puffed on a cigarette on the open-air addition to the Spanish Moon. "I believe I have assembled an original lineup with an eclectic mix that you won't hear anywhere in the world. And we're commercial free."
"I feel sorry for NPR," said "Delta" Dave Handelman, the bard of downtown Brownsville, who plays three nights a week, Terra's Bar & Grill and El Hueso de Fraile, his two favorite venues. "Ramirez possesses an original approach that reduces NPR to a staid state."
Besides belief that one day Brownsville could regain its lost reputation as the New Orleans of the Rio Grande, Ramirez wants the citizenry to appreciate downtown Brownsville.
"I'm impressed by City Commissioners Ben Neece and Cesar De Leon insistence that revitalizing downtown as a top priority," he said. "Other communities are jealous of our architectural diversity and beauty, but they are dismissive of us because they have observed firsthand our inability to build on our strengths. Instead they mock us for succumbing to our weaknesses wasting our energy fighting among ourselves rather than finding common ground and moving forward."
Ramirez lauds the municipality for remodeling the Stegman Building on the corner of Washington and 11th. The BSPA will administer it. The entity will oversee the Brownsville Performing Arts Academy which strives to educate economically deprived kids to the beauty of the arts.
"I can only dream about Brownsville becoming the mecca for South Texas because it is going to be a time-consuming and painstaking process and I don't have time on my side," offered Ramirez as he lit another cigarette but only after assuring his rapt listener that he was fully recovered from his heart attack. "I have seen the future in the drawings of top-notch architects, but I find much satisfaction in the journey even though I might not arrive to the destination."
We are all doomed to the past, but as Ramirez only knows too well: Brownsville's past is Brownsville's future.
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