By Juan Montoya
Among the characters who congregated at the Sportman's Bar in downtown Brownsville was a guy named Ramon.
We never knew his last name because it's really not kosher to ask. Ramon worked just fine.
During the summer you hardly ever saw him because he worked in air conditioning and those were his busy months. It was after the weather cooled off a bit and a northern or two came in that he would frequent the bar with his assistants.
Like most patrons, Ramon had a favorite saying. Some would shout "Esa no!," when a tearjerker song by Vicente Fernandez like "Volver, volver, volver," was played on the jukebox.
Others would make comments when someone would be hitting the brewskies hard and a bottle of tequila was passed around and the man or woman took a long drink that made the bottle gurgle. They would say something like "Que tal pollo!"
And then there was the occasional crackhead panhandling the customers who thought it was funny to shout "What the fuck?" at the top of their lungs. Another favorite was "Houston, we got a problem!"
Ramon's favorite saying when a dance song was played was "Esa la bailo con madre!" (I can really dance that song.)
Over time he became known for that saying and when a moving song came in we would turn expectantly to Ramon and he would dutifully intone "Esa la bailo con madre!"
There was a short man - though not young - named Ruben who started to mimic Ramon when he wasn't around and went around saying "Esa la bailo con madre."
After a while people got tired of hearing him repeat Ramon's saying and as Ruben approached a guy at the bar to delivered his version of Ramon's saying, the man turned and told him: "No seas Ramon." (No seas mamon!)
7 comments:
Trump gets to build a wall, which a Democratic president can demolish in two years.
The next Democratic president gets action on climate change, healthcare reform, and gun control, all of which are legitimate national emergencies, not vanity projects.
FAKE PHOTO, bro. No 14th Street cantina has a jukebox like that one and no Anglos go there! use Mexicans next time.
Trump is full of crooked shit, check out the connection with the suppliers of the material and labor, Trump is gaining some how. Trumps new realality show will be called, "Beat the crook" staring Donald Trump, ex jail bird.
@10:00 AM, I thought the Sportsman Bar was on 10th Street, across from the Majestic Theater, bro.
@10:00 AM, it's just the same old IMP, mcallen's Gloria Swanson, surrounded by old clippings and pictures of himself in some sort of "big time newspaper journalist" delusion, afraid of his own shadow (come live in browntown and mix it up, bro) barricaded in a Sunset Boulevard cubicle in mcallen, car-less and pretending to have a girlfriend and obsessed with Juan,a real newsman, who drinks and dances with la raza and grinds it out in the streets of browntown every day (unless he's in the doghouse or hoosegow) and talks to real people as shit is happening. the IMP and bloggers like "Jerry Galonsky" and "Barton The Slouch" await Juan's daily reports so they can be repackage it as news.
More bar fly humor, appreciated and undestood only by local bar flies.
The Sportsman Bar, the last bastion of Manhood remaining in downtown Brownsville. What I wouldn't give to visit " Mi Tejanita " on Adams St. Institutions of higher learning.
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