When I was a little puto, after mass on Sundays we would pack into the Cadillac and we went over the bridge for gas ( it was like 10 cents cheaper) and if you knew my old man he would travel across the state to save 10 cents on a gallon of gas..there were also great restraunts, Mexican Cokes in big ass bottle, fresh breads and tortilla, we might even hit some of the tourist places and pick up a wooden toy. Even some of my moms people lived over there but I don't remember if we ever visited but as I grew up we went over less and less, I don't think my folks have been over the bridge in many years.
Most don't go back! So pack accordingly!
As you may know the shit hits the fan daily in Juarez, now it's always been a rough town, back in Poncho Villas days on back, fuckers were strapped to the gills itching to blast holes in a gringo or fellow mexicans for stealing their horse or whore or tamales whatever... so we always...always went there with radar on full fucking alert! The 80s were no different, you sense something... you walk, you minded your "P"s, "Q"s and double "RR"s. But now it's something entirely differnt and a generation is missing out on cheap beer and girls!
Even Marty knew you had to be packing heat, especially in Rosa's!
You see growing up in this part of country drinkin' is not a passage or transition to boyhood, we just drink, I think mostly to pass the time cause there aint shit to do! And by the time me and my buddies were old enough to step up to the bar we hit it...HARD! No i.d., no problemo, no dinero...you got a problemo, but shit beers were like a buck , with specials all night, we'd get "yards" of tapped Carta Blanca ( big ass glasses in the shape of a boot") for 3 bucks, a case ( that was 20 beerias) of Corona ( when it was still just another Mexican beer) 3 bucks ( $5 without the bottles to deposit)!! So getting ripped was easy but so was getting in a fight! Fights were broke up by "the Federales" as all police were known and those fucker back then didn't give a shit about Cartels, beheadings or getting blown up! They only cared about shakin' down Americas. We took quite a few bucks with us but always had a 10 or 20 stashed in a boot or inside pocket of our leather jackets just in case you needed to slip a cop a few bucks to let you go or your friends go or in my case more then once...a crazy drunk girlfriend!! Now El Paso for the most part has always been an Army town, hell thats why there is a city there in the first place so back in the old days when the beer and tequila flowed and the border was as open and a mexican puta on payday, G.I.s from Ft. Bliss would head to J-Town to get fucked up, blow their pay by plying under-aged,over-dressed Mexican and American gilrs with booze and generally having good/bad fun the way a G.I. is supposed to. Now most were cool as shit and I had many friends who joined up and where doing the same shit in Tijuana or in Germany and other than the hair styles most were just like us, Metal Heads who wanted to get the hell out of Des Moise, Sacramento or Little Rock and ended up in the desert and after cleaning toilets, guns,boots and Humvee all week all they wanted to do was party or fight or both but I don't think I ever wrestled with a GI....I don't think.....
I wrestled this kind of GI several hundred times....sometimes even conscious!
So my memory is not good combine that with the fact that when we actually got over the border it was probably 10,11 o'clock on a Saturday and we were already pretty plowed but I do remember "The English Pub"! It was about a half a block from the bridge it was like the first "American" bar, I say American because there were hundreds of bars and not all took kindly to drunk Americans with their metal musica and trampy girlfriends barging into their sanctuary, there were some locals only places and they simply would not let you in. There were big dance clubs with dress codes and shit this is were the hot chicks were but we could not and did not want to go in there anyway! The English pub was made for metal dudes and chicks. The sign was the Union Jack with "The English Pub" in old english letters that is as english as it got... it was beacon a light at the end of the tunnel, a promise of a good time and bad hangover!
You break a yard they charged you 3 dollars and you were humiliated with a chorus of boos and pinche- weys!
Corona was unheard of 20 something years ago it was cheap and only those in the know drank 'em, like this cat and me and Mr.666!
I had a love/hate with these guys....not sure why? I like them more now.....
Y&T....yeah they dress faggy but Dave straight rips! Plus bonus mids 80s drum solo!
This place sat like 20 people in the four or five booths on the left side of the room ( it was rectaglar room like 40 x 15 feet) with the bar to the right, the bar was a long as the place so it was long as shit that place must have packed in 150 people a total fire hazard! There was a toliet I guess there was bowl, but damned it i'd be taking a crap in a bar in J-Town you might as well inject a virus into your ass! The urinal was a concrete trough that was tilted on one end so the gravity took you beer infused piss out into the alley somewhere! The smoke was so thick you could hardly breath, dudes lite up joints right at the bar, it you got there early you could get a booth and you were ruling! It meant you could sit and drink till you spawned fins randon chicks would sit on your lap and let you grop 'em untill their "boyfriends" showed up, I made out with girls I never even spoke one word to just because we had a damn booth can you say MONO! After a few hours of hard partying we'd stumble out on to the street of old J-Town looking for food! Glorious mexican street foods! Oh man Tortas, Tacos, shit that was probably walking the street a few minutes earlier and now was in a tortilla or pan francesas, the tortas were the best, mystery meat with avacado, mayo,grilled onions, chiles, cheese and cheap a buck and some change...oh man drunk food of the first degree with agua fresca ( mexican fruit drinks) to wash it down... oh man! that was some living!
Tacos con gato? The less you know the better! They were damn good!
This is how Juarez was, now it is a war zone with rival factions killing for control, the US state dept. advises against traveling to Mexico and Juarez in particular. To put this into perscective it would be like saying it is not safe to travel from Dallas to Arlington, Jersey to New York, L.A. to Compton....people are cut off from their families it is a tragic state...hopefully with some pressure on the right people change will happen, the cartels will cool it you know sell dope like a business not a god damn Robert Rodriguez movie and the young men and women of El Paso can go over the border in peace to get shitty drunk on mexican beer , have a torta, and bring home stories of lost memory, lost love, lost money, lost dignity or in Mr.666's case a lost car and 24 hours in one of the most notorious jails in the world! But that is a whole other story of inebrieation, fist fights, police corruption and the worst hangover of my life all in the pursuit of another case of Corona and a bottle of Oso Negro!
