I'VE GIVEN IT MY BEST SHOT
I'm sitting in the Austin home of my number two son Joaquin. I am speaking strictly in chronological order. Number one son Carlos is taking a shower and number three son Michael is finally stirring. We are eating lunch at Lucy's. It's fried chicken is a part of our Austin pilgrimage.
Afterwards, we are clearing our fuzzy brains by diving into the bracing waters of Barton Springs. Besides another major meal in the evening copiously accompanied by alcohol, we are strictly in spontaneous mode. There's plenty of money to squeeze the most from the moments. It's not often that a father and his three son are united and you can never count on the future to assure other reunions. Life is too fragile. We have to mine the moment for all its golden memories.
Since my blog and Facebook are economically beneficial to me, I must maintain a steady activity. With the publication of my new book Guatemala, I thought I would present a short resume of my past works in order to entertain my three readers who come to my sites every day demanding material. Fortunately, they are easy to satisfy.As I have mentioned on previous occasions to the chagrin of my faithful trio who do have their limits when it comes to my desperate endeavor to fill the infinite screen on the internet, my writing began in 1977 as The Brownsville Herald sports editor. Covering spot news and penning columns, I learned to write that year I held the post. Whether it has been a typewriter or a computer, my fingers have continued to dance among the keys.
I have never stopped contributing to publications since I commenced my career. I started my own periodical in 1990, the revolutionary El Rocinante, and since 2000 I have blogged. Blogging is like hitting the heavy bag: It keeps you in creative shape, so when the more substantial undertakings evolve, you haven't lost your flow. I have this wistful thought every time I sit down and blog that I may unexpectedly compose my most memorable piece of literature.
Following this introduction I am posting all the covers from my latest book to my earliest book although I'm going to delineate them in the opposite order. I self-published the inaugural seven and have twenty of each stored in a large plastic box. The rest I have distributed to anyone who would accept a copy. I've changed the name of the titles on a few of them, but I am not going into the history now to explain the reasons I altered them.
My initial three books were Punk Poetry, Quinceanera and Poems & Prose. The first was all poetry, the second was 15 poems and 15 short stories and the third was a combination of the two again, a format I have used on subsequent occasions.
The Bill Clinton Overture--Opus 69 was my first novel. It was followed by The World's Most Despicable Man, Aaahhhhh!!!!! and Diarrhea, compilations of poems and short stories, the three once again adhering to the poem/prose format.
Next arrived my most ambitious project--the Tommy Tamaulipas Trilogy. The three novels are entitled: The Temptations of Tommy Tamaulipas; The Transgressions of Tommy Tamaulipas; The Tribulations of Tommy Tamualipas.
In the next five I have once again combined poetry and prose with the exception of Dad's Dead, which is a novelette. The other four are Mother Trumps Trump; Baudelaire, Bukowski & Brewskies; My Teeming Brain; Buried in Brownsville.
And last but not least, there is Guatemala. This is a series of 14 articles with a prologue and an epilogue that describe my experience in the Central American county in 1979.
My literary aspirations have culminated in 16 books. I have vague ideas for other endeavors, but I can't concentrate or dedicate myself to something concrete yet. I have deliberated on a fourth book to the Tommy Tamaulipas Triology; there is room for a sequel. I have this amorphous idea about an existentialistic anti-hero, but nothing has crystallized. There is the possibility of a memoir and there's the old faithful outlet of another poetry/prose concoction.
My only hope is that I live long enough to realize another substantial product. I'm lucky. I don't seek fame or fortune. The mentality reflects my anti-materialistic lifestyle. I really don't desire anything more than to suck the marrow out of each moment. I have been semi-successful in this quest. When my friends and family drop my ashes from the New Bridge into the swirling, filthy waters of the Rio Grande, they will all agree that I gave this brief period of consciousness my best shot.
Following this introduction I am posting all the covers from my latest book to my earliest book although I'm going to delineate them in the opposite order. I self-published the inaugural seven and have twenty of each stored in a large plastic box. The rest I have distributed to anyone who would accept a copy. I've changed the name of the titles on a few of them, but I am not going into the history now to explain the reasons I altered them.
My initial three books were Punk Poetry, Quinceanera and Poems & Prose. The first was all poetry, the second was 15 poems and 15 short stories and the third was a combination of the two again, a format I have used on subsequent occasions.
The Bill Clinton Overture--Opus 69 was my first novel. It was followed by The World's Most Despicable Man, Aaahhhhh!!!!! and Diarrhea, compilations of poems and short stories, the three once again adhering to the poem/prose format.
Next arrived my most ambitious project--the Tommy Tamaulipas Trilogy. The three novels are entitled: The Temptations of Tommy Tamaulipas; The Transgressions of Tommy Tamaulipas; The Tribulations of Tommy Tamualipas.
In the next five I have once again combined poetry and prose with the exception of Dad's Dead, which is a novelette. The other four are Mother Trumps Trump; Baudelaire, Bukowski & Brewskies; My Teeming Brain; Buried in Brownsville.
And last but not least, there is Guatemala. This is a series of 14 articles with a prologue and an epilogue that describe my experience in the Central American county in 1979.
My literary aspirations have culminated in 16 books. I have vague ideas for other endeavors, but I can't concentrate or dedicate myself to something concrete yet. I have deliberated on a fourth book to the Tommy Tamaulipas Triology; there is room for a sequel. I have this amorphous idea about an existentialistic anti-hero, but nothing has crystallized. There is the possibility of a memoir and there's the old faithful outlet of another poetry/prose concoction.
My only hope is that I live long enough to realize another substantial product. I'm lucky. I don't seek fame or fortune. The mentality reflects my anti-materialistic lifestyle. I really don't desire anything more than to suck the marrow out of each moment. I have been semi-successful in this quest. When my friends and family drop my ashes from the New Bridge into the swirling, filthy waters of the Rio Grande, they will all agree that I gave this brief period of consciousness my best shot.
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