Chris James Martinez, a.k.a. Jethro, Santiago, Jim, et al., gave us the slip one year ago today.
You left us way too soon, homes. Some of us never got the chance to say “Adios” until you were dust in the wind.
Well, dust in a Chock full o’ Nuts coffee can, anyway.
After you hit the door running for the final time Larry, Kelly, and William got the old band back together and then some, first at the Bull & Bush in Glendale, and again in Alamosa, trying to sing you back home.
Sorry if it sounded more like the howling at the moon that was No. 1 on our El Rancho Delux hit parade Back in the Day™. Weren’t none of us exactly Jimmy Ibbotson, even then. More like Jimmy Beam, and near the bottom of the bottle, too. Talk about your long, hard roads.
Anyway, our serenades kept going to voice mail, or maybe to that answering machine I bought you way back when. It’s probably under those Glendale mondo-condos next to the Bull, with the rest of El Rancho. There’s an artillery piece at the Alamosa boneyard in case you want to call us back.
Thinking of you today, my brother. And of Lucy and Lawrence, too. Give them un abrazo for me.
Mad Blog Media 
Hey, why is the room so empty?? Where did everybody go?
Sigh.
For reals. I recall the Jim Harrison line, from “Warlock”: “Every time I pass the cemetery on the way to work I get the feeling we don’t live forever.”
One is blessed to have such have such a panegyric
The trick — which I am still trying to learn — is to say nice things about (and to) people while they’re still around to hear them.
I remember my best buddy, and our best man, Hank Nowak. He worked as a jazz drummer while a college student in accounting. Hank returned to the source in 1991, and when we used to drive to Tucson for his chemo treatments, we always listened to George Benson’s version of “Stella By Starlight.” Every time I listen to that song, Hank is there.
Ah, “Stella.” Funny you mention it. In “The Dharma Bums,” the book I “borrowed” from my bro’ Jim, Ray Smith and Japhy Ryder are walking along a beach and Ray is whistling that very tune. A cute young girl takes note and says, “Swing.”
That picture could easily have been a classic album cover. Love the sunglass boyz lurching (not lurking) in the background. Chris looks like he’s removing ear wax with his necktie. Jim looks like he’s drank some outhouse squeezins by accident. And you…you look like a windswept prairie preacher just arrived from some crossroads town in Kansas. The stone wall really ties the scene together. Don’t know what the bands name should be but the album could be titled “We Did the Best We Could with What Little Brains We Have”
Really, Herb. Shades of that Crosby, Stills, and Nash album cover.
I think the band’s name is The Rev. Broke Dick O’Dawg & The Gnawin’ Prophets.
The Rev’s signature tune was “Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up.” Period. Sort of an alt-country-punk/death metal/Satanic-gospel kind of number.
I thought you already had a name for the band. The album’s title track was “You Won’t Feel A Thing.”
Hank said his jazz group got a lot of tips in the jar when they played that song.
Here’s Stan Getz himself bringing the number to yis all the way from 1958:
Remembering, fo sho.
Back in the day (insert trademark), I didn’t understand how Jethro could get involved in the crass political game. And then WTF I found myself there, calling it what it can be at its best – public service. With appreciation and abrazos, to Jethro.
El Rancho is a different place now. I have returned to the neighborhood many times. My son played a couple of years in the national rugby championships on the fields nearby. My brother lives a few blocks away, and we shop and stay at hotels a stone’s throw from where I once slept with a toaster. Shotgun Willie’s still has the same sign out front, and I can only assume it has the same attractions inside. Around the corner, the Blue Goose is a memory. My cousins gave it up years ago; it may or may not live on. These memories make me feel like an old man, and there is no evidence to lead me to any other conclusion.
Sheeyit, bruh, you don’t be old. I’ve seen the pictures. Anybody who can trade pulls with the M-dogg in that Sonoma County country is still ticking along like a Swiss watch. And I notice that you are still doing The Work for The People in these dark days. A Revered Elder you are, unlike some El Rancho veteranos who while away the hours trading bon mots with the cat and the voices in their heads.
The El Rancho ’hood is indeed an entirely different place. Hell, a different planet. Last trip through, for Jethro’s “Adiós, muchachos, compañeros de mi vida” thing, I stayed in a Hilton property walking distance from the Bull & Bush. There’s a Foods Hole to the south, also a short stroll away. I think the Riviera Lounge & Supper Club where once we recovered from raucous revelry by downing red beers for breakfast — watched closely by Adolf Scarf, “credit manager” (a black piranha in a tank behind the bar) — is now a Las Delicias taco shop.
So it goes.
Sid King’s Crazy Horse is long gone, but the Satire Lounge is still there; Colfax and the weather were both in a woeful state when I was in town and I wasn’t about to get out of the car unless it was at gunpoint.
These occasional stumbles down Memory Lane, with an assist from old journals, columns, and photos, don’t make me feel old, exactly, even though I am, if only chronologically. They do make me feel fortunate to still be around, telling the tales like some half-assed seanchaí. We should all count our blessings, que no?