DEEP IN THE HEART: LOS TEJONES EN EL PASO By The Monsignor ¡ Dramática Victoria ! Los Tejones de Wisconsin logran venir de atrás y se llevan el Sun Bowl al vencer a UCLA. * -- Headline in the Juarez Newspaper El Diario, December 30, 2000 The Dome Bar in the Camino Real Hotel is impressive. Topped by a beautiful stained glass (real Tiffany!) dome, it has a circular bar with too few servers, gorgeous waitresses, and, tonight, tables populated by Badger fans rejoicing in a Sun Bowl victory. My tape player is blasting out one of the songs I have collected for the Viaje a El Paso. This intrepid crew -- El Tío, Señor Equis, AZ Badger and the lovely future Mrs. AZ, SoCal Badger and the lovely Mrs. SoCal, MN Badger, and me, the Monsignor (Kjake having retired) -- are singing round after round of Jerry Jeff Walker's version of "London Homesick Blues." I wanna go home with the armadillo, Good country music from Amarillo and Abilene, The friendliest people and the prettiest Women you ever seen. Again and again, over and over we sing, the waitstaff and collected bar patrons staring at us. We could care less. In Una Dramática Victoria, our maligned University of Wisconsin football team has again beaten UCLA, 21-20, to secure the Sun Bowl and a 9-4 season record. It will turn out to be one of only two Big Ten Bowl victories this year, and further secures the legend of J. Barrett ("King!") Alvarez as one of the top bowl coaches. We are giddy after a day of beer and AZ's gift of Herradura Anejo, a smooth, nasty, wonderful, mean and masterful tequila that fires this crazed singing . . . . now it is an off-key rendering of the chorus of Lukenbach, Texas, full-throated: Let's go to Lukenbach, Texas Waylon and Willie and the boys. The successful life we're living's got Us feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys Between Hank Williams' pain songs and Lou Berry's train songs and Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain. Out in Lukenbach, Texas, Ain't nobody feeling no pain. The Dome Bar, Camino Real, El Paso, Texas, USA, is not quite ready for victorious, tequila-fueled, gaudy, singing Badgers. We, like the team, feel a certain redemptive quality to this trip, a balm upon the wounds inflicted earlier this year. Hmmm . . . . Can I recall how we got here? Tumbling Tumbleweeds See them tumbling down Pledging their love to the ground. Lonely but free I'll be found Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds. -- Sons of the Pioneers Let's see . . . . Ah, yes, that bizarre scene in the Dome took place some 60 hours after los tres amigos, Tío, Equis y Monsignor, headed out from O'Hare to El Paso. On St. Stephen's Day, I pick up Señor Equis, aka the Bald Duke, and drive to Uncle's house in Highland Park. The Duke and I enjoyed an extended discourse on the Jayhawk's "Smile" on the trip down. After pizza at the Night 'N Gale (anchovies! yuck!), we make it an early evening in order to be ready for the a.m. flight to El Paso. You must have a full understanding of the background of los tres amigos, and what puts us in this place. Uncle (redubbed Tío) and I go back to the sordid days of Ogg Hall in the early 70's, but he only recently became a regular -- and I might say indispensable -- member of our Badger Bowl traveling troupe. The Uncle even joined us for the road trip to Bloomington this year, which saw my rear window spontaneously combust. The Bald Duke (renamed X or Señor Equis) has been my partner for lo these many years since I abandoned God for mammon, and he and I have a meshing which sometimes scares me, similar only to that I have with Bro Dave (yes, he of Indy Bowl fame -- breaking his streak this year, alas!). Egads, Equis will be best man at my third (and last) wedding to be held in June to the lovely Irish Mist (Yes!). An unspoken pace, and pacem, exists among us. But the Sun Bowl! My notes say this year was to be the Badgers' shot at a national championship. We should have a crowd rivaling 1994, on our way to the Orange Bowl. Not to be. Shoe Box! Injuries! Etc.! A marvelous victory over Oregon, but a sinful loss in overtime to Northwestern is the push down a slippery slope of four Big Ten losses in five games. One marvelous pass by back-up QB Sorgi (who should be starting :-)) saves the MSU game. Then the team rallies to win four in a row, including blowouts of the dreaded Golden Ground Squirrels and at Indiana. So make it what it is. A shot at redemption, win a game, and go out on the upswing . . . lose . . . Horrors . . . . Horrors . . . . El Paso Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl Nighttime would find me in Rose's Cantina, Music would play and Felina would whirl. -- Marty Robbins We arrive in El Paso, bright sunshine and 50?. We grab our rental car and, after a two-cigar wait for our bags, we affix the Badger flags, and begin to cruise. A quick cocktail at the Dome Bar. Now we check out the Sun Bowl itself. Great security. We drive up in the Lincoln . . . hint to traveler: rent the biggest American machine made, it can't hurt . . . and the gendarmes probably think it is J. Barrett, King, himself. "How you doing?" asks the security person. "Great," we say, as we walk past, on to the Sun Bowl turf itself, to check out our seats, and gain the flavor. It is our first indication of the laid-back, incredibly friendly culture we will encounter over the next few days. The most telling thing about El Paso del Norte is that it is a sprawling, easy-going, poor town. It ain't got the socio-economic stature of MadCity, Chitown, Minneapolis, San Diego -- almost any place in Los Estados Unidos. But guess what? More of the world, much, much more of the world -- lives closer to the life in El Paso than to the comfort we have. Gracias a Dios, I wasn't born the fourth child to a poor Latina in Juarez. What?!? Where was I?!? Oh, yeah . . . . Señor Equis now commandeers the Lincoln to get Sun Bowl pins, and then I commandeer the Lincoln to Tony Lama's factory outlet. Here, I find a most excellent pair of cowboy boots for $80 -- a better deal than even the Badgers got on shoes. Even X buys some (non-cowboy) boots. And I can't help myself. As soon as I've bought them, I put on the classy boots, and scream, "OK, let's go kick some hippies' asses." We find none in El Paso. Continuing east, we go 30 miles to the Cattlemen's Ranch. Herradura Silver tequila, the best beef ever, and coyotes on the lawn. If you get to El Paso, you absolutely MUST consume the dead cow at Cattlemen's. X downs the two-pound "Cowboy" T-bone, and we are in awe . . . well at least for a day, until we found out AZ Badger did the same. Folks, we are talking a side-o-beef. On the way back to El Paso, we pause for a couple hours at The Parthenon, a Sports Bar. The bartender loves our shirts: "Los Tejones? That is the Badgers!" Oh, did I mention, a Sports Bar and Gentlemen's Club? We resist calls for lap dances, and other than Tío's marvels at the "separation" by Cindy, it is a slow night . . . . Equis urges us on to give "mercy" tips . . . until, suddenly, X tells me I look quite shaken upon my return from tipping one of the dancers: "Duke, she grabbed my crotch!" I utter. "She did?" "She did." "Yowza!" Ay, Caramba. . . . Viva El Paso!! Billy 4 So hang on to your woman if you got one Remember in El Paso once you shot one. Up in Santa Fe you bought one. Billy, you been running for so long -- Bob Dylan We move slowly this morning. X runs; I walk. Finally, we walk across the bridge to Juarez, Mexico, just over the Rio Grande. A more sprawling, poorer version of El Paso, Juarez has 1.5 million inhabitants, a number of whom sit in the street begging, or try to cajole us into their shops, or market their wares as we consume cervezas. We check out the Cathedral, the Mercado and the restaurant Ajuaa's. Glad we did it, but . . . well, again, I am struck by the economic circumstances of one's birth. There is a third-world quality to Juarez. At least by now, even the español-impaired Bald Duke is saying the simple "No, gracias." On Thursday afternoon, we head for what will clearly be either the highlight or lowlight of the trip. We are to meet an unknown group of UW fans from the Inside Wisconsin internet board at the Dome Bar. Yes, we appear to be able to get along in cyberspace with Kjake, SoCal, AZ Badger and MN Badger, but . . . what if they're jerks?? We've never actually met them. X and I have taken the lead in organizing this gathering, but . . . we go to the bar with our "Los Tejones en El Paso" T-shirts and no small amount of trepidation. He shoots, he scores!! These guys, and their female companions, are great. We drink, eat, and consume the better part of a $100 bill courtesy of the Avenue Bar. Jokes about Giuseppe, Sure Beats Pork, and the Pregnant Nun liven up our afternoon. We begin exchanging cards, become an expanded traveling troupe for the balance of the trip, and by the end of the Sun Bowl, actually begin to remember our new-found friends' real names. AZ produces the fabled Herradura Anejo Tequila and -- poof! -- anything vaguely resembling clarity quickly disappears. I pawn off the "Los Tejones en El Paso" shirts. For reasons only MN Badger and El Tío can explain, we end up the evening with a "table for George" at an Italian restaurant with much more food than we can eat. The gamble paid off beyond our expectations. Texas Rockabilly Rebel Turn up the bass, turn up the treble Texas Rockabilly Rebel. Turn up the bass, turn up the treble Texas Rockabilly Rebel. It goes real fast but it sure feels good. It goes real fast but it sure feels good. It goes real fast but it sure feels good. It feels good. It feels good. -- Reverend Horton Heat Game day dawns bright and chilly. My head feels like a cotton factory but we are way past the stage of sensibility. The newly bonding crew -- AZ's, SoCal's Tío, MN, X and I -- gather in the Dome and head for the Sun Bowl and the pregame party at 9:30 a.m. We park a few blocks from the stadium. The Blast is all Badger and all we want. Beer, brats, cheese, the UW Band, Pat Richter, crazy students. I pass out the remaining tequila and become the friend of the students. The sun is rising high and warming the world. The Sun Bowl is beautifully situated in the mountains that are part of the UTEP campus and is, honestly, one of the best bowls I have seen. It is small (51,000 capacity) so all seats are close to the field. We figure there are 10,000 UW fans here, to about 2,000 for UCLA. But the locals show up in force, and over 49,000 are at the game. This is a trashy game, Freddie Trash Talking Mitchell vs. Jamar Trash Talking Fletcher and, at least initially, the Bruins appear more fired up. Coming in with a 6-5 record, the UCLA fans see this as a game to recover some sense of pride in a lost season. The Bruins fall behind 7-0 (notice that Lee Evans actually dropped the ball before crossing the goal line??), but dominate the rest of the first half for a 17-7 lead. "We were soft." So speaks J. Barrett, King, at half-time. The UW dominates the second half of the game, scoring the last 14 points, running the ball, snuffing the UCLA offense, and Jamar Fletcher intercepts a pass at the end of the game to preserve the narrow 21-20 victory. (Was it the Monsignor's prayer? Or Bo's nuts?) We are on the field for the fifth quarter, AZ, X and I accomplishing the first-ever triple chest (I use the word "chest" loosely) bump on the 50-yard line of the Sun Bowl. Kjake gets doused with beer. We make off with a Sun Bowl banner, later presented to the Avenue Bar. Every time I see a UCLA fan, which is seldom, I thank them for playing us in bowl games. It is now, after the game, that we gather in the Dome Bar for that ragged scene of singing, drinking and eating, the fresh bonds of new friendships forged in a Badger road victory. Tío: "This is a lot more fun when you win." After a few hours of singing, Herradura and Chivas, Señor Equis and I, Tío, and the SoCals head for the State Line BBQ. We pile into the Lincoln, and with the lovely Mrs. SoCal as DD, plug in the Sun Bowl music for more singing in the car, and travel out to the edge of town. Señor Equis asserts that this tape may be my best of the bowl trip musical memories. I'm not sure -- the '94 Rose Bowl tape, with one song from each year between 1963 and 1994, may still be my favorite -- but this is great Texas music. From Asleep at the Wheel to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys; from Waylon Jennings and Jerry Jeff Walker to the Sons of the Pioneers and Marty Robbins; from Doug Sahm to ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughn and the Reverend Horton Heat. Topped off with some of Kinky Freidman's more outrageous efforts from the "Lasso in El Paso" album. "Excelente." At the State Line, what is purported to be a one hour wait lasts about 20 minutes, but we end up seated next to some UCLA fans who immediately begin trash-talking. "Usually the losers are a little quieter," opines SoCal. "You're 4-7, you shut up." "4-7? What?" "Lifetime record, Badgers v. UCLA." "Oh, for Chrissakes," SoCal is about to get up and go to the next table. Mrs. SoCal gently touches his arm. "Losers!!" We flash the "L" sign to them. No matter what they say now, we just give them the "L." Eventually things calm down and we proceed to consume some of the best ribs ever laid before us. The Bruins finally slink away, but not one UCLA fan had the graciousness to even say "congratulations" on the UW win. I hate arrogant fans. We stumble back to the Dome Bar and exchange our good-byes. Saturday is get away day. X and I briefly visit Club 101, a smoke-filled, youth-filled, techno, futuristic dance club that has me wide-eyed. Two young women in a cage above the dance floor are engaged in moves as provocative as those we saw at the Parthenon. The club is full of UW cheerleaders and players; there is nobody here even half our age. "This is a slice of another world, Duke." "That it is. One that clearly has passed us by." Consumed by the day's massive, continuous and poisonous ingestion, I crash upon our return to Camino Real, while Equis stays up for his final flirtations with the bar waitresses. Tequila Sunrise It's another tequila sunrise Staring slowly cross the sky, I said good bye. -- The Eagles On the morning after the game, I gather newspapers, and we gather our suitcases. It is another bright, sunny day in El Paso. We end up delayed in the airport, due to snow (ugh! Snow!!) in Chicago. I sit outside in the sun, sipping a beer, smoking a cigar, and reading Garry Wills' biography of St. Augustine. Equis discovers that Wisconsin was hit with another six inches of snow while we were gone. The flight is smooth, but the trip back is long, very long, by the time we go to Highland Park to re-gather my car from Uncle's house, then to the Cream City suburbs to drop off Bald Duke. I make the last one and one-half hours alone, listening to the Northwestern Wildcats get embarrassed, 66-17, in their bowl game, and finally tumble into my own bed, and the waiting arms of the Irish Mist (Yes!) at 10:30 p.m. I dream in Spanish: Una dramática victoria! Los Tejones en El Paso! Viva El Paso! Viva Los Tejones!