La Arboleda

Musings from the end of this keyboard

[la-arboleda]

How Residents Of Texas Border Towns Are Reacting To Trump's Plan To Send National Guard

National Guard troops have been stationed on the Texas border with Mexico for most of the past decade. Some folks including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott welcome the latest plan to send troops from President Donald Trump while others remain skeptical.

In Presidio, Texas — a bordertown with a population of about 4,500 people — residents still vividly remember a time when their stretch of the border was far more militarized, in a government effort to curb drug smuggling.

The town and its people remain skeptical about Pres. Trump’s plan to send between 2,000 and 4,000 National Guardsmen to the border.

[la-arboleda]

📻

[npr]

On her days off, Claudia Saenz scours used record shops, thrift stores and yard sales, keeping her eyes peeled for records her parents grew up on. They remind her of her childhood.

“I just feel that [vinyl] is definitely more intimate than playing it on my phone on, like, Spotify or a streaming app,” Saenz says. “I just like holding that piece of history.”

She’s founder of the Chulita Vinyl Club, an all-girl vinyl collecting crew spread throughout the Southwest and California. And although they collect all kinds of records, Chicano soul is one genre that rings near and dear to the club’s heart and style.

Chicano soul is the product of black and brown communities living side by side. The group Little Joe y La Familia is the perfect example of this fusion. Little Joe grew up on the cotton fields of Texas, where his was one of the only Mexican families living in a community of largely black families. It should come as no surprise, then, that he was one of the pioneers of Tejano soul.

For The Chulita Vinyl Club, Crate Digging Is More Than A Hobby

Photo: Courtesy of Chulita Vinyl Club

[la-arboleda]

[bbqsnob]

Fantastic spread from @2msmokehouse in San Antonio. (at 2M Smokehouse & catering)

[la-arboleda]

Stumbling through Texas

[la-arboleda]

Hip Hop Salvation in Waco

For nearly a decade, Gabriel Dominguez, a pastor and Mission Waco high-risk youth director, has reached out to high-risk youth in the community with music.

I really enjoyed working on this story and talking with the kids who spend their afternoons crafting hip-hop songs to work through the struggles they face. 

[djk915-deactivated20171111]

El Paso, TX / Cd. Juarez, Chih, MX.    

[la-arboleda]

[djk915-deactivated20171111]

El Paso, TX.

[djk915-deactivated20171111]

Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas.

[la-arboleda]

[la-arboleda]

[la-arboleda]

"The Premiere League is a Star-Wars bar of characters, and amidst the dense, sprawling universe of type-A personalities, Jose Mourinho is undoubtedly the most polarizing” 

[bryankonietzko]

Here is my final cover art for The Legend of Korra complete series DVD/Blu-ray set. You can see the sketch here.

[la-arboleda]

[la-arboleda]

Chelsea Wolfe’s “Abyss” is not only one of the best albums of 2015, it’s also one of the best looking!