Bruce Berman Bruce Berman

Bad Boy In The ‘hood

1939 Chevrolet, Lincoln School Park, El Paso – March 2010 Sunday in Lincoln School Park. Everyone’s there: the vatos, the old low riders, the young low riders, Las Chicas, los ninos, las familias and me. Got to get that building open again! Fuzz cruised through, took a look, cruised out again (ándale). As it oughta [...]

Remnants del ‘Hood

Remnants del ‘hood, El Paso – March 14, 2010 There ain’t much left. Mostly the pickins’. This was the Grand Highway, the Spanish Trail, the beginning of the end of the long journey from East to West or vice-versa, the tip of the arrow into the dart board that was Downtown El Paso. Interstate came [...]

El Paso Dreamin’

Town for sale, El Paso – Feb. 2010 From the movie The Border: Marcy (Valerie Perrine) : (Showing her Border Patrol husband brochures about El Paso, trying to talk him into moving there, at their breakfast table, in Los Angeles) Honey sometimes you gotta dream. Charlie Smith (Jack Nicholson) : (Pausing, furrowing his now signature [...]

Turtle In New Mexico

Turtle/New Year’s Eve 2009, New Mexico Las Cruces New Mexico on New Year’s Eve 2009. Turtle, 17, born and raised in this southern New Mexico town. Apache. Defiant and alive. It was as good as Times Square. Better. 2010 Resolutions? Nah. Just keep looking.

New Mexico Juke

Las Cruces, NM/Dec. 14, 2009 Juke boxes. They’re  a “warm fuzzy,” no matter how you cut it. No? I just wanna dance. It’s the holidays. Time to dance. And stare at the wall (and the Web) and have luxurious long lunches (and personally enriching) with good friends, now, in the rush of my life, long [...]

Que Miras Musico: Change

Musicos, El Paso – April 2009 Wary eyes. Everyone’s wary, in El Paso/Juarez, these days. The border is at war, with itself, with it’s two yin/yang sides, with the Interiors of each of the two sides. Everyone’s wondering where it’ll end, where they will fall on the have and have not scale, what’ll be left [...]

Star No More

Star No More, Marfa, Texas – March 2009 The West, the American Highway (and the American fascination with it), Funk, ain’t what it used to be. Fine with me!

Alameda Street Showboat: Blast From The Past

Alameda Street Showboat, El Paso-1987 Alameda Street is about (what’s this “about,” stuff?) to get stomped. Progress. New Hospital and Medical School down the Street. Progress. ‘ta bien, really. Time to move on. One thing about Urban Renewal and Plans: we have had the best of it and now you can have the rest. The [...]

A Valentine (in Texas)

Cracked window in Valentine, Texas-Jan. 9, 2009 There I am, tooling through the vast landscape of West Texas, working for an English language newspaper working out of Abu Dubai, Arab Emirates. Don’t ask. I’m not sure I understand the assignment. Something about Bush returning to Texas and illustrating what two brothers, who were doing a [...]

Spin Balance landscape

Spin Balance Landscape, Chaparral, NM-August 2008 Space. Glorious space. Wonk yer brain but we all need more space. Maybe because we wonk our brains so much. This is from the funklands of southern New Mexico. It looks right across at the slim tip of West Texas that is El Paso. Juarez, Chihuahua is the horizon. [...]