corpus christi, texas 1995

In the South Texas beginnings of the internet in 1995, a recovering local attorney asked a musician/paralawyer using the pseudonym, James Cook to learn HTML so that he could do contract work for him as a web developer. In order to have something to practice HTML on, the paralawyer started a personal home page that became the Corpus Christi E-Zine.

The E-Zine was officially laid to rest in the spring of 1998. The commercial demands of big time web page development just took too much time to continue a web publication that became stale fast when not attended to regularly.

The E-Zine is still all over the search engines and even hit the peak in the summer of 1996 to be the only South Texas reference in Texas Monthly's internet in Texas. I have decided to give the E-Zine a proper burial here.

James Cook (the predator, as in Letters to the Predator)

these are some of the
historical highlights

December 1995 - The Corpus Christi E-Zine becomes the first community representative of Corpus Christi in a National community index digest published in Massschusetts. A few months later, this same web index company awarded the E-Zine the Community Spotlight Index award for satire, comedy, and good wit on the internet. Corpus Christi was Arriving on the World Wide Web.

	"The Corpus Christi E-Zine delivers all the goods for Corpus, evades no issues and will take you on a tour that definitely does not include historic old buildings! A good read any time!"
in corpus, noone can hear you scream... While thinking up tourism slogans for the city, this one seemed like the best. The city wouldn't use it.
Christmas 1995 - In anticipation of the Playboy magazine pictorial featuring Farrah Fawcett's naked body, the E-Zine ran Farrah's Ray High School sophomore pictures from the 1963 yearbook. Corpus Christi. This further expanded the popularity of the E-Zine as requests for photos of Farrah's Innocence in Corpus Christi increased dramatically.
	Legendary Internet author, Justin Hall came to Corpus Christi and Farenthold Consulting in the summer of 1996 on his national Internet tour. The E-Zine was covered in the event with Justin's digital photograph of your humble correspondent, Imelda, Imelda's daughter, Justin Hall, and fearless leader Blake. Click on this photo to see the preparations we made for Justin's next visit.
Summer 1996 - After running satirical pieces about the bizarre and controversial Lake Texana Pipeline, an e-mail message came in from Washington, D.C. Apparently, House of Representative lawyers working on the legal permitting aspects of this project found the commentaries from the E-Zine on the web, and called to ask what in the world we were talking about. This resulted in a long entertaining, enlightening, and interesting relationship with the United States Government, as well as a free gift education on the history of the Bureau of Reclamation! The pipeline got built while the citizens waited for the chance to vote no on it. It seems to break pretty easily, but the beneficiaries say it is just swell. Sing this song to the tune of Oh Susanna. well it rained all summer in the watershed though the paper said it was dry so we laid some pipe for a hundred miles, but nobody ever knew why Lake Texana now don't go dry on me 'cause I come from Corpus Christi my new water for to see   This was to be the Lake Texana theme song. It didn't catch on though. By this point the Ezine was really starting to suck.
Another Trojan Horse? When wise city leaders decided it was time for the public to cough up some dough for a bunch of "improvement" projects, they needed a sales tax increase. The mission was launched with a Vision 2000 Group. The Ezine responded with X Ray Vision 2000. We were funnier than they were, but they did have some moments of high comedy. In a now famous Caller Times article on the eve of the election, local political commentator, Bob Bezdek called the election "too close to call." It was basically a 70% to 30% rout against the tax increase. This resulted in the nickname Bob "too close to call*" Bezdek.   *Too close to call edged out Kreskin Bezdek
One recurring subject of humor in the Ezine was former mayor Mary Rhode's Big Hair. Well, she died suddenly through no fault of the Ezine's, and people were emailing us about poor taste leaving up jokes about the deceased. Well, they are all down now, and I apologize for the insensitivity. As a memorial, the mysterious Lake Texana pipeline was named after the late mayor. You would think somebody would get irritated about that. odd footnote: In the Lake Texana Museum, there is a pen that was used by officials to sign the contract with the Lavaca Navidad River Authority that allowed for the Lake Texana water transfer to happen. The Ezine recommended that the bar of soap that the people of Corpus Christi bent over to pick up to allow this deal to happen be included as well. We are still waiting on the water. Eternal vigilence is the price of freedom. When you don't pay the price, you get a pipeline.

Happy New Year!

 

stupid net tricks

1995 through early 1996 - In efforts to display the skills necessary to create web pages, place them on the search engines, and poke satirical fun of the Corpus Christi Caller Times' struggles to learn about the internet, the E-Zine ran a series of commentaries on the Caller Times that resulted in 7 of the first 12 references in Alta Vista being the E-Zine's commentaries or "predatorials" as they were known. This was purely intentional and mildly irritating to the newspaper. Some of the commentaries were making fun of the Caller Times getting into the Internet Service Provider business. It was widely felt that maybe they should concentrate on getting the newspaper thing down before they diversified. We are still awaiting the results on the newspaper part.

I think they should have become implant surgeons. No town has enough big tits.

 

barbabe

 

One of the most popular features in the Ezine was the special guest nightclub reviews in a section called The Redneck Riviera by "Barbabe." "Barbabe" was a true life downtown professional who was given money to go out, buy drinks, and write bar reviews. The Redneck Riviera caught on, and the email came rolling in. The idea of a good looking chick, out drinking alone in the Corpus Christi night was apparently a turn on. There were requests to meet "Bababe" Some sent photos. I think their may have been a proposal.

"Barbabe" didn't work that long on this project. Her real life adventures are far more exciting than anything I could make up here. She rolled on down the highway, literally. The Redneck Riviera came to a crashing hault in 1997 when a local attorney requested that his client, a bar reviewed by "Barbabe," be removed from the Ezine. Apparently, this bar had been sued, and the review sounded like they were entirely too much fun to be innocent. Thus, before a jury might see something prejudicial the Redneck Riviera came down.

Barbabe was a visionary in her own right as she published the first "Gay" Bar review ever in Corpus Christi.

Of course Corpus has Gay Bars We are very cosmopolitan.

 

ezine links, photos, and memorabilia

 

• An early commentary on president Bill Clinton
• The Letters to the Predator were always fun, especially doing shtick with Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun Times.
• Corpus Christians were unclear on the Ezine so we ran the definition of Satire
• Watching Corpus Christi's leaders deal with Topless Bars was really funny
• The most widely recopied and reproduced item from the E Zine was a piece about Paula Jones. In early 1996, if you did a search on Paula Jones, you would find this in the top ten list of every search engine. Little did weknoow this strange case would eventually result in the impeachment of the president.
• Here is some more assorted memorabilia of the Corpus Christi Ezine