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Since then, I have collected noteworthy El Pasoans, and I am always pleased when I discover a new one. Rosa’s Cantina, an old cinderblock and stucco dive bar on Doniphan Drive, still serves drinks. Robbins followed up his hit with two more installments, "El Paso City" and "Feleena (From El Paso)," all of which can be enjoyed on the Essential Marty Robbins. I seem to recall that our citizenry was mostly disdaining this corny mariachi-flavored tune, but it has grown on me over the years, thanks in part to the many live versions performed by the Grateful Dead. He allegedly stopped in at the real Rosa’s Cantina and was struck with inspiration for his song about the love of a doomed cowpoke for one Feleena-obviously not the name of any actual Mexican girl. Robbins, born Martin Robinson, was from Phoenix, and decided that El Paso would make a picturesque setting for a cowboy ballad while passing through. Our other claim to fame was Marty Robbins’ 1959 hit song that begins, "Out in the West Texas town of El Paso.", which people sometimes start singing when I tell them I grew up there. Armes still lives and practices in El Paso.
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The Central Library has a copy of his 1976 memoir, Jay J. These groovy bionic mini-men in fringed leather vests failed to catch on nationwide, but nowadays, you can sometimes find them for sale on eBay. Joe-like Armes action figures was launched, upgradeable with various plastic gadgets and vehicles. My school bus route would take us past Armes’ walled compound out on the west side of town, which was reputed to contain his menagerie of lions, tigers, and what other super-spy lifestyle comforts we could only wonder, staring through the bus windows. One of his big cases involved rescuing Marlon Brando’s son from a kidnapping attempt. Armes, private eye and would-be action hero, who had lost his hands in a childhood accident and performed his investigative exploits with the help of interchangeable prosthetics including hooks and pistol-attachments. When I was a kid, we had only one local celebrity that I knew of-Jay J. I grew up in El Paso in the 1970s and 80s, a city that wraps around the Franklin Mountains out on the tip of west Texas, adjoining Ciudad Juárez across the Rio Grande in Chihuahua and a short drive from New Mexico to the north.