"𝗪𝗛𝗢 𝗜𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗗𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗗𝗢 𝗣𝗔𝗭-𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗭?"

Duardo Paz-Martinez, A Dozen or So Years Ago

"Who is this 'Duardo Paz-Martinez' guy?" a few of my closest friends have asked, after reading his descriptions of me as uneducated, grammar-challenged and obese.  The last adjective applies.

"The guy tried to befriend me on Facebook and I don't even know him," one friend told me.

Simply put, Duardo, 74, is someone desperately seeking relevance in the Brownsville blogosphere as he types from somewhere in McAllen, most likely the home of his deceased mother.  

Anyone I've identified as a friend or even interact with occasionally can expect an approach by Duardo, hoping to generate some wreckage or pain in my life.

Years ago, after the passing of my late wife, I met a woman for dinner at a local Italian restaurant.  The very next day, Duardo was hitting on her, reaching out to her via his blog while bragging to me via blog comment about his successful romancing.

Duardo or DP-M, as he likes to refer to himself, first contacted me about 13 years ago, inviting us to the "two-story home" he shared with a nurse in Kyle, TX.  

When we politely declined his offer, the blogger initiated an onslaught of hateful diatribe, including sexual innuendo directed at my late wife, hate speech that continues to his day, using a dozen or more blogs as his vehicle, starting one blog, then stopping it and returning with a new one.

In April 2015, we sent evidence of some of Duardo's verbal attacks to Google and his blog was shut down the same day, explaining why he now uses blogspot.

For a brief time, Duardo, with a blog called the "Paz Files," tried being Harlingen's blogger, initiating that quest with verbal attacks on longtime Harlingen bloggers Jerry Deal and Tony Chapa, calling Chapa a"turd" and Deal "excitable."

Shutting down the "Paz Files," Duardo returned to the blogosphere pretending to be "UT-PA college student Sam Losoyo, from Harlingen," while using the same attacking style against my blog in particular.

During those years, Duardo was largely ignored by El Rrun Rrun's Juan Montoya, called "the Imp" by Bobby Wightman-Cervantes, "the Putz" by Tad Hasse, but promoted and recommended by Jerry McHale.

Jerry McHale

In private, Jerry was not as supportive, describing Duardo as someone who "mooched first off one relative then another" and recounted an incident where he'd bought lunch for the two of them at a Mexican restaurant, leaving a tip on the table, only to watch Duardo pocket the tip for himself depriving the Hispanic wait staff.

Recently, Jerry told me "don't ever respond to him," but then softened that advice with "well, you know best."

Rafael Collado

Brownsville's Rafael Collado described the McAllen blogger this way: "Duardo is a producer of grotesque political gossip, poorly justified as 'style.' Always antagonistic, and consistently offensive. Unpleasant. Distasteful. Arrogant. Can’t stand him."

On all of his blogs, Duardo displays a resume' including various news organizations he claims to have served.  Someone familiar with him told me those were mere "cups of coffee" with each employer until his propensity for writing fake stories caught up with him.

More telling is that he went over two decades without a job in journalism, although we understand he worked very briefly for the Port Isabel Press.

But Duardo's modus operandi is attack, attack, attack; not enemies of the state, polluters, corrupt politicians, but fellow bloggers, an approach that just screams insecurity, an unwillingness to just allow one's work to be judged on its own merits without subjecting the local blogosphere to scorched earth. 

These published observations will prompt another round of Duardo craziness, but, after 13 years, we're accustomed to his juvenile, insecure, unprofessional approach.