Last night, while driving home after work, I decided to hit the scan button on my car radio hoping to find some tejano or conjunto tunes. I knew it was an overoptimistic thing to do - we know that local radio programmers don’t have any use for the genres that put the Rio Grande Valley on the musical map - but I still had hope. Instead, what I found were the flavor-of-the-month tunes that have taken over the airwaves. Radio programmers still seem infatuated with narco corridos - they feel drug traffickers need to be glorified and perched on a pedestal for all to worship. It’s sad that programmers think this is all we deserve - idiotic odes to who knows who. Gives a break, man! Ya chale!

Members of Intocable today took a break from vacationing to help needy children south of the border. The musicians visited some 250 kids at Monterrey’s government-run children’s home and gave them toys. They also helped light the center’s Christmas tree. Kudos to Intocable for their act of kindness.

Norteño music great Ramon Ayala is working with Dodge Arena and other entities to collect donations for flood victims in the Mexican state of Tabasco. The floods displaced almost 1 million people and left 80 percent of the state under water. Donations will be accepted from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. today through Nov. 19. For information on the items needed, call 956-648-0810. Let’s give a little to those who have nothing.

Who is in charge of programming at the Valley’s so-called Tejano station? Yesterday, after a nice interview with some of the Home Town Boys, they played a great polka only to go and blow it by following it with a banda song. What the heck? If I want banda I’ll tune to one of the many stations that plays the genre, so quit trying to pass tamborilero music as Tejano! But, hey, I guess it takes some intelligence to know the difference …

This morning’s commute to South Padre Island got a little longer when I hopelessly tried to find some Tejano tunes on the dial. Maybe the long drive made me believe I was further north in Texas, where radio stations don’t try to pass banda music as Tejano. It’s a disgrace that the Valley, the birthplace of so many Tejano greats, doesn’t have a radio station that plays our beloved genre. Ni modo, I’ll just have to make do with listening to Tejano Web casts at the office.