Joe Salazar

Joe Salazar was born in the great state of Perpetual Motion (actually Hoboken, New Jersey) and grew up in Union City, NJ along the Hudson River. Two major waves of immigration greatly influenced the development and character of Union City in the mid-20th century, first of German-language speakers and then of Spanish-language speakers. This cultural melding resulted in Joe, the child of a Mexican mother and a New Jersey-born German father. Joe proudly refers to himself as a "Beanerschnitzel". Joe was blessed with a vivid imagination and a gift for storytelling. As a child, he was fixated on decks of playing cards. He would pick any one of the 52 cards and begin telling anyone who would listen what the card's basic personality was, which other cards were friends or enemies, and what each of them dreamed about becoming when they got older. Sometimes he would combine three or four card characters to bring comedy or drama to the "Scene" he was creating. He didn't know it at the time, but t