Welcome to 2040 and life on ‘The Other Side’ (video)


Exterior, day: Destitute desert town in the year 2040. Audio: Spanish newsradio tells the story — unemployment is 86%, gangs are everywhere and food and water are getting scarce.

There’s only one thing a father can do — smuggle his family across the border to the prosperous country on The Other Side.

Vanessa Del Fierro is a coyote on a ‘Mexican Train’ (music video)

vanessahatSan Antonio sensation Vanessa Del Fierro is the alt.mariachi chingona behind Las Coronelas, whose mega-viral David Bowie cover almost blew up POCHO’s servers this week.

Vanessa also stars as an immigrant-smuggling coyote in a new video for her original composition Mexican Train. It’s a love song; too bad she’s in love with the wrong vato. Extra firme oldies points for the doo-wop backup girls, the triplets feel, and the tubular bells:

Mas…Vanessa Del Fierro is a coyote on a ‘Mexican Train’ (music video)

Based on a true story: The adventures of ‘El Coyote’ [NSFW]

coyotetopEvery day, twice a day, Monday through Friday for six months, the coyote (or human smuggler) concealed and transported migrants across the border from Mexico to Los Estados Unidos. El Coyote — based on a true story — has some NSFW words in Spanish and English. There’s lots more about filmmaker Javier Barboza and the making of this stop-motion and animated video at Barboza’s website.

Mas…Based on a true story: The adventures of ‘El Coyote’ [NSFW]

American Jews: Maybe your grandparents were ‘illegals’ too (audio)

illegals
In my family, they say that Abuelo Abraham Saenz, wearing his WWI U.S. Army uniform, “smuggled” one of his sisters (photo, above) into the country via the Port of Philadelphia, wrapping the girl up in a fur coat so she looked like a rich lady.

The scheme was “dress to impress” so the MIGRA wouldn’t think to question her bonafides. She was illiterate, the story goes, and that wasn’t kosher for poor Jewish would-be immigrants from Ukraine in the early 1900s. The rich bitch trick worked, my great aunt got through immigration and everyone lived happily ever after.

Our family story, it turns out, isn’t unique. There were poor Jews who sneaked across the Mexican border near El Paso, and families smuggled in the cargo holds of ships packed with illegal Cuban rum during Prohibition.

Tablet Magazine explains:

Mas…American Jews: Maybe your grandparents were ‘illegals’ too (audio)

BBC Video: ‘Nuns’ with nasty coke habits busted in Colombia


Colombian police have arrested three women dressed as nuns who were trying to smuggle six kilos (13.1 pounds) of cocaine hidden under their habits. The trio was popped as they were passing through the Colombian Island of San Andres – a notorious drug-trafficking route. The fake nuns were searched after police saw them acting suspiciously.

Mas…BBC Video: ‘Nuns’ with nasty coke habits busted in Colombia

Mayan weed bombs scar U.S. field, Trekkies prepare for Apocalypse

Every day brings us closer to the End of the World as We Know It on December 21 (synchronize your chronometers with our MAYAN APOCALYPSE DOOMSDAY COUNTDOWN CLOCK in the right column.)

All over the Internets, extremely concerned Trekkies are banding together to wear “expendable red” jerseys on The Last Day, so they can “die as Mr. Gene Rodenberry intended.”

And policia stationed near San Luis, AZ found a freshly-plowed field on the American side of the Colorado River scarred by craters and dotted with payloads of Mayan Marijuana apparently shot by cannabis cannoneers using a pneumatic cannon.

Pneumatic cannon? Federales found an empty industrial-sized CO2 canister, presumably propellant, in their hood.

Mas…Mayan weed bombs scar U.S. field, Trekkies prepare for Apocalypse

Sabado Pochonte Video: Welcome to 2040 on ‘The Other Side’


Exterior, day: Destitute desert town in the year 2040. Audio: Spanish newsradio tells the story — unemployment is 86%, gangs are everywhere and food and water are getting scarce.

There’s only one thing a father can do — smuggle his family across the border to the prosperous country on The Other Side.