COMIC SAENZ
The ¡Ask A Mexican! Why do Mexicans OVER-PRONOUNCE Spanish? video prompted California Report’s Queena Kim to call POCHO Associate Naranjero Gustavo Arellano for more info.
No, it’s not really pronounced “Kimm,” she explains. It should be pronounced more like “Keeeem.”
C’est la vie.
Strange but true! A guy in Brazil lifts the trunk of a tree and his friends video the amazing feat.
Middle Earth will never seem the same after this stop-motion animated version of Lord of the Rings. Ooops — we mean De Lord of de Rins, re-imagined the Mexican Wey.
POCHO Jefe-in-Chief Lalo Alcaraz spoke last month with Stanford Hispanic Broadcasting’s Iso Jubes about his nationally-syndicated comic La Cucaracha, his work on FOX’s Bordertown, his books and America’s Latino future.
The interview starts like this:
Mas…POCHO Jefe Lalo Alcaraz explains himself to Stanford (audio)
Oh wow! Underground food! Taco trucks! Street vendors! Birria! Secret restaurants in peoples’ homes! CNN’s Nick Valencia has the scoop from the City of Angels.
Meet @BurritoPatents (aka Burrito Inventions), a bot by @JoeMFox, which reports hourly on developments on the cutting edge of burrito-related patents.
This is why Al Gore invented the Internets.
Mas…Meet @BurritoPatents, the burrito-oriented bot with a Twitter account
You say tomato, I say tomahto, and when a migrant farmworker visits the produce aisle at a local supermarket he sees an entirely different picture.
PRI’s Monica Campbell reports:
In the produce aisle of a supermarket in Madera, in California’s rural Central Valley, Francisco surveys the fruits and vegetables on display in the produce aisle. He’s 40 years old and stocky. He’s also undocumented, and he asks to use his first name only.
The BBC sent a reporter to the Southwest to find out what it means to be a Mexican-American. The answer? It’s complicated.
In Norway, Friday night is Taco Night.
Molly Jones of the Norwegian American Weekly explains:
When it comes to Friday’s dinner plans, Norwegians seem to have one thing on their minds: tacos! The younger generations in Norway have coined the term “fredagstaco” to describe the cultural phenomenon of starting the weekend off with a serving—or two—of tacos.
Mas…For some reason, Friday Night is Taco Night in Norway (video)
Citing the burden of compliance with “big government,” Senator Thom Tills (R-North Carolina) (photo) would let restaurants “opt out” of regulations requiring employees to wash their hands before returning to work.
This isn’t the only rule Tills would eliminate, and he isn’t the only Republican with this opinion. These are the Pocho Ocho top rules the GOP thinks we should ignore:
8. I before E, except after C
7. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself
6. Mind the gap
Mas…Pocho Ocho top rules Republicans think you should be able to ignore
In a world where chivalry and chemistry collide, Popeye the Sailor Man’s quest for true love with Olive Oyl faces an enemy even stronger than Bluto.
Millennials — this means you! Whether you need a fitness regime for your swiping fingers, interval training for Instagram, improved low-impact Twitter technique or advanced aerobic Facebook, you need to be @ #TheGym. Ask about February special prices for Mega-Gigabyte Torrent Training™, Skiing with Skype™, and Building Better Abs with Bitcoin™.
What exactly is life like for white Americans in America? Eddie Murphy went undercover to find out.
PREVIOUSLY ON WHITE LIFE:
Mas…Happy Black History Month: Eddie Murphy is ‘Mr. White’ (video)
“Goo goo goo joob,” you say? “I am the Walrus?”
Then you gotta dance to La Bamba, Marinero!
Today marks the sad anniversary of “the day the music died,” the February 3, 1959 airplane crash that took the lives of rock stars Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens.
Valens, from the L.A. suburb of Pacoima, was born Richard Steven Valenzuela and some consider him the father of Chicano rock. Pocho Valens didn’t espeak Espanish, so he sang the lyrics to La Bamba from a phonetic cheat sheet.
Click for music videos of Chantilly Lace from the Bopper, Peggy Sue by Holly and the actual Valens La Bamba recording sessions, plus a Don McLean performance of The Day the Music Died.
There are some Spanish words English-speakers can’t wrap their tongues around.
PREVIOUSLY ON SPANISH WORDS:
This is your MIGRA on Brazil.
He’s Mr. Selfie. He lives in London and apparently sleeps alone. Does he resemble anyone you know?
Johnny Depp couldn’t just cop to being a day late to the Japanese press conference. No, this wannabe Tonto had to blame his tardy-ass rudeness on an attack by a cruel and vicious Mexican — El Chupacabra (video, above). And the interpreter and the reporters are all like jajaja WTF but in Japanese. Johnny Depp ≠ Bill Murray in Japan, apparently.
But El Deppo wasn’t the first to blame his own bads on this famous Mexican monster. Here are the Pocho Ocho top things people blame on El Chupacabra:
8. The chupacabra ate my homework … AND MY DOG!
7. Sorry for the mess. A chupacabra went through my dirty clothes hamper and left all my chonies in piles on the floor.
6. But Your Honor! I was just estanding on the corner minding my own business when El Chupacabra ran by and handed me that iPhone 6!
Mas…Pocho Ocho top things people blame on El Chupacabra (videos)
They’re young, they’re determined and they’re not about the cookies. Meet the newly-organized Radical Brownies of Oakland, CA.
FUSION’s Jorge Rivas explains:
Mas…Not your Auntie’s Girl Scouts: Meet Oakland’s Radical Brownies (video)
Contra is just trying to get through his day, ya know, and it’s hard enough without pinche Tetris blocks dropping from the sky. What’s a poor action hero to do? [2010 video from those rock-n-roll Rooski revolutionaries @ Red Medusa Studios. Don’t stare at the Medusa, whatever you do.]
“You shoulda told me you was married, baby,” she said. Those were the last words he ever heard. Flaco Jimenez and Ry Cooder explain: That’s the way the girls are in Texas! If not, we’ve got lyrics:
Mas…Flaco Jimenez, Ry Cooder: That’s the way the girls are from Texas!
MiJA Elise Roedenbeck, formerly a professional geek*, wonders if computers make our brains less creative. Since half of Elise’ cabeza is exposed to Mutant Moon Rays from Outer Espace synergistically multiplied by the Reality Distortion Field generated by her MacBook Pro, it was urgent she get an answer as quickly as possible. In this case, it took her only 3:03.
PRO TIP: Elise’s high tech screen name on the Twitter is @buttronica, so you know she’s right, especially when POCHO Migrant Editor Al Madrigal shows up on her list as #1 most creative comedian. 🙂
Here’s Buttronica’s video:
Mas…Elise @Buttronica Roedenbeck: Do computers zap our creativity? (video)
Auf Deutschland, thrill-seekers experience authentic pre-Columbian Mexico with every Talocan thrill ride at Phantasialand, the gigantor theme park in Brühl, North Rhine-Westphalia. [Beer and wurst slightly wurstier east of the Seine. Fire and water included. Earth and wind available at extra charge. Ask your cartel liason about extra-judicial disappearances and Aztec sacrifices.]
Peruvian-born percussionist and wannabe record producer Tony Succar heard a dream that included a salsa-style big band fronted by Boricua singer Jean Valdez performing Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal, a dream you could help him realize if you would only please please CLICK HERE TO DONATE $10,000 on his crowdfunding website. And you did, so here you go! People who like this kind of thing will probably like this kind of thing.
Over at FUSION, Rafa Fernandez De Castro curated a nice photo gallery of street art in Mexico DF — beautiful and haunting and angry. Here are some of the photos she found that we especially liked.
Mas…Mexico City street art is full of anger, longing, regret (photos)
Fed up with ignorant cat-calls, lewd, rude and suggestive remarks from sexist men on the street, women in Lima set up hidden cameras and — dressed up as “MILFs” — went for a stroll down the calle…walking right by their ignorant, lewd, rude and suggestive…WAIT FOR IT…sons.
In 2004, an Arizona high school team beat the odds by topping M.I.T in an underwater robotics competition. The undocumented team members’ stories inspired a book, a documentary, and now a feature film produced by and starring George Lopez. Spare Parts (trailer, above) is in theaters now.
This interview with two original team members by Antonia Cereijido for LatinoUSA explains what REALLY happened before and after the events dramatized in the film. Is it our imagination, or does one of the guys almost break into tears at the end?
POCHO Migrant Editor Al Madrigal’s new docu-comedy Half Like Me went live on FUSION Thursday night. In this clip, Al meets up at the US-Mexican border with a patriotic member of the Minutemen. Also, Borderlandia looks familiar somehow.
PREVIOUSLY ON HALF LIKE ME:
Mas…Watch! Al Madrigal: ‘Half Like Me’ (Al meets with a Minuteman)
In between the Mexican curse words, Gustavo Arellano has a modest proposal: Learn to love your local hipster and/or chipster. We’re still trying to figure out what and who ¡Asked A Mexican! That cartoon, though! [NSFW adult language.]
CHIPSTERS?
Are you a Chipster (Chicano + hipster)? There are Pocho Ocho ways to tell. You might be a Chipster if…
Mas…Ask A Mexican: Here’s an idea – Learn to love hipsters (NSFW video)
Why are imported bananas so cheap while apples grown next door are expensive? I’m Chiquita Banana and I’m here to say: I’ve got your answer and it’s CIA.
Mas…Bananas! How Uncle Sam raped Latin America for cheap fruit (video)
ESTRANGE BUT TRUE:
It was the tail end of the 1960s and Frank Zappa of the Mothers of Invention was making Public Service Announcements for “underground radio.” Few examples survive, but this short audio segment warns impressionable young people about a popular Chicano-themed cartoon that had not even been invented yet — a subversive cartoon that could “rot your mind!” Let’s listen in to see what Zappa has to say…
