Cultura

It’s Not News to Us

NPR Cinco de Mayo show taps Gustavo Arellano, La Santa Cecilia

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Coming from the East Coast and all, the National Public Radio Alt.Latino peeps needed to come here to get the real California deal on Cinco de Mayo. They called on two local treasures:  Gustavo Arellano, editor of OCWeekly.com, and East Los rockers La Santa Cecilia:

This week we bring ourselves to that most bicultural of holidays — Cinco de Mayo. As we discuss in the show, there is a question about whether or not this is just another opportunity for happy hour specials or store-wide sales: “Get your new bed during our Mexican Mattresstravaganza!!!”

We invited writer Gustavo Arellano to help us shed some light on the issue. He has tackled this theme before in his syndicated column Ask A Mexican.

Here on the East Coast, the Cinco de Mayo experience is different from what it is in California. It feels much less connected to themes of cultural pride and more like an excuse to drink margaritas.

Mas…NPR Cinco de Mayo show taps Gustavo Arellano, La Santa Cecilia

Dear Abuelita: Gay for a day, my 34C boobs, a career in modeling

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Dear Abuelita,
I wear a 34C bra. My boyfriend is always scoping out girls with bigger boobs. Should I get implants?
Titi Caca

Dear Titi Caca,
Here’s what you need to do: Tell your boyfriend to look in the mirror the next time he wants to see a big boob then dump the pendejo. As for you, make yourself an appointment for a self-esteem implant ASAP. That’s all I have to say. I don’t have time to figure out the root of your insecurities. There are more important things to focus on than your pea-sized mosquito bites.

Do you have any idea how much trouble big chi-chis are? Let me tell you, they can be a real pain in the ass! I mean it, I once flung mine over my shoulders so hard the damned things left bruises on my nalgas.
Love, Your Abuelita

Mas…Dear Abuelita: Gay for a day, my 34C boobs, a career in modeling

Will Selena’s comeback tour feature a holographic JLo?

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holoselena(PNS reporting from HOLLYWOOD) Selena’s old band is hitting the road this summer with a holographic version of the murdered superstar and Jennifer Lopez wants the part.

JLo played Selena Quintanilla-Pérez in a 1997 biopic about the singer.

“We tried to tell her a hologram was not an actual person and that playing a hologram was not the same thing as being in a movie, but she didn’t seem to understand,” band manager Beto Salinas told PNS.

Lopez called band members directly and begged for the role.

Mas…Will Selena’s comeback tour feature a holographic JLo?

Luminous white UFOs turn Mexican skeptics into believers (videos)

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Up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane it’s — Marcianos! Mexican investigators Jaime Maussan and Santiago Yturria Garza share exceptional videos of unexplained aerial phenomena that turned them from skeptics into believers.

Watch news footage as one Mexican mayor spots the “fleet” of luminous white OVNIs and says, “The Martians have arrived!”  TV host Maussan calls for more citizen and media participation in compiling OVNI reports in this 90-minute presentation from 2006.

“The Martians Have Arrived” — Los Marcianos Llegaron Ya — was also a pop music hit in Mexico in 2005 by children’s music star Tatiana. Which came first — the sightings or the song? We have the video below.

Mas…Luminous white UFOs turn Mexican skeptics into believers (videos)

The O.C. featuring Baby.K: ‘Somos Locos’ (NSFW music video)

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What if the Insane Clown Posse moved to French Canadia and made a Spanglish hip-hop video in an insane asylum? Mira! This crazy video by The O.C. comes from the Montreal Hip-Hop en Español scene. The O.C.is a duo made up of MCs Chele and One from Heavy Soundz and featuring many members of the Del Mondongo crew. Del Mondongo is a label/collective formed by a circle of Latino MCs: Boogat, Alquimia Verbal and Heavy Soundz – two all-star hip-hop crews that splinter into different side and solo projects. Loco, eh? (Crazy NSFW language.)

Students create gigantic portrait of Cesar Chavez from 5500 dominos

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San Diego students used dominos to create a huge Cesar Chavez mural and installed it over the weekend in Chicano Park. NBC San Diego’s Gitzel Puente reports:

It took 5,500 domino pieces, 40 students and six weeks to create this piece of art. Students and staff from O’Farrell Community School started this mural using blueprints, and then they glued them to vinyl tiles [and]…dedicated this 10-foot mural to farm labor leader Cesar Chavez.

“About two months ago, we decided to do something for the community and what better thing to do than dedicate this to Cesar Chavez. We started telling the kids about it, letting them know what he did, his legacy and how he brought people together for a good cause,” says O’Farell’s Spanish instructor Jose Islas.

Puente uploaded a nice photo of the portrait to her Twitter account. We have it below:

Mas…Students create gigantic portrait of Cesar Chavez from 5500 dominos

What’s good on TV tonight? Your CHiVO™ Champion Chows

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50 Minutos: Toothless tia with a headscarf flees a smoking village on a donkey cart and a softly-lit cute kid with a disability plays the chit out of a cello. Eduardo Burro offers a special tribute to Miguel Xoalis.
Click here to add these chows to your CHiVO™ chedule
Tosho Punto O: Danilo Tosh provides commentary on viral videos, society and celebrities from his Abuela’s basement. Fallout from the Web’s Best Vomit Videos semifinals messes up Danilo’s guyabera.
Guanderful World of Disney: Things get pretty hairy for Herbie the Love Bug when he takes a trip to Lima, Peru. Can he overcome his need to obey traffic signals? Probably, but not before realizing the traffic lanes are “suggestion only.”
Lonche Libre: The gourmet food loncheros must sell their high-end comida to skeptics in the hood, but not before they get sparkle paint jobs, lowered suspensions and custom-painted flames with a $2000 budget and a 24-hour deadline.

Mas…What’s good on TV tonight? Your CHiVO™ Champion Chows

Women beware: You might be guilty of ‘walking with ovaries’

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Stand-up comedy? It's a man's world.

Several years ago, I was driving through the backwoods of central Florida trying to find the home of a distant cousin. Desperately lost, I called my mother, but my abuela answered the phone.

I asked her, “Hey, do you know Annita’s phone number? I’m trying to find her house.”

My grandmother’s response: “Go home. A woman shouldn’t be driving alone.”

I can’t help but feel my grandmother’s Old World values have a residual grasp on modern society — the notion that a woman’s role is in the private sphere, that she should not be out in public.

Often while walking the streets of Manhattan I’m subjected to stares that deem me guilty of a crime: guilty of walking with ovaries.

Mas…Women beware: You might be guilty of ‘walking with ovaries’

Letter to the Editor: All the arragement is done about your ATM CARD

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GOOD DAY MY FRIEND.
How are you, and with your family,

All the arragement is done about your ATM CARD,there is no problem again 
but i let you know that .

Our ATM DEPARTMENT OFFICE Benin republic here are delivery your ATM MASTER CARD 
with very little amount If you are ready to receive it which can cost you $100 
dollar only. Now i let you know that all your total Amount of your ATM CARD is 
( $5.8 MILLION UNITED STATE DOLLAR ONLY ) so i let you know that to Activation 
fee of ATM CARD before is $200 dollar in any country in this world wide. but 
the COMMISSIONNER OF POLICE And MR IYA BONI PRESIDENCE of Benin republic 
held a meeting with there Cabinet the cocultion is that the activation of 
ATM CARD will be $100 dollar only.

Mas…Letter to the Editor: All the arragement is done about your ATM CARD

Share with your parents: UFO Mayan secrets, ancient aliens revealed

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This video comes directly from TrueReality.org so you know it’s right:

Irrefutable Evidence of ExtraTerrestrial Contact carved in Stone Thousands of Years ago on Pre-Mayans site. We shall finally change our History’s Books and let humanity knows our True Origins. The World is wakening up! Share the video with your parents and let everyone discuss it rationally and openly.

Part 2 below.

Mas…Share with your parents: UFO Mayan secrets, ancient aliens revealed

U.S. ♥ Mexico WWII propaganda film: ‘Mexican Moods’ (1942)

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Seventy years ago, when Mexico joined the Allies (AKA the United Nations) to fight against Nazi Germany, the U.S. Office of Inter-American Affairs produced and released Mexican Moods praising our new BFF.

Sometimes shaky period color footage is matched by shaky period narration and musical production numbers as the film celebrates Mexico’s joining the United Nations, silver making in Taxco (right), modern Mexican airports, Aztec ruins and rituals and Mexican movie and stage stars like handsome young law-school-dropout/comic actor Cantinflas. The 11-minute video, produced and directed by Aldo Ermini, is right down here…

Mas…U.S. ♥ Mexico WWII propaganda film: ‘Mexican Moods’ (1942)

4/20 Video: Lawrence Welk is ‘One Toke Over the Line’

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In one of the most bizarre episodes ever run on the super square Lawrence Welk TV variety show, the ensemble presents their feel-good version of Brewer & Shipleys’ One Toke Over the Line.

I know, right? What were they thinking? Why is the under-conductor coughing like he sparked a harsh nug? Is the band giggling in the background? Did Welk think it was some kind of gospel tune?

LaChata’s Music Box: Aztlan Underground’s newest video ‘Our Nature’

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With love from LaChata: For 20 years, Aztlan Underground has presented an evolution of consciousness intertwined with pre-Colombian thoughts, feelings and sounds. In a search for the other — the unknown — Aztlan Underground gives birth to a visceral sound that challenges listeners.

Check out their new, visually-stunning music video Our Nature. It starts with indigenous drums, channels the apocalyptic opera of the Doors and celebrates the natural animal spirit that inhabits us all.

From the hidden vaults of the Mayan pyramids, two more videos below:

Mas…LaChata’s Music Box: Aztlan Underground’s newest video ‘Our Nature’

We’re selling young, mobile pochos! Who’s buying? For how much?

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The U.S. is getting Mex to the max

The meme started on a site called MetaFilter: If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold. 

Facebook — free to use — sells you and your friends and your information to advertisers. So does Google and so does Yahoo! When POCHO grows up, we’ll sell your “page views” too — hopefully to multitudes of high-spending advertisers who are appropriate and cool tambien.

This week the online ad world was excited about the latest estimates of the “Latino” marketplace from Nielsen.

Our No Shit Sherlock™ quick summary:

  • There are lots of Latino (Hispanic,Mexican,Chicano,Latin-American,Cuban, etc.) people
  • Latinos buy many products
  • Advertisers spend lots of money online, on TV, in print and over the air to get Latinos to buy their products
  • The Latino “market segment” is young, mobile and growing

Peep the surprising stats illustrated by purty graphs from the Nielsen survey:

Mas…We’re selling young, mobile pochos! Who’s buying? For how much?

Pocho Ocho ways for a sinner like you to get into heaven

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Heaven is exactly like this

Easter got us thinking about The End. Will we make it past those pearly gates into heaven?

You could try to live your life by your religion’s standards, sure, but where’s the fun in that? Here are pocho ocho ways for a sinner like you to get past St. Peter:

8. Invest in a timeshare now
Hey, it works when you want to go to Palm Springs or Miami — why not heaven?

7. Make a shrine in your home burning 72 veladoras at any given time
It’s common knowledge that every candle you light is like another spiritual brownie point. So, logically, the more candles, the more likely you can get into heaven.

6. Name your son Jesús or your daughter Guadalupe
It has to be true — otherwise we wouldn’t all have uncles named Chuy or cousins named Lupe.

Mas…Pocho Ocho ways for a sinner like you to get into heaven

Beverly Hills Mexican restaurant where Lalo got profiled shuts down

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Facebook announcement Tuesday evening

One night in February, POCHO Jefe-in-Chief Lalo Alcaraz was waiting for the valet to retrieve his car outside a Mexican restaurant in Beverly Hills when a white lady repeatedly thrust her parking valet ticket in his direction.

Lalo was at the restaurant to speak on a panel for DigitalLA Latino Content professionals on the need for Latinos to create and control their own media content and channels because mainstream media stereotypes of Latinos are, you know, stereotypes.

And now that restaurant has abruptly closed. No more gigantic fresh three-way chips of blue corn, yucca and plantains with both salsa verde and salsa habanera. No more empanadas. No more $5 Happy Hour specials like ceviche shooters.

We don’t know why they closed (the website is all white.)  It’s a shame — they were berry berry nice to us.  In memoriam, here’s Lalo’s epic account of  that evening.  The headline?

Standing While Brown: A white lady tried to get me to valet her car

Mas…Beverly Hills Mexican restaurant where Lalo got profiled shuts down

Letter to the Editor: The Ghetto Manifesto by Lady D (NSFW audio)

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It came in exactly this way via our handy SUBMIT form. (On the go? There’s a NSFW two-minute audio podcast version we created at the bottom of this article):

This is to every person who wants to get out and break free to be human and not be a fucking stereotype. I call it the Ghetto Manifesto. I was bred from a culture that lives in fear to succeed. We were once the Gods of the Temples- the living legends standing proud on the steps of Tenochtitlan- Now we are on our knees glorifying the filth around us. Our streets are filled with soldiers of ignorance and rage- fighting brother against brother- for what? A piece of land that we don't even own? For the love we did not receive at home? We call out names- spill our hateful rhetoric, beat each other to be let in to an exclusive group of clowns with silly names. Taking family trips in to unknown territories using hurtful toys to shed innocent blood. The family. What a fucking joke.

Mas…Letter to the Editor: The Ghetto Manifesto by Lady D (NSFW audio)

Video: Strange noises terrify TX and OK, Popocatepetl rumbling

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Reuters.com screen capture shows volcano

Every day brings us closer to Mayan Doomsday — Mother Earth will not rest.

Terrified reports of strange, unearthly noises have moved from the Upper Midwest and Canada to the Southwest, scaring the crap out of people in Amarillo, TX and rural Rogers County, OK.

South of the border, Mexican authorities just raised the alert level at the Popocatepetl volcano outside Mexico City.

The Amarillo incident is on video shot by two DJs from KISS FM who ran out of the studio to capture the ghostly howl (below).

Mas…Video: Strange noises terrify TX and OK, Popocatepetl rumbling

Letter to the Editor: Thank you, organic cocks/hens as appropriate

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This Letter to the Editor came in via our SUBMIT link. We’d like to hear from you, too!

Dear organic chicken or chickens (or cocks and/or hens) who were the source of the two thighs I ate last night:

Thank you for your lives.

I guess it is presumptuous to write to you since we never met when you were alive and now you’re dead and I ate you. Actually, I don’t know really know WHO to thank since it’s unclear if these were a matched set of thighs (left and right) from a single chicken or whether they were two thighs from two chickens and now that I think about it I didn’t even check to see if they were left or right and how would I know?

Mas…Letter to the Editor: Thank you, organic cocks/hens as appropriate

Mexican garden statues get up, stand up and go on tour (photos)

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(PNS reporting from the HATE STATE OF ARIZONA) The “Sleeping Mexican” statues of Tucson we featured last week snooze no more. Buoyed by the online support they received after POCHO publicized their plight, these hombres woke up, stood up, dressed up and went on tour across Los United Estates to tell their story.

From their early untold history — hanging out backstage with Frank Sinatra — to their recent appearances at the Academy Awards, the Mexican garden gnome hombres (AKA gnombres) are on the move, getting out the word and straight up representing! Look for them in a garden near you, or in the photos below.

Mas…Mexican garden statues get up, stand up and go on tour (photos)

Kids, lowrider bikes, culture and history in Tucson 1996: ‘Low y Cool’

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When a French filmmaker shoots Chicano Tucson, the result is fascinating and maybe a little bit foreign — in a good way. Low y Cool documents the lives of the Camaradas Lowrider Bike Club in South Tucson, AZ in 1996. The 52-minute video was directed by Tucson resident and transplanted Frenchie Marianne Dissard with funding from French TV channel Planête Cable. The film has been seen regularly since 1997 on Planête.

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