Why Rep. Joe Garcia (D-Miami) picked his ear wax, ate it on TV (video)

garcia-pick(PNS reporting from WASHINGTON, D.C.) A close look at a recent C-SPAN video reveals that Florida Democratic Congressman Joe Garcia, Jr. picked his ear wax and ate it on live TV, a Cuban folkloric ritual rarely seen outside Miami’s Cuban-American community.

La Ceremonia de la Cera del Oído can be traced to a curandero who lived in Guantanamera, Cuba around 1750 or so,” University of Miami Professor of Anthropology Freso “Biff” del Blanco told PNS.

“By eating the ear wax in public, the eater hopes to symbolically ingest and consume all that he is hearing through his ears, to better understand the cacophony of voices in his head.”

Mas…Why Rep. Joe Garcia (D-Miami) picked his ear wax, ate it on TV (video)

Happy Birthday Ritchie Valens, Pocho Pride of Pacoima (music videos)

bigritchievalensHappy birthday, dead Ritchie Valens, born this day in 1941.

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 his biggest hit record from a phonetic cheat sheet.

And then he died.

For your Ritchie-listening pleasure, we are pleased to feature two versions of La Bamba, the original 1958 “keep the tape running” recording sessions, and then the actual hit record.

Everybody scream now:

RITCHIE!!!!

Mas…Happy Birthday Ritchie Valens, Pocho Pride of Pacoima (music videos)

Ritchie Valens birthday tribute: Cutty Flam does ‘Donna’ (video)


Ritchie Valens, 1950s Pacoima pocho teenage idol, would have been 73 years old today, except for that day the music died. Cutty Flam, the alt.rock.band from your black-and-white-retro future, made this video tribute, performing Ritchie’s hit Donna.

It’s one of a series of Valens tribute videos, as EddieG explains:

Mas…Ritchie Valens birthday tribute: Cutty Flam does ‘Donna’ (video)

Authentic tacos in Seoul, South Korea – and Nutella nachos (video)


Sweet and Tasty TV’s Professor Oh checks out the Mexican food at Vatos Urban Tacos in Seoul, South Korea. It’s puro L.A. fusion style – Korean kalbi beef tacos a la Kogi, pork carnitas and Baja-style fish tacos. Fresh guacamole and cool Coronas, too. Not to mention Nutella nachos.

PREVIOUSLY ON MEXICAN FOOD:

Mas…Authentic tacos in Seoul, South Korea – and Nutella nachos (video)

Mi Casa Es Tu Casa: Los Romanticos De Zacatecas (video)


Here’s how NPR Music producer Jasmine Garsd tells the story:

For the first installment in the Mi Casa Es Tu Casa series with Fusion, a Mexican band invites Alt.Latino into its house for lively conversation and great music.

Ever since I moved to Mexico City, I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of music at my fingertips. I’m not just talking about amazing concerts: So many artists from all over Latin America live here in Mexico, and I love being here to check in on their creative process.

Mas…Mi Casa Es Tu Casa: Los Romanticos De Zacatecas (video)

Odd Couple Brazil: He’s 5’3″, she’s 6’6″ – because love (video)


Francinaldo da Silva, 23, is 1.6 meters tall (5’3″) and Elisany da Cruz Silva, 18, is 2 meters tall (6’6″) but the height discrepancy is no impediment to true love, at least according to this Chinese video about the newly-engaged Brazilian couple with English and Chinese captions narrated by a posh (Australian?) announcer.

Our assessment: She looks much taller than 2 meters. What do you think?

Enough with the sassy sexy Latina stereotype! (video)


It’s not that Latinas don’t love hearing how their individual characteristics pale in comparison to stereotypes thrown around on talk radio…well, actually, they don’t love it. At all.

NOLA student Sophia Garcia says the stereotypes that bother her most are the ones she hears when she share her “opinions” — that she’s being overly “spicy” and “ghetto.” Who would be bothered by that? Probably anyone.

What you think?

PREVIOUSLY ON STEREOTYPES:

Mas…Enough with the sassy sexy Latina stereotype! (video)

Legend La India Maria returns as ‘La Hija de Moctezuma’ (trailer)

ESPANOL: La India María debe encontrar a toda costa en lo recóndito de una montaña, El Mágico Espejo Negro de Tezcatlipoca, pues el espíritu de su bisabuelo Moctezuma Xocoyotzin así lo ha ordenado para evitar la destrucción de México.

Alonso, un atractivo arqueólogo español, Bianchi, un tramposo busca-tesoros y Brígida Troncoso — una ambiciosa gobernadora, se enteran de la existencia del dichoso Espejo, del misterioso Tesoro de Moctezuma y de la tal María, por lo que todos emprenden una frenética persecución detrás de ella para apoderarse del cristal mágico y del oro.

  ENGLISH: La India María (born María Nicolasa Cruz) must find, at all costs, hidden away in a big mountain, The Magic Black Mirror of Tezcatlipoca. She’s on a mission ordered by the spirit of her great grandfather Moctezuma Xocoyotzin,and she must succeed to stop the destruction of all Mexico.

Alonso, an attractive Spanish architect, Bianchi, a crazy treasure hunter and Brígida Troncoso, an ambitious governor, all find out about the existence of the Mirror, the mysterious Treasure of Moctezuma and María, which is why everyone pursues her to try to take away the magical crystal and gold.

Happy May Day from the Workers of the World (music video, lyrics)


Enjoy the Internacional, the world-wide (Get it? It’s international!) anthem of those red commie cabrones in Cuba and Venezuela and China and North Korea (and lurking in secretive cells everywhere else but the lame stream media sheeple won’t tell you that.)

May 1 is May Day AKA International Workers’ Day. Today the communist comrades sing this stirring appeal, with its hummable melody and a vague vision of a better future that’s hard to disagree with, except maybe the LUCHA FINAL aspect.

Yet even as they sing this Kommie Kumbaya, the Marxist minions are locking millions up arbitrarily, invading foreign countries, spying on their fellow citizens and — we’ve read reports — killing innocent civilians by remote control. Oh, wait.

THE INTERNATIONALE LYRICS IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH:

Mas…Happy May Day from the Workers of the World (music video, lyrics)

Elise Roedenbeck: Top porn search terms by state (video)


Sweet dreams are made of this -- who am I to disagree?
I travel the world and the seven seas. Everybody's looking for something.

Elise Roedenbeck — she’s @buttronica on the Twitter — learned the same lesson when she investigated the top porn search terms broken down by state. Everybody’s looking for something. They’re looking for massage. And cream pie. And cream pie massages. In somebody else’s state, right? Don’t be so sure.

PREVIOUSLY ON STUFF BROKEN DOWN BY STATES:

Mas…Elise Roedenbeck: Top porn search terms by state (video)

Stars to record ‘You Are An ^%$#’ for Donald Sterling [photos,video]

(PNS reporting from HOLLYWOOD) Stars from television, music and sports are set to gather in the old A&M sound stages (now the Henson Studios) on La Brea Avenue here today to record a rebuke to Donald Sterling, racist owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Galvanized by community organizer Emiliano Zapata Shabazz-Jones, who wears the mantle of slain civil rights pioneer Ricky Martin Luther King, the assembled stars will record The Donald Sterling Song — You Are An ^%$#.

“This ain’t no National Honky League,” Shabazz-Jones wrote in a scorching email scheduling the superstar session, “and we ain’t dancing to no Sweet Georgia Brown on Maggie’s Farm no more!”

Mas…Stars to record ‘You Are An ^%$#’ for Donald Sterling [photos,video]