Pocho Ocho ways the candidates are scheming to get the Latino vote

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8. Gastronamía

Going after the gastronomic vote, Dems and Repubs plan to offer Latino voters free tacos and salsa at the polls (all tacos made by immigrant labor.) Mitt Romney has even changed his tune about cheesy grits, now heralding cold maduros as his favorite breakfast.

7. Stereotypical Shows

Both parties are promising to fund and sponsor television programs about Latinos including shows about sexy maids, deep-thinking gardeners and homesick homeboys. Obama made his weekly address with the addition of two scantly clad Latina hotties by his side and a little person dressed as a sunflower. Romney is more timid in matters of sexuality but did allow a three-second shot of his butt to air in one of his campaign ads (for las viejitas.)

Mas…Pocho Ocho ways the candidates are scheming to get the Latino vote

Mitt Romney: Holographic Tupac is your best choice for VP!

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All eyez not on Princess Leia, they are on Tupac
Back from the dead and “live” on stage, Holographic Tupac Shakur was a big sensation at Coachella. Never really alive, and dead on stage, Mitt Romney is a mediocre “meh” across America.

That’s why GOP political insiders are urging the superwealthy robotic candidate to pick Holographic Tupac as his vice presidential running mate.

Holographic Tupac, they note, is way more lifelike than the GOP presidential candidate, although Mitt’s musical skills are nothing to scoff at.

“Tupac could be Mitt’s Joe Biden,” said one Romney campaign insider. “He has the common touch Mitt lacks and he’s big with the bitches. We think he might be the droid we are looking for.”

Dead or not, rapper Tupac Shakur (1971-1996) killed ’em in a short set at Coachella (video below.)

Mas…Mitt Romney: Holographic Tupac is your best choice for VP!

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)

Colombia hails Secret Service bust: We’re not just for drogas anymore!

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There was no indication Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll was involved

(PNS reporting from CARTAGENA) Top officials of Colombia’s Ministry of Tourism are high on happiness after the weekend recall of U.S. Secret Service officers caught in a prostitution scandal.

“Hookers? We love it,” Assistant Minister Rogerio Flauta said Monday. “It shows the world we have more to offer than drugs, guns and murder. Sex is always good for business! And hookers good enough for U.S. Federales? Can you say ‘organic search results?’ I knew that you could.”

“This is all new to us, and we need help.” he told reporters. “After careful consideration, we’re reaching out to Thailand, which artfully managed its transition from the home of high-potency marijuana “Thai sticks” to the top Asian destination for underage sex tourism. We’ve got a lot to learn.”

Mas…Colombia hails Secret Service bust: We’re not just for drogas anymore!

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)

Ñewsweek: Curse like a Mexican, think like a vato, build an arcade

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This oddly-garbed teacher will show you how to curse like a Mexican

Attention pinche pendejos! Yes, you, culero! What? You don’t know what we’re talking about? Then you need to watch the one-minute video refresher course on How to curse like a Mexican, the biggest story on POCHO this week.

For the link and our other big stories, keep reading  below.

Mas…Ñewsweek: Curse like a Mexican, think like a vato, build an arcade

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.

My name is Lady Justice and I endorse this message

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Lady Justice wears a Hoodie for Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman, the killer of the 17-year-old African-American teenager in Sanford, FLA, has finally been arrested and arraigned — this only after national outrage and agitation by Americans of all races. We hope that Justice is truly blind, and also that she wears a hoodie.

PochoCast #3: Alcaraz and Madrigal on tacos and art and identity

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How many Kinkade 'art' stores near you? Al Madrigal finds there's an app for that

POCHO Jefe-in-Chief  Lalo Alcaraz gets Migrant Editor Al Madrigal on Skype to talk about the art and death of Thomas Kinkade and the Pew Hispanic identity survey (Latino? Hispanic? Mexican?)

¡Ask A Mexican! Gustavo Arellano phones in to discuss his delicious new book Taco USA and producer Marcelo Ziperovich wonders if he’s a “white Hispanic” like you know who.

Oh! The laughs we had.  Those were the days my friend, I thought they’d never end. Is this thing still on?

Faux Kinkade by Mariner1.

Photos: ‘Sleeping Mexican’ garden statues? What’s racist about that?

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sleepingmexArizona sure loves its Mexicans!

Taos-based author and photographer John Hamilton Farr went to Tucson on family business and was stunned by the “Sleeping Mexican” statues all around his mom’s old hood. He photographed these guys “within a two or three block radius of my mother’s old place…less than 10 minutes!”

He brought the statuary to the attention of official neighborhood Arizonians. Their reply? “What’s racist about that?”

People are asking the same question in San Antonio and Tucscon.

Nine big versions of Farr’s photos are below.
And can you answer the trick question: What’s racist about that?

Mas…Photos: ‘Sleeping Mexican’ garden statues? What’s racist about that?

Paranormal investigators investigate Argentina cornfield OVNI tracks

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Experts from Argentina’s leading ufologist group Vision OVNI are investigating strange skid marks where some say an objeto volador no identificado landed in a farmer’s field in the northeastern province of Santa Fe.

Inexplicita explains the inexplicable this way:

A cornfield that appeared to display strange marks caused astonishment to many citizens of the town of Pujato… The event prompted a visit from member of Visión Ovni, the Victoria-based group devoted to the study of unidentified flying objects.

On 5 April, cornstalks standing 2 meters tall were found flattened in the same direction in the middle of a lot. The field is some 2 kilometers distant from Route 33 and the marks were found by Rubén Marelli, the owner, who presented a complaint on the following day…During a field survey, they found a trail measuring 2.10 meters wide and nearly 600 meters long, which presents side trails that open and mark a sort of figure eight, doubling back on themselves.

Scroll down for two big photos of the tracks. What do you think?

Mas…Paranormal investigators investigate Argentina cornfield OVNI tracks

Pocho Ocho U.S. military secret special operations

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The minute we heard the United States Air Force had planned and carried out Operation Chimichanga, we knew there had to be more to the story.  Our Pentagon sources confirmed the hunch:  The inspiration for the “chimichanga” code name was the way the Tex-Mex fried-burrito-belly-busters incapacitated unwary diners every time.  The brass hats’ hope was that secret teams in state-of-the-art aircraft could make the enemy moan just like fajita-fed TGIFridays customers on Cinco de Mayo.

There is more to the story — the pocho ocho secret Pentagon operations still in the planning stages:

8. Operation Don’t Drink the Water: Secret “wetback” forces from the Navy SEALS sneak into enemy territory and dose the water  with “pedo-biotic” agents bioengineered to cause widespread “Montezuma’s Revenge.”  This is expected to cause pandemic personal distress, lessen the enemy’s fighting capability and reduce water pressure.

7. Operation Hot Tamale: Inspired by the guetherman’s motto of “cool today, hot tamale,” stealthy airborne drones seed enemy skies with specially-formulated lard and masa pellets that trap your fat, screw your cholesterol and clot your veins. 

Mas…Pocho Ocho U.S. military secret special operations

Un chico makes his own arcade: Caine’s Arcade

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This has got to be the most wondrous film about a small Latino businessman ever made. Caine Monroy, a nine-year-old from East L.A.,  built his own DIY arcade out of cardboard boxes from his dad’s car parts store. He charges a dollar for two plays, but you really ought to get the Superpass, which is a good deal. He has designed security features with 99 Cent Store calculators, and an ingenious ticket delivery system that you have to see to believe. The excellent and funny short film is by Nirvan Mullick, who was Caine’s first and only customer — for a little bit, anyhow.

Watch the movie and warm your corazon!

Help Caine’s Scholarship Fund:

Caine’s Arcade online:

 

Pocho Ocho ways Latinas deal with unwanted body hair

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If you’re a Latina, then you know the dirty little secret: body hair everywhere. Maybe you didn’t grow up with hairy arms or legs, but once you approached 30 or had children, the secret caught up with you.

Hair on your arms, hair on your legs, hairy eyebrows, chin hair, toe and foot hair, moustaches, sideburns, hair on your breasts, even a female version of the treasure trail! Aye!

I’ve seen the culture around Latina body hair traverse everything from shame to denial to indifference to pride (I’m looking at you Frida Kahlo.)

But for the rest of us not so lucky to look good in a moustache, this hair must be dealt with. Here are the top eight ways this can go down:

Mas…Pocho Ocho ways Latinas deal with unwanted body hair

Spring cholo fashion tips from Le Smoké light up Montebello

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XXXXL pants are de rigeur
(PNS reporting from EAST LOS) Fresh cholo fashion tips brought style and fabulous funké decadence to the Montebello Town Center over the Easter weekend at fashion magistrate Le Smoké’s semiannual Eastsider Estilo Eshow, Low Rider Expo and Petting Zoo.

Le Smoké is celebrated for his ground-shaking declaration in 2006 that burgundy was the new red and periwinkle would not be considered blue. His list of do’s and don’t’s is always the highlight of the show.

Le Smoké, a 13-year Communications Sciences major at Unincorporated East Pocho City College and a 15-year veteran of the mean streets of Pocho Hills, a struggling suburb of Mission Pocho Viejo, uses the cutting edge of fashion rather than a prison shank to do his stabbing.

Mas…Spring cholo fashion tips from Le Smoké light up Montebello

Ex-cyber-cop: Stop border infiltration by Internet-powered ‘netbacks’

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Mexican taquerias that double as Internet cafes are a launching-point for netback infiltration

(PNS reporting from CYBERESPACE) They slip across the border at night, invisible, hidden in the multitude of American web surfers, bringing with them accented characters, exclamation points turned on their heads and foreign ideas like “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Mexican and Mexican-adjacent Internet users called “netbacks” are sucking up American bandwidth and adding so-called “salsa” to American websites — and right-wing forces want them stopped.

Mas…Ex-cyber-cop: Stop border infiltration by Internet-powered ‘netbacks’

POCHO remembers ñewsman Mike Wallace of CBS-TV’s ’60 Minutes’

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Mike Wallace, iconic hard-hitting interviewer and 60 Minutes OG, died Sunday at 93.

For one classic story, Wallace went to China to track down the manufacturer of counterfeit American toys and ended up confronting a smarmy, chain-smoking attorney, Nathan Thurm, Esq. Thurm was not pleased.

Ñewsweek: Tucson school board’s exercise in ignorance and hate

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'Hearsay evidence is all you need'

POCHO Migrant Editor Al Madrigal (he commutes coast-to-coast so he can work nights as Senior Latino Correspondent for The Daily Show) went to Tucson AZ to find out why students there aren’t allowed to take classes in Mexican-American history.

Cameras running, Al interviewed a school board official who was apparently high on ignorance, stupidity and hate.

These are the POCHO stories that broke the ñews this week:

Mas…Ñewsweek: Tucson school board’s exercise in ignorance and hate

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