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

Disinformation Company: Doomsday 2012 Science or Superstition?

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Yo what is up with all this Mayan Doomsday 2012 stuff? We need some disinformation and we need it now, and that’s why we turned to the Disinformation Company for this video. Like check it:

Disinformation Company producer Gary Baddeley, director Nimrod Erez and the Disinformation team contacted and arranged interviews with multiple experts, often obtaining speedy access due to more than ten years of working with them or colleagues in their fields!

Mas…Disinformation Company: Doomsday 2012 Science or Superstition?

From Coldrank for Trayvon: ‘Black Man’ (music video)

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Citing Malcom X, MLK and Michael Jackson, rapper Coldrank‘s Black Man explores, shall we say, discrepancies in society’s treatment of blacks killing blacks, blacks killing whites and whites killing blacks. And those that don’t learn from history, he reminds us, are doomed to repeat it. Directed by Joe Mexican.

Video: Tortilla-chip UFO buzzes York, England — again

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“The mysterious Dudley Dorito UFO has been spotted for the fourth time in five years flying through a cloudless sky over woodland in Yorkshire,” reports Britain’s The Sun:

The object, which looks like an extra-terrestrial tortilla chip, was captured by an amateur cameraman who posted the footage on YouTube. He can be heard saying “I don’t know what that is” as the triangular aircraft glides silently across the frame above a forest in the north of England.

The UFO was dubbed the Dudley Dorito after its first sighting over the Midlands in 2007 but it is unclear whether the YouTube footage is real or a hoax.

Pocho Ocho new merit badges for Latina Girl Scouts

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These Girl Scouts are not in this story

Latina girls are the key to growth for the Girl Scouts,  and the organization needs to shift culturally to accommodate these new scouts.

How do you bring in a new crop of Latina scouts? How about some new Merit Badges?

8. Touting Trenzas.

It may be India María style or Frida Kahlo style, but any good Latina needs to know how to work the hair art. Whether it be one braid or two, a French braid or any other variety.

7.  Masa Mashing.

Scouts need to know how to mash masa around between their hands in a variety of ways. Masa mashing can be the cultural equivalent of chopping, the manner in which masa is mashed alluding to unspoken or subtle feelings, including: anger, happiness, interest, nervousness, etc.

Mas…Pocho Ocho new merit badges for Latina Girl Scouts

Chicano? Mexican? Cuban? Boricuan? Latino? Hispanic? What are you?

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NBCLatino asked POCHO Jefe-in-Chief Lalo Alcaraz whether he’s a Chicano or Latino or Mexican or Hispanic.

Lalo was commenting on the Pew Hispanic Center survey everybody is talking about:

Nearly four decades after the United States government mandated the use of the terms “Hispanic” or “Latino” to categorize Americans who trace their roots to Spanish-speaking countries, a new nationwide survey of Hispanic adults finds that these terms still haven’t been fully embraced by Hispanics themselves. A majority (51%) say they most often identify themselves by their family’s country of origin; just 24% say they prefer a pan-ethnic label.

Mas…Chicano? Mexican? Cuban? Boricuan? Latino? Hispanic? What are you?

Pocho Ocho reasons Gustavo Arellano should win a Pulitzer Prize

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Arellano's book comes out next week

POCHO amigo Gustavo Arellano, the ¡Ask A Mexican! guy who writes columns and books and edits OCWeekly.com, has a new book coming out soon: Taco USA — How Mexican Food Conquered America.

Despite his adamant refusal to bribe us for coverage, we still want to present Pocho Ocho reasons he should win a pinche Pulitzer:

8. The use of the inverted exclamation point in ¡Ask A Mexican! has forced gabachos across America to learn special key combinations to send him hateful email.

7. Consistently employing “SantAna” when referring to the Orange County City of Santa Ana has moved Carlos Santana out of the old-age home and into a long-term gig at the House of Blues on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip.

Mas…Pocho Ocho reasons Gustavo Arellano should win a Pulitzer Prize

The California Mission lost to history: Santa Zipporah de la Culpa

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'Father' Shmuel meets Chumash tribal leader 'Alfonso'
(PNS reporting from EAST LOS) As Passover approaches, we commemorate a little-known chapter in local history: the story of California’s only Jewish mission, Santa Zipporah de la Culpa.

Founded on Passover 1799 by a youthful colony of Spanish Jews fleeing the persecution of their parents, at its height the mission comprised a thriving community of several hundred souls along the Los Angeles River, near present-day Boyle Heights.

Often overshadowed by its overachieving Catholic neighbors in San Gabriel and San Fernando, Mission Santa Zipporah was founded by the storied ‘Father’ Shmuel, the Jewish missionary sometimes known by his nickname, “Father Sarah.”

Mas…The California Mission lost to history: Santa Zipporah de la Culpa

Is guitarist and singer Omar Torrez the Latino Jimi Hendrix?

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Omar Torrez sure can play! That’s why he toured with Tom Waits and played with others like the Buena Vista Social Club and Jethro Tull. The Los Angeles Times wrote: “Dare we dub him the Latin Hendrix?! The fastest fingers in the West, a massive talent poised to break out and kiss the sky.”

Omar Torrez describes his music as “equal parts rock, Latin, delta blues, atonal classical, and performance art.” His heritage is as diverse as his music, ranging from Spanish and Basque (via Mexico) to Norwegian, Native American and Russian roots.

We especially like his new release — a happy-go-lucky smile of a tune called Marina (play this loud!) which will have you chair-dancing in no time at all. Srsly.

GOP seeks Hispanic vote, taps Seagal for ‘You’re Busted, Beaner!’

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Publicity photo courtesy 4REELZ network

(PNS reporting from HOLLYWOOD) Republicans scared to death worried about the GOP’s ridiculously awful poor standing with Hispanic non-Mexican-American voters have launched an election-year scramble to put a better spin on their party’s immigration problem. Their solution? A TV reality show starring Hollywood flunkie and all-around jackass, Steven Seagal.

Seagal leads the list of C-level actors in You’re Busted, Beaner! a new Republican Party-backed reality series. Seagal stars as a cop who pursues “illegals” while promoting the GOP’s non-Mexican Hispanic-friendly agenda.

The show will be produced by Tinsel Town’s sole Republican, who prefers to remain anonymous.

Mas…GOP seeks Hispanic vote, taps Seagal for ‘You’re Busted, Beaner!’

‘Coonskin’ animated masterpiece by Ralph Bakshi explores racism

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[NSFW. This is totally not safe for work. F word, N word etc.] We were very surprised to see it online and don’t know how long it will be available. Ralph Bakshi’s Coonskin is

… a subversive and satirical re-imagining of Disney’s Song Of The South with an urban spin, Ralph Bakshi’s incendiary masterpiece Coonskin exploits and eviscerates grotesque American racial stereotypes with a politically incorrect, profane and vicious sense of humor. — Dangerous Minds

Ñewsweek: @Astro_Jose is A-OK, Zimmerman’s ‘Latinidad’ revoked

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Formerly-Latino Zimmerman is shown on police surveillance video
This week’s ñews ran from A to Z as California Democratic Congressional candidate Jose Hernandez (@Astro_Jose on Twitter) didn’t need to show his papers to “prove” he is an astronaut, a national organization stripped alleged Trayvon Martin killer George Zimmerman of his official Latino credentials and our new columnist Dear Abuelita dispensed unexpected advice on love and life.

These were the big stories (plus Zimmerman’s 911 call, below) this week on POCHO:

Mas…Ñewsweek: @Astro_Jose is A-OK, Zimmerman’s ‘Latinidad’ revoked

Superhero Video: The Adventures of Paleta Man (Parts 1 & 2)

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The Adventures of Paleta Man is the story of an ice cream man who becomes a superhero. And this video — hold on now — is an adaptation of a coloring book based on the Paleta Man screenplay by independent writer/filmmaker Paul Ramirez of Austin, TX. The video is best when played fullscreen. The plot:

Esteban Ruiz makes a living by selling ice cream. A good and hardworking man, Esteban enjoys his job, especially when it brings him closer to Margarita Morales, the woman he loves. But being a modest man makes Esteban an easy target. He has been bullied, and becomes frustrated by his inability to defend himself. His fate suddenly changes when he purchases an antique wooden box. The box contains a magical medallion that gives Esteban special abilities. With his newly acquired strength, he decides to help those in need and punish criminals. He calls himself Paleta Man. When a villain captures Margarita, Esteban will need all of his super powers.

Part 2 — Secret of the Gold Medallion — is below.

Mas…Superhero Video: The Adventures of Paleta Man (Parts 1 & 2)

California’s new official poetry man is Juan Felipe Herrera (video)

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Gov. Jerry Brown has sworn in UC Riverside professor Juan Felipe Herrera as California’s Poet Laureate — the first Chicano to get the honor. In this video, Herrera reads his poem 187 reasons Mexicanos can’t cross the border. The poem illustrates the difference between Jerry Brown’s California and Jan Brewer’s Hate State of Arizona, where Mexican-American Studies are outlawed. Cali isn’t perfect, but at least we know where we came from.

Laurel and Hardy are El Gordo y El Flaco in ‘El Flaco Va Al Dentista’

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Is Will Ferrell — currently starring in Casa de Mi Padre — the first Anglo comic actor to make a Spanish-language comedy without knowing a word of Spanish?

No guey! As you can see in this old movie clip, black and white jailbirds Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel AKA El Gordo y El Flaco visited the Dentista and delivered their lines phonetically from a script 60 or more years ago. If you don’t know about Ferrell’s movie, you can peep the trailer below — it’s in Spanish AND color!

Mas…Laurel and Hardy are El Gordo y El Flaco in ‘El Flaco Va Al Dentista’

Local man ‘sick and tired of sh*t breaking down and falling apart’

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bobbyfigueroa(PNS reporting from ROUTE 66) Area resident Bobby Figueroa is “so totally sick and tired” of the effects of the Second Law of Thermodynamics that he plans to fight the entropy, friends report.

People close to the situation say Figueroa began complaining about the universal tendency of elements in a closed system to flow to an increasingly disordered or entropic state last Thursday, the day he endured a flat tire, a broken tooth and repeated loss-of-signal during a hot game of “Words With Friends.”

“This shit is getting old,” Figueroa, 38, told his dinner companions at Babosa’s Route 66 Diner in Barstow after an evening of bowling in which he broke a nail and tore a shoelace.

Mas…Local man ‘sick and tired of sh*t breaking down and falling apart’

GOP to José Hernández: Where’s your space certificate? *Updated

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CLICK HERE FOR  MORE POCHONAUT COVERAGE

*(SACRAMENTO) A judge ruled Thursday afternoon that Democratic candidate José Hernández can indeed call himself an “astronaut” on the official ballots for U.S. Congress, according to a late report from the California state capital.

Yo no soy astronauta?

(SACRAMENTO March 26) He’s a NASA veteran who has been to the International Space Station and back and here we have a photo of him in his pinche space suit, but GOP lawyers who oppose Democrat José Hernández’s bid for seat in the U.S. Congress are demanding he stop calling himself an “astronaut.”

Unless Californian Hernandez can prove he is still an astronaut, the lawyers say, he has to stop referring to himself using that title.

“Astronaut is not a title one carries for life,”  Republican operatives  asserted in a lawsuit filed in Sacramento County last week.

The suit notes that Hernandez did not make any money from NASA last year. From the Fresno Bee:

Mas…GOP to José Hernández: Where’s your space certificate? *Updated

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