Speaking bad Spanish makes Silverlake artist look like douche

(PNS reporting from SILVERLAKE) It was a shocker when encaustic and collage mixed-media artist Ben Brown found out.

Even though he spent two years of high school learning Español, his habit of dropping a word or two in Spanish into day-to-day English conversations has not increased his “street cred” even un poquito.

The self-proclaimed free-spirit, a three-year resident of this trendy “East Hollywood-adjacent” neighborhood, said he had to face the fact that others did not perceive him as special or cool merely because said “hermano” or “comprende” at the end of his sentences, and they weren’t impressed by the pains he took to pronounce the double R in words like “burrito” or “ferrocarril.”

Mas…Speaking bad Spanish makes Silverlake artist look like douche

A time-traveling flapper’s dilemma: ‘Clara’s Los Angeles’ (video)


Clara’s Los Angeles (14:59): The last thing Clara Villanueva remembers was dancing the Charleston at Hollywood’s Ambassador Hotel in 1926. When she wakes up on a park bench in modern downtown Los Angeles, she has a lot of catching up to do.

Marissa Chibas wrote, produced, directed and starred in this video, shot downtown and in Silverlake, Los Feliz and Hollywood. (Silent movie, with instrumental soundtrack and English/Spanish title cards.)