FIREWORKS: Mission Pocho Viejo American Legion Post 536 once again presents their Annual Fireworks Extravagonzo Wednesday at sunset. This year the pyrotechnics come from Zamboni Bros., new to California, with their presentation Hella Hockey Holiday – a tribute to the Estanley Cup World Champions, Los Reyes de Los Angeles. Moms: bring your blankets and sit the kids on the grass at Sotomayor Stadium. Dads: Do NOT bring your own fireworks.
INK AND DRINK: Two businesses in the El Rancho Pocho Downtown Historical District are getting together for a patriotic combo deal that’s hard to beat. Get any flag or patriotic tat at Inky Dinky’s House of Pain on Porciuncula Place Saturday through Monday and Inky will slide you a $10 pre-paid bar tab for the Loco Lounge next door. And guys, if you like thick chicks, you’ll love new tattoo artist Salma’s Fernando Botero-inspired portraits of your true hyna, right over your heart.
INTERFAITH PICNIC: The families of Saint Pocho’s Church, Pocho-Sinai Reform Temple and Masjid Pocho Islamic Center invite you to join them for a meat-free Family Friendly Food Truck Party at East Pocho Presidio Park Wednesday from 11 AM to 3 PM. There will be something delicious for everyone (and nothing to offend anyone) with offerings from local favorite gourmet food trucks
- El Toasty Tasty (gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches, quesadillas and pupusas )
- Squeeze Me (organic lemonade, aguas frescas and smoothies)
- Help I’m A Fish (tuna dolphin-free creations, ceviche and sushi rolls)
- Borscht Belt (Kosher/organic hot and cold soups)
- Basmati Baby (delicious and unexpected vegetarian rice combinations)
- Pocho Paletero (frozen treats in traditional and exotic flavors)
Organized non-violent games for the kids, restrooms for everyone and music by the Vaguely-Marley-Sounding Band.
ELECTRIC CHONIES, THE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN STORY: The Pocho Hills chapter of the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) Alumni Society is proud to a present lecture and slide show exploring the unknown underside of Benjamin Franklin, the country’s Founding Father who also founded the Ivy League college.
Topics include his Franklin’s famed discovery of electricity while flying a kite, his numerous love affairs abroad, the invention of bifocals, the writing of the Declaration of Independence and Franklin’s wack views on immigrants:
Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation…and as few of the English understand the German Language, and so cannot address them either from the Press or Pulpit, ’tis almost impossible to remove any prejudices they once entertain…Not being used to Liberty, they know not how to make a modest use of it…I remember when they modestly declined intermeddling in our Elections, but now they come in droves, and carry all before them, except in one or two Counties…In short unless the stream of their importation could be turned from this to other colonies, as you very judiciously propose, they will soon so out number us, that all the advantages we have will not in My Opinion be able to preserve our language, and even our Government will become precarious.
Franklin didn’t like their “swarthy complexion[s],” either, sparking concern about our reputation with residents of Mars and Venus:
Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.
Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased.
And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.
The lecture, Saturday at 2 PM in the back room at Smokey Joe’s on Tom Bradley Drive, is free to the public. No Princeton grads, please.
Do you have any society ñews we can use? Send it to me, Chale Knickerbocker!
Sign made here.