Does Chunky Diesel go well with carne asada? Is Girl Scout Cookies a good cannabis pairing for kale tamales? You won’t mess up your meal with a marijuana mistake when your Weed Sommelier is POCHO amigo Chris Garcia!
Especial Correspondents
Chipsters’ Delight: Zesty nacho-flavored kale chips (photo)
Meanwhile, Zesty Nacho? Huh? “TFW you become a demographic stereotype,” writes Twitter photo uploader Nick Riccardi.
1970 Video Documentary: ‘How Is School, Enrique?’
This 18-minute 1970 documentary film depicted the educational and environmental problems faced by LA’s Mexican-American kids back in the day. Has anything changed?
Live from Mexico City: It’s Chilango Street Art (photos)
POCHO amigo Professor Equis and his family were in Ciudad Mexico last week and he sent us these photos.
Mas…Live from Mexico City: It’s Chilango Street Art (photos)
Trump proposes fines for Latinos who say they’re ‘American’
Latinos pissed, aggressively emphasize America not a country
(PNS reporting from MANHATTAN) For years, Latinos have insisted that they are also “Americans.” Now, U.S. President Donald Trump plans to fine them each time they use the term.
Latin-Americans have well-known fury from being excluded from the “American” membership. Each time a U.S. citizen identifies as American, the resulting argument is more intense than deciding which abuela makes the best tamales.
Mas…Trump proposes fines for Latinos who say they’re ‘American’
That time Woody Guthrie wrote a song about the Trumps (videos)
In December 1950, Woody Guthrie moved into the Beach Haven Apartments in Brooklyn. His landlord was Fred Trump, father of Donald. Trump’s greed and racism inspired Guthrie to write Old Man Trump.
Ryan Harvey updated that song, and made this video with Ani DiFranco and Tom Morello (RATM).
Here are the lyrics:
Mas…That time Woody Guthrie wrote a song about the Trumps (videos)
Actual Pulp Fiction: Searching for Aztec gold treasure (1905 toon)
Here’s the cover of an actual pulp fiction novelette from 1905 featuring detectives searching for the storied Aztec gold. These paperback books were printed on the cheapest paper (pulp, like newsprint) and reflected the culture of the day. Note the Raiders of the Lost Ark style booby trap.
Read more at Dime Novel Detectives, which is where we got this image.
Meanwhile in Casco Antiguo, Panama City, Panama … (photo)
[Photo by Profe Timoteo.]
Pocho Ocho top activists’ pickup lines for Valentine’s Day 2017
Love is in the air for Valentine’s Day.
Is there a way for the politically active pocha or pocho, Chicano, Chicana, Chican@ and/or Latinx to get lucky AND make the world a better place?
Yes, there is, in our list of the Pocho Ocho top activist pickup lines you can use for Valentine’s Day:
8. What do we want? A quiet romantic dinner for two! When do we want it? Friday night — what do you think — 8-ish?
7. What’s a nice girl like you doing in a MEChA like this?
6. Is that a GMO-free organic sustainably-raised earth-friendly heirloom local family farm non-corporate elote in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
Mas…Pocho Ocho top activists’ pickup lines for Valentine’s Day 2017
In Paracho, Michoacan, they still make guitars by hand (video)
In Michoacan, Mexico, the town of Paracho de Verduzcoo has a unique claim to fame. Many in the town of 30,000 — known as the “Guitar Capital of Mexico” — make their living crafting guitars. The streets are lined with shops featuring some of the most beautiful guitars in the world. Director Andre Arevalo met a guitar maker from Paracho and asked him a few questions about the past, present and future of guitar making in his pueblo.
We’ve asked for his name and the name of his shop so we can give him props.
While we’re waiting for that info, and in celebration of the artisans of music, here’s an unsolicited plug for a POCHO amigo just like that who doesn’t know about this:
Mas…In Paracho, Michoacan, they still make guitars by hand (video)
From the Harvard Library: 5 Ways to Spot Fake News (infographic)
There are people out there that want you to believe their “alternative facts.” Don’t fall for that bullshit. The librarians at Harvard show us all how.
Donald Trump, John Lewis and MLK Day (video, toon, photo)
In 1991, Public Enemy‘s epic By the Time I Get to Arizona spotlighted the Hate State of Arizona’s failure to implement the Martin Luther King Day national holiday.
Contrast and compare with PEE-OTUS Donald Trump’s weekend Twitter attack on civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, draw the necessary conclusions, and prepare to take appropriate action:
Mas…Donald Trump, John Lewis and MLK Day (video, toon, photo)
This just in from Mt. Alachingada: No mames! Unpresidented! (photo)
Especial Correspondents Lalo Alcaraz, El Eres Nerd, Maria Purísima, Ms. LunaSol, Junco Canche, and Comic Saenz contributed to this report.
The Pocho Ocho craziest cosas we found in our 2017 Rosca de Reyes
Today is Three Kings Day, Dia de Los Reyes Magos, AKA Epiphany, the day when Los Tres Reyes dropped by the manger to gift up the original Anchor Baby, El Baby Jesus.
Check out the Pocho Ocho Craziest Things we found in the Rosca de Reyes here at the POCHO world headquarters:
8. Rosca’s Chicken and Waffles
7. Rockettes seeking asylum
6. 300-puund Яusski hacker
Mas…The Pocho Ocho craziest cosas we found in our 2017 Rosca de Reyes
Hey Vato! What do you really, really want for Christmas? (video)
Vatos Chuy and Smiley made up a Christmas wish list, but they’re checking it twice!
PREVIOUSLY ON NIKE CORTEZ:
Mas…Hey Vato! What do you really, really want for Christmas? (video)
Radical Housekeeper: A short story
She’s up at 5:45 in the morning to make her kids and husband breakfast and lunch for the day; waiting to make her own meals last. She pulls out the tortillas fresh off the comal because she doesn’t believe in store bought shit. She’s authentic, raw and loyal to her traditions. She slips into her outfit and watches a little bit of the news as she waits for her ride, even though she can’t quite understand what the news lady is saying in English. Someone honks outside and she grabs her bags, jacket and rushes out the door. She fights her tired eyes on the car ride for the next forty-five minutes and instead pretends to be interested in what her co-worker/companion has to say. What are the latest chismes? “Cindi from work left her husband and child. She ran off with another man and they say that guy is three times her age and we are all sure Cindi is only in it for the papeles….”
On #GivingTuesday, Los Pochodores endorse these causes
It’s #GivingTuesday 2016, when all good pochos y pochas should donate dinero to the non-profit organization of her/his choice.
Here’s where Los Pochodores are sending money this year:
Dear Trump Voter Ashley: We are real people, not your ‘Taco Tuesday’
Dear Ashley,
I don’t really know you very well. I met you for the first time when my family and I travelled to Rogers, Arkansas to see you marry my nephew. I knew my nephew at some point. I saw him grow up here in Los Angeles until my brother and his wife thought the streets of Woodland Hills too gang-infested and uprooted their entire family to the enclaves of my sister-in-law’s home state.
Shortly after, sometime in the 1990s, my mother and I travelled to Arkansas on an Amtrak train for two days (don’t ask – I still haven’t forgiven my mother for refusing to fly) to visit and see our family’s new dwellings.
You weren’t in the picture yet – your husband was still a teenager. Despite the torturous train ride, we relished the opportunity to spend time with my brother and his family. We were even excited to see a new part of the country.
Mas…Dear Trump Voter Ashley: We are real people, not your ‘Taco Tuesday’
Songwriting therapy: When everything is f—-d, keep on going (audio)
I wrote a little pep talk, for myself and for anyone else who needs one, as we wade through the fuckedness of all this. Catchy and short and angry and upbeat and exactly a minute long. [NSFW F-bomb.]
[Music and art by METAFILTER main man CORTEX aka Josh Millard.]
Pocho Ocho Top Tunes on Obama’s forthcoming jazz CD
(PNS reporting from WASHINGTON D.C.) President Barack Obama will launch a new career when his term ends — a career as a jazz saxophonist, PNS has learned.
Insiders at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue say the president has been spending almost every weekend for the last six months practicing his tenor saxophone, a gift from former President Bill Clinton, rehearsing, and recording with his band. His first CD — Barry Blows the Blues — will drop January 21, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Sources tell us these are the Pocho Ocho Top Tunes — recorded in “Living Stereo” — featured on Barry Blows the Blues:
8. Yes, I Kenya
7. Livin’ in a Cracker’s Paradise
6. Michelle
Sombra of OVERWATCH: Latinx champion of a tech-forward identity
After months of secrets leaking out of headquarters, the new hero for Orange County’s Blizzard Entertainment hit game Overwatch has finally been revealed. She’s a Mexican Latina named Sombra (photo). Her name means Shadow.
But does this impact the culture of Orange County? The culture of video game development? The very essence of Mexican and Mexican-American culture?
As a first generation Mexican-American, I think Sombra represents an important and much-needed shift in thought to get Latino people into careers in which we are consistently underrepresented. She is the champion of a new tech-forward identity that uses its own skills to take matters into its own hands. But, most importantly, she’s really freakin’ cool, as you can see in this video:
Mas…Sombra of OVERWATCH: Latinx champion of a tech-forward identity
@UPDATED: Screw you, Trump! Esta tierra es mia tambien! (video)
Wednesday my son’s second grade class in Lemon Grove, San Diego County, California put on a “Veteran’s Appreciation Show.” When the kids began with This Land is Your Land in Spanish, I was moved beyond words.
The significance of this happening right after we elected a white supremacist to the highest office in the land was not lost on me.
Seeing these children of all colors singing this song in Spanish brought me to tears.
Toma Trump! This land is for everyone!!
[Private chef Mark Lane grew up in Lemon Grove, home town of POCHO Jefe-in-Chief Lalo Alcaraz. They are still “friends” on Facebook.]
UPDATED SATURDAY NOVEMBER 12 1:30 PM:
Mark Lane posted this on Facebook this morning….
Mas…@UPDATED: Screw you, Trump! Esta tierra es mia tambien! (video)
Play by play from East LA: ‘Undocumented Football’ (poetry video)
Today is the big game — Roosevelt vs Garfield — the Boyle Heights East/Los Angeles high school football rivalry that has lasted generations. The Roughriders meet the Bulldogs this evening at Weingart Stadium on Avenida César Chávez in Monterey Park.
In this 2013 poetry video, David A. Romero supplied the play by play.
You Are There: Donald Trump Rally in Albuquerque (photos, videos)
In more or less chronological order, here are my live Tweets from today’s Donald Trump campaign rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico….
'Clowns for Trump' protesters greeting @realDonaldTrump supporters to #ABQ campaign stop pic.twitter.com/WfrorusPF4
— Russell Contreras (@RussContreras) October 31, 2016
Mas…You Are There: Donald Trump Rally in Albuquerque (photos, videos)
Arizona Ex-Governor Jan Brewja’s Pocho Ocho Mas Loco Predictions
Former Arizona Governor Jan Brewja is predicting Donald Trump will win in the Hate State elections because Latinos won’t vote.
“Nah,” Brewer said in an interview with the Boston Globe. “They don’t get out and vote. They don’t vote.”
What else does she foresee? Here are her Pocho Ocho Mas Loco Predictions:
8. Pigs will fly.
7. When nasty women stop provoking the average guy with slutty clothes, rapes will stop.
6. If regulators approve the AT&T-Time Warner merger, the cable guy will actually arrive between 10am and 2pm.
Mas…Arizona Ex-Governor Jan Brewja’s Pocho Ocho Mas Loco Predictions
It’s the October Surprise! Pocho Ocho Top JuikiLiques Bombshells
Venezuela-based “transparency” website JuikiLiques dropped some big political bombshells this morning — the so-called “October Surprise.”
POCHO’s Especial Correspondents axed all the refryable sources to concoct this list, so check it out: The Pocho Ocho Top Juikiliques Bombshells:
8. Donald Trump’s plan to have “Mexico pay for the wall” relies on hiring Mexican workers, not paying them, and then deporting them, a scheme that worked so well in previous real estate projects.
7. Hillary Clinton threw away over 200 valuable AOL membership CDs and never told the FBI.
6. Donald Trump’s hairdresser, former airport cosmetologist Manila Envelopé, won’t use anything but Tres Flores mousse for Trump’s weave-over, but she removes the labels so the Donald won’t know.
Mas…It’s the October Surprise! Pocho Ocho Top JuikiLiques Bombshells
MEXCLUSIVE: Trump’s Pocho Ocho Most Awkward Income Tax Deductions
Donald Trump’s leaked tax returns prove he played the system to avoid paying his fair share of taxes.
The lamestream media is all over the big ticket items, so POCHO’s crack team went extra deep into the documents to find some smaller write offs the Donald didn’t want the public to see.
We call these Mexclusive discoveries Donald Trump’s Pocho Ocho Most Awkward Income Tax Deductions:
8. Loss carry-forward on Cheeto Powder Commodity Futures Trading
7. Weaves-Я-Us Perpetual Care
6. Depreciation on WifeBot2000
Mas…MEXCLUSIVE: Trump’s Pocho Ocho Most Awkward Income Tax Deductions
Take back Latino Heritage Month and #EndHispandering!
On September 14 a Latina friend of mine who’s also a college professor said to me, “Brace yourself for Hispanic Heritage Month, I’m already getting phone calls about recommendations for mariachi bands.”
I laughed a bit, but her comment stayed with me. See, she’s half Colombian and I’m Puerto Rican, and the idea of becoming the “go to” people about such things struck me as, well, just another example of how stereotypes about Latinos often work.
The fact that people are asking her about mariachi bands reveals how U.S. society usually lumps us together under the umbrella label “Latino/a” or “Hispanic” despite our cultural differences and diversity.
At the same time, her warning (“brace yourself”) fittingly captured how many Latinxs/Hispanics feel about Hispanic Heritage Month (which I prefer to call Latino Heritage Month because I find it more inclusive, less Spanish-oriented).