Gentle cabrones:As I said last week, the canto this week is a day late for a reason:I had to give a commencement speech to UC Irvine's School of Social Ecology.I always like to publish such talks — except the one that bombed — because they are the few times I ever offer prepared remarks. Usually, when I go before an audience, I riff. But I figure if a school invites me to offer some profundity, I might as well swing for the fences and hope to get on base.I think I did this time around.UCI's School of Social Ecology is behind a lot of the movements that are making Orange County a livable place. I have more than a few down friends who came from it, so it was an honor to offer some thoughts to their grads. What I offer is almost the entire speech — I went off cuff just for emphasis, so it's not verbatim but pretty damn close.So, as Jackie Gleason would say, and away we go...Gracias for having me here. As graduates of UCI’s School of Social Ecology, all of you have committed yourselves to bettering society and humanity in one form or another. What a tremendous, intimidating task that is! Humans are imperfect; society suffers from perpetual problems ranging from the structural to the...
Gentle cabrones:Before we get to Luis, I gotta start with chisme.This past Friday, I was supposed to accompany the award-winning author to a lecture he was going to give at Manual Arts High School in South L.A. It was as part of a profile I wanted to do on him for my columna about his run for governor of California, because a reporter always wants to accompany the person they're profiling to an event, to see them interact with people and get quotes.So I put in my media request with the Los Angeles Unified School District to see if I could hear his speech. Instead, LAUSD canceled the event.They claimed that letting Luis speak to Manual Arts freshmen — who had been reading his legendary memoir Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Life in L.A. for weeks, and whose predecessors got to hear Luis via Zoom last year — would violate district policy about employees endorsing political candidates with school resources.LAUSD officials could've asked Luis to not speak about his candidacy, and he would’ve agreed. They could’ve declined my request to hear him at Manual Arts, and I would’ve been fine. Instead, they denied students the opportunity to hear in-person from a writing legend, at a time when students need to hear inspirational voices more than ever.Shameful. Stupid. Embarrasing....
Years ago, I went to the funeral of a guy.A good guy. Gone too soon. About my age. I went more out of respect to him and our profession than anything — we were friendly, but not friends.So I thought.At one point during the wake, a man came up to me. He told me how happy the family was to see me. That I meant the world to the guy, that I helped him out so much — that I was there for him whenever he needed me to.I was speechless.The guy died in a really tragic way, to the point the family wasn't accepting any condolences at the wake. So I told the man to send my condolences to the guy's family, and left.The profundity of the revelation was too much for me to bear in that small chapel.I remembered the guy well. We mostly emailed, sometimes talked on the phone (this is the era before smartphones), would run into each other on the beat, and lunched every couple of years. But it never went beyond that.I wish he had expressed how valuable our time together was.I wish he had told me I was his keeper.** First time reading this newsletter? Subscribe here for more merriment! Buy me a Paypal taco here. Venmo: @gustavo-arellano-oc Feedback, thoughts, commentary, rants? Send...
Gentle cabrones:A decade ago, I landed in Tucson with something to prove.I was a couple of weeks into the debut of my third book, Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. The first two signings were well attended but not the debut smashes of my previous two books. My second book had sold so little that my publisher hadn’t even arranged a book tour for Taco USA, assuming it would be a flop. My editor shunted me off to his assistant while I wrote my taco book even though I thought we were homies.I really don’t have much of an ego, but I do have pride – and I wasn’t liking what was before me. My bosses didn't trust me. They had no faith in what I had accomplished, or what I could do.I did.Taco USA was the first book to take the totality of Mexican food in the United States in a historical context. It broke news, debunked myths, and it gave a lot of love to restaurants that deserved it.So on my own, on my own dime, I arranged a book tour across the Southwest.In Tucson, I read at the University of Arizona through someone who has since become a friend, the brilliant profe Maribel Alvarez. I then got a rental car and went to El Paso,...
Gentle cabrones:Tonight, Canelo Álvarez will fight before a sold-out crowd, and hundreds of thousands more people watching at home via pay-per-view or Twitter. It’s the annual tradition of a big boxing match for the Cinco de Mayo weekend, a tradition that I haven’t been able to partake in for years because of the pandemic, but also because I've been too busy to hang out since, oh, 2005.Boxing is one of my favorite sports, and it usually makes its ways into my cantos. It teaches a lot of lessons and remains the best possible workout after swimming (I try to get in a couple of rounds on my bag every day — watch for my cross).Boxing is also the setting for what remains one of my most treasured memories: the time my cousin Plas and I got to see a bunch of fat Armenians righteously beat up a bunch of fat Mexicans.Let me explain.** You should hear the heartbreaking story Plas says about Joe Louis... By World Telegram staff photographer - Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection. Public Domain First time reading this newsletter? Subscribe here for more merriment! Buy me a Paypal taco here. Venmo: @gustavo-arellano-oc Feedback, thoughts, commentary, rants? Send them to mexicanwithglasses@gmail.comThe setting: the Honda Center in 2009.My cousin Plas invited me – he’s one...
Gentle cabrones:This past Thursday was the third anniversary of the death of my mother from ovarian cancer. But I didn’t visit her grave on that day — I did what she would’ve wanted me to do. Be happy.Yeah, right.I visited her a month earlier, when I was asked to give a speech at Santiago Canyon College in Orange for Cesar Chavez Day. We did it in a big tent in anticipation of rain that never really came, rain that we really need in California. The community college is not too far away from Holy Sepulcher Cemetery, where my Mami is buried along with her parents and so many more from the Zacatecas diaspora to the point there’s a Santo Niño de Atocha statue overlooking hundreds of tombstones.After my speech, I went over there and left Mami some roses from my garden. The idea came to me at the very last moment, otherwise I would’ve had dozens of them with me since it’s been a good year for my roses. Instead, I left one of each type that I grow—...
Gentle cabrones:There was once...someone. Used to like me until they didn't — then they hated me.They would talk shit about me behind my back and in front of me. Got worse once my career started to rise, and theirs didn't. Got so bad to the point where friends and colleagues wanted to literally kick the person's ass, but I made them stand down.Forgive the hater, I would say, for they know not what they do.One year, I got an invite to do a lecture — travel, payment, all of that. I rejected it, and suggested the person who despised me take my place instead. Although I was great about the subject at hand, the other person was better than me — and I wanted what was best for the audience and hosts.But the hosts didn’t know the person from Adam and were big fans of mine, so they decided to invite me as well to speak about something else.Somehow, word got back to the person who hated me that I had given up that gig so they could take...
Gentle cabrones:“Ven bien vestido,” my dad said before we went to go visit my Tío Gabriel yesterday.Come well dressed.It’s something my mom used to tell me too, although she would say “Ven bien vestidito.” Come very well dressed, using the diminutive and colloquial tense because I was her first-born son and thus the most apapachado.My parents always cared about how their children dressed, and how they dressed as well. My father has multiple Stetsons, belts, cowboy boots, and button-up short sleeve and long-sleeve shirts. He still has a 1970s era tan leather jacket I would’ve LOVED to wear except it’s the tiniest bit too small for me.My mom didn’t spend as much money on clothes, but she always dressed as the grand dame that she was: dresses, pearls, earrings, well-coiffed. Their sartorial choices came from their upbringing - small town people always take pride in appearances, because appearances are one of few things they have control over.My mom always told us that even when she and her siblings were at the poorest, which would’ve been in the 1960s picking...
Gentle cabrones:Soon after we bought our house about a decade ago, we began to buy rain barrels.We must’ve been in a drought at that point — and haven’t we always been in drought in a region that wasn’t meant to have so many people? So one 50-gallon rain barrel turned into two turned into about 15.They’re incredible — after a good rain, the barrels all fill up quickly, so much water Mother Nature gives us.Mother nature isn’t giving us much water anymore.So I monitor those barrels well, and sparingly use the water to garden. That's why I was so happy when it rained on Monday — not much, but enough to fill up all my barrels.So I thought.I was walking around our backyard the following morning and I noticed one barrel overflowing, while the other one connected to it not. It didn’t make sense — water should've flowed over to the other one, you know?So I went to investigate. I saw that I had accidentally pinched the hose that connected the two when I moved them the week before...
Gentle cabrones:Spoke at Concordia University in Irvine this past week — it went okay, I think.I was asked to speak to the question “What is Truth?” — a heady topic, but par for the proverbial course at the Lutheran college, where I've developed an unlikely, wonderful relationship over the past couple of years. The lecture was in their CU Center, with a massive pipe organ behind me.I think I did okay — I tied the idea of Truth to the history of journalism, and the shifting idea of objectivity and “truth” in my profession. Didn't repeat myself, but some jokes landed, and some didn't — it happens.Not that many students showed up – it also happens. So one of the professors that was in charge of the event was apologetic before my talk even started. They said they did as much promotion as possible, but there was another event that was more popular that was conflicting with mine. I told them not to worry, and then I told them a phrase in Spanish that I like to say to myself...
Gentle cabrones:This might be the shortest, most unimaginative canto you'll ever get, because it has just one purpose:SEE ME/WE/READ MY/OUR BOOK/BOOKS!Truth in advertising, you know?The brevity of this one is partly because this past week was a grinder like I hadn't had in a while. Over three days, drove to Northridge, Pasadena and...somewhere in the Inland Empire in pursuit of three separate stories (can you write 3,600 good words in 4 hours? I did!), and to talk.The talks are coming back again after two years of Zoom.I've actually grown to love Zoom chats because the chatbox on the right allows me to talk to folks in real time and ramble.And if you tune in to GAG, you know I like to do THAT.But I also love to talk in person, especially when I have books to promote.And, well, guess what:SEE ME/WE READ MY/OUR BOOKS!Because it ain't just me, Jack: This is me/we now.ROLL CALL!**First time reading this newsletter? Subscribe here for more merriment! Buy me a Paypal taco here. Venmo: @gustavo-arellano-oc Feedback, thoughts, commentary, rants? Send them to mexicanwithglasses@gmail.comSAT., MARCH...
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