Goddamn it, for the first time ever in this Tick-Talker's weak Weekly memory, a press release rolls in about Edward James Olmos–on the day that the Day Laborer of Print and Radio Journalism, Gustavo Arellano, is off to New Yawk for his much ballyhooed appearance on NBC's Today Show: Special Victims Unit. Fuck it to hell, 'cause ol' Stavo would be all over knocking Olmos like a cheap suit, which, come to think of it, is what ol' Stavo wore to 30 Rock.
The California Teachers Union, the only folks more hated than illegals around this neck of the right-leaning woods (Can you imagine the reception for an immigrant who has no green card but proudly whips out his CTA membership card? Noam Chomsky would be more embraced), brings its annual Equity and Human Rights Conference to the Newport Beach Marriott this weekend. Saturday's noon keynoter is CTA prez Barbara E. “Pay Yer Dues or Die” Kerr, while Zoot Suit/Miami Vice/Stand and Deliver star Olmos commandeers the Grand Pacific Ballroom podium 10 a.m. Sunday. He'll talk about the U.S. Justice Department-funded national gang prevention program he executive directs. 'Cause Lord knows Newport's got a problem with Da Bangers. In fact, we've got it on good authority that NB's gangstahs are so low class they only drive Lexuses!
We should really stop with this weak-ass shit now because Our Man Arellano, fueled by the knowledge stuffed in his noggin' by that Lalo character, would certainly have far more insightful things to write about Mr. Acne Scars. Then again, we could just do a simple word search for past Arellanoisms on Olmos from this very site:
Hispanic Heritage Month is useful only to see how hilariously clueless gabacho administrators, newspaper editors–hell, the entire American power structure–still are about Latinos. Bake some pan dulce, throw in a salsa band, invite Edward James Olmos as a keynote speaker, and that's culture, right? . . . Both of you suffer from Edward James Olmos Disease, an affliction caused when gabachos watch too many positive portrayals of Mexicans on film and television and thus think our life is one spent fighting racism, sharing a house with 17 strangers, shooing a burro from the kitchen, and sweating through peso-paying jobs . . . . I own a 1989 UC Irvine-produced comic that lectured immigrants on the dangers of AIDS and featured a man wistfully recalling a Papa Bear amongst a lineup of senoritas from his immediate sexual past. Mexican men are manly men, and they'll stick their pitos inside anything that's warm and available (see the Edward James Olmos prison-love tale American Me for further detail). . . . [Fullerton Museum Center Director Joe] Felz went on to reveal that the museum would exhibit another Guadalupe-themed [“decadent lesbian artist” Alma] Lopez work, Maria de Los Angeles. That piece–the Virgin fully clothed, generations of women looking on in wonder–looks like a promo for an Edward James Olmos-produced PBS special underscoring the all-American virtues of Latino family life. . . . If these sweet tamales made at Las Goldrinas with raisins and cinnamon (or coconut and pina) were a movie star, they would be Edward James Olmos. You know: a modest, thoughtful, reliable crowd pleaser with occasional bumps. . . . Latinos should take a closer look at [The Simpsons'] Bumblebee Guy before burning him in effigy alongside George Lopez and Edward James Olmos.
And those are just the citations we could find through our crappy search engine!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.