My older brother ‘Melo was a cabroncito growing up. That means he was a handful. He’s still a travieso as an adult but fortunately my folks don’t have to deal with him anymore. Any discipline is now carried out by law enforcement and the judicial system, but that’s only if …
The Great Spittlebug Infestation of Oh-Eight was both a blessing and a curse for the spider colony at Silky Meadows. The same all-you-can-eat froghopper sandwiches that had fattened their little bellies had also emaciated their little hearts and souls. There was no more drive in their spirit, no more killer …
I rubbed one out the other day; a genie, that is, from an old oil lamp I bought at a garage sale in Pacoima for two dollars and fifty cents. I didn’t know it was a magic lamp when I made the purchase, or that is one of those down-economy …
If I told you my name you’d call me Rafa; if I told you who I was, you’d call me crazy. But that’s okay. I have a hard time believing it myself sometimes－that I was that man that was featured in that news story about that crazy incident that happened …
It doesn’t always have to be out in the open. Sometimes I can just sense it. If a person calls me a “beaner” or a “wetback” to my face, it takes the guesswork out of it, but there are times when a racist doesn’t have to be an outright racist—I can just sense it; …
Carson Montgomery stood proudly at the bar of his man cave and filled two large mugs with ice cold beer from his recently-installed kegerator. He handed one to his neighbor Carlos and raised the other in a toast. “Welcome to the Montgomery man cave.” “¡Salud!” said Carlos as they clinked …
Ingredients A dash of repugnant cologne ⅕ gallon of hard liquor 5 pints of beer A spoonful of “chopped sugar” 3 cups o’ piss and vinegar 1 hot ginger with 2 jumbo cans and no bra An ounce of courage Mixed messages 1 block of cheese 1 pound of flesh …
Sanchez. Lopez. Valdez. Many Spanish family names are affixed with the -ez ending. Gutierrez. Resendez. Marquez. And many traditional family names include paternal and maternal surnames, so sometimes you get a hyphenated twofer known as a “double-barreled surname”: Alvarez-Perez. They might even rhyme on occasion: Hernandez-Fernandez. Yañez-Ibañez. Vazquez-Velazquez. Like the …
My wife and I got married in Costa Rica near Bahila Ballena, along the southern coast of the Nicoya Peninsula. We took a commercial airliner from Los Angeles to the capital city of San José, and then caught a twin engine, turbo prop airplane to a tiny airport in the …
We were somewhere around Zzyzx Road when the drugs kicked in. I remember my girl Luna saying something like, “Why is there mustard and mayonnaise smeared all over the goddamn highway?!” “You mean the white and yellow lines?” “Yeah!” “Those are road surface markings.” “Oh.” That’s Luna all over—she’s a …
