Pepe and Chico are shopping at Rags to Riches, a secondhand store that sells used wardrobe from Film & Television productions. “There’s an old joke,” starts Pepe. “Two Chicanos are shopping at a secondhand store and one of them says ‘Everything in here smells like asparagus piss.’ And the other …
Texas was dead: to begin with… at least for Jerry. “As soon as I turn eighteen, I’m outta this shit bowl!” He didn’t actually move until he was nineteen because it always took him a year to follow through on something, but he did get the hell outta Dodge like …
Mano a mano means “hand to hand” in Spanish, as in hand-to-hand combat, but this loan term doesn’t just describe two people going toe-to-toe because they can’t see eye-to-eye. Most of the time, it’s any head-to-head, wire-to-wire competition. “They went mano a mano in a foot race!” Sometimes gabachos say …
Life in the big city is a fickle pickle. Too many variables make it the volatile vegetable (or flickery fruit) that it is and nothing is more unpredictable than the inconsistent night life experience: Friday night: I didn’t holla at any rucas at the club tonight because none of ’em …
My roommate Gustavo went by the nickname Goose, and could’ve easily gone by Wild Goose because of his hell-raising nature. When he wasn’t talking shit he was starting shit, and always with the cojones to back it up. Kind of like his Pit Bull Chorizo: lots of bark and lots …
While planning the arrangements, I told the funeral director that, at some point during my grandfather’s funeral, I wanted to get up and say a few words. “How many words?” he snapped. “Just a few.” “A few is like five. So five?” “More than five.” “So several words? “Yes.” “Several …
SAYERS/PLAYERS: Jojo Mojo – cool fool, mellow fellow Rosa Sosa – sexy Mexi Big Wig – fat cat Suzy Floozy – dirty-birdy Greasy CeCe – bag-hag Nay-Nay – pro ho’ Deez Freese – hooker booker Lulu Ulu – po-po NOHO – JUNE – NOON Jojo Mojo, Rosa Sosa, street-greet. JM: …
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 …
