"All Things Considered" reporter Howard Berkes last week broadcast a segment based on a story by OC Weekly writer Gustavo Arellano that questioned the motives of local charity "Snowball Express," which brings the families of Iraq war casualties to Disneyland. Arellano found that the charity's organizer, Michael Scott Kerr, owes about $50,000 in child support in Arizona, where there is an outstanding warrant for his arrest.
After the weekly ran an Oct. 12 cover story about a wheelchair-bound man who filed more than 200 onerous lawsuits against small businesses failing to meet accessibility standards for the disabled, a lawyer for the profile subject has lashed back. Marc E. Angelucci, a Los Angeles attorney who represents David Allen Gunther, calls R. Scott Moxley's investigative article
"one-sided, sensationalistic opinion-disguised-as-news," in a post on the OC Weekly staff blog.
"It's troubling ... to know that some people actually get upset when a U.S.-born-and-bred Latino isn't fully fluent in Spanish," Gustavo Arellano writes in a Los Angeles Times editorial published Monday. Arellano is a reporter for OC Weekly and the author of the controversial syndicated ¡Ask a Mexican! column. He explains that his parents taught him a rural Mexican dialect, which became "mangled" after he attended a public school where he only spoke English. The criticism of Arellano's Spanish intensified after a June appearance on The Colbert Report, but he swears he doesn't care: "I'm an English-language columnist; it's my job to help Americans understand Mexicans, not to write the next Don Quixote."
We're a little slow in posting this, but OC Weekly's Guastavo Arellano -- who just won a first-place AltWeekly Award for his column -- was the guest on Monday's episode of The Colbert Report (available for download on iTunes). Colbert initially called the column "Ask THE Mexican," and according to Arellano's blog post, also mispronounced his name, but the two still managed to discuss topics ranging from immigration to little people. Arellano tried to provide a legitimate Aztec cultural background on the latter topic, but Colbert evidently thought the explanation was too sophisticated so he interrupted, asking, "Are you speaking Spanish right now?"
An OC Weekly article published Wednesday includes photographs of county Sheriff Mike Carona with a strip-club boss whom "the FBI calls a mob associate," according to the Weekly. Carona also swore in as a reserve deputy at least one other man whom the Weekly alleges has mafia ties. Ralph Martin, who hopes to unseat Carona in this year's election, held a news conference yesterday calling for Carona's resignation in light of the story and photographs, according to the Los Angeles Times. (The L.A. Times story conspicuously avoids the words "mafia" or "mob.") An update posted to the OC Weekly Web site yesterday quotes Martin as saying, "This is unacceptable behavior. We can't allow our law enforcement personnel to be associated with known criminals or criminal associates."
"Ask a Mexican" is "an indictment of the American mind and how it, for whatever reason, cannot accept Mexicans ever becoming Americans," OC Weekly columnist Gustavo Arellano said in an interview with NPR's On the Media last Friday. "The fact that this column exists truly is a joke, and the fact that I have to answer these questions is ridiculous. That said, I will answer these questions to confront all of those stereotypes and really the pitiful nature of the American mind that cannot accept Mexicans being in this country." Arellano also criticized other Mexican and Latino members of the media for focusing on positive stereotypes, which he called "a disservice to Mexican or Latino society or culture."
"I don’t know what to say beyond the kinds of things you find in Hallmark condolence cards," Will Swaim writes on The Blotter, OC Weekly's staff blog, about music columnist Buddy "Blue" Seigal's death on Sunday. Some readers objected to Seigal's scatalogical or genital-focused humor; Swaim quotes one as saying, "I think Buddy Seigal’s article about fun things to do with the scrotum is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever read, and so do all the friends I e-mailed it to.” Other OC Weekly staffers share their favorite stories about the "crusty sonofabitch with a heart of gold" in the comments section.
Bernard Seigal, a.k.a. Buddy Blue, passed away Sunday afternoon. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, his death "was ruled 'sudden and unexpected' by the county Medical Examiner's Office" and an autopsy is pending. In addition to writing music criticism for OC Weekly and other outlets, the 48-year-old Seigal was a founding member of musical group the Beat Farmers. An L.A. Times obituary quotes OC Weekly Editor Will Swaim praising Seigal as "a gentleman." "You were able to politely disagree with him on any topic -- until it came to music," Swaim said.
Originally published in 2004 as a one-time spoof, Gustavo Arellano's "Ask a Mexican" has taken on a life of its own, landing the 27-year-old reporter and editor a regular gig on a right-wing talk radio show as well as the front page of today's Los Angeles Times. In his weekly column, Arellano answers the kind of frank questions about Mexican stereotypes (e.g., "Why do Mexicans put on their Sunday best to shop at Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, etc.?") that aren't normally asked in polite society. According to the Times, he gets away with it because his writing is "historically and culturally accurate" and "imbued with affection for Mexican immigrants." But not everyone is thrilled. OC Weekly Editor Will Swaim tells the Times he still fields the occasional call or e-mail demanding that Arellano be fired.
