Gomez Misc.

Did you guys catch President Obama this weekend on the Premio Lo Nuestro music awards show on Univision? Gomez enjoyed watching Mr. Obama speak Spanish, if only because the president's Spanish is nearly as bad as Gomez's. Gomez was pleased Mr. Obama did not dress like a giant Bumblebee or overgrown schoolboy for the event.

Gomez hoped to have an opinion on the President's appearance on the show, but surprisingly, our mind remains blank.

That happens whenever we watch Univision.

Sorry.

Gomez is please beyond words to discover that all sorts of people are reading The Gomez Report and liking it.

Among those people is an anonymous Mexican American actress who was inspired to start her own blog, Confessions of an Eastside Actress, and who told Gomez about it in an email. Gomez doesn't usually like to promote blogs other than our own, but we will make another Gomezception for "Maria" because her blog is interesting to us.

Maria says her name is not really Maria, which is kewl with Gomez because Gomez's name isn't really Gomez. Maria says she just started the blog today. She promises that she will keep blogging regularly, and Gomez hopes she's not being a diva and lying to us, because that would make us look bad for recommending Maria to all of you.

The scoop: Maria is from East LA, and is a trained Shakespearean actress who went to Julliard. Now she says she can't find a job in Hollywood because everyone wants her to play stereotypical roles she's not willing to play. Until her big break, Maria waits tables at a Medieval restaurant where she gets to "dress like a wench." Gomez likes.

Gomez thinks that's all fine and dandy, but the part we really like is where Maria writes about her weird roommate, who is obsessed with the Kama Sutra and looks like a poor-man's Tori Spelling. Check it out, and let Gomez know what you think.

Wizards of Waverly Place star Selena Gomez is doing nothing to disprove the latest findings by MTV/Nickelodeon in their research on the Millennial Generation. The study finds that today's youth are more likely to care, and to do something about the things they care about, than their parents were.

Last week, Selena used her celebrity status to bring attention to the plight of neglected and homeless animals in Puerto Rico. She wrote about it on her blog, and asked fans to help raise money to help the animals. We all have until March 31 to donate as part of Selena's fundraiser.

Gomez has been to the Caribbean. Gomez loves animals. And so Gomez naturally feels Selena on this one. In the mainland US, we are for the most part blissfully unaware of the homeless animals in our midst, because they are rounded up and imprisoned until adoption or euthanasia. In the Caribbean, the poor creatures are everywhere, mangy, starving, diseased and tremendously sad.

Selena joined forces with the Island Dog organization to help raise awareness of the suffering. Gomez is impressed, and wishes the young star, and the animals of Puerto Rico, success in their endeavor.

Gomez usually doesn't like homophobic comedy because, to Gomez, its not any funnier making fun of a gay guy for being gay than it is to make fun of a straight dude for watching Spike TV. Oh, wait; that is funny. No straight man actually watches Spike TV, do they? Not unless by "straight" one means "Larry Craig." Gomez's bad.

Anyway, Gomez will make a GoMexception for Room 28, the scrappy sketch comedy group from NYC. For the past nearly two years, these hee-larious Latino dudes have been cooking up videos, standup routines, music videos, short films (in English) because, like any true artist, they can't not. They've been getting better and better, too - though no less homophobic. Gomez can't win 'em all, though we'd like to try.

Gomez would like to tell Room 28 that homophobia is cheap and tired, and won't sell, but, sadly, Gomez just saw the box office returns for Tyler Perry's latest stuffed sausage; it appears to be motoring toward the stratosphere powered entirely on the cheap and tired. Room 28 should never take advice from Gomez on anything. This is why Gomez is a blogger and social critic, and not, say, a movie executive.

Elitist PC airs aside, Gomez confesses, tail between our legs, to actually liking the campy fake-sitcom production style of Room 28's My Gay Twin, starring Jaimie Fernandez. Gomez knows Room 28 has been featured on SiTV and Telemundo, but we rather think they are destined for bigger and better things, if only something bigger than Gomez would pay attention. Spread the word, Gomezzers.

MARCH 20, 2009 - The 1957 musical theater classic West Side Story is back on Broadway, having opened at the Palace Theater last night.

Everyone from the Los Angeles Times to the New York Times is raving about the nearly fishy lenten resurrection of the gangland Romeo & Juliet, under the direction of Arthur Laurents, 91, who wrote West Side Story back in the day.

Much has been "updated" about the musical. For instance, the dialogue has been changed, according to the NY Times, to "a more appropriate" Spanish for the Puerto Rican gang members - presumably because, what? Fifty-two years isn't enough time for our backwards people to have learned English.

Truth be told, Gomez has mixed feelings about the revival of West Side Story, and the decision to present Latino American characters as more foreign now than fifty-plus years ago. Gomez wonders if Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is on the Palace Theater board (and if he wears a pink jumper to board meetings?)...

Gomez also wonders why it is that the only time Latinos get starring roles on Broadway it is when: they are in gangs (West Side Story); they are in ghettos (In The Heights); they are impoverished with AIDS on the Lower East Side (Rent); they are sociopathic teen murderers (The Capeman); or....well, that's about it actually.

Gomez is sure West Side Story is lively, entertaining and chock full of talented performers who would not otherwise get a chance to belt and boogie. Gomez is also sure that there must be plays and musicals for Latinos out there that don't traffic in 50-year-old stereotypes.

The question is: Will any of the gabachos in charge of Broadway (and Hollywood, and the music industry, and book publishing, etc.) find such works "believable" and "authentic"? Gomez has met enough of them, and had them speak very loud English to Gomez at cocktail parties (under the illusion that Gomez could not sip sophisticated of Shakespeare's nectar) to think not.

On an up-note, Gomez feels pretty. Oh so pretty! And witty. And - hey! Coffee's done!

Gomez hesitates to blast another English-language Latino entertainment blog, especially one with much better layout and graphics than Gomez's own paltry (but free) blogspot hack job - but somebody's gotta do it.

The blog in question is Guanabee, run by an angry, poorly-dressed Tejana named Cindy Casares and, from what insiders tell Gomez, bleeding money left and right. Where it was once thought to be promising, advertisers now avoid Guanabee like most sensible women avoid tacky scarves.

We'd feel bad about Guanabee's massive hemorrhaging, if not for the fact that Guanabee has long mistaken cruelty for satire, and stupid for snark. The blog long ago squandered its opportunity to be an insightful modern voice for Latinos by Latinos. Instead, it has twisted itself into a misguided, unfunny attempt to be a voice bludgeoning successful Latinos, by unsuccessful Latinos.

In other words, Guanabee is the same old crabs (and, yes, we mean STD) in a barrel that we're used to finding at, say, the Furrs cafeteria on a Sunday afternoon, when we come back from our ivy league college or fancy NYC job, to talk to our cousins who dropped out of high school. And wear stupid scarves. Guanabee hates, because Guanabee truly wants to be, and isn't.

The straw that broke Gomez's sexy hunchback regarding Guanabee was their abuse this week of comedian, author and activist Jackie Guerra, whom Ms. Casares accused of being famous only for having played Selena's sister in a movie and for having once upon a time weighed 300 pounds.

This bleak summary of Ms. Guerra's life and career is not only mean-spirited, it was completely false and lazy. Guerra is an Emmy-winning actress, comedian, TV host, designer, author and radio personality, and an inspiration to millions of people.

Let us, as an exercise in fairness, compare this to the illustrious "biography" of Ms. Casares, Guanabee's managing editor. Ms. Casares, before coming on board as a blog editor was...drum roll please...a copywriter for an ad agency. And...well, that's it.

Yep. That's it. To her credit, however, Ms. Casares does bear a striking resemblance to Journey lead singer Steve Perry, especially when she wears these manly sunglasses. Presumably Ms. Casares finds them ironic.



Gomez was pleased to see so many of Guanabee's loyal readers chiming in on the comments page of the uninspired post, in Guerra's defense. And this is not just because Gomez thinks Gomez kicks Ms. Casares's ass in the satire department. Or maybe it is. Pleasure is pleasure, be it vicarious or not.

Gomez wonders what, exactly, Ms. Caseres thinks she is achieving with her nasty, insulting blog, which tries desperately to be funny by doing little more than skewering people who generally don't deserve it and who ought logically to be on the same side as Ms. Casares, a world that skewers Latinos enough as it is. Good marketing? Methinks not. Then again, Ms. Casares wasn't in ad sales or anything fancy. She was the one who wrote stuff like "Got Milk?" - only no one remembers her slogans anymore.

Listen. Gomez supports good snark and satire, and funny blogs. We even support healthy competition, don't get us wrong. We just don't think Guanabee would know good satire if it bit their managing editor - aka the Latina Ann Coulter - on the ass.

Ms. Casares? Here's a secret that Ms. Guerra and other successful comedians know: Good satire must be rooted in a basic love and respect for humanity, or it quickly turns into bullying rooted in the satarist's own unhappy childhood.

Gomez would like to leave Ms. Casares with a quote from Anthony Trollope, with empty hopes that she will heed its advice: “The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little -- or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.”

Ms. Guerra's only sin, as far as Gomez can tell, was that she was smarter, prettier, and more famous than Ms. Casares.