Gomez Misc.

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.