I telling you man I am a lucky one. On Wednesday August 26, 2015. I had the good fortune to attend a very emotive and inspirational installment of Rick Najera’s Latino Thought Makers series hosted at Oxnard College. The Latino Thought Makers Series is an important initiative designed to engage, educate and entertain students of Oxnard College, the city of Oxnard and greater Ventura County communities. The successful series has showcased the careers of the most prominent Latinos in Hollywood including actors Edward James Olmos, Esai Morales, the family of Cesar Chavez, the creator and cast of Hulu’s East Los High and more. Award-winning writer-director Rick Najera is Artistic Development Director for the third consecutive season of the Oxnard College Institute for Latino Performing Arts. Rick Najera is a writer-director-producer-speaker and author working in all forms of entertainment. Currently, Najera is a staff writer on Hulu’s hugely popular show, East Los High and director of the CBS Diversity Sketch Comedy Showcase for the 11th consecutive year which has developed more breakout television and film stars in the industry than any other network today under his tutelage. Najera also speaks nationwide on a variety of topical issues including themes from his […]
Today is just one of those GLORIOUS days when my theme song is my Prince Galore playlist. Ahhhh PRINCE gotta love’em. Even my breakfast sandwich paid homage to him, this morning, as I said just one of those days. Anyway I thought that over the course of time, I’d get over this, cos after all who’s got time to waste on celebrity garbage? Though try as I might I just can’t shake what is troubling me. I’ll be honest with you I was a HARDCORE Prince fan from like the 70’s to 1987. I don’t know, my musical palate was developing in different ways, and Prince’s new sound at the time, with the NPG just didn’t do it for me. Still I won’t hold that against him regardless of creative differences a long history of sharing music exist. Bottom line I’m down with Prince cos we go way back and because he is like NO OTHER he is truly one of a kind. So back to what’s bothering me. It’s this misleading rumor I read on social media (CURSES that social media). It implied that the night of the Grammy’s as Prince announced Beck’s win he threw shade on Beck […]
The echoes of Augustine’s Confession: “And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the broad tide of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, and pass themselves by…” Inspire Petrarch’s crucial conclusion: “Nothing is admirable but the soul.” Much like the air that we breath and the water that we drink, have passed through the ins and outs, of every living organism that has ever lived, on this beautiful and gracious planet, so to will all the words that have ever uttered, resound in the echoes of humanities collective voice throughout the vastness of time to be heard at the right place and in the right time by those who need to hear them.
Hello EVERYONE!!! I know at least ONE of you is out there. (I have proof). I had every intention of making this a Throw Back Thursday post but that’s not happening this week so here is my first Refurbished Friday post. On that note I was trepidacious about writing a post about something that went down all the way back in June. (Oh come on who am I kidding? Stay tuned for a Refurbished Friday post all about EASTER.) Last I checked the bar is on the low end when it comes to timely quality entertainment. Endless reruns of cable shows all about NOTHING apparently have no expiration date whatsoever. If E! has no qualm about real time relevant “reality” programing. I figure I’m right on schedule. It sounded so much better in my head this T.V. analogy… Okay moving on. Picture it, a sunny, warm, and slightly breezy day, a perfect backdrop for a commencement ceremony. Yes, that’s right a good old American graduation was happening. My nephew was graduating and I was OVER THE MOON proud of him so of coarse I had to be there. I wouldn’t miss sharing this experience with him for the world. Right […]
Greetings cyber peeps! I know at least one of you is out there. This post is more for practice (getting in the habit of regular blog posting). Still that’s no reason for mediocre content. Here I am with today’s to do list just wagging its invisible finger at me. “Write blog post”, it says. Okay, okay, I heard you the first time. No need to yell at me. I’m at my computer and I start meandering online instead of writing this week’s blog post. Anyway I stumble on an abomination of junk food decadence. It suffices to say that this recipe is no doubt deliciously toxic in the absolute worst way. So of course I’m totally craving it NOW. I have to tell you though I am consciously omitting refined sugars as much as I can, because between you and me, it really is murder on the joints. I can do without all that inflammation thank you very much. I mean there is just nothing good about inflammation anyway you slice it. I start looking around for “healthier” marshmallow alternatives. That just happens to be one of the ingredients I’d like to substitute. Mind you I haven’t even gotten through […]
It’s really Thursday!!! Here is my second Throw back Thursday blog post. Introducing the City of Oxnard’s First Thursday of the month Gourmet Food truck event. My friend and I attended this event in May for the first time and it was actually quite nice and delicious, relaxing, and enjoyable. There are two art dedicated building very near where the event is held and both were hosting a coinciding art events to complement the Food trucks and live music. Here are some pictures. Please enjoy! On that note, as a recipient of the Oxnard Cultural Art grant, I will have an art booth at this months Gourmet Food Truck event in downtown Oxnard this evening… So come on down have some yummy food while feeding your eyes on local talent, art, artist, and entertainment.
According to my list of blog topics I’m like two months behind. It’s interesting, when I was getting started with the habit of blogging, I didn’t really know what to blog about. So I reached out to others for suggestions on how to grease the wheels in my head so I could get things going. One of the things I started doing was keeping a list of ideas for topics to blog about and at first I got an idea once a week. The pace suited me well enough. Though before I knew it wasn’t the lack of topics to blog about that was keeping me from blogging. I had accumulated plenty of worthwhile topics but now the problem was, it seemed, I lacked the time to type them out. Suddenly there was so much going on and I just must participate. Life was happening and it needed attending to in real time. So the blog topics just kept piling up, and I just kept ignoring them accordingly, like I sometimes do, that ever growing, pile of laundry till I could ignore the mounting stink of GIT R DONE no more. Exactly like when the laundry is just too ripe […]
Okay so maybe I’m a little on the late train. I missed the Super Bowl this year and the barrage of various stimulants or rather entertainment that come with it. That said recently I had the TV on, not watching anything in particular, in fact, I was busy doing something else. The TV served more as white noise then anything else. Though suddenly a commercial was on that held me in its grip. It was so FUNNY I stopped what I was doing just to watch the commercial and LMAO!!!! It was a commercial for Radio Shack poking fun at its own out datedness. The 80’s called they want their store back. Its the only 80’s reference material that I’ve seen yet that accurately depicts the experience of living through the 80’s, at least for me. All the pop culture references are SO SPOT ON. It was so good and brought back such a fun nostalgic feeling that I am blogging about it. I just had to share it with anyone who will listen cos it was the best use of advertising time I’ve seen in ages. Radio Shack will be in the back of my mind echoing that good […]
The first week of February I was combating cabin fever (rainy weather) by cleaning out my closet. As I was taking things out, so that I could put them back again, later. I took out a box. Not just any ol’ box its THE BOX. The box where many treasures live. I had some new things to add to it. So at first it was a very straight forward task. But then I opened it. This time was different then other times before, because I didn’t just stuff some more things in there, close it, and move on the the next thing. This time I sat down and went through that box. Item by item one by one through all the things in there. It took a long time to get through it all. Maybe it was because, it was more like, I stepped into my treasure box instead of just opening it that day. Part way through I had to rummage around all teary eyed in search of tissues because, it seemed like, just a bit much. But as I blotted my eyes, and blew my nose, I realized it was so much more then just enough. I felt […]
A few days ago I suppose my neighbor decided he had had enough of the conversation the Crows outside our respective windows seemed to be carrying on EVERY MORNING. He took it upon himself to silence the incessant CAWING by assaulting the crows with rocks. One crow flew away and the other stayed put. He seemed indignant by my neighbors rather rude aggressive behavior. He cawed defiantly a few more times and flew away. (I guess the pelting kinda worked because there has been no cawing since.) Though the whole time I thought to myself, “Oooo the neighbor’s gonna get it.” This incident got me to thinking about crow’s. Many many moon’s ago one of my very first Anthropology classes was called, The study of Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion. In which I learned about many things including an introduction to the mythological significants of Crow’s among the various cultures of the Americas. Not only in the America’s but through out the world and through out time crow’s have always held a particularly special mystique about them unlike any other run of the mill everyday animal. According to authors Jamie Sams & David Carson in their book, Medicine Cards the Discovery […]
Latino Thought Makers: with Rick Najera & special guest Lisa Vidal & Ernesto Castillo