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Las Monthly Ondas October Edition: The Art and Heart of Lucha Libre

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Ruben Torres’ 2nd Annual HeART of LUCHA

By Brent E. Beltrán

Local music and video producer, curator, lucha libre lover and all around cool vato Ruben Torres is organizing his 2nd annual HeART of LUCHA event. It is being billed as the “largest lucha art and culture exhibition in the nation.”

Last year’s inaugural exhibition took place at The Spot Barrio Logan. For the second installment Ruben has taken over the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park where his other art series, HeART of Lotería, took place earlier this year. In addition to these two series he also organizes an annual winter toy and clothing drive for San Diego and Tijuana youth called Love Thy Neighbor (I wrote about it here).   [Read more…]

Shooting Elephants in the Face: Well-Done, A Lot of “Fun” on NBC

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by Abby Zimet / Common Dreams

Just when you thought you couldn’t hate the NRA any more comes this video from Under Wild Skies, an NRA-sponsored, so-called sports show being inexplicably aired by NBC, in which tough guy, Indiana Jones-wannabee and NRA lobbyist Tony Makris bravely goes forth into Botswana to massacre an elephant – an act about to be but not quite yet illegal – finally downing it on the third shot by shooting it in the face and then gleefully gloating, after the suffering animal charged him, that “somebody got a little cheeky there.”   [Read more…]

Our Road to Elysium

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Robert Reich’s new film Inequality for All exposes America’s growing wealth disparities.

By  / OtherWords.org

The Hollywood blockbuster film, Elysium, depicts a polarized Los Angeles in the year 2154. The vast majority of inhabitants live in overpopulated and polluted slums, toiling in grinding poverty.

Meanwhile, a wealthy elite live on Elysium, a space station modeled after a luxurious neighborhood in Malibu, California. Life expectancy on Elysium is three times longer than on the sweltering toxic earth, thanks to advanced medical technologies and a pristine environment.

Matt Damon stars as the character Max DeCosta, who is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation at his factory job. With five days to live, he must get to Elysium and climb into a “med bay,” a scanner that cures cancers and other life-threatening ailments.

Elysium is a cautionary tale, a dystopian vision of the kinds of extremes that might result if America’s growing economic inequality were to continue unabated.   [Read more…]

Las Monthly Ondas September Edition: Spend a Weekend with Picasso

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Herbert Siguenza Returns as the Iconic Artist

By Brent E. Beltrán

Some may have thought that Pablo Picasso died at the gravely old age of 91 while entertaining friends at his home in France. That was not the case because the famous artist lives on here in San Diego.

This month you can see him live and in the flesh as Salvadoran actor Herbert Siguenza, of Culture Clash fame, captures the pure essence of the master himself in A Weekend with Picasso. From his mannerisms and speech to painting live Siguenza channels his inner Picasso and transforms into one of the most influential artists in modern history.   [Read more…]

“In the Heights” Now Playing in San Diego

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San Diego… iNo me diga!

By Alejandra Enciso Guzmán

After an intense month of rehearsals and five days of preview shows, In the Heights had its opening night on Sunday, August 4th at the Lyceum stage in Horton Plaza. The multiple award winning musical had its first resident production in the county, thanks to the partnership between San Diego REP and the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA). In the Heights is directed by Sam Woodhouse and choreographed by Javier Velasco. The play is based on the book by Quiara Alegría Hudes and conceived by Lin- Manuel Miranda.

In the Heights is set in the vibrant community of New York’s Washington Heights. It is a community with immigrants from all over Latin America who face the day to day decision whether to keep on with traditions or leave them behind in this new place. We are introduced to barrio businesses and their owners where this tension plays out. Usnavi owns the corner bodega where he sells coffee, newspapers and miscellaneous along with his bratty yet very good hearted cousin Sonny. The Rosarios run a taxi dispatch and Daniela operates a hair salon.   [Read more…]

Sam Woodhouse Talks about “In The Heights” at the San Diego Rep

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A Broadway musical about heart and “familia”

By Alejandra Enciso Guzmán for SDFP

The San Diego Repertory Theater opens its thirty-eighth season with the award winning musical In the Heights. Sam Woodhouse, San Diego Rep co-founder and artistic director, provided insight into the first resident production of the musical in San Diego:

“There are several factors here. One is the partnership with the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA), the ‘fame’ high school of San Diego that allows us to do these big giant musicals in the summer. They bring us an orchestra of thirteen musicians and a bunch of actor/dancers, all terrific.”

“In The Heights is this wonderful collision and marriage of a very 21st century, modern American immigrant story, filled with all those desires and longings and dreams and quests that every immigrant community has, in the cocoon of an old fashioned Broadway musical” added Woodhouse.   [Read more…]

Adventures in Comic-Conlandia: A Nerds-eye View Day Three

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By Brent E. Beltrán

The third full day of San Diego Comic-Con International started off the same as the first three, with me walking from my neighborhood of Barrio Logan. It’s only 1.2 miles from my apartment to the Convention Center but after trekking all over Comic-Con for a few days it can feel light years away.

I’m not really one to map out my day at Comic-Con. Usually when I do something comes up (usually long lines) and I stray from the plan. On Saturday, I had three plans: get an autograph of former UFC lightweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, take tons of photos of cosplayers all dressed up showing off their costumes and walk a bit on 5th Ave. to check out what’s going on outside the Convention Center.

For some strange reason I ended up doing all of that. And I got to hang out a bit with my buddy Tri Huynh, his girlfriend Kelly Smith and her son Ty. Perhaps it was the Universes smiling on me.   [Read more…]

Diversionary Theatre’s Freedom of Speech: One Woman’s Cross Country Journey to Find Out What’s Going On

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By Alejandra Enciso Guzmán

An artist in the complete sense, Eliza Jane Schneider can do practically anything on stage-from singing, to playing an instrument, to doing a 180 from one character to the next. Showcasing her many talents, Schneider opened Freedom of Speech on July 11th at the Diversionary Theatre. It is a Moxie Theatre presentation, directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg.

This one woman show is based on a true story. Eliza Jane decided to take a road trip across the United States…in a used ambulance. The goal? Talk to different people and hear their story in order to get information for her UCLA thesis project. “Everything in this play is actually something somebody said…it started in college…I thought it would take me about a month…I am still on the road” explained the actress during a UT-TV interview. What started in school escalated to a 34 character show that has received multiple awards. It has played all over the country, including Broadway.   [Read more…]

Adventures in Comic-Conlandia: A Nerds-eye View Day Two

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Story and Photos by Brent E. Beltrán

For the second full day of the greatest popular arts convention in the universe my wife Olympia and I had grand plans. We were going to spend the entirety of it in the Convention Center’s infamous Hall H.

Hall H is the largest programming room at Comic-Con. It seats 6000 or so people (not sure how many Wookies it might hold) and has the some of the best and most attended panels. And this Friday’s lineup was spectacular.

The two of us thought that if we got to the convention by 10am we might at some point get inside.

We were wrong.   [Read more…]

Review: You Can’t Go Wrong with a Sunday in Old Town

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Miguel’s Restaurant
2444 San Diego Avenue
San Diego, CA 619-298-9840

Stephen Sondheim’s “COMPANY”
Cygnet Theater
4040 Twiggs St (at San Diego Ave)
San Diego, CA  (619) 337-1525

By Judi Curry

Candy, one of the members of a Widow’s Support Group that I belong to is the only one of us that is not a Pisces or Aries.  Works out fairly well for the rest of us, because all of our birthdays seem to fall in February and/or March and although we do not need a celebration to get together it makes it more fun.

Ro, a member of my other support group, volunteers as an usher for many of the playhouses in San Diego, and she had 4 free passes to see “Company” at the Cygnet and generously offered to “donate” them to us for Candy’s birthday celebration.  As we frequently do, we decided to go out for lunch and take in the 2:00pm matinee.   [Read more…]

Las Monthly Ondas July Edition: Free Speech Chalk-In at BofA Barrio Logan and Other Branches

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By Brent E. Beltrán

Last week floundering Republican City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, at the behest of Bank of America, chose to prosecute Occupy San Diego protester Jeff Olson for writing anti-bank slogans on the sidewalk, in washable chalk, in front of their North Park branch.

Mr. Olson was charged with 13 counts of vandalism and faced a year in jail and a $1000 fine on each count. He faced a total possible sentence of 13 years in jail and $13,000! Luckily a San Diego jury on Monday, July 1st, using common sense, found him not guilty on all counts.

City Attorney Jan Goldsmith wasted over one hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer’s money to prosecute someone for exercising their 1stamendment rights, on public property, to do the bidding of his corporate master.

Freedom loving progressives and liberals all over San Diego are tired of right wing politicians working on behalf of corporations and the rich instead of defending the rights and interests of average citizens like Jeff Olson.

So tired that a Recall Jan Goldsmith Facebook page has garnered over 230 likes in less than a week. So tired that a nationwide Chalk-In is taking place this Saturday at various Bank of America branches throughout San Diego and the rest of the country.   [Read more…]

New Documentary Captures Existential Crisis of Burning Man, Temporary Metropolis in Nevada Desert

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By Elizabeth Limbach / Alternet

Keeping the cameras rolling during trying times resulted in an insightful examination of the world-famous event.

In 2012, after 26 years of ballooning in popularity, Burning Man was on the verge of popping. And Steve Brown’s documentary crew was there with cameras rolling.

A year earlier, the entrepreneur and first-time filmmaker set about making a feature film that centered on a trio of artists as they struggled to realize their visions for Burning Man, a week-long gathering in the Nevada desert that takes place around Labor Day each year. When the Burning Man Organization (BMORG) granted the film access to behind-the-scenes meetings at its San Francisco headquarters, Brown and co-director Jessie Deeter could not have anticipated what was in store.   [Read more…]

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