In Argentina, where real gauchos come from, guacho means bad person, traitor, and disloyal. People who have just been screwed over sometimes say, “¡Qué guacho!” to refer to the guy who did it. I lived in Argentina for two years once, and ever since then I’ve been dying to see the UCSB Gauchos misrepresented on national television as the Guachos.
Even before I knew what guacho meant, I loved it as a funny-sounding typo. I worked for the UCSB Gauchos for 10 years, during which time I corrected a few misspellings of Gauchos that would defy belief, but every time I saw Guachos I laughed. (It was the apostrophes that killed me.)
When ESPNU referred to the Gauchos’ dynamic duo of Orlando Johnson and James Nunnally as Guacho Guards on Saturday, I laughed and took this picture. But what if this wasn't a misrepresentation at all? What if ESPNU used Guacho intentionally, in reference to the team’s two best players shooting 7-24 from the field at the time this graphic aired?
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Tags: ucsb, gauchos, guacho, orlando johnson, james nunnally, espnu, tv graphic typos
Our new dog’s name is Barry. My wife tells people it’s for Barack Obama, and dresses him in an Obama Dog sweater. I say it’s for Barrilete Cósmico, the nickname Maradona earned when he scored the best goal ever.
I speak to Barry in chilango and porteño accents, and although he understands both, he doesn’t listen in either - all his commands are in English but with my wife’s Scottish tone.
Barry is a multicultural mutt, but he’s no dummy. When we saw this sign posted at the Sheffield Reservoir, he looked at me as if to ask, ¿Qué chingaos es esto, boludo?
Pretty much every Spanish word on here is either wrong or not actually a word, and to list all the mistakes would be to make the County of Santa Barbara look incompetent. Some of the errors are so bad, they’re even funny to people who don’t speak Spanish.
Los Perros De Ben Estar A Marrados means, “Ben’s Dogs To Be [something that makes no sense]”. Deben and amarrados should be one word each, which would at least make sense but still be sloppy: “Dogs Must Be Tied Up”.
Mo Munopatins En el Parque means, “[Nonexistent words] in the park”. There is no such word as mo, and monopatines is Spanish Spanish for skateboards, which wouldn’t have been the best choice in California even if they had spelled it correctly. They should have said patineta, but even nothing would have been better, what with the illustration right beside it and all.
I don't always watch TV, but when I do, I watch NBA TV. (My wife's parents are soccer junkies, so we get every channel.) ((We live at her parents'.))
NBA Gametime is the best show on TV because NBA TV isn't really a real channel. It's TV, but instead of commercials there's infomercials for stuff like the Jupiter Jack.
All NBA Gametime requires of its highlight presenters is that they have super-tight game. Standard American English, African American Vernacular English, and hoop thug slang are equally represented. Even the white guys get crazy. The other day, Rick Kamla said Derrick Rose was 'bum-rushing the rim'.
So when new NBA TV presenter Shaq announced he'd give $1000 to anybody who got a tattoo of Charles Barkley kissing Dick Bavetta, and a Santa Barbara bartender called Emmet Bentley actually did it, and the NBA put him on TV to skype about it with Shaq, and Shaq issued Bentley a new challenge to get a tattoo of all four NBA TV dudes for another $1000, and Bentley agreed to do it instantly because he was skypeing from the tattoo shop, I SAW IT ALL!
Kenny Smith and Greg Anthony tried to clown Bentley for going immediately from the bar to the tattoo parlor, implying that he must have been drunk and shouldn't have sold out so cheaply. The bartender explained that while he does love bars, when his associate told him about the challenge he had been working and not drinking, so alcohol wasn't a factor in his decision to answer the call, and that this $1000 windfall was merely an unforseen consequence of his commitment to epic tats.
For those of you who don't have the good fortune to live with your in-laws and get every channel, behold another of Bentley's tattoos, the A.C. Slater as Slayer!
Seriously, if I even so much as order a water from this dude I'm tipping him $20.
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Tags: emmet bentley, tattoo challenge, shaq, epic tats, ac slater, nba tv tattoo, peddling one's ass, aave, sae, hoop thug slang
If you know people who are down with Argentina, do 'em a solid and let 'em know that the history of stand-up comedy in that country, as told in the first English-language interview with industry insider Gabo Grosvald, is now available on realgauchos.com and iTunes, after having appeared on the radio program Real Gauchos today at 1pm on KCSB 91.9 FM in Santa Barbara which, by the way, had its' third straight week without a tsunami or any other incident causing the red telephone in the studio to ring.
You can tune in to Real Gauchos live on Sundays at 1pm on KCSB 91.9 FM and kcsb.org. If you miss the live broadcast, you can always listen to or download the podcast of the show on realgauchos.com and iTunes.
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Tags: real gauchos, gabo, ezequiel campa, malena pichot, merpin, jansenson, gabriel grosvald, paul rivas, el bululú, tim lee, louis c.k., lenny bruce, chris rock, george carlin, este gallego tiene menos talento que la concha de la lora
I owe Gabriel Grosvald so big, I invited him to be my houseguest. And I live at my wife's parents' house!
Shortly after I met Gabo in Buenos Aires in 2007, he invited me to perform in the stand-up comedy show he was headlining at El Bululú. For 11 minutes, I made light of everything I'd experienced in my 1.5 years as a half-gringo half-Mexican non-native speaker of Mexican Spanish living in Argentina. People laughed.
The first comment on YouTube said, in Argentine Spanish, "This [perjorative name for a Spaniard] has less talent than an ugly whore's cunt," but I clicked on his channel and saw 50 commenters calling him a prick for insulting people. So either he was trolling, or he's a dreadfully honest guy with phenomenally bad luck such that everytime he clicks on a video it really, really sucks.
By the way, the reason I owe him so big is not because he believed in me artistically as an illegal foreign worker making fun of the host country, but because my stand-up comedy experience is the first thing interviewers want to talk about when I apply for real jobs.
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Tags: gabo, grosvald, ezequiel campa, malena pichot, el bululú, real gauchos, gallego, poco talento, concha de la lora, stand-up, Argentina stand-up boom
Saw this guy at a birthday party where people were taking their shoes off. Try and guess what his deal is.
A) He has two left feet
B) He’s rebelling against being made to take his shoes off places
C) He’s from the future, the day after this party, and woke up still so drunk from the party that he put on two left socks before getting into the time machine to come to the party
D) He’s out of his mind
E) He’s a sock-swapper who finally found somebody else who wears his brand, and now there’s an R-R out there somewhere
F) He’s a leftist
G) He’s a right-wing wacko, but a senile one
H) He doesn’t speak English
I) His name is Loopy
K) He’s a real loser
L) He likes it
M) He just slothed it
N) He doesn’t know that one reason Nike Dri-Fit socks cost more is because they come with a left and a right
O) Chicks dig it
P) He always does this at parties
Q) He doesn’t know any better
R) His mama didn’t raise him up right
S) He doesn’t believe Nike actually gives you two different socks
or
T) It’s a misprint, the socks are fine
Check the comments in a day or two for the correct answer.
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Tags: two left socks, two left feet, sblifestyle, please take off your shoes, two right socks, guy from the future with two left socks, LL, RR
Jim Rome spoke at Campbell Hall Saturday night in an Arts & Lectures event that was also part of the UCSB All Gaucho Reunion. If you were there, congratulations on witnessing a great moment in Gaucho history. If you missed it or you're just not clear on who Jim Rome is or what his deal is, well, that's what Rivas Cultural Services is for.
Rome was a typical privileged white kid who graduated from UCSB in 1986, back when Halloween still meant riot police and anybody with a pulse was admitted. He lived in the notorious Francisco Torres dorm as a freshman, and his first act as a Gaucho was to sign up to work massive amounts of hours free for 91.9 KCSB Sports. He began his monologue by saying, "I have not been here since Soc 152A," the Human Sexuality class that fills UCSB's largest classroom every quarter.
He got three D's and an F his first quarter, which he explained as a product of his living arrangements in FT, where it was not unheard of to find tapped kegs in elevators.
"We had kegs, we had quarters, we had chron, we had sex, we had fights. And we had it every weekend. Nevermind 'How'd I stay in school?' How'd I stay alive that first year?! I was the Jamarcus Russell of FT."
After being passed up after graduation for a KTYD job he thought he'd earned that went to a "functional illiterate", he moved home to L.A., where he failed at three more jobs, including the family business. In desperation, he called The Palm himself, John Palminteri, for whom he had once interned writing news copy free at 4:20am and who was also in attendance Saturday. The Palm got him a 30-day gig reading traffic reports for $5/hour.
There was no traffic in Santa Barbara back then, but the station manager wanted traffic reports, so Rome took to making up crashes and reporting that they were "in the clearing stages". He was invited to stay on past 30 days, and was eventually enlisted to host a pre-hipster, pre-Groupon coupon program called Radio Mall, where callers could buy scrip for local goods and services at discounted prices.
Then the San Diego radio station 690 AM went to an all-sports format, only the second really national radio station to do so. A real sports nut, Rome was smart enough to know that he'd never be a professional athlete and that working in sports at all was statistically very unlikely. He did the math and determined that would have to bring something different to sports radio in order to make it.
"Content is king," he advised students in the audience. "How are you different? Why you?"
Even in his early days on 690, Rome instructed his callers to, "Have a take and don't suck." His distinctive style of passionately and fearlessly backing the sports figures he felt deserved to be supported and calling out those he felt deserved to be railed on won him national attention, and his show soon became nationally syndicated. He now does a four-hour radio show and a one-hour ESPN television show daily, where he trumpets the UCSB Gaucho cause at every reasonable opportunity.
On the way to national prominence, Rome was famous tackled by NFL quarter Jim Everett during an interview. Rome assured the crowd that the event was not staged, and revealed that he and Everett have still never talked about it. He did, however, apologize for having provoked the incident, even though everyone involved had acknowledged that the provocation was a condition of Everett's participation on the show.
"I'm sorry I did it. Not, 'I'm sorry if I offended anybody' - I'm sorry I did it. I'm sorry I said it. I'm sorry it happened."
More recently, Rome was in a high-profile beef with "that bitch Katie Couric".
He's not all mean, though. He's also a Gaucho legend who remembers how he got to the top and realizes that there are UCSB students today who want to be like him. He quoted the great Walter Capps telling him, "You shape public opinion," but he also repeatedly cited a professor nobody in the room had heard of, who said, "A new bike won't change your life. Relationships matter."
In response to a question submitted by a UCSB student athlete, he ranked giving the eulogy at Pat Tillman's funeral second behind being invited to speak to a room full of Gauchos in Campbell Hall.
I have no use for five hours of sports talk daily, but for an hour last Saturday night, Jim Rome turned in an epic Gaucho performance.
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Tags: jim rome, ucsb gauchos, campbell hall, a new bike won't change your life, relationships matter, all gaucho reunion, francisco torres, ft, that bitch katie couric, sbsports, UCSB Arts & Lectures
