​The petty wars between the Orange County Register and us Weeklings are legendary. Right now, my big thing is to go on stories that we broke but that the Reg steals from us without attribution and provide a link to our original story--how adult of me.

But every once in a while, OC's daily can commit acts of unspeakable kindness--and, on that note, they've just named yours truly one of the most interesting people in Orange County.
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​As I'm putting the final, final touches on my forthcoming Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America (out April 10!), I received some cool, unexpected news: my first book, ¡Ask a Mexican!, is entering its second printing!

The compilation of my column was first published in hardcover in 2007 and proved a best-seller, turning into its own best-selling paperback in 2008. Of course, we published a chingo of the latter, so I never expected a second run.
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Gingrich: Deluded about Mexis

​Ain't it hilarious how the lamestream media is all surprised how that serial adulterer Newt Gingrich is all Aztlanista now? Anyone who follows politics knows Newt has been trying to get Mexis to go GOP for well over a year now, involving himself with similar-minded think tanks. And ain't it hilarious how Gingrich (and the Lincoln Club, for that matter) actually thinks they can be successful?

Of course it'll never happen--not just because of their hair-brained staggered amnesties, but because the rest of the Republican Party can't stop railing about wabs. That's what I've been arguing for years, and I'll get to propagandize on a national level tonight, on PBS's Need to Know program. You can wait until tonight at 8:30 p.m., on PBS SoCal Channel 50, or view it after the jump!
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​You know, I haven't received a truly great angry response to ¡Ask a Mexican! out here for years. Oh, sure, I get the pathetic fanboys who whine about how I'm the racist while calling Mexis cockroaches and all sorts of other stuff--but I no longer get the angry phone calls, the death threats, the bags of honest-to-goodness horse shit that I used to in the first couple of years doing this columna (just celebrated its seventh year, cabrones!).

Thankfully, other papers, do--other papers like the San Antonio Current, which received the following AWESOME phone call.
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​A couple of years ago at an alt-weekly conference, I was able to hang out with some reporters and editors from Birmingham Weekly, drinking and trading stories about our respective homeland's bizarre politicians. Those same guys ended up leaving the Weekly recently to start their own paper: Weld for Birmingham, which is already raising all sorts of hell in the Magic City with their investigative chops.
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​Go for it, folks: I've been the boss of illegal immigrants before! Love me my DREAM Act students, as they're some of the most motivated, talented individuals I've ever encountered--and more than a few of them have journalism degrees, which has allowed me to have them help me in my various media endeavors over the years. In fact, I think any smart newsroom should have a DREAMer in their midst--free labor! But, of course, that won't happen because media organizations care too much about the law and shit.
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​SO...I've been sitting on this announcement for months, partly because I fully expected it to fall through, but here we are: next week is the world debut of ¡Ask a Mexican! in play form, in New York.

Rejoice, racialists!

But it's a much-bigger deal than me just doing my usual rant for alt-weekly rags like this one, folks: I'm shooting for the Off-Broadway stars!
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​Reason Magazine, the nation's premier libertarian publication, firmly believes in the free market, and part of that free market is wantonly ripping off other ideas. That's the explanation for their decision this week to host a day of YouTube clips called "Ask a Libertarian," in which editors Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie took questions via Twitter, email, and Facebook and answered them via YouTube, just like I do with my ¡Ask a Mexican! column. They'd call themselves captains of industry; I call them appropriating capitalists. Unless they're anyone but Steve Allen, they've stolen my bit!
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​Reason is one of my favorite publications, right up there with the Fortean Times, Harper's and the International Socialist Review. Their politics are nearly like mine: Voltaire-esque commitment to speech of all kind, love of irreverence, anti-imperialist, anti-Drug War and redevelopment, pro-open borders, etc. (we only differ on the love of money and Ayn Rand).

So I was thrilled when the Reason gang asked me to sit down with Nick Gillespie, editor of their website, who interviews celebrities, interesting minds--and now me--for Reason.tv, their collection of YouTube conversations.

After the jump, cabrones!
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​If I weren't so enamored of covering Orange County--from the restaurants to the pedophile priests, skinheads and Don Papi Pulido--I could easily live as a professional Mexican, caring about nothing except what affects wabs. As it stands, I can only address national Mexi issues with my ¡Ask a Mexican! column, but that hasn't stopped people from asking me what I think of Top Gear, the BBC show under fire for its hosts cracking jokes about Mexicans.

My response after the jump!
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