The Pop Culture of Gus Lequerica

A Conciliation Theory ( A Reason to Dislike The Learning Channel)

By: Gus Lequerica

In the mass communication theory, there is a segment that says about two possible theories to explain the functions of television, one is to entertain and the other is to inform; both theories can’t be conciliated into one because they express two different polarities of communication theory. Some people said that is impossible to inform on television without entertaining, take a look at CNN and Fox News, both channels inform but in a sensationalistic way they had to entertain first before the information. Just take a look when they give headline.

But probably you already know this without even studying Communications; during one day of slackery I tuned up the TLC channel, I don’t understand why this channel is named The Learning Channel?, there is everything else except learning, but maybe the audience learn about voyeurism and idiocy by watching at people like Jon and Kate or Trading Spouses (just to name a few) it should be called the Reality Network but not the Learning Channel because there is not enough content that can inform and educate people and all that leaves with the main segment of the communicational theory where television has a primary purpose to entertain and that’s it.

The main reason to hate TLC is the reason that what is the TLC itself and it shows every single negative aspect of communications where it relegate the viewer to a position of a peeper and not a intelligent person who can choose the content he or she wants, but the contradiction of the stamen is that people in theory can choose whatever they want on television but reading statistics about how in vogue are gossip sites and magazines, it makes me wonder if society is rotten enough to consider more of positive models people who appear in reality shows rather than people who works for their communities or create beautiful art or music. Is impossible to understand how sadistic and exhibitionistic shows like Extreme Makeover Home Edition, Trading Spouses, Little People, Jon and Kate or Little People Big World generate more ratings than a orchestra broadcast.

I can’t see anything good on communications handling because one way I see exploitation in the ratings with lesser individuals who person with no scrupulous like to exploit their tragedies just to make feel the viewers better about their own personal reflections. Maybe one of the most sadistic shows that is on T.V. is Extreme Makeover, because they smile at the end without really giving a happy ending, as you know in life there is no happy ending at the end of the episode and everybody don’t look as fake as in T.V., but hey! At the end that’s just television.

Only in Hollywood, art mimics reality and only in Hollywood where a druggie can play a druggie in fiction and that’s the case of our beloved has been now druggie, Lindsay Lohan version 2.0 Mischa Fartone will play a drug addict model in Ashton More new television show “The Beautiful Life“, oh La Bella Vita.On the other hand check the pics below by TMZ.com at least Fartone looks kind of rested after her brief stint in the mental facility… Only in Hollywood you go crack, then whack and you can get a job!. Well at least Mischa is lucky and she got a job opposite to La Lesbo!

No my dears this is not an article of Miss Heighl doing the role of She-Ra (Although I think she can do the part because her face has similar expressions with the classic cartoon) this is a small list why I hate and like Katherine “Isobel” Heighl. Know reading at her imdb.com profile she is only a couple of years older than me, six to be exact and she acts like she own the small screen and everyone has to render the world to her feet; I don’t know how someone can act in a such spoiled way… not to mention Miley “The Smiley” Cyrus… maybe it was from Katherine that Miley learned to act like major rotten princess, but still I don’t know why so many people think this excuse for an actress is nice in real life as the characters she plays.

Pro:
1) The girl can act, that’s for sure!.
2) She is spunky and vivacious on screen (too bad she is a mayor beyutch in real life)
3) She has poise at the public events (sometimes)
4) She looks most of the time really good and elegant (except with the cigarette)
5) She deserved her Emmy on the first occasion (not the second, see reason number two, line two).

Cons: (Prepare for the good)
1) She is annoying and selfish
2) Ellen Pompeo is less annoying on screen and a sweetheart in real life.
3) She is self centered and she exploited the Isaiah Washington remarks on T.R. Knight just to look like she was the best friend in the world (talking to the media that you are hag don’t make you the best friend in the world sweety)
4) She’s always smoking.
5) She acts like a diva, why she wasn’t written out instead of T.R.? Even if T.R. was a diva himself but he was more entertaining on screen.
6) When she cries she looks like Spongebob.
7) When she laughs she looks and hear like Spongebob.
Her major achieves are being a hag by convenience just to improve her image and play characters by the name of Isabel or Isobel.
9) She is egocentric and spoiled, why the heck she withdraw her name from the Emmy’s? (Smells like a future veto)
10) According to reports she is unprofessional and brash toward many of her crew (damn! this looks like a female version of Christian Bale, I wonder if she ever has a tape)

For further information read the Mock Dock about why this spoiled princess is so hated and loved by many.

Still Life (Alternative version)By: Gustavo Lequerica

They woke up in the white hot room, without knowing their names of how they ended there; they started to ask questions about each other then. There was a man, a woman and a girl. The man looked at them he tried to ask a question but they didn’t reply back at first, the girl was looking at the man with fear like she knew who he was “Answer me, who are you?!” shout the man to the two ladies, then the girl stood up from where she was sitting “We are no one, as so do you, we are part of everything in the wide world”, “But where is the world?” asked the man more calmly, “It is somewhere there beyond the white hot room” said the girl with a grin in her face. “So where are we?” “We are nowhere, but you are here, you are thinking, acting and breathing, so I was”.

The man looked strangely to the little girl, because she knew logics and linguistic paradoxes that were beyond the comprehension of a normal toddler. The man started to think, “What I was doing before going inside the White Hot Room?”, “How I ended here?”, the man didn’t knew, he just woke up there. He thought all the possible answers but he couldn’t remember anything about himself and about his life.

The White Hot Room was a small cramped four wall room, with two chairs and only two people living in it, a woman in her late 40’s and a girl who appeared to be 8 years old and maybe less. “We been here for a while” said the girl to the man, “You are a smart girl for your age” said the man. “I’m not as young, the same as you are not as old, as she is not in complete”, “I don’t understand you little girl?”, “it’s simple Sir, the fractions of the part are the equal to everything, and that’s why we are here, we are everything”, “I don’t get it” replied the man with a face in blank.

The girl didn’t said anything more and returned to her seat, looking at the white walls; then the woman stood from her seat and approached to the man. “It seems you don’t get it Julian” said the woman touching the man’s face. “So my name is Julian” replied the man with a smile in his face. “I am dead?” asked the man to the woman, “No you aren’t, you see Julian, time is paradox, a dharma, an endless cycle and a mere mirage; what is here, what it was it’s what is going to exist, there is no linearity, but we are mirages of the own universe, tiny aspects that reflect a biggest conscience than yours or mine”. Julian started to think about how he ended there, but there weren’t answers to some questions regarding existence. He knew he was dragged there by someone else, because he didn’t wanted to be there, but he felt confusion like he was in hell.

“Maybe I’m in hell” said Julian to the woman, “No you aren’t, hell is between men what they made” “then I am in heaven?” “No because you are still alive and breathing well”. Julian was confused, and decided to went back where did he came, it wasn’t a door but he disappeared from the White Hot Room in less than a blink to take. Julian woke up in the route x22, he felt he overslept; he took out his wallet and looked for a photo he carried all the time, a photo that it was taken when he was a little girl.

Cali Dreaming
(Short Story)

By: Gus Lequerica

They were remembering their life in the city under the full moon near the Putumayo River; life was sweet in the good old days, but the times in the good place were matter of past and there were chaotic epochs where people couldn’t trust one another like their grandparents did. Ingrid was her name, she was away since 6 years ago and only she could look the night every and thought about her kids and her mom, she was like she called in a self imposed retreat, but she was avoiding the real truth and that truth was reflected in her eyes, her face and her body.

After half a decade away from home, even if she was in her country, she felt the melancholy of going every night to her bed and eat a decent meal; she didn’t care about being political anymore, she wanted to go home. She was feeling like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz but with no Wizard to ask a wish so she could go home. She closed her eyes many times, she wished to a passing star, but her reality was that she was kidnapped.

Every night she cried under the Claire de Lune, and she heard the crickets and the best of the jungle roar, she thought every night to kill herself, to set herself free because of the mistake she made. She couldn’t took the abuse anymore and she tried to run, but she ended raped by a man she didn’t knew, she cried and she send her mind away but that time the pain was more physical than she could take, she started to cry and the man in the green uniform hit her with a plank on her face.

When she woke up, she knew she dreamt about being with her mom, she started to cry again asking God why she was in that place?, she knew it was her fault because many people said to her “don’t go”, still she went and 6 years later she was living in a hell she created. Many other people were like her, some of them didn’t had nexus to the state, they were people that were caught in a bad place; but every single individual under the nightly stars and the rubber trees that were a couple steps away the infinite rivers of the Colombian prism, where victims no matter what politicians said.

(more…)

God’s Song

Chapter Two

Part One

There was an inner war on Earth, it wasn’t a war were governments disputed a land or war they fought for their own interest; it was a secret civil war between humanity and “the others”, not many people knew about “the others” existence because there was some conspiracy between the U.S., U.K. and the Brazil Governments to keep the existence of the special people in silence.

 My name is Benjamin Patterson, recently since the Maury Island incident there has been a couple of cases around the globe in the past 4 years. Some people in the internet have been writing their encounters with a nationalist militia called “The Gene Nation” who they have been helping special people like them to overcome the fear of their gifts but at the same time their actions aren’t completely altruistic, they kidnap the individuals they protect and they exterminate the witnesses most of the time to leave no trail behind; in 2005 there were reports of a “cryptid” in the outskirts of the Amazonian Brazil who had intelligent behavior and walked like a man; the same situation happened several times in the Caucasian region of Asia where people assured to have seen an homin creature roaming near the villages gathering for food; but probably the most strange case wasn’t about any individual with special abilities or mutated animals, it was the account that many people said about a group of individuals who dressed in black and where hunting down all the anomalies worldwide, the survivors of the encounter always said the same name “the strangers”

I’ve been trying to gather information about the next step in evolution since a strange incident I had in Elkhorn, Wisconsin near Bray Road in the year 2000 when I encountered a werewolf (or a strange hybrid), but the strange thing was that the creature didn’t attacked me, or showed any sign of aggression, he spoke to me he said in a rudimentary English “I’m being hunt, please help me”, he gave me an expression that he was truly in fear, and after a couple of seconds we heard a gunshot, he ran away quickly as soon he saw I couldn’t do nothing for him. A couple of men who dressed in black run by my side really quickly, they didn’t saw me; they were focused on their prey.

The next morning, there was a titular in the Elkhorn Gazette “Killer Shot Down In the Legendary Bray Road”. I thought it was a mere coincidence, but when I started to put my thoughts in order I didn’t remember anyone last night beside me, my broken car, the strange wolf and the hunters. The newspaper gave details about the shooting; the name of the individual was Graham Wilson, a reclusive man who lived in the proximities of Bray Road; he was an eccentric individual according to the newspaper but there weren’t any pieces of concrete information about Graham’s past and his link to a series of murders that happened in the 80’s, beside some scrap books about the murders. One fact that I couldn’t pass by was that the wolf and Graham shared the similar facial features such as black hair and blue eyes.

It was the first time I speculated for the first time about mutations after my encounter with the werewolf of Bray Road, I couldn’t believe he was a beast as I saw some traces of humanity in his eyes, but I don’t know at the end maybe he was trying to survive and learned to speak. There was something weird going on around and not many people seemed aware of; it was the first time I knew I had something out of the ordinary in my hands that was worth to investigate.

There are more stories as the Beast of Bray Road across the United States as well the world, stories that mix between fiction and the overactive imagination of the witnesses. It’s hard to tell where fiction meets reality, but one thing I truly believe that mutations didn’t appeared for the first time in 1988 with the Incident at Maury Island, I believe that in the human history there always have been mutants, special people who can achieve the impossible; but also I think, sometimes mutations created disfigurements… I really think that Graham or the Werewolf of Bray Road was a mutant whose gift in some way cursed him and alienated him from humanity.

This is one odd note to write, but if you live in the States you will know that there is a Butter Statues Pavilion in the Iowa State Fair that every year sculptures make sculptures of the most influential people around the States, sounds pretty cool but maybe the headline told the key aspect of this note; there was going to be a Michael in this year fail, well there was a statue, but it was melted down after many complaints that a man with a dubious personal life shouldn’t be honored. The organizers said the butter sculpture was made to honor the late King of Pop as the influential artist he was, but town folk started to complaint and said that Michael Jackson wasn’t a role model because of his child abuse allegations; that is a biased comment specially because he was proven as innocent and in this country you are innocent until justice say the opposite. Hey what the heck Harry Potter is honored? Is only a fictional character and as soon the 8th movie ends it’s going to be a thing of the past and what the heck as Harry done for the arts? Nothing at all.

It’s a shame that a great piece of art was melted, I think the artist was really talented and retentive in the details of his Bad persona… and at the end, who wants to see a freaky butter cow, I guess nobody with some common pop culture sense, I can see a cow only 20 minutes from my home and sometimes only a couple of minutes away in a farm that is near me, I live in a rural area that’s why. but a freaking butter cow, please! get real a butter cow over Michael Jackson, give me a break!.

Oh my God! was the first thing I thought when I heard Brooke’s Hogan new song, but how can’t be heard it? if she trashes against her mother / sister Linda Hogan. Oh my God! why she can’t have a dose of sensitivity and call her mom or arrange a meeting and keep all their business private?, is something shameful to see how a family has a war against themselves. I wish that little (Bolea) Hogan read this “Brooke your mother loves you and you have to understand that it was a traumatic time when she lost her marriage and her only son was sent to jail for leaving his friend in a catatonic state, so stop acting like a 15 year old DIVA and act according your age, you are not a child you are a full grown up woman so stop with that tantrum expressed through a song and apologize to your mother because that is the first step if you want to create some peace between your family, is never to late” and what about the song? My score a 3 over 5, the rhythm is mediocre, the lyrics are repetitive and not even in a gay club they want to dance that because is only a little girl winning, be proactive in your life you are a smart, independent girl who can achieve a lot and keep your family problems private don’t famewhore them because you aren’t selling enough records, and if you want to share the experience don’t do it in such a cheap way because money can come and go but true friends and family can last forever. I really hope you read this someday.

In the meantime here is the dubious video, enjoy!

Somewhere Upon the Roof
I envy those who stayed back at home,
they stayed because of tradition,
they stayed because it was their land,
they dance all night in las calles de la ciudad vieja,
and somewhere upon the roof they keep to manage their desires alive,
we are what we eat,
we are what how we act,
we are what we fight,
and even if it’s difficult to stay faithful to our truths
we keep up there,
and we don’t walk alone those lonely night,
because all those problems seem to be matter of yesterday.

The rock band Radiofonika from Cartagena de Indias, launched to the market their debut album “No Corran Que Es Peor” a compilation of nine original songs that compose rock from funk. The band states that their music is to entertain people and to make them have a good time.The launching will this Saturday, july 18th in the Convention Center of Cartagena de Indias, in the Arsenal Avenue at 9p.m. Their debut album “No Corran Que es Peor” is being heard in the different radio stations with the song “La Chica Radiofonika”, a rhythmic song that is perfect for this summer and any holiday when you want to have a good time.

After the launching, the band is going on a national tour through Barranquilla, Santa Marta, Medellin and Bogota. Since they started in the year 2005, the group has been in the spotlight in a national level. They were chosen Colombian artist o the week in 2007 by the rock station Radionica where the group had the first place with the song “La Vida es Un Baile”, the same year the tunes where played in Mexico, where they reached number one in the category of Indy bands.