Hello friends!

Scheming with the bro

Drive by shooting kids in our neighborhood…with water guns!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha better known as Desi ArnazMarch 2, 1917 - December 2, 1986
“Desi Arnaz was one of the most significant figures in American entertainment, but not in the way most people realize. His gifts as a bandleader and a proponent of Latin music at a time when that sound wasn’t so familiar to the American public were obvious, but his great, even extraoridnary, contributions to Hollywood were more subtle than that.
We all know that Lucille Ball was the great female comic genius of the twentieth century, and that their show, I Love Lucy, which in my opinion is the most important television show ever produced, was a perfect showcase for her tremendous talent. What we don’t often appreciate is that Desi was the man who understood her talent and knew exactly how to spotlight it; if I Love Lucy made history, it is especially because of Desi’s genius as a producer. The television we watch to this day is based on a format he created to help his wife be her very best. The three cameras, the filming instead of going live in New York, the studio audience, the concept of reruns - all of it shot Lucy into the stratosphere. All of it shaped the next sixty years of television production. Practically all of it was his idea. All of it exploded a system that even the studios hadn’t fully appreciated, but he did.
All of it born from this Cuban man, being so totally Cuban that he sang songs in Spanish every week on national television (another breakthrough with huge impact: say thank you, Gloria Estefan and Shakira), this Cuban man who was told that people wouldn’t buy him with an American wife (never mind they’d been married for years), this Cuban man invented the sitcom form as we know it. And all of it stemmed from the love of one man for one woman, putting the very truth to this statement that I Love Lucy was never just a title. Aren’t we lucky that it happened? Aren’t we lucky that it was true?”
- Raul Esparza

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha better known as Desi Arnaz
March 2, 1917 - December 2, 1986

“Desi Arnaz was one of the most significant figures in American entertainment, but not in the way most people realize. His gifts as a bandleader and a proponent of Latin music at a time when that sound wasn’t so familiar to the American public were obvious, but his great, even extraoridnary, contributions to Hollywood were more subtle than that.

We all know that Lucille Ball was the great female comic genius of the twentieth century, and that their show, I Love Lucy, which in my opinion is the most important television show ever produced, was a perfect showcase for her tremendous talent. What we don’t often appreciate is that Desi was the man who understood her talent and knew exactly how to spotlight it; if I Love Lucy made history, it is especially because of Desi’s genius as a producer. The television we watch to this day is based on a format he created to help his wife be her very best. The three cameras, the filming instead of going live in New York, the studio audience, the concept of reruns - all of it shot Lucy into the stratosphere. All of it shaped the next sixty years of television production. Practically all of it was his idea. All of it exploded a system that even the studios hadn’t fully appreciated, but he did.

All of it born from this Cuban man, being so totally Cuban that he sang songs in Spanish every week on national television (another breakthrough with huge impact: say thank you, Gloria Estefan and Shakira), this Cuban man who was told that people wouldn’t buy him with an American wife (never mind they’d been married for years), this Cuban man invented the sitcom form as we know it. And all of it stemmed from the love of one man for one woman, putting the very truth to this statement that I Love Lucy was never just a title. Aren’t we lucky that it happened? Aren’t we lucky that it was true?”

- Raul Esparza