Lucha VaVoom - Cinco de Mayo Spectacular

Lucha VaVoom just had their Cinco de Mayo celebration at the Mayan Theater (photos below), as well as a show in Chicago! For those of you who don't know, Lucha VaVoom is probably the best event for lucha libre within the US borders! Not only is it masked Mexican wrestling, but it also combines burlesque dancing, comedy acts, music, and a party-like atmosphere. It's something more out of yesteryear Hollywood with vaudeville style vignettes of different skits, and performances, sandwiched between muscled men duking it out in the ring. How can you say no to all this fun?
Lucha VaVoom started in 2002, and has been going strong, and now is branching outside LA, into San Francisco and Chicago. It's definite the show that people talk about weeks, even months after attending!

Aztec Dancers in celebration!

The following photos are from the LA Weekly slideshow, all photographed by Timothy Norris. More amazing photos from all the Lucha VaVoom's history can be seen at their official website: http://luchavavoom.com/ Also, before you get to the photos, if you'd like to hear a story on Lucha VaVoom by NPR, check out this link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103797887

As a word of caution, some of the following photos may not be suitable for a work environment. No nudity, but there will be scantily clad women, bare chested wrestlers, and all sorts of entertainment below:

El Látigo trilogy

Today, I received two of the three El Látigo films on dvd. Essentially, El Látigo is "not-Zorro" if you catch my drift. Mask, hat, cape, black attire, fights with a whip, but please don't confuse him with Don Diego de la Vega. I'm assuming the creators didn't want to tangle with Zorro Productions Inc, so they made this knock-off. But interestingly, Zorro Productions Inc has gone after look-alikes such as the  2001 tv series Queen of Swords. This is probably why El Látigo hasn't been easily attainable on DVD.
For anyone who knows me, Zorro is my ultimate super hero. He's like Batman, without the gadgets, and fights for the people of México, back when México also consisted of the Southwest of the United States. I love the time period, I love sword fighting, I love westerns; Zorro is about as great as it comes in my book. I have just about every book I can get a hold of for a decent price (Still trying to get a two volume complete Johnston McCulley Zorro stories), I have all the movies, serials, tv shows, comics, and other memorabilia I can obtain. Now my journey is to a point where I've started looking for unofficial Zorro films, such as this very interesting Látigo Zorro-imposter.

The series includes:

 

I now have the first two, so if any of you know where I can find El Látigo contra Satanas, hook me up!

At the moment, I'm preparing for the Spokane ComiCon coming up Saturday, May 21st. I'm pretty tied up getting artwork ready to sell. But I am planning on reviewing these, along with a slew of other films, books, and comics.  Keep an eye out, it just depends. I'm a student, employee of a hospital, freelance artist, plus caretaker to my new blog. Things might get hectic, but I like being busy as well. I'm pretty stoked to see not-Zorro fighting a bunch of Egyptian style mummies, so I might just make room sooner than expected!