Manuel Noriega's Red Underwear and the New Adventures of Juan Valdez

Back in the day in Connecticut, when the vision of Tex[t]-Mex was just a sparkle in its Daddy's eye, I remember giving papers at conferences on the vagaries of the Colombian Coffee Growers' Federation icon Juan Valdez and the covert labyrinthine erotics (including CIA psychological operations) of Manuel Noriega's red underwear--thematic predilections that signaled all that was to come, silly, comedic, and serious, in my peculiar academic career. "Valdez," the one I grew up with, was a curious chap, played by an actor named Carlos Sánchez, and whose voice was dubbed by Norman Rose. What was most curious about this Latino icon was that Sánchez was Panamanian not Colombian (cue here the fading shade of Jean Baudrillard wagging his finger, epithets of "simulacra" exiting his mug). That's when things got really gnarly--"Panama" was part of "Colombia" until the U.S. government intervened and started pulling strings here and there in order to pull off and profit from the Panama Canal deal. I had always meant to write up that conference talk, a nightmare rich in the kind of ironies--especially with regard to U.S. foreign policy--that keep you up at night.

So it was with nostalgic pleasure today that I opened my StumbleUpon browser and found a missive from Professor Michael Harper, my co-conspirator at Mount San Antonio College, who tips me to this timely story of the NEW adventures of Juan Valdez!

Ethnic mannequins of the world, unite! The video on the 2nd page is a priceless concoction worthy of Faulkner, Dali or Buñuel.