http://www.cubico.com/feeds/entertainment.xml2007-07-16T15:14:25ZCUBICO Media4Francisco "Pretzel" Garcia

Trevelen Rabanal saddles his latest creation, a growling and graceful beauty-piece built of copper, silver, iron, and nickel he’s christened Crazy Horse.

The highway road seems to have no end when stretched across the length of the red earthen canvas that makes up much of the great southwest desert lands. It’s the only strip of pavement around for miles, but more importantly it’s Trevelen Rabanal’s sole corridor to Albuquerque. He saddles his latest creation, a growling and graceful beauty-piece built of copper, silver, iron, and nickel he’s christened Crazy Horse. Emblazoned on each side of the bike’s Candy Root Beer Brown-painted fuel tank, the name stands like a placaso with stylish script as beefy as any title screen Tarantino can project across a movie theatre. The seat itself is press-imprinted leather, I say saddle because it’s style and design makes the ones used by northern Mexico vaqueros come to mind. Sporting locs, a dark flannel, the ’stache and goatee of an LA OG, and a head that seems to stay away from anything longer than a one-clip trim, this Easy Rider scene may seem more Eastside Rider than anything. Los Angeles-based indeed, Trevelen’s trip to Burque is part of his appearance in the televised Biker Build-Off series, a show in which craftsmen from the elite circles of chopper and custom-cruiser bike-building shops compete head-to-head for the best design. The destination spot for Trevelen is the actual competition event in which both bikes, one by his own Super Company Customs bike shop an the other by the boys at Indian Larry Legacy, will be judged against each other. It’s a 1,000-mile trip across the land intended to ’break-in’ each ride, a bike for which they each had only 10 days to build. Amidst the dust of construction and renovation that has yet to settle upon a quickly transforming downtown Los Angeles is located Trevelen and crew’s Superco Customs, makers of, as they put it, custom hand built death traps. It’s here on the triangle-tipped corner of 3rd Street and Alameda that you’ll now find the Biker Build-Off trophy, won earlier this year, residing. Housed under these roofs are the elder Chilly Willy along with Mansion Mike, Trevelen, Nicholas and Omar, together they span four generations of bike builders. Mansion Mike, who Trevelen watched build bikes when he was younger, is father to showroom and front office manager Tiffany, his eldest. Together, they all make up the LA establishment of chopper and custom cruiser design that is Super Company Customs. With names like El Peligroso, El Jefe, Dickies, and El Guapo, the creations coming out of the Superco shop are no doubt stylistically and aesthetically influenced by their geo-cultural locality. Like the art of Mister Cartoon, the photography of Estevan Oriol, and music of the Boo-Yaa Tribe, all folks that are listed as camaradas on the Superco website link page, the work of Trevelen and the crew is undeniably reppin’ it’s LA base brown-side of the concrete river banks to be exact. But more than just vato aesthetics, one good look at their collection proves that depth of knowledge and experience in chopper fabrication at large is at the foundation of their success. On the shop’s website, custom Impala, Caddy, and Buick Riviera ranflas are on display alongside the matas that have made a name for them. Spilling over and across the LA River from the eastside, lowrider culture is an integral part of barrio cultura, and not just in LA and San Jose. These days you’ll find pockets of lowrider aficionados decking out their rides as far out, or east, as Japan. In it’s early years, Trevelen’s shop use to have a niche in that very market, doing jobs for overseas buyers of LA-flavored good, before it began to focus mostly on bikes. But don’t get it wrong, this is no jump on the chopper bandwagon of some kind of right-place right-time success story. Shirts reading West Coast or Orange County Choppers abound these days, knock-off ’Chopper shop’ shirts line the 6-12 racks at dress-for-less department stores everywhere. For Trevelen himself there is more at stake in this business than just a bright idea. This bike craftsman’s father, Benji The Flyin’ Hawaiin Rabanal was a shop owner himself on top of bike racing pavement and dirt tracks. With the presence of his father and his father’s bike buddies chilling, Trevelen has spent his lifetime surrounded by bike culture at least as much as he has by lowrider cruisers and car clubs. Peep the collection of old school photos on his site and you get a glimpse as to the calling that Trevelen had in store for himself. Now, with this win against Larry Indian Legacy, a shop now run by the right-hands of a late and, some say, one of the greatest bike choppers that ever was, Trevelen is making his climb up to the platform of the elite. The eastside ride may be a little more rocky and dangerous, but this homie is likely to easy ride his way closer to his destination if he keeps churning out more of the same. 2Veronica Mendoza

America Ferrera and the character she plays in her new sitcom, "Ugly Betty," have many similarities. Both can be described as intelligent and hard working Latinas who seem to shine from the inside out.

America Ferrera and the character she plays in her new sitcom, "Ugly Betty," have many similarities. Both can be described as intelligent and hard working Latinas who seem to shine from the inside out. Salma Hayek, executive producer of "Ugly Betty," said she knew just from looking at Ferrera that she would be the perfect person to play the role of the sweet and lovable character, Betty Suarez. In a recent interview on "The View," Hayek said the first thing that came to mind when she saw Ferrera was, "Oh my God, this girl shines, she’s a superstar." At only 22 years of age Ferrera has already proven that she is well on her way to being recognized as a respected and talented actress. Ferrera has starred in several big films including, "Real Women Have Curves," and "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." In her first lead role as Ana Garcia in "Real Women Have Curves," Ferrera won and was nominated for several awards. She won a Sundance Jury Award for Best Actress and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance and Young Artist Award for Best Performance for a Leading Young Actress. In addition Ferrera has starred in several independent films such as "Boy Immigrant," and "Steel City." Ferrera has even served as executive producer of the film, "Towards Darkness," by Antonio Negret. In addition to her success behind the camera Ferrera has also found success behind the books. She is currently a student at the University of Southern California where she studies International Relations and Theatre. Ferrera was also Valedictorian of her high school and was able to attend USC on a Presidential Scholarship. Besides having the same intelligence and motivation as the character she plays on "Betty the Ugly," Ferrera also has a similar family upbringing as Betty Suarez on the show. Like Suarez, Ferrera is a first-generation American. Her parents were both born in Honduras but she was raised by her mother in the U.S. Ferrera’s mother is a hotel executive and supervises maids, many of which are Latina. In an interview Ferrera said she saw how hard both her mother and the maids worked and this had a big influence on her as she was growing up. In her new role as "Ugly Betty," Ferrera has continued to prove that she really is a "superstar." When the show premiered it was named the most-watched show of the season. About 16.3 million viewers tuned into the first episode, according to USA Today. The show is a remake of a very popular Columbian novella called, "Yo soy Betty La Fea," which first aired seven years ago. Since then the show has been remade in a number of different countries around the world. Currently there is a Mexican novela based on the original called, "La Fea Mas Bella." Ferrera said in an interview on "The View," that the message of the show is not about being ugly. She hopes that the show’s viewers learn through Betty that being beautiful can not always be found just by looking at someone from the outside. One can definitely see that Ferrera really does have an inner light that shows she is just as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. It is that inner beauty that will have Americans keeping a close eye on her for years to come.1Daria Vyaersi

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is a Mexican film director, who hit the big screen internationally with his film Amores Perros in 1999.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is a Mexican film director, who hit the big screen internationally with his film Amores Perros in 1999, which won an Oscar in the category of Best Foreign Film and the Young Critics Award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. The popularity of Amores Perros is attributed to its vast relatabilty for many inhabitants of Mexico City, which happens to be the birth place of Inarritu. The story focuses on tragedy as a basis for human connection and shows how quickly terror can spread and how human life can be toxic and self-consuming. The plot involves 3 individuals living in a culture of prevalent violence, theft and poverty. Alejandro uses morbid metaphors to portray a torrid love-affair, in which the two characters remain involved simply to extend their chances of survival in such a bitter, dangerous world. Inarritu films encompass the human spirit. He is explorative by nature and his works portray him to be politically diplomatic because he never hesitates to cross any boundary as a means of conveying the power of hope. Though his films are often bleak, they allow us to keep in mind the frailty of human life and how our actions influence our existence--for better or for worse. Inarritu's most recent cinematic release in the United States was the 2006 film, Babel, which compresses two days in the lives of a cast of characters--including Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett--set in the various countries of Morocco, Tunisia, Mexico and Japan, into a 142 minute movie. The film's storyline is based on a tragic chain of events, in which the individuals in these separate countries are tied together by circumstance. This movie demonstrates the haunting realism of contemporary life and causes the audience to be visually enamored and dreadfully fixated on uncountable quantities of anxiety and suffering. This is by no means a film directed at a certain audience, since suffering in itself has no particular profile of faith or nationality and human life is unpredictable by nature. In his early twenties, Inarritu initially became known as an 80s DJ, which rapidly transcended to the film industry in 1988 when Inarritu was asked to compose music for six Mexican feature films. Under the mentorship of Ludwik Margules and Judith Weston in Los Angeles, he soon began delving into the arts of film making and directing--piece after piece, he gained more notoriety. At 27, Inarritu became one of the youngest artistic directors of Televisa, he also went on to found 'Zeta Film', a society for producing films and television programs. In 1995, he directed his first half-length television film, Detrás del dinero, and the rest is cinematic history. Inarritu's ability to present truth in such a riveting fashion is unquestionable. His blatent, realistic portrayal of the sufferings of human life leaves his audience in a state of open-eyed surprise. The power of his craft lies in his ability to capture the true essence of human nature in a way that few directors explore, simply because the subject matter is not aesthetically appealing to the external eye. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is storyteller through film expression, who captures the attention of audiences worldwide, causing his viewers to turn an empathetic ear in the direction of an all-encompassing vision of humanity.