(12)Jeanette Santiago

Hey everyone! I hope you are all enjoying this blog as much as I enjoy writing it! This week, there hasn't been as much news as last week, but there are enough of them for us to dig deeply into! We have the Brit awards, updates on the deaths of Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa and more, including the death of David Hasselhoff's former wife, and more! Also, March Madness is in it's fiery middle as we speak!!!

First, I was just called a Liberal retard by someone online..LOL! I mean, she had the guts to call me liberal!!!!! The thing happened because someone posted a photo of a plane crashing under the headline "America's most loved family dies!" (hint: nobody died!) ..and someone made a comment that "too bad it wasn't (Barack) Obama and his husband Mike (wife Michelle) who died!" to which I answered that it is not in good taste to joke about anyone's death, so she insulted me. What this person does not know is her insults don't bother me, because I have an IQ of 120 (near genius) and not a liberal but a centrist. But some people get offended when we tell them the truth. oh, well, what can you do?

On to more serious stuff....so the saga of the deaths of Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa continues...As you all know, they died approximately on February 17th of this year. At first, people were abuzz talking about many theories, including murder, suicide, or a combination of bith. But the New Mexico police were quick to point out that they did not suspect any of those scenarios. Instead, it turned out that Betsy Arakawa had died about February 11th from Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, and that Hackman was apparently unaware of her death because he was suffering from a publicly undisclosed case of Alzheimer's disease. He died of heart failure one week after her.

To us who remember him as the iconic Lex luthor of Superman films and as popeye of the French Connection films and as the coach from Hoosiers and the FBI agent in Mississippi Burning, and who care about his wife as a human being, this is truly disheartening and distressful news. Our hearts go to their families as well as our condolences.

Meanwhile, David Hasselhoff and his family as well as the families of his former wife also had tragic news this week. Pamela Bach, the actor and singer's former wife, was found dead on march 5th, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The Police has declared her death to be a suicide. this is very heart-breaking. Bach, who was super gorgeous, was sixty one. She had two children. Suicide is still too prevalent in our age and era in this world. Who knows what reason she had to commit such an act but we need to keep on fighting the depression disease until no one else kills themselves. If this is what makes me a liberal, so be it. Roots for depression may include abandonment and the feeling of loneliness, addictions, abusive relationships and other types of abuses (all kinds of abuses) , telling people they are bound to go to hell for different things, or that they no longer are considered family for things that are not really that big, post-traumatic-stress-syndrome, poverty and many other types of abuses. Maybe it's time we can all, as a human race, hug others (except the very brutal criminals) and sit down and listen to each other? Pur condolences go also to the Hasselhoff, Bach and Weissenbach (Pamela Bach's birth last name) families.

So....ok, now to the lighter side of things!

Serena Williams will become a WNBA team owner! It's amazing that almost thirty years later, the American Women's National Basketball Association is still around, despite all the naysayers! I remember when I was young and as a basketball player who averaged 14 points per game in my league, and, at the town's varsity level, off the team's bench, almost one point per game, I dreamed of someday seeing a woman play in the National Basketball Association. While that never came about, the N.B.A. decided on the next best thing, and in 1996, they decided to invent a Women's N.B.A., which, again, despite all the negative comments by people-mostly men-I always enjoyed. Well, 28 years, many hoops and, many, many points scored and air miles traveled later, here we are. And in the first week of March of this year, the super hot, tennis queen Serena Williams announced she will be one of the owners of the first W.N.B.A. team not to be from the United States, the Toronto Tempo. I bet Jill is happy!!!I promised Jill if the Temp win a title, I'll travel to Ontario and join her in drinking a bottle of Crown Royal Vanilla so we can both be two drunk Spice Girls!!!!!

Also, I dare you show me an African American woman as beautiful as Serena Williams! (ok, ok, I concede....the late Dorothy Dandrige, Betsy Coleman and Donna Summers, as well as Vanessa Williams, a young Diana Ross, Halle Berry and Serena's sister Venus all qualify!)

Talking about Spice Girls, I'd have to also fly Courtenay, Cindy and Deb to Ontario to celebrate! It would be a marrrrveeellloooouuuussssss blast! Freaking marvelous!!!! Netrat.......I'd ask the other girls to see if we can invite you, barhopper!

And, talking about celebrations, the British continued celebrating. This time, they celebrated the Brit Music Awards for 2025. Performers included Sabrina Carpenter, who sang her "Expreso", as well as Teddy Swims (but, where to?) with three songs, Myles Smith with two, JADE with "Angel of my Dreams" The Last Dinner Party with "Nothing Matters", Lola Young with "Messy", Sam Fender with "People Watching", and the Ezra Collective group (of which netRat is not a member, contrary to popular belief) and the beautiful Jorja Smith, the latter two joining together for a set of four songs.

Soooo....as far as the major awards winners, they included Charli XCX (five times, first for Song of the Year, for "Guess" (along with Billie EIlish) and for British Album of the Year with "Brat", for British Artist of the year, Best Dance Act and Songwriter of the Year, while the Rhythm and Blues group, Ezra Collective won for British group, JADE won Best Pop Act, Raye woin for best R&B act, Sam Fender won for best Alternative/rock act, Stormzy took home the best hip-hop/grime/rap act trophy home, Chapell Roan won both best international Act and song, The Last Dinner Party won best new artist and Fontaines D.C. won for International Group of the Year.

Wow, that is a lot of winners!! Marvelous!!!

As far as the fashions....Sabrina Carpenter wore a classy, Alexander McQueen pink dress that looked like something taken out of Victorian-era England. As I said on my blog previous to this one, McQueen's are always winners. Perhaps take that thing that looked like a rag curtain near her legs and you got perfection!

Big-time winner Charlie XCX looked like she was wearing nothing but ripped-open pants on her black Dilara Findicoglu outfit (we wish!!). But these are the Brit Awards and you are supposed to be having fun and be wild! So it fit perfectly with the occasion!

Jorja Smith looked like she stepped on a blue trash bag with her 16Arlington dress....again..Brit Awards..her black boots added a touch of elegance.

Jourdan Dunn in Mugler was the picture of elegance, She reminded us of the fashions of the 1980s and of models like Grace Jones and Christie Brinkley in her coolness and fashion sense. Even if this was worn at the Paris Fashion Week, it would have been totally in place.

And the hot girl group, The Last Dinner Party, were a mix of hit-and-miss with their fashion choices, but they look like a young, hip, fun-loving bunch!

So, March Madness is on!!! The celebration, a yearly college basketball tournament in the United States, will begin with selection Sunday, on March 16th. Yes, you heard it right! Selection Sunday!

What the heck is Selection Sunday, you may ask yourself? That's the day where a committee sits down and selects the teams who will play in the tournament, and the ones who will go to a secondary, "National Invitation Tournament", which is like a relegation league in Association Football. The problem is, sometimes teams with a record of, like, 26 wins and 5 losses end up sent to the "NIT" and not the main tournament. This is a problem that has plagued the National College Athletics Association for decades, and a playoffs system has been proposed instead of a selection process, but no one has done anything to change the system. Regardless, the teams chosen are usually considered among the best teams in American universities and the tournament has brought us many classic moments, both in the women's and the men's division The 1979 finals between Larry Bird's Indiana State and Magic Johnson's Michigan State is just one of the many memorable games we have had.

Hopefully, this year, it will be another great tournament!

So....I just had a dream, and Netrat's nightmare.....ok, so you know how I always talk about my Spice Girls that consist of me, Cindy, Courtenay, Deb and Jilly, right? I was just dreaming about forming yet another group, one that would take MTV, all the magazines, and all coliseums and stadiums by storm....a group consistent of transgender, or, as Netrat would say, CIF girls!!!!! It would be me, Jazz Jennings, Vivian Wilson,Evie MacDonald and Janet Mock! Sorry, Jilly! You were not born with the right equipment to be in this group, girl, although I love ya!!! Now, I know, i know, we are all totally different ages, but hey! it's my fantasy!!!!!! Im sure we'd fill the stadiums with men

who'd tell their wives they are going to buy bread and are sneaking to see us perform instead!

One who is not living in fantasy-land is my good friend from childhood, Jorge Antares. Antares, a Puerto Rican actor, met me in church when I was a singer at the church's adult choir when I was 14 and Jorge was a member of a Christian pop band named Ebenezer, We practiced on Wednesdays and they did on Saturdays, but since the church lay exactly in front of my house and I wanted to make friends with everyone, i used to haul my ass there and hang out. With time, Jorge moved to FLorida where he worked at Walt Disney for some time, then returned to Puerto Rico and has been very active filming movies there, He has about 20 or so Puerto Rican movies to his credit now, The latest one is called "Shakti: La Batalla Continua!" and Jorge plays Shakti! According to what we have learned, this was an intense job that involved three months of pre-production, 25 days of filming, and some of those stretching for 10 or 11 hours. i know. I was in a film named Eight legged Freaks and when you act in movies, its going to sleep at 11 PM, only to be back on the set at 5 AM sharp. It's a hard job! Jorge is also the director of the Caguas film commission. Caguas is the 127,000 people city where I grew at. Not a tiny city by any means!

Im almost finished for this week....I promise! But, one last note. The woman who is in jail for the murder of the ultra-famous Mexican=American singer and example to all Hispanics Selena Quintanilla, Yolanda Saldivar,told her family she feels that she is a political prisoner at this point, weeks before her parole hearing is to be heard! Well, no shit! She was arrested at the Days Inn hotel in 1995 the day Selena was shot dead at the same area, with a gun pointing at her head! I believe in forgiveness, but if you do not want to do the time, do not do the crime! Plain and simple!

Anyways, this is it for now. Remember..if God loves even Yolanda Saldivar, He loves you! And so do Netrat and me!!!

C-ya next week my loco readers! (you have to be crazy to read this column!!. or, maybe you are not, but I talk so much I make you all crazy regardless!!)

Marvelous!!!!!!!!!!