¡OYE! NewsTaco Chats With Univision’s Jorge Ramos

My driver from the Miami airport to the hotel where I was staying for the night asked a simple question: “¿Y de qué van a hablal?” (What are you going to talk about?) she said in her wonderful Cuban accent. I said, “de lo que quiera Jorge.” Whatever Jorge wants. Jorge is Jorge Ramos, the Univision news anchor who also hosts a weekly issues and analysis program called Al Punto. NewsTaco was invited to a panel discussion on his weekly show and being the old TV news horse that I am I hopped on a plane and traveled east.

Mariela, my driver, picked me up at the airport. Let me  set this meeting up: My flight arrived 15 minutes early, big yay. But because the flight was early the assigned gate was occupied. So we sat on the tarmac watching other flights arrive and depart, for about 20 minutes. Then the pilot spoke through the speakers: It seems that the problem was not another flight, it was a technical problem at the gate, thank you for your patience we’ll wait another 15 minutes or so. 25 minutes later again the pilot: thank you for your patience, we’ve been assigned to another gate, at another terminal, on the other side of the airport. We’ll be taxi-ing for a bit. After a slow circumnavigation of Miami International (I swear he went the long way) we arrived at our new gate about an hour after our initial arrival time.

I had no idea where I was or where I was supposed to be and was praying that my car was still waiting for me (yeah, Univision is good that way. They send a car to the airport.). So I wandered around what I later learned was the departure area of the wrong terminal, looking for a car – there were many, just not the one I needed.

I fumbled for my phone, left messages with pertinent people and just about gave in to hailing a cab when I answered a call to Mariela’s voice.

Hello?

Victor?

Si.

¡Oye! ¡Pero Victor, yo ya te hacía muelto (that’s exactly how she said it)!

Cell phones are better than sonar for finding your way through airports, especially if you describe what you’re wearing.

Mariela: ¿Llevas sueter? ¡Pero si no hace frío!

The encounter was fabulous, she was overwhelmed with relief that I wasn’t dead. We trudged through the parking lot to the car, got in and made our way through the evening streets.

¿Tu vas a estar en Al Punto, con Jorge Ramos?

Sí…and before I was able to add anything to that statement “¿y de que van a hablal?” “De lo que quiera Jorge.”

“Ay, el es tan linda gente, muy educado, como todos los Mejicanos.” What followed was a non-stop soliloquy ranging from telenovelas to Mexican food: “Yo soy cubana negra, pero no me diga que Taco Bell e’ comida Mejicana. Yo no me pieldo Al Punto, es muy buen programa, Jorge es lindo” (she made that point several times).

And she’s right, Al Punto is a good program and I was lucky and honored to be a part of it.  It was also good to be back in a professional TV studio with large cameras, complex lighting and folks buzzing around. I was at home.  I chatted with the producers and crew, got some powder on my shiny face, reviewed my notes and dove into the roundtable discussion.

It’s funny how doing TV warps your sense of time, and if you do it long enough it gives you a separate sense of it. The 10 minute discussion felt like an eternal 5. We talked about the health care political theater, the immigration states-rights strategy, the apparent hypocrisy of the Obama administration vis-a-vis global dictators and the coming state of the union address. And just like that it was over.

It was good to reconnect with Jorge, albeit for a moment — we’ve known each other for a long time. And it was good to be back in a TV environment (take the old riding-a-bike metaphor and stick it here).

Mostly, though, is was wonderful to be driven across Miami listening to Mariela’s wonderful chatter.  “Cuando regreses les dices que quieres que Mariela sea tu driver, ¿me oyes?”

Al Punto airs this Sunday, the 23rd, at 10 am eastern, 9 am central time. Get up early, make yourself some coffe, watch it and tell your friends to watch as well.

[Photos courtesy Univision]

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