Gentle cabrones:

I have all sorts of readers — but this canto goes out to a graduating high school senior who’s the daughter of a woman with whom I went to Anaheim High.

Yeah, I can’t believe that turn in life, either.

Met the young lady once at Alta Baja. Faithful reader along with her mom. The young lady also thinks I’m cool because my Los Angeles Times columna about loquats made it into her AP English test last year, making me a TikTok sensation for a few days among America’s nerdiest.

Not bad, considering I was in AP English with her mom but I didn’t take the test because I thought it was for the birds.

Recently, the graduating senior asked if I could pen a canto offering specific tips to her and her peers. Like almost any good idea presented to me throughout my LYFE, I initially said no.

I graduated in 1997 — a generation and geological age ago. I’m also the worst person to give high school advice, because I’m me. Any of you tank Algebra II/Trig on principle just because you were angry about the concept of imaginary numbers after a lifetime of being taught that the square root of something could never be a negative?

Exactly.

But given I’m not giving a commencement speech of some form or other for the first time in years, might as well offer some pointers. So hear, young lady, five maxims you should sear into your mind and tell others.

Community College Above All

The only honor I boast of is being in the Orange Coast College Alumni Hall of Fame (Canto XXX). Community college forever changed me, and not just because it set me on the right academic and mental path. I was able to meet people of all different backgrounds and age groups, which is important for the well-rounded perspective graduating high schoolers need for the decades to come.

Yes, you can get diversity at a four-year university, but not nearly with the same range. Both while a student and as a profe at OCC, I had classmates and students ranging from 16 to 79. I had Republicans, Democrats, socialists and MAGAs. Veterans and kids who had no idea what they were doing, seasoned professionals and foreign exchange students. Instead of being with nothing but smart students, you see those who try but just can’t make it, those who get out at the first glimpse of a challenge, those who learn exponentially in their first taste of scholastics — again, an incredible breadth of the human experience over 16 weeks.

Community college is one of the best things this country ever did and…

IT SAVES YOU MONEY.

Money is one of the things adults worry about the most, especially in these hard times. You’re now an adult, so your parents will only be able to shield you so much from financial reality. Go to a four-year university right out of high school only if you have beaucoup scholarships and grants. DON’T take out loans for more years than absolutely necessary, which is why you should go to community college. Dorming all four years to put yourself or your parents in massive debt is overrated; going to school out of state all those years to put yourself or your parents in massive debt is overrated. With community college, you’ll be able to enjoy life faster and better if you’re not overloaded with debt. Debt sucks.

Don’t Look Back

Memories are cool; nostalgia isn’t. That’s why I don’t go to high school reunions and will only attend my 50th anniversary if I’m still around. The people you truly care for, you’ll continue to associate with somehow as long as those relationships last — and social media makes that far more easier than when your mom and I were at Anaheim High. I still hang out with my core group of friends all these decades later.

Sometimes, people from your past return to your life — that’s cool. But let the present and future determine whether you want to become friends yet again, not who said what about whom back in the day. You’ve waited your entire 18 years to leave the K-12 system — why on earth do you want to dwell in it, even mentally? Take what was good, leave what was bad, and off into the world you go.

WERK

The last thing I told my Chapman food writing class this Monday for their final — comprised almost entirely of seniors — was that the best piece of life advice I could give them was to work harder than everyone else in everything, for everything. It’s gotten me this far — and I think I’m in a good spot, so you should try it as well. See: Canto XXV. And Canto CXIX. And ESPECIALLY Canto LXIV.

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Don’t Bother with Fun For Now

When I was going to school, more than a few of my classmates from Anaheim/OCC/Chapman/UCLA regularly went on vacation or partied or joined frats/sororities or studied abroad or moved away from their parents or did all the fun things you’re supposed to do when you’re young, when you supposedly have more time and less worries.

I did none of that.

School full time, work full time. Finished all my course work in four years AND got my bachelor’s AND got my master’s AND created a new career AND did so with a ridiculously low amount of debt that was so low I completely forgot about it until I got a call from the feds. And for that, my classmates made fun of me while bragging how much fun they were having. I would respond by saying I wanted to get done with all the responsibilities before me then so I could set myself up for a lifetime of fun.

On Thursday evening, I said what’s up to my neighbor while walking Cosmo.

“How was work today?” he said.

“I drove three and a half hours to the Central Valley to eat tacos, then immediately drove back.”

“Hard job, huh?”

“I ate an al pastor vampiro, steak ranchero and a taco de camarón, then drove back home and ate a gyro.”

He laughed, shook his head and cursed our land of flojos.

You Do You — But it’s Not About You

OK, the latter part is Rick Warren’s line — but it’s a good one! Your entire life will find you trying to improve it at all times: career, romantic, abode, transportation. You do you, and you deserve to do you.

But there is a world out there for you to help get to the heights you want to achieve.

Don’t bother trying to be the people above you. Bother with the people below you (no matter how bad you think you have it, there are people who have it tougher). You don’t have to go all cloistered or mendicant — help however you do you. Tutor. Give money. Volunteer in something. But helping to improve something for others is a beautiful thing that builds healthy society and individuals.

Best of luck to you, young lady. Tell your mom she did good — now, it’s your turn to do good by everyone else. CU next canto!

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: Indio mandarinquats from Puppy Strong Farms that my honey has turned into a wonderful jam. 16 ounces for $5 — get this seasonal treasure while you can!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “The mentality of a base stealer is, when you get to first base, you see, you look around and say, ‘Now they’re in my ballpark.’ Know why? Cause I can get a lead and take two steps. Pitcher ducks. Catch’s coming out. Shortstop’s coming across. Second baseman’s coming across. Center fielder’s coming up. Cause I took two steps. And they couldn’t stop me anyway! That’s the mentality of a base stealer. You have to have that mentality/ Look at these guys! Look at that action! And they couldn’t stop me anyway!” — Billy North

LISTENING: “The Weight,” The Band with the Staple Singers. Next to Prince’s guitar solo on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert, you’ll never see one music legend so dominate others while performing together — on the latter’s own song, no less. One Mavis Staple grunt crashes down with more emotional heft than any Robbie Robertson riff; Pops Staple’s slow recitation destroys Levon Helms’ wail. You can see the Band, ironically enough, crumble under the weight of performing alongside the underrated soul legends — just watch Rick Danko flail around in his part like when the Jonas Brothers did “Higher Ground” — to the point where they just let the Staple clan hum the song out at the end. And I say this all as someone who learned to appreciate the Band because of The Last Waltz! Hence included in Gustavo Arellano’s Weekly Radiola of Randomness YouTube songlist, where I’ve included every song I’ve ever featured in a canto — give it a spin!

READING: “The Guerrilla Dandy. The literary and political illusions of Carlos Fuentes, everybody’s favorite Mexican”: An oldie-but-goodie: Enrique Krauze playing Mark Twain to Carlos Fuentes’ James Fenimore Cooper — OUCH! Best line of the long piece: “it is difficult to serve truth and power at the same time.” Ain’t that the TRUTH!!!

Gustavo Events  

May 23, 6:30 p.m. aka TONIGHT: I’m going to be participating with other local authors at a read-a-thon for Arvida Book Co., 115 W Main St., Tustin. Entry is FREE, books BARATO — support your locally owned bookstore!

Gustavo in the News

“LA Times Columnist Crawls Out Of Garbage To Tell World He Loves His City Covered In Poop And Blood”: Only the first three words of this headline are right — but what else do you expect from the Daily Caller?

“A Los Angeles, des spots politiques conçus grâce à une IA déstabilisent la campagne municipale”: I don’t have a subscription to Le Monde, so someone’s going to have to tell me what’s the context of them mentioning me in a story about the Los Angeles mayor’s race.

“The LA Reporter: Squawk Box for Thursday, May 7, 2026”: A very good newsletter about Los Angeles government shouts out a columna of mine.

“Thoughts on LA on a Tuesday“: In which AltaPolicyWonk calls me the “Puck” of Los Angeles. That much closer to being the Mencken of L.A.!

“‘It’s never too late’: Why Tony Thurmond says he shouldn’t be counted out of the California governor race”: It’s been over, Tony, as good as you’ve been in debates.

“Applicants”: I’m telling you, someone at Merriam-Webster likes me!

Gustavo Stories 

“Grítale a Guti”: Latest edition of my Tuesday night IG Live free-for-all was ERASED because there’s a CONSPIRACY against me.

“Spencer Pratt’s Make L.A. Great Again acolytes and their dark vision of the city”: My latest L.A. Times columna is all about Prattbots. KEY QUOTE: “That nihilism might sell books and gain followers — but it’s no way to prove to Angelenos he’s serious about fixing anything other than his reputation.”

“Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt need Latinos, not Trump”: My next latest L.A. Times columna offers advice to the GOP’s hopes for California governor and L.A. mayor. KEY QUOTE: “Instead of running away, Hilton and Pratt seem fine with hitching their prospects to this political Titanic.”

You made it this far down? Gracias! Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram while you’re down here by clicking on their logos down below. Don’t forget to forward this newsletter to your compadres y comadres! You can’t get me tacos anymore, but you sure as hell can give them — and more — to the O.C. Catholic Worker!