The ZETA Podcast Series

Welcome to the ZETA Podcast Page! Now that you’ve watched Phillip’s chingón documentary, it’s time to join the afterparty. Get up close and personal with the people you just met in this true story. Click below to stream live or download all 5 episodes anytime. Listen up as the Brown Buffalo’s family, foes and friends talk with podcast host Marcos Nájera about all of the madness and magic that fueled Oscar Zeta Acosta’s hardscrabble life.

Episode 1: “Who the F is that?”

Host Marcos Najera introduces us to the Zeta podcast series.  Who is Oscar Zeta Acosta?  If you know, you are way ahead of Najera who admits the US public school system failed him and his fellow Latinos.  The good news is that Najera insists this podcast series is opportunity for you, me, he and we to learn once and for all about this Chicano luminary that history forgot.
 

Episode 2: “Hunting for Buffalo in Arizona”

Najera travels home to the Southwest to visit Latino scholars from ASU’s Transborder Studies department. The first of its kind in the nation.  Chicano literature and history experts weigh in on Zeta’s life, times and writing. This episode explores the divide between the learned and the layman and women of the Latinx community.

Episode 3: “The Ladies in His Life”

The women in Zeta’s life.  From family to friends to former lovers.  The ladies speak up and out about Oscar Zeta Acosta.  From his spark-light sister Anita Acosta to his former lover Dorinda Moreno to his ex-wife, we hear how and why Zeta’s relationships with women were fraught with tension, laughter and tons of lingering questions.

Episode 4: “A Vandalized Voice”

The men in Zeta’s life.  From family to friends to former lovers?  You never know—some say Zeta was a constant chameleon in life, love, and the law.  Now, the men weigh in on the Brown Buffalo.  Hear how his son still battles to come to terms with a dad who disappeared from his family, long before he disappeared in Mexico.  Meanwhile, his Rolling Stone editor can’t hold back the emotion when he recalls the conversations he had with the man who’d come to write two of the most important books in the American Chicano cannon.  Hear how a high school student became a Hollywood mogul, in large measure because Zeta the lawyer stood by his side.

Episode 5: “Law, Literature & Racism: Zeta Style”

In the end, we wrap up our series at the beginning.  Host Marcos Najera reports on what he’s learned about Oscar Zeta Acosta. And the contributions he made to the fields of law, literature and long-form journalism.  Did the public system fail Najera and his fellow Latinos?  Perhaps it doesn’t matter.  Ultimately, Oscar Zeta Acosta’s memory lives on as a reminder simply to always use life as opportunity to do more.  And then some more.

PODCAST GALLERY

Former Rolling Stone Publisher Alan Rinzler at his home in Berkeley, CA.  Rinzler, after calling Hunter S. Thompson a racist, suggests Oscar Acosta had every reason to feel betrayed by Thompson’s portrayal of him as a 300-pound Samoan. 

Stephanie Acosta (Oscar’s Niece) and her mom Anita Acosta (Oscar’s sister) at home near the Russian River in Northern California.

Anita Acosta and Podcast Host Marcos Nájera take a break from talking.

Stephanie and Marcos take a selfie as Nájera prepares to record a podcast episode.

[Clockwise from left] Anita Acosta (Oscar’s Sister), Marco Acosta (Oscar’s son) and Betty Dowd (Oscar’s first wife) share a laugh at the San Francisco Latino Film Festival afterparty inside Max’s Opera Cafe.

Chicano poetess and activista Dorinda Moreno says she was the last person to see Oscar alive before he disappeared in Mexico in 1974.

Dorinda Moreno at home in Santa Maria, CA.

Guillermo Gomez Peña’s ‘La Pocha Nostra’ performance art troupe in LA with Podcast Host Marcos Nájera during a performance in LA”s Chinatown.  Gomez Peña, like many Latino artists, have drawn inspiration and drive from Oscar Acosta’s writings and activism.

Podcast host Marcos Nájera and Guillermo Gomez Peña discuss Acosta before a performance at Stanford University.

ASU English professor Lee Bebout is a self-proclaimed ’Saltine’ who teaches Chicano history and literature.  He wants students and others to learn the unknown history of American Latino literature - which he insists should always include Oscar Zeta Acosta.

Arizona State University’s Louis Mendoza is Director of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies, and Professor of Literature and Cultural Studies.  He shows a first edition signed book a mentor gave him as a gift.  It was the first time Mendoza was introduced to Acosta’s writing and the book has followed him and inspired him throughout his career.

Marc-Tizoc González is a law professor at St. Thomas University in Florida.  He writes about Acosta’s activism in the courtroom and insists young lawyers learn the legacy of Acosta’s wild tactics employed to fight what Acosta perceived as a corrupt American justice system. González was mentored by Ian Haney López, Oscar Acosta expert, at the UC Berkeley School of Law.

Oscar Acosta’s son, Marco, is a successful attorney living in Marin, CA. As a boy, his dad called him ‘Chooch’ as a nickname because Marco loved trains. Marco enjoyed listening to the jazz that his dad Oscar played while he wrote his books.

ASU film instructor Michelle Martinez and her son Elian.  Martinez read classics like “Bless Me Ultima” and “The House on Mango Street” in college. These stories inspired her lifelong exploration into the Latino narrative - ultimately leading her to teach Oscar Acosta’s books.

Stanford English and Comparative Literature Professor Ramon Saldivar has written extensively about Oscar Zeta Acosta.  Some of his best known works include “Chicano Narrative: The Dialectics of Difference (1990), a history of the development of Chicano narrative forms,” and “The Borderlands of Culture: Américo Paredes and the Transnational Imaginary.”

Audience members fill the house at the San Francisco Latino Film Festival premier of “The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo.”

Marco Acosta, Alan Rinzler, Phillip Rodriguez, Anita Acosta and Ricardo Lopez at the San Francisco Latino Film Festival.

Photos courtesy of Marcos Nájera.