Juicy gossip is juicy gossip, and nothing draws flies faster than the kind of articles printed in Mira!, a popular tabloid magazine that's a Spanish-language version of the Star, the Globe, the Enquirer, or whatever your least favorite example might be of a sleazy supermarket rag. People buy for it the gossip about their favorite stars, they buy it for the titillating fuzzy photos of naked celebrity breasts, and they buy it either for a good laugh or because they really do live in the backseat of a rusted out 1979 Ford LTD.

Mira! is pure mind-numbing fluff. There is no news in any issue of Mira!, but there sure are a whole lot of sleazy photos!


No News Is Bad News!
Nobody other than Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith (stars of "Men In Black") have ever read a tabloid to actually learn useful information. Just like all the English-language tabloids, most of the news stories in Mira! are utterly useless gossip trash talk.

Read Mira! to find out which hispanic media stars are sleeping with which hispanic sports stars. Read Mira! to find out which hispanic soccer stars were arrested for starting brawls. Read Mira! to find out what your hispanic horoscope is for next week. Heck, maybe it actually was written by internationally known hispanic astrologist, Walter Mercado. Walter's a Pisces who likes dry martinis and long walks on foggy evenings. He wears a size 7-1/8 hat and the ladies call him "El Guia". Personally, I think I could write a better horoscope column than Walt (or anybody else) --- of course my first advice column would be that you should avoid going to astrologists or card readers who require appointments: if they were legit, they'd already know you were coming.

But maybe it is late-breaking news that draws you to Mira! magazine.
Fortunately, Mira! magazine features outstanding investigative reporting. Mostly, the reporters seem to be out standing near bordelos, strip clubs, casinos, and bars. How else do they get so many juicy stories like "Pablo Montero: !Escandalo con Stripper!", "Sexo, Mentiras y Alcohol", "Secreto Noche Ardiento en un Hotel" (hmmm....I could use a night of passion myself....too bad I'm not a famous hispanic).

Sex sells, and that's certainly true with sleazy supermarket tabloids. Photos of the Mexican pop sensation RBD emblazoned with "Con Poncho Perdi Mi Virginidad" sold like hot tortillas, but the issue with RBD photos emblazoned with "We Find Inspiration In Jesus" only sold 4 copies --- all of them to the publisher's mom.

Some articles you will never find in Mira! magazine:
* Afghanistan death toll rises to new high
* Earthquake kills 5,783,838
* new evidence points to talk radio personalities as source of global warming
* Chicago Cubs win world series (come to think of it, nobody else would print such an absurd story either)

Some articles you WILL find in Mira!:
* Enrique Iglesias gets laid (shocking photos!)
* Salma Hayek is naked underneath her clothes! (scandalous photos!)
* Puerto Rican beauty queen cooks casserole in the nude (shocking recipe!)
* Hugo Chavez smokes dope (photo of his teenage daughter in shockingly tiny swimsuit)
* Penelope Cruz has plastic surgery on nose (butt photos, page 10)


All the Photos Unfit to Print!
Just like mainstream American tabloid magazines, Mira! is chock full of sleazy paparrazi photos of celebrities. The more scandalizing the situation, the better!

Naturally, the photos tend to vary a lot in quality. Some can actually be fixed by a highly skilled Photoshop professional before they get printed, but others look so fuzzy, chunky, and pixelated from being enlarged 250x that they resemble the stunning sharp graphics in Atari's old Asteroid games.

Every now and then, one of the photos astounds and delights me. In one issue, they had plenty of quite clear nude photos of an extremely well known television personality, and it's got me wondering. Mostly I'm wondering how the paparrazzi GOT that kind of photo. Were they NOT just out standing by the front door of the sleazy hotel, but actually HIDING IN THE CLOSETS?!?! Sure hope they come out of the closet.

Coming out of the closet is always good for a Mira! photo spread. Nothing sells sleazy tabloids like out-ing a celebrity. Is Hugo Chavez talking politics in his Havana meetings with Raul Castro, or are they talking sausages and chocolate, if ya know what I mean?
Sex always sells, and the sleazier the sex, the better for the tabloid. The more titillating for the reader too! Depending on the celebrity, of course. It would be great fun and hi-jinx to see nude photos of Colombian pop singer Shakira in bed with internationally famous Epinions writer mrkstvns, but much less fun to see her in bed with Paquita la del Barrio. Not that such bizarrely unlikely events would ever occur, you understand (Shakira is not hot enough for me).


Bottom Line...
You don't want to read Mira!

It's in Spanish, so 99% of the folks reading Epinions wouldn't be able to read it anyway, but they say pictures are worth a 1,000 words, and you sure would understand all the sleazy photos.

Recommended: No