If you're curious about how Mexicans can eat everything with hot sauce, or why Mexicans park their cars on the front lawn, ask this guy, he's got a book about it.

About two year's worth of Gustavo Arellano's popular Ask a Mexican! column for the OC Weekly was compiled and published earlier this year.

Arellano stopped by Antigone Books, 411 N. 4th Avenue, on Aug. 31 to read excerpts from the book and was delighted with the Old Pueblo's response.

"A lot of people went, a lot of applause, a lot of laughs," Arellano said.

And the laughs are within reason.

With questions like, "Why do Mexicans always cram into a small car?" and Arellano's answers, "Dear Gabacho: Because a burro can't support more than three people," readers can't take themselves seriously or they risk being greatly offended.

Born in Anaheim, Calif. to immigrants from Mexico, Arellano defines himself as a naranjero, or orange picker, because of his family's occupation in the early 1900s in Orange County.

"Some people say I have absolutely no authority to call the column "Ask a Mexican" because technically I'm not Mexican, because I was born here in the United States."

The syndicated column is printed locally by the Tucson Weekly.

Although the column is at times viewed as risqué, Arellano doesn't seem to mind.

"If I could bring some education, if I could bring some humor to people's lives, then that's awesome," he said.

When he brought his education and humor to Tucson, the published Mexicano had a full day, including taping a segment with KUAT-TV PBS and then meeting up with some students from the University of Arizona's Latin American Studies program for some food at El Guero Canelo.

"Oh, it was great," Arellano said about the Tucson eatery.

In his "serious life," Arellano is a food critic for the OC Weekly,
His book, which was released in May, is set to come out in paperback in Spring 2008 and he already has made plans to visit again.

"I've already asked the bookstore owners if they wanted me. I'd love to come back," he said.