Book Carlos

Word Life

I'm Carlos Big Brown Dad Aguilar

and I'm thinkin' of a master plan

Step inside

welcome to campus

no map. no major. infinite syllabus.

FIRST ROOM / FAMILY BUSINESS

The
Dad

Big Brown Dad

It's true. I was the leading Hispanic fatherhood blogger between the 57 and 605 freeways from 2009 to 2011.

MAYA, JOAQUIN AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN

who did it dad did it who does it dad does it whos mad whos dad dad did dad does this dad that dad big brown dad your mom

I write about fatherhood — here's a smattering.

Watercolor family portrait lettered Covarrubias-Aguilar, showing Carlos, Angie, Maya, Joaquin and the family dog
Covarrubias-Aguilar · the family, in watercolor
Big Brown Mom is the bomb.
The Cozy Collection

Maya's work collected more than 25,000 pairs of socks and blankets for people experiencing homelessness in the San Gabriel Valley. She was featured in media and recognized by local civic leadership.

Watch

Press coverage

Recipe Lost and Found

Hosted by Casey Corn on Magnolia Network, the cable series featured our family, Angie and the making of capirotada.

Watch on Max ↗“Grandma Leonor’s” — Aguilar family recipes ↗
Big Brown Dad · Maya & Joaquin · Big Brown Mom · The Cozy Collection · Recipe Lost and Found
SECOND ROOM / WE'LL FIX IT IN POST

The
Producer

The deck has feelings

They call me the hood Studs Terkel.

AT&T
Kevin Hart
Spotify
Steve Harvey
Magic Johnson
Daytime Emmys
Grammys
Mariah Carey
Television, Documentaries & Live

Writer and producer across documentary, reality, competition, live awards, talk shows and syndicated specials.

Associated Television International

Television, documentary, live production including the Daytime Emmys, the syndicated Hollywood Christmas Parade, the Hero Awards, Heroes Among Us and documentaries on the Bible, WWE, American Idol, NASCAR and Oprah Winfrey.

Carlos Aguilar in a gray Mestizo hoodie standing between the Hollywood Christmas Parade hosts on a green screen set
Hollywood Christmas Parade
Carlos Aguilar in a tuxedo on the Daytime Emmys red carpet in front of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences backdrop
Daytime Emmys
Carlos Aguilar wearing sunglasses on a television set with Marie Osmond and a colleague at Associated Television International
With Marie Osmond · ATI
Carlos Aguilar in a tuxedo with Lara Spencer outside the Daytime Emmy Awards
With Lara Spencer · Daytime Emmys · ATI

Current TV

I produced over a dozen short-form documentaries on the Latino experience for Al Gore's Current TV.

Brave New Films

I had a short-lived stint at Brave New Films but I'm proud of the work I did here.

  • Documentary work from my time at Brave New FilmsVideo link to come

Mun2

My first television writing job, working inside the English-language Latino network’s original programming.

Carlos Aguilar's vintage mun2 television ID badge with his photo and the name BookwormHow I got the Mun2 job — “Two Worlds, Bad Math” · PB&J Burrito ↗
Advertising & Brand Work

Editorial Director at Quantasy & Associates for over 10 years — providing strategy, writing scripts, leading production, hiring and overseeing work for AT&T, California State Lottery, Spotify, LA Local and LA84.

Campaigns and content with Kevin Hart, Steve Harvey, Mariah Carey and Becky G.

Quantasy client video links coming
Public Media & Advocacy

I provided my services on behalf of public media and advocacy work, working with the National Hispanic Media Coalition and Latino Public Broadcasting on several projects.

Oscar Zeta Acosta's portrait toasted onto a tortilla over a roses and calla lilies textile
Oscar Zeta Acosta, on a tortilla
Mun2 · Television · Live awards & specials · Quantasy & Associates · Advertising · National Hispanic Media Coalition · Latino Public Broadcasting
THIRD ROOM / MARGINS CROWDED

The
Writer

PoetryKeynotesDocumentariesMom jokesEssaysScriptsAdsRhymesCampaignsOp-edsAward showsHost scriptsRadio adsSocial media campaigns
PB&J Burrito

Culture, family, faith, education, identity, humor and the mess where they overlap.

Read PB&J Burrito ↗
Op-Eds and Articles

Here are a few examples of my op-eds that have appeared.

Published-work links coming
Poetics

Three poems. Open each one to read it.

Line drawing of a road splitting into two laneserosion

god made man made two lanes slippery gut split her insides out.

Line drawing of a desert butte beneath a crescent moonMorning Crumble

red rock morning crumble. show us your butte.

Line drawing of a fist punching toward a crescent moonPunch

morning moon hang high punch the sky white then bye.

Books, Zines and Scribblings

Jesus' Dawg

Winter 2027
Sketch-style cover for Jesus' Dawg showing Jesus holding a leash with a street dog
Jesus' Dawg / cover art

Jesus' Dawg follows a street dog who trusts nobody until he meets a kid named Jesus. Retelling familiar Bible stories from the feet of an unlikely friend, he questions the miracles, side eyes the followers and tries to understand why his boy keeps showing love to people who haven't earned it.

Mouthpiece

Winter 2027
Black-and-white collage cover for Mouthpiece, a boxing zine, featuring a mouth with a Mouthpiece mouthguard
Mouthpiece / a boxing zine

A comedic zine about the humor found in the macho man space of boxing.

Wack, Dope, Peace: Hip Hop Triumvirate

2027
Front and back covers of the Wack, Dope and Peace book trilogy by Carlos E. Aguilar Jr.
Cover art / all three volumes, front and back

A Hip Hop Philosophy for a Better Life by Carlos E. Aguilar Jr.

Wack, Dope, Peace is a three-part hip-hop philosophy for a better life: reject what's false, cultivate what's excellent and authentic and build peace through respect, healing and community. Drawing on hip-hop, culture, philosophy and personal reflection, it turns three familiar words into a guide for how to live.

Volume I / WackSpring 2027The Rejection of FalsehoodWack is more than a word; it's a mirror.
Volume II / DopeSummer 2027The Pursuit of ExcellenceDope is more than praise; it's a vision.
Volume III / PeaceWinter 2027Living Together in a Complex WorldPeace is more than absence of conflict; it's a discipline.
PB&J Burrito · Op-Eds and Articles · Poetics · Books, Zines and Scribblings
FOURTH ROOM / TWO-DRINK MINIMUM

Stand-Up

Humor is a way of seeing. It helps us recognize contradictions, question assumptions, connect across differences and find room to act when circumstances feel fixed — a perspective we can cultivate in how we teach, lead, work and live.

Speaking & Workshops

Carlos Aguilar is a Mexican American writer, educator, producer and comic. His talks leverage humor to increase organizational morale and performance. He draws on life experience and insights from philosophy, theology, teaching and advertising to present workshops with impact.

The talks

  • Humor Takes You FurtherHow can humor expand the way we see a situation and the choices available to us?
  • An Unlikely EducationWhat did each chapter of Carlos's life teach him that the others could not?
  • Who Gets to Be Smart?Which forms of intelligence do institutions recognize, and which do they overlook?

More talks: Humor Changes the Conversation · Permission to Laugh · Taking the Work Seriously · Learning to Speak Different Worlds · From Gangs to Grammys.

Go deeper

The Talk | A Fresh Perspective

One of the talks above, adapted to your event: a clear argument, memorable stories and useful implications. Audiences leave with something to consider and something to try.

The Half Day | Put It Into Practice

The talk becomes a conversation, then a workshop. Guided exercises, small group discussion and storytelling help participants find humor in familiar frustrations and explore how to use it to build connection. Everyone leaves with practical approaches they’ve already begun to try.

The Full Day | Make It Part of Your Culture

A deeper experience with time to learn, experiment and apply. Participants work through real situations, practice telling their own stories and explore how humor can support communication, creativity and trust. Teams leave with shared practices and a plan for bringing the work into their day-to-day lives.

Full Day + Comedy Fundraiser | Train by Day, Raise by Night

The full-day training, followed by an evening of comedy Carlos hosts and performs — a clean show that brings the organization’s community together around its mission and raises money for it. Staff learning plus a public event in one booking.

Full Day + Fundraiser + VIP Reception | Bring the Donors In

Everything in the fundraiser package, plus a reception for donors and sponsors — recognition, photos, premium seating and time to connect with the people who make the work possible.

The Three-Day Experience | The Deep Dive

A tailored sequence with time to explore, try, receive feedback and apply — assembled from the talks and material around your organization’s needs, with its own learning design rather than a stretched keynote. It can culminate in the comedy fundraiser. Scope is defined before quoting.

Teaching Is Hilarious — humor in the classroom ↗

See the speaking program ↗Check availability ↗
Book Carlos
Stand-Up

Fatherhood, identity, getting older and the daily humiliation of pretending I know what I'm doing. Stand-up video links coming

Carlos has performed stand-up comedy at colleges, private events, corporate events, school fundraisers and comedy clubs.

Book Carlos for stand-up ↗
Comedic Essays

Essays on comedy, culture, creative work and what the joke lets us say.

Comedic Essays / PB&J Burrito

More essays ↗Book Carlos
Speaking & Workshops · Stand-Up · Comedic Essays
FIFTH ROOM / OPEN FOR BUSINESS

The Creative
Entrepreneur

Ideas need legs

Be the cool shit you want to see in the world.

Mestizo ↗

Third-wave coffee / music on the bagDuring the pandemic, I had a bright idea. Let's start a direct-to-consumer third wave specialty coffee company from my house. Collaborate with hip-hop artists, build the music into the package and turn every bag into a release. We made drops with LMNO, Peace 586, Lisa Vazquez and Dudley Perkins. Not merch next to the art. The coffee was part of the art. Step inside the full Mestizo story. Mestizo.coffee link coming

The Tonic coffee bag from Mestizo and Dudley Perkins
The Tonic! / Mestizo + Dudley Perkins
Black Love specialty coffee bag created by Mestizo with Peace 586
Black Love / Peace 586 × Mestizo
LMNO x Mestizo Ceremony single origin Harrar coffee bag
LMNO × Mestizo · Ceremony / Single origin Harrar
In late May 2021, Mestizo released its first collaboration roast and remix album with visionary emcee LMNO. The bundle included coffee, rolling papers, a magnet, a postcard and a 10-song album.
▶ Play the Tonic Super Mix · audio coming soon

Fun Belly
Food Tours ↗

Food / neighborhood / storyI don't know if you heard, but I got paid to go to China to eat food and write about it. That gave birth to an idea. Then my job was to produce food travel and food TV. So then I got the bright idea to start a food tour company — and this is how it goes. What kicked off in 2017 and ran until 2019 is back — with a tasty vengeance. Fun Belly Food Tours ↗

Norwalk
Brew
House ↗

Poetry meets craft beerMy dawg Ray Ricky Rivera has his own brand called Norwalk Brew House, and he invited me to participate in bringing some collaborations to life. They were meaningful — first Agua de Oro, and then the Don Clemente Loteria collection. The words on these cans are mine. I brought poetry into the package so the beer carried a voice, not just a label. The Don Clemente Loteria collection made the iconic Mexican bingo game into a culture-first beer release, with QR codes turning each can into a multimedia piece. Agua de Oro, a Mexican style lager made with Olympic gold medalist Brenda Villa, sends profits to the Brenda Villa Foundation's work in underserved communities.

“Use your hand to do the work that turns the world right side up.”From the poem on La Mano — hands that raise us up, say “we got next” and do the work
Full La Mano Loteria beer label featuring the poem Use your hand to do the work that turns the world right-side up
Poetry on the can

Use your hand to do the work that turns the world right side up.

La Mano / Hover or tap to turn the can
Three views of the El Mundo Loteria Hazy IPA can, card 37, showing Carlos Aguilar's poem on the can
El Mundo

Dedicated to that bomidea
His shoulder
Our soldier
Lover
Dad uncle cousin
Brother
Pour / vida

El Mundo / Card 37 · Hover or tap to turn the can
Three views of the Agua de Oro Mexican Style Lager can
Carlos Aguilar wearing Brenda Villa's Olympic gold medal on a purple ribbon outdoors at night
Carlos, gold medal
Agua de Oro / Brenda Villa gold medal activation · Hover or tap to turn the can

Book of
Names

Oral history / naming / identityAn oral history project on the phenomenon of naming in hip hop, approached through my experience as a hip hop artist and homegrown historian. The goal is a Book of Names: collecting the stories behind the names, how artists got them, what they mean, how they stick and what happens when they change. Interviews like Dead Eye's trace origins, reinvention and the eras when, if someone had your name, you had to battle. Philosophers and thinkers have long treated naming as tied to identity, culture and the spiritual. This is that idea, told through hip hop.

Specialty coffee · Collaborative beer · Hip-hop · Art · Community · Product drops with a point
Talk shop ↓
SIXTH ROOM / THIS WILL BE ON THE TEST

The
Teacher

Questions count

In about four seconds, a teacher will begin to speak.

Education 101

I taught at Occidental College. What did I teach? You're about to find out.

Education 101 — Readings

In 2025 I was invited back to my alma mater to teach their Education 101 course. The reading material was robust, engaging and impactful. These are some of the folks we read.

See the readings
  1. Yosso — “Whose Culture Has Capital?”
  2. Plato — The Republic, Book 7
  3. Kaestle — Pillars of the Republic, Chs. 1–3
  4. Tyack — The One Best System, Pts. I–V
  5. Dewey — Experience and Education, Chs. 1–3
  6. Anderson — Education of Blacks in the South (excerpt)
  7. Booker T. Washington — “The Atlanta Compromise”
  8. W.E.B. Du Bois — “The Talented Tenth”
  9. “Deconstructing Homo Americanus” (excerpt)
  10. James Baldwin — “On Being White… and Other Lies”
  11. Bennett deMarrais & LeCompte — “The Social Organization of Schooling”
  12. Bowles & Gintis — Schooling in Capitalist America, Ch. 3
  13. Oakes — “Keeping Track”

ED 207 & ED 217

In the spring of '26, I was called back to Oxy to fill in for a professor who had to take an unexpected leave. I taught ED 207 and ED 217, where we took on some of the most charged issues of the day, like:

See the issues
Syllabus link coming
Upward Bound at Harvey Mudd

I know Upward Bound from every side of the desk. As a student at Bassett High School, the program opened up my world. Two summers at UC Davis felt like an academic boot camp, and internships plugged me into a professional setting while the tutoring carried me through the school year. Later, as an Oxy student, I returned as a summer tutor. After graduating — boom — I taught Latino literature, multicultural literature and American history.

And I'm proud to say that more than half a dozen former Upward Bound students have gone on to and graduated from Occidental College.

Today my wife, Angie, directs the Harvey Mudd College program. Tried and true.

  • The Catcher in the Rye
  • Gloria Anzaldúa
  • Howard Zinn
  • Plato
  • Julia Alvarez
  • A host of others
  • Primary source documents
Two more titles to confirm
Faith, Theology & Philosophy

I have a master's degree in the philosophy of religion from Talbot School of Theology, served a faculty internship at Chaffey College in 2001, and continue to read — I'm a lifelong student in the subject. At Talbot, I studied with J.P. Moreland and others.

  • Served as a seonsaengnim (teacher) at Los Angeles Christian Presbyterian Church, a Korean American church in East LA, teaching the Westminster Catechism ↗ to high school students.
Back home in Bassett

In grad school, I substitute taught in my hometown school. I like to say I had more students than any other teacher in the district, and it's still close to my heart.

Where Bassett is

Bassett sits in the San Gabriel Valley, between La Puente, West Covina and the City of Industry. This My SGV Podcast field piece visits Bassett High School and the neighborhood around it.

Occidental College · Harvey Mudd Upward Bound · Latino & multicultural literature · American history · Bassett classrooms, K–adult
Talk pedagogy ↓
SEVENTH ROOM / DON'T TAP THE MIC

The
Emcee

Bookworm Brown

Before Big Brown Dad, there was Bookworm Brown. Same fire. Different lighter.

Heaven and Earth

The album that tried to hold the sacred and the street in the same sixteen bars.

The cover shows a skeleton holding two books on fire — a Bible and a dictionary — and that symbolizes what happens here.

Heaven and Earth ↗Spotify link coming
Backpack Hip Hop

After graduating from seminary in 2001, I backpacked across Mexico and Guatemala, jotting down rhymes and later recording them into an album called Heaven and Earth.

Photo coming here
Backpack days · photo to come
Verses vs Everybody

I have random videos of me spitting ridiculous rhymes.

thisthatthisthatthisthatthis
Bookworm Brown · Heaven and Earth · Backpack Hip Hop · Mexico · Guatemala · Oaxaca · Zipolite
Watch Bookworm Brown ↗Instagram reels comingSpotify / Apple Music links coming
Back to the room ×

Mestizo / direct-to-consumer specialty coffee

Coffee with music on the bag.

Mestizo was an exercise in creative entrepreneurship born out of a conversion experience: I converted myself from industrial-grade to specialty coffee.

It all started with a shirt. Once I was converted to specialty coffee, I knew I wanted to contribute to the culture. So I produced a shirt, got encouraged, and found there was a demand for specialty coffee with a little bit of personality — a little bit of hip hop, a little bit of humor.

Black Mestizo Coffee T-shirt with green, white and red old-English lettering
The shirt that set Mestizo in motion

That's what I did. That's what we did. And it came out as a bunch of dope assets, dope content, dope relationships and connections.

“a west coast 4th wave coffee lifestyle brand that has hip hop, philosophy, comedy and theology as part of its DNA. Launched January 2021.”

The Tonic coffee bag from Mestizo and Dudley Perkins
The Tonic! / Mestizo + Dudley Perkins
Black Love specialty coffee bag created by Mestizo with Peace 586
Black Love / Peace 586 × Mestizo
LMNO x Mestizo Ceremony single origin Harrar coffee bag
LMNO × Mestizo · Ceremony / Single origin Harrar

Featured elsewhere

Come find me after class.

Office hours:

Instagram ↗Read PB&J Burrito ↗Book Carlos
Official Bio

Carlos Aguilar is Big Brown Dad: a TV writer/producer (American Idol, WWE, Oprah, the Daytime Emmys), editorial director at Quantasy & Associates and stand-up comic. A 1998 Occidental College graduate with an MA in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics from Biola, he returned to Oxy as a visiting instructor in Education. He is a keynote speaker on humor as a way of seeing; the founder of Mestizo, a specialty coffee company; an award-winning poet and former hip-hop artist (Bookworm Brown); and the voice behind a decade of the Big Brown Dad fatherhood blog. He lives in Covina, California with his family.

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