Leon Ichaso is en fuego

And all it took was my comment that several personally invested people I'd spoken to about his movie El Cantante aren't pleased.

I'm doing a couple stories for Friday's Floridian on the film's subject, salsa singer Hector Lavoe. Turns out that several people live in Timesland who either knew Lavoe or were living in the Bronx as his star rose in the 1960s and inspired by his music.

Most agreed that Lavoe deserves a movie (although names like Celia Cruz and Mongo Santamaria were offered as more deserving). Everyone I spoke with wished Ichaso hadn't focused on narrowly upon Lavoe's deadly drug addictions and the nasty side they stoked.

Ichaso was speaking on a cell phone while checking into a hotel then locating his room. I'd like to see the bellcap's face as he overheard Ichaso's response to the criticism:

"It’s such f------ denial in the whole Latino world," he roared. "We’re the little Uncle Toms. Nothing bad can be said about us that could offend. I mean, offend who? "What’s the matter? Drugs don’t come with the territory? Did he die of a shrimp stuck in his throat or did he die of AIDS from a needle?

“This is a story that was falling through the cracks. And there’s a story in this movie that is much bigger than drugs; it’s in the music, the salsa. Haven’t you seen how people have f----- it up in (the movies) Dance with Me or Salsa? Now for once we have a movie that shows our music. What we have plenty of is the main character in the movie: the music.

"You know something? Tell your friends from the Bronx they don’t have to see it. If they don’t want to support salsa or Hector Lavoe, they don’t have to see it."