ROCK-HUNTING THROUGH SPACE, TIME, AND MONSTER COUNTRY

We made a pit-stop at a gas station up in Payson, while looking for places where we could gather rocks legally, when I saw it: a piece of graffiti in the men's room, dated 2073. It was corrected to 2013, but . . .

Was this evidence of time travel? But then, it was next to a medical marijuana center.

Not much farther down Highway 87 we grabbed some rocks near a large, abandoned NEED WATER sign.

Later we spotted some roadside datura. I've read a number of stories where hallucinogenic drugs are used as a catalyst for time travel.

Sometimes there's science fiction scattered around. All I have to do it pick it up – like the rocks we were gathering for Em's garden – and assemble it into an workable composition.

But then, is this sci-fi, or is reality just stranger than we'd like to believe?

Soon we came to Forest Road 300, the Mogollon Rim Road Scenic Drive -- monster country. It's unpaved, and twists through a lush forest of ponderosa pines with an undergrowth that gives it a prehistoric look. Monsters could be lurking there and we would never see them from the road.

I once read an article by a reporter who thought that the Mogollon monster was a guy from his high school. I've heard Arizonans talk about how they can't deal with civilization, and just want to get away from it all. It could happen.

El Troque performed like a champ, but ATVs and one strange, unidentifiable vehicle whizzed past us.

“None of this stuff is on the map,” said Em.

Terra incognita. It's still out there. And not far away. You just have to be on the look-out for it.

Finally, the road began to skirt the rim, giving us a spectacular view through an apocalyptic landscape of dead trees -- some standing, others chopped down and piled high – of miles of green, forested hills. Not what people usually think of as Arizona. Plenty of room for monsters and humans-gone-wild.

By the time we were headed back to Phoenix, El Troque was loaded down with all kinds of rocks of a fantastic variety of colors and textures. The next manifestation of the Venusian Garden will be impressive: an inspired construction of odd pieces of Arizona.

. . . with some sci-fi and weird reality thrown in, just for the hell of it.

CHICANONAUTICA RESURRECTS HIGH AZTECH

. . . and gives some background on why it needed to be resurrected, over Chicanonautica at La Bloga.

Seeing this serpent-mouthed corner in Mexico City was one of the many experiences that led me to write High Aztech:

Along with Diego Rivera's murals:

Alejandro Jodorowsky was also an influence:

So where Salman Rushdie and the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini:

HIGH AZTECH RIDES AGAIN!

My underground cult classic is back as an ebook, with masterpiece of a cover by Dell Harris. You can get it in a Kindle Edition from Amazon, or your choice of formats from Smashwords.

And, until August 2, 2013, if you use the coupon code TV57H at Smashwords, you can get it free!

¡Ticmotraspasarhuililis!

CHICANONAUTICA REPORTS FROM DISNEY BARRIO

The latest Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga, is all about Disney's attempt to trademark Día de los Muertos. In honor of their deciding not to do it, here's some my Disney favorites:

They did some cool, spooky stuff in the old days:

Even Mickey wasn't immune to sci-fi nightmares:

And Donald reached out to Latin America:

SCENES FROM A LEPRECON

LepreCon was way out on the far end of the freeway in Mesa. It attracted a small but enthusiastic crowd.

Sometimes at the panels it was mostly the audience talking. In one case, a guy in a tie-dyed Smurf T-shirt who claimed to have run five miles delivered a frenzied info dump on Transhumanism and his days working for the cryonics firm, Alcor.

Steampunk is still all the rage for the costume crowd. There were no corporate trademark infringements. Also, some folks still like to dress like pirates.

I signed some autographs – it's good to see that people actually buy and read the magazines and anthologies that publish my stories, and are interested in my novels.

I got to talk to some old friends, and writers. As it has been in recent years, I seemed to be talking to more writers than readers. Hey, readers! Are you out there?

Fandom is mostly interested in media and games these days. There weren't many books in the dealer's room.

Things are changing. I have no idea what it will be like in five years.

Right now, I'm struggling with self-publishing and enjoying the weird rumblings of decolonialism, Afrofuturism, and other phenomena that the “real” publishing world hasn't discovered. If we're lucky, we'll have a revolution on our hands soon.

Meanwhile, I had time to hang out in quiet halls, drawing freeform pictures . . .

CHICANONAUTICA INTERSECTS AFROFUTURISM AND CYBERPUNK

That's right, over in Chicanonautica, at La Bloga . . .

Does anybody know what cyberpunk is?



Or Afrofuturism?

And what do Chicanos know about science fiction?

SKIN DRAGONS BOARD THE MOTHERSHIP

Flash! My story "Skin Dragons Talk" will be in anthology Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond. Stay tuned for details . . .

UP CAVE CREEK WITHOUT A PADDLE

Once upon a time, Emily and I lived near Cave Creek Road. Two of the my favorite landmarks were a tower of toilets, and a pink bar with TOPLESS painted on it in huge black letters. I'm sorry to report that neither lasted into the New Millennium.

After a breakfast of doughnut holes, Em and I went off take Cave Creek Road to the town of Cave Creek. I was pleased to see hand-painted signs saying things like BAD CREDIT AUTO, and business-oriented murals, along with dayglo auto parts robots and a Pet Food Depot with a giant bulldog statue in the back of pickup.

All the flags were at half-mast for the Boston Marathon bombings, but the street couldn't help being cheerful.

“It's more small townie,” said Em.

We passed Mohawk Plaza. There are no members of the Mohawk tribe in Arizona, but these days, I see more young Native Americans wearing that hairstyle.

Saguaros were propped up with braces like soft objects in a Dalí painting. Yellow flowers blazed on the roadside palo verde trees. Near the intersection of Carefree Highway and Cave Creek Road was WalMart.

They often build a shopping center – or a WalMart – first, hoping it will attract people out into the desert, to places like the Lost Acres housing development. I often wonder if the first establishments on Mars will be WalMarts.

Soon we were passing through a community of rich people. The homes were all tasteful pseudo-adobe. The desert landscaping seemlessly blended into the real desert. A coyote poked around these properties.

Near a HORSE XING sign and a corral, Em spotted an agave with multiple stalks. She got out at took a picture of this biological curiosity. She attracted the attention of one of the horses. We got out of there before being noticed by anybody's private security team.

Finally, we found the Cave Creek Regional Park, where I found out about the Arizona Blond Tarantula (Aphonopelma chalcodes) – probably no relation to the current governor.

While hiking on the park's trails, looking over an incredible valley, Em said, “I wish all the houses would go away.”

I was reminded of the Rewilding concept, and a story idea inspired by it – something else to haunt me until I write it. I found myself imagining a future Arizona that is mostly parks, nature preserves, and Indian nations, financed by tourism and casinos.

Buffalo Bill's Trading Post, with its rusty dragons, gargoyles, alligators 'n' stuff, stands like a sentry to Cave Creek. There you can find guitar-playing armadillos, wire dinosaurs, faceless, topless angel/mermaids, psychedelic toilets too beautiful for human turds, and calaveras of incredible variety.

“This place is magical!” Em said. More than once.

We had lunch at El Encanto, a wonderful, ornate, Mexican restaurant that would make a good location for a surrealistic western. We ate on the patio next to a pond with geese, ducks, and turtles. Birds fluttered around, grabbing scraps while Santana's version of Tito Puente's “Oye Como Va” played.

I imagined a gunslinger meeting a patron to discuss a dangerous assignment. The scavenging birds get bigger . . . finally becoming vultures . . . out of the pond, something large and strange rears its ugly head . . .

We saw a lot Sheriff Joe's deputy's SUVs around, parked and cruising. There's a Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Substation in Cave Creek.

Then we went to the Town Dump, that brimmed over with fantastic kitsch, not all of it for sale: A tree full of pink flamingoes . . .a metal mermaid/dolphin orgy . . .giant red and orange legs . . . a long-skulled African . . . colorful junk robots . . . a rusty T-Rex with a stegosaurs dorsal fin . . . Buddhas . . . Wild West furniture . . . unidentifiable monsters . . . life-sized metal apes . . . a giant, metal, horned-toad bench . . . a complete, real goat skeleton . . .a clay pig with Posada's “Katrina” painted on it . . . colorful plastic belts . .

I rode home with a cow skull on my lap.  Now that's real happiness.

CHICANONAUTICA LOOKS FOR FUTURES FOR ARIZONA

I'm looking for futures for Arizona in that new Chicanonautica over at La Bloga.

Most people still see the future as cornball sci-fi:

But the future of Arizona will probably look more like this:

Of course, some folks have other visions:

Meanwhile, Phoenix is getting a new look:

ROAD DAZED, DEEP IN THE HEART OF ARIZONA

You never know what you're going to see when you're on the road in Arizona.

There it was, strange graffiti inside the bathroom door of a Black Canyon City gas station: ZION. It was accompanied by an eclectic assortment of mystical symbols – the Star of David included, of course.

Forget your stereotypes. They won't do you much good on these roads where this time of year you can often see yellow wildflowers all the way to the horizon.

Soon we were going eastward, down the 260, along rocky, spacy mountains. Turns out the Fossil Creek Road was closed. We were hoping to take it to the Fossil Springs Wilderness, but that would have to be some other time.

Suddenly, Em pulled over and said, “I need to do something a little bit experimental – I'll be right back.” She went and got up close and personal with some of the volcanic rocks.

I got out of the troque and followed her. I grabbed her waistband, so she wouldn't fall into a canyon with mysterious footprints in the sand at its bottom.

The footprints looked big, could have been human, but there was no way to be sure. They were a long way down. We were also close to the Mogollon Rim, home of the Mogollon Monster, our Arizona version of Bigfoot.

Further down the road we stopped again. Em oggled some weird rock formations and speculated about their origins, while I found a business card for Tranmisiones El Bronco and an empty L&M cigarette pack.

I had visions of the Monster smoking cigarettes while having the tranny on his carro yonkeado worked on.

Then I heard a helicopter approaching. Were about to be busted by some clandestine agency?

I was expecting to hear: “GET BACK IN YOUR VEIHICLE AND MOVE ON. THERE IS NO CRYPTOZOOLOGICAL PHENOMENON HERE. WE HAVE YOUR LICENSE NUMBER AND HAVE IDENTIFIED YOU BY FACIAL RECOGNITION SOFTWARE. DO NOT TELL ANYONE ABOUT THIS OR YOU WILL BE ARRESTED.”

But no, it wasn't a helicopter -- it was a group of bikers, some on three-wheelers.

It was April, and there were patches of snow by the roadside, under the pines. We were high in these mountains.

In the town of Strawberry, we found the other end of Fossil Creek Road. It was closed, too. We'll have to schedule an expedition there for the future. Meanwhile, monsters or anything else were safely hidden in the Fossil Springs Wilderness.

The town of Pine had some interesting businesses: Rusty's Taxidermy, Arizona Gun Runners, Sidewinder's Saloon, and THAT Brewery & Pub.

At the Tonto Natural Bridge we proceeded to “Enjoy with caution” as the signs said, getting our adventure fix among the natural hazards, “scrambling from rock to rock.” Em was soon up to her waist in the creek (until she remembered her wallet was in her pocket). There was an active bee hive over the main waterfall, and we saw forms more fantastic than Max Ernst's decalomania paintings.

Toward Payson, guys were pedaling bikes loaded with cargo up the mountain roads.

In Payson, we had Mexican food at El Sierra again. The misspelling on the hand-painted sign had been doctored, but was still funky. The food is good, and the psychedelic sombreros and fantastic carved and painted chairs are still burning after-images into patrons' retinas.

On the way home we passed the Jim Jones Shooting Range. Must be some other Jim Jones. The infamous cult leader died in that Guyanese mass suicide decades ago. Still, I imagine folks taking shots of cyanide-laced Kool-Aid . . .

The blazing wildflowers took my mind off such things as we made our way back to civilization.

Back in Phoenix, on the 202, a sign announced that HAZARDOUS MATERIALS MUST EXIT.

So we did.