THE DREAMER, THE SCIENTIST, AND CARLOS CASTANEDA

I’m in the middle of Ru Marshall’s American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Castaneda and it’s got my brain buzzing. I’m going to have a lot to say when I finish. Meanwhile, here’s a close call I had with Castaneda’s universe that's too much to plug into a book review:

It was back in the Nineties. I was getting over being depressed by my career crashing and burning. My wife, Emily Devenport, and I were cleaning houses for a living. It amused me to muck around in the dirty corners of the disintegrating yuppie lifestyle.

Through some friends we met a woman I shall call the Dreamer. She thought that the X-Files were some kind of documentary. “When is he going to reveal what he really knows?” She’d say with wide-eyed wonder.

She was also a wannabe writer. The only problem was she couldn’t bring herself to write. When she did, the process was painful and she complained a lot. She seemed to think that we could help her.

She was also a big Castaneda fan. I’m pretty sure she moved to Arizona hoping it would help with her spiritual journey. She met a guy I shall call the Scientist in a Castaneda chatroom.

He really was a scientist. Worked for the City of Phoenix, analyzing the water supply. They were just friends, but the Dreamer was hoping for more.

She hoped a lot.

When Castaneda held one of his magical passes workshops, they had to go.

Emily and I landed the gig of cleaning and taking care of the Scientist’s house. He wanted the Sixties to “just die” but was also a hardcore Deadhead. A minimalist, he didn’t have much furniture, and only one chair. I don’t think he had a TV. And there were also two cats.

The retreat, workshop, whatever, sounded like a cult initiation to me. They controlled when and how much the participants could sleep and eat, had them do a lot of the “magical passes” that were calisthenic-type exercises. Brainwashing 101. Guaranteed to have an impact on bookish intellectuals who spend most of their lives sitting. 

Eventually, the witches would bring Carlos (they were all on a first-name basis by then) out to babble for hours.

At one point a young “Hispanic” man wearing a wolf-teeth necklace broke in, calling Carlos a phony, and declared that HE was the “New Nagual.” The kid was ushered out.

Carlos shrugged him off: “It must be nice to be so sure of things.”

Then the witches warned the participants not to take the drugs that Carlos wrote about. Just keep doing the magical passes. If they achieve something, the witches would know and contact them.

Though she didn’t say so, the Dreamer seemed to be disappointed, but then disappointment was her reaction to most things. She wanted power in the don Juan sense. But what did that mean?

When she wasn’t around, the Scientist said that she probably thought she would suddenly be able to lose 200 pounds overnight and fly.

He, on the other hand, thought it was a good time. “A yuppie lark.” (It wasn't cheap.) A break in the routine before getting back to the water analysis. He didn’t need no stinking power.

The Dreamer eventually moved to Oregon. I heard that she died about a decade ago. Did the witches ever come a-knocking? 

For all I know the Scientist is still analyzing the water.

Does anybody know what power is? Did the witches ever knock on anybody’s door?

 

CHICANONAUTICA GRUMBLES IN AN EXTREME HEAT WARNING

 

Chicanonautica is all about the heat, over at La Bloga.

The heat's on all over America:

In Arizona, we've got a monsoon with massive haboobs:

Dehydration is an issue:

 And we're cooking:

CASE OF MY MISSING BOOKS

I hoped that I wouldn’t have to write this one. Sometimes, if you wait a bit, the problem fixes itself, but not this time. So now I have to explain . . .

If you tried to buy my books on Amazon in the last few weeks, you've gotten a “Sorry we can’t find this page” message and a picture of a cute doggie with a suggestion to try Amazon’s home page. When you did that, you get the message with another cute doggie.

Amazon has a remarkable supply of cute doggies.

I am a little worried that no one has contacted me about this. It did seem like my books are selling. Royalty checks keep coming in. Is anybody still buying my books?

No, it’s not a nefarious move by ICE to stop my works from rousing the Chicanos of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado to simultaneously secede from the USA and establish Aztlán as a NeoAztecan theocracy (as if I would do such a thing or it would even be possible). 

So I got in touch with Strange Particle Press. They got back to me right away. Turns out it’s one of those annoying, Kafkaesque/corporate pendejadas in a world run by brain-damaged politicians and hallucinating AI. Lawyers are working on it. Should be cleared up soon.

Did a quick check: The Strange Particle High Aztech, Smoking Mirror Blues, and Cortez on Jupiter are gone. Just doggies. But, Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song is still available . . . 

 

If you want a copy, I recommend ordering now.

Checked a few hours later. A Google search for Guerrilla Mural got a doggie but going through the main Amazon page brings up its order page. Still no sign of my novels. Peculiar. Guess I’ll keep checking.

Knowing that my books were easily available gave me a peace of mind. Now I’m uneasy. It feels like I’m on probation, like my status as a “real” writer has been knocked down.

But then, is any of this real?

At least I still have my delusions of grandeur. . .

Stay tuned. I will update.

CHICANONAUTICA ON A WHOLE LOTTA LITTLE APOCALYPSES GOING ON

 

Its raining little apocalypses in Chicanonautica, at La Bloga.

What is that smell?

And it's everywhere:

Could be coming from the White House?

Be careful out there:

CHICANONAUTICA LOOKS FOR AMERICA IN AZTLÁN

 

Once again, Chicanonautica goes looking for America, in Aztlán, at La Bloga.

What a better thing to do on the 250th 4th of July?

And of course, fireworks:

There's chilaquiles out there!

And Zorro lives!

WEIRD VEHICLES ON THE ROAD

 I like to cherchez la weird while on the road.

And sometimes the weird is literally on the road.

 

As in weird vehicles.

 

Not just the occassional goof wherein something unusual gets temporarily cranked out of the corporate assembly lines.

I mean those acts of defiance when the consumers hijack the product and remake it into something more suited to their sensibilities and lifestyles.

Or some forgotten artifact of the past is rescued, giving it a new life, traveling in time as well as space.

 

Or just making art with wheels or treads.

There are a lot of cybertrucks in Northern Arizona, but not in their virgin state.

This pseudo-Martian colony is going rogue. 

WHERE FOR ART THOU, AMERICA?

When this goes up, Emily and I will be off on another getaway. Yeah, I know we just did one a couple of weeks ago, but you gotta do what you like to do when you get the chance, and schedules in this world-gone-mad force you to be fiendishly opportunistic. Muhahahahahahahah!

And we have made getting out of town on the Fourth of July into a tradition. Relax out of the Metro Phoenix heat island. Come back when the fireworks have quieted and the gunpowder stench is beginning to fade.

It’s also a good time to do the search for America thing. Where is America? Just what is it these days?

It’s different in the Arizona outback. And with the world going through the current shitstorm.The times, they are a-changing, as the rock star who won the Nobel prize said.

Meanwhile, here are some pictures I’ve taken recently of some nearby mutations.

CHICANONAUTICA SHARES A GONZO WRITING DIARY

You can read it in Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga.

In the gonzo traditon, I write on a road trip:

Because I'm teaching how to write Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Style: 

I even experiment with writing under the influence:

 Will I ever be comfortable in the role of teacher?

SCENES FROM A PRE-SUMMER GETAWAY

It’s not summer yet, but it’s hotter than hell.

I’ve got a weird feeling about this summer–and not just more recording breaking (or should that be melting?) heat.

That’s why Emily and I do these little getaways, up north, Prescott, Jerome, Sedona.

Where it’s about twenty degrees cooler.

You know you’ve been living in Arizona when eighty degrees Fahrenheit seems cool.

And I had to write my story for my “Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Style” class on the road, in a haunted hotel, and at roadside, while waiting for AAA to come fix a flat.

Yup, it’s gonna be weird, gonzo . . .

CHICANONAUTICA TAKES NOTES ON MY NOTES

I'm getting ready to play teacher in Chicanonautica at La Bloga:

It'll be gonzo:

 

And maybe a bit mystical:

But I don't believe in gurus:

 There will be demystification:

 

 

SUDDENLY THIS SUMMER

Suddenly, the flowers died. Not all of them, but the sea of color was now fallout that we walked on.

Heat. Radiation. Like a bomb. A war.

Open a door. Feels like an oven. The air smells burnt.

Break out the beachwear and the sunscreen. Another record-breaking summer has hit Phoenix. Are we uninhabitable yet?

CHICANONAUTICA GOES BEYOND THE BORDERS OF THE LATINOID CONTINUUM

 

Chicanonautica gets visionary at La Bloga.

Different kinds of visions:

Crossing borders:

Spawning alternate universes:

With mad dreamers:

ANXIETY ABOUT PUBLISHING

I wrote this story. It’s probably the best I’ve ever written. Hell—maybe the best I’ll write ever. I sent it out. It got rejected. So I sent it out again. 

I had a hard time getting it done. Anxiety froze me.

After submitting things for publication for over fifty years, I’m sick of the tedious frustrating routine. 

It doesn’t help that in the 21st century most of my publications have come from editors coming to me. But since the universe refused to make things easy, I find myself with unpublished works piling up.

At this point in history I wouldn’t be surprised if I can't get anything published until a certain person drops dead . . .

It also seems that the current generation in the publishing world just doesn’t get a wild ‘n’ wooly counterculture survivor like me. Not to mention the readers who came along post-DaVinci Code / Harry Potter / Twilight / 50 Shades of Grey.

I’ve given up on New York, even though it’s more a state of mind rather than a place these days. I keep having visions of people going to their cubicles every day and hiding under their desks until it’s time to go home . . . They just ain’t going to ever come to their senses. I ain’t never gonna be rich. Boo hoo.

And I’m getting pretty damn old.

Most of my career has been because of lovable weirdos at the fringes who believe in me. Thank Tezcatlipoca for them.

I can’t stop writing. It just happens. Like a bad habit ingrained into the kinks in my twisted brain.What I need is a change of attitude. You thought the six-foot tall Aztec leprechaun was scary? Well, get a load of the new, improved six-foot tall 70 year-old Aztec leprechaun!

My doctor says I could last another 30 years. Wonder what I can do in that time?

No more worrying about being “commercial,” whatever that means. No more wondering if “they” will let me do it–I’m doing it anyway. To hell with the corporate industry and the corrupt civilization it rode in on!

My home has always been the underground, the fringes where outliers do strange things. They're out there. I know. They come looking for me.

And now, I’m looking for them.

At the very least, I’ll feel better for having done what I do best, creative blasphemy, aesthetic terrorism, committing outrages . . .

CHICANONAUTICA CELEBRATES SPRINGTIME WITH XIPE TOTEC, XOCHIQUETZAL, XOCHIPILLI, AND CINCO DE MAYO

It's Spring, with gods and holidays for Chicanonautica at La Bloga.

Time for Xipe Totec:

Xochiquetzal:

Xochipilli:

And the Battle of Puebla:

LITHUANIAN ZOOM GIG

  

Facebook comes in handy. Through their Messenger, I heard from an old writer friend, Jaq Greenspon. He’s teaching in Lithuania and wanted to know if I would be willing to talk to his class via Zoom.

A new experience and a chance to talk to Jaq again. I said yes.

I would have to be awake at 2:15 AM Arizona time, but it would be fun, a chance to get knocked out of my comfort zone.

When the day came, I did my usual stuff, but instead of goofing off in the afternoon, I took a nap. When I woke up, I had a cup of tea with caffeine—I no longer abuse the legal drug but indulge now and then because I don’t believe in Puritanism.

Then I watched a couple of silly old sci-fi flicks and some Warner Brothers cartoons until it was time to set up the Hacienda Hogan video studio.

After the obligatory technical difficulties, I was connected to Jaq and about 20 students in Lithuania, on the other side of the planet, next to Russia. Only a few students were in the classroom with Jaq. The rest were at home, watching through Zoom.

 

To make it stranger, the homebodies did not turn on their cameras, so my screen was mostly full of black (and blank) boxes with strange (to me) and fascinating names attached. I was definitely talking to another world, none of the Spanish, Navajo, Hopi, or Mayan I run across in Arizona. To make it more bizarre, the video of me was blurred, jumpy, and delayed.

I might as well have been broadcasting from a spaceship in the middle of a magnetic storm.

We keep forgetting how big the planet—and the universe—is. How do flat-earthers explain the need for time zones? Guess that’s why we need sci-fi.

The first question was, had I heard of Hulk Hogan. The young man also noted that Hulk and I had the same kind of moustache. So, our cultures had some things in common . . .

They were a bit shy, and also English was a second language for them. This gave Jaq and I a chance to reminisce about science fiction conventions in the old days, Marion Zimmerman Bradley’s belief that all humor was immoral, and the time that he, Emily, and I were in a store and brainstormed creative murder techniques inspired by a display of cooking utensils.

There was a shrimp de-veiner that looked downright diabolical . . . 

The questions I got were unusual. I ended up mostly explaining myself, which I don’t enjoy, even though a lot of my writing is dedicated to it. It's what I get for being such an unlikely character.

One young woman asked about writing. I tried to be helpful.

I had to explain what Chicano was. People outside of Aztlán usually don’t know about the reality that I live in. Why do I use Spanish words? I didn’t get into how some of them are other languages they probably haven’t heard of. I hope I did a good job.

They had read a few of my stories that I suggested. This got me onto how I was shocked by the overall angry tone of Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song: 15 Gonzo Science Fiction. That’s me, always at odds with my environment, deconstructing our current predicament, to figure out what to do next. 

It’s always a confrontation. I should have told them how I believe that bullfighting is the mother of all art forms . . .

I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I watched part of another wackazoid movie, drifted off about the time I usually wake up. Didn’t sleep much. The Global Barrio felt different, but it was still there.

And my brain felt fuzzy for a few days after.