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.

CHICANONAUTICA SELLS ANCIENT CHICANO SCI-FI WISDOM AGAIN

 

Chicanonautica is looking for students for my Palabras del Pueblo class, at La Bloga. 

People need to learn and respect their ancient traditions:

 

Gonzo Chicano culture, too:

 

Go stark, raving sci-fi:

 

But I ain't no guru: