HALLOWEEN HORROR PICTURE SHOWS

Here's a few suggestions Halloween viewing:

Nobody does fear of what may lurk in Third World jungles like the British, as in The Woman Eater:

In Santo vs Las Lobas a cult of sexy female werewolves who only grow fur on their faces show up in Mexico:

Filipino horror also deals with vampiric cults in The Thirsty Dead and Blood Thirst:

In a classier vein, Jigoku (AKA The Sinners of Hell) goes to Buddhist Hell, after romp with yakuza, strippers, and manic jazz:

CHICANONAUTICA AIN'T READY FOR DEAD DAZE

It's almost Dead Daze, and Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga, ain't ready.

What the hell's Dead Daze? It's Dia de los Muertos:

And Halloween:

Homage is paid to Tezcatlipoca:

And the futures that are being built are considered:

YES, THERE REALLY WAS A RED DOG JOURNAL

 

I know, I should have found this months ago, but I also shouldn't have to remind you that this has been one of the most batshit crazy years ever.

Besides, it's like what an anthropologist says in the story I'm working on:

“You find an interesting phenomenon, then when someone goes to back to verify it—it's vanished without a trace.”

I was starting to feel that way about The Red Dog Journal. Everything about it had disappeared from the Web. How was I supposed to tell people out Brainpan Fallout, when it looks like the weird magazine it originally appeared in never existed. Was I perpetrating some kind of hoax? And what kind sicko would bother to do such a thing?

Fortunately, Stephen Michael Barnes, the publisher of The Red Dog Journal, posted on his blog about it, giving his side of the bizarre story, and images, not only of the FAXmo flyer , but pages from the fax version the magazine itself—and they aren't all my work!

I feel vindicated.

So, kids, be sure to document your shenanigans. Unless, of course, they're the sort of thing that could get you arrested. In that case, change the names, and other things, to protect the “innocent.”

And if you're not up to any shenanigans, isn't it about time you got started?

CHICANONAUTICA CATCHES A SPANISH NEW WAVE

 

Chicanonautica checks out movies from Spain, over at La Bloga.

A Hispanic cinematic tradition going back a century, to Segundo de Chomón:

Now there's an invisible guardian lurking about:

And an guest, also invisible:

And excitement at a local bar:

ALIEN CONTACT ON SALE AGAIN!

This just in! The ebook of Alien Contact, edited by Marty Halpern is on sale again! Only $1.99! For both the mobi (Kindle) and the epub (Nook) versions! 

It has my story "Guerrilla Mural of a Siren's Song" that I exploded into Cortez on Jupiter!

And great stories by those wonderful folks whose names are on the cover, and more!

For a limited time only! Do it now!

ANIMATION FOR A TROUBLED PLANET

When the world becomes awash in turmoil (like now) I like tickle my visual cortex with some far-out animation.

Like Vince Collins' classic psychedelia, Euphoria:

Or Sally Cruikshank's phantasmagorical Quasi at the Quackadero:

We could always go back to School with Ivan Maximov:

Or visit Mirai Mizue's Lost Utopia:

How about Felix Colegrave's latest, Double King?

CHICANONAUTICA WATCHES SOCAL ART GET SCI-FIIZED

Once again, Chicanonatica, over at La Bloga, is all about art:

And the art is getting sci-fiized:

In good ol' Southern California:

Who knows what kind of future this could bring?

THROUGH INDIAN/HOLLYWOOD/MORMON COWBOY COUNTRY

As we were leaving Truchas, Emily's mom mentioned that she would like to look at the old mission, Nuestra Señora del Sagrado Rosario, built in 1764, and recently restored. So we parked in front of an abandoned bar in a space labeled HARLEY PARKING. I took a picture—what the hell, let folks think we spend our vacation drinking and discussing politics with bikers . . .

Highway 84 goes through Northern New Mexico, cutting through Arizona into Utah. There are outback pizzarias, and mix-bag fantastic Aztlán geology all the way. A sign announced MONASTARY 13 MILES. Dead skunks were deodorized by the high levels of ultraviolet radiation. Trees on a mountain turned out to be microwave towers in disguise. John Wayne and Jesus watched over us in a Cheveron. We passed the skeletal ruins of a drive-in movie theater, and turned onto Highway 64, where a sign said VAYA CON DIOS.

"We are in Tony Hillerman Territory,” said Emily's mom.

On the reservation, there are practically no signs telling you what road you're on. Guess they must figure that if you don't know where you are, you shouldn't be there.

Also on the Rez, the Red Mesa High school team is the Redskins.

Back in Bluff, Utah, we couldn't resist the Navajo tacos at the Twin Rocks Cafe. Our server was blue-haired native girl.

Highway 95 is a spectacular eye fry. “Kind of like being on Mars,” said Emily.

Next to the Colorado is a smaller river called the Dirty Devil.

Our favorite spot was Hog Springs. It's the home turf of the Moqui Queen.

In Hanksville we couldn't resist stopping at Carl's Critter Garden, though Emily's mom thought the Frankenmechanoid creatures were ugly.

We kept seeing llamas along Highway 12.

At Rustler's Restaurant in Tropic, the pulled pork sandwiches were great, but the western décor was bland. I didn't bother to take any pictures. After a while, the people at the next table started talked about Obama, socialism, and how they messed up everything.

Things were different at Bryce Pioneer Village. Em's mom's room had a photo of Siting Bull and a demented-looking portrait of John Wayne, who's becoming a secular saint in these parts.

Our room had a print of Frederic Remington's Apache Ambush, with the warrior taking aim at a covered wagon, and a copy of The Book of Mormon in German.

 

That night, the live country music next door didn't keep us up. Utah shitkickers must be a mellower breed.

In the morning, a lot of German was being spoken at the breakfast bar.

A Bryce Canyon we ogled the hoodoo rock castles below where sea monsters once swam.

Zion National park is a geological phantasmagoria, with lots of datura in bloom.

We stayed in Kanab, the cowboy gateway to Bryce/Zion. In memory of the days when Hollywood would come over to use Utah for its mythic Texas, the place bristles with TV/movie Wild West décor.

The Lone Ranger lives here—a poster was in both the rooms we rented, and a cutout guarded an intersection

I enjoyed chicken-fried steak at Houston's Trail's End Restaurant near a replica of the iconic Trail's End statue.

Finally, it was a banzai run down 89A, back across the Rez, down to Flagstaff where we heard the Grateful Dead--“What a long, strange trip it's been”-- in a Shell station that was attended by young Indian man.

Back in Phoenix, on the 101, a car was flying a full-size Confederate flag.

ECCENTRIC ORBITS AROUND TRUCHAS

 

We took a meandering shot up Highway 25, zigzagging across the Rio Grande to the WiFi-less outback.

Did a pit stop in Belén. In English, that's Bethlehem. I wonder what they do at Christmas time. A Mad Max-ish two-seater motor trike was also filling up. A local newspaper announced that archeologists were going to excavate their old mission.

New Mexico is an archeological wonderland. And the homeland of a new futurism.

A truck labeled MAGICO LOGISTICS passed by. Actual, live bison grazed in a fenced field. There were lots of pueblos, solar panels . . . casinos . . .

Huge ravens greeted us in Truchas.

Once we unpacked, Em and I did quick run to Taos. I found all three volumes of Eduardo Galeano's Memory of Fire trilogy. 

There was a new mural at the Wired? Cafe, and a Zen sand garden. The times—among other things—are a-changing, to quote that Nobel-prize-winning dude.

 

While taking pictures of some motel totem poles, I found a hidden mural of an arrow-shot Billy the Kid.

The next morning Hurricane Harvey hit Texas. Trump declared it a disaster. And pardoned Joe Arpiao. And I thought we were out of Trumpizona.

A grasshopper had become the guardian of the farm house's front door. We did a thrift store expedition to Española with it's creaky buildings, treacherous staircases and dangerous parking lots. I snagged more books and a Waco baseball cap with a cowboy riding a giant scorpion, that suits my mood this year.

We passed a place where you couldn't tell where the junkyard ended and the parking lot began. Is this a brave new world, or an archeological site? What kind of America did we come from? What are we building to replace it?

Someone had painted TRUMP in red circle-and-slash “no” symbol, with marking that made it look like the New Mexico sun sign.

On another wall, in neat, black letters: IMPEACH!

Seems like we were always crossing a county line, or entering another Indian reservation, and stumbling into serendipitous photo ops.

Back in Taos, we cruised Paseo Pueblo de Sur, that I like to think of as Dumb Fucking White People Road. There's a hill where about twenty years ago, our car stalled. I jumped out to push it. A car full of Indian kids whizzed by, and one of them yelled, “Dumb fucking white people!” Some people think I'm white, others think I'm black. Go figure.

We saw vultures on Salazar Road, where the police had pulled over a guy with that aging New Mexico scallywag look about him.

There were lots of white kids with dredlocks, man-buns, and/or mohawks. A traditional counterculture, if you will. I wonder if it will survive under Trump and the apocalyptic TV reports from Texas. Emily reminded me, “The woo-wooism is strong in this one,” a wild storm sent it's tentacles in from the hills, occasionally raining on us.

In Santa Fe, a cleancut white boy carried a barbell-like thing that might be a post-modern boom box.

The Super 8 Motel offered “Law Enforcement Rates.”

I found out that the Santa Fe Indian School's team was the Braves, and took a lot of pictures of murals along Cerrillos Road.

The rain started to pour once we got back to Truchas. The grasshopper had abandoned his post.

CHICANONAUTICA SEES AN AZTLÁN ZOMBIE MASSACRE

Chicanonautica is all about zombies, at La Bloga.

They're out of Africa:

And inspired a subgenre that started with a black&white movie:

Then Mexico got infected:

Now there's an Arizona border zombie movie: