Chicanonautica: The Secret Origin of My Flux Story

 by Ernest Hogan

In the middle of the Great Pandemic, as 2020 rages, I have managed to sell and publish another story. It’s called “Tomorrow is Another Daze,” and you can read it free, online. Technology has saved us again. Better make those offerings to Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca . . .

It’s part of Us in Flux, “a new series of short stories and virtual gatherings to explore themes of community, collaboration, and collective imagination as a response to transformative events,” presented by ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination, as a reaction to the virus, quarantine/isolation/conflict/transmogrification that’s been going on.

“What the hell’s the world coming to?” has always been my favorite sci-fi subgenre.

It started with an email (most of my publications in the last decade have happened that way) from Joey Eschrich and Bob Beard of the Center with the fabulous name. Eileen Gunn had recommended me (a big thanks to her). They were looking for science fiction writers to take part in the series. It also pays better than most science fiction magazines. I said yes.

All I needed now was story.

The fluxed-up nature of the world in the last few months had left a lot of fragments of ideas rattling around in my brain. All I needed was to assemble them into a story. Luckily, for me this was easy. I have a grotesquely large and unnaturally overactive imagination. For as long as I could remember I’ve been entertaining myself in my head. It’s mostly me making up stories out of what I see and experience. And no, it’s not realistic slices of life that do. I take the raw material and rasquache it up, shake well, don't be afraid to break something . . .

I had to hold back, just noodle around with some ideas I discussed in a phone call while setting up a Zoom meeting (you can’t seem to do anything without Zoom these days), but soon Joey, Bob, and I were brainstorming on little screens.

They had done their online research, which was great, because explaining myself gets tedious. I told them some of my ideas about how the future can come prepackaged and one size doesn’t fit all, my neighborhood, the Chicano tendency to take technology and rearrange it into something we can use . . .

The story was kicking to life before the meeting was over. We never see neighborhoods like mine, mostly Latinoid, with roosters, mariachis, and lowriders, in science fiction, and I believe in doing things that I’ve never seen done before. (Advice to writers: If you know about something you’ve never seen in books, write it!) I came up with characters based on my wife and myself, but different, because characters should take on a life of their own.

It’s what I’ve been doing all these years. Making stories, almost out of thin air. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again. It’s a skill that comes in handy.

And not just for churning out art and culture. Creativity is a survival tool. It’s what you use on those terrible days when you try to go about your routine, but find that the universe had changed, so that’s impossible. You’re going to have use your imagination figure out what to do.

It’s how we’re going to get though the flux we’re going through.

Meanwhile, this isn’t the end! Not only is the story published, but we did a video event on Zoom.

I’ll tell you about it next time.

Ernest Hogan will once again be judging Somo en escritos’ Extra-Fiction contest. Are there any Latinoids out there who can blow my mind?

Chicanonautica: Steelsnake Amok Again

by Ernest Hogan

Be on the lookout, Cultura fans! My postcyberpunk lucha libre antihero, Steelsnake, will be amok again tomorrow, June 7.

That’s because Unfit Magazine Vol. 3 is going live. You’ll be able to order electronic versions on Amazon and Smashwords, and there will also be a print version. It will include “PeaceCon,” a slapstick comedy about mind control and social unrest, starring (you guessed it) Steelsnake.

For those of you who don’t know, Steelsnake first appeared in my story “Novaheads,” about a drug derived from weaponized chili. It can be found in the anthology Super Stories of Heroes and Villains.

The release of Unfit Magazine Vol. 3 is not without a last minute pendejada. Amazon decided that Longshot Press didn’t have the rights to reprint the announced Philip K. Dick story, so there will be a Robert J. Sawyer story instead.

To make things even stranger, Google and YouTube searches revealed that there actually are a couple of real-life PeaceCons. Whoda thunk it? One is sponsored by harmless-looking folks who talk a lot and ask for donations--I wish them luck in their peacebulding. The other seems to be about cute Asian girls jumping up and down and screaming to some kind of newfangled pop music--hope they’re having fun.

Just to make things clear, here’s a disclaimer:

Any resemblance between the PeaceCon in my story of the same name and any other PeaceCons, real or imagined, is purely coincidental, and not meant in any way to offend or demean them.

My “PeaceCon” is a work of satire, intended to offend and demean a wide range of other people who totally deserve it and who will know it when and if they read it (which is unlikely). Meanwhile, there are all kinds of miscreants, ne’er do wells, and other kinds of horrible people who will get some chuckles out of it. The world needs more chuckles.

Gimme a break . . .

And go out and buy Unfit Magazine Vol. 3 while you’re at it!

Ernest Hogan is trying to finish a novel, about a science fiction writer who has lost track of where his life ends and the science fiction begins.

Chicanonautica: The Steampunk Banditos Are Coming! The Steampunk Banditos Are Coming!

by Ernest Hogan

I thought that Mario Acevedo had taken his Chicano vampire detective hero Felix Gomez to the outer limits with his last novel, Rescue From Planet Pleasure. It went from paranormal noir into sex-crazed space opera the likes of which I had never seen, and I’ve been reading kinky sff since the Nixon administration. Little did I know that Mario has more, wilder things in the works.

Steampunk Banditos: Sex Slaves of Shark Island, the seventh novel in the series takes things into a whole other dimension, literally. We’re talking Coyote time travel--that’s right, Coyote as the great trickster spirit of the continent that in these particular timespace coordinates is known as North America. This isn’t just a trip back in our history, but into an alternate universe, one where the Southwest is known as Aztlan (I like to put the accent mark on the “a,” Mario doesn’t, so I’m leaving it out here, for the sake of consistency--doncha love how Latino culture is full of disagreements about spelling, pronunciation and what the chingada language are we arguing in anyway?). Also, Chinese gangsters are everywhere; Felix Gomez ends up working for one.

There also don’t seem to be many Anglos around.

In other words, it's a volatile, rasquache mash-up that blasts apart all the walls between the genres (which, let’s face it, are nothing but marketing strategies), and sends astounding fragments soaring through the reader’s mind. There’s the detective angle, because the investigator/narrator helps when thrusting us into a weird new world. The ever-popular vampire theme, along with werewolves, finds a new home in the Wild West. And its paranormality dovetails into sci-fi with a mad scientist and some monsters.

Oh yeah, there’s also these amazing women. The sex slaves of the title don’t just sit around signing and whimpering until they are rescued--they pick up weapons and . . .

It’s probably better if I don’t reveal too much.

As you can tell from the drive-in movie/pulp fiction (if you are too young to know what either of those are, do some research, your education is seriously lacking) titles, this isn’t highbrow literature with a grim agenda here. Steampunk Banditos, and the rest of Mario Acevedo’s Felix Gomez novels, are pop culture. They are full of colorful images, ideas, and thrills. 

In other words, it's fun.

They are also from a Chicano viewpoint. I once heard Mario say that it would be weird for him not to write that way.

The Latino Lit crowd needs to look into Steampunk Banditos, and Mario’s other works. They could learn a few things from his page-turner style that made him a national best-selling author.

And the ending indicates that there’s more to come, which should be mind-blowing.

Ernest Hogan’s High Aztech will be taught as part of a course at San Diego State University, and he will be flying out to meet the students.

Chicanonautica: Wild About Semana Santa

by Ernest Hogan

So, why would a self-professed heathen devil and believer in creative blasphemy like myself love Semana Santa, Holy Week? Why do I keep writing about it in my blog? Again? And again?

I’m constantly amazed by the fact that human beings are capable of believing anything. And once they get to believing, they are driven to do things that go beyond the limits of my perverse, overactive imagination.

Semana Santa is celebration of this. I enjoy it without guilt, only pleasure. Weirdness in the sun that sometimes gets bloody -- what’s not to love?

After all, bullfighting and crucifixion are my two favorite outdoor spectator sports.

So this week they’re getting ready to reenact crucifixions in Pampanga, in the Philippines, with real nails -- and once again they won’t bleed, and will heal miraculously. In Iztapalapa, in Mexico, they will use nail-like devices that don’t go through the body, but hanging from a cross does restrict the breathing and is still dangerous. It takes courage.

And penitentes are getting their Klansman-ish outfits (does the Klan know they are dressed to do penance? did the Nazis know what the swastika really stands for? do you know where the symbols that control your life came from?) ready for fantastic processions. Now they often include chariot races, soon we will also see gladiatorial games. Then, the Judases will be burned.

All with a shiny, new, virgin Pope . . .

Like most Latinos, I have a relationship with the Catholic Church. Fortunately, I had been running around a while and got my brain running before I was dragged off to catechism. I didn’t get why all these funny people with their funny clothes and funny accents seemed to think they had the right -- the duty -- to tell me how to live. Like Frank Zappa, I consider myself an escaped rather than a lapsed Catholic.

Members of my family now practice Buddhism, Hinduism, and other faiths. Forget your stereotypes.

Exposure to Catholicism helped in the inspiration of my novel High Aztech. Having Semana Santa going on now is helping with my going over the document (I almost wrote manuscript) before I send it off to be formatted for the ebook versions, and picking and tweaking the fonts for the lettering on the cover. Writing is my ritual.

I’m also getting ideas for another work-in-progress: my futuristic bullfighting novel, that will be as much about a woman on a spiritual quest as a spectacle of speculation.

Meanwhile, crucifixion reenactments are becoming more and more popular, and not just among Latinos and Catholics. Borders are being crossed and are breaking down.

And not far from where I live, under the jurisdiction of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, down a street with a lot of Virgin of Guadalupe shrines, past a guard tower with a rifle-toting mannequin, there’s a high school. At the end of a football field are three life-sized crosses -- with foot supports . . .

Ernest Hogan is the author of  the controversial novel High Aztech, that will be resurrected soon.

Chicanonautica: Dispatches From the Anthology Front

by Ernest Hogan

Even with magazines dying off, I still have luck publishing my short fiction. Anthologies seem to be my home. Editors actually come to me. Maybe all those years of struggle are beginning to pay off . . .

While 2013 got off to its tumultuous start, “Pancho Villa’s Flying Circus” -- my post-steampunk/Mexican revolution/alternative universe tale featuring Pancho Villa, Nikola Tesla, airships, and deathrays -- was accepted to be in We See a Different Frontier, edited by Djibril al-Ayad and Fabio Fernandes. It’ll be out in July. It’s a production of  The Future Fire: Social Political & Speculative Cyber-Fiction. The theme is colonialism and decolonialization. It should shake up the Global Village.

Also, Claude Lalumière accepted my post-cyberpunk masked Mexican wrestler vs. a weaponized chili drug story “Novaheads” for Super Stories of Heroes & Villains. It’ll be out in August, and has stories by writers who are more famous and successful than me. 

Hm . . . Maybe I should think about marketing the hero, Steelsnake . . . Maybe I should write more stories about him . . .

Some of you may remember that “Novaheads” was supposed to be in an anthology called Border Noir that was supposed to come out last year. Well, it looks like that anthology (that was also going to have stories by other La Bloga writers) has been cancelled. This is not an easy time for publishers. Too bad, because it would have been great. I would have loved to be able to call myself a noir/hardboiled writer.

But then, superheroes are all the rage . . . anybody want to buy a techno-enhanced luchador?

Meanwhile, I’ve been invited to submit to still another anthology. I won’t go into any details. Over the years, I’ve gotten superstitious about these things. I don’t want to jinx the deal. Just send the mojo to make the story sell.

So while the changes blazing around us are causing magazines to go the way of the dinosaur, I’ll keep cranking our these crazy stories. Who knows, maybe some homes for them will pop up. 

Oh yeah, Happy Valentine’s Day!

Ernest Hogan’s Smoking Mirror Blues will soon be available for other ereaders besides the Kindle, and his High Aztech is about to return . . .

Chicanonautica: Shakycam Shots of a Writer’s Life

by Ernest Hogan

A critic once described my style as “shakycam” -- as in low-budget documentaries shot with hand-held cameras in close, dangerous quarters. It wasn’t intended as a compliment, but does describe what I do as well as how I write.

I know I have a writing career because, like Frankenstein’s monster, it has taken on a life of its own. I keep losing track of it. I have to check my blog to make sure. Keeping up with it gets shakycam.

Take these items from my to-do list:

I’ve been (with the help of my wife) getting my novel Smoking Mirror Blues ready to become an ebook. We finally got through the final go-over and sent it off to the formatter. Tezcatlipoca willing, it may be available around Día de los Muertos.

That done, I started the tedious task of scanning my novel High Aztech -- like Cortez on Jupiter, it was written back in the Ninteen-Hundreds on an ancient mechanism called a typewriter. Not only that, but because of the Españahuatl slang, I’m probably the only human being on the planet who can do the necessary proofreading. I’m in for some fun times in the next few months!

I’m also working on a science fiction short story and a novel about bullfighting. The short story may end up as part of the novel in the end, but it actually creates more work for me.

I’ve decided to put my fantasy novel about the preColumbian ball game aside for a while because, if you haven’t guessed, I’m kind of busy. And I can’t let that cam get too shaky.

And I finally got a chance to do a collection of my short fiction. This is going to one desmadre of a project! It will include works from the typewriter era that will have to be scanned, and will be a twisted thirty-year journey through the strange things that grew in my mind, and the strange places where they got published. Trying to read it in one sitting will probably cause hallucinations and brain damage. 

Imagine what putting together that document will be like!

When going over my list of published stories, I realized that there were some that will have to go in other volumes. “The Frankenstein Penis” and its sequel have a still-growing number of true stories connected to them.  Paco Cohen, Mariachi of Mars, and Victor Theremin, the science fiction writer who has lost track of where science fiction ends and his life begins, also demand their own books.

And after crossing a few things off my to-do list, I remembered something I had to add to it. Better get to work.

Ernest Hogan really is doing all that stuff. Being a Chicano makes it more complicated and exciting. It’s also very shakycam.

Chicanonautica: From the Chicano Movement to Arroyo Grande with Jesús Salvador Treviño

by Ernest Hogan

Recently I had the honor of being interviewed by Jesús  Salvador Treviño, of Latinopia.com, and Barrio Dog Productions. His killer résumé as an award-winning filmmaker and television director impressed me. Since he directed episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Babylon Five, I had to tell him that at a science fiction convention, people would be ignoring me and crowding around him. 

But it turns out he’s also a writer, and a damn good one.

His Eyewitness: A Filmmaker’s Memoir of the Chicano Movement should be required reading in schools throughout Aztlán, even though it would probably be banned in Arizona. It documents the movement, its history, and personalities like César Chávez, Rudolfo “Corky” González, Luis Valdez, and Oscar Zeta Acosta, and illustrates the importance of the media in promoting social change. Memories exploded as I read it, and gaps in my knowledge were filled in. The subject comes to life with the epic sweep of a Great Chicano Novel. This book is not only informative, but a joy to read.

With The Fabulous Sinkhole and Other Stories Treviño proves that he can write fiction like a master. These stories are centered around the town of Arroyo Grande, Texas, a creation worthy of García Márquez or Fellini, where elements of magic realism, fantasy, and the humor and rascuachi of Chicano life combine. Here characters demonstrate a vast range of  Chicano personas that live in a fantastic universe fill of miracles, ghost mariachis, love magic, talking flies, and lowrider zombies. The final story, “The Great Pyramid of Aztlán,” presents a positive vision of the future that's truly inspiring.

The Skyscraper That Flew and Other Stories brings us back to Arroyo Grande, its people and magic. There’s also time travel, and the Space Age alien abduction mythology plugged into lively barrio life. This time we deal with alcoholism, gangs, and the media, but also have the pleasure of being in large Chicano celebrations -- something we don’t get enough of in art, literature, or the media. The final story seems to hint that there may be more -- I hope so.

Treviño’s stories have the humanity and artistry of a Chicano Ray Bradbury, and are so fun I can recommend them to science fiction fans and Latino lit aficionados, as well as those who just enjoy good stories.

Ernest Hogan’s novel Cortez on Jupiter was influence by Jesús Salvador Treviño’s documentary, América Tropical.

Poet laureate. SF story. Museo summer camp. Obama.

by Rudy Garcia

Last week, Juan Felipe Herrera was appointed California poet laureate by Gov. Jerry Brown. If this is confirmed by the California Senate, Herrera will become the first Chicano to ever receive this recognition.

You can go here to read about it, here to read more about him, and you can send him felicidades via E-mail to juan.herreraATucr.edu.

La Bloga can only say: Era tiempo!


Last Call for Ice Cream?

Not as significant as Herrrera's achivement, this zany story of mine was accepted by Rudy Rucker (of cyberpunk fame) for his Ezine Flurb #13. You can access a copy for FREE to see what at least one Chicano is doing to widen our presence in the spec fiction world. You can get Flurb #13 as an ebook that can be read on any e-reading device---Kindles, iPhones, Androids, NOOKs, Windows laptops, iPads, whatever. Mobi (for Kindle) and Epub (for the others) available for download at http://www.flurb.net/ebook/
Please leave comments there.


Chicano summer arts camp

Denver's Museo de las Americas is proud to present the 2012 summer camp program, "Animales." Students will have the opportunity to discover the wild world of animals through this multidisciplinary summer arts camp.

For three consecutive weeks, participants will immerse themselves in visual arts, dance, music, and theater classes to better understand the bond between animals, humans, and the environment. Each class is conducted by a trained teacher who is committed to advancing the students' understanding of animals through arts integration techniques and cultural competencies.

Dates: June 25th -July 13, 2012
July 4th: No Camp
July 13th: Final Performance

Hours: 9:00 am to 12:00 pm, snack provided
Ages: K through 6th grade
Cost: Scholarships available to DPS students on a first-come, first serve basis

If interested, contact Christina Gese, our Education Director at workshops@museo.org, (303) 571-4401, ext. 28, or in person at 861 Santa Fe Dr., Denver.

Space limited; request registration form today. Deadline May 1st, 2012.


Obama gave us . . .

"There are more African American adults under correctional control today -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole -- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.

"As of 2004, more African American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.

"A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The recent disintegration of the African American family is due in large part to the mass imprisonment of black fathers.

If you're still reluctant to let loose of your belief that minorities have never had it so good as under Obama, go here.

[This in no way implies we've had it much better, nor will from the next election, under anyone else, of whatever color.]

Es todo, hoy, RudyG