Chicanonautica: Carlos Castaneda’s Very Weird Shit

by Ernest Hogan 

 

I can’t ignore Carlos Castaneda. Not only was he a bestselling author from the Latinoid Continuum, a big influence on pop culture (the Force in Star Wars is based on power), and a lot of scifiistas. He also encroaches on my territory. So when I heard about Ru Marshall’s American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Castaneda, I knew I had to read and review it.

It’s a thick one and it took me a while, mostly because it kept giving me a lot to think about. I’d read a little, and have to stop and let my brain chew on the chunks of weird shit.

And what weird shit . . .

Telling women his semen would instantly give them shamanistic power. Having another man impregnate his wife so he could have a blond son (he was el Negro of his family). His “I am in Peru or Mexico" gag. Immortality. Travel to other dimensions . . .

I had always thought Hunter S. Thompson summed him up in a letter to Oscar Zeta Acosta: “Very weird. The old man really fucked the kid around, eh?” Only now it looks like don Juan didn’t exist. Just who was doing the fucking around here? I have to reconsider my thinking.

It’s that kind of book.

It triggers memories of the world since the Sixties. As the Father of Chicano Science Fiction, I have a unique perspective. Yeah, he wasn’t quite a Chicano in the sense of a Mexican choosing a non-Anglo identity. He was from Peru, but told people he was Brazilian–how do you think people saw him in SoCal? He was cut off (though largely by his own choice) from his family/tribal/ancestral roots, living between cultures, creating his own identity–that’s Chicano.

Also immigrants who can’t fully assimilate tend to become Chicanos.

I read his first two books back in the Seventies largely because they were unavoidable. They were entertaining. I didn’t consider them fiction. 

Since I find the idea of a know-it-all telling everyone what to do a turn-off, I went no further. Besides gurus were–and still are–crawling out of the woodwork.

I don’t believe in gurus.

Thank Tezcatlipoca for my built-in bullshit detector!

Also every Yaqui I’ve met who’s heard of him thought he was full of shit.

Sometimes his name comes up when people try to describe my work, though I’m probably closer to Oscar Acosta, but that’s still misleading.

Sometimes it’s easier to let people have their misconceptions of me than to explain my Chicano-is-a-sci-fi-state-of-being reality. It’s not really lying. What do you do when they don’t seem to be capable of seeing the truth?

Maybe I am un poco like him.

Unlike him, I am not a pathological liar. Apparently, he lied constantly. Ru Marshall did an amazing twenty-year job of sorting through this man’s work and utterances, cross referencing it with interviews with people who knew and encountered him and coming up with an epic biography that is, in my humble opinion, more interesting and fantastic than Castaneda's books. 

He lived writing fiction in his head all the time. So do I. I am painfully aware of where my real life ends and the sci-fi begins. I have no interest in making others live in my fantasies.

It is impressive that he got anthropologists at UCLA to give him a doctorate for a novel, though the fact that he was a rich, bestselling author probably breached the experiment. It’s not surprising that Simon & Schuster didn’t care any more than his readers did. Fiction? Nonfiction? They only care if the books sell. I’ve heard that there are people who read all his books then start over. They fill a need that I don't have.

I think.

This is all amusing, up until you get to the mysterious deaths and disappearances following his death, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see successful media adaptations. The chapter about the fucking around with Fellini alone would make a wild and crazy movie. In all, it’s a bizarre soap opera dealing with the Great American/Latinoid Spiritual Crisis.

The peoples of the United States of America have a strong lust for spirituality. It’s a product they keep trying to buy. It makes them prey to the manipulations of narcissistic sociopaths. We need to learn to recognize and resist them.

And stop electing them.

Be careful out there.

Ernest Hogan’s New, Improved Ancient Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom is not a cult. When he finds himself sounding like a guru, he laughs. Or is that the laughter of Tezcatlipoca?

Chicanonautica: Making Ancient Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom New and Improved

by Ernest Hogan

Look out, aspiring writers and seekers of knowledge, I will be committing a series of deliberate acts of unregistered education again at the Fall 2026 session of the Palabras del Pueblo Writing Workshop, on the Saturdays and Sundays of October 3-4 and 10-11, on Zoom, so you can do it in your pajamas or underwear, though I plan on wearing a nice shirt. 

This time I’m calling it New, Improved, Ancient Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom.

So, why make the Ancient Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom new and improved? 

Well, it’s because it’s got ancient roots, it’s working on the future and constantly mutating.

I was going to say “evolving,” but that’s a slow process, and what’s happening with all things Chicano lately is sudden and unexpected. ¡SAS! Like a loose gamma ray zapping a DNA sequence causing something . . . weird.

You’ve probably noticed that these aren’t great times for Chicanos. Not only are Hollywood and New York avoiding putting out creative works on the diverse global market and making us rich and improving the overall quality of life and culture for the human race, but we are under attack.

 

There. I said it. I shouldn’t have to go into details-just plug into a random news source . . . 

Meanwhile, we still have these incredible imaginations because of the complex, constantly changing cultural mix that we . . . are. I’ve been doing it most of my life. Chicano is a sci-fi state of being. Xicanxfuturism refuses to die. Ciberbandidos arise . . .

My bizarre experiences have taught me, and I need to help those who dare to write while part of the Latinoid continuum. I’m one of the more successful Chicano writers of my generation. I don’t have any secret formula for writing success, but I have a career beyond the expectations of most of the people I know. I learned a few things along the way.

I also try to keep it entertaining.

My warped brain will also be available for picking while I create a new story over the two weekends and share my unconventional creative processes.

Yeah, I meant it to be plural.

And I’m not giving up on creating new worlds.

From the markets of Teotihuacán to the farthest edges of the Intergalactic Barrio.

Some find it inspiring.

So sign up now!

Ernest Hogan is trudging through this infernal summer, besides the abovementioned class, Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow / Codex II finally has an official publication date–December 15, 2026!--so get ready for another Paco Cohen, Mariachi of Mars adventure, as well as some interesting things brewing in the University of New Mexico. Stay tuned ciberbandidxes! (Pronounce that ciberbandidEQUISES.)

Chicanonautica: ¡Ancient Gonzo Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom, Otra Vez!

by Ernest Hogan

Once again, via the modern miracle of Zoom, I’m going to share the secrets to my bizarre success, the knowledge that has been beaten into me in over 40 years of writing that have earned me the title (warning label?) the Father of Chicano Science Fiction.

You’ll learn how to market yourself to the Anglo-centric publishing

industry in a time of global cultural wars and mass deportations, and hair-raising firsthand accounts of a professional writer’s life.

It’ll be interactive. I’ll answer your questions, and hope to learn a few things myself, maybe even get my mind blown.

Did I mention that’s my idea of a good time?

Also, I’ll start a story, and share how I write it, and encourage you to do the same.

Afterwards, we can set our creations loose on this unsuspecting world. They think all hell’s breaking loose . . . Heh-heh-heh.

Note: Though this is a Raza-oriented class, Non-Razas (Anglos, etc.) are welcome to apply, you'll be treated courteously, but just be warned that you will be in the minority, like I was through my entire formal education.

Besides, the more students, the more money I get.

The deadline to apply is May 20th.

It costs $100 for a four-day workshop over two weekends. 

Sponsorships are available, see the application.

Summer session:

June 6-7 &13-14

9am to 1pm Pacific Time.

DEADLINE to apply: May 20th

Do it now!

Ernest Hogan is determined to survive and thrive through these pendejoso times.  

Chicanonautica: The Moon, Mars, and Chicanos

by Ernest Hogan

Earthlings are going to the Moon again, and it’s not just white male AngloAmericanos this time. And my feelings are . . . weird.

I was a fan of the Space Program ever since I went crying to my parents “there’s no cartoons on TV, just a big chile in the sky,” and my dad explained to me that it was John Glenn going into space, for real.

My little mind was blown. Reality and what was and wasn’t possible transmogrified for me. I was launched on the bizarre trajectory that I’m hurtling along today.

Just before Covid, Diego F. Jauregui, a 12F Fellow of the Smithsonian’s National Air Space Museum Space History Department, interviewed me. I guess it was to make up for a shortage of Chicano astronauts.

I never became an astronaut and don’t consider myself a poet, though Guillermo Gomez-Pena called me “ a Chicano SCI-Fi poet” and I admit that does describe me well though I don’t set out to commit acts of poetry on purpose—it seems to be in my DNA.

The crew of the Artemis II mission doesn't have any Chicanos, or Latinos, or even Hispanics, though they did take 58 tortillas, because they don’t make crumbs like bread. It has a Black pilot, a woman, and a Canadian who, though not Indigenous, has connections with the Anishinaabe and Manitoba nations.

Back on Earth, Chicano have been writing poetry about space and the future.

What would Ray Bradbury think?

Pedro Iniguez’ Mexicans on the Moon: Speculative Poetry from a Possible Future won the 2024 Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Poetry and has been getting recognition beyond what you’d expect for a book of poems. He’s also in Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow / Codex I. 

More recently, Juan Manuel Pérez–another Xicanxfuturism Codex I contributor–has come out with a Bury My Heart Under the Martian Sky. Being the author of a series of stories about a Tejano mariachi on a colonized Mars (one of which will be in Xicanxfuturism Codex II coming soon, stay tuned . . .), I felt I had to look into it. Besides, it has a great cover by Kolega Soberanis.

I was impressed. These poems show that the days when I was afraid that there was some kind of conspiracy against nonwhite/nonAnglos getting out into space are over. They give a vision of a future from a Chicano viewpoint, with roots in PreColombian mythology, showing a relationship to the Earth and the universe that provides a needed alternative to the capitalist/colonialist propaganda that has dominated science fiction and the popular imagination well into this current century.

[Insert mariachi grito here]

Chicanos are creating new futurisms with the infusion of and creation of a New Chicano Dream.

I have a feeling Coyolxauhqui the Mexica and Ixchel Mayan goddesses of the Moon are smiling.

 

Ernest Hogan is doing his duties as the Father of Chicano Science Fiction while working on making his Paco Cohen, Mariachi of Mars stories into a novel, and waiting for Xicanxfuturism Codex II to come out as deranged leaders promise to destroy civilizations overnight.

Chicanonautica: Whatchcallus, Anyway?

by Ernest Hogan

I did a display of science fiction by writers of what I call the Latinoid Continuum and I used the term Latinx. There will probably be objections from some of my peers, so here’s an explanation:

The sign is for the patrons of that library where I work, and while we get my fellow Chicanos here, we also get a lot of others, African Americans, “whites,” et cetera. . . It’s in a public place and as inclusive as possible.

Also, not all of the writers featured are, if you want to get nick-picky, Chicanos. Silvia Moreno-Garcia is Mexico born and lives in Canada. V. Castro is a Tejana who lives in England.  Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology includes “Those Rumors of Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice Have Been Greatly Exaggerated” one of my best stories, along with “Old Folks” by Scótt Russell Dúncan (note the accent marks–should I do it too? Érnest Hógan . . .) editor for Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow–Codex I (out now, buy it, read it, live it) and works by a diverse crew of writers from cultures transmogrified by contact with the Spanish Armada.

The x is still esoteric and controversial and not really known outside of college campuses and bureaucracies, but I consider exposing people to things from outside their comfort zone part of my job.

Once near the ruins of Monte Alban, I identified myself as a Chicano to a Zapotec guide. He had never heard the word. I tried to explain, but ended up leaving him thinking I was from Chicago.

In my career, I’ve found that it helps to use words that outsiders—Anglos (some take offense, “I ain’t from Angola!”), gringos, (et and cetera)— can understand. When dealing with more than one culture, declaring an official name never works. What usually happens, quite organically, is new languages are created.

New life and new civilizations. Chicanidad evolving into Xicanxfuturism. Talk about a concept that could cause trouble. 

The word Yucatan is based on one of the many Mayan dialects for “I don’t understand you.”

I’ve never been picky about what people call me. The internet thinks I’m a cyberpunk, though I’ve never been part of the movement. People have a hard time figuring me out, so I let them slap a handy label on me and go on with my business. These labels are usually insults or place-holders for something they don’t understand.

So what? Political correctness is for losers and I’m  a bizarre phenomenon. I’m lucky they don’t call in the military.

You usually don’t get called what you choose, you get called what your enemies call you, if they win, that is . . .

Chicano started out as a vile insult. Like the N-word.

The Navajo call themselves the Diné. The many Apache tribes call themselves variations on Ndé, Ndee, N’de or even Diné. Yes, they are related, but then aren’t we all? 

 

Do you have Neanderthal or Denisovian DNA? Or both?

Navajo and Apache are Spanishized versions of Zuni and Tewa Pueblo words for “enemy” and “cultivated fields in the valley” as in  apachu from the navahu’u.

We all call the Kanien’kehá:ka the Mohawks, a Dutch/English version of the Algonquian mohowawog, “man-eater,” cannibal, if you will.

So rather than arguing about what we should be called and what language we should be arguing in we need to form a united front. But first there will be a lot of fighting about it.

Meanwhile, I’m using Latinoid Continuum . . . 

ICE can’t tell Mexicans from Chicanos from Latinos from Latinx from Xicanx from brown from black from white. And a warehouse is being converted into a “detention center” not far from where I live. 

New languages, and realities, will be created in the process. 

Xicanxfuturism is the future!

Or as Jean-Luc Godard’s evil computer Alpha-60 said in Alphaville:  “Sometimes reality can be too complex to be conveyed by the spoken word. Legend remolds it into a form that can be spread all across the world.” 

See? Chicano really is a science fiction state of being.

Ernest Hogan, Father of Chicano Science Fiction, wants you to buy Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow / Codex I, read it, and start building the rasquache future of our choice. His Paco Cohen, Mariachi of Mars story “A Wild and Wooly Road Trip on Mars” will be in Codex II, soon . . . 

 

Chicanonautica: Who the Hell is Paco Cohen?

by Ernest Hogan

 

It’s like I don’t as much create characters as meet them. It was that way with Paco Cohen.

I was working as a janitor, sweeping out classrooms and cleaning toilets at an elementary school. I wore a baseball cap and a bandana. Just another Chicano janitor.

I was still a sci-fi writer at heart, thinking about Mars, because Phoenix seems so much like a Mars colony to me. I started getting these flashes of a guy like me on Mars . . .

They weren’t very clear at first. I needed to experience some things before I could write this story. While doing the job, I soaked up the way I was treated and people reacted to me. 

I learned a lot from my Chicano—actually, most of them were Chicanas—coworkers, learning about their lives and the important part Mexican music played. They grew up, worked, and fell in love to this soundtrack.

Eventually, Paco came into focus, and began talking to me.

It wasn’t easy, like picking up a signal from a distant world. I had to tap into feelings about my down-but-not out writing career. Paco’s life was similar.

Soon I was telling people, “He’s gonna say stuff like, My mama would say, ‘Mijo, don’t be a yutz!”

And people would say,”You’ve got to write that!”

The result was the novelette “The Rise and Fall of Paco Cohen and the Mariachis of Mars.” The story of a man who was crucified on a vampire cactus by an interplanetary development corporation, then patched himself back together. The corporate take-over of Mars from a point of view of a guy who has to wipe the red dust off everything. Chicano stuff. I was amazed when it sold to Analog, the magazine that first serialized Dune.

I wasn’t thinking of sequels or franchises, but Paco wasn’t done with me. What would this Mars, and Paco’s life be like with the corporation versus the Chicano-style rasquache lifestyle of the workers, and the awakening of ancient Martian lifeforms. The result was "Death and Dancing in New Las Vegas” (the bilingual glitch on purpose, a nod to “the Los Angeles Times” and other artifacts of my SoCal upbringing) that also sold to Analog.

Would I be able to find success by pretending to be a venerable “hard science” writer?

 

It didn’t happen. By the time I wrote “Flying Under the Texas Radar with Paco and Los Freetails,” I had been told that what I have been sending Analog was “too surrealistic and cartoony” (my writing described in a nutshell). I couldn’t help it–that’s the way Paco’s life–and mine–went. This one was about how and why he got from Texas to Mars, and his youth as a rocking young rebel, with maybe some parallels to my life. It ended up seeing print in Latin@ Rising, that became Latinx Rising in the next edition.

And Paco still wouldn’t leave me alone. His world, his life, kept growing in the back of my brain, turning into stories . . .

Ben Bova, who published Cortez on Jupiter, and High Aztech liked these stories, and encouraged me to keep writing them and make them into a novel, like Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. I had thought about it, and was glad he liked the idea.

Then Covid killed him. Now I have to write the book, so I can dedicate it to him.

In the next couple of months, if this year doesn’t get too apocalyptic, another Paco story, “A Wild and Wooly Road Trip on Mars,” will appear in Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow / Codex II. I’ll be making a lot of noise about it. 

I also have a file with all the stories, notes, some additional bridging material, and part of another story. It’s about time I focused on finishing the novel I plan to call Paco Cohen is Alive and Well and Living on Mars. A good chunk of it is already written, and I am getting old.

I just hope that no thugs are watching me, waiting to impale me on the fang/spines of vampire cactus.

Ernest Hogan is alive and well and going stark, raving Xicanxfuturist no matter what pendejos running the world do.