Chicanonautica: Hockey-Pucking Through the Arizona Midterms

by Ernest Hogan

Following the midterms in Arizona has been like chasing a hockey puck, being batted around, bouncing off things, not knowing what will come next.

 

Since my last column:

A federal judge “ordered that a group monitoring Arizona ballot drop boxes for signs of fraud stay at least 75 feet away from ballot boxes and publicly correct false statements its members have made about Arizona election laws.”

Maricopa County’s sheriff warned political leaders “not 'to incite violence or riots' with false claims, sent extra police to polling places, and barricades went up around elections offices.”

There was a break in at Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Katie Hobbs’ headquarters. When suspicion was cast on Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari “Trump in a Dress” Lake, called an Emergency Press Conference in which she showed fake picture of a man in a chicken suit breaking into her headquarters, and attacked the press.

Lake told a reporter, “I am going to not only be the governor of Arizona for four years, I’m going to do two terms. I’m going to be your worst fricking nightmare for eight years.” Her transformation from smiling news gerbil to fire-breathing politician is complete. She’s always screaming hallucinatory nonsense. Maybe there’s something to that wild rumor that she’s hooked on datura enemas.

A suspect in the Hobbs HQ break in was arrested and wasn’t politically motivated.

An envelope with a hateful letter and a mysterious white powder was found at Lake headquarters but was thrown away. Police couldn’t find any powder in two other letters.

 

 

And the race was still close. 

My scifiista mind conjured up a scenario where I’m trying to sneak across the new border from recently seceded Lakeian AZ into California, so we don’t lose our Medicare and Social Security. Would the fact that I was born in East L.A. make me a citizen of the new United States? Would my Arizona marriage be recognized?

Early on Election Day, there was some trouble with the tabulators at some polling places. The glitch was fixed by noon. Kari Lake snarled about “incompetence.”

Except for that, it was a quiet Election Day. No incident at the polls. 

There was a lot of talk about a Red Wave, but even though races were tight all over the country, it didn’t happen. Trump-backed candidates–particularly, celebrity-physician Dr. Mehmet Oz–lost.

The next morning, Michael A. Cohen of MSNBC stated: “While we still don’t have the final results, Democratic losses will be nowhere close to the historical averages.” After a day of agonizing doldrums, more results came in:

Democrat Mark Kelly kept his Senate seat from extreme Republican Blake Masters. Democrat Adrian Fontes beat Republican Mark Finchem for Secretary of State. Hobbs is the new Governor, but the Attorney General race is a toss-up.

On the national front, Ron DeSantis kept the governorship of Florida, and is being hailed as the new hero of the Republican Party. Trump got mad.

Lake supporters marched around the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, trying to reenact the Biblical Battle of Jericho.

What does it mean to La Bloga readers? Well, I have noticed that there was no reaching out to Latinos in the last few weeks of the election–even after Lake made an awkward Spanish-language ad earlier. Democrats Hobbs and Kelly both made ads showing them as being tough on “the border.”

Yeah, I know that it was strategic, because it comes down to winning over those peculiar folks who can vote fascist or socialist depending on the prevailing mood, but it stings that a lot of our fellow Americanos still see us as a problem, instead of a solution.

And on the other hand, Proposition 308, that approved in-state tuition of all qualifying students regardless of immigration status, passed.

Meanwhile, a zombie-like Trump has announced his run for the presidency in 2024 . . .

Ernest Hogan, Father of Chicano Sci-Fi, works hard to keep his fiction stranger than the news.

Chicanonautica: 2021: Other Odysseys

by Ernest Hogan

Washington DC isn’t under attack, and Trump hasn’t been reinstalled as president, so it looks like I’ll have to write about something else . . . I will keep checking, in case we suddenly have riots, bombings, or a civil war . . .

On the other hand, to be irreverent and heretical, has anybody else noticed that Trump seemed to be good for the whole Latinx literature thing? A lot or my fellow Latinoid writers (a lot of whom are friends) have books coming out. More than I ever remember, and I’m getting pretty old. I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to afford to buy them all. Hell, even I have a book coming out—Pancho Villa’s Flying Circus & Other Fictions, if any news of it breaks, I’ll interrupt myself.

So why not give you Chicanonauts out there some advanced warning?

Guillermo Gómez-Peña already has two big, important books out: Gómez-Peña Unplugged: Texts on Live Art, Social Practice and Imaginary Activism (2008-2020) that mentions me, and La Pocha Nostra: A Handbook for the Rebel Artist in a Post-Democratic Society. El maestro Guillermo does in performance art what I try to do in science fiction, and in his field the interface between real life and sci-fi gets more intense. Reading him reminds me what I’m doing, gets me rethinking things and heading off in new directions.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia,who recently broke the bestseller barrier with her sensational novel that’s being developed into a TV series Mexican Gothic, has a new one out: Untamed Shore that gets noir in sunny Baja California in 1979, and coming soon is The Return of the Sorceress, her version of a heroic fantasy.

David Bowles, whose middle grade graphic novel (illustrated by his daughter Charlene) Rise of the Halfling King (Tales of the Feathered Serpent #1) and whose chapter book series 13th Street came out in 2020, will soon be releasing The Path, a “BIPOC-futurist space opera quartet.”

And Rudy Ch. Garcia, La Bloga co-founder and author of The Closet of Discarded Dreams, has announced Death Song of the Dragón Chicxulub, a YA fantasy that sends a contemporary chicano on an epic adventure that brings pre-Columbian fantasy to life.

And that’s not all. I’m sure I’ve seen announcements for more, but my overworked brain is having trouble coughing them up. There’s just so pinche much going on during this pandemic.

If you’re one of the Latinx writer coming out with sff-type book, I’m on Facebook and Twitter. It’s pretty easy to get in touch with me. I also have a tendency to review books that writers send me for free—especially if they deal with the subject at hand. I also need them for this column.

Meanwhile, there has been no insurrection, the political turmoil bubbles under the beauty of a sunny Spring day, and I remember to keep a bandido bandana handy to tie over my face when I go out.

Ernest Hogan is working Zyx, Volume One: Bring Me the Brain of Victor Theremin.

Chicanonautica: How to Win the Second Annual Extra-Fiction Contest

by Ernest Hogan

Somos en escrito, The Latino Literary Online Magazine is doing a second annual Extra-Fiction Contest. So if you’re an American writer of indigenous-hispanic background (Native American, Chicanan, Latina/o/x) born in the USA or from Latin America residing in the USA, and write in English, Spanish of Ingléspañol, click that link and check it out.

Also, like last year, I, your humble Father of Chicano Science Fiction will be the judge, picking the winners.

To give you La Bloga readers an edge, I’m going to give you some advice on how to win this contest.

First, I really don’t have anything in mind as to what I’m looking for. I’m keeping my mind open. Wide open.

Next, I’m hoping to get my mind blown. This isn’t easy. I’ve been soaking my brain in all kinds of weird stuff since I was a toddler in East L.A. back in the Nineteen-Fifties. 

This shouldn’t be a problem for writers from la Raza. Rasquache--dare I say recomboculture?--has been a tradition for us since Teotihuacán.

Maybe farther back. Lately I’ve been thinking that the Bering Strait land bridge wasn’t the only way that people got onto these two great, big continents on this hemisphere. Different peoples from different places were pretty good at navigating the oceans going way back to prehistoric times. They came here, met up, made war and love the way people do . . .

There are probably some story ideas there . . .

Then there are my visions of the intergalactic barro . . .

But I digress, and oddly enough it brings me back to my point. The whole Latinoid continuum of cultures, civilizations is so vast, so diverse, so volatile. A bubbling cauldron brewing up the creativity that dances through our DNA.

Last year, when deciding which of the finalists would win, I went for originality. They were all good stories. I liked them. Some of them were more of the usual stuff you see in every anthology of Latinx fiction we’ve been seeing over the years. First prize went to the most far-out, they one that showed me things I had never seen before.

After all, this an Extra-Fiction contest. Not the usual, the routine, but something extraordinary.

So maybe you a story that is just too bizarre that most markets won’t touch it (I have a lot of those), or have an idea keep tucked away because, well, maybe it’s just goes too far, that is what I want to see.

 

Take the chains that Anglo-dominated society puts on your Latinoid imagination and let it run wild.

 

I’ll be here, waiting, with my mind ready to boggle.

Ernest Hogan is the author of High Aztech, “PeaceCon,” and is working on Zyx; Or, Bring Me the Brain of Victor Theremin.

Chicanonautica: Another Damn Election in Arizona

by Ernest Hogan

The midterm election was low key in Arizona. Hysteria and paranoia levels were remarkably low, though signs announced candidates as being against Obama -- and he wasn’t running for office in this state -- and repeated the word conservative.

There was no wooing of Latinos. I know when I’m being wooed, and it wasn’t happening.

The polling place at the library where I work was quiet. If the usual English as a Second Language class hadn’t been displaced, and I hadn't had to help move the tables and chairs, I might not have noticed it was even open.

The Republican winner of the race for governor, Doug Ducey, former CEO Cold Stone Creamery, played it cool. The joke going around is that voters expected free ice cream. He was anti-Obama anti-illegal immigration, and a businessman, who likes the term “job creator,” despite the fact that his business failed.

All things that a lot of Arizona voters like to hear. Especially the businessman thing. You keep hearing it: “Get a businessman in there -- that’ll fix things!”

They don’t remember Evan Mecham and Fife Symington, and what disasters they were.

The Democratic candidate, Fred DuVal, was practically invisible. I voted for him, but probably wouldn’t recognize him it if saw him on the street.

There was some of the usual Arizona weirdness: We kept getting calls from the same mysterious number. Out of morbid curiosity, my wife answered. Someone claiming to be taking a survey asked things like, “If you heard that Fred DuVal killed and ate Christian babies, would you still vote for him?” 

My wife said, “Yes.”

I would have been tempted to say something like, “Of course, the best thing about Christians is their nutritional value.” 

Back in West Covina, California,where I grew up, they practically knocked on your door and walked you to the polls. In Arizona they make voting hard, always moving polling places. Registered voters who have moved or gotten divorced often end up running around all over town. And I once saw a little Native American lady treated like a criminal because she showed up at the wrong precinct.

These days, my wife and I get early ballots.

And I vote, even though I know I’m outgunned and outnumbered, because when the rest of the world is dropping their jaws at what Arizona’s elected officials are doing, I can say that I voted against the bastards.

Besides, in my districts, we just elected Ruben Gallego to Congress, Martin Quezada to the State Senate, and Richard Andrade to the State House. 

Don’t tell anybody, but we’ve been electing Hispanic Democrats for a long time . . .

We’re in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jurisdiction, and who knows what would happen if he found out.

But then, I haven’t seen his deputies cruising around here lately. Maybe it’s all those rumors of cannibalism and human sacrifice. Or all the new businesses run by brown people who speak Spanish.

Ernest Hogan writes crazy books and stories. Living in Arizona helps.

Chicanonautica: Confessions of a Bullfight Fan

As a clumsy, near-sighted, dyslexic guy I was never much into sports, but I always liked bullfighting. It might have something to do with ethnic pride. It could also be a literary link, with that other guy named Ernest. Or it could just be something about blood glistening in the sun.

I must admit, I get a thrill at the look of shock on a Joe Typical Sports Fan’s face when I tell him that, no, I don’t follow football, basketball, or baseball, but I do enjoy bullfighting. Ever see a guy with hamburger residue rotting between his teeth turn into an animal rights activist?

It’s also fun the way bullfighting makes liberals intolerant of other cultures, and conservatives speak of abolishing traditions. Ah, sweet iconoclasm!

I’m lucky to live in an age when I can watch bullfights almost every day, from the comfort of my own home, even when Spain no longer puts them on television.

Yes, technology has done it again. A Web connection is all you need for more bullfighting news and videos than you can keep up with. Just get on ABC.es on their Toros tab under Cultura. Bullfighting videos can be found at Burladero.com, Suertematador.com, and TorosTVPeru on livestream.

YouTube is also a good source, but you should use Spanish in your searches. Online, there is a language barrier: Most of the stuff in English is from the “antis.”

And don’t think this is all machismo. Some of my favorite bullfighters are women. Want female heroes? Look up Milagros Sánchez, Hilda Tenorio, Conchi Ríos, Mari Paz Vega, and Noelia Mota.

The problem is, it’s so hard to have a reasonable discussion about this subject. Hysterical reactions kick in. Suddenly, there are all these screaming pseudo-naked vegetarians covered in fake blood running around.

But bullfighting is art, and culture, and tradition that will leave us poorer if we don’t take it into the future.

It’s also all about spirituality, though in this land where such things are divorced from blood, guts, tits, and ass, people just don’t see.

One American writer who did see was Richard Wright in Pagan Spain: And the matador in his bright suit of lights was a kind of lay priest offering up the mass for thirty thousand guilty penitents.

And later: It is the conquering of fear, the making of religion of the conquering of fear.

Like the modern tradition of the horror film, only the blood and death are real.

Seeing a bullfight makes me feel up to any task I may have to do during the day. A great one makes me feel that anything is possible. It’s called inspiration.

I’ve written and sold two science fiction stories about bullfighting: “Tauromaquia” (Science Fiction Age, July 1995) and “Frank’s Tricer Run” (Science Fiction Age, May 1997). Both published thanks to editor Scott Edelman.

I have a mad vision of a science fiction novel about bullfighting, in which a female matador goes on a spiritual quest through corporatized religion, genetic engineering, and space travel. The publishing world as it exists now would never touch such a thing, but change is in the air.

And the vision, like the bullfight, is compelling.

Ernest Hogan is working to get his novels released as ebooks, and waiting for la Fiesta de San Fermin.