Chicanonautica: A Whole Lotta Little Apocalypses Going On

  

by Ernest Hogan

There’s a whole lotta little apocalypses going on. Apocalypcitos? Apocalypsettes? Apocalypsoids? Another interlinguistic breakdown?

Not only did I mess up my schedule last week, but there’s smoke from wildfires darkening the skies, ICE is shooting people, the denizen of the White House continuously secretes incoherent stream-of-semiconsciousness, the wars are getting worse . . . keeping up with it all is becoming impossible.

Meanwhile, while the rest of the planet has been following the World Cup, I’ve been checking YouTube for coverage of the running of the bulls at the Fiesta of San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain. More happens in one encierro than in entire shelves of novels. I’m reminded that modern life is running through crowded streets with dangerous beasts. It always blows my mind, as we said back in the 1900s.

I also get ideas for my sci-fi bullfighting novel–something that the world doesn’t seem to want, but that probably means it’s what it needs. Maybe if I pitch it as being about a woman on a spiritual quest . . .

I’m also getting ideas for a sequel to my unsold novel Zyx; or, Bring Me the Brain of Victor Theremin. Anybody out there interested in publishing a Chicano vs. AI novel? I’m wondering how long the publishing industry as we know it will continue to exist. 

Who knows when my books will go back online on Amazon again . . .

I’m seventy years old. I’ve given up on trying to be commercial in a world where the corporate masters of global culture are being taken over by hallucinating AIs. And I keep getting all these ideas! This deranged world is a treasure trove of inspiration!

Guess I should just keep going, work on my bucket list novels, and keep looking for openings in the chaos that will allow me to sneak in, cause a little trouble because it happens to be the right thing to do.

And the really weird thing is I can’t stop. My monstrous imagination never sleeps, it has no off switch. I’m just going to let it go wild, do my best to make what it produces into something that someone will be amused or terminally disturbed by. 

Maybe it’s my real job.

If I need diversion, I’ll read more of Ru Marshall’s American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Castaneda. Does Carlos count as a Chicano or a Latino? Is Peru the Mexico of South America? A Chicano does seem to be someone who pushes the limits. Latinos are what show biz thinks they can sell. And Hispanic is what law enforcement calls us.

I knew some Castaneda fans once who were . . .

There goes my brain again.

Ernest Hogan keeps on writing. The Father of Chicano Science Fiction refuses to die!

Chicanonautica: Looking for America in Aztlán

by Ernest Hogan

On the weekend of the 250th 4th of July celebration of the original No Kings Day, Emily and I took off to escape the friendly neighborhood afternoon-to-dawn fireworks orgy. Did the usual cherchez le weird and looking for America in the heart of Aztlán, finding some strange shit as we drove toward the Pocket Fire.

Sounds so cute and harmless. Aw. Let’s take it home . . .

In Prescott, crowds were there for the rodeo and parade. Flags were everywhere, black pickups and jeeps flew them full-sized. The fascist black, blue, and black version, too, sometimes painted on. 

And an ULTRA MAGA t-shirt.

Even the tourists were festooned with “patriotic” clothing, including Abbie Hoffman Special flag motifs.

I had a lot of wacky, incoherent dreams . . . At one point at the Hassayampa Inn, while Emily heard the sobbing of a ghost in the Art Deco hallways, I found myself in Nairobi buying a popular treat that looked like a white powder in big, transparent capsules . . . What dreamest thou, America?

On the 4th, we spent a quiet morning in Cottonwood’s Iron Horse Inn, relaxing in their Intergalactic Courtyard. Maybe the Surrealistic Burrito Western of My Dreams can have a sequence where a huge starship hovers over the courtyard and beams up a passenger . . .

Chilaquiles are like huevos rancheros, a good thing to order on the road because you never know what what you’ll get. After some fantastic chilaquiles at Creama (I prefer those of Bitzi Mama’s back in Glendale because they’re the way my mom made them, but these were good) a little old lady on a bench on Main Street told us, “You have to sit long enough on enough streets in enough towns to take it all in and you get an idea of how many trees are dying . . .”

A distortion of her will end up in either the sequel to the novel I’m having trouble selling or the Surrealistic Burrito Western or both, or maybe she deserves a story all her own.

Next day, after killing time among the plastic skeletons of Jerome, we drove to Sedona, into the smoke bank of the Pocket Fire that was blazing in Oak Creek Canyon. The 89A was cut off and the canyon evacuated. No crowds crowding Slide Rock. Sedona was quiet–not quite empty–for both a holiday and a Saturday. We could indulge in the illusion of having the place to ourselves.

By the afternoon, the smoke cleared, red rocks glowed again.

The crowd was different. More diverse. No more New Age White Spiritual Wonderland like back in the Nineties when I’d feel like I was there as part of an affirmative action program. These days they’d say DEI.

Somebody complained that there weren’t any good Mexican restaurants. I said, “Maybe they should let a few Mexicans move in.”

While waiting for pizza I scrolled into the picture of masked Patriot Front thugs surrounding that defiant Black woman on the DC Metro. When I looked it up later, I noticed that the press has gone back to capitalizing Black. Is there something in the air beside smoke?

A flyer caught my eye. For a local place called Don Diego Mexican Cuisine.

The words Mexican and cuisine just don’t sound right together to me, but I’m an old Chicano.

I shouldn’t be surprised that someone would insert Zorro into Sedona’s magical mystical ambiance, but there are problems. First of all, Zorro/Don Diego was a fictional character who first appeared in the novel The Curse of Capistrano that was first serialized in All-Story Magazine in 1919. In 1920 it was made into the silent film The Mark of Zorro and published as a book by that title in 1924. It was inspired by the legendary (his “reality” is widely debated) Joaquín Murrieta. The Mexican Joaquín was whitewashed into white Hispanic Zorro. Zorro was one of the inspirations for Batman–yes, the whole American superhero tradition has Chicano roots!

Historical accounts say that California Ranger Harry Love decapitated Joaquín in 1853, and went on to display the head. The original Zorro novel takes place in the 1820s. Sedona was founded in 1902. The timeline doesn’t work out.

Unless Joaquín/Zorro is a time traveler . . . Hmm . . .

I guess it’s better than when there weren’t any good Mexican restaurants in town.

The wind changed in the morning, bringing the smoke back.

When we got home, a huge drone was patrolling the area.

Ernest Hogan’s books are temporarily unavailable on Amazon due to corporate peculiarities. Watch here and his social media for updates.

 AND: I screwed up, did two Mondo Ernestos in a row and threw myself off schedule. A big apology  to Daniel Cano for stepping on his post for today. I'll do another Chicanonautica next week, and get myself back in the groove.

It's a wacko summer . . .  

Chicanonautica: Gonzo Writing On-The-Run Diary

 by Ernest Hogan

One thing I do when I teach my class for Palabras del Pueblo is write a story. The first day I gather some material, usually from the conversation, get an idea, and by the final day I have a story. What better way to share my writing process than to be doing it?

This time getting an idea was easy. In their opening presentation E.L. and Ronnie Dukes had us all do a writing exercise about getting a text from yourself from the year 2070. I tend to have doubts about such things, and scribbled some unusable gibberish, but the prompt got my diabolical imagination going. 

I’m old and will be 115 in 2070. Maybe it would be better if it was about a younger guy. Ronnie had us do a drawing exercise, so I drew what I would look like. A lot of my characters start out as me, then get off on their own.

To further complicate things, in the week between the Palabras weekends Emily and I had planned to do a three-day getaway from the killer heat of the Metro Phoenix Area. I was going to have to write the story on the run. Gonzo!

I decided to keep a diary of the story. And share it with my students. 

Of course, I’ve done some revising, correcting, and rewriting first:

That night, after midnight, a brainstorm woke me up. One of my brainstorms is literally like a lightning storm in my head. I took notes: mental health . . . Robots . . . Franchises . .  . Dying . .   Drones like giant mosquitoes . .  . Taser-headed robot dogs . .  . Like rough, unpolished poetry. Fragments hung on an awkward, jagged framework.

Then I had a dream of running up and down rocky hills on the way to a protest. 

It came in no kind of order. Gonzo information gathering. Cook the rasquache scramble into mutant huevos rancheros later. Like cubism. Sometimes I compose stories like Hieronymus Bosch, Diego Rivera, or S. Clay Wilson.

I didn’t get enough sleep, so I had to gonzo it with caffeine and antihistamines. My days of abusing caffeine to almost hallucinogenic levels are long behind me, but I’ve found that when I do need a boost, a little dab will do me. The muses (Xochiquetzal included) don’t give a damn about your schedules and obligations.

Also, Google was getting glitchy. I copied the stuff from the Drive file to my sketchbook in case I couldn’t access it. Keep your analog. You might need it!

After a first thing in the morning line, I made some decisions: The world is ours, right now–only worse. I still had no face on the main character, but he was younger than me, and a chronically unemployed recent college grad.

Then I decided not to think about it for the rest of the day, concentrate on the class, let the riders in the backseat of my brain work on it.

Later I re-read what I had from the beginning. I’ve found that's a good way to get back into it, and a chance to make changes and corrections.

I named the character Tavo and incorporated stuff from Ernesto Mireles’ talk–about the grim future of Chicano studies. I also decided to change the sex of a minor character because there were no women so far.

Next morning I did the sex change, thought about rearranging things. Let it stew.

I also had to go to my day job. It’s always interesting to go to work with an embryonic story growing in your brain. Kinda like drugs.

The next day Emily and I went on our road trip. As usual, I take a sketchbook/notebook. I do what I call cherchez le weird. I get a lot of my crazy ideas that way.

At one point, we got a flat tire. I took the following notes while waiting for AAA to rescue us:

[KEEP CHANGING MY MIND ABOUT THINGS I WANT TO REARRANGE & LEAVE OUT OF THE STORY. THERE IS STILL TIME TO WAFFLE . . .]

[SHOULD THERE BE MORE PEOPLE ON THE TRAIN?}

[THE PROTESTORS / RIOTERS - WHO ARE THEY?]

[WHEN THE TRAIN STOPS, IT IS NEXT TO AN ABANDONED SHOPPING MALL. TAVO RUNS INTO A NEARBY NEIGHBORHOOD, WORRYING ABOUT WHAT WILL HAPPEN, WILL THEY COME AFTER HIM?]

[TAVO THROWS A ROCK AT A ROBODOG. PROTESTERS CHEER]

[HE FLIPS OFF A DRONE]

[IN THE END, HIS PHONE RINGS AGAIN, WE GET THE “HERE WE GO AGAIN.” SUGGEST OLD TAVO IS IN A SIMILAR SITUATION.]

And the folks at Enterprise switched us to another car, getting us back to running around, having fun in record time.

The next day, while reposting the new Chicanonautica about my preparations for the class, I realized that its main purpose is triggering creativity rather than instruction. I am not an academic. I’ve never been comfortable in a classroom. I set out to deliberately be non-academic. If I can get to students to experience creativity, I consider it a success.

Later, I had a beer with dinner (a Corona lager) and a couple of chocolates from a Whisky Row shop that contained alcohol. I usually do my writing after dinner while traveling, so I decided to experiment with gonzo writing under the influence . . . I wrote my usual rough draft with one finger on my phone. The booze didn’t slow me down, but then I’m a professional who’s been publishing since 1982.

I even got to the end of the story.

Of course, I was not finished. Lots of people go on social media at this point and cheer about being “done.” No, this is not the end. What you have now is a creative mess. This is where the real work begins, the pick-and-shovel stuff. The gonzo frolicking is over. Switch over the other side of the brain, engage critical thinking, get into editor mode—Dr. Jekyll instead of Mr. Hyde.

It’s the part of writing you don’t hear much about, except for impassioned bitching.

The next morning there was no need for a warmup sentence/paragraph.

I felt that the ending needed something. Things kept occurring to me. After thoughts and second guessing. Stuff bubbling in the depths of my brain. I let it. Then worked on making it ready for an editor.

The rest of the day I concentrated on having fun.

Ernest Hogan will be teaching again at the Fall Palabras del Pueblo workshop. Meanwhile, he will be committing random acts of Xicanxfuturism, and wonder what the world will be like in a few months.

Chicanonautica: Springtime with Xipe Totec, Xochiquetzal, and Xochipilli

by Ernest Hogan

It looks like we're into another early Summer here in Arizona, but Spring hangs on, keeps clawing back. Clouds blow in. Temperatures fall (but not too much). Palo Verde trees and sage bushes explode with yellow and purple blooms, painting the urban sprawl like a psychedelic poster. Not to mention those cactus flowers.

All while the other parts of the country brace for a major snowstorm . . .

In Arizona, it seems we can’t keep a good season of rebirth and resurrection down. You’d think someone made a sacrifice to Xipe Totec, the Corn God, who demands the sacrifice of human skin the way the leaves need to be husked off ears of corn. The Mexica believed that all flesh was the same, as are we all, plant, animal, human just variations on DNA. Life is all there is to eat. Vegetarians and cannibals are siblings under the detachable skin.

Xipe does tend to stand in for Jesus in this culture.

I had a dream in which I stepped on a flower and it rose up like a snake to attack me. Forgive me, Xochiquetzal, Goddess of the Flowering Earth and Creativity. We need you in these times. Thank you for all the flowers. I’ll watch my step in the future.

We should pay our respects to her brother Xochipilli, God of all kinds of Sex, Drugs, Rocking, and Rolling. Yup, it looks like the Mexica invented hippies. Jipis. “By the time we got to Tenochtitlán . . .”

It does seem to be him the Norteamericanos are evoking when they celebrate Cinco de Mayo. The Battle of Puebla is ignored, or not mentioned, swept under the carpet of modern life. What a lot of governments would like to do as they rekindle their taste for human sacrifice at taxpayer expense. 

Reminds me of a ritual I once witnessed in Mexico City–there was a man in full Aztec priest regalia and a drugged rattlesnake . . .

If it only I could find a bottle of Escorpion Negro . . .

Ernest Hogan, Father of Chicano Science Fiction, uses the word Mexica out of respect, but delights in the fear Aztec strikes in the hearts of certain kinds of people. He is also teaching his “Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Style” course as part of the Palabras del Pueblo writing workshop again online, the weekends of June 6-7 and 13-14. Only $100. Sponsorships available. Deadline is May 20. Sign up now!

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: An Immodest Proposal for a Xicanxfuturist Holiday

by Ernest Hogan

Just when it looked like they were going to forget about us Chicanos and go blowing up the world, we get a bombshell bullseye right in La Cultura.

 

I’m talking about the César Chávez revelations.

It’s amazing how fast the bureaucratic entities got to cancelling. Why couldn’t they do that to the perpetrator in the White House? But I’m not here to complain about double standards in law enforcement, I’m dedicating this post to the ruined holiday and what to do with the mangled remnants, and offer some Xicanxfuturist visions.

César Chávez Day was always awkward. Cinco de Mayo was hijacked by the alcoholics (there are a number of Aztec gods dedicated to alcohol consumption with appropriate rituals that could be revived, but that's a whole other pendejada). The truth is, nobody ever knew what to do or C. C. Day. Barbecue? Tacos? Too bad there’s no TV coverage of the ancient ball game that is undergoing a revival in the Yucatán . . .

The problem was César’s saintly image. It was always supposed to be serious business. There aren’t many pictures of him smiling. How are we supposed to have any kind of fun?

The media and academia packaged him as their token Chicano: “See kids, he believed in nonviolence, so resist any genetic predisposition you may have to stabbing anyone. Now, back to the wonderful story of Western Civilization . . .”

We could honor Dolores Huerta, Raquel Welch, Linda Ronstadt, Gloria Anzaldúa, and other Chicanas. And what about remembering Frida Kahlo, Claudia Sheinbaum, and even Spaniard Olga Casado and the New Wave of women who are rocking the world of bullfighting?

There have been a helluvalot of Chicanos—and Chicanas!—who have done a lot of amazing things. Heroic things. Things that are just plain interesting. 

As a writer I find it all great material. It’s what makes my work so original.

And not just heroes to worship—I personally believe that’s a bad idea. We don’t need no stinking cults of personality. Why not celebrate us?

Farmworkers Day? Sí Se Puede Day? Chicano Day?  Chicana Day? Xicanxfuturist Day? Hmm . . .

Then, as I was brainstorming this piece, Arizona Highways came out with its April 2026 issue "Celebrating Mexican Heritage in Arizona.” And right there on the cover ESCARAMUZA! Check out Anita Snow’s article, “Reins Supreme," about teams (with the Amazonas and Corazón as part of their names) based in Phoenix. It’s got gorgeous photos by Adriana Zehbrauskas.

For those of you who don't know about the sport, it’s the female

sector of charrería, Mexican rodeo. (Didn’t the cowboy thing start with Mexican vaqueros? What language is the word rodeo, anyway?) Eight charras (more than cowgirls) in colorful adelita dresses (¡Viva La Revoluçión!), riding sidesaddle, come at each other in a dangerous way that will get your adrenaline pumping faster than any feature-length Hollywood horse opera.

Gets me fantasizing about the Surrealistic Burrito Western of My Dreams . . . How about a climactic scene with a rapist trapped in the middle of all those charging hooves?

Maybe, if we don’t let the fascists have their way, there will be coverage of a Dolores Huerta Escaramuza Tournament on March 31 and maybe combined with an ancient ball game championship and some toreras practicing their art. The fiesta of the future!

Ernest Hogan is busy with the business of being a Xicanxfuturist and the Father of Chicano Science Fiction.