Chicanonautica: 2025: A Road Odyssey: In the Gringo West

 

by Ernest Hogan

And suddenly, Idaho! The Gringo West. Away from Aztlán and the influence of Uto-Aztecan cultures. Still Sasquatchlandian, but away from the Pacific Ocean. No mermaids in this cool desert. Speed limit 50 mph on the 84 East. A different culture in the Great American Rasquache Mix.

I spilled coffee on my sketchbook in the gonzo tradition.

It got warm. I had to ditch my jacket while marveling at possible locations for the surrealistic spaghetti western of my dreams when I spotted something truly unexpected. A sign: MIRACLE HOT SPRINGS–CAUTION: ALLIGATORS.

Is that where they get the alligator meat for the jerky I keep seeing advertised?

Scenes of an alligator ranch flashed through my brain.

I Googled it–it’s real. There used to be an alligator farm in the area, which you’d think would be too cold. They have had gators since 1959. Now they only have one alligator, called Lola and then Alfie in two articles for 2024. Another mystery . . .

And not enough for the wide-screen reptile stampede I was imaging. Oh well . . .

Next was Burley. Mike pointed out a trucker driving and drinking a can of Coors as we approached via I-84.

I shed my overshirt and rolled up my sleeves. Saw a cybertruck, presumably on its way to Mars. There were lots of Chinese and Mexican restaurants, thrift stores, and weird photo ops in a post-apocalyptic environment. 

I also found some emergency replacement sunglasses.

However, there was no deli in Rupert.

Then I put my overshirt back on. Those icy Idaho winds. Soon we were in Utah, home of the Utes, upper edge of Uto-Nahuatl country.

Of course, now there’s a strong Mormon influence, men’s and women's restrooms are on the opposite sides of buildings. It’s the same with the clothes in the thrift stores. The prophets forbid a young man might decide to try on a used temple dress. They would probably give Calamity Jane a bad time.

Then it got warm, I took off my overshirt again.

Farris Ice Cream in Ogden has a good selection of sorbet and sherbet for my lactose- intolerant guts. There were also full-size skeletons in Halloween drag. An employee and some local kids passing by were in punk/goth regalia. Looked like it was the local hip hangout, across the street from a Mormon temple.

Brown folks were on the streets and working in stores.There was also a spectacular neon dragon, and signs of Día de los Muertos. Could the fusion into Dead Daze happen here in a few years?

There was even graffiti in an alley.

Finally, Wyoming, and another cultural vibe. Billboards for cannabis, fireworks, and vaping were right across the border. I imagine the ice cream shop hipsters making pilgrimages.

We ate at a Costa Vida (the Mexican Panda Express). I asked for their hottest sauce on my burrito. Any sign of chili was overwhelmed by the barbecue sauce on the sweet pork. Like I said, the Gringo West.

Ernest Hogan's latest story, "Doula," is in Sound Systems: The Future of the Orchestra, now available to buy in paperback or download as a free ebook. Another adventure of Paco Cohen, Mariachi of Mars, will be in Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow/Codex II in February--meanwhile buy Codex I, where he's mentioned and there's a lot of stuff that will inspire you to survive 2026.

Chicanonautica: At the Intersection of Xicanxfuturism and Gonzo Sci-Fi

  

by Ernest Hogan

Seems I’m always in some kind of intersection. And intersection being another world for crossroad. In West African Vodun, Papa Legba is the Lord of the Crossroads, who like the Mexica Yacatecuhtli, God of Travelers and Merchants, influences my life. Sorry if I crossed a border–it’s something I do all the time, without thinking. It comes with the whole Chicano enchilada.

So now I'm in the middle where Xicanxfuturism and Gonzo Sci-Fi meet. Not only is Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow, with my new Paco Cohen, Mariachi of Mars story coming out, but all kinds of bizarre changes are happening thanks to the senile billionaire in the White House, and I’m trying to finish my story “Once Upon a Time in a Mass Deportation” before I have to teach my online “Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Style” class in which I write a story over the course of two weekends, telling the students how I do it.

Whew!

The story is coming together. The plot is a done deal. Now all I have to do is figure out how to fit in all the insane details I’ve come up with. It’s more like composing a surrealistic mural rather than storytelling at this point. Yeah, it’s crazy, but it’s actually how I've always done things.

I don’t usually stop, look at, and think about what the hell I’m doing, but that’s what the class is all about. Funny how it goes from violent bursts of outrage in my brain to a kind of delicate surgery . . .

And of course, I’m being distracted by the ongoing Trumpocalypse. Trying not to obsess over all the bad news, but ignoring it would be like not paying attention to the nearby volcano that’s spewing smoke and spurting out fountains of lava. Maybe the eruption won’t be so bad, but then I want to know if a pyroclastic flow is heading my way.

It doesn’t help that the president is disconnected from reality:

Greetings, America, this is the Alternate Reality News Network.

Turns out El Chapo isn’t such a bad hombre after all, besides his business savvy will be good for the economy. And does have money. 

We need immigrants like him and his family.

And we need to welcome and help all those Afrikaners threatened by that white genocide. Who says we’re not good humanitarians?

Dr. Strangelove III has been put in charge of the Golden Dome project that will keep us all busy building lots of satellites that will shoot down missiles in mid-air—fallout, anyone? And the doctor says he’ll be ready to come up with new defenses against any countermeasures all the other nuclear powers develop. A new arms race will be fun.

Ack!

And there’s a lot more happening as I type. 

Meanwhile, in the real world, a new species of bacteria has been found on the Chinese Taingong space station, and the prevalence of feeders has caused a species, Anna’s hummingbird, to undergo mutations, and expand beyond their native California. New life, new civilizations. The evolution will not be televised.

What kind of future are you making?

Ernest Hogan is getting creative as the going gets tough.

Chicanonautica: Laboratorio Setenta y Cinco Efe Eme, Tijuana

by Ernest Hogan

 

¡Anímate! It’s not all pre-apocalyptic dystopia. Really. And I’m not just giddy from having a new book out. For the first time in decades, I have a favorite radio station. It’s like when I was teenager in SoCal, cruising the FM dial (AM had gone solid bubble gum and my tastes had gotten edgy) in search of something that would not only provide a suitable soundtrack for my life, but expand my horizons.

Ah! Those were some days . . . “But,” to quote Frank Zappa, “ I digress.”

These peculiar days, I do such searching through radio.garden. Radio stations from all over the planet online. Kinda utopian if you ask me.

A few months back I discovered Laboratorio 75FM, Tijuana, Mexico, and my world exploded in a good way. It was like discovering an interdimensional portal, worlds I never imagined were revealed to me. It blew my mind, as we said back in the day . . .

Seems that while I was struggling to make a living, and keep my writing career going, cultural revolutions were going on . .  . not just in what I like to call the Latinoid Continuum, but in the peculiar overlapping sections of the planet that were affected by the Spanish Empire, but also other cultures, because people tend to move around and ignore borders. Music and countercultures (note the plural) that are not owned by corporations have been developing all over. As Ishmael Reed said about the black experience, “It’s not a ghetto, it’s a galaxy.”

Some of it’s on the Norteamericano side of the Rio Grande/Bravo, Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside, Chicago, others all over Mexico, with a lively Mexico City scene. Then there’s Central and South America, with some connections to Europe and Asia. A vast, multi/recombocultural/rasquache, nonAnglo-centric, Global Barrio.

And it’s not the stuff that the music industry is pushing through Latin Grammys. There’s a definite postpunk sensibility, though they did play something by the Dead Kennedys, and it crosses and mixes genres. Oaxaca has an underground electronic Goth scene. Mexican punk has a horn section, and shows its mariachi roots. Argentina has an angry metal sound. Yucatan-A-Go-Go is outrageous, rambunctious, humorous rock and roll. There’s also what sounds like mutant cool jazz, folkloroid tunes (sometimes with indigenous lyrics), apocalyptic and dystopian visions, and now and then, lyrics in English.

And just because the words, and even the band name, are English or Spanish, you can’t be too sure where it's coming from. This is radio, hooked up to the internet, and satellites. Quaint old concepts like national borders are fading away here.

The serious, anonymous female disc jockey (how different from the sonic sexy symbols of ancient rock radio) provides background on the bands, where they’re from and the genres and subgenres in español. Now and then she gets excited and rrrrocks las palabras.

There’s also a website that lets you know not only what’s playing, but what they’ve been playing for the last five days. You can click and get videos and links to find videos, streaming, band websites, and other sources. 

Though sometimes there is no link. A lot of this stuff comes from far flung hometown outfits like Tijuana’s own El Topo Records. I like that. The street finding its own way to create culture.

And all this is just the tip of this rocking iceberg. New worlds to explore. One more step toward the Intergalactic Barrio, triggering a utopian vision of Swinging Tijuana becoming the cultural capital of the planet.

Ernest Hogan's latest book, Guerrilla Mural of a Siren's Song: 15 Gonzo Science Fiction Stories, has been longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association award for Best Collection. He will be teaching "Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Stye" at the Spring 2024 Palabras del Pueblo workshop.

Chicanonautica: Various Intersecting Borderlands

 

by Ernest Hogan

Around 8:30 PM, after dark, we checked into a Super 8 in Yakima. There was no elevator, and not enough wall plugs in the room. The building was a crumbling relic from before the computer revolution. And one of the beds sagged, and there weren’t enough towels . . .

I read a chunk of Cosmic Voyage by Courtney Brown, Phd., in which the author tells of how, he was able to visit Mars and the homeworld of the Greys via a remote viewing technique based on transcendental meditation and hypnosis that was developed by the “U.S. Military Psychic Warfare Program.” It all was right out of old sci-fi TV shows that he admitted watching. Maybe I'd've been impressed if he found himself in a dilapidated motel on the other side of the galaxy.

It was cold the next morning. Toto, I’m pretty sure we aren’t in Arizona anymore. We put on jackets and discovered that this Super 8 didn’t have didn’t decaf, being stuck in a time warp as it was.

I was wondering about the local cannabis culture as we searched for somewhere to get breakfast when I spotted a huge THC sign. This part of Washington was subtle about such things. We weren’t in California or Oregon anymore, either.

Finally, we found a Panera—it had decaf—and the employees all wore corporate Día de los Muertos T-shirts.

Later I saw some Spanish words painted in a non-graffiti style in the side of a barn. Greater Aztlán is encroaching on Sasquachlandia. Was it causing a political crisis? It was hard to tell.

Washington was different from Oregon. More low key, and less arty, with some notable exceptions. I could tell we were closer to Canada than Mexico.

Then we swung back into Oregon, as the roads and borders zigzagged and intersected. There were lots of Mexican restaurants, signs of immigration in the small towns. And wait—were those pro-Biden signs? Or was something in the air causing me to hallucinate?

Were those evergreens turning a blazing yellow? What’s going on? A mutation brought on by climate change? Or just the local natural order of things made weird by my alien, cyborg eyes . . .

Elgin had a lot of funky decor to photograph :

A cute scarecrow behind barbed wire, 

an opera house presenting Camelot,

a thrift shop guarded by an inflatable demon that also sold LET’S GO BRANDON and TRUMP 2024 caps,

 vehicles, both festooned for the Halloween, and abandoned,

even one left over from the Civil War, the old one, back in the Nineteenth Century, about slaves . . .

Lostine had a spooky stuffed child on a tricycle,

a wacko joint called the Blue Banana,

and a smiling yellow tank–I can only speculate about what gas or liquid it contained.

We were hungry when we arrived in Enterprise, but most of their restaurants were closed. Maybe it being Sunday had something to do with it. These small towns and their quaint, old fashioned customs . . .

As if by the intervention of a deity, we found a Mexican restaurant called La Laguna. And it was open. It was also busy, but that could have been because it seemed to be the only place that was open.

Inside there was a lot of wonderful Mexican decor. No doubt a collection gathered with love. The owner, a Chicana who was seating customers and taking orders, said she founded it twenty years ago.

And the food! I know I rarely ever find any Mexicanoid food that I don’t like, but this one qualifies as excellente. Pretty pinche close to home cooking, cabrones!

Then, later--another La Laguna Mexican Restaurant. Could it be a chain? According to their website there are two, and they are associated with a place called The Rusty Spur. If you make the right offerings to the right gods one might appear in your town.

Back on the road, there was another MOVE OREGON’S BORDER sign.

This was in the town of Joseph, that after being Silver Lake and Lake City, named itself after Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce. There was a statue of the chief, as well an action-packed equestrian cowboy monument,

a stagecoach mural,

a thrift store with a dragon sticking out of it, 

and another that had a creepy window display with parts of old dolls.

Later we saw another Trump sign, but it was old and yellow.

Ernest Hogan’s new book, Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song: 15 Gonzo Science Fiction Stories is available. He will also teach a class on “Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Style” online for the Spring 2024 Palabras del Pueblo Workshop.