Chicanonautica: The Surrealistic Burrito Western of My Dreams

 by Ernest Hogan

Once again, I’m waiting . . . for Codex II of Xicanxfuturism to come out . . . for the other shoe to drop on the world-transmogrifying moment of history we’re living through . . . for news about the precarious state of the publishing industry . . .

So, I do what I usually do, let my monstrous imagination wander, feed it the weirdness I see, let things happen.

Often I end up getting flashes of the Surrealistic Spaghetti Western of My Dreams, that I’ve decided to start calling the Surrealistic Burrito Western of My Dreams. It’s a better name for something growing in a Chicano brain. A collection of stuff wrapped in the tortilla of my twisted worldview.

 

They come from living in Aztlán, looking through the veneer of corporate Americana into the forgotten history and the witch’s brew of battling mythologies and my imagination. The word decolonized doesn’t seem to be strong enough.

 

The fact that it all gets more post-apocalyptic, alternate universe-y, and surrealistic (I overuse the word, but it’ll do it until somebody comes up with a better one) every day makes it more intense.

Though I grew up watching the likes of the Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers, my favorite western is El Topo, so it ain’t gonna be no Johns Ford and Wayne kinda thing.

I mostly see things, take a picture—thank Tezcatlipoca for the camera phone— and imagine . . . mostly images, occasional fragments of scenarios like those wacko dreams that I can’t even begin to describe.

I’ve mentioned them to my wife and joked about writing a screenplay. (So many things in my life start as jokes!) But I can’t come up with a plot or characters (yet). Just imagery that amuses me no end.

Maybe if I added some elements of my Irish/New Mexican family history with my ancestors riding in a posse after and testifying against Billy the Kid, giving Pancho Villa a curandero cure, working in a Mexican circus. 

Like most Chicano families, our history is undocumented, mostly legend, full of holes that can be filled with glorious delirium.

Probably it will have to be more multiversal or surrealistic than post-apocalyptic. Time, space, realities . . .

Maybe it should be a novel, but only if I can make it so outrageous that no one dares call it magic realism.

Or maybe I should have the screenplay be nothing but opening scenes . . .

Fade in: The sun rises over a desert making twisted and decaying cacti into a tangle of bizarre silhouettes. The wind whistles. A flaming tumbleweed rolls past a Mayan pyramid in front of jagged mountains under psychedelic clouds. The camera pans to a close-up of the head of a person buried up to their neck. Ants swarm over it, feasting on the flesh. Bare skull shows in places. A dirigible painted like a feathered serpent passes by overhead. Cowboy boots decorated with art nouveau circuit patterns move in on either side of the screen. A stream of urine hits the head. The ants are undisturbed. The remaining eye opens. Cue Pepe Guízar’s Guadalajara, LOUD!

Ernest Hogan has been using radio.garden to listen to stations from parts of Mexico where Americans are told not to go. On one he heard songs with lyrics including “maquina del tiempo” and “no puedo teleporte.” Meanwhile, buy Codex I of Xicanxfuturism!

Chicanonautica: 2025: A Road Odyssey: Impressions of NorCal

by Ernest Hogan

In the Quality Inn in Tulane, California, I woke up from a dream where a secret society gave me an award for Cortez on Jupiter. Wondering what it meant, I made my way to the breakfast room that was full of Indigenous-looking, Spanish-speaking construction workers. Is California being reconstructed, too?

After a while a few Euro tourists showed up. Maybe they were Scandinavian. I couldn’t understand a word they said.

Being a born in East L.A., a SoCal guy, NorCal has always been strange. The cooler weather and different cultural mix throw me.

A cluster of Tikis that seem to want to become totem poles in this climate,

a dead pizza joint waiting to be studied by the archeologists of the future,

painted metal monsters—the farm business being hijacked by whimsy.

Then, a true enchanted forest gem, Kaweah Coffee Roasters! The art had a raven theme—kaweah meaning crow or raven cry. They have a great selection of eye-catching T-shirts and the coffee is good.

Sequoia National Park—was also “free” due to the government shutdown.

After the park, high in the mountains. Near an ice-cold river, we were all so dazzled that we hadn't noticed that the Prius had almost run out of gas, and the electricity was almost out. And gas stations and towns were sparse. Luckily, the gal working at Borden Cavern took mercy, and when her shift ended, went off and came back with a can of gas!

There are heroes out there.

Next morning, there was live international polo in the Tulare Quality Inn’s breakfast room.

Back in our room MSNBC explained that bailing out South America is preventing China from taking over South America.

Then we took off northwards across the Central Valley farm/ranch country and were soon in Coalinga.

First there were all these banners with a cartoon horned (yeah, I know that most people say “horny”) toad, high school’s mascot. They also have annual horned toad races.

An antediluvian gas station was being refurbished.

After getting out to take a lot of pictures we discovered that it was part of the R.C. Baker Museum.

It takes up several blocks.

One of those places that’s almost as good as having a time machine.

We’ll probably go back some day.

Checked out thrift shops in Carmel and other towns.

The ghost of Philip José Farmer left a copy of his novel Flesh in a place that was a combination thrift store and shrine to Koringa, La Femme Fakir, who not only hypnotized reptiles, but fought in the Resistance against the Nazis in World War Two–I imagine her having Mandrake the Magician-type adventures.

I also found a copy of Elena Zelayeta’s Elena’s Favorite Foods California Style, and some other treasures . . .

Next morning we went north on Highway 1 into the fog,  stumbling into what Em calls “fabulosity.”

Fantastic murals and art in Pacifica and Santa Cruz:

a giant octopus,

mutant mermaids,

ceramic fish.

Emly said, “It feels good to be in Liberal Land.”

Skeletons ran wild in Pacific Grove for Halloween and Día de los Muertos, and Phil Farmer’s ghosts left a copy of Finnegan’s Wake. (His “Riders of the Purple Wage” was inspired by Wake.)

Later Emily said, “The tech bros like Trump because they think he’ll let them make their murder robots.”

“They also think he’s promised them Mars,” I replied.

This triggered visions of Mars crowded with murder robots. Maybe that could be worked into the Cornelius/Duke/Theremin story . . .

It was overcast all day. No need for sunglasses. Not at all like Arizona. Like Venus in a 1930s science fiction, as Farmer once described.

There are lots of Priuses in NorCal.

And no cell service zones. All those hilly coastal regions.

The first two rooms they gave us at the Oceanside Motel in Ft. Bragg weren’t cleaned, and there was no working heat or air-conditioning. They said the cleaning woman had walked out.

Then through a wet, misty forest to the 101.

They had great huevos rancheros and a lot of murals of cows.

Ferndale, “A Victorian Town,” had a colonial downtown, and lots of skeletons, and a theater doing The Rocky Horror Show.

Eureka had lots of murals, and more dispensaries than liquor stores, but then they are pretty close to Oregon, and Sasquatchlandia.