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: 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: Gorgeous Widescreen Mayasploitation

by Ernest Hogan

The poster with the crucified/spreadeagled woman gave me the wrong idea about The Living Idol. The style of the credits told me it was a slick, widescreen, color production from the Fifties. It also looked Mayan. Hmm . . .

Then:

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico for cooperation in the making of this film.

Somebody spent some money on this. It was written, produced, and directed—the whole autre deal— by Albert Lewin, who also made the 1945 version of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Also, René Cardona, responsible for The Brainiac, The Batwoman, Night of the Bloody Apes, Doctor of Doom, Wrestling Women Vs. the Aztec Mummy . . . (better stop, I’m getting distracted) was credited as “associate Mexican director.”

I was intrigued and amused.

It opens with scenes filmed in the Yucatán in Mayan ruins, with Mayan extras. Every shot looks like a postcard. My overactive visual cortex was happy.

Not a bad story, been done before: An ancient artifact housed an evil spirit, the presence of a girl who is the reincarnation of a virgin—though in this case, the word is carefully avoided—sacrificial victim, brings it to life . . . 

And this wasn’t a cheap quickie that Roger Corman, or even Cardona, slapped together on a minimalist budget, meeting a ridiculous deadline. It was a lavish Hollywood production with international connections. Ambitions are apparent. And that seems to be the problem.

Instead of a horror flick with a stuntman in a rubber suit playing the monster, we have a visual spectacular--what I like to call an eye-fry--with a lot of good intentions wrapped around a pulp plot, and packaged like exploitation.

I already mentioned the poster with French-Italian actress Liliane Montevecchi splayed out for sacrifice. She’s supposed to be a Maya, but when she’s in the same scene with real Mayan women in huipiles . . . 

In the beginning, she’s supposed to be in her early teens, and in love with the hero who looks near middle age. This was a common plot point in entertainment of the era. The photojournalist hero then, in an awkward attempt to avoid impropriety, goes away on assignment for a few years, giving her time to grow into an “of age” university student.

 

There are a lot of beautiful Mexico City scenes, but it all moves very slow.

When the idol–the red jaguar throne, from El Castillo, AKA the pyramid of Kukulkan in Chichén Itzán–comes to life, we don’t see it, we just hear it wrecking the room it’s locked in. As an adult intellectual, I understand that the director was trying to make a point–there's an entire illustrated lecture on the history of human sacrifice, suggesting that modern warfare is carrying on the tradition–but the monster kid in me feels gypped.

Still, they get away with showing more blood than in other 1957 films.

The heroine does finally assume the position of sacrifice, in a dream sequence/flashback.

Still, I found myself enjoying The Living Idol. Maybe, someday, when I'm in the right mood and have a some Escorpion Negro Black Ale, I’ll watch it again.

Ernest Hogan is the author of Guerrilla Mural of a Siren's Song: 15 Gonzo Science Fiction Stories.

Chicanonautica: Zooming into the Mex Files

by Ernest Hogan

I’ve been a fan of Guillermo Gómez-Peña, La Pocha Nostra, and his radio program the Mex Files for a long time. He’s also a fan of my work. He and his wife Balitronica were instrumental in getting me into the world of Zoom video during the pandemic. When Bali texted me about being on the program, I was delighted.

The timing was perfect. Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song had just come out, I was scrambling for ways to publicize it, and for this breakout into the wider worlds of public radio listeners, performance art enthusiasts, and Latinx culturistas. 

They wanted me to present Chicano\Latinofuturistic visions of the future from my work. The story “Uno! dos! . . . One-Two! Tres! Cuatro!” a gonzo reaction the rise of Donald Trump, seemed perfect. Of course, it was way too long, but there was good cliffhanger cutoff point. Leave ‘em hanging, tell them to buy the book. Muhuhahahahaha!

And it was all to be done through that miracle of our age, Zoom. I could do it sitting in front of my computer at humble Hacienda Hogan.

It was quite futuristic. Guillermo and Balitrónica were in San Francisco, Alex Rivera, director of the film Sleep Dealer in LA (first in his car, then at his house), I was in Glendale, Arizona, a La Pocha Nostra technician was in Mexico City, and Lumpen Radio engineer was in Chicago. Borders were erased. Space was warped. The Global Barrio manifested.

Some new kind of futurism here. Chicano? Latino? Latinx? What brave, new word . . .

What would Borges have  made of this? Beyond the Library of Babel. Is it science fiction? Magic realism? I keep saying that magic realism from a sufficiently technologically advanced culture becomes indistinguishable from science fiction.

They made Alex and me feel comfortable in this alien . .  . tripping over the palabras again . . . environment. We were assured that the techs had AI wizardry that would make us sound good. They did. Though my words sounded better when they said them. Guillermo and Bali also called me maestro.

Alex held up original edition copies Cortez on Jupiter and High Aztech before starting his epic rant on the future and how it affects Latinoid peoples. He mentioned a book, Fully Automated Luxury Communism, that I’ve got to track down.

There was a lot of apocalyptic dystopianism, in keeping with our current world predicament, but we also are optimistic and eager to take part in creating a future that's un poco utopian—of course, of a wild rasquache kind.

And the completed show is a joy to listen to!

It’s also available as a podcast -- the 01-17-2024 episode, Chicano Latino Futurismo: The Other Sci-Fi--that I’m hoping goes viral and inspires listeners to confront the looming future and make it their own.

Buy my book, too.

Ernest Hogan is also the author of High Aztech, Smoking Mirror Blues, and Cortez on Jupiter.

Chicanonautica: Blazing Silver Nitrate

by Ernest Hogan 

During a summer where the world seems like it’s on fire, what we need is a book that burns like silver nitrate. In case some of you don’t know, in the early days of movies, the film was made with silver nitrate, which is highly flammable and dangerous. It’s also the title of the new novel by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It’s so hot it’ll make you think it’s cooling off outside.

Silver Nitrate also isn’t an arbitrary title. The substance, and its use in film, particularly old film, is central to the novel. How can this be? Silver is often used in witchcraft. It makes sense that it could be used in connection with the magic of movies. 

Like in her earlier novel Signal to Noise, it takes place in Mexico City. Technology—in this case, audio cassettes-- and witchcraft intersect. There are also intersections with a lot of real life strangeness that is so well researched and presented in such rich detail that it’s hard to tell where the reality ends and the fantastic begins. There’s occultism—Aleister Crowley is evoked, along with Nazis and the incredible world of Mexican horror movies.

I’m kinda obsessed with this twisted branch of the cinematic arts. I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but I knew right away that the character Abel Urueta was named for the actor Abel Salazar and the director Chano Urueta. (Which reminds me I need to see  El Barón de Terror–called The Brainiac in K. Gordon Murray’s dubbed English version–again sometime soon).

It also has one of the most badass, intelligent female heroes ever (somehow the antiquated term “heroine” isn’t quite right here). Some reviewers have complained about Silvia’s characters not being likeable enough—but speaking as a writer, a good fictional character doesn’t have to be “likeable,” they need to have a knack for interesting trouble, and entertaining ways of getting out of it. Montserrat, Momo to her friends, is amazing. I would like to see more of her.

What I enjoyed most wasn’t the noir/thriller aspects, or the imaginative and original horror elements (Stephen King, watch out), but that it presents the joy of investigation and doing research. And in the pre-internet era! It’s an intellectual adventure. I was hesitant to say that, since the mantra of the bestseller reader as imagined but the major publishers is “I don’t like to think when I read.” But Silver Nitrate is a thrill ride, and those thrills will cause a few synapses to fire triggering the imagination. Some readers appreciate that.

I also need to make it clear that even though it deals with what some call trash culture, this is not a trashy novel—not the literary equivalent of telenovela or a grade Z horror flick. This book is a class act, and so is its author.

All this, and it will make you forget about this being the hottest summer on record, too!

Ernest Hogan is trying to sell a trashy novel, and his first story collection, Pancho Villa’s Flying Circus, is coming out soon.

Chicanonautica: Sheriffs Amok

by Ernest Hogan

I was sure that, by now, Arizona would be ablaze with weird politics of concern to the La Bloga audience, but I was wrong. It’s kinda quiet. A certain ex-president seems to be losing his mojo. A certain election denier keeps losing court cases and blaming bizarro conspiracies.

Then I found out about the constitutional sheriffs movement, where Arizona is ground zero.

NPR did a good job of explaining the movement. In short, it consists of sheriffs across the country who believe that a county sheriff’s authority should supersede that of the federal government, including the president. They have an organization, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA). Eight Arizona sheriffs are members, along with 300 of the nation’s 3,000 sheriffs. Resistance to mandates to stop the spread of Covid-19 gave them a boost, and they side with the election deniers and have white supremacist connections.

Their name is misleading. There is nothing in the constitution saying that sheriffs have such powers. They also are required by law to take an oath to support the constitution, like the one I had to take–the words include “preserve, protect, and defend”--to become a school janitor and work for the public library.

Yeah, the upcoming election is gonna be messy.

A problem I see is that sheriffs are go-to heroes in pop culture, not just westerns both period and contemporary, but horror, and science fiction. 

Yeah, reality is often quite different, here in Maricopa County, Az, we had Sheriff Joe Arpaio “America’s Toughest Sheriff” who ran on talking like John Wayne, and bragged about defending the border, even though it’s 30 miles away as the crow flies, and 79 to 48 depending on the route you take. 

These “constitutionals” are following his example.

To be fair, the likes of Oscar Zeta Acosta, and Hunter S. Thompson ran for sheriff with left/radical political ambitions. I also remember a guy named Tank Barbera, in L.A. County, who said he’d abolish the Sheriff's Department if elected. None of them won. Probably didn’t fit the stereotype.

This was in the Watergate years, when one of my college teachers said, “I keep expecting to see people wearing crossed ammunition belts.”

In open-carryArizona, I wouldn’t be surprised if ammo belts became fashionable.

Meanwhile, other elected officials are using unenforced, unconstitutional English Only laws to get rid of bilingual education.  

There is also a reversal of the pop culture trope, where the sheriff is a bad guy, usually backed by corrupt, rich landowners. Hmm . . .

Is the country becoming a spaghetti western? In real life you don’t get the entertaining shootout where, by the grace of the writer, the right people get killed. 

And now, the writers are on strike.

Ernest Hogan, the Father of Chicano Science Fiction, author of High Aztech, Smoking Mirror Blues, and Cortez on Jupiter has written a lot of stories this year. Stay tuned for news of where and when you will be able to read them.