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: Traveling While Chicano in Trumptopia 2.0

by Ernest Hogan

Once again, my wife Emily and I are getting ready for another road trip with her brother Michael Theile. I love these crazy excursions out of our usual stamping grounds, Arizona, Aztlán, searching for the latest version of the dream called the United States of America. This time, however, it’s different.

We did trips in the height of the pandemic. It was weird, but in a fun way. Like being in a science fiction story. Something else that is my idea of a good time.

We have traveled during the first Trump administration, which was both dystopian and enlightening.

Now we’re well into Trumptopia 2.0 . . .

I must admit, it’s kinda scary.

Emily and I got the latest flu and Covid shots and I got a passport. What the hell, I may need it for other reasons that keep coming up.

Then the events of the last few months came about. 

The passport may be necessary on this side of the border.

Traveling while Chicano never has been an issue in the past, but now . .  .

People have been doubting my American citizenship all my life.

I’ve resented it every time. Isn’t my SoCal accent enough? What makes you think you look more American than I do, paleface?

There could be another “national emergency” and the National Guard could be sent into a part of the Wild West that we’re passing through.

It might be like a scene from my new story “Once Upon a Time in a Mass Deportation”:

“We stopped this guy at the checkpoint, asked him for his ID, then things got . . .” Rodriguez paused and gulped.

“Weird,” said Garza. 

Sarge looked the Tacoma man over and got a sharp-toothed grin for his trouble.

“Okay, okay,” the Sergeant said, “how weird?”

“Well, first,” Garza handed over a card. “Take a look at his ID.”

Sarge grabbed and squinted. “Pop-o-ca—”

“Popocatepetl.” The moustache stretched again. It started Po-po. The tl sounded like a t and the l was swallowed.

 

Sarge’s nostrils flexed like he smelled something awful. 

“Muldoon?”

“Yeah, that’s my last name.”

“Isn’t that Irish?”

“Sure is.”

“But Popoca–uh . . .”

“Aw, just call me Popo, it’s easier.”

“Isn’t that Spanish?”

“No, it’s Nahuatl.”

Sarge took a deep breath. “Nah-what?”

“It’s the language the Aztecs spoke,” interjected Rodriguez.

“They still do.” Muldoon said it with a smirk.

“So, you’re an Irish Aztec?” asked Sarge.

“Sorta,” said Muldoon. “But I consider myself a Chicano.”

Sarge squinted again. “Yeah. You do look more like a Mexican than an Irishman.”

“I’ve been told that.”

“How did you get the last name Muldoon?”

“My great-great-great–I’m really not sure how many greats– grandfather was Irish.”

Sarge shook his head. “How did that happen?”

“He jumped ship in San Francisco, and ended up in New Mexico–one of the New Mexico Irish, you know, like Billy the Kid.”

Sarge’s brows made a V between them. “And this is your ID?”

“My Arizona driver’s license. Says right there.”

“That would make you seventy,” said Sarge. 

“And you don’t look that old . . .” He turned to Rodriquez and Garza. 

“Run a check on him. See if he’s registered for the draft.”

 

Rodriguez winced.

Muldoon shrugged. “Nobody knows what to do with an Aztec leprechaun.”

Not bad. Wonder if I can find someone crazy enough to publish the whole story? Or will it just get me deported?

Like a proper Xicanxfuturist and Father of Chicano Science fiction, I choose to boldly go into the strange new world. If I get in trouble, I’ll scream bloody murder across several social media platforms.

Buhahahahahaha!

Ernest Hogan wants you to buy his books while you still can. Buy Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow / Codex I, too (Codex II will be out in February with his new Paco Cohen, Mariachi of Mars story, “A Wild and Wooly Road Trip on Mars”).

Chicanonautica: Apocalyptic Independence Daze

by Ernest Hogan

Not many signs of the apocalyptic holiday as we drove up. Only one flag along the I-17. A modest sprinkling of them in Sedona. And we were still free enough to have tacos on the 4th of July.

From our hotel balcony, we watched the clouds change color on the Red Rock Mountains as dragonflies and bats flitted by.

The night was quiet. No fireworks. No manifestations of a deranged election. Just what we needed as Phoenix cooks in the killer heat.

The next morning I looked at photos and videos that my family texted me from California.

On our way to the Coffee Pot for breakfast, a coyote dashed across the road. Emily saved its life with horn honk. I had huevos rancheros. MuyAmericano.

The streets were empty, quiet. Everybody was still asleep. What do they do here for the 4th?

At a Goodwill, I found a copy of Man and Impact in the Americas by “veteran space reporter” E.P. Grondine about “the effects of asteroid and comet impacts on preColombian cultures, including the Maya, with “eyewitness accounts” of Hopewell societies and the Mississipians. Like someone left it there for me. Again.

We did a quick hike along Midgley Bridge until it got too hot, then cruised Oak Creek Canyon.

What a beautiful country. Too bad all these assholes want to convert it all into liquid assets. Assets for assholes. What ya gonna buy when the planet's gone?

Once again, the Sedona political signs were names, smiling faces–and female!--and Wild West iconography.

We approached Cottonwood, ZIPPERMAN, CONSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATIVE country. On the road to Jerome a brand-new house flew the traditional stars and stripes and the black, white, and blue fascist version underneath.

In Prescott, the World’s Oldest Rodeo was still going on, Whiskey Row was a mob scene with flags, but not as much as it’s been in the past. There was no parking, so instead of having lunch there, we went to Bill’s Grill and had burgers.

As we left, there was a LET’S GO BRANDON sticker on a pickup. All the political signs were local. One candidate declared TRUMP APPOINTED in small letters.

There was one Kari Lake sign. Kari who?

Gigantic flags did look majestic billowing in the wind.

At the newly remodeled Sunset Point Rest Area there was a poster reminding us what to do in case of a disaster. 

It got hotter as we returned to Phoenix. No sign of asteroids or comets. Or Maya or Hopewells or Mississippians. No hints about the future, either.

Ernest Hogan is the Father of Chicano Science Fiction. Read his Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song while it’s still legal. In October, he will be teaching his “Gonzo Science Fiction,Chicano Style” online at the Palabras del Pueblo Writing Workshop—apply now!

Chicanonautica: The Info Wilderness and the Masked Marvel

by Ernest Hogan

Further north through the marine layer fog with the sun struggling to burn through.

Deep into that forest, there was no cell coverage. Disconnected. The wilderness of the Information Age.

Once the fog had cleared, on a forest mountain road, we were held up by road construction. A flagger avoided eye contact. Soon the pilot car could be seen. The flagger exhaled a huge, thick vape cloud. It was hard to believe that human lungs could hold that much. We told him we were impressed.

A sign said NO SERVICES IN ROCKPORT. I thought it would make a good story title. A tale of the info wilderness . . .

We came across some old, rusted farm equipment. You often see it in rural areas, they look weird, like sculptures, so I can’t resist taking pictures. There were saws in the mix . .  . Hmm.

An old guy and a woman came out and asked if we wanted any firewood. He had a workshop. A wood guy! He and Mike hit it off, talking wood, he even cut Mike a chunk of weird wood. Mike was going to use it in making his drums.

Jim the Woodcutter had a lot to say. The local economy tanked when the illegal marijuana business was replaced by the legal cannabis industry. No more wild times and lighting joints with hundred dollar bills.

As we were pulling back on the road, another guy came walking by. He had an American flag sticking out of his backpack. He said his name was John and he was walking across America. He started in Florida. We gave him some money.

We pulled into Leggett in search of a bathroom.

Found one in the Peg House, that was built using a mortise and tenon style of joinery–pegs!--without a single nail. It’s also a restaurant and a live music venue.

There were lots of interesting stickers that blended into some collage art.

It was also for sale.

I found a battered copy of a novel about Pancho Villa for next to nothing at a Garberville thrift shop. With my story “ Pancho Villa’s Flying Circus” in Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song and my family’s Villista connections, he’s become like a patron saint to me, the way John “San Juan de Hollywood” Wayne is to certain other Americanos.

Then there was Anglin Second Hand in Eureka. It was not far from a YES, YOU CAN SMOKE WEED INSIDE place.

And talk about weird shit! I’d say they were ready for Halloween, but there was something about the back room serial killer tableau that had me considering otherwise. 

And I found a copy of  The Fair God: Or, Last of the ‘Tzins, A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico, by Lew Wallace, the 35th edition from 1887.

After more foggy forests, we came to Crescent City, where we found a great Mexican restaurant called Toreros.

Not only was the food good, the joint was brimming over with its own kind of weirdness, from the magic mushroom and critical of capitalism bathroom graffiti—for once, actually scratched, graffiti meaning “little scratch” Italian—

to kitchy beer ad art, 

to a bizarre flower pot that featured what has to be one of the most demented uses of a dolphin ever.

I was heading for the door feeling satisfied, when Emily said, “You’ve got to have this,” and handed me a trifold she found on a nearby rack. It had a picture of an enmascarado. Figuring it looked promising, I tucked it into my sketchbook.

Turns out it was—en español—the story of Bob Pettitt, a non-Hispanic name, but I should talk. He was having a fantastic career in professional wrestling, under many names: La Maravilla Enmascarada, La Pantera Rosa, El Consentido Enmascarado, Bob Pitts, El Poderoso Yankee, Señor ‘X’, y como la Pantera Negra. When he had a horrific car accident, and was miraculously cured, he gave up the ring to spread the word of the Lord. 

I Googled him, and he was for real. In the Seventies he was preaching, helping a newspaper expose the wrestling biz, and appearing on a Christian children’s TV show, Black Buffalo Pow Wow. He’d be pretty old now. Could he still be alive? The trifold a P.O. box in Appleton, WA, was for people to write for more copies of this  IMPRESSION NUMERO OCHO ! Just how miraculous was that cure . . .

Weirdness. But then the art form (not sport) of lucha libre is a variation on the medieval morality plays, where angels and demons bashed it out on stage.

Come to think of it, aren’t the two most famous luchadors named Santo and Blue Demon?

Ernest Hogan’s new book, Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song: 15 Gonzo Science Fiction Stories is out! His reading of an excerpt will be part of an upcoming episode of the radio program/podcast Gómez-Peña’s Mex Files from Lumpen Radio. And he will be teaching an online class on “Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Style” at the Spring 2024 Palabras del Pueblo Writing Workshop.