CHICANONAUTICA: LOOKS FOR AMERICA IN AZTLÁN

 

Once again, Chicanonautica goes looking for America, in Aztlán, at La Bloga.

What a better thing to do on the 250th 4th of July?

And of course, fireworks:

There's chilaquiles out there!

And Zorro lives!

WEIRD VEHICLES ON THE ROAD

 I like to cherchez la weird while on the road.

And sometimes the weird is literally on the road.

 

As in weird vehicles.

 

Not just the occassional goof wherein something unusual gets temporarily cranked out of the corporate assembly lines.

I mean those acts of defiance when the consumers hijack the product and remake it into something more suited to their sensibilities and lifestyles.

Or some forgotten artifact of the past is rescued, giving it a new life, traveling in time as well as space.

 

Or just making art with wheels or treads.

There are a lot of cybertrucks in Northern Arizona, but not in their virgin state.

This pseudo-Martian colony is going rogue. 

WHERE FOR ART THOU, AMERICA?

When this goes up, Emily and I will be off on another getaway. Yeah, I know we just did one a couple of weeks ago, but you gotta do what you like to do when you get the chance, and schedules in this world-gone-mad force you to be fiendishly opportunistic. Muhahahahahahahah!

And we have made getting out of town on the Fourth of July into a tradition. Relax out of the Metro Phoenix heat island. Come back when the fireworks have quieted and the gunpowder stench is beginning to fade.

It’s also a good time to do the search for America thing. Where is America? Just what is it these days?

It’s different in the Arizona outback. And with the world going through the current shitstorm.The times, they are a-changing, as the rock star who won the Nobel prize said.

Meanwhile, here are some pictures I’ve taken recently of some nearby mutations.

CHICANONAUTICA SHARES A GONZO WRITING DIARY

You can read it in Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga.

In the gonzo traditon, I write on a road trip:

Because I'm teaching how to write Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Style: 

I even experiment with writing under the influence:

 Will I ever be comfortable in the role of teacher?

SCENES FROM A PRE-SUMMER GETAWAY

 

It’s not summer yet, but it’s hotter than hell.

I’ve got a weird feeling about this summer–and not just more recording breaking (or should that be melting?) heat.

That’s why Emily and I do these little getaways, up north, Prescott, Jerome, Sedona.

Where it’s about twenty degrees cooler.

You know you’ve been living in Arizona when eighty degrees Fahrenheit seems cool.

And I had to write my story for my “Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Style” class on the road, in a haunted hotel, and at roadside, while waiting for AAA to come fix a flat.

Yup, it’s gonna be weird, gonzo . . .

CHICANONAUTICA TAKES NOTES ON MY NOTES

I'm getting ready to play teacher in Chicanonautica at La Bloga:

It'll be gonzo:

 

And maybe a bit mystical:

But I don't believe in gurus:

 There will be demystification:

 

 

SUDDENLY THIS SUMMER

Suddenly, the flowers died. Not all of them, but the sea of color was now fallout that we walked on.

Heat. Radiation. Like a bomb. A war.

Open a door. Feels like an oven. The air smells burnt.

Break out the beachwear and the sunscreen. Another record-breaking summer has hit Phoenix. Are we uninhabitable yet?

CHICANONAUTICA GOES BEYOND THE BORDERS OF THE LATINOID CONTINUUM

 

Chicanonautica gets visionary at La Bloga.

Different kinds of visions:

Crossing borders:

Spawning alternate universes:

With mad dreamers:

ANXIETY ABOUT PUBLISHING

I wrote this story. It’s probably the best I’ve ever written. Hell—maybe the best I’ll write ever. I sent it out. It got rejected. So I sent it out again. 

I had a hard time getting it done. Anxiety froze me.

After submitting things for publication for over fifty years, I’m sick of the tedious frustrating routine. 

It doesn’t help that in the 21st century most of my publications have come from editors coming to me. But since the universe refused to make things easy, I find myself with unpublished works piling up.

At this point in history I wouldn’t be surprised if I can't get anything published until a certain person drops dead . . .

It also seems that the current generation in the publishing world just doesn’t get a wild ‘n’ wooly counterculture survivor like me. Not to mention the readers who came along post-DaVinci Code / Harry Potter / Twilight / 50 Shades of Grey.

I’ve given up on New York, even though it’s more a state of mind rather than a place these days. I keep having visions of people going to their cubicles every day and hiding under their desks until it’s time to go home . . . They just ain’t going to ever come to their senses. I ain’t never gonna be rich. Boo hoo.

And I’m getting pretty damn old.

Most of my career has been because of lovable weirdos at the fringes who believe in me. Thank Tezcatlipoca for them.

I can’t stop writing. It just happens. Like a bad habit ingrained into the kinks in my twisted brain.What I need is a change of attitude. You thought the six-foot tall Aztec leprechaun was scary? Well, get a load of the new, improved six-foot tall 70 year-old Aztec leprechaun!

My doctor says I could last another 30 years. Wonder what I can do in that time?

No more worrying about being “commercial,” whatever that means. No more wondering if “they” will let me do it–I’m doing it anyway. To hell with the corporate industry and the corrupt civilization it rode in on!

My home has always been the underground, the fringes where outliers do strange things. They're out there. I know. They come looking for me.

And now, I’m looking for them.

At the very least, I’ll feel better for having done what I do best, creative blasphemy, aesthetic terrorism, committing outrages . . .

CHICANONAUTICA CELEBRATES SPRINGTIME WITH XIPE TOTEC, XOCHIQUETZAL, XOCHIPILLI, AND CINCO DE MAYO

It's Spring, with gods and holidays for Chicanonautica at La Bloga.

Time for Xipe Totec:

Xochiquetzal:

Xochipilli:

And the Battle of Puebla: