SKETCHY SURREALISTIC SELF-PORTRAIT WITH SCI-FI OVERTONES

Some of you are probably confused already, so here’s some more self-explanation that will probably be more confusing than enlightening, but what the hell, it’ll be amusing:

I’m an Atomic Age baby, born in East L.A., way the hell back in the Fabulous Fifties. My heritage bubbles out of a Villaista curandero/Irish cowboy/Wild West mix. The Aztec god Tezcatlipoca acts as my spirit guide whether I like it or not.

I grew up in West Covina, California. When my family arrived there it looked like a colony out of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. It rapidly developed into something out of the works of Frank Zappa and Philip K. Dick, with overtones of Cheech & Chong. Without monster movies, comic books, and science fiction ,I may not have survived.

Like a lot of creative members of my generation, I wanted to be a cartoonist. The dystopian education system fractured me into an artist and writer. My writing has been published as science fiction. When I’m not being cartoony, my art is surrealistic and dadaistic in intent, even though my wife, the fabulous Em, describes it as "Aztec Cartoon Expressionism."

My creative pursuits have never been very profitable. I used to feel bad about that, but these days I’m more realistic about the wages of creativity. Still, part of it is my fault, in that I’m the slave of these bizarre things that grow in my brain and won’t leave me alone until I’ve written them down and/or drawn them up and set them loose into an unsuspecting world. The other side of the equation is that, even though fantasy is more popular than ever, the corporate world thinks that originality is dirty word. I guess I’ll have to go into the details later.

Somehow, I managed to become an International Cult Author. This mostly due to my three published novels, Cortez on Jupiter, High Aztech, and Smoking Mirror Blues, and some outrageous short fiction. Despite the perks, I don’t recommend this as a career choice – I still have to work as a Humble Bookstore Clerk to pay the bills.

In these troubled times, I live in house in the Metro Phoenix Area. It’s surrounded by a Venusian Jungle of my wife’s devising (she’s a writer, too.) I see this blog as me standing with a megaphone between a belly dancer and a fire eater, in front of a gaudy, painted backdrop. The whole idea is to make you curious about this sideshow.

So, step right up folks, see the Incredible Man with Sci-Fi Growing in His Brain! Watch out, slimey chunks sometimes fly out of his ears! Do not touch any of these chunks if they land near you – and for God’s sake, don’t eat them!

If we’re lucky, we may persuade him to bite the head off a live chicken . . .