¡FELIZ DEAD DAZE!

Argh! The whole Halloween/Día de los Muertos/Dead Daze (see Smoking Mirror Blues) complex snuck up on me this crazy year, under the nefarious stealth of political turmoil . . . Don't let all this 2016 shit get you down! Remember your dead loved ones. And let your imagination run wild . . . In times like these we really need it.

CHICANONAUTICA TAKES ON TOM SWIFT

Chicanonautica exposes racsim in the original Tom Swift novels over at La Bloga.

Tom Swift is considered to be popular Americana:

Nostalgic proto-steampunk stuff:

A far cry from Afrofuturism:

And in other news:

VOTE!

Growing up in West Covina, California, voting was no problem. The folks in charge of our local precinct knocked on our doors and let us know where the polling place was. They practically came over and walked us there on election day. They didn't care what party you were with, or who you were voting for. They wanted you to register and vote, dammit!

Ah, America!

Then I moved to Arizona. Just about every election, they moved your polling place, and finding it was a job in itself. It was like they didn't want you to vote. After several hectic election days, and horror stories from friends who didn't make it in time to cast their ballots, my wife and I signed up for early voting.

We get our ballots in the mail, fill them out right away, and mail them immediately. We have already voted in the upcoming election. It feels good. Voting always give me a natural high.

Yeah, I know some of you don't think there's anybody to vote for, and the system is so corrupt that it doesn't matter. The way I see it, democracy is like pinball: huge, multi-million player pinball. You shoot the ball in, thwack it in the direction you want, and hope it doesn't go tilt. Sure, there's a helluvalota interference from all the other people who are voting, but that's life. It's not about you, or me, it's about us.

And that's never easy.

And if you don't get your thwack in, you're not participating. You're hiding under a rock, letting everybody else decide what's going down. If it all goes tilt, you didn't do anything about it.

You may think you're high and mighty, above it all, but you look pretty low to me.

Pardon me, but I have some more thwacking to do.

CHICANONAUTICA STEALS THIS CIVILIZATION

It's recomboculturism versus cultural appropriation in Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga.

Who's afraid of dealing with other cultures?

Does Tenochtitlán translate into Hollywood?

Who are these turkeys?

We need to get down to business.

A WEEKEND GETAWAY FOR THE HELL OF IT

It was a dark and stormy night. Really. And the sky turned white in the middle of the night, just like in Captain Beefheart's “The Floppy Boot Stomp.” Emily and I had booked this getaway a while back, and it came just as the presidential race was getting tight and scary. Outrageous weather was a relief.

The next morning, there were problems with my Chicanonautica post getting up on La Bloga. Or maybe it was just me tripping on Google's security protocols. One way or another, it went up just before we left the motel, into the rain, for a rock 'n' roll breakfast at the Galaxy Diner.

Outside Flagstaff, there was a hand-painted sign: TRUMP! SAVE THE U.S.A.

We took a walk through the lava around Sunset Crater, enjoying the eerie beauty.

Stopped by Walnut Canyon, walked a trail we've never been down before, with more Sinagua ruins.

Strolled through downtown Flagstaff and got red mud on El Troque's tires. Had an early dinner at Dara Thai.

The next day, steam rose from piles of logs at the side of the road. There ware patches of snow, too. Em told me that there was snow on El Troque in the morning.

While waiting to be seated for breakfast at the Coffee Pot in Sedona, I saw a young guy in an NRA T-shirt, and an old man with scabs around one eye.

I took pictures of some Kandinskyoid Indian art – one that was signed with glyph-like symbols, the word HOPI, and the copyright sign. And the men's room had gone 21^st century with waterless urinals and air blade hand dryers.

After some aimless driving through the spectacular Oak Creek Canyon, we hiked for about an hour in Red Rock State Park. Red mud on our shoes makes us happy.

Then we took the 89A to Cottonwood – which is colorful, and hippie-dippy, and worthy of further investigation – and stopped at Adventures Unlimited Books, where I bought The Lost Tribe of Coney Island by Claire Prentice.

There were political signs in Jerome: WE LOVE BERNIE, BUT WILL VOTE FOR HILLARY and WE SUPPORT HILLARY, so big it went all the way across the front of a house.

In Prescott, where Trump would be holding a massive rally soon, we ate tacos and carnitas at El Charro, on Montezuma Street, while the the music of Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson played overhead.

We left into a downpour. There were scattered downpours all the way home.

In memory of Søren Heinecke, who enjoyed these little travelogues.