FORGET DICKENS, RE-READ ELLISON!

 

Harlan Ellison’s “Santa Claus Vs. S.P.I.D.E.R.” kept coming up on my social media (who sez it doesn’t do any good?) It was always one of my favorites, so I re-read it. Ahhhh! Just what the doctor ordered and in these troubled times.

For those of you who never read the story, Santa Claus is not just himself, but a James Bondian secret agent. S.P.I.D.E.R. is an evil organization that has taken control of some high-ranking U.S. government officials circa 1968. It’s outrageous, wildly imaginative, and hilarious. 

It’s also the sort of thing I’d like to recommend to people born post-Star Wars who think all his work is depressing and don’t understand how he became a big deal. For me, it’s Harlan at his best, having fun throwing words and ideas around, and targeting those who drive him into his legendary rages. Depressing stories win awards—they’re considered more “literary”—but he could be funnier than Douglas Adams and more gonzo than Hunter S. Thompson in his manic mood.

My idea of a great read.

Dare I suggest a new tradition? Instead of dragging out Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” re-read “Santa Claus Vs. S.P.I.D.E.R.” It's more in keeping with the way the world is going.

It would be fun to read it aloud.

I’d also like to see adaptations, graphic novels, animated holiday specials, movies!

Sure, the actual politicians skewered are now forgotten (some of you reading this have probably never heard of Richard Nixon), but now they come off as amusing grotesques. If any kids are curious, that’s why Quetzalcoatl gave Google.

Also, even though Harlan may have objected, it would be fun to replace the Forgotten Ones with modern equivalents. Who is the 21st century Ronald Reagan? Lyndon Jonson? George Wallace? 

I’ve found that with satire, these things don’t get old. All you have to do is change the names to expose the guilty. What goes around comes around, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, make merry while you can!

What if in a few decades, people think of Ellison rather than Dickens?

 

CHICANONAUTICA SEZ “JOAQUIN . . . JOAQUIN . . . DO YOU READ?

Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga, reviews Scott Russell Duncan’s Old California Strikes Back.

What is Old California?

Who is Joaquin?

What's with this Zorro guy?

Where is it all going?

MY DIABOLICAL PLANS FOR 2025

“MOOHOOHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

This calls for a mad scientist chortle. I’m getting ready for the new year.

And what a new year:

First, I’m not going to let the returning president get me down.  I’ve got better things to do. 

Next, I’m going to get more aggressive about finding a publisher for my novel, Zyx; Or, Bring Me the Brain of Victor Theremin. I’m rethinking everything about it, taking that bizarre state of what passes for civilization these days into account. Expect me to rant at length about this later.

Then, there’s the growing pile of short fiction that I’ve created over the last few years . . .

So far this century, most of my sales have been the result of editors coming to me, and I sell about the same amount as I did when I was beating myself up submitting everywhere and racking up rejections. These stories are not being read and that makes me feel bad, so I’m going back to the grind again. I’ll be surveying the market, and submitting regularly. I’ll report on what happens.

Also, l’m once again resolving to draw more. Gotta keep those chops. Who knows, I may need some illustrations, or graffiti, or something. And like I’ve said before it does good things to my brain.

I’m going to need my brain in top condition. There’s going to be some ugly shit happening in the next four years. 

Strange things are growing in my gray matter already. Monsters are bubbling up out of my id. I’ve got to let them out or my head will explode.

I hope to transform it all into art and literature.

I’m working on a new story—I should confess that I haven’t written any fiction since finishing my novel last year—and it’s called “Once Upon a Time in a Mass Deportation.” It’s got this smartass Chicano being interrogated by the National Guard, and things get . . . maybe a little more gonzo than magic realist. I’m using it for an example of how I do the voodoo that I do so well as part of an online writing workshop that’s part of a Latin@ Futurity class being taught at the University of Illinois Chicago.

These days, the Global Barrio extends to Chicago, and beyond. Sounds like sci-fi to some, but it’s my reality.

With a bit of luck, the students will be infected. Weird shit will start growing in their brains, and they will start committing acts of speculative fiction. And all this cultural mutation will be turned loose on the Trumptopia 2.0 . . .

“MOOHOOHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

I wanted to be a mad scientist when I was kid. It may happen yet.

Now, if only I had time to create a sarcastic filk song about it to the tune of In the Year 2525 . . .

 

CHICANONAUTICA SEES A GHOST OF GUAJOLOTE DAY PAST

In honor of linking you to a Thanksgiving column from a past decade, Chicanonautica, at La Bloga, proudly presents two of the most perverse cartoons about the controversial holiday.

Chuck Jones’ Daffy Duck and Tom Turk:

And Tex Avery’s Jerky Turkey:

Ahhh! There’s just something about cartoons where the characters are out to eat one another . . .

ONCE MORE INTO THE HOLIDAZE

It snuck up on me again, the time of year I like to call the Holidaze. It gets crazy, not just with all them holidays, but my personal birthday/anniversary logjam, the bizarre tendency of my career to wake up and demand attention while I’m trying to wrangle my way through our society’s obligations. I usually end up dazed at least.

I recently was on a Zoom panel to promote the upcoming

Chicanofuturism Now anthology. It will feature a "A Wild and Wooly Road Trip on Mars” in which Paco Cohen, interplanetary migrant mariachi, returns. Expect more acts of shameless self-promotion soon.

Soon (actually, the day before this goes online . . .) I’ll be Zooming again, presenting my ancient wisdom at a writing workshop at the Latin@ Futurity class being taught at the University of Chicago. My story, “Uno! Dos! One-Two! Tres! Cuatro!” has been assigned, so I’ll tell them how and why I did it.

You can read it in Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song: 15 Gonzo Science Fiction Stories.

Speaking about my latest book, it got more social media attention, this time, in a “reel” on Instagram from Claudia Bolaños. Like Alli Dubin, she’s impressed by “Flying Under the Texas Radar with Paco and Los Freetails.”

Also, I’m happy to say that Somos en escrito’s Extra Fiction Contest will be happening this year, and yes, I’ll be picking the winners. And the deadline has been extended to November 31st. So, raza writers, if you have a story that you think will blow my mind, send away! I’m going to need some stimulating reading.

I’m gonna be busy. Now, if only I can get some kind of news on my new novel . . .

CHICANONAUTICA RE-ENTERS TRUMPTOPIA

Chicanonautica reacts at La Bloga:

We’re hurtling back:

A lot of my friends are reacting like this:

I say it’s time to get creative:

Real creative:

A JAGGED, TWISTED HOMEWARD SPIRAL

 

The Super 8 in Grants Pass, Oregon had decaf. A civilized way to start the day, the big screen in the breakfast room showed live hurricane coverage. 

There was also a machine that, when you waved a hand over a sensor, cooked and spit out two miniature pancakes. Will we soon see 3D food printers? Or Star Trek-y replicators?

There were franchises out every window. This was the United States of America, all right. You could check in here from any part of the country and find something familiar to consume.

Grants Pass also had a mural that looked like a transdimensional portal, 

a store with big, red eyeball, 

and another where they cared about everybody's souls but weren’t open.

Out in the countryside, Bigfoot got patriotic with a winged companion.

We went through Reddings into the unsprawled interior of NorCal that looked a different planet from SoCal.

Gas was mostly over $4/gallon. The cheapest was $3.99. The guy at the station said his boss told him they make 5 cents a gallon. Greed makes the world go round.

The Red Roof Inn we stayed at only had regular coffee. Another caffeinated morning. Can civilization function without its designated legal psychoactive drug?

Then we had a fantastic Journey to the Center of the Earth-ish experience at the Oregon Caves National Monument & Preserve. 

Not as much out-of -this-world as inside-this-world.

 

Like the moon in places. Other times it looks like the mouths of a horde of monsters.

Inner worldly beauty.

Back on the surface, blow-up Halloween decorations hung out with the flag.

Next was Lassen Volcanic National Park,

Manzanita Lake,

and the Devastated Area,

That got that way because of volcanic eruption that, among other things,

Threw humongous rocks about the landscape

Then there was an area devastated by non-volcanic fire,

There were also bears, but we didn’t see any.

I wasn’t the only one having visions of Mars.

There was the smell of brimstone, and bubbling.

And danger.

In Bridgeport gas was $6.59 a gallon.

And at the Quality Inn, we had to take all the food from our car up to the room. Hibernation season was coming, and the bears were fattening up, breaking into anything that smelled like it contained food.

The next day we couldn’t get into Yosemite. You have to get reservations. It was probably for the best, since it probably would have been like being stuck in a long traffic jam, even though the scenery would have been spectacular.

Instead, we went on a five-hour jaunt through the Great Basin, which was also spectacular, but wasn’t bumper-to-bumper, and we could stop, get out and take pictures whenever we wanted.

Not only were there wide-open spaces, and natural beauty, but astounding places like Benton Hot Springs, still in California, near the Paiute reservation, with rusting farm equipment,

abandoned gas stations,

and vehicles, 

and structures from a bygone era. 

Not a national park, but well worth seeing.

Nevada was its old surreal, post-apocalyptic, Mars-colony self, 

complete with a solar concentrator blazing like a second sun in the desert. Is that a mirage? Could it be real?

In Tonapah, gas was $3.78 a gallon. No beer cans floating in canals, but you can get your McDonalds rewards . . .

And there actually is a Great Basin National Park.

Clouds hovered like camouflaged UFOs.

As the sunset, we entered Utah.

Utah is different. Planet Mormon. Or maybe Mormon settlement on Mars. 

Where a monumental Native warrior cleaves clouds with his tomahawk, 

corporate America flooding in through the highways,

Wild West heathen homes decked out for Halloween,

alligator jerky for sale (still no of sign those elusive Utah alligators),

cowgirl coffee, 

and in Delta, an ice cream place called the Mix, that was  run by a lactose-intolerant woman. 

A robot dripping with string-of-pearls plants. 

This was it. America. Small towns. Alternate realities, visions of futures, geological formations, ruins and artifacts from lost civilizations. Evolution. Revolution.

And rock shops.

Joe’s Rock Shop, Home of the Utah Septarian Nodule.

The Orderville Mine Rock Shop,

where metal dinosaurs threaten to run off with the merchandise,

and we were warned of the danger of grabbing glass and obsidian.

On the final day we cruise homeward along the Fabulous 89.

Gas was $3.31 a gallon

Another landscape radiating surrealism. Were those really secret Morman marijuana farms? And that datura garden was lush and well cared for. In Richfield, there was a Mexican Restaurant: LA GRINGA. Not many coffee stands in Utah.

A sign suggested RELAX, THROW AN AXE. In Circleville, a black guy sold barbeque on Sunday morning. Not far away a Trump flag flew over a farm. In Panguitch, the taco trailer was closed, but we found a coffee joint.

Most of Utah is closed on Sunday. Everybody seems to be in church, or in the rock shops worshiping older gods. Yet people are driving around, looking for . . . something . . .

Soon we re-entered Arizona. The Rez. The Navajo Nation.

Gas was $3.25 a gallon, and the sun sent curtains of light through the clouds.

Back in Phoenix, it was still an inferno. I could hardly wait to get to work on this travelogue.