Ernest Hogan's Blog, page 80

BEYOND SPACE, TIME, AND BLAXPLOITATION WITH SUN RA

I always liked Sun Ra: hypno jazz with sci-fi Afrocentric lyrics, all decked our in Egyptioid finery.

I wanted to see his movie, Space is the Place. I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. I was braced for a spacy, obscure jazz art film. Instead, I got brain-slammed by a gripping mind-bender that starts like sci-fi blaxploitation, then hits it out of the park. Or maybe it hit me out of park -- or out of this world.

Never trust those preconceived expectations.

It starts with a vision of an alien world, and black separatist space colonization. This was 1974, when the idea of astronauts who were not white was considered absurd. Technology was something "enlightened" circles thought to be the tool of the oppressor, something to give up, while going back to nature.

Then there's a 1940 flashback in which Sun Ra plays jazz that literally brings the house crashing down, sending black night-clubbers fleeing as if a sci-fi monster has attacked.

Back to the Seventies: the plot is established with Sun Ra returning to Earth in a spaceship. He is soon competing with the Overseer (a term for the person who kept the slaves in line, who was sometimes also a slave) for the future of black people. Their roles are like an angel and a devil, though those terms are not used.

Space is the Place does the whole pimp/whore/gangster-in-blazing-color, typical of the blaxsploitation films of the time. But the script, by Sun Ra and Joshua Smith, goes beyond the genre with Ra's material, that constantly challenges the intended audience – young black people (though we see white jazz enthusiasts in concert scenes). Most of the urban youths don't seem to be impressed – at one point Ra threatens that he'll "do you like they did you in Africa: Chain you up, take you with me."

Inner city teens kidnapped to colonize another planet . . . there's an idea!

And I wonder what the black kids I see these days, walking down the street doing tech support for their parents via smartphone, would think of this movie.

It's a foreshadowing of the message in Minister Faust's Africentric (Afri, not Afro, this is another generation) The Alchemists of Kush.

Sun Ra is out to knock people out of the ghetto, out of this world, get them thinking out of the box, open up to new possibilities. And maybe, go out and make them happen.

We need this kind of mythology in this New Space Age.

A CHICHIMEC CLOWN SALUTES A YAQUI WARRIOR

When he died, strange, icy winds blew over California and Arizona. My black suit was still pristine in its plastic cocoon. I was to be a pallbearer again.

Soon my wife and I were in my late father's pickup, heading down I-10 toward L.A. Before we left Phoenix I saw a camouflaged truck with an female mannequin head – long, plastic hair flapping in the breeze – mounted on its hood. Then there was a car with a PLAN 9 license plate. Did my life go Felliniesque again, or was I hallucinating?

The traffic was borderline post-apocalyptic – just us, some truckers, roadkill, and the occasional helicopter or jet fighter as we squinted into the technicolor/ultraviolet sunset. Soon Jupiter, Venus, and the Moon were blazing through the intergalactic void of the desert night. We shot down the Sonny Bono Memorial Freeway through a gauntlet of Indian casinos, into the electric galaxy of the L.A./SoCal sprawl.

It was cold in West Covina. In the glowing, pre-dawn gloom, a rooster crowed, and a dragster roared down Willow Avenue.

I wasn't prepared for the sight of Paul Escobedo Moisen, the mighty Yaqui warrior, in his coffin, with a black eagle feather, an Indian blanket, and the Purple Heart he got for being wounded in World War Two.

Now, I must explain that he was my mother's step-father. I sadly have no Yaqui blood. I am a humble Chichimec. But when Don Pablo called me "mijo" or "son" he meant it without reservation. There is more to family and tribe than mere genetics. In a way, I am as much a Yaqui as I an Irishman.

And Grandpa Paul taught me so much: how to tie a bandana and roll up my sleeves like a working man, which was essential for me to do the jobs that would allow me to survive as an artist, how to be "un macho," which wasn't about ego, but having the courage to do what needs to be done when you are called upon to do it, and that being a warrior was as much about how well you loved as how well you fought.

He was not a tall man, but for me he will always be bigger than life – one of the pillars of my universe.

And now, because of him, I will tear up when I hear the song Cielito Lindo. I will not hold back those tears. I will cry like un macho.

CHICANONAUTICA PRESENTS . . . CORTEZ ON JUPITER!

In the latest Chicanonautica at La Bloga, I proudly announce the release of Cortez on Jupiter as an ebook . . . and go into how a such an historic novel ended up hidden in obscurity.

And the obscurity won't last long, with reviews saying things like:

Cortez on Jupiter is frequently funny novel but one with a serious heart. His story may be closest to Alfred Bester,but his freewheeling hi-NRG word mashups and sharp wide-ranging satire owe as much to Ishmael Reed. Twenty years on I still know no writer in SF consistently doing what Hogan does with language to document, shape and comment on colliding cultures.

Meanwhile, here some video extras:

Yes, Jackson Pollock was an influence:

So was John Glenn:

And the Chicano tradition of getting creative with technology:

If you wonder what encountering the inhabitants of the Red Spot would be like, check this out:

JAM from MIRAI_MIZUE on Vimeo.

MARDI GRAS/CARNIVAL REPORT 2012

So, among other things, I found time to go online and catch the coverage of Mardi Gras and Carnival.

It looks like Mardi Gras has been helping the economy:

Mardi Gras Big Business Along Gulf Coast by associatedpress

And the tradition of king cake is alive and well:

And folks were wild as ever:

New Orleans Mardi Gras 2012 from Dave Hotstream on Vimeo.

As for Carnival down in Brazil, I found two YouTube channels that provide more Carnival coverage than I'm going to have time to watch: Carnaval Completo, and Desfile Completo.

In Rio, it was all about Brazil's African heritage, and even the horrors of slavery were made to look dazzling:

Beauty and the monstrous marched down the Sambadrome:

It mixed with usual feather-festooned PreColumbianoid fantasies into a vision that could have been Atlantis, Lemuria, or what the world is coming to in the 21st century:

And now that it's Lent, I'll have to settle to amusing myself with videos of bullfights and riots until the crucifixion season begins.

CORTEZ ON JUPITER EBOOK LAUCHED

Look out, civilization-as-we-know-it, Cortez on Jupiter is finally available as an ebook!

Kindle users can get it from Amazon for a mere $.99.

Those of you with iPads, iBooks, Nooks, Sony Readers, Kobos, and most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital editions, and others, can get it from Smashwords. Also for that smoking deal of $.99.

Psst! For just one month at Smashwords, the coupon code LH74B will allow you to get it for $.00, to get this ball rolling and encourage reviews, discussions, and general hysteria.

I'm also available for interviews, guest blogs, and other acts of shameless self-promotion.

Buy the way, the picture of the Great Red Spot on the cover behind my graffiti-lettering is a public domain image taken on July 8, 2008, and part of a HubbleSite news release from July 17, 2008. Thank you to NASA, ESA, and A. Simon-Miller of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center – your technical work is more mind-blowing than my artistic rampages.