Chicano Art, Outsider Art, Martin Ramirez and Richard Rodriguez

Tex[t]-Mex features two "Seductive Hallucination Galleries" that serve as print-artkives for stereotypes, grotesqueries, anecdotes, and ephemera I have run across, and, on occasion, some down home, ad-hominem rage. One of the targets in the second gallery (p.174-80) is Richard Rodriguez, poster child for all things Chicano--at least as far as PBS is concerned--and our own Chicano curmudgeon narcissist. Here is an updated digital montage portrait of Rodriguez that appears in my University of Texas Press book:



But give credit where credit is due: Rodriguez writes like like he's made a deal with the devil and I might (I said might) have to say as much in print when the second edition of this appears.

Case in point? Turn your clicking mouse here for a thoughtful and probing meditation on Chicano outsider artist Martin Ramirez. Ramirez, a sample of his art appears below, spent much of his life inside an insane asylum, where, speechless, he produced an oeuvre of work that is just now getting its critical day in the sun. More on his work is available at The Fleisher Ollmann Gallery and The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago.

Lalo Alcaraz | La Cucaracha | The L. A. Times

Hot off of touting The Los Angeles Times for mentioning my humble tome, now I have to ride them like an underpaid dominatrix for the idiotic decision to stop carrying LA CUCARACHA, Lalo Alcaraz's daily comic strip. It would like the The Columbus Dispatch dropping Peanuts in 1973! Utter madness! Click here for the skinny.

UPDATE
The tide has relented! The LA TIMES has changed their minds and restored La Cucaracha to their daily fish-rap! Sadly for a few feline-fetishistic types, poor Heathcliff has fallen on the sword so that Chicano/a antics can live. RIP Heathcliff!

A big tip of the sombrero and an abrazo for gustavo arellano!

Gustavo Arellano, he/el of ASK-A-MEXICAN fame, appears in the March 2, 2007 edition of the Los Angeles Times; therein the sure-to-be-damned, wicked Chicano columnist holds forth on recent racist college party trends--namely, all-the-rage Latino-themed bacchanals wherein costumed gringos y gringas (other human flavors no doubt attend as well) don sombreros and fake mustaches, while siphoning barrels of tequila and beer down their gullets--this, as a means (but of course!) of channeling our intrinsically Dionysian inner Chicana/o Dasein. It turns out simulating barrio Mexicans might be the NEXT big story since Paris Hilton's storage locker turned up on Ebay. Our African-American hermanos y hermanas have put up with these shenanigans (2) for over a century, so we may be in for one hell of a ride:

That Arrellano elects to anoint Tex[t]-Mex with a mention at the end of his piece means I have to buy him a beeg beeg regalito/regalote this coming navidad! Abrazos Gustavo! Abrazos!