[00:00:01] My Primo and yours, Mr. Kevin Garcia.com. Yo, what's up Kevin? What's up Kevin and Freddie and everybody else out there. Hey, definitely, definitely, definitely you're expanding, you're growing it.
[00:00:30] I mean, you know, I gotta make everybody feel included into the royal we that is Kevin Garcia.com as you put it every time. Right. Mr. Kevin Garcia's crown.
[00:00:40] Look, honestly, look, as big as my crown is, there is somebody way bigger than me here as much as I think I am big. David Bowles actually is. He is a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, I believe literature and culture correct.
[00:00:58] Literature and culture studies. And you have several, several award-winning books under your belt, books, comics, graphic novels, and you have a new one that just came out. David, could you tell us a little bit about what you study and about your new book? Yes, absolutely.
[00:01:11] So I as people may know if they know anything about me tend to write books that are centered on the Mexican American experience on the borderlands on our roots in Mexico and Mexico's roots in pre-Columbian mess on the west.
[00:01:28] And so, you know, even my more science fiction fantasy comic book, he kind of stuff will still draw from mess. So America in a lot of ways. But recently I've been writing books that are like just more like definitely centered in mess America.
[00:01:45] You know, I've had books that retail myths, but now I'm beginning to do more like historical fiction and I had a book earlier this year called secret of the moon conch that I wrote with well big RC on the call.
[00:01:56] And just last week, my latest book, the Prince and the coyote came out. And it tells the story of possibly one of the most important figures in the Americas before the arrival of the Spanish. And that is the man that we know as Nazahual Coyote.
[00:02:15] His name means something like fasting coyote.
[00:02:18] And when he was a teenager, he was still going under the name of Mestli and he was the crown prince of a city state called Tesco co and Tesco co was like basically the capital city of of a kind of coalition of city states on the eastern shore of what was then called
[00:02:39] the great Tesco co. That place was called a cool Waka and it was really massive group of civilizations that were descended from the the the Toltecs and the Chichimax, who had invaded the area after the Toltec Empire had fallen on a policy for a second.
[00:02:57] A lot of times when somebody is first introduced to the concept of Mesoamerica. They just hear Aztecs Maya.
[00:03:03] And of course, those of us who study Mesoamerica were like, okay, Aztecs perfectly acceptable term to use nowadays but not a term they would have used at the time very much. You've gotten into that recently online I saw.
[00:03:14] And then when you say Maya, that's like a dozen different groups. What I love is that you're breaking down into specific cultures that were, you know, involved in the time that were relevant to your story.
[00:03:26] All right, I just want to pause that for a second and get back into it. Yeah, there's more layers.
[00:03:30] No, it's a great point for you to bring up Kevin. It would be kind of like if in the rest of the world, the history of England was just subsumed into talking about Europeans. Right.
[00:03:41] Oh yeah, the Europeans and you know there was like Paris and there was London and there was Berlin and all these cities that Europeans lived in or whatever. And then they'd be like, well, there's the Europeans but there's also the Norwegians. Yeah. And that's like all they had.
[00:03:55] It's such a bizarre way to break up the world. And so yeah, I mean one of the interesting things about the term Aztec is that it wasn't used by the people that we call Aztecs to refer to themselves.
[00:04:08] They referred to the people of mythical homeland they had come from as being Aztecs. And so there was a time when our ancestors were Aztecs.
[00:04:17] And just like you might like a white person in the US might go well, I mean, you can call me Anglo and I guess my answers came from England but I'm a US citizen. I'm an American. It's really weird for you to be calling me Anglo.
[00:04:30] Yeah, on pause for a quick again. My mom by the way was was white right and she didn't like being called Angla because she said, you know her ancestors weren't from England. They're from Scotland. She said call me Gringa.
[00:04:45] And what's really funny, Kevin is that Gringa and Gringo is actually a distortion of the word Griego. So it literally means Greek. So I don't know. It's called an angle or a Greek. It's like what you know what illustration of how these terms are really imprecise right. Yeah.
[00:05:04] And getting back to your books. You know, I have they call me widow on my classroom shelf.
[00:05:09] I've been in conversations about this all time people online and literally just a couple days ago has somebody say, have you read feathered serpent dark heart of sky and I'm like, you know, funny you bring that up. You know, I know the guy.
[00:05:19] I'm friends with the only that. Remember Rafael Flores Jr., which is the Kamazot comic book. Yeah, he's like inspired by my book. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. He's very much so he says like, I made sure David Bowles book was in my library.
[00:05:33] Like he was like dumping your book like this book needs to be here. He talks about you in such reverence and I was like, David, I know him. You know, just kind of like a little bit. We drank we drank some beers together one time. Yeah, one time.
[00:05:48] So the so this this this young Prince is father's kingdom has been at war with the empire that existed at the time on the other side of the lake that tepaneca empire, which was run by this really, really old emperor named Tezos omok.
[00:06:06] And Tezos omok had a lot of land under his control, including the kingdom of Mexico, which was the relatively new about 100 years old kingdom on the Isle of Mexico right in the middle of moon Lake. And there were two cities on this isle.
[00:06:22] Tenochtitlan and the locals we will be familiar with these are the Mexica. These are the people who are going to become really, really important really soon.
[00:06:30] And Akon Miesli the crown prince of Tezco co his mother was a Mexica princess who married the king of Tezco co even though the emperor wanted the king of Tezco co the marry one of his daughters so this caused a war.
[00:06:45] And by the time this book opens the war has been going on for like 14 years.
[00:06:51] And this is simply a war, because the king of Tezco co was like no I'm going to marry the woman I love I don't give a shit what the emperor says. This is who I love this is who I want to be with, which is kind of a cool thing like you don't hear that very much and ask that stories but there it is.
[00:07:05] And his kingdom is overrun and the Akon Miesli and his father have to go on the run. And the, you know, their city falls and I'll come easily watches his father get killed by the imperial troops of the of the Tepe Nica Empire.
[00:07:21] And he has to go on the run he has to like, fake his death essentially and go into exile live up in the mountains it lives on is taxi what the dead volcano that separates the kind of like basin of Mexico that was called a now walk from the high lands where the flash cut tecas and other people
[00:07:42] lived. And so he lives there for a while. And this is where he takes the name of Nezawad Co, you're. And so in my book what I've done is I've made him actually befriend a coyote female coyote who takes him in the moments where he's about to die and starvation and kind of, you know, shows
[00:08:00] him kind of inadvertently at first but then they become like a pair, but how to survive in the wild, because he does and we have poems that he wrote during this time, like one of his most important poems, which is usually titled flight is written where he's been moaning his fate and like wishing
[00:08:16] that he could just die, because he's lost everyone that he loves and he doesn't understand what the point of it is. But he survives he's 16. And then he ends up coming down off the mountains and living for a time under the name Nezawad Co as a commoner, and then as a soldier and an enemy army and the
[00:08:34] Chalcan army and just having like different little adventures and kind of like garnering allies and figuring things out and planning he's kind of like the count of Monte Cristo he's like, I am going to take back my father's kingdom, because he finds out that the person they put in charge is his bastard half brother
[00:08:53] and his mother is a Tepaneka so she's related to the the emperor's people whatever and he actually helped these people invade the city and take over. And so, Nezawad Co is like, I am going to take back my kingdom, and I'm going to kill that bastard.
[00:09:14] And that's what the rest of the book is about he falls in love and so forth. There's there's a really cool romance between him and this commoner girl who's like, Why do you need to rule why do you need to take your kingdom back why can't you just be happy with me on this farm, like do you really need that.
[00:09:32] And he comes to realize that he does, because he believes I mean he's a he's a brilliant mind he's a great musician, a great mathematician, he understands engineering. I mean this is the guy that when he's older will build the aqueduct that goes between Chepotopec mountain to to no she done to bring fresh water he builds the dike.
[00:09:53] All along, you know, miles of lake to separate the briny water from the freshwater. He does magnificent things that are mind blowing.
[00:10:02] And he was already brilliant he was a genius when he was a kid. And so the rest of the book is about how he makes his way to Noctis De Gland where his uncles are ruling.
[00:10:12] They convinced the emperor to let him like stay there to have sanctuary as long as he never leaves to know to take plan. And then he and his uncles plot together and they overthrow the empire, and they established their own triple alliance, which is basically a way for their family they all belong to that the house of a come up each Lee the Royal House of 10
[00:10:37] There's a lot of color belongs to it because his mother is from that house. And they basically like this triple alliance that we think of as the Aztec Empire is really a way for the Royal House of 10 of C plan to rule and not walk.
[00:10:51] You know, bit by bit over the upcoming decades they're going to put, you know, cousins and children so forth and control all these city states but it's like the birth of the Aztec Empire it's like so fascinating.
[00:11:03] And it's a teenager who like basically comes up with a lot of the mechanisms for the overthrow of the empire and the establishment of it and so I've known about the story for a long time, and I've just been looking around and why has no one ever told the story.
[00:11:18] That's the first thing I thought because whenever somebody starts digging into Mesoamerican lore. One of the first things they find is Nezolah Coyote, who is like the poet king. And it's like, as soon as they find this person like how have I not always known about this person.
[00:11:36] And one of the things that I've always said, one of the things I've always said is that I want more of this kind of these reimagined stories and these historical fictions to be published because I would like more of the world's pop culture to acknowledge and be aware of these stories just like you know what I would say is like everybody around the world now knows the name of Thor's hammer and knows who Hercules' dad is.
[00:12:01] I want them to know these stories too. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm with you because me like I'm not as verse right and I hear these stories and I get excited because I'm like, why am I infatuated with the romance of the three kingdoms. Which is a great story.
[00:12:16] Great stories. Great story right? It'll pull from history and you have fantasy etc. And that's put into a lot of the most, more of the Asian fiction what have you even from there they pull and make new anime and they still reference these things.
[00:12:31] So I'm like, when you tell me these stories when I read your book, when I read Kevin's book, when I read everybody that's making this stuff I get so excited.
[00:12:38] So I can start digging like, oh man, I am so pumped because this is from us. This is from our people. Yeah, that's so exciting to hear man. I really, really dig your idea and the story and I'm just.
[00:12:49] Yeah, thank you and it's being yourself received really well it's got three star reviews already from like major publications. It is.
[00:12:59] I mean, no me quiero salar. I don't want to like throw salt on myself here, but it is looking like it's probably going to win a couple of awards during award season. You know, it's an honor just to be nominated. Yeah, no, I wouldn't know.
[00:13:18] Can you be accolades? It's an honor to get an honor award because that's better than me nominated. You'll have like the silver version right you'll have the gold award and you'll have like the silver which they usually call an honor award.
[00:13:31] And that's fine. I'm fine with honors nominations depending on what you get nominated for getting nominated for an eyes or hell yeah that's.
[00:13:39] Well, yeah, when you get nominated for an eyes or you're being nominated by other people in the comic book industry and that's like whoa you guys know who I am.
[00:13:46] This is the second podcast we've had in a row where the person with us has said their dream would be to get an eyes or someday. And just for everybody who's new to comics, you know what the Oscars are you've heard that that's our Oscars we are we've claimed it.
[00:14:01] That's right and when in my book, the which our parliament was nominated for an eyes or so that was super super cool. I love that one. Yeah, and I can't wait for people to read the second volume of it is going to be like really tremendous as well.
[00:14:13] Yeah, that's what this book is about it's a rollicking adventure. It's written in mostly in prose but there's some poetry as well and that's what call you to was one of our thoughts and I I've translated his poems and other places and I put so some of those translations in this and then wrote other poems in his voice.
[00:14:31] So I think I think it's a really compelling experience battles you like battles there are battles galore you like romance. There are a couple of romances one of them straight one of them queer so boom that's that's, there's all kinds of there's a little bit for everybody in it and over and over and above it all is just this and really compelling figure of Nezawa Koyoto who's such a good person grappling with like really difficult situations and just trying to find the path forward to bring his people
[00:15:01] back to their homeland and build like a paradise for them because that's literally what he did. People call to school the Athens of mess America it was an amazing. There you go. Yeah, so yeah talking about the Greek enrollment references right.
[00:15:15] So definitely something it's out take a look for it you can get it an ebook in hardcover coming out Spanish and April. So that'll be cool.
[00:15:25] Awesome. Well, people we're going to take a short break. We're going to dive into a little more conversation regarding the other those muertos stay tuned. Deep in the bottomless depths of the ocean. Empty bodies we sink. You smile and we slip down and we chase us.
[00:15:57] So we're talking about you know the history of all of these these cultures that are shoot I was almost going to say lost they're not lost. They're just not talked about enough, but they're still.
[00:16:27] They're still part of our traditions because so much of what we do today, you know, follows from that. And as we get into what my students call spooky season, you know, one of the big ones we always talk about is dealers Martos and David, I have my own thoughts on this and
[00:16:46] and I know Freddie was saying that being Salvadoran it's kind of new to him.
[00:16:52] But you're you're a cultural kind of new I mean just it was at least they have a very different like version of there we go. Yeah, very different version of it which is kind of cool because of the fact that and I know you'll give us the goods here on that.
[00:17:04] But Elia you know she recently joined our cast here. I really have this idea she really wanted to cover the little more those how it's been kind of and she come in the past has mentioned that he doesn't like how it's been kind of a.
[00:17:19] It's been co-opted by. commercialized commercialized and taken and just almost perverse in a way, and that it no longer has the same meaning that we or our culture with what really wanted to maintain.
[00:17:35] And I started looking into my own right my family the way I grew up and everything, and I started comparing it to what I saw on TV, what pop culture says the other those mortals is, and they differ.
[00:17:47] So, kind of, I don't know how do we start here guys you know I mean what are we looking at first. Am I right in in what I've heard that this may have come from pre colonial traditions. So, yeah. All right.
[00:18:03] That's the big question right there because that's the one was like, there's not a from what I understand not a definite answer but a probable. Yeah, so I feel like I have a pretty good handle on this but I don't think it's the one.
[00:18:14] I think my answer is one that's going to make certain people very happy but here we go anyway right. That's all right you give us an answer. Here we go. So, from my vantage point, from everything that understand about the traditions, especially of the now was before this the
[00:18:30] Spanish invasion. Our Dia de Muertos today is largely a pretty Catholic tradition it is. Yeah, it's held during the specific feast days set aside by the Catholic Church. It's very similar the Mexican one to Dia de Muertos like that that are literally called Dia de Muertos all over
[00:18:55] America. You know it's just like when, when people, you know, what we were talking about the other day on social media. I shared with people. I'm sorry, my fellow Mexicans, but Santa Santa Colita de Rana, a Mexican invention.
[00:19:14] It does not come from Mexico. It came from Spain hundreds of years ago and spread all throughout Latin America and every friggin Latin American country has their version of Santa Santa sometimes it's Colito de Rana, or some other like variation.
[00:19:31] And so there is this tendency, I think, to want to believe because we really want there to be as much indigenous as many indigenous strands in our modern celebrations that are possibly can be.
[00:19:46] And there's a real reluctance to say, Well, I guess this is just like another European thing like, for example, because all this is the very, very Spanish, very, very European.
[00:19:59] And when we take a look at pre Spanish invasion traditions, things are very different. Having said that, I want to just like add, there are a lot of one of the things that Freddie notices when he looks at the differences in how it's celebrated
[00:20:19] and then said about Lord of the Two Holodists in Mexico, there are a lot of trappings layered upon this very Catholic holiday that are indigenous.
[00:20:30] And yeah, that's kind of what I was asking about because like, you know, one of the things that has Catholicism spread around the world, the church would definitely make allowances for certain areas because it would encourage conversion.
[00:20:44] So that's why Mardi Gras would become very popular in certain areas. Day of the Dead would become very popular in certain areas, whereas other areas Christmas became like the biggest thing ever because it just depended which part of the world Catholicism was touching.
[00:20:59] So it was still definitely a Catholic tradition, but it's the local trappings that made things more popular in one area or another.
[00:21:06] So let's talk a little, let's do a little comparison. So when we say what we ought to be saying is Diaz de Muertos or Diaz de los Muertos because it's not just one day, right?
[00:21:18] Yeah, El Salvador is the first, the second and the third. And on the first, we're supposed to give, it's El Día del Difunto and it's for kids, for children on the first of November.
[00:21:30] So two, that's right. And then the second day is for like the adult dead, that's right. The adult, yeah. So in Aztec tradition, there were two entire months dedicated to and when I say months they were like 20 day months, they're not like 15 months like yours.
[00:21:50] So there were two venenas, 20 day months dedicated or that had that maybe culminated in festivals that were about the dead. So you had Weyye Micaíluitl which is the great feast of the dead.
[00:22:08] And that was the 10th month of the year, of the 18 months of the year. And the ninth month when it came before that was the Micaíluitltoncly rather.
[00:22:23] And that means the little feast of the dead. And so just like November 1st is for children and November 2nd is for adults, the idea here is you have a lesser feast and a greater feast. The lesser feast is to celebrate the young.
[00:22:39] And there were gods that are associated with it as well. And the larger feast of the dead is to celebrate the older people. And so in that respect, you can see that this has been layered atop of the traditions of the Catholic church.
[00:22:56] And a lot of the things that were done at that like offering food up to the dead kind of corresponded to things that fit well in the Catholic traditions as well.
[00:23:08] Both of those also had other names in different areas, but that's what they were usually called in Tenochtitlan. And one of the major features of these festivals were marigolds. The flowers. Yeah, the flowers, right? The marigold flowers.
[00:23:28] I don't know if it's just because it's recent, right? In the last couple of years, I've had family past in Salvador. And whenever we saw either de los muertos, de los difuntos, marigolds weren't a predominant flower. No.
[00:23:43] It's not something that's locally grown. It's not something like a native plant. But there was tons of, and this is what I noticed as a difference as far as what pop culture or media has, you know, sensationalize de los muertos, if you will.
[00:23:58] What I noticed was a lot of commerce that this is a business boom in Salvador during that time. It's when you can get specific foods only during that time. Certain things are only made during that time. People would go and say, hey, I'll go decorate your grave.
[00:24:16] I'll clean it up for you. I'll paint it for you. Like we'll do everything for you. We'll build a cross right now and go clean it up for you. Like business is booming this whole weekend. If you're three days or so, it's more of like a mercado.
[00:24:28] It's more of like just a festival, if you will. It's not necessarily in it. Just correct me if I'm wrong. It's just my own reference, right? No one stays there all night. No one really sets up altars. It's clean up everything, put flowers and they use cellophane flowers.
[00:24:46] Cellophane flowers. Interesting. That's really interesting. Yeah. And I mean, and I think that in Mexico because these marigolds were associated with the festivals of the dead before the arrival of Catholicism,
[00:25:00] it was just, it fit neatly that, you know, now us who are converting to Catholicism were able to say, we can continue venerating our, you know, los difuntos de nuestros difuntos queridos by using the flowers, right?
[00:25:15] The Sempo Walsocitl or as it's now become called in Spanish, the Sempasuchil, right? It's really interesting that the name and now with the Sempo Walsocitl means 20 flower because 20 is, was a number of completeness. And it's like, you know, the cycle has ended.
[00:25:35] You know, your life is over and it's like a perfect name for a flower that would be used to kind of revere people who had completed their life cycle. But it was also called the Mica Solcitl, which means the death flower, the flower of the dead.
[00:25:52] And it was, you know, specifically set aside for being used in these kinds of festivals. So, you know, I got to pause you for a second. I know we talk a lot about comic books. Death Flower would be a badass name for like a superhero.
[00:26:08] Let's jot that down. Write it down Kevin. A superhero in the Chispa Versa, some of the deaths. Yes. Death Flower. And just a quick reminder, David Bowles is one of the editors of Chispa Comics.
[00:26:21] And I am one of the writers of Chispa Comics for the new Chispa, the 13 coming out in comic stores this year. And with plans for next year. Drumroll. Freddie is going to be involved in working on our Central American Chispa team. It's going to be super badass.
[00:26:42] So, look, I can't wait to hear more about that. You know, I kept quiet. I was like, you say that because I don't know what I'm allowed to say. This is the perfect opportunity. Here we are.
[00:26:53] I can't announce the entire team yet because we're still doing the contractual stuff, but Freddie is definitely on board. And there'll be another three writers from different, you know, Central American countries or whose background is for those countries,
[00:27:06] ranging from indigenous writers to other Mestiza writers to, you know, people from Malaya versus Salvatore and so forth. And it's going to be a great group working on our really, really cool Central American team. I'm so excited. I can't wait for people to.
[00:27:22] I know, I know. I get really excited when we have these conversations about how we differ yet we have those strands that connect us, right? Because there's always this fear of assimilation because of the fact that they want...
[00:27:37] Like, earlier, if you just say like, Mexico, okay, but there's so many people, so many tribes, so many different beliefs and practices, right? Same thing with Central America, but not everybody is the same.
[00:27:48] You know, so I love the fact that we have so many strands that do connect us, right? Because we're always on the show here. We're all primos, but we still have things that differentiate and there's plenty of room for us.
[00:27:59] You know, that's why we always say it's like me and Chico started the show. And I think that it's like, it's a social mosh pit, if you will. There's enough room for everybody to push around, but we're all in the struggle together, you know? So I'm really excited.
[00:28:12] I love that idea of a social mosh pit. That's a really cool metaphor. And so yeah, the 13th is rolling out. It started already this month of October with our very first comic soapy look thing. We're going to give the origin stories of the 13th, the Mexican team.
[00:28:33] Then there's going to, following that, there's going to be a mini series written by Terry Blass that shows them in the university. And then we're going to next roll out the Hurricanes, Los Huracanes, that's going to be our Caribbean team.
[00:28:46] And then right after that comes the affinity La Finidad, which is our Central American team. And then that's all coming boom, boom, boom in the next couple of years. And then after that, I'm just barely beginning to formulate my plan.
[00:29:00] We're going to get our South American team of Chispa. Can't wait for that. You guys wanted Latino superheroes? I know some great artists from South America. Oh yeah, I know. Some of our greatest Latino comic artists are from South America. Certainly. That's going to be exciting.
[00:29:19] No, it's a thing. You said it right? We bitching complain that we want a presentation. Here it is. And I always say like, we need these to succeed. We need to go out there and spend those dollars, man.
[00:29:30] You know, go out there, make it happen, support your primos, making this stuff for us, for everybody. Yeah, because that's the way we continue because a minute something like this fails. What are the gringos going to say?
[00:29:44] We told you there's, you know, Mexicans don't read, Latinos don't read. Because that's what they say, no? I keep saying we need to attack pop culture to get all those other gringos to read our books. That is John Picasso. Oh yeah. Great, you know, amazing artists, cover artists.
[00:30:03] You know, first guy to, first Mexican American to MC the, the hugos stuff like that. Great guys, wonderful person. He once said what we need is for people to begin to see Mexican and Mexican American and more broadly Latina, you know, IP as badass.
[00:30:26] That's, that's essentially, there's all kinds of problems with appropriation and misuse of black culture. But one of the things that's undeniable is that black culture is extremely popular in the US and around the world.
[00:30:38] Hip hop for example, which is arguably one of the purest, you know, black musical forms that is has completely remade the musical scene around the world. I was like rap from Kazakhstan the other day, you know, you it's, you it's every. I've heard some of that.
[00:30:55] Yeah, and what we have Olivia has some dope rappers too man like I've been digging that stuff too so like rap in Spanish right. So tying this back to our earlier conversation. Yeah, you know talking about the possibility of appropriation and then they growing in pop culture.
[00:31:12] I have a question David and that is about like this or the DLF Martha's over the past like half century. Like, I feel like and something other people told me as well that while it has always been acknowledged and been around.
[00:31:27] It was more of a regional celebration in parts of Mexico, and then kind of slowly over the past 3040 years kind of subsumed a lot of Mexican Americans throughout the US as if oh we've always done this.
[00:31:40] And it's like, and now it's at a TV actually the case like in other words, am I imagining that that it kind of. Yeah, so in my in my book. They call her for a woman that came out recently I was on the quasi equal to.
[00:31:57] Yeah, to where I am. I you know I and I was on week in the show it's got Simon talking about this book and one of one of the things that I wanted to do and it was addressed as head on.
[00:32:09] In my book, where those grandfather is telling his sister Teresa who wants to do all the ones to set up an altar for their great grandfather for the other mortals he's like, he's like a Vietnam best stuff like that he's like girl.
[00:32:22] We talking about we don't celebrate the other those mortals what the hell is that he's you know like a like a techno dude who's he's like, we have never as far as I can remember ever celebrated the other mortals in Texas, you know,
[00:32:38] I'm not even American Stichanos in Texas. That's not something that wasn't part of our culture. And what this is says is, you're right and it's important to acknowledge that that is true.
[00:32:49] But there's nothing that keeps us from saying, you know what that tradition is a tradition, a mestizo tradition and credit tradition that blends European with indigenous things, much like the rest of our culture.
[00:33:04] If we want to like take that now and incorporate it into our practice, then we should have the right to do it. But we also need to acknowledge what her grandfather saying which is, let's be honest with ourselves.
[00:33:20] So, you know, he be maybe celebrating the day of the dead right now.
[00:33:25] In the 80s when when we were kids was no given what those in any kind of store in the Rio Grande Valley or in San Antonio and also when nobody was talking about that was this poor Halloween.
[00:33:38] And that is absolutely true. It was definitely more a regional, more indigenous tradition throughout Mexico that slowly has been adopted by mestizo peoples. And again, because I think it's I think it's very clear that it's a syncretic holiday and not even close to being a purely indigenous holiday.
[00:34:00] I think that there's some validity in that I think it's not cultural appropriation. I say appropriation in this situation. I mean like US culture absorbing this. That's where it was going. That's where I was going. So I think for Mexican Americans to use it is not appropriation.
[00:34:15] Yeah, when you see a bunch of like, you know, green guys, they're like painting their face with the sugar skull and gone around. You know, it's become the secret of the mile.
[00:34:27] Then you're I'll be honest. I like this better than sickle the mile, because at least there's some cultural history behind it as opposed to just an excuse to get drunk. Yeah, and like into where like that office and some bread.
[00:34:37] True. So here's another one right in Salvador, Vince. And I'll say this in the last, like I said, be 1010 years of an especially with movies, right? Everything from Cocoa, the book of the dead about the life.
[00:34:54] Look at black. Thank you. And it's about or now you're seeing people use marigolds. Now you're seeing people reference Cocoa and that movie and whatever is popular in the US like every other in the world, you know, even though they're Latin countries having their own practices.
[00:35:14] Now they're taking that as well. How do we look at that? And that was by the way, that was something that you come I brought up. We were talking about pre-part of this. David, what do you think about that the expansion of it via pop culture like Cocoa?
[00:35:28] I mean to me, it starts becoming iffy there right. El Salvador has a long tradition of being invaded by people from Mesoamerica. The people in the now language, these are now. Down into El Salvador. It's in our genes. It's in our genes to just get colonized.
[00:35:57] I get it. You guys have been colonized time. Time and time again. If it's not Ronald Reagan, it's fucking Disney. If it's not like the banana Republic, it's like something else.
[00:36:10] Don't start with banana wars. I had a ban of bananas in my house for a year and a half just because of the fucking banana wars and shit like that when I started reading about that. I totally understand you. Strawberries? Yes. Mangos? Orally.
[00:36:29] Whenever I have a friend or a student or somebody come upon the banana wars, they're like, what was this? And I'm like, yeah. Yeah, it really wasn't. They're people who are alive. Old people who are illiterate.
[00:36:47] It is, but yeah, no, I can understand El Salvador in this way. We're going to colonize ourselves. Let's just do it. Let's just adopt it. Right? Let's just get a head start on it.
[00:37:02] But it is problematic. What would be so much more lovely would be for the people of El Salvador to dig into their own indigenous history and find what were the traditions before the arrival of the Spaniards around the reverencing the dead.
[00:37:20] What did we do? What did our ancestors do here and try to find ways to bring that? I think that would be, you know, this is also what I wish white people would do.
[00:37:28] I wish white people would stop doing that kind of stuff and go, okay, wait a minute. Let me do my ancestry.com thing. Oh, I'm mostly Irish. What are the indigenous people? You know what's funny?
[00:37:38] Let's talk about that for all of the white nationalists that co-opted like, we talked about Norwegian earlier, like Viking imagery. There are a lot of like earnestly good people that have been embracing that ancestry of that, that like, hey, no, my people were seafarers.
[00:37:56] My people were builders and traders and people that came to the Americas.
[00:38:02] I honestly love that when somebody is like, not turning their cultural history into a weapon, but more making it just like, hey, look at this thing that my ancestors did and I'm going to try to recreate. Yeah, that's really cool.
[00:38:16] I think it's cool too. It's kind of like undoing the deal with the devil that is white.
[00:38:20] Right. And this was a deal with the devil was like people when, you know, when Europeans first came to the Americas and in the case of, you know, North America outside of Mexico, a lot of it initially where people fling from religious persecution, there was a
[00:38:38] variety of people Dutch and English and all kinds of people coming in and trying initially and very initially to find ways to live alongside Native Americans, although that one. And creating their own religious persecution.
[00:38:51] But at that very, at the very beginning there was there was an opportunity for everybody to be to double down on their own identity and live together in a pluralistic society, but people who crave power and know that they need to have a like a mob behind them to have that kind of
[00:39:11] power. So people on the idea of washing all of that away into whiteness into this homogenous whiteness and every new group that would come over like at first Benjamin Franklin, only the only white people were like people from England.
[00:39:26] Yeah, but later on he was like, oh, I guess we can accept the Germans, because they needed more numbers otherwise they would be outnumbered.
[00:39:32] And like you said it was it was not about having like an identity as a whole. It was more like having an identity that was above you, as long as it was above you it was okay.
[00:39:42] The joke a lot of my friends say is like well which half of my ancestors are upset right now. I don't know it's funny you said, I think it just thinking it over as you mentioned the fact that digging back right.
[00:39:55] And I talked to my son my wife's from Puebla she was born in Puebla and talked about her Pueblo and how her grandfather had a bakery and woke up at dawn and everything by hand he owned the mill and they made my East all everything just kind of growing up right.
[00:40:09] And me or my mother, all she told me was, oh yeah, I sold a malice and then a war started. Like it was like my country's history that I know of.
[00:40:18] It's a fucking war zone, but I hate that I'm in this middle generation because of the fact that now you look at Salvador is this fucking fairy land for surfers which I honestly think this is when city is going on under under the sands.
[00:40:31] You know what I mean. Yeah, but the fact that we I'll say I'm one of them. No space to go back and really dig. It's almost like you need to show me bring me a fucking silver platter of it, and I'll consume it.
[00:40:46] But for me to go dig and look for it. It's laziness whatever you want to call it it's easier to scroll and look for it, which is not.
[00:40:54] I know the medium now to consume is is getting it into you as fast as possible. So like Kevin says, we want our culture out there so much that it comes up on people's feeds that it comes up on TV everywhere because
[00:41:07] the whole thing is not everybody is meant to dig not everybody has like maybe the skill set right also to do this and we should want as you say for there to be so much out there that it just like it's common knowledge.
[00:41:20] I mean, the background of Western European civilization is common knowledge it's built upon the ideals of Greeks and Romans and you know and in the church that emerged from that and that kind of, you know reformed Europe and
[00:41:36] you know what happened and and all of our literature that's taught in school is all derived from that tradition, and we're like soaked in it. And so even if you're relatively ignorant you basically have an idea of that you know, Europe arose out of
[00:41:51] the edges of Greece and Rome. And, but people don't have that kind of understanding of identity in the Americas. And that's something that needs to change and I think that the work that people like the three of us that are trying to do creatively,
[00:42:06] is a lot of popularization and you know putting things out there, podcasts books whatever we can to have these conversations.
[00:42:15] You know we're chipping away at it like obviously we need a lot more people. Just like you needed a, you know, a mob of whiteness so that America could exist. We need a mob of like I don't know brownness I guess you know of Mestizel's
[00:42:30] and indigenous people all working together. We need that anger ball to roll up the Americas all the way to the US man.
[00:42:38] Let's bring this back to you know, the way that it's been getting out there now. And let me ask you about specifics. What do we think about stuff like Coco and Book of Life like those two specifically.
[00:42:50] Book of Life was, it's hard to call it an indie project, but it just wasn't Disney. You know, but it was good. And then Coco came out and now some people you know forget that Book of Life existed because Coco was there.
[00:43:02] But Coco of course is very influential. What do you think of the presentations of this clearly both of them Mesoamerican inspired versions of Day of the Dead.
[00:43:14] I mean, I enjoyed them both but they're obviously both very, I mean, they take massive creative licenses course with both the tradition the present day tradition of Day of the Dead, and also massive, massive creative liberties with the way
[00:43:33] indigenous people perceived the afterlife of neither of these movies gets anything really right about that other than just like some imagery or whatever they are very, very, very, very, very different. Hold on you're telling me it's not a party every day every night in the after one.
[00:43:51] Wait, what? No, no, hold on a second I do want to say a couple things you know. There was no Alevrijes. Yeah, that's a whole other like 100 years ago they. Yeah, like 1920s I think.
[00:44:04] Yeah, I just love that just one dude had a dream and now everybody in Mexico does it. I just love it. It was a fever dream.
[00:44:14] It was like literally very, very ill and almost at the point of death and you have this dream about Alevrijes, which is marvelous and I love that beautiful.
[00:44:21] And then they became somebody could somebody told me the other day, is it like Mexican Pokemon and I was like, kind of. But no, what I was gonna say about stuff that I feel like they got right. Book of Life.
[00:44:34] It's obviously very blocky and meant to look very wooden, but it also in my view kind of evokes the feeling of a lot of the statuary that you'd see on the temples.
[00:44:45] And then when you get to Coco, one of my favorite things about it is that at no point in the movie is death considered a sad or horrible thing.
[00:44:55] And that's one of the things that always bothers me like even Greek movies like when they do like Hercules and Hades is the bad guy. Hades wasn't the bad guy in most stories. It's just our modern, you know, Christian dominated point of view says that death is evil.
[00:45:10] So death must be bad. And I love that Coco doesn't fall into that trap. Yeah, that is that what that is definitely something that was a relief.
[00:45:20] At the same time, I will tell you that of the different places that a soul could go in the after after death in and now a tradition, especially in the Mexica national religion which is like the main thing that we know about.
[00:45:38] I was having a conversation the other day with a really brilliant scholar of Utah, second languages and novel culture.
[00:45:46] And he was like, yeah, you realize that the Mexica kind of made it an amalgamation of all the different groups that they had conquered and built it into like a new type of religion.
[00:45:56] I guess I know. But in that religion there was like, there was obviously the House of the Sun in the East that warriors went to when they died in battle. There was the House of Women in the West where women who died in childbirth went to.
[00:46:11] There was the wonderful lush paradise of Tla Loka and which I love I love that.
[00:46:21] Okay, I want to pause on that for a quick second just as an aside. I often will call Tla Loka kind of like the Mexica Thor, but I love the idea that he's a Thor who had his own personal Asgard and you had to die a special way to get there.
[00:46:34] And if you die in a land where you have a very cool water or disease and if you died, you know, drowning or struck by lightning or because you were hunchback whatever. You literally got to live in a real paradise.
[00:46:45] All of your needs were taken care of. It was like there was no stress everything was fine because Tla Loka was like, you know, I made your life suck really bad so yeah let me make it up to you buddy.
[00:46:58] The big line where the majority of people went was a place of shadows of darkness of and the whole point of it was, and you only spent four years there. And one thing that a lot of people don't realize is that all these afterlives that we think of are really more like purgatories, because
[00:47:15] we are able to glean. You only spent four years in any of those places, and then your soul was released where we're not sure it seems like some people believe that it went back to the source and might get reborn, or maybe went someplace they called it the unknowable well.
[00:47:33] And a lot of Aztec poetry, the warriors are about to go on to the battlefield they're like I'm going to go out and I'm going to give my life and I'm going to go you know fly with the sun.
[00:47:44] But then what happens after that. Oh shit, maybe I don't need to die and there's all these these poems about doubt and so forth.
[00:47:53] And then another warrior saying, you know, man up motherfucker and get out there and die for your country. It's great. Yeah, because because at the end. So micklan you went through nine deserts and every single one you were encountering, you know, all kinds of you know dark gods and obstacles and came
[00:48:11] and they were met so the first thing you dropped with your bones, and then you sloughed off your flesh, and you slowly let go of all your attaches very kind of like a Buddhist thing. And by the end, once you had all your attachments, you stood before mick tecasi waddle and micklante quickly the
[00:48:29] king and queen of the underworld, and you offered them the very last thing that you were holding on to or the gyms that you had been sent to the underworld with. You gave that over to them. And if they could see that you were now completely free of all attachments.
[00:48:44] They let you pass beyond them where nobody knew I think that's so amazing. That is a very different worldview than what is depicted in either the book of life or Coco and let's write it. Let's make it happen. I want to watch that one.
[00:49:00] Well, I want to pause though for a second again and say that I like that you said that there were different interpretations because one of the big things that always gets me and this applies to just but any religion, whether you're talking about the ancient
[00:49:11] Greeks or Mesoamerica. And that is, there was no one form or answer for it. Like, there's a version of Greek mythology in which they didn't come from chronos and everything they just hatched from an egg, which I'm like, why not, you know.
[00:49:26] And so, you know, it's like a lot of times where how you're somebody say, Oh, well, that's not the story. It's actually this and I'm like, Well, that is one version of it.
[00:49:34] Yeah, exactly. Like there's other versions and I think that one of the things we do in today's world that applies to Coco as a book of life as well is we take the parts of it that work for the purposes of our story and use that it's basically a modern version of oral tradition where you're still taking that and kind of evolving it as you go.
[00:49:53] And I think there's a lot of validity in it. And the way I look at it is Coco is a great film, Coco and so is book of life or he would tell us with with book of life, like just to broke down barriers Coco couldn't exist without book of life existing first.
[00:50:08] And, you know, I think that the stuff that he did on my in the three again, creative interpretations doing stuff that I wouldn't do.
[00:50:15] Yeah, I appreciate what they were doing to buy in the three can't say I enjoyed the story myself, but I appreciated what they were doing.
[00:50:23] Talk about right that there's room for that as long as we can acknowledge that those interpretations of these stories are allowed none of us here are saying that those movies shouldn't have been made.
[00:50:32] Right, you know none of us are saying that these stories shouldn't be put out there because again, go back to the beginning. We want this out there, especially if it's being treated with enough care and respect.
[00:50:42] It's not like we have more to a mouse out there destroying us with the mouse. Wait, wait David do you want to explain what that was real quick.
[00:50:50] Well I mean, I don't know if you're referring to the fact that Disney wanted to yes, I am remark the day of the day Coco was going to be a disaster.
[00:50:58] It was, it was going to be called day of the dead. They were going to trademark the term day of the day. They had no Mexicans involved at all in the screenwriting and the directing they didn't even have like cultural consultants. It was a mess.
[00:51:15] And then, you know, you had some like major pushback from some organizations that like we're like we're not, you know, we're going to permit this to happen right the
[00:51:34] I guess present a dot org is something you should check out present a like managed to bring together lots and lots of people to sign a petition.
[00:51:46] And there were enough people that Disney was like oh shit were this is bad and they brought on you know some consultants like our our dear, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear Mr. Mr. Lalo. El Mero Lalo Alcares. El Mero Lalon. Who of course made the comic called
[00:52:05] Muerto Mouse, where he was actually calling out Disney and literally making fun of them angrily and their response was to contact him and say you want a job? Pretty much. So cool. And then my friend Marcela Daviles was also one of the other
[00:52:25] consultants and she was the one by the way. We presented on a panel together. I can't even remember where it was. It was Comic Con or something. And then, no, it was San Diego World Con in 2018 or whatever that was.
[00:52:41] And then after that because we got to know each other when she was hired as a consultant on the miniseries Mexica that was about the encounter between Moctezuma and Cortez that would have had the Noche Huerta playing Moctezuma, Javier Bardem playing Cortez. Sounds like a great show.
[00:53:01] Where can I watch it? The pandemic screwed it in the Peruvial Buttocks. I'm sorry, there was a pandemic? I don't remember that. It's not too late guys. You can bring it back. The scripts are there written by the award-winning writer of the Irishman translated by yours truly into
[00:53:29] Nalital and Spanish. I heard the award-winning writer of they call me Weta was involved in this. He was. He translated the script into Nalital and got to be in a room with Javier Bardem and all these other stars at Ambulance Studios on Halloween of 2018.
[00:53:49] That was something else to be there. With the actual model of the spaceship from ET, the extraterrestrial and Javier Bardem begged them to light it up in a silly way. It was this only, it was like a really magical moment. But yeah, it went the way
[00:54:05] of the dodo unfortunately just completely extinct. Amazon pulled out because of the pandemic and sets had been built. There was all this incredible paintings. I wish they had allowed me to take photos of the paintings they had done of all of the what do you call it?
[00:54:23] The clothing. It's all like that. Costume. It would have been four hours of just pure Mesoamerica. It wouldn't just, not just Nalital but there would have been Chontal Maya spoken as well and a couple other indigenous languages. It was going to be so incredible and
[00:54:47] wow, I hope that it gets restored. I mean, I'm down, I'm ready. We want it, right? What is out there? What can I say is Amazon here's another story. And honestly the story, bring this back to our very first topic. The story of the poet king
[00:55:07] would be a beautiful, beautiful epic. We could have you know, how's it about Peter Jackson? Let's go with Guillermo del Toro. Let's have one of our directors who we have now multiple Mexican American director Oscar winning directors now. Guillermo del Toro, why don't you
[00:55:27] for once in your life for once in your life, Pinche Guillermo make a movie about Mexico about the pre-Columbian culture wait, you have so much money and so much resources how do you keep doing like in the Netherlands? I mean, maybe I know maybe you're still doing
[00:55:51] things from from Europe but I've been an ally of the people of the indigenous for the best that you are anyway, I doubt that he'll listen to me but if anybody knows Guillermo tell him that David Bowles is pissed at him
[00:56:07] and he needs to get his head out of his ass that'll be the thing I put out there everybody so don't worry about it, we'll get it out there what I'm hearing is the Prince and the Coyote coming to theaters within a few years from an Oscar
[00:56:21] from a while ago when I get over our problems with each other exactly but coming from A Oscar winning Mexican director whichever one then maybe yes, there are others now that's my point but yeah, so just real quick I would think would be good
[00:56:39] let's get Gigi Saúl Guerrero to do it who's just she's got like a short in VHS-85 she's got a short in this new what is it called the new score film called Mexicanos in the title do you know who she is? Gigi Saúl Guerrero
[00:57:03] well, I don't but I want to know more about her now she's also, oh she's the director of the upcoming biopic of Ginny Rivera so in other words we need to get her a copy of Prince and the Coyote real quick David, once again
[00:57:19] where can people learn more about Prince and the Coyote and more about your thoughts and your background you can certainly go to my website davidbols.us, you can follow me on the social media platform of your choice because like everybody else
[00:57:33] had to get on every single one of them I've seen you on TikTok lately yeah, I'm trying to do TikTok I definitely have there's a huge learning curve but I'm getting there David come on man, you know what you've abandoned I'm gonna call you out here man
[00:57:47] ooh, what have I abandoned? you're a rap I'm still working on it I just haven't put up videos about it I'm still working on it I'm watching this creative process I want to hear the there's gonna be some more Nalta rap TikTok videos come in your way
[00:58:07] in November, I just have to get on the other side of my book tour so in November rap resumes and it's gonna be sweet it's gonna be sweet isn't it cool the idea of like rapping and Nalta was like it just works so well it's a language
[00:58:23] hell there's rap and you could take Maya now with the on the soundtrack of a major studio film that was fun there are multiple really cool rap groups so anyway at David Ol Bulls that's usually what it is, the O stands for Oscar David Oscar Bulls Garza
[00:58:41] but I just cut off the Garza and just the O for Oscar David Ol Bulls David Ol Bulls that old Bulls guy yeah like Kevin and I though we have very little else in common we're mortal enemies we don't like each other but we both have white moms
[00:59:01] and so it's one of those things it's a cross we carry right Kevin and David we ask every time are you following Kevin Garcia on TikTok I do indeed we are mutuals now I see all of his videos and like some of them
[00:59:19] yeah let's go say, well because let's be honest a lot of my content is like really niche comic book stuff I'm like okay, scrolling that's cool Kevin I have a couple mutuals that are now at speakers and it's funny because one of them I think stopped
[00:59:37] following me for a while because he's like this is a lot of comic book stuff and then he restarted following me again and was like hey how can we do a comic book and I'm like now we're talking that's the way to do it
[00:59:47] let's make it happen bro let's make it happen Primoz thank you David with you guys even from this hotel room in San Antonio but it was still wonderful so thanks man it was fun I'm always excited to have you on man just chat
[01:00:01] shoot the shit and of course you're always welcome anytime you want to come on you know that and I want to point out to people that I do have a medium account where I put up like longer articles and I do have a couple articles about David dead
[01:00:15] and about the about Marigold stuff like that so if you want to just Google medium David Bowles and you'll find a couple articles and if you really love that check out extra large David Bowles that's way way way way I don't know how we see so there's
[01:00:35] no D and there's no V and now so we would have to say okay I actually had got my name in Mayan is what I was I was trying to get Kevin Garcia and I got pretty close to it but I was a little bit of a fanatic
[01:00:51] I was proud of it alright we're getting off topic David it's been great having you awesome thanks guys take care yourselves no well thank you guys of course for listening tonight you know you can always follow us at my pretty most podcast check out my pretty most podcast
[01:01:05] com for all our articles our posts and reviews coming up shortly we got some indie films coming up that I'm actually been been invited to see so I'm excited about that so as I mentioned we got Mexamerican in Austin in November and in December
[01:01:23] I'm going to be at comics Indycon you know in Houston so I'm looking forward to that a lot perfect well pretty most keep in touch with us check out our socials for all of our announcements we are wrapping up here our season does and usually right around
[01:01:39] mid to end of November so just keep an eye out and near out for all our stuff and take care of each other bye