skate & destroy

The whole family trooped downstate to my friend’s pow wow this past weekend. None of the kids are dancing for the next year—they are observing a mourning period in honor of their late Auntie Shi. We just went to visit and to support our friend Todd, who is the owner of Two Eagles Artwork (which you can link via this blog) and Ollie’s Skate Shop, and the organizer of the Tecumseh Pow Wow.
Turnout was a little low, you can never be too sure just how many people will show up at a pow wow. You can invite good drums, great head dancers, dance judges, etc . . . but if everyone decides to go somewhere else . . . not a lot you can do . . .
We visited with friends and family of course, but an added bonus—I met skateboard legend Bill Danforth, who apparently is an old friend of my friend, Todd. I didn’t even know that Todd skated until he mentioned something about his store when he was over at our house for my kid’s annual New Year’s poker party. FYI, my daughter, who was still ten at the time, walked away with about $40 by the end of the night—she cleaned Todd out twice.
Anyways, I started skating back in ’86, a year or so after I really got into Hardcore Punk. It was just something to do, quite a few of my friends were doing, too, so what the heck . . . the main reason though was Thrasher Magazine. The photography and artwork drew me to skateboarding and their album reviews and interviews with hardcore bands didn’t hurt either. I wanted to “shred” and “grind”-- even though I didn’t know what any of those things meant. It just sounded like it was something I should be doing.
I was enamored with the whole idea of skating, bought into the marketing 100%. I was never very good on a skateboard, but that wasn’t really the point—it was just something to do, a statement we were making about the mainstream. “Skate and Destroy,” as Thrasher used to say. It introduced me to a whole different way of looking at the world around me. And it introduced me to a lot of different people, from one end of the state to the other, and points in between.
One of my friends once said to me, “I don’t get the whole skateboard thing in the Midwest—I can understand Southern California, but how does it relate to your experience in Michigan?”
I told her that skateboarding for me transcended time and place—we shared something with people all over the world—Toronto, L.A., Tokyo, Paris, wherever—something that didn’t care about who your parents are and where you grew up. People who didn’t care about any of the usual stuff that seemed so unimportant to me, but were just passionate about something that touched them directly. Whether it was skating itself, or the culture, or the music--it felt so revolutionary and made me feel so alive.
I enjoyed skating—I could skate for hours—alone or with others, it didn’t really matter to me. I could skate from the campus to the lake and back, which was ten miles round-trip, and keep skating for a couple more hours after getting back onto campus. I skated to and from all my classes, skated to work, skated just to skate. In the winters, I’d skate in the parking ramps around campus, and I’d hit the sidewalks as long as there was no ice or snow on the concrete. Skating allowed me to forget everything else; I was in the moment, just skating, nothing else.
I met lots of people in the skate and the punk rock crowds. Opening me to new experiences, to new people was invigorating. There was some posturing, some posing going on my part and with others, but overall it was a good experience. There was a connection, something communal about both those scenes and we weren’t confined to our little boxes, little cubicles. We could relate to one another one a genuine level and could learn about ourselves in these new situations and circumstances.
I felt like I was looking at everything with new eyes, with a new appreciation. The empty wastelands of parking lots became a brand new playground. My friends and I searched high and low for new skate terrain—loading docks, painted curbs, parking ramps, whatever we could find. The D.I.Y. spirit of the punk rock movement was also energizing—average people, doing incredible things.
I only skated for five years—I quit about the time I met my wife. I never took to ramps and there weren’t any skate parks around here at the time, so never had the chance to check put pools, etc . . . to make a long story short; I graduated from college, had a family, eventually got a job, moved on with my life.
Work has been less than satisfying, however, and I recently started replacing many of my long missing and misplaced punk rock albums from “back in the day.” My two older kids and I have been trying to learn guitar chords--just because, no real reason, just one of those things I’ve always wanted to do. Todd talked me into getting a new skateboard a month or so ago—my son and I have been riding it a little bit, trying to get him comfortable with just being on the board.
Meeting Bill Danforth was a little strange—here was a guy that my friends and I idolized and I meet him twenty years later. The guy’s spent the last 20+ years doing what he loves—skateboarding. He’s older and grayer, doesn’t seem nearly has big or menacing in person as he did in those Thrasher photo layouts from the 80’s. He’s pretty cool, seemed really down-to-earth and all that, but meeting him awoke something in me.
The thought of riding in the skate park never really crossed my mind before, but it’s all I’ve been thinking about lately. The kids and I finally snuck over there, after closing time and had a look around. I haven’t felt so thrilled in years, I felt like a kid doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. But I’m no kid, but neither is Bill or Todd for that matter. Those guys found a way to do something they love and to make a living out of it.
That’s not what I’m really looking for—I just want to feel excited about something again. I want to feel alive and exhilarated. Checking out the skate park with my kids, in the dead of night, blasting Husker Du on the car stereo—that was the most fun I’ve had in forever. No, we didn’t carve, grind or shred the pool or any of the numerous obstacles there, but we all could imagine doing it. What’s to stop us? What’s holding me back?
The options are endless—I don’t have to be the greatest or good enough or any of that—I just have to do.
“Just Do It”
“Carpe Diem”
“Skate & Destroy”
Destroy my own ignorance, my own boundaries, my own fear of failure, fear of not being accepted. I’m just a guy, no better, no worse than all the rest, just here to live and to enjoy. At some point I lost sight of this simple fact, became a cog in the machine. Living just for a paycheck isn’t living at all and I’m so tired of being amongst the living dead. Twenty years ago, it seemed like my choices were unlimited, my horizons were endless . . . nothing's changed but my perspective, nothing's changed but my perceptions. Need to return to beginners mind.

a fleeting dream

So lost, despite the promises of modern convenience,
My skin has been sucking in the artificial light,
Forty hours in the last three days, I step out just to feel the sun.
My dreams have become surreal, with details culled from the everyday,
Water splattered all over the basement floor like blood,
Moldy, mildew floats in the air, the source hidden from view.
The house cluttered with boxes and bags, can barely move through the mess.
Is it a sign of genius or of mental illness or both?
No use in trying to pick any of it up, it too will just reproduce,
Blocking the little walkways that we carved out of the chaos.
Stacks of paperwork ever reproducing faster than I can process them,
But I run for days without tiring, flying over obstacles along the way.
Running, flying through the countryside, my soul freed,
Even if only momentarily, even if only in a dream.
My dreams make little sense, but reality can be far worse,
Dreams fade, but reality becomes seared into our consciousness.
We want to awaken, but we have to accept that this is real,
That the painful circumstances we find ourselves in cannot be undone.
We long for the happily ever after, knowing all along that it will never be,
Knowing full well that all will return to dust, return to the earth eventually.
We are the eyes and ears of the cosmos, wondrous creatures to be sure,
But we know and see our own mortality, know that this life,
Is but a fleeting dream in the infinite void in infinite time.

me and jaybird II

me and jaybird I

uncle d and the boyz

needless things

When I think of all the cousins that have died, just in the last decade and a half . . . I cannot believe how many we have lost--Bird, Nancy, Jimmy, Hap, Russ, Charlie and Shiloh.
Of all these, only Russ and Hap were older than I was, all the others were younger. They all had such promise, so much to give. They were the best and the brightest of my generation.
Bird died while a passenger in a car driven by a drunk driver in Albuquerque, New Mexico, partying with friends at Gathering of Nations Pow Wow. He was only seventeen-years-old.
His sister, Nancy, was a passenger in a vehicle that was struck by a drunk driver. The driver had his headlights off to evade police on the rez in northern Wisconsin. She was twenty-years old.
Jimmy was again a passenger, the driver was just reckless--perhaps had been drinking, when the vehicle slammed into a utility pole just south of Detroit. He had just turned sixteen.
Hap, who was a police officer, lost control of his car, careening down a steep embankment in Northern Ontario. He was in his late thirties and had two children.
Russ, a probation agent for the Dept. of Justice, jumped off a bridge in mid-Michigan, distraught over his wife’s supposed affair and the direction of his life. His three children went to live with his ex-wife. Russ was just shy of forty.
His son Charlie followed in his footsteps, hanging himself in the family garage a couple years later in suburban Detroit, while still a senior in high school. His grandmother saw the death of her husband (a police officer killed in the line of duty), her son, and her grandson.
Now Shiloh, felled by cancer, leaving two young children behind. Shiloh’s mom raised her alone after Shiloh’s dad died of a brain aneurysm at the age of thirty. Now Shiloh’s mom will raise her grandchildren.
Shiloh’s death is hitting me the hardest of all of them. The way she approached her life, the way she carried herself, even after the latest onset of cancer, was an inspiration to all of us. She never complained or was upset at the hand that life had dealt her. Shiloh smiled and went about living her life to the fullest. She was always smiling, always joking, always there to lift someone’s spirit with a kind word or a timely teasing.
Why her? Why not me or someone else?
Why always those that have so much to offer?
Bird was an exceptional singer, dancer, and a natural leader. He started the Pipestone drum when all of those guys were still in grade school.
Nancy was also a talented dancer and was a strong woman in a family and community dominated by men.
Hap was one of the first Native police officers to join the ranks of the Ontario Provincial Police (akin to a state trooper in the U.S.). He was also an excellent hockey player who played for the legendary (at least on reserves across Ontario) Wiky T-Birds.
Jimmy was one of the best fancy feather dancers any of us had ever seen. He was also the most modest, nicest young men any of us knew.
Russ was the first college graduate in our family. He worked for the Dept. of Justice in Detroit for several years before transferring upstate to give his children a better home.
Charlie had the lion’s share of looks and smarts from both his parent’s families, but was never able to shake the tragedy of his father’s suicide.
Shiloh—had gone back to school to earn her nursing degree. Scheduling radiation treatments around her classes, her children’s activities and helping to care for her eighty-six year-old grandfather. Her husband had abandoned her and the children about three years ago, so she was trying to raise her children on her own.
I never ever remember her saying anything bad about anybody. Ever. She had more than her fair share of crappy people in her life, but never wished anybody any ill will. She could go into any situation, any room and befriend someone. It did not matter to her if they were Native or non-Native, Canadian or American, whatever—and anyone who took the time to speak with her would soon realize that this person was “beautiful on the outside and inside,” as my daughter says.
So what is wrong with me? What of my minor complaints? What of my life? Why do I take it for granted? Why can’t I see the beauty right before my eyes and enjoy every moment? Why does it take the loss of someone like Shiloh to shake my foundations?
And why am I still moping around, doing nothing useful and helpful to anyone else?
I have a life, which I simply waste away. The little everyday things are all disorganized and in disarray. Bills go unpaid, creditors calling me, mailing me, etc . . . but all these things should have been, could have been dealt with previously. I am reaping what I have sown, which is chaos.
But I hate my life, hate the everyday. And I feel guilty for living when all these others have passed on. Why do I deserve to live? I am not suicidal or anything, but just having extreme survivor’s guilt.
And what of life after death? As a Buddhist, I view this a certain way, but my Native teachings point to something else. And the Christians and everyone else has their own explanation. What am I to believe? What do I believe?
I have hit bottom. I believe nothing. Am totally empty. I will never see Shiloh again. She is gone. Fair is not in this equation at all, in this thing called life. So why do I worry and obsess about stupid needless things? Why!?
I am sorry, sorry for all of this. Sorry to be letting everyone down right now. I want to believe, but just can't believe in anything right now.

her name was Shiloh

Shiloh Alvis-Soney
Passed away Friday, June 9th at 14:50 Eastern Standard Time.
She is survived by her children; Taye and Ayden; her mother Sue Soney and grandfather Aaron Soney. Her father, Charles Mouz Pamp and both her grandmothers preceded her in death. Her nephews, nieces, brothers, cousins, aunties and uncles in Ontario, Alberta, Michigan and Colorado will miss her greatly.
I used the name “Cheyenne” in my blog—but her real name is Shiloh. We all called her “Shi” and she was “Auntie Shi” to my kids. She was also my little Nan’s weeyan; she was a sponsor at her naming ceremony---akin to being her godmother or a second mom in Anishinaabe culture. To my wife, she was more than a cousin--she was a sister.
Shiloh just turned thirty last month. Shiloh was always smiling and joking, always had something nice or uplifting to say to all of us. She was one of the kindest, most easy-going people I have ever met and I will miss her greatly.
Funeral and burial will take place on her mother’s reserve—Walpole Island First Nation, also know as Bkejwanong—“where the waters divide” on Tuesday, June 13, 2006.

wake up call

Need to sing a new song, always singing the same old tired tune.
Always the same old story with this one--nothing new, nothing different.
I’m gonna sing a new song. How long must I sing this song?
Change is difficult, but change is the only constant in our ever-changing lives.
I just keep spinning in circles, unable to break free of my habitual behavior.
Vicious, samsaric circles. Spinning me right round, baby.
I kicked most of my addictions years ago, but I’m still playing the same games
as before.
I need a quick fix, some revelation or insight to keep me going.
Day-to-day I drag my sorry butt, going through the motions, looking for some kind of charge.
What new wonderful thing am I dealing with? What great new theory did I read?
What great challenge is there to overcome? Why must I always have some conflict?
It’s always something, someone, some such thing to make me feel alive.
I have to break free. From my self. From the monkey-mind.
Swinging from tree to tree, flinging poo or whatever it is that monkeys do.
Mired in the deepest of delusions, trudging over the same old ground.
Who am I writing to? Of what use is this?
Other blogs are informational, some are inspirational, some document an
individual’s every waking thought, their every waking moment.
Mine only documents snippets, snapshots, rough sketches—
But it does so with a never changing air of regret and blame,
Of wasted chances and missed opportunities.
Resignation and doubt reign supreme, but the most bothersome is the insistence
that my children be different, that they somehow redeem me through their actions.
I couldn’t redeem my father, or his father before him—
Why should I insist that they do for me? They have their own lives to live.
Choices and mistakes to make. Why do I need to be redeemed at all?
Why do I feel the need to be saved and transformed by another?
Miizii dip, Hua-Ki, please wake up!

four days

Four days of rain is about my limit. Can’t take anymore of this.
I just want to see the sun again. The winters here are killing me as it is.
Three or four weeks of no sunshine in the midst of winter.
Don’t get me wrong, I like having all four seasons and I enjoy the changes from season-to-season. I’d just like to see the sun a little more often. I’ll be complaining about the heat and humidity come August, a little strange since I was born and raised in the tropics.

There are two kinds of monkeys, or so the saying goes.
I think it’s an old Hindu story, perhaps it’s Buddhist. The first kind waits for it’s mama to do everything, expects to be taken care of and to be told what to do. The second one survives by it’s own action, even if that means grabbing onto mama and holding on for dear life as she swings from tree to tree. I’m trying hard to be that second kind of monkey, but I keep reverting to the first. Waiting for someone or something to come along and save me. Waiting to be picked up, carried, and catered to. I know the warning signs of slipping into that mindset, but here I am again, repeating my same old mistakes yet again. I’ve fought off most of my addictions, or so I thought. I felt that I should be given a reprieve or an easier way to go. My crutches are far less insidious than before, but they hold sway over me still. Cigarettes, soda, even Thai food, all fill a void, give me a shot of endorphins and I cling to them.

Imprisoned by my fears and expectations. Longing for freedom, but unsure how/where. The blame is always somewhere else. The reason is always without. I burrow away deeper within, shielding myself from whatever it is that shakes my beliefs or my sense of well being. I don’t realize that I am a willing captive, that I control my own freedom. I have walled myself away from the world to protect this fragile ego, blaming everyone and everything else for my imprisonment. When will I awaken? When will it end?

stream of consciousness

Suffocating, can’t breathe. Nothing, nothing, meaningless, empty.
Where’d I put that lip balm? Just another addiction to soothe my damaged ego.
Emptiness, emptiness, nothing. Wish I could breathe just now.
Tornado watch in effect, had a big storm yesterday. My head’s been killing me.
Something about the change in barometric pressure, I can always feel a storm coming.
Nada, nada, zilch, zero, nothing, no one. Canker sore’s killing me.
Wanted to go skating, streets were too wet, still drying off from yesterday’s deluge.
Rotting away, everyday closer to death, sucking air, sucking wind.
Wish a tornado would knock my little shack over, start from scratch.
Anything’s better than that overpriced hole that I can’t even afford.
Another ninety-day late to drag down my credit report.
Creditors calling my house every day, at all hours.
Nothing to say to them, so I don’t answer.
No money, except for some loosed change kicking around in the car.
The car that I didn’t make a payment on,
the one that hasn’t had insurance since last month.
The same one that needs a new something-or-other on the front passenger side, I hear the hardware jiggling around every time I turn a corner or hit a pothole.
Shut up. Shut up. Drop dead. Go die. Stupid f@#$.
How the hell did it get to this point? How the hell did it get so bad?
Emptiness, emptiness, whatever. Who cares anyways?
If that storm comes, we’re going to be in deep trouble.
Stupid sump pump is busted. Basement’s gonna flood.
One nostril totally plugged, not getting enough oxygen, I’m sure.
Doesn’t seem fair, doesn’t seem right.
Shi’s dying and here I am bitchin about whatever.
I’m worth more dead than alive, nothing I can do right now . . .
Dying wouldn’t solve anything, but it’s killing me to sit here and do nothing.
Maybe only the good die young, cause here I am stilling kicking around,
Despite my intentions, despite my stupidity.
Sleep, need to sleep. Just want to sleep.
Shi, Shi, Shi, what a cruel life this can be.
Shi’s dad died when she was a baby, never even got to know him.
Her kids, her mom, Auntie S_ . . . what are they gonna do?
You don’t get what you need, don’t get what you deserve . . .
Not in this lifetime. Not in this plane of existence.
My creditors don’t seem to give a rat’sass about life and death or whatever.
Axed everyone I know for some zhooniya, getting turned down everywhere.
The bank, credit union, brother-in-law, you name it.
Zhooniya, zhooniya zhooniya.
Gonna kill the bastage that invented that crapola, for sure.
Starting to breathe a little better, Zyrtec must be kicking in.
Someone’s cooking ramen in the kitchen, chicken flavor.
Need to go to the Asian food mart, stock up on rice noodles and ramen.
Cheaper than dirt, too much MSG, shouldn’t be eating so much processed food.
Can’t afford nothing else. Can’t stomach anything else.
Rice, fish sauce and peppers.
All I want, all I need.
Nothing, Nada, Nil.
Here comes the rain. Here it comes again. I love the rain. I love the rain.
Rain. Gimewaan. Fon-took.
Giichii Manido shii-shiik, so Z used to say.
It’s all shii-shiik, son. Shii-shiik and miizii.

regret

No this really isn’t about you at all,
It’s about me and my regrets.
All the things that remain unfinished on my to do list,
So none of this is your fault.
You’ve become a target,
A magnet for all those love-struck stalkers,
Admiring you from afar.
The last thing you need is an old friend,
A supposed friend,
Coming out of the woodwork and asking you for anything.
Life doesn’t always turn out the way we want it to,
This can be good or bad depending on one’s perspective.
Hindsight can be a debilitating companion,
Keeping one from living in the now.
You and I have always occupied different realms,
Mine of the Hungry Ghosts,
Yours of the Gods.
And so it remains and so I must accept,
Or forever be haunted by something that never was.
The moral of this story is to live life fully,
To take risks and to harness the flow and energy,
Or to sit forever on the sidelines and wonder—
What if?
I continue killing the time,
Killing my finite life,
Bleeding it dry with my constant analyzing.
I bleed away the moments and the days,
With a recklessness that shames me.
I was so busy running back then,
Running from life,
Running from myself.
Too late I realize that I’m running out of time.
This is not about you,
But about the me that I wanted to be.
This is not about you,
But about all those hopeless wants and needs,
That will forever remain unfilled.
Hopeless because they are illusory,
Hopeless because one cannot achieve if one does not try.
This is not your fault,
This is not about you at all.

Red Earth Pow Wow

Red Earth Live on PowWows.com

Tune in this weekend to watch the 2006 Red Earth Festival and Pow Wow LIVE on Powwows.com!
PowWows.com's live webcast will start Friday morning and last for the entire event. This is your ALL ACCESS pass to Red Earth. The webcast will feature the parade, art exhibits, vendor area, dancing, singing, and all the contests.
We will also open a chatroom for everyone watching the webcast. Join us in chat to find out all the latest happenings at the Pow Wow, request different camera shots, or just chat with other PowWows.com'ers.
To watch the webcast you'll need Window Media Player and a high speed connection.
Red Earth Live:

http://video.powwows.com

Thailand pics II

Three of my cousins and and my mom in Ban Nong Sai. The two in the foreground hadn't even been born yet when I left Thailand.



















My mom and cousin check out statues at the temple in Nong Khai. The style doesn't look Thai at all--maybe it's Mon-Khmer? Looks like there is definite Indian influence.

handful of ashes

-“At the edge of doom, beside the last grave of mankind, they will still be counting their paper. Praying over their balance sheets . . .”

The central question of life, then, is how to find meaning in this post-nuclear world. CNN and the Internet were supposed to bring us closer together, but the distance between us has become immeasurable. The little pockets of traditional indigenous culture are quickly being wiped out, being replaced with a homogenous sameness that threatens the sanity of the planet. We all long for a sense of belonging or community, but there is no real binding “world community” for all us to join. We have thrown off the yokes of tradition, trashing the very things that made us uniquely interesting, and replaced it with hollow concepts of being.
We exist only to consume and or worth is judged solely on our ability to consume the products and ideas that add nothing to the quality of our lives. We have more convenience than we know what to do with, but our lives remain empty of meaning and direction. The airwaves are lousy with empty boasting and posturing about things that have nothing to do with the average man, woman or child. The media is biased, but it has always been that way. The bias takes us away from reality, the everyday, all the essential elements of what it means to be human. They have sold us on pre-fabricated ideas of meaning and worth. It’s all crap—not just the right or the left, but both and everything in between.
We define for ourselves what is important, what is real, through the act of living. The now slips away from us, loaded down with false ideology. The now is all we have and we give it away freely, for a handful of ashes . . .

brave new waves

I remember sleeping in the basement of my parent’s home during the summer of 1985, because it was much cooler than the upstairs, where my bedroom was. I had picked up CBC radio—not too hard, since Detroit is right across the river from Windsor, Ontario. I don’t even remember how I came across the station, but the two hour weekly “new music” show that the Detroit rock station had simply didn’t satiate my need for something different. Wayne State U. also had a show, which even included poetry readings, but “Brave New Waves” was on five days a week, from 11 pm to 5 am.
The show was extremely eclectic, playing artists from various genres and cultures, but all of whom fit under the “new music” umbrella. My favorite part of the show was an hour-long feature where they would give you the complete band biography, playing all or most of a group’s signature songs. I was introduced to the likes of Husker Du, MDC, Live Skull, the Sparks, the Big Boys, the Dead Kennedys, Tones on Tail, the Skids, Joy Division, Tuxedo Moon and Fela Kuti through the show.
Most of the artists were Hardcore Punk or Post-Punk, but others like Kuti, defied description. Kuti is usually classified as being Afro-Pop, but his music was a blend of traditional African rhythms and modern musical composition. Bands like Tuxedo Moon and Tones on Tail used synthesizers and electronics almost exclusively for their sound whereas Husker Du was a straight-ahead power rock trio (with a major Buzzcocks influence).
“Brave New Waves” opened me to new sounds every time I turned it on. They also gave you the complete history of a band, from inception, through the latest releases. I’m addicted to all the small details, and the show was bloated with facts and dates and miscellaneous tidbits of information. I formed a love of the music and also for the journalistic manner that the subject was covered. The accents of the d.j.s, the words, all drew me in as much as the music.
“Bob Mould was from the small mining town of Malone, New York, about an hour south of here (Montreal). . . he and Grant Hart shared a penchant for early Ramones recordings and met at a record shop in Minneapolis, Minnesota.”-from the Husker Du profile

flip your wig

“Flip Your Wig” said the album cover, so I did--folded it, manipulated it, bent it every which way but broke. Running from myself, running from life, almost got my wish, but I came back to my senses before too long. Then I had to be reintroduced to myself, took forever to figure what was me and what was just trash I had picked up along the way.
I sat talking with a friend in his dorm room, but suddenly, I was watching the whole the whole thing from outside the room, sliced right out of the situation. There was nothing but darkness beyond the room, a window to another universe, we sat on the cusp, discussing post-punk aesthetics. The writer Joseph Campbell once said that the heroic journey starts with disintegration, but ends with reintegration. There are steps in between, of course, but we seem to be missing the experienced, guided, journey into our psyches and back again. Shamanistic cultures still travel that path, but modern man has cut himself off completely and seems lost in the everyday that he thinks is the only reality.

caught up

Offenders taking offense to my calls, wanting to know if they have violated their conditions of parole or probation. I can’t get over how offended they become when we call—they were only out on the porch, the deck, the backyard, the driveway, the yard. When the schedule’s all wrong, we still have to call, but they and their families become incensed when I call, not that I want to call, but we have to. They are so above-board and holy-than-thou and telling us what’s what because here we are trampling on their rights and harassing them and haranguing them for no apparent reason.
There are good and bad agents, and every color in between, just as there are compliant and non-compliant offenders. The issue at hand, however, is that these people are on probation/parole due to whatever reason and they need to jump through whatever hoops come their way. No, it’s not fair, and there are going to be situations and people to deal with that don’t make the whole process very easy, but thus is the way of it.
A debt has to be paid and god knows the victim never gets just compensation, but it’s the society and the system that screams for retribution and they get what they want. The debt sometimes get paid by going to jail, sometimes by doing community service, going to anger management, substance abuse, and a whole slew of other considerations. Tether is just a tool---it keeps people from crowding the jails and they can live their lives at home or at their home placement. They can work, go to school, go to all their meetings and appointments, go see their probation/parole agent/officer and get on with their lives. One hopes that they have learned from the experience and that they fly right from now on, but it is only a tool. It can’t force someone to change or do any of those things if they don’t want to.
One hopes that they come to understand that the system that society has created to handle whatever it is that needs to be dealt with has become a large unyielding behemoth. Its screeches and careens along and overall does what it is that the society has asked it to do, even though the victim has become an afterthought, even though the society as a whole is still sick and puking and creating more and more offenders everyday. But it is what we have to work with and its in everyone’s best interest not to get crushed by its massive treads and to do what you need to do to extricate yourself from it.
Its in everyone’s best interest not to get caught in its tracks, but while you are under its jurisdiction you can only do what you must do and make the best of it. The behemoth has no brain, or perhaps has too many, so logic doesn’t work at all---get through this and move on. Do what is asked of you, pray that there aren’t too many complications or hoops to jump through, and keep in mind that this is what you face if you offend again. It’s far from perfect, but society demands that the debt be repaid and once you are in its grasp, you are “caught up.”
Families, lovers, friends and offenders don’t seem to understand all this, but this is what you signed up for. This is the choice that you’re faced with. Comply or don’t, but realize that the bowels of this beast will strip you of your freedom, your humanity and it would be in your best interest to put up with the inconvenience of me calling as opposed to taking your chances with whatever else the behemoth has to offer. I am only a minion of the beast, and I do it’s bidding for the time being, until I can extricate myself, so please don’t give me your excuses, sob stories, attitudes, frustration, anger or any other crap, because I have plenty of my own to deal with, thank you.

amidst the clutter and chaos

Amidst the clutter and chaos of our lives, we try to sweep away the madness left to us by our parents, our families. I need to show my children a better way, but I’m drowning under the weight of my addictions and insecurities. I feel so unclean with the filth of my actions, my lies, all done for self-preservation but it has only aided in creating more self-hate. I am repelled and attracted by my own reflection in the mirror—my dark brown arms that appear to be shrinking into my trunk, all white and rounded by age and laziness.
I want to blame the environment, my coworkers, for destroying everything that was important to me, but how much of the blame belongs to me? I cannot say I even know who I am, what I believe in anymore. I thought my values, my mores, all helped me to weather the storm for this long, but the sails are now in tatters and the ship is taking on water quickly. She is no longer seaworthy and there is no sign of landfall.
I cannot help but feel that I have let them all down—my children, my wife, my family. I wish I could stave off my anger, my fear, my paranoia but they are slowly creeping upon me, overtaking my psyche more and more every day. I snap and scowl at the slightest provocation and then wonder why the toddler does the same thing.
Rodents are overrunning my garage, tearing into the trash, the old useless couch, stuffed animals unstuffed by sharp teeth and claws. I feel helpless to stem the tide and the clutter that attracted them to begin with is increasing at an exponential rate. Broken toys are strewn about, half-finished projects lying around . . .

living corpses

“everyone’s life ends, but no one ever completes it.”-Modest Mouse

What is it that any of us hope to accomplish in this life? What do we want out of this life? Most of us are just existing, just doing what it takes to keep the lights on, to keep a roof over our heads, keeping ourselves fed. Is that really living? Is that all we’re supposed to aspire towards?
As a child, my parents told me what they wanted me to do, what they expected me to become. I had my own ideas, of course. None of which were very concrete or even realistic, but I wanted something that was mine and mine alone.
Our lives pass so quickly, but it seems to take forever when you’re still young and the days plod on hour after hour. As a Buddhist, I should believe that this one life is amongst a multitude of lifetimes that I must live, but what if this is the first time, the last time I will ever live.
I look for some reminder, some residual afterglow, after image of those that have died, but never seem to find anything. Nothing of those that were close to me seems to have survived in a physical/meta-physical form that I can point to and say with certainty that—yes, that’s the spirit of my grandmother, hovering over us just now.
When you think about the paths that they had traveled, the places they’ve lived, the things that they’ve seen, it just boggles my mind. Some of those places are still here, but where are the spirits, the souls of those who have gone? Where is it that they go to when they have gone? Grams and Auntie and my grams all had very strong personalities—strong, stubborn, willful woman who exerted a strong influence over all those around them. But where are they now, where is that exertion, that influence? Did we internalize all of it after many years of being under their influence and do we now exert that same feeling, those same thoughts and beliefs?
What is it really that any of us hope to accomplish with this lifetime? What can we do other than to simply live? What do I want to do before I die? Have I accomplished everything that I’ve wanted to in this life? I have to remember to live before I die. We have excellent houses here for dead corpses, and excellent ones for the living corpses as well.

pow wow

That's my daughter in the purple jingle dress, dancing at Red Lake (Minnesota) Pow Wow.

















"Pau wau" is an Algonkin word, which actually is in reference to a person--- a holy man or woman, a healer. People would come from other villages to see the healer and eventually settlers began referring to any gathering of Indians as a pow wow. The Algonkin language group is one of the largest indigineous to North America. Most of the tribes in New England and the North Atlantic coast, the Great Lakes, the Eastern Plains, all the way west to the Rocky Mountains, speak a variation of Algonkin.
The Pequots, Mohicans, Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, Menominee, Cree, and Blackfeet are all part of the same language group. They are as similar as Europe's Romance (derivatives of Roman--Italian/French/Spanish) languages are to one another. Irokwa, or Iroquois, is a completely non-related language group, as is Siouxian and Navajo. The differences in those language groups is similar to the diffrences between Arabic and French.
ZBB took 2nd place in Boy's Traditional and NEB didn't place--got shut out. She's a good dancer, but she needs a better outfit and more beadwork. She also dances jingle dress old style and most folks aren't familiar with the ceremonial version, just the pow wow version.
Pow wows are more secular than religious, but it's a strange paradox, because Indians believe that all life, all creation is sacred. But pow wows aren't a "religious ceremony" per se. If you were to go to a Jingle Dress ceremony, what is done and your role there is strictly specified by your place in the lodge. Pow wows can be attended by anyone from any tribe and they can choose to dance any of the diffrent categories, but a ceremony is more of a closed event.
Traditionalists (Indians who practice their Native religion), christians, agnostics---all are
welcome at a pow wow. The different societies (big drum, grass, jingle dress, longhouse, etc. . .) may have differing levels of christian influence, but they are predominantly traditionalist in tone. The kids know their culture and history pretty well, at least from their mom's side. So they know the difference. But you don't necessarily have to know any of that to enjoy a pow wow.

I was at university . . .

I was at university, studying journalism, and had just started working for this "alternative" student newspaper. They sent me to cover a Thanksgiving program that the Indian students had at the Union Ballroom. My wife's mom, an educator, was the featured lecturer and they had a drum there as well. I hadn't been to a pow wow in a few years, so it sent shivers up and down my spine when I heard them singing as I was walking down the hallway.My wife did a quick intro for her mom and I was immediately enthralled--she had this cool "Americans Before Columbus" t-shirt on, but wore an even cooler attitude as well. The way that she laughed, the way she wore her hair, her intelligence, she was the total package . . .I knew a couple of the Indian students from a few years back, when I used to help with the pow wow, so I interviewed them for the story. They all kept telling me I needed to speak to "B" since she was the one who put the program together, but I couldn't . . . too shy, too nervous, etc. . . I spotted one of my classmates in the crowd--went over to see what she was up to. She was doing a story on the program for the student radio station, as part of some class project, so I wrote down some questions for her and made her go interview my wife, since I couldn't do it myself.I managed to avoid her then and for the next 10 months or so, even though we'd cross paths here and there, but one day I was working with one of her cousins on a program on campus and couldn't avoid meeting her. Brian had talked me into checking out "Boyz in the Hood" with him, but he had made arrangements to have B pick us up, without telling me. When he introduced us, he made a point of mentioning that I was engaged and even sat between us at the movie, but the both of us were drawn together, like some kind of horrific accident that just couldn't be avoided . . . That was 14 years and three beautiful children ago. Sometimes when you stare your destiny in the eyes, it scares you so much that you run the other way, but we don't always know what's best for ourselves and destiny usually has her way with us . . .

frozen deathspew

"the frozen deathspew of the slain,
a shout of spear spikes baited with men's bloodied guts."
I've been tackling James Joyce's Ulysses, hit him at about waist-level, wrapping my arms around his legs, trying to take his knees out from behind. Other times, I spear him, helmet first, right in the gut, knocking myself out. Sharp shootingpain through the neck, down my spine.
Pompous arse is he, all Hellenic in disposition, nothing more than centuries old composition, the state of the art at that given time. All the Latin, Greek., French, Gaelic terminology, mixed up with made-up stream of consciousness noises and pseudowords, feels more like a rushing torrent, knocking me off my feet. Gasping for air, grasping for comprehension, methinks I have it, but then both are gone again.
Thick as a bible, enshrined as a classic, but still unknown to most, the lumbering tome beckons me back for more. I catch quick glimpses, make incorrect suppositions, what did he mean by that? Is that important, is he foreshadowing, or just teasing me, showing me some leg under his post-Victorian dress?
Devious as I am, I don't know that I could ever fill that many pages with meaningful content, without utterly losing the reader. I'm thick with supposed meaning, but is that merely my own delusion taking form, in a perfect personification of nothingness? So literate was Joyce, but not completely literal, pages jam-packed full of greatness and meaning. More bang for the buck, or the pound, or halfpence or shilling or whatever it was they used back then in Dublin town.
Pound-for-pound, I could probably take him. Norman Mailer, Ernest Hemingway too. But I’ve become quite round, despite switching to light beer, isn’t that odd? Not the short, sleek, speedy thing I used to be. What separates the literate from the self deluded? OOhhh did you see how he inserted something about Helen of Troy, in the midst of his soliloquy on Madame Tweedy, the harlot of the house of Bloom?
What if I talk of Nanaboozhoo, living in Kalamazoo, or Arjuna, eating Dolphin-free tuna? What is literary and what is simply a masturbatory exercise? I called the Dharma nice braincandy once, not out of any maliciousness, but because I thought it to be true. What of the many journeys we all have taken, not in space, but simply in our minds, how do we take that misshapen mass and make something of it?
I have a confession for you, I confessed too much tonight, to someone that has no reason to care about my ramblings. The truth set me free for a moment, but in reality, I only wanted to set a trap for her, to lure her in with my candidness. Same old game, different tact, no agreed upon rules, just me being me in the vilest of ways.
The reality of my situation is actually quite surreal, trapped in a dungeon of my own making, blaming my handpicked jailor, trying to bait someone to come set me free. But freedom is not what I want, I just want a different view of the same old rubbage heap. I'm not proud, actually quite ashamed, but that doesn't mean I'll quit this game, all the same. . .

fight game

My boy likes to play "fight game," holding his fists, turned sideways, in front of his chest. He punches and exaggerates the follow-through while making "pow-pow" sound effects. He landed several on my chest, hard, short, chops, but then hit me in the mouth. It wasn't that hard, but it caught my attention. My lips were slightly parted, teeth 1/4" apart, but the blow forced both shut.
He then fell to the ground, in slow motion, reaching behind him making sure he wasn't falling on anything. He stretched himself out on the floor, eyes closed, mouth open, out for the count. The slow fall wasn't for dramatic effect, he's just careful about not laying on top of anything, not wanting to hurt himself. He does the same thing when he throws a fit, carefully making sure the floor is clear of any debris before he throws himself down.
I was reminded of my father, of when I was in my teens and we would fight. Or rather, when he would hit me and I would stand there, taking the blows. Was he trying to get my attention, trying to teach my a lesson, or just lashing out at my apathy?
A quick backhand to the mouth, full of braces, was enough to bring my attention into full focus. If he hit me hard enough, there would be a moment when all consciousness was centered in my lips, then my teeth. The taste of blood mixed with a burnt taste toward the back of the tongue. A hard blow to the nose would fill my mouth with that burnt, spent taste--oxygen gone bad, forced into the recesses of the mind.
Face shots were usually open-handed, but body shots were closed-fist, in the back, the kidneys, the gut. A hard punch to the mid-section would knock the wind out, doubling me over from the lack of air, the pain in some unseen part of my anatomy. I don't know what he hit, but damn it hurt.
The boy has always been solid, big for his age, physical. He wrestles and tackles and now punches. He throws a basketball with his whole body, throws like nobody's business. He used to throw his empty bottles at us, hit my wife and I in the head a couple of times, before we broke him of that habit.
I don"t know where he learned this new game--if he saw it on t.v. or if one of his uncles or siblings taught him how to punch. He has been mimicking everything he sees and hears, dancing, singing, fighting, and playing, copying the physical and the vocal.
This boy is fearless, so unlike my wife and I at times. His physicality, even at this early age amazes us both. He is very headstrong and self-centered, though at his age, I'd worry if he wasn't. Strangers have commented that he is a charmer, but also a "taker" as someone put it.
This stranger went on to explain that there are takers and givers in this world, and that my son was definitely a taker. I never heard those terms before, but it's probably some new age psycho-babble that Oprah featured on her show recently.
I can see why someone would categorize him as such, but he was born into a family of givers. This one won"t give and it might have worried me 5, 10 years ago, but it doesn't really now. I'll love him no matter what, and I'll learn to love a taker, because he's my son. But who he is, the person I see him becoming, is still lovable, despite whatever direction he may choose to take in his life.
This child that is me, but beyond me, will take his fight game out into the world someday soon. He and I won't have the same problems my father and I had---I was too timid to know what I wanted. He'll know and he'll tell me, without much fanfare. This giver was by no means innocent, probably deserved most of the smacks, slaps and punches through the years. And on some level, I kept prodding and pushing my father to react the way he did, as some sort of moral victory over him.
No such games do I see with this little one, but who is to say which route is better or worse? My father, my father's father---we were all givers, reluctantly, wishing we were something else. This son of mine will be what he is, with no apologies to anyone.

do you remember?

Do you remember an East Odawa local named Keiran.? I think his dad was a prof at the college? He was a friend of Scott Sosa’s and Sylvester Chin’s--hung out with that whole East O. crew. I ran into him two summers ago, we were hanging out; catching up on some of those old characters from way back when . . . turns out Kieran is an old friend of my wife’s brother.
He told me Sosa was in grad school-- Poli Sci--and Al Vargas also went back to school down in New Orleans. Remember his younger bro, Eddie? Skinhead, wore oxblood-red Doc Martens? He hung out at Bowie’s Soup and Sandwich Shop quite a bit as well-- he was one of the main chefs at Adler's Restaurant up until a year or two ago.
Not a racist skinhead--more along the lines of a Minor Threat skin. Except the fact that he wasn’t straight-edge. Eddie was alright, I guess—I worked with him at Adler’s way back when—I remember he liked to leave strips of bacon on all the wait staff’s windshields. The vegetarians wait-trons had a real issue with that.
I still see Chin from time to time, still macking on college gals, just like before. He was all giddy about getting popped by a narco squad not too long back, until I told him where I worked. I think he went through San Fran or New York or Portland, but moved back to town.
Most of those cats did the NYC/San Fran thing, it seems like. Remember my buddy Matt Holloway---blond hair, wire rim round spectacles? He ended up working for some big Madison Ave. advertising firm. He's probably to blame for all that 80's music in those Volkswagen commercials. Keiran tells me Matt was living down in Greenwich until 9/11---he moved to Tennessee with his wife and entered grad school soon after that. Not sure what he's studying, but that dude was always five steps ahead of everyone else.
I tried the infosystems thing at the college---didn't work out very well. I liked the idea of computer code, seemed so cool and everything, but the practical application . . . well that just wasn't as fun.
I love to read, just kinda get lost in the process---- I'm not analytical enough to be able to really dissect any piece of literature as a whole. I just cling to bits and parts that catches my fancy. Deconstructionism seemed cool, but I never read the full text on how it was done! You see what I'm saying? I like the idea very much, but not enough to actually read the whole thing and to apply it to something.
I like the act of reading, writing, etc. . . but getting really into it just ruins it for me. Sitting in a library reading a book, the atmosphere is a big part of the whole thing. The book itself, on its own merits, isn't enough--- whatever commotion that's going on over at the reference stack is just as important. Not that I really want to know or care, just the whole milieu is what I want.
Should've been a trust fund kid, squandering my fortune in NYC or Paris or wherever, living a semi-bohemian existence. Not because of a strong sense of purpose or because it fits my world view or whatever. Just because its fun, or more fun than actually engaging fully. Not that I would ever know what that feels like.
I enjoy watching the show as a somewhat interested, but detached observer. The whole thing is hilarious. Finding humor in the everyday is really what has kept me going through this thing we call life. P-rock was cool because it poked fun at and made you question all sorts of social conventions and mores.
Good P-rock that is. It became commercialized, homogenized just like everything else. Now the kids can get their Ramones tees at the mall, have mom and dad drop them off at the VAN'S WARPED TOUR at the local arena/fair grounds, blah-blah-blah.
But when it was young and different and not so accepted, it was fun. Not mean, malicious, search-and-destroy fun, but just irrelevant fun. Anarchistic in the sense that it was free of rules, regulations, etc . . . it just was. Zen mind, original mind, free of concepts and borders and boundaries, etc. . . but Zen is Buddhist and Buddhism has a moralistic bent-- it isn't nihilistic. It certainly isn't destructive. The trickster spirit ala Bodhidharma---the laughing, fat Buddha.
You know what I'm saying? Do your remember rock and roll radio? Sometimes it feels like my memories are all I have left. I don’t even know how accurate any of them are—maybe they’re all lies I tell myself so I can sleep better at night.
Talking about Bowie’s reminded me of a skinhead girl that used to hang out there---remember? Her dad was a prof at State and they were originally from Ohio--- Ohio U.---what was the name of the town? Oxford?
Anyway, so she was a senior at East O. and I ended up giving her a bunch of poems for her creative writing class. She was cool to hang out with, I didn't really have any designs on her or anything, at least I didn't think so. She ended up telling me off---said she wasn't looking for a boyfriend, she had one back in Ohio, etc. . .
That kind of set me back for awhile. I suppose I was attracted to her. She had that whole shaved head except for the bangs thing happening. Not quite the whole devil lock thing that Danzig and the Misfits started, but close. Just another punk rock girl. Not even the cutest.
I was mad in love with this one girl that went to St. Stanislaus, whom I worked with at McDonald's in Middleton. I think Scott Riker and I ran into her that one time when we went to visit Nancy Boyd at Universal Mall. Tracy Binder worked at some other store---with Kat Nelson!!! Actually, those two knew each other through a mutual friend as well, because Kat and her sister Hannah both went to Indian Hills H.S. for a while and one of Tracy's best friends also went there.
Tracy introduced me to the whole P-Rock scene in Detroit. I went to the Graystone with her for the first few times--- the very first show I went to, I saw M.D.C. I was in love/lust, but had no idea how to even pursue that whole thing. Looking back, I now realize that she was giving me hints and so forth but I was pretty thick.
I'm still pretty oblivious, and really have always been that way. Ain' t that cute? Anyways, she finally got tired of waiting for me and found herself a boyfriend and I was just crushed. I was always the perfect gentleman. She probably figured I was gay. A girl had to practically rape me before I would get a clue--- " . . .oh, I think she likes me. . ." Now that I'm fat and bald, I kinda sort of get it. But it's a little late. What ever became of all those punk rock girls? Are they soccer moms somewheres?

crazy existential stuff

About 15 or 16 years ago (seems strange to say that) I was going through some crazy existential stuff, but I decided that the answer I was looking for was just to start living. I really hadn't lived at all up to that point-- sheltered by my parents, looking at life pretty much through their eyes and experiences.
All the reading I did on Zen and everything else told me I had to start simply living. That was the quest I embarked upon. Just living, checking out life. The whole writing thing is something I also put on the shelf, because I didn't think I had anything to talk about. I hadn"t really lived yet, so what story did I have to tell?
Having just been living---sometimes well, a lot of times absent-mindedly---is part of what I've been doing. The outward part, at least, trying to look busy doing all those things I thought I should have been doing. The meditation practice and all that other stuff, I dropped somewhere along the way as being superfluous to the task at hand.
I missed the point of being awake--I rushed headlong into life, with my eyes clenched shut. Caught up in daydreaming, thinking that I was living--but not feeling or really experiencing the whole thing. I don't really want to live, I'd just like to see the film version.
And I don't want to have to deal with real issues or situations, I like to gloss over all that as well--Bedahbin says she can see me shut down and my eyes glaze when I encounter anything I find uncomfortable.
The whole spiritual thing is hard work. Really hard. And then all the other stuff in your life is still there, needing your attention. None of it magically disappears.
I work because I have to, but I don't take enough time to do things for my spiritual side. That's why pow wows and ceremonies, and now the Dhammasala are so important to me. Beth's cousin, Mzkogiizhik, does a lot of work with the Northern Cree and other folks and I think we might start getting involved with that as well.
Exposure to the culture and some of the processes, whether its skinning a moose or building a sweat lodge numerous other things connects us to our ancestors. Experiencing these activities at a deep level, behind speech, beyond concepts, is the aim . . . I was going somewhere with this, really---

the Henry Rollins avatar

I saw Henry Rollins on some game show the other day, getting all gray, but still the same witty guy-with-no-neck. He's quite the literary juggernaut these days, isn't he? Not to mention his acting credentials of late-- (Bad Boys II).
I got back on that classmates.com to look some folks up-- filled out a profile and all that. I found a photo of Mr. Rollins from 1980 and used that as my "then" photo. I tried to find a pic of the Dalai Lama to use as my "now" photo, but couldn't find a decent one, so I stole one of an absconder recovery investigator from the MDOC website.
The truth lies somewhere in the middle on that, I guess.
Speaking of peoples I once knew, I read some article that Areeya Chumsai wrote about Heather G. the other day-- been kind of in a phunk about it. Areeya's an actress/director now, back in Thailand. She was doing the celebrity-as-journalist thing for awhile before that.
So this article was about "the road not taken"--she was lamenting the fact that Heather failed to achieve her dream of performing with an orchestra, etc . . . and Heather told her that she was happy with her life, because she had a wonderful husband, whom she met at Yale, and she at least got to chase her dream.
Despite not having made it. And despite the $50,000 price tag for her edumacation. Areeya had to stick something in about her living in a one bedroom flat in Queens with a leaky faucet as well.
But having chased and lost is better than not chasing at all, I guess is what the article was all about. That's whats making me bittersweet, because I can't honestly say I've given an all out effort in anything, you know? I've never tried that hard on anything. Fear of failure. Never thought I could do whatever and so I didn"t try. Make sense? She tried, but failed. I failed to try.

flying down the highway

Flying down the highway, 120 kliks an hour, 4 kids in the third row seat, watching videos, eating French fries. We went over the same bridge where my cousin took a swan dive, running from his problems, running from his life. His son Charlie, all of 17, followed his example, hung himself in his garage, running from what I don’t know.
Charlie was about 12, I remember the look on his face at his dad’s funeral, remember wanting to do something, but what could I do? Haunted by the choice his father made, he went and made the same mistake. Rusty—what gramps called him, because of his reddish hair when he was born—stopped the family van in the middle of the bridge, popped the hood open, acted like he was checking something, but then jumped over the wall.
He grew up without a father, he was a Rose City police officer that was gunned down during a robbery attempt. He grew up wondering, wishing things had been different, but then he turned around and left his 3 children without a father. My father was his hero, the big brother he never had. Rusty was a hero to me—first college graduate in the family. Worked for the Dept. of Justice. His ex-wife left him and the 3 kids all alone, leaving everyone behind so she could be with her lesbian lover. Or we were told. Who knows what the story really was.
I visited him and the kids right after it happened, he seemed pretty stressed, but the kids seemed fine. Charlie, the oldest, had dark brown hair and eyes, so I always liked him the most out of all the cousin’s kids.
A brown face in an “otherwise” family picture—just like me—until my siblings came along, of course. I saw them at a couple of pow wows that year, Rusty worked for an Indian Center in Fitzgerald while finishing school at McHenry State, and his ex was part Indian.
They met at the center somehow, one day—just half a mile north of Garfield High. Lots of Indians have gone through those doors. A few of my cousins also went to school there and a couple of our great uncles worked there as well. Lots of connections there. The football stadium? Named after my great uncle. The athletic director when we were schoolkids? My other great uncle.
Rusty had moved to Lake City, his ex took off, but he eventually met someone else—I think I went to the wedding? Can’t even remember now. He met her at his church. He became a deacon--I don’t even know what that is. That was where they had the funeral, after the State Police finally fished him out of the river. The kid’s mom moved back to Fitzgerald/Mt. Elliott---and started a whole new life.
His involvement in the Indian community, him going to college—that all paved the way for me to do the same. I never realized that before. Rusty was always joking, always smiling. A lot like our Uncle. And a lot like Charlie. He never said anything to anyone before he killed himself.
My aunt buried her husband, her son and her grandson. The first couldn’t be avoided, but the last two---those were by choice. Sometimes the hardest path is the simplest. Live your life, raise your children, earn a living, etc . . . Sounds easy, doesn’t it? I had no idea that it was the most difficult thing to actually have to do day-in day-out. Nobody gets an award for doing all the “simple things,” but those things are what define as people, as human beings.
Life isn’t easy. It just is. There’s no good, no bad to it. We can decide that something is good or bad for us, our family, our community, the ecosystem, but it isn’t inherently one way or the other by itself. We put labels on everything. We also expect to live a life of action-packed fun, mistaking what we see on television or at the movies for real life. Our displeasure with life in general or our own lives in particular can come about because of our misunderstanding. Dealing with what is—good or bad, and doing what needs to be done can be mundane and painful. But how we approach any of these things says everything about who and what we are.
I went to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario to pick up my cousin’s four kids and drive them down to Sarnia, to their friends, who will be watching the kids during winter break. Mom and dad are doing a workshop in North Battleford, Saskatchewan—a little ways north of Saskatoon. We’ve had some good discussions with MskoGiizhik concerning our community, spirituality, the next generation and our responsibility to all the preceding.
MskoGiizhik is a distant cousin of Beth’s on his mother’s side, and his dad is originally from Turtle Mountain, North Dakota. He grew up in Canada, spending most of his time in Alberta with people who were Plains Cree. He does a lot of work with the Northern and Swampy (eastern branch—in Quebec) Cree. The workshops they do deal with Native spirituality, taking a traditional, holistic approach to many of the issues facing Natives throughout Canada and the U.S.
We discuss many things, but taking things from the theoretical level to practical is of great importance. He tries to live his culture and his ideals everyday. Some days are easier than others and they have the same issues we all face, but he keeps plugging away. First and foremost is his commitment to his family and his culture.
I’ve tried making sense of Rusty’s death and now Charlie’s as well (Charlie died about 16 months ago). I guess I still am. Everyday can be a struggle, trying to live your life in a good way and to stay connected with the things that are truly important. I expect life to be a certain way and I expect things from people that aren’t always possible. Balancing the spiritual with the material in this modern world can seem impossible as well. But the little ones, riding along with me, my children and MskoGiizhik’s----they are the reason for our continued struggle. Our communities are far from perfect and we battle with ourselves as much as anything on the outside, but the struggle is a good one. And one that is worth the effort. There is so much at stake for all of us. There are times we all just want to give up or give in, but that is just selfishness, cowardliness. We are far from perfect, and our lives become more and more complicated, but we can choose a better way. We can choose to live this life and to take a different path, for ourselves and for those that follow in our footsteps.

Thailand pics I

This is a pic from a temple near Nong Khai

















Two of my uncles, my mom, several cousins and ? in Ban Nong Sai, just east of Udon Thani, Thailand. My parents went back for a visit in May.

lives lived and half-lived

Driving through the northside, cruising up High Street,
Past Cristo Rey Community Center, past the party store that sells cigarettes to minors,
Past another store with a roadside barbeque,
The visible signs of poverty struck me.
I had acted as if it was some sort of Badge of Honor,
Growing up a block from Eight Mile, two blocks from Mound Rd.
Under the shadows of the smokestacks from auto and steel plants,
A few miles up the road from gleaming towers of the Renaissance Center.
I knew we were poor then, but poverty was the norm
And it built character and it somehow gave us substance.
That was just another lie I told myself to cover up the truth.
My eyes are open now, and I see this tired broken down neighborhood for what it is.
Sagging roofs, broken windows and weather-beaten siding,
Can no longer hide the quiet desperation of those who live within.
Buckling sidewalks and garbage-strewn and weed-filled yards line the street,
Hinting at the chaotic lives lived and half-lived by the occupants.
I know I am delusional, just projecting my own thoughts and fears
Upon the outside world as my beater bounces down the pothole-filled street.
I hated being from where I was from, wanted a better life, a better way.
Expected to find something bigger and better eventually,
But the choices I made, the crosses that I chose to bear,
Anchor me to this place and time with no hope of escape.