I’m in the last week of my show here in Los Angeles. A few days ago I took a break and hung out with Charlie Hill, the Oneida comedian. We had a late lunch at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, one place in town that serves Oklahoma/reservation food. Then we walked around near Sunset and Vine, browsed around record stores and visited. Friendship is one of the finest gifts, worth more than nearly anything on this earth. Charlie is funny, deeply philosophical and he’s given me helpful notes that have improved my performance. We stopped at an ATM machine and there in the middle of a city of over nine million human souls, we just happened to meet a young woman who just happened to be half Oneida, from Charlie’s home, and half Seminole. (Her father is an Osceola). Yoklot Cornelius is a student at the fashion institute and has been finding her way around, just as Charlie did when he came to the city years ago at about the same age. After meeting Yoklot Charlie reminisced about leaving home up North for California those many years ago. He might as well have been going to the moon. He talked about walking around the streets alone, knowing no one, and always keeping an eye open for other Indian people. I consider what it took for him to leave home, and to find his way into performing at the highly competitive, fiercely paced comedy clubs of the city, as a reservation kid. He followed his dream, and being a comedian isn’t an easy dream. (I’m convinced Charlie and I were standing at the back of the line when they were passing out careers: comedian and poet!) Look for him and a crew of other native comedians he’s mentored in a Showtime special soon. Charlie will be featured with: Larry Omaha, Yaqui; J.R. Redwater, Lakota; Jim Ruel, Ojibwe; Vaughn Eagle Bear, Colville; and Marc Yaffee, Navajo. Cheer them on.
This is from my friend Candyce Childers from Eagle River, Alaska. Her comments on subsistence remind me that the system of the "over-culture", or, commodity-culture is torqued by selfishness. It is coming undone.
" I went to a public forum at the university discussing the future of subsistence. It was interesting to hear people's perspective on subsistence as a concept. One panelist (Yupik) commented that subsistence and the myriad ways it is regulated is insensitive and bizarre. He drew a comparison between the land as our Native grocery and the grocery stores in the city. He asked the audience to imagine that in order to get food from the grocery in the city we all had to apply for permission. And imagine that we were told we could only go grocery shopping two weeks out of the year during which you must get everything your family of 6 will need for the next winter. On top of that, you could not use a car, bus or other mechanical transport to go to the grocery but must walk. It was powerful and moving.
Another interesting point that a panelist made was how our ancestors handled individuals who were selfish. Even if a man was a good hunter it wasn't a guarantee that he could remain a community member. The community survived by living communally. Everyone had to share their resources and when an individual failed to do so they would banish or kill him. The reasoning was that he would eventually cause the death of the entire village either literally from starvation or from division. Imagine how disruptive it was to have missionaries and teachers move in with their values of individualism and competition."
Thanks Candyce. The over-culture is failing because it didn’t have roots deep in the earth. We will learn to live right again, all of us.
Finally, I just got a report from home. Now there are two redbird families in the yard: two males with their wives. The guys are chasing each other around the yard. The females are sitting together on the telephone wire, visiting each other.
Isn't that exactly how it is?
4/30/09
4/26/09
Keeping it Up
Okay. I haven't blogged in awhile.
Can there be too many words?
Too much communication?
We can only hear the soul in silence.
Can there be too many words?
Too much communication?
We can only hear the soul in silence.
4/19/09
4/15/09
On the Road, Pam Kingsbury driving Larry and Me to Florence from Huntsville, AL
c Joy Harjo April 15, 09
4/14/09
Spring at Gila River Reservation
c Joy Harjo March 2009
I walked around in the desert a few weeks ago. Nothing else smells like the desert in the early morning. Remembered how Josiah Moore told me many stories of this place.
3/28/09
Muscogee Nation News Column March 2009
It’s late afternoon before the column is due. I’ve almost emailed the editor twice to say: “it’s not possible”. I am out on the West Coast rehearsing every night at San Diego State University for my show, Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light. It will open in Los Angeles in March, as part of the Native Voices at the Autry series. There are a few reasons I am telling you this: 1) I am need of a column ASAP, and mostly 2) maybe this will inspire others who think it’s too late to pick up a musical instrument, write a book, learn the language, learn songs, or anything else, because they hit thirty (yes thirty, I’ve heard many a hitting-thirty panic that they were too old….give me a break), forty, fifty, sixty, or….
This show is one of the biggest challenges I ever had. First, I had to write the show. I have rewritten the play countless times. I have written, recorded and performed the music for the play, and kept going, even as I have been turned down many times for one thing or another mostly for being too Indian, or not Indian enough. Go figure. And now, one of the most difficult challenges: I have to memorize the play, and to act. I haven’t acted since I was a high school student at the Institute of American Indian Arts. I was always the shyest student and usually sat at the back of the class and said nothing.
I begged the director. “Please, let me just read the play.” “No way”, he said. “You can do it”. “Well, at least let me tape all the lines to the floor”, I argued. “No”, he said. I even looked up how much it cost to rent a teleprompter. They were too expensive, and huge. Writing on my arms was the most cost effective. But I don’t have enough arm space for the whole play. So, I’m here this afternoon, memorizing my play. And I’m nearing sixty. (“Nearing” means, I’m closer to sixty than to fifty.)
I don’t like to write about myself, in fact, I’m several years late with a book I was contracted to write, because I don’t want to write about myself. I write because I love stories and words, and these columns, because I think they might be useful. Maybe by writing this you might decide to keep going, to take care of your gifts, no matter how old you are, seven or hundred. I’m not special. There are many talented people out there in the nation.
I’m including an excerpt from the show. And if any of you make it out to LA between March 12th and March 29th, I’ll get you in. Just say you’re my relative, or you’re with the band. Let me know. I’d be honored.
Redbird Monahwee (to her father):
I followed you as you unloaded it from the truck. I helped, as you strung the deer up on the tree. I squatted down with you, as the red sun kissed the red earth. You tamped out some tobacco into our hands.
You said, “We pray with tobacco to acknowledge the spirit of the deer. We give thanks, mvto”.
“There is much suffering on this earth.
Even plants suffer. Tobacco agreed to come along as we walk this world. It’s medicine, a gift from the Creator.”
And remember I said, But Daddy, you smoke two packs of Lucky Strikes a day!”
I was such a little plant, drinking in your words.
“And what about whiskey, Dad”, I asked you.
“It's killing me”, you said.
“I'm sorry, Hokte”.
“Pray for me girl.”
This show is one of the biggest challenges I ever had. First, I had to write the show. I have rewritten the play countless times. I have written, recorded and performed the music for the play, and kept going, even as I have been turned down many times for one thing or another mostly for being too Indian, or not Indian enough. Go figure. And now, one of the most difficult challenges: I have to memorize the play, and to act. I haven’t acted since I was a high school student at the Institute of American Indian Arts. I was always the shyest student and usually sat at the back of the class and said nothing.
I begged the director. “Please, let me just read the play.” “No way”, he said. “You can do it”. “Well, at least let me tape all the lines to the floor”, I argued. “No”, he said. I even looked up how much it cost to rent a teleprompter. They were too expensive, and huge. Writing on my arms was the most cost effective. But I don’t have enough arm space for the whole play. So, I’m here this afternoon, memorizing my play. And I’m nearing sixty. (“Nearing” means, I’m closer to sixty than to fifty.)
I don’t like to write about myself, in fact, I’m several years late with a book I was contracted to write, because I don’t want to write about myself. I write because I love stories and words, and these columns, because I think they might be useful. Maybe by writing this you might decide to keep going, to take care of your gifts, no matter how old you are, seven or hundred. I’m not special. There are many talented people out there in the nation.
I’m including an excerpt from the show. And if any of you make it out to LA between March 12th and March 29th, I’ll get you in. Just say you’re my relative, or you’re with the band. Let me know. I’d be honored.
Redbird Monahwee (to her father):
I followed you as you unloaded it from the truck. I helped, as you strung the deer up on the tree. I squatted down with you, as the red sun kissed the red earth. You tamped out some tobacco into our hands.
You said, “We pray with tobacco to acknowledge the spirit of the deer. We give thanks, mvto”.
“There is much suffering on this earth.
Even plants suffer. Tobacco agreed to come along as we walk this world. It’s medicine, a gift from the Creator.”
And remember I said, But Daddy, you smoke two packs of Lucky Strikes a day!”
I was such a little plant, drinking in your words.
“And what about whiskey, Dad”, I asked you.
“It's killing me”, you said.
“I'm sorry, Hokte”.
“Pray for me girl.”
3/26/09
Report from the Island
I just got a report from home. Now there are two redbird families in the yard. Two males with their wives. The guys are chasing each other around the yard. The females are sitting together on the wall, visiting each other.
Isn't that exactly how it is?!
3/25/09
Sun Going Down in the Pacific
Our earthly star, from the window of my flight between San Francisco and Burbank.
Okay, Okay
Yesterday took a break. Hung out with one of my favorite people: Charlie HIll. We walked over to Amoeba Records after a late lunch at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles on Gower near Sunset where I used to always run into Mike Tyson, when I hung out in LA a few years back. We stopped at an ATM and this young native woman just happened to be there. Turns out she's Oneida and Seminole. Osceola is her last name, and she's a student at a fashion school nearby. Charlie knew many of her relatives. What are the chances? There are no accidents.
3/6/09
Subsistence
This is from my friend Candyce Childers from Eagle River, Alaska. She's one of my closest correspondents and has this to share about subsistence. Her comments remind me that the system of the "over-culture", or, commodity-culture is torqued by selfishness. It is coming undone.
" I went to a public forum at the university discussing the future of subsistence. It was interesting to hear people's perspective on subsistence as a concept. One panelist (Yupik) commented that subsistence and the myriad ways it is regulated is insensitive and bizarre. He drew a comparison between the land as our Native grocery and the grocery stores in the city. He asked the audience to imagine that in order to get food from the grocery in the city we all had to apply for permission. And imagine that we were told we could only go grocery shopping two weeks out of the year during which you must get everything your family of 6 will need for the next winter. On top of that, you could not use a car, bus or other mechanical transport to go to the grocery but must walk. It was powerful and moving.
Another interesting point that a panelist made was how our ancestors handled individuals who were selfish. Even if a man was a good hunter it wasn't a guarantee that he could remain a community member. The community survived by living communally. Everyone had to share their resources and when an individual failed to do so they would banish or kill him. The reasoning was that he would eventually cause the death of the entire village either literally from starvation or from division. Imagine how disruptive it was to have missionaries and teachers move in with their values of individualism and competition."
Thanks Candyce.
" I went to a public forum at the university discussing the future of subsistence. It was interesting to hear people's perspective on subsistence as a concept. One panelist (Yupik) commented that subsistence and the myriad ways it is regulated is insensitive and bizarre. He drew a comparison between the land as our Native grocery and the grocery stores in the city. He asked the audience to imagine that in order to get food from the grocery in the city we all had to apply for permission. And imagine that we were told we could only go grocery shopping two weeks out of the year during which you must get everything your family of 6 will need for the next winter. On top of that, you could not use a car, bus or other mechanical transport to go to the grocery but must walk. It was powerful and moving.
Another interesting point that a panelist made was how our ancestors handled individuals who were selfish. Even if a man was a good hunter it wasn't a guarantee that he could remain a community member. The community survived by living communally. Everyone had to share their resources and when an individual failed to do so they would banish or kill him. The reasoning was that he would eventually cause the death of the entire village either literally from starvation or from division. Imagine how disruptive it was to have missionaries and teachers move in with their values of individualism and competition."
Thanks Candyce.
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