MARCH - SPRING 2013

Hello People of the World;

Here we are and at the time of this typing GASP(!), there’s snow! Then, it’s gone! It’s like the earth turned or something and we got weather! I am pretty indifferent to snow having grown up in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains where the rez got all extremes of weather, from blazing Africa-hot heat to monsoon raining that lasted days to heavy blizzards that meant you had to wear an extra jacket when going doing to the gate to wait for the bus.

I try to acclimate (see what I did there?) to the changing temperatures but there is nothing I can really do about weather. So I just let it be and deal with it. It’s just the weather. Besides, by the time you read this the first day of Spring is past and most of the snow will be melted. So, don’t be caught unawares!

And, here we are on the other side of Saint Patty’s Day and whoops, (!) it was just another excuse to get hammered! Yay! I never got why people accuse Natives of being drunkards. I actually tell people that if you want to solve the alcoholism on all reservations, just put a Cubs cap on all Indians in the bars. Problem solved. Then, they are simply having a “good time” like every one else in every bar everywhere on the planet.

Anyways, on that slightly insulting note, let’s get started shall we?

1:[ First Item of the Month: More Truthfulness

My Useless Self: On Ego and being Poor

Being poor sucks. There is no two ways about it. But there are many of us that have lived with being poor our entire lives. We deal with it, work with it and survive.

I can admit this now, without fear or hesitation: I am poor.

I am what is classified as “the working poor”. My income is just hundreds of dollars above poverty for a single person. I have three jobs, oops, ONE now with one of them being put off until the fall of 2014, the other job phased me out and I make just enough to get by month to month and with any extra I get I see movies and buy books and DVDs. If I come into a windfall I save it for rent or bills or for others who may need some cash.

Now, I am not writing this to make you feel sorry for me or to pity me, just to set the context of my situation so when I get to the point of this rant you know where I am coming from. The point is this: I f*cking hate it when people that are so much better off than I am tell me that they “are afraid of becoming poor” or that they “will hate it if they became poor”.

Because what you are basically say to me is “I don’t want to be like you.” It’s an insult to everyone who is poor or of the working poor. I have no idea when we started demonizing the poor in this country. All of my life, I was raised to think that America is a proud nation that takes care of its own. All of my life, I was raised as a Catholic who is supposed follow Christ’s example and that what we do for the least of his brethren we do so for him. But, I don’t see a lot of that practiced at all. It doesn’t matter what this new pope says about protecting the poor. We won’t do it.

Look, if you became poor recently due to circumstance then complain all you want. It’s warranted. You earned the right to complain about being poor. It fucking sucks. It does. But if there is no chance of you will ever experience it and all you’ll miss out on is art classes or the like then what you are basically saying to me is “I don’t want to live like you, Ernest.”

So, have some consideration. Simple, you do not have to give a handout or any of your time. Just give people some consideration.

Updates from my other Truthfulness Projects:

+ NAMELESS: The Authentic and Magical Ledger Art of EW3

A Treatise on American Indian Art

“All you care about is money. This city deserves a better class of artist. And I’m going to give it to them.”

MORE FROM MY STATEMENT: I guess my whole problem is that NO ONE cares about art anymore. No one. And before you say, “I care”, hear me out. The only reason people loved getting into arts on the most basic of levels is to gain some notoriety without getting into sciences or hard labor. It’s easy. We like to say “I just want to express myself and be creative, blah, blah, blah….” We even say that anybody can be an artist in their everyday lives, right? But now days, fame and celebrity are easier to gain. It all depends on how big of an asshole you want to become. How low do you want to degrade yourself until you marry Kanye? Proof? Look at reality TV.

Before you say, “Well, those people don’t have integrity, they’re being paid for acting like that.”

Well, aren’t we asking to be paid too? “I just want to make a living doing what I love.”

The blatant hypocrisy of it makes me laugh every time. Look, if at anytime you want someone to pay money to see, hear or own your shit, you’ve sold out. Plain and simple.

Here’s something I noticed years ago – the next time you go to ANYTHING art related – conference, workshops, gallery openings, artists’ talks, even sidewalk exhibits and look out and count the people in their Cubs hats and business suits walking past or driving on by. They don’t care that you are in the room talking about how your culture influenced your work or how CPS is cutting the arts or that foundation dollars are shrinking for the arts. They are not going to stop and start caring. They have other shit to do. If art mattered to them at all they would walk in and see or listen to your shit. Plain and simple.

Sure, sure, you can tell me “Well, I don’t make art for them.” But who ever you do make it for, it will cost them, right? You want to “make a living doing what you love.”

What is worse is being paid money for anything we’ve deemed cultural. That is the most colonized of acts ever and we encourage it! We open markets dedicated to it! Yet, no one ever stopped and asked what does “decolonized” actually mean? I know there are some out there who like to say it’s only a buzzword to look smarter than everyone else, but isn’t that the ego of trying to look smarter still? We think, speak, dress and act like the prevailing culture. What does it mean to be truly “decolonized”? Ask yourself….” TO BE CONTINUED….

+ The Five Six SEVEN Hypocrisies of Native America:

(Because Seven is a sacred number) COMPLETED:

I am constantly surprised that no one ever sees that Native Americans do the exact same things – like calling for the “decolonization” of our culture and never once really asking ourselves what that actually means. Like demanding tribal sovereignty and never once asking ourselves what it would truly mean to have it. Are we ready for it? Or is it just another failure that we’ll pass on to our children as their “new challenges”? I think I should just post this somewhere.

I had the idea of a single panel comic called “Being Ernest: The Adventures of the World’s Worst Arapaho Comedian” wherein the main character lays out these hypocrisies as part of his act and he bombs with the crowd, terribly. I know one or two of my friends and colleagues have heard me espouse these so they are nothing too new.

Of course, would I need to define “hypocrisy” first? Let me know.

+ ONE: A Spoken Word:

It’s about the time Crazy Horse showed up at my door. I know. Before you say anything, I wasn’t expecting him to show up, okay? I’m going to start actively looking for open mics to workshop this piece. I have an end to it but the in-betweens are killing me….

+ Shouting in Circles: A Spoken Word:

Just an adaptation of a short piece I wrote in the community writing group I used to help facilitate some time back. It seems apropos of late. This is looking like another spoken word/open mic piece. I will add it to the repertoire….

NEXT MONTH: On Dating? (Or on why I don’t) I don’t know. What do you think? The overall point of these “truthfulness” rants is to expose my own hypocrisies and to reveal some truths about myself, like being poor and such because I think people should at least know me a bit. I mean, who am I to write a blog, right? I think I want to build to a final sort of revelation about myself and am using these rants to work up the courage. So, who knows?

2:[ My Raz Trent Moment: So there I was waiting for the #62 Archer bus to get to a school visit. Holden Elementary is one of my favorite visits – the kids are silly and fun, the neighborhood is enough south side to let the school be ignored, there is an indie coffee shop in the area and the train and bus stations are near to Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood that I am tempted to visit the restaurants and shops.

I was reading my one-volume, updated abridgement of “Three Kingdoms” to pass the journey about when Guan Yu is trapped and killed by the combined forces of Wei and Wu. The bus pulled into the station and I rush out to get it as I was inside taking a break from the snow. I close my book and carry it on with thoughts of Chinese history on my mind. When I get on I see a sea of Asian faces. It caught me off-guard but quick reasoning reminded me we are so near the Chinatown neighborhood. Then, that my “Three Kingdoms” book made me look like a phony show off and then my mind was instantly filled with this moment from The Lonely Island’s “Raz Trent” video.

I had to smile at my deep-seeded phony-ism and hypocrisy. I took my seat and as my stop neared simply put the book in my bag to keep it from the snows. Man, I am such a phony.

3:[ More MOVIE TIME ADVENTURES:

+ I am so happy that I went to see Kenneth Branagh’s “Hamlet” at the Music Box Theater. It was a 70mm print and the film looked great! It was grand and big and pompous! I was amazed at how much Branagh was able to keep in the overall film. It will be a challenge to keep my own version at the same length. It also showed me the weaknesses of both Shakespearean acting and the story and how I will really need to twist things to make the words work with all the concepts I have of my own version.

I couldn’t get over the speechifying. I know. It’s Shakespeare. But the way every actor does it is rather silly. They suddenly assume this weird, perfunctory cadence in their speech, especially U.S. actors (See Ethan Hawke as Hamlet) where their diction is suddenly so “Rex Harrison”. The words never flow naturally and they are never scripted for film. Which is where my version differs. I break the speeches up into shots. Makes them easier to remember. What also bugged me was the constant “oh-ing” in the speeches that Branagh’s Hamlet does: “Ohhhhh, would that this too too blah, blah, blah”, “Ohhhhh, something, something, something”, “Ohhhhh the tragedy…”, etc.

I want to avoid that if I can. I also invite you to have me recite the “To Be or Not To Be Speech” at your next function. Maybe I should charge for that?

Of course, since it was the “Music Box” all the neck-bearded hipsters came out to piss on about it. One fella, who it seemed had never saw it before, runs into his friend as I was leaving and was excited, he liked it. When his olde tyme grandpa glasses, porkpie hat-wearing chum asked him what he thought, he said, “It was gorgeous!”

I assumed he meant the 70mm print. Of course his hipster friend, who cannot be impressed by such a thing because he’s an adult, says in all his ass-hattery glory, “Eh, It was all right.”

I shook my head and walked on by not caring to hear the rest. The only thing that kept me from seeing it again a few nights later was the weather….

+ Bonnie, Char and myself went to the 3D rendering of Bryan Singer’s “Jack the Giant Slayer”. It was a bland Hollywood movie, an average fairy tale movie with a big, huge battle at the end. It was not very fun and it was very blah. I couldn’t get past the fact that Al Swearengen wasn’t swearing. After that, having missed out on seeing “Citizen Kane” at the Music Box, because I missed the bus, I just saw “The Life of Pi 3D” instead. Verdict:  What a crock of sh*t. While in both cases the 3D was really well done, it seems that the movies I am choosing are getting worse and worse….

+ An Orson Welles Retrospective began this month at the Music Box with “Citizen Kane” and wraps up in May with “F For Fake”. So, I missed out on seeing “Citizen Kane” again on the big screen and instead I went to see “The Life of Pi”. Big. Mistake. (See above) But the list of other great Welles films are films I have wanted to see on the big screen from the master – The Stranger, MacBeth, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Lady from Shanghai, The Chimes at Midnight, Touch of Evil and The Trial. If I can get to see all of them, I will. Wish me luck….

+ The New Star Wars movies need to go the Game of Thrones route with planets competing for the throne. Can you imagine Han Solo in a Davos Seaworth role – a former smuggler turned trusted right-hand man for an ambitious leader, pitting him against Luke and Leia? Maybe Luke is becoming resentful of protecting Leia’s claims to the throne and rises against her with his new Jedi? Something where we don’t have to see Star Wars Babies doing cute kid shit that exposes a vast conspiracy that gives us the twist that someone we thought was a good guy is the bad guy and ends with a huge battle with everyone running at each other amidst the explosions…. Yeah, I really hope Episode VII avoids all the Expanded Universe crap like Mara Jade and the Solo Twins, yeah, you read that, THE SOLO TWINS(!)….

4:[ Chicagoans React to living in “Fourth Most Miserable City” – Like in most listings, Chicago chokes once again in gaining the number one spot. Of course while defending living in the city the commentators complain about our corrupt government. I think we simply love to whine and complain. Right? Looks like I’ve become a “Real Chicagoan” after all, right?

5:[ Ah yes, settle in Dear Readers for more of:

Adventures at the Coffee Shop!

+ Lately, I have been seeking out the local coffee shop near by my AYV schools and leaving some FNFVF postcards there. I hope this helps spread the word about the festival….

+ I guess the only coffee shop I visit “mostily” is the one in the B&N where my Bonnie works. I usually meet her there every Friday before we go out and do stuff and sometimes Char tags along which is always awesome. I get a cookie and a peppermint tea. Lately, I’ve been doing without the cookie. Now, some of the baristas knew Bonnie and I from our many visits there, before she began working there. Which is nice and they would chat us up if there was no line waiting.

I am mostly an introvert, surprising, I know, from the amount of bile and whining I put here on WoS. But that’s why you buys the ticket, right? But, what I absolutely hate is that the newer baristas who know only Bonnie automatically think they can really talk to me because I’m there. I mean BEYOND the typical, customer-client chatter, before you get all up in arms and tell me “They’re just being nice and friendly baristas….”

I usually show up alone and will keep to myself as is any introvert’s tendency. But, they just sort of stick their big ugly faces into your life like they have known you for years all because Bonnie is friendly with them. I am not rude to them, because I know that being an introvert can also be mistaken for being an impolite ass. (Me: “Yes, it was good, but I really have nothing else to say about some so personal. Really.” You Later On: “He was just being so uncooperative and rude!”) I politely answer the inquiries about weather and how I am but you can’t pry introverts out of their shells. You have to build to that. Bonnie did. My friends did. You cannot assume because you are pouring hot water into my tea that I am in anyway interested in your big, stupid life because we both know Bonnie.

6:[ In all of my AVY School visitations I have noticed something. I think schools try to make kids look smaller than they really are. School is a very structure event. It is the main place your child will spend most of its waking hours, more than home or with friends. I believe school “teaches” you to be “adults” rather than people. So, I have been visiting schools for six months now and have gotten to know or at least be recognized by the students I visit.

In the classrooms the sixth, seventh and some of the eighth graders look tiny and childlike. It makes me feel old. But then a few weeks back, we hosted a media event where some of the students stopped by the center we were at to present their media works. It was the Rough Cut event where students got feedback from fellow students. While I was there I saw some of the students from some of the schools I was visiting and suddenly the sixth, seventh and some of the eighth graders looked very tall and much older.

I think that schools purposely make students feel small to make it easier to indoctrinate them to the core curricula….

7:[ And now Wisdom of the Sages presents:

“An Ever-growing List of Things That MUST Stop!”

+ Hey, if we are all supposed to get behind the idea that we need to get the money out of politics, then STOP ASKING ME FOR F*CKING MONEY!!! Really? I should pay $500 a plate to eat lunch in the same room with you? This is why politics is the stupidest thing ever invented by mankind. We give insane amounts of money to people WHO ONLY PROMISE to do what you want. They need to quit asking and we need to stop giving….

+ Standing at the bus stop on my way to a school visit, I noticed that a lot of damn people driving cars are just yammering away on their cell phones. Here we are, years away from their introduction and we waste our time just jabbering all the time about nothing! Put down the damn phone and frickin’ drive you idiot! Shoot, no one is that important that every single thing they say has to be told to someone at all times of the day.

Bonnie also noticed at how much people are on their phones constantly, at the store pushing their carts with an ear to the phone chatting away, at the registers, pushing strollers in the streets and driving. I mean, who talks that fucking much, really? All I see is Wasted Intelligence. We are the only creatures on earth capable of higher reasoning and extreme intelligence and here we are all staring at the screen of our phones for no reason that they are brightly colored and make noises. Waste of intelligence. That’s why I think we come from monkeys, because lights and noises easily distract us and we anger easily enough to throw ground about stupid little things…. Like laundry day…. And cell phones….

+ You want to know how to make Hollywood stop it with all of the Sequels, Prequels, Remakes and Reboots that we have the gall to complain about? Stop going to f*cking watch them!

8:[ FROM THE “PANTS HITCHED UP TO MY ARMPITS” FILES: And another thing! I noticed that no one ever takes the empty seats on the train when they have to sit next to other people. Are we that xenophobic that we’d rather stand on the train or bus blundering around and making a nuisance rather than sit next to another human being for five frickin’ minutes? Sure, I’ve heard of “personal space” but come on. Take the seat. Let the other people standing have a bit more room. Have some simple consideration….

9:[ From the “This Just In” Department: So, everyone on the Internets is making a huge deal about the “Veronica Mars” Kickstarter Campaign. Nerds are jumping for joy because that actress is going to get paid your hard-earned cash to play that same role she had never gotten more famous than, all so you can pretend that you had some part in it. The hypocrisy of it astounds even me. Here we are a nation complaining all over about the remakes and reboots and such and here we are throwing money at them to remake our hip TV show as a movie.

They are saying that this will change how movies get funded. But, it also doomed independent projects without the brand recognition and fan base to generate such funds. Thanks TV geeks, you doomed Independent film and you’ve killed Native American cinema…. Way to go.

10:[ Last Item of the Month: Some Dads are pretty damn cool: So, in the crucible of the last winter blizzard that hit Chicago, I found myself on the red line heading home in the flurries, the winds and the cold. I notice this father and son in the seats next to me. The little guy is bundled up head to toe in snowsuit, boots, gloves, scarves and snow hat. He is bouncy and giving dad a hard time with his squirming and being a little boy. But the dad is patient and eventually the boy conks out and falls asleep. The best Dads can always outwait their kids.

Then we get to Howard and the dad gets up to go. But instead of waking the boy up to get off the train like I have seen so many other parents do (“Get up and lets go!”), the dad, instead, puts his phone in his pocket and picks up his son and carries him off into the flurries, the winds and the cold, just so the boy can sleep. Some Dads are pretty damn cool….

That will do it for this month.

I hope this find you well and that you are surviving whatever weather the world is throwing at you. Please, feel free to comment, correct, contradict or complain about my whining. It’s a free country last time I looked and I’ll allow it. You know? Because that’s what kind of guy I am. Besides, if you complain about the whining, you’ve missed the entire point of Blogs.

Until Next Time, “I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control everything really are.”

2013 Ernest M. Whiteman III