AUGUST Episode VII: Summer 2014

Hello People of the World;

We are mostly passed the halfway mark on summer. At least by the time I post this. So far, it has been reasonably mild with low-to-mid-80’s in temperature and a god-awful humidity. But that is easily survivable. Really, it is. Don't freak out.

So, the fall is coming up soon, about a month away. Will you be caught off-guard once again? I have been plenty busy will a summer job and AYV, as well as FNFVF and HAMLET stuff, which is my excuse for posting late. Nothing snarky to add here. Yet.

Let’s get this edition started, shall we?

1:[ First Item of the Month: So, Robin Williams passed away…

Robin Williams recently passed away and the family publically asked for the public to “respect their wish for privacy” during this time. So, of course, people post news and tributes all across the internet reminding the family daily that he is dead, refreshing their hurt everyday. So much for their wish for privacy.

You know, there comes a point where it all becomes about you, your reaction to the death and not about the person that died at all.

Really folks, give it a rest and let him rest in peace….

2:[ My Truthfulness Stuffs:

My Useless Self: Ego & My____

I completely forgot to add this! I am taking suggestions about what you want to know. So, let me know and maybe I will write how my ego deals with the topic of suggestion.

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.”

I finally got a printer/scanner and will be posting my ledger art works online once I get them all scanned and converted into digital images. I see too many Native artists afraid to do what I want to do and have been doing with my art. So, having a scanner will make it easier to put up my images online. But it will also allow me to try the type of Art Exhibit I have wanted to try ever since I came into my new philosophy about Native Art.

Also, since I have a new scanner, look for new adventures from Mikey Redshade. I have to finish the long-lingering Bully thread. Plus, I have one our two ideas for future strips. With all this buffoonery about protests and art, Mikey will have a lot to say about it all.

HAMLET continues on despite setbacks. I had to let an actor go and almost everyone’s schedules are filling up. But, what I want to do with the making of HAMLET, hopefully, will change how Natives make their movies. Not to be reliant on non-Native producers, to actually get support from their communities, and to generate more Native-made films by having such a low cost/no cost to produce them. But I am having much trouble finding people that share that ideology.

I hate to say this again, but it always comes down to money. Truly, making his film challenges notions about art and commerce. But it will also challenge Native communities’ own ideas about how they support Native arts. Lastly, I hope it changes how non-Native audiences see Native peoples in movies, by never relying on the beads and feather, on the selling out of our culture, sacred images, and history. People will have to see us as a part of contemporary society. I think making HAMLET will push Native Cinema in that direction. But Natives want money. I always thought that art and commerce should be separate….

To quote the great man, ‘It’s not about money. It’s about sending a message…’.

+ The Five Six SEVEN Hypocrisies of Native America:
(Because Seven is a sacred number):

+ I have noticed how much we call out women celebrities for claiming a Native American heritage yet we never do the same for men who do that. We defend them. Especially when they do something stupid like wear a headdress, then it becomes all about their claims of heritage. (i.e. Pharrell, and Johnny Depp. Shit, we ADOPTED Johnny Depp just to MAKE IT OKAY!) Yet, a woman does that and we shit all over her. Sexism? In our hallowed liberal thinking? Surely, not!

+ I am a proponent of changing the name of the Washington Redskins. I have my reasons, which I am sure you have probably heard from me before. So, Dan Snyder put out his own video showing Natives in support of the name “Redskins”. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.

This was made in response to the video the Anti-Redskins Group entitled “Proud To Be” which was put out during last season’s NBA Finals. You can find that one here.

Now, one of these videos is filled with clichés and really pushes the stereotypes of Native cultures…

…and the other one supports the Redskins name.

Wake up people….

NEXT MONTH’S TRUTHFULNESS: Ego and _____?

Let me know what I should cover next in my series on Truthfulness.

3:[ More MOVIE TIME ADVENTURES:

+ I have to tell you about my recent glut of buying Criterion DVD’s thanks to their 50% Sale last month. I have added 6 new discs in the past two months, having order one or two out-of-print discs online before the sale.

-In the Mood for Love – the one that made Wong Kar-wai famous. I saw his “2046” years ago and didn’t like it. After seeing “The Grandmaster” I sought this out and was highly impressed by it. It even made “2046” make more sense in retrospect.

-Le Samourai (re-purchase): a cashier told me this went out of print, so when I bashed on my DVD player for not working, I forgot this was in there and I scratched it all to hell. Which is a good lesson for those of you with a flaring frustration problem. So, I ordered a new one online. One of my all-time favorite movies. It is about a hitman. It’s French. It’s from the 60’s. It’s cool.

-Purple Noon: I wrote about this in WoS previous. Check it out.

-Medium Cool: Haskel Wexler’s great film about media manipulation.

-Three Outlaw Samurai: Bought on a whim and do not regret it. The supposed start of a series about three samurai from differing backgrounds coming together to fight the local government, just because.

-Late Spring: The first of Ozu’s “Noriko Trilogy” about a father and daughter and the pressure from everyone for the daughter to marry. I will loan this out to my single lady friends.

-Throne of Blood: found this in Reckless Records for a steal. One of my favorite Kurosawa films and Shakespeare adaptations. Someone must have sold off their Criterion collection because there were suddenly scads of them in there.

+ Saw “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” on the big screen. We took Charlotte who was not impressed but I enjoyed it. However, some of the jokes were stale since they have been passed around YouTube so much. Oh well.

+ Just saw Rifftrax Live: Godzilla & The Expendables 3 in the theater. I went with Bonnie and Char and had a good time at both. I think the company makes these silly movies work. Hipsters have beset Rifftrax on all sides of late. This idea of Nostalgic Self-reference appeals to a generation of people who do not have a rooted history. If your reference to something from years ago is recognized, then you are intelligent without having to do the hard work. It is like our education about anything is shallow and geared towards winning trivia games. I digress.

Their riffing of the purposely made bad movie “Sharknado” sort of legitimized that whole audience of referential intellectualism. I know a lot of fans were disappointed by their choice to show that. Part of the mass appeal and charm of Mystery Science Theater 3000 was that they picked on bad films that were made in earnest as a way of trying to get the movie industy to make better movies. But the message went too deep. Which is why we get dreck like “The Room” and “Transformers” and “Sharnado” and dupes lap it up because thinking they know these movies are bad is a form of intellect. Still, Rifftrax did a good job of riffing a purposely-made blockbuster “Godzilla”, the ’98 version with Matthew Broderick. It was fun to see them make fun of it.

“The Expendables 3” was also filled with self-referencing gesticulations. I thought it still pretty bad, but the company made it enjoyable. Char and Bonnie and I riffed it quietly together. In the end, it was a silly movie filled with aging action stars and young, charisma-free action bodies that go around murdering a bunch of people. Still, a fun flick.

+ Checked out Yimou’s “The Road Home” and Ozu’s “Tokyo Story” from the library. The former film is about a son retuning to his village upon the death of his father, helping his mother set up a very traditional funeral by carrying the body home, and recounting the story of how his parents fell in love in a time of arranged marriages in China. It is very sweet and touching. The latter film is considered to be Ozu’s masterpice, about an elderly couple going to visit their children who all live in Tokyo, Japan and seeing the differences in them. The ending of both film always set me to cry. Could there be a better combo of movies that will leave me blubbering like a sap? I don’t know.

4:[ Speaking of “Tokyo Story” is it possible to have a cross-generational, time-spanning backwards crush on Setsuko Hara? I hope I am not the only one.

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

Adventures in the Coffee Shop and/or on the CTA!

+ So, there I was on the Purple Line the other day, when this older fellow gets on with his lady friend. He is showing her the sights in the north suburbs and she asked about the Baha’i Temple. Immediately, he mentions how he was some sort of assistant architect on the building or refurbishing of the interior and how it was this other guys project, but honestly, he says, "that place never did anything for me". He knows it is a place of quiet and peace, but still, it just never did it for him. I can kind of see what was going on. He was an assistant and the other fellow is getting the accolades for the serenity and beauty of the Baha’i Temple. So, all these years later, he is still jealous about it. Man, get over it.

+ I know I am a pretty tall person. I am six-foot, four. I have met maybe one or two fellows that are a couple of inches taller. For some reason they are always smalldicked into making pronunciations that they are taller some how. Which is weird. I have no problem with these guys being taller because to them, it’s all a matter of inches. Who cares? But still, most of the world is not made for tall guys like me. I am told all the time “You’re tall”, like I haven’t noticed it.

Most of the people I work with and know are shorter than me. But the other day I saw this Really Tall Dude on the el train. I mean TALL. He was easily beyond seven-foot. When the doors of the train opened, he literally had to stoop down to get into the train. (And I am using the word “literally” correctly here to emphasize my point.) Most of the seats were taken so he ended standing, holding on the overhead railing. Just standing there, this guy had to actually bend his neck and tilt his head to one side to fit under the roof of the train. Eventually, he grabbed a seat near me. He was super tall, this big, Nordic-looking muthafucker. Man. He legs stretched across the aisle. Then, a few stops later, he stood, head tilted forward, bent his knees and ducked under the door frame and was freed out into a world not built for him. Seeing him, all I could think of was this.

6:[ So, you all now know my feelings on Hispterism as Nostalgic, Non-Historical Self-referentialism. Charlotte, who was at the Rifftrax screening with us made a remark at how many Hipsters there were in the audiences. So, if Charlotte is fed up with a trend, it is time to end it. I see this trend all over the place, but most concentrated in the art grants field. So, I started playing a HIPSTER BINGO whenever I went to an arts grant workshop or conference. Don’t worry: the FREE SPACE is always “Judgmental Arapaho Ass.” You can get my new game here at this link! I am researching a way to create a HIPSTER Bingo cell phone game app that you can play anywhere. Stay tuned!

7:[ And now Wisdom of the Sages presents:

 

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

+ That’s it. It’s official. Rap is dead. It is truly dead, when rap is stupidly used to tell Anglo history instead of being a voice, an outlet, of ethnic disenfranchisement, when it becomes about college douche bags mugging and striking gangster rapper poses at the camera in shitty Halloween costumes. YouTube’s “Epic Rap Battles” Must Stop!

+ Not waiting for the pedestrian to be out of the way before roaring into the crosswalk, before roaring into your right turns. That sh*t must stop….

+ This attitude that, somehow, bicyclists are fucking expendable when it comes to your own driving convenience, must stop….

8:[ Bonnie and I saw the latest ads for the “The Expendables 3: Not Really Expendable” Movie and noted how large the cast is getting and we joked that we thought they could add a few dozen more washed-up action stars to create a gi-normous poster of everyone Photoshopped next to each other pretending they are happy to be there but realize, this may be the end of the line for their careers. (Which will explain why, suddenly, Harrison Ford leapt at the chance to do Star Wars.)

So, while we went out for dinner yesterday, we began compiling a long list of actors that we think, not only would fit into the “The Expendables” Nonsense, but, actually believe will eventually wind up there because they are shittily wash-up. Before you object to this statement: The last three films bear this out. Our list, you can find here.

Eventually, the posters for the “The Expendables” Movies will all end up looking like shoddy family reunion pictures….

9:[ From the “This Just In” Department: Lauren Bacall also passed away. Did you know that? She was a woman who has had a deeper impact on film, practically creating the template for the femme fatale in film noir, but since she never said “nanu-nanu”, no one gives a shit….

10:[ Last Item of the Month: Can Doctor Who be a woman? THIS ARTICLE posits that maybe it is time for Doctor Who to regenerate as a woman. Some think that that would rob the character of its integrity. You can easily call that mentality sexist. But, I suppose they have a point.

Myself? I could support a woman Doctor but I was always felt they were stuck story-wise and scientifically, because while the Doctor can regenerate every cell in his body at death, which accounts for his changing appearance over the years, what he cannot do it spontaneously GENERATE an added chromosome. There has been mention of the series that one Time Lord did regenerate as a woman, but further examination shows that that person was trans to begin with. What do you think?

Me? Although I am a fair-weather fan, only watching Series One with Eccleston, I really would love to play the Doctor for a season. I really would…. 

That will do it for this month.

I have been plenty busy this past month. I had a summer job, teaching campers to make videos. I am also readying to get back to work in CPS with my Media Mentor job with Adobe Youth Voices. Plus, I am also preparing to go back to teach “Native Americans in Media” at the University of Wisconsin Parkside. I never thought I would end up teaching. I really did not.

I am also running the film festival, and shooting more on my HAMLET movie. Plus, getting back to writing and drawing on NAMELESS and Mikey Redshade and my Blue Woman stories and my first novel “A Rez Tale.” Whew!

Remember, feel free to comment, correct, or contradict anything you read here. Please do. That is how conversations and dialogues begin. Do not let me have the last word in anything. Challenge my ideologies, pick apart my arguments, or correct my information. That is how it is supposed to go. Unless you think I am awesome and great, then I’ll take your silence for acquiescence. Agreed? Good.

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

2014 Ernest M. Whiteman III