at the bread and puppet farm in glover vermont we filmed the death of ivan ilych (the fourth and last part) created by a puppet master called claire. the play began with ivan's piercing scream, which resonated with a sense of beautiful loneliness in this landscape of sloping hills and fields. actually it started with a procession led by a fiddler and a accordion player, both wearing death masks. it had been raining and the colors seemed to shine from within. it was evening already. the audience looked serious and sad when ivan died. i too felt like crying . tolstoy had described how in ivan's mind death all of a sudden seized to exist. it was a description of how things disappear when one surrenders to them, or how becoming death or dead is a way of not having to deal with it. (it reminded me of Mikita the film scholar who talked about the death of stars. when the self dies meaning of life dies also. this individualistic society considers the self to be the creator of meaning). after ivan dies the relatives and friends come out and start dancing, with a bottle of vodka and some crackers they distribute to the audience. the death fiddler and the death harmonica player are joined by a trumpet player. later, in the big barn we run into claire ,the death harmonica player, and two others. the harmonica player is reddish in the face and overly expansive, drunk. we shouldn't have drunk all that vodka says claire. they all want to see the video bus. a young man joins us. claire happily asks him how the wedding to his sister went. i overhear how he tells her that he got kicked out, put in a taxi and send home, because he was too drunk. " i was bad," he cheerfully says. claire wonders if she is too drunk , then she suddenly decides to show us the chicken in their pen. we should be video taping this, says carl. most of the chicken are already asleep. it is one of many moments we feel we should document. that magic of the present, that "living documentary."
yesterday night franny, carl and i visit pam and her husband and one of her kids, duncan (xenia was out). pam tells us how her father is going to move into an assisted living situation and how they decided to lease his land in connecticut to At&T who wants to put up a reception tower there. at first they said no, but when they heard how much they pay per month - $1750 - they said yes. pam and kirk give us a compass and i get a bunch of single earrings which pam collected for me. they have moved into a new house they just bought in jamaica plain - they seem happy: a happy family. they are doing the opposite of what we are doing, i think.
near manchester, new hampshire, where meryl's cousin katy, her husband tim and son jacob live. four cats. one, phaedrus (the red one) is most interested in the bus. he comes to sleep in the bed, looking determined not to leave. katy's brother rich greeted us when we arrived. two brothers, mat and mike diana , were also there. rich met mike because mike had been sued by some crazy judge in florida for drawing violent and anti-religious cartoons. he got three years on probation and was ordered to take a course in journalism. he was not allowed to draw for several years. rich had read about him and visited him in florida, and they became friends. mike has longish hair, lower part still bleached blond. he has a nice face, and talks about this incident in an understated way. his brother mat said that he just recently moved to new york. he said he is doing nothing right now but he recently "met a girl and she has a job" so he probably will stick around with her. rich is excited about the video bus and we film him spraying carl's termite head on his "mini-me" termite bus he recently brought. then he gives us a tour of the barn which his sister allowed him to built so that he can put all his belongings in so he can travel the globe and do lots of subversive and perverted things, as he says. he says that he is a big collector of things, and retells the story of two brothers who died in some house but where not discovered for a long time because they were all buried under all their things - a tale of warning from his mom or grand mom which he ignored. we tape him.
august 11 1999
yesterday mike, mat and rich told their life story in five minutes, which we taped. rich rushed through his story and was finished in four minutes. mat told his story in a slow and relaxed way, as though he had all the time in the world. mike's life story focused almost entirely on his prosecution/persecution incident. he is still on probation. rich said that he liked telling his life story, it made him feel good he said. then they leave, back to long island. the rest of us go for a walk to beaver pond, later swimming in a bigger lake.
this morning we video taped katy's life story. she was sitting outside on the porch, surrounded by her energetic jacop (about two years old) and the two dogs jezebel and mabel. katy says that her life really is made up of the people in it, until she was twenty it was all "me me me" then it changed.
Yesterday we went to niagara falls. there was a museum where the histories if people dropping down the horseshoe fall in barrels was displayed. the first one was anna taylor, in 1861. she was already in her 60's when she did this, in order to get money for two friends of hers as well as herself. even though she survived the ordeal she died poor and disillusioned. many other people tried doing what she did, some died brutally, limbs torn apart. i contemplate the desire to drop down the wonderful and enormous waterfall. the fine for dropping down right now is $10,000.- there was something depressing about that dusty museum. in the entrance are all sorts of stuffed animals - kodiak bears, monkeys, beavers - who seemed to be screaming for help. we stroll along the promenade connecting the american falls with the horseshoe falls. i feel a sense of wonder, thinking that people a hundred and even two hundred years ago were amazed by the same view. why is it so impossible to adequately take pictures of this though? all postcards of this look pathetic.
august 21, 1999, 1 40 am at Meg's house in buffalo
we met "sam" at the kfc close to the border to usa on our way back from toronto. he had seen mike with the flashlight examining the bus which again spilled the cooler liquid after stopping the engine. sam seemed to know a lot about car engines and he explained that all our problems come from a too lose fan belt - that loud screeching noise when you start and stop the bus. sam offers to help tighten the belt after work (deliveries for kfc). obviously he knows what he is doing. he looks for tools in his car. he crawls underneath our bus. we ask him if he would like to tell his life story. he says no, his life is not really much of anything - and then he proceeds to tell us all about his life. he had a very bad experience at the border one time. he was not let into the us because he was from sudan. he was mistreated and humiliated by one particular border officer. he was treated like a terrorist. sam did not want this deeply humiliating and horrible experience recorded. i felt a great warmth from him. he was young, married to a white canadian woman, he told us. once he had passed the border with his wife and she had hennad her hands. when the border guard saw her hand he asked "what has he done to you?" you guys have no idea how it is like to be black and have some kind of accent he said. once his cousin, who is an american, crossed the border with his sister. their "americaness" was questioned because they had accents, even though they had passports. once sam had worked as a security guard and even though it was not his job he had brought an american woman with asthma from canada to america to get treated in a hospital (the canadian hospital would not treat her). why do they, at the border, not keep a record of incidents like that, he asks. of course his name is not really sam (it's only his canadianized version of himself). we wave as we leave with the bus. we urge him to send us e-mails and hope to stay in touch.
august 24 1999, buffalo, ny
thanks to carl's gentle insistence, we went to love canal yesterday. well, i was enforcing carl's desires, which, as his girlfriend, i consider to be my job. kelly and stephanie came along. we all grew fond of these two buffalo video makers who seemed to fit right into the living documentary mode of being. they are both curious, interested people who walk through life with open eyes and anarchic desire to deconstruct encrusted realities. the other night they had shown videos they had made. two were about a doll waved in front of the camera lens with spoken text, one was by kelly about a friend who had committed suicide in 1996 called anti-suicide note. it was a letter or note to that now dead friend read in two voices. this friend had shot herself in the mouth after not having eaten for six days. of course the reasons for her suicide were complicated and in many ways inexplicable. kelly kept saying that after that suicide she now has a feeling that death is closer to her.
anyway, we then went to love canal (mike stayed home in meg's house) with the bus. this love canal is basically an idyllic looking community with small houses or grass where once there had been houses. there is one fenced-in field which is the actual, now covered love canal. we meet a nice mail man who is taking his noon snooze in his postal car along this deserted street. he willingly tells us everything he knows. he is a young guy, when the love canal thing happened he was in high school. he said he used to visit the then recently deserted houses - when everyone decided to move out - which were then used as party houses by the teenage kids. he said once in 1980's a mailman had put on a gas-mask as a joke but then his picture appeared on the cover of time and that mailman got reprimanded. Later, as we walk through the grassy strips (with different kinds of grass for the areas where houses just recently had been torn down, as stephanie noted) i notice a guy who drives down the street grinning foolishly, clearly wanting to talk. he drives by again when we are walking back, and engages us in a conversation. his name is sam and he has lived there since 1954 and is one of the few people who never moved. clearly he only wants to talk about one thing: how the love canal scandal was pure fabrication - invented by lois gibbs (the main environmental activist who drew attention to the toxic waste in the ground) and the media. how lois got rich initiating protests against the dioxin dumping of hooker chemicals and other companies, that she killed more people than the chemical company ever has. "the chemical companies never killed a single person, right?" (he had this habit of saying right) well, lg has. she used to tell everyone that they needed to move out of the neighborhood. and this one woman really believed her. but her husband was a carpenter and he was not very rich and he could not afford to move. so one day he took out this double insurance policy, and he shot himself and left a note to his wife, saying that now she and the child can afford to move now." or: "lg used to hang signs around the kids' necks: i will not live to be 18 years old. and one time this kid was 17 and three quarters and and he threw a party and there were lots of drugs and he killed himself and left a note, i will note make it to 18 so why not kill myself now." me, carl, anula, kelly and stephanie are standing in front of sam's car listening to his stories, which he told in a mixture of wild laughter, exclamations like "right?" or "isn't that so?" or rhetorical questions like "what would you have done?" we are all listening with a mixture of curiosity, compassion and mistrust, answering his questions, asking questions of our own. there was something pathetic about his stories (cheap use of suicide!) but there was something very genuine about him too - he seems genuinely upset, bitter. why was it so important to convince us of his version of the story - ironically after complaining how the media have distorted everything ("bad news is good news, right?") clearly love canal was a defining incident in his life. he said that he had gotten laid off from a chemical factory and that's why he didn't move. for seven years he lived in the uncertainty that maybe it really was very poisonous to live there. in the meantime all his friends had moved away. whatever he was, he helped make love canal come alive to me as a complicated place, with no easy answers. it made knowledge of that mythical place somehow real.
the knowledge we gained in love canal - by listening to the mail man, by walking around and seeing the overgrown drive ways and the different colors of grass, by submitting to a chance encounter with sam - this knowledge seemed authentic, perhaps because it was experiential, multi-faceted. perhaps this is one of the points: the living documentary is multi-faceted — multi-layered, because that's how we learn things. also, in the living documentary there are no easy answers, it is ambiguous - like life.
days and nights of driving in the bus. a gas station with small television monitors for your convenience to watch. gas station with loud 50's and 60's disco music at 4 in the morning. gas station with friendly sales person - a woman in her 50's may be - who regrets to inform us that this gas station has no toilet. a gas station with an unfriendly old man behind bullet proof glas. some rest areas are called service areas. one service area - somewhere in indiana, i think - was brand new. there were showers for the truckers and a lounge with tv and even laundry. the bus is parked next to the big trucks who all leave there motor running to keep the meat or the cheese or the air conditioning or whatever running. next to the trucks our bus looks small and vulnerable. the bus, with its old-fashioned snout and lovely engine which even i have grown to like for staring at it so much, trying to identify the different parts. the bus with its rust and blue windows. the trucks are never rusty and many seem brand new. that trucker live - how is it like? i see a trucker, early in the morning, smoking, drinking coffee, staring into space in some generic food place along the way. what are you thinking, trucker, you? some truckers take their girls along, anula observed. we met those truckers on the way to buffalo, shortly before our bus broke entirely down. first we met "her" - waving at us from her high-above window. even though she is not interested to tell her live story (who would - to total strangers in a rest area along the road...) she chats with us amicably, and when "he" comes they give us a tour of the truck. she accompanies him on the road, she isn't working right now she says. at night the trucks usually dominate the interstate. they fly by our bus like space ships, like visitors from another planet.
august 28, 1999, madison, wi
yesterday we had a screening in 4070 vilas hall which mike had arranged. 20 people showed up, including mike's former film teacher jj murphy, former termite tv-madison members (a student film and video show where this whole termite thing began), and a group of film theory graduate students. we screen nature versus culture, then native alien. watching nature versus culture i am struck with the spontaneity and looseness - as opposed to the more curated look of the second season. after the screening anula and i talk about this. i can see an arch - a clear development of termite tv. the guerilla video look of the first season, then the more processed look of the second season and the increasing need to be curators, until we are almost nothing but curators and facilitators for other people which happened in the last shows. the living documentary seems to be a good chance to find a kind of middle ground - a return to the adventurous first season, with a dash of the thoughtfulness and coherence which some of the second season shows occasionally have. later we go out to a typically german beergarden on the lake with annoyingly cheerful irish music, and then into a couple of other bars - a gay bar where all sorts of people dance to mindboggingly loud music and we also dance. in the beergarden we meet some interesting phd students - jim, lisa, ray (who all know david bordwell) - .i'm thinking that we are like idle travellers, like the superfluous impoversished aristocrat of the 19th century, drifting through time and space, in search of a new world order because the old one is gone.
at bethel Pentecostal church on lake drive in grand rapids a mechanically bleeding jesus recently got installed. the sculptor had never learned this professionally but was obsessed with the idea and waited until god gave him instruction, it said in the local paper. we are not allowed to videotape this jesus (it is about to be patented), but we visit anyway. it is a lifesize figure, all white, with red blood and connected to motion sensors so that every time one steps close some water/blood squirts out. the church is a community center with flashy, proudly displayed art work and many services such as food for homeless people, senior citizen center, child care. no christian should walk with their head bowed down, says the man who shows us around. he is impressed with our endeavor to tour across america ("reminds me of the 60's"), asks us where we are from. a young associate pastor called rose tells her life story.
9/1/1999, madison, wi
today eric showed his feature-length film called milk punch. i was particularly touched by the cinematography and the "local flavor" of this place called madison. also by eric's excitement and involvement in his film and the way he paid attention to details.
today, on friday, we went with jenny and lisa and a couple of other minneapolis filmmakers to the highway 55 site where dakota and mendota native americans are occupying sacred land. the city wants to build a road through there to make the journey to the mall of america 3 minutes shorter than it is. native american elders are asserting that this is an ancient burial ground, city officials are saying no. (there is a law that states that nothing can be build on sacred native american land. another law states that if land has not been used for 40 years native americans can claim it back. both of these "laws" are currently being broken by the state government of minnesota.) once some experts came in and dug a 6 inch probe, as "evidence" that it is not a sacred ground. what do they expect to find, says terry, the dakota indian who shows us around. bones? skulls six inches deep? the sacred spring, which, as legend has it, has magic power and should not be tampered with, otherwise "great chaos" will come upon the dakota people (as well as generally disturb the ecological balance). however, in the construction of this road it is quite likely that the spring would be affected. terry kneels down for a prayer and gives an offering of tobacco to the water before he drinks it. he explains that the dakota believe that they should never take anything from "grandmother earth" without giving something back. he tells us that he used to be a welder - "i was chasing the american dream" - but when he discovered the site last fall he decided to give up his job and donate all his time to this cause. there are others on the camp - young nomadic punkish people, terry seems to be fond of them ("they get a lot out of this experience") and refers to as "kids." i liked terry's calm way. he laughs a lot, seeing the humor even in the worst betrayals.
later we talk with bear, an older dakota who describes the civil disobedience last december. it was the biggest and most brutal event of its kind in minnesota history. 800 police men from throughout the state were brought in. the campers had chained themselves to trees, but they had no weapons and were not violent. the police dipped the protesters' eyes with teargas which a california judge once had ruled as being "not excessive use of violence." bear was one of the people who got arrested. his 15 year old niece, he proudly says, is the youngest person living there and participating in the protests. september 25 will be a huge demonstration. we are all sitting in the shade of some old oak trees, it is cool and pleasant there on this otherwise very hot and uncomfortably muggy day. other oak trees - the oldest trees in the state, we are told - have already been torn down, and on the way back we see bulldozers shuffling the earth, already destroying the land. later jenny shows us the waterfall near by and we go out to eat. jenny and lisa are fabulous company, we make stupid jokes and generally have a great time.
in the evening: screening at intermedia arts - we showed the promiscuous virgin and then money which mike had just dumped out on time. it looks really good. the night before we had had a fight about it, but all that seems forgotten at the screening. it contains interviews from the day before - at the minnesota state fair, where anula and i magically met all these interesting people willing to share their views about money, including mini donut chefs with white cooking caps who gently critiqued the capitalist system. (it turned out they were not donut bakers but members of the democratic party raising money!) after the screening people talk. tom, the executive director of intermedia arts, tells me that he once was a member of a video collective in vermont and that he knows people from the video freaks. he recommends a book, subject to change, about video collectives, and recommends that we stop by in cody and devel's tower in wyoming. the most important people we met in minneapolis were lisa and jenny, two filmmakers who took us around. lisa had a wonderful self-deprecating sense of humor and had once been in the navy and now studies to become a filmmaker. jenny is only 23, but seemed more mature. jenny told us much about minneapolis and also took us to the museum of questionable medical devices.
9/7/1999, travelling in iowa
We drove by the Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend, Iowa. "A religious shrine built by a Catholic priest, the site consists of a network of paths, grottos, and caves covered in stones and shells. The original builder, Father Dobberstein, worked on the site for over 4o years, before his death in 1954...one of the most elaborate examples of devotional shrines." (Center for Land Use Interpretation). The shrine is in the midst of remarkably flat land, surrounded by cornfields and farms with cows who stand in muddy squares of former pasture. the weather is excentric - rain, thunder, lightening, dark clouds. mike is looking out for tornadoes. hidden in various grottos of the shrine are loudspeakers, playing muzak versions of ave maria and other catholic hits. there is also a stone devoted to "all the unborn children" of the area, donated by the knights of columbus. next to this celebration of religious kitsch (it reminded me of the baroque churches in bavaria) is a small pond with various "rare" pheasants, ducks, geese, and a kind of shy deer, which avoided eye contact and relentlessly follows one of the pheasants, who seems to be annoyed by this. the most soalful animal clearly was a white goose. it sat near the fence, connecting with passers by via neck movement, quacks, eye contact. how much he or she connects became apparent when an older man walked by. the goose greeted him excitedly, and followed him along the fence. the two clearly knew each other. the goose had a yellow rim around the eyes, and i shot a close-up of the eye.
This part of iowa is flat, before, in the north east in and around decorah there were lush hills, many different kinds of trees (maple, oak) and interesting "algae" stone formations peeking out from underneath the forest.
9/8/99 in the morning
swimming in west or east okoboji lake in the morning is like a vision or version of paradise. the lake is warm, nobody else is swimming, and i had just read that article about lynne cox in the new yorker, that amazing long distance swimmer who swam across the bering straights, the spree when she was still littered with mines, and many more politically relevant places. a swimmer for peace. a political swimmer. anyway, i thought about her as a swam in okoboji lake, and i was thinking that she is, in a very traditional, romantic sense a real hero.
sept 11, 99, morning
south dakota, campground near hot springs
the difficulty of leaving south dakota. first (wednesday, sept 8) there was was sioux falls, where anula met a south dakotian couple seeling fruits and vegetables in this urban sprawl, who agreed to tell their life story in five minutes. then there was that very good auto store where we finally found wind shield wipers who fit, except they were too long and had to be filed off. and then there was that wall mart-ish store (but it wasn't a wall mart, thank good) where we absolutely needed to buy more survival supplies such as a tea kettle, a sponge, a towel, a cutting board...later, a truck full of squealing pigs off 90 in alexandria, south dakota, which i tape. the sound is desperate, i see an ear and some hair and then an open wound from being cooped up so closely together and then there is one eye of one knowing pig. that eye i hope i wont forget. i swear to myself that i want to be a vegetarian from now on. a guy comes up to us and talks about how he also transported pigs to la, driving 30 hours straight through. he said it was difficult working with these hogs because they would not want to leave the truck and would have to be killed right then and there. then he talks about the extremely low crime rate in south dakota. he said he leaves his door unlocked all the time. murder and manslaughter in south dakota, carl offers, has gone down. 1998 only eight manslaughters or murders were reported.
that night we camp out next to a lake with damm, lake francis case, next to a small camping store where a woman smokes cigarettes which smell so good and carl and i buy some food supplies and a bottle of whisky. at night it is cold. we inaugurate the gas burner and lantern.
(note: in the morning we go for a walk along the lake where there are small trailer type houses and a man is driving from house to house with his little corgy-ish dog, picking up the trash. the dog has light blue eyes.)
thursday, 9/9/99
the difficulty of leaving south dakota. in the morning we go to the akta lakota museum in chamberlain, sd, which is situated within the st. joseph's indian tradition school, a catholic foster home/school for native american kids. it is, i find, a disturbing combination of cultures. the blessed kateri tekakwitha, 1656-1680, survived small pox as a child, ran away from her mohawk village to go to quebec and join a catholic convent. in 1679 she was given her own convent - one year before she died. she was beatified and prominently displayed in the museum. it seemed ridiculous. what have the catholics done for the mohawks? there were also many pictures which depicted a completely romanticized, nostalgic version of past native american life (horses in sunset, happy rituals) - painted by native american artists. am i too harsh in judging this? i guess i missed another angle. the bookstore was good, however, and we bought several books about wounded knee and the pine ridge indian reservation. it suddenly hit me that the first wounded knee happened only in 1890 - not too long ago, if you consider that french people celebrate the french revolution every year, and in philadelphia william penn and benjamin franklin are both so present still, even though they lived much earlier. and then — much more recent - there was wounded knee 2, in 1973, where conservative native americans clashed with reformists, who wanted to re-introduce self-government, after finally having obtained that freedom from the bureau of indian affairs (bia). as part of the civil rights movement a large community protest meeting took place and the community of wounded knee was occupied by various reform group members. the conservative side was backed by the us government which send us marshals and fbi agents to help the bia and the tribal government to protect themselves.
we just make it to the 1880's village when the bus doesn't start again, and the aaa man (who wears cowboy boots and has a weathered sun burned face) starts the bus and we have to drive back east 20 miles to get a new starter. by the time we finally get going again it is already late afternoon, and it is dark by the time we arrive in the badlands. the big white rock formations hover like friendly giants next to the road as we pass them, looking for the camp site. it seemed as if these rocks come alive at night, as if they really relate to each other somehow.
the campsite is crowded - all these senior travelers and other national park addicts roam around, greeting each other amicably late in the night before going to sleep.
thursday, sept. 10, 99
i wake up very early. there is a small bunny rabbit sitting right next to the tent, not particularly afraid at all. when i go for a walk the rocks are still in a pinkish glow. i pass an aspen-like tree in which a bird sings beautifully in tandem with another bird somewhere else. there are also magpies, somewhat chubby crow-like birds who obviously benefit from the water and food left by the campers.
later we meet don, the ranger from pittsburgh who only in may got transferred to the badlands. we chat so amicably with him (he complements us on our bus) that we dare ask him to tell his life story. in front of the camera he becomes very shy. i really like him, he seems to be a sweet, warm man. he used to be in the navy and army, taking care of some missile sites in montana, then worked in a hospital in pittsburgh to take care of his sick parents, and then needed a new beginning and applied for this job as park ranger.
in the bandlands anula takes charge and we visit various "must-see" points. at one we interview tourists - "where are you from? why did you come here? where are you planning to celebrate the year 2000?" and also, "describe your home." we interview a polish couple on their honeymoon, a pair of old girl friends, a mother and her son. almost everyone thinks we are college students, making some kind of student project.
then we climb up a steep trail called saddle path, which, after we found the path to the top, offered the most amazing, spectacular view - very steep on one side, burned-out moonscape on the other. exhilarating to stand on top of this rock, looking down. people at the bottom could perfectly understand what we said, even though the distance seemed considerable. small birds fly out of holes in the rocks. it is scary and slippery - also coming down. a sense of accomplishment and exhaustion when we arrive at the bus.
in the tiny village of scenic a bizarre encounter with one of the local men - one martin, who came up to us when he saw the bus. he seemed native-american, wearing mirrored glasses, his skin weathered and scared. he started to barter with us how much we would pay him for an interview. not knowing what to do i offer him five bucks, and he tells his "life story," a confused ramble about some people who died in a car. it feels like we are in another country, in another time. martin's friends are all sitting in front af a local bar with an ancient sign, "indians allowed." i am at first very excited about this strange scene, want to rush over and talk to all these guys, but then — after discussion - we decide not to interview martin’s friends. Martin was already quite drunk, and, as carl remarks, not "in control of his image." Also that paying people for life stories possibly could negatively alter the dynamic (it would only work if we could pay everyone), and that it would probably be a mistake to interview mark's buddies who all might expect 5 bucks.... so we leave.
it is already late when we arrive at wounded knee monument. it says "massacre at wounded knee." the word massacre seems to have been added later (anula speculates that it perhaps was changed from battle to massacre.) driving through pine ridge reservation again seems like driving through a different country - vast, empty prairie, occasional horses and people on foot or on bike who wave at us and smile. pine ridge itself is a small town with a taco place and a texaco gas and food station where half the town seems to congregate at night. the cafeteria there is filled with teenagers and kids playing around. carl and i order a cheese sandwich, suddenly realizing that we forgot to eat all day. anula and mike, on their regular friday fast, find some chocolate milk.
9/12/99
on big horn mountain, past sheridan, wyoming, at a scenic spot, 12:03 am
a visit to crazy horse, an immense work-in-progress initiated by the now dead polish-american sculptor korczak, continued by his wife ruth and his children. "a project so big that even the biggest idiot can understand that it will never be finished." a big monument to the native-american heritage. in an audio tape the sculptor says, " i wanted to give them a little bit of something to be proud of." carl points out that almost everything in this cluster of shops/museums/slide shows refers somehow to the sculptor and his rosy-cheeked family , not the native-americans, not even crazy horse (except for a plaque at the entrance) to whom this monument is dedicated. there is the living room of the artist, with the piano and the reading chair and the portrait of the artist and the portrait of the artist's wife with a portrait of the artist in the background - a room we must pass through in order to reach another building in which one finds the obligatory native american arts and crafts. all this left me feeling a bit disappointed. (i'd like to hear the opinion of a native-american person.) we walk around and judge - the violence of sightseeing -
later, in the beautiful black hills of south dakota we chance upon a german fest. i, being german, talk myself in, and soon we find ourselves chatting with two of the founders of this ten year old club. they are neal and rosey hodges, and they turn out to be the sweetest people. they sit with us, offer us sauerkraut, potato salad, wurst, sauerkraut cake, beer. the mood in that tent is gemuetlich. a few people are already dancing, including another founding member, in his eighties, neal tells me, and then there, that is so-and-so from austria, a war bride, also in her eighties, a cigarillo smoking tough lady working in the food area. neal and rosey are really exceptionally hospitable and friendly. rosey wants a list with all our names, ask questions, wants to know where we are going. when we say alaska, neal remarks that he has never been there, and i say that he should just come along and we laugh. they tell us they live in a trailer home (but its really big and really just like a regular home) and that they live right there, on this campground which they used to own. neal tells us of his club's history. at every meeting, within the first few moments, someone always puts in a motion to "let the club pay for the first round." for this yearly fest they have the beer imported from germany - already in january they put in the order - unlike that other, much bigger german club in rapid city, who only have american beer! the german club also donates money to various good causes, like buying a fence for a cemetery, but clearly that fest is the most important thing, and to see the happiness on rosey's and neal's face for having created this event. if we didn't already feel so behind in our schedule - on the 16th we are supposed to be in seattle, and we already spend so much time in south dakota - i would have liked to stay and eat and drink with these kind people, who seemed good people to sit around with and get a beer buzz and feel close with even though we come from different worlds.
september 14, 1999, in the beautiful lobby of the old faithful inn, yellowstone park.
in this nice inn we took a shower for the first time in four days or so, and after having slept 3 nights in the ice-cold bus under sometimes inadequate cover.
it all began two days ago when anula and i were video taping in cody, wy. there was a historical re-enactment spectacle of which we just caught the tail end. lots of tough-looking cowboys and fronteer ladys crowded the street, waiting for the awards announcement. the official buffalo bill was also there. anula and i inch our way towards the host, who introduces us (as "college professors) to some other cowboys, who suddenly are supposed to show us the famous irma hotel, where back then buffalo bill.... we know nothing about that history, can only sense how important it is to the people here. i stupidly don't even see that buffalo bill is standing right next to me and neglect to video tape him, then i stutter, how did you get picked to be buffalo bill? and the man just stares at me, as though he wanted to slap me. but then he is a good sport, and tells the buffalo bill story quite nicely, just for us, in that dark and movie-set like irma hotel. then anula and i decide to conduct on-the-street interviews, asking people whether they think it is a right to bear arms. everyone we asked says "yep, i think so," without a moment's reflection. bart kolacny also thinks every person should have the right to bear arms. we meet him strolling down the street, wearing a cowboy hat, with two kids on his hands. bart seems particularly friendly, enthusiastic about guns and at the same time eager to share. he'd love to take the two of us out shooting on the range, he offers, then we'd understand! - and he gives us his number. carl and mike, when told about this, are enthusiastic about this idea, and we actually do call him, and next thing we know, we can hardly believe it, we are in bart's little farmhouse, and there are his kids, ethen (8 years), and melissa (11? years) and colt (13), and bart's wife loydrena joins us too. it is getting dark quickly but bart feels strongly about the idea of teaching us how to shoot, so we stand there, in that family's private shooting range, surrounded by the excited kids, and to the sounds of squealing pigs and calves, horses and cows, with a gun propped against our shoulders, pulling the trigger. bart and loydrena invite us into their house, and we end up talking with them and filming them until 11 or 12 at night, and we are invited to come back the next day, when loydrena wants to can some peaches and slaughter a rabbit, and so we end up spending about twelve hours with this intense family, with only a brief six-hour interruption, were we sleep in the ice-cold bus parked in powell, close to bart's house. we all feel something special is occurring - that encounter with these people, who are so different from us, who have completely different values than we do, and yet we sit there and talk, exchange ideas, actually think about our values (and how often does that happen?). bart and loydrena are great talkers, yes the whole family are famous talkers who want to show what they've done and what they think and do. bart is a real cowboy - that's what he does for a living, ranging on his parent's farm - and he is also an avid hunter who used to work as an outfitter guiding hunters (specializing in handicapped hunters). he and loydrena teach their kids how to shoot and use guns. little ethen seemed to have an inexhaustible source of guns and ammunition which he wanted to show us, and everytime he came his father or mother made sure that the gun was empty before he would show it to us. the kids also learn how to ride (melissa demonstrated her skill on the grandmother horse who trains everyone), how to hunt, how to be a cowboy. bart and loydrena believe strongly in teaching their kids well, but bart also believes that no-one in the world should have the right to take his gun away, and the way he talked and lived we all felt that it kind of made sense. bart actually feels that this issue could be the cause for a civil war, for he will fight for his gun until he drops dead. he talks about the animals he has killed as though they were his lovers - there is that big stak, there is that elk. he loves them particularly if they were hard to catch, he respects those animals who play the hunting game. there was an old sow, for example they once had, and she would drop some food at a special spot and then sit back and wait until a sparrow would come to eat the food and she would pounce on the sparrow. bart has very firm opinions on what constitutes a good hunter - "i distinguish between killer and hunter" and what constitutes a good citizen in general. politicians should be volunteers, he believes, because money corrupts. people who kill or rape a girl should be killed instantly - an eye for an eye. loydrena is softer, more interactive. when bart says that he thinks murderers should be used for "medical experiments," loydrena registers some hesitation on our faces and she wants to know why. whereas bart wants to convince, loydrena wants to find out. she hates the city, is not only allergic to the city's dirty air, but also believes it is too dangerous. she even thinks cody is too big. she kills her rabbits with practiced poise, she's also a good hunter. once she shot an elk-cow with a baby elk embryo in it, and at first she felt really sorry, but then she reasoned that she needs the meat for her kids who always come first. if someone would rape her daughter or even kill her she would kill that person, and she keeps asking mike what he would do if his wife anula were brutally raped and killed....
yellowstone - a big amusement park. that nice old tourist friendly geyser, errupting at leisure-friendly intervals of 80 minutes or so.
9/17/99 in a small motel room in montana with carl with rented avis car
on 9/15 we were in spokane, lincoln park when mike with his psychic connection to the bus noticed something weird about the breaks. we add break fluid and there is still something dripping, the bus leaving a small trail....we just make it to a repair shop...carl drives into the car in front of him as the bus lunges forward, squeezing the repair guy, who, however seems to be cool. another man is less cool: "someone could have gotten killed!" however, they agree to repair the breaks. anula and mike find a good deal in a ramada inn - it is bliss to go there, take a shower, get e-mail, watch tv, in this spokane, which has interesting 50's buildings and a 1930's movie theatre. (carl and i go out to an italian restaurant and walk around town.) the next day the bus is still not repaired. we decide to rent a car, carl and i go to the screening in seattle and mike and anula stay in spokane with the bus until it is repaired.
in seattle, 911 media arts, about 20 people attend, a great audience who "get" termite tv, ask good questions, then take us out to dinner. one allen who has a company for showing independent media over the internet. he says he once took a journalism class and was so upset about the fcc's beginnings (designed to keep socialist and communist voices out of radio) and he now sees the internet as a way to change this media monopoly. there is also a laura, and reed (?), david, and peter mitchell who had invited us to come to 911.
the next day we drive to dry falls, where we meet a group of thunderbird drivers, all elderly gentlemen with their wives and cars that are squeaky clean, even the engine shining. they cheerfully agree to be interviewed.
we drive to the grand coulee dam in wa, one of the biggest masses of concrete in the world. we drive through the near-by colville indian reservation and then take a free ferry across the franklin d. roosevelt lake/columbia river. the landscape is spectacular - barren maintains, a wide river/lake, hardly any people. it feels like another country. at the ferry two other people are waiting, one turns out to be a half native-american, half canadian social worker who in her work tries to bring the white and native american kids together. on the ride over she tells of the problems on the reservation (alcoholism), about her three kids - the youngest one is 16, the oldest 30 - "a bull rider" and how all her kids had to ride this ferry every day to go to school, and how a japanses kid visits her every summer and how he never gets scared except once when they played a game involving ghosts in the woods - i would have loved to talk much longer to her but the ride is already over and she hops into her pick-up and is gone - off to the local highschool football game to which everyone is going.
in car on way to ledger, on way to anti-ballistic missile site. on the radio: "work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt, and dance like nobody's watching."
9/19/99, in grand rapids, in the triple crown motor inn, morning
we went to the ruin of a former anti-missile site, a big square of concrete with columns and lots of graffiti about dicks and fucking inside - out in the middle of nowhere, off route 15, off ledger on route 366 - truly surrounded by nothing except flat fields, distant mountains, a distant, distant farm. there was a silence, that is the absence of man-made noise. lots of swallows had build themselves nests at the corners on the roof. suddenly a whole swarm of them would fly out of that space, making an amazing flapping-echoing sound. crickets and grasshoppers, rather big, jumping. pigeons. carl video tapes, then we make a ritualistic coffee. one graffiti read: a 10 million dollar fuck-up.
9/20/99 — missoula, mo
we went to the testicle festival at the rock creek lodge near missoula, a famous yearly affair organized by committed rockers who believe in this form of expression of freedom. We shyly walk around with our big camera amongst people who all already had something to drink, who are jolly and in party mode. we see lots of guys crowded in a dark room, and a woman nervously explains that every woman who goes in there has to take of a piece of her clothing, show her breasts. Then a guy waves at us — the most striking guy at the place. He is wearing a soft cloth testicle sculpture on his head, and his considerable hairy behind is completely exposed. As one of the organizers he is more than willing to give us an interview. "it’s the last great party," he says, that free libertarian montana, he implies, is one of the last places where you can do such a thing. The mc who also talks to us. On the dance floor we see all kinds of people dancing. Old women, biker women, mountain men. Everyone is comfortable with their body. A fat woman with long hair and sexy clothes calls out to us. The mc reminds everyone that the biker-testicle game is about to begin. A biker has a woman in the backseat who while the biker is driving by has to catch a fried testicle which is dangling from a fishing rod, she can’t use her hands, only her mouth. One bike falls down and the biker woman is lying on the ground and there are a couple of moments of hushed silence, but then two guys carry her off to applause like a queen. A young guy comes up to me and says that "many people" would like to see me on one of those bikes also. I vaguely say that I’ll have to think about it, later he comes again, tells me how disappointed he is that I didn’t ride that bike, and that would have been so appropriate, that the camera lady rides the bike, and why don’t I ride the bull at least. I suspect it’s the bull inside where you have to take off your top. In a way he is right, I should participate in what I film, but carl and I leave silently, almost sneak away.
we have been here since last tuesday, flew in from seattle. We are staying in a university dorm, two double bed rooms with shower, and a kitchen which no-one seems to use except us except to put down dirty dishes and store food which then rots. Our host and contact is ellen frankenstein, a wonderful and energetic filmmaker who does lots of stuff here with young people who don’t really have a place to go. We are collaborating with three highschools — sitka high, pacific high and mt. Edgecumbe. Intense young people share their opinion with us about age and ageism, the theme of the show we are working on. Today we were interviewed by steve, in sitka’s famous community radio station called raven radio. Steve is an experienced interviewer, talking is easy, in that warm room, the rainy wind outside. The radio station is in a white little house, the walls are covered with a record library. Steve introduces us to alice who, like many community members, has her own show. alice, who is probably in her seventies, is playing reggae music right now. Then she plays polka music. Carl and I are instantly smitten with her. There was something about her — something about how she creates her own reality, her own cheerful reality, which is always great to see, but especially in "older" women who too often live in the past, or define themselves as wives or widows. We follow Alice into a senior citizen center where she plays accordion, and she tells us that she is originally from missoula, montana but thirty years ago she moved here and lived with her mother on an island until the mother died and now alice still lives on the island and rows to the mainland no matter how the weather is like. We eat lunch there — overcooked salmon and overcooked beets. a woman called betty approaches us and talks about her naughty mother who does not seem to want to leave. the mother plays the piano with alice, or dances and fools around. Betty tells us that mother used to drink and make a living playing piano in clubs. Both mother and daughter have black-dyed hair, but the mother is more girlish. The mother intermittently joins us and informs us that she now is "a good old lady," - in mock fashion — a phrase she repeats several times, specially directed, it seems, at her daughter. betty tells us a bit of her story: she used to fight in school because she had problems in both the white as well as the indian school, married a man from ireland with the last name of hollywood, who died several year ago. She has many kids, but sitka gets too small for her sometimes, and one time she went to ireland, and her husband gave her permission because she stayed with relatives, the hollywood family. In her life she had different jobs, one at a concession stand where there were lots of "good-looking fellows" — betty breaks out into wild laughter. Her kids are also very good-looking, and I can tell that betty indeed used to be beautiful, but now she has aged before her years, perhaps because her husband died, or perhaps because she was stuck looking after her mother. There was a difference between day and night between betty and alice, who, after having played accordion for the lunch crowd saunters over to our table as well. Carl remarks that he would like to learn how to play, alice shoots back, "why don’t you?" And she gives him a little lesson. We want to videotape alice, but she is a little hesitant. She’s already a local celebrity — 60 minutes did a portrait of her as part of a program about the radio stations, which is uniquely popular and community-supported.
In the afternoon we meet some students from mt. Edgecumbe, bording student who mostly come from remote villages. they are shy but eager when we present our idea of making a show about age. We also meet ellen’s group, a loosely knit group of teenagers who organize dances and would like to organize a place of their own. I’m impressed with ellen’s ability to just sit back and let the young people sort it all out by themselves. Even though they might get less done that way, they do apparently feel like this is a place where they belong and can act like they want — unlike the teen center, which has the reputation of always wanting to reform them, increase awareness about drugs and alcohol, and never do anything fun.
At night carl and i met ellen in one of the local bars. The band consists of the local fed ex guy and a local haircutter, an energetic woman named lisa who makes jokes about being jewish and for some reason decides to totally promote our termite life story shoot the next day in the library. At least five times she urges everyone to come, and during break she comes up to us and invites us to a hot tub brunch. She says sitka is full of incredible stories, wait until we hear them. she’s full of energy and talks non-stop, punctuating what she says with loud, unashamed laughter. Everyone in that bar dances — whether single, old, man or woman — people’s eyes gleam with pleasure. Ellen says that with not too much entertainment around these kinds of dances are an important source of entertainment.
September 26, 99 - Sitka, University Housing
Yesterday was the big day in the public library. from 1 — 5pm citizens of Sitka were invited to come and tell their life story in five minutes. Mike also puts up his "video dog" installation, recording people who respond to the questions "How old are you? How old would you like to be?" at first it seemed like no-one was going to come. I run around the library, trying to get people, but two people who said they wanted to tell their story turn around right in front of the door to the room where we record. Then, suddenly around three, it picks up and we are constantly recording and talking. A young man called Keith Gibson comes with a little glass tree in his hand and accompanied by his wife. He wants to spread the word about his art work, which he does not for profit and based according to what "the big one upstairs" tells him to do. It turns out that he is the designer of the big dinosaur head which is dangling from the ceiling there, as well as an iguana. All these very beautiful sculptures are made out of broken glass and other "trash" - a technique he developed himself. Many other people come (about 10), and each one has something great to tell: how they came to Alaska, why they like it in Sitka, why they don't like it, what they plan to do in the future. I admired all these people's courage to just talk about what's important to them, make themselves vulnerable to complete strangers.
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In Alaska there were strong women, women who defined their own life rather than waiting for others to do it for them - women like Mary, the teacher/technical genius/pilot/quilter/survivalist. Or Alice the radio show hostess/believer in Bahá´i/bicyclist/student of spanish and photoshop: Frontier mentality at its best. The image I have in mind is a woman with long hair with a dog in the back of her pick-up truck. In Alaska there were whales and seals and salmon. It was salmon season and the river were full with fish, ready to die. The air smelled of fish and the seagulls went crazy. At the totem pole park the raven gathered and made wonderful noises and seemed to delight in each other's company. In Alaska there was Spencer the diver who was unable to contain his wild life into the preset five minutes (when time was up he was still seventeen, hopping trains and studying hoboes). He is a sailor and his sailboat, the "Tenderly" (?) is still waiting in Tonga to complete a boat trip around the world.
October 7 - Dashpoint Park, near Seattle
Yesterday there was a discussion about credits. The concept of coordinating producer is problematic on this trip, since our contributions to shows cannot be clearly delineated. Anula pointed out that everyone contributes, for example she arranged the whole trip to Alaska. At the final screening in the Sitka Library Alice had approached her and asked: "What do you do here? Do you do any work or does Carl and Dorothea do everything?"
Inside the bus, it is raining, spend the whole day in this somewhat creepy campground, finished "Life Stories from Sitka, Alaska," now I want to lie in the tent and read A People's History of the United States, hear the rain fall on the tent and be to myself. A walk at night to the ocean. The campground is located between Seattle and Tacoma, close to a beautiful bay with lots of birds and a long beach at low tide where dogs like to run.
October 8 - Dashpoint, morning
It is still dark, has been raining all day and night. I took a shower in the dirty bathroom and now feel a sense of accomplishment. This campground appears to be used mostly by people who live here permanently, because they need a place to stay. Hence a lack of the polite comforts reserved to tourists. Everyone else is still asleep. We put the "circus tent" over our small tent, for extra protection from the rain. It looks surreal, especially with the lamp lit inside - like a king's bed, or a huge larvae or womb.
October 9
We passed the Trojan Nuclear Powerplant past Ranier, Oregon after Carl and Mike spend almost the whole day changing oil of the bus. Trojan (which supposedly inspired Mat Groening to write the Simpsons) towered in the evening sun. We do some ritualistic shooting which involves dancing around and carrying the documentary circus tent, prancing in front of the lens, and lighting a match with Trojan in view.
October 18 - notes about San Francisco:
We spend a week in San Francisco with Meryl's sister Debra and her friends who share a house in El Presidio, a former military neighborhood only available to people who also work there -internet people in their twenties or thirties, people who probably make lots of money and wear Banana Republic, enjoying the comforts of a company life. It felt a bit like an utopian society. Debra and her fiance Camron both work at Alexa, a company that archives every single web page ever made. Camron told us about The Long Now, an initiative to construct a clock which ticks once a year for 10,000 years - a statement about long term responsibility. Debra told us about internet parties with valet parking and how people date each other in the neighborhood, how everyone knows each other. We had our editing equipment in the living room and for much of the time rather unsociably worked on a sample tape for a grant. Our hosts were extremely friendly. One night we went out together to see The Fight Club - it was opening night and there were long lines in front of the movie theatre, which was amazingly big and beautiful. The mood in the movie theatre was one of excited anticipation - a social event, new to me since I never go to first nights of films. That night I also met Debra's roommate Rachel, a lawyer who told horror stories about insurance companies for which she once had worked, when she still lived in Toronto. Once this insurance company tried to cheat a young widow out of her life insurance because it could not be proven a hundred percent that the fire her husband and two young children died in was an accident. The woman, too grief stricken and desperate for money, agreed to settle for half the amount. That night we stay up late, sitting in the front of the house, drinking wine and smoking until three.
The next day Carl and I got up early to tape Lu Anne's Tai Chi class, then we visited the school for Chinese medicine in Oakland where she studies. We met the wonderful Joshua and future wife Chris. Joshua examines Carl (on tape), with care (unlike most Western doctors I've visited), looks at Carl's tongue, says he has some "heat" and gives him a massage and acupuncture. We eat Taiwanese food, in the hot sun of Oakland. Lu Anne is wonderfully energetic, later she tells her life story in a rose garden in Berkeley.
October 18, 1999 - Los Angeles, at Jim's and Meryl's house
Last night, at a rest stop off interstate #5, young prisoners in chains were led to the toilet, in pairs of two, accompanied by a guard with a gun. The next morning, at another stop about a hundred miles before LA, we met "Mexico" Mike ™. Both of our vehicles had overheated; so we put up the "documentary circus tent" and hung up signs: "free t-shirt for your life story." Mexico Mike told us how he fell in love with Mexico at a young age, and how he made a living as a writer out of this love. He gave us two of his books, about hot tubs and driving in Mexico, and when we parted he said: you have a friend in LA. A practiced traveler, self-made man.
Yes, it is true, we reached LA - with many glitches and non-starts and almost-starts and starts on hillsides with people pushing. I guess it is the starter now. Mike bought a new starter cable (the plastic of the old one was severely damaged, wire exposed) but there is still that problem and now that we reached LA we need to decide what to do with this lovely, huge and aging machine. It feels good to be at Jim's and Meryl's, sort of like coming home.
October 20 - Jim's and Meryl's
Today we interviewed Chuck, the ladybug man who is sitting in front of Astro dinner selling ladybugs and other bugs in plastic eggs for non-poisonous insect removal. He is a Vietnam vet and states that Agent Orange has something to do with his commitment to lady bugs.
Just got back from Paradise Cove in Malibu where we swam. An elderly couple swam too, way out, and twice, when it was almost dark already. I heard them say that they do this every day. Carl and I went for a little walk to the neighboring beach, where there still was sun. Two dolphins were showing their fins. Suddenly three old dogs are chasing down the hill, straight into the water, barking excitedly. They are part of a two-person four-dog team. The dogs chase after tennis balls thrown into the water. The waves are big, it looks like the dogs are drowning but they always come out again.
Stood stupidly along highways today, wearing a yellow prom dress I bought yesterday meant to illustrate my "inner rage" for the Violent show. However, the footage looks silly and undramatic - no trace of rage anywhere.
October 25 - Silver Lake Mellow days here in LA, hanging out in Jim's and Meryl's and Simon's flat, or at Lou's, where the editing system is set up, Anula is editing the "Violent" show. Went to the Museum of Jurassic Technology and the Center For Land Use Interpretation one day, otherwise just hang around here, go to yard sales with Jim and Meryl, go to the garage to "see the bus." Tony, the mechanic, has finally understood that the front plate of the bus needs to be welded; now the issue is to find a welder who has machines to lift a bus that size, (and we want to leave on Thursday.) Once we went to Glendale, where, in a generic shopping mall we saw a generically bad band called "Sonic Wind" - two guys playing guitar to pre-recorded percussion, one with sunglasses and a mechanic nod, the other with receding hairline and thin pony tail. The thought occurred that the shopping mall and the band and the chain stores such as Starbucks nearby all have something in common: the risk-free safety of predictability, masking for "comfort." Areas which mask for community but are really the opposite: an anti-community, anywhere, USA.
After having paid a bus repair bill of over $1,200 we left Los Angeles. We stopped over in San Diego, staying with Mike's aunt Paula, who is unbelievably hospitable and friendly, welcoming us with a refrigerator full of Trader's Joe food. We visit Manny Faber, that famous art critic (author of "Negative Spaces") and painter whose essay "Termite Art verus White Elephant Art" was the inspiration for the Termite name. He is an 82-year old man, very attractive and in great shape, who greets us with reserved and polite curiosity. No videotaping, please. Mike thanks him "for the concept." We sit around with moments of awkward silence. Suddenly Manny wants to know Anula's age. She cleverly makes him guess. Then he tells us how he, when he used to work as a carpenter, was surrounded with termites all the time. White elephants were lawn decorations - he did not want to pick a black jock because of the racial implications. We look at his paintings which decorate the walls. They are paintings of flowers and objects from shifting perspectives floating in a colorful, weightless space. Manny Farber explains that he always paints on a table, he is "too lazy" to lift up the brush to the wall. Later he looks at the bus, and he reads the manifesto ("some of it is true") and gives us great catalogues as a parting gift.
At the border to Mexico a long fence extends into the ocean, as though to prevent even the fish from mingling with each other. In 1821 Mexico had won independence from Spain. At that time Mexico was very large, including Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California and parts of Colorado. In 1846 the United States declared war against Mexico. It was a stupid, unjust, greedy war.
November 3, 1999 - Hotel Congress, Tucson, Arizona
Yesterday we recorded life stories from 2-6 here in Tucson. We set up the "documentary circus tent" in the Armory Park, bring a plate of cookies, and wait. A man with a shopping bag arrives, spontaneously, without much reflexion, agreeing to tell his story, "this might shock you," he says. He is drunk, his name is Lawrence Parker, "Lancho" or "Poncho." His tale is heart-wrenching - he is a professional fighter, some people want to kill him, "but that's ok" because God loves him. "I've lived in many places, but Tucson is the worst place I have ever lived in my life!" and "I am so sick of fighting! I don't want to fight anymore." With tears in his eyes he recalls his grand-daughter, then gets angry again as he remembers that he might have to break someone's leg because someone else broke someone girlfriend's leg... After this story he shows us how to put a pigeon to sleep: with crumbs he attracts them, grabs one and tugs it's head under the wing, swaying it back and forth, and then gently puts it on the ground. A few moments later the pigeon wakes up, in a daze. Carl tapes Lancho putting four or five or six pigeons to sleep. Each time Lancho says, proudly, "you've never seen this? You didn't know this could be done, did you?" Before he leaves he asks if we could help him out for a six-pack of beer, and Carl gives him five bucks. Soon another man arrives, his name is Armondo, a native of Tucson, he says, and he tells us how he lost his job as a metal worker, and how he can't get any assistance. At the end of the story he asks if there is any money in this. A man comes who doesn't want to tell his story on tape, "I might be incriminated, I'm on parole," but he wants to tell it anyway. He is strangely fixated on me: "Come closer, I'll tell you my story," he says several times, and I come closer and he tells me how he was abused by his father, how his sister was sexually abused by the father, how his mother gave him away when he was seven, how since then he has never been out of institutions (now he is 31). When he was 17 someone showed him how to make money selling drugs. He showed me a stabbing wound on his stomach and a wound on his neck, "you are not from the ghetto, you have no clue what it's like." At the end he asked us if we want to get high. Lancho comes back a couple of times, each time he seems to get more intense, more out of control. "Let me give you a hug!" he says. Then he shows his bracelet to Carl. "You know what that's for? For fighting." He said he is a professional boxer but now homeless, "living in that corner over there" in the park. When Carl and I decide to leave, Lancho comes one last time, offering to carry the circus tent back to the public access station. There are more hugs and good byes. When he sees Anula in the bus he turns to Carl, commenting on how gorgeous she is; "Is she your wife?" Carl speculates that his ex-girlfriend looked like her.
November 4, Arizona
At the Titan Missile museum lots of retired army and navy generals recite their knowledge in a fast incomprehensible rap. Then, at the missionary packs of stray dogs sleep under trees. A group of four dogs, noticing our gaze, decide follow us around as we explore the area. I saw the cat and mouse relief at the portal which, if the cat ever catches the mouse, symbolizes, according to legend, the end of the world.
November 5 - Whiteriver, Ford Apache Reservation, at Bridget's and Tom's
We went to the local high school where we hooked up with Rich Sanchez, the photography teacher. We showed some video and then walked over to our bus where some students and Rick told their five-minute life stories. One boy talks about the three big fires that had ravaged the reservation in recent history. One girl talks about her Christian belief. Rick, passionate preserver of the Apache culture and life style, talks about the importance to protect the Apache land. "Someone wasn't looking when it was handed out to us." He describes the ability of so many Apaches he know to remember stories they have heard verbatim and retell them the same way every time. He also boasts about the basketball team, of which he is a coach. Sports are obviously a huge part in people's lives on the reservation. Strangely, Rick observes, many Apaches are also very patriotic - 170 young Apaches had volunteered to fight in the Gulf war. It is also a big gun culture. Rick describes life on the reservation - his own life as "blessed." He had a strict mother-in-law and married young, studied in Phoenix but didn't like it and decided to return. (Later we find out that he is Hispanic, but obviously totally identifies as an Apache). Then, four 14 year old girls show up and talk in shy voices about the art of skateboarding, the big passion in their life. Later, at the Bashas supermarket where the dogs roam in the trash and one can buy fried bread the bus doesn't start. A young Apache comes to help, sticks with us until its figured out: the flywheel doesn't turn (something is too tight between starter and flywheel). Fan must be turned to get flywheel into different position. At night we visit the local skateboarding ring, a buzzing center of activity where kids ranging from 9 to 17 skate and talk, joke around with each other. Disappointingly, none of the four girls we had met before actually skate - there is only one girl, in the midst of all the boys, proudly displaying her board and practicing her tricks.
November 6, 1999 - at Bridget's and Tom's, Whiteriver, Arizona
This morning I woke up to the loud noises people make who want to change the world - that loud exchange of opinion. When I get up I immediately get sucked into the conversation. David, teacher at the alternative school, is visiting for breakfast. He has lived on this Apache reservation for the past three years, and before that on the close-by Navajo res (as the locals call it) for nine years. Like Bridget and Tom he is a Bahai. We discuss life in and outside the res, - the consumerism in American society. David says, the biggest enemy of mankind is comfort - the constant chase for more outer comfort. As opposed to contentment, which comes from inside, a decision one makes. Then the conversation drifts into the alcoholism here - "this Native-American culture is a culture of alcoholism, with only some native-american mannerisms left on the surface," with all the markers of a co-dependent relationship, such as protecting the drunk, diminishing the effect of alcohol, etc. Bridget tells of children in her school who laugh cheerfully when they talk about some drunk person. Once, on the Navajo reservation, when he was still "young and stupid," David gave a Navajo 75 cents, and his friend said, "that was the stupidest thing you ever did." Later he saw the man drink a bottle of hairspray with that money. Surrounding stores have special sales on hairspray and kerosene on days the liquor store is closed. Tom confirms this - as a nurse he treats people like that in the hospital. But he also cautions that we shouldn't judge too much since we are all outsiders. David suddenly remarks that Clinton is also an alcoholic because he "always has a red nose." He retells a Plato story - people in a dark cave, and then the one person ventures out and sees the light. But when the person comes back she is blinded and stumbling and everyone thinks she is a fool, and don't recognize that she is the one who knows "the truth." This is how he, David feels living on the reservation. Now he can truly see decadent American society of which he used to be a part. He sees hope in teaching love. Once, while teaching, he farted in class, and he asked his students: "Do you Indians fart?" and they, slightly embarrassed, said yes. The importance to teach love - "like you, Bridget!" he exclaims enthusiastically. Bridget says it was not love that brought her here - "cheap housing, adventure," but love that makes her stay.
it is Saturday, and Bridget and Tom donÍt have to work, and we go on an outing to Blackriver. Their three kids, Levi (about four), River (6 months) and Tom's teenage daughter come along, as well as David, his wife Cathleen and two of their three kids. It is an hour-long drive along a curving dirt road. Then we are surrounded by a gorge with rocks and shrubs, in the river valley grow sycamore trees, some of which are really old, their roots, above earth twisting and turning, holding stones in their grip. Cathleen is as reserved and understated as David is eclectically outgoing. She is in charge of an afterschool initiative here on this reservation which is part of Clinton's 21st century initiative. She talks about her responsibilities with shoulder-shrugging ease, as though everything in life somehow is easy and an amusing accident. We all walk along the river bed, stumble on the rocks, walk through the river in sneakers. We see bear scab and perhaps elk scab and footprints of many different animals who come to take a drink at the oldest and widest sycamore tree around. Tom talks about his life - he has a degree in environmental design and another in some kind of therapy, but he always returned to nursing, something he finds truly meaningful. Once I walked ahead and there was a silence which felt like many hidden things.
November 9, 1999, Boulder Colorado
Arrival in Boulder on Tuesday, Nov. 9. Mike and Anula stay at Patricia's, Carl and I stay at Ben's.
On Wednesday we log footage all day while M & A go to a talk by Robert McChesny and an action by Wake Up to demonstrate a Disney recruiting effort. On Thursday we talk at at Rus Wiltse's class and show our work at the University. On Friday we record life stories at Pennylane Cafe and Lou, Sam's friend comes and tells us that she and her husband thought that the Life Stories from Sitka are boring. She herself has travelled in Alaska and met many more interesting people. I guess that the encyclopedia idea of America does not appeal to all. I myself do believe that everyone has an interesting story to tell. On Saturday we went for a long walk into the Rockies with Jon and Lee and Ben.
November 15, 1999, Norman, Oklahoma
We are staying in a Bungalo with bath and two bedrooms and a place to put our editing stuff. Outside it's still really warm while the leaves are brown and autumn is in the air. Mike, Carl and I presented in Heidi's class (Anula is quite sick with a fever). It is fun to talk to these quiet but receptive art students in a somewhat sloppy but well-equipped art building. Heidi welcomed us with some beer and medicine.
I remember the pharmacist in Norman, Oklahoma, who, beneath a Southern dialect and a religious exterior, really was a homeopathic doctor, giving me zinc and goldenseal at a time when I felt weak and frail. I remember the ugly motel in Paris, Texas which cost $50 but one still couldn't open the window, and the hotel clerk at night whose blond hair was short on top and long at the sides and who wore a tie with a blue pattern and whom I wanted to ask, "have you seen the movie?" but I didn't. I remember the loud bus, so impossibly loud now that it is impossible to speak, how perfect for our already so silent group. I remember Carl's surprise birthday party, arranged by Heidi and Cheryl, in their apartment in Norman, OK, with chocolate cake and balloons. Chad the photographer was there and Matt the interesting student who was hoping that oil prices would stay up because his father manufactures sucker rods and Matt wants to finish college paid for by his father and he also wants to make a video about Alfred Speer.
Nov 23 1999 - New Orleans
Just got back from Julie Gustafson's house where we collectively cooked Gumbo. Julie has a beautiful house, the garden filled with the smell of night jasmine. Julie's friend Stevenson Palfi was also there. Stevenson showed us a trailer of his documentary about songwriter Allen Toussaint. Julie told us about her Desire project. The name comes from the housing project, Desire, where Julie met three of the nine teenage girls who collaborate with her on this film about teenage girls, teen pregnancy, poverty, and the environment. It's a huge film which has gone through several incarnations - series, hoop dream doc based on only a couple of characters, and Julie used up her retirement savings for an editor from New York but now she is editing herself. She is very persistent - how she gained access to the housing project, to the teenagers, has invested years of her life into this without being sure of the outcome. Today was one of those long and incredible days where we recorded life stories at Zeitgeist, Rene Broussard's film place. In the morning Annette called from Germany, I can barely hear her distorted voice on the cell phone, telling me that Marlis is ill. Human frailty is a theme that runs through the whole day - the first man, Barry Hewitt, had lost his real voice through an artery operation to prevent strokes. The last woman, Ariane, had been a rape victim who persisted to bring the perpetrator to court, the woman before that, Laura, told of the brutal murder of her mother when she was nine. The whole day I have to think of Marlis, that great adventurous woman who lived in Afghanistan and in Canada and to whom I had written before I left on this trip because I wanted her blessing. Marlis, great story teller, I remember the time we spend at your farm! And last year in Germany, when we danced together. I think of you, I send you all the good energy I have. Please get well.
In between life story recordings I walked down Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. (named after a civil rights activist) in search of more people. Two guys look at me suspiciously, when they find out that there is no money in this one suspects I want to go back to "Britain and get rich." Later the same guy observes that I look so "rough, like a Russian." Rene Broussard tells his life story twice. He talks about being fat and loving fat men and boys. We went on a walk around the block with David, a young actor who also works for a neighborhood revitalization program. He told us how Oretha Caste Haley used to be called Dryad (?) and used to be the street where blacks went shopping when they were not welcomed on Canal.
Nov. 24 , New Orleans
Today we mostly edited in this apartment which was, before we came, almost totally empty, but now filled with our boxes and microwaves and mattresses and hard drives. In the morning, as I walk into NOVAC downstairs, there is a phone call waiting for me, from Julie, they need someone to hold a sun gun at a debutante's party. Amy and Carl and I drive around a bit in the city (Amy is an extremely welcoming hostess who constantly drives us to places - to the doctor or to the mechanic, as well as shows us around), end up at the river, which is a bit stormy, and then the art museum, where we spend most of our time in the children's section, painting our own computer generated portraits and paintings. Amy tells us a story from her life about being held up at gun point at age 19, she is a good story teller, and then she says, and now you say something about yours. They drop me off at the Sheraton Hotel to meet Rebecca and Julie for the deputant's shoot. Every table for this celebration has one bottle of Johnny Walker and one of Jack Daniels and a bottle of wine and still everyone who arrives brings a picnic load of booze with them. It is difficult keeping up with Julie who storms through the hall with determination, her hair messy, her focus total. It feels good to be around her and her friend Rebecca, two unconventional and strong women in contrast to an event which is all about total conformity.
Nov. 25, Thanksgiving in New Orleans
Celebrated Thanksgiving by going to the movies at Zeitgeist, Beshkempir: the Adopted Son by Aktan Abdikalikov from Kyrgyzstan. Rene and his mother are there. The mother we had already met yesterday as she sold us tickets to the museum. Today she apologized profusely that she did not let us in for free!
Nov. 26, New Orleans Today is Marlis' birthday. We conducted interviews in the French quarter - Mike and Anula about Termites and Y2K, Carl and I about art: "Do you think art should be censored?" We walk around the beautiful French quarters, it feels like France. Then we rush to the swamp tour with "Mr. Denny" in S. A group of 15 people paddle out into some backwaters while Mr. Denny entertains us with anecdotes about his life - how he once had to get the clothes of some nude bathers who had been chased away by wild boar, how he is the custodian of this land, how a group of frogs is called a "chorus," how once some people almost drowned in a houseboat and then knocked on his door at four in the morning. At the end of the tour we are all supposed to introduce ourselves - what our hobbies are, our profession, likes and dislikes. It feels quite forced. Later, we go out to dinner with Amy at the West End Club (?), then hook up with Melissa and Natalie and her friend in a bar with pool tables. I talk mostly with Natalie, she talks entertainingly about getting drunk and about video art in a refreshing inspiring way (not preoccupied with getting into festivals.) When I tell them that we went on this swamp tour Melissa and Natalie totally laugh because it was in the suburbs.
Nov. 27, New Orleans Breakfast at NOVAC
Amy brought the croissants, and also told her life story. We sit around her and listen. We all like her a lot, I think. We joke around with making quote signs while talking. Finally, late, we leave.
Saw Graceland in the morning. Imagined the person Elvis Presley.
Dec 2, St. Louis, Missouri
At Wendy's Yesterday we were at the University City Library where we met about seven people who told their life story - people we met in the library or who came because of the flyers I passed out or because they were friends of Wendy's, such as Jacques and Hillary. Jacques is a Jewish Polish man who lived in France for many years and has strong opinions about Catholicism's complicity with the Nazis. He told us many stories. He talked and talked, getting more angry as he talked, about Catholicism's complicity with the Nazis. Hilary ate dinner with us and looked a bit at the editing system. She is interested in video herself for a project she wants to do herself - about dwarfs and sexuality. Wendy looks at Carl's drawings, which she calls "very friendly," offers Mike and Anula to distribute their video "Kamaka Eha," telling all of us Termites to advertise in the Nation. We spend relaxing evenings around her round table, playing "dictionary" and chatting about India, where we all (except Carl) had helped shoot Anula's film; America and whatever else comes into our heads. For the first time in a long time the four of us are actually having fun together. We went to see the Arch, that elegant "gate way to the West" for which St. Louis is famous. We went to a museum which documented the Lewis and Clark expedition and the grand American appetite for land and more land - much like our appetite for this trip.