4 AM with Ray at the hotel, talking about the news and the Algonquin Leadership Gathering. At 5:30 the paper arrives and I read it to him. There’s an article about D’Amato (we used to respectfully call him Mr. Tomato Head) saying that Cheney should step down, and everyone is saying, well D’Amato is friends with Pataki, and works for his campaign, so obviously Pataki wants to run. Well, folks, (as Rush Limbaugh used to say) I’ve been saying this for years. The reason Pataki screwed us on the budget this past year, and why he’s been so hard on Native Americans in the state is because he is preparing to run for Veep. They think he can win them New York, and of course he’ll be a big presence at the convention. I’ve been saying this for years, and my response was Pataki is not much better than Cheney. The White House immediately denied wanting to dump Cheney, so you know that’s the plan. The standard wording.

Also in the same vein, an article about how the government is planning for a terrorist strike right before the November election. You can read that two ways, preparing to defend against it and the other way. It reminded me of the May 8th 2001 press conference where Rumsfeld implies he can’t have space weapons until that ABM thing is out of the way.

Ray gave me back the one sample of Shawangunk Conglomerate, a piece of it, and I went home and slept in the tent again. Then I got Michael Picucci on the phone. He still was not able to receive either fax or email, the revolt of the inanimate objects. I worked for another hour on polishing chapter one and then sent it. Finally after a good while the first email with attachment got through my server. There are so many bugs everywhere! Then I was very enthused by working through Ch. 1, that I sat down and wrote a big chunk of chapter two, which has to be finished by Tues. or Wed. Then I took a break at 5 PM and talked to Steve Sora for a while. He was a consultant for the upcoming Nicholas Cage flick called National Treasure and is interviewed on the DVD. I saw the previews the other day, another Jerry Bruckheimer film like Arthur, and thought that Steve would have been part of it. The concept is that a treasure map has been placed in invisible ink on the back of the US Constitution and this one man has to steal it back. Well, the political angle is cute, our rights should be treasured, etc. I discussed it with Steve and mentioned that King Arthur had a similar political parallel. He said he went to try to see Fahrenheit 9-11 but it was sold out, so he had to go back again. He gave me (again) his contact at Wiley and Sons for the baseball book. I got the copyright registration in the mail today for that book and we’re at the all star break, so a good day to inquire. Steve is going up to Labrador for vacation, so I said I’d try to get him those place names where the old stuff is. We talked about a writer’s life for a while. He said he was interested coming on my walking tour of Manhattan but his wife had made other plans.

The name Steven Sora to me is almost an institution or a semi-fictional character. I think of it like William Shakespeare, or Aristotle. And yet he is a real person like you and me. He just happens to be an expert on some of the most arcane mysteries on the planet. If you don’t know his work, he wrote The Oak Island Mystery, and is now working on a book on Verrazzano. His writings sit right on the edge of speculation and science, and it inspired the way in which I approached Native New Yorkers.

I was looking through the ABA book from two years ago, and thinking of new publishing projects. And cleaning up my house, which has gotten messy.

I slept in the tent and slept pretty well, no problems, but it gets hot after 10 AM.
I put together three intriguing workshops today over the phone with Red Fox in Canada. I should add them to my website. 1. The way of the animal powers. 2. Dream Time and Connectivity, (How to Enjoy Living in the Days of Prophecy) 3. Speaking Your Truth. It will be this weekend, short notice due to the havoc of this past week.

Red Fox said that yesterday, US soldiers started asking to take refuge in Canada to avoid going back to Iraq. I think we’ll see more of that.Also, Israel has been building a wall around Israel, but building it in Palestine! A UN International court found the wall illegal and told them to tear it down. Israel (shamelessly I think) asked the United States to veto the decision.

Also, from the Washington AP, it is reported that Bush’s military records from 1969 to 1971 have been lost because the microfilm has been broken and “can’t be repaired.” Bush probably said, “Shucks, folks, that’s a cryin’ shame:”

I kept sending all this stuff to Canada, and to Texas, and elsewhere, also to Michael, but it all just went into a hole somewhere. Anything with an attachment was disappearing without a trace. Weird, a problem with the server.

It was an ideal morning for shooting a movie. The air was not too hot, there was some overcast and not much wind. I showed up at the meeting place, the parking lot in Rhinebeck, the same time as Shawna, and Ted showed up three minutes later. We piled into his car and found the site fairly easily. I let him slowly absorb what he was looking at. I said it takes a long time at the site to notice all that is there. Step by step I showed him some of the new discoveries. These were the same as I’d written about for the Saturday entries with Raymundo last week, so I won’t repeat them here.

Ted was pleased. He was really excited about the Shawangunk Conglomerate. He said none of the other sites had exotics, so it was hard to say anything about them. The presence of the Conglomerate might prove once and for all that these were not farmer’s clearing piles.

The three of us worked really well together. Towards the end of the shoot, I we filmed the stone head of the turtle (which I identified as Mullenberg’s Mud Turtle, or maybe a snapper) and I told the Mud Diver story. I used the Munsee words for the four animals in the story: Wusheewayo (duck) squall anhani (bull frog) kwasheesh (muskrat) and t’kwakl (painted turtle). Several times, at the end of the shoot, I referred to the turtle as T’kwakl, Painted Turtle, and spoke that word about four times, loudly. Ted said, “What’s that word again?” TKWAKL.

I ended talking about the painted turtle. As we were preparing to leave, Shawna suddenly said, “Oh my God, look!” and I looked and said “Oh my God,” and said “Ted, you gotta see this! Get over here quick!” He had the camera running and came over and said “Oh my God!” A full sized painted turtle had walked onto the set and burrowed himself halfway into the leaves near a log, less than ten feet from the stone turtle, yet his arms and neck were fully extended, looking at us with great interest. As Ted got up pretty close, and got some headshots, we were speechless! We were trying not to giggle, it was so remarkable. I almost wanted to cry. I said it was a good omen, and told the story of the large turtle that appeared in the center of the circle the day Center for Algonquin Culture was founded.

After a long time, I said to Ted, “You know, I would really like to pick that turtle up and introduce him to the viewers, and hold him up next to the big turtle and show the similarity. He said, “I already had the same thought.” I did so, but instead of coming from behind to give a better camera angle, I kept eye contact with the turtle and approached him face to face. Even when held in the air he came back out to look at us, and we got a close up. I said, “We’re going to have to sign release papers for this guy.” It was a great moment in film. Later, Ted said, “No one’s going to believe this. They’ll think we bought him at a pet store and staged the whole thing.” I said, “If anyone thinks that, they’re pretty sick, and that’s their problem!”

The shape of his back was very much like the shape of the stone turtle. I turned him slightly and showed the camera the 13 moon platelets and the 28 day platelets on his back which I had just talked about. His shell was in perfect condition and the platelets and markings were very clear. Ted also got excellent shots of the Pipsissewa, (also called Winter Green) and not only was it in bloom, but a ray of sun hit it (on an overcast morning) as he was filming. The spirit of the land was very happy today. Shawna also found Indian Pipe. Shawna tenderly placed the turtle back in his burrow in the leaves and he stayed there the rest of our visit, seeming rather interested. Nothing in the film revealed its location. Ted wanted to do topo maps, but later on, over lunch at Schimmy’s, I explained that if we reveal the location it would be destroyed by a particular group almost immediately. A certain man I know saw his son killed on a reservation by native Americans, and he is out for revenge with every breath, sort of like a living Tom Quick.

The Rock and Roll Indian

On the way home, I stopped into the Laundromat to buy a drink from a vending machine, because it was so hot. I saw a Native American guy doing his laundry. He looked to be Lenape. I basically asked what nation of Native American he came from. He was very reluctant to talk about it, but was otherwise friendly. He was very knowledgeable about nature, prophecy, aliens, and writers like Sitchin (The Twelfth Planet) and Urantia, etc. I soon discovered he was a professional guitarist and songwriter like myself, so I got my guitar from the car and we played songs for each other and swapped stories from pop music world for about four hours. I ended up at the house where he was staying and we sang some more songs. We had a great time. His name was J.C. or Jim Lindsay. He said he was Chickasaw, but I still think he was Munsee. He said he was a sixteenth, but I could see he was more like half to quarter. He used to write songs for a band named Sin, which was popular some time in the late sixties. But he also had near misses with bands like CS&N, and the Eagles. He said he was playing at the same bar as Jimmy Buffet in Florida, but on a different night of the week, when Jimmy B was discovered. He says, “If they’d come in on my night, they would have discovered me, and I’d be as famous as he is now!” He had opened for Lynnard Skynnard and Bonnie Raitt. He had a thousand stories of near-misses. Having been in the entertainment biz I believed them and had a few to share myself. I sang him a song I wrote for Arlo Guthrie to sing, one which he never sang. J.C. said, “You beat Arlo Guthrie all the hell on that guitar! Forget him! Just sing it yourself!” That was nice. I really enjoyed all the songs J.C. sang. Kinda reminds me of me. Small world. He also knew Clark White Bird by the way. Another small world connection. He showed me a Traffic album I had never seen or even read about, and he played a few cuts for me. The most small-world coincidence of all, he helped to build the recording studio that I recorded much of Contemplations in, at Magnetic North. I said it was a pretty good studio….except for the fact there was no air when you turned off the AC, but then I added..but that’s true of every recording studio.There’s never any air!”

He said, “I hate it when they try to get a perfect clean sound; it makes it so unnatural. When I record, I want the listener to hear the sound of the wind, the sound of my fingers, the sound of wood creaking under my weight. I want it to sound natural. Ted Timreck is of pretty much the same mind, and I think today we achieved it.

I had fish and talked on the phone to the family, and was up til 3 AM doing research verifying the information I shared on the film. Apparently the tree books see Pinchot’s Juniper as the Texas version of the plant, which has a red berry, but there is a one-seed version that can grow here and has blue berries. Plus its Jimson Weed that is deadly, but Juniper Berries also induce visions, not as toxic. Also there is a Elizaville formation that has quartzite, but not like Shawangunk, so I think. Raymundo agreed to lend me the little chunk he found on the ground for testing.

My sleep was disturbed at about 3 AM, so I went out for a walk, and slept in the car until sunrise. I did a sunrise pipe ceremony this morning by myself by a river, the weather was so perfect. Smoking the sacred pipe and seeing my prayers rise to heaven in the smoke gave me a profound sense of peace. I wrote a poem and got a call from Ray saying he bound some copies of my self-pub’d books for me. At 8 AM I got online and answered my emails and sent several days of this to peacefile. I went to the chiropractor to help correct my neck and prevent a migrane. It worked. I felt much better. Then I went to pick up the bound books from Ray; traffic in New Paltz was bad so I turned around and went back to 9W, where I got some French fires at a fast food place and read the paper in the A/C.

The Republicans had gotten a press release to be distributed by AP that was truly ludicrous. They positioned an article on “how important the voters think this election is,” kind of a non-story, and then used as a graphic a poll showing Bush with 46% and Kerry with 41%. I thought that was a little odd, so I read it over three times and read the fine print, and figured out that the poll shown in the large graphic was from June 9th, one month earlier!! I have heard that the latest poll shows Kerry with 46% and Bush with 44%. Kerry’s popularity has risen at least 5% in one month, and this article was deliberately designed to misinform the public.

That made me wonder just how much the release of Michael Moore’s flick and choosing John Edwards had affected the polls that they had to stoop to simple deception in order to keep up appearances. That’s it. I’m calling the guys (and gals) from FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. What is the current poll anyway? Hardcopy or Hardball or Hardass, one of those shows, said Bush was at an all time low, and that was days ago.

Then I went to Poughkeepsie and then the library and did another pass on Robert Jay’s editing project, and wrote letters to Robert, to my cousin Mary and Eddie Benton Benaise. I mailed my screenplay to Mary, using Marist’s post office, but sent it to an old address, which I only found out afterwards. Mary is a professor of screenplay writing and worked on the screenplays for the Leprauchan series. Not that it’s fair to say that, since they were meant to be “grade B” by design. She had given me some excellent advice on “Hollywood” plot development two years ago, so I wanted more advice on the finished draft.

I went back to the post office ten minutes before closing time, at 4:20, and they were closed and the employees nowhere to be found. I wrote a note (noting the time) telling them the correct address then floated it through the grate. It floated through the air, across the desk, across the work table and down to the floor behind the counter. I’m sure they will find it, but they will probably not lift a finger to help out, sending it knowingly to a wrong address. They didn’t call me. I had also written a long letter to Eddie and sent him Paths of Light Paths of Darkness, which he has not seen. Then I went to visit a friend and went to see King Arthur after playing some baseball at Riverfront Park in Beacon. I had an appointment to interview Pete Seeger at the Sloop Club meeting, but for some reason the meeting was cancelled. I hope Pete is okay.

Review and Explanation of King Arthur

King Arthur turned out to be a big winner, though not for everyone’s taste. Newsweek gave it a weak review, and indeed some of the acting was bad, especially Arthur, but Gwenevere was totally, like, radical! Anyway, it was not based on King Arthur legends and fairtales, but on recent discoveries in eastern England among Roman ruins, suggesting there was a real King Arthur who lived around 300 AD. The political innuendos were clear, at least to me. The Romans (The United States) pulls out of Britain, (Iraq) a third world country they have occupied for a long time, training and employing locals (Iraqi police) to keep down their own people. The Romans leave suddenly, leaving Britain (Baghdad) in chaos, and the Saxons (Kurds) are invading from the north, crossing Hadrians Wall (the line between Kurdish Iraq and Bath Party Iraq.) King Arthur is one of these half Romans, half locals (like the people Bremmer is turning Iraq over to) who was promised freedom, but is now told he must rescue a princely son of the Bishop who is in enemy territory before gaining freedom to return to Rome, the center of civilization and intellectual knowledge. (New York, location of the Republican Convention). (This reminded me of the National Guardsmen who went back to their families after being promised freedom, and were then told they must return to Baghdad).

Arthur’s men rescue the prince (Bush?) whose life is run by the Bishop (Ashcroft) who is a religious fanatic who imprisons and tortures the non-Christians (Islamic Iraqis) he has captured in his secret prison. (Abu Greib, or I’m a monkey’s uncle). The movie dwells a long time on this issue, and makes strong statements against Christianity and those who torture others. Arthur follows a Roman philosopher who may have been Plotinius, who teaches individual freedom and human rights. The prince then tells him the man has been excommunicated and assassinated. (Wellstone?) Arthur loses interest in going to Rome. The girl (a WTO-style protester type, whose face paint makes her look like she just left a bodypainting workshop at Starwood) kills the Bishop. After Arthur rescues the prince, he joins the Pagan resistance and defeats the Saxons. He and his men are given their “visas” to go to Rome, but he says that real freedom is something you are born with that no one can take from you, and that if people want to follow a tyrant it is really their own choice (so much for Operation Iraqi Freedom; in other words, the people could have overthrown Saddam if they wanted to). I thought the parallels were pretty obvious but clever nonetheless. It reminded me quite a bit of The Last Samurai, which has a similar subliminal message.

Robert Jay, the author of Consciousness The Key To Freedom, called me back and we connected this morning. He said financial harassment in Maryland has slowed him down and he can’t go to press with the new book for two more months. The good news is he liked my edits on The Awakening; only three suggestions. I can make the changes within an hour’s work. (done!) He sounded in good spirits, and said he had workshops coming up in Alabama; they are very open to new ideas there right now, at least some. Up here in the north, that sounds odd, but in fact I think our northern cultural snobbery is way out of date.

Then I got a call from Linda Law, and we finally got a chance to discuss what happened with our education grant that got torpedoed. She has written many successful grants, which is quite a skill, and she said that this grant was the best she ever put together. She said the objections didn’t make any sense. They said they preferred more reliance on the historical site teams, but the grant that won had less sites, and proposed to use sites that have limited knowledge of Native American history, and who usually call on me for free advice! Her point of view is that there are plenty of other grants we could apply for. I have no idea about that, so to me it’s hard to be so cheery. But Linda knows her stuff, so I agreed to have another meeting.

Peacemakers In Action

I talked to Tom Dostou for a while, and received his email. I learned that a life long dream of mine is coming true, a gift from my elder, the great Peacemaker, William Commanda. On September 24th through 26th there is going to be the first great gathering of Algonquin leaders in probably 400 years. This will take place in Maniwaki, Quebec. Tom and William are basing the event to some extent on my map and my research, using my statement about the gathering of the 84 nations (No Word For Time) in the time of prophecy. The concept of 84 nations comes from the ancient creation tale of hoops of seven nations times twelve. The idea of the Algonquins finally reuniting at the end of the seventh fire is as old as the hills. I think I’ve heard that all my life, and I’m sure William has too. Well, he’s going for it, and so Tom invited me to participate! This was quite a lift after learning so much bad news from Linda.

I called and left a message for Eddie Benton Benaise to confirm his address and will send him Paths of Light, which I will want his blessing on before Waniwaki. Eddie is not only “a legend in his own time” but is probably more of a legend than almost anyone alive today, as if Sitting Bull (whom he resembles) suddenly showed up in a supermarket! In my book Paths of Light Paths of Darkness, I did a critical “white guy” analysis of his writings on prophecy, and in fact they make perfect sense. He is the author of The Mishomis Book, one of the most important books on Native American culture, but little understood, and a founder of AIM (in its early days) and of the Red School House in Minneapolis. He is the Grand Medicine Chief of the Three Fires Midewiwin Lodge, the largest of the Mide lodges. We exchanged emails a month ago, then I got busy in NYC.

I went to the Inquiring Mind and took notes on a book about whaling, Whaling Days. It said that in the early days at least half the whaling teams in Cape Cod Bay were Native Americans; relative of mine, in fact. My Wampanoag ancestors were those whalers, and my branch of the family ended up owning their own whaling ships in Westport, formerly Liberty Town Indian Reservation. That branch of the family was named Boston.

I called Brian Wilkes, the webmaster for www.algonquinculture.org and agreed, on his suggestion, that the Center For Algonquin Culture should go under the non-profit umbrella of The Heritage Foundation, which his Standing Bear foundation is under. We’ve talked of this for years, but now it seems important. The Standing Bear Foundation (his name is Yona Gadoga, and if you speak fluent Cherokee, well, nuff said!) is going to focus more on restoring at-risk languages in the future. Right now, CAC’s language projects are not getting support from people of influence due to state politics, all of which probably has to do with gambling.

The highlight of my day was getting the garbage out late but just catching the garbage truck in time. This reminds me of one of my favorite teachings from Frank TiConti, the late Anishinabi elder and pipe carrier. He said, “Being a pipe carrier is a lot like being a garbage man….some roads are hard!” I used to laugh my head off at stuff like that, but today Frank is dead and I’m having a hard time getting support for my language programs so that our Algonquin children can speak their own native tongue. So it is true, some roads are hard.

I was talking to Little Eagle and he said that with Edwards on the ticket polls are showing a close race between Democrats and Republicans in the southern states from Virginia to Texas. I was talking on the cordless phone in the road and my neighbor came out to get his mail. My neighbor is the Republican State Representative from our district, who is moving. I guess he overheard me saying something nice about Democrats.

I also called the folks at home. Yesterday, mom told me a story of how when this nephew of mine was younger he was running around at a party with a staple gun and shooting it at people. She said that I stopped him and took the staple gun away and reprimanded him. He was very upset and out of control at that time and wasn’t exactly overjoyed at my reaction. We didn’t speak for a while after that. She said there was a great risk of blinding someone in the eye, and that he would now be very sorry if that happened, because he’s come to his senses. Now she says he is all into helping other people and being the peacemaker. He is now a very tall guy! I think she said he wants to be a policeman so he can take guns away from out of control crazy people. I don’t remember much about the original incident, but I’m glad he’s found his path, whatever it took to get there.

In this Promethian year, I can see mounting evidence that the states are making Algonquin language and history preservation as difficult as possible. The economic weapons they use are just as invisible as the Deniable Action Weapons (laser, maser, phaser, tazer, or whatever) now being used on dissidents. I talked to Watie, and he caught me up on what has been going on with the Penobscot band council and cultural preservation committee. He said that Carol, who is opposed to my easy-to-use system of learning Penobscot, is right now an essential part of the current program (that is getting major funding from some mysterious source) and so her objections carry a lot of weight. I said as an outsider, it was hard for me to see that, but I trusted he was right as usual. He said I had the tribe’s (tacit) blessings however to finish the project and to go to the outside world if necessary for assistance, and reminded me that he and I had been working on preserving the language long before the creation of the committee. He said for the record that our groundbreaking work did not necessarily precipitate the creation of that committee. However he felt there was grassroots support for what I was doing, and that he wanted me to say that it was at his request I undertook the project, which was true. I am grateful for the opportunity to finish this important work, however I can’t help but feeling like John Henry, in that the committee has thousands of dollars at their disposal and I am without a cent. At one time there was talk of incorporating my work into the committee’s, but Carol objected. In the end, we shall see whose work bears the best fruit.

I talked to Wappingers native Dave Fisher about the growing need to form the Wappingers Council. I told him of the great turtle, which lies in Wappingers territory, and expressed my thought that it was an omen that we should unite the brothers and sisters of the Wappingers nation, at least in order to protect the turtle. He agreed. I explained my views to him concerning state recognition, which some have been holding out for. I said that we are ethnic Algonquins, and have an inherent right to speak up for our ethnicity. I commented, partly in jest, partly quite serious, that if a black person, such as Whoopi Goldberg, wants to stand up for black values, black culture, and civil rights, she doesn’t have to prove that she’s a citizen of Uganda or the Congo. Yet that’s how institutions treat us as Algonquins. We don’t need state recognition in order to reconstruct Wappingers culture. I urged him to move to unite the people and to stand up for what we believe in, the environment, individual freedom and dignity, and traditional culture. He sounded inspired. The next day, I ran across Bill W’s number. Bill is the strongest natural leader we have. He knows I am working on a Wappingers language program and a history book, and has named me Wappingers Tribal Historian.

I found the press conference from May 8th 01 today on the web, which bears further looking into. I also looked through Peace File’s website for a while, a wonderful place to webbrowze.

I worked in my favorite air conditioned library, and did research on space weapons. Later, I was looking for UV paint, and someone said to go to Dragons Den on Rte 9. I went and ran into the owner of the whole chain, a man named Fred, whom I probably hadn’t seen in ten to twenty years. The name Karen Doe came up, his former wife, and a Penobscot He said she was back in Old Orchard. I was surprised because she and I met in Old Orchard when we were kids, and have been running into each other since. She used to call me her “Water Brother” because of a ceremony we did back then, but also of course because one day we discovered quite by accident that we both say “uggabugga” when we’re flummoxed by something. You can imagine how rare it is to find someone else saying that. It must be genetic. Now, in all my years as an Algonquin linguist, I have never come across a definition for this word, but we both say it, and we are both Maine Algonquins, so that’s my evidence. Add it to the list!

She is now a recording artist on the flute with Narada Records. She was on the wonderful Inner Child CD with Michael Jones, by far his best album, no longer in stores for some reason, along with Nancy Rumbel. She played flute on a recording of mine, and there was a problem that never got resolved so I never released the recording. That was years ago. Now here is a chance to resolve it, and maybe the cousins will be reunited in the spirit of Uggabugga. That made me happy to know she was alive and well after all this time. She now has a bunch of teenagers. By the way, I didn’t find the paint. I was told I’d never find it! I ran into Ray working at the library, and exchanged notes, but his brother in law showed up and he left in midconversation.

I did some reading on Vannevar Bush, a truly fascinating man. He was the founder or inventor of much of what we are just learning about in the news today. He was the founder of Raytheon and Texas Instruments for one thing. He developed a form of computer, had influence over the atomic bomb’s development, and was a pioneer in radio and television components, and indirectly, refrigerators. Raytheon means “God of Life.” He is also credited with the concept of hyperlink, and much of the conceptualization of the internet. (Sorry Mr. Gore, you’re standing on the shoulders of giants.) But there were views on other things like genetics that most of us would not agree with Mr. Bush. He also wanted to link the human brain directly in with computers, an idea only a mad scientist could love. In fact these inventions have now been patented, and some say the same thing can be done with electronic beams, which opens up a can of worms in regards to the space weapons program. But I don’t believe that.

In the evening, in between baseball innings (I’m monitoring this amazing surge from the Mets) I watched C Span with some amazement. William Delahunt D Mass was criticizing Bush for allowing the US to lose credibility, saying the Bush guys believe their own PR. Most importantly, he quoted a poll in Stars and Stripes magazine, a patriotic military mag, that said that 52% of the GIs polled said that “morale was low.” That is remarkable. Everywhere on TV while surfing channels I saw hardcore conservatives questioning everything they used to believe. Chris Matthewson has always seemed like a sincere conservative, but he had just seen Fahrenheit 9-11 and said he thought it was a really good, emotion-packed movie, and was asking Howard Dean if it was really true about the Bush connections with Osama Bin Laden. Howard was trying to act Presidential, and said he hadn’t had time to see it. It was an historic moment on talk TV, a conservative more outraged at Bush than the arch-liberal. He was also shocked that 40% of Americans still believe that Saddam was connected to the attack on the World Trade Center. Howard Dean also said that with John Edwards on the ticket, he predicts the Dems will pick up states we don’t expect. (We don’t know what those states will be till we get there, but they were red before!)

There were clips everywhere of Kerry and Edwards walking around together, and Kerry looked really genuinely happy for the first time. That was good to see. Again, it was a BLOG that revealed the news about Edwards, even though the New York Post got it wrong and announced Gephart as Kerry’s Choice. The BLOG from an airport hanger said they saw Kerry’s jet with signs “Kerry and Edwards” painted on the side. That was the only reliable news source that got the scoop.

I had a morning meeting with the Good Doctor, Michael Picucci (NIH 2000 Man of the Year) and it went very well. There is a lot of work to do on chapter two, and we did a taping session, him commenting on the material and me coaxing deeeeeep deeeep ideas from the back of his amazing brain. We talked about the language of living. It was sort of a relaxed day of doing chores, and continuing the research.

I caught Ray at the hotel just before he got off duty at 9 AM. I walked in the lobby and my first words to Ray were, “We need to hold council.” He said, “Okay, I’m free in ten minutes.” The owner was there, a Chinese man, and everyone was talking about the Mets, and a five page spread on their new-found success graced the Middletown Record. We were trying to remember the first names of both Matsuis.

I asked Ray, who honors the environment and the safety of other drivers by owning no car (he has only one eye, so his depth perception is off) if he wanted me to drive him home to catch up on his sleep or go see the Great Turtle of Rhinebeck, which was an hour away. He said he wanted to see the turtle, so off we went. On the way we discussed the issue of how protesters of the Republican Convention can avoid pain if shot by a laser cannon firing a UV ray carrying a microwave charge. (This crowd control pain beam weapon has been in development for some time, soon to be a space ray above you!) I asked if wearing purple would absorb the UV enough to disrupt the micro, he said probably a royal purple would. I asked if suntan lotion would have an effect on the UV and said yes, but so would wearing long sleeves, but the micro would still affect the person. I asked, “Isn’t there some kind of paint that reflects UV light?” He said, “Yes, those black light posters from the sixties use a paint that would reflect UV, and it can’t be too expensive ‘cause those posters were cheap.”

He added that if out in the open and shot with UV it would help to be a black person, with sufficient melanin! (but being black will probably not help you withstand the microwaves) He also said that the “black light” paint might “excite” the UV ray enough to dissolve the microwave before it gets too far past the “poster.” Space Ray is not a protester per se but is interested in physics. It would be interesting to experiment with wearing black-light type paint on your body while being shot with a UV cannon. It might help but then again it might not as the micro portion of the wave might still travel a foot or two through the body—perhaps sufficiently scattered to cause less harm. We also continued our discussion on the best use of mylar as a body armor material. I am still not convinced it is effective, but theoretically it should be. Of course, just musing on the physics of pain is no remedy for addressing the ethical questions behind the use of these new weapons, nor is it any match for 66 mm aluminum foil suits.

Chunks From the Beginning of Time

After much walking we found the turtle at the hidden location, and as an Algonquin person, he was quite moved. He said our friend KA had just called yesterday and said she found a stone turtle in Rockland County, and her description of it was similar. Ray noted that there was Pipsissewa growing next to the turtle; a plant associated with the MicMac, used not only for breaking up gall stones but for coughs and sore throats. It has a waxy consistency and somewhat minty. We found some growing elsewhere in the area but it is a northern plant, rare in these parts. Ray said that the Matouac associated it with the Puckwadjee, the ‘little people” of the forest. My mother referred to a mouse, a “little person of the forest” as Pipsissewa in my childhood bedtime stories.

Ray also noted the turtle was surrounded by Pinchot Junipers; we counted ten of them. The presence of Pinchot Junipers adds a great deal to the significance of this spot. The Lenape might have called them “ca-ho-see” or cedar, as a general term, and cedars were planted by the Lenape in places of contemplation “for the benefit of the next generations.” (this is mentioned in Native New Yorkers). However, Pinchot Junipers (and not cedar) produce a grayish berry which the ancient Algonquins used to eat to induce visions. Knowledge of how to use this berry has been lost and it is now extremely dangerous to chew the berry, which can cause death. About ten years ago, a group of young Micmacs who used Juniper without the help of an elder died after chewing Juniper berries. It was in all the papers. There seemed to be four Junipers, in the four directions around the turtle, the largest of which had fallen over. From there several others had apparently spread. This is evidence that the turtle was a place for seeking visions, a dreamers rock! Ray said that his Matouac grandparents on Long Island for example liked to plant the Pinchot Juniper around the outside of the house, not to chew the berries, but just because it is sacred as is the cedar. He said it was a very “Matouac” tree, a tradition which the Wappingers would have inherited.

I pointed to the head of the turtle, and said it looked like a particular type of turtle, the dino-looking one who sticks his head up out of the water with his nose high up. Ray said the turtle head was an accurate depiction of the head of the Mullenberg Bog Turtle, one of the oldest species known. Ray has a Masters Degree in Turtleology from Bogg State University. (Actually, in marine biology from a real university) Bog turtles burrow into the mud, which was most likely the origin of (or inspiration for) the Lenape “Mud Diver” Creation Story. (see www.algonquinculture.org for a sound file of my Munsee/English rendition of the famous tale, mentioned elsewhere in this blog) In that same sub-species is not only the more recently evolved “snapping turtle” but the musk turtle, the eastern mud turtle, and “stinkpot” turtle, all folk names for the same thing. This face seemed to have two sides to it, sort of like the Maysingway.

The back of the turtle suggested a calendar turtle type, (Box, spotted pond etc) a different species than the snapper family which evolved from the bog turtle. So the head represented the creation of the earth and the back represented not only the hemisphere but the creation of the sky.

Then came the most amazing discovery. I showed him the ten or so chunks of what I thought must be quartz built into the structure and lying around. He said it was not quartz but Shawangunk Silurian Conglomerate. I was amazed. I had studied Shawangunk Conglomerate and knew that it could only be found at places like Sam’s Point, over sixty miles away, that it was almost 148 million years old, and very heavy to the heft. He handed me a piece he found on the ground. It was incredibly dense!! I said, “It’s as dense as Kryptonite!” It had reminded me of Shawangunk Silurian Conglomerate, but I thought, “No, that’s utterly impossible!” Apparently it was possible. Ray added that it could be found at Schunnemunk Mountain too, a branch of the lower Shawangunks, also sacred to the Munsee.

The Algonquins knew that heavy rocks were older than light ones, and in fact this is true, as older rocks further down get compressed and then metamorphize into other kinds of rocks. He showed me that this piece was pure conglomerate, a matrix, whereas the milky “beta” quartzite would develop around it.

There were at least a hundred pounds of this conglomerate visible to the naked eye in the turtle. Even today it would take two people with a car an entire day of hard work to carry this much stone from its place of origin to this turtle. It would have taken many Native American people several days to accomplish it in the years before contact. But only the Native Americans would have had the motive for doing so. What exactly was this motive? We don’t know.

This rock only comes from across the river, which is Munsee territory. These are Munsee rocks!! Sam’s Point was some sort of Munsee United Nations Spot, according to my reconstruction theories; there is a council rock there on an abutment which is “an island in the sky” so to speak. That island of rock is covered with chunks of this kind of harder-than-quartz conglomerate, some of the oldest rock to surface. The significance is obviously great, but what does it mean? It has something to do with the creation of the earth and sky, the oldest rock, the oldest turtle…Junipers are ancient trees as well. .Ray said, “Yes! It’s a Ripley’s Puzzle!”

Ray said in Taino (Puerto Rico/Dominican Republic) tradition there is only water until Hurrican creates the turtle and it falls through a hole in the sky, and becomes North America, the first creature to bring mud up from the water. It is the helper through which God parted the waters.

I said maybe this was a sign that we should reunite the old Wappinger confederacy. He joked about how the only Wappingers speakers were either toothless or behind bars. I agreed. We had our work cut out for us, but I suggested it was up to the Wappingers to protect the turtle.

Jazzy Breezy New Paltz, Home of Shawangunk Conglomerate and Contested Gay Marriages

Ray and I did a plant walk together, identifying about a hundred usable herbs, and then got a little lost on the way out and ended up in a field filled with western prairie plants. It was like Nebraska. Then we walked along the road, and headed back to New Paltz, home of Shawangunk Conglomerate and Contested Gay Marriages, and sent Gay Ray home. I’m sure he went right off to bed. I ran into the young jazz bass player Lewis Greeney, with whom I have had several highly enjoyable conversations about renegade politics and spirituality. We talked about forming a jazz duo.sometime. He has my guitar CD already, but no jazz on there. As we talked, I thought I saw the young Mayor Jason West ride by on a bicycle. I yelled hi, but he didn’t hear me.

I went to Mc G’s and watched the Mets Yankee game on large screen, to celebrate July 4th, and had their bourbon chicken sandwich, which is what I always order there. There were lots of homerun fireworks. The Mets swept the Yanks, and the barmaid Sarah was practically in tears. It was hard for me as a Met fan to comfort her but I did my best. I was tactful and didn’t say, “Oh, yeah, the Yankees—Dick Cheney’s team. Screw ‘em!” I said, “It is a rather shocking upset!” (Nowhere have my peacemaking techniques come into more urgent use than while waffling on the edge of the great Met/Yankee rivalry!) I saw Mario Cuomo’s new book about Lincoln in the Ariel Book Store window. Too bad he’s not running for anything now, but at least he can still get published. I think he stood up for Scott Ritter during one of those exciting radio appearances in front of large audiences. Peacefile should still have my Scott Ritter transcriptions posted somewhere. He was the ex Marine officer, ex UN weapons inspector who said “WMD? What WMD?” and who by total coincidence got into trouble with the FBI over something that had no relation to WMD.

I walked alone along the Rail Trail which was looking particularly beautiful today. Then I went home to take a much needed post-jungle shower. I connected with Michael Picucci who wants to meet Monday at 10 AM for another creative brainstorming session for his new book on ritual in therapy. I agreed. I am hearing the fireworks in the distance as I write this; it is the first time in my life that I deliberately chose not to go see fireworks on July 4th. It is a non-verbal protest against the war. My invisible demonstration says “There are too many fireworks in Iraq. There were too many fireworks in Afghanistan. We don’t need any more fireworks, we need open discussion.”

The Angry Boar-Goddess at the Crossroads

Today in New Paltz I met a woman at the crossroads, the crossroads of Main Street and Cedar (or 32). Her name was not Ragnell, as in the Arthurian myth (mentioned in last Sunday’s blog) but Regina, and she was holding up a sign that said, “Be Patriotic, Vote NO to Bush” and there was a picture of Bush as Alfred E. Newman with a barr sign over his face. She was, like Ragnell, the wild boar woman/Goddess, challenging the King, ready to wound his thigh for not respecting the earth mother. I was walking into mythology itself. I said, “How long have you been sitting there with your arms up in the air holding that sign?” She said, “An hour and a half, and my arms hurt and I am thirsty. Could you babysit the sign for me and hold it up while I get a drink?” Happily, I agreed, and was there for a while, and people came and looked at my sign. She came back, very happy to see I was doing my job and I asked if she would agree to be mentioned in my peaceblog and she agreed. My Revolutionary July 4th deed for the day. I noticed an ad for an underground paper called The Shadow, but couldn’t find it. It seemed that the local media was stressing personal and social “independence” not knee-jerk patriotism this fourth of July. I heaved a sigh of relief each time I saw that. I think the Bush people have stockpiled enough patriotism to last through a good many ideological winters. I’m still hearing those “bombs bursting in air” outside, and just grateful you know who isn’t blowing up New York today the way his royal ancestors did in 1775.

Back at the Word Ranch, I listened carefully to the Chocolate Thai and Jubilee CD album, and liked it, but found the guitar a little out of tune and too much intentional distortion on the vocal tracks and not enough harmony. The lead guitar could be better. I wish I had to money to produce this CD. Chocolate is so talented! He was signed by Virgin and then Michael Jackson, but nothing came of it, more common a situation than most would believe. Live, there is plenty of harmony in their marvelous band, But it is still an important underground CD and Chocolate Thai and Jubilee is an important underground band for these times.

I had agreed to meet Dr. Michael Picucci to discuss his new book at his place at 10, and got totally lost as never before. Like Bush, I was going in the wrong direction most of the time. At least I’m man enough to admit it. I still am trying to understand what hit me. I was still distracted by the situation with the loss of funding for CAC for next year. NYSCA is obviously going in the wrong direction as well, and it was contagious.

I got there at 11 (almost two hours on back roads) and since Michael and I had not worked together as a writing team for a while, we had a few humps and messy spots to get over before finding our groove again. Once we got into the groove, we were awesome as in days of yore when we wrote the award-winning Journey To Complete Recovery, and went over the whole book outline with bang-bang efficiency and lots of creative brain-busting, grasping for words that would connect to the heart of the reader. In two hours we had gone through the book once over lightly. We had found the right direction where it really counted. The rest was trivial. What I call “non-violent intervention” he calls “compassionate communication.” It’ not exactly the same, but in practice, it can be. One is a problem-solving mode of the other.

We commented on how it was an important life skill to be tolerant of the messy parts of life to get to the clear and shining parts. We also talked about connectivity and how it is made possible by “increasing our band width” a wonderful phrase Michael uses a lot in his seminars. In Native talk it is “walking in many worlds.” We parted with a long hug and I was soon back home.

Again as I turned on the Mets game on the radio at random, two consecutive men got on base and then Floyd hit a three run homer, exactly as it had happened a few days ago. As Yogi Berra said, “It was Déjà vu all over again.” I say, “It’s connectivity all over again.” It was like a scene out of Frequency. (Highly recommended sci-fi about the Mets, murder and mayhem!) I was increasing my band width, while still tuned to 660 AM. As they say, you gotta believe.

I ended up taking a Republican friend to see Fahrenheit 9-11. Okay, so she wasn’t exactly a Republican, but probably voted for Dole in 98 and Bush in 02. Anyway, she was very open minded about it, and we had a talk afterwards in a parking lot about politics.

There in the theater I was greeted by Ione, a good friend, always serene, (a Powhatan descendant) who helped stage my first 11,000 Year Old Man monologue at the Deep Listening Space, and sitting next to her was Pauline Oliveros, the famous experimental composer. We had a chat and I said that my kid had already seen it twice so I had to see it again, to give the parental advice implied by that R rating. I said I’d asked him what he’d thought. He said, “It was all the same stuff you told me about right after 9-11 and I thought you were crazy. Now there’s a movie about it, and it grossed 26 million bucks.” Pauline chuckled. This was her first time. Then an old friend Regina came up to chat at my aisle seat. She was mentioned in my book No Word For Time, but not by name. She was one of the first people to attend one of Grandfather Turtle’s sweat lodges in New York. She is a German healing practitioner, from the Linden Tree Center. It was good to see her again after so long. Then the woman stood up in front and told us not to talk too much about the movie during the movie, but to talk about it to our friends afterwards. One trailer was for The Corporation, an interesting looking movie involving Michael Moore and others. Another which I think is called Silver City about a candidate called Richard Pilagar who is a front for a big investment firm involved in all kinds of corruption, similar to Carlyle. Then came Fahrenheit 9-11, which in its own way is a heart-warming film. It’s a film you can fall in love with, a film that for some restores faith in America, in its people. It reminded us that Bush’s popularity was below 45 % in September of 2001, that Carlyle made $237 million in one day when United Defense went public after 9-11, and that Duvall County Florida had 16000 black voters disqualified, and that it was Bush’s first cousin who made the decision to announce Bush the winner in Florida on the Fox news channel. The interviews with the author of The Halliburton Agenda were most interesting. It was a form of shock therapy that jolted viewers into pointing their lives in the right direction again.

Still in Manhattan, listening to WBAI on little yellow and blue radio that looks like a toy. Took notes on Amy Goodman. One of my favorite authors, Jonathan Schell was on, about a new book called A Hole In the World. He is always great. I thought his Unconquerable World was the valedictorian statement for the human race at this time, a brilliant work. During the course of the interview, he said there were plenty of good reasons for the Afghani War, but they weren’t the real reason we were fighting. He was against it anyway, because of what it was being used to accomplish, and reasons it was launched. The Onion had some great stories: Reagan’s Pyramid Finally Being Completed. US Citizens Found Unable to Govern Themselves. And an editorial, “Things I Shouldn’t Be Saying.”

I did a peacemaking ceremony and burned all the heart-cleansing tobacco from the Open Center class, in a bowl on the window sill, then placed the ashes in the same flowerbed as before. I walked around in the hot sun, getting exercise. Then I got my luggage and headed for Grand Central. We were delayed by a few minutes, so when I got out of the SS shuttle far beneath Grand Central there was only one minute left before the Metro train was scheduled to depart. I’d never make it, unless the train was late.

Train traffic was heavy. Everyone had seen Cheney visit the city just before July 4th, and he’s always an omen of bad luck. Armed guards were on every street corner, and they all wondered if there was going to be another terror attack. It was code orange, if not red. So that’s why I was late. Too many people trying to leave the city. Anyway, I ruefully walk towards the gate, then I turn and I see my favorite underground rock star, Chocolate Thai, standing in the doorway of the shuttle train car, wearing his trademark “Cooley” hat.

I turned and walked towards him. I’d never make that Metro train, and what was more important? Getting home or talking to Chocolate Thai, my favorite underground rock star? I yelled out, “Hey Chocolate!” Talk about connectivity. CT is an inspiration to the whole New York City non-violence “pissed off voters” movement. His light can be seen and felt for miles. If you want his CD email him at jbclarke1@yahoo.com. For an MP go to www.biirzaak.com. Or call (646)246-4092.

He waved. I came up and shook his hand. He went into the subway car to talk to Jubilee, his wife. I said, “Hey, where’s your CD?” He had some in his hands. I took one said, “How much?” He said, “They’re only ten!” I gave him ten and talked about our planned interview. I asked him about his experiences at Virgin and with MJJ records, run by Michael Jackson. Both deals had gone sour. He invited me to a July 15th concert at Lincoln Center. I said I’d see. He was standing in the door, while the speaker said, “Shuttle to Times Square. Next stop Times Square. Please do not block the doors. We said a few more hurried words, I kissed the CD and shook his hand one more time, gently blocking the doors, all of our exchanges as if accelerated by a fast forward button being pushed somewhere by an impatient train conductor. I had just been thinking about him the day before. I was thinking, “Yeah, he really does sound like Sam Cook, like they say.”

Then the doors closed and I walked away. Since my Metro train home was long gone, I took the 6 to Spring Street and went to the Open Center to pick up my books from the book store. It turns out they were all sold!!! There had been a lot of books on those shelves and now there were just two copies of Secrets of Wholehearted Thinking! Amazing! I went outside and bought some DVDs on the street, and then back to Grand Central, a strange trip. I made the next train, but it was scheduled to leave later than the others, so I waited more. Too much time to wait but not enough time to do anything else. I boarded the train very early because of this, and it was a good thing, because the train was packed. The man in the next seat forward had a white dog who took the last seat on the train.

Maybe WBAI would like Chocolate’s CD too. I told Tiokasin about the legendary Micmac Willie Dunn yesterday. He said for me to have him send copies of his CDs to BAI. Willie Dunn’s CDs are great. He’s at wdunn_singer@hotmail.com

I picked up my computer at NJM, my computer wizards, who never fail me, and brought it home. I got messages, including a very sad one from Linda Law. Our funding proposal to overhaul the educational system was rejected. I will report more later when I learn what really happened. I talked to my son and typed up July 1 and 2. I read July 1 to my son, which is somewhat “cinematic,” or at least reminiscent of West Wing.

I showed up at WBAI at 9:30. Erroll (WBAI program director) brought me into the studio, meeting Tiokasin Ghosthorse along the way. I asked Erroll what was going on behind the scenes during that Amy Goodman Democracy Now show from Kansas City last Monday, the day of the Monday surprise from Baghdad. He said they had been having trouble with one of the incoming lines and there were problems with the feed from Kansas City because too many other stations were linking in. He gave up on it for a while and put on music until someone called to say they were “up” again. The rest went well, as I heard.

Erroll seemed glad to see me; it turned out he wanted to continue our argument over whether Pearl Street was east or west of Water Street. This discussion had started on the Saturday of the Clearwater Festival, ten days earlier. I had said, “I have to tell you something, my friend, you must realize that the WBAI office is right next to the site of a slave trade auction block, right at the old end of Wall Street which was at Pearl Street.” He said the auction block was on Water Street, and it ended up being an ongoing argument about which was west of which?

We chatted about other things. We were looking for To-ma from New Zealand, who is now co-host of First Voices with Tiokasin. We were hanging out in the studio listening to Amy Goodman’s show, which is on from 9 to 10. At the end of her show, Amy said, “Stay tuned for First Voices, Indigenous Radio, with Tiokasin Ghost Horse.” Amy was not in the room, she was broadcasting from a converted fire house in China Town, as Tiokasin had explained last week. Then there was a music interlude, some of which was apparently by To-ma, but where was To-ma?

I shuffled papers. Erroll asked Mr. G. if he wanted him to take over. G said no. He could handle it. Erroll appeals to a higher court and pulls up Map Quest on the computer screen in the studio. He wants to show me that north of Wall Street, Pearl was east of Water Street.
I say, “Try scrolling south, oh, and also west. Pearl is west of Water Street below Wall!” (It turns out we were both right. The parallel streets cross at about Wall Street, but Pearl was an Indian Trail that traced the shoreline, at least as far as St. James. Erroll wanted to know details.)
The technician, Mr. G. started doing the countdown.
“We’re on in TEN seconds!”
“Map Quest can’t be wrong…” My soul brother Erroll said, smiling and laughing with me in our mock knockdown argument, excited to have a worthy opponent in the New York history trivia department.
“Nine..”
“Where’s To-ma?”
”Eight, seven…”
”Where are the Mauri?”
“Six…”
“Scroll down, Erroll! Hit the scroll down button! And then scroll west. Pearl Street is East, see?”
“Five four….”Tiokasin nudges Erroll off the computer, and pulls up his script for the opening news segment of the show.
”WHERE ARE THE MAURI?”
Erroll jumps up and hits a button that the new employee Mr. G. didn’t know about yet. It was our one link to the voice of Amy Goodman (the sweet butt-kicking Goddess of the Left) however, it allowed a humming noise to go onto the air waves unless it was off.
“Three….”
”Tiokasin, (I said) Remember to ask me about 1776, the Fourth of July, Native Americans….”

Yesterday, Tiokasin had said that I could tell him what questions to ask in advance and he’d remember. I suddenly realized I had a lot to say about that question, and its always good radio to tie discussion in with current news events. He’d probably not heard me, but would I remember to bring this up later? Without the Mauri guy, we might have to fill more time. I had plenty to say about 1776. I should have thought of it sooner.

Just then, one tall long haired, tawny Mauri musician, To-ma, strolls into the studio with his guitar gig bag strapped to his back. He says, “’ay Maytes!” The door snaps shut behind him. He weaves between the swivel chairs with a Native’s knowledge of the terrain, and takes his chair without a sound.
Two..”
“One, and we are ON THE AIR!!” Everyone hit a button of some kind in perfect synchronicity. The chaos in the room suddenly ceases and the room falls silent.

With a voice of perfect calm that comes from the heart of the northern prairie, Tiokasin Ghost Horse begins his broadcast, “Welcome to First Voices Indigenous Radio.” His words are slow and measured like the passage of a gliding eagle across the western sky. Then he begins reading news off the computer screen, having dispensed with Map Quest.once and for all. Everything goes perfectly. He reads and discusses ten minutes of news, a heartbreaking story about the Western Shoshone of Nevada, forced to sell their land for pennies so that mining corporations can maw for gold. Then he turns to me and says, “Evan, what about the fourth of July? Tell us about Algonquins in 1776.”

(Thought balloon) “Wow, you remembered! Excellent! Way to go Tiokasin! That was some awesome broadcasting skill!”

We did twenty hot minutes of live three-way discussion on Native Americans in the Revolution, things few people know. There was a break and we went on to discuss Native American prophecy, the Seven Fires Prophecy in particular, and I was prepared, with my copy of Paths of Light, Paths of Darkness (published by Resonance Communications) leading into a discussion of space weapons, and then the electronic “crowd control” weapons, and the upcoming Republican convention. I said,” They haven’t issued any permits yet!” Tiokasin said, “They issued them yesterday! What advice do you have for people who are planning to exercise their democractic options?”
I said, “I don’t want to see people hurt. Those new electronic “crowd control” weapons are painful. Best to wear body armor. Reynolds’ wrap is good; regular old tin foil. Especially around the brain, which is the stronghold. Use several layers of tin foil, perhaps under your hat. You’ll avoid migraines.”

The complete transcription of the one hour show will soon be available at this site. See: First Voices Indigenous Radio, with Evan Pritchard: Prophecy, Revolution, and the New Weapons.

When the show was done, a comedy team came in. I listened to one of their skits. “Mr. Cheney, Mr. Powell of the FCC is in the lobby to see you.” “What does he have to say that is so important as to take up the time of the VP of the United States?. Tell him to go F himself…” It was crude, but in the light of recent revelations that Dick Cheney talks like this on the floor of the House, I was not surprised.

I kept seeing this black woman KayDee in the hall, and we kept smiling at each other. I felt like I knew her. It turns out we may have met in DC at Pacifica Radio some years ago. I didn’t know what to say. I talked to the folk music man. I sand him my version of Try To Remember, and he sang me two other versions. He liked my version.

Tiokasin, To-ma and I talked more about prophecy. I told the story of Albert Lightning, the 90 year old Cree prophet of the Seven Fires. He said that the time of the prophecies was coming when the Native People would rise up again, and come together, and that he would live to see it. He was referring to the dawning of the eighth fire. I was with my three year old son in a park, in the woods in Montreal. He ran over and took a blue ball away from another three year old, a Native American boy. The boy’s uncle appeared, a seven foot tall red-skinned Native guy, with black braids that reached almost to the ground. I took the ball from my son, and gave it to him. I apologized and offered him a copy of the book I’d just written on Micmac language, and I mentioned there was as reference to Albert Lightning. The man said, “I knew him!”

I continued the story, with the full attention of the two men, both of whom were carriers of prophecy. I said, “You make it sound like he died. You should say ‘I know him.”
He said, “He has died.” I said, “He can’t be dead. I just heard from him three days ago and he was alive.”
“I just buried him!” he said, sadly. “I was his assistant!”
I said, “You can’t have. He lives in Alberta, and we are three days from Alberta.”
He answered, “I just got out of the car. Actually I’m on my way east. I just stopped to have dinner with my nephew and his family.
I said, “I give you this book as a gift. You are his messenger. His spirit wanted you to tell me of his death. He said he would live to see the fulfillment of the prophecy, so his death is a sign that we are in the time of the prophecies.” That was how I told the story.

I turned to Toma and his eyes were misty. He said, “People make too much of the romantic side of prophecy, but they are very practical. They show us what we should do.” I agreed. Both sides of prophecy appeal to me.
We talked about music, and it turns out Toma plays clarinet as well as guitar. I gave him a copy of my classical guitar CD Contemplations as a present. He was surprised and pleased. As a symphonic player he knew most of the pieces, which are orchestral. Kay Dee walked by smiling at me.
Tiokasin was concerned that the advice about the tin foil might have come off a little flakey, but I said that was the most practical part of the show, that I was there to prevent people from being injured. I said, “You told me the other day that during some unrest in Hopi country, you and a bunch of protestors covered yourself in tin foil in order to not be detected by infra-red night scopes.”
He chimed in, “Yes, and it worked great.”
I said, “This is the same exact thing.”
”I guess I should have mentioned that,” he answered, always looking to improve his program.
I asked Tiokasin if he had any celebrity gossip about himself to share with my peaceblog. He said NO! Tiokasin is not the frivolous type, even for a good cause. But the folk guy suggested that Tiokasin secretly loves the song “This Land Is Your Land.” He just criticizes it on the air to mask his feelings.”
That set off Tiokasin. “I HATE that song! It should go, ‘This land is my land, it isn’t your land!” He didn’t think it was very funny, apparently. There was a phone call for Tiokasin, He tripped on the wire and the phone went flying, and then didn’t work quite right. It kept ringing, even when he lifted the receiver. We made jokes that this was a non-verbal protest, a Luddite rebellion against high tech communication. He didn’t hear us. He was intently trying to fix it to get the call. Tiokasin is actually very skilled with technology, but he is, as the Algonquin say, “Indian from the ground up.”

At about 40 minutes after the hour, I walked outside, and walked to the intersection of Water Street and Wall Street, where Pearl crosses Water. There standing in the sun was KayDee. I shook her hand yet again. Although she is dark-skinned, as dark as Whoopi Goldberg, I asked if she was Native American. I had a strong feeling about it, but it was not in her features. It was in her power. She said, “Yes, I am. That’s what I’ve always been told. Our people were from Yonkers!”
I said, “So you are Wappingers!”
She said, “Yes, but I haven’t chosen to politicize that side of my heritage.”
I mentioned that Langston Hughes was Algonquin too, but made the same choice.
She said that her decision was partly because she didn’t know enough about it. She said it wasn’t a literary decision as with Mr. Hughes. I told her that the Wappingers were just coming together again, with a planned newsletter and language book, and I was working on both as cultural historian of the tribe. I invited her to join our cause.

I walked west to Broadway and there on the sidewalks of Broadway met a psychic I was supposed to meet to talk about spiritual and peacemaking issues. We looked down into the hole where they are building the new World Trade Center and museums, and a German film crew came by, interviewing people about the new towers, and the psychic told them to interview me. They did. Having just done an hour with Tiokasin, I was very outspoken and complained that the Native American view was being shut out, and that the people creating the Freedom Center were supposed to call me, or someone from the Shinnecock and Munsee, but did not. There was lots of Native history here but none of it will be honored, its all only about 9-11. The German said, “You mean you don’t care about the 3000 heroes who died here?” I said, “We all care! We all love New York; we all had friends who died in those towers. Of course we felt terrible, and I’m all for those people being honored, but I don’t want this to be just another piece of propaganda. There’s a lot of history here!” They cut me off. My friend said they’d probably erase my whole interview, and thought I should follow up on it. I said “There’s so many things going on right now, I can’t start chasing all these things down, I’m just connecting and going with the flow of events.” We had lunch in Riverside Park. My psychic friend did not want to be mentioned in the blog by name. She showed me the whimsical brass sculptures, copies of the ones in the subways. They are quite remarkable as they are quirky, very enjoyable. I got on a train and made it to Charlie Moms to meet Allyson. We had drinks at a nearby café and talked for over two hours. She wants spiritual instruction, and though she is not related to Native people, she has worked with shamanic elders before, and really seemed to “see” what I was doing in the Four Paths workshops from the inside out. She saw how I was working the energy, not that it was secret. She said she wanted to learn the kind of things you can’t learn from a book. She is working on a masters degree in theater. I shared freely. She said she could feel my excitement whenever I talked about connectivity. I told her it was better than sex or money, and she asked if there were techniques or steps for learning connectivity. I told her of my experiments with what I call Velikofsky Ball, two players create a psychic link by both throwing a ball simultaneously, the balls collide half way and bounce back into the glove of the person who threw it. I said it could not be accomplished by logic, and told her how Charlie Small Buck and I were really good at it, and developed the link. Then there was a time when I was always traveling and he didn’t have a phone, and yet we continued to meet frequently, at random places around a 250 square mile urban area; in the woods, in parks, in Mc Donalds, in libraries, on the street…and had important meetings, practically while in motion. People witnessed this, and said, “How did you plan THAT…..???”

Then, she asked me again how she could learn connectivity and those things that you can’t learn in school. As we stood together on a busy sidewalk in Manhattan, I pulled the four Lenape Gaming Sticks from my pocket, two striped and two solid. I mixed them in my hands, and had her guess where the striped ones were. Which hand has the M&Ms? The first time, she got the right message in words, in her mind, but misunderstood it. Next time she got it right. The next time I said, “This time I’ll make it easy.” She realized this was a different kind of test. She had to intuit not only the sticks, but what I meant by this vague statement. She got it right AGAIN! The two striped sticks were together, and she guessed correctly the right hand. She had to trust her intuition, and not second guess herself. She did great. That was it, and as I was very tired, she and I went our separate ways. I was so tired I slept for five hours in the cabin in the city. When I woke up I felt I should call Lynn (not my sister, but Staten Island Lynn the Vet) I had had an inner experience with her the night after the last workshop, and had to call her to verify some things. There was a shoe in the dream, she said she had a shoe like that. Anyway, it was good I called because she was leaving the next morning for Alabama. As things had always been too hectic during the workshop time, it turned out to be our first real conversation. She may be Micmac, but not sure. She travels around the island administering to sick pets, cool job.

I went back to sleep after watching a History channel show on how the US has often had the impulse to take control of western Canada or to annex it. They made it sound like it was still a good idea. I think they really expected to have Steve Harper win the election, as this show would have fit that event. Michael Moore’s movie ruined those plans too. They interviewed a man named Robert Bothwell, a historian who said that American expansion has always been by peaceful settlement, followed by laws and government protection. I remember thinking, “I wish Tiokasin could hear this man say that!!! His great grandfather was Crazy Horse!” The next morning on BAI someone said that Iraqi Freedom was the first time the Cavalry came first, then the settlers. He also said that for most of the time we Americans were really happy being British subjects, citing the use of a few British place names as proof of this! “nuff said!” Finally, at about 3 AM, I went to sleep.

Peacefile is pleased to publish below more entries in Evan Pritchard’s Peace Diary. Readers may toggle between the works of Pritchard and Moses via the categories menu at the right nav menu.

Wednesday,June 30th, 2004: This will be the last day of the June 2004 [Peacefile Diary]. I am very happy with the way things have turned out this month. It was an incredible month in American history and I was pleased to live it, breathe it, laugh at it, survive it! I am mailing off the new Robert Jay text for final proofreading, and going to give a class tonight at the Open Center, the fourth in a series. It is called Madnaq, the Way of the Ethical Warrior, and really looking forward to it. A truly fine group of people, who have really come to learn and absorb and participate. It is one of the best classes ever, and they bring a lot to the table too. NY Spirit is tape recording the entire series, and will give me copies sooner or later. I may decide to transcribe the entire set (8 hours!) and post it here at peacefile.org. William Meyers and Leslie at NY Spirit are Buddhists and very dedicated to promoting these semi-forgotten tools of real peacemaking, so I know they will come through. Then July starts off with a spot on the radio in the morning, and then meetings during the day.

Tuesday, June 29th, 2004: A day with some rest, relatively speaking. I wrote an article on the Canadian election after a follow up conversation with a Canadian friend, explaining it all to me, but the email server was down except for old incoming mail, so I couldn’t email it out. Tiokasin Ghosthorse (announcer on WBAI, First Voices) and I both sent voice mail messages at the same time saying the same thing, let’s get together on Thursday for First Voices. The next box of Native New Yorkers/No Word For Time came, and I unloaded it. A pleasant day to be outside today, but a little muggy. I went and made tobacco prayers by the waterfall. I bought some more tobacco and found some kinick kinick in my sacks. I read my emails, and talked to “Alice” about politics for two hours. She is one of the most politically connected people I have met. S.W. knew we would have a lot to say. When she was young, her mother had said “We’re not sheep, we’re fox!” Apparently there are armed guards here and there around New York City already, even though the Republican convention is many weeks away. I am doing my best to clean up clutter around here in quiet little Saugerties.

During the course of this month, I have been using my diary to make a study of what I call connectivity, the ability of a person to place themselves in a position to observe and benefit from synchronicity and serendipity. I did a similar experiment while keeping a diary in 1974, and just as now, I found that the diary somehow greatly increased the frequency of these synchronicities. I don’t know why that is true, but it is based on repeated evidence. Apparently, the subconscious mind is the ruler of coincidence, and if the subconscious mind knows that a diary will record these events, they happen, even if there is no way to consciously make these coincidences of timing happen. What is more interesting is that last month I was beset by a morass of bad timing, and starting the diary seemed to reverse it. Now there is more synchronicity than I can keep track of. I believe that there is also some skill involved, in that we must keep ourselves uncommitted to preconceived plans in order to be able to follow subtle hints and leads that fear and the pressure of obligation can obliterate from our minds. This month has provided ideal conditions for this to happen. Tonight for example, I didn’t turn on the radio to check in on the Mets until about 8:30. I turned on the radio and it was 2 to 1 Mets with a man on second for the Mets. Immediately Piazza was walked, and then Floyd hit a three run homer, followed by a single and then a home run by Ty Wigginton, to put the Mets ahead 7 to 1. There had only been one hit in the previous five innings, and in a few seconds I had heard five men reach base consecutively, and five RBIs. I turned off the radio. The Mets only got seven hits in the game and seven runs, winning 7 to 5. It was Cliff Floyd’s second homer of the day—interesting because he nearly missed the game. He had been stuck in NY this morning because Dick Cheney was in New York, and all air space was closed, so Floyd almost missed the game in Cincinnati. Cheney hates the Mets, which is one more reason to like them. Cheney was in NY to see a Yankee game, and his presence caused the Mets clean-up hitter to be stuck in an airport almost until game time!

Also, while listening I was reading the Times and there was an article about Pre-Clovis discoveries which tie in with the documentary that Ted is making, and with our work together. Most importantly, the article does not acknowledge any of the recent findings (by Ted’s people) in Maryland, bringing Clovis culture several thousand more years into the past. I called Ted and told him to write in, maybe get an article published that would establish documentation for his discoveries. That’s a kind of synchronicity that is much needed if we expect to affect change in this backwards society. I thought of Tina Kelley at the Times, a great young talent, who manages babies in one arm and world affairs in the other, probably under 30, I’d guess. She really likes reporting gnarly Native American issues.

I worked until 2 AM on finishing the editing and typesetting for Robert Jay’s third book, The Awakening. It is a philosophical work that he feels very strongly about. His first two books Andar’s Message: Consciousness, the Magic Lantern of Life, and Andar’s Message, Consciousness, the Key to Freedom (and the Only Reality) are spiritual-political fiction, a new genre to say the least, and they have made real inroads in terms of addressing conspiracy issues dating back before 9-11. I edited and consulted on those books, and they have a touch of humor but are rather outspoken, more relevant than ever. But his new work focuses on pure consciousness and the multiplicity of inner realties. In this book he finds the roots of conspiracy in the individual’s propensity for self-delusion. He roots out the causes of this self-delusion in materialism and ego-clinging. I hope to post the complete text of the two earlier Andar books at Peace File dot org in the near future, and possibly make the hard copies available through mail order. (Resonance, PO box 1028 Woodstock NY 12498) The author is Robert Jay, Awareness Publications, PO Box 8, Clio Alabama, 36017.

Robert, who is in his 70s, is a farmer/contractor from Eastern Shore Maryland who is probably part Nanticoke (based on photos by Speck of Nanticokes in the region circa 1900) and who has been speaking in public on common sense and spirituality since at least 1969. I first heard him speak in 1974 and it changed my life! By the way, the constitutionality statements from several past Supreme Court Justices included in my email to Jason West (which Justice Katz apparently checked out and based his decision on, paving the way for gay marriages in NY state) were all from Andar’s Message II: Consciousness the Key To Freedom! I confess!!! Sorry Jason! I plagiarized! Forgive me!

Monday, June 28th, 2004: I listened to Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now show at 9:00 which I can only listen to while in the city, so it is a big treat. I took notes as usual, and it was a special morning what with the surprise turnover of Iraq two days ahead of time, and so forth. It was another historic occasion. She was broadcasting from Kansas City, a swing state associated with John Ashcroft, and the sound kept disconnecting. My man Errol, kept coming on to fill the long gaps, his deep, mellifluous voice filling in the break like a barry sax solo, returning by popular demand every so often for an encore.

According to Errol, WBAI, at 99.5 FM is the “peace and justice radio station,” and I say that [Peacefile] is the “peace and justice weblog.” Some of the announcements: UN weapons inspector said that Israel had nuclear weapons but has never admitted to this. 40,000 protested Bush in Turkey yesterday, at NATO conference. There were 10,000 protesting Bush in Ireland, at Shannon Airport in Dublin, where Bush stopped off. Amy G. reported there were over 700 secret service men accompanying Bush, with over 4,000 police. Facing such overwhelming odds, the protesters resourcefully blocked the press corps from reaching Bush for over a half hour, delaying his progress, as they knew he would not leave without a photo op! There were some of the most creative protests yet, including a witch casting a spell to drive Bush from Ireland and a remake of MacBeth, (Mc Bush?) involving a mass march from a historical site associated with MacBeth to the airport. There was also a lengthy public reading of all the names of all the allied dead.

It was also announced that NYC will close off two dozen city blocks surrounding the Convention Center, so that protestors will be kept away. No permits have been approved, which means that any who protest may be subject to the Patriot Act and treated as terrorists. We’ll see about that. She mentioned the Green Party did not nominate Ralph Nader, a big break for Kerry. There are 138,000 Allied troops in Iraq at this time, and that number will go up, not down, as the war atmosphere continues. In fact, there is talk of sending 25,000 more troops in to mop up. The U.S. has created the world’s largest embassy in Baghdad, by the way, and it still controls the oil fields.

There was a secret ceremony in Baghdad about 10:26 AM Iraqi time, 2:26 our time, inaugurating the un-elected government of Iraq. Iata Illawi (spelling mine) has ties to the CIA, to the Saudis, to Iraqi intelligence under Saddam, and also is Shiite, (Coburn called him a “CIA stooge”) however it was noted that he is hated by less people than the other possible appointees. U.S. officials are exempt from the new laws, basically written by the U.S. The heads of cabinets were chosen by U.S. advisors and will stay in at least five years. There is a seven member U.S. appointed commission which can disqualify any parties or candidates they don’t like, rendering any real democracy impossible.

There was talk of a book Full Spectrum Dominance which she found relevant. The most interesting tidbit was a story of Alani Huett Vaughn who served a three year sentence for dissenting as an officer at Fort Leavenworth under a man named Lay Kotter. This man had gotten into trouble on several occasions for his unconstitutional manner of dealing with prisoners, and was sent from one base to another, ending up as a private contractor. Finally he was recommended by John Ashcroft, an old friend from Missouri days, to head up things at Abu Greib. And funny how the investigation only looked at Rumsfeld and found no direct link!

Then I walked around the city a bit, and had a hot dog at an underground hotdog stand called….appropriately enough…The Underdog. I always favor the underdog, so I had to have one. It was on Bleeker Street.

On the way home, I had four pieces of luggage, one of which was a bull horn. As I was running to the Metro North train with two minutes to go, the siren went off twice. It’s a flaw in the design; the switch for the loud siren slides too easily to ON. A Medic was behind me and he started running like mad, apparently thinking it was 9-11 all over again. He was gone before I could catch up lugging my four pieces of luggage (all of which I used in my various presentations, so no “excess baggage:” armchair shrinkos, okay?). I jogged the rest of the way the train holding the bull horn up in the air to avoid this happening again, but that was also the hand holding the suitcase, so it was a real strain! I made the train by seconds, but had to walk through the filled train to find my seat. People had their four pieces of luggage all over the empty seats so I couldn’t sit down and lay out my four pieces of luggage. New York is nothing if not territorial. I rested and wrote notes for future essays.

Upon exiting in Cold Spring, I called the computer guys, my team, and they said they’d be open til 6 PM, giving me just enough time to pick up my computer there. I did not dawdle, and made it under the wire, with seconds to spare (actually minutes). Then I did some errands, and shopped for salad food (chipmunks gotta eat too) . As I drove by The Inquiring Mind bookstore, I saw a screen hanging down and the picture of someone’s face on it. Somehow, I knew that this was something important, a hunch, so I went with it. I drove completely around the larger block and parked as close as I could. It was a Democratic Party meeting, and there was an air of disorganization in the room. Apparently I was an hour early, but information was not easily forthcoming. What I gathered was that in one hour Michael Moore would be addressing the group via MoveOn.org’s website, talking about his movie. They were going to have a discussion. Had I seen it? “Of course!” I said. “Its great, its funny, its moving… what is there to discuss? See it!”

I went home, unpacked, made a call to Canada to see how the elections were going, prepared my laundry, ate dinner, and then sped back and arrived at Inquiring Mind by 8 PM. People were doing a sort of “talking feather” discussion, saying what they liked about the movie, or why they were there. One woman recommended we all read “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.” A woman from FAIR was there, who had just written an article on the voting machine problem. Findley and Nancy were there from the Methodists and gave me a warm greeting when they arrived, as did Gary S. and others. The August 14th Democratic picnic was announced; Michael Moore’s film will move to 2000 theaters next week.

We saw our white spot on the great map of North America, all the people plugged into the MoveOn site at that moment. We sent the message, 70 people in Saugerties. It was one of the larger gatherings nationwide, with a total of 26,037 people linked at once into the site. It was apparently the greatest number of people ever linked to one interactive site of this nature at one time; I was a witness to history. Then, after prolonged moments of great expectation, and a few more moments listening to the nerdy voice of the narrator, probably the only one who understood the esoteric programming involved, the voice of Michael Moore came on over the PA, and told us about the reactions to his film; how many who saw it quit the Republican party the same day. One man in San Francisco threw his shoe at the movie screen while Bush was on camera. When asked about Kerry, he said that “being a weak-kneed, wimpy Democrat is a sure way to lose the election.” He said that 62% of the electorate is female, black or Hispanic, and would support a more progressive approach, although he also said, “Kerry would never invade a country.” He also mentioned what Amy G had said: The Green Party had refused to nominate Nader even though he had 6% of the national vote. They nominated someone you never heard of instead. MoveOn now has 2.25 million participants. Someone said that with $26 million in ticket sales, Moore must be on the top of Carl Rove’s list. Someone said he has bodyguards, but that may be rumor. The sound link went silent on two or three occasions, and we believed one visual portion was lost. Not surprising, for a first time event, and not that distracting.

The people in the room cheered at all the appropriate moments, (but not so long as to drown out the information) making this Turn Up The Heat evening a fun event for all. Everyone loved it when Moore kept saying, “people are coming out of the theater saying “Why didn’t I see that on the news?”

Moore encouraged us to take off work November 2nd, and vote and then travel to swing states and work at the polls with our families.

I went home after some networking, and talked to my Canadian contacts, asking lots of questions. As it turns out the French name for the herb “Gold Thread,” Savoyane, is derived from the Micmac word “Tisawayenne.” I had been saying all along that Gold Thread was especially prized by the Micmac, and I was right.

The Canadian election was nothing short of a miracle. I had been praying about it all day, on and off. The right-wing conservative Stephen Harper had been leading by two points all week. Moore’s movie hit the Canadian theaters on Friday (earlier in Montreal) and Harper started to speak off-script, saying some insensitive things about minority groups, and there was a 9% flip back to the liberals in the last two days. Pretty amazing! According to one poll, Bush’s support had dipped to 42% before the handover of the Iraqi government, its lowest point, but Kerry had only 41%. That was before the release of the movie and before Nader lost the Green Party nomination.

Here is my article, drafted this night then completed the following morning … [note: article posted at the main page of peacefile.org]

Sunday, June 27th, 2004: I slept in all I could after a night on the floor with little sleep. I met with my tour group at 2 PM and it was a good turnout of about 14 people. I wore my Tecumseh tee-shirt again, very comfortable. We handed out yellow ribbons again as tickets, and also as prayers for the Creator to bring our troops back home sooner and safer. As it turns out, our prayers were heard, in that at 2:26 AM (later that night) the Iraqis were given a marginal self-rule of their country, days before expected. Hopefully that will lead to an earlier resolution of the problems and an earlier return of troops.

It was a windy day, but no rain and lots of sun. I used the bull horn more than Saturday. Everyone especially liked my “Hog sign” lecture about the real meaning of New York. Most of the information on the tour is included in Touring Native New York, the booklet, (Resonance Communications) although I get to add different things each time, depending on what we run into. One thing we ran into today was the Gay Pride Parade. As we stood on the sidelines, I commented that some Algonquin sources indicate a division of genders into many categories, including non-gay transvestites as an important group, separate from gay transvestites, and mentioned that bi-sexuals were considered gifted at resolving husband and wife disputes. Just then, a drag queen strutted by, probably one of the best examples of a drag queen in the entire parade—very feminine but obviously male. I had to stop talking as he/she swished by me, to keep from laughing! The timing was awesome. As I always say, “You can’t pay money for that kind of coincidence!” There has always been at least one such coincidence on each of my tours.

We could not cross at Christopher Street, so we went north and crossed at Fifth Avenue just above #25th. The river of dancers and floats was flowing along the banks of the Manetta Creek. Ironically, synchronistically, that part of the parade turned out to be made up almost entirely of Indigenous dancers from various countries in South America. There was a giant cardinal as well. I encouraged them to watch for ten minutes, although one or two left, and then the actor from Last of the Mohicans walked by; I just saw his back. Then we walked east and in a few minutes were at the powwow grounds of the Munsee, the Kintecoying, “the place where they are dancing.” (now called Astor Place/Cooper Square) I stated that dancing similar to that which we saw in the parade may have occurred here, and that the Wappingers/Canarsie group had South American influences in their culture.

We joined in a circle around the Astor Place Medicine Wheel and sang songs and smudged and did ceremony. No Goddesses came from the West, however. We lost one or two more people who elected to go home, and arrived at St. Mark’s with a strong group of about 7. Suzannah H had made it all the way, as did several others, who said they loved the tour. My feet were tired and hurting, and I didn’t want to move. Later I said to my assistant and professional tour guide Roxy that I had a thought in my mind for Mexican food, and we found Burritoville down the block. We ate there, but I got really sick an hour later, and had such a pain in my stomach that I could hardly walk. It got worse, much as things got worse for the Aztec Emperor Montezuma, as his battle against the Spanish wore on. Somehow his thirst for revenge found its mark in me, even though my sister was at that time in Mexico, and she did not get sick. Perhaps I saved her from certain death through some sort of unintentional shamanic transference. Once I realized this, I passed it on to the spirit world as a healing. Rainbow Hawk, you owe me a Burrito!

60 Minutes was on TV and I was amazed by the stories; someone I knew personally was being interviewed, the inventor of Imclone, the wonder cancer drug. I had performed for the guy’s party when his patent came through. It was “A Tribute to Excellence” and they had “the world’s greatest French Chef,” the “world’s greatest hotel, the Lowell Hotel, a five star joint uptown, and I was “the world’s greatest guitarist.” Expectations were high. I apparently did not disappoint them. The thing that impressed me most was that there was no place to park so a doorman watched my illegally parked pickup truck for four hours! Anyway, after the party and speeches, I went over and talked to the man for whom this honor was being given, and he was very open to talk to me as an equal, and also very respectful, which is not usually the case when entertaining for a dinner party of rich folks, who are inclined to confuse servants with slaves. He explained to me how the drug worked and he was not patronizing. I felt I was finally among a crowd of Renaissance men and women, and by the way the pressed liver from France was superb! It was one of my favorite gigs, everyone was in a good mood; someone had patented a cure for cancer. Well, according to this story, his stock went high and then the FDA turned down his approval and stock went down suddenly. He knew this would happen and told his daughter to sell stock, and he was caught for insider trading. Also, Martha Stewart (his friend not mine) heard from someone inside the FDA that it was getting turned down, and she sold out, and that’s what brought her down. He swears he never mentioned it to her. The reason the FDA turned it down, and this was just after 9-11-01, was for insufficient documentation, a technicality of sorts, but he got mad because it killed the stock value, and made a few mistakes of judgment. He was convicted, the ownership apparently went to the pharmaceutical company, and the FDA approved the deal and now the stock is higher than ever, and he is going to spend several years in jail. It all sounds kind of funny to me, sort of like an ideal situation for the pharm company, and of course I think Conspiracy Theory, what if he KNEW about some secret deal behind 9-11-01 and had to be silenced? You know they always go after us geniuses. On the other hand, he now admits that he did a number of foolish and illegal things. Things you and I would NEVER have done. And therein lies the difference. You have to always be ethical in everything you do. It all comes around. Another story was about how Raytheon, the same people who make V-MADS and space weapons, made the Patriot Missiles, and this story revealed that they didn’t work at all in Desert Storm, only shooting down 4 out of 44 atttemps, and that they often shoot down friendly jets, with friendly pilots inside, our pilots. I think three were shot down in Desert Storm, almost the same number of planes as scud missles, and more in this new war. They never fixed the problem! And since it is all computerized, they can’t stop it. Is that dumb or what? I mean, no Algonquin Indian would create a machine like that! Only Raytheon. That was a story for someone to do more research on! There were other great stories as well, and of course a great bio doc on Michael Moore himself, which was very entertaining, and also revealed the man behind the camera, saying that he is very shy, and “hates having to confront people,” but he’s so successful at it he can’t give it up.

I had some peppermint tea and watched a one-sided Mets-Yanks double header. Hot liquids are not recommended for this, but I didn’t have my health book with me, Prescription for Nutritional Healing. Rice is most recommended, and all sundry vitamins and minerals. Do not take Immodium too soon. Gatorade is the natural impulse, and it is a healthy one.

Saturday, June 26th, 2004: The tour started at 11 AM at the Old Homestead Inn and both Roxy and I ended up arriving a few minutes too late to be fashionable, which I was reminded of at the end of the day when checking my messages, as Alli had called me on her cell phone. We used yellow ribbons as tickets, which I said represented the prayers to the west, the direction of joy and music and dance and the setting sun. It also was intended as a prayer to bring our soldiers safely back from Iraq, according to the European meaning of the yellow ribbon. It also helped us keep track of who paid, in a nice way.

The group was smaller than we had hoped, as several were scared off by the short spring-like rain shower that greeted us at 2:10. It only lasted ten minutes, and I regaled the tour takers with stories about the region, explaining why a rum house might be a very advantageous thing to build near an Indian fort filled with trade goods and food. Such trades were later ruled illegal, as rum tended to render the local natives unable to make wise business decisions. Notably, the tavern was over 100 meters from the fort, the distance a fire-tipped arrow can fly when shot by an angry Lenape the morning after, affected by a wicked hangover and the discovery of an empty wampum bag at his side.

The sun came out and the waters subsided quickly and we were on our way. I showed them the Poe House, built on top of Manetta Creek, and Manetta Tavern, also built on top of the creek, and talked about S.W., the lone woman warrior who took on the big power brokers of New York City to preserve the Poe house as a museum and to save Manetta Creek from being pumped dry, during the building of the foundation of the large building that replaced the Poe House, and to save all the trees in the area from dying of thirst now that Manetta was dry. Later on that night, I was to see her across a crowded room at a fundraiser, and greet her, and tell her what I’d just said to the tour, but more of that story of coincidence later. I showed our tour group the musical mural on West 4th Street, which was enjoyable.

All the people on the tour wanted to go visit the American Indian Community House at 708 Broadway, right off of the Sapohannikan Trail, so we did, and they bought lots of good stuff at the gift shop on the third floor. There was a kind elder native woman at the counter, it may have been Monica Greene, I’m not sure. They had plenty of copies of Native New Yorkers on the shelves, which was good to see. We looked at some of Leota Lone Dog’s pictures of Native New Yorkers from the past. But what was so great about visiting the Community House was that it shows that Native people still live in New York, and in greater numbers than ever, 84,000 strong. The phone number there is (212)598-0100. Website is www.aich.org.

We went to the Kintecoy, Cooper Square, and smudged and sang a song for the sun, and from the west there came a line of pagan dancers, beautiful women in beautiful costumes, accompanied by musicians, and they took over the great Medicine Wheel circle on the traffic island, and did a dance ritual for a long time, and we joined forces with them, to the delight of many spectators. My smudge stick was billowing in my hand, and so I walked clockwise around the group of dancers for seven rounds, as the smoke washed over their sinuous bodies flowing with the music. Earlier that day, I had said that the color yellow, music and the great mother come from the west, and indeed it was true at this moment. Everyone was very impressed with the power of those yellow ribbons. It was a great ending to our journey, and so some left, but most of us made it to St. Mark’s Chapel, to view the burial vault of Peter Stuyvesant The flag was at half mast, as if for him, but really from Ronald Reagan, a similar bigoted, but devout saber-rattler from a slightly more recent time. I was kind in my words for Peter, as he brought an end to the Kieft war which had raged for many years.

Then Roxy and I split up, and she went to see the Lesbian Parade down fifth, and I found Union Square, quite by accident and watched an interesting round robin political debate going on, and spoke to a very radical guy named Paul Revere, who had a lot to say, and recommended I read the website www.infowars.com. I ran into my old friend Barry, a wild and crazy guy and he gave me a ticket to a fund raiser for Kerry and for We Are the World, and I accepted. I went looking for Roxy, but had missed the parade, so I went to Washington Square Park where the parade ended up, expecting to find her, but though I looked for an hour I did not. It was a festive atmosphere all over town, with crowds of happy people wandering to and fro, almost like Mardi Gras. The beautiful weather added to the good feeling of love and playful rebellion everyone was feeling. In Washington Square Park there was free music everywhere and people with funny signs and buttons and tee shirts. Most prominent was a five girl cheerleader squad who led rather clever group cheers protesting in favor of womens’ rights and other political ends. No Roxy! I thought maybe she met the girl of her dreams.

I ran to find the theater the Webster, where this fundraiser was; it was further than I expected, and was allowed in. There I saw yet more funny skits and slogans and great music by the band Jubilee and Chocolate Thai. They are so good, I saw them sing on a subway car for five minutes a year ago, and gave them money, and recognized them when they appeared on stage. Their islands flavored music is full of positive upbeat feelings, and sung with sincerity. I told them I would plug them and sing their praises in my weblog, and so I am. (I need to find their info to pass along, but its missing. I will fill it in later)

The event was organized by Rick Ulfik of We The World, (not We Are the World, that’s a song) and he was there, although he didn’t remember meeting me at the United Nations for the Gandhi/King event so long ago, so long before 9-11-01. I bought a copy of How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office from a graceful model-like Indian beauty named Naina who had a great stage presence, and who was director of a youth action political group, and Program Director and Network Coordinator for the League of Pissed Off Voters. (Naina@indyvoter.org) Their slogan is “Revolutionizing Democracy!” She could be President some day! She edited the book, so I had her sign it. She wrote, “For Evan, keep fighting the good fight!” Its published by Soft Skull Press, 71 Bond Street, Brooklyn, NY 11237. (a top radical press) It is an excellent book that sticks to a theme of 20-something youth who get elected to high political positions and make intelligent choices. It is also a book with an attitude, and pretty funny at times. There is a whole chapter on my man Jason West. (No, I didn’t mean it that way, and anyway Jason is not Gay and neither am I). The League of Pissed Off Voters has an office at 226 W 135th St. 4th floor, NY NY 10030. (212)283-8879.

Also there was Alan Shogel, also of We The World, who produced this evenings’ activities. I spoke with a man from Billionaires for Bush, a funny WTO-type theater protest group who arent’ really billionaires but dress like them. They say they rarely get bounced from events, unless they mention Carlyle, and then they go to jail just like everyone else who mentions that word. The fund raiser is for Eleven Days of Global Unity, a good cause; a series of events that will begin on September 13th of this year, at The September Space at 520 8th Ave. at 37th St. 11th floor. Reception is on Monday September 13th at 5 to 8 PM, with live music and refreshments. Check it out at www.wetheworld.org/11days. There will be a public signing of the Global Declaration of Interdependence!!!! Talk about being a witness to history!

It was after that I saw S.W. across the room and waved to her, but it took a while for us to make our way through the crowd. She told me she was in Raging Bull and her scene was filmed right in this building and she took me to this old bar and re-enacted her scene for me. She also told me this crazy story about how Robert DiNero was at the bottom of the staircase we were standing on, and she was at the top (where we stood) and said, “So who is this Robert De Neerio anyway?” Apparently they pointed to him and he saluted her, and she got the part. I have to see the movie again and look for her; she was a bit younger. Anyway, after that story she introduced me to “Alice”, and we immediately found we had a lot to talk about, so we all went out to dinner, but that place was closed, so we all ended up finding our way to this no-name Vietnamese place, also synchronistically! We were there well over an hour, and all kinds of speeches were made, and I networked with a ton of interesting people.

Friday, June 25th, 2004: I was in Rhinebeck to see the opening of Michael Moore’s new film Fahrenheit 9-11, with a friend. There had been a 4:00 PM show which we missed. We arrived well before 7:00 but not only had the 7 PM show sold out but all shows for the day. My friend had gone to park the car, I saw the signs, and went back to the street to look for the car, no car, so I went to get a schedule. I had a twenty in my hand. This bald guy says, I got two tickets for the 7 PM show! A single woman said, “I want it, but I’m only one person!” He says, “I can’t sell just one, I gotta sell two. Who wants two! I wave my twenty and say I want two, I want your tickets. He looked to the movie theater officer who was standing there turning people away, and said “Can I do this? I can’t keep the twenty right?” NO! So he gives me some change, which is short but I don’t even count it cause heck its Michael Moore and I’m going to be a witness to history. Only the second showing (in this town, at the historic Rhinebeck Upstate Theater) on the first day outside of the “screening” theaters from this week. Money is not an issue! So my friend shows up, having parked fifty blocks away, and I say, “Here’s the tickets! I scalped em!” And we went in.

The theater made a special announcement that we would all want to talk about this film, but don’t do it during the movie and don’t do it inside the theater afterwards. Everyone go outside, go to a restaurant, and talk. They had already heard of the reaction crowds have to this movie. Every seat was filled with fannies, and the crowd cheered and clapped at all the best places, but not so you’d miss a word. It was all very clear. There were lots of visual innuendos, but no false statements that I could see. A lot of information some leftists have heard before, but assembled to make a powerful statement. The visual juxtapositions were rather funny and maybe unfair, but he left out other damaging material that would have been justified. He hit the target with pleasing this audience and we all gave the blank screen a standing ovation at the end. We didn’t realize it then, but the next day and the next were reports of sell out crowds in red and blue states, as the film went on to gross $26 million in one weekend. What I love about that stat is that it accomplished this while carrying an R rating and showing only in select theaters, while pundits on every channel were trying to do flood control and poo poo the whole thing as a joke. What will happen next week when it hits 2000 more theaters? (That’s a lot of theaters! That’s 400 per state! They’ll have to stage another terrorist attack! I can see it now—code orange! Islamic militants to invade New York to see Michael Moore’s new film!)

NOTE TO READERS: The previous ten days were ten exciting, thrilling, action packed days full of celebrity gossip and front-line derring do. I have it all on tape which is in a secret storage compartment, and I will transcribe it all for you over the weekend, barring another terrorist attack in which John Ashcroft, dressed in a turban, comes to my door demanding Michael Moore tickets.