Sounds sad, death of a mom. But this isn't about sadness. Heck no. It's about the opposite, actually.
Even though mom dies in the story, that ain't the end of the story. I'm just warning you going in. I want to report factually, because I promised I would, and while its all fresh in my brain and before I keel over myself or get hit by a truck, I gotta get it down and keep my promise. I may edit later, I may hit the send button. We don't know that yet. We do know that it is getting weird. Part of my weirdness is dealing with my mom. I really have a lot of dealling with my mom, but our relationship isn't normal at all. She likes my wife, but she gets real aggravated at me all the time and I don't respond to her irritation by changing my behaviour, which makes her more irritated. Yesterday, as Rudy was about to go out the door, it came to a quick and angry head between us. She was angry, I wasn't. But I was quite taken aback by how angry she was. Much as I was taken aback by my daughter's anger the night before, come to think of it. And that sounds like a two-fer but it didn't have as much weight with me as you'd think, mainly due to the support of my wife who understands me, even tho nobody else does. Yay lu. Rudy was on his way out the door. He was headed down south, he'd sort of forgotten about this thing we were going to, if he was still in town. So I reminded him and he was kinda wavering a bit. I could tell a big part of him didn't want to get involved. He's got a lot on his plate as it is. I mean, Rudy's mostly dead broke and he has offers from paying entities, hard to turn down. DQU is not in any shape or form a paying entity. It's about the opposity, actually. So Rudy, headed down south for a few days, wavering in a moment. And I have no real idea of what is even going on. I don't know how many people will be there. If anybody will be there. I'm flying so blind its hard to make a convincing argument. I really have none. All I have is a dream. It is a dream that Rudy has heard before. When Diane was alive, I told it to him. I met Rudy through my mom's pastor, I don't know how he hooked up with my mom's pastor, but that was my orientation to him and I know Rudy is extremely religiously oriented, so I told him those years before about my dream. On this afternoon, when I was really hoping to get him to go along with me, I figured this dream was my trump card. One I usually hold pretty close to the vest, actually. It's not a smart thing to advertise the idea that you think God is on the side of the terrorists, but there you go. This dream was a unique experience in my life. And during a unique period of my life. I've never been so good, so pure, so priestly perfectly slender and intense. I didn't drink. I didn't smoke. I didn't eat meat. I didn't watch tv, video or movies, I focused all my lonely lust upon one unattainable girl - and I'm sure I whacked off much less than normal. My only problem was this dangerous lurking tendency to spiritual pride - looking down upon all the lesser beings around me, but I was confident that I had that in firm control. (knowing wink from older aged me) during this pious period, over 20 years ago - around this time of year I had a dream that stayed with me ever since. I was living in a tiny one room off the garage, with Bill. Bill, whom I've introduced before as Neal Cassady's grandson had introduced me to Lu, his ex-girlfriend and still good friend, but I hadn't gotten interested in her yet. I was hung up on Teresa, and wondering at that time what to do about my church, and I had a dream, that for the longest time I thought pertained to those questions, and it did, but had a lot more to it. And before I go on I can just hear Arlo twisting his magic Campbell around his finger, to ward off the evil spirits, I've got to ask you to stick with me, just for a bit. When I awoke from the dream, I experienced a lightness in the room and in my self I've never felt before. Something significant had just happened to me. The dream itself was clear as anything and I related it immediately in wonder to Bill. Not just because he was there with me and we were about as close to one another as two hetero males can get, but he was also the only other person in my dream that I knew. And even now, the dream has faded very little. The only character in my dream that seems to get fuzzier and fuzzier in my memory is the bride, but here's the whole dream: It was early before dawn. Hours early. The world was at its darkest. I was in my mother's house. At this time, her house was a double-wide on acreage. Later years I built a new house for my grandmother who lived there and then when she died, my mom rented out the mobile and its still there to this day - I was looking at it as I reminded Rudy of this dream. In the dream, I could walk to the last vestige of the foothills, by Penn Valley where the church in question resides, overlooking the Sacramento Valley. All was quiet. I saw a bright light in the night sky which flew over the city below and dropped a bomb. There were fires, sirens, emergency and hullabaloo. It was exciting and scary. My immediate thought was the Russians were bombing us - which dates me a bit. Then after a while, the excitement died down. And then it happened again. And again the excitement died down. And then it happened again. And this time the excitement didn't die down. The third plane didn't fly in a straight line. It flew in loops and twirly maneuvers and supernaturally quick. We're talking, aliens here. It was obviously not something of this world. The third plane dropped its bombs, joined by the other two which in a grand looping performance dived down straight into the ground in a vast conflagration. These fires didn't go out. This hubbub didn't die out. This was something big and new and incontrovertable. I wandered down to the valley floor. Out of the wreckage came a pilot. Still alive. A beautiful man with dark eyes and dark hair, he took off his flight helmet and he spoke to me thus: "My mother was the most beautiful cook in the world. She could make anything. She could make french toast that would bring tears to your eyes. But whenever my friends came over to visit, all they wanted was tacos... burritos... huevos rancheros." Here, he paused for a beat. He let the sadness in his eyes speak. "But today, my mother is dead. And so I've done this." And here he gestured around him at the world changing catastrophes, the small fires fromt he crashed planes which kept growing, and growing and morphing into something beyond accident. After his brief moment of grief, his demeanor lightened and he continued: " But today there is no more sadness, because I have a new bride." And out of the fires of his wreckage came a girl, in white. Lovely, but hard to remember. Hmmm.... That reminds me of something. Something I never considered before, why I can't really remember what the bride looked like. My ex-boss Derek had a beautiful wife. She was so sweet, so gorgeous that she almost hurt my eyes. And a funny thing is that every single time I met her over the years I worked for those guys, I failed to recognize her. Completely blank. She'd come on the job and I'd be thinking, "who's that gorgeous girl? Oh yeah." as she went up to Derek and kissed him. Upon reflection, I decided she must represent some sort of buffer over-run in my cuteness register. And that is probably the same with the bride in my dream. Some things are just too vast to store. I walked forward and was then just another guest at a wedding party, but Bill was suddenly there by my side, walking around and pointing out what kind of band instruments and amps and guitars were there. And then I woke. That dream was one reason I always thought I'd bump into Bill again. And why I was of the opinion seldom expressed to others, that Al Queda was actually the good guys. God's answer to Ike's prayer to save us from the military industrial complex if they ever got too big for their britches. Which under Bush-Cheney, they certainly had. But I always thought it was Jesus, only in hispanic garb to make the point about cultural bigotry and such. And then one day I was driving along road 31 in Yolo County, and saw the words DQ University, and I started down a road that led me to the conclusion that it wasn't Christ that day. It was DQ. A real being who taught us where to put Mexico City and how to make a United States, and has been ignored, downtrodden, overlooked for too long. Which makes more sense because I had no doubt about the woman being the church - the Christian Church. So how could there be a Christ without the church? And why really was he Hispanic? So I didn't have much trouble convincing Rudy that we weren't just going to see what was happening at DQ.... Oh no. We were now on a mission from God. Just like the Blues Brothers, only with Mexicans and Indians instead of Blacks. Rudy convinced Lu to join us. Which turned out great. And he greatly delayed our leaving, which worked out fine. We drove around Davis a bit, looking for a restaurant. My native guide sure did go down wrong way cul de sac's a lot, seeking the center of town. But we ended up at this chinese restaurant that was one of his and Diane's favorites from when they lived there and Rudy was on a Rockefeller grant as a guest lecturer - a cushy gig, made to order. Rudy loves to talk. The food was excellent and the prices cheap. Rudy bought. We took a few more wrong turns and eneded up about half an hour late at DQ University. A very, very dark DQ University. Not a soul, not a whisper. The buildings locked. The grounds deserted. Signs on the door that I dug out flashlight to read - Shut down notices from the fire department. I probably should have been greatly depressed. Fact is, I was mostly relieved. Now I could go home, good chinese food in my belly. Do what I do best - nothing. We drove off. Rudy brought out his tattered old phone listings in a book, and we called a friend of his, Han Lee. She wasn't home so Rudy suggested Barbara Risling. He said she'd know what was going on. We called her and she was just sitting down to dinner, invited us to eat with her. We weren't hungry, but we went there to visit for a bit. Barbara was the widowed wife of Dave Risling<http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=7317>, who had taught at UC Davis and had been a longtime friend of Rudy's. An old friend of DQ, as it turned out. The father of DQ, even called the father of Indian Education, on one site I googled. But Barbara's news was not good. She didn't know anything about what was going on there now. Heard rumors of armed squatters, hostile takeovers by the Cache Creek Casino Indians, bitter squabbling with rival boards and chaos. She kept pretty much out of it all. It depressed her too much and she was feeling her age - 83. We talked more about the old days. Her grandaughter who was staying there and helping her out suggested we call Torio, her cousin, another grandchild. Torio might know something. He kept in touch with some of the students and stuff. She called him - Torio is short for Victorio - named for an apache chief - and he was mightily interested in coming over and talking to us so we waited. Victorio was a nice looking young guy, interested in Law and especially tribal law and treaty law. He had been to a few of the meetings and had nothing real encouraging to relate, but upon hearing that there was some sort of meeting, looked it up on an e-mail list he belonged to and found out the meeting was in Davis, at the International House. By now it was about 8:20 and the meeting only went till 9:00 but we figured to meet some of the people there anyway. I drove with Victorio at Rudy's suggestion and he filled my ears with resigned pessimism and related the problems the place was going through. Huge attorney fees due to board members and lawsuits and his conclusion was that it would probably be better to let the whole thing fail, and try and start a tribal college from scratch. His idea was that one big problem was that the combination of Chicano and Indian just didn't work out that well. The place needed structure and furthermore, most of the moneys and grants that it needed would only flow with proper recognizable tribal affiliation and oversight. We arrived at a pleasant enough place, well-lit, clean, lots of snacks still available and a very professional looking set of plans taped to the walls, with a PC projector and a bullet list of suggestions and about 25 people, mostly young, gathered at a horseshoe shaped configuration of tables. We entered to a lot of curious stares and listened to some of the proceedings. It seemed like an effective meeting, but as Torio had suggested, not a lot going on. Rudy was sitting next to an old white-haired, white guy and with a little whispering, this guy raised his hand and asked for the chance for the new guests to introduce themselves. Rudy introduced himself in Tlingit. From that moment, he had them in the palms of his hand. He spoke with authority and majesty that I've rarely witnessed. His credentials as an elder, the leader of his people, the representative of indigeneous peoples to the UN... and more. He took questions and demanded to know the name and tribal affiliation of those who questioned him. He did something to that group that I've heard about, and thought about, but never seen in real life before. He brought the power of the elder to bear on the group. He is an elder, and he uses that very effectively, and at first it made me nervous because it seemed so brash and self-confident. But the respect he demanded from them, he also gave back in even more powerful ways. He believed in them. He took his authority and used it to bless and encourage their efforts and that alone was worth a lot, but even more he brought knowledge and the law. What Rudy carries around and uses effectively, is 216 pages of US Law pertaining to Native Americans and their rights. He also carries around international laws of genocide and told those there how he'd used these laws against governmental officials and even the Supreme Court. He said this is what they need, the firm grounding of law to resist the white man's incursion into Indian affairs. He promised them this power, he promised them his book, he promised them a lot of things and they lapped it up. What an enthusiasm he generated. Contacts info was exchanged, we drove back to the Risling's and Victorio was much more excited on the trip back. This was exactly what they'd needed. He said. It was also intense confirmation for him in a new path he'd chosen for his life, taking up his grandfather's work with a will. The way I figure it, that alone was worth the price of admission. But even moreso, the way I look at it, inserting Rudy into that little gathering of chicanos and indians was like injecting a sperm into an ovuum that was begging. It may seem an amorphous blob at the moment, but I have a feeling, a dream, that, in the words of a christmas play I recently attended at my daughter's school, (my youngest daughter in the lead, brag brag) Hey! unto you, a child is born. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
