Totem Chronicles Book 2 is here! Totem Spirits is available in paperback print and eBook for Kindle as of today so get them while they are hot off the press. In fact, they will have to print more here almost immediately.
Also, this time I'm going to make both books in the Totem Chronicles available via Ingram Spark so they can be ordered by bookstores and hopefully some other formats and venues for ebook. Stay tuned on that. 

This is a good year to subscribe to my very infrequent newsletter to stay up on my writing projects and cool updates.

Totem Spirits is a direct sequel to the first book, Totem, and picks up moments after the first book ends. So if you haven't read Totem, now is a good time to read both back to back to stay in the story.

Synopsis
TOSH CLOUDTREE flees the law leaving behind the aftermath of death and destruction on the Hopi reservation in Arizona. His mission: travel all the way up to Seattle to rescue Calvin, his comatose brother, from the militant Native Reclamation Movement. Unfortunately, Tosh rides with Gulf war veteran, Uncle Dino, in his antique truck, max speed 55 MPH. On this spiritual odyssey, Tosh must come to terms with his new role as Kaletaka, protector of the people, while the animal spirits he meets bestow gifts that make him a living Totem. 
With Calvin under the control of the Two-Hearts shaman, Chilehee, Tosh must quickly learn to follow the path, train in new totem powers, and be wary of psychic attacks. Eototo, the kachina chief, warns Tosh that another sacred mask of power is awakened. The time of cleansing comes. Chased by the FBI, hated by militants, and separated from his girlfriend (who is occasionally possessed by a spirit of righteous vengeance), Tosh knows he must stop the Destroyer mask and the Two-Hearts to heal Calvin, and he’s hopelessly outmatched.

Lots of news happening on the Totem front. I’ve been waiting for artwork to do a proper announcement but I just want to tell someone the news.

Totem will soon be available in Hardcover on Amazon. This exciting and sturdy format was not an option when I first published this book in 2015, but as I was getting ready to publish book 2 in the Totem chronicles (see below), I noticed there is now a hardback option. This should be available early 2023.


​

It finally happened. Our movie, "One Hell of an Angel" is done. Finished. In the can, as they say.

Two night ago, on September 13, 2018, we had a premiere showing at the Fine Arts Theater in downtown Asheville. As the nearly packed audience settled and the lights dimmed, nervousness settled in my stomach.
You see, I hadn't watched the last few edits of the movie because it was apparent we couldn't make too many changes around a year ago so I figured there wasn't much else I could do. Also, I wanted it to feel distant enough that I could really enjoy watching it in the theater.
But what if they don't like it, or worse, don't laugh?

With many movies, there are complex reasons why an audience member may like or dislike a movie. Acting, stories they can relate to, sets, and if the actions scenes show the right amount of gore.
For comedies, all these things are at play to some degree, but the real measure of success is very simple.
Did they laugh?

I think it was a good idea to warm the audience up with our award winning short, "Joint Effort". Another comedy that was very funny.
I sat next to leading actor, Matt Shepard on my left and my son to my right, with my wife next to him. Matt and I were similarly anxious. What if no one gets it?
Just because we spent 2 years writing the script and another 6 filming and in one stage of post production or another, it doesn't mean it will work.

But as the film opened and the various demonic and angelic characters came on screen, people did laugh. And to our relief, the pacing of scenes and jokes kept up enough to keep the jokes--and the laughter--flowing.

Watching characters I had made up, and who lived in my mind for so many years, come to life was a supreme delight. Can it make up for the epic delays that resulted from a micro-budget? I don't know. This was a labor of love and an ode to the angels and demons who live on our shoulders and try to get us to do things.

But beyond all that, this really did come together. It looked good, the lighting and set design seemed like they belonged to a much more expensive movie. The music and special effects were excellent and way better than we should have hoped for.

There are so many people to thank, I would have to refer you to the credits at the end of the movie to see the cast and crew as well as the many generous kickstarter backers who believed in us (and waited so long to see the results.)

I know we will be selling DVDs soon and that there will be some other theater showings, but for now, I'm still just settling into the sweet feeling of seeing results from something that began ten years ago.

Below find the small group of behind the scenes shots from 2012 and the new finished trailer for the movie itself.
​Stay tuned for more updates.

​I was going to write a comparison of all the best King Arthur movies and weigh their merits and faults out in an elaborate countdown . . . but after rewatching John Boorman’s 1981 epic Excalibur, it still holds up as the best in a way that I don’t see a close contender—at least not in the more serious, made-for adult category. I explain why in detail below, but first, let's look at the competition:
 

​Non-Serious Arthurian Movies of Note
​The Sword and the Stone
I would argue that Disney’s The Sword and the Stone is probably in the top three if only for charm and a few good songs.
 
 

​And probably the most influential King Arthur movie of all time is, in fact, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Hands down one of the funniest movies of all time, most quoted, and one of the famous, rare examples of “anti-plot” because the whole thing ends in a sort of unexpected tragic gag rather than fulfill any of the hero’s quest promises made throughout the film. Yet, it’s too damn silly to really be a contender for best adaptation of the legend of King Arthur (yet if you are one of the three people who walk this mortal plane and haven’t seen it, get ye to a home theater and feast thine eyes upon its splendor).
 

Knights of the Round Table - 1953
Robert Taylor got top billing as Lancelot, Hollywood legend Ava Gardner as Guinevere, and Mel Ferrer as Arthur (I hadn't heard of him either).
Okay, I haven't seen this movie. I will watch it, perhaps, but in reading a review it seems like that period of Hollywood when they didn't care about American accents playing historical pre-England roles. The clips I've seen were a little hard to take. But one think I like is that they wove the Picts of Scotland into the story. Only two versions I know did that. But it clearly feels dated and uninspired in almost all relevant ways. 

King Arthur - 2004
Oh how I wanted the more recent Clive Owen King Arthur to be the one. It had so many things going for it. Clive Owen, for one, Kira Knightly had some passible moments and the very decision to include the Cruithni (or Pictish to most) tribesmen was a stroke of brilliance that I had once thought of crafting a tale about because they are just so compelling. But, all in all, the whole movie felt like an “adventure” movie, and not a serious work to embody what is possibly the most significant piece of English historical myth other than George and the Dragon. It had that taint of being a Brookhiemer production, which can be good if you are Pirates of the Carrabiean, a movie passed on a ride at Disneyland. But if you dein to embody true mythos, magic, and the qualities of a king that would be remembered for a thousand years, then it’s actually a curse. Yes there was a nice twist in that the Saxons or Viking raiders were the evil enemy . . . but they had all the cinematic appeal of watching a biker gang try to take over medieval England with their bad attitudes. Merlin as a Pictish was also cool . . . but he was such a minor character, it wasn’t nearly developed enough to make a full impact. And finally, the themes of the movie were beaten by the characters like so many dead horses. “Free will, yes or no? How can we decide?!!!”
​Come on.
In the words of Nicol Williamson’s Merlin to Morgana (in Excalibur), “You’ll have to do better than that.”
 
The King Arthur knights had this novel take based on them being conscripted by the Romans from the plains of Georgia or something. Very interesting and they claimed, based on some historical record. Hmmm. I don’t have a problem with departing from Mallory’s La Mort d’Arthur. After all he was a Frenchy writing about the most famous English king, no doubt he took liberties. But, what a great work that was. It’s hard to leave it behind. And yet, what is this historical work? A bunch of campy adventure dude jokes. Some of the knights seemed well cast, while others felt hollow. Lancelot had none of the mystique of Mallory’s creation. By the end of the movie, one begins to feel like this is getting into more Arthurian territory, as if there might be a sequel. But there was no sequel so whatever potential might have been, was lost on some nice special effects and high production quality, but ultimately something more swashbuckling than heartwrenching and magical.
 

​Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s just assume just about all the other King Arthur movies are too deeply flawed to even mention. I dare you to bring up "First Knight" and those ridiculous costumes with the shiny little rounded-rectangular plates sewn into the blue uniforms. I saw it but don't even feel like it's worth picking this one apart. Go ahead. Change my mind.

Camelot - 1967
My wife would bring up Camelot. Do you want to discuss this musical tragic farce with such hits as, “C’est Moi”? Lancelot literally singing his own praises for four minutes is more than I can take. To be fair, I think Camelot appeals to people who saw it when it first came out or, as in the case of my wife, saw it with someone else who first saw it when the movie first came out—repeatedly.
It has its charms, it's romance, and some great actors such as Richard (original Prof. Dumbledor) Harris.
If you really like musicals, and you don't mind a 3 hour homage rather than a real telling of Arthurian legend, then you might enjoy this movie.
 

Okay, are we ready to get real here?

​Okay. Excalibur.
First, let’s just point out that director John Boorman (Zardoz, Deliverance, Emerald Forest) didn’t want big name actors affecting the purity of the legendary characters from La Mort d’Arthur, so he mainly casted unknown British stage actors. So let’s see who he discovered for this little romp into myth:

1. Helen Mirren – Morgana
2. Gabriel Byrn – Uther Pendragon
3. Liam Neeson – Sir Gawain
4. Patrick Stewart – Leondegrance
5. Ciarin Hinds -            Lot

Perhaps Nicol Williamson, who played an eccentric Merlin, was one of the few names who were somewhat known. Interestingly those who played Arthur (Nigel Terry), Lancelot (Nicholas Clay), and Guenevere (Cherie Lunghi) never made the "big time", but I would always notice them on BBC mysteries or other shows. Still, this is an all-star cast even if they were undiscovered and rough around the edges.

Next, Boorman managed to stage what feel like actual battles of men in real armor, riding horses and hacking away at each other. The beginning of Excalibur shows the time of Uther Pendragon, Arthur's father, and has the feel of brute force, unchecked lust for women and battle, and the dire consequences thereof. Merlin tries to help Uther, but the new king is a slave to his desires. “I’ve only known how to butcher men,” Uther says to Igrayne as he pledges to love their new child. But Merlin comes to take his due: the baby Arthur. Uther was not the one, and Merlin had to intervine to hide Arthur away from the many enemies Uther had made. But Uther regrets giving up his own flesh and blood and sets out after Merlin. Instead he finds and ambush of disgruntled knights whose master he betrayed. Ortally wounded, Uther screams into the forest, “No one shall weild Excalibur, but meeee!” and then he drives it into a giant stone and dies.
 
The way Excalibur jumps ahead in time, decades at times, is somewhat lamentable as it makes it difficult to settle into any one drama for too long. I kept thinking, during this recent viewing, that this is why epic tv series are the only way to adapt books like this one. We could have seen what Arthur’s childhood was like. But, given all the givens, Boorman covers more ground in the Arthurian legend than any other film in history. Excalibur does a great job introducing a teen Arthur, some fifteen or more years later. Arthur is now a mere humble squire for his “brother,” Sir Kay, and there’s a tourney to figure out who shall raise the sword from the stone and become king. This is the stuff of legend, and the stuff of my childhood. Full disclosure, I started watching Excalibur at age 5 when it first came out on HBO, probably only a year after the theatrical release. It was one of the very few videos I owned throughout childhood and it’s impossible to say how many times I’ve seen it. More than 20 is safe.
 
To watch young Arthur approach the sword of legend and, almost as an afterthought, reach out and just lift it from the stone, still gives me chills. It’s an affirmation of power. He reaches out to claim something that’s already his, but he just doesn’t know that yet. And let’s discuss the music. I mean who else figured out "Camena Burana" by Carl Orff was the most epic music of all time for a charge of knights riding into battle but John Boorman? Or  "Die Götterdämmerung" by Richard Wagner? I can’t tell you how infused with ancient magical potential I feel when that music plays. And Trevor Jones did a wonderful job composing a score that hit all the epic, mythic notes and infused some themes from Carmina Burana. There’s something that makes Excalibur feel like you are stepping back in time.
 
If there is something bad about it, let’s just say, the hair can occasionally feel like we just left the 70’s on some characters. There are a few goofy moments that could have been ironed out. And the sound mix is not very good, truth be told. So bad that Boorman was said to actually drop the Dolby Stereo in favor of a mono one. That sounds like a major screw up to me.
But the movie won some awards for costumes. It’s hard to think of another King Arthur movie that did so much with metal armor as a way to set the knights into this special time and place. From polished, shiny silver knights like Lancelot and Arthur’s last true knights near the end, to the near black armor with demon horns and snouts. And the feminine costumes ranged from sultry to elegant and sparkling like golden firelight.
 
There is a sense of consequence for selfish actions. Even Arthur is tested when he calls upon the power of Excalibur in order to save his pride and defeat Lancelot, who had rightfully won a contest. This moment troubled me as a child and now I see how significant Arthur’s moment of regret and humility really is for a leader who is given an ultimate weapon. Would only all absolute rulers be able to self-reflect that way.
 
Excalibur is not a perfect movie, by any means, but I maintain that it captures the magic and drama of the best written tales of the once and future king of England and there has yet to be another movie that does a better job in doing so. It fills one with a sense of the beauty of trying to live by ideals that are centuries before their time. 

Until someone makes a better movie or tv series that can balance the characters, the majesty, and magic of the full weight of the Arthurian legend, I'll rewatch Excalibur and only dream of riding into battle with my king, Arthur of Camelot.

Further resources:

A very detailed 16 minute video I just discovered that greatly validates my whole review above.
https://youtu.be/UTiuzJrREXE

Given the events of the last several months, much has already been said of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North Dakota and their ongoing mission to protect their water from the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). This 1,172-mile oil pipeline project intends to transfer crude oil across four states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. From the Bakken fields of North Dakota, the pipeline could carry in excess of 450,000 barrels per day of crude oil to Patoka, Illinois, and possibly on to Texas and near the Gulf Coast areas for refinement or export. The project will cost $3.7 billion, while creating 8,000-12,000 temporary construction jobs and only 40 permanent operating jobs. Yes, that’s right: only 40 permanent jobs.
 
But there are a thousand articles about the pipeline and the jobs it will or won’t create and whether it’s a good idea or a bad idea. I encourage everyone to read them carefully. The question I want to delve into here is one that doesn’t get a lot of direct attention:
“Whose land is the proposed pipeline on?”

The pro-Water Protector articles will say that the Native Americans and their allies are protecting “their sacred land” while the pro-pipeline articles and social media commentary will say, “those protesters are on private land that the pipeline was given permission to use so they (the Native Americans) need to move off.”
 
In April, 2016 a small encampment of indigenous youth began on the banks of the Missouri River on disputed land. Young people—native and non-native alike—ran a 500-mile spiritual relay from Cannonball, North Dakota to the district office of the United States Army Corps of Engineers in Omaha, Nebraska to deliver-- in person-- a unified statement of resistance against the construction of the pipeline and a petition that called for a full-scale environmental impact survey. The Army Corps declined. In July, ACOE issued the majority of the permits that were required for the construction of the entire pipeline project and construction began in all four states.

The Standing Rock Sioux immediately filed an injunction against the Army Corps, asking for further environmental impact study and archeological assessment. DAPL responded by issuing a 48 hour notification of their intent to begin drilling at Lake Oahe, despite lacking the permits for that particular bit of construction. 

On August 6th, a second group of 30 native youth ran 2,000 miles, from North Dakota to Washington DC, to call upon the Obama Administration to require an independent full-scale environmental impact assessment for the Dakota Access Pipeline. They carried with them 140,000 signatures from supporters. At this point, three federal agencies, the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Advisory Council on Historical Preservation, had all joined in the call for the assessment. The Army Corp again declined.
​
 On August 8, 2016, Dakota Access, LLC. gave the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe a 48-hour notice that construction would begin. In response, several hundred protesters gathered including the Standing Rock tribe, their fellow tribes, and a coalition of allies ranging from farmers and ranchers to environmentalists. Over several months, they set up an encampment, known as the Sacred Stone Camp, just outside the construction site.
 
Though several people were arrested during this action, construction was successfully suspended while the developers filed a lawsuit requesting payment for alleged damages and restraining orders against the notably peaceful protesters. Eventually construction continued and so did the Sacred Stone Camp. We’ve all seen photos showing lines of heavily militarized cops standing between construction workers and protectors, some of whom rode on horseback wearing their tribe’s traditional garb.
 
Among those arrested first was Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II who had this to say of the pipeline, or “black snake” as many indigenous people call it:

​Those of us following the story might have heard the phrases, “Treaty boundaries” and “unceded land” before. What does that mean and how does it relate to the narrative that this pipeline is being built on 99% private land while the main controversial building site (under the Missouri River) is supposedly on Army Corps of Engineer land (ACOE), which is federally owned?

To even scratch the surface on that question, we have to go back a few hundred years and then settle in the mid 1800’s. I’m going to borrow, steal, condense, and edit heavily from a great short-form timeline entitled “The Federal Government and the Lakota Sioux” and intersperse a few important details from a wonderful longer version historical archives of the state of North Dakota. I encourage all to read the longer history for full context. In this next section is another short version of hundreds of years of history between the US Government and the Dakota, Lakota, and other tribes within the Great Sioux Nation.

1600s - 1800s
The influx of French traders changed the lives of the tribes they encountered. The first recorded encounter between the Sioux and the French occurred when Radisson and Groseilliers reached what is now Wisconsin during the winter of 1659–60. The Sioux people allied there in what was known as the Seven Council Fires or Oceti Sakowin. [You might have seen this same term used in several recent articles naming the current large encampments after the fact that it is a very rare congregation of the Seven Fires Council that has not happened since around 1850.] This Seven Council Fire was reportedly comprised of the Santee division (Dakota speakers) with four groups, the Middle division (Nakota speakers) with two groups, and the Teton or Western division (Lakota speakers) originally consisting of one group. In the Woodland region the people’s economy was based on fishing, hunting, gathering, and some cultivation of corn. In the 1600’s the Sioux were pushed westward by other tribes who obtained guns through the French fur trade.
 
By 1750 the Middle Sioux were settled along the Missouri River while the Teton pushed farther west into the Black Hills and beyond to present-day states as Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana. Essentially, the tribes were forced out of one homeland due to European expansion. But the Sioux showed great adaptability.
 
Both the Dakota and Lakota relied almost exclusively on the buffalo as a major source of food, shelter, and material items. Both groups had complex spiritual ceremonies, and placed much emphasis on family with cultural values that benefitted the tribe rather than the individual; these cultural and spiritual values remain important among many tribal peoples to the present day. Once the Dakota and Lakota acquired the horse, in the mid 1700s, there was an impact on the material culture and social customs. Tepees became larger, there was greater mobility, and hunting became more productive. Additionally, the horse had a direct impact on the integration of warfare into the fabric of tribal life. It is important to understand the main object of Plains Indian warfare was never to acquire land or to control another group of people. Plains Indian warfare focused on raiding other tribes’ camps for horses and acquiring honors connected with capturing horses. In these raids, very much like contests, men sought to out-smart the enemy and gain individual honors by counting coup, or striking the enemy with the hand or a special staff. Plains warfare emphasized out-smarting the enemy, not killing them. With the advent of the horse onto the Plains, warfare traditions became institutionalized among tribes. This style of warfare, described by one author as comparable to a rough game of football, changed dramatically after encounters with the U.S. Army in the 1850s.
 
These lifeways and warfare customs were followed throughout the larger Dakota / Lakota “Sioux” region for about 200 years until the discovery of gold in California in 1849. Up until this time the U.S. government considered the west a “permanent Indian frontier”—an inhospitable land with little economic value inhabited by Indians. In the early 1850s, overland travelers who were en route to gold fields began to cross through Lakota territory. However, the discovery of mineral wealth in the west caused the U.S. to extend its boundaries to the Pacific Ocean, encroaching on the Indian lands and threatening the buffalo herds. This in turn set off a series of confrontations between whites and Indians of the trans-Mississippi West. Fortune seekers moving along the Platte River Road cut right through traditional Lakota territory and although generally left alone, the white travelers were frightened by the turmoil and commotion caused by the intertribal raids and they demanded government protection.

​1790 – 1850 Periodic Smallpox, whooping cough, German measles outbreaks decimate the plains tribes along the Missouri River. White traders were initially welcomed, but in some cases afterwards, entire tribes would be nearly wiped out (The Mandan tribe was decimated by the smallpox plague of 1837 to such a degree that only 10% survived and their supremacy along the Missouri River would never recover.) Animosity and suspicion grew when some white traders and explorers pretended to be able to unleash smallpox from a bottle unless their demands were met. 

​1851   First Fort Laramie Treaty signed between Sioux (“Dahcotah”—which included Lakota, Nakota et al. The treaty stipulated land boundaries for a great many other tribes who may or may not have any relation to the Sioux, i.e. “Gros Ventre, Mandans, and Arrickaras”, “Assinaboin”, “Blackfoot”, “Crow”, “Cheyennes and Arapahoes” nations) and US government established land rights and attempted to create peace between white miners traveling to California for the Gold Rush and the Sioux people. All told, it granted about 134 million acres to the tribes. The U.S. agreed the Sioux held sovereign rights to the Black Hills and the Sioux agreed to allow railroad and trail passage across these territories in exchange for annual federal payments of $50,000 for 50 years to the tribes.  Shortly after the treaty was signed, the U.S. government began erecting several fortified trading posts. Sioux land represented about 5% of the entire continental US - covering most of the present-day states of North and South Dakota, and parts of Nebraska, Montana and Wyoming. 
 
1852 U.S. government violated the 1851 treaty. The U.S. Senate decreased the annual payment of $50,000 to the Sioux people from 50 years to 10 years.

​1862  Gold found in Montana.  The US began building the Bozeman Trail through Sioux territory as well as army forts along the trail - both actions being in direct contravention of the 1851 Fort Laramie treaty. Continued traffic through Sioux lands caused disruption in the lifeways of the people and cut through the heart of the Sioux buffalo ranges in the Powder River area. The Sioux repeatedly objected to intrusions in their territory and demanded government recognition of the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty. Ultimately their protests fell on deaf ears. With no peaceful solution in sight, the Sioux began to retaliate against trespass in their country. The government’s need for gold coupled with demands for protection by travelers along the Bozeman Trail increased so the army moved in to protect non-Indian people, property, and rights-of-way through Dakota-Lakota territory. Thus began the era commonly referred to as the Plains or Sioux Wars of 1865–1876. 

​1866 Sioux Indians attacked a supply train traveling on the Bozeman Trail on December 21st. Soldiers led by Lieutenant Colonel William Fetterman retaliated but all 80 soldiers were killed by a small Sioux army led by Red Cloud. General Sherman's response on behalf of the U.S. Army was, "We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women, and children." The Indians called the Fetterman Massacre the Battle of 100-In-The-Hands. Outraged, General Sherman told General Ulysses S. Grant the year before, “we must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children.”

1867 Congress passed a bill for an Indian peace commission to be lead by Lieutenant General William T. Sherman. Government negotiators were to offer $15,000 annual annuites for tribes of 5,000 or 6,000 people if they would remove themselves from the traditional Sioux homelands in the Great Plains - the Powder River Country. During negotiations between government officials and Oglala chief Red Cloud (pictured to the right), Red Cloud walked out of the meeting declaring: "The Great Father sends us presents and wants us to sell him the road, but the White Chief comes with soldiers to steal it before the Indian says yes or no!  I will talk with you no more!  I will go - now! - and I will fight you!  As long as I live I will fight you for the last hunting grounds of my people."
 
Thus began the Powder River War (aka Red Cloud's War) as the Lakotas and their Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho allies fought the U.S. Army at the various forts in Lakota territory. Those Sioux friendly to the U.S. government, however, signed a treaty giving Euro-Americans the right to use the Bozeman Trail in return for guns and ammuition. Soon thereafter, the U.S. Army began building more forts along the Trail.
At the Grand Council of 6,000 tribes at Bear Butte, the sacred mountain of the Cheyenne, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, and Sitting Bull, among other great leaders, pledged to end further encroachment of Sioux territory by the whites.

Manifest Destiny
Following the Civil War, after deadly European diseases and hundreds of wars with the white man had already wiped out untold numbers of Native Americans, the U.S. government had ratified nearly 400 treaties with the Plains Indians. But as the Gold Rush, the pressures of Manifest Destiny, and land grants for railroad construction led to greater expansion in the West, the majority of these treaties were broken. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s first postwar command covered the territory west of the Mississippi and east of the Rocky Mountains, and his top priority was to protect the construction of the railroads. In 1867, he wrote to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, “we are not going to let thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress” of the railroads. 

The 1868 Fort Laramie TreatyThe troubles in 1866–1868 in the Powder River region, often called “Red Cloud’s War,” resulted in a clear victory for the Lakota. The Lakota had denied the Bozeman Trail to virtually all immigrant travel. Army supply trains had to fight their way through, and soldiers were bottled up in their forts. The Indians had little need to negotiate a treaty and so ignored all government overtures to do so. Finally in 1868 the soldiers abandoned their forts along the Bozeman Trail as a way to restart treaty negotiations. By this time, the U.S. government was set on confining the Sioux to the proscribed territory but first it needed a treaty.

Rather than addressing the issue of trespass in Sioux country, the government responded with talk of yet another treaty with the Sioux. 
 
1868   Fort Laramie Treaty brought peace between the Sioux and the US government by guaranteeing that the Sioux had "absolute and undisturbed use of the Great Sioux Reservation...No persons...shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in territory described in this article, or without consent of the Indians...No treaty for the cession of any portion or part of the reservation herein described...shall be of any validity or force...unless executed and signed by at least three-fourth of all adult male Indians, occupying or interested in the same."  This treaty proved to be one of the most controversial in the history of US-Indian relations - it ended the war between the Sioux and the U.S. government, split the Oglala nation into those "friendlies" willing to work with the U.S. government and the "hostiles" with whom the U.S. banned trade, and set the legal stage for Sioux claims to the Black Hills that continue into the 21st Century.
 
[I’m sure most readers can see where this is going. But it’s worth stating that these people had already migrated across the county and adapted their culture to a new way of life. And this wasn’t just a land deal, the migration of Europeans brought with them an existential crisis. Red Cloud wasn’t the only one to notice that the white men never seemed satisfied. No concession was enough for the white men. They made promises and then didn’t keep them. If they couldn’t uphold the original Fort Laramie Treaty, then why would they keep their word about anything else?
Continue reading and you’ll see how interconnected the past is to later events and even to what’s going on today.
But how was this 1868 Treaty different from the 1851 treaty?] 

Establishment of the Great Sioux ReservationGovernment policy by the mid 1860s was to confine all Indians to defined land areas called reservations. The United States government proposed what became known as the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty to deal with the Sioux issue. This treaty proposed to:

• Set aside a 25 million acre tract of land for the Lakota and Dakota (down from 134 million acres from the previous treaty) encompassing all the land in South Dakota west of the Missouri River, to be known as the Great Sioux Reservation;
• Permit the Dakota and Lakota to hunt in areas of Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota until the buffalo were gone;
• Provide for an agency, grist mill, and schools to be located on the Great Sioux Reservation;
• Provide for land allotments to be made to individual Indians; and provide clothing, blankets, and rations of food to be distributed to all Dakotas and Lakotas living within the bounds of the Great Sioux Reservation.

​1869 Grant becomes President and appointed Sherman Commanding General of the Army, responsible for U.S. engagement in the Indian Wars.  On the ground in the West, Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan, assuming Sherman’s command, took to his task much as he had done in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War, when he ordered the “scorched earth” tactics that presaged Sherman’s March to the Sea. In the Winter Campaign of 1868-69 against Cheyenne encampments, Sheridan set about destroying the Indians’ food, shelter and livestock with overwhelming force, leaving women and children at the mercy of the Army and Indian warriors little choice but to surrender or risk starvation.  In one such surprise raid at dawn during a November snowstorm in Indian Territory, Sheridan ordered the nearly 700 men of the Seventh Cavalry, commanded by George Armstrong Custer, to “destroy villages and ponies, to kill or hang all warriors, and to bring back all women and children.” Custer’s men charged into a Cheyenne village on the Washita River, cutting down the Indians as they fled from lodges. Women and children were taken as hostages as part of Custer’s strategy to use them as human shields, but Cavalry scouts reported seeing women and children pursued and killed “without mercy” in what became known as the Washita Massacre. Custer later reported more than 100 Indian deaths, including that of Chief Black Kettle and his wife, Medicine Woman Later, shot in the back as they attempted to ride away on a pony.

 Buffalo Slaughter as weapon of containment
On June 26, 1869, the Army Navy Journal reported: "General Sherman remarked, in conversation the other day, that the quickest way to compel the Indians to settle down to civilized life was to send ten regiments of soldiers to the plains, with orders to shoot buffaloes until they became too scarce to support the redskins." [17] According to Professor David Smits: "Frustrated bluecoats, unable to deliver a punishing blow to the so-called "Hostiles,"unless they were immobilized in their winter camps, could, however, strike at a more accessible target, namely, the buffalo.That tactic also made curious sense, for in soldiers' minds the buffalo and the Plains Indian were virtually inseparable."
 
Trains and repeat fire rifles made buffalo slaughter easier than at any other time in history. The U.S. military strategically exterminated bison in masses. By ridding the Plains Indians of their primary food source, they would become further dependent on reservations for subsistence. Bison meat also supplemented the army rations, and commanders issued hunting passes freely to their troops to obtain fresh meat. Oftentimes military men would kill the bison and not take any of the meat from it. As Kiowa chief Santanta complained at the Medicine Lodge Treaty Council of 1867: "has the white man become a child, that he should recklessly kill and not eat? When the red men slay game, they do so that they may live and not starve."[17] By 1893, fewer than 400 wild bison were left—and Native Americans were pushed to reservations, relying on farming and waiting on scanty government rations for food.

​1874  Gold discovered in the Black Hills and white miners began trespassing on Lakota hunting grounds in the Black Hills. An expedition began into the Black Hills led by George Armstrong Custer. In the photo below, Custer poses with his Indian scouts during the Black Hills expedition. The man pointing to the map was named "Bloody Knife," a member of the Cree tribe.

​1875  Federal government tried to buy the Black Hills for $5 million.  The Sioux refused to meet with the government commission.
On December 3, 1875, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs required that all Sioux people report to their agency by January 31, 1876 for a head count.  http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/six/bighorn.htm
 
1876  On February 7, the War Department authorized General Sheridan to move into Indian lands and round up the "hostile Sioux" who had not reported to their agency. The first attack happened on March 17 - sooner than the Sioux were expecting - thus escalating hostilities that culminated in the Battle of Little Big Horn on June 25 - also known as Custer's Last Stand. The battle occurred after General Custer and the 7th Calvary of about 600 soldiers split into three battalions, surrounded and attacked a Sioux camp.  

​Among the Native Americans, word quickly spread of the impending attack. The older Sitting Bull rallied the warriors and saw to the safety of the women and children, while Crazy Horse set off with a large force to meet the attackers head on. Despite Custer’s desperate attempts to regroup his men, they were quickly overwhelmed.
Custer and all his men were killed in what was the largest defeat ever of a U.S. force by Native Americans. Afterwards, Congress voted funds for two new forts along the Yellowstone River, authorized 2,500 new recruits to be sent to Sioux country, and moved control over reservations from the Indian Bureau into the hands of the U.S. Army.
 
In August, Congress passed the Sioux Appropriation Bill stating that “hereafter there shall be no appropriation made for the subsistence” of the Sioux, unless they first relinquished their rights to the hunting grounds outside the reservation and ceded the Black Hills to the United States. Red Cloud's Oglala band signed, after which all of his followers were disarmed and dehorsed, but once again, the requisite two-thirds of all males required by the last treaty, did not sign.
 
1877  Congressional Act of 1877 violated the Fort Laramie Treaty by requiring the Sioux to relinquish the Black Hills and 22.8 million acres of their surrounding territory.  In less than 20 years, the Sioux Nation shrunk from 134 million acres to less than 15 million.

​1889  After the Sioux refused to sell 9 million additional acres of their reservation to the US government, Congress passed the Sioux Act. The Act redefined the requested 9 million acres as "surplus lands" open to white settlement under the Dawes Act and divided the Lakotas into five separate reservations: Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Pine Ridge, and Upper and Lower Brule. The remaining land was given to the new states of North and South Dakota. Any Indians who refused to be confined to reservations were declared "hostile." The 9 million acres was then opened up for public purchase for white ranchers and homesteaders.

​1890 The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred after U.S. Army was sent to Pine Ridge Reservation to quell Sioux participation in the Ghost Dance. The Ghost Dance originated with Wovoka of the Paiutes who reported that God told him in a dream that if Indians danced for five days, they could meet their departed ancestors.  After their reunion, the dead relatives would come back to life and help to save the Sioux from the evils of white domination.  To the Indians, the Ghost Dance offered hope and a chance for survival; to the U.S. Army, the dance symbolized resistance and the possibility of Indian rebellion.
 
On December 29, 1890, Sioux Chief Big Foot met four cavalry units which were under orders to capture him.  The Sioux raised a white flag to signal their promise not to fight.  They were taken to an army camp at Wounded Knee Creek where they were ordered to give up their weapons.  The medicine man, Yellow Bird, started the Ghost Dance, urging his tribesmen to join him by chanting in Sioux, "The bullets will not go toward you."  When one young Indian refused to give up his rifle, confusion ensued during which several braves pulled rifles from their blankets, and the soldiers opened fire.  At least 150 Indian men, women, and children were left dead; as many as 300 may have perished when the wounded died soon thereafter. The Seventh Calvary, Custer's avenged regiment, received 23 Congressional medals of honor for their involvement at Wounded Knee—the most ever awarded for a single “battle”.
 
1896 On February 22, 1897, President Grover Cleveland established the Black Hills Forest Reserve. This land was protected against fires, wasteful lumbering practices, and timber fraud. In 1905, the Black Hills Forest Reserve was transferred to the Forest Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 1907, it was renamed the Black Hills National Forest.
 
1910 The Sioux Reservation was further reduced with the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations losing more land to white homesteaders.

1918 The Lakota Sioux hired an attorney who sought the return of the Black Hills under the Treaty of 1868.  Thus began the longest lawsuit in American history.
 
1923  The Lakota Sioux filed suit with the US Court of Claims demanding compensation for the loss of the Black Hills.  It was not until 1942 that the Court finally dismissed the claim.
 
1946   The Sioux filed suit with the newly-created Indian Claims Commission.  In 1954, the Commission dismissed the case on the grounds that it had already been denied.
 
1956   Sioux reinstated their claim to the Indian Claims Commission on the grounds that they had been represented by "inadequate counsel."

​1973  The American Indian Movement (AIM) began the first organized extralegal battle for the Black Hills.  AIM occupied Wounded Knee Cemetery on Pine Ridge Reservation to alert the world about the vested economic  interest the U.S. government held in the Hills and the extent to which that interest governed U.S. governmental policy and federal court cases regarding their land. (For a detailed understanding of the upheaval at the Pine Ridge Reservation between 1973 and 1975, as well as the aftermath, click here.)

1974  The Indian Claims Commission decided that the US government had taken Sioux land in violation of the 5th Amendment because it had not paid just compensation, and subsequently awarded the Sioux $17.5 million (the estimated "value" of the land at the time it was misappropriated) plus 5% simple interest calculated annually since 1877 - for a total of $105 million.  The US government appealed and the Court of Claims reversed the decision on the grounds that the claim had already been litigated and decided in 1942.  However, it also found that "a more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never, in all probability, be found in our history."
 
1978   Congress passed an act enabling the Court of Claims to rehear the case.  Sioux argued that they should be compensated on new grounds - "dishonorable dealings." 
 
1979 The U.S. Court of Claims found that the 1877 Act that seized the Black Hills from the Sioux violated the 5th Amendment. The US had taken the Black Hills unconstitutionally and court reinstated the $17.5 million plus 5% interest for a total of $105 million.  The US government appealed.
 
1980   In the United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, the US Supreme Court found that the Congressional Act of 1877 constituted "a taking of tribal property which had been set aside by the treaty of Fort Laramie for the Sioux's exclusive occupation."  The $105 million award was upheld.  The Sioux then turned down the money, claimed that "The Black Hills are not for sale."  Instead, they demanded that the US government return the Black Hills and pay the money as compensation for the billions of dollars in wealth that had been extracted and the damages down while whites illegally occupied the Hills.

AIM, under direction of Russell Means, occupied an 880 acre area in the Black Hills which became known as Yellow Thunder Camp.  The U.S. government sued AIM, claiming that they must leave federal property.  AIM counter-sued, arguing that U.S. Forest Service policies in the Black Hills violated the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and Lakota religious freedom under both the First Amendment and the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA).

​1983 The Black Hills Steering Committee was created and its members drafted a bill for Congress that asked for 7,300,000 acres of federal land in the Black Hills in South Dakota. The Committee promised to keep all federal employees working in the Black Hills.
1985  U.S. District Court Judge ruled in favor of AIM, arguing that the Lakota had every right to the Yellow Thunder Camp (shown at the right),  particularly because AIRFA recognized entire geographic areas as well as specific sites to be sacred areas.
1988  The Eighth Circuit Court reversed the U.S. District Court's decision.  AIM ended its occupation of Yellow Thunder Camp.

​1995  Controversy erupted when the U.S. National Park Service asked climbers to consider not climbing Devil's Towerin the Black Hills during the month of June to honor the Lakota's spiritual traditions. 
 
2000 The U.S. Supreme Court denied the plaintiff's appeal of the 10th Circuit ruling, thus upholding the appellate court’s decision as final. Nonetheless, climbing was allowed to resume. However, National Park Policy requires that during June, rangers ask climbers to voluntarily refrain from climbing on the Tower and hikers to voluntarily refrain from scrambling within the inside of the Tower Trail Loop
 
2007 On December 19, a small group of activists calling itself the Lakotah Freedom Delegation announced that the Lakotah were withdrawing from all treaties previously signed with the United States and were planning to regain their sovereignty over thousands of acres of traditional territory in North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska and Montana. According to the group, the withdrawal immediately and irrevocably ended all agreements between the Lakota Sioux Nation of Indians and the United States Government outlined in the 1851 and 1868 Treaties at Fort Laramie Wyoming. The group argued that their declaration of independence was not a secession from the United States, but rather a reassertion of sovereignty. Their leader was Russell Means, one of the prominent members of the American Indian Movement in the late 1960's and 1970's.
Property ownership in the five-state area of Lakota nation - parts of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana  - had been illegally homesteaded.  Lakota representatives announced that if the United States did not enter into immediate diplomatic negotiations, liens would be filed on real estate transactions in the five state region, clouding title over literally thousands of square miles of land and property.

2008 Indian activists ask that the 23 Medals of DIS Honor awarded in 1890 to the members of the 7th Calvary of the United States Army be rescinded for the murder of innocent women children and men at Wounded Knee.
  
2012 The monetary compensation gained through the longest legal battle in U.S. history remained unclaimed; the settlement is now worth about $1 billion. The map to the left shows the original land promised by the 1868 treaty (gold), the land - including the Black Hills - illegally taken by the U.S. government in the 1877 (orange), and the Lakota reservations as they appeared after 100 years of court actions (brown).
Pine Ridge Reservation, home to many of the Lakota people, is one of the poorest communities in the United States.

2014 – Dakota Access Pipeline is proposed to cross the Missouri River north of Bismark, ND. The public complained because a pipeline break could threaten the drinking water of residents.
2015 – Oct 2016 A bizarre timeline of supposed outreach to the Standing Rock Tribe by the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) that is like some disrespectful pantomime in slow motion. Then follows one intrusion after another onto the unceded and still disputed lands that were lawfully signed over to the Great Sioux Nation in 1851.

Nov-Dec 2016 An escalation of violence against Indigenous water protectors and their allies of every race and many nations raised to such heights that the media blackout finally broke. On December 4th more than 2,000 US Veterans deployed to help act as human shields to defend Americans and  “ . . . support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic”, in this case, militarized law enforcement were the enemies. Then on the same day, the ACE finally denied DAPL the easement they required to drill under the Missouri River, seemingly ending the conflict. It seems the Obama Administration finally came through. But the plan to do an environmental impact study and see if they can “reroute” the pipeline does not mean the war is over.

​Conclusion: As Bernie Sanders pointed out in an interview with DemocracyNow, there is a three-fold problem with this pipeline.

​Leaving number two and three aside for now, take problem  number one. I would argue that sovereignty rights must be settled for the Great Sioux Nation (and all the tribes who were lumped together under that moniker). The above history is not in dispute, even among most white or government sponsored historians. I wrote an even longer version of this timeline that exceeded 22 pages because the deeper you drill down into the heart of the problem, the more you discover systemic racism and policies in which the Native Americans were treated as less than human, unworthy, and an impediment to white America’s perceived ownership over land and in turn, wealth.
 
When the history is reviewed in detail, I’m struck by how much we are repeating ourselves. At Standing Rock, we have a combustible mix of local and out-of-state (and therefore out of jurisdiction) sheriff’s department officials (in disguise, with no visible identification) and private security personnel (who brought us such memorable hits as unlicensed attack dogs bite water protectors—all of whom seem to be heavily militarized. Peaceful protectors are constantly under the eyes of snipers and near constant helicopters that are reported to even fly in the dark in the middle of the night. Many believe this surveillance is a form of psychological warfare to prevent sleep and generally intimidate, as well as inhibit access to social media and even widespread privacy intrusion of protestor encampments.  

Indigenous Americans have a right to the land they occupy and are simply trying to protect their water supply (and it’s worth noting, the water supply that 6 to 18 million American citizens depend on). The above history tells us all we need to know about why they don’t trust that the US government nor the kind of corporation that can invoke a militarized crackdown, have the tribe’s best interests at heart. The time is right for them to stand up again and be heard!
 
With breaking news that the pipeline will not go through on the disputed land, now is the time to answer the more important question: Who’s land is this really?
 
The evidence is clear. The court already ruled in the tribe’s favor in the United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, the US Supreme Court found that the Congressional Act of 1877 constituted "a taking of tribal property which had been set aside by the treaty of Fort Laramie for the Sioux's exclusive occupation."  
 

Further, we have something to learn from the Lakota / Dakota / Sioux, whose tribe never took the money that the U.S. government offered them for a land deal they never sanctioned according to original treaty rules. These first peoples have been called the first environmentalists because respect of nature is built into their religion in a way that most dominant religions should envy. The biggest problems of our time, climate change, destruction of farm land, water contamination, drought, chemicals in everything including breast milk and soil samples in seemingly untouched, remote forests—all of these issues have grown to epic proportions and threaten the biosphere in ways of which we never dreamed.
 
The soul of America needs to reconcile its treatment of the first Americans, who only lost their lands for the crimes of not being immune to European diseases, not being genocidal, and occasionally trusting in the word of the white man. They could not conceive of the greed and dishonesty they would face. They couldn’t imagine wholesale slaughter of the buffalo or their own people, nor that man could cut and poison so much land and water.
 
We cannot go back and change the past. But we can listen to the pain of the past, trapped as it has been in a soundless, strangled cry. We can listen.
And we can give back the lands stipulated in the treaties signed to all the Tribes or else make fair compensation. We can stop treating the first Americans like problems that have to be managed (read: exploited) and instead give all the tribes a seat at the tables of government, the way we should have done since the time of treaties and land negotiations began.
 
Give back the Black Hills. It’s theirs by treaty, along with a 120+ million acres. Maybe not all can be given back, but use that first Fort Laramie treaty as a place to start negotiations. Federal and State lands within those borders should go back to the tribes in an equitable manner and some fair financial compensation should be met out for the vast mineral resources that were stolen from them in the last 150 years. This includes Army Corps of Engineer lands inside the 1851 boundaries.
 
America’s tribal societies lived here sustainably for thousands of years while those of European descent have managed to trash the place in a few hundred. We should not only make repairs, but look to the lessons and wisdom of the tribes that helped inspire our democracy as we renegotiate our own contract with America that includes all the human beings in a way that is sustainable. The other option is death and moral decay . . . which is not really an option.
 
Native America is not in a history book or a museum exhibit. It is not a tragedy tale to avoid, get depressed over, or elevate into nonsensical myth. It is alive—injured and set back—but alive and today it needs all of our support to repair the wounds of the past. Only then can we collaborate to solve the problems of today for the benefit of all the generations to come.
 
Now is the time.
 
 
Honor the Treaties!

The first time I heard about Ira Gross was when I told Marc that I was finally reading Moonshadow. When I first met Marc (or J.M. DeMatteis, as is his writing moniker) I was probably about 12 and he said I wasn't ready for the rather adult content of his epic graphic novel that was only a few years old at the time. He suggested I stick to his superhero stuff he wrote (Justice League, Dr Fate, Spider-Man etc.). So I did. Until I didn't. Somewhere between 12 and 18, I read it and Marc said, "You know the character Ira, he was inspired by a friend of mine named Ira Gross."
I found that hard to imagine since the character Ira was a real piece of work. According to the book: 

I thought, Wow, Marc must know some rough customers and shady men.
​
The second time I heard the name Ira Gross was during the summer of 1995, right after I graduated high school. I hadn't seen Marc in years, though we kept in touch and I'd made him my honorary God Father because it seemed the only label to put on our friendship that spanned a generation. He had promised that if we didn't bump into each other by the time I graduated High School, he'd fly me out to visit he and his family in New York. When I showed up, other than Marc being somewhat bemused that I was as tall as him, it was like old times: comic book talk and introspections into the nature of the universe. I was going to go directly from New York down to Myrtle Beach for my main event of the year, the Youth Sahavas, a spiritually focused youth camp. And this wasn't just any Sahavas. This was it, my fifth and final year as a camper. Over the years I'd forged many deep friendships (with people I'm still friends with today) and the spiritual camp dedicated to Meher Baba only lasted 6 days--a mere blink of an eye. So I wanted to get the most out of it and not leave with any regrets or feelings that I didn't participate or get the most out of the experience.
So when Marc told me, "By the way, I just found out my friend Ira is going to be your counselor," my mouth fell open.

Most Youth Sahavas counselors were just barely adults themselves and the few times they'd had "grown-ups" past their thirties or forties, it didn't seem to work out all that well. And on top of that, all I could picture was the hairy lout from Moonshadow, lovable as he was…in his own way. Of course Marc said that Ira Gross wasn't really like the character from Moonshadow…but I wasn't convinced about just how much of the real man inspired the character.

I approached the Youth Sahavas with some trepidation. For reasons beyond my control, I missed the first day and arrived late at night. Ira met me on the porch of the Lake Cabin and just whispered a few things so I could get settled in the last available cot, nearest the door of the porch. He wasn't particularly covered in hair that I could see, and seemed genuinely happy to see me, but I reserved judgment until I could see him in the light of day.

I broke the ice and told him I knew he was the inspiration for Marc's character. He responded as if that was nothing. 
He said, "My middle initial is M so when you put my initials with my last name you get 'I.M. Gross' and the kids never let me forget it." But he didn't seem bitter about these or any jokes. It was like a badge of honor.

To my surprise I found that Ira was an older guy who could get down on our level effortlessly. What I found later was that it was effortless mainly because he never really left the level of teenager in the first place!

​The next year I actually did become a counselor along with Ira. He couldn't help but crack jokes throughout the long and, at times, serious meetings that occur both before, during, and after the Sahavas.

​Ira was a genuine guy. He kidded and joked, but he could express deep feelings with a similar childlike honesty and somehow made it easy for shy teens to also open up about themselves.
Not many years after, I came across a conversation about how one young woman told Ira that his age was probably a problem and why he shouldn't come back to the youth Sahavas. Even though this girl had some power over me at the time, I told her she didn't know what she was talking about and that Ira was the best counselor I'd had and he helped set the template for how I was to act as a counselor (which ended up stretching 12 years).

Many years later, 2004, just months before I was to have my first child (but didn't yet know it yet), a bunch of us early-mid 20-somethings drove up from Asheville to New York for a visit to the Big Apple and some of our other young friends who happened to be living there. One night we really tried to get in touch with as many as we could. Mostly Sahavas contacts who were there for school, careers, culture, whatever. We met at an Indian restaurant in the East Villiage and lo, there's Ira. He stood out by age and I hadn't seen him in years, but after a short conversation he fit in just as well as anyone else. 

It was years until I saw him again. Only recently, really. He moved to Myrtle Beach and I ran into him somewhere between 2013 and 2015 at least a few times. He was bald and I could see the ware of the cancer fight he readily described, but he was also still Ira: friendly, humorous, and ready for a real connection. He stopped by my cabin to meet my wife and he took a lot of time to get to know my oldest son. At the time I almost thought he was coming on strong, even though I always enjoyed Ira. I think I was worried about my family's personal space and didn't know what they thought or some weird thing like that even though I was happy to see him. Only this week do I see, Ira was not long for the world and he knew it. Ira did not waste opportunities to meet people, to connect, to reach out and touch them. I am perennially under the false belief that there's no rush -- and there will always be tomorrow. I am glad that Ira nudged in and embraced me and my family in those passing vacation moments, because that was the only later we'll get in this life and the reminder is a gift to me. To remember to seize that day, to grab the hand of your friend and tell them how much they mean to you or to just exchange a meaningful moment in the present.

​Jai Baba Ira may you take that smile all the way to the bank, to the beyond, and bring it back to us mere mortals on here on Earth. We need constant reminders to not take ourselves too seriously.

Writing this now, I only wish I could hug Ira one last time and see that smile and say goodbye because he did, somehow, affect me in a deep way and I am grateful to all the myriad twists and turns our paths crossed to have that be so.

​In Max's article, entitled A TRIO OF MYSTICAL NOVELS: Tales from the East and West  he gives detailed and interesting reviews of "BHAJAN by Tim Garvin, MAYA by Sandy Huntington, and TOTEM by Eruch Adams".

Now I want to read the other two books as well. 

​While I'm at it, I should point out that I read another recent article by Max Reif entitled, The Key Turned: A story of mystical catharsis and shattered illusions. It's a longish, at least semi-autobiographical, short story about his life and what led to his first marriage and first pilgrimage to India to visit the special sites associated with Avatar Meher Baba. All the while the narrator's inner struggle with new love and trust gets tested even as his illusions of what spirituality actually IS are gently smashed with a hammer. The intimacy and telling of the tale make it a journey well-worth taking. There are lessons for everyone on the pages of this story.

Like Tosh Cloudtree, I considered going to the Art Institute of Seattle, and even attended an art camp there in the summer of '93. While visiting I heard about the Seattle Underground, a segment of an old town that was paved over and essentially buried. Somehow I knew that would be a setting in the greater story I was dreaming about. But honestly, other than these flashes and occasional tweaks to the mask design, I knew deep down that I wasn't really ready to write this story.

• I needed to do research on Native American myths / spirituality. 
• Learning how to write would be a plus. I had written for the Bigfork High newspaper and found that writing was my calling, but I knew that there was more to writing professionally that what I was prepared to do.
• I needed a girlfriend ASAP or I'd go crazy. 

So began my long journey from post high school youth to something vaguely resembling adulthood: jobs, renting, transportation, girlfriends, and coping with the lack of all the above. Living, it turns out, is expensive. The distractions of surviving and socializing left little time to write seriously. I didn't have a computer or even access to one. The first fragment of Totem that I ever wrote down wan while visiting my aunt, uncle, and cousins in LA sometime in the mid-late 90's. I sat down on my cousin's old B&W Mac and typed out a page and a half that began the dream sequence that still shows up in the book (it's closer to Tosh's second dream sequence, for those who read the book). Young Tosh running from some unseen terror as the land around him changes in ways that are beyond his control--the American Dream in a nutshell. Luckily, I hit print or nothing of that opening would have survived the eventual breakdown of my writing floppy disks.

Totem the Video Game?
Between 1999 and 2002 I worked for video game companies in the Bay Area. At some point it occurred to me that the dynamics of how the Totem mask and powers worked actually lent themselves to video game. Some fragment of a note survived in my journal, "Write proposal for Totem video game project." Then the dot com bubble burst, making speculative projects even further from everyone's mind. 

While Totem burbled in the recesses of my unconscious, I made a point to collect books on Native American legends and lore. In about 2006, the ideas around Totem came up again when I needed an original comic book idea to work on. I met with an artist friend to hash out the story, and ideas began to solidify. My research began in earnest, starting with the sun symbol I'd drawn ever since I was small. Where was it from?

I have not been able to clarify the the exact significance of this particular sun symbol, but I have since seen it on Hopi pottery and I know that all the pueblos are related by the same spiritual roots. The spiritual and religious order revealed in the pages of Book of the Hopi was complex and nuanced, somewhat similar to Hinduism. Hopi spiritual traditions shared certain common threads with other Eastern religions too, including Tibetan Buddhism and Egyptian cosmology (particularly with their emphasis on the one sun God as defined by the Pharaoh Akhenaten, and all the other Gods existing on a lesser plane).

From Graphic Novel to Prose Epic
I wrote the script for a 24 page comic book (calculating how many panels will properly fit on a page and describing them is a fine art unto itself), and it was good. It completely stayed in the future timeline until the future protagonist began to read from Tosh Cloudtree's journal. End of comic 1.

Hmm. This is a bigger story than I thought.

In 2010, I decided to write the epic in prose and see where the story led me in a more fluid way--unencumbered by panel counts. 

Little did I know how many things I didn't know…about prose-novel technique. How best to use attributions (e.g. , he said.) and where to pepper in physical descriptions of characters and where to let them talk, etc. etc. My first draft took a while and I ended up with over 650 manuscript pages. Another thing I didn't know was that first time novelists should keep it closer to 120,000 words or less (about 400 ms pages). 

Cutting, Editing, Rewriting, Cursing--Repeat!
So I had to figure out how to take my story, cut it in half, and make it "work." Sounds easy, but the editing process awaited. Thus began the long dark relocation march of the soul. It was excruciating most of the time, with glimmers of inspiration. My editing-minded wife helped a lot. Various friends gave feedback. I found a critique group who helped tremendously. Fortunately I was committed enough to keep an open mind and actually learn from each mistake. Most of them, anyway. After critiques and slashing the entire future timeline (to be used later), I had gained several things:

• More knowledge about the particulars of prose writing than I dreamed possible (with the assurance that, at each moment I didn't know what I didn't know).
• A tighter and better book.
• The realization that when I wrote my first draft, I actually wrote 2.5 novels. Book 2 is a finished draft, in revision. 3rd book has a lot of chapters and outline material, but will take some work to make it stand on its own. That's the fun part.

*I will focus on specific themes from Totem in later posts and perhaps even more on the wonder and terror of critiques and reader feedback.

Last year I released a short story via Amazon Kindle on December 23rd, just two days before Christmas. At the time, it was more of an educational experiment to see if I could figure out how to self publish than an actual plan to make money. I shared the book a couple times on Facebook and just waited to see what would happen in the few days around Christmas. 

"Spirits of Christmas" is a personal story to me, originally intended to be a story for my son to explain Santa in a way that will make sense even when he's an adult. Happily, some people found it and a few of them wrote reviews that were all great and very encouraging. 

I soon plan on self publishing my epic Native American fantasy novel, Totem, in print and for ebooks. Through that process, I've learned a few new tricks about formatting that I didn't know last year. 

This year I gave the "Spirits of Christmas" a makeover, justified the text, added a few artistic flourishes, and generally made the story more professional.

So if you're in the market for Christmas Fantasy or know someone who is, give this story a try.

$1.99             30 pages

ASHEVILLE, NC  - Robert Thompson stopped by his local grocery store after work to pick up “pasta, onions, and a bottle of wine” for what he describes as the first family dinner in almost two weeks, when he stepped in the checkout line of Pete Jenkins, a very charming elderly employee who “regaled me with tales from his ‘wild youth’ while I waited to pay.” Thompson went on to explain that it somehow took fifteen minutes to check out, during which time he and growing number of people in the line behind him learned of the time Pete Jenkins reportedly lost feeling in his left hand when he jumped off a moving train to return to his true love “Mabel”.

 Thompson reports being amused and even a little “heartened by humanity in general” as Jenkins slowly hunted down and manually entered each barcode between stories—often stopping and starting over.

“It was almost as enjoyable as spending time with the family I hadn’t seen and waited on me at the time, but not quite.” Thompson admits that the bag of onions was a mistake on his part. “I didn’t even know if we needed them. Trying to figure out which one of three onion varieties was where Pete really fell apart.”

Jenkins reportedly hovered a finger over the small checkout interface, took his glasses on and off three times before eventually choosing, what Thompson believes was, “the wrong fucking onion anyway.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” a weary Thompson explained to other patrons. “Stories of Pete’s children were heartwarming, almost as heartwarming as hearing about my own children or reminding them who their daddy is. Old Pete does have a way with words. I nearly didn’t want to punch him in his wrinkly face.” He then explained that Pete’s story about how living on a fixed income in what some would consider “squalor” never got Pete down, touched him and almost stopped him from writing a complaint that, “I hope, will get Pete fired,” Thompson reportedly said to a grocery store shopping cart rustler who didn’t have the power to fire anyone.

Thompson went on to say he supported hiring the elderly for any profession where they qualify, but only as long as they aren’t allowed to talk or ask questions. “I wondered why his line was almost empty while all the other checkout lines had two or three carts loaded with food, pushed by wary-eyed soccer moms. They knew. They fucking knew, and they didn’t warn me.”

Stepping into his Dodge Neon, Thompson gazed off into the distance. “It reminds me of Pete’s story about the hobo and the dancing girl . . . except I’m not drunk and no one’s getting laid tonight.”

FIREFLIES
by Eruch Adams

The fireflies are out tonight.
Thousands of them as I look up at the treeline.
Flash, flash, flash
Here and there and up and over

"What are you doing?" I ask.
"Don't you know?" they reply. "The summer is here. The brightest day of our life is today and we're just giving some back."

"Come on," I say massaging the ache in my ankle. "It's just another day. One of thousands I've seen. One of billions the sun has seen. Nothing special."

"Oh but listen, the wind speaks of great days ahead. Yesterday, today, tomorrow. It's all now--it's all happening! Don't look away." The blinking flashes increased, like a riotous dance to a drum beat only they could hear.

I couldn't hear it, anyway. "I've seen it, you silly fireflies. It's nice. But will it put food on the table? Will it make my dreams come true?"

"Foolish man, you only planted half your garden, and yet your tomatoes know what we're talking about. The can smell it. This is the time for love and fruitfulness. 
"Find someone to shine with. Live, live. It's all happening now. Tell your loved ones.  Your dreams are coming true this instant even if you have to set your heart on fire -- guide them to your shore."

After much anticipation..."One Hell Of An Angel"
(AKA "Angel Demon STAB, STAB, STAB" AKA "Touched by Angels")

A demon with an existential crisis and an angel with PTSD team up to save the career of a washed up rocker.

Demon Kyle is a stabber on the third level of hell. He knows his business. But when he starts wondering about the nature of life and death, his superiors shut him up and send him to the “Angel in Training Program.” 

Angel Mezudio has been around a very long time—so long that he developed PTSD and goes catatonic at the sight of blood. Relegated to feeding parking meeters and cleaning up dog poop, Mezudio is affraid to trying anything new, but his boss has other ideas. 
Mezudio is charged with training the stabber Kyle to be a good angel and earn his wings...or at least stop stabbing everyone.
This feature length film is currently in post production and was funded in part through Kickstarter.  One Hell of An Angel is Gorilla with a Mustache Film’s first feature film.

HOW DID THIS PROJECT HAPPEN?
Good question. Back in 2010, my fledgling 48 Hour Film Competition team was drunk on their unexpected wins from the previous year for our thrown together, yet funny, mocumentary, "The Silver Slugger: The lefty Lober Story" we were ready for more crazy fun filmmaking. But this time we wanted 3 additions:

1. A better HD video camera
2. Someone who knew how to use it.
3. Proper sound equipment for voice recording (You really notice any movie without this one)

Somehow our Producer, Lela, found Katie Damien. She had all of the above and then some. Katie ended up directing and editing our film titled, "Touched by Angels" based on a one and a half page of ramblings from my journal about a degenerate demon and his very PC angel sponsor as they watch tv and discuss the meaning of life. The demon had questions and he was going to get some answers. David Dietrich co-wrote and would play the angel Mezudio (a nod to an angel from a short play I had a hand in back in 2000 or so).
Luckily we had some great comedic talent and a killer song, "Heart of an Eagle" recently recorded by Kipper Shauer himself.

From Short to Feature
Yes, it was all meant to be. We won several local awards including Best Picture, Best sound Design, Best line of dialog, and Best Actor (Jenny Wrobel). After an even headier bout of drunk-on-one's-own-powerfulness, I decided that the story of the angel and demon had only been scratched. Over the next month, I wrote a couple page treatment, outlining the whole story that I saw in my head. I presented this to our group and enough people wanted to go ahead with it, that I began writing the screenplay.
But…I was already knee-deep in writing Totem, so I worried that I'd get completely sidetracked if I didn't share the load. Initially, David Dietrich, Katie Damien, and I met several times and discussed splitting off a few scenes from the outline for them to write.
Hilarity ensued. Once a week or so, we'd each bring our pages and read aloud and laugh a lot. 
Eventually we added Matt Shepard (who played demon Kyle) and my wife, Coranna Adams, who I wanted to bring on to help with the writing and editing process.

Collaborative Writing?
Eventually I spliced the various scenes the others worked on into my master script and we had…a giant 160 page mess! Not only was it 50-60 pages too many, but also the style, character names, and formatting didn't match. So began the long edit / rewriting phase where we had to rethink, rewrite, and hack away whole scenes.

Great scenes were lost (or turned into webisodes, as was the case of Dave's Cloud Watching scene) but new and wondrous inventions were also created during the process.

Once we were generally happy with the 103 page script, our new production company formed, calling ourselves "Gorilla With a Mustache Films" after a witty and ad-libbed line from Dave (as Mezudio from the original short film).

The rest of the story has been discussed elsewhere, but I don't think I ever explained the evolution of the story itself. Even during the production, a few script changes occurred. Some planned, some less so. The most significant was when we received feedback from Evan Bussanich on the one scene he was set to play a spiritual master. His suggestions reshaped the scene, adding levity and simplicity to help explain the secrets of the universe.

Sometimes I say I wrote this film because I feel a sense of ownership of the story and characters--and I spent hundreds of hours actually writing and rewriting, but in film, like few other mediums, it's a collaboration. The story would not be what it finally became without all the above mentioned adding their own slant and style to the project.

Pressure Relief Valve
I don't write to stop the voices so much as to see what else the voices might say.

Kyle Tyler starts out as a foul-mouthed demon who's first reaction to any situation is to stab his problems away. He considers himself a realist and doesn't see the problem with swearing all the time.
There is a part of me that probably thinks this way. The self-editor thankfully keeps me from acting like Kyle, but…I understand his frustration with life and those human f^%#faces.

Mezudio is not, as has been suggested, gay. Angels don't procreate so there's no worries about sexuality for them (though demons often go through the motions for the more, ahem, specific levels of hell). Yet, Mezudio does exude a certain pervy cheer and wonder. I think he represents the sort of out-of-a-Walmart-magazine positivity that I see around me and do not really feel. Mezudio actually does look for the best in people, no matter their failings. Perhaps I strive for that. He never pretends to care. If anything he had to look away from the horrors of creation, which I think we can all relate to, but is his greatest weakness. That and his off-key voice.

This is the third author website I've created in the last four months or so. Though to be fair, the work I put into the first, my wordpress site, made it easier to transfer over to my second squarespace site (which only gives you a free site for something like 2 weeks or less, then makes it unviewable.
My brother told me about weebly.com and here I am.

Of course, everyone wants something for nothing, especially on the internet. You can get something for nothing, but there's always a drawback.

Wordpress is well established and I know of a great many sites, personal and professional, that are built on wordpress and look and work great.
PROS:

1. It's established. Even if you don't spring for a custome URL, having eruch.wordpress.com is easy for all to remember.
2. When blogging or adding text content, there are a lot of options I'm now missing as I fiddle with weebly's minimalist text interface. A lot of formating options are available in worpress and it's easy to switch between html and their interface, which can be helpful.
3. Worpress communities are large and in one blog post I had a few people I didn't know show up to follow the page. Not tons, but I only experimented with one post.

CONS:

1. But when I wrote my first blog post, I noticed that there was a giant video link embedded right at the end of my blog, and people thought it was part of my post. Ugh! Not cool. Turns out it costs $30 / year to remove ads. Just that one thing. Come on! Is this Russia?
   
2. Or pay $99 per year for "Premium" wordpress, which "Includes a domain name of your choice or domain mapping for an existing domain, VideoPress, Custom Design, 10GB Space Upgrade, and No Ads." (Basically, it's $100 if you don't want to be annoyed. e-commerce is more expensive than that.)
3. I found it very hard to do simple customizations in Wordpress such as creating a different header image for each page. I could choose a single unique image OR a slideshow of their choosing. You pay to customize, and that's annoying.
   

Squarespace is upfront that it's not free so they don't seem to jerk you around with ads either.
PROS:

1. Domain name included in the cost of membership, which is very cool.Many people don't want to have to also deal with annual renewals and username / passwords for yet another company (especially if you loose track of this info and let your site.com lapse, you will probably lose it for good.)
2. Elegant designs of templates and there seem to be a fair number of minor tweaks possible even when you place title boxes and line breaks and decide to change how large everything appears.
   

CONS:

1. There are no free plans. You have only around 2 weeks to completely build your site before you pay or it goes away. 
2. You must fork over around $90 for a year's worth of the cheapest plan...(This was before I knew if I even wanted it and certainly before I had time to really get the hang of the interface.)

Weebly
PROS:

1. has a similar drag-and-drop style of web element insertion and design, which is very cool and basically upends the notion that you must have a web designer crafting your website from scratch. If these options existed 10 years ago, my business sites would have been a lot easier to create and maintain. 
2. Easy to move, rename, and change the layout of existing pages. Also can make pages invisible with one click.
   
3. Blogs can automatically post to Facebook and Twitter accounts, which saves some time.
4. Slidshows, videos, columns, pictures, and text can be easily inserted and arranged. The sheer amount that one can do with the column size, quantity, and what you add to them, really gives a visually minded person plenty of options to ma
5. E-commerce sites can be easily set up, even for the semiliterate user. Not all the bells and whistles a custom site might give you, but my brother and I made this site relatively quickly after Ancient Sun's old host site became so difficult to use, we decided to abandon it after 9 years. See the new weekly one: http://www.ancientsunnutrition.com/index.html

CONS:

1. Weebly wants to nickle and dime you for registering a domain through them at a cost of around $40 / year, which is just under 4 times the going rate. If that came with a free something to offset the cost of the cheapest non-free membership plan, I might have done it...but no luck. I say avoid registering domains via Weebly.
2. Blog posts and text editing in general is very very basic. You can do what you need to do, but not much else. Font color, bold, italic, underline, text size/style, justification can all be changed. Also bullet points and numbered lists are easy enough. To create indented text, you have to drag and drop a "block quote" box and insert or type your info there, then add another "text" box below that.
3. For ecommerce, the shipping options are not as robust as I'm used to. You can't just link up to USPS or Fed Ex and have the computer calculate realtime shipping costs. No, you have to create your own rules based on either weight of each item or on dollar amount AND by territory (country, state, region or whatever subcategory you want.)
4. There is not an easy "Sign up for my blog newsletter" button or field. There is a way to do this, but it required searching the help articles, creating complicated google accounts, and copy/pasting some html into the sidebar of my blog page.

So which is the best?

After looking at the numbers of these three sites, for my needs (an author site with a unique domain (i.e. eruchadams.com), the winner goes to weebly.com, with a caveat. If I purchase the domain name myself for around $11 per year, and purchase a year's worth of the weebly.com standard plan for $4.08 / month, that still breaks down to just under $5 / month for a versatile website that's easy to build, maintain, rebuild, and add content to. I notice, there are often coupons available for weekly as well, so do a search on that before spending.

Try signing up and creating a free site before you decide. http://www.weebly.com/link/iAfRdH


I'd love to hear what sites others are using, for what reason, and how they like it (value for the money).

Just before midnight, I finished my edit that incorporates all the critiques of Totem Book 1. I joined my critique group last March and have been diligently submitting one chapter per week since then. Often learning so many wonderful and often maddening things, that I spent more time pre-rewriting each chapter before submitting, than I did going over the 3-6 critiques I received each week.

It takes a lot of work to read, digest, and incorporate six sets of varying suggestions. Or not incorporate (but I needed a good reason for that so it took brain power.) Now I'm done… Only the manuscript is now at 123K words and agents and publisher want them to be around 120K.

"Just when I think I'm done, they pull me back in!"

So I need to think about it for a bit and maybe…maybe give it a final read-through. Oh baby Jesus, I'm happy with this book, but am ready to move on to the next project.
Maybe some beta-readers would do the trick…
In any case, somewhere a kachina is dancing for me right now.

The movie I wrote and created with my team Gorilla With a Mustache Films just won the big prize for "Joint Effort". 

Below is the official announcement
**********
The wait is over! Here are the Awards for the 2013 National Film Challenge! 

Best Film – ‘Joint Effort’ by Gorilla with a Mustache Films
...
Audience Choice Award 2nd Runner Up - 'Joint Effort' by Gorilla with a Mustache Productions
...
Best Actor – David Ostergaard for ‘Joint Effort’ by Gorilla with a Mustache Films
...
Best Writing – Tie 
Eruch Adams, Will Eill for ‘Joint Effort’ by Gorilla with a Mustache Films
and
Paul Jenkins, Adam Dukes, Daniel Montgomery for ‘Farmer and the Fold’ by Whisper Productions
...
Best Use of Genre – Comedy – ‘Joint Effort’ by Gorilla with a Mustache Films

And our prize is:
Best Film of The National Film Challenge

• $3,000 USD
• Award Trophy
• Screen at 48HFP Filmapalooza in 2014
• Screen at the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner
• Free registration in the 2014 National Film Challenge

**************************
We're all very excited and at least some of us will make it to Cannes Film Festival. So many talented filmmakers, actors, and talent in general. I'll keep you posted on developments.