SNAPmouse Incorporated
August 21st, 2008
The latest collection of pictures of my family from the Little Beaver Celebration on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation. Aren't they just the cutest?

Just in case you haven't been paying attention, my father is now a councilman for the Jicarilla Apache Nation. I'm very proud of him. Mostly because in a town as small as Dulce, there's a bit of popularity contest. People don't always vote for the most capable, but people know in a heartbeat whether or not you're an asshole puppy kicker. It's more important sometimes that someone has integrity and heart instead of an ivy league education.

There are a hundred things with our tribe could do to improve, but there's ONE thing I feel compelled to drop kick them into.

The Mortgage business.

I have no idea what's keeping them out of this one. We have the capital, the resources and the money. We're only missing the people. That's one thing the rez has a lot of. People. People who need jobs. People who need to learn new jobs. Professional type of experience for anywhere in the real world.

We buy some developments across the country. Sell on the market. If they don't sell we offer them to tribal members as vacation spots or getaways and schedule it just like a time-share. Treat it like a real business

When we foreclose and have to take the house, the tribe will OWN MORE LAND. It won't be federally recognized tribal land, but it will the property of the tribe. We'll have reservations all across the country. Then we'll just buy a state. Like Colorado for starters.

Maybe I'm dreaming too big. Maybe we should start with a simple car loan business (you heard me), but cars depreciate. We need to think big. It's always been a problem when I was there on the rez. Nobody thought big enough. And then they called me crazy... again.

July, 24th, 2008

On today's episode of "Things I think are stupid"

A WESTERN MISSOURI UNIVERSITY sticker on a purple Dodge Neon.

ok, so you're proud that you went to college, good. You may even be proud that you graduated. And what did you do with your degree and newfound education? Bought a purple ugly shitbox. Congrats. That sticker almost makes me want to attend the university so I can afford a crappy death machine I wouldn't want to go sledding in, much less take the freeway.

It also says wonders for your education and the use of your skills. Don't take this the wrong way, I don't drive a kick ass car either. But I'm not putting a University of NM or NMHU sticker on my toyota. For some reason, I don't find it that impressive that my college education has allowed me to buy a foreign car. Maybe because it's NOT. I love my car, liked my school (they let me graduate even though I'm borderline retarded), But that's no reason to make fun of the entire school adminstration in front of the entire driving populace.

"aren't you proud that you graduated?". Sure, but putting a sticker on my 1996 toyota isn't doing anything for anyone. Well, except allowing people like to me to make fun of you online. Also, snicker, point and roll my eyes as I drive past. So go ahead, put that sticker on your ford festiva, just don't expect me to think, "hmmmm, must be a really good school". I wonder what kind of sticker Bill Gates has on his car? Oh yeah, he didn't graduate college.

The day I make my first 50 milliion, I'll throw my NMHU sticker on my Bentley or Ferrari. Then people will think, "wow, that retarded guy went to a little school in middle of Nowwhere NM and he drives a kick ass car... maybe I should consider school since I'm mildly retarded and can type on a website too!".

Other things:

Interesting article on cracked.com about the "5 worst ways to get drunk". Since I grew up on the rez and was just there this past weekend, I found this funny and relevant. Their list of 5 is impressive, but at #3 they have Thunderbird "wine". being from the rez, I know this one well. It's something that's popular with the winos down there. You can get a bottle for under $2. It's the most horrible concoction I've ever tasted, and I've tasted Moonshine and Ti'swin. (basically fermented cornmeal).

The moonshine made me stop breathing and I barely survived my sip of the other stuff, but Thunderbird was beyond all of that. Thunderbird made me question the existence of a happy god and what people are going to say at my funeral. I wasn't drunk and drinking this stuff, this was ONE drink. It would've been nicer to shove a pipe full of kerosene down my throat, light it and kick me in the balls.

May, 20th, 2008
Wedding pictures in case anyone wants to see them again

Lately my days have been filled with reception planning and softball. My 8 yr old is playing and she's doing great. I'm amazed that we even got her out there to play. She's getting better all the time, even though when I tell her something she gives me that "stop talking and throw the damn ball" look. Any fathers out there will know what I mean.

The reception thing is going along thanks to the 99% effort of my beautiful wife. I put in my 1% by saying things like "yeah, that's cool", Or "that'll work nicely". I just realized this recently when she asked me to work on a song list for the reception. It's actually probably the funnest part of the whole thing.

The problem is, reception songs usually consist of bland material heard over and over again. They have the long songs and the sappy songs and the standard dance songs. Don't get me wrong, I like SOME of those songs. But if I hear Celine Dion or Michael Bolton, someone is getting a decorative ornament shoved down their talk-hole.

Problem #2 is that my wife and I are not those easy-listening type people. A song occasionally squeeks through, but for the most part, I like Rancid, Green Day, MxPx and the Gimme Gimmies. She likes NIN, Tool and other bands that are not made for dancing.

I've still got my favorites of cheesy songs, ("I've been loving you" by Otis Redding and "When a Man loves a woman" by Percy Sledge), but I try to keep those things in reserve. And you could make the argument that this reception is the BEST time to indulge myself, but I don't want to play sappy music all night. I want people to have music to talk over and eat and drink. It's a party, it should be treated as such.

I also want to avoid and 'all dance party' kind of night and mix it up a bit. Anytime I can make people listen to Green Day or The Kooks and Cold War kids is cool with me. Everyone has that music that EVERYONE should hear at least once. So if you don't mind, there'll be some interesting songs played that night. Are you invited? Check your mailbox. (soon maybe, do you expect me to mail invites too? who am I? Superman? sheesh)

May, 1st, 2008
and it begins.. again - Funniest part of this article is not the fact they've banned bacon hot dogs for 'your health', but that they've banned them unless the cart operator spends 26k on a new cart. So if they have a new cart, well, fuck your health. But really, it's for your health.

Happy May Day everyone! May day is supposedly about a bunch of stuff. Flowers on doorsteps and poles and, barefoot hippies and talking bears with fireman hats in rodeos making chicken tarts, and.. ummm. what?

This morning, I was watching Don Harmon do the weather. he's a local weather guy and seems to be the only weatherperson I've ever seen who knows he has a great job and doesn't take it too seriously. What other job can you suck at, and still get paid big bucks for it, all while becoming a local celebrity?

So i started thinking of jobs I would gladly choose as a career path.

April, 29th, 2008
short one today. I just want to say. F.U.G.W. and I hope someone ties you down and pees in your ear.

You bastard

If you don't read the article allow me to quote the last sentence.

"Bush says economy not in a recession: Though the president maintained that the economy is not in a recession, he said that does not affect the pain some Americans are feeling from the recent downturn."

downturn? DOWNTURN! please refer to sentence #1.

April, 25th, 2008
It's almost an unending load of crap that I read somedays. Some of it's interesting, some it, just random brain space. For example, There's an interesting article about how wearing shoes is actually BAD for your entire body. The article points out that they don't expect anyone to stop wearing shoes, just to start walking correctly. Why is this interesting?

When I was a kid, we would go to feasts out in the woods on the reservation. I don't really want to explain what the feast is for right now, so I'm gonna tell you what I did when we were out there.

I wasn't a participant (another thing I need to get into some day) and there were a number of cousins and other relatives out there helping. Since we (the kids) were basically camping, we had to find something to entertain ourselves. We'd play baseball with pinecones and sticks or we'd play hide and seek. When the sun went down, we'd roast any marshmallows and try coffee. Coffee was pretty horrible cooked on a fire all day, but with enough sugar and creamer, it became drinkable (read:half full of both).

Almost everytime we stayed out there we would try to stay up all night. Maybe we were scared of sleeping in the tent amongst wild animals, maybe we just didn't know what else to do. This led to us sneaking around in the woods in the middle of the night. This was real trees and rocks stuff too. Most people think of new mexico as a desert. But we were actually in the foothills of the Rockies. So it was tough to be quiet while trodding through pinecone and old crackly brush. We were making so much noise one night, that my dad told us we were doing it wrong. So, he showed us some tricks to walking. Stepping on the heel still, but not plodding along like a bunch of drunken apache elephants. Well, Elephants anyway.

That night we spent the next few hours trying to walk quietly. Walking on your toes didn't help because you'd end up off balance all the time. You ended up doing a roll with your whole foot that's hard to explain. If you managed to read this far into my post, you probably haven't clicked on the article I linked to above. When I read it I thought it was funny. I guess I need to put my moccasins on and learn how to walk again.

April, 21st, 2008
There's hopefully some design changes coming up soon. There are a lot of better ways to run a blog now and I haven't jumped on the bandwagon. Drupal, Blogger, TypePad, Moveable Type, etc always seem too boring for me. Not that this site has much excitement going on, but I like to think I've changed the design enough that it's actually mine now.

Let me start by saying this: PLEASE READ MORE NEWS.

It sounds pretty simple, but something came across me today, and in about 3 minutes I learned something I never even thought about and it freaked me out a bit. Have you ever seen those military analysts on CNN and Fox and all those other news stations? These are usually retired military guys giving their opinion on the war and other things concerning our current strategy. Did you know that many of these guys are actually contractors for government funded programs? They're not really WORKING for the government, but they are depending on contracts from the government to keep their cash flow.

Does this mean they're all lying to get more money? No, but shouldn't this information be more straightforward when they're on 'legitimate' news stations where we're trying to get some truth about why these kids are dying? Would a multi-million dollar contract possible sway an opinion one way or another?

Again, I don't even pay close enough attention. I have trouble finding afghanistan on a map. Iran and Iraq I've got down now. But please people, for the love of mike, read something today and bring it up with someone, anyone. We need an informed citizenry. That means you!

As far as politics go, I still like Obama. Sure there are things about him I've heard and read, but I still like him. I don't even dislike Hillary. I kind of wish I did, but really, she hasn't garnered much hatred from me. I just don't trust her. I'm not really sure why. I just don't. She seems to be a smart politician and as my wife put it 'conniving'. Though if you were to ask me for evidence of this, well, there's only a few things and it's not even that horrible.

Still, I implore you voters out there, Inform yourself!

April, 11th, 2008
I always thought it would be cool to have a photographic memory. Other than it's practical uses, I think it would be a fun party trick. Then again, I think it would awesome to have Synesthesia.
from wiki: "In one common form of synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored, while in ordinal linguistic personification, numbers, days of the week and months of the year evoke personalities. In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, and/or days of the week elicit precise locations in space (for example, 1980 may be "farther away" than 1990), or may have a (three-dimensional) view of a year as a map (clockwise or counterclockwise)."

The reason I thought of this is because, for some reason, today's date looked "pretty" to me. 4.11.8. I have no idea why. Maybe it's the ramp of the 4 over the stacks and the soft landing on the 8. That's the best I can do. There's no real reason for it I just saw the date and it reminded me of synesthesia.

That's really not where I was going today. Today I was reading famous quotes because people smarter than me have probably already said things I think but with better words. I read a quote from George Orwell's 1984 and remembered how much that book affected my tiny little high school brain. If you've never read 1984, please stop reading this and get to the book-learnin'.

George Orwell is probably the main reason for my authority issues. If I can claim any sort of attachment to a book, this one is big in my collection. Oddly enough, i don't even own a copy. There are some scary things that are currently happening that are WAY too close for comfort for me. What amazes me sometimes is how nobody seems to realize it. They just passed a smoking ban in bars in Kansas City. NO.SMOKING. IN. BARS. It just seems 1984 has crawled from the nightmare pages to real life. Am I the only one this freaks out?

The main problem is that this is happening slowly and creepily. Small things first and then big things, like the patriot act. It's all brushed by and under. I'm worried because I pay attention. And not even THAT well. Maybe I'm just paranoid and think this should be posted with with 128point font on the front of the newspaper. I always thought it just an inbred hatred of the government (growing up on the reservation causes a lot of this). Then I read something like 1984 and other great quotes and I realize, I'm not alone. I just don' t have a big enough following.

"One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting."
—George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, 1938

Maybe we need to go around and start handing out copies of 1984 . After they read them, we can go and see who's paying attention. Anyone who still thinks the gov't is doing a 'good job' or 'would vote for him again', gets an immediate history lesson and a big bag of angry bees.

Maybe we'll have to highlight things in the book for them. Make some obvious connections, like a Bush/Cheney speech about the war, then this "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever." - 1984 It could be that most people are too thick. It could be that most people are FINALLY getting it. (the pres has sub 30 rating right now).

There is still that 30%. Who in spite of all the evidence, still refuses to see scary shit when it's chasing them down the hall. There's really not much we can do for them. Short of moving them all to Wyoming and filming them for my reality show. I'll call it, "When idiots live among morons, a study in.. NUKE THEM HURRY UP!".

But alas, my dreams will fester and die upon this webpage. Screaming at people doesn't seem to work. In fact, it tends to make them frightened as I chase them down the street. Hopefully I can start my own government without governing. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

April, 9th, 2008
So the new digs are in here at work. Still trying to get the place figured out. Strangely familiar surroundings compared to my lost job. It's really a bit eerie sometimes. Like I've already worked here. So far the people are nice. Granted, this is week 2 at the job, but still, most of them seem direct enough to know what to expect. My 2 coworkers seem really cool and laid back. Which is definitely my type of environment. We're in this old building that looks like it's going to be condemned. But that's just the outside, there's a whole hustle and setup on the inside which is traitorous to the street view.

The software I work with is a little different but everything I've done before in this type of environment. We're even going through the same conversions as my last job. These guys here seem better at taking care of it's IT dept in general. So it's been fun and interesting. The only scary thing is this place looks like the latest spot for a gorefest movie sometimes. Cold concrete floors and dark dreary windows makes it feel like shatner-mask is gonna steal my bones if I stay here too late atnight.

I'm trying to remember what got lost with the hack of my site. Actually it was their surver that was hacked, not me specifically. Pretty sure I need to repost my wedding pictures, though everyone has probably already seen them so I probably won't bother.

As Far as updates or anything interesting.. umm.. My brother is getting married. So I have a trip planned that weekend. Little Beaver in Dulce is fast approaching and I have to get ready for that. Reception here is in the planning stages, so there's that too. Maybe I should've taken a month or so off before I started working and got all this crap taken care of.

My Byrd is playing softball and I'm very proud of her for doing that. Can't wait for her first game. I'm sure this is a young parent thing because before long I'm going to start hating all the practices and stuff our kids are doing, but I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it right now. Ronin is, well, Ronin. Loves scooby doo and pretending to be batman. (this of course makes me superman).

April, 8th, 2008
Yeah, my site got hacked. Last few months of posts lost. I'll see what I can do to fix them. But since nobody reads this, I won't worry too much about it. New posts coming soon.

November, 13th, 2007
We should be mad as Hell!

November, 2nd, 2007
My 7yr old cracks me up:http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2628.shtml

Mommy, how old are you?
Mommy tells her age
*thinks for a minute*
"But Mommy, I don't want you to die!!"

"I tried Celery today, I didn't like it".
Me: "I only like it with peanut butter"
Mom: "In girl scouts we ate it with peanut butter and raisins, called it Ants on a Log. Was there anything on your celery when you tried it?.
"no, it was just plain".
Mom: "Do you think you'd like to join Girl Scouts?"
"Nah, I don't like Raisins".

I was watching Scooby Doo with my son a few days ago and had a thought. Aren't all deep thoughts somehow connected with scooby? Anyway, the episode was about the Loch Ness Monster and they were in scotland. I think. They didn't really mention a country so I'm assuming here that the accents and dress were very scottish.

The best part was the extra characters. First there were 2 rough and tumble type brothers who fought and pranked each other throughout the entire episode. They were fun to watch and turned out to be more important than originally percieved. Then there was the mixtures of any scooby cartoon, the straight and narrow professor and the hippie professor and most of all, the lazy-eyed port captain who stops to give the kids "dire warning". Now this was a crazy looking scottish guy.

The thought occurred to me; Why aren't any scottish people mad at hanna-barbara and boycotting scooby doo for the obvious stereotyping of an entire race and country? Aren't they upset that they've been shown as skirt-wearing, fighting, pranking, lazy-eyed carictatures? What would happen if you were to pick ANY other race of people (besides the irish of course) and use them as the background for your story? There would be letters and calls and apologies. Then scooby doo would be banned from ever showing again. (I'm looking at you Ted Turner and Speedy Gonzalez.)

I think us native americans need to be more like the scottish. I'm not suggesting we start throwing telephone poles and fight more, but I think we need to empower ourselves with what is one of our biggest gripes of stereotype. If you so much as hint that an indian drinks, then you get all sorts of people complaining (the simpsons don't count because that was funny). If your show has an indian guy in it, and all he does is get drunk for the entire episode, I'm willing to be the network won't even air it. HOWEVER, if you had that character be scottish, I'll double down on that bet and say the scottish will sit back and say "hell yah, we rule at the drinking".

Look at the fightin irish of notre dame. Then look at the Fightin Sioux of North Dakota Univ. One of them is getting sued and/or banned by the ncaa. I just think we need to stop giving other people the power of our stereotype. We need to take it over and own it. Fuck the irish, we'll out drink/fight them anyday I say.

August, 2nd, 2007
I need a new hero. I think we all do. I'm not proposing one, I just think hero's change with our age and moods

When I was a kid, my dad was my hero. He was indestructible. He'd put nails through his hand and walk around telling people we was jesus. (actually, he didn't, but he's put a few nails through various body parts). Then I became a teenager and he was always hashing my gig because he so "not cool". Now that I'm older, he's my hero again. I don't know how he put up with me all those years.

The point is, I used to think John Cusack was cool in Better Off Dead, Say Anything, The Sure Thing, etc. I wanted to be him. When I was in High School, I wanted to be Ferris Bueller. Hell, there are some days I STILL want to be Ferris. Just take a day off and actually DO stuff. I used to wish I was somebody like Bender from the breakfast club, (without the earring of course). Just anyone who was way cooler than me. I used to have a picture of myself wearing the John Cusack dress coat thing with the sleeves rolled up. When he got older, he was clever and cool even as neurotic record store owner (cool? you bet) in High Fidelity and then ultra-cool again as a hitman in Grosse Point Blank. How awesome is that?

Back to the point, I can't be John Cusack. John Cusack couldn't even be John Cusack. Bender probably works at a gas station so he can get discounts on cigarettes. Ferris Bueller, well, I just hope he went down in a hail of bullets like Billy the Kid or Cool Hand Luke. (I've yet to find ANYONE as cool as Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke).

Most days I want to be Dr. Cox from Scrubs. I don't think I could go on such long rants, and I seriously doubt anyone would even GET the joke when I got there. Still, there's some genious to going on a 30 second diatribe about why people are stupid while they're standing in front of you. example?
Dr. Elliot Reed: Oh, Dr. Cox, does this lipstick make me look like a clown?
Dr. Cox: No, Barbie, no... it makes you look like a prostitute who caters exclusively *to* clowns.

I don't wanna give you my two cents' worth. But if you ever do wanna know my opinion, rest assured it will always be that you're an incredible pain and that every time I see your kew-pie-doll face, it just makes me wanna pick you up and shake you until all the hours of my life that you've wasted...fall out.

One of the problems is, nobody would understand that I just insulted them and I'd be the only one laughing. It'd be such a waste of well dispensed air. The people who would ACTUALLY get it, I don't insult because they're not missing choromosomes. I'm starting to think I should just go off on my little rants and see if people actually DO understand what I'm doing. Maybe they'll stop talking to me. I get calls from people who create an email signature then call me when it has the wrong information on it. How the hell am I supposed to handle that in a civilized manner? I honestly don't think it's possible to stay sane with moronic insanity bubbling at you on a daily basis.

$20 says I hear something like this "oh, well...... I didn't put it in there". Seems someone comes in and changes security email settings and switches signature files. It's amazing there are fewer homocides in the KCMO area code. Maybe if my hero was more of the Manson family type. Luckily, Cool hand luke and Cusack wouldn't choke out random people. Dr. Cox, ....maybe.

It's probably just because I've gotten older and realized how many of the current heros are so full of shit. I see Life with Derek as a crappy Ferris Bueller. There isn't anyone to emulate and at my age, there shouldn't be. I just miss having those heros. I can look forward to being old and cool, like, well, paul newman (except he sells salad dressing) and Clint Eastwood or Steve Fucking McQueen. At least he had the decency to die before selling salads.

July, 13th, 2007
People think I'm crazy when I say this. But I can't wait to get alzheimers. It's gonna be the greatest thing ever. Maybe I'll be in an old folks home or lying next to my girl. Most people I tell think it's a bad thing to have, they have the wrong perspective. Allow me to fix your brain with this here crowbar and bag of hammers.

A.) you won't remember anyone!
You mean I get to meet new People every day? Kick ass! Who's that? My nurse? And the girl? My Wife? Man, my wifs is hot. how did I score her? When did I get so wrinkly? I wonder what she's like? What I want to know is how the hell do old people get lonely? They always meet someone new.

You won't remember where you've been.
Just another great reason to go there again. I've been to the grand canyon and disneyland, but when I have alzheimers, those places are going to be brand new. I was here yesterday? Did I have my picture taken with a mouse? I want to..... wait a sec, here's a picture in my pocket of me with a mouse! I'm a goddamn time traveling master!

You'll forget things you just did yesterday.
And here's where they fail to see the genius. New experiences on a daily, possibly even hourly basis. Can you say that about your life right now?

How about going out to eat? I'd order a steak and soup. I might forget that I ordered at all, and a few minutes later, someone will bring me a steak and possibly some soup. I won't ever have a bad order again. Service will become wonderfully perfect. How did they know I wanted a steak and soup? Cooked just the way I wanted, I don't even remember ordering. Magic I guess.

The mundane will become the magnificent. People will know my name and treat me with respect and maybe a little confusion. That's pretty much my goal in life right now.

I would love to go shopping in a store where everyone knew my name and I didn't even know I'd been there. It would be like being a celebrity, except without the money and the white belt pulled up high. People would say, "hello mr. mouse, nice to see you again". I'd chirp back a "huh?" and go on with the shopping. Tell them I'd like to try on a shirt. The staff would inform me that I liked that shirt so much yesterday that I bought it already. "In fact sir, you're wearing it right now". I've become Bruce Almighty.

Fuck you guys, Tomorrow I'm going to the rolex store. .... maybe after I buy this cool shirt.

June, 29th, 2007
When I was on the rez (jicarilla Apache reservation for those of you late to the party), I used to play basketball every single day. There on those government lands, existed Noonball. Everyday from noon to whenever. It was my church, my religion and my science. And I did it every single workday and most weekends just to catch up. The tournaments I played in started friday nights and went thru to sunday. In a good week from monday to sunday, I'd say I'll have played at least 12-19 games.

I'm surprised my knee didn't explode til after I was 31.

I've asked my friends and teammates why we continue to pummel our bodies this way. Everyone says they love the game, but there's got to be more. Some of my friends gave me good answers like "the competition" or "comraderie". All good reasons, but in the end all we're getting out of it is Tees or sweatshirts. There's no real rewards. Nobody remembers you in 2 years. If you're lucky you'll be legend for the next 5. Still, it's a bit of a playground legend and there are a number of those already. Could it all just be because we love the game? We're willing to sacrifice bad knees and shredded ankles without so much as a shoe contract? This isn't just my rez either. Go to South Dakota or Arizona. You'll see guys fighting for that ball on every rez across the nation as if it were a wal-mart coupon. Arguing over a foul call because the score is 9-10 and nobody wants to get off the court. It can be a violent religion. (as opposed to all the other ones of course).

The church of rez ball

You can probably go a google search and read some articles by good writers who've attempted to tackle the subject. Some of them may have visited and others may have even stayed for a few days. Proof?:

Alexie is aware of the primacy of basketball among Indian youth throughout the United States, and he is only one of a number of Indian writers who have noticed the phenomenon.

Counting coup, he wrote, was the traditional way for “young warriors of the Plains Indian tribes to gain honor and respect.” Of the four ways to count coup, which included stealing an enemy’s horse, capturing his weapon or leading a successful raiding party, Colton wrote, “the bravest was to touch an enemy — not kill him — but touch him on the chest.”

He explains that there is a rare connection between players in rez ball. With fewer players, fewer time-outs, no organized plays, he likens it to jazz musicians who compliment each other. He insists there is a pureness and excitement in rez ball that exemplifies native traditional and family ways.

That isn't going to cover it. I could probably write a book and present entire thesis on the sociology of basketball on the rez. Not today.

Today I need to introduce the rest of you the greatest and un-imitatable players found on the reservations. We'll start with the basics.

Equipment:
wristbands - Some guys wear wristbands to keep their hands from getting sweaty. Some guys wear them because they think it looks cool. Then there's the rez guys. He's got about 4 on the left and 7 on the other. He looks as he expects to wipe the floor whenever someone drips on it. You get the feeling if you threw this guy in the pool his wristbands would pull him down so quick he couldn't gurgle 'help' in time.

headbands - ok, so wristband keep the sweat off your hands and headbands keep the sweat off your face? If you see a guy with a headband on the rez, it's because he needs to keep his magnificent locks out of his eyes. He's got no problem with sweat as it's all stuck to his head, but since you can't wear a hair clip or butterfly barrett on the court, he's got the headband. The big cotton one you could use as a body pillow.

goggles - I've never seen anyone outside the rezlines wear actual eye-goggles to play basketball. Of course, I know they exist for some hard core players with bad eyes, but I'm talking actual prescription thick hard case around the head strap-on goggles. The kind cartoon turtles wear before the jetpack pops out of their shell and they beat the obnoxious bunny to the finish line. Those kind of goggles.

There's normally a mix and match of these stupendous peices of armor, but I'm warning you right now, if you see a guy wearing all three AND he's got some braids, just forfeit the game and take your second place tshirt because this crusty bastard is gonna put you into the wood if you so much as TRY to steal the ball from him.

Ok, so he's not that fast and he can't really jump anymore, but the guy is serious. When he hits that jumper in your face because you weren't paying attention, the crowd of almost 20 will let you know about it. He'll live off that play for the next 18 years. Trust me, I know that guy. I've been to his house, I've sat on his couch. He still tells me about it. When he tells it again, I'll smile and laugh along and try not to punch him in throat and remind him that I was 12 at the time. He doesn't care, he'll never forgot.

That's what happens to most ballplayers. We all remember when we were great. Even if we never were. It's our right as old double-kneebrace--wearing rez legends. I'll be happy to tell you of the other legends.

There's the guy who throws the bullet pass from 3 feet away when he was close enough to make the layup then gets mad at you for not catching it.

The player who lofts them up from anywhere on the court. Whether or not he's crossed halfcourt yet. He'll also get upset at you for not playing defense.

The wannabe coach who's trying to get you to put on a UCLA press because he's scouted this guy. When actually, he's just been playing against him for the last 7 years. We let him bring the ball up because he always pays for lunch.

I should stop to say most of these guys also exist anywhere in the country. There are some differences though.ESPN2 has a great write up. Oops..make that had. I'm not paying to read something I've already read.

On the rez you'll get:

The guy for some strange reason is wearing combat boots and smells like alcohol. He didn't smell like that earlier, but now that's he's sweating and breathing on your neck, you can distinctly taste the cheap beer that's poring out of his skin. Why do I always have to guard this guy?

The really fat guy who sets picks. Well, he doesn't set picks as much as he throws blocks. He hasn't quite figured out there's such a thing as a moving pick and it's illegal. You can't really blame the guy though, once he starts moving forward, it probably takes a few minutes for the rest of his mass to stop moving. Also, if he's on your team,, he's the greatest guy ever, and a fucking cheater if he's not.

And of course, there's the icon. The man who can miss 19 of 20 shots and you'll still want him on your team. He'll pass you the ball when he's open and smile when you miss. That's right, he's, Sensei. *only people from Dulce will get this one!*

Reservation basketball is also democratic. There are no 'pickers'. 2 guys don't stand around and pick players to be on their team. There's no 'last guy standing'. It's all decided at the free throw line. Guys line up and take their shot. First 5 and second 5. That's it. No process, no campaigning and no electoral college. If you can make a free throw, you can play. You miss? Well, you better hope the 12 guys in front of you get at least 3 misses. (Yes, the math works, I've done it a million times). You'll see some guys wearing a tie and one shoe run up to shoot the free throw. As long as they get in that first game, nothing can't bring you down for the rest of the day

That's basketball on the rez. You might've been late for work, didn't get a good lunch, got called into the principal's office because your kid got in a fight with your boss' kid. When you go home, you'll remember that you faked left, went right and broke your friend's ankles to hit that jumper from 15 and seal the game.

Now THAT'S a good day on the rez.