I wouldn't say I'm a huge BHTM fan, but he does the blues and is a great guitarist so he's always fun to watch. He played at the Crossroads in Kansas City. A few interesting things to point out.
They have bleachers there off to the sides and out of the way. I can understand having some seating since it's just a big open area, BUT, You have to pay to sit on the bleachers. Crappy little bleachers that are shoved against the fence without a decent view of the stage. Extra. Weird.
My back and knees are not used to standing for 4 hours straight. Sure I guess I could've sat on the ground but they had woodchips down. It's not comfy to sit there, but as my wife pointed out, it's hilarious to watch women in heels try to walk.
The iphone4 takes better video than I've ever expected. I'm still amazed at the video quality of this phone. I think it's better than my 3 year old handheld sony Cam.
8 | 5 | 2010 So we made it to Harry Potter world at Universal Studios Islands of adventure in Orlando Florida. Now, you may be wondering why I typed that all out. It's because it explains a bunch of things that I didn't know before we got out there. I'm probably just an idiot but here's the breakdown. Some of it I already knew. Some of it.. I didn't read anywhere that made sense to my poor lizard brain. That scientist lied when he said it would give me lizard powers.
1. There are 2 Universal Studios. One is called Islands of Adventure. 2. Harry Potter castle is inside IOA. 3. Also located inside IOA, Dr Suess Land, Posieden's Fury, Jurassic Park, Comic Strip Land, Marvel Comic Book land.
4. In Marvel land some superheros come out and take pictures with people. Apparently they used to have bad guys come and fight for a quick show, but not when we were there.
5. My kids are NOT used to long lines. We stood in a 45 minute line at Dr Suess land and the kids acted like it was the end of the trip. This was the first ride we went to by the way.
6. $50 a ticket gets you into the express line for all the rides. That's for an actual transferrable ticket. Not a wristband, not a thumbscanner or something. So we could hand it off to each other. (no express line for Harry Potter's ride) 7. When you see a ride and the wait time is 65 minutes, you take the xpress and get on in less than 3. It's TOTALLY worth every single penny.
8. Comic strip land has a cool sunday funnies design. Hagar the horrible, Popeye, Family circus, marmaduke, Dudley Do Right... my kids had no idea who any of them were but liked the water rides there.
7 | 27 | 2010 Here's a couple of things I saw online that made me giggle. That's right. That Apache language is considered Foreign. Isn't that.. umm. is it Ironic?
July 22nd , 2010
I keep forgetting to link to my sister's website. She stole our name! HISPACHE.COM
July 4th , 2010
This needs to be added to my speech about Native American mascots. All you indians who feel 'threatened' by this need to read this. Or this.
Do you think these guys did this for degradation or marginalization purposes? Nope.. the did it because they were badass and thought it was badass. That's a goddamn compliment.
May 11th, 2010
There's a little rant for you here today. I'll preface it with this. My league softball game was supposed to start on monday and it got rained out. Suck.
It got me thinking about the stuff I needed to remember to bring for the first game. Glove, bat, shoes, $35 and sign a waiver.
Waiver to play softball. Well, i guess the church wants to protect itself from being sued in case someone gets hurt, because in sports there's an inherent risk of injury. So they don't want to get sued, by someone who KNOWS it's a sport and as such.. injuries, well, happen.
Still, they need a waiver because some asshole participating in this doesn't know they might get hurt. So there's my stupid signature stating, "I might get hurt playing this sport and I promise not to blame someone ELSE for it.". If I could get a lawyer to add "if you don't know this is a possibility, you're an idiot, please never procreate". Then again, as a lawyer, he'd prefer the opportunity to sue at any instance.
Update: June 3rd, 2010. I hurt myself. Pulled a hamstring in the second inning. I wonder if I should sue?
April 20th, 2010
I heard a story on the radio the other day about some bad rain coming down on the freeway so some couple decided to STOP of the freeway. Not pull off, not slow down or pull over. They simply got under an overpass and stopped. This of course caused accidents, slide-offs and destroyed the flow of traffic for MILES behind them. First thing I thought was, "I hope they got fined through every orifice in their being... and then new orifices to be made and fined as well".
What kind of moron STOPS on the freeway?
Turns out it's a $175 fine. (if your like me and had to pay a $110 speeding ticket for doing 66 in a 55, your brain should've just stroked out at that number)
Think about that the next time you're in 25mph rush hour traffic. What would happen if you were to just stop right there in your lane? Not pull off, just dead stop and get out for a quick stretch and walk around.
You MAY get a ticket. There's not enough swear words in the english language.
April 16th, 2010
Allow me to clear up a few things about native americans. Better yet, let me point out some ridiculous shit I see and hear on a constant basis. It's like one of those phones with the annoying rings that people refuse to answer. It just keeps ringing and you're overcome with the urge to eat it, poop it out, then make the offender eat their shit-covered phone.
First: Dreamcatchers.
I grew up among the Pueblos, Apaches, utes and Navajo, I mean Dine. It wasn't until the mid 90's that I first saw a dreamcatcher. According to wikipedia it's Ojibwe. If can manage about 2 seconds of research you'll see that it's like a coffee filter for dreams. Which is kinda cool, but it's also become a symbol of tacky design by a number of other indians. It's also supposed to be by your bed, where you sleep.. and you know.. dream. Putting it in your car just makes me think you don't know what the word 'dream' means. Or possibly you sleep while you drive.
Second: Indian Names
Look, you can't give yourself an indian name. That's not how it works. Indian names are earned. One way or another. That's how it is with my tribe anyway. You get your name through brave acts or something as random as dumb shit you did once. (yup, "forgot to wipe" is probably a name somewhere) My son doesn't have his yet. My daughter JUST got hers and she's 10. You don't get to pick a cool name like "flying strong eagle" and say it's yours. My tribe also doesn't get the names from parents. A practice that I happen to strongly agree with. Parents don't see their kids objectively. Otherwise all indian boys would called "little warrior" or other boring shit like that. I've seen indian names that range from "kicking woman" to "one who runs away" to "growing thunder". Though when I first heard that last one, I thought they said "groin thunder" and figured it would be the greatest indian name ever.
Third: There's no such thing as a Cherokee princess
You can't claim to be indian if you have no idea what a real indian is. I don't claim to be German. I know nothing about Germany. The language, the culture, the history, well.. everyone knows a little of german history and it's not really that great. You can't take someone who grew up on the reservation, surrounded by their language, culture, tradition, hardships of growing up a minority in poverty stricken-third world environment, and knowledge of their tribes trials and how they survived all that and then say "oh, I'm indian too!". No, you fuckstick, you're not.
Not even close. However, if you say "i've got indian blood in me but I don't know anything about the tribe". That's more acceptable.
Fourth: Native Americans drink a lot
Well, they do like to drink but from my experience, we don't drink any more or less than anyone else. It's just a stereotype that's not entirely wrong. It's akin to saying, white people watch a lot of TV. It just so happens that when indians drink it's noticeable and feeds the stereotype. Like a black kid in the hood walking with his 'pants on the ground'. Not every black person dresses like that, but when you see it there, you just notice it. Same thing.
Here's your picture of the day.
March 19th, 2010
I've been speaking of insurance and death lately.It got me thinking of my awesome funeral. I'm not much of a partier so I'm trying to make up for that by having a raucous party when I'm dead.
I asked my wife and friends to pitch in on the songs that they want played at their funeral. I found some of them to be off the wall and excellent ideas.
shoot to thrill - ac/dc
you're all i've got tonight - cars
stairway to heaven - led zep
rocket queen - guns n roses
back in the saddle - aerosmith
ballroom blitz - tia carrere version
Alive by Pearl Jam followed by
dead man's party by oingo boingo on the funeral march.
Journey To The East Bay By Rancid as they're laying me into the fire.
THen as you are throwing my ashes off of "the Hill", you can play
Too young to fall in love by the Crue.
Then as your walking away the safety dance by men in hats so you can all do the "s" dance.
hells bells AC/DC
redemption song BOB MARLEY
another one bites the dust - QUEEN
amazing grace - D-CHILD
someday never comes - CCR
my own prison - CREED "Negative Creep" Nirvana, off the BLEACH album.
Just play the entire - NEVERMIND album by Nirvana.
That actually inspired a few songs for me:
First:
Another One Bites the Dust by queen to be played IN the hearse.
Olympia, WA - Rancid
2000 Light Years Away- Green Day
Tin Cup Chalice - Jimmy Buffet
ha, Ha You're dead - Green Day Tequila - just so people can do the Pee Wee Dance I'm Going Down - Mary J Blige John Wayne's Teeth
Gangsta Lean - DRS
I Remember - Griffin House
Hang me Up To Dry - Cold War Kids
Seaside - The Kooks
Take it To the Limit - The Eagles
Better Than Ezra - Get You In
Basket Case - Green Day
Dwight Yoakum - 2 Doors Down
Kickstart my Heart - Motley Crue The Guy that says goodbye to you is out of his mind - Griffin House
I'm doing my best to avoid cliche'd songs (no amazing grace or stairway to heaven for me), but I still find myself leaning that way. Another one bites the dust is the biggest offender. I think I should make a list of "You play this song and my ghost will take a ghost dump on your head". First song I thought of? "Good Riddance" by Green Day. Under no circumstances should that song play.
My co-worker just responded to this by saying 'that's.. morbid'. Is it really? Am I used to discussions like this? Death is a pretty common occurance on the rez. I've lost my sister, countless cousins, aunts, uncles before I even hit thirty. Maybe once you go to enough funerals it becomes as common as, well, bbq's and parties with old friends and relatives.
February 18th, 2010
I have been wanting to redesign this site for about 3 years now. AT LEAST 3 years. I'm going to try to load Drupal or wordpress, I just haven't had to the time to figure all that out.
My days normally consist of what most of the population does. I go to work, eat, go home, play with the kids, watch movies, go to sleep. It's like groundhog day but there's not enough time in each day to steal a groundhog and drive if off the damn cliff.
Here's my cool picture of the day.
This is an old Church in Kansas City. I'm not sure if the Asylum sign on top is because someone used it as a haunted house at some point? But it's all kinds of cool and creepy looking. It's actually for sale too.
December 9th, 2009
This is a story I've told before. Pretty much everyone who knows me, knows this story. But it's one of my favorites and I'll tell it to the next person who pays me the slightest bit of attention. (also, I wanted to tell it before the alzheimers kicked in and it ended with with Yosemite sam and Mr T trapped in a freezer, like my dreams). It's kind of long so I trimmed it a lot. Still, it needed some backstory.
When I resided in Dulce, we always tried to: or did, play in a tournament in Ft Duchesne, Utah called "Tournament of Champions". It was all-indian tournament with big prizes and cool jackets for the winners. Invites went across the country to all indian nations. Utah was a good middle point for the northern tribes and about an 10-12 hour drive for us. Long way to drive for a tournament? You bet. Are we taking a damn good squad if we're gonna drop a $300 entry fee, drive and rent rooms? Hell yes.
I'll see if I can remember everyone on that team. I'm sure The Sony or Bux will let me know if I'm wrong.
Bux, Sony, Stan, Wilby, Koda, Sensei?, Mike and me. I think I'm missing someone. 3 of those players were over 6'4". Me and Sony are right about 6'0 and 6'1". Bux, Stan and Wilby were the smaller shooting guards.
This was basically a Dulce All-star team.
When we hit the tournament (late game on friday night), we came out a little flat and LOST the first game by about 8 points. We got it together toward the end so everyone seemed ok with the loss. Especially after that drive. We should've cooked that team, but it was early in the tourney. The bad thing was, that loss sent us to the losers bracket. This is where the tournament gets fun.
We were the goddamn 1990 UNLV running rebels. If you don't know who they are. Here's a quicky from wiki Billed as one of the greatest teams of all time, the 1990-91 squad became the first team in 12 seasons to go undefeated in the regular season (27-0). A perfect record of 18-0 captured the Big West crown. their games in the tourney went like this. w, 102-72
w. 76-65
w. 131-101
w. 90-81
w. 103-73... Their games in the tournament were almost as impressive as ours.
Our tournament had a mercy rule. "if one team is up by 30 points or more with less than 5 minutes then the game is called on mercy"
We utterly demolished that bracket coming from the downside.
We mercy'd at least 2 teams. One from seattle and one from North Dakota.
One of our games should've ended about 5 minutes after the start of the second half. We ran and ran those poor teams til only one player at a time was able to defend our 3 on 1 and sometimes 4 on 1 breaks. The Elevation of Ft Duchesne is 4,990 FT, which is pretty high so some of these teams thought they could run with us. That is until they ran into the Jicarilla. Dulce is 6778 FT. That's a good 1700 feet of less oxygen. They never should've tried to run us.
It was one of the most fun times I've had playing in a tournament. The problem was coming loser's bracket so the games were back to back to back. Sometimes, we'd get about an hour before we had to play again and some games were 15 minutes apart. This happened all day saturday. We had to, and did, win every single game. And won them easily.
Sunday was almost the same. Game, after game, after game. We made it back to championship and by then, averaged about 104 points a game. This is more impressive when you take into account that they are 20 minute halves and the clock does NOT stop. Free throws, clock runs, out of bounds, clock runs. It's the old Running clock rule.
Every person on our team played the role they were good at. Nobody was trying to become a guard if they couldn't handle the ball. The big guys were boxing out and getting boards and letting the shooters shoot. And shoot they did. Sony, Bux, Stan, Wilby all had a huge game in there. I'm talking close to 50 points for a different shooter for each game. 3 of our 6ft+ shooters were damn good long range shots as well. There was no stopping that team.
At one point we played this younger college team that was giving us fits. Bux said "give the ball to billy, he's used to playing this game". It worked, we frustrated them and they imploded on themselves. That was my game.
We had about 45 minutes to wait for the championship game. I was told that a lot of people come to watch this game because it's a nationwide competition and a lot of other teams stick around because of the time invested. I remember laying down on a top bleacher and almost falling asleep until it was time to warm up. I picked the shirt off my head and the place was PACKED. It was like a high school game on the rez. Why the hell were there this many people for tournament championship?
I was excited to play and we've been playing so well, there was no way this wasn't in the bag. Everyone seemed relaxed and ready to go.
....50 minutes later
we scored 58 points. 58! Shooters couldn't hit the three. Bad bounces, big plays by the other team. Nothing went right. We were the 1991 UNLV running rebels, and we lost to christian laettner. CHRISTIAN FUCKING LAETTNER. So, this is what it felt like.
After the game I sat on the floor and was just demolished. The other team was good, but they were in no way better than us. NOT. EVEN. CLOSE. We just never got it going. We lost by 6. They were giving out the prizes and leather first place jackets, we sat there and watched. Nobody said a word. There wasn't any one person to blame. it's like we all knew that we each cost us that game. Second place prizes came and I don't know who went up and got our sweatshirts. SWEATSHIRTS! 10 hours for a goddamn sweatshirt. I remember giving it back to my friends sister who handed it to me. I said I didn't want it.
I don't remember the drive home. I don't remember what happened the rest of that year. But i remember that tournament.
November 12th, 2009
I was on the rez! I had fry bread! It was good. They had red and green chili. I heard people talking Apache. My kids and wife got to see the race. My kids saw bunches of indians. They heard them speaking Apache. (click on pic for set)
It was a great trip.
Just last week we (mostly me) did some leaf raking and then made a mess of them. These are the awesome pictures.
Last week me and my wife celebrated her birthday in style. I'd like to say more. Let's just say, it was more like my birthday than hers. Also, I wanted to post these pictures so I'm keeping it short.
August 20th, 2009
Big news is me and my tribe are headed to the rez for Go-Jii-Ya. This should be cool because it's been YEARS since I've been out there for this celebration. I'm more excited that my kids and wife get to see what I've been talking about.
Traditionally there's a footrace between the 2 clans. It's a straight track and it runs like a relay race. I only ran once in my whole life. That track is a LOT longer than it looks.
When I told my friends I was coming down, one of them asked me: "are you going to run?"
Simply put:
Hell no! I'm not running. My fat ass would collapse half way down the track. The paramedics will have to call in a truck to tow my ass to the end just so we can continue the race. It wouldn't be pretty either. Have you ever seen a reluctant dog get dragged by a leash and just scrapes it's face along the ground? Yeah, like that. I can't think of any reason to damage children with large flabs of meat tromping halfway down the track and inexplicably stopping to die. kids would be heard saying:
"daddy, is that how the dinosaurs died?".
"yes son, almost exactly".
August 18th, 2009
There is good news on the horizon. We might actually be moving into our house before the next milennium. It seems like a LOONG time. It has been a LOOONG time. The entirety of summer to be exact. School started today and my Byrd is a 4th grader. I'm proud of her. Even after all the complaining and fights over homework and time to read... she's still a good student.
On to the house. I took some pictures last week with my new fancy camera. Most camera buffs won't think of my camera as fancy, but I spent a good drop of cash on the damn thing. So to me, it's a fancy camera. Shut up.
Here's some pictures of how the interior is looking.
Look like we actually have a place to live. The picture makes the room look bigger than it actually is as well. Don't be fooled. We've got lots of brand new stuff. Everything but the kitchen sink (and counters) is new.
They have bleachers there off to the sides and out of the way. I can understand having some seating since it's just a big open area, BUT, You have to pay to sit on the bleachers. Crappy little bleachers that are shoved against the fence without a decent view of the stage. Extra. Weird.
That's right. That Apache language is considered Foreign. Isn't that.. umm. is it Ironic?
