Acceptable Assumptions

There's something that I tended to talk about often, an experience years ago when my Uncle brought me to a reservation, Navajo I believe. (We traveled to a few that trip, it could have been Apache, I forget)

He went inside to a store, and I went across the street to look at the jewelry a family was selling. I was young, maybe 9, 10 the most, and I started talking to them. Asking how they were, if they made the jewelry, that it was beautiful, and they asked where I was from, how I liked being in the middle of a dessert instead of NYC.

A van pulled up and tourists got out, (there is a BIG difference between tourists and travelers) and came over, a family- I'm not sure where they were from. They started talking to the family I was talking to, except like they were savages out of some old movie.

"HOW. ME DAN, YOU?" (Name changed to protect the idiot who's name I actually don't care to remember)

Now, these people had been speaking English just as well as any other American a moment before. I was expecting them to say "My name is so-and-so, why are you talking like an idiot?" (Ok, not the idiot part). Instead, I was shocked when the family played into it. "HOW"ing them back, making the extreme hand gestures made popular by those old movies. They went back and forth for a while, until the tourists bought some jewelry and drove away.

It hit me then that the family didn't really have much of a choice. If they had spoken normally, they would have embarrassed the tourists. They also knew that those tourists had no interest in buying jewelry from ordinary people in the middle of nowhere. They wanted to interact with the "Savages", and if they wanted to make any money for their family, they would need to give the tourists what they wanted.

When I went to Australia, I found the same to be true. The Aborigines from different tribes would perform their music half naked, and covered in the white paint all over their bodies. People wouldn't just buy music being performed by dark people in jeans and t shirts, they wanted that show.

They the tourists go back home, and they tell their friends those "savages" are really like that, backwards, probably running around in the middle of nowhere half naked hunting rabbits, not knowing most Aborigines live in apartment buildings and driving trucks, and most Native American Nations were given such horrid land they just don't have the resources, like running water and electricity in many cases to improve on them.

I'm dying to do a documentary, to go out with my video camera, to talk to indigenous people and, well, everyone else of different countries.

What do people think of the indigenous people of their country? Americans tend to look at the different Native American Nations as 1 group, instead of many, and tend to think "alcoholic, gambling, unemployed, lazy people". Australians look at the Aborigine tribes the same way. I want to travel the world to places where there are indigenous people- Here in the states, Australia, New Zealand (Who has a very unique relationship with the Maori), Japan- and more, to see what the "regular" people think of the indigenous population.

Then, I want to go and find out what the indigenous people think of the people who make up the majority of their country. See what assumptions different people of the different NA Nations think of us, see what various aborigine people from the different tribes think of Australians...

Interesting point. Many Americans have negative thoughts of Native Americans, meanwhile, they think the way Australians treated the Aborigines (If they know about it) was atrocious. Australia feels the same way about how we treated the Native Americans. I'm curious to see what people who dislike the indigenous people in their own country, think of indigenous people of other countries.

Want to talk to the heads of as many nations/tribes as possible to go into the challenges facing the people as a whole, in addition to giving the indigenous people the same word association "test".

At the end, I want to end on footage showing people of all nationalities giving non-racist, non-bigoted remarks to show not everyone jumps to those conclusions. Maybe start right before the credits, then play through as the credits roll.

Just a thought, just an idea... something I've been cooking around for a while now, even started up a production company for it (Uncarved Block Production, LLC- which is why this blog goes by that name, so every time I log in, I see it, and a part of me focuses on it, visualizes it... wants it even more.)

I will do this documentary one day. I swear I will.

I've found the ad Google has decided for my page, for now, is for Kiva

I actually joined Kiva over a year ago. I had been lucky, came into money, and felt the least I could do is take some of that, put it to the side, and use it to help people in some way... but how?

Kiva is a micro lender. People from other countries, with established businesses and good banking relationships request micro loans to improve their businesses. Usually about $500, rarely as high as $3,000. People donate in $25 increments, then, the people start paying back. The money comes back into your account, and you can either withdraw or reuse it.

You pick the country, you pick the circumstances. I'm a sucker for single parents who are supporting a bunch of kids myself. Of grandparents who had to take in their grandchildren while barely being able to take care of themselves and instead of giving them up, they go back into business to support them. Young men who's fathers die, and so are now the head of their household and so need that family business to be just a little bigger to support everyone...

I know this sounds like an ad for the place, but, you know what? Maybe it is. I don't care if you click the link, or just open up a new window and go to www.kiva.org, it's a worthy cause!

Moments of Clarity

There's a feeling I've gotten from time to time, it's one I search out whenever I can though, it rarely happens, of a moment when it seems you can pull aside the curtain for a moment, and see the inner workings of- well existence. Not that you can actually understand how it works of course, but, there's a moment where you catch a glimpse of the balance... That there is some sort of purpose.

To me, the sea at night is one of the largest draws to me. It doesn't matter my mood, my mindset, or the temperature out, the sea at night gives me a feeling of balance, the ocean in general, and was a large reason behind me choosing to pursue a Marine Biology major in college. (Was going for Marine Bio and Psychology, but that's another story).

If you sit, alone and still, at a beach at night, just being aware of your own breathing, and the sounds of the waves, I find it's the easiest way to sense your part in this great machine of a planet we live on... no matter how small a part you play.

They say Humpback Whales change their songs at the same time based on the tides of the world's oceans acting as percussion for their song. How do they change all at once? The "drummer" shifted to a different beat.

There's something both grounding and liberating sitting by the sea, watching the tide come in, or go out... idly writing your deepest wishes into the sand, letting the water take it away... All the Earth's oceans are connected to each other. Those water molecules that slowly lap away the wish I wrote out in English could be the same ones that ate away at a child's sandcastle in China. It could have originated from the Nile River in Egypt, to empty into the Mediterranean Sea, which, is a part of the Atlantic Ocean, which- laps at my toes quite often.

Alone at the beach at night, I can't help but think of all these different things, and it fills me with a peace and quiets my mind. Next time you're in an area with a beach, I highly recommend walking somewhere quiet by yourself (so long as it's safe to of course!), sitting down, closing your eyes, and just really listening to the water. Don't look at a watch, clear your mind, let the thoughts wander in and out- but focus on the sounds of the waves... and see how you feel. Maybe you'll get a peek behind that curtain for a moment too.

I have a rather love/hate relationship with winter and snow

Ok... it's more along the lines of "hate". I have good reason for this, I've been way too cold way too often, I've suffered from frost nip, and severe hypothermia. I've fallen through the ice multiple times on my horse stuck in a blizzard for hours on end. I've been so cold that frozen over ponds felt hot to the touch- like hot tub hot.

I know the agony of shaking so hard you stop shaking and are just 1 large muscle contraction, and the relief that happens when your body gives up all efforts to keep warm, and you relax, and are tired, and just want to drift off and sleep in the water.

So, I don't like the winter. I don't like snow, I like the way it looks in photos, I don't mind being on the inside looking out- but overall, I loathe it when it's that cold. (I also hate extreme heat, but that's another story.)

I do however, love photography, and my camera.

Today I was in a fairly bad mood. There had been a blizzard, and I was actually snowed in my home. I had to remove the storm door glass to start to shovel my way out! My car is literally buried, and there are some drifts as tall as I am. I just moped around my house with a black cloud over my head angry at the fact that my plans were ruined, and there's this white stuff on the ground for weeks to come.

After I shoveled where I needed to shovel, I decided I needed to go for a walk. I had been laid up with a nasty kidney infection for too long, and I had gone from walking a couple of miles a day, to nothing for well over a week...

I didn't go far without being struck at the sight of cars abandoned in the middle of the street, a plow truck left in an intersection, some guy laying on the ground unconscious... (someone else was waiting for an ambulance with him) and without really thinking about it, I went home and got my camera.




Things change when I have my camera. Without it, I'm just walking around, with it, I'm looking for a shot, I see things in a different way, armed with my camera, I started to appreciate what I was seeing




Hatred and loathing of snow and the cold aside, it became amazing to me how NYC, one of the biggest cities in the country, can be brought to it's knees so easily by mother nature. No matter how big our egos are as being "the top of the food chain" (haha), there are somethings we are powerless against.




For some reason I find comfort and a sense of peace when mother nature shows me just how little I am in comparison. Angry seas, thunderstorms that feel like the house will collapse on you, coming face to face with a pissed off puma... or a ticked off momma moose.

I find it refreshing, balancing... I think because no matter how much we may screw this planet up as a whole, when people pass, nature will reclaim this planet, the earth will do what's needed to cleanse the place out- I really believe that.

We're nothing compared to nature.




This is why I love my camera, it makes me see beauty where I would take it for granted. It doesn't matter if I'm not happy with the shots. It doesn't matter if I realize I've forgotten my me...memory card. It's the hunting for the shot that gives me something, the journey, not the destination.