I went. To the B&N at Union Square. It is an unpleasant experience walking through that train station, even worse the park filled with all it’s many assholes and homeless assholes who congregate to deal drugs, beg from tourists, or people who look like tourists to their drunk and bleary eyes. Of course, the requisite NYU fucks,who think they are so smart. You’re not. NYU students; they won’t let me apply to the Cinema Studies doctorate program because I have a lowly MFA and they don’t take MFAs because they’re not “academic.”

So FUCK YOU and your elitist institution.

Speaking of elitists, the Alexie reading was run by a sychophantic nazi who simultaneously mind-blew the Sherm whilst castrating the audience. She practically put up a barracade-a big psychic barracade-between the audiences hopes of a few words one on one with their favorite Indian author (Isn’t he like the only one alive? No? Well he certainly acts that way!), and his hopes to get the fuck out of there with the quickness after perfunctorily signing his thin book. Literally thin cause it’s not very long for a novel. But we all know he’s not really a novelist, now is he? Anyway, this crunt was all up Shermies ass, his big flat Indian ass, his description, not mine, so I was already pissed off before the reading began. Let me tell you I have a death-stare gaze without provocation. Imagine me provoked? In the front row?
But, when the Sherm came up to the stage to sit, rather awkwardly (see above), at the big book signing table to listen to her babbling intro, he smiled at me and my friend.

I thought, “Wow he’s not a douche afterall!”

That thought passed.

Lest I sound completely hateful let me say I own just about everything he has written. I own his one flimsy directorial attempt and even wrote a lovely review about it. So I don’t altogether hate the guy. However, I do vacillate between loathing his self-aggrandizing performance and forgiving him the indulgence because the crackers (and cracker-esque minorities) in the audience hung on his every lispy word (guess who lisps?). Guffawing and cackling, clapping wildly, and chortling mirthlessly. But at what? The tales of a drunk homeless Indian kid who finds salvation on the streets of Seattle or something like that (I guess I could read his new book but frankly it sounded like every other story he’s written)? His none too ironic caricature of white people? Were they laughing at themselves laughing at themselves? I really didn’t get it. So I refrained from laughing at all. The truth is I chuckled a few times, but I thought the other’s laughter was canned, pre-programed by the evil B&N drones who pressed a button everytime Sherman thought he said something funny. Uproarious laughter! How fun is he? Listen to them roar.
I was a little freaked out. Like something really negative was about to drop.
He babbled on evidently not following his own storyline, but making a go at giving voice to the one-note characters-if his reading is any indication this is more of the same bullshit he’s already dished, and his acting affabilities have not evolved for the better. He went for a dramatic finale but ended abruptl. And rather awkwardly.

Then the “really negative” dropped-the Q and A.

As anyone who pays attention to these interactions knows, well-educated/well-off white people love Indians to stand in front of them to tell them some truth. Indians know truth. I did not get that memo but apparently they do. Especially tall Indian men with funny accents and clever cultural observations. Sherman is no exception. In fact, he is the standard rule. He offered truth in the form of an obnoxious Q&A stand-up routine that was unsolicited, and frankly, unwarranted. Of course, the dumb ass deer-in-headlights crowd didn’t ask him many questions. Too reverent? I don’t know but when a few brave enough to do so did he either made fun of them or gave them a terse answer which was his segue into aforementioned obnoxious stand-up routine. Yeah, yeah. I know, Sherman has been told he’s funny. Perhaps, one too many times?
Hear for yourself.

(photos: m colon)

 douche chill! [21:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

oh shermie…..

Just look at the second image that Maria snapped off. It easily smacks of condescension and corporate nobility (no pun intended). I won’t speak ill of Sherman because I wasn’t there, but I take Maria’s word for the masses of white pseudo-hipsters still searching NDN-ness as if we have the answers for their salvation. We (as in NDN people and all those other colonized beings) are still trying to figure out how to clean up after the shit-storm we find ourselves in SINCE PREDATOR CAME (that was an intentional nod to Ward Churchill). What I listened to so far wasn’t funny to me, but what do I know I’m not a deer-in-the-headlights person seeking absolution from White guilt. Hi and welcome to the corporate world of publishing.