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)

photo: m colon
my goodness summer does inspire visits to the ole nyc.

it also spawns sidewalk dining, really short shorts-the kind flat and flabby asses hang out of-the likes of which i witnessed at sunday brunch with Pod(cast)emski & Harjo, a classical guitar duo the likes of Medesky & Wood-but Native, and cultural events, lots of them. i digress, of course, because this is a Longviews joint and digressions are our signature.
yes there are things to do in nyc if you’re not broke or dead! too many for one lil ole naica editor to attend, but maybe one of you Longviews listeners would go in my stead? then you can report back and i won’t feel bad that i couldn’t be there or had to choose one event over another as they are all credibly portentous and should be attended in earnest by myself, but such is my one shot existence…yes, those cultural events i mentioned:

The Harj at BAM, June 4, 2007, 6pm-ish: www.bam.org

Alexi at Barnes and Noble Union Sq, June 4, 2007,7pm-ish: www.fallsapart.com/schedule.html

Native Cinema in New York, June 5, 2007, 7pm on the dot: www.nmai.si.edu

Podemski at the Living Room, June 6, 2007, 11pm-ish: http://www.livingroomny.com

Eagle vs Shark advanced screenings in nyc, June 12, 13, 14 2007: to download passes http://www.eaglevsshark.net

Flight of the Conchords, June 13 and 14, 2007, 7pm, Gramercy Theatre: tickets SOLD OUT (sure to be an Indie Fuck Fest!).

in this week’s podcast we regurgitate the above mentioned items, and more. then we careen into pretentiously academian discourse regarding the required genre “Native Cinema.” then we re-live our mortifying lack of googling before going into an interview, though that can also fuck you over with misinformation and/or reveal one’s functioning illiteracy status (like Renee confusing “gonzo journalism” with “gaucho journalism.”) Then we say some other stuff i can’t remember which will have me downloading my own stupid-facted podcast.

c’est la internet.

oui oui

It is an established trope to include all aspects of an interview experience in one’s piece
(it is also an established trope to call your interview assignment a “piece”): the time you arrived at
predetermined destination; descriptions of what the interviewees were wearing (see above); their countenance (see above); what they ate, etc.
Of course, such tidbits read as pertinent, casually humourous and intimate details
offering the reader an insider’s glimpse of the interviewing process.
These seemingly off-handed observations are bullshit. We hate them.
Unless Chuck Closterman is the writer. Then they’re o.k. because we like Closterman’s writing style, but it has spawned many clones,
and we don’t want to come off as one of them, even-though I probably am.
False modesty and self-denigration in an interviewer (or projected onto the interviewee) is also an established trope. You will get plenty of that here at Longviews. But fuck those trendy bullshit tidbits about designer clothes and tardiness on anyone’s part especially Longviews interviewers.

All we’re saying is this podcast was recorded live from Sunday brunch at a shitty restaurant in the Lower East Side where Longviews host and NAICA editor (me), Maria Colon spoke (loudly due to buses and cars and pedestrians) with the director and co-star of the Sundance favorite, Four Sheets to the Wind, screening tomorrow night (June 4, 2007) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Mouth’s full and misinformation ensue, but you’ll soon hear it for yourself, no need to (off-handedly) mention it in this intro.

Links-u-Need:

http://www.bam.org
http://www.livingroomny.com
http:/www.nmai.si.edu

(photo: m colon)

not too long ago i received an email in NAICA’s myspace box from a concerned myspace citizen asking that NAICA withdraw it’s support of The Bastard Fairies (in the form of kicking them off our friends list. AS IF!), specifically, it’s lead singer/songwriter, Yellow Thunder Woman. Evidently, the concerned citizen has found grave danger in Yellow Thunder Woman’s sex-r-castic commnets via her recent Playboy interview, deducing that Yellow Thunder Woman was pro-native prostitution, pro-war, pro-promiscuity! my goodness, it was quite alarming. so i clicked the links provided as proof to see for myself what it is sassy tits had said that was grounds for myspace rejection and what i found was an interview bubbling with sarcasm, biting humour, and mild self-effacement in the form seemingly self-aggrandizing comments. it was a pretty good interview given the dopey questions. but what struck me was how the concerned myspace citizen twisted the intent of Yellow Thunder Woman’s comments to suit her own (humourless cheerless, baseless) ends. i hate people like her-cowardly, twisted, manipulative, mealy-mouthed. just how cowardly is she? i suggested she contact Yellow Thunder Woman to voice her concerns directly but she declined claiming she had all she needed to know from her (few, very few) interviews and songs. really? a few interviews here and there and you have all you need to know about someone? if that’s not a danergous sentiment, i don’t know what is? the long and short is that NAICA advocates free speech. whether you like what someone has to say or not, they do have the right to say it. but, we also advocate contacting people directly, especially if there is something they represent or have said that you find challenging. dialogue is the best possible course to understanding one another and to that end i decided it was best to speak to Wakinyan one on one to hear what she had to say about these (shallow) accusations and her recent forays into internet infamy. (i could be accused of soft balling my questions, and while that might be true in some context, let it be known i already came with an agenda and that was to skewer the cowardly myspace citizen who ill-fatedly dropped me that retardo email on me. cause i will call out some bullshit fo sho! so let that be a lesson to you! behind the back bullshit (and lack of humour) will bite you in the ass everytime!)