Stu Jenks: Fezziwig Photography, Music, and Writing

“The Road to Uncompahgre Peak” © 2007

 

“The Road to Uncompahgre Peak, Colorado” © 2007 Stu Jenks

[Images: "Sioux Mud on Snow, Colorado", “The Rialto Theatre, Alamosa, Colorado”, “Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado”, “Daylight Donuts, Alamosa, Colorado”,“Uncompahgre Peak, Colorado”, "#7 Site at Silver Thread Creek Campground, Colorado", "Blue Jay, Oatmeal & Tripod", and "North of Creede"  © 2007 Stu Jenks

 

        Thursday, October 18th, 2007

        Alamosa, Colorado. The first Western town I ever visited and stayed at, for a length of time. (I don’t count Austin, Texas, the city I visited a few days before Alamosa in 1977. Texas ain’t really the West to me. Texas is Texas, a separate country.) Came to visit Bob, a friend I went to Carolina with, until he transferred to Adams State in Alamosa. Sadly I haven’t keep up with Bob. Have no idea where he is. Then again we drifted apart soon after he left Chapel Hill. Visiting him in Colorado was one of the last times we spent any real time together. Still remembering drinking the 3.2 beer and complaining about it. Also remember drinking Lone Star beer and not. Bottom line, Bob was a good man and I hope he is doing well, thirty years after our last meeting.

        I visited the Great Sand Dunes National Park this morning. First time in thirty years. Hiked to the top of the highest dune, 700 feet about the surrounding landscape. Beautifully cold. Ran into an older man at the top who said he was ‘semi-retired’. (Semi-retired means to me: Rich; Maybe have to fly to a board meeting every now and again; Travel a lot; Spend a lot of money.) Tough old bird. A member of the Elite but  he can’t be too spoiled if he was willing to plod through steep sand to get to the top of a big-ass sand dune. Not an easy climb at all. I left the $1200 Canon 30D in the truck today. Took the Brownie and the old Pentex instead. Had a wonderful time, wind hitting my face, sand soft and rough at the same time, thinking about days, thirty years prior, with Bob and some of his other friends. Happy I can still make it to the top. Remembered a voice telling me back then, that I needed to ‘stop smoking.’ It was saying stop smoking dope not tobacco back in the day. Now, the voice is saying ‘quit smoking’ and now it’s about tobacco. I tied a red prayer bundle (containing tobacco) on some tall grass, prayed for others, and myself and found a healing rock for me and a power rock for Annie on the way back to the truck.
        Got to Alamosa in the mid afternoon. Stopped and mailed a few postcards at the main Post Office. Longed for a Daylight Donut but they were already closed for the day, yet I could still smell the baking donuts on the sidewalk by the front door. Hmmm. (A day or two later I was driving through Alamosa again and stopped by, but alas, still closed. No Hot Donuts Then Either.) Oh well. Got some gas and headed west toward the San Juans and Uncompahgre Peak.

        The plan was this: Drive to the 4 x 4 trail that goes up to the trail-head for Uncompahgre Peak. If the snow is too deep, car-camp at the base of the jeep trail. If the snow is shallow, head up as far as I can go. Probably won't make the trail head. Definitely won't be hiking to the top, like years ago. Just camp somewhere along the jeep trail. That was the plan.
        I’m driving on Route 149 west of the little village of Creede now. Up I go. No worries. No snow except on the highest peak from what I can see. Easy driving. I drive by a formal Forest Service campground with its ten campsites, its wooden picnic tables and its iron grills. Called the Silver Thread Campground. Looks to be only one camper there. It is Fall, it is cold, and it is a weekday. I turn my nose up at this modern campground as I drive by. Wouldn’t think of camping at such a citified campsite. I’m heading for the wilderness. Up in the deeper snow.
        Then I notice it’s getting colder and colder and more and deeper snow is appearing on the roadside. I know it’s colder for now my truck heater can’t keep up with the outdoor temperature. That means it’s very cold.
        I reach the Slumgullion Pass, that is south of Lake City and now I’m hitting patches of snow and black ice in the road. My heart rate goes up. About an hour, maybe two of sun left. I engage the four-wheel drive, but as any rock hopper knows, the four by four is really a two by two, and it doesn’t do much if anything against ice. I crack my moon roof and stick out my hand. Sweet Jesus it’s cold. Well, I am at around twelve thousand feet. I do the math. If it’s this cold now, that means tonight it’ll be zero or below. I won’t freeze to death for I've got a good bag and a good coat but I may be uncomfortable. And I do have a desert battery in my truck. Negative teen temperatures tend to kill car batteries. I’m beginning to reconsider my plan. Even at the base of Uncompahgre Peak I may get stuck in snow or at least be really cold. Hmmm.
        Suddenly, I round a corner and see Uncompahgre Peak a few miles in the distance.
        “Good Lord!” I say.
        This is a sight that I’ve only seen on TV and in movies but never in person. An image of snow being blown horizontally off the top of a mountain by the very high winds at the summit. An image of the Dead Zone.
        I stop and take the Dead Zone’s picture. I then settle on an improvised Plan B.

        An hour later, I’m at the Forest Service campground I scoffed at earlier. Suns almost down. I’ve set up my Svea 123 stove on the picnic table and it’s burning like a jet engine, heating water to a boil, to make coffee and oatmeal for dinner. I’m eating string cheese while I wait. It tastes like creamy ambrosia.

        I’ve unrolled my Kelty bag in my truck and I’ve set up my old Rollei camera on a near by hill, for some nocturnal star circles shooting later. A couple of hunting parties are across the way in their RVs, but no one is close to me. I’m eating cheese with gloved hands, and I couldn’t be happier. Maybe a little happier if I had someone to share this little paradise with, but not much happier. The snow under my feet is powdery and dry. No clouds in the skies. And the cold air wakes you up like loving slap on the ass. And it’s not too cold here. In the twenties I’m guessing, not sub-zero. Big difference between 20 degrees and –20. Like the three bears, the third bed/porridge/chair was just right. And the Silver Thread Campground is just right.
        The water reaches a boil and I pour it on top of the instant mocha coffee inside my blue enamel cup. I stir and sip the boiling lumpy liquid.
        “Sweet Jesus who lives in Heaven.”
        I take a second sip and close my eyes in rapture.

Friday, October 18th, 2007

        Except for getting up once to close the shutter on the 2 1⁄4, I slept for ten hours. Ten hours straight, pretty much. I haven’t felt this good in years after sleeping. The 10,000-foot-high cold mountain air didn’t hurt none either. And now I’m watching a blue jay eat my leftover oatmeal.

        I leave the bird to peck my bowl in peace and headed up a spruce-covered hill to the south. Already been up to the ridge-line a few times this morning. This time I’ve come up to pray.
        After prayers, I come back down, pack up my gear, and finish my coffee. The blue jay has finished my oatmeal. It's still early, around 8 a.m. but I have one more place to go before I leave.
        The small stream that traverses the campground becomes a hundred-foot waterfall a couple hundred yards from my truck. I grab the Canon and head to take some pics. I arrive and just slow down even more. I take a few impressionistic zooms of the rushing stream but mostly I just sit. Sit and have a smoke. Sit after the smoke. Sit and sit some more. Loud water, be it a fast stream over rocks or waves at the ocean, does that to me. Slows everything down. Thinking stops, feelings settle, my eyes sort of cross.
I then close my eyes, and all the World is Sound.

"The Right Prayer Bundles" (c) 2007

"The Right Prayer Bundles, Bear Butte State Park, South Dakota" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

"Wheel" (c) 2005 Edgar Heap of Birds

"Wheel" (Detail) (c) 2005 Edgar Heap of Birds (Hock E Aye VI), Cheyenne/Arapaho, b. 1954., Porcelain Enamel on Steel, Denver Art Museum.

NAH-KEV-HO-EYEA-ZIM
(Cheyenne meaning: "We are coming home again at last.")

"Stu Shooting Flam Chen" (c) 2007 Cathy Spann

"Stu Shooting Flam Chen" (c) 2007 Cathy Spann [Detail]

[Taken by Cathy Spann at the recent Dawali celebration in the desert, in which Flam Chen performed. The reason I'm posting this image is just for the vaguely narcissistic purpose of showing folks Stu at work. Look to the far right and you can see me, in a crouch behind my tripod, shooting Laxmii and the balloons. A great moment, a fun photo. Photo geek info: This is just a fraction of a much larger digital negative, hence the graininess. Still a very cool image though.]

"Stuart Circle, Richmond, Virginia" (c) 1999

"Stuart Circle, Richmond, Virginia" (c) 1999, 2007 Stu Jenks

[From Judith Dupre's book "Monuments", Random House, 2007]

       Off to my left is Stuart Circle Hospital. Inside are my father Stuart and my mother Mary. Dad may be dying.
       Dad is an ex-Marine who voted for Nixon three times and I'm an artist who voted for McGovern. But he has always told me that he loved me. Told me he loved me just a few minutes ago when I left the hospital for the night.
       The hospital is south of me, out of the frame. My Rollei is set up, pointing toward the monument of J.E.B. Stuart, at the far eastern end of Monument Avenue. I line up the shot, with the flood lit Presbyterian Church on the left, J.E.B. on the right and the circular traffic in the foreground. People are taking their time going around the circle. Richmond is a Southern city. Still wonderfully slow at times.
       I cock the shutter and wait. Waiting for the right set of cars to approach. The exposure will be only for a few seconds. There's a car at the light. I open the shutter. The car slowly rounds the statue and leaves the circle. Then another car, and another. I wait, counting seconds in my head. I close the shutter. I do this for a few more exposures, but soon stop. My heart isn't in it tonight.
       I walk to the rental truck, throw my Rollei and tripod into the back seat and drive around J.E.B. Stuart myself, listening to Emmylou Harris singing about losing love, missing Elvis, and living life, even as it fades away.
       I really wish Dad wasn't dying. I cry hard without making a sound.

       - Stu Jenks' recollection of taking this photograph, 1999, of J.E.B. Stuart monument.

"The Medicine Man" (c) 1907 Edward S. Curtis

"The Medicine Man" (Detail) (c) 1907 Edward S. Curtis, Denver Art Museum

[Appears this was a Lakota named Slow Bull. Curtis wrote, a hundred years ago, "Invocation and supplication enter so much into the life of the Indian, that this picture of the grim old warrior invoking the Mysteries, is most characteristic." Curtis has been criticized for over-romantizing the Indians. You think? Invoking the Mysteries, eh? I think, at the time, he was posing for you, Edward. My guess is he wasn't praying at that particular moment. And obviously, I don't buy it that Indians are intrinsically more spiritual than anyone else. They just pray in a different way. Ain't no better or worse than a Buddhist meditating in a temple, a Catholic praying the rosary, or a Alcoholic saying the Serenity Prayer. Irregardless, he did take some very nice photographs, even if they were mostly fantasies. And I enjoyed taking this image at the Denver Art Museum, knowing that this image sells for a boatload of cash down the street, and given the generosity of the Museum, I was allowed to take the picture for free.]
 

"From the Desk of Al Swearengen"

"From the Desk of Al Swearengen"

[Al, talking to the Indian Head in the Box]

"Watching us advance on your stupid Tipi, Chief, knowing you had to make your move, did you not just want first, to fucking understand? Huh?"

"The Neo-Cons and the Con-Temps " © 2007

"The Neo-Cons and the Con-Temps " © 2007

Top Image: "Last of the Great Buffalo Hunters" (Detail) [Paint, Leather, Ceramic, and Glue on Wood] (c) 1987 Robert Arneson, Denver Art Museum. Below Image: "Feather Sculpture #2" (Zoom Fuzzy Detail) [Willow, Feathers, Buckskin] (c) 1994 Truman Lowe, Denver Art Museum.
 

Contemporary Artists are the Neo-Cons of the Art World. Not that much difference between them and George Bush and his minions.

Now that I have your attention, let me explain and let me define a few terms too. And maybe give you a message of hope for the future of Art too.

Modern Art is pretty much everything from the late 1800's up to the 1970's. From Picasso to Pollock. Also Matisse, Calder, Warhol, Christo, Arneson and everything good and powerful in between. Modernism dealt with the ideas of abstraction, emotion, and life in the modern world, but it still had an eye for design, color and form. Contemporary Art, on the other hand, is Stuff that is called Visual Art that comes out of New York, Los Angeles, London and a few other U.S. and European cities since the late 70's and 80's. It's about some sort of idea about something, usually shocking or political, and has absolutely nothing to do with Beauty and very little to do with Design. The idea is the thing, what the eye sees is secondary. Most everyone who isn't involved in the Art World thinks it's pretentious, or meaningless or ugly, or all the above and most times they are right. Those inside the Contemporary Art World see it as cutting edge and original and forward thinking, and they are only right about it being original. Each bowel movement is different from the next. Same can be said about most of this shit.

People say it's not Art. They are wrong. It's Art. It's just bad Art.

[Brief aside: It's seem bizarre to me that people call Bad-Art, Not-Art. If you go to a crappy movie, you don't come out and say 'That wasn't a movie.' If you go to a concert and it sucks, you don't say that it wasn't music. You just say that it's shitty music. Only visual art has this distinction and it think I know why. Because people hold Visual Art up to a higher standard, to an almost religious height, which makes sense since some of the most beautiful Art ever made was spiritual. We have higher expectations of Visual Art. It must be beautiful or at the very least well done and well produced. It must be transcendent. It must not be merely entertainment or a joke. It must be not just a bumper sticker or a sign that someone needs therapy. It should lift us up to be better or at least lift up our spirits a bit.]

And sadly, Art which was the primary source of human creation for thousand of years is now a distant 4^th at best, behind Music, Motion Pictures, and The Internet. The number of people that go to an opening at a small city Contemporary Art museum or gallery on a Saturday night is less than the number of hits I get on my little Stu-Blog in a day. Not that my blog is all that wonderful but you get my drift.

And why are they, the Contemporaries, The Con-Temps, like the Neo-Cons and George Bush? Consider this. The Neo-cons look like Republicans but they aren't really. They are not fiscal conservatives. There are autocrats. They are bullies. They will break the bank. Same said for the Con-Temps. They looks like artists and act like they like art but they don't. They like themselves and people like themselves and no one else. They are an exclusive elite club, like the Neo-Cons, in which members can only enter if they fit a very narrow definition of Cool. Preferably Cool with a lot of Cash. The Con-Temps aren't interested in Beauty or Peace or Building Community. They are selfish and self-centered, only wishing to build in their power, ego and prestige. Same can be said for the political Neo-Cons. Chaos, be it War or economic downturn builds more opportunity to make money from cronyism and from buying low and selling high. Same with the Con-Temps. Cronyism is a key. You sell each other shit. It's a visual circle jerk in which everyone must grab the cock of the guy next to him. And finally, there is an orthodoxy to both the Neo-Cons and the Con-Temps. It's my way or the highway. Believe in my socio/political worldview or my narrow artistic worldview, and everything is fine. But if you don't, I'll bring you down with bombs, bribery, or vicious ridicule. All with a smile of the self-righteousness on their face. No 'live and let live' in these folk. No love and tolerance from them. But they may give you a sales pitch that says that they do love and appreciate you and your differences. Don't believe it. They are either trying to take something from you, or force something on you.

And I'm not just speaking sour grapes. I was what they called a Conceptual Artist in Art School in the 1970's. Leashing myself to trees. Burying myself in fire brick in the center of campus while the cameras rolled. Painting outlines of traffic dead on city streets in the middle of the night, and getting in trouble with the law. I had some Big Ideas, and I had my shtick, my rap about those Ideas. But looking back, I had a couple of good pieces but most of my work was unfocused, marginally produced and smelled of Marijuana smoke. But even back then I wasn't completely sold on the idea, that The Idea was king and that The Visual was a serf you raped in the fields. I was making yearly pilgrimages to the Hirshhorn Museum in D.C. to see Rodin's "Burgher of Calais" and "Balzac". I've loved Calder since I was a kid. And my experimental 8 mm films from Art School did have some heart, not just brains.

Of late, I'm shopping around getting a book published of my Art and Words. Not going so well but I have friends who are helping. I may end up self-publishing at some point, when I get an extra 5000 dollars from somewhere. Anyway, the reason I'm working on books is I'm tired of dealing with the Entitled Rich (and I'm not talking about the Generous and Soulful Rich, so to my two rich Michaels I know, I'm not talking about you). I'm tired of them talking down my prices, of being fickle and arrogant, and I suddenly realized a few years ago that it's par for the course these days in the Visual Arts. I'm expecting a pig to be a pony. And I like books for I can sell them to people like me: the Struggling Middle and Working Class who always have enough money for a good CD, a good movie or a good book. I want to be another good book they can buy.

And I believe there is hope for Art. I hear that students out of high school are demanding that their university Art professors teach them how to draw better, sculpture better, craft better and if they don't, they leave and go to a school that will. I visited the Disney School of Animation in L.A. a few years ago and saw amazing draftsmanship on butcher paper hanging in the lobby after a critique. Master illustrators like Charles Vess are finally getting their due. Chihuly has a multi-million dollar glass chandelier in the Bellagio Lobby in Vegas. The elegant furniture of Scott Baker is winning awards. And Crane Day, weaver extraordinaire, can be found working magic with the mohair wool just ten feet from my studio door.

I think I'll to go to my studio now, and play my mandolin for a while. Play it through my Roland Cube with the Chorus and Reverb settings at 10 o'clock. My little ambient songs are quite pretty, I think, and quite Modern. And not Contemporary in the least.

 

 

"Indian Gothic" (c) 1983 David P. Bradley

"Indian Gothic After Grant Woods' American Gothic" (c) 1983 David P. Bradley at the Denver Art Museum.

"Jingle Jingle" (c) 1997 Judith Lowry

"Jingle Jingle" (c) 1997 Judith Lowry, Denver Art Museum, Colorado

[A homage to the murdered cousin of the artist. He, the cousin, was killed after he threatened to expose the corruption he found at an Indian casino. And almost needless to say, the painting comments on Indian gambling as a whole.]

"Standing Bear's Tipi" (c) 1884, 2007

"Standing Bear's Tipi" & "Cheyenne Coup Stick" (c) 1884, 1870s & 2007 Stu Jenks, Standing Bear and an unknown Cheyenne, Denver Art Museum

[Many thanks to Michael Doll, for being at his desk when I finally got cellphone coverage after days in Wyoming and in South Dakota without it. Not that it's that big a deal for me to not have the ability to chat and drive, but it was timely when I got the beep on my phone that said 'Yes, you can call now.' I was just south of Laramie, Wyoming. I'd done the math. I could get to the Denver Art Museum, God willing and the creek don't rise, by around 4 p.m. That would give me an hour to see their renowned Native American Art collection. It'd be fast but I could see the highlights, see the tipi I saw 18 years ago, experience an number of other things. I thought I'm not going to stay in Denver overnight to see the Art, for I had to get to the Great Sand Dunes and the San Juan Mountains the next day. This was my only time, my only chance. It's this afternoon or not at all. Michael answered his phone and while we were catching up, he looked up on the Internet to find out what time the Museum closed. If it was 5, I was fine. If it was earlier, I was fucked. He looked, he found, he said..."Says here the Museum closes at 5 p.m."...Hot damn. Thanks Michael for that and a hundred other things.]

[The next few posts, over the next few days, will be of my photographs of the paintings, sculptures and artifacts from the Denver Art Museum. (Oddly enough, you can take pictures in the DAM as long as you don't use a flash and the Art is part of their permanent collection.) Pictured above are Standing Bear's Tipi and a Cheyenne Coup Stick. The big question I had looking at the tipi was "How did they get this? Did they steal it? Did they buy it for pennies from a relative or from him? Did they just find it?" No answers. But it was beautiful and the paintings on the canvas of his recollections of his deeds in war were more moving than most of the Contemporary Art Crap you see these days. And the coup stick wasn't bad either.]

"The Albany County Buffalo" (c) 2007

"The Albany County Buffalo, Wyoming" (c) Stu Jenks 2007

Shame I don't have a MP3 module on this blog. I recorded this big boy's breathing on a small handheld digital recorder while I was photographing him. He was both curious and mildly irritated with me as I shot him. He did allow me to pet him a couple of times but he was not too fond of my camera. His fellow corral-mate was only mildly interested in me. He, on the other hand, came right over and said hello. But it was the sound that I wish I could play for you on this blog. He and I just stood together for a while. I wasn't shooting. I was just leaning on the fence and he was leaning toward me from his side. His breath rattled loudly through his throat and his huge head, sounding much like water going down a bathtub drain. He wasn't angry (then). He was just breathing. Actually, he was never was really angry with me. He just got spooked by the sound of my camera shutter a couple of times.

 

As I said in an earlier post, the sadness I felt of the absence of the herds of Bison was profound. The roving street gangs of Antelope didn't make up for the lack of the Ocean of Buffalo that had once lived on these plains. Don't get me wrong. I don't romanticize these creatures, at least not too much. They are not the sharpest pencils in the pack and they can be a bit ornery. But there is something about them, like boulders that slowly move through the grass. They are, after all, the largest land mammals in North America. Like a cross between a dog and a mountain.

And I may be projecting this, but when I looked in his eye, and I did a number of times, it was as if I could see him thinking, wanting, wishing for this:

"Please let me out of here."

I wish I could.

I wish I could raise the all the Buffalo from the dead.

I wish there were scenic overlooks on the Interstate where you could watch a Sea of Bison run by.

I wish for a lot of things.

Only a few of them come true.

 

[The top two images are mine and the buffalo's. The bottom image is of William Jacob Hays' painting "Herd of Buffalo", Circa 1862. It's part of the permanent collection at the Denver Art Museum.]

"Leopard Appaloosa, Wyola, Montana, Crow Reservation" © 2007

"Leopard Appaloosa, Wyola, Montana, Crow Reservation" © 2007 Stu Jenks

 

 

       I'm tired of the Interstate. I think I'll drive by the river for a while.

       I get off at Lodge Grass and head south on a little two lane road. Railroad tracks on my right. Little Big Horn River on my left. Sun's about set.

       It's poor here on the Crow Rez but not bad at all. Poor is relative. If you have land along the river, some horses, a nice little house, a good truck and friends and family to love, how poor are you?

       Speaking of Horses, the Crows love their horses. Many of the Northern Plains Indians loved their steeds but nothing like the Crows. They also love their dogs. A matriarchal society, the Crows have a long history of male and female chiefs. Word has it that they even had a trans-gender chief back in the day. Two-Spirit, The Crows called people like that, having male and female spirits inside of them at the same time.

       The Crows were the enemies of many other tribes, the Lakota, and the Northern Cheyenne being a couple. Don't know why but they were picked on a lot by the other Indians. When the U. S. Calvary arrived, many men joined as scouts. Do you blame them? [Possible conversation: Army Man: 'Can you tell us where the Cheyenne are?' Crow Man: 'Why do you want to know?' Army Man: 'Because we want to kill them.' Crow Man: 'They are right over there. Wait a second and I'll go with you.']

       One of the most accurate accounts of what happened at the Battle of Little Bighorn came from a Crow scout named White Man Runs Him [or his other name was White Buffalo That Turns Around. Something tells me the first name was given to him by a Lakota or a Cheyenne.] When Custer ignored his advice, to not attack the throng of Indians by the river, White Buffalo took off his army uniform and put on his tribe gear. When confronted by Custer, he said he wanted to die as an Indian not as a soldier. Custer got pissed and relieved him of duty, and for most of the attack, White Buffalo and three other Crow scouts saw it all from a ridge nearby.

       The Sun has now set. I'm heading south. The sky is lavender. Hope to be in Colorado by tomorrow afternoon. Maybe I'll drop by the Denver Museum of Art and check out their Native American Art collection. I remember from 18 years ago, that it was an amazing collection, that was both historically extensive as well as being modernly progressive. Hope they still have it. You never know. Things change.

       I turn left and get on Route 457 heading east. That'll take me back to I-90. Then I see him and his buddies. I pull over immediately onto the grassy shoulder.

       I've never seen a horse like that in all of my life [Later I found out that he was a Leopard Appaloosa] Black spots on White. Amazing.

       I take his picture and then his buddies come over with the What's-You-Doing look. I grab some fresh grass from my side of the fence and feed a couple of his friends. The Appaloosa never does come over to the fence. He keeps his distance, which is OK. But his corral-mates took the grass from my hand and they have themselves a little snack. I rubbed their noses too.

       I talk to them. They say nothing. They just eat the grass and then look to me to give them some more. I smile and oblige them.

"Long Road, Swift Bear & Hawk Man at The Little Bighorn" (c) 2007

"Long Road, Swift Bear & Hawk Man at The Little Bighorn" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

       I'm not having a good time. Actually, I'm kind of pissed off. I'm beginning to wonder if driving hundreds of miles to visit here was such a good idea. But my gut said go, so I went.
       The day began great, with prayer bundles at Bear's Lodge and the drive on Interstate 90 across Wyoming was quite a delight. I love Wyoming now. Didn't know I'd be a Prairie Person but I am. The yellow grasses, the numerous streams and rivers, the antelope here and there and everywhere. And the women I've seen are quite fetching too. Not classically beautiful but a number I've seen have long hair, often blond with bangs, strong noses, and tight jeans with ranch stains on them. Men ain't bad either, rugged, clear eyed men, among the usual pasty suburbanites that you find everywhere in America. And the biggest surprise was I could get NPR all over the state, even in bum-fuck-nowhere, which is 90% of Wyoming. A generally polite people is what I found. (I had a nice exchange with a couple of Mormon missionaries at a McDonalds's in Gillette. Memorable quote: 'So are you a convert and lifelong?" asked the young man confusing me for a LDS. "Neither," I said, " I'm Episcopalian.")
       But there was some sadness as I drove. Antelope were ubiquitous, like pigeons in a park, but there was a noticeable absence of Buffalo. They were the kings of the Prairie, 150 years ago and now they are only ghosts, memories, and the occasional few like at Bear Butte, as remembrances of a time that will never return. Heavy sigh.
       The Big Horn Mountains rose to the west of Sheridan, as I drove on. Part of the Rockies. The Rockies are always good to see. Into the Crow Rez and before you know it, I was driving along the banks of the Little Bighorn River. I knew from my Montana road map that I could probably see part of the Battlefield from I-90 and as I looked up I could see the low prairie ridge, the flats along the river, Pine trees (?), a graveyard, and some government buildings, but it was the river bank that struck me and first pissed me off.
       "You were a fucking idiot, George," I said out loud as I drive the last few miles before I exited the Interstate. "How could you have fucking missed the smoke coming from hundreds and hundreds of Indian campfires? (They say there were close to a thousand lodges there, that day) Were you that god damn arrogant? You fucking idiot. You deserved to get you ass kicked!"
       I exited the Interstate but my anger didn't subside once I enter Little Bighorn National Battlefield. I did see a Prairie Dog town when I entered the park and that cheered me up for a minute but it didn't last. I was surprised that I wasn't sad, just more and more irritate. Pissed off that there is a National Cemetery at Little Bighorn, with only white military dead buried there, many who were not even at the Battle. A white obelisk on a hill marked the places where many of the 7^th Calvary died. (But not really. Farther down to the north was the area when most of the whites died.) Most of the focus at the Park was on Custer, but in recent years, an Indian Memorial had been built, but the sculpture was quite ugly I think and even though the U.S. government had tried to honor all the tribes who fought and died, it felt forced and phony to me. But they tried and I read that the tribes appreciated the attempt. But still. This should be Lakota/Cheyenne holy ground, of a great victory against tyranny, not some sad memorial to an arrogant asshole.
       Now, I'm walking back to my truck after seeing Last Stand Hill, the Indian Memorial, and a few white headstones near the path. There were a couple of red granite headsstones, marking where two Lakotas had died but it wasn't nearly enough. Jesus Fucking Christ! This was the high watermark for the American Indian, their Frederickburg, their great battle victory, days before the American Centennial in 1876, where the tribes kicked ass and took names (and then it all slowly went to shit culminating at the Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890.) I'm not naïve thinking that the victors don't write the history books but again, this should be a monument to a victory more than a memorial of a defeat. Fuck. I stop and pause. My gut says go to the end of the road. There is something there for you, it says. I sure as fuck hope so. I've taken one photograph and that may be all I take here. I could give a shit. I get in my truck and back out of the Visitors' Center parking lot, trying not to run over the slow obese white people that are in my path.
       According to my Park map, at the end of this road is the place where Reno and Benteen held their ground under siege. (After Custer and his troup had been killed, the tribes tried to kill the rest of the 7^th Calvary under Major Reno and Captain Benteen. Reno had begun his attack up the river but was quickly routed and sent scrambling up to a ridgeline. Lucky for him, Benteen and his men arrived at what is now called Reno Hill just as the scrambling troopers of Benteen got there and that is what saved him and his men from the same fate as Custer. Benteen and Reno were under siege for the rest of the day and all of the next. The fighting was fierce on those two days. The Lakota and Cheyenne left on the third day. some Whites say it was because they heard that more Calvary were coming. Some Indians say that we just left because we were done. We couldn't kill all of them but that was OK. So we left. I choose to believe the latter.) I pass more white headstones where Calvary men had died as I drive south and it just pisses me off more. I want to stop and walk in the prairie grass but that is forbidden by the Park Service. We are in the center of the Crow Indian Reservation but all is see is white people, white crosses, white things.
       The presentation I heard at the Visitors' Center echoes in my head: that Reno was lucky that he didn't get massacred too. That archeological evidence proves that what the Indians have been saying for a 130 years is true, that what Custer did was foolish and not valorous, that he rode right into the heart of the gathering of tribes and unlike other times, when he out-powered and out-manned a village and killed all who were there, this time he was outnumbered by at least four to one, maybe nine to one, and simply had the Karmic Wheel roll very hardly on top of him. What goes around, comes around and it came down with a vengeance on Custer and his crew, on June 25^th, 1876. That throughout the two days of fighting, 258 U.S. Soldiers were killed and that Indian dead may have been as few as 30 or as many as a couple hundred. We all kind know the gist of the story, but the one thing that I learned is that Benteen and Reno's troops came this close to being whipped out too. This close.

As I get farther away from Custer Hill, the less traffic I see. Fewer cars, fewer people. I talk with an Australian man and ask if he has seen any red headstones, those for the Native dead. He said yes, at the end of the road. My mood brightens a bit.
       The road ends many miles from the Visitors' Center. I'm all alone. I'm at Reno Hill. I'm feeling much calmer now. It's around five in the afternoon. I park the Pathfinder, and  grab my Pentax 35 mm with the SFX film and my Canon 30D with its four gig card. Maybe I'll take a few more shots. I'm a long way from any rangers or white folk or anything but grass.
       I walk to the south and as I get to the grass's edge, I see four or five red headstones fifty or so feet away. The grass leading to them is matted down. Seems a lot of people have walked to them. I stop and say a quiet 'O My God'.
       I take off the lens cap of my Canon and I walk to the nearest stone. When I get there I bent down and place my left hand on top of the stone. The granite is polished smooth, with a rounded, not flat top. I see the name Swift Bear. I think of all the bears I've seen and experienced in the last few days. Bear Butte. Bear's Lodge. Now, Swift Bear.
       And then I'm hit by The Loss.
       It's as if the land has come up through me, from my feet, up my legs, into my heart, into my lungs, into my eyes, into my brain, and I feel and see and breathe in the enormity of The Loss.

The Loss of the Buffalo.

The Loss of the Land.

The Loss of the Way of Life.

The Loss of the Indian.

 

Every tribe that is gone, every child dead from smallpox, every woman without a husband, every warrior killed trying to keep his family alive. All of it.

And I drop to the ground, hunker down with my left hand on the grass to steady myself.

And I cry. I wail. I make a lot of sound. I'm surprised by all the sound. I don't stop it.

I do this for a while.

 

       Half-hour later, I'm heading back to the Park entrance. I stop along the way, for no reason, except to postpone my leaving. I'm having a good time now. I see another red headstone, this time for Long Road. A staff with prayer bundles tied around its length rests at the base of the stone. I take its picture. I place a hand on the stone and thank him for the sacrifice he made.
       I see another stone. I don't remember the name. I find the red prayer bundle in my pocket, the one I made at BR-549 Studio before I came on this trip. I hesitate. I'm not an Indian. I'm a White Guy. Is it right that I do this here, give a bundle here? I don't know.
       Then I feel a presence off my left shoulder. And then I hear a voice.
       "Thank You."
       I tied the bundle to a shaft of grass. I leave the lens cap on. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and smile at the setting sun.

"Todd Jones Spinning" (c) 2007

"Todd Jones Spinning" (c) 2007 William Todd-Jones & Photo by Vicki Couchman

[This image was taken of Todd by Vicki Couchman, while he spun Catherine Wheels at a festival in the UK. These poi are not the kerosene type, but rather as Todd said "...just wire wool, dipped in meths in a colander type mesh. The faster you spin, the more oxygen and the hotter it gets. Molten metal spews out. Bloody effective when you're an eight foot satyr!" Todd is a very talented artist, puppeteer, performer and all around wonderful guy. Makes a hell of a satyr too. 'Meat', my brother.]

 

"Desert Dewali with Paul, Nadia, Arelia, Jericho, & Others of Flam Chen" (c) 2007

"Desert Dewali" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks and Flam Chen

       [Images: " Laxmii's Flight", "Jericho's Poi" and "Under Paul's Care"]

       Paul invited us to the party and I'm sure glad he did.
       Flam Chen is one of the premier pyrotechnic performance troupes in the world, if you ask me. We are lucky that they call Tucson home. Nadia is one of the co-founders. Paul is the other major mover-and-shaker. They are good circus people. Charlotte has threatened to run away with them. I wouldn't judge her in the least if she decided to.
       Diwali is the annual Hindi (and other faiths) Festival of Light. The party was thrown by a nice blond fellow in dreadlocks, on his property in the middle of bum-fuck-nowhere in the flat creosote desert, west of Tucson. Top Dead Center played Grateful Dead covers with flair and precision. Canoeists and kayakers paddled in the acre-large cow pond. Fire sculptors and amateur pyro artists set up and performed on the north side of the pond. Food was given and shared. Beer and wine was bought and drank. Strong Dope filled the air from time to time. I hadn't smoke Pot in over two decades. I didn't that night, but I didn't complain either, when I got a seemingly-slight contact-high. Then again, we didn't stay for more than a couple hours, and much of the high I got came from the performance of Paul, Nadia and the gang of Flam Chen. That's why we came.
       Charlotte got some nice shots of Circles of Poi, and I got a couple shots that I was thrilled to have captured of the performance. I've been trying for at least eight years to get a good shot of a Flam Chen performance, but with no success. I had success that night.

 We had a real good time. And for the first time ever, I danced my ass off AND shoot my camera at the same time. Thank God for a great digital cable release, that costed way too much money. Even when Rural Metro Fire Department showed up, the festivities only waned a little.

       And finally, the quote of the night:

       Me (after Flam Chen's performance): " Paul, I finally got a great shot of you guys. I'm so happy. I've been trying for so long to get an image that I could give to you all. I was just focusing and shooting. Move, focus and shoot. As fast as I could. Pow, Pow, Pow! Then I'd focus on Laxmii and Pow, Pow, Pow!"

       Paul (turning to a friend): "Stu's getting all Gangsta about this shit."

       We all laughed.

[Brief Note: The Laxmii shot, at the top, is performed by Arelia and Nadia of Flam Chen [Nadia is difficult to see]. Jericho is spinning the poi, in the middle image, and Paul is holding on to Arelia and Nadia, in the bottom shot. Four men including Paul make sure Arelia doesn't float into space. Paul, always the appropriate master of Safety, said to me, "We could all drop dead and the weight of our bodies would keep her from floating away. The only way she could float away is if all four of us cut ourselves loose, and that's not going to happen."]

"Devils Tower National Monument, Bear's Lodge, Wyoming" (c) 2007

"Devils Tower National Monument, Bear's Lodge, Wyoming" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

        Bing, bing, bing.....bing, bing. A musical hint I so badly want to send to friends back home via my cell phone, when I first saw this majestic peak in front of me yesterday. But alas, I haven't had cell phone coverage since Colorado.
        Hint: In a movie, I'm carving a mountain out of mashed potatoes. I'm Richard Dreyfuss. Where am I?

        25 years ago, I kept on driving on my way to the Pacific Ocean and didn't stop here. I regretted that for years. Today, I hadn't planned on stopping but I asked myself this simple question when I was a
couple of hours away. Question: When will I be within a hundred miles of Devils Tower again? Answer: Who the hell knows. I'm so glad I stopped. I haven't been disappointed in the least, in my twenty-four hours at this holy and funny spot.

        Stu's Fun Facts:

1)      Devils Tower was the United States' first National Monument (Yellowstone was the first National Park). Teddy Roosevelt made it a Monument in 1906, for he didn't want this unusual igneous intrusion to be harmed or abused.

2)      The Monument is quite tiny by National Park standards (Yellowstone and The Grand Canyon are huge in comparison.) Just the Tower, the land below it, and parts of the Belle Fourche River are inside of the Monument boundaries.

3)      Devils Tower rises 1267 feet above the surround land. Straight up.

4)      The Monument contains a very large Prairie Dog town. Sweet Jesus Christ, they are the funniest, most mesmerizing creatures I have ever seen in the Wild. I promised my friend Annie that I will take her there someday simply for the Prairie Dogs, (which she can get easy access to from the modest but beautiful campground that sits on the banks of the Belle Fourche.) Annie loves baby creatures, little wild
animals. This place would be a Mecca for her.

5)      Devils Tower is a holy peak for the surrounding tribes: Cheyenne, Lakota, Arapaho, Shoshone, Kiowa and others. Everyone of these tribes call the mountain, Bear's Lodge, or Bear's Tipi, or Bear's House or variations of that (even though one tribe does call it 'Penis Mountain".) But an ignorant arrogant smart-assed white guy showed up back in the day, and said that an Indian told him that the peak was
called "Bad God's Tower", so he called it "Devils Tower" and it stuck. No one, but him, had ever called it that before. The park system is thinking of changing the name to Bear's Lodge National Monument after being petitioned by the neighboring tribes. I'm on the tribe's side in this one. I don't think the French would like it too much of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was called Black Magic Woman Church because a Nazi called it that in World War Two.

6)      Also, numerous Indians are a bit pissed off that so many people climb Devils Tower. A couple thousand people a year do. A compromise has been reached by the Park Service. Even though they can't mandated that no one climb during the month of June (A heavily ceremonial month for many of the tribes) they have asked that people not climb the Tower during that time and they have gotten 90% voluntary compliance. (Separation of Church and State prohibits the Service from doing anymore than asking.) High marks to those who agree to stay off the mountain at least one month a year. Brief aside: It did bamboozle me when I saw the lamps of flashlights of those bivouacking on the sheer
face of the Tower, the night I spent there. Brief flash of light in the dark at 1000 feet above the ground. Very bizarre.

7)      Some say that Sweet Medicine, the Cheyenne Hero, was buried at Bear's Lodge.

8)      The Crows come to Devils Tower to worship and fast. They built small stone "dream houses" as part of the vision quests, structures that are as long and as wide as a man. A worshiper would recline in his or her structure, head to the east as part of his vision quest (Crows I understand are matriarchal, so I bet women vision quest too.)

9)     I had a couple of pretty powerful experiences with the Tower and its tall Grasses, its moist Sage, and its very big Day and Night Sky. I'm going to keep mum about them, but I hope you enjoy the images I took.

10)     Lastly