Episode 1252 - Sterlin Harjo
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what is happening i do know that um i'm stocked up on uh covet tests and i'm i'm doing more road shows tonight i will be in phoenix at stand up live
Marc:Tomorrow night, I will be in Phoenix at Stand Up Live.
Marc:I believe there are still tickets for that all vaxxed or proof of test in the last 48 hours show.
Marc:Next week, Salt Lake City, Utah, August 19, 20, 21, five shows.
Marc:Tickets are available.
Marc:There's not that many tickets left for Phoenix, but I know there's plenty of tickets left for the proof of vaxx or test within 48 hours in Utah.
Marc:Because from what I understand, Utah is a little, we're going to die of COVID on this hill.
Marc:No jabs for us dummies.
Marc:You can go to wtfpod.com slash tour to see the upcoming dates.
Marc:I'm going to probably be adding dates soon.
Marc:There's a new Dynasty typewriter date.
Marc:Is that up?
Marc:I think that's in October.
Marc:Yes, October 4th.
Marc:I've added a Dynasty typewriter show at 8 o'clock.
Marc:That's here in Los Angeles.
Marc:I don't think that sold out.
Marc:I didn't even know that it was up yet.
Marc:I have not promoted it.
Marc:So there you go.
Marc:I'm very happy about this show today.
Marc:I talked to Sterling Harjo, who I did not know.
Marc:And not only did I really not know him, I knew he had done comedy work and he was a Native American who was a known comedy figure.
Marc:But I really didn't know the scope of it.
Marc:I mean, my buddy Cliff Nesteroff features him quite a bit in his book, We Had a Real Estate Problem, about Native American comedy.
Marc:But I really didn't know.
Marc:And when my producer said, you know, this guy's available, do you want to check it out?
Marc:And I was like, yes, yes, I would like to know more about him.
Marc:I just knew that I have never publicly spoken to a Native American artist.
Marc:Certainly growing up in New Mexico, I'd met a few and I was surrounded by Native American painting and jewelry, obviously, and life.
Marc:But I don't know if I had empathy or understanding.
Marc:Obviously, I did not to what that life looked like until I read an Ian Frazier book called On the Res and another Ian Frazier book called The Great Plains, which blew me away.
Marc:The Great Plains, more about that region and all the tribes that populated that area.
Marc:And On the Res was about reservation life.
Marc:All this to say, he's an incredible filmmaker.
Marc:He's made three feature films, Four Sheets to the Wind, Barking Water and Miko.
Marc:I've watched two of them.
Marc:He also directed the documentaries This May Be the Last Time and Love and Fury.
Marc:I watched both of those.
Marc:He's got a new show on FX on Hulu called Reservation Dogs, which takes place on a reservation about these four kids.
Marc:I watched six of those.
Marc:And I got to say, it was really a life-changing event for me to engage with this guy's work.
Marc:I seem to be, you know, something has opened up in my heart as of late.
Marc:Some sort of new level of engagement around...
Marc:I guess a deeper empathy, because it was always my understanding that empathy was only capable if you could put yourself in someone else's shoes or experience.
Marc:And I think that is true.
Marc:I just don't think you can make assumptions.
Marc:I think uneducated empathy is probably just sensitivity.
Marc:But when it...
Marc:When you're dealing with a different culture or even a different ethnic group who has had to deal collectively with a struggle that is not our lives, I think the depth of empathy is limited and could even appear condescending.
Marc:So what's happened to me over the last few weeks in engaging with Sterling's work,
Marc:and also engaging with Barry Jenkins' Underground Railroad, I'm going to talk to Barry soon, was that my depth of empathy shifted to, I feel, a deeper understanding of that struggle and that pain.
Marc:Like, I can't identify, I didn't come from that, but certainly the power of that fucking masterpiece was
Marc:was to really plant me in just exactly the horror that most Black Americans
Marc:Come from generationally.
Marc:Now, with Sterling, you know, the Native experience is different.
Marc:They were not indentured.
Marc:They were there was an attempt to destroy them entirely.
Marc:The American history of the Native American is is a genocidal history.
Marc:And, you know, after generations of adapting to reservations and sickness and a life that was brutally compromised, you have a culture that comes out of that.
Marc:And we talk a bit about casino culture where things are now in terms of Native identity.
Marc:But but watching all his films really sort of brought me into a way of life that I did not could not have had any understanding of.
Marc:But also about how community, art and music, ritual, all of this stuff was the stuff that aided in the survival of these different tribes and of the culture in general.
Marc:And it all sort of permeates through his work.
Marc:Just being exposed to both of these works recently, you start to realize that, you know, I know a lot of middle aged white writers who are bitter because they can't get work now because they feel that they're being pushed out by minority hires, ethnic hires, diversity hires.
Marc:But the truth is, is that many voices, marginalized voices have been kept out of this racket for a long time just because.
Marc:There was nepotism at play and legacy and handshakes and pats on the back and people are carried along institutionally.
Marc:But the thing is, is that this type of thinking around diversity higher or being pushed out by black people, women, Asian people, Native Americans, whatever it is,
Marc:They always frame it as if it's unwarranted and that those people don't deserve the job.
Marc:There have been people from all types of different backgrounds and races and cultures that have been chipping away, doing the work and quite inspired and brilliant that are have been shut out.
Marc:And so now they're being let in.
Marc:And what's happening is not anyone being pushed out.
Marc:What's happening is the field, creative fields or whatever field you're working in where this is happening is becoming more competitive in an honest way and more representational of the voices of this country, which is the only thing that is going to save this fucking country if it is saveable.
Marc:I can't say it'll save the planet, but certainly the engagement of the creative voices of as many different backgrounds, cultures, genders, ethnicities as possible help to integrate the great collective understanding.
Marc:Unfortunately, the media universe is so fucking fragmented.
Marc:You don't need to be marginalized to not be seen.
Marc:Your work, that is.
Marc:So I was thrilled to have the opportunity because of these bookings to to engage with this stuff.
Marc:And it really has changed the way I see things.
Marc:I celebrated my 22nd year anniversary of my sobriety on Monday, and I am public with that.
Marc:I tweeted, I have 22 years sober today.
Marc:And it was interesting.
Marc:The shit show that followed a lot of congratulations, a lot of, you know, you know, trolling a lot.
Marc:But it's just weird.
Marc:It's just weird.
Marc:And it's weird to me that there's still a contingent within the recovery community that believes that, look, man, I get anonymity.
Marc:And look, man, woman, he, she, they, it, thou, woman.
Marc:There's many ways to get sober.
Marc:I don't care how you do it.
Marc:The reason I am public, and I've said this before, I am publicly sober because it is possible.
Marc:And again, I know what's worked for me.
Marc:You know, people ask me, do you still go?
Marc:Are you still in it?
Marc:Do you still do the secret society?
Marc:I'm like, I do sometimes.
Marc:You know, I do not as much as I used to, but I am engaged when I go on trips.
Marc:I always have my books.
Marc:Do I read them?
Marc:No.
Marc:But I just it's a reminder.
Marc:There's a constant reminder.
Marc:I talk to people in the club often.
Marc:But I don't want to drink.
Marc:And I don't want to use drugs.
Marc:That's what's happened.
Marc:I don't know how you could get through 22 years and still have that a day to day struggle.
Marc:I know that because I did it the way that I do it, which is the secret society, that it changed my brain.
Marc:You volunteer for a brain fucking.
Marc:And things are rearranged and you're like, well, this system, this template will help me.
Marc:You don't have to do it perfectly.
Marc:It's not possible.
Marc:You have to do it by the book.
Marc:You can, but then you're almost intolerable.
Marc:But you can change your brain.
Marc:to see who you are differently, more honestly, and take responsibility for things you do and sort of take pause when you're about to do things that are stupid, like take a drink or ruin your life with your mouth or do a drug.
Marc:But I don't care how you do it.
Marc:I'm talking about it so you know it's possible.
Marc:Totally possible.
Marc:I'll tell you one thing.
Marc:Being in that secret society taught me how to engage my empathy, taught me how to engage myself, taught me how to be a little more selfless in light of other people's problems, taught me how to.
Marc:It's really the foundation of this show.
Marc:Two people talking to each other, one person talking to another person to get out of their own head.
Marc:Like if I'm going crazy or I want to drink or I want to hurt myself or I want to fuck things up, if I just engage with somebody else to take my mind off me and my dumb desires, compulsions, fears, anxiety, and let somebody else
Marc:Tell me their story, their fears, anxieties, successes.
Marc:Then I'm not thinking about me.
Marc:And 99% of the time, after that conversation, whatever was going to drag you into the pit from within has gone away.
Marc:The monster has crawled back into hole for a little while.
Marc:But anyways, that's why I share.
Marc:And oddly, I want to own this.
Marc:This is a self-own in the sense that
Marc:You know, within the program, there is a tradition that is dated to that states that we should keep any we should keep it out of press radio films.
Marc:You know that we shouldn't talk about it.
Marc:People in the secret society in AA and that's all fine.
Marc:You know, there's no law.
Marc:No one's going to kick me out.
Marc:But I believe.
Marc:The reason was is that if the person who does that drinks or gets mangled in a car because alcohol relapses, whatever, then people think that, you know, AA, as someone who spoke about it publicly, he's a representative.
Marc:It doesn't work.
Marc:Well, look, man, those numbers are available.
Marc:You want to see if it works or not?
Marc:What the percentage of people staying sober within the secret society are?
Marc:They're not great.
Marc:But in the big picture, people staying sober in general after trying to quit, not great.
Marc:It's hard.
Marc:And people relapse, they die, they can't get out from under it.
Marc:No matter what you use to stop.
Marc:That's a reality.
Marc:So any sort of inspiration, any shared experience with the possibility of having a life without drugs and alcohol, if they are ruining your life, is a good thing.
Marc:I don't give a fuck what anyone says.
Marc:I got a letter today with a chip, which I don't have anybody in my life really,
Marc:In the way that, like, no one's going to buy me a chip.
Marc:You get them when you go to the meeting, when you go, you know, announce your birthday.
Marc:I got to do that.
Marc:I got to do that.
Marc:What day is it?
Marc:I got to do that.
Marc:I usually do that a couple of times.
Marc:You go out.
Marc:But the big chips are heavier.
Marc:They're weightier.
Marc:Last year, I bought my 21-year chip myself.
Marc:But I got this cute letter with a bunch of cats on the front of it.
Marc:Mark Maron, hello.
Marc:I suppose you'll get your 22-year chip at the home group like the rest of us, at least I hope you can this year.
Marc:Please accept this one from me to you with gratitude for sharing your life so unselfishly through the podcasts and your IG Live.
Marc:Your show, Maron, gave me the courage to walk back into the rooms five years ago after an 18-year relapse.
Marc:So happy 22 to you.
Marc:Stay safe out there.
Marc:Sending love and light one day at a time.
Marc:So there you go.
Marc:I guess that's worth breaking the tradition, isn't it?
Marc:Isn't it?
Marc:Old timers.
Marc:Holders tight.
Marc:Bleeding deacons.
Marc:I'm so glad I got my chip.
Marc:I don't carry him around, but I do for a few days.
Marc:So this is exciting.
Marc:Sterling Harjo is a very provocative and authentic artist, filmmaker.
Marc:His new show, Reservation Dogs, which he co-created with Taika Waititi,
Marc:has new episodes every Monday exclusively on FX on Hulu.
Marc:This is me talking to Sterling Harjo.
Marc:You know, I feel like I'm actually more well-prepared to talk to you than I have been for anybody.
Marc:Why is that?
Marc:Just the links that we sent you?
Marc:Well, no, because, like, you know, there's something going on with me.
Marc:I don't know what it is.
Marc:But, like, I watched Four Seats to the Wind, which is your, what, second feature?
Marc:First feature.
Marc:First feature, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And it was so whole, so complete, and such a, like, a specific sort of story about specific people who are...
Marc:Of their own.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, Native Americans are other own its own trip.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's its own trip.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I tapped into it when I was earlier in my life.
Marc:You know, obviously, you know, Powwow Highway, which wasn't done by Native American.
Marc:But right.
Marc:Is that what we say?
Marc:Native American.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I say Indian, but, you know, Indian.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A native.
Guest:I say native.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I tell white people to say native.
Marc:Native.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So Indian is something you guys can use?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, anyone.
Guest:I would let you say it for sure.
Guest:But I think it's uncomfortable for white folks to say it.
Guest:We say it to each other.
Marc:I like Indian.
Guest:We say Indian to each other.
Guest:And there will be people that disagree with that.
Guest:But if you go hang out with a group of Indians, they're going to be saying Indian.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, I mean, but that happens with the group.
Marc:But you don't mean the white guy going like, what are you Indians up to?
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Maybe not.
Marc:Unless you know them all.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:But, okay, so I remember Poway Highway, but there's something that's never left me, is that I read Ian Frazier's book.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:On the res.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What do you think of that book?
Marc:I really liked that book.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:You know, I thought it was honest, portrayal of what he was going through.
Marc:Right, but you don't say, like, you know, who is he to write a book about the natives?
Marc:I don't do that.
Guest:You know, it's from a point of view, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But...
Marc:There were certain things that he captured about life on the reservation and about Native people that I thought was like, it made me reassess my own life in terms of what I do with time.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, totally.
Marc:Time's different.
Marc:Time is different.
Marc:It is, right?
Marc:Yeah, it is.
Marc:Time is different and timing is different.
Marc:So anyway, so I watched a lot of this stuff.
Marc:I watched, you know, that one, Four Seats of When I Watched Miko.
Marc:I watched This May Be the Last Time.
Marc:I watched Love and Fury.
Marc:Oh, cool.
Marc:And I watched the four episodes.
Marc:Awesome.
Marc:Man, you really did.
Marc:Of Reservation Dogs.
Marc:And Cliff Nesterov told me that you featured Large in his book.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also, I wear a Zuni ring.
Marc:Not that that matters.
Marc:No, that's good.
Marc:We're cool, man.
Marc:We're in.
Marc:But also, here's the broader point, is that I started to realize after watching your stuff and after watching the Underground Railroad, that the voices of marginalized people
Marc:oppressed people in this country, that the only thing that kept them from being completely destroyed was a sense of community and a sense of an appreciation of human love and tenderness amongst each other and sort of embracing that vulnerability, which I saw a lot of in Love and Fury.
Marc:There was something about Love and Fury
Marc:That really sort of got me reconnected with the artistic journey of people that aren't careerists.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And then I started to realize, like, in the Native community, the idea of creativity, art, ritual, community, everything's entwined.
Marc:It all speaks to each other.
Marc:Guaranteed.
Marc:And still does.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that's what, it gave me hope.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:I mean, you know, like, Taika and I have talked about that a lot, how Taika Waititi, who created Reservation Dogs with me, but we've talked about that, like how, you know, we all had uncles and aunties that were artists.
Guest:They didn't call themselves artists.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They could draw.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was such a part of life, and I think it was also part of ceremonial life as well, and just the community that, like,
Guest:You know, it's just, I think it's a practice that Native people did, and it wasn't such a big deal, or it wasn't hailed as this thing.
Guest:But, like, Love and Fury, for sure.
Guest:I mean, you know, the style of that movie was inspired by, I don't know if you've ever seen Heart Worn Highways.
Guest:Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, and Steve Earle documentary.
Guest:It's a documentary about them kind of right before their careers took off.
Guest:I think Steve Earle's like 19, 18.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like before the crash.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all it was was following them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, kind of just fly on the wall stuff.
Guest:And I wanted to do that with these artists because I just feel like it's native arts always presented in this really precious way.
Guest:And I grew up with it.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:New Mexico for sure.
Guest:And it's like such a market down there.
Marc:It was a huge market.
Marc:And I wanted to just show it like it is.
Marc:It's like people just creating.
Marc:But you know what the fascinating thing about it is, outside of, but even maybe some of the noise music, is that you can hear a Native American voice in it.
Marc:Rhythmically, or just a voice, like you can hear it.
Marc:Is that possible?
Marc:That is.
Marc:Yeah, it is.
Marc:And that to me, like I watched that documentary Rumble, which is okay.
Marc:But I thought your documentary was better because these are people that are clearly have their own personal struggles because what you bring to the table and you yourself do, but you are not, it doesn't seem to me, a shattered person.
Marc:is that the history of the Indians here and what the repercussions were of that in contemporary levels, whether it's alcoholism, abuse, and that one guy who did that piece about all the missing and murdered.
Marc:I mean, Jesus Christ, man.
Marc:So, like, these modern repercussions and byproducts of the attempted genocide, you know, kind of ricochet through.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And those shattered voices become, you know, the modern art of the people, right?
Guest:Man, that's right.
Guest:And, you know, I think we felt that.
Guest:You know, it's like...
Guest:People always would ask me, like, you know, what are you doing?
Guest:Like, you live in Oklahoma?
Guest:Like, why are you there?
Guest:Like, come to L.A.?
Guest:But no one was trying to make our films, you know?
Guest:No one was trying to make our art.
Guest:Now.
Guest:Yeah, then.
Guest:No, then, like 10 years ago.
Marc:But that's now, I'm saying.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:That is now.
Marc:So the representation of the Indian was still way outdated and off.
Marc:It was from a white person's vantage point.
Marc:All of it was.
Marc:I mean, all of it was.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And, like, we fed that, too, because we had to make money.
Guest:And I think Native people fed into that a bit, you know?
Guest:And so, you know, you have these depictions of us in Hollywood that are so off, you know, off base.
Guest:I mean, like, there's no humor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and, like, in the Westerns, we're sort of the zombies, right?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:The Walking Dead.
Marc:Or just yelling on horses.
Guest:Yeah, we're the soulless, faceless things that are in the way of Western expansion, and we have to be eradicated.
Guest:And that's all we had.
Guest:I mean, I grew up watching movies.
Guest:I remember my dad and I, we'd watch... My dad called me in the front room one day, and he was like, hey, there's a... I'm Seminole.
Guest:I'm Seminole in Muskogee Creek.
Guest:And he's like, hey, there's a movie called Seminole Wars.
Guest:Let's watch it.
Guest:We sit down, and it's like...
Guest:nothing seminal about it, you know?
Guest:It's like, it's Lakotas, they're speaking Cheyenne, you know, and like, the actors are Navajos.
Guest:Well, I don't know, like, it was nothing, but we didn't give a shit, because it was like, wow, we're being represented, you know?
Guest:Like, let's watch it and look past all of that.
Marc:So you didn't feel, like, an anger about how Indians were being used at that time?
Marc:I guess that must have come later, to some degree.
Marc:Yeah, later it did, for sure.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, like, it took me to go to college to go...
Guest:to really learn about the Trail of Tears and know that everyone that I grew up with in my life, the Trail of Tears, I'd heard of it.
Guest:My grandma had talked about it.
Guest:It was in a paragraph in every book.
Guest:But it's real shit.
Guest:I mean, like, it's real shit that we went through.
Guest:And thousands of people died in the Mississippi River.
Guest:And we lost songs.
Guest:We lost medicine men, medicine women.
Guest:We lost holy people.
Guest:We lost regular people.
Guest:We lost children and everyone.
Guest:And all to get... And so I feel like I...
Guest:a native person, you're born into a bit of a rebellion.
Guest:Like, I grew up knowing, like, my grandma and them would tell me about the Trail of Tears and how they would kill babies if they were crying at night, the soldiers, and just to know that the reason I exist is because people survived this trek from Alabama and Georgia to get to Indian Territory, Oklahoma.
Marc:Right, and it was that sense of community, that sense of some sort of spiritual...
Marc:you know, perseverance.
Marc:Yes, and also humor, I think.
Guest:Like, that's one of the things with Reservation Dogs for me is like... Well, they definitely... Yeah, and it's like we wanted to, like, Tyke and I, we created the show because we'd always get together, and I've been friends with him for a long time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we would just tell stories from home.
Guest:And they were never sad, they were always funny.
Marc:Well, what's the... How does... I guess there is some sort of comparison a bit to the New Zealand native experience.
Guest:Yeah, very similar.
Guest:I mean, like, you know, I've traveled through New Zealand with Taika showing films.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so similar, those communities.
Guest:I mean, it's so weird because it's like indigenous people so far away from each other, but they're just like similar humor, similar lives.
Marc:It's that sense of time thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's a sense of like no matter how...
Marc:sort of complicated the world gets, you know, they're still tethered to, you know, what's left of their communities and usually to, you know, what the government has given them as a place to live.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:And this butting up against kind of, and this rebellion, I think, too, you know, and like... Well, it's weird how much of it becomes self-directed, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, for sure.
Guest:I mean, like, you know, just growing up in these communities and one of the things that I'm trying to express with reservation dogs is like, you know, we have our own clinics.
Marc:Yeah, I love that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Not only, but there's the thing that you do great with reservation dogs is that, you know, that everything is playing its part, that the clinic in and of itself is a part.
Marc:And you understand it very quickly.
Marc:And even as somebody who doesn't live there, you understand what's happening.
Right.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:Like, this is going to take a while.
Marc:There's one doctor there.
Marc:Bobby Lee.
Marc:And it's Bobby Lee, of all people.
Guest:You know, it's funny because I, you know, I've seen you at the Comedy Store.
Guest:I've watched Kirk Fox at the Comedy Store.
Guest:I've seen Bobby Lee at the Comedy Store.
Guest:You know, like, you know, Kirk Fox can deliver a line like no one else sometimes.
Guest:Just like one of, you know, I love that.
Marc:Weird, slow burn.
Guest:Yeah, and just a fan of comedy, you know, and it's like getting some of those guys.
Guest:And Bill Burr is in the show, too, you know.
Guest:We're going to get you next season.
Marc:Okay, I'll do it.
Marc:But you, did you, like, coming up,
Marc:Like, how many, because I was just, there was a lot of, how common is the name Harjo?
Marc:Harjo's common.
Guest:Okay, yeah.
Guest:When you're Seminole and Creek.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:It means crazy.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:It means crazy in battle.
Guest:And there's a poet laureate right now, Joy Harjo.
Guest:Right, she's featured in some of the docs that you did.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:She's poet.
Guest:You know, there's artists.
Guest:I mean, I can't go anywhere without, I'll be in Europe and people are like, do you know Ben Harjo?
Guest:I'm like, man, I don't, I'm sorry, you know.
Guest:It's like Chavez or Jones.
Marc:Yeah, it is.
Marc:It is back home.
Guest:I mean, if you're in Oklahoma and you look in the phone book, which no one does anymore, there's a lot of hard jobs.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So did you grow up?
Marc:You didn't grow up on a reservation.
Guest:I grew up.
Guest:So Oklahoma was kind of one big reservation at one point, Indian territory.
Guest:There's 38 tribes there.
Guest:They moved us all there because they were like,
Guest:let's get them out of the land, we'll put them in the middle, you know, where there's like dust storms and shit.
Marc:Maybe they'll do something with the land.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Yeah, that was sort of the impulse, right?
Marc:Give them that, see if they can make a farm.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:And so, you know, I grew up there.
Guest:So at one point it was a reservation, but then, you know, of course, as with everything,
Guest:Oil was found and you can profit from.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And everyone moved in and outlaws came in.
Guest:I mean, anytime you see like, you know, True Grid or anything, they're always in the territory.
Guest:You know, right.
Guest:And so real cowboy shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Definitely.
Guest:I grew up in a town called Holdenville.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Home of T. Ben Pickens and Clue Gulliger.
Guest:And, you know, we it was just a small town, but very diverse.
Guest:You know, there were there were black kids, white kids and native kids.
Guest:We just grew up together.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was a pretty magical experience.
Guest:I feel like looking back, you know, I want to reflect that in my work because it was diverse and you had to get along.
Guest:You know, these we were all put in a town together.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And came up and it was the country.
Guest:You know, it was like, yeah, country music and slow days, you know.
Marc:I think that's like the interesting because I I saw a lot of that in New Mexico, but I don't think that people like what I'm excited about in terms of the movies and this TV show is that I don't think people have any sort of honest perception of native life.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I didn't really, but I did from reading The Res, on The Res.
Marc:And something always stuck with me was that if someone wanted to get up early, there's one bit in there where it's like if someone wanted to get up early, they'd drink more water at night so they'd have to pee and they'd wake and I'd be like, fucking genius.
Marc:And then it's like they build an entire day around getting this car part.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:I mean, that's the thing.
Guest:That's the thing with me is I grew up with the best storytellers.
Guest:And it's not like cheesy native, like sit around a fire and let me tell you a story.
Guest:It's just like my aunts and my grandpas and grandmas sitting around a kitchen drinking coffee, telling stories.
Guest:And what I love is...
Guest:is their stories would be, nothing would happen to them.
Guest:It's like, we went to the store, but everything would happen.
Guest:The way they tell it is so big.
Guest:And so for me with reservation dogs, that's what I always have tried to capture is to tell these stories that it's not like epic things are happening, but they're huge.
Guest:You know, they're big for these people and their lives.
Marc:Well, because there's a sense of journey, right?
Marc:Because you're not building your life.
Marc:You don't see things like it's not running an errand.
Marc:That's a day, right?
Marc:So you don't look at it like we got to go get this done or whatever.
Marc:It's just sort of like we're doing these things.
Marc:This is what the day is.
Marc:And also there's just the idea of the evolution process
Marc:of uh craftsmanship like the i the fact that there's a the woman who's beating yeah who you know like yeah i don't know why she's you know scary or crazy but i know she's beating and like i you know i remember we had a a hopi beaded horse that like we sold at a yard sale that i remembered to this day my we sold it my parents had gotten it and some cowboy just he came up to the yard sale and he's just looking at stuff and he picks that up
Marc:And he's like, how much is this?
Marc:And I'm like, five bucks.
Marc:And I know that after he walked away, I'm like, that was worth $500.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:But the fact that this woman is beading and she's making a necklace for a rapper, that these things continue, right?
Marc:These ways of, these crafts continue.
Marc:And they're all still actively part of it.
Marc:So actively part of it.
Marc:And then that her day was gonna be making this microphone for the kid's dad.
Marc:Like, I don't wanna ruin the show.
Marc:I love that rap video, though.
Guest:Yeah, man, that was great.
Guest:Half of my family's in that video.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Just the fry bread thing, because I grew up going to the New Mexico State Fair, and they'd have Indian Village, and you'd go over there and get that fucking fry bread.
Guest:Totally, man, Indian Taco.
Guest:I gave Bill Burr his first Indian Taco.
Guest:It was pretty great.
Marc:What's in an Indian taco?
Guest:I mean, it's just literally taco topping on top of a fried bread.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But, like, you know, I mean, that craftsmanship, you know, it's just... It was all a part of survival, you know?
Guest:And it has continued, and it's still a part of survival, you know?
Guest:In the sense of selling the stuff?
Guest:Selling stuff, making money.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:White people like it.
Guest:And now we have money, and we can buy it now, you know?
Marc:Yeah, I like the way...
Marc:You know that I really like that bit in there with the, you know, white people's medicine versus that guy sitting up front, you know, because that's real shit, right?
Marc:There's a there's definitely an aversion on behalf of, you know, blacks and native people who have been either, you know, infected or sterilized.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:That goes on for generations.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, what is it, like 90% of the indigenous population was killed through disease?
Guest:Like, that shit stays with you, I think.
Guest:That shit stays with the people, right?
Marc:Yes, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It does.
Guest:And you know, like, I just, I think like...
Guest:But one of the things that, you know, we've never, I just wanted to express and show the, I wanted to celebrate our community because it's never really been done.
Guest:Through all the work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Through all the work.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I could, that's, I feel that.
Marc:So how did you start?
Marc:Like, where did you, how many siblings you have?
Guest:I have two brothers and two sisters.
Guest:And they're all around still?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They're all around.
Guest:They're all around.
Guest:They're in Oklahoma.
Guest:I still live in Tulsa.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, that's another thing you did.
Guest:You made me start to rethink Oklahoma.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, man, thank God, because there's been some people on here talking shit about Oklahoma.
Guest:Not really.
Guest:You had a guy recently that just moved back.
Marc:I talked shit.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, you did.
Guest:No, for sure.
Guest:He was okay with it.
Guest:Yeah, no, no, he seemed to like it.
Guest:What is it out there, man?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, the director, the director.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, Shaab, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Which, you know, I'm glad that people are moving back.
Guest:But, like, I love Oklahoma.
Guest:I do.
Guest:Because, I mean, you can drive...
Guest:In any direction, 30 minutes, and you're in a new tribal territory with new languages, new customs, a whole different tribe.
Marc:I don't think white people look at it like that.
Guest:They do, because I think that if you go to Pawhuska, for instance, where they're shooting Killers of the Flower Moon right now, because the native tribes have saved those towns because of casinos.
Guest:So there are towns that would be shit right now if not for the native tribes and the economy and the people that they've hired and rebuilt these towns.
Guest:Like the town of Ada, Oklahoma.
Guest:It's the home of the Chickasaw Nation.
Guest:That place is thriving.
Guest:That's the town where Innocent Man was written about.
Guest:That dark-ass story about the guy that was wrongly convicted.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was kind of going nowhere, but the Chickasaw Nation, through gaming and through different things that they did through their economic advances or whatever, they've rebuilt that town.
Marc:How does the culture in general see the casino industry?
Guest:I mean, it's a conservative place as well.
Guest:So you have the naysayers and the people that are like, oh, it's bad for us or whatever.
Guest:But it's like, man, fuck off.
Guest:We found the loophole, dude.
Guest:We found the loophole and we made some money.
Guest:You getting checks?
Guest:And now you got, no, no, no.
Guest:I don't get checks, but like, you know, my tribes, it goes, filters back into different programs, you know, the healthcare and different things.
Marc:Oh, that's how they handle it?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So it's tribe for tribe, how they disperse the money?
Guest:Yeah, you can disperse in different ways, and most of them kind of go through, just kind of build up their own programs that benefit their members, so like housing, healthcare, things like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The government certainly didn't do it.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So, you know, we found a way to do it.
Guest:And so for me, it's like, man, like it's this thriving operation in the middle of, you know, one of the reddest states in the country.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what do you like?
Marc:Is there like how?
Marc:What is the dynamic between the sort of generalized white collective and the Native people?
Guest:Well, if you've been in Oklahoma for a number of generations, you're part Native.
Guest:You have Natives in your family at this point.
Guest:So it's very much accepted and more celebrated.
Guest:You'll have your conservative... So there's a lot of Republican Indians.
Guest:I don't think so.
Guest:I just don't think so.
Guest:I mean, maybe, you know, probably if they're not too connected to the culture.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just think natives don't vote in national politics as much.
Guest:Oh, they're out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like, you know, and we kind of have our own thing going on there.
Guest:I mean, like, I can't speak for all of them, obviously, but like, you know,
Guest:I just think it was a it was a great way of growing up I mean my grandma you know I grew up in Holdenville Oklahoma right country you know I'd be at my grandma's house and one of the coolest people was her white farmer neighbor you know like it was very open and up when I was a kid I felt like I didn't feel different yeah it wasn't until I got older and I was like oh shit like yeah it's all fucked up but I didn't feel different when I was young you know
Marc:So when did you start to get into, you know, like, it seems like Rumblefish had a profound effect on your brain.
Marc:It did.
Marc:Outsiders, Rumblefish, you know, I mean, all that S.E.
Marc:Hinton stuff, you know.
Marc:Because that was Oklahoma.
Marc:Yeah, it was all in Tulsa.
Marc:But, like, there's a couple of straight-up homages to Rumblefish in one of the movies.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You rewrote that graffiti on that underpass exactly like... Exactly like, yeah.
Marc:Motorcycle Boy Lifts.
Marc:Boy Reigns.
Marc:Is it Reigns or Lifts?
Marc:Motorcycle Boy Reigns, I think, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I was like, I know it does.
Guest:You know, that was in Meeko?
Guest:That was in Meeko and then in Reservation Dogs when he- The guy who lifted up.
Guest:When he floats up.
Marc:Yeah, when he floats up.
Marc:Straight up.
Marc:Straight up Matt Dillon.
Guest:Yeah, straight up.
Guest:It was funny because I was, you know, the two references that I had for the DP were like, you know, it was like Friday.
Guest:And because, you know, Friday was South Central LA, by all accounts, the ghetto, dangerous place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that's a celebration of a community.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And it's colorful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's quirky.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's what, you know, I wanted to do with reservation dogs.
Guest:It's like, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, you can look at it with one gaze, which is like, oh, they're poor.
Guest:Don't you feel sorry for that?
Guest:I didn't feel that.
Guest:No, not you.
Guest:I'm not saying that.
Guest:I'm saying in general, you can look at a reservation life.
Guest:Oh, they need our help.
Guest:You know, there's some like guilt built into that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or you can look at it and say, the way I look at it and the way I present it, which is like, no, it's fun.
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:It's a great, thriving community.
Marc:So that was the one reference and Rumblefish was the other reference?
Guest:Rumblefish was the other one, yeah, and the outsider.
Marc:Well, I mean, it's interesting because after watching the episodes I saw, I ask myself, is this for young adults?
Marc:And I'm like, well, I just enjoyed it.
Marc:So what does that mean?
Marc:And speaking of S.E.
Marc:Hinton, these are kids that age.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Like, uh, really?
Guest:And they're dealing with real shit, but they're also being kids.
Guest:You know, I think those books and those movies captured that, you know, for sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Um, so when you're growing up, when did you start to, you know, have this idea that you could do this?
Guest:I didn't, you know, like I always wanted to be, I always thought I'd be a painter.
Guest:I was the kid that like, uh, everyone at school when they needed a poster drawn, like I would, I would.
Marc:Oh, you were the painter.
Guest:Did you have painters in your family?
Guest:My dad's an artist.
Guest:He didn't paint, but he's a really good artist.
Guest:What's he do?
Guest:You know, he was a construction worker, roofed houses most of my life.
Marc:What's his medium art, though?
Guest:Draw, just pencil.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Pencil and a pen.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He used to draw, like, Leon Russell.
Guest:I have this drawing of Leon Russell that he did.
Guest:With the top hat?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, and the sparkle in his eye.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah, he's playing the piano and looking.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I think I have one that he did of Van Morrison.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And then, you know, he would draw Sitting Bull, you know, some of the native heroes.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Gotta do the classic Sitting Bull.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:The one.
Guest:The one picture.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:So, you know, I always grew up with art and there was just an appreciation for it.
Guest:But my dad, you know, was a construction worker, worked hard and ended up working for the school.
Guest:After that, my mom always worked for the tribe, the Seminole Nation.
Guest:And she also cut hair.
Guest:I used to have crazy perms and shit.
Guest:She sprayed sun in my hair one time and turned it orange.
Guest:And I used to have the Brian Bosworth haircut, I remember.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:All the fresh haircuts she would give me.
Guest:You'd try them out?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:But I didn't know movies was possible.
Guest:I remember being a kid and my dad bringing home the making of Thriller.
Guest:And that was the first time I really was like, well, they make this shit.
Guest:It's not just happening.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's not just magic.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:But then my dad had a friend that worked for the cable company, and he hooked us up with Free Cable.
Guest:And so it was like this time period of watching HBO, and it was like Stand By Me, which was a big reference to Reservation Dogs.
Guest:So it was like Stand By Me, the Goonies, the Lost Boys.
Guest:Oh, The Lost Boys, I love them.
Guest:Yeah, all of that sort of late 80s, 90s films.
Guest:Teen stuff.
Guest:Yeah, and Platoon.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:He did the paintball.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And, you know, my dad, I was never like...
Guest:I was never censored like I watch anything and we watched like old war movies together the big red one I remember watching that yeah, yeah Hamburger Hill oh yeah, yeah, and my dad was is we will watch a movie to death and and I think it helped me in writing because like I would I He and I could quote movies, you know like sure outsiders or whatever I didn't know I could make it though and that was it wasn't until I went to college and where'd you go I went to the University of Oklahoma and
Guest:And I kind of didn't get the GPA.
Guest:I was in painting school.
Guest:I didn't get the GPA for art.
Marc:So you wanted painting?
Marc:How was your painting?
Guest:I mean, it's not like riding a bike.
Guest:I need to practice.
Guest:But did you feel like you were getting yourself out in it?
Guest:I did feel like I was getting somewhere and getting better.
Guest:And I had a really good art teacher, this white guy, Mr. B, in my high school.
Guest:He was one of those people that gave you life advice.
Guest:Sure, of course.
Guest:And he said, profound effect on me.
Guest:And I remember he told me, he said... He said, stop painting.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:No, he said, if you really want to do this, he's like, don't have a backup plan.
Marc:He's like, don't have a fallback plan, because you'll fall back.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:And he's like, do you think I wanted to be a teacher and teach art?
Guest:Like, no, I wanted to be a painter.
Guest:And that just, like, really hit me in the core.
Guest:It's like, look at me.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And I kept that with me to this day.
Guest:You know, it was like... Don't be me.
Guest:Exactly.
Yeah.
Guest:Just this sage white man advice.
Guest:And, you know, I just that stuck with me and I got to college and I didn't do well.
Guest:I was partying too much.
Guest:Didn't get the GPA.
Guest:Got put on academic probation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then decided to take a intro to film and video studies class taught by this Hungarian professor.
Guest:His name is Mishina Delkovich.
Guest:And it was through him where he showed me that cinema was a language.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I was sold then.
Marc:Well, I mean, geez, man.
Marc:I mean, that first feature is tight.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it doesn't feel like a first feature.
Marc:It's not rough.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, you kind of nailed it.
Guest:Well, thank you.
Guest:I mean, my bank account would say different back then.
Guest:I was like, you know, it was like, I remember I went to the Sundance Labs.
Guest:What happened was I was in college and I wrote a script, Four Sheets to Win.
Guest:I got accepted into the Sundance Labs, and I thought I was about to take over the town after that, you know?
Marc:This is it, man.
Guest:Because it was like Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson had went there.
Guest:Who was your mentor?
Guest:I had Jim Taylor, still a good friend of mine.
Guest:Oh, Jim Taylor.
Guest:I know Jim Taylor.
Marc:Yeah, you know Jim.
Guest:He talks about you.
Guest:He was at the premiere of Reservation Dogs in New York.
Guest:He's still a good friend.
Guest:How's he doing?
Guest:He's really good, man.
Guest:I love that guy.
Guest:Holy shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He told me that he hung out with you a time or two.
Marc:Way back in the day, he used to date my first wife's friend.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And we hung out when he was partners with Julian.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And the first time I met him, he might have even been working at Canon Films.
Guest:oh that's right he used to yeah it was crazy he's told me some crazy ass stories about that about golem and globus whatever that would go on in globus no he's a good dude and he was a he was a mentor of mine we ended up writing a tv show together after that um oh yeah yeah what happened to that uh it was killed it was like um yeah it was in the days of like um it was before streaming was big yeah and uh
Guest:We sold it.
Guest:No, we sold it.
Guest:And it was weird.
Guest:I mean, this is a different industry then.
Guest:The people that we sold it to were like, we want to do this because Alexander Payne was going to be the executive producer and direct the pilot.
Guest:And they said, we want to do this, but only if Sterling doesn't write it.
Guest:And it's you and Alexander that write it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was just such a different time.
Marc:It pushed the creator out.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Pushed the brown kid out.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And it was like a native show, you know?
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah, and it just ended up kind of fizzling out.
Marc:But from the Hungarian guy, you know, where do you start to put stuff together?
Marc:I mean, what do you start to do to engage your creativity around writing and, you know?
Marc:I was just so naive, man.
Guest:I was like, I'm going to make films.
Guest:Like, I'm going to make films.
Guest:And I found a kid that had a camera.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I went and made this shitty movie that we'll never see light.
Guest:I shot it like David Lean, you know, because I'd just seen like.
Marc:16 or beta?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:I was like, TV cam, you know, and this kid had just graduated from like the Dallas Arts Institute.
Guest:So he was like, I got some good shit, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:remember when we went to get the microphone yeah this is how dumb I was I wanted to get the microphone we went to Radio Shack yeah and we're looking at the different microphones this is to do all the production sound right and we're looking at the microphones and and there's one that's like 60 bucks and he picks one up that's like 25 yeah and I was like don't you think we should spend the money yeah yeah it'll record the same
Guest:And it was literally just like a church mic, like a preacher's mic that we taped to a pole, and we would just hang it in the middle of a scene.
Guest:It would never pick up sound.
Guest:And we shot 90% of that.
Guest:And I shot these epic shots.
Guest:And it's so pixely and shitty that it just looked like a pixel of a guy walking through a field toward you, you know?
Guest:Like it was an effect.
Guest:Yeah, but I learned how to, I fucked up, and I learned how to fuck it up.
Guest:I learned how to I learned how through fucking that whole thing up.
Guest:I learned how to make a movie because I learned what not to do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's so funny.
Marc:The place Radio Shack held in our hearts.
Marc:You just always go there for something.
Marc:And it was all garbage.
Marc:Like, you know, Radio Shack brand batteries.
Marc:It was just crap.
Marc:Got to go to Radio Shack.
Marc:No, you don't.
Guest:And go anywhere else.
Guest:And they don't have good production sound recording equipment either.
Marc:They got nothing.
Guest:I think we had a four-track.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So that was it?
Marc:But didn't you start making sketches and stuff?
Guest:Yeah, well, I went to the Sundance Labs, went out to L.A.
Guest:I was like, I'm the toast of the town.
Guest:You were?
Guest:I was like, I thought I was the toast of the town.
Guest:I was ready to...
Guest:You went out with the script or the film?
Guest:The script, Four Sheets, when I went out and I was trying to get financing.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Where'd you go?
Guest:And because of Sundance, everyone took my meeting, but no one wanted to make the film.
Guest:And they would say things like, this would be really great, but if there was a way to get Philip Seymour Hoffman on the poster or someone with a name, we could finance it.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And he was a mentor too.
Guest:He read my script and gave me notes.
Guest:Oh, did he?
Guest:You knew him?
Guest:Yeah, he was at the labs and he was an actor there.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:He was at a screenplay reading.
Guest:He played characters in my script and just a sweet, sweet guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so after that, I was like, man, I got to get out of this town because they're not going to make my movies at all.
Marc:So did you feel like...
Marc:discouraged to spit out or that like this town wasn't for you like because like it's one thing to come out I mean I guess the Sundance Labs probably gave you some sense of the business yeah right it did but but I think it spoiled me in a way because they cared so much about my writing and the art artistic side of it and
Guest:And I wouldn't be doing it without them.
Guest:Bird Running Water at the Sundance Institute, the native program, he's kind of like a scout that came out and found me in Oklahoma.
Guest:But I wouldn't be doing this without that experience.
Guest:But on the business side, just the industry, they didn't want to make this stuff.
Guest:They would say things like, it's just not native enough or it's too native.
Marc:But what is that?
Marc:That's the interesting thing that would dawn on me when watching all your stuff is that
Marc:This movement towards evening the leveling the playing field around engaging marginal voices or unheard voices.
Marc:Like it's got to get out of that model of like we did our one Indian movie.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's got to be it's got to have some relatively equal representation per the spectrum.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then all of a sudden you get something like, I feel like there's a little progress being made in diversifying fiction.
Marc:Now, if we could just make it occur in reality, you know?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, like, exactly.
Guest:I mean, like, you know, I would never want, you know, there's kind of a complicated thing, the diversity thing.
Guest:Because I don't want, it's like you don't want to be given an opportunity that you don't deserve.
Marc:Well, I don't think that's what's happening.
Marc:I think a lot of people have been waiting.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Because I can't tell you how many white writers I hear like, well, they're probably just going to hire a person that can do the job that's not like you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they can't see it as anything but them getting fucked as opposed to it's more competitive.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I think that there's always this for me anyway.
Guest:There was always this thing of like, I don't want to be handed anything.
Guest:You know, you got chops, man.
Guest:Yeah, no, I feel confident about that now.
Guest:I just never had a budget or like the opportunity to do that until Reservation Dogs.
Guest:Yeah, I was I was making my films on a budget.
Guest:You know, no one was getting paid.
Guest:I wasn't doing it in Oklahoma.
Guest:And that was because I came into L.A.
Guest:and people were like, you know, native films don't sell.
Guest:We're not going to fund it, you know.
Guest:So I went back to Oklahoma and just made them for micro budgets.
Marc:But it's interesting because they are fundamentally, I mean, they're narrative films and they have stories, but they're art films to a degree.
Marc:I mean, Miko really, arguably, is sort of an art film.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:Which means that you have the poetic freedom to sort of move through whatever you need to move through and not have a clear resolve at the end.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, my late girlfriend did that.
Marc:She made films that were from her heart and didn't land.
Marc:They didn't have to sort of seal up, have a happy ending or whatever.
Marc:But it just seems to me that there is a place for those movies.
Marc:There's just so many of them, some of them very bad, and it's hard to get them seen.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's hard to get them seen.
Guest:And how do you pitch that?
Guest:It's going to be a little vague.
Guest:A little vague, and it's a sad ending.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:But the type of storytelling that I... I love Southern Gothic.
Guest:That's what really gets me going, is that type of storytelling.
Guest:And I think it's just similar to the storytelling I grew up with.
Guest:Native storytelling.
Guest:Or my white family, too.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Um, it's just that slow paced.
Guest:What's the white family?
Guest:Uh, my, my grandma, I'm half Italian and German and Seminole Creek.
Guest:My grandpa was Italian.
Guest:There was this program called, uh, the relocation act back in the day where they would send natives out of their community to go work in cities.
Guest:That's why there's the LA big LA urban community.
Guest:Chicago had a big one.
Guest:My grandma and all of the natives.
Guest:Yeah, my grandma and all of her brothers got sent to Chicago.
Guest:And it was kind of pitched as this, like, you're going to learn how to make money and do a trade.
Guest:But really, it was like, take them out of their community.
Marc:And make them build skyscrapers.
Guest:They'll assimilate into the white world.
Marc:Oh, that was the idea?
Guest:Yeah, to fracture that community.
Guest:It was.
Guest:That's what it was about.
Guest:And my grandma and them went to Chicago.
Guest:And luckily, they all went back home.
Guest:But my grandma met this Italian man in Chicago.
Marc:So that was an insidious intent was to breed them out of existence.
Guest:It was an attempt to I think that there's there was a I think it was an attempt to just fracture the native sort of social of the community, the communities.
Guest:And assimilate them into the white world and kind of another way of curing the Indian problem.
Guest:I mean, that happened with boarding school.
Guest:It happened with the Dawes Act in Oklahoma and different areas where we didn't have individual land.
Guest:And then they broke it up into 182 acres or whatever.
Guest:And each individual tribal member got it.
Guest:And that sounds brilliant, you know, but like really it was to fracture that community aspect and that social sort of construct of those societies, you know.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So your grandma got an Italian guy?
Guest:She got an Italian guy and brought him home.
Marc:But didn't one of your grandparents was married to a white woman as well?
Marc:The one who's in the... Yes.
Marc:This may be the last thing.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:So that's my grandma, Jessie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she grew up in a town, Seminole Indians mainly in that town, called Sasakwa, Oklahoma.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she met...
Guest:Um, and she, you know, met this local native kid and they fell in love.
Guest:And yeah, man, I mean, just that story is crazy.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:I mean, Southern Gothic for sure.
Guest:I mean that my grandma, my white grandma, she was one of the best storytellers I ever knew.
Guest:You know, she's gone, but amazing.
Guest:And I'm so glad that I captured that story because that was just one of so many that, that she would tell me.
Marc:Well, it's an interesting story about the whole arc of the story about your grandfather's accident and the body being gone and then the hat.
Marc:Because I didn't know where that was going.
Marc:Because it's really about the music of natives, these hymns.
Marc:It happens with Jews and anybody who has a language and has a tradition that eventually the young people are going to be like, I don't give a fuck.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:It's a problem, because then a whole history is lost.
Marc:It is, yeah.
Marc:So you're sort of tracking the history of these hymns, how the Christian hymns through Scotland and through missionaries kind of integrated with the Indian language and the Indian rhythms.
Marc:But then there's this whole other story about your grandfather disappearing.
Yeah.
Guest:uh but i i i really like the guy you used him in uh miko too as an actor yeah what's his name would go long how'd you know that guy i met him the day i interviewed him uh for for this maybe the last time he was mowing and i went and he was mowing at this church grounds and i went i sat down with him i knew him as a i knew him as a singer uh-huh and because i'd seen him at a he i think he'd been an extra in a in a barking water another film of mine and um
Guest:So I didn't know him though, but he sat down and did this interview and just like bared his soul and also can sing.
Marc:Very touching.
Guest:And also can sing, you know, like nobody's business.
Marc:Well, that whole history of the importance of the song came through him and his experience and his shame.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:Well, you hear people say that a lot.
Guest:Like I did things there that I'm not proud of, but like you feel it when he says that, you know, you hear him in movies say that a lot.
Guest:Like when I was a nom, this was bad, but like you feel it, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:For with him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I feel it hard when he chose to come back to those.
Marc:I never knew.
Marc:But that's another thing.
Marc:Like, you know, with those with that movie, I learned all about those Indian churches.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:There's a whole world of Indian churches in Oklahoma and these traditions that are sort of going by the wayside.
Marc:And then your grandmother's there.
Marc:And then that the idea of your grandfather who turned on the church became a bass player.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, it's all there, man.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:I mean, like, you know, it was like for me, for me, it's always been about subverting this narrative that has been put upon us as indigenous people.
Guest:You know, it's like, you know, it's not the coolest thing in the world to walk in a room and say, you know, I can sing a native song, but it's a Christian song.
Guest:But for me, it was important because people don't know that story, man.
Guest:I want them to know that.
Guest:You know how to sing those songs?
Guest:I do, yeah.
Guest:Melodies are hard, dude.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:They're hard and they're deep.
Guest:I mean, you grow up with them.
Guest:Where I'm from, that's the funeral songs.
Guest:It's what elders sang and it's what you hear when someone passes away.
Guest:And there's just like, I don't know, man, there's poetry in that.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Well, it's like a friend of mine once said that whether you believe in God or not,
Guest:the act of prayer those grooves have been dug for so long that you're tapping into something you're tapping i mean it's like a concert man it's like yeah but you're going all the way back the beginning of the time of your people yeah for sure i mean it's there it's in the dna yes yeah it is man i believe that and i and if i sing those songs or if i hear those songs like sure it just takes me there but it also takes me to a past that i didn't know about you know because a lot of those songs were
Guest:Composed on the Trail of Tears and like, you know, used.
Guest:Yeah, used on the Trail of Tears for sure.
Guest:You know, and I don't know, man, it connects me at least to something that's bigger.
Marc:Well, that's the I guess the profound thing for me as a white dude, you know, in watching your stuff and then watching, like I was saying, the the Underground Railroad thing is like, you know, on one side you have this.
Marc:indentured, brutal slavery and servitude.
Marc:And then on the other side, you have genocide.
Marc:These are foundational realities of two of the primary populations of our country.
Marc:You know, and then this manifest destiny bullshit is like this is the problem we're up against now is that it's not just simple racism.
Marc:It's people that believe in manifest destiny still.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:You know, like that's the only way they can justify it.
Marc:It's like it's not about democracy or brown people.
Marc:It's just that we are entitled to this because this was the vision of this country.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So that's what we're up against.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:I mean, you know, I think about like some of the towns in Oklahoma and a lot of good people, you know, a lot of really good people, but they've been fed this bullshit where it's like everything outside of their experience is bad.
Guest:You know, it's like the gays, you know, the Mexicans are taking our job, you know, and it feeds itself and it becomes this like machine of hate and bigotry, you know, and like you go talk to them and say their dinner table, they're good people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it's like it's the difference between the lives they live and what they put in their head.
Marc:You know, it's like very different now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But sadly, the Mexicans are taking their jobs.
Marc:But I imagine that most of the time when they look at natives, they're like, no, they're done.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Or it's the thing of like, oh, the casinos and they get $1,000 a month.
Marc:Oh, that's right.
Marc:They're doing all right.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:It's like, man, I don't get any money for being a native, you know?
Guest:We're just, you know, it's like we found a way to kind of take care of our own.
Marc:Well, what was this, how did the, did you start really kind of like finding your voice a little more when you were in that sketch group?
Marc:I don't know about that.
Marc:How did that happen?
Marc:When you got back from Hollywood?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we I mean, it was part of the same thing that I feel like I've always done, which is native humor is specific.
Guest:You know, I feel like it's similar to Jewish humor.
Guest:It's similar to it is.
Marc:But no one knows about no one knows about it.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like there's like you watch that the reservation dog thing.
Marc:It's like a whole different timing.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:It's different, right?
Guest:Yeah, but it's like- It's about absence of jokes sometimes.
Guest:It's about silences.
Marc:And there's a rhythm to it, to the way that, you know, a couple of those kids are hilarious.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:And that one woman, that one girl.
Guest:Willie Jack.
Guest:Paulina, she plays, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:yeah it's a tough one yeah yeah she's got such great timing and improv and then the the farmer what's his name uh gary gary he shows up and he was like he was so great you know i he was so memorable in power oh yeah man like but he's got this and dead man you know oh and dead man is great yeah
Marc:But he's got that weird, funny Indian timing, too.
Guest:He is native humor, that guy.
Guest:He's defined it.
Guest:Yeah, it's all through him.
Guest:And just being able to bring those legends back.
Guest:Legends for us.
Guest:I grew up, Dead Man was like, holy shit.
Guest:Powwow Highway was like, holy shit.
Guest:And to be able to bring them back and to let them be funny, like Wes Studi's in another episode, to bring Wes in, who has to play like a Pawnee scout that's scalping motherfuckers left and right, just to bring him back and play uncle, you know, just to be funny.
Guest:Oh, yeah, Dallas.
Guest:That guy's hilarious.
Guest:So he was part of the comedy group.
Guest:Your comedy group.
Guest:Yeah, so we started a comedy group called the 1491s.
Guest:It was me, Dallas Goldtooth, Miggazie Pinsano, Bobby Wilson, and Ryan Redcorn.
Guest:And we started this group, and it was just because no one had knew or there was nowhere to go for native humor.
Guest:Where'd you start it?
Guest:We came together.
Guest:I was showing a film in Minneapolis and a lot of those guys were up there and we were like, let's just shoot a funny video.
Guest:And we put it online and it was kind of like, it got, there was a lot of views, you know, and it like kind of blew up overnight.
Guest:And it wasn't like, the world didn't know about it, but Indian country knew about it.
Marc:What was it, what made it so popular with the Indians?
Guest:Well, it was because it was, I think, a place for them to finally see native humor being displayed for the first time.
Guest:So you're self-mocking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In a way.
Guest:Well, part of the good thing that we did, I think, was it's called the New Moon Wolf Pack auditions.
Guest:And, you know, Twilight New Moon, the natives were werewolves.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so we did a video of the audition process for that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think most people would try to do a comedy where they're making fun of white people, which is just low-hanging fruit.
Guest:We made fun of ourselves, and how we, similar to Dallas' character in Reservation Dogs, where we're making fun of this native machismo, that's like, we're tough, we're brave warriors, you know?
Guest:And we were making fun of that idea.
Guest:And also people selling out their culture.
Marc:So you were making fun of the white person's image of the Indian that Indians had to not abide by, but accept because you grew up with it.
Guest:And to feed into it.
Guest:Because they're like, fuck.
Guest:One time, my dad and I, we got asked to audition for a part.
Guest:I think it was like, fuck it.
Guest:It was some native movie.
Guest:And there was these auditions.
Guest:And
Guest:my mom convinced us to go, my dad's got curly hair.
Guest:You know, like, does not look like your classic native.
Guest:You know, neither do I. And so we show up.
Guest:I remember we're both in Hawaiian shirts.
Guest:I think I had a perm.
Guest:You know, my mom had done some shit to my hair.
Guest:And so we go, and we're sitting in the lobby.
Guest:And this is kind of where that video was based off.
Guest:But we're sitting in the lobby, and we're just looking at each other like, man, we don't belong here.
Guest:There was a native guy that just fucking classic wore your hair down to his ass.
Guest:And he had a choker on and these beads, you know, like a loincloth.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he had his shirt off, and he was rubbing himself down with baby oil and doing push-ups.
Guest:He's like, yeah, I've been doing a lot of these, man.
Guest:It was just like the extent in which you will go to to be cast.
Guest:To sell yourself out.
Guest:To sell yourself out and your people.
Guest:And not giving a fucking like you know how many white people are gonna see this and they're just gonna feed into that We're gonna have to act like that the rest of our lives or we're not gonna make any money ourselves So I think like Dallas's character in reservation dogs was it's that it's like if I were to ask 90% of the people in the world like Give me the first thing that you think of when I say a Native American
Guest:It would be that image.
Guest:It would be that guy.
Guest:What he looks like.
Guest:What he looks like.
Guest:Not him.
Guest:Not him.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:But I think that that character kind of allows a non-native audience to come in and go, all right, we're going to make fun of what you think we are.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As we show you all these other images, we're going to make fun of what you think we are, but you're going to laugh with us.
Marc:We're going to allow you to laugh with us.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:I mean, you very carefully, the point of view is specifically native.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're not giving anything up.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like, you know, yeah, that's what white people are going to see.
Marc:Like, we're making fun of ourselves by showing you that this isn't really who we are.
Marc:But then you're also showing who you are.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then also in that same character, we're showing saying, but we were like this at one point.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:you know sure like we were like this at one point but isn't it ridiculous that you think we're still like that like that is the image you know so let's laugh at it together well yeah but you did that comedically with reservation dogs but in miko with that that sort of like uh the kind of the misunderstanding of the the warrior type that that actor who plays the cop in uh reservation dogs what's that guy's name
Marc:Zahn McClernon.
Marc:Zahn McClernon.
Marc:He was great in Meeko because this is a guy saying, I'm a warrior.
Marc:So that was a different understanding of... It's a different deconstruction of the myth.
Guest:And it's like mental illness.
Guest:What happens when that idea, that myth, enters someone's brain that isn't all there and is on drugs and smoking meth.
Marc:But native.
Guest:But native.
Guest:It's not like a white guy's enemy.
Guest:We also can be our own enemies.
Marc:That fucking movie's heavy, dude.
Marc:Thank you, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was very proud of that.
Marc:And it was like, I wanted to show Tulsa, you know, Tulsa is an interesting place and I wanted to show it, you know, for what I see it as, you know, and like, Oh dude, when he like, you know, after he takes care of that business and then goes into the water, I'm like, wow, this is some serious Indian shit.
Guest:Definitely.
Guest:That's great.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:You're not going to see this in every movie.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And then the guy just walks away from it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Job done.
Guest:How many of those guys were real actors in that?
Guest:There was about, you know, the leads were, well, you know, you mentioned Woodco Long.
Guest:It was in my documentary.
Guest:I was trying to cast that part.
Guest:And I was like, man, I need someone like Woodco.
Guest:I need somebody like Woodco.
Guest:And so then I was like, why don't you fucking ask Woodco?
Guest:So I called him.
Guest:I was like, Woodco, would you want to be an actor in my movie?
Guest:He's like, oh, yeah, I'd like to do that.
Guest:And he just did it.
Guest:He showed up.
Guest:Later got cast in our play, which is called Between Two Knees, my comedy group.
Guest:We were commissioned a play that's going to be at Yale this year, but was at the...
Marc:1491?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You guys are still an entity?
Guest:We are, but we're all making TV now.
Guest:And they're all writers on my show and everything.
Guest:But we have a play that came out before the pandemic that was commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And it's called Between Two Knees.
Guest:And Woodco was one of the leads in that.
Guest:His life totally changed just from one interview that I did.
Marc:And it's a comedy?
Guest:Yeah, it's a musical comedy.
Marc:So the life arc of the 1491s where you did that video and then where does it go from there?
Guest:You know, it led into other videos.
Guest:We were like, man, people really like this.
Marc:Let's keep doing it.
Guest:And then we started touring.
Guest:With the videos.
Guest:Yeah, because people really loved it.
Guest:And we would get invited to all these reservations and different native communities.
Guest:And we were like, well, we need to develop a live show.
Guest:So we started, I reluctantly did, but we started developing a live show.
Guest:So it was sketches?
Guest:Sketches.
Guest:And then film.
Guest:Yeah, and we would show videos.
Guest:And, you know, like, as a comedian, you know, I've heard you talk about this, but it's like... There's nothing like bombing, you know?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Like, we would do... Every now and then, we'd show up, and it'd be an all-white audience, and we were not ready for that shit, you know?
Guest:Like, we just had the Indian jobs.
Marc:Or they're looking at you like, like, oh, look, they brought in some natives.
Guest:Exactly, but they weren't ready, because, like... One of the hardest was one time there was an art...
Guest:It was a conference of native art curators.
Guest:And native art curators, native shit is no laughing matter to them.
Guest:They hold us in earnest towards art.
Marc:Museum curators?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so they deal with native art.
Guest:And we tried to make them laugh.
Guest:And none of them were native.
Marc:None of them were native?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:It was like Europeans and mostly white folks.
Guest:And we bombed hard.
Guest:They were like snickering.
Guest:They didn't want to laugh.
Guest:And what we realized, though, and we had a couple of other shows like that, like a college in West Virginia.
Guest:What we realized is white people need permission to laugh at us and with us.
Marc:Yeah, because they don't want to be called out.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So you kind of have to build in the permission a little bit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, invite them in a little bit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, that's interesting that the because even like a curator of native art.
Marc:I have to assume, rarely has any sense of native life.
Marc:And I think that what becomes revealed with white people in general is we don't fucking know.
Marc:We don't know.
Marc:And these people are dealing with the art, and they don't fucking know.
Marc:They don't know, yeah.
Marc:They don't know anything.
Marc:They don't know.
Marc:I mean, and I grew up in New Mexico around, you know, galleries where, you know, you've got the white woman with all the turquoise.
Marc:Oh, yeah, man.
Marc:You know, and everything, and she's got, you know, she's showing the painting.
Marc:She owns the gallery.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And their sense, that sense of the Indian is different than, you know, Iron Eyes Cody or whatever the hell's going on in movies, but it is equally as limited.
Guest:It's like, just so you know, this was made by a real Native American, you know?
Guest:All right.
Guest:Why don't we just let them set their booth up and sell their shit?
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah, I like but also then there's a market to feed and then your art changes because of it, you know, and and and and that's dark, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What do you mean?
Guest:I mean like dark, you know, like one of the concepts I think of like, you know, looking at love and fury where there are a lot of those artists are making art to make money.
Marc:Well, that's what, like, that's what, like, it made me, it humbled me, dude, because you get older, you get jaded.
Marc:And, you know, I grew up around those people, and, you know, there's something about, you know, college or just post-college about, you know, how people are doing experimental art or, you know, performance art and all this stuff.
Marc:And as you get more into show business, you get more cynical, and you're like, no, that's what they fucking do.
Marc:one of the things going to happen there but the truth is what is happening on a smaller scale is enforcing the community it's it's freeing an individual with you know with this creativity it is touching people but you get sort of cynical because it's sort of like but how many really and it's like how many does it need yeah you know it'd be nice if they could make a living or get a grant but so many people but what were you going to say no but there's freedom
Guest:though in that right there's freedom in that and when you're not worried about making money because you know you're not going to make money yeah there's freedom in that to just say what do i want to say right you know and like i think that like that's what we lose in this sort of internet modern society which is like we forget that people also just want to say stuff yeah and that's good and and and and a lot of artists that's why they do their work you know and i think that it's easy to forget that
Guest:And it's not easy to forget it when you have people that money isn't on the table.
Guest:We're just making art.
Guest:And we're saying something because we come from communities that were displaced.
Guest:We come from communities that were fractured.
Guest:And we live in a country that the founders of that country...
Guest:quote unquote, you know, tried to fracture our communities.
Guest:And so it's like, what do you want to say?
Guest:Like, you're not going to get rich off this shit, but you can say something and you can inspire younger kids.
Guest:Cause like we were all native kids growing up in our little communities.
Guest:And, and I, I didn't, you know, like I was talking to jokingly earlier about the, the Seminole Wars film, you know, it's like, I grew up with movies where the,
Guest:my people were being attacked and, and, and, and we're the enemies, you know, like we were the bad guys in every fucking film.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that does something to you, you know, as a child, it does something, you know, um, it's not like it didn't fuck me up, but it definitely, I have an altered sense of, I think that another kid would have that doesn't have the experience.
Guest:Like I grew up with my people as the enemy in the films, you know,
Marc:how you were represented.
Marc:But see, that's a similar sort of struggle as a black representation in film and women representation in film, right?
Marc:For sure.
Guest:You know, one of the things that I get a lot of questions on with Reservation Dogs, because we have native women writers and all of that, it's like, people are like, wow, you have a lot of women on your team.
Guest:I was like, why the fuck wouldn't I?
Guest:Yeah, like our communities are made up of women and men and and if we're telling a story right like why would we not hire women to write on you know and like And you start realizing like there's gatekeepers and there's weird shit in this industry, but I didn't come up in this industry You know, I was an independent filmmaker
Guest:And for me, it's important to it's not like I'm box checking.
Guest:Yeah, but there are voices that need to be a part of this.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I made, you know, a show of my own and I was I was I was bad in the sense that like I had a limited budget.
Marc:I only had a few slots for writers and I didn't mix it up.
Marc:And, you know, I feel I feel somewhat guilty about it because I think it could have been a better show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I just did what, you know, you do.
Marc:And I didn't sort of make a stand and there wasn't enough slots in my mind.
Marc:But I think in retrospect, it probably would have been better.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Why wouldn't it be?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:You know, you've got to learn how to, you know, out fuck your, you know, unfuck your brain.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I do anyways, you know, to realize certain things, but that's part of the learning curve.
Guest:No, it is.
Guest:And I think that we're all learning that right now.
Marc:But I think also for me, being my age, 57, and then having this relatively human and cathartic experience engaging with your work, it's like I don't feel bad that I didn't know these things.
Marc:I feel good that I was open to it and that for some reason it was exposed to me.
Marc:I wouldn't have seen it if you weren't coming on the show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, and I think that I believe Cliff mentioned you because I was like, I need to get some native comics.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, and there's a couple of guys I kind of know of their work.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I don't you know, I don't I don't know when you seem to encapsulate something bigger because of the sketch thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But there are native stand-ups.
Marc:I knew Charlie.
Marc:Charlie.
Marc:I was going to mention that.
Marc:Charlie Hill.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:I was going to mention that because I met him once.
Guest:And, you know, thinking of like what I've done in my career and what I've thrived to do, I think about him standing out there alone back in the day.
Guest:these jokes man and like not and you know if there would have been 50 other native comedians maybe he would have done different jokes sure but he was doing the jokes that had to be done at that time yeah to break us all in to this world and to break white audiences into our humor you know and I think that I think that he doesn't get enough credit sometimes for what he did standing up there by himself doing
Marc:I don't think that a lot enough people know about him because there was like, he was also doing it in the way that he could at that time, you know, standing up against that stereotype and talking real shit in his jokes.
Marc:Like it was, it was real native point of view stuff.
Guest:And he had to acknowledge that stereotype in that comedy, you know, whereas like I have the freedom now
Guest:Yeah to not always acknowledge it and talk about it and like I can just tell a story about kids that are still in a Chip truck to the stooges.
Guest:I want to be your dog, you know And like but he didn't have that luxury he had to address those stereotypes because that's all he was facing that's
Guest:That's right.
Marc:Well, it was, you know, he had to transcend the gimmick that he was stuck in.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Crazy.
Marc:You know, I remember when I was a doorman at the comedy store when I was starting out, he was around and we get high, you know, and I talked to him a little bit.
Marc:But again, I didn't have the context to really sort of like, you know, do what you would have done knowing him or what Cliff, how he framed him.
Marc:You know, for me, it was like, it's another, you know, comic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Guest:He's the Indian guy.
Guest:Probably got some issues.
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:Working through it.
Marc:But he was a myth.
Marc:He was a legend by that time.
Marc:But he had had his day.
Guest:What was he?
Guest:I mean, he was at the store a lot, right?
Guest:That was kind of his base.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But he was before my time.
Marc:I mean, it seems like his heyday was probably in the late 70s-ish.
Guest:Man, I look at that video of him.
Guest:I think it was on the Richard Pryor.
Guest:I look at that video of him going up there.
Guest:I think he has a ribbon shirt on, which is very common in our community.
Guest:I just think of it.
Guest:And I just think of that like, man, like walking on that stage and facing all that history had to offer for your people and, and having to turn that into a joke that, that, that the people that the non-native people that don't understand your world to turn that into something very digestible to them and,
Guest:And to do it with confidence that he did, that's fucking hard, man.
Guest:And I didn't get that when I was young, when I first heard him.
Guest:When I first heard him, it was like, yeah, those are just Indian jokes, you know?
Guest:But as I realized what he faced, it's like, holy shit, man, that's hard to do.
Guest:And after I did my own live shows and stuff and bombed my, you know, fell on my face.
Guest:How many times did you fall on your face?
Guest:Was it only for white people?
Guest:There was a few times.
Guest:For white people?
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:Anyone.
Guest:I mean, Indians, you can bomb for any of them.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean-
Guest:Some of my, you know, we've definitely bombed.
Guest:One time we had a show in Tulsa, and we'd just had one of the best shows of our lives a few months before in Tulsa.
Guest:And then we had another show, but we didn't realize that it was, you know, comedy in an outdoor lawn isn't great.
Marc:Oh, no, you lose all the sound.
Guest:Yeah, man, you lose the sound, and so I'm there.
Marc:It's the worst.
Marc:You just watch it go away, because you can't hear it, and you just see people sitting there eating or whatever.
Guest:Yeah, and most of them are sitting in the very back, you know, and we didn't realize it was like conservative Sunday.
Guest:It was like a reggae show day, and...
Guest:So, it was like a bunch of people that didn't want to hear us.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And one man was trying to storm the stage because one of the guys had said abortion.
Guest:And he was like, I don't fucking take care of it.
Guest:You know, he was like Christian man.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:A friend of mine tried to have to like stop him.
Guest:And she had just played a music set.
Guest:And, you know, we didn't know what to do.
Guest:We were bombing.
Guest:And so, I got the guitar and I sang Jambalaya.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You did have that go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We just did it over and over on repeat just to piss them off.
Guest:It was beautiful.
Guest:We took back that power.
Marc:Not only were we bombing, we're going to dig in.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:We totally dug in.
Guest:And then we had to leave.
Guest:I think the police were called at some point.
Guest:You got to make it punk rock if you don't want to take the hit.
Marc:If you don't want to kind of leave with your tail between your legs.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Punk rock it.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Well, that's interesting what you say about Charlie because it is the shoes you walk in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That even if it's with you or with others, the condition is only slightly different.
Marc:Yeah, it is.
Marc:The native condition of how you confront culture, predominantly white entertainment culture, is similar.
Marc:I mean, obviously, most people don't see that stereotype anymore.
Marc:And I think most people, if you grow up in a certain place, have experience with native people to some degree.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it's still, you know, you've got to, you know, own yourself for yourself and for your people in front of this, you know, white blob.
Marc:You know, it's the same journey.
Guest:No, it is journey and a similar journey.
Guest:I think that because of Charlie Hill, because of Joy Harjo, because of, you know, all of the people and entertainers, Gary Farmer, everybody that John Trudell, I mean, all the people that came before me.
Guest:You know, it's kind of like standing on their shoulders.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's and it's it's it's helped me face it and move through it.
Guest:And all the work that they did helped my work become possible.
Guest:I mean, like, look, I was a broke independent filmmaker all the way up until reservation dogs, you know, like.
Guest:Like I wasn't making money on these independent films, but I was, but I love Herzog and I love, I love all of these filmmakers that, that like inspired me and I wanted to tell those stories.
Guest:And so I found ways to do it.
Guest:I didn't make money, but, um, but now I found myself in a situation where I have a good friend named Taika Waititi who became a sort of star and like made Thor and all this stuff and, and became very recognizable and made Jojo Rabbit.
Guest:And, you know, was that other one?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The the one with Sam Neill in it and the hunt for the wilder people.
Guest:Yeah, it's so good, man That's so good.
Guest:And so, you know, I find myself, you know sitting with him or I'm visiting him because I started working in TV a little bit I'm visiting with him and we had a couple tequilas and He said, you know, I have a deal at FX if you ever come up with anything like let me know and he's my friend I never treated I never asked for it was I you're my buddy right now and that's all that we left it out.
Guest:Yeah, I
Guest:But he said that, and I was like, well, let's do it.
Guest:And we literally just came up with it that night.
Guest:We left.
Guest:I wrote stuff down.
Guest:I went home.
Guest:A couple days later, I sent him a little outline of just the idea.
Guest:He loved it.
Guest:it.
Guest:He gave it to the producer, Garrett Bosch, who had been producing, um, what we do in the shadows TV show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he made a call to an exec and said, you have to buy this.
Guest:Like this is nothing like it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were like sold.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my agents called me and they're like, what the fuck is reservation dogs?
Guest:I was like,
Guest:Oh, it's a show.
Guest:I thought I'd hear from like a year later about it.
Guest:And all of a sudden we're in a pandemic making a pilot and a whole show in a pandemic.
Guest:How'd you cast those kids?
Guest:Are they all native kids?
Guest:They're all native kids.
Guest:It's funny because people ask me, people say, there's no way to cast.
Guest:How did you find them?
Guest:A lot of people say you can't find them.
Guest:It's like, dude, just no one's...
Guest:there's only a Western made out here every four years or 10.
Guest:So there's not a lot of native actors here beating down the door to play a dead person in front of a teepee.
Guest:And so you got to go to those communities and that's what we did.
Guest:We had a great casting director named Angelique Midthunder and we went out and we just went to all these native communities and
Guest:open auditions man and these kids came in and killed you know i mean like there's so many good actors that came in yeah so many that weren't cast you know and the kids that there's a whole group of them that almost got cast as the four leads yeah and all these kids are from oklahoma the ones that were about to be cast or got close to being cast yeah well they all became the bad guy gang
Guest:So it was like all these kids that have never acted before in their lives, you know, came in and just did it.
Marc:They're doing real good.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:They're doing real good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's very exciting, buddy.
Marc:Thank you, man.
Marc:Quick question.
Marc:When someone says off-reservation, is that slang that's offensive?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't get offended.
Guest:I'm sure there are people that will.
Guest:It's like, let's have a powwow.
Guest:My agents have said that to me.
Guest:We can have a powwow.
Guest:That seems a little more offensive.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:But I don't get offended.
Guest:I just make fun of people.
Marc:Because I say that, I don't even know that I connected it to Indian life.
Marc:And then someone wrote me and said, that's very offensive to Indians.
Marc:I'm like, is it?
Marc:I haven't talked to many.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I thought I'd go to you.
Marc:I mean, how often am I going to have an Indian in my garage?
Guest:Yeah, I'll tell you.
Guest:I mean, if you think of a powwow, a powwow was started because our ceremonies became illegal.
Guest:And through genocide, they became illegal.
Guest:And we had to do something.
Guest:And so we started powwows because they were a safer way to do stuff.
Guest:And they became an intertribal way of us to gather and dance and to try to hang on to our culture.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's a lot of shit packed into that.
Guest:Yeah, it's a lot to unpack when a white guy goes, you want to have a powwow?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So when you're in Hollywood in a meeting, he's like, let's go have a little powwow about this real quick.
Guest:It's just like, come on, man.
Guest:It's a whole fucking... You don't have the right.
Marc:to use that language around me don't say that word uh oh the other thing is like tell me again about uh so you the you're having a hard time figuring out where to premiere this and they were going to do it at hollywood forever at the cemetery like if people don't know hollywood forever is this is this event it's a cemetery with a lot of famous actors it's a famous every day but they do they do movies there yeah
Marc:So because we can't do it inside, is that the thing?
Marc:They wanted to find a place to screen the premiere of Reservation Dogs.
Guest:I have a meeting, so I have a meeting.
Guest:And, you know, FX is amazing.
Guest:They've been so good to work with creatively, like, free.
Guest:Let's do everything.
Guest:But we have a meeting with marketing.
Guest:They're like, yeah, we're thinking about doing the premiere here at this.
Guest:It's a really great meeting.
Guest:It's a cemetery.
Guest:I was like, oh, shit.
Guest:I was like, look, man, none of the Indians are going to show up.
Guest:Ain't nobody showing up, including myself, to the cemetery.
Guest:I was like, we're going to have to find some place.
Guest:I was like, yeah, we're glad we asked you.
Guest:I was like, man, they got Navajo filmmakers on this thing.
Guest:They're not going to show up, man.
Guest:They won't even stand across the street from this place, you know?
Marc:Too much, man.
Marc:I hope everything goes good.
Marc:I love the show, and I really had a great time looking at your stuff, and I'm going to finish watching the other movies, too.
Marc:Awesome, man.
Marc:Thank you, Martin.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Gerwin Harjo.
Marc:Great guy.
Marc:Reservation Dogs, which he co-created with Taika Waititi.
Marc:Has new episodes every Monday.
Marc:All right.
Marc:There's a blues riff I came up with.
guitar solo
guitar solo
guitar solo
Guest:Boomer lives.
Guest:Monkey.
Guest:Mafonda.
Guest:Cat angels everywhere.