My first semster in college we had Milford Joe from New Mexico in our co-ed hall. Later Joe became my Joe - my steady, whatever you want to call it even though it was not the 50s. I asked him once about being Dine, aka Navajo and he told me nothing. Good strategy. So I read lots of books and got pissed off. I had no idea the truth of what had happened in our country. All I remember was that we made the Cherokees cry and everyone died. Well, Joe was alive so something about that was wrong.
Now a few years later and long since we broke up, I was going to see his hometown. He was working in Farmington and later we'd drive by Shiprock. Either way, I was excited.
We stopped first at the radio station. The DJ was nice but pre-taping his show for later so no live interview. Drats. Who was going to come to our talk now? And after the civic center was nice enough to let us use their place for free?
Well if you can't interview with the deejay you called, interview the one you're with. Another DJ was live on the air and helped me promote our talk.
Joe met us outside the center and said he had seen announcement about it in the paper. Publicity! When I walked in there were 20 people. Yeah!
I was nervouse but I set up my "props" - actors' headshot photos, bibliographies, Hollywood Reporter and other trade magazines. I rambled on in the same spiel mroe or less as I'd done in Vegas even if it was harder in front of strangers. I don't think I even tried to imagine them in their underwear as the Brady Bunch show had taught me so many years ago.
The talk went great and the newspaper even took photos of me with my mouth open in speech and ran a story the next day. I wrote down Farmingont as one of our best stops and one of the first where I said to Arnold - I want to live here! (anywhere but LA was my motto)
We did get a few interviews and if they still seem interesting, I'll post them here as soon as I can.
Arnold was in shock that my ex and his girlfriend were letting us stay at their house that night. He just thought that was too kind.
We caravaned to their trailer park outside of town. Mandolina could even come inside since they just sold the place and didn't care about dog hair or dog damage.
His girlfriend was sweet and cooked up some Fry Bread. This is a common treat on reservations. Here she made it long and thin not thick and more donut like as they do in Ojibwe country. Plus we had "Navajo tacos" which meant adding super spicy chili on top. I had been warned about the salsas and chiles of New Mexico.
I slept great on their couch and didn't even wake up when our hostess had to go off to work. Mandolina woke me up by scratching at me. She had to go. I took her outside and was in awe of the desert yellow and blue and gray sunrise. I could live here, forever.
Her son was anxious to be in front of our camera and before we left we filmed him giving a tour of the house. He is so cute. A preschool want to be movie star! Later when the editor helped put the first cut together, he said Laine's tour was his favorite part.
Soon, you can be the judge yourself. I'll put that on for sure!
We had a few days before our first tribal interview was set up. That would be all the way in Kansas so we thought we'd stay in Oz a little longer. One of my friends from college was in Albuquerque, time to drop in.
As we drove onto the paved road out of Joe's trailer park we saw a Menonite Amish looking woman wearing a traditional dress and hat. I wanted to ask her for an interview so I turend the car around - or tried to. The side of the road was all sand and we learned our first road lesson - beware of the sands of New Mexico. It is a lot deeper then it seems and my wheel just spun it all around the car. I was getting nowhere.
I grabbed the camera and filmed Arnold as he tried to get the car out of the sand ditch. he didn't appreciate looking like he was the idiot who got us stuck but whoever has the camera, has the power (luckily, he's a good sport about everything!)
I tied Mandolina to a nearby fence so she wouldn't get hot in the car. We both waved for help. It took about two minutes and three cars stopped to help us. What a nice state! We can't say the same for Montana later in our journey (at least not in this trip, when I passed through that state with another woman, it was a different story).
One woman who stopped, Jamie, was just out driving around looking for something to do. We interviewed her and put her in our movie! Anotehr woman stopped and she was so nice and a very interesting character. They both helped us try to push the car out. That didn't work either.
Then a man with a company truck stopped, hooked a rope to the bumper and pulled us out. I filmed it to look like the women pulled it out with their bare hands. Don't believe every docuumentary you see! We were just thankful they were all so nice and we didn't become like the cattle heads you see bleached out in that dangerous desert sand.
The clouds sheltered us again as we drove on to the big city of Albuquerque. Mikeala met us at the door for some hugs hello and welcomed us in. Again, I made myself an office and called up Denver to arrange some talks. No luck - every place there wanted me to pay to use their facilities. On our budget, ha!
As I tried to find a charity place, Arnold heard something sweet. The melody sounds of an ice cream truck. Growing up on a rural reservation in the winter wonderland of Minnesota, he had never experienced an ice cream truck. He was like a kid again, but a kid who never had home delivered ice cream before. Of course, we filmed it!
Before we left New Mexico, I also turned the camera onto Mikeala and her partner, Priscilla. One of Arnold's goals with this project was to prove to himself and, to the world with film, that there is such thing as true love for Gay men and Lesbian women. He was getting sick of the few pickings in such a rural part of the country and he didn't have many, if any, role models of long lasting relationships. Priscilla and Mikeala's interview was one step to prove to him that love can last - for anyone! (Note: This was the late 1990s, not now where this may seem sooooo dated!)
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