At the dawn of the present century, my pirate brother out in Seattle, a.k.a. The Straightman, sent me a CD of music featuring a favorite guitarist, Jesse Ed Davis (see “From the Archives: Laundromat Blues”) and the songs of someone named John Trudell, an unfamiliar name to me, though that was about to change.
As both a songwriter and, I like to think, a human being I found his lyrics – spoken, not sung – to be compelling, thought-provoking. This wasn’t Lou Reed going on about the incestuous and hedonistic art and music community in New York. Trudell addressed Life, love, social inequality and injustice, the systemic oppression of indigenous peoples not only in North Amerika but globally, and the industrialized world’s assault on the environment.
A Santee Dakota Sioux, Trudell was an author, poet, actor, musician, and lifelong political activist. And though understandably focused on Native American issues, he made it clear that there were problems and crimes being committed against people everywhere, of all races, whether or not we wanted to believe it. Trudell wasn’t “the good Indian” of the old westerns, or the comic relief Indian of TV shows like F Troop. He was, as used to be said, well and truly off the reservation.
But my Old Man used to say “everything has its cost,” and the cost of having a heart and a conscience came in high and hard for John Trudell. In 1979, the day after he burned an Amerikan flag on the steps of the F.B.I. building in Washington, D.C., his Nevada home was burned to the ground, killing his pregnant wife, their three children, and his mother-in-law.
The cause was never sufficiently determined.
Unless you deal in Biblical terms, there is no way I can be accurately described as “a young man,” and certainly not “young and impressionable.” I lost that wide-eyed, mooncalf look before Nixon left office. And yet, I have been described as being “too bloody cosmic” for my own good.
I’ll happily accept that tag, if it means I don’t accept things as they appear to be simply because everyone else does. As Ray Bradbury wrote in Fahrenheit 451, “I hate the Roman named Status Quo.” And I think John Trudell must have felt the same. I don’t know, of course, but I have that feeling.
He's all over youtube: musically, in interviews, and speaking in public.
A personal favorite is “On Becoming Human.”
“Protecting the Earth,” in which he says, “our oppressor deals in illusion,” is another.
As always, I speak only for myself. I have no agenda, hidden or otherwise, and I would never presume to tell anyone what they should think or feel.
If that’s so, then what was the point of this piece? No point, really. Late this morning I was in a neighboring wetland, watching as a storm rolled by, and got to thinking about John Trudell.
Do you need a clearly defined reason for everything you do?
"Baby Boom Che" and "Bombs over Baghdad"
mmm, mmm
Out in Ballard, your straightman
They say Thunderheart was a true story, and Trudell was excellent as Peltier. You need to see it, Mister Willie.