Tatanka talking

I gotta write just a little bit.  I've been on the road doing a tribal media tour.  KWRR, a radio station on the Wind River Reservation, pretty much let me take over.  Or maybe that's just what they're used to white guys doing, so figured they could get some thinking done while I talked.  And that's something I can't figure out with some Native Americans; what in the heck are they thinking about? 

I'm obvious.  I cheer when the Broncos win, I cry during a promo for Extreme Home Makeover, I hold forkfuls of meat in the air and shriek with delight.  But in the conversation I had with the host of the Naturally Native show, I couldn't tell what was going on.  Had I just offended her?  Was she sad, or dealing with inner turmoil, or was she happy and just reflecting upon it.  I suffered in a noiseless vacuum.  My Indian name would be Awkward Silence. 

This woman would start a song and then just get up and leave the studio.  Now my history of commercial radio has me terrified of dead air.  Still today the only time I turn up a radio is when it's silent.  I listen to it with the childish delight and morbid curiosity of a professional wrestling fan.  But the deejay would go to the bathroom or meet a friend for lunch, I don't know, but the song would stop and it would take her three or for minutes to come back into the studio.  And it would kill me.  I would sit there in the silence thinking I'd done something wrong.   And she would walk back in unscathed and turn on the microphones. 

Apparently people are used to this.  Maybe this is what radio needs: a bit of a respite.  "You've heard a lot of noise for a while so now we're going to give you some silence." 

But she'd casually go back on the air and say, "This is Naturally Native and I'm with Jared from the Census."

She would turn and look at me.  And I would look back at her.  And she would look at me and I would look at her.  She'd keep looking and I'd feel myself slipping into pit of anxiety.  But she would just keep looking. 

And then, Awkward Silence would speak.  I would talk and talk.  I would spin a serpentine web of facts and anecodotes and childhood experiences.  Occasionally I'd stop and look at her.  She'd look back at me.  So I'd keep talking.  After about five minutes I'd ask if she wanted to play some music. 

She'd say, "OK, we're going to play some music."  And play some music. 

After the first hour I told her the show was one of the best ever.  It wasn't tightened with expecations of back to back to back beats and lasers and weather on the tens.  It was like radio on the range with vast space for every element to move.  

Despite the expansive and bewildering unknown, it was one of the most relaxed atmospheres I've ever been in my life.  Although I have no idea if she felt the same way. 

(video to come!)