Reflections – Page 129 – The Adventures of a Young Savage

December 1, 2008

Burning Car

My neighbors’ car was torched Tuesday night.

At about 1am, I was finishing up some work on some Christmas presents. Tamika was up with me, doing some photo editing for Lisa Locker’s wedding. We both smelled gasoline, and after checking to make sure my motorcycle was ok, I ran outside to discover one of my neighbors’ cars ablaze.

Michael Dowling used to live on Augusta (an adjacent street) but after the landlord of the dope house cleaned everyone out, he offered to rent the place to Michael in return for some handyman work and a nominal rent. Mike is a former bad apple, was locked up for a while, but got back together with his girlfriend about a year ago and has turned over a new leaf in attempts to be a better father to his kids. He enrolled himself in a couple programs and through that got a job.

His girlfriend has two kids (one of them his), and we’ve been helping them out in any way we could.

We sold the Mercury my dad gave us to Mike, who was able to fix it up in a matter of weeks and resell it for a profit. We were also planning on selling our old Saturn to him too (he’s already started working on it).

Michael used the money he earned from our Mercury to buy another ca;, this time an 89 Grand Marquis with a Police Interceptor engine in it. He was $75 away from getting a new front grill, the last piece he was missing.

Earlier this week Mike repaired a scooter of another neighbor, charging him $80. The scooter was later stolen, and the man demanded his money back. Mike refused, and suspects the man had something to with the fire.

The fire had just been lit when I got out there, but I didn’t see anyone around. Mike had put a tarp over top with a cinder block on it to weigh it down. The whole curbside was in flames. I pounded on Mike’s door. No answer. I tried tugging at the tarp and was able to get some of it off, but the fire was too big. I went back to pounding on Mikes door. Nothing. I ran into our house and called 911.

Mike finally woke up. The flames were reaching as high as two stories at this point, coming dangerously close to Mikes front porch. In these row houses, with everything all connected, if one house went, they all might.

The firemen were there within 10 minutes. They doused the car, and then got Mike to open the doors and doused the inside, which billowed smoke.

Mike was torn up. He had been working so hard to stay clean and to support his family. And yet, this happened. On top of all this, Michelle, his girlfriend, is in the hospital with her infant son who is having seizures.

He gave me a call today. CSI determined the fire was indeed set on purpose, and even got some gassy fingerprints on the roof of the car. Mike is determined to fix the car. He plans on gutting it and getting it on the road. He says he’s not going to let this get him down.

I think Tamika and are just going to give the Saturn to them.

November 14, 2008

Downpour

It’s raining today. Water is coming down in sheets, drenching everything. It started yesterday, let up for while, and the came down harder as I went to bed.

There is not too much I like more, than to snuggle under a thick quilt listening to a storm drumming on the rooftop. Tamika stayed up late last night to do some work twisting her hair, and when she came up and crawled into bed, she lay her hand softly on my head, running her fingers through my hair.

It almost made me late for work today, I slept so good.

And even then, when I shrugged on my favourite jacket and the cold air hit me full force, I still liked the rain. It roared against the windsheild as I drove to work, senting tides of water up from passing trucks.

November 14, 2008

Black Babies

This thing has been bothering me for a while now… Why do people feel the need to say things like “Oh, I just love little black babies!”.

And by “people”, I mean European-American women, and by “feel the need” I mean that they do it frequently enough to make me annoyed.

It comes more often now that we have Nya, but I can remember people saying it a lot when I was in college or highschool too. Girls in my class, remarking over one of the girls who got pregnant, actually began arguing on whether or not they would want black, hispanic, or asian babies.

The first time I heard of the concept was probably when my dad was reading the Little House on the Prairie books to us. The main character, Laura, a little girl of a homesteader family, witnessed a Native American caravan who were retreating from the East. And she said something to the effect of “I want a little Indian baby!”.
As if an Indian were just an adjective to a thing, and the thing were a baby. Just like a red toy fire engine. Or a blue bassinette.
As if a baby were something that could be aquired; and then dispensed with as the mood changed. Of course, Laura was a child in the book, and of course, her parents frequently said stuff like “The only good Indian is a dead Indian” but the passage about the baby rang in my head for a while.

It’s not really the fact that people say African American babies are cute. They are. So are European babies. Babies in general are cute. There are some that are funny looking, of course, just like there are funny looking people. But what gets to me is people saying that they “want one”.
At one time, European Americans in this country could point at a African American baby, say they wanted one, and for a price, could get it.

Maybe it’s because people with more melanin have traditionally been enslaved. Sure, it’s been a long time. But these things tend to lead to other things, like this t-shirt. Though it would seem just as degrading to me if an African American said it about a white baby.

The reason i’m ranting is that someone said this to me just recently about Nya, and I had absolutely no idea how to respond.
I talked to one of my coworkers about it, and they laughed.

“It’s ok,” she said, “the proper response to something as ignorant as that is to say ‘I like the pasty white babies too…'”

November 13, 2008

Fat Sitcom Dads

So, I was heating up my pizza lunch in the cafeteria today, and Matt and Natalie came in with their food, so I decided to eat with them. Someone had left the television on, and eventually our conversation turned to it.

Some mindless sitcom was on, and featured a dopey, middle-aged father, and smart, attractive wife.
And as we sat there, discussing the lameness of the show, we hit on an epiphany: every single sit-com has this combination! Every dad is overweight, and every mom is smart and attractive.

Keep in mind; I watch very little TV, but I was easily able to come up with more than a few. We were so stunned by this seemingly preposterously blatant attempt at a stereotype, that we tried to make a list, just looking at the dads.

King of Queens – fat
Everybody loves Raymond – pudgy
Family Matters – fat

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – fat
The Simpsons – fat
According to Jim – fat
Family Guy – fat
George Lopez – fat
Married with Children – pudgy
House of Payne – fat

Cosby Show – skinny

I’m sure there are more, but all the recent ones were all fat! The fat dads far outnumber the skinny ones! And unless you go waay back (we’re talking Leave It To Beaver here) there aren’t any at all.

Why is this? Has america gotten comfortable with it’s pudgyness? What was it that changed the male image so much?

Somehow pizza for lunch didn’t seem so appetizing anymore…

November 13, 2008

Speaking Naskapi

Tamika encouraged me to speak more Naskapi to Nya the other day, and suddenly I had infinitely more respect for the displaced Naskapi parents out there trying to teach their kids their native tongue.

Growing up there were a few kids at school who couldn’t speak Naskapi as well as I could, and I always thought this was kind of strange. Most often, the kid either grew up part of the time down south, away from the reservation, or had only one Naskapi parent (the other being Montagnais or European-Canadian).

These kids often struggled with Naskapi, and now it makes more sense. It’s a tiny language, with only 1000 or so speaking it. So, when thrust in competition with another more wide-spread language (Montagnais is huge, for example), the smaller language is harder to keep up.

So today, I tried talking to Nya in Naskapi.
And lo and behold, it ain’t easy. It felt extremely unnatural at first, I had to fight to remember phrases and words that were relevant.

I honestly have trouble talking to babies period. It seems a little weird, i’m more the type to just sit and work on something, listening to music.

Eventually, though, the teacher in me kicked in, and I began describing what I was doing to Nya. Even in Naskapi. The morning ritual of feeding her Cheerios and a bottle became “Chi wi michuuna cheerios, a?” (do you want to eat cheerios?) and “Chi wi min a?” (would you like to drink?). One of the words I can’t remember is milk. I’ll have to look it up online in the dictionary later.

November 10, 2008

Moving Trees

In our backyard we have a huge 8 foot stump. The tree it belonged to originally fell on the house before we bought it (the owner made the repairs). The owner then had most of the tree cut down and carted away, save for this massive stump about 3 feet in diameter.

Our house is a town house, and the yard out back is relatively narrow; the same width as the house (though we actually own an additional acre or two beyond it). The stump stands right at the far end of the yard, right smack dab in the middle. Cornering the edges of the yard closest to our house are two smaller trees. These trees are much skinnier, but quite tall… And instead of growing straight up, they each arc over our neighbors houses to the left and right.

I had ties some ropes to the young trees and anchored them around the stump in an effort to pull them away from the neighbors houses.
It worked quite well for a while, but then last month a set of harsh storms hit our area and pulled the stump out of the ground! I was incredulous! I didn’t think that stump was ever going to move…

So now this stump (a log, really) is lying lenghtwise in the middle of our yard, and has flattened what’s left of the old iron fence that was there with it.

The tow rope I had put around the stump to help bend the young trees is still on it, so yesterday I drove our Subaru back there to see if I could pull it. After 45 minutes, lots of rope, the neighbors’ hoist chain and a tying and untying knots, it was pretty apparent it wasn’t going to move. The stump weighed nearly as much as the Subaru!

I guess I’ll have to get a chainsaw!

November 10, 2008

Most Evil Company

Today, the art directors put us in a room, and gave us a mock project. Work has been slow in the Design and Studio departments, so Mike and Roger, who share the design direction responsibilities, called us in to design a campaign for a product, company, or organization that we strongly disagree with.

The only trouble is, I’m the type that would much rather loose my job, than, for example, do work for the local Aryan chapter. That would definitely be shocking. So… should I go there?
And not only that, but certain political lines, I could easily see myself as being pro instead of con, so conversely, that wasn’t shocking enough.

I’ll have to think long and hard about this one…

Any ideas?

October 22, 2008

Minnie Uniam

Minnie & Ben

Tamika & Minnie

Minnie’s House

Nya and Minnie

I recently discovered Minnie Uniam passed away. She was a lady I called Noohoom, “grandmother”. I was shocked when I found out. We went to visit her just this summer. The first time we visited, she got to sit with Nya. Minnie joked that Nya was a Naskapi baby, because her skin colour is so similar.

We were out walking the next day, and Minnie sent out word for us to stop by. We did, and she surprised us with tiny moccasins for Nya (you can see them in Tamika’s hands)! Minnie stayed up all night making them for us, because she knew we were leaving the next day.

She and her late husband were some of the dearest friends of ours when we lived on the reservation. I will never forget her…

October 4, 2008

Timi Kosmos Logo

My good friend and former classmate, Tolulope Ogundipe, asked me to design a logo for her conscious engineering company. Her goal is to use modern engineering to help the poor, hungry, and oppressed. There is no way I could turn her down…

October 2, 2008

Nick Machlan’s Photoshoot

My good friend and former roommate Nick Machlan (also a missionary kid (like me) from the Philippines) is breaking into the Philadelphia theatre scene, and needed some headshots for his auditions.
We did some standard shots, and then went outside for some more expressive ones. It was dark out, so I put my camera on a tripod, took my flashes out, and had him stand very still while I ran around flashing light at him. These are the result.