Whose Known Rule of Warfare

Boozhoo, indinawemaaganidog! Aaniin! That is to say hello, all of my relatives! Welcome to another edition of An Irritable Métis. This post began as a 4th of July edition but then that didn’t happen and it’s been subsequently back-burnered and then morphed into something else. I really do intend to write with more frequency – ideas pile up faster than the time to share them accumulates and then all too often I talk myself out of writing about them at all – and it’s been difficult. Once IPFEST is over though I think my newsletter efforts may require a little less time banditry from something else to maintain a more reasonable output. I appreciate your understanding.

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I was making my way back to Montana from a gig in Pendleton, OR, the other day when I pulled off the I90 at some interstate-side hellhole in Idaho to use the restroom and refresh myself with a cold beverage for the final push home when I noted a man in a black t-shirt washing his hands in the men’s room. He had his back to me and emblazoned there was a bright rendering of an American flag and the words EXPECT TO SELF RESCUE. Just like that ⬆️ one up there.

Curiosity piqued, when I emerged from the restroom myself a few moments later I found the guy wandering the store and surreptitiously tracked him up and down a couple aisles because I wanted to see what similarly pithy words might be emblazoned across his chest. Once I managed to sidle around to face him I noted two things: one, he was younger than I realized, probably in his 20s, and two, there was only a little logo or something of some kind where a left breast pocket might have been that I couldn’t read and I was mildly disappointed. I don’t know what I wanted, just … more.

Moments ago, the tiny bit of poking around I did online in hopes of finding an image of the t-shirt suggests that the main slogan has its origins in the more brotastic elements of the outdoors community. I don’t really have a problem with it in that context, which is essentially a spin on “be prepared”, and not a bad attitude to take out into the back of beyond with you. Still, this revelation doesn’t change the impression I immediately felt when I first saw the shirt, which is that it is a total self own on the part of those people, mostly men, who try and broadcast their “toughness” through t-shirt slogans and bumper stickers. It is particularly egregious in this season of “America 250” bullshit where our current administration is attempting to obfuscate the truth of where this country has originated while simultaneously flexing the worst elements of our national proclivities in ways rarely matched in our history of dumpster fire administrations.

“Expect to self rescue” is an apt phrase for our time, when housing is in crisis, when health care is in crisis, when education is in crisis, when food systems are in crisis1, when infrastructure is in crisis, and etc. We have become a country that largely doesn’t take care of its own beyond the wealthiest citizens, and hasn’t for years, no matter the party in power, so the concept of “self rescue” is particularly relevant. Which is a sad thing. It crosses political divides too, regardless of the slogans we drape ourselves in.

Ripping the United States for the fake identity so often spouted by politicians and the willfully ignorant as something like “the greatest country in the history of the world” isn’t a path I want to go down, at least not right now. With the summer heating up almost unimaginably, fires burning everywhere, and the current administration still throwing tantrums over losing wars they never should have considered starting in the first place and choosing instead to double down on them, it’s a darkly comical time to be thinking about “greatness” at all. If anyone is left alive to look back on this time from a historical perspective, can you imagine how dumbfounded they will be that there has ever been anyone so simultaneously arrogant and clueless? Assuming they are rational in their perspectives, which isn’t guaranteed either.

The t-shirt says more than enough for me. It illustrates how America gets marketed typically by the worst elements of our society, and how the flag has become a symbol largely of cruelty and ignorance. Not just that either, but how every product you can think of has used the America 250 thing as a way to sell their garbage products. “If you really want to be a ‘merican, buy this!” I was feeling snacky a little while ago and saw America 250 logos all over just about everything. Does eating a bag of Doritos make me a better citizen? Would the woman sitting out front of the convenience store wheezing through her cigarette break see me pass with those chips and think, “Goddamn, there goes an American!” Not likely. She’s probably wondering if she’ll have enough money to pay for the gas it takes to get her back and forth to work, mostly likely.

The United States is essentially a guy in a trenchcoat trying to sell fake watches as something they absolutely aren’t, and duping millions along the way. It’s undignified and laughable; shameful, tacky, embarrassing and cruel.

If we really wanted to celebrate the goings-on in what is today’s so-called Montana in 1776, as the Montana 250 elements of this year’s debacle would suggest, we wouldn’t be talking about white people or settlers or any of those wig-wearing murderous aristocratic slave-owning land speculators at all anyway. It would be an entirely Indigenous-focused discussion because that’s who was here. Among the most significant events would be the evolving cultures of the Northern Plains people as they re-make themselves into horse people, that magnificent relative having only just returned to them over the preceding 50-75 years or so of that 18th century, depending on who you believe. What I love though is that in July of this year, besides it being powwow season with those triumphant yearly celebrations happening all over the state, there is a plethora of Indigenous-facing events happening. Here are just a handful.

As I write this the return of Welchfest to Missoula has just concluded after happening again for the first time since it first appeared back in 2022. I’m thrilled it happened and, given the people I’ve heard from, it seems to have been quite a success once again. The festival’s mission, “to celebrate the beauty of Native literature, art and the legacy of James Welch, one of the greatest and most original of Native writers”, is an important one. James Welch is one of the key people responsible for breaking down barriers for subsequent generations of Native writers, myself included. I’m thrilled they made another festival happen. Here’s to hoping they do it again in the future.

July 23-26, Blackfeet Reservation

This is the second year of this heavy metal festival in Browning and for the second year I am going to miss it. This is really a spectacular event. If you don’t know anything about Fire in the Mountains, read THIS PIECE by my friend Toastie via High Country News (Toastie is joining us at IPFEST as well for our journalism panel on Friday evening). Then read their more personal follow-up piece, “How I found hope while reporting on a metal fest,” HERE, which to my mind is even better. Most longtime readers here know of my history in, and affinity for, heavy music, and Toastie really hits the high points. For me it has always been the most inclusive community I’ve been part of and the most lasting positive influence on my life.

The festival mission, “To create a community bound by music and guided by nature — a gathering that leaves both people and place stronger”, is one that reaches the deepest depths of my heart. Reviewing the workshops concurrent with the music I’m gutted that I won’t be there. This is an important one, friends. I’m going to make a concerted effort to attend next year.

July 25-26, River Arts & Books, Roscoe, MT

My friend Caroline who runs River Arts & Books is doing such a great job with her events and yet even I, one of the place’s biggest fans, am surprised by this one. What a great thing it will be! The event, curated by JoRee LaFrance, “is a two-day gathering honoring the living history, sovereignty, creativity, and cultural traditions of the Apsáalooke people.” I love that this is happening; it shows commitment by River Arts to the entirety of their community and that truly matters. If you are in the Billings/Red Lodge/Beartooths area looking for some tremendously interesting Indigenous culture, you need to get yourself there. Again, I wish I could!

July 31-August 2, Missoula, MT

Unless you are a complete newcomer here you already know about this because I’ve been talking about it all year, after talking about the first edition all of last year. We are in the home stretch and it looks like we are going to pull it off. Costs are soaring as compared to last year too, so we’d still happily take DONATIONS if you can spare a few dollars. Regardless, it’s going to happen, and it’s going to be great. It’s going to be great.