ATTENDING THE WOODSTOCK FILM FESTIVAL with Alyson Grey, Samm Kunce and Alex Grey

THIS IS YOUR (my) LIFE

1:00 pm EST Sunday Oct. 6, 2019

    

     I’m sitting here in my house, steeling myself for the screening of Mike Osterhout and The Church of the Little Green Man in Rhinebeck. It’s part of the Woodstock Film Festival. Of course I’ve seen the film, but this will be the first time I’ll see it amongst strangers. I don’t like sitting in a movie theater, in the dark, with strangers, even when it’s not about me. I wouldn’t say I’m nervous, but I am neurotic. 

    The CLGM has been going on (off and on) since 1986. The film is not historical; concentrating on the past two years in interviews and the filming of multiple services. There are two versions: 14mins. and 16 mins. I prefer the longer one. It’s difficult to write about this without sounding like an ingrate or a pompous asshole. So first let me say this: If someone shows up at your house and wants to do a documentary about your work say yes. It’s a humbling experience to have an objective chronicler come away from a relatively unguarded series of film shoots with something interesting. We look good. The cat is now out of the bag.

    Just to put things in perspective, I neither made nor spent any money on this film. It’s all Roderick Angle’s investment. If he can convince some producer that he is worth investing in for a future project, this film will serve as an example of what he is capable of. I don’t want anybody to invest in the CLGM. We’ll just burn your money. With that said, so far my film festival experience has been less than red carpet worthy. The first sign of this was the fact that I have to pay $10 to see the film. This skin-flinty film fest. approach was compounded when I was invited to participate in a Q&A. So, you want me to pay to watch a film with my name in the title and do a free dog and pony show after the screening? I don’t think WTF? is an adequate response to that. 

Since I have yet to drive to Rhinebeck, I’m gonna stop writing here and fill you in when I get back. I don’t want to say anything I’ll regret.

10:45 pm EST 

   I’m glad I waited. My perspective has totally changed. The film was shown amongst a group of other short films. It’s like being in a group show. When you realize you’re in good company the pressure is off. All my petty animosity disappeared as I watched pigeon racers, struggling fishing families, sisters of murdered brothers and ostracized, menstruating Indian girls alienated by ancient customs. These were real people dealing with real  issues, captured by talented cinematographers and directors. Their stories were poignant and captivating. By the time the CLGM movie came on everybody was ready for some foolishness.

    After the show we had dinner and a couple of bottles of wine, toasting our success. I feel great. The neurosis has lifted. Having one’s work exposed within the documentary context—as rattling as that is—can also be rewarding and gratifying. I want to thank Roderick Angle and cinematographer Mitch Blummer for all their time and money they invested in this project….coming soon to an internet connection near you.

CALICO INDIANS

CITIZEN FIVE DISGUISE

  Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam issued the re-institution of a colonial-era law banning face masks in public, to take effect yesterday. This was done in response to anti-government protests that have plagued her administration in Hong Kong for months. It is an obvious ploy to criminalize a common practice by protesters and identify them for arrest. What’s this got to do with living in the Catskills? I’ve got two words: Calico Indians.

    

    In 1845, six years into New York’s Anti-Rent War, Gov. Silas Wright passed what was known as the “Anti-Disguise Law,” a legislative initiative aimed at stopping insurgents from hiding identity. In the 21st century this law was invoked during both Occupy Wall Street and Anonymous protests. Now Hong Kong is bringing back its own version. 

    Two of my ancestors, Calico Indians Elias and Cornelius Osterhout, were convicted (along with many others) of murder and kidnapping in the death of Sheriff Osman Steele, during the anti-rent struggle. The charges would not stick and when administrations changed in Albany they were released from Dannemora, as working class heroes. But for years after the trial sheriff’s posses rode out across Catskill’s “Andes,” in search of anyone involved in the armed insurgency. If a mask was found buried under a barn’s floorboards any male “of age” within the household faced arrest. Unbeknownst to the authorities many women were also “Indians.” That was another reason to be masked.

   Old laws propping up authoritarian regimes can be pulled out of the dusty drawer whenever needed. Invoking this particular statute is a short step away from marshal law in Hong Kong. These days we are globally connected through our own particular histories and experiences with colonialism, capitalism and revolution. The destruction of the “patroon” system and removal of up-rent New York manor lords in 1839 would take years and not just a few lives. Hong Kong could face much worse. 

     Struggles for agrarian equality and social justice that New Yorkers experienced in the Catskills during the 19th century are reflected in the protests in urban 2019 Hong Kong. Lam’s connections to Beijing and it’s repressive policies are what sparked the protests in the first place. Chinese extradition laws that could be applied politically in Hong Kong remain in that dusty drawer….waiting. The longer the protests go on the greater the danger that China will intercede militarily and kill or extradite protest leaders. Water cannons spewing blue dye already “mark” protesters for arrest. Masks are a small way of maintaining anonymity, allowing protesters to keep up the pressure and take to the streets every week.

     Criminalizing anti-government behavior by “unmasking” identity is another intrusion on a populace’s right to privacy. Edward Snowden exposed the NSA’s blanket surveillance program into America’s communications and paid dearly for it with exile to Russia. Expectation to privacy is rapidly disappearing. Just the other day I was telling Samm about an old friend who was a child preacher who made copper wire plant hangers in Sausalito in the ’70’s. The very next day an ad for “Wandering Jew metal plant hangers” appeared mysteriously on my CNN newsfeed. I don’t even have a cell phone and have never googled plant hangers or child preachers. Is this just an uncanny coincidence or is somebody, somewhere, listening to my talk of diasporas and pastures aplenty? God? Could be time to pull up those church floorboards and don the mask once again. Down Sullivan!   

CEMETERY

SHAMEFULLY PLEASANT

“And he, Leo Halper, was hiding here between the walls of his house in the Catskill Mountains. It was awesome and shamefully pleasant in the shelter”- Reuben Wallenrod, Dusk in the Catskills, written in Hebrew 1941-44. Published in English 1957

   Diaspora is a word most commonly associated with the Jewish people; although it can equally apply to Africans scattered to the wind by slavery. It literally means the dispersal of any people from their homeland. So happens the Jews, as a group, have historically suffered repeated dispersals more than most. Read the bible. It results in emigration (or immigration) of said people (or what’s left of them) to another homeland; not an easy process. 

     The Catskills have repeatedly experienced and embraced diasporas since the earliest human habitation on North America’s east coast. First Nation mound builders were driven east from the plains by more powerful tribes, eventually finding safety in the hidden penetralia between the Delaware and the Hudson rivers. The first whites to move into the neighborhood were the Dutch, Swiss and Huguenots, fleeing Europe for various reasons; mainly to make more money. They set the stage for white supremacy and manifest destiny, killing and driving the Indians back west or into Canada; more diaspora. 

    In the first decade of the 18th century came the Palatine Germans, fleeing French swords in the Palatinate region of eastern Europe. Indentured to the British, these political refugees settled from Newburgh to West Camp (Catskill), the Schoharie Valley and Stone Arabia. Scattered amongst the Germans, Dutch, Swiss and Huguenot immigrants to New York were Jews. But the largest concentrated Jewish diaspora to inhabit the Catskills came in the mid-20th century. These would be the European Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and their American Jewish counterparts, hoping for a break from the recent horrors of the past, the heat of the city and ongoing institutional anti-Semitism, they welcomed the respite of a private, little bungalow and the fleeting illusion of summer happiness. Welcome to the Catskills! 

    I finally received my copy of Summer Haven- The Catskills, the Holocaust and the Literary Imagination by Phil Brown and Hollie Levitsky. I’m only half way through, but I highly recommend it. Although it concentrates only on “Jewish” life in the mountains, there are universal truths revealed by these authors; illustrating the myriad entanglements and mutual dependencies that we all find ourselves experiencing in these hills today, gentile, Jew or free agent.

    Brown and Levitsky put these New York State “vacationing” Jews into two distinct categories: the German Jews of the Northern Catskills and Finger Lakes (possibly a left over genealogical blood trail dropped by the Palatines) and the poorer Yiddish speaking Eastern European and Russian Jewish refugees of hardscrabble Ulster and Sullivan Counties. This is a historical outline I thought I knew. What I didn’t know was that the specific history by place of the pre-war Catskill Jewish community, which ultimately blossomed into the “Borsht Belt” of grand hotels started in Glen Wild, NY. I remind you that I own the only two historical buildings in the tiny hamlet of Glen Wild—the Methodist Episcopal (LGM) church (built 1867) and the Congregation Anshei (Old) Shul (built 1913), that graces the cover of Summer Haven. John Gershon, “considered the first Jewish farmer [in the Catskills], arriving in 1892.” donated the land for the Glen Wild shul in 1912. The Jaffe family and their neighbors built it. According to Summer Haven, Gerson’s Rock Hill Jewish Boarding House, along with Rosenblatt’s Hotel (both in Glen Wild) were two of the first Jewish resorts in the Catskills. It started here.

     As a heterosexual, white man (with no religious affiliation) whose family has resided in the Catskills since 1653, I am not, nor will I ever be, a part of any disenfranchised group or diaspora. As distasteful as the label is, I am considered a “nativist,” a descendent of European aborigines. My slave owning, Christian, Dutch and English ancestors came to America as part of a heavily armed, well funded corporate invasion. We never left. So it is not surprising that I am forced to look elsewhere for a sympathetic “cultural identity.” Mine has been bred out of me. That is why I write on issues of race and religion, exclaiming in public GOD LOVES FAGS or WARNING- Jesus helps me trick people, in both English and Hebrew. Cultural provocation? Probably. I’m an artist. I don’t have to be a Jew, a homosexual, an intellectual or play by the rules in order to claim empathic “diversity” in my work. This is also a tradition in these mountains—one of insular non-assimilation and not giving a shit—as the world spins maniacally around us. Sure, I get a rock thrown through my window or a public piece spray painted over once in a while. But on the whole I feel safe, hidden, and justified in my transgressions. Am I doing enough? Probably not. There is also a “dawn” in the Catskills. We are creating it. Wallenrod put it perfectly. Our shelter is “awesome” and “shamefully pleasant.” I feel I must apologize: $ORRY. In our collective guilt we must protect the Catskill’s fragility and always welcome any diasporas to come to these mountains. It’s not always easy, but it’s a very long tradition. Shalom.

EIGHT POINT

DEVOTION OF THE HUNTER

  This is a photo of the biggest buck I ever shot. It was 2013; the best season in the woods I’d ever experienced. I killed two giant bucks that year; one with the bow the other with the muzzleloader. Neither came easy. They rarely do. 

     The first buck, that I shot with the bow, I’d wounded late in the afternoon and was afraid I had gut shot it. Following good bowhunter protocol, I’d backed out of the woods and picked up the blood trail in the morning. Here I enlisted the help of expert tracker and old friend Bill Voegelin and his wired-haired Dachshund, Bonnie. Long story short, we lost the sparse blood trail, and if it wasn’t for blind luck (me stumbling over the dead deer) we never would’ve found him. It was gut shot. After a long and illustrious term of service, Bonnie and Bill retired from deer-search and tracking soon thereafter.

    The second buck I was hunting late in the season in the snow and sub-zero temperatures of mid-December. I’d seen obvious sign, trees torn up with antler rubs and still smoking ground scrapes near one of my tree stands, but hadn’t laid eyes on the buck. By the last week of the season I’d given up on the buck and was concentrating on shooting meat. I resolved to shoot the next adult doe who presented me with a shot. Around 11:00 am, freezing to death, I’d lowered my gun from the stand twice, only to spot movement far out in the woods and continue the hunt. Suddenly there was a deer right below my stand. Carefully I raised the gun…..and then spotted tiny horns. It was an illegal “button buck.” I sighed in frustration. About to lower my gun (again) and go home I made one last scan of the woods. I spotted the ass of a deer 50 yards off to my left. If she turned I had a shot. Focusing the scope and settling the crosshairs, I waited. When the deer finally turned and raised its head I saw the rack. 

     To show a photo of a dead animal on social media can be alienating. One time, after proudly displaying the results of a successful hunt, a woman scolded me on Facebook, instructing me to “NEVER post a dead deer again!” I remind all of you meat eaters that hamburgers do not fall from the hamburger tree. My vegan friends don’t seem to have a problem with my hunting or posting. Anyone who is offended is welcome to unfollow me and enjoy your burger. I’m completely comfortable with my hunting ethos. Many years I’ll shoot smaller bucks and does. Some years I come up empty. But given the opportunity to kill a massive, mature, whitetail buck and thousands of years of wiring can’t be denied. The juices kick in. Plenty will say “Can’t eat horns.” But that wiring does not only come from a millennia of antler envy. This buck had more meat on him than two does. My breath quickened. I waited…..and waited. When he stepped from behind the tree, exposing his vitals, I squeezed the trigger. He ran twenty yards and piled up dead. I had my trophy and a freezer full of venison.

   Tuesday was opening day of bow season for deer here in the Catskills. I can confidently say that I’m the eleventh generation of Osterhouts to attempt to kill deer in these mountains. DNA seems to play a role. I sat in a new stand in John Letourneau’s swamp, next to the old Denniston graveyard, where legend has it there are also Lenape buried, hopefully not killed by Osterhouts. I saw three does. I was home……in church. Trophies are nice, but in the end unnecessary to maintain the enthusiasm it takes to get up before dawn when it’s 10 below zero and get in the stand. For that you need devotion…..and an empty freezer. 

OLD GRINGO

HISTORY WILL (not) ABSOLVE ME

    I’ve come across this overtly confident statement twice in my reading. The first time was a little black and red book given to me by my friend Tony Labat. We were sitting in a Havana hotel room,  plotting our lecture presentations in Tania Bruguera’s art class at ISA (Institutio  Superior de Artes). The book documented Fidel Castro’s self defense speech before the court in Santiago de Cuba on October 16, 1953. The second time I came across the same exact statement was in Mein Kampf  by Adolf Hitler. I don’t know if Castro read Mein Kampf  or came to his book title separately. Both these men played the long game in their minds. History has an unpredictable way of unfolding. Many feel Castro was correct in his assessment of his legacy. Hitler? Not so much.

   I went to Cuba twice in 2003. The first time I visited was to lecture at ISA and the second was to participate in a “performance art” circus outside of Havana, while launching my line of HolyLGM water, honey and cigars. The first time I went illegally through Bermuda and had no difficulty. My second trip I travelled legally through Miami and I am still paying for it. George Bush was president at the time and although institutional “cultural visas” were readily available, officials in both Miami and Havana treated a “legal” traveller like shit. In fact Havana has two side by side airports. One looks like any modern international airport with smiling faces and “Bienvenido” signs. The other has barbed wire, rusting tin roofs, scowling, machine gun toting soldiers and rough looking chickens pecking on the runway. I-gringo was not “Bienvenido.” The record of my “legal” visit to Cuba on my passport sends up red flags at U.S. Customs to this day.

   These days a trip to Cuba has become more problematic than ever. Although, according to my second hand knowledge, Trump and Fidel knew each other well and had business dealings together, the current administration has made traveling to the island next to impossible; increasing it’s strangle hold of sanctions on the Cuban people. This could be due to a personal falling out with the Castro brothers or Trump’s predictable undoing of all of Obama’s  more lenient and humanitarian policies. Either way Trump is anti-Cuba and the island continues to suffer under a U.S. blockade. 

   One of the many difficulties of living in the Catskills are the long, hard winters. Temperatures are twenty degrees colder than New York City and when snow dumps, it stays. By the end of February everybody has cabin fever. I’m not one to fly south to Miami. I hate beach culture and hanging with Florida rednecks and racists make snow shoveling look attractive. My fantasy was to rent a little fishing shack in Mira Mar or a funky apartment in La Vibora and hole up with the Cubans until turkey season. But in the present political climate I might as well try to rent a bachelor villa on Love Island. 

    The Cuban people are paying a far greater price for the sins of this administration than we are. A new Special Period may be upon them if Trump remains in office. Reports of gas shortages are trickling out and far tougher times may be ahead. If any U.S. citizen has the opportunity to visit Cuba they may be surprised to realize how friendly and welcoming Cubanos are to their cousins from the north. The most basic Spanish will get you by, as most Cubans are also taught English. I love the Cubans. History will never absolve Trump or his henchmen, but that won’t stop them from trying to spin it in their favor. I don’t know if I’ll ever have my shack on the Cuban beach. It’s not looking good. I just got my firewood delivery in preparation for the cold months ahead. Trump or no Trump, winter is coming. History will not absolve any of us from dealing with that.

SKULL AND BONES