Heya! Hey, me! Hey, You!

My dad was one-quarter Blackfoot Indian. My mother was one-quarter Blackfoot Indian. If I have my phenotypes right I think that makes me one-quarter Blackfoot Indian, too.

It hasn't effected my life much as I live far from the reservation, don't drink and there's no national holiday associated with "my people"... though there should be, dammit. One day a year we all need to don our war bonnets, stuff our breechclouts with pemmican and do some serious bar-crawling, tomahawks at the ready in case of stray buffalo incursion.

Although I'm not one to celebrate cultural differences, as I think it inevitably leads to unfortunate differences of opinion like, say, the Crusades, in the back of my mind I've always kept an ear out for interesting tribal music. So far nothing's been added to the iPod as mostly it's all been a lot of uninspired drumming and unintelligible chanting.

Until now, that is. Check this out:

The song, which I find happily compelling, is by an award-winning drum group called the Black Lodge Singers, consisting entirely of Blackfeet Indian, and led by Kenny Scabby Robe. In fact, most of the singers are Mr. Robe's many sons. Way to go, dad!

This particular bit of music, a playful encomium to Mighty Mouse, comes from their CD titled "Kids' Pow-Wow Songs" (Not to mention its inevitable sequel "More Kids' Pow-Wow Songs"). On these albums they also perform tributes, in their own inimitable oeuvre', to the Flintstones, Mickey Mouse and the Monster Mash, among other pop culture icons. But it's not all fun and games as they also have many CDs offering more serious tribal music.

Needless to say, I now have some tribal MP3s to enjoy as I avoid the many local stray dogs on my walks.

Oh, and the other three-quarters of my genealogical heritage? Irish. So, yeah, probably just as well that I don't drink.

---------

Did you know that I'm on Twitter? It's not a big hairy deal or anything. It's just someplace to vent  the odd notion from this cranky noggin before I end up on the roof with a crack pipe and a nail gun.

Apart from positing the occasional jape I follow about 90 thoughtful people, though only about 1/3 of those ever bother to post with any true regularity. As the messages slowly update it got me thinking what it must be like to follow everyone on Twitter. I mean everyone. I know that certain celebrities are followed by as many as half-a-million Twitterians but what would your Twitter screen resemble should you choose to follow, say, 1,00,000 users. I'm guessing the results would include explosive decompression and/or epileptic seizures.

Anyone care to try?

=Lefty=