a bloggin' hiatus ...

hey, brady bravers. due to this and that and another, the bureau of brady braves is closing, as far as new posts go, in august and september. the bbb continues to welcome your ideas at brady_braves_bureau@yahoo.com for what you would like to see the bureau address in the fall. we sure appreciate the attention you've shown, and we will see you in october with brady braving goodness once the bureau relocates and resettles, this time in minnesota, and once the staff returns from the bloggin' hiatus to bradybraves.blogspot.com … take care.

blackface, a redface cousin ...

check it out: blackface, german-style, as reported and impressively commented on at BlackWomenInEurope.Blogspot.com. english translations appear beside these degrading german ads.

"some teachers suck, no teachers sucks even more."

"i'm waiting for my last day in school, the children in africa still for their first one."

"in africa, kids don't come to school late, but not at all."

"in africa, many kids would be glad to worry about school."

brady brave thought of the day ...

"Once we abandoned ourselves for television, the box that separates the dreamer from the dreaming. It was as if we were stolen, put into a bag carried on the back of a whiteman who pretends to own the earth and the sky. In the sack were all the people of the world. We fought until there was a hole in the bag." ~Joy Harjo, "A Postcolonial Tale"

INDIANA-nizing INDIAN play

hey, brady bravers ... INDIAN play appears to be alive and well in southern INDIANa ... here are pics from a trip to the hills of brown county last month ... the left one is from one of those ol' time photo studios. poor guy couldn't decide whether to play cowboy, indian, or cavalry; so he went for the white-indian trifecta. regardless, bobby "little bear who loses way" brady will be glad to welcome him into the brady brave hall of shame.

the other two are off a back road in brown county. the sign with the older "indian" welcomes ya to "camp palawopec." another sign (not pictured) a few miles earlier depicts a younger "indian," suggesting that you may age by the time you get to the camp but that everyone can be a "kid at heart" when they join in redface revelry? the pic on the right is a "tipi" out on camp palawopec's lawn. i hear this lone "tipi" will star in the upcoming disney flick Last of the Tipis.


turns out this camp palawopec has a website, which includes this pic of one its campers in "warpaint" doing a bad grizzly imitation. just $495 for a week at the camp. more payin' for playin', eh?


btw, no chuck norris spottings in indiana. where ya at, walker?

pay to play? part II

following-up to a previous post ... the bureau of brady braves declares here and now that one does not have to pay to play [NDN]. during the past two ventures to a local toys r us for the latest in elmo gear, the bbb has spotted the dvd version of disney's peter pan playing on a tv near the registers. and both times, it's been different scenes in which non-native characters play "indian." (is that all they do in that movie?) having seen this reminds us that we brady braves don’t need to pay to play.

rather, just hang out in toys r us and watch peter pan. for further authenticity in "indian" play (authentic pseudo-"indians"?), be like zack "running zack" morris in that 1990 episode of nbc's teen sitcom saved by the bell in which running zack dresses up in full headdress for a class presentation. for how-to instructions, tune into tbs. or tune into tv land and nick-at-nite and superstation wgn, where you can learn from barney "chief noogatuck" fife how to choke on a pipe in the andy griffith episode "the pageant," learn from granny clampett how her great-great granny "scalped redskins" (her words) in the hillbillies episode "family tree," learn from peter and bobby brady (before they receive "indian" names) how to run around in construction paper feathers, clap hand to mouth, and yell "woo woo woo" (or is it "waa-waa-waa"?), and learn in a 2006 episode of disney's suite life of zack and cody how to construct a headdress.

really, brady braves, why pay to play when you can learn the ways of opie's tomahawk club in andy griffith and bart's pre-teen braves in the simpsons? why pay to play when you can learn how to "count to five in american indian" from ralph malph in happy days? and the list of "how to play" as according to sitcom stars goes on and on--from 1950s lucy to today ...

or scratch the above and just call up chuck "walker, texas ranger" norris for all your brady bravin' occasions. unless he's busy infomercialin' the latest in fitness equipment or hangin' out on the bogus texas cherokee rez in hallmark channel reruns, walker should be ready to show you a few moves he swiped from billy jack.

bbb

Descartes Indians

brady braves:

here's your peter "middle buffalo/leaping lizard" brady thought of the day,

courtesy of drew hayden taylor:

"Descartes Indians"

=

"I think Indian,

therefore I am Indian."

playin' cherokee

hey, brady bravers ... if'n you're lookin' to pay to play [indian], then check out this ad by Reverend Tim Cottonmouth:

"This here's the Reverend Tim Cottonmouth. Speakin' to ya from the national I Wannabe a Cherokee network in Tulsa, Oklahoma. ...

Ifn your having a little tribal uncertainty, ifn the drum is telling ya the Apache, the Choctaw, the Osage is not fer you, ifn ya say Iroquois and the white man thinks you're from the Middle East, then come on down to the Cherokee Meeting House.

Ifn y'all had bad credit, a turn a bad luck, think to yourselves, Indian brothers and sisters, maybe y'all need a new identity. An' ya can have it right here, no questions asked an'no references needed. Y'all had grandmommas, ain't no more needed than that. ...

Send us your money now, Indian brothers and sisters. ... Don't be left out of the new Cherokee Nation.
Cherokee. We mean Indian."*
*source: Cherokee novelist Betty L. Bell's Faces in the Mooon, pages 57-58

or as a real Cherokee friend has reported to the BBB, beware of a woman on the powwow trail who claims to be Cherokee and pronounces Tahlequah, the home of the Cherokee Nation, as Tuh-lee-kwuh! wonder if she also drinks Cherikee Red? (yes, a real sugar-filled drink owned by a subsidiary of Dr. P/7-Up)

as the BBB, in academic settings with ethnic fraudin' professors, has sang it before (along with a martin guitar) in the key of D:

all the world's a cherokee / at least that's how it seems to me / people talkin' loud in the academy / when they don't even know a real cherokee