News From Native California - Spring 2016 Volume 29 Issue 3 | Page 15

will get , pull together the finest Native minds that I can and we ’ ll begin this process . We ’ ll , it ’ ll be like a letter to society .” He says , “ Oh , okay , well , well , you ’ ve got it . Here it is .”
We had this place in San Francisco at the whatever it was called there — it ’ s not the Marina but the Presidio , down there on the bay . That place there in San Francisco , the Marina area . We had a theater . These really insane crazy people , it was pretty amazing . Life on the Water was the name of it . It ’ s no longer … it ’ s defunct but Reverend Billy was one of the key principles of the theater . It was really neat . He is really , really a fantastic character . There ’ s a couple of them . The other guy , I can ’ t think of his name right now but he ran the digital storytelling project in San Francisco when it was first starting . He was from Austin , Texas .
It was really neat , a really neat experience . One of the things was going to star Julian Lang and Lyn Risling . I was a key part . Then I hired up Lyn Risling to do it . I went to Humboldt and I found her because I ’ d heard that she was divorced . I said , “ Well , I ’ ll give her a year to come to terms with that , let her do whatever she ’ s going to do for a year and then I ’ m going to start making my move .” That ’ s what happened . Called , met with her , saw if she would be interested in doing this . I said , “ I will teach you songs and do this thing . We have this thing . There ’ s going to be the first man and the first woman . It ’ s the evolution of it all , [ it ] will evolve from this , these creation songs and this whole thing . Then out of that , the world , the Indian Native world will exist .” That was intriguing to her so she said , “ Oh , okay . That sounds good .”
Anyway , so she arrived and I thought that this was going to be a really good thing . This is going to be a really — anyway , we found it was going to be a really good thing . We got together and so I was all excited , I was going to extricate her from her surroundings so maybe she might be a little scared , and she needs somebody to guide her through the city experience . Always talked of it . Anyway , here she comes , and she arrives with the preacher ’ s wife , this Jesse Burnett , this preacher up there . I had his wife and her show up . I said , “ Oh , geez , that ’ s just perfect .”
Anyway , we have a really good time and we had all these people . David Smith and Clarence Corollo were going to be … that culmination was fixing the world with those guys . It was really , a really neat thing because everything was young . This was like there were no programs . There was no — everything was in the budding , like you see lots of different languages , programs , and cultural groups .
There was nothing in those days . David Smith and Clarence were the only ones in central California . We had our cultural stuff going on up here . Really , the rest of the state was devoid . There was politics , like preservation of sacred sites . There was activism and all of that , but culture was still pretty impacted by missions and just this genocide , all these horrible things , so there really was nothing yet . I look now and it ’ s like , “ Wow , yeah , I remember these people .” They were just lost people arriving at meetings wanting anything . Now , they ’ ve rebuilt and so it ’ s a really neat thing to see that years , twenty-five , thirty years later .
Anyway , we had that meeting and then we had our performance . It was a real great success . We said bye-bye and went our separate ways . Then I moved back to Humboldt at a certain point and … had an art studio space and blah , blah , blah . There was Lyn and I got hooked up with Humboldt and she worked at Humboldt so we started , so I thought , hmm .
Then [ at the ] California Arts Council , there was a woman there , Barbara Rom was her name . I ’ d met her a million times in the Bay Area and she wanted to support any kind of project we might have . I said , “ Well , there ’ s these songs that I ’ ve learned ”— years , several years before —“ and I really want to return those to the community .” I think there ’ s a CD around here that we did of that . So we made , sang all these songs . I selected thirty-five songs , I think , thirty or thirty-five songs . Then talked to Lyn and said , “ I want to make this . Do you want to do it with me ?” We did . We had to spend a lot of time rehearsing . I knew that she ’ d hum it . She loved music and singing . I knew that the quickest way to a man ’ s heart is through his stomach , and for Lyn Risling , the quickest way to her heart , I figured , was through singing . She loved it so much that she learned so much , so that was how it all happened .
Then one day I couldn ’ t contain myself anymore and I told her how much I loved her and all this kind of stuff . I didn ’ t know what to … I couldn ’ t live with myself anymore . This was too much to not … even if she said no at least I would ’ ve said it , so I told her . The next thing you know , she said , well , she just never thought . She had her own ideas but she never really thought that it was going to be a reality . When I said that , then she said , “ Okay , well .” Next thing you know we ’ re …. In the meantime , everybody said , “ Well , it ’ s about damn time . You know , you guys have been in love for all this time and you guys have been …. We ’ ve been just waiting and everything .” And so it was like really the whole community of our people , our relatives and close people , all were wondering when we were ever going to come to that conclusion . It ’ s like , geez . Everybody knew except us .
Anyway , it happened the way that it happened and we ended up singing all these songs together and had a trip up and down the river singing to all the different communities and just had a really good time doing that , and been working that ever since . Come on .
Editor ’ s Note : This interview has been edited for length .