Sweat Lodge Joe Gets an Email
By
I had shown up at Our Beloved Country Club a little early, partly
to set up our new radio station (yeah!) in my old but
recently renovated ramshackle
After parking that unmuffled, clutch-shot orange monstrosity ("The Great Pumpkin") in six or seven different places trying to get a clear signal, I finally gave up, stashed it out of sight and shuffled off through a brilliantly blistering blood-red sunset, over the river and through the proverbial woods for a visit with Indian Lookout's First Citizen and Resident Sage, the virtually-immortal Sweat Lodge Joe.
It was nigh full-on dark as I stumbled across the expansive,
shadow-dappled lawn along the southern side of the sweat lodge.
It's not so much a conventional "lawn" as it's just a
broad expanse of treeless hillside surrounded by clustered wilds
of skunk cabbage, Spanish moss, kudzu, patches of briar and
various other herbs and weeds and practically impenetrable from
the outside. From above, the patch sits like a green bull's-eye
around the charred remains of his last council fire and ringed by
standing stones, each adorned with Neolithic carvings
(archaeologists call 'em "petroglyphs"). The lawn is
further decorated with artistic and patriotic touches, including
autographed portraits of Franklin Pierce and Gerald Ford, framed
by toilet seats, which flank the flap of the sweat lodge, facing
his totem pole. A tiki from a distant cousin in
At the top of the
lawn stood –squatted- the sweat lodge, and above that
noble scratch-built birch-bark mansion flew a War-of-1812-vintage
"Don't Tread On Me" Naval Jack (undoubtedly a souvenir
of his younger days as a privateer on
The sweat lodge was suspiciously silent. No smoke arose from the roof hole and not so much as a low rumble echoed from within its mossy dome (it's all that Moose Jerky he eats, y'know). His ratty ol' dubious-vintage Indian Scout was leaning on its sidestand in its customary spot (the sidestand resting in a well-worn groove in a protruding nub of granite), so I thought he might be out for one of his walks in the nearby woods (he says "leisure;" I say "lost"). Figuring he wouldn't be gone too long and wouldn't mind too much, I decided to slide on in to do a quick inspection of his liquor locker and maybe even fire up the fire before he got back.
Flopping back the flap, I froze, flabbergasted, at the sight before me.
In profile, it looked like a cross between a scarecrow and a gargoyle.
At first I thought it was a giant long-haired vulture, sitting on the spire of a stolen steeple and staring into an upended camper toilet.
Then I thought that Edgar Winter had put on about four inches and about four hundred years since I last saw his picture in The Express and was now peering intently into a Crock-Pot.
I was about to think again when it farted, and I realized what –indeed, who—it really was.
The lean, sinewy frame of Our Venerated Ancestor was perched atop a rickety barstool, his heels hooked onto the crossbars, his long white hair hanging straight and lank well past his waist, his pipe hanging unlit from between his long tobacco and bourbon-stained teeth, his shoulders hunched as if in deep pain or deep concentration (or both) as he stared blood-shot-edly into a dark computer screen, occasionally reaching out a gnarled finger to tentatively poke at a random key.
"Nay hay ohmo ashtay. I see you, Grandfather."
He grunted a rather rude response and farted again.
I persisted. I couldn't remember the number of times he'd corrected my manners.
"Nay hay ohmo ashimo. I see someone. Is that you, Grandfather?"
He glanced away from the blank screen for a quick moment, nodded a curt, offhand acknowledgement, and leaned back into its dull void.
I approached cautiously. "What are you doing, Grandfather?"
"Snarfing the Interweb. See through Big Eye. Big cyber medicine."
"They call it 'surfing.' Having much luck?" I tried not to chuckle as he stared intently at his own wrinkled reflection.
"Don't be rude, Youngblood." He growled. "You snarf much?"
“I hate technology, Grandfather. Have you turned it on?"
"Turn on how?"
I reached over and pushed the button on his ancient hard drive, figuring to astound him with my technical prowess.
Nothing happened.
"Did you plug it in?"
"All plugged in." He assured me.
Peering over the back of the tree stump he had it set up on, I saw the cords from his 1970s-vintage RS 70 five-inch-hard-disc machine, a hand-crank phone modem, a black-and-white television set pressed into service as a monitor, and a tangle of ragged Frankenstein-lookin' wiring all plugged into the 5-outlet surge protector. The cord from the surge protector trailed idly, curling in the dust of the sweat lodge floor.
"You need to plug a little farther, Grandfather."
"How much far?"
"Far enough to get some electricity."
"Aha! Elec-trici-ty." He solemnly intoned, "I know of this. Lightning in a jar. Old brother Six Eyes Franklin has shown me this medicine."
"This kind of technology needs electricity." I tried to explain. "It is like lightning that runs through wires like water runs through pipes."
"Aha. Washtay. It is a good thing." He nodded, not quite understanding. "Here." He handed me a moth-eaten wooden bucket. "Go get electricity. Enough to run the Interweb. Big Eye pretty big, better make two trips. Be sure."
"It doesn't work like that, Grandfather."
He glared at me as if it was all my fault. I wasn't about to start explaining Ohm's Law. I hate technology and I'm no good with electricity. I mean, I can handle the basic battery-switch-accessory-ground-it-to-the-frame kind of stuff, but my idea of electrical troubleshooting is to hook up two batteries and watch for where the smoke starts.
"Like the pipes bring the water, we need wires to bring the electricity, Grandfather. It must come from beyond the woods."
"It is a good thing. Go get wires. Take bucket. Better take two buckets. Save a trip." He turned back to the blank screen and tentatively pushed another key.
I sighed, shrugged and shuffled off. I hate technology.
A fairly quick trip to the local hardware store (I only got lost once) and $172.46 worth of extension cords later, I was back at Indian Lookout, stumbling backwards through the woods and paying out two buckets of extension cords as I went.
A long couple of hours, a bruised hip (from tripping backwards over a fallen log in the dark), a black eye (from landing face-first on a lost cellphone) and a couple of minor "detours" later, I was back at the sweat lodge, dusting off the business end of the surge protector and counselling caution to out Venerated Ancestor, still perched on his barstool.
"I think you should move back a bit, Grandfather."
"What will happen?"
"I have no idea." I shrugged and plugged it in.
Immediately, the disc drive began spinning and clicking, the monitor came to life with a screaming hiss of static and no vertical hold, and the Franken-wiring in the back began to smoke.
Our Venerated Ancestor leapt off his barstool with a fart and a war whoop.
I pulled the plug. I looked at him. “Grandfather, I hate technology. What in the world ever possessed you to get a computer?"
"Hard to say."
"What, is it a long word?"
"No. Hard to explain. Take some time." Like anything else he does but, hey, what's a couple of hours to somebody who's five hundred years old?
"Okay, Grandfather," I nodded, sorting through the singed remains of the Franken-harness. "Take your time. Have a smoke."
"I am old." He began. No kidding. "Have seen many things. Learned to walk, then ride horse, then read, write, paddle canoe. All ways to spread knowledge. Speak with ancestors, other tribes, Newcomers. Go to town, see flickering shadows on magic lantern screen. Feature, newsreel, cartoon." He paused to pack his pipe. "All ways spread word, good harvest, bad storm. Who on warpath. These things important to know. More important know soon. Many now say, move much knowledge much fast by surfing cyberspaces. Say plug in Big Eye, surf much fast. I plug in. Push buttons. No luck so far." He fired up the pipe and drew mightily then handed it to me.
"That's the electricity thing. It needs power. Through the wires."
"We have wires. Now electricity will flow. Fill Big Eye. Surf Interweb. Like paddle canoe but much fast. Need seat belt, maybe?"
"No, Grandfather. No seat belt. You just sit, and the Interweb will flow past you in the Big Eye, very fast, like a river of book pages."
"It is a good thing." He didn't sound convinced.
"It can be," I agreed, "but it's a world of it's own in there, Grandfather. Some people get sucked in."
"Sucked into Big Eye?" He leaned leerily away from it.
"Not like that, Grandfather. They stare into it and can't tear their eyes away. All they want to do is stare and surf and stare some more."
"What they stare at? What the find in there?"
"Free porn, mostly. Some of 'em find or steal or create new identities, new lives. Or what they've got instead of lives. They can be anyone they want to be."
"Like who?"
"Like somebody cool. Instead of some fat forty-year-old nerd, sitting on his wide ass in his parents' basement, scarfing Ho-Hos and Ding-Dongs and trolling for hot young honeys, who will probably turn out to be some lard-assed, cross-eyed, snaggle-toothed, whining wench stuffing her face with Prozac pizza and diet soda."
"I would be myself." He stated with well-deserved pride, "Who else could I be?"
"Grandfather, there's a better chance that somebody will believe that Barfbag Bertha is an 18-F hottie that there is of them believing that you're a 500-year old Indian."
"Is true. They will believe."
"It's true, but they won't believe it. Except those who believe everything they read on the Internet. You're gonna want to stay away from them."
I managed to hotwire my recently-found cellphone into his modem (and actually got a signal). I snapped the surge protector back on. Nothing smoked. As Grandfather says, "It is a good thing." So far.
I was astounded. Once he got past the C-prompt and through the DOS files, we found that the hard drive was actually loaded with Windows 3.1, the first commercial version, a veritable dinosaur, some fifteen years old. It was even more astounding that it still worked.
"Okay, Grandfather. Here we go. You're about to establish a presence in cyberspace. Are you sure you're up for this?"
"No."
"Well, let's do it anyway. See that little arrow? Move this thing –the mouse- and the arrow moves. Point it down here and push the left side of that mouse once. It'll click."
"Arrow is sign of Old Ones. Good sign, yes?"
"Don't bet on it, Grandfather."
He pointed and clicked, though reluctantly. The Start menu popped up.
"Okay, Grandfather, up here. 'Explorer.' Click that."
"I will explore." He announced solemnly.
"Yeah, you will."
Yeah, he did. After a while, the window opened to an error message. Whatever page had once been the default wasn't there anymore. Another page lost in cyberspace.
"Okay, we gotta do it by hand. Point y'r little arrow up in this thin box and type, 'h-t-t-p..."
"Http? What that spells?"
"It's a Big Eye thing. That's just how ya have to do it in cyberspace. It means Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. It's their own language. Now a colon, then two slashes."
He believed me, but still seemed uneasy.
"You'll like this next part. Type 'Y-a-h-o-o.' Then the period, the dot, then c-o-m."
"Yahoo!?" He gasped "Sound like war whoop! Much good sign!"
"Don't bet on it."
"What now?" he asked
"Click the mouse."
After a while the screen flashed and an all-too-familiar page sprang into view. He stared intently. I explained the little I knew about hotlinks and how, when the arrow passed over one, it turned into a finger.
""Ah! The Finger! Ancient Fugawi Indian sign of greeting. Fugawi use next finger, though. Never got finger from machine before." He chuckled and shot the screen the bird. "Cybersurfing not so different from paddling canoe."
"Yeah" I growled. "Right up Shit Creek."
"These are good signs, Youngblood." He solemnly intoned. "Arrow, finger, Yahoo war whoop. All much good signs. Interweb take much wisdom from Old Ones. Washtay. It is a good thing."
"They borrowed a lot from the bikers, too. 'Kick it over' became 'boot it up,' stuff like that. Better watch that you don't get lost in the translation."
It wasn't long before he was surfing like a nerd. And I, what with the smoke, the hike, the aggravation of technology, a handful of Grandfather's special Moose Jerky and a mug of bourbon, I was ready for a nap. I flicked my smoke into the firepit, shuffled off to a quiet "corner" (real corners are rare in a round sweat lodge, but there are nooks and crannies) and stretched myself out on a musty old buffalo hide, leaving him perched there and hoping he wouldn't end up roadkill on the Information Superhighway..
I awoke the next morning, shortly before dawn, stiff, a tad hung-over and a little shocked that I had slept through the night. I suppose I needed it. I ain't gettin' any younger. More shocking was seein' the Ol' Dude still perched on his steeple and typing convulsively, working his fingers –both of them— to their ancient bones.
"The day greets you, Grandfather." I offered, lighting a smoke.
"...and the Big Eye Interweb greets you, Youngblood! Cyberspace is indeed a place of many wonders!"
"Yeah, you could call 'em that. You been there all night?"
"Very busy. Much to be done in the cyberspaces."
"Too much. Find anything interesting?"
"Much good. People much friendly in cyberspaces. Confusing
sometimes. Got email from Frank. Then learn Frank not Frank.
Frank turn out to be bored 25-F hottie with nice ass and bad
spelling from someplaceelse.com. Wants to chat, show pics. Wants
to re-finance sweat lodge, vacation in
“Grandfather, this is why I hate technology.”
Sad as it is to say, I think The Ol' Dude has been sucked in.
What can ya do? Send him an email. It's "sweat_lodge_joe@yahoo.com" (his real name was too long to register). I don't know if it'll get lost in the torrent of others or even if he'll remember how to retrieve it, but you can try. Last I saw of him, he was sitting there on his rickety barstool, looking, in profile, like a cross between a scarecrow and a gargoyle.
As I bid him goodbye with the traditional Fugawi Indian one-finger sign of greeting and parting (it's kinda like "aloha") he called to me one more time.
"One more question, Youngblood."
"What's that, Grandfather?"
"I press escape key. How come still here?"
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