I wanted to post more about Russell Means on Wednesday, but I haven’t been doing much posting, or anything else, this week. Turns out the cold I had at Bouchercon wasn’t actually. I’ve been feeling really shitty and weird for about a month now, but last Saturday night it turned into a fever. Hating doctors, I tried to wait it out, but my wife finally convinced me to go to urgent care last Sunday night. Which, it turns out, was a pretty good idea, because what I actually had was bronchitis and pneumonia. So, after almost a week of bedrest, and lots of steroid mist and antibiotics, I finally feel something like myself for the first time in three or four weeks, albeit a little weak.

So, anyway, excuses aside, on to what I wanted to say about Russell Means. The first time I met him was probably 12 or 13 years ago. We had dinner with him at the invite of a mutual friend, Ward Churchill. Now, I don’t consider myself particularly easily intimidated, either by celebrity or tough-guy presence, but Russell had the affect of reducing me to a quivering mess. Just scared me shitless. I found the best description of his demeanor in a book by Peter Matthiessen called In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.

“Russ is a psychological terrorist, at least in public,” one Indian says. “Until he has control of the situation, he is always trying to throw strangers off balance, and he usually succeeds. But when you’re alone with him, and he doesn’t have to prove anything, he’s great — warm, intelligent, and a lot of fun to be around.”

I got to know a little of that warm side as I saw him over the years. I never knew him real well, but now and then we’d end up at the same dinner table or event (or jail cell, on at least one occasion), and his generosity and sense of humor kept coming out more and more.

Which is not to say that Russell’s sense of humor is exactly tender. I don’t wanna try to trick anybody into thinking he’s a teddy bear. By way of example, here’s one of my favorite stories — one I was mangling it for M.A. Littler outside a bar not too long ago — which comes from Russell’s autobiography, Where White Men Fear to Tread.

Drinking beer with my friend — officially my bodyguard — John Thomas, I met a couple of Indian guys named Weston and Jimmy Weddell. Greg was head of the local AIM chapter. These hoodlums, barely out of their teens, opposed his leadership. We got into a silly argument about it, politics compounded by macho posturing and alcohol. Suddenly they were pointing weapons at us. They told us to go outside, then ordered me across the street. Weston had a .222, a high-velocity varmint rifle. Weddell carried a .357 in his left hand and a .22 in his right.  I crossed the street and turned around. When Weddell said, “Shoot him! Shoot him!” Weston aimed his rifle and pulled the trigger. The bullet struck just below my left nipple; the impact spun me around and I fell down. Weddell slugged John knocking him to the street. As John started to get up, Weddell shot him from about six inches with his .22. It’s a good thing he was right-handed — if he had fired the .357, it would have blown John’s head off. Instead the slug slammed into the bony ridge under John’s eye and was deflected downward through his neck.

As the two punks took off, I crawled over to Greg’s house. The last thing I remember clearly before the ambulance ride was knocking at the door. The slug had nicked my lung, detoured around my spine, and exited through my back. When I pulled off my shirt in the emergency room, the bullet fell out. When the press reported that the bullet had missed all my vital organs, as in both of my previous shootings [and at least one stabbing, several brutal beatings, etc.], people back home started to say that I didn’t have any vital organs!

That’s the personal side of Russell Means for me. Funny, intimidating, warm, self-effacing, but always interesting.

Vastly more important than that, however, is his political side. And since I would not, for all the money on the fucking planet, try to put words in his mouth, I’ll direct you to his YouTube channel, to the Republic of Lakotah website, and to his own website.

And for some kind of understanding as to Russell’s political import, the following is the final episode of a PBS special called We Shall Remain. It’s the best I can find on YouTube to give some context to one of the many movements Russell was pivotal to.

Part one:

Part two:

Part three:

Part four:

Part five:

Part six:

Part seven:

Part eight:

Part nine:

Of course, all of this is just a longer way for me to say that if you’ve got money — or, as some folks have been saying, the means to host some kind of fundraiser — Russell Means is a helluva person, who could use, and deserves, help.

Cancer’s a motherfucker. And an expensive motherfucker, at that. You can make donations online at the bottom of the page here.

Our brother and leader, Russell Means is involved in a tenacious fight against the cruelest of invader diseases — cancer. As usual, however, Russell is putting up an exemplary resistance. He has been relying on our traditional medicines, and ceremonies, and has been treated by indigenous healers from the Lakota (Crow Dog), Dinéh (Morgan), and Anishinabe (Turtle Lodge). In addition, he is undergoing alternative treatments in Arizona. Visit his website www.republicoflakotah.com for updates.

These treatments are quite expensive, and our brother needs all of our help. If Russell has ever touched your life, has ever inspired or taught you anything, has ever made your proud to be Indian, or to be a human being, now is the time to repay him. Thank you.

You may mail your donation to: Russell Means Healing Fund, 444 Crazy Horse Drive, Porcupine, SD 57772

Russell Means is a personal hero of mine. If you’ve got some money lying around, this’d be a really good thing to do with it.

Also, here’s a letter from Russell about the latest developments.

And he thinks about as much of Obama as I do, referring to him as “the Manchurian candidate flim-flam man” controlled by “greedy bankers.”

If you’re an American Indian in the United States of America, whether you are a Lakota or a Navajo, a tenured professor or a Nobel Peace Prize winner, or an elected president of another country, you will not receive justice in any form from the white people of America.

They attacked Vine Deloria, Jr. (on the day of his funeral), Rigoberta Menchu and Evo Morales.  An Indian on a reservation can’t get justice.  And a tenured professor can get unconstitutionally thrown out, vindicated by a jury of his peers in a court of law, and it doesn’t matter.

Everyone I’ve named cannot fight back.  Evo Morales has to worry about being the president of a country; Rigoberta Menchu has to continue working for her people.  Vine Deloria is dead.  Indian people on reservations have no power of any kind.  Only Ward Churchill has the ability to fight back and win, and it’s still not good enough.  They still quash him.

The American Indian has been living at Guantánamo Bay since the founding of the United States of America.

A 72-year-old woman is pulled over for speeding, then tasered and sent to jail.  Kathryn Winkfein says she drives to Austin about twice a month to do her shopping. But on a Monday afternoon, a Travis County Constable deputy pulled her over, on her way back to Granite Schoals.

Update: What the hell is Russell Means doing on an Alex Jones DVD flyer?

I’ll poke around. Maybe.

Update II: Police officer assaulting ambulance driver. Yep, also Alex Jones.

Update III: Russell Means was on the Alex Jones show recently. Fucking weird.