Heritage: Mongrel

I visited the First Americans Festival down at the National Mall yesterday. It's part of the celebration for the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian. It awakened me again to the bounty of living in the D.C. area, where you can enjoy celebration and sharing with people of many cultures. Here you get constantly exposed to differences and flavors of humanity, only to constantly learn anew that we work the same inside even if our carcasses were built at different assembly plants using parts programmed by different arrangements of DNA.

For those who haven't followed her career lately, remember Buffy Sainte-Marie? She performed yesterday and delivered a presence and voice as fresh and compelling as when we first heard her back in the 60s. In addition to continuing to perform, she's an educator (adjunct professor at two colleges) and a digital artist (see more about her at http://www.creative-native.com/. As a performer she delivers an activist message to alert us to injustice and misdirection, and asks us to seek higher ground for our endeavors -- to care for each other and the land.

Here are her lyrics for "Mongrel Pup," which celebrates melting pot diversity and tells us not to let the "robots of gloom" get us down. Intertribal Straight Ahead. . .

Mongrel Pup
w/m © Buffy Sainte-Marie
c. Gypsy Boy Music
All Rights Reserved


Robots of gloom they come and go
Donít let em get you down
Laughter is the grease of growth
support your local clown
Donít ever be afraid to smile
at what you really love
Laughter is the grease of growth. Yeah.

Little boys love the Gypsy woman
who lives down on the beach
They love her flashy Gypsy skirt
and nothing on beneath
They love her ferris wheel legs
her roller coaster eyes
Little boys love the Gypsy woman. Yeah.

Little girls love the nature boy
who lives among the shells
they love to see him body surf
upon their little selves
They love his silky seaweed hair
They love his sunset eyes
Little girls love the nature boy

And Baby is a mongrel pup
Hybrid mutant girl
cross-bred nomad stronghead
and Happy in the big bad world
We are the Space Age Council of
Intertribal Straight Ahead
And maybe youíre a mongrel pup. Yeah.