WEBVTT

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I'm going to read
you a couple more.

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[WHISPERING] My phone is
still playing the music.

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The music is always
playing in me, Hannah.

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You can't stop the music.

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[LAUGHTER] Isn't that a song?

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[LAUGHTER]

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So I'm going to have a
soundtrack for the recording,

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which is fine.

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Not the typical flute music
you would expect, right?

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That'll be a big surprise
for the archives.

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My voice is a little
scratchy or froggy.

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I had strep throat
a few weeks ago,

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and so I had to take
antibiotics and stuff.

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But then I had an
event in Chicago,

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where I met your friend.

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I see you back there, yeah.

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I had a reading there at
the Poetry Foundation.

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And, you know, I was
coughing, so I felt bad

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and I wanted to have
a disclaimer that

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said that I had been
sick and I wanted people

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to know I wasn't contagious.

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So I wanted to say that.

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And then I couldn't resist,
so I said I wasn't contagious.

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And then I said,
well, I might be,

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and then I said that, actually,
the reason why I had come

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was to give back
smallpox to them.

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And it was like a Poetry
Foundation audience,

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and they're just like--

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Yeah.

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I'm going to read
another basketball one.

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So I'll read this and then
the small prose piece,

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and then I'll read a poem.

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And then if you guys
have any questions,

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I'm open for questions.

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But, like, not about if you
have any land coming to you,

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you know.

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[LAUGHTER]

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My friends said
they're going to get

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me a T-shirt that
said, "I'm not Navajo

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and you're not Cherokee."

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Because every time
I go to reading,

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people just say that
I'm Navajo, and then

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they tell me all the
types of native they are

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and that they have
land somewhere, do

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I know where it is, and
can I help them find it.

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[LAUGHTER]

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See?

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That makes everybody
uncomfortable, doesn't it?

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They are just like--

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no one will look at
each other right now.

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Nobody.

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Now you know how we felt
for, like, 400 years.

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"Run 'n' Gun.

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I learned to play
ball on the rez,

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on outdoor courts, where
the sky was our ceiling.

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Only a tribal kid shot
has an arc made of sky.

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We balled in the rez park
against a tagged backboard

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with a chain for a net,
where I watched a Hualapai

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boy from Peach Springs dunk the
ball in a pair of flip-flops

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and slip on the slick
concrete to land on his wrist.

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His fibula fractured and
ripped up through his skin like

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a tusk, which didn't stop him
from pumping his unhurt arm

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into the air, yelling,
'Yeah, Clyde the Glide,

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motherfuckers!'

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before some adult rushed him
off to the emergency room.

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I ran games in the abandoned
schoolyard with an 8 foot fence

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we had to hop, where I tore
so many pairs of shorts

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on the top spikes and where when
my little brother got snagged,

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trying to climb
down, my cousin and I

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let him hang by the
waistband of his underwear

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for an entire game of 11.

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And if that cousin hadn't
overdosed on heroin

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a few years later, he
might have proved us right

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and been the first rez jump man.

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I got run by my older brother
on our slanted driveway,

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the same brother I write
about now, who taught me

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that there is nothing easy
in our desert, who blocked

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every shot I ever took
against him until I

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was about 12 years old.

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By then, his addictions
had stolen his game.

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I learned the game with
my brothers and cousins,

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with my friends and enemies.

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We had jacked up shoes
and mismatched socks.

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Our knees were scabbed.

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And we licked our lips chapped.

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We were small, but we
learned to play big.

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Big enough to beat the bigger,
older white kids at the rec

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center on the hill,
which to get to,

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we crossed underneath
the I-40 freeway,

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across the train tracks, and
through a big, sandy wash.

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We played bigger and bigger
until we began winning.

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And we won by doing what
all Indians before us

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had done against their
bigger, wider opponents--

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we became coyotes and
rivers, and we ran faster

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than their fancy kicks
could, up and down the court,

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game after game.

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We became the weather.

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We blew by them.

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We rained buckets.

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We lit up the gym
with our moves.

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We learned something that
was more important than fist.

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At least at that age, we learned
to make guns of our hands,

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and we pulled the trigger
on jumpers all damn day.

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And when they
talked about the way

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we played, they
called it run and gun,

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and it made them tired before
they ever stepped on the court.

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Just thinking about a
pickup game against us

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made the white boys from the
junior high and high school

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teams go to sleep.

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And while they slept,
we played like dreams."

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