Post by Adam

My name is Adam Mastrelli and I'm going to be one of the crew members, camera/sound here at Smooth Feather on the road with our latest film "Dakota 38." My first involvement with Smooth Feather came through being inspired by "Lusaka Sunrise" and helping to promote the film in various screenings throughout the NYC area. I'm an an actor/filmmaker living in New Jersey.

Alright boys and girls out there of the Blogosphere, welcome to South Dakota!!! First things first and let me get this out of the way, yes it's cold. But it's also flat, laid back and peaceful. There's a sense of the holidays here already, and I've only been here for a few hours. I was picked up at the airport after a missed flight and a delay in Minn., by Silas and Sarah in our friend Jesse's 1990 Pontiac DeVille, two words...a-mazing...Nothing beats driving around the frozen tundra that is Sioux Falls, South Dakota in a this majestic piece of American engineering...I'm currently sitting in a Honda dealership as Sarah is contemplating buying a car and I've somehow lost Silas. Last he was seen walking off to the other end of the store smiling and laughing into his cell phone. He'll turn up. We also stopped for lunch and bought a book about the "Lakota" people for us to read. It's called "Through Dakota Eyes" and is a history of the Dakota people and importantly to this project the Dakota War of 1862. Silas is reading it right now, I look forward to diving in to it soon. A few thoughts about our most recent national holiday Thanksgiving. As is to be expected for me Thanksgiving took on a different meaning this year, a different feeling. A much more somber and real look at what the Thanksgiving holiday represents, what we're celebrating and why there's a huge "Kermit the Frog" float following an Iroquois Indian 3-5 minute song and dance without a microphone. I believe that was the only Native American tribute throughout a parade highlighted by boy bands, Broadway musicals, and larger than life floats...not that there's anything wrong with that...It got me thinking...Why are Matt Lauer and Meridith Viera not talking more about the history of Thanksgiving? Why were there not more tributes and or representatives from the Native American community? Did they reject the parades offer or where they never offered? I began getting curious. I began to wonder what really happened at the Thanksgiving that I learned about in school. What was the rest of the story? What happened before it, after it, specifics...So...I looked it up, I love the internet...There's so much information from so many differing sources it's really an amazing invention, thanks Al Gore. I don't see it being a good use of this blog space to provide specifics and repost history here for you to read, but I do encourage you to look it up for yourself. Google "Thanksgiving"...Get a few different posts, read about different viewpoints of history, I promise you won't be disappointed...

So moving on, I feel like a kid again. Like I'm on a road trip, a journey. It's amazing how that can just happen. Things can be going one way for so long and then all of a sudden...boom...things can just change...I had been sick for the past 3 days and had to postpone my original Nov 30 flight. I'm so lucky that I had my mother and father with me for those three days to help get me to the doctor...ends up I have some sort of virus that at it's peak had me jumping into a tub of ice cold water to cool myself off from a very high 103.8 f fever...My fever has gone down since then and although I'm still running a fever and have a sore throat, I feel like a kid! I continue to take two Amoxicillin, and Prednisone...On Friday we drive to Canada to film a horse cermemony and I believe we're also going to attempt to film Sarah's brother Josh who is the Tribal leader of the Santee Sioux Indians. He's a great person to speak with about Indian affairs and politics as he and the rest of the tribal leaders were present when President Elect Obama, came to South Dakota to meet with Tribal leaders. I'm excited to hear what he has to say and have many questions about politics in the Indian community, how they specifically interact with the US gov't, and challenges they are currently facing...I look forward to being of help and am off to take my medication...Also Sarah's back from her test drive and is smiling widely, we may have found a winner...ADAM