by Travis Mateer

Back when I was promoting my documentary about Tax Increment Financing, someone with money considered supporting my work, but chose not to. I ran into him a few weeks ago at a coffee shop, then we spoke on the phone. After asking me if I was “coachable” (I am), he offered me some perspective: my “passion” was commendable, but my approach to breaking local narrative control on the issue of Tax Increment Financing came off as potentially “reckless”. Is he correct?

My potential financial supporter should have seen me out Friday night using my new TRASH ALCHEMIST persona to get attention for my urban camp trash removal event on April 8th, when I plan on removing trash and reading poems from my upcoming collection, My Road Is A Broken Heart At War. What a night! I handed out plenty of business cards, had some interesting conversations, and met a few community members who just might help me break cases that have gotten national attention here in Zoom Town.

Did I make any money on Friday night? No, because unlike the MMIP panhandlers at the Butterfly House on Saturday, my main focus wasn’t asking for money, it was simply trying to become LESS invisible in a community with influencers who fear the traction I might get if the broader public in this town realizes how much I know, and how long I’ve been trying to warn this town about what’s coming if things don’t change.

Did I make an appearance at the Butterfly House? You bet I did, and I put on my finest leather and silver to make a good impression, but I didn’t last five minutes before triggering a woman so badly, I had to leave before the cops were called. I’m pretty sure the person who DEFENDED Lowell Hochhalter and his role in the Jermain Charlo case was the woman pictured below with Detective Guy Baker:

Since my Butterfly House outreach was a bust, I decided to invoke the Trash Alchemist for some Saturday afternoon promotional work. Is my attention-getting strategy perhaps working TOO GOOD? That’s what I was asking myself after a friend told me my brief use of the megaphone outside the Missoula County Courthouse resulted in a call for contact on the police scanner. Hilarious.

Is my amplified voice too triggering for our community? And, speaking of the word COMMUNITY, is that what the Zootown Arts COMMUNITY Center is promoting when they canceled a show on a local artist at the last minute because of weak ticket sales?

Yep, it was this act by the ZACC that inspired me to add the megaphone to my ensemble on Friday night. After a full weekend of market-testing, I can tell you this is a POWERFUL pairing, so I will do my best to use this power responsibly.

After hearing about the cancellation at the ZACC, and after using my megaphone to remind them what the word COMMUNITY actually means, I read this article about their fundraising efforts. Is everyone asking the beleaguered public for money right now?

Moving forward, they’re planning on more community outreach to see what programs people are interested in.

…

“We’re packed to the gills, but we want to see more older adults and more community members across the board,” said Jen Ryan Hickes, their marketing and development director.

Should you give money to the ZACC? My humble opinion is FUCK NO! Why? Because, the ZACC is a part of the narrative control infrastructure in this corrupt town, which is why they kept me from attending this event in 2022. It appears that the ZACC is just another virtue-signaling organization that is inconvenienced by the fact our Sheriff’s Office can euthanize and execute black men under their woke noses.

If you are blessed with discretionary funds, who SHOULD you give money to? Obviously I’m going to answer with a big old ME because I believe that I have the right combination of ego and self-awareness to kick some serious ass and send narrative controllers fleeing, so consider plopping some digital dollars into Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF).

Before getting to Sam Tripoli complaining on his recent podcast about someone calling him a “gate-keeper”, I want to give readers an example of WHY it’s important to support a local, independent journalist like myself: who else is going to tell you about the rumors swirling that North Star Security is dirty and some of their staff are rumored to be dealing drugs out of a North Start vehicle?

From the link (emphasis mine):

Mark Fiorentino, CSKT tribal member and Resident Manager of North Star Security, has a vision to provide expert protection with security officers who go above and beyond their clients’ expectations. North Star Security offers armed and unarmed officers for special events, residential security, commercial security, and patrol services. Fiorentino and his employees are licensed by the State of Montana, which gives the community peace of mind. 

Sure, if I had any confidence in the STATE of Montana, I may give this claim some credence, but considering I’ve written articles about Montana being a failed state essentially welcoming traffickers to Big Sky Country, well, I’m going to call BULLSHIT on this company’s ability to give people living on the Rez “peace of mind”.

If Zoom Town wanted to get serious about making headway on difficult issues, like urban camping and human trafficking, they would empower ME to do my thing on a bigger scale. For example, here’s me connecting homeless camp cleanups to human trafficking in April of 2021 (emphasis mine):

I was involved with last Friday’s clean-up and, though the clean-up part was productive, I was VERY discouraged to see how bad this area has gotten again after so many personal hours spent tactfully working to remove tons and tons of trash over the years.

One item I found in the trash was a young Native woman’s ID. This validates my concern about how areas like these can function, especially in the warmer months when seasonal transient activity increases.

I spoke about these concern in a Zoom meeting earlier this week with the Missing Indigenous Woman’s Task Force. They were very receptive about my description of homeless encampments and motels being places touched by human trafficking and meth abuse. I wonder what they would think about citizens like myself and Kevin getting lectured to by homeless advocates about our good-faith efforts to address what they are enabling?

So, how might I be empowered to bring my amazing talents to difficult issues in order to find and implement creative solutions? How about putting ME in charge of a hundred million dollar foundation created by the sale of Community Medical Center? That’s right, it appears the Headwaters Foundation will be looking for a new director:

The Headwaters Foundation announced CEO Brenda Solorzano will be leaving the organization.

The foundation works with western Montanans to improve the health of communities.

The board intends to hire someone consistent with the values and approach of the company.

The approach of this “company” should be pretty simple, since the money was stipulated to benefit our local community, especially considering how TERRIBLE it’s become to work within our “health” industry. The “failed state” link above discusses the degradation of Community Medial Center AFTER the sellout. This is just one little facet of Montana’s bigger problem, which is corruption from top to bottom.

Right before I walked into the Butterfly House on Saturday, I got a call from the twenty-something punk who does the booking for Sam Tripoli, a guy by the name of Mark Steeves. I’ve been hearing that I’m not the only one he’s blacklisted, so I’ve renewed my claims that he’s a gate-keeper depriving his boss of quality content, and depriving me of the chance to promote my work to a MUCH larger audience.

Speaking as someone who ALSO has a fragile ego, thus requiring me to file butthurt reports on myself, I’m trying to have some sympathy for this little tall man who considers himself a synchromystic, but after hearing the Shroud of Turin discussed in Tripoli’s most recent episode, well, I’m going to have to file ANOTHER butthurt report, since the synchronicity work I’m doing has a direct connection to the Shroud.

It’s been discouraging, to say the least, to realize how a range of witting to unwitting content creators who comprise the “alt-media” landscape seem to be just another layer of narrative control, creators like William Ramsey, who I’ve also been calling out recently while defending my own narrative terrain from grifters and exploiters.

The silver lining to all this is the incredible poetry that’s come from my struggles, and one of the poems I plan on reading April 8th goes HARD R with the “N” word, so if you think I’m difficult to ignore now, JUST WAIT for how I use the ultimate TRIGGER word in a piece of art the SHOULD come with the Constitutional protection of free speech, so stay tuned.

And, as always, thanks for reading!