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Anna Martin: From the New York Times. I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love. And it's Father's Day. This week, like with many holidays, there's a greeting card version of Father's Day. Right? You're grilling together. You're going fishing together. You're fixing a car. You're being taught how to tie a tie. But of course, there's the real version of having a dad. A lot of people grew up with dads who might have been tough to be around or tough to understand. Some people grew up with dads who just weren't around. That was the case for writer and filmmaker Julian Brave Noisecat. He grew up with a dad like that. His father was this big deal native artist, this larger than-l life guy, but he also had a way of just kind of disappearing. And Julian didn't understand why his old man couldn't just show up and do the dad thing. Then Julian grew up. He became a writer and a filmmaker. His documentary Sugarcane got nominated for an Oscar. And through his work, he started looking for answers to all these questions he had about his dad, about their relationship, about the painful history that made his dad pull away. Julian just wrote about his father for the New York Times magazine in a piece called How Getting Stoned with My Dad Helped Us Heal. And when I reached out to him about the story, it turned out Julian was about to become a dad himself, and he was kind of freaking out about it. So, I knew this was the perfect time to talk to him. Julian Brave Noisecat, welcome to Modern Love.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Thanks so much for having me, Anna.

Anna Martin: Julian, you wrote an essay in the New York Times magazine that I'm very excited to talk to you about. It's about nights you spent smoking weed with your dad and how healing that was. I want to start off just by asking, what is it like to smoke weed with your dad? This is something I cannot even imagine doing with my own father if he's listening.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Uh my dad is is a is a good hang. Um you could say a lot of things about my old man, but he is definitely a good hang.

Julian Brave Noisecat: First of all, he's my pusher man. You know, I I won't claim that I don't smoke weed without my dad. I mean, I discovered this morning on the way to this interview that I uh I had a pack of pre-rolls in my pocket. So, you know, little pot call in the kettle black here, but he's he's a lot of fun. Like he uh one of the things we like to do is we like to play games. He's he's big on um

Anna Martin: Wild High.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Wild Stone. Yeah. So, he invents games and

Anna Martin: you know,

Anna Martin: what are we talking about? Are these like what are these games?

Julian Brave Noisecat: There's one in particular that has stuck around. It's uh called Bong Hit Scrabble. So, you got your tiles in front of you, you know, you're trying to figure out words to spell with the tiles to make the most points. So, you're doing math, you're doing spelling, you know, and then you're you're playing your tiles, and then when you're done, you you got to take the glass bong, pack a bowl, put your lips to the bong.

Anna Martin: I'm loving the step by step. Uh-huh.

Julian Brave Noisecat: And you get that nice gurgle, the bong gurgle sound,

Anna Martin: you know, not that I know.

Julian Brave Noisecat: The water going through. I mean, let me let me ask you this. It's like um uh bong hit scrabble again. Um not a game I've I've played at least in that iteration. Uh seems like it'd be very difficult as the night would wear on. Do you remember like the best word either you or your dad have gotten while playing Bonit Scrabble?

Julian Brave Noisecat: Well, here's the thing is that the words become less um dictionary word as you go.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Uhhuh. My uh my dad once famously played sloppy. Um

Anna Martin: Oh my god, I love that.

Julian Brave Noisecat: It's not actually a word, but it should be a word maybe. Um if Miriam Webster is listening.

Anna Martin: What about your best word? Do you remember your sort of crowning achievement?

Julian Brave Noisecat: See, this is the thing is that my lore pales in comparison to my father's lore, which is, I think, a central problem of fathers and sons. We were always trying to catch up to our dad's legend. Why were these nights with your dad so meaningful to you?

Julian Brave Noisecat: Well, you know, I think that to zoom out here, I uh didn't grow up with my dad. You know, he left when I was six, seven. You know, the backstory to to all this is that um you know, my dad grew up on uh Indian reserve in British Columbia called Canam Lake. Pretty small, decently remote. Uh he was born at an Indian residential school. Uh a school designed to, in the words of one of their architects, get rid of the Indian problem. The idea was that native culture was backwards, was leading us to the devil, so to speak, was making us bad capitalists. And so they had to assimilate us into Christianity uh and into the broader dominant society.

Julian Brave Noisecat: And um you know, one of the impacts of not allowing a whole race of people to raise their own kids is you know, we eventually kind of unlearn how to do it. And so when my dad became a dad, he uh he didn't really know how to be a father to to me. I was his firstborn kid. And and he struggled with um alcoholism. So he uh uh you know, surprise, we're talking about substances. My dad uh my dad had history with substances. We we kind of all did. And um yeah, so he he pieced out. And uh to rebuild that relationship, I uh moved back in with him when I was 28 years old. And uh major way in which we bonded would be at the end of the night we would play games and get stoned, tell stories.

Anna Martin: Let's talk a bit more about your dad and paint a sort of even more vivid picture of him beyond the the scrabble of it all. If I saw your dad walking down the street, how would I know it was him?

Julian Brave Noisecat: Uh

Anna Martin: and let's say his full name, too, cuz I'm realizing we're just calling him dad.

Julian Brave Noisecat: His full name is Edwin Archie Noisecat. He's going to be annoyed that I said Edwin, so I'll just say Ed Archie Noisecat. Yeah, he's uh I mean this is kind of a contradiction in terms because there aren't really any famous Indian artists. I mean I dare you to name one, but he was to the extent that there was such a thing as a famous Indian artist. My dad was a famous Indian artist. When I was a kid, I remember he was pictured on the cover of Native People's magazine with a backwards kangle hat and purple rockstar shades like he was,

Julian Brave Noisecat: you know, he was a little bit of an icon.

Anna Martin: Was that like an everyday look for him or was that just for the cover of

Anna Martin: the magazine?

Julian Brave Noisecat: My dad is still a bit of a style icon to be completely real with you. Um, one time not that long ago, I remember we went out to like get pancakes together and there was a table of like Gen Z dudes, you know, like kids like decidedly younger than me.

Anna Martin: Sure.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Uh, at this table and my dad walked in, he was wearing a bucket hat and like literally these like

Julian Brave Noisecat: 20-year-olds, if they were even that old, were like, "Sick bucket hat, dude." And I'm just standing next to this old man just like, well, he's not old, but you know, my old man, uh, being like, come on.

Anna Martin: This says a lot. Not just about the look, but to me about the charisma, the pull.

Julian Brave Noisecat: He's got the riz, as they say.

Julian Brave Noisecat: He's got the riz.

Anna Martin: When you were growing up, when you were like a kid, you said your dad left around six or seven. I want to know like in those years after he left and didn't live with you anymore, how much did you see your dad, did he show up when he said he would? Like what were those interactions like and how did you feel about them?

Julian Brave Noisecat: Yeah, my dad was was kind of with the wind. You know, he would not show up very often. There were some years where I maybe saw him once or twice. There were some years I didn't really see him at all. He he gave up all custody to me. Um

Julian Brave Noisecat: like, you know, I remember on visitation days or when I'd get to see him, I would watch him go until I couldn't, you know, until he was literally out of sight, right? Like I would keep my eyes on him as long as I possibly could. Uh because, you know, I think underlying that was uh question of when I would see him again. And then, you know, also possible, but not one that I like to acknowledge very often, you know, whether I would see him again. But but at the same time, my mom would give him opportunities to kind of perform the role of a father, I guess, would be the way to put it. You know, like there were some hockey tournaments and things. You know, we're Canadian, so I'm a hockey player. And when I was a kid, there maybe would be like a hockey tournament weekend where my dad would take me to the hockey tournament. So, there was one weekend I remember when I was like 12 years old. I was playing on a a pee-wee all-star team, but from like the Bay Area. Let's not get too excited here. This is not We're not talking about like Toronto or

Anna Martin: Okay. Understood. Understood.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Yeah. I I was I was I'm pretty good hockey player, but I'm not nothing home to write home about. Um, and so, you know, we were playing in Anaheim and, uh, it was my dad's weekend to take me and, um, at the time he uh, I remember distinctly he was super into Mike Jones, the the rapper from Houston,

Julian Brave Noisecat: you know, so you got to imagine like little kid with his dad who's not really present and like Mike Jones is rapping. Back then, host didn't want me. Now, you know what I mean? Like just in case people don't remember Mike Jones.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Thank you. And on top of that, um, he's speeding a lot. My dad is a road warrior. My dad has put probably more miles on cars than 99% of the population. He's driven all over North America. And

Julian Brave Noisecat: he doesn't do this as much anymore, but he used to drive like a maniac. Um, and he had all kinds of unpaid speeding tickets all across the continent to prove it. And so he was driving around way too fast listening to Mike Jones. And uh I asked him, I was like, "Aren't you worried that like the cops are gonna stop you or something?" And he told me and like you know straight face like he fully mean he fully like means what he says. He says, "Son, I have crazy horse medicine. The cops can't see me. They can't catch me." which like by the way, Crazy Horse, in case people don't aren't totally familiar, he was a famous Oglala Lakota um warrior and and leader. He fought the United States.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Also, pretty famously, uh after he turned himself in, he was stabbed in the back with a bayonet. So, he he actually was he was caught.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Okay. So, that it did kind of fell down upon further examination. But the the sentiment that your dad was saying was what how did you understand as a 12-year-old? I mean, it's such I It's really vivid. I can see this. You're like looking over at your dad. You're speeding down the highway. He's saying this to you. What was he communicating?

Julian Brave Noisecat: I think that he was communicating that he was a legendary, you know, mythic kind of trickster figure. Um, you know, and and to be honest with you, like maybe he is.

Julian Brave Noisecat: I don't know. you know, like

Julian Brave Noisecat: he he did he has defied death like more times than I could count, more times than he can remember, you know,

Julian Brave Noisecat: like he he he's gotten out of countless run-ins with the law. Um,

Julian Brave Noisecat: you know, like this is a this is a man who maybe he does have crazy horse medicine. I mean, I I will say when he said that he had crazy horse medicine, I didn't fully not believe him, you know, like I know that my dad is full of [ __ ] Um, but at the same time, you know,

Anna Martin: something about it was resonant or rang true. These were the moments, it seems, pretty few and far between, that you spent with your dad, and it seems like he would make deep impressions during those times and then leave again. How did you and your mom talk about your dad when he wasn't there?

Julian Brave Noisecat: Yeah, you know, my dad managed to be the main a main character in my life despite, you know, not making most of the scenes. Um, you know, I I I remember when I was 12, my mom was driving me back from hockey practice and she said, I I don't really remember exactly how the conversation led up to this, but she said, you know, you have to be prepared for the real possibility that your father might die. You know, I was 12 years old when my mother said that to me. And um you know that was a real that was a real place where his his road was potentially leading him. You know my dad was uh alcoholic. Uh he was drinking back in those days and there's a hopefully was but you know u a pretty significant self-destructive uh streak in him. And you know at various moments in his life he has himself like really struggled with whether he wants to be here. You know right around that time was the time that he took on the cops in Red Lodge Montana.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Cops pulled him over and you know he was like fed up with life and all that sort of stuff and they like had to tase him twice to get him to go down cuz you know he's a pretty

Julian Brave Noisecat: hefty man. I mean, you know what he tells me is that like he the the crazy horse metaphor for that one actually maybe makes more sense because you know I think part of what he was chasing down there was some sort of um I don't know if suicide by cops is quite right but like reckoning by cops you know

Anna Martin: when your mom said that prepare for the possibility that your dad might die when you thought about a world in which your dad was no longer alive. What was that world like? Could you even contemplate that or imagine it? The emotions surrounding that potential.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Despite not having my dad around and and carrying that wound with me, I never really believed that he was going to die. Um, in part because I I believed him when he said he had crazy horse medicine. I believed that he had some sort of magic in him, for lack of a better way of putting this, that helped him survive, that helped him, you know, get through all these crazy situations that he found himself in that he often put himself in. Hm. Did you have any It seems like there was an admiration for your dad, sort of his otherworldly qualities. Did you want to be like him in certain ways?

Julian Brave Noisecat: When I was little, I definitely wanted to be like him. Um, you know, I mean, the the the first thing is that my dad's a carver. And the thing about carving is that it is traditionally an art form that is passed father to son.

Julian Brave Noisecat: And so when I was little, there was some expectation um maybe not my own but of of people around that like my dad would put carving tools in my hand and I would learn how to be an artist like him. M

Julian Brave Noisecat: I uh had all these memories especially when I was little before he left of like you know being his little sidekick like you know when I was a little guy people would call me like a mini Ed and uh

Julian Brave Noisecat: he'd throw me in the van and we'd go to these you know he'd turn on the Land Before Time uh on the VHS in the back seat and you know we'd drive around the country to art shows and stuff like it was a you know it's kind of like a mythical little childhood experience.

Julian Brave Noisecat: It's an interesting thing like on the one hand like you aspire to be like your dad when you're when you're little and then I think a a very natural thing that happens whether or not your parent is present or not is then you like kind of in your adolescence want to be nothing like you

Julian Brave Noisecat: swing the exact other way. Uhhuh. Yeah. Uhhuh. Um, and so you know, my dad, uh, by the time I was like 11, 12, 13, I he was my model of who I did not want.

Anna Martin: Tell me more about that. I'm interested in that switch.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Um, well, you know, I I think that on the one hand, you know, like my dad, he was this incredible like native artist guy who clearly had a lot of talent. And I think that the thing that I saw I was just like, man, like you you have all this talent, but like you keep getting in your own way because you have all this stuff that you haven't, you know,

Julian Brave Noisecat: dealt with. And the most obvious one was was the drinking. Um, so, you know, I uh from a young age I understood my father was an alcoholic and I really really didn't want to become an alcoholic. You know, like I know that there's a lot of stereotypes around native people and alcohol and I don't want to play into those too much, but like it is also a very real thing that lots of my family, myself included, have have struggled with. And um it was definitely an Achilles heel for my father. You know, he wasn't a present father. I mean, obviously like the biggest thing was like I uh I wanted to not be the same kind of dad that he was someday. Like you know I think that's the biggest fear also is like the thing about having a father figure like this is like there I mean maybe it's all of our fathers but like you know you it is parts of you worry that someday you will just repeat all these mistakes that you see so plainly as mistakes you know because like you know this guy man is also half of my genetics. We'll be right back. When you were a kid or or then a a teenager, did you ever think your dad would become a a bigger or more present part of your life? No, I uh I I kind of thought that Well, there was at 16 I remember distinctly I called him up and I kind of told him off for all the stuff, you know.

Anna Martin: Wow. Okay. What was that like? Did you plan it in advance or did it just come rushing out?

Julian Brave Noisecat: No, I think it probably kind of came rushing out with the hormones and everything else. Um, you know, I uh I I I I saw by then pretty plainly the the pain that it had caused me and I, you know, felt that he should know.

Anna Martin: What did you say if you don't mind sharing some of it? Do you remember?

Julian Brave Noisecat: I don't really remember. I remember crying pretty hard and, you know, just telling him that like I I was angry that he left and why did he have to leave and, you know, left me with the most painful thing that I'd ever dealt with. And um you know like I I don't actually remember a lot of these things but my mom uh you know says that like after my dad left for the last time when I was a little kid like and said he was moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico peacing out after they divorced and all that that I like wailed and that I was inconsolable. Um you know I don't actually remember that but uh probably for for preservation reasons but um you know like these things they they they really hurt. Um and you know I tried to convey to him that but the thing about I mean you know this is the thing that's so tricky about my dad too is like um survival becomes its own kind of uh justification in a certain way you know like

Julian Brave Noisecat: he's been through so much he really lived like a a life that was a lot harder than mine when I was a kid. Like I don't want to overstate my you know middle class daddy problems like you know my dad like like they didn't have running water on the Canam Lake Indian Reserve when my dad was a kid you know um like there was really bad stuff happening all around like he dealt with things that I thankfully never had to deal with.

Anna Martin: Let's talk about why you decided to move back in with your father because it relates to all of this. How old were you when you decided you hadn't lived with him since you were six or seven? And now at what age do you decide to move in with him?

Julian Brave Noisecat: Uh so it was November of 2021 that I technically switched my residence. I was 28 years old. Uh I had been uh living on the east coast for the prior decade of my life pretty much uh you know for college and then for my career. And in 2021, there was a discovery of uh 215 potential unmarked graves at an Indian residential school in Canada and Cam Loops and it was like an international news event.

Julian Brave Noisecat: I uh had set out to write a book and also to co-direct a documentary. Uh the documentary is pretty squarely focused on the Indian residential schools. book is in it touches on the residential schools, but it's more broadly about my dad and and about native identity, natives across the continent. And I understood that both projects would have a lot to do with him. And so I decided like, you know, might as well get as close to your subject as you possibly can. So yeah, we we we I moved in with him.

Anna Martin: Were you nervous about that?

Julian Brave Noisecat: Yeah, I I had no clue how it was going to go. Um, you know, obviously the hope was that we would figure out stuff. You know, we would both learn stuff about his story and our story.

Julian Brave Noisecat: You know, my dad didn't actually know really much about the story of his birth. There was kind of a rumor that he was born in Williams Lake and found in a dumpster. That was the version of the story that I had heard before. Um, him and I had never really talked about it and that was, you know, true for a lot of people. um that was how our people survived, you know, was by not I think that's a very normal thing, not talking about the the stuff that you've been through.

Julian Brave Noisecat: And um you know, my dad was was similar. He uh didn't really know about the circumstances around his birth. He didn't want to look at it, didn't want to think about it, didn't want to talk about it. And then there was this discovery of all these potential unmarked graves at at these schools. And you know, when you have some inkling that you were born and then found in a dumpster, you immediately identify with those those dead kids. You know, he was like, "That could have been me." And, you know, I think we all were like, "Holy crap." Like, you know, that never really registers until something like that or never really had registered like, "Oh my god, like my dad could have been one of those kids." Um, and so I think it it led to him wanting to understand, you know, what happened, like how what were these schools and all these sorts of questions. And um and I think the hope was to answer some questions about um his relationship to the schools because he had this sort of question mark around his birth and and his you know first years and his childhood and then to you know how that had impacted me and and his life

Julian Brave Noisecat: and you know also to create the opportunity for us to

Anna Martin: have a real meaningful relationship to to to heal those wounds a little bit. I mean, I I want to make sure that we there's this incredibly powerful scene in your documentary that you were working on when you were living with your dad where he reads a newspaper article for the first time, it seems, on camera that tells more about his story. Can you share what else your father and you learned about that origin story through the process of of making this work? Yeah, my dad was um born at St. Joseph's Mission. He's the son of my cat, my my grandmother and my PA who was uh no longer with us. My cat hid the pregnancy cuz they weren't married and there's a big thing in, you know, at the time, especially in Catholicism about unwed children. Um

Anna Martin: she was at the residential school when she was pregnant. your grandmother.

Julian Brave Noisecat: She was actually working as a nurse, but she had gone to the residential school and then so she went back to the residential school under circumstances that uh we still don't really fully understand and then delivered the baby and uh after the baby was delivered, it was found in the trash incinerator. Um I kind of doubt that she picked the baby up and walked it to the trash incinerator. So there's a big question of uh yeah, how how that all went down. The baby was described as baby X in the Williams Lake Tribune. Um, that was my father. And interestingly, even at the time, this was 1959, August 16, 1959 is the day of my dad's birth. Even in the the conservative small town Williams Lake Tribune at the time, they were asking questions, damning questions about, you know, what sorts of procedures and policies and practices at this institution might lead a young mother to put a baby in the trash incinerator. And as we were making sugarcane, we discovered that my father was not the only uh reported incident of this. So there was a pattern of infanticide at the school. And um you know I think the the the part that's hardest about it is that it it it gets at not just the bad things that happened to us at these schools which were numerous. You know like there was rampid sexual abuse at St. Joseph's mission. In fact the first criminal cases for sexual abuse of clergy against children at schools came out of the St. Joseph's mission in in Williams Lake. It's you know it was bad. What happened to us was really really bad. And the part about it that's that sometimes is even harder to talk about is what that that then did within our own community and family contexts, you know. So kids who were taken away uh who were abandoned when they were kids, you know, turned around and they didn't really know how to be parents, right? Like because they weren't raised by their own parents. And um you know unfortunately kids who uh suffered violence at the hands of priests and staff clergy sometimes they turned around and became violent. Kids who were abused you know turned around and abused. That that's the cycle that that our communities our families found themselves caught in. And um you know the same was true for my dad. You know like he was abandoned when he was a kid and found in the trash incinerator. um you know, he dealt with like sexual abuse and all kinds of different like awful stuff just all over the place. And you know, he didn't know how to be a dad when it he came around to his time to be a dad. And so we were, you know, trying to figure out that story and and how to tell it and then also how to hopefully, you know, change the ending, right? Like stitch our families, our communities back together.

Anna Martin: Thank you for sharing that. I mean it's it's when you watch your documentary you see but I also want to ask you know you're living with your father as you're discovering his story the broader pattern many victims the sort of ripple effects of these schools which as you're pointing out is not unintentional right what was it like to talk to your father as he was understanding himself even more what were your conversations like

Julian Brave Noisecat: I I mean, we would get stoned,

Anna Martin: right? Okay. I know. I know.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Yeah.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Um, yeah. You know, I mean, so what we would do is he would be out in his in the garage that doubled as his carving studio during the day making his art. I would be, you know, hunched over my laptop figuring out how to write a book and make a documentary during the day. And um just as a total aside, like you know, yet another point of envy for me with my father is that his creative process is a lot cooler than mine. Like I

Anna Martin: was going to say you're two artists, but there's a very different

Julian Brave Noisecat: big difference. And and he always gets to be cooler for whatever reason. um you know like so when he's out there making his art he's like leaned over a log adding away you know to the baseline of Led Zeppelin you know of course taking rips from the bong every few minutes like when he's making his art it's like a it's a vibe out there it's like a music video it's physical like you you want to hang out like he's a when he's making art he's also a great hang you know um whereas you know

Julian Brave Noisecat: a writer you're kind of like hunched over a laptop with terrible posture and nobody can talk or hang out with you. Like, you know, you have to be locked in.

Julian Brave Noisecat: And um you know, as an aside, while I was doing that, I uh I came across because, you know, our culture was nearly killed off by these schools. So, you know, we have more than a lot of other indigenous communities, but we also lost a lot. And one of the things that we lost was a lot of our oral history and our people. We used to tell stories about our first ancestor, the trickster coyote, who was this sort of patriarch figure uh from the beginning of time who made the world, was sent to the earth by creator to set things in order. Um but was a trickster and so he messed a lot of stuff up. So like, you know, while he filled the river with salmon, he also used those salmon to try to marry into every single village along the river that would have him. And then, you know, after having all these kids, he abandoned them and all this sort of stuff. Um, so suffice to say, you know, I was reading about my first ancestor, this epic creator, destroyer, survivor, deadbeat dad, the coyote. And, you know, then I was like looking out at the carving studio at my own, you know, epic creator, destroyer, survivor, deadbeat dad. And I was looking back at the text and out of the carving studio, back at the text. And, you know, it kind of hit me. I was like, "Oh my god, like my ancestors were talking about men like my father. My father is the trickster coyote. Oh, my creator.

Anna Martin: Um, and so just as an aside, you know, like uh maybe it's it's maybe there's like just an element of this in us that has been there from the beginning of time um that our own people have been trying to point out and telling us to be careful with. Can I also say though, you're saying as an aside, but to me this feels like kind of an essential I mean, you tell me, I don't know if it's a shift is the right way to put it, but that understanding of your father that clicked in that moment feels important, right? Like it feels like you'd gone from this understanding that you'd had when you weren't seeing him as much as this person who you really didn't want to be like, and I'm not saying you you changed that when you were living with him, but it seems like something made sense in that moment for you. What I would say that was really interesting about it to me is that it it gave me a language and a narrative and a character to put into my father that helped me explain all these things and feelings and thoughts that I'd already had about him, right? Like I already understood him to be this

Anna Martin: epic creator, destroyer, trickster figure. And um you know I I I think it gets that a lot and and it definitely helped me understand my my own father which is you know also a really beautiful thing because it also comes from my own culture right it was a way of me understanding my dad that also helped me reclaim something that was lost by these schools. M I I mean is there a way in which seeing your dad as this coyote figure was also kind of giving him some sort of out because it's like oh this is sort of how he this is how he is right this is like how he's how he was born to operate

Julian Brave Noisecat: yeah of course but that doesn't that also just sort of deepen the the truth of the whole thing too like you know uh well you know I I think that my dad is always finding a way out like he always is slipping out of the the accountability and all that sort of stuff, which is also like a very coyote kind of maneuver, I think. Like, you know, he he's he he sneaks his way out of the trap. He tricks his way out of the trap. And, you know, I think one way in which I I think my dad may have ultimately tricked me is, you know, by having me turn him into this like legendary figure, you know, this kind of native artist dad stock character that will now exist forever in film and and in literature.

Anna Martin: I mean, it's just so interesting. You're learning all of this. You're so immersed in this research. You're playing Scrabble.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Bong Scrabble TM

Anna Martin: and you're talking about your sort of shifting understanding of your Did your dad ever apologize in this time of living together for not being there?

Julian Brave Noisecat: No, not while we were living together. Um,

Julian Brave Noisecat: yeah. You know, I I I think he he uh not without reason, you know, can find justification for his his behavior, his abandonment, all that sort of stuff. Um, I mean, again, once you've been through the things that he's been through, it's pretty easy to justify a lot of different things. Um, it wasn't until after all of it that, um, that he ever apologized actually. So, it wasn't until I, uh, the book came out and then I gave him an advanced reader copy and he lost the first copy I gave him, not to

Julian Brave Noisecat: it actually feels from what I know of him. very true to to form. And then I gave him another one and then he and he read it and then that was actually the very first time that he ever apologized to me.

Anna Martin: Can you tell me about that?

Julian Brave Noisecat: Yeah, he he just said that like he understood a lot more the pain that he had caused me and you know that he was really sorry for that. And uh I think he also you know expressed how proud he was of the book as a work of art. You know I think that there was also in all of this the making art out of all of it is also an echo of my my dad in a pretty significant way. I mean like you know I didn't end up a carver or a you know a visual artist in the same way that he is

Julian Brave Noisecat: but I now make my own art which is a you know isn't that what all dads want? like they want their sons to go be little little versions of them out in the world in some way, shape, or form.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Um, and so yeah, I think it was a combination of the two. I think he he felt his story was honored. He felt he understood mine and my my pain more. He apologized for the first time in his life. And, you know, he was also proud of the art that I made.

Anna Martin: We'll be right back. Julian, I happen to know that you are going to become a dad yourself very soon. Congratulations. I mean, this is big.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Yeah, thank you. Uh, it's big big. It feels like, you know, the roller coaster of life is about to just take off. And the crazy thing about all of it is, you know, I spent the last five years of my life now, um, telling stories about my father, reconciling with him in my own life, living with him. And my dad was born in 1959. I was born in 1993. He was 33 when I was born. And it's 2026. I just turned 33. I am becoming a dad at the same age that my father became my dad and I'm on top of that also having a son.

Julian Brave Noisecat: So, you know, um maybe there is something to all the like magic coyote story, all that sort of stuff. This is one of my things running through my work, you know, like they they make us Indians out to be like these like hokey hocus pocus like you know, crystals and sage and all this sort of stuff. Stuff and like I don't know, man. Like we've been here for thousands of years. Maybe there's a little bit of truth in our stories. Maybe we're not full of it.

Anna Martin: You're going to have a son. You're going to have a son the same age your father was when he had you. Did you always want to be a dad? Was this something that was a long-standing desire of yours or a dream?

Julian Brave Noisecat: I did. Yeah. Uh, I mean, you know, at the same time as I have always been really scared that I I this is all future tense now cuz obviously kids's not here, but like, you know, I uh I want I wanted I always wanted to become a dad so that I could have an opportunity to, you know, get it right, you know, like I'm I'm I'm sure I'm going to make a lot of mistakes, but like the hope obviously is like with each generation we make a few fewer mistakes than

Julian Brave Noisecat: the last generation, you know, and like over time. Hopefully like we we we bring our people back from the genocide, you know, like that's the that's the mission, of course.

Anna Martin: What kind of dad do you hope to be?

Julian Brave Noisecat: Uh I I want to be a good dad, you know. I want to have uh I want to have the magical relationship that, you know, I remember having with my own dad when I was little, minus, you know, the minus the misadventures, you know. Um, I want to do all sorts of cultural stuff with my kid. I hope he is a dancer like me. You know, I I'm already telling my, you know, partner that we're going to have a little hockey player. Um, you know, I I hope that he's an artist, too. Like, you know, my my father's an artist. I tell stories and make art in my own kind of way. M

Julian Brave Noisecat: uh my partner, you know, is makes bead work and and sews and all that sort of stuff. Um there's a lot of creativity in both of our families. So, you know, I hope that he, you know, I one thing that I always wish I had the opportunity to do was like sit there with my dad and learn how to carve. And my dad is still carving, still making his art, and hopefully will be for, you know, some more time. So, I I have this real hope, this real dream that someday I'll get to bring my son into the studio and sit him down next to his Ed and uh put a little carving knife in his hand. See if we'll have a little carver. Maybe it skips a generation, you know.

Anna Martin: Can I ask what you're scared for?

Julian Brave Noisecat: Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm I'm I'm really scared that I'll make the same mistakes as my dad, you know, like um I'm I'm scared that I will mess things up in my in my family life and won't be able to be present for him, that I uh yeah, that you know that that that these cycles which I see repeating around me all over the place, um you know, that that that they might repeat with me in in certain ways. I mean, I think that's a that's a really big fear. When you have that fear, um, how do you respond to it or counter it? What What do you say back to it? Uh, I usually take out a pre-roll now,

Julian Brave Noisecat: dude. Uh, I usually, you know, pack a bowl. Um, you know, I, you know, I also try to to try to look at the the the fullness of the story with my own father. you know, like um I think that at a certain moment in time, my belief was that, you know, my my story of my relationship to father would always be one of uh brokenness and and and pain to a certain degree, but now it's a story of love and repair, you know, like this this man who was not present for me, who, you know, Another hockey story is he left me in a hotel room in Las Vegas which was very illegal for a weekend.

Julian Brave Noisecat: Uh and and you know bounced to Indiana to go to an art show. Um

Julian Brave Noisecat: you know like that our story included stuff like that and um you know that it also has now included us becoming best friends and you know even making art together and living under the same roof and having a great time. you know, making some little coyote trickster adventures of our own in a beautiful way. And um yeah, you know, I'm I'm sure I'm going to make mistakes. Like hopefully nothing as egregious as my old man, but you know, I'm sure I'll make mistakes, but like it it's it's very possible to to live a full life with a full relationship. Um even when there's some messiness in the mix.

Anna Martin: What kind of grandparent do you think your dad's going to be?

Julian Brave Noisecat: Oh, so here's the thing. I think that he's going to be an amazing grandparent.

Anna Martin: Sort of my feelings.

Julian Brave Noisecat: I think that rock like that's what it is.

Julian Brave Noisecat: It's gonna be so easy for him. He just needs to show up and be, you know, I mean, Ed showing up in a bucket hat to like, you know, with this carving knives.

Julian Brave Noisecat: It's going to be so cool.

Anna Martin: He's going to kill. He's going to Yeah, it's it's going to be his era. He's gonna He's going to nail it. Julian Brave Noisecat, thank you so much for this conversation and congratulations again. Oh,

Julian Brave Noisecat: Cooks Chamana, thank you so much. It's a honor to talk to you and yeah, dad stuff. It's in the air.

Anna Martin: Okay, so in the time since we talked to Julian, he has become a father. His son, Copper Alexander Martin Noisecat, was born in April of this year, and he was 9 lb. Julian calls him a little bear of a kid and says he even growls when he's hungry. Julian's dad was in the delivery room as Julian's partner, Joan, gave birth. And Julian says his dad was probably the most nervous of anyone there. As for the first few weeks of fatherhood, Julian tells me that the most surprising thing has been how much Copper pees and poops on him. And if that doesn't say happy Father's Day, I don't know what does. The modern love team is Davis Land, Elisa Gutierrez, Lynn Levy, Reva Goldberg, and Sarah Curtis. This episode was produced by Davis Land. It was edited by Lin Levy. Our mix engineer was Daniel Ramirez. Original music in this episode by Marian Lozano, Pat McCusker, and Dan Powell. Dan also composed our theme music. Special thanks to Rebecca Blandon and Elena Seeddra Buckley. The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones and Mia Lee is the editor of Modern Love Projects. If you'd like to submit an essay or a tiny love story to the New York Times, we've got the instructions in our show notes. I'm Anna Martin. Thanks for listening. [TRANSCRIPT_END]