Lost Hills Road

Notes from the revolution........

2011-10-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

I went down to Los Angeles City Hall, with Erin, Saturday and Sunday, to see what the OWS movement was all about. Days eight and nine of the Los Angeles occupation. Took my guitar, of course, wandered around the encampment, talked to people and played some Woody, Pete and Joe Hill songs for folks.

It's a lot bigger and better organized than the media would have you believe. Lots of tents, man, and more people than tents because lots of people come down to support the occupiers, and then go home for the night. You can be part of this thing and lend your support even if you can't afford to camp out for the long haul. It's not like being in jail. You can go down for the day, camp out for the weekend or camp out for the long haul but still leave to go to work or to class, water the flowers or whatever you have to do. But make no mistake, there are a committed core of individuals who are there foe "as long as it takes." It took a lot of guts and requires a huge sacrifice for them to make this commitment, and do you know what they're doing it for? For you, and me, for our country, and for democracy.

It's for the ninety-nine percenters. The ordinary folks who do all the work and create all the wealth of this country while the one percent at the top of the food chain reaps all the profits and uses their wealth to pervert our political process. It's not about left or right, democrat vs. republican, liberals versus conservatives. It's about income equality, economic justice and democracy. It's happening in every state of our nation and at least twenty other countries. The number of US cities to be "occupied" is growing so fast that you can't get a clear count, but it's over 200 so far.

At the LA encampment I saw ordinary Americans governing themselves better than our elected leaders are governing our country. Everything is "working" there and working well. There's a library, a free thrift store, a kitchen serving healthy donated food, a medical tent, a meditation tent, a media center, recycling center, silk screeners, artists, musicians creating a community that is based on cooperation rather than profit taking. They are not "protesting." they are leading by example. What's their demands? What do they want? Go down to City Hall and see for yourself. They'll show you. They're creating a vision right there in that park that can serve as an example of how our whole country could be run. Our country and every country. "Of the people, by the people and FOR the people. It's not a tea party, motherfucker, it's a revolution....

Occupy Los Angeles.

Lost Hills on Santa Monica Pier

2010-10-28T17:36:00.000-07:00

Places we Used To Know

2010-05-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

Performed at Fiddlers Crossing, Tehachapi, California

I wrote this song for my son, a couple years ago, when he was coming to visit me for Christmas, and he was about to graduate from college. I woke up one morning and heard coyotes calling, which is unusual, because I live in town, although it's a small town in the California hills... I looked out the window and saw that it had begun to snow, and the mountains were held in a thick coat of clouds. I realized that the coyotes had come down to hunt in the valley and escape the cold mountain storm, as they had probably done for centuries before some folks came along and built a town on their hunting ground.....

Thomas Wolfe famously said, "You can never go home." True enough. You can never really go back to any place. You can go back to the geographical location, but the place you remember will be gone. Except for a certain place that I remember...... I know where it is. But I ain't tellin'.........

YouTube - Which Side Are You On

2009-09-06T19:53:00.000-07:00

YouTube - Which Side Are You On

Written by Florence Reese and her daughters on the back of a calendar after being roughed up by thugs looking for her husband, who was a union organizer. People were beaten and murdered in this country for working for workplace equality, and some folks have forgotten that, and how important that battle was.

Labor Day, 2009, more Americans are unemployed than any time since the Great Depression. Fewer people are unionized, fewer people have pensions and fewer people have health insurance than any time in our lifetimes. Our government unloads trillions of dollars to the bankers and their wars, and has nothing to spare for honest workers who are losing their homes. It's time to ask the question, "Which side are you on."

Without unions, you have corporate dictatorship. The current health care crisis is a direct result of declining union membership due to exporting of American jobs overseas, sanctioned and orchestrated by both of our major political parties.

Written to the tune of the old Baptist Hymn, Lay The Lillies Low, which, in turn, was written to the tune of an old english ballad.

Which Side Are You On?

Come all of you good workers

Good news to you I'll tell

Of how that good old union

Has come in here to dwell

Chorus:

Which side are you on?

My daddy was a miner

And I'm a miner's son

And I'll stick with the union

Till every battle's won

They say in Harlan County

There are no neutrals there

You'll either be a union man

Or a thug for J.H. Blair

Oh, workers can you stand it?

Oh, tell me how you can

Will you be a lousy scab

Or will you be a man?

Don't scab for the bosses

Don't listen to their lies

Us poor folks haven't got a chance

Unless we organize

-- "The Earth is not dying. She is being murdered, and we know who is killing her and we have their names and addresses."

Utah Phillips

A trip to Weedpatch Camp

2009-07-19T22:40:00.000-07:00

On the trail of Woody Guthrie, Erin and I visited Weedpatch Camp, in Lamont, the other day. I believe it's the last existing migrant camp that was set up under the New Deal, in the 1930s, to house the dust bowl refugees. I had heard that Woody Guthrie played there for the migrants, and I've been wanting to check it out for some time. Displaced farmers, fleeing the dust bowl, came to California by the thousands in the 1930s seeking employment. There was always more workers than there was work, and wages were abysmally low, and they wound up living in ramshackle camps on the edges of the fields enduring hunger, disease, discrimination and abuse, until the government set up "clean" camps to house them safely and humanely. This is the story told by John Steinbeck's, The Grapes Of Wrath, and Woody Guthrie's great Dust Bowl Ballads. The Weedpatch Camp was the first of the government camps and it's still here, still in use by migrant farmworkers, and some of the original buildings have been preserved.

You can drive out there any time and see the old buildings. A couple of them can also be seen in the 1939 film version of The Grapes Of Wrath, with Henry Fonda. They're adjacent to the Arvin Migrant Housing Center on Sunset Road, between Weedpatch Highway and Comanche Road. If you make an appointment with the folks who take care of it they'll have a docent open it up for you and give you a guided tour. We were given a very authoritative presentation by researcher, Doris Weddell, and treated to the personal reminiscences of Earl Shelton, who actually lived in the camp in the 1940s and worked in the fields for much of his life. I highly recommend taking the tour. All you have to do is call them, or send them an email, and they're happy to do it. There's a public celebration called Dust Bowl Days that is held there every year in October. I've been meaning to go to Dust Bowl Days for a couple years now, but it seems that I'm always busy on that weekend, so I was glad for the opportunity to check it out in this way. I've been a Woody Guthrie scholar for years, and I'm working on a Woody Guthrie show, so it was inspiring and illuminating to walk around the grounds and stand on the fine old stage, there. I had an idea of recording a music video there, and I had my guitar with me, but it was just too doggone hot at this time of year. Maybe in the Fall... Erin did get some video of Mr. Shelton telling his great old stories, though, and maybe she'll share some of that with us. It represents an important page from our local history and is well worth a visit. Check out a copy of The Grapes Of Wrath before you go to put your visit in the proper context.
For more information about Dust Bowl Days, and to book a private tour, check out the Dust Bowl Days Website.

Here's a link to a slideshow of our trip:

http://s303.photobucket.com/albums/nn133/losthillsmusic/Weedpatch%20Camp/?action=view&current=0ab48f89.pbw

Bailout Blues

2009-04-18T23:16:00.000-07:00

I've been working on this song for a couple of weeks. These are trying times we are living through and it's mind blowing to watch our government throwing huge amounts of money at the banks that are foreclosing on people's homes while abandoning the working class that creates the foundation of our economy. A house without a foundation cannot stand no matter how much money you pile up on the roof...

Bailout Blues
Lost Hills

Johnny works construction
When there's work to be had.
He fell behind on his child support,
Now he's a dead beat dad.
They took away his license,
Now he ain't supposed to drive.
Now how's gonna do
What he has to do to survive?

Now he's driving in to Oildale
To pick up his son.
He gets pulled over for a burned out tail light
And his troubles really bugun
Now he's staring at the pavement
As the tow truck hauls his pick-up away.
Johnny needs a bailout--
But it ain't comin' today....

Johnny needs a job
That will pay a living wage.
So he can pay his bills on time
And hold his head up straight.
It ain't his fault no one's buying houses these days.
Johnny needs a bailout--
But it ain't comin' today...

Johnny's ex-wife, Susan,
Has been waitress for years.
Now she's working two jobs,
But they've both cut back her hours.
Both her ex-husbands are out of work
And about out of time.
She's got two beautuful kids
That need more than what she can provide.

Now she's waitin' on Johnny
To come pick up little Joe.
She doesn't know that he's standing
There alone by the side of the road.
And Joe keeps asking,
"How come my Daddy's so late?"
Susan needs a bailout--
But it ain't comin' today....

Susan needs a bailout
in the worst kind of way,
Maybe she should change her name
To A.I.G.
If she had an office on Wall Street
The government would rush to her aid.
Susan needs a bailout--
But it ain't comin' today...

Susan's parents, Bob and Helen,
Have worked hard all their lives.
Well, they never got rich,
But they've done all right.
They were thinking about retiring early,
But that's not to be.
Because everything they've worked for
Has up and blown away.

They had some money with an invester
That turned out to be a fraud.
Bob's pension disappeared
When his company went belly up.
Now they're looking through the want ads
For anything that pays minimum wage.
Bob and Helen need a bailout--
But it ain't comin' today....

Bob and Helen need a bailout
Because they've worked hard all their lives.
They shouldn't have to be flippin' burgers
Or standing in a wellfare line.
And the president's on the radio
Saying, "Everything's gonna be okay!"
Bob and Helen need a bailout--
But it ain't comin' today...

Now Johnny's picking up cans by the roadside
Just to get himself a beer
And Susan's getting letters from the landlord
By certified mail.
Bob and Helen are selling their furniture
Just to help out Sue.
And little Joe's left wondering
What happened to the world he once knew.

America needs a bailout,
But it ain't comin' today.
Ain't no check in the mail,
Ain't no help on the way.
Seven Hundred Billion
To the crooks that put us in this place.
And the president's on the TV
Saying, "Everything's gonna be okay!"

America needs a bailout--
But it ain't comin' today...

Hell, I could use one, Brother--
And I need it today.

Be sure to pause the Soundclick Player before playing the video.

Treehuggers Ball

2008-07-07T17:39:00.000-07:00

A great time was had by all at the Treehuggers Ball. It's a green expo and music festival put on by the Canyonlands Conservation Fund and the Orange Hills Task Force of the Sierra Club to raise money to protect the last open space in Orange County from developement.

I was invited to play by my friend Karl, who is a nephew of Woody Guthrie, so of course I played some Woody Guthrie songs. It was held in still wild Baker Canyon, and there were exhibits, demonstrations, arts and crafts, a deep pit barbecue dinner, speakers, and about eight hours of music under the stars. There was a Bluegrass band, a Jazz Trio, a Blues-Rock band, a funky folk singer, and the headliners were Cubensis, a popular and inspiring So-Cal Grateful Dead tribute band.

I was the opening act, so there wasn't a big audience, but I played my originals and some dust bowl ballads for the exhibitors and the arriving treehuggers and I got a good response and met a lot of great people. It was really a special event, and I take my hat off to Chay, Karl, Dennis, Ed, Leslie and all the hard working people who made it possible. I was invited to play again next year, and I'm already looking forward to it.....

http://www.treehuggersball.org/

The video is my version of Woody Guthrie's I Ain't Got No Home. You need to pause the Soundclick player in the upper right hand corner before starting the video.

Highway 58

2008-01-04T16:11:00.000-08:00

Highway 58

by Lost Hills

Out in this country all men are Kings

And all the women can drink you under the table.

If you can find one...

The cattle own these hills one roamed ny antelope.

Those fleet and curious beasts were consumed

By the skillets of the Boomers in the valley.

Those gold camps and oil towns have vanished too,

Blown away by the winds that never sleep.

But the cattle remain...

Trudging to ancient water troughs,

Propelled by genes that go back to Spain, Africa,

And probably back to the dinosaurs.

They once said that all roads lead to Rome,

As if a road was like a river that flows to the sea.

But a road is not a river.

All roads lead to other roads, other trails, other visions,

Other memories...

And to lonely graves, scoured clean by the wind.

The coyote jogs down the middle of the road,

Tongue lolling in the morning breeze.

He is a friend of mine. He follows me down all these old roads.

He is more than just a trickster.

He is the totem of the lost and lonely;

The faithful companion of all us weary wanderers...

Another windblown cowtown.

Two churches, two bars and a grammar school.

Two paths to redemption, two paths to oblivion,

And one road out of here.

The Rodeo Queen found her own way out.

Married a rock star...

Partied with Belushi on the night he OD'd.

Yeah Baby, let the good times roll,

And there's a horse ranch in the divorce settlement.

Arabians...

Out on Huerhuero Creek they made the hippies' last stand

And their poetry still hangs in the breeze.

A well worn trail led up to the garden in the box canyon.

The Marijuanero tending his crop with a shotgun and a water can.

Drawing down on a deer at the salt lick with an old .32 Winchester.

Playing Grateful Dead and Hank Williams to the stoned sunset on a cheap guitar.

If that ain't country...

The coyotes hunted peacocks and sang their songs with new colors.

Beauregard running deer from here to Templeton,

Puzzling the coyote with his long drawn swamp dog calls.

When he wore himself out he would sit by the side of the road

Waiting for a kindly neighbor's pick-up truck.

Goddam hitch-hiking dawg....

The rivers here run dry,

But the whiskey and the gin will always flow free...

Anna pours her own grave from a rocking chair.

Cowboy Bob crashing through fences in the night,

Sleeping it off on a mattress in the tractor shed.

Gospel music flying through the too bright rays of Sunday morning.

Now where's that truck?

The cowboys wear their spurs to bed.

They know their days are numbered,

Counted in cigarettes, beers, cups of coffee and gallons of gasoline.

The indians are not remembered by name.

The places where they camped

Occupied by abandoned diners and watering holes for cattle.

They all became cowboys in the end,

The skulls of their ancestors grinning under glass

In small town museums closed for lack of funding...

And then the breeze shifts,

We crest the ridge,

And I behold the waves of the endless sea.

For that is where the road leads on this morning.

At least in my own mind...

And the coyote waits on a hill for my return.

The Moon Of The Wild Rose

2007-12-17T12:26:00.000-08:00

In the lost universe, the lives of the people followed the seasons.

There was the Moon of making fat,

The Moon of the blooming lillies,

The Moon of the dying grass,

The Moon of the falling leaves,

The Moon of drifting snow,

The Moon of popping trees,

The Moon of strong cold,

The Moon of the buffalo calves,

The Moon when the geese lay eggs,

And the Moon of the Wild Rose...

Put Them Ghosts To Sleep

2007-12-02T12:25:00.000-08:00

I live with ghosts. For the most part in relative harmony. But that comes with age...

This is a song I wrote for my Uncle John. I was working on it when he passed away, and finished it that evening. His passing represented the passing of an era for me. The bear traps and branding irons hanging on the walls of his barn were tools that he had actually used. There was harness and saddles and cowboy gear and mining equipment in there that were museum quality, but watch out for them old boxes of dynamite...

His hunter's eyes were always scanning the hillsides for movement. The wrinkles were from squinting against the sun, and from laughter. There was always an old dog around, and a couple of horses, even if he didn't ride them anymore...

We never did go on that last hunting trip. Sometimes promises get broken. I have that old 30/30 now, but I haven't decided if I'm ever going to use it . There are still a few of the old timers left around here, but there era has passed and they know it.

And the ghosts-- well, they need their sleep...

Turkey Vulture Festval

2007-10-28T22:18:00.000-07:00

Hawk On The Wire

Yeah, I live in the kind of place that has a Turkey Vulture Festival.... and it's cool. The Turkey Vultures pass through here every year on their way South, and they celebrate the event down at the Kern River Preserve. It's about the mellowest place you can imagine, run by great people who really care about nature.

I usually play country music around here, or tradtional folk songs, but today I came down to play my own songs for a couple of hours, with a few Woody Guthrie songs thrown in. It was a nice crowd and a beautiful day. There were craft booths, and information booths from the local environmental organizations. My friends from Sequoia Forestkeeper were there and Bob, from Izzy Solar demonstrating his passive solar heaters. There was a live falcon, a screech owl, some desert tortoises, and then there was those rattlesnake guys....

After my raggedy set, the real musicians showed up-- our favorite local band, Out Of The Blue played some great Bluegrass and Americana. It was a fine afternoon in the Kern River Valley. The Turkey Vultures showed up, as advertised, and a great time was had by all. If you missed it, make sure you check it out next year...

http://www.audubon.org/local/sanctuary/kernriver/

None dare call it genocide

2007-10-10T23:12:00.000-07:00

Today the US Congress is arguing with the Whitehouse over whether the slaughter of Armenians in Turkey 80 years ago was genocide or not. I have not heard them discuss any resolutions about the genocide of Native Americans, and I don't see them trying to stop the destruction of Appalachia and the American citizens who live there right now by coal companies who are blowing the tops off their mountains, destroying communities and ecosystems and poisoning an entire area of our country for all time.
Our country gets 50% of it's electricity from burning coal. Burning that coal produces 40% our country's CO2 emissions. It's time to phase that out, right? Then how come there are another 129 coal burners in the works right now? In what kind of Kafkaesque world does that make sense, when we are hearing about melting ice caps and mass extinction of endangered species due to Global Warming every day?
Why, in a country that purports itself to be a Democracy, and has laws protecting it's environment and the rights of it's citizens, are we engaging in a systematic destruction of the environment of an entire region of our country and the lives of the citizens who live there?
This is a rural sector of our country, where the population is poor, the votes are small, and the corporations that profit from it's destruction are from out of state, make gigantic political contributions, and leave when their deed is done. They play people against each other and tell them that the "environmentalists" want to take their jobs away. But when the coal has been burned up to power the wide screen TVs and stainless steel fridges of the city dwellers, their jobs will still be gone, along with their farms, their fields, their livestock, the wildlife, and the future of their children, if not their children's lives.
This is not the best way to "power the grid." It's not sustainable. It's not moral, and it's not right. Some of our presidential candidates, who are US Senators, have said they will stop this if elected to the Whiehouse. Tell them, "If you want our vote for president, then show us what you are doing to stop it now..."
The Government Sanctioned Blasting of Appalachia

Some things never change in the Central Valley

2007-09-23T22:49:00.001-07:00

I was reading about Railroad Cops roughing up homeless people in Fresno and reflecting on how things never seem to change around here. California is a "Garden of Eden," Yeah, but only if you've got the "Do Re Mi..."

The San Joaquin Valley has a long history of abusing the homeless. Ask Preacher Casey. Ask Tom Joad... John Steinbeck put us on the map, but our civic leaders were not happy with the images he painted of cops and vigilantees driving the dust bowl refugees from town to town "like a wild herd of cattle." The Grapes Of Wrath was banned in Bakersfield for years, and was not allowed to be used in Kern County Classrooms until 1974. Now we have learned to accept our dust bowl heritage with pride. Local museums and festivals celebrate our history, but have we learned anything from it? Can we learn to recognize that the outsiders who can't seem to hold down a regular job or live like the rest of us are our brothers and sisters? Our instinct, when we encounter the the dirty and unkempt refugees of American society is not to lend them a helping hand. It is to look down, look the other way and walk on... And if they hang around too long or start talking about their "rights," the instinct is to beat them up and force them to move on.

Woody Guthrie passed through here, and he wrote about it better than anyone before or since. Vigilante Man, Pastures Of Plenty, Do Re Mi, Dust Bowl Refugee, Ramblin' Round, Hard Travelin', I Ain't Got No Home... We can listen to these great ballads as historical artifacts, but that's not what they are. Shamefully, and Disgracefully, they are today's news. They are the headlines that the editors of the Fresno Bee and tha Bakersfield Californian will not place on the front page, or any other page. They are a mirror, and the face of the Vigilante Man looking back at us is you and I. As long as we allow our brothers and sisters to be treated thisaway...

Vigilante Man
Woody Guthrie

Have you seen that vigilante man?
Have you seen that vigilante man?
Have you seen that vigilante man?
I've been hearing his name all over the land.

Well what is a vigilante man?
Tell me, what is a vigilante man?
Has he got a gun and a club in his hand?
Is that a vigilante man.

Rainy night down in the engine house.
Sleepin' just as still as a mouse.
Along come a man, and chased us out in the rain.
Was that a vigilante man?

Stormy days we passed the night away
Sleepin' in some good warm place.
Man come along and chased us out in the rain.
Was that a Vigilante Man?

Preacher Casey was just a workin' man.
And he said, "Unite, all you workin' men."
Killed him in the river, some strange man.
Was that a Vigilante Man?

I rambled round from town to town.
I rambled round fron town to town.
And they herded us around like a wild herd of cattle.
Was that the vigilante men?

Oh, why does a Vigilante Man,
Why does a vigilante man,
Carry that sawed-off shotgun in his habd?
Would he shoot his brother and sister down?

Some things never change...

Betrayed

2005-12-04T14:04:00.000-08:00

Good Morning from Bodfish Canyon, California...

Thanks to Mark for inviting me to post my thoughts here. By way of introduction, I'll throw up one of my songs. This is a piece that I wrote during the 2000 elections. I was camping out in the deserts of California and Nevada, listening to the Bush/ Gore debates around the campfire on AM radio. I finished the song in a motel room in Las Vegas wtching the Florida recounts on CNN...

Betrayed

by Lost Hills

Leaving California,

I gave it all away,

And crossed the great desert

Just to be betrayed.

I saw the wreck on the highway,

But I did not stop to pray;

I crossed the great desert

Just to be betrayed.

Now I won't say a word against anyone.

We look within and ask ourselves

What has to be done...

When that star rose out of the darkness

Just before the break of day,

I crossed the great desert

Just to be betrayed.

I camped upon a ridge above

That city on the plain.

When I crossed the great desert

Just to be betrayed.

I stood alone and watched the lights

Refracting through the rain.

When I crossed the great desert

Just to be betrayed.

All men are brothers, underneath the skin.

Why must we spend our lives

Trying to do each other in?

I used to live among them,

But I could not stay...

And I crossed the great desert

Just to be betrayed.

When the Saints came down to the valley,

They got down on their knees.

They crossed the great desert

Just to be betrayed.

In a land of milk and honey

That could meet their every need,

They crossed the great desert

Just to be betrayed.

Now fistfulls of dollars stain every hand.

Divide and conquer is the rule of the land.

There's a wreck on the highway;

Won't somebody pray?

We have crossed the great desert

Just to be betrayed.....

Well, it's 5 years down the road, and still feel betrayed. Feel it more and more every day, and I don't feel like praying is enough. Over the last 5 years I have gotten deeper and deeper into activism. As Pete Seeger likes to say, "You've got to Organize..." Sites like this and Acoustic Coffeehouse can be a nexus for just that. We still have some kind of a democracy here, and if we want to keep it we're going to have to fight for it....

peace,

...Lost Hills

Lost Hills Road

Notes from the revolution........

Lost Hills on Santa Monica Pier

Places we Used To Know

YouTube - Which Side Are You On

A trip to Weedpatch Camp

Bailout Blues

Treehuggers Ball

Highway 58

The Moon Of The Wild Rose

Put Them Ghosts To Sleep

More Video from the Turkey Vulture Festival

Turkey Vulture Festval

None dare call it genocide

Some things never change in the Central Valley

Betrayed