The Hawks are feeling lucky so trouble must be just ahead on the horizon. It’s three o’clock on Saturday afternoon and so far everything has been going just great on our mini-tour of historic Upper Central Valley theaters.
We took off almost on schedule before noon on Friday. The East-siders met up in Highland Park. Intense but fruitful negotiations yielded a meet-up point with Paul M at old buddy Wayne-O’s Burbank abode just blocks off the 5. The drive up was typical in all ways but one: the Yukon seems to be getting unusually high mileage. Paul L drove 95 mph for most of our northward journey, yet we’re still on the same tank of gas after turning the corner in Sac and heading back south. (Another anomaly: Shawn’s phone’s battery refuses to die. Just after we crossed the Grapevine Shawn realized he forgot his cell phone charger. With only one bar left it seemed he would be borrowing band mate’s phones all weekend but at this late hour his phone is operating perfectly. What’s going on? Are we experiencing the benefits of some kind of spell or charm? Unbeknownst to us, have our friends, families, and fans started praying for us with a new found intensity and frequency? Are we n-sync with a northward migration of true magnetic north? Is this some unpredicted side effect of global warming?) Dear reader, can we depart from the expected narration of sound check, gig, etc.? Suffice it to say that things were great last night in Winters, at the beloved Palms theater, run by beneficent and enlightened Dave Fleming, with our co-bill the highly talented Chuck Prophet and his crack band of musicians creating lush soundscapes, with the standing ovation we Hawks gratefully basked in from the wondrous Winters audience, our own lush soundscape augmented by the talented accordionist Richie Lawrence, capped off by a stay at our Central Valley patrons the Tyson family and their elegant but low key residence in the Yolo fields and wetlands, with egrets, foxes, truly free range chickens, and artisanal bacon slabs awaiting our awakening on a chilly Saturday morning.
And may we confine to summary our most pleasant morning, of which this moment is a continuation, driving south on the 5 in the Yukon back bench and reflecting upon our immediately precedent hours, hours spent at KDVS on the Bill Wagman show, in which we did perform live to great mutual satisfaction, and our long idyll in the Naked Coffee lounge in Sacramento, accompanied by Richie and lovely wife Katie, whereupon couches we did discuss all things green and urgent, and made great plans, and did imbibe a great variety of espresso based drinks, did purchase espresso beans, did then drive to the Co-op and purchase red carrots, garlic, fermented Kombucha drink, and did then take leave of our good Central Valley friends, making haste against a low winter sun for the unknown environs of Newman, California? May we, dear reader? We thank you in advance.Now, on to more pressing items: Henry James, WOOF organic farm network, kombucha.
Rob is obsessing with his bottle of Synergy Cosmic Cranberry and Kombucha drink. He is feeling very, very good, and has sworn lifelong fealty to this new age product. A devil’s advocate might mention that dark organic chocolate, a double espresso from master roasters Naked Coffee, and last night’s audience energy are also coursing through his veins, but let’s keep an open mind. Kombucha–lifestyle altering? Egrets and sheep share a brown field to our right.
When we firmly commit to sustainable cities and localized economies and food distribution, there will be much work to do. Interstates, once clogged with “commuters” and “vacationers,” will now carry caravans of trucks engaged in the Great Dismantling. Elk Grove is being removed, wall by wall and hibachi by hibachi to its new home in downtown Saramento. Concrete blocks create square block raised plateaus connected by walkways looking down on rail corridors. “Automobiles” have been melted down into railcars. Former In N Out Burger cashiers have found honest work returning exurbia to farmland, planting hemp and clover to regenerate the soil. Country rock musicians ride the rails to play nightly concerts for our hard working friends in the work camps. You can drink right out of the stream.Someone said that the Hawks are effortlessly fashionable. Someone in the band, but at least the statement was made. There it is. Effortlessly fashionable. Perhaps only in a dream.
A collective dream — The Great Dismantling.