End of an Era

It's the same old story: we keep paving paradise and putting up parking lots. There's no escape, not even in Hilt California. For a town that has already risen and died, recent developments at our beloved Hilt Store feel like the last nail in a coffin.

If you're interested in the history of Hilt, there's a good chronology of the last 160 years here:

http://www.hiltcalifornia.com/Hilt/Chronology.html

Sadly, this site doesn't say anything about the native people who lived here for hundreds of years before the arrival of the Europeans; that's a topic for another day. But, it does give a good overview of recent history.

White men have been logging these forests for profit since the 19th century.








The logging company Fruit Growers Corporation is still an active presence in the area and they have been particularly busy this year, but the nature of that enterprise has changed radically. Jobs that used to require 10-15 men are now done by one man operating a massive machine. At one time the logging industry spawned an insular but thriving community in Hilt. The town had its own church, school, post office and store. It was a company town and, after the mill closed in the 70s, the company literally disassembled the town and shipped it away to parts south. When you drive down the hill from the store and pass the old church and school, you can see front walks leading to nowhere. The daffodils that some homeowner lovingly planted still bloom every spring, but the home is gone. Hilt is a ghost town without the town.

Hilt in the late 60s:









I'm not sure when the Hilt Store was established, but I believe it was early in the 20th century. I imagine it was a busy little outpost back when crossing the Siskiyous took days instead of hours. I found this photograph from the 1950s online:

"Here is a vintage color postcard from the late 1950s featuring a classic roadside view of State Line Service, a Mobil gas station and store on the California-Oregon state line at Hilt, California, located in Siskiyou County, on the sunny side of the Siskiyou Mountains."

For most of us (myself included), the Hilt Store was our only real connection to Hilt's past as an actual town. But, the Hilt Store as we knew it is no more. Earlier this summer, the owners sold it to a liquor chain. In the last few weeks, the liquor chain took out the gas pumps, the historic mining equipment display and the play ground, and they repaved the entire parking lot from the Stateline billboard down to the truck turnaround. Our beloved, funky country store is now a sea of asphalt under harsh sodium lights. They even put a plastic statue of Captain Morgan over the entrance where he stands sentry, leaning on his sword and leering. They took out the lunch counter, the grill, the sundries, and the State of Jefferson tchotckes. They plan to sell nothing but liquor and cigarettes. We won't be able to buy a Pilot Rock Burger or a quart of milk or 5 gallons of gas any more. It's the end of an era.

Everything changes and changes again, but it doesn't always change for the good.

The Blood of the Lamb

The time has come, brothers and sisters, to speak of blood.

I can almost hear the sound of mouse-clicks on the "close" button.

Women are on intimate terms with blood. We are born in blood, cleansed monthly by blood, bear our children in blood. Our passage into adulthood is marked by blood. Every single month of our adult lives, we rejoice or despair at its return. When it's late, we count the days since its last appearance. When it doesn't show, everything changes.

It brings to mind the phrase, "washed in the blood of the lamb" which is so rich with symbolism and strangeness, I don't know where to begin. St. John the Mushroom Head's great trip, also known as the book of Revelations, details his vision of "a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb."... Then one of the elders asked me, "These in white robes--who are they, and where did they come from?" I answered, "Sir, you know." And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

Are you washed in the blood,
In the soul cleansing blood of the Lamb?
Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

I've written before about the scapegoat. The Hebrews would choose the most perfect, blemish-free lamb from the flock, ritually heap their sins upon its head and shed its blood as an offering to God, hoping to receive forgiveness and protection in exchange. The Christians believe that Jesus was that lamb, the perfect, blemish-free Son of Man, offered in sacrifice for our sins. Bathing in the blood of that sacrifice is the ticket to heaven. The blood of their scapegoat god is the only sure path to salvation.

Women are washed in blood every month. We labor in blood and pain to bear the next generation. The Christian Bible does not honor the sacrifice and suffering of half of the human race. The blood of women, the nurturing, grounding, rooting blood of your mother and grandmother, is the root of evil in their philosophy.

As one who bleeds, physically, spiritually and emotionally, I never accepted that. Jesus may have suffered and died, but he never walked right up to the edge of death and split his body asunder in order to bring forth a child. He never suffered and sacrificed through long years of toil to bring a child to maturity.

I am washed in the blood of uncounted generations of women who wrought the miracle of regeneration over and over again. They lay down in pain and blood, died, and rose again. We come through the great tribulation and wash our own damn robe, thank you very much. What about that miracle? What more salvation do you need?

The Bordello, August 2011

The Oakland Riviera, August 2011

R.I.P. Lucian Freud

One of the great artists of the last 100 years. He disdained idealization, but he certainly never lacked expression. His imagery was unsparing, unrelenting, haunting. He lacked a filter - everything about his work was raw. He's a great inspiration to me.

Young at Heart

Late Sunday night at the Fair, something shifted. It’s hard to describe. Something about the musicians’ relationship with the audience became deeper, truer, more raw and revealed. For instance: wild man accordionist Jason Webley spent most of the weekend playing raucous covers of bad 80s pop tunes called out at random from the audience. He is as much a comedian as a musician and he's hilarious. Late Sunday night, he started a set with his usual silly cheer, but then, apropos of nothing, he started telling these dark, personal stories about his recent unnerving encounters with strangers. He would find himself in irritating situations revolving around bad weather, cancelled flights, missed connections, that kind of thing. You know those days, right? There he'd be, bemoaning his fate, feeling like a victim. Right at that moment, the universe would conspire to put him next to someone who was truly a victim – a woman escaping a violent boyfriend, a man visiting his dying son. I think he was trying to say something about how we choose to perceive ourselves and our reality, but his tales were dark, unresolved and didn't conclude with some pat uplifting message. He interspersed these stories with quiet, sad, personal songs, the antithesis of the crazy, upbeat pop covers he had played all weekend. It was a palpable shift in tone and it happened in the middle of the set, and atleast 100 people sat listening, rapt, enthralled.

Later on, I passed an old hippie guy playing with some young guns in the path. I walked up expecting to hear folk music or Dead covers; instead he and his cohorts were playing deep, hypnotic dub, and playing it damn well. He sang in a soft, ragged, strangely compelling voice and his lyrics were angry, political, incisive. He had drawn a crowd that almost blocked the path and they were listening silently, deeply and intently. It stopped me in my tracks. I stood swaying with this crowd, breathing in rhythm, breathing a background harmony. It was eerie.

I got back to the meadow where Trashcan Joe and the Saloon Ensemble were tearing it up unamplified. I joined the crowd dancing in front of them and realized that we were all singing along in harmony. I heard the trumpet player do a lovely version of the Frank Sinatra song Young At Heart several times over the weekend and he pulled it out again that night. This time, the crowd sang behind him like we were his back-up Boswell Sisters. Close to 100 people, in tune, in time, and singing sweetly. I’d never heard anything quite like it.

And, there was my voice, shining out from the tribe, laying on complex jazz harmonies, a 6th here, a diminished 9th there. Because I can. Because that's what I do. Because that's who I am.

It’s hard to describe and I’m not sure what it meant, but that evening touched me deeply.



Young at Heart
Fairy tales can come true,
it can happen to you
If you're young at heart
For it's hard, you will find,
to be narrow of mind
If you're young at heart

You can go to extremes with impossible schemes
You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams
And life gets more exciting with each passing day
And love is either in your heart or on it's way

Don't you know that it's worth every treasure on earth
To be young at heart
For as rich as you are it's much better by far
To be young at heart

And if you should survive to 105
Look at all you'll derive out of being alive
Then here is the best part, you have a head start
If you are among the very young at heart

And if you should survive to 105
Look at all you'll derive out of being alive
Then here is the best part, you have a head start
If you are among the very young at heart

Finding My Camp

It was odd being Oregon Country Fair last weekend without Sequoia. He has more visibility in, and connection to, that world. He's still the big tall hippie boy from back in the day. He has a legitimacy that I never possessed. I was never quite groovy enough. I am now, and will always be, a skeptic at heart. Skepticism goes over like a fart in church in that crowd. It was an interesting challenge to to go up there without a community. I was on my own.

I arrived on Thursday, the day before the Fair started, and had to find my own place place to camp. I immediately gravitated to an area near Chela Mela meadow and set up my tent. Yes campers, for once in my life I didn't ask permission, I presumed. The tent hostess thought about getting miffed, but I laid on the charm and she backed down. I went back to the booth where I was to work and helped them set up. We were done by early afternoon and I had the rest of the day to myself. I wandered back to my camp and found a guy sitting in front of his tent just a few feet from mine. He was playing the weirdest looking guitar I've ever seen in my life. The body was constructed from a trash can with a resonator cone in the middle and a banjo neck attached. He played beautifully and got an amazingly pure tone out this trash can guitar. Stopped me in my tracks. Then I realized that he was playing the Fats Waller tune "I'm Going to Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter," a beautiful standard from the 20s. As you know campers, that stuff is right in my wheelhouse. As he was singing, I stepped right up and laid down a sweet, complex harmony to his melody. Never hesitated. I can do that now, I have those skills. I sounded good, if I do say so myself, which caught his attention. We talked for a while. Turns out, he was Trashcan Joe, leader of the best band I saw all weekend. Turns out I had pitched my tent in a musician's camp, alongside members of three bands: Trashcan Joe, a band called Saloon Ensemble and two back up musicians for a singer named Steven Miller (not Steve, Steven; different guy.)

Kismet? Karma? Fate?

I was never a very good hippie. Truth be told, I was never all that motivated to learn how to be a good hippie. I am highly motivated to learn how to be a good musician. I got to hang out with musicians all weekend, talk to them about bands and how they work, find out what turns them on and off. It was very, very cool to feel accepted own measely merits. I didn't play much with these guys because they were way out of my league. But I sang. I sang loud, I sang strong and, in singing, I felt right at home.