I See Hawks in L.A.

July 25, 2005

DEAR STONECUTTER: AWAKE IN THE MIDSUMMER NIGHT

Dear Stonecutter:
My old lady and I were walking towards Griffith Park last night, up Commonwealth Street, trippy clear sky, geese heading north, why so late in summer?, lonely Venus on horizon, saw a big coyote in some rich guy's front yard, it just rustled the leaves and appeared, then we're up on the overwalked fire break trail, it's getting dark so no one's up there, and the coyotes start howling, and then we hear Robert Plant and his band, they're playing at the Greek Theater to the west, and as we walk closer we can hear Robert wailing, he sounds really good, the coyotes around us are wailing along with Robert I swear to God, and the crowd is singing along to "skinny legged woman ain't got no soul," cheering like crazy, we look down on the amphitheater and then walk back, right as we're leaving the trail I see a big shadow at the top of a dead pine tree, it looks like a huge bird, but it's not moving so we split the land and hit pavement, and I'm told there's a spiritual guardian of the park, he prays for its soul and the people below--is this true? It was a trippy night.

Onyx Man, Los Feliz

Dear Onyx Man,
In July of 1973 I took acid every night at midnight. I'd already been awake for months consuming mass quantities of uncut Peruvian marching powder and working as a photographer for the Kansas City Star. I couldn't stay focused on my assignments: fires, traffic accidents, high school football games. So I'd spend the night taking photographs of colonial mansions juxtaposed against a little smiley face I'd drawn on my right index finger. See, I like to work in the shadows, my friend. Which is why I am where I am right now. The Star refused to publish my work, marked it trivial and unnewsworthy. But it was the subversive nature of the work which drove them to box me out. I'd complain, but it's so much worse for any deep thinker working in the news media today, if there are any. So rock on, my man, and don't fear the fucking reaper.
Fight The Power,
Stonecutter

Dear Stonecutter:
I was driving through the Valley coming home from work feeling pretty
good, pretty mellow day at work, and I checked out Indie 101.3. They
were playing stuff from the 70's, like concert ads for the Allman Brothers
and Joe Walsh, and I was getting into it. That was my decade, you know.
I was digging it, and then they played the theme from Rocky, you know,
"feelin' strong, now," then they played "A Fifth of Beethoven," the disco
hit. And they sounded terrible, all squashed and thin. The drums sounded like
mud, which I know is from bouncing tracks on tape, there was no way around it
back then, my brother was an engineer for Gloria Estefan in Miami back then.
And the guitar solo sucked, I thought it was maybe a remake for a second, you
know, the guitar players who can play rhythm but suck at lead, but no, it was
the original stuff. Sounded bad.

Thanks,
Eric From the 70's

Dear Eric From The 70s,
I've only really driven a car once and I was out of my mind on a bitchin' cocktail of quaaludes and Algerian hashish so I can't really answer your question about listening to the radio. While I'm sure your attachment to pop culture moments from the decade of your adolescence has some significance to the larger human struggle, I'll be damned if I can figure it. My advice to you is this: turn off the radio, stop driving the car, and send all those old LPs to the glue factory. You're simply looking for your liberation in the wrong place. There's only one way out, my man, and it's through prolonged distortion of the senses provided only by years of isolated meditation or very heavy drug use. The choice is yours brother.
I'm On Cocaine and I Vote,
Stonecutter.

Email your questions for Stonecutter to: stonecutter@iseehawks.com

July 20, 2005

RAIN IN EAST MOJAVE

We're into the home stretch, and the heat is mad, 119 according to the Bun Boy thermometer in Baker, but we catch a break heading into Barstow: a summer desert rain with a few lightning bolts, and we are cooling down, breathing in petrichor and watching the raindrops. The 10 east through the Inland Empire's going to be a rush hour mess when we drop down, so we head east through welcome home Joshua trees on Pearblossom Highway, the gray brush stroke of rain our friend to the north. The 14 south is kind, and we'll be home before sunset.

FLASHBACK TO BOZEMAN

The Hawk mobile powered north and then east through dark Idaho hills, and we almost ran out of gas again. There are few gas stations on I-15, so fill up in Pocatello or Idaho Falls. Eastward on 90 and we unholster cell phones, functioning again after hours of silence, and we roust Ron Craighead, KGLT honcho and DJ, and Dave, owner of Big Sky High Studios, as we approach Bozeman at 1 a.m. We wind up dirt roads to Blue Sky High, a huge studio/B&B nestled among alfafa farmers and grazing cattle in the shadow of Middle Cottonwood Canyon and Montana mountains.

Dave's up and plays the gracious late night host, shows the Hawks around his studio and beautifully appointed living quarters. Poco recorded a live album in the main room recently, and it's being mixed on site in the pastureland. The Hawks give Blue Sky High a hearty recommendation to bands looking to record and get in day hikes in alpine speldor.

Next day we woke and raided Dave's refrigerator, making a big eggs and goat cheese breakfast, shades of the generous larder of Doran and Katherine in Winters, CA, hung out
with Dave a while, then Ron and sound man Noose arrived with the PA, and we sound checked for an acoustic and electric show. We drove down into town, hung out with PL's sister Mary and her old pals Steve and Mary Lou Osman and their film school finished daughter Julia. The Osmans are the embodiment of the Hawks song "Raised By Hippies." They met in the wilds of Jackson, WY, are professional outdoor guides and artists, split from running rapids in Jackson to Costa Rica, then moved to Bozeman. It can be done.

As show time neared, gentle Renee, who has been booking our mountain tourette, and KGLT DJ Jenny, a wild and mercurial evolved spirit, arrived, lifting the Hawks slightly road weary spirits, and the crowd filled the room. We played an excellent acoustic and then electric set, to a wildly enthusiastic response from the crowd. We felt like we'd become fast friends through music. Fans and friends slowly drifted away as the wee hours swept cool breezes onto the meadows, and the Hawks retired.

Next day PL's sister Mary came by as promised at 9 a.m., and with Mary Lou and Ron we climbed a few miles up the trail into Middle Cottonwood Canyon, through beautiful meadows of Indian Paint Brush and other local flowers, lupines, cottonwood and aspen stands, and the canyon widened into big vistas of surrounding peaks. We stuck our heads in the creek, and it was nice and cold, blew giant dandelions, and discussed the new ruling that will allow snarling ATV's to race up the canyon and trample the meadows. Et tu, Bozeman? Perhaps Peak Oil will rescue Middle Cottonwood Canyon. Bring it on soon, say the bunny rabbits.

A late afternoon acoustic show at the funky and sophisticated Cactus Records in classic downtown Bozeman, a farewell to our kind friends, and we were off for Virginia City, MT.

VEGAS IS PAIN

Two Hawks went to bed. Two Hawks stayed up until dawn drinking and gambling. Those two Hawks are in great pain today as the temperature is once again soaring into the 120s. Will we make it home without puking along the side of the road? Stay tuned to the ISHILA Blog to learn the verdict. We are a band which knows the foolishness and danger of venturing into Vegas with our hard-earned tour dough in our pockets. Perhaps if we were of sound mind we would've passed on through Sin City or perhaps slept in peaceful St. George across the Utah border free from all of Nevada's tempations. But our collective mind is not sound. We are weary travelers lured in by the bright lights and magnificent absurdity of this electric desert oasis-mirage. Vegas wins. Vegas always wins. And during the drive back that most physical of pains is fully realized.

This morning we gave PM $50 each to stake him in poker, and he played Texas Hold-em for about three hours, battling weak cards and very competent players, ending up $40 down when it was time to hit the road for home. Paul was playing at Binion's, perhaps the oldest operating casino in Las Vegas and a home base for good card players, who prefer it to the squares-infested family casinos on the Strip. He held his own, and knew when to fold 'em.

Now it's 3:51 p.m., we're twenty miles from Baker, hazy skies, silence in the Hawks Suburban rolling downhill with minimally effective AC. Music would churn the delicate innards of the two Hawks party animals. Time to reflect, and fill in a narrative gap.

ALIENATION AT THE DAIRY QUEEN

It just wasn't quite right. A lone truck stop emporium on a yellow and green hills offramp promised great things. Cool and refreshing things. Which we did purchase. But it wasn't right. We merged with the southern flow, and were gone.

Utah is robust. Many people work hard here but don't waste time pondering their existence or questioning their national government save some generalized boiler plate rumblings. The heat as the sun headed to its western bed was charged with hard working energy, and a breeze urged action, action, action. And action we acted upon, charging 85 mph down I-15, our 8 cylinders pumping at a speed and intensity that would kill us if we could grasp it, like gazing into the face of God. We are agents of a Great Destiny, each a grain of causality and consciousness, in a dance to that final edge. May we meet upon that other shore.

Nevada is energy gone mad and depraved, an orgy of fossil fueled grinning self immolation, a faithful floor show tribute to Satan on wet t shirt night. And it's luring us through sheer indifferent application of gravitational attraction to our dreams and daring. Everyone's a gambler, especially those who won't play the game.

You got to know when to hold em
When to fold em
Know when to walk
Know when to run
You never count your money
When you're sitting at the table
There'll be time enough for counting
When the dealin's done

We've got $39.99 rooms reserved at the Four Queens, and we don't know what's going to happen. Nightfall is complete on this lonely Utah highway.

July 19, 2005

JACKSON OR JACKSON HOLE?

The Hawks guardian angel guardianship continues. The generosity of the people who booked us into their clubs, promoted the shows, put us up in their homes, fed us, entertained us, shared windows into their lives with us--is overwhelming. I hope we bring this spirit back into Los Angeles, which could always use a massive injection of mountain manners and magic.

We just left Jocelyn's house in Jackson adjacent Wilson. Jocelyn, her husband, and daughter lead lives of quiet majesty in the land that is now their soul. They look to forbidding winter's 20 below with excitement, because then they're outdoors all the time, skiing over the snow blanketed mountains, foothills, and meadows. The meadows in Jackson are sublime, green and wet, new homeland of elk, surroundings sculpted by the Grand Architect, a dialogue in altitude between two heaven reaching zones.

The Tetons are a doctrine-obliterating master sculpture, each peak with its own personality,
destiny, and inner fire. The Tetons are only 9,000 years old, the equivalent of a five month old baby in geological time. My sister Mary's favorite peak is (?), a block like monolith that counterpoints the heavenward spikes of surrounding mountains. Mary and Jocelyn are old friends, and they know the bond of wilderness experience. It's a precious thing. Joycelyn's husband and their daughter are today rafting the Salmon River in Idaho, a region of so few roads that it's called the River Of No Return.

The Hawks stepped into Jocelyn's studio as they were leaving, uninvited but sure we would find a kindred spirit inside, and we did. She is a mistress and high priestess of watercolor,.

At last the heat wave has broken. Just after our gig in Jackson a blast of Arcic air had landed. The temperature plummeted to 40 F. Our readers will remember that it was123F in Baker at the beginning of our journey. An 83F degree swing. PL bravely chose to sleep out amoung the stars. It only took him 20 minutes to zip up his sleeping bag, and then he was out till morning. Shawn slept in a vintage aluminum trailer out behind the house. He claims he woke up at one point and watched his breath for a while. PM and RW climbed the tall and frightening ladder to the upper loft. The indoor Hawks slept fitufully, shocked but thankful for the sudden change in the weather.

On a mid-afternoon Monday we'll call, say, July 18, the Hawks raced south from Pocatello,
Idaho on four lane I-15. How far to Salt Lake? How far to Mesquite? Vegas? Where will we spend the wee hours? Two hopeful events: dinner at the Red Iguana in Salt Lake, and staking Paul Marshall to a poker game somewhere in Nevada. The road is clear, the Idaho hills are brown and yellow, the fields an irrigated green, hard working homes, trailers, corrugated buildings dig into the landscape. It's heated up from the Wyoming side over Teton Pass, and it's going to get hotter. Or not.

Another guardian angel to send a shout out out to, saviour on our way out of Jackson Hole: a mechanic of few words who opened the Suburban hood and fixed our air conditioning malfunction in a matter minutes, and refused to take any cash. We gave him a Hawks CD, and he told us he plays banjo, so we hope he digs our songs.

South, south, south, sage and hills. We figure out we've played in 17 states. A free admission to Coles and a free back rub from Shawn to anyone who can name the 17 United States of Hawks: contact: stonecutter@iseehawks.com

July 18, 2005

DEAR STONECUTTER

letters to the editor

Hey, Stonecutter, you may remember me, I got into kind of a hassle with you at the Milkweg in Amsterdam, 1977, it was a Herbie Hancock/Jorma Kaukonen show, and you sat on the blanket I'd laid to save my spot, I came back from scoring some righteous Nepalese Temple Ball, was ready to fly, and I had to deal with you, but you convinced me that scarcity is an illusion, and we shared my blanket and Temple Ball, and I turned you onto the Sleep-in, and I recall you crashed there for several weeks until they figured out you stayed way past the three day limit.

Rock on, see you on the other side,
Ahab

Dear Ahab,
As almost any sensible Milkweg '77 attendant knew, blankets were communal and up for grabs. You were the bummer, my man. It was a post-private property gathering from its inception, largely funded and promoted by the Dutch Communist Party. Only a total dumbass would freak about about a blanket, bro.

To answer your other question, yes I am still active in the earthen pottery community. I teach a class on porcelein three times a week in an abandoned 19th century toilet factory in upstate New York. Stop in if you'd like to patch things up.

Yours,
Stonecutter

Dear Stonecutter:

Sister Hannah Of The Sky

Dear Sister Hannah,
I remember you so fondly. We sat by the fire in the Sedona and you sang Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through The Night." Well not only did you help me through the night you helped me through my four long years in Arizona. I'll never return, as I'm sure you know but to you my spirit shall return always.
Fondly,
Stonecutter

Email questions and comments or just register your disapproval at: stonecutter@iseehawks.com

July 16, 2005

SAVED BY THE SPIRIT OF STINSON

We climb acoustic mountains. We bush wack through the thickest sound anomalies of the most diverse rooms in different cities, different states, different spiritual locales. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it's damn hard work. Tonight we had to discover and play at enough volume to drown out the room's natural echo without overhwelming the ears of the audience and/or the band. It was damn precise work. Difficult work. But we did it. We measured the acoustic characteristics of the room and delivered what had to be delivered--and overwhelmed the audience's ears. Very loud turned out to the the appropriate volume.

Bandidos is an enlightened space, what would be called a sacred or higher consciousness spot in books on religion, but bars have their spiritual aspect too. It's a sprawling brick building with a rough stone foundation, built in the 19th century and with many identities over time, including a mortuary (bodies were stored in the winter in spaces through the foundation into the earth). Owners and guardian angels Scott and Amy have created a remarkable restaurant and bar, with the best mojitos, steak, and halibut overall composite rating perhaps on planet Earth. The whole staff is brimming with intelligence and good will, and they know how to have fun. RW and PL realized that they weren't prepared for such a combo, being thoroughly trained by L.A. to view a smile with suspicion. But they got over it.

The crowd wasn't huge, but they danced all night, and the Hawks became kind of a rock band, volume being the key ingredient, turned way up. We played Mike Stinson's "Take Out The Trash" and it was the #1 dance tune by a landslide, with everyone up on the floor.
Stinson can rock by proxy. This is mountain country after all and a twelve pack of Coors Light is never far away. Mike's spirit hung in the warm July air above the room, marking it's approval with a ghosty Virginia chuckle only we could hear.

Later, young Siberian named Ole really dug the band. We whilred and whirled to the music. On a work/study visa, he was drinking as much as he possibly could before having to return to the fierce Russian steppes. I said, "Good luck back in Russia" and he laughed hard as if I was making a black sarcastic joke. We saw him walking/stumbing his bike back up the main street atr 3 AM. Ole, I hope you make it.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH

John Denver is a bit of a hero of ours. Right up to the end when he nose-dived the experimental light aircraft into the Pacific. We believe that at the moment he was humming the tune to one of his timeless melodies. Was it "Country Road," "Annie's Song," "Rocky Mountain High," "I'm Sorry (For the Way Things Are in China)?" Well, we have driven all this way to pull inspiration from the very same hills and peaks that fueled his epic career. And it's working. This is the land of no unpleasant vistas. In Los Angeles we consume quantities of mental energy blotting out a landscape of urban greed and low ethics, near hostility to the notion of creating beauty. Out here mother nature rules, and human detritus barely marks the hills, valleys, crests, and rumbling distant peaks.

An hour's drive from Bozeman through rainshadows and rainbows on aforementioned valleys and peaks brought us to a gem of human detritus, Virginia City, Montana, once the capital of this blessed state after the biggest gold boom in America, before a second gold rush somewhere else stole the capitalship away. The town is as if frozen in time, with a pristine 1876 courthouse and beautifully preserved old wood frame houses lining the highway and climbing the dirt road hills.

July 14, 2005

SALT LAKE SERENDIPITY

We're driving through Salt Lake City just before rush hour trying to get our asses to Montana when we come across a great radio station. The DJ is wise -- she follows Doc Watson's classic "Shady Grove" with Zepplin's orgasmic "Whole Lotta Love." We hear the call letters, KRCL, call information, and dial in to register our approval. PL tells her he loves her show and asks if she's ever heard of a band called I See Hawks in L.A. She says yes and infact loves their album "Grapevine." We say, "That's us!"

The conversation heats up. Next thing we know PL is transcribing directions to the studio. We're going to play live on her drive time show. The directions are solid. We only have to call her back and turn around once. We pile out of the Bomb Squad Mobile, dazed and blinded by the many miles we've traveled. A young man with dark glasses and long sideburns looks at us and knows we need help. "Are you musicians?" he ask. yes. yes we are. He guides us to the loading entrance. They buzz us in. Teri is at the console. We set up. Minutes later we're playing live on the radio program we were just rocking out to at 70 bsmph(bomb squad miles per hour). It's odd, surreal, and right. We play 'Airplane", "Hawks", "Humboldt", and "Mystery" and chat between tunes Thanks Terri and Gianni and everyone at KRCL for a very cool afternoon! Not only was the station great but they direct us to The Red Iguana café, the very same café PL ate at 15 years ago with his Salt Lake city Bone Daddies tour Mormon girlfriend.

Mexican cuisine? In Salt Lake City?, you ask. Well let I SEE HAWKS IN L.A. tell you, this is Mexican food to rival, L.A., San Antonio, Santa Fe, and any other Mexican food stronghold you can think of. The Red Iguana got us started with fine margaritas, made with Cazadores tequila, for only a few cents more than the regular tequila you'd just put in a Paul Marshall. Three on ice, two of them with salt, and I'll have one blended without salt, thank you very much. Simple, elegant margaritas that taste clean and great. We're on our way. Now here comes a heaping bowl of fresh, crisp tortilla chips, and if their homemade salsa wasn't enough, we get a plate with five (count 'em) different kinds of mole, to sample with the chips. There's a dark brown, familiar, chocolatey mole. There's one a shade lighter with more heat. There's a delicious green one. And our helpful waitress describes each one and its ingredients in loving detail, which unfortunately, I can't quite follow, but PL is clearly committing each recipe to memory.

Shall we describe our waitress in loving detail? An Aztec goddess, dark of skin and eye, mysterious of smile, and ready to distract us completely from our ultimate goal. Filled with the sexual power of an ancient bruja she makes love in complete silence. Orgasms pass over her like deep imperceptible waves. Her moment of climax is marked only by eyes pressed tightly closed and a breathless shudder. She almost succeeds in casting her spell, but we haven't dined all day; the evening is coming on, and our priority is FOOD.

Our main course arrives. PM has enchiladas containing perfectly cooked shredded chicken, full of flavor and tender beyond belief. There's avocado in there, another of their amazing mole sauces covering the melt in your mouth tortilla exterior and a small dollop of crema mexicana on top. The flavors are rich and surprising, and ultimately, right.

PL does the three fish tacos loaded with delicious fish, and all additional ingredients on the side, salsa, lettuce and guacamole. PL claimed the fish would stand alone, but he put it all together, and dipped it into the aforementioned mole sampler, an artist's palette of five color mole on a plate.

SN and RW had the Poblano platter: enchiladas with chicken and sour cream, beef tostada, and beef taco, huge pile of guacamole. Every bite was a revelation of flavor and texture, a little different from any quality Mexican fare we're familiar with, and yet, unmistakably Mexican in character and construction. Oh, and by the way, massive amounts, reasonable prices. How do I type four stars on this computer?

CEDAR WIND

Cedar City, Utah, Wednesday, July 12, 2005

Another Comfort Inn, serenaded by the Interstate. A cute young Mormon girl cuts a late night deal with the Hawks (not what you're thinking). Every hotel in town is packed. There's a Shakespeare Festival in town. She'll give us a dirty room with one bed for $30 and a clean one with two beds for $60. Breakfast bar included. We're tired enough to go for it. Is it a good deal or did we get scammed by one of Joseph's Smith's clever daughters? Only with time and consequence will we know for sure.

As day breaks in Cedar City, UT it's very hot, and the Hawks stir reluctantly in rooms 226 and 263, but it's time to go. PL discovers dirty clothes from the last Hawks trip, festering in the side pouch of his duffel bag. Karl Rove is being re-cast as the dirty man he is, the media finding their courage and moral compass, a few years late for America's status in the world, but better late than never. It's time to pack the Suburban.

PL is haunted by the cosmic coincidence or Intelligent Design that allowed the Hawks to drive on empty through 40 miles of searing desert and run out of gas as we pulled into the perhaps chimeral gas outpost with one working pump. It's too much, this convergence of deadly heat and cool salvation. There's more to this.

IT FEELS GOOD TO BE IN NEVADA

Where I met my beloved; where there is no income tax; where I first sat down at a 7-stud Casino table thirty years ago and learned how to not lose my week's paycheck while drinking tequila and playing cards. It's not gambling. It's the only game in town where you're not playing against the house. A little math, a little time, a little discipline, and come to Papa.

It's not a guarantee, on any given night, though.

Gambling is not viewed with distance or indifference by the Hawks. They're into it.
RW has many tales of reckless nights, big ups, big downs, dawn bringing jittery decision
time, with no mental resources left. The stakes are high, and so am I, got me a rock and roll band, it's a free for all.*

PL is up about $300 in sum total, he figures, from his twenty or so ventures into the city where what happens here stays here and on the big screen TV. PL's natural lack of faith in his own financial acumen sets a limit of $60 nursing cards at a $5 minimum table. It can
be done.

Cooler heads have prevailed in this desert oven environ, and we gas up and get out of east Las Vegas, a brief swing through the glittering lights, and we're back on the I-15, now shrouded in darkness. We still might stake PM to a poker game in Mesquite, before entering the north Arizona quadrant, where small towns are run by Latter Day patriarchs with 20 young wives, and the law is God's alone.

*Ted Nugent's "Free For All" 1971

122 F AT THE MAD GREEK

When would you pay $3.71 a gallon for gas? And are guardian angels real?
Read on, dear reader, read on.

The plan was to leave from Paul Marshall's Tujunga aerie at 2 p.m., beat traffic
and climb the 15 deep into Utah. A three p.m. departure led to a traffic meltdown
in Arcadia that didn't let up until Pomona, but it was cool after that. Not cool, as
a matter of fact, but startlingly hot as we climbed the Cajon summit, killing the AC
to save engine and gas. Have we hit the airconditioning summit yet? asked Paul
Marshall as we did indeed hit Cajon summit. Sweet AC, relieve us.

The drive through Hesperia and Victorville revealed a shocking number of new
Suburban developments gouged into the desert, but as we passed the eerily homoerotic
Motel 6 in east Victorville the sky and stark hills opened up. We recklessly, nay,
courageously decided to try and make Baker on our quarter tank of gas. and as
the gas gauge needle plunged into terra incognita far to the left of E, we realized
we were rolling the dice, and nowhere near Vegas.

Each incline brought a new level of speculation--will we make it? Will a miraculous,
mythical and monumental lone gas station, rising proud and gleaming from this harsh
and blank landscape, be our salvation? Nope. Yep. Faith and fatalism fought it out
in the tight quarters of the Hawks vehicle, steaming now as we've killed the AC to increase
gas mileage.

Now we're speculating that over that last rocky ridge, just beyond the mirage in the road,
will be a downhill slope, and we can coast into Baker. Faith and fatalism: now delirium
and grim certainty. When lo: a gas station. More lonely than the station of our dreams,
bleached like skulls and bones, and it's open. We rattle over the cattle guard and run
out of gas, Rob wrestles our dead Suburban into the only working pump. It's hot.
Gas is $3.71 a gallon. And we are dumb blind lucky bastards. Surely all four Hawks guardian angels were blowing up our rear that last slope. We fill up, are regaled by the good Sheriff John with tales of gangbangers in the desert and sissy New York TV producers boofooed by the heat and local posse. We're on our way.

It's 122 F in Baker, according to the giant Bun Boy thermometer, but it feels like 119 F.
At the Mad Greek we get gyros and the hummus falloujah sampler. It feels like the
right food to eat. Oasis food. Strawberry milkshakes and Greek coffee. And we're
off.

Next plan: to stake Paul Marshall with our wive's life savings and have Paul play poker for us. We're going to take Vegas by storm. If he wins big we pledge to cancel all upcoming gigs, all of them, buy a double wide in the desert, and become players in the gigantic world of the Las Vegas Hospitality industry. It'll be just like PL's brother-in-law's TV show, without the big budget crane shots. All Big Tits and B-list celebrities clamoring for our attention. We'll comp them hotel rooms, get them girls, create tax shelters for their phony businesses. We'll have all the connections, baby, The sheriff will call us when he wants someone killed. The desert sun will never set on our empire. The neon will be that bright. And when Jesus Himself grows like a curly whisker out of Shawn's chin and blesses us with His holy sceptre we'll know we've done right by Him. How much is gas in Nevada anyway?

The Greek food is turning on us a bit. Feelin funny in Jean, NV. We flew through state line and the sun is down, rocky desert peaks are mellow purple and the Suburban AC allows us to forget it's still 110 out there. Life is but a dream, until oil peaks.

CALL ME STONECUTTER

a letter from the editor

Ladies and Gentleman, please let me introduce myself. I am Stonecutter. For the past year I have been editing the I See Hawks in L.A. Road Diary.

Last July, the I SEE HAWKS IN L.A. Road Diary published its first blog. In the past year, the ISHILA diary has attempted to provide a candid and uncensored look at the life of a hippie country folk rock band on the road.

On the occasion of our first anniversary, we will tackle one of the most controversial issues facing all of us today: privacy in the age of infinite, liquid, information. It so happens that our first anniversary is concurrent with the 10th anniversary of the launch of the Netscape Browser.

In the Age that first truly dawned with a "Pop" browser, privacy is in constant danger. Just last month, over 40 million card accounts were exposed to potential fraud due to a security breach that occurred at a third-party processor of payment card transactions, MasterCard International said last Friday.

My advice: be careful. Buy gold, and bury it under a rock, disguising all traces of disturbed earth.

I am not a musician. I don't really care for or understand music, preferring to dwell in the spheres of spatiality and chaos theory. I also have Writer Tourette's Syndrome (WTS), which can affect my narration at any time WTS doesn't result in profanity, but more of a drift into non sequitur, like those little buttons you find in antique stores, ivory or ivoroid, musty, or was the box musty, the surrounding little parchment fragments, doll's eyes, postcards of the dead, pin cushions with still lethal stingers, mildewed place cards? I put the box back on its shelf, and stumbled out into the Beaumont afternoon heat. Should I get gas? I'm adrift, and seeking bargains. I might head south to Mexico, but I'm ten years too late. The days of wandering are done. Video plunder has invaded all plateaus, all windswept dry brush valleys. It's all on DVD, BMW and ING have captured it all, stealing spirits that wept alone until this new millenium, as the age of chrome yields to data. New shine is in megabits, objects are flat and in your head, and the spaces between buzz with microwave, laser, Homeland Security, TiVo, and Trials Of The Century. No coyote howls unheeded, no box canyon whistles to only empath sky, no cactus waits unnoticed. It's ten years too late. Maybe I'll get a hotel and watch the Discovery Channel.

Some of the statements in this record will directly contradict other statements that you might have read. Please understand that we are not attempting a whitewash. I am Stonecutter, and I live for truth. My truth.

First of all, I'd like to thank you, the readers. Without you, the ISHILA Blog would be not exist. You inspire us to write all night and all day and any other time we feel your inquiring spirit. Again, we want to hear from you: stonecutter@iseehawks.com

The year has been full of challenges as well as blessings.. This past year we witnessed fires, earthquakes, landslides, difficult irritable soundmen, quirky club owers--and fine dining, wonderful breakfasts, generous friends, Virgin River(s). Alt rockers REM were not devoid of inspiration. Their concept "Life's Rich Pageant," though dripping with their misguided and possibly pointless irony, once sophomoric and now brittle with aging, is a joyous maypole around which to dance the mind's dance, All the world's a stage. Seven hundred lifetimes to enlightenment, say the Sufis, and at this information the spirit cracks with relief, and the future stretches leisurely like a cool summer barbecue as the shade relieves the glare. The Bodhisatva stays not only to help others, but because he likes it here. Watermelon. Baby laugh. Ice cold. Summer rain. Escape. Return. Yearning, and faint remembrance of how it turns out. And everything was fine. The new, haunted by the 700,000, not new at all, and new.

Farewell and God's harsh beauty to all of you, and remember, you can reach my humble self at: stonecutter@iseehawks.com

July 10, 2005

ON A COLD SAN FRANCISCO NIGHT

by Guest Blogger Folz

A quick flashback to San Francisco, Thursday July 7. Flashback often being the best (only?) method for ingesting-digesting whatever-the-hell-exactly-it-is that goes down when doing a show in the City by the Bay. Hawks RW and PL in particular know this all too well, having both declared on Thursday night, without hesitation, that the entire city itself was haunted. As an 11-year local and longtime band affiliate, I'm qualified to say that they were speaking the gospel on this one; while other pronouncements may tend to come more lightly, this was a serious matter, and they knew it. It was a matter of the weather. Indeed, in the heart of summer, the Hawks had returned to the city of the multilayered monster fog. Peel it back cautiously, my friends, as you'll find equal parts truth, glory, and evil.

Actually, just to sidetrack for a minute here: Café Du Nord. It was a great show, the band was ever in the pocket. The drinks were reasonably priced, the lesbians lording over the pool table remained perfectly friendly, even though one of them had to politely inform RW and me that we had inadvertently coveted her rack. PM was 98 percent professional about the fact that the club provided the band with Miller High Life and meatloaf that carried a $3 surcharge. SN looked especially relaxed behind the drum kit, tanned and rested from his recent side trip to Gaum for a couple quick shows with L.A. neo-punkers, Camaro Rouge. Other observations: Songs from the new record-in-progress got the NorCal crowd plenty juiced -- keep your ears peeled for "Motorcycle Mama," she's a gem. It's also clear that PL has now made a regular practice of levitating several inches off the stage during the outro on "Humboldt." Speaking of outros, somebody whispered a rumor in my ear after the set that PM may be connected to the origination of the very concept. (Even with all those bad-ass jazz cats from the '40s and shit, you may be wondering?) I can tell you that a couple of inquiries were later made. Some vigorous, though relatively brief, debate ensued. No definitive conclusions were reached.

But I digress. We were standing on the high tundra of Market Street, cross street Sanchez, the east-bound marine layer lashing us all something fierce. Spirits remained spirited, sure, but we all knew it was a bona fide situation: PL was downright spooked, his shoulder-length grey locks tossing some mad, mad shadows against the windows of the band's trusty new-old Chevy Bomb Squad Suburban. At one point the treacherous currents stole a loose page from PL's "fortnight -at-a-glance," flinging it into the middle of Market Street where it got pummeled by an F-line streetcar and was swirled away into oblivion.

"Coldest damn city in America," RW said, hands jammed into his pockets. It was July. He had a point.

PL was hanging onto his hat, eyes squinting. "I didn't need that anymore," he offered. It was the stand-up thing to say, but he was wrong. Ten minutes later, as the chatter of friends and teeth continued, the page reappeared, skimming the sidewalk and brushing up against the doorman's stool a few feet away, tattered but intact.

This is the kind of mojo we're talking about here, folks.

"Great!" PL said, as I handed it back to him, the strange markings no more intelligible than they were before. PL wanted to know what the page said, but there was nothing else I could do for him at that point.

People tend to bullshit about the weather when there's nothing else to talk about. But the road-tested Hawks know better, and RW in particular, who used to call this town home, knew this was weather of an entirely different sort. Strange and provocative weather. Insidious weather. Ghosted weather. Weather they sure as hell won't be showing on the Weather Channel, the Disney Channel of weather channels. This is downright BEASTLY weather. The kind of weather, unknown to the rest of America, that could bullwhip a band into calling the whole thing off -- that in an instant could have them shouting for backup from a couple of trusted accomplices, send them scrambling for the emergency stash of Federale, see them bolting the hell back into the vehicle, pronto, spark it up, God help us all.

And so it went. As good fortune would have it, the set had already been successfully completed.

By the time they found their way to some breakfast carnitas in Gilroy on Friday, I'm told, color had started to return to faces. San Francisco is a friendly town, but only sometimes. The winds can change in a blink -- many have perished in the sometimes spiritual wilderness of this place. You can deliver a smoking set here, but outside the wolves will still grin wide and howl their bloody howl from the hills.

Just make sure your strings are tuned tight before you arrive. Be prepared to retune them anyway. And shit yes, of course, it's best to pack some extra Federale if you've got it on hand.

The Hawks, bless 'em, they know all this. And they'll be back.

July 09, 2005

OUR TOP STORY

Once again, death brushed by ISHILA guitarist Paul Lacques today when he nearly choked at the Bear Diner in Gilroy, CA. Eagerly inhaling his Americana (formerly Alt Country) Omelette, Paul breathed a chunk of eggie down his windpipe. Rather than make a spectacle in the crowded restaurant, Paul got up and walked outside to face death alone. Some robust coughing blew the little chunks into the upper parking lot atmosphere, and Paul returned to his companions and a life resumed.

While Paul dealt with his outdoor encounter with immortality, the remaining Hawks sat at the table wondering if he was all right and sharing their own near death food stories.
At a café in Seattle, Shawn was given the Heimlich maneuver by crooner Spanky Whitfield (sorry girls, no pictures). When Shawn realized he was choking (on a piece of lettuce), the
muscular and chiseled Whitfield wrapped his tanned and sinewy arms around Shawn's midsection and pulled, grunting under his breath with the effort. The lettuce flew from Shawn's mouth and he collapsed into the arms of his rescuer. Whitfield smoothed back his tousled hair into its well oiled classic shape, and calmly resumed his meal. "I got your back, bro," Spanky winked, and picked up the meal tab.

OBESE AMERICANS WEIGH IN ON LONDON TERROR

Dear readers,
It's true: our recent tour diary has turned a bit harsh and political. These are indeed turbulent times, and while voicing opinions can be scary, it feels appropriate and important to the Hawks to address the current issues of the day in as frank and candid a way as possible. Besides, you deserve the kind of raw, uncut information we pride ourselves on providing several days a week.

Plus we get a perverse pleasure out of annoying people. Especially you, says RW. What do you mean, "we?" says PM.

RW: PL, I grant you the franchise on annoying people. For me, I think it's best to embrace the new era of total exposure with zero editing of anything, because our privacy has already been compromised. We mustn't believe in the myth of privacy any more.

PL: Sometimes the darkness is overwhelming.

If you have insomnia and are reading this we'd like to know! Please email your name, address, profession, and number of children along with the time of the day (or night) to our editor: stonecutter@iseehawks.com

GRANT PROPOSAL: THE GLASS CATTLE PROJECT

Budget: $1.5 million

Proposal: I See Hawks In L.A. will design and mass produce life sized clear glass cattle, to be placed in endangered pasture lands in the foothills of Southern California. A glass herd of elks will be placed in a high altitude Montana meadow. Clear glass mountain sheep will line a steep basalt cliffside, stalked by a pair of glass panthers.

In the spirit of Christo, the installations will be completely accessible. This glass menagerie will be fragile and breakable, to reflect the fragile status of the elk, the panther, the pasture--and to challenge viewers to treat the exhibit and the earth delicately.

Make check out to: ISHILA, LLC, Bahrain

BREAKFAST IN GILROY

Starving
Bear Diner, Gilroy CA
Aggrresive and hostile male hostess
dilerium
dehydration
starvation
bears everywhere
wood bears
plaster bears
bears in photos
stuffed bears
a photo of a Black Bear carrying a large log is on the door of a stall in the men's bathroom
a painting of a bear walking through Montana wilderness, fossil remains of miners, trappers,
and farmers in the cross section of earth below bear's feet
coffee, water, diet coke
carnitas breakfast burrito
habanero salsa
side of sour cream

July 08, 2005

HOT FROM THE ROAD, HOT FROM THE HIGHWAY

It is a gorgeous day on the California coast. PL is cursing Ruth Seymour and the KCRW cultural oligarchy again. We're right there with him. KCRW has become a futuristic corpo-public radio monster. As if this community college station was not powerful enough in the Los Angeles basin, now, through Podcasting, KCRW is cornering the market of thought and opinion and shaping the parameters of taste across the globe. 24/7/365. Just take last weekend's New York Times Magazine. Their adoration of Nic Harcourt and his championing of the little guy musician and composer. Elevating the Finnish teen with his hip-hop beats and ProTools set-up. A truly global event is happening. Community radio is being abandoned for good.

PL wants to clarify his rant against Ruth Seymour. She was interviewing the head of the U.S. set up and run radio network in Iraq. Our own Tokyo Rose to convert the innocent youth of Iraq to free market capitalism and titillating hip hop sexuality. Ruth was lobbing one softball after another to Mr. Big Brother, cooing and murmuring "fascinating," as he described, deadpan, his project as having one of the largest "news staffs" in the Middle East. Ruth's only challenge was to mention that Radio Hooray for American got triple the funding of PBS and NPR.

PL personally hopes that NPR collapses entirely. The stations will survive, and will be forced to scramble for local talent to fill the newly vacant programming hours. No more Robert Siegal and his patronizing nasality, Lisa Mullins and her bullying of the occasional lefty spokesperson, Day To Day's privileged snickering at the sufferings of the world.
We'll miss you, NPR. We'll miss you Shirley Jihad. That's right, jihad.

DVDS ARE TEMPORARY TECHNOLOGY

They skip. They just skip all the time. More and more I find that other people experience this same flaw with their DVD players. And I do believe it is the player that is the problem and not scratches on the DVD itself. We must stop suffering alone in silence! Share your stories of DVD skipping and free yourself from the pain. VHS was better, is better, and will suffice until full downloading of digital entertainment content fully takes hold two years down the road.

THE SWEET, SWEET SANTA BARBARA AIR

We are in Santa Barbara. Yes, Santa Barbara. Land of Reagan. Land of clean ocean breezes. Land of sleepy Santa Barbara enthusiasm. A mixed Wednesday night crowd of elderly Republicans, Folkies, Hippies, beautiful Lesbians and young girls came to alight on our solitary limb. Perhaps there’s something here that makes people permanently satisfied with themselves, the climate, the state of national politics. But we are not such people. We play a regular gig on skid row in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. For two years we played every week on the worst street in the worst city in America. And you know what? It was the best and it still is. The best room, the best vibe, the best bartender/owner, the best sound, the best fans. We are lost in this affluent beach community. We are lost.

PM says, “Any time we’re doing better than breaking even, we’re doing good.”

It's night, and Santa Barbara is quiet. Peaceful? Perhaps. Yes, it's likely. But quiet, certainly. We've just done a mellow set at Soho, a very pleasant club in a tasteful Spanish courtyard whitewashed building on State Street. Gina Villalobos and her fine band went on first, and their rowdiness was reined in, as would be ours. They sounded like a good indie record, the sound man had good things happening, and the crowd was with Gina all the way.

Our friend , the Irish folk singer Paddie McCorkle, is wandering this week, seeking a deeper insight into his ultimate destiny and avoiding gainful summer employment. He's hanging with us at Soho, and we try and browbeat him into selling CDs for us, but Paddy's no patsy. He's impersonating our tour manager at first, drinking beer after beer and eating chicken fingers on the half-price band tab. After a while he starts telling people he's the producer, not the tour manager. It sounds better, gives him more artistic authority, makes him appear less desparate.

Our show was with electric instruments, but we played cautiously, perhaps stately. To rock seemed wrong. The Hawks sounded good, and the audience was enthusiastic in that restrained Santa Barbara way. The ProTools overall compression plug-in has been applied to the collective psyche of this isolated and fortunate community. No highs, no lows, but a solid and pleasant midrange. Nice chats with our SB friend and big supporter Jeff Levy and audience afterwards, and then we packed up.

We're back at the hotel, and things have turned strange.

Paul Marshall is having a very sensual discussion with Paddy, our boon and twisted companion on this brief journey into mellow uncertainty. Paddy wants us to drive backroads into the mystic Santa Barbara Highlands to gaze upon ponds with local beach dwelling nymphs, now sheltering in the upper mists. We Hawks are weary, and guarding our spirits from distraction, and are declining the invitation, but these Sirens are of an unstoppable will, and will not release us from their feminine energy. Paul Marshall is a rock, a cool and commanding iceberg calmly but resolutely cooling the scene, lowering the stakes, bowing out gracefully. Thank you, Paul.

Shawn is the healer. He’s our Jesus. At times, PM can be the bad guy but he’s also the compassionate father.

Sleep comes after hours of trying to squeeze decent programming from the big screen TV.

Morning in Santa Barbara, and the pleasantness persists. A flawless breakfast at Cajun Kitchen (good to superior rating, Hawks Better Cuisine Council), a farewell to wanderer Jay, and we're heading north on the 101. Will the mellow groove persist? It seems impossible, and yet . . .

July 01, 2005

COMPING IN TUJUNGA: DID OSWALD ACT ALONE?

It's Friday the first of July, 2005 but you already know that. PL, PM, and RW work diligently at the bucolic foothill retreat and studio of PM at the edge of Los Angeles. The sun is getting warmer, the sky smoggier. It is summer here in Los Angeles. Real, interminable, Los Angeles summer is dawning.

We are at work comping the tracks for our third full LP. Barrier Reef is comped. Byrd From West Virginia is next. We're going through the songs alphabetically. We're organized, damn it. As if we were launching a rocket into space for NASA, we're utilizing the most severe tools of organization. Yes, we're using computers. Apples, IBMs, PCs. We're using all the computers. All of them.

Is Paul Laques, in fact, in support of the space program, you ask? No, of course he's not. He's exhausted by it just like you, and just like the entire shuttle launch platform. Will Discovery survive its mission later this month? And why is Discovery always used immediately after a Shuttle disaster? It was the first Shuttle launched after Challenger disintegrated on take off, the first launched after Colombia disintigrated on landing. Is it the most reliable Shuttle? Is Atlantis as unreliable as the fools who wander the earth believing in the mythical ocean city from which it gleans its name?

There are still many questions left to answer, my friends. Many questions. Am I talking about the Kennedy assasination? You bet I am. The Magic Bullet Theory, the mysterious circumstances surrounding Officer Tippitt's death later that afternoon, the witnesses pointing to the train trestle immediately after the shots were fired, the change in the parade route, the improbability of a single gunman operating alone, the drastic differences in conclusions between the Dallas surgeons and those of the government autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital, the CIA-Mafia-Cuban Connection and the fallout from Bay of Pigs, Alpha 66, Sturgis and Hunt: Tramps or CIA Assets?, Life Magazine flips the sequence of frames in printing the Zapruder film, Jesus, the bullet changes direction! And where was George Bush Sr. on Nov. 22, 1963 (he claims not to remember). By God, Jack Ruby was a bagman for Al Capone. My sweet Lord, Oswald came back from two years in Russia with his American citizenship renounced and wasn't even detained by a U.S. intelligence agency!

So, back to work. Mandolin or Dobro? Lick selection. Slick election. Self-protection. They're fighting each other. It's the Vietnam War acted out by traditional American folk instruments. PL and PM put on the French hats of the Paris Peace Talks, trying to hammer out a deal between those two, tough, trebly cousins.

Paul Lacques says, "When you really stretch out the ProTools wave forms they look really stoney." We decide that ProTools wave forms, Paul Marshall's lava lamp, and Mike Stinson will costar in the video for Barrier Reef. Then the computer crashes. The computer! Goddamn it!

But, thankfully, full recovery. Session Back Up was enabled and fully engaged. Why is Paul Marshall the only ProTools engineer in the country with this software? We will continue comping, selecting, peace-making. We are mastering the computers bit by bit. Science Fictions threatening the take over of the world by computers forgot one thing: Calisthenics! Yes, through the power of calisthenics we will overcome the machines, my friends. Be strong, be fit, send email.

With summer, as we all know, Paul L's thoughts turn to impeachment. The 2002 vintage "Impeach Bush" sticker still clinging to his 1988 Mazda hatchback doesn't seem so alone and hopeless. Another big summer thrill: Denny Moynahan aka King Kukule has a girlfriend, she's supercool, and two days ago she managed to flip off both President Bush and the First Lady as they were limoing out of the White House compound. This really happened.*

*Paul M wishes to register his protest at this rude action; he believes in the political system, not
personal attacks.

Paul L, on the other hand, views history as a raw, vicious struggle between those with money and those without, and that the veneer of civility still clung to by the hopeful has masked the greatest transfer of wealth upward in the history of mankind. The Bush administration's attack on the well being of the planet and its people is not getting the response of moral outrage it deserves. Kill the rich!