The Inland Empire is the only part of the country I’ve ever seen that is virtually built on a swell of heat and wonder. I was raised on an egg ranch in Fontana California, my father was a carnation milkman, and my grandfather made his own brandy in the basement of our Spanish revivalist Date Street dwelling. He was actually one of the fabled copper miners in Woody Guthrie’s acclaimed ballad, The1913 Massacre. I remember crawling and climbing through the black walnut orchard in a 1960’s sunshine that struggled with the steelmill emissions like Cain and Abel chosing a reality. My friends and I grew up on the music of Grand Funk Railroad, Blue Cheer, and Buck Owens like a good swatch of our individually stamped pubescent America, but I still brought my steel guitar to high school and kept it in my book locker, taking the pick-ups apart at recess. We all had the slight varnished inkling of a 4H vibration; smoking pot turned the clouds to sheep.
The Brayers Become Claremont 2004
18 Saturday May 2019
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