Story of LEVEL 1 of
AMERICAN ZEN

Hollywood, California
Coyote works for several Los Angeles newspapers as a photojournalist of the LA Newspaper Guild covering rock concerts at the LA Forum (now Staple Center), Palladium, Roxy, Whiskey... He also specializes in shooting album covers and promo photography for record companies and rock bands such as Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones, Steve Miller, and a long list of punk and hard rock and heavy metal groups.

Coyote's girlfriend had some music connections in Utah. She convinced Coyote that she would "make him famous" if he'd move...

Salt Lake City, Utah
After moving to Salt Lake City, the drunken manager of their apartment building decided to pocket their rental safety deposit and ask for a second payment. Now evicted, they lost their money, their home, and slept in Coyote's van. Sound like a Cary Grant movie?

Michelle had some relatives to stay with, but Celise (Coyote's cat) and our California Zendog lived out of the van that cold snowy winter. "I wrote PEACE OF MIND and BLACK OF NIGHT with cold fingers on my Alvarez" (acoustic guitar).

Coyote performed all the local nightclubs of Salt Lake and earned a reputation of "UTAH'S BEST FLUTE PLAYER." Due to the lyrics of his songs, Coyote lost a few friends and created a host of enemies in Utah. "Those Mormon teenaged Elders would come around and tell me to move back to California. It got so annoying that I had to complain to the Church Of Latter Day Saints hierarchy to get them to put a a leash on those annoying servants of God."

"This was a real kick in the ass, slap in the face, eye-opening experience. Now that I'm back in California, , it all blends into the past and doesn't bug me anymore. But at the time, I was in a life and death battle," pants Coyote. "Although I kept journals about the Mormons bugging me, I decided to tell stories about other parts of my life in the LEVEL 1 book. I created two dozen webpages to tell the story with lyrics of the LEVEL 1 album. It came out really cool. It's kinda funny. Maybe you'll even find some of the stories enlightening."
 

COYOTE'S Zens of LEVEL 1

Zen #1     Zen #2     Zen #3 
Zen #4    Zen #5      Zen #6
Zen #7      Zen #8