RAVEN MACK is a mystic poet-philosopher-artist of the Greater Appalachian unorthodox tradition. He does have an amazing PATREON, but also *normal* ARTIST WEBSITE too.
There shall be a cosmic space jam/southern gothic
futurist haiku slam in about a week in Blacksburg, featuring my man Boogie Brown
and his Blue Globe Beats, as well as me doing whatever the hell it is I do. I
am hopeful we have competitors. I don’t recruit people hard enough, but all
this shit I do is a lot of work sometimes, and I’m fucking wore out. All I
wanna do is sleep, like for 29 days straight, catch up on my lifetime loss of
sleep partially. I’m excited about the event in Blacksburg though, mostly
because it’s beautiful people that I know are involved. I hope to connect with more
beautiful people too.
Everything feels fucked up in this world right now
if you focus on the information you’re being fed, but if you walk around
outside, talk to actual people, there’s still a ton of beauty to this world. It’s
not as bad as it seems. Even the animosity humans feel for each other, it’s all
magnified by these digital splitting mauls we get channeled with. People are
people, and that remains a natural fact.
Too many manmade facts today are not natural
facts. We need more natural facts. Also, yesterday I thought about giving
myself a “takin’ care of business” tattoo, like throwback trash ‘70s style.
Why? Because even if I don’t recruit competitors for slams like I should, or contact
local media, or do all the normal people shit that normal people would do, I’m
takin’ care of business. It’s just my business is more loungin’ than all that
other stuff.
Went to a demolition derby at a country ass fair last night, in the borderlands blue ridge areas that make up a certain dynamic of VA/WV/KY/TN/NC - that central Greater Appalachia area. I consider myself culturally a greater appalachian, because I read the relevant parts of that academic dork book, and that shit all made sense and applied to me. Demo derbies have always been big part of trash culture (lol as I explained to my gf's friend last night assorted nonsense about demolition derbies, I remembered to say I was a "trash culture anthropologist"), but in the feature event, the big body welded classics, there was a fuckin' car flying an Army flag and a goddamn Blue Lives Matter flag. This disgusted me, and I was actively and openly rooting against this fucker (unsettling the people I was with, as they looked around at our budding fascist footsoldier environs) because the act of wrecking up fucking cars is a desperate art built from fucked circumstances, and in no way whatsoever should somebody from that environment be flying a goddamned Blue Lives Matter flag (which is thinly veiled racism, and not even veiled fascism). Fuck that.
I'm often thankful my dad died when he did because sometimes I'm afraid if he was still alive he'd be pro-Trump and talking to me about Q Anon shit. As it stands, he was frozen in time and I can hold him as a good-hearted addiction/alcoholism-inclined man who disliked government and cops, which is how it should be. HOW THE FUCK DO YOU LIKE COPS?
Anyways, the stupid blue lives matter car was painted nicer than all the rest, and barely got smashed before breaking down along the way and just sitting there, looking nice to the undiscerning eye, but ultimately fucking useless during actual conflict, so I guess it ended up being a good metaphorical representation of cops. But the abundance of boot-licking foot soldiers for fascist ass military police states who have had their thin suppressed racism be switched into outward expression of lack of tolerance because somehow they feel like they're the ones who have been oppressed because they can't say dumb shit to everybody, the sheer abundance of these types that have been fermented in rural America really has started to freak me out. On a personal sense, I'm not into having guns, because of personal history and shit that has happened, but I've never been against them in principle, although I think the way people's brains are broken as fuck today, we probably don't need everybody having assault rifles.
And yet, these blue lives matter fascist adjacent fuckers who somehow think they are about god and freedom even though they're thinking is full of judgment and hate and fear, the preponderance of them, and how armed up some of them are, it has me worried about the immediate future. It's just dumbass message board people going wild with these shootings so far, who fell down rabbitholes and broke their brain too hard to think straight. But wait until something happens (or some bullshit leader like the one we got dog whistles people into action, around an election or something) and all these militia wannabe fuckers with blank gazes go wild. They are the fuckin' police, or at least cousins with the police, so it's not like any public officers gonna stop that shit right away.
Thus I'm re-evaluating my guns stance, on personal level. I think more folks need to have better critical thinking skills (to reduce the blank gazes) as well as weaponry skills (to reduce the sitting ducks I see on the horizon). Writing poetry and practicing shooting - draw up that venn diagram, and where it intersects you'll find your real soldiers.
Been seeing way too many white dudes in that weird pseudo-para-military gear of black shirts with blacked out American flags, always some military blue lives matter adjacent bullshit. Y'all gonna end up being Amerikkkan Death Squads, I know it. Fuck y'all. Fuck America if that's what America is. You suburban redneck clean new truck two-story house with a basement asses didn't get enough chicken grease on your shirts growing up. Chik-Fil-A ass eating bitches.
The 411 on upcoming Sovthern Gothic Fvtvrist Haiku Slams.
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 14 - CHARLOTTESVILLE VA - TWISTED BRANCH TEA BAZAAR
Our regular gig at Tea Bazaar for August. Always a spectacle. Don't forget to check out the monthly open mic at the Tea Bazaar as well, on the first Monday of each month (except in July, which will be on the 8th instead), hosted by your boy Raven Mack.
SATURDAY AUGUST 31 - BLACKSBURG VA - ODD FELLOWS HALL
We're gonna have a Sovthern Gothic Fvtvrist Haiku Slam in Blacksburg on Labor Day weekend, along with my friends at Workingman Wreckchords, so it'll be some sort of creative nonsense gibberish shape-shifting jam/slam. Also hoping to set up a writing workshop earlier in the day with local homeschooler/unschooler/oldschoolers.
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 13 - RICHMOND VA - ELECTRIC NOMAD DANCE STUDIO
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 9 - CHARLOTTESVILLE VA - TWISTED BRANCH TEA BAZAAR
FRIDAY OCTOBER 11 - RICHMOND VA - ELECTRIC NOMAD DANCE STUDIO (RVA ZINEFEST!)
I do also have an official (lol) website now, with a page on haiku slams there as well - check it out - and book me to come do one of these things in your neck of the woods.
I am regressing momentarily, to recharge. Or maybe forever. JUST GONNA KEEP PUSHING THIS ROCK UP THE HILL I'M SURE IT'LL REMAIN IN PLACE ONCE WE GET TO THE TOP!
everything is stupid, including this song I'm too damn tired, and trying to cut down on impositions including self-imposed ones things I don't have enough of in my life right now:
crowbars
down time
20 mile hikes on railroad tracks
$10 supporters to my patreon
crows
joy
ciphers
alone in the woods time
80 mile hikes on railroad tracks
horseshoes
chicken flocks
finished books
300 mile pilgrimages on railroad tracks
passport
rest
actual rest
actual restorative rest
and yet thankful for what I do got. it could always be worse.
