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.

Friday, March 15

SONG OF THE DAY: What Am I To Do


Mostly listen to oldies at this point, and mostly don’t give a fuck. Thinking about forming a doo wop group if I could find four other people like myself, which can’t be easy, to be honest. I’m pretty fucked up.

Thursday, March 14

SONG OF THE DAY: Sunrise (kudzu'd)


Oh look, I wrapped up the heroic crown. It ain't the greatest sonnet in the world, but it's a sonnet, and it fits the pattern and rhyme scheme and gets it done, and I did in true freestyle sonnet fashion and wrote it in about 11 minutes with my rhyming dictionary at hand.

Infinite outlook grants this grimy world more grace, 
man's vision hyperextended our reach too far 
beyond what humility should have kept in place; 
star dusted crowns got delusions of grandeur... par 

for the course when dreamers discourse with mad schemers 
who build pyramids of abstractions. These unreal 
realities start to bind, blind to redeemers 
who arrive to remind us existence is wheel 

and not a line chart. My heart yearns for sunrises 
greeted with hopeful joy, and sunsets filled with peace; 
but this compromised world the devil devises 
entraps the spirit in sadness without release. 

Nonetheless, with stealth I conceal behind this face 
planet rock mentality born from outer space. 

Wednesday, March 13

SONG OF THE DAY: Struggling Man (kudzu'd)


Back on that freestyle sonnet tip, so as to wrap up this heroic crown hopefully. I really need to cobble together another book of freestyle sonnet heroic crowns.

Simplifying life also amplifies the funk; 
living with spunk and zeal has popular appeal 
but is far less practiced by masses far too drunk 
off performance without basis in being real. 

Ain't no carrying the weight of world created 
by men without struggling in mind from time to time; 
this labyrinth designed to entrap those baited 
with dreams of escape is a well organized crime 

against true pursuit of happiness. All this dirt 
of metaphysical nature which stains our acts 
of building our pyramid schemes will only hurt 
ourselves when it's time to pay universal tax 

of balance restored. At war with abstract wealth chase, 
infinite outlook grants grimy world far more grace.

Monday, March 11

SONG OF THE DAY: Lookin' For A Home (kudzu'd)


This is the song I named my last book of haiku after, but slowed down. That’s a pretty great book. Feel free to buy a copy if you randomly show up here and aren’t a robot.

Thursday, March 7

SONG OF THE DAY: Charlie Brown


Briefly was playing the fuck out of this song because my beloved girlfriend bought me some Charlie Brown masks made by Jimmy Valiant’s wife Angel for my birthday. This is not the cartoon character Charlie Brown, but when Jimmy Valiant had to leave town and just wrestled under a mask as Charlie Brown from outta town. The masks leave the beard area exposed, which is ideal when you have an actual beard. Unfortunately, the masks fit weird as fuck, like the eyeballs don’t line up well with my actual eyes. But I still love them very much, and we got to meet one of my childhood heroes when we picked them up at his wrestling camp. And I made him a haiku spike which he put on the wall there in the camp’s main building. The whole place is like an outsider art environment, with every available surface covered with pictures and art, and a little line of old prized vehicles out front too. In terms of rural arts compounds, it’s definitely a 5 out of 5 stars. Even had a nice little fountain, without water (probably still too close to winter).

Wednesday, March 6

SONG OF THE DAY: I Get High (On Your Memory)


Been in a rare period of lack of self-indulgence. There was a fairly cheap copy of this 45 on ebay, all the way up til the day of the auction ending, and I just let it go, didn’t bother. I guess I’m suffering from “economic anxiety” lol.

Tuesday, March 5

Friday, March 1

SONG OF THE DAY: Don't Mess With Me Baby


Abner Jay was a collection I got off a free bandcamp day from Mississippi Records, and I throw this music into my hard drive mix where I pick random selections to be included on my old iphone that works as an ipod, and the songs pretty much have to survive on their merit, according to my tastes. It’s a true meritocracy, albeit one heavily influenced by my personal biases, but it’s my music to listen to, so fuck it. In fact, all these songs of the day come from the most played songs over the course of a recent month. But I didn’t know shit about Abner Jay until digging on this music. His history is FUCKED. The grandson of a slave, learned the banjo and guitar from that grandfather, and the young Abner Jay played thoroughly in the minstrel circuit. He ran circles with Sister Rosetta Tharpe and was confidante and driver/assistant to Prophetess Dolly Lewis (who I will be researching more about shortly, I’m sure). At one point Abner Jay had a “converted mobile home that opened up into a portable stage, complete with amplification and home furnishings,” which apparently the performances included as much shit talking and side rants as music. He was living my dream! On top of this, he self-released a ton of his own recorded music, in small batches, prolifically. What we’re getting now (including the Mississippi Records collection this song is from) is just collections taken from pieces of that extensive discography. It’s very interesting to me though that the roots of rock-n-roll came from the rural South, where kooks like Abner Jay or Sister Rosetta Tharpe were sort of blurring the lines between secular and spiritual, and creating a spiritual secular form of art. I struggle a lot with sliding into normalcy (though I’m by no means living a normal life, lol). But goddamn, the world needs as many out there kooks as it can get. And I mean the esoteric kind, who know they can’t ever know, but keep grasping at any and everything and expressing themselves constantly while grasping. We’ve got far too many kooks nowadays who think they know, full of “information” that ain’t even halfway real, way too confident they got it all figured out, when that’s not even possible.
Anyways, here’s an Abner Jay song. And if you happen to be my sister, YOU’VE GOT TO GO LISTEN TO A BUNCH MORE OF THIS DUDE.

Thursday, February 29

SONG OF THE DAY: Searching For That Lady


Was digging through records to take with me for spinning tonight at a Cuban restaurant in town, and I was missing some 45s I’d meant to spin. I figured the Record Gods were holding out on me, so I didn’t press it. But then two whole boxes of 45s, including the ones having the key Peruvian cumbia 45s I meant to have with me, showed up behind a demolition derby trophy I got at a junk store. The Record Gods teased me, but came through.
I have a sort of chaotic method to organizing my life, which is going to become annoying as I get older and forget things more rapidly. Mostly everything is sort of sorted into levels of importance or dopeness, so I know certain boxes of 45s are top notch, some are good, others are mid but might contain gems, and some are banished to the upstairs hallway and I really should get rid of them probably (although what if my tastes change and there are hidden gems?). So nothing is alphabetized, I kind of have a hip hop 45 box and a cumbia 45 box, but other than that, it’s pure chaos method, where the cream rises to the top of the box chain, and I just go with that. That leaves me always searching, because I don’t have a perfect order where I can go, “Oh, I want to find this one particular New Horizons 45,” because it’s just in the whole mass of 45s, somewhere. And for someone who desires total control and order in their world, that’s probably difficult. But I enjoy the magic, of finding lost gems, realizing I have a clean copy of something I thought was only scratchy the last time I played the other version, and just general faith that the Record Gods know I’m acting with pure heart and will always reward me because of that. But as I’ve gotten older, in fact older than I thought I’d ever live to be, I realize I love and value magic far more than order. I don’t want instability, so basic order is nice. But having everything mapped out and predicted feels very non-magical to me, and likely ain’t my metaphysical heritage anyways. So we keep it chaotic good around here, and likely always will.

Wednesday, February 28

SONG OF THE DAY: Rhinestone Cowboy (kudzu'd)


Authenticity in a consumer culture is always gonna be impossible to nail down. Fake ass people who practice the same persona for long enough eventually appear to be authentic as opposed to the folks they cribbed from in the first place. Nostalgia for old fabricated bullshit starts to seem more real than the current fabricated bullshit, and it all just gets all mixed up and around in the bins of shit you’re expected to sift through to consume, that authenticity is completely lost and somewhat irrelevant.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what is a person’s culture, especially in some place like America where most of the population is not from there historically. Most of us have had most of what would be our historical culture lost in the process of assimilation to American life, and few of us speak the same language as our ancestors 4 or 5 generations back. So what is our culture now? On the surface, by design, it seems to be what we buy into, or consume. American culture, on that superficial level, is big trucks, spacious houses with engineered landscapes, giving the appearance of rural but not too far off giant clusters of box stores where we can restock our identity with convenient ease. But let’s be real, that’s not a culture so much as a lack of culture. Culture is what we practice, regularly, and yeah, it can seem like by that definition, the big trucks and suburban lifestyle is still our American culture. But culture also should have some lasting value, into the future. And just buying shit has no lasting value… it’s a constant struggle against the high and low tides of economic factors to maintain that bullshit.
I’ve been thinking of culture as what I practice, but in two directions – past and future. So whatever I practice regularly is my culture, and it reverberates as far forward into the future as I practiced it regularly into the past. That means, so like I’m learning banjo now (very early stages lol). But also, I had kin who came out the mountains to Amelia County back in the 1930s or ‘40s, who brought bluegrass music with them to Southside Virginia. So it’s in my familial history. But my dad didn’t play, nor did my grandfather (who I never met). But the folks before them did, extensively, so that practice maybe echoed forward to me, maybe not. But the more I practice it, the more I can connect with that practice, and carry it forward. Maybe. It might die because I find it too frustrating, who knows?
But also with writing haiku, I’ve practiced that super extensively, on daily basis even, for upwards of at least 20 years now. That’s an extensive practice. It’s part of my being, and everywhere in my life (and mind). As an individual, that’s part of my culture, but being I’m the first in my family to do that, it’s not really my culture… yet. But the events I’ve created, and sharing my practice with others has led others to practice it as well, and it spreads that culture of writing haiku. It moves from familial cultural activity to communal one instead. But I’ve put a lot of life into that, and I’d say it’s part of my identity, at least to others. (I remember when I got to do workshops in the old Richmond City Jail, and one time I showed up and one of the women students who was incarcerated, as we all stood on the line waiting for entry into the classroom, saw me and exclaimed, “Hey! It’s Haiku Guy!” The personal practice I had shared had become my identity to her.)
I say all this, because as a kid, there was a lot of country music spinning on the turntable. But it was mostly outlaw shit, and pop country was seen as weak and not relevant to our fucked up rural life. You never would’ve heard my pops playing John Denver or Glen Campbell. But 40  years later, as rural America is more suburbanized, and Wal-Mart Supercenters touch down every 40 miles or so across the vanishing country landscape, “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” feels nostalgic, for a simpler time. Or “Rhinestone Cowboy”, seems less like the embracing of materialistic bullshit urban culture that it did when I was a kid (under the influence of paternal thinking) and almost like a cry against that very world. But also, I’m applying the filters of time on it from today. And slowing it down (as I am wont to do) just adds that extra layer of fucked – “Where hustle’s the name of the game… and nice guys get washed away like snow in the rain.”
Now, strangely enough, a rhinestone jacketed dude strumming guitar would feel more authentic than the big truck driven to Costco to fill up on La Croix 12-packs. Except the rhinestone jacketed guy might just be the young adult sign of the Costco visitor, with a scraggly fu manchu mustache, cosplaying country in a different way than his dad. It’s impossible to tell, unless you get to know somebody, to see if what they’re showing as an identity is what they’re actually practicing as a culture. I don’t necessarily have time for that all the time, so I’ve been extending benefit of the doubt a lot more often lately (no time for drama), but also, the eyes always give it away to a certain extent. You can tell how real somebody is by looking in their eyes. I think. But I could be full of shit.

Thursday, February 22

SONG OF THE DAY: Bust A Move (kudzu'd)


I have the first haiku slam of the year in a few hours, and I’m horribly disorganized and unprepared, so I don’t have time to babble some writing like I normally would for these song of the day lists that I think my sister, my girlfriend, a guy in Australia, then like a rotating cast of 2 out of 9 others will see. Nonetheless, if you are currently wavering in personal decision making, let me and this song just put a mark in the affirmative column for you to bust a move.

Wednesday, February 21

SONG OF THE DAY: Maskeraad


Funk is Universal, and it’s in every single human soul… if allowed to flourish. The saddest thing to see is how whole segments of society have stifled their natural funk for so long that they’re not even seen culturally able to be funky. If you’re such a person, I suggest you get a big metal barrel for burning things that you put outside, and burn that fucker at least a couple times a month, preferably when the moon is bright, although to be honest, it’s just an important to soak up the new moon vibes as well, which is counterintuitive if you’re counting on light. But fire, plus lunar reflections and stardusting your crown, these are all things that help ferment the funk back in your soul. If you do it right, you should start smelling like woodsmoke half the time. If that’s a problem, well, then you are choosing whatever path of your life requires you not to stink like woodsmoke over the the path that leads you back to a natural funky nature. So at that point, you’re making the choice to not be funky. That’s sad. No amount of progress promised by civilization is worth losing our funk.

Tuesday, February 20

SONG OF THE DAY: I Won't Love You Again (kudzu'd)


Been playing a lot of slowed oldies lately. Like a lot. Even drifting back into the doo wop days. That shit sounds great slowed down. Civilization is coming apart at the seams so it only makes sense we’d shift space-time and jam slowed oldies around pallet fires. Seems natural.

Monday, February 19

SONG OF THE DAY: So Low (kudzu'd)


Different pattern to this one, same rhyme scheme but I made the lines more separate. Feels a little sing songy to me, which ain’t my style, but fuck it. It’s a freestyle exercise. Also, I love this fuckin’ song slowed down so much. Carried me through some introspective moments the past few months, lol. Also, in the last line, I am using "funk" as positive funk flows in your life, not the wack ass "in a funk" type of funk. Funk is good. Funk not only soothes, it removes.

Dwelling in negative light will tarnish your soul, 
and this world will create reasons to dull your shine; 
but never let another's judgments slow your roll, 
continue feeling, even if not feeling fine. 

Systems designed to engineer order surround, 
but we all got born free DNA deep inside; 
cellular memories of fingers in the ground, 
and ancestral tendencies to cross vast divide. 

Abide by heart... brain thinking's got limitations 
(like compromised morality while chasing wealth); 
people got the same hopes regardless of stations... 
a simple life of happiness, freedom, and health. 

Unneeded complications leave us feeling drunk; 
simplifying life also amplifies the funk. 

Sunday, February 18

SONG OF THE DAY: Five Minutes of Funk (kudzu'd)


There’s no greater statement in favor of The Power of Lounge than the fact that if you slow down “Five Minutes of Funk”, it becomes seven minutes of funk. Everything could be so much nicer if we just stopped hustling so damn hard.

Saturday, February 17

SONG OF THE DAY: We Got To Hold Ourselves


Hey man, let's keep the vibes as light as can be while this heavy ass world seems to spin further off kilter. I don't really know what to say to nobody, because though I've had shit going on, all in all life is good. And I know a whole lot of people really getting put through the ringer right now. If you have anything resembling downtime in your life, whether it's a weekend or an afternoon or you're just magically feeling better than normal for a few hours, allow yourself the space to lounge. Just because the shitstorm eases up for a few hours doesn't mean you have to rush out and try to accomplice all the undone tasks that's been building up in your head. Let yourself lounge. We wasn't made to juggle all we juggle. We was made to sit in sunshine and feel the warmth.

Tuesday, February 13

SONG OF THE DAY: I Just Can't Leave You Alone (kudzu'd)


Been in a down state but I think I might have pulled out. Time will tell. It always does. But I did another freestyle sonnet.

Many folks' most perfect beats are fashioned from junk; 
funk found has deeper bass than that easily made 
with the comfort of space. And yet, I can't get drunk 
off resentment for suburb punks whose parents paid 

every step of the way. We're all born without 
picking where, and all of us gotta navigate 
the same oppressive conditions, though ain't no doubt 
from different positions. Too easy to hate, 

and get full nelsoned by woe is me misery. 
I gotta find heartfelt rhythm which keeps my feet 
in motion, seeking futuristic history 
which always begins as oral tale told with sweet 

optimism and hope... the only way to roll
dwelling in negative light will tarnish your soul. 

Wednesday, January 31

SONG OF THE DAY: Future Lover


It was a year ago today that I put on my finest Sergio Tacchini tracksuit and went to see Thee Sacred Souls with my girlfriend. This was a couple weeks before my 50th birthday, and I’d been looking forward to it forever, setting off celebration of reaching a decade my father and grandfather never made it to. The show was wonderful. Then I had a suicidal episode right before my birthday, and it ended up not being that celebratory at all, more like figuring out support networks I never counted on before, and accepting the limitations of age. It’s all good now, but February of last year was dodgy.
Since that time, both my youngest kids (16 and 20) have had that “Could I Call You Rose?” song play on their Spotify playlists in the car, not sure where it came from. And then Thee Sacred Souls just had one of them NPR Tiny Desk concerts last week that all the normal white people who think they’re quirky absolutely love. It’s nice to see them blow up, and in fact, even see the whole souldies movement start to gain traction with the paying public. Getting back into records and limiting myself to 45s meant that there’s a long period of no releases, from the late ‘90s through the past decade, with the exception of the souldies movement, which kept 45s alive all through that time. The vinyl resurgence never happened with this realm, because vinyl never went away, and in fact, all the major label color variations of shit has clogged up the vinyl production pipeline for those who’d been using it all along.
All part of the deal in living in a society though. This particular song was part of the Pennyrose Valentine’s Day bundle last season, with Thee Sacred Souls dropping “Future Lover” as a single while they were on US tour. I slept on it at first, but upon a few more spins, this one has snuck into my regular rotation of modern souldies classics. And if you’re a 45 connoisseur like myself, this one pairs excellently with a number of Otis Redding 45s, notably “Think About It” and “You Left The Water Running”, which both got references to the physical space of a shared house, and those opening knocks of “Future Lover” just pop right on in as you fade out the Otis, and life goes on man, it always goes on, until it don’t. And when that happens, you’re not gonna be worried about your records no more anyways.
Thankful I'm still listening to records, to be honest, after the past year. Life is shorter, no need to make it shorter, and no need not to find joy in this godawful civilization we've been doomed to live inside.

Tuesday, January 30

SONG OF THE DAY: Baco Walk - Part I (kudzu'd)


Old Virginia soul for an old Virginia soul, but slowed down, so that I can grow older more lackadaisically. Ain't no rush.

Monday, January 29

SONG OF THE DAY: Sacalo, Sacalo (kudzu'd)


Changing my name to Sonidero Barba de Chivo and finishing building a lithium battery powered sound system to blast slowed down 45s in abandoned rail yards throughout the south all this year. I’m dropping out. Civilization is overrated anyways.

Friday, January 26

Sunday Slowdown Chapters 11 through 14

I realized I hadn’t put the last four chapters of the Sunday Slowdown series here on my long-time bloggerspot worldwebwide page. So let’s fix that issue.


Sunday Slowdown chapter 014. Sometimes you gotta slow it down and cruise with a feel good heart, no matter how hard the world tries to make you. This is the Slow Rollaz mix, old school and new school rolas, off the 45 slabs, slowed to 33. Because sometimes it takes two hours to get 15 minutes away.


We slowing it down once again, doing 35 in a 55, letting the music play, with a touch of grey to the beard. Slow living is resistance against slow death, so we're riding down the purple highways way off the mainstream interstates, and take our damn time.


Chapter 012 of the Sunday Slowdown series is a Declaration of G.A.S.P. aka Greater Appalachian Space Phunk, declaring ourselves not just hillbilly banjo pickers. We got that electro funk resistance going on because it ain't 1863 no more.


Chapter 011 of the Sunday Slowdown series was just spinning through records from a weekend wander through parts unknown the day before, blessed by The Record Gods, but can't share the spots for fear of unloungers taking them over. We gotta respect the Power of Lounge.

Thursday, January 25

SONG OF THE DAY: Some Woman's Bedroom (kudzu'd)


Been wanting to fuck strange and perhaps crazy women, just to sabotage my life. Sometimes shit gets too stable feeling and that goes against most of my early cellular memories, so I gotta fire some chaos into the mix. Used to be when I drank or got fucked up, it brought all the chaos I’d want. But now that I’ve been sober so long, and held down a job at the same place for over a decade, there’s not a lot of random chaos in my life. You’d think this is a good thing (and it is), but it still makes you (if you’re like me) feel kinda fucked up, like something’s not to be trusted, or just don’t feel right. Do they got healthy chaos? I could use some.

Wednesday, January 17

SONG OF THE DAY: Superjock (kudzu'd)


Eh fuck it, this sonnet is about old records, but also human existence.

Each imperfect moment is needed part of whole, 
holistic wabi-sabi like crackles and skips 
in ancient 45, accentuating soul 
sounds with warmth of natural wear and tear, round trips 

on turning tables at times unstable, slight buzz 
of poor grounding creating ever-present hum. 
I prefer the realness of blemishes because 
perfection is fool's errand, letting self become 

sum of path traveled, again like old records, which 
passed hands over decades, picking up local dust 
and accidental scratches or physical glitch 
which can't be fixed, yet learned to live with. I have trust 

in Universe to keep fool self full of fresh funk, 
many folks' most perfect beats are fashioned from junk. 

Tuesday, January 16

SONG OF THE DAY: Slow Coastin


I’ve been tormented by Flee Demons lately. I’ve been afflicted with them for as long as I’ve had a conscious mind, since I was little disappearing into fields behind the ragged cinderblock house my young ass folks was renting in Rice, Virginia. Flee Demons just show up in your mind, because you can’t comprehend how to possibly fix everything that’s broken in front of you, can’t possibly begin to clean up the messes piled in every direction, even outside the doors, piled up on the porches, out in the yard. Shit man, you got piles of messes at the last three places you stayed at, in other people’s basements and attics, sitting there with bad memories you left behind for somebody else. Flee Demons are pretty common amongst a lot of folks, but you don’t really see them in popular culture. Pop culture is made for those that got the ability to sit in one place and collect experiences they bought. They don’t have to actually live them all, so they consume what others make and consider it expanding their worldview.
I’d thought I’d gotten the Flee Demons under control, silenced them with a bit of stability and a big old house in the country that leaks air but seems to love me. But then the still life you’re living has some sort of perspective shift, and all of a sudden all the angles look darker and less welcoming. The good life you thought you’d achieved slips further away, without anything actually seemingly changing. But you realize all those piles from forever ago, they’re all still there, piled up in every direction, stuff you can’t throw away but can’t fix either, don’t have the skills or strength or even the desire to figure all of it out. And then the Flee Demons start piping up again, with that siren song of somewhere elseness. I’ve been feeling it heavily, because it’s cold, and I’m tired, and I don’t feel like doing the same thing next Tuesday that I did this Tuesday, so I want to set fire to the stability and run off and start over again, enjoy a brand new puzzle where there are no piles. Fucked up thing is even if I did that, once I sat still for half a year, and started putting the new puzzle together, all those piles would show back up, sitting on the porch again, stacked up beside the couch, filling every hall closet possible.
I don’t know what to do about it. If I can’t get rid of the piles, how do I learn to live with them? Can I at least recycle some of this shit? Setting fire to it never seems to get rid of it, because the ashes are changelings and rearrange the soot back into shape, slowly over time, when you ain’t watching the fire to keep it going constantly. And nobody can be that vigilant with their scorched Earth.
So I’m just sitting here looking at these piles, and hearing the sweet song of the Flee Demons again, thinking about where the westbound line stops to let a coal pass east almost every day around the same time on the weekend, and how I could just sit there and wait to see what all is on the other end of where that train goes. Been hearing that since I was little, and sometimes I wish I’d listened to it better all these years instead of trying to make sense of the senselessness.