The Power of Lounge is not so much the abandonment
of caring about everything, although it might appear that way to an outsider
who is more of an insider, and not an innate dweller of shadows. The philosophy
of “loungin’” is an acknowledgement that institutions and systems are not built
with the people in mind, not the full spectrum and abundance of people, and that
institutions and systems, by design, tend to fail a whole lot of people,
purposefully. I can’t think of any six month period in recent memory that has
made that more obviously clear in American history during my lifetime. But the
entrusting the Power of Lounge to provide sustenance to soul in a world hell-bent
on material satisfaction of the brain, which we often find is never satisfied,
due to its own unlimited expanse, which when trained to chase greed, only finds
avarice. And though it’s a noble heartfelt pursuit to attempt to reform or tear
down and rebuild institutions and systems to provide for all, human history is
littered with empires that were founded on noble principles that ended up
enforcing their aged visions of a perfect order on a world that had spun slowly
in directions that can’t ever be controlled entirely, not by human hands at
least. So the Power of Lounge is acceptance that you can’t control it, not the
whole pile of bricks and mortars and village and mass of people. So you work to
do well with your own actions, spread raw joy in your interactions with others,
both human and non-human, animal and plant, the whole fucking deal. Anybody who
has experienced the full economic spectrum of life in America will tell you in
a heartbeat that poor folks are far more generous, that a cookout aluminum tray
full of leg quarters bought with an EBT card is gonna have less strings
attached to it as far as who can get a plate. The Power of Lounge is knowing
the world is fucked, not because it’s a world but because of how men act upon the
surface of it, but you can always shift yourself more underground, more into
the shadows, find freedom in the margins, and maybe find happiness. It ain’t
always easy, and moving away from the system always has repercussions, when you
try to do normal shit, like acquire material wealth or buy a piece of land with
a house on it or whatever. But again, all that shit ultimately is unloungin’;
the act of “owning” land is perverse anyways. Doesn’t mean you don’t do it,
because the institutions and systems we live under are far more over-reaching
than most of us realize in all the little ways. But the philosophy of “loungin’”
is also accepting that shit as much as you have to, rejecting that shit as much
as you can, and building camaraderie and community despite and outside those
institutions and systems as much as possible. They call it “networking” when it
comes to economics – building relationships that benefit you. Outside of that metaphor
I don’t really like the word “network” though; it’s more like long ass mycelium
connections beneath the Earth, tendrils of shared existence and survival, that
helps clean the superficial poisons from your brain, so that you can keep on
living by your heart, and enjoying life. Because if we can’t enjoy our life,
being it’s the only one we gonna get, then what the fuck’s even the point?
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.
Tuesday, June 30
SONG OF THE DAY: Shlon
America is poison culture, so we don’t necessarily
have that many good role models for men easing into middle agedom (or older)
that aren’t tinged with sexually predatory behavior or abusing power which was
slowly inherited as birthright. I mean, of course there’s tons of dudes who did
not benefit from the institutions in place, who are localized and legendary and
pretty great role models as older dudes to be. But our poison culture doesn’t
elevate them as much as horribly flawed mediocre at best pieces of shit. Look
at the Presidential election for example. Nonetheless, it’s okay to step
outside the cultural boundaries applied to you from birth, like lines on a
metaphysical map drawn by colonial overlords, which don’t necessarily fit. I am
actively abandoning any delusions that anybody can be President, never taught
my kids that bullshit, hell my only kid of voting age doesn’t even vote because
they know it’s a scam meant to manufacture a false people’s mandate on the system
itself, instead of making any actual fucking progress. But as I’m only a few
years away from 50, instead of wanting to be a mediocre white man with material
wealth, abusing my power and trying to harass women half my age, I’m trying to
cultivate an Omar Souleyman vibe. Unfortunately I’m still far too tethered to
my American conditioning, because I think ultimate dirtgod feelings would be
living on the side of a mountain or near a quarry with a bunch of goats making
noise, and pretty much wearing lavender jellabiya. That’s the robes popular in
the Nile Valley, as well as Syria’s farmland, where Omar Souleyman is from, but
not to be confused with the thawb worn by Saudi Arabian royalty types, and
although the thawb is also called a “dishdash” which is a pretty great word for
a full length robe a man would wear, the jellabiya is associated with rural
farming types whereas the dishdash is a more cultured and moneyed robe. So here’s
to hoping in the next decade I’m living on a hill with a hundred goats and
rocking lavender or mint green jellabiya’s with embroidered “dirtgod”
calligraphy on the back, freestyling cosmic verses over top whatever futuristic
throwback synthgrass sounds Boogie Brown is dropboxing on me in that southern
gothic future.
Label Labyrinth:
dreams that shall happen,
fashion tips,
goat life,
Krupert's jukebox,
Saudi Arabia
TH3 F4C4D3 0F GR34T FR33D0M...
Label Labyrinth:
free dumb,
gambleraku,
homepix,
power gridlock,
sittin' down 1441
Monday, June 29
SONG OF THE DAY: Pesse Mi Buntare
I still download mp3s, because I am an old “ok
boomer” man from seven years ago. There are still a number of decent music
blogs I check, plus I’ve been spending more money on bandcamp this year for
sure. But the problem is, my method for music, not streaming, is I have these
chunks of downloaded music that get lumped into my external hard drive, then
sort of battle royal their way out of the clusterfuck. Those songs that get
played the most on a few month basis end up as a song of the day. That means
there’s shit like this, that I have no idea why I have it, who the group is,
any of that. Shit just showed up in the mix, unheralded, but I played the fuck
out of it. Like a 7th round NFL draft pick, barely known, nothing expected,
then all of a sudden it’s a special teams hero and you’ve got dumbasses
ordering custom jerseys of it. I could probably be a legitimate faux-music
journalist online and look them up and write up a 200 word description of some
non-American music that’s probably once popular but unknown now somewhere else
and completely obscure here. But nobody reads the internet. We look at the headlines
and scroll social media timelines. In fact, this link will appear on multiple
social media feeds, and like 75 people will go to the link with these words,
but 60 of those will be East European or South Asian cyborgs just data trawling.
The other fifteen will scope the video, and maybe a third of them will click
the video to see what it’s about. Like two people will actually read the words
to the very end. Which means you. Thanks. I appreciate you making it this far
with me.
SONG OF THE DAY: Shaky On The Phone
Sovthern Gothicc Fvtvrism is way different than old
dystopian movies foretold. No hovercrafts or spaceships or teleportation. We’ve
got abandoned power plants being reclaimed by mimosa trees and honeysuckle
vines, and we’re just setting up autonomous compounds of communal lounge along
the old Richmond and Alleghany Railroad line. The James River subdivision and
Rivanna subdivisions are about the midway point between the Clifton Forge to
Richmond railway, and this past weekend we had our big once a year soccer match
like we always do the Saturday/Sunday closest to June 27th, with “goals” set up
at Clifton Forge and Richmond (69 points each), and at Natural Bridge and
Columbia (13 points each), and we kick it off with two teams, western and
eastern, and play to 69, starting at the Gladstone yard, where we have a giant
cookout the whole weekend long. Nobody down there gives a fuck anymore, as the
town is crumbling back into the river little by little. They tried to save a
community center to make it an actual community center but CSX just demolished
it instead to save themselves the liability. The Natural Bridge and Columbia
goals are only 60 miles from the kickoff, but it takes five of those to break
the 69 point total you need. Going the full 100-plus miles to the outer goals
in Clifton Forge and Richmond ends the game with one goal. I was there for the
opening kickoff, at noon on Saturday, and played all the way through Sunday
night about 7:30 pm, before I had to come home for work today. I might call in
sick tomorrow and join the game again, wherever it’s at. I slept along the
river Saturday night, with a dude who called himself “Gee”, but said it didn’t
stand for anything. We were talking about what was going on in Richmond, and
playing a bunch of Fly Anakin & Big Kahuna OG on my iphone before the
battery died. The river was just rolling along, like always. Not sure where the
ball was when we woke up – seems like it had moved further west with other
people playing, but my phone was dead so I didn’t know, and Gee was involved in
some sort of argument with his cousin via Signal text. I love these annual
soccer games, which usually last maybe a week or two before the last people
quit. I don’t think anybody’s ever actually gotten 69 points as far as I know,
but I’m on furlough next week from work, plus the 4th of July holiday being
Friday, so I’m gonna figure out where the ball is Thursday night, and fuck it,
gonna spend my furlough week kicking that fuckin’ soccer ball along the
railroad tracks all the way to the Clifton Forge goal. I figure if I can do ten
miles a day, I should be able to make it. Hopefully everybody on the western
team has given up so I can actually do that ten miles a day goal. You’d be
surprised how difficult it is to dribble a soccer ball on railroad tracks,
while somebody is trying to take it away. But it might be the first time in the history of Sovthern Gothicc Fvtvrism somebody actually wins our annual Sovthern Gothicc Fvtvristic Super Cup 69.
Label Labyrinth:
James River,
Krupert's jukebox,
railroad tie tapping,
Richmond VA,
Sportsball 69
D0WN 4ND 0VT'S WH3R3 VPR1S1NGS...
Label Labyrinth:
beautiful cleansing fire,
gambleraku,
homepix,
roadside attractions,
sittin' down 1441
Sunday, June 28
SONG OF THE DAY: Maradona
It has been pretty nice to have football again, and not just have it but a giant smorgasbord throughout the week as the leagues that are finishing are trying to stuff three months into four weeks. Sadly, no return for African Champions League, or South American football thus far, which means it's a daytime only distraction. That's fine. It allows me to still hate the police in the evenings. Hopefully American football is dead forever. It is complicit in the rise of fascism, and the police state... like you can't even pretend otherwise with the Kaepernick situation. Fuck American football, world football #1, American football #zero, ptooey.
SONG OF THE DAY: Richmond State of Mind
It’s been amazing to see the past month of community actions in Richmond, and how an initial night of protesting police brutality in the name of George Floyd, which had the police bust up the protests with militarized chemical responses, caused a break-up of the protest which wandered through the city, and sowed seeds of ongoing resistance. I was awake all night following online, and at 4 am decided to just ride up to see it with the sunrise, and take pictures of the statues, as I assumed they’d scrub it away immediately. By sunrise, there was already volunteer guards outside the Museum of the Confederacy, which had been set on fire, but hadn’t burned up nearly as much as I had hoped. I went down Monument and saw the graffiti’s first layer, none of it shocking to me, all of it made sense to me. The noose draped around Jeff Davis’s head on that monument (which is now toppled) was a nice contextual touch. Once I got downtown, where the CVS was still on fire, and saw the debris on Broad, it really told the story. Shook ones took pictures of broken glass, shaking their head at upmarked sneaker stores getting looted, as if they served the community in any deep essential way. But for me, what really told the story was the level of tear gas canisters and rubber bullet debris on the street. It was like trees shedding their leaves in autum, the level of militarized police debris still on Broad that hadn’t been swept up yet to pretend never happened.
They didn’t pressure wash the graffiti away, and there’s been actions every day since, a rotating cast of the people who have been out in the streets, with the Lee Monument now renamed Marcus-David Peters Circle, and having been turned into a community space. I actually happened to wander through again early a week or so ago, like 5 am, sun wasn’t even up all the way and I was the only one there, vibing to the much needed remix to the confederate monument, when I heard a thump, and like five police SUVs and cruisers rolled up, and a shitload of Virginia State Police, all geared up and flashing them big ass cop flashlights everywhere on the monument started moving around. I sidled my way across the street as inconspicuously as possible, not hassled at all by them beyond dirty looks, because I was just a normal ass white man to them. I saw when I got home that later they erected the concrete barriers around it, as it was technically state property, so the state was shutting it down at dark every night.
Every day since, the people have gathered, turning the space into a cookout zone, an open mic, basketball goals and picnic tables have shown up, people occupying a public space for public use, as a metaphysical middle finger to the Lee monument itself, which has just become a deeply layered blend of colorful graffiti. And every evening the police have shown up, armed for riots that aren’t happening, and blasted the people with rubber bullets, flash grenades, and tear gas, daily. The downtown Grace Street Richmond police station has also been turned into a dystopian fortress, with concrete blocks set up in the street, shutting it off, because the city dump trucks they were parking there weren’t doing enough I guess.
All of this is to say, it’s been amazing to see all this happening. Richmond has such a strangely unique history, on the James River where “western civilization” first grew its creeping tendrils on this continent. Richmond was a major landing zone for early African slave trade, and also because of this was the capital of the Confederacy during its brief moment of refusal to recognize all people’s humanity. The energy in this city is unlike any other place I’ve been, and it makes perfect sense that it’s been a space where the protests of the past month have held strong on a daily basis. And though I only lived a quarter of my life in Richmond, it’s always been a strong anchor for most all my life (most all of which has been lived in the James River basin). Folks have been throwing up prayers that those monuments to inhumanity would come down for many many years. And it can’t be forgotten that despite the alleged binary of the Civil War, those who won the war’s flag gets flown alongside the confederate flag by the people of today who are still poisoned by these inhumane philosophies. The fact the state of Virginia actually owned a tiny circle in the city where a confederate monument stood higher than anything around it, in a circular spotlight, is a pretty gross testament to the fact that though the southern states lost the Civil War, the things they believed remained a part of the American institutions that ruled us. You can’t reform rotten foundations.
4VT0N0MY CR34T3D...
Label Labyrinth:
dwelling in the shadows,
gambleraku,
homepix,
self-sufficiency,
sittin' down 1441
Saturday, June 27
ST0N3 SQV4R3S W3R3 H3WN FR0M F3R4L...
Label Labyrinth:
gambleraku,
homepix,
sittin' down 1441,
staring at the sky,
United States not America
Friday, June 26
W3 4LL W4ND3R VNT1L R00TS...
Label Labyrinth:
gambleraku,
homepix,
I is lost,
roadside attractions,
sittin' down 1441
Thursday, June 25
SONG OF THE DAY: Bad Girl, Pt. 1
On a wandering car trip the other day, I briefly
considered switching to they/them pronouns, in defiance of dumbass dudes who
use “pussy” as a pejorative. But then I decided that was a lot of work to
practice for myself, when I could just be antagonistic to dumbass dudes in
other ways. But the idea of trying to fight guys who say “pussy” about other dudes
by emphatically forcing them to use they/them with me is still intriguing. I’ve
got a lot of anger, and nowhere to misdirect it.
I’m also not sure why gender is such a disturbing thing for dudes who consider
themselves alpha or traditional or whatever the fuck excuse they’re using for their
prejudice is now. It’s really not hard to accept trans men and trans women and
gender binary or anything really. Like none of it is actually a threat to you,
and if you can just get along with people and make them happier and make your
life less unnecessarily dramatic, how is that ever a bad thing? People love to
be mad about shit all the time. Self-described macho dudes out here melting
down like a snowflake about every damn thing, left and right, hiding their
tears behind mirrored sunglasses reflecting a world that doesn’t exist anymore.
P1LGR1M4G3S THR0VGH TH3 M4RG1NS...
Label Labyrinth:
gambleraku,
homepix,
industrial fallacy,
railroad tie tapping,
sittin' down 1441
Wednesday, June 24
SONG OF THE DAY: Limitless
from demon inner critic
but still alive
and kicking
though not really kicking,
more like walking
this seemingly endless
pilgrimage through
late capitalist american empire
of diminishing returns
and bridges that burn
and hopefully the end of
the "fuck you I got mine" era
of manifesting individual destinies
SL0WLY D3S3NS1T1Z3D T0...
Label Labyrinth:
gambleraku,
homepix,
sittin' down 1441,
supernatural events,
tree porn
Tuesday, June 23
C0NSVM3R 1D3NT1T13S...
Label Labyrinth:
economics,
gambleraku,
homepix,
sittin' down 1441,
the last dying gasps of America
Monday, June 22
Sunday, June 21
TH3 SVNS3T 0F 4N 3P0CH...
Label Labyrinth:
gambleraku,
homepix,
lifted 1441,
power grid,
power gridlock
Saturday, June 20
R3TVRN T0 W4YS 0F TH1NK1NG...
Label Labyrinth:
gambleraku,
homepix,
lifted 1441,
railroad tie tapping,
Rights of Nature
Friday, June 19
TH3 R3CL4M4T10N 0F SP4C3...
Label Labyrinth:
abandonment,
gambleraku,
homepix,
lifted 1441,
lol owned
Thursday, June 18
B4RB3D W1R3 F3NC3S PR0T3CT1NG...
Label Labyrinth:
fenced in,
gambleraku,
homepix,
industrial fallacy,
lifted 1441
Wednesday, June 17
Tuesday, June 16
TH3 P4TH T0 C0LL3CT1V3 S3LF...
Label Labyrinth:
gambleraku,
homepix,
lifted 1441,
self-sufficiency,
United States not America
Monday, June 15
SONG OF THE DAY: Lucid Slowed
Richmond is infinite muscle arm emojis with a thousand purple hearts and two thousand fire emojis. It gets into your soul in ways other places don't. Even after two decades living away from there and further west, I still feel a stronger connection to Richmond than Charlottesville. Lake trout is exotic in Charlottesville, and I find that bothersome. Can't get goat anywhere either. Tear all them Richmond confederate statues down, and tear down the next ones too. Turn the strip malls into community centers and the median strips into flea markets. Build a monument to the big dude who used to give me extra potato wedges at the Cary Street East Coast every fuckin' day when I was broke as fuck. Used to stand by the Community Pride doing that "You have a collect call from '434 555 4269!' do you accept?" trick on the pay phone so my folks could call me back immediately and know I was still alive. Now that spot's a gentrified fuckin' beer garden or some shit. Oh well. I guess you can't fight progress, especially fake progress that's not progress at all just different assholes getting in on the pyramid scheme than the old school hog-jowled whitefaces who used to dominate the pyramid scheme on this American continent.
TH3 P4TH T0 B31NG D1RTG0D'S...
Label Labyrinth:
dirtgod theory,
gambleraku,
homepix,
lifted 1441,
solitude of the raven
Sunday, June 14
SONG OF THE DAY: Drown Yourself
The only time people really kill themselves in a river on purpose is by diving off of a high high bridge way the fuck up in the sky. Rivers are mostly known for baptismal rebirths if you go to drown something there. And even if secular, rivers are a hot spot for power of lounge escapades which strengthen the soul even if you are not committed to believing in god or gods or goddesses or spiritual forces at metaphysical levels in any way or shape or form or none of those. You just go to the river and wash away the world's bullshit. If I were a giant rich asshole, I'd waste my money by taking long boat trips on the longest rivers in the world, definitely the Nile and Congo Rivers in Africa, definitely the Amazon, and even if I don't end up a giant rich asshole, it'd be great to float down the entirety of the Mississippi on a boat. Do they do that? Can I get on a boat in Minnesota and go all the way to New Orleans? I don't want a fucking cruise boat either; I want what's basically a privately run Econolodge on floating steel barge, where even though I'm a boat somebody is selling drugs three doors down. I am of the class of human being where it's not a real vacation unless somebody is selling drugs three doors down. I mean, are we vacating life or just living in sheltered oblivion? We're vacating life you assholes. Sheltered oblivion is no way to travel the entirety of a giant fucking river that's been fouled up by human's industrial bullshit yet somehow still maintaining an innate beauty as the artery of existence on this 8-ball planet.
Label Labyrinth:
dreams I'll never know,
Holla-daze,
James River,
Krupert's jukebox,
Mother Africa
1 KN0W 1'M L1M1T3D BY...
Label Labyrinth:
dirtgod theory,
gambleraku,
homepix,
lifted 1441,
simian science
Saturday, June 13
1'M 4 WR3CK T0 B3 H0N3ST...
Label Labyrinth:
back to Earth,
gambleraku,
homepix,
lifted 1441,
metasciences
Friday, June 12
SONG OF THE DAY: Why Hate?
In this age of riding whatever wave is the latest
wave of the week, please remember to support your local longtime heavyweights.
You can love music globally but support locally. Poe Mack, Case Jones, and
Rawsole Records have been a cornerstone of Roanoke, Virginia, hip hop scene for
a long ass minute. Poe’s one of them dudes I’ve seen talk about how the
pandemic has shut down his independent opportunities as a performer. He’s also
one of them dudes who has been about the movement happening right now in his
local scene. Supporting dudes like him is important. So do it.
SONG OF THE DAY: Let The Dollar Circulate
metaphysical pyramids
built upon other people’s heads
built upon other people’s heads
you never even see much less
acknowledge – economic
liberation theory
is built upon social scientific fallacies
mythological meritocracies
and all these advertising psychologies
are actual neurology connected to biology
like mushroom tendrils beneath the surface
of what the fuck we think we know
hoping the transformations
we may or may not be seeing
continue spreading beneath the surface
and don’t get exposed to above ground
established political pesticides
which train the vine to grow along
the sides of brick institutions which
already existed – postcard picture perfect
becoming part of the establishment
and pretending reform happened
that feral growth was allowed to blossom
rather than transplanted into those
same old English gardens
like we’ve been doing for too
many centuries to keep making
marks on the wall about
Label Labyrinth:
economics,
FYIFYFMF,
Krupert's jukebox,
mushroom technologies,
pyramid scam
1 T3ND T0 W4ND3R, H0P1NG...
Label Labyrinth:
dedication to walks,
gambleraku,
homepix,
lifted 1441,
natural born artistry
Thursday, June 11
CVLT1V4T3 B34VTY 1N Y0VR...
Label Labyrinth:
compound decor,
gambleraku,
homepix,
lifted 1441,
purple stuff
Wednesday, June 10
Tuesday, June 9
SONG OF THE DAY: Act A Fool
Has King Tee ever gotten a lifetime achievement
award? Because if he hasn’t, he ought to. Act a Fool is a certifiable classic.
And back in the day of bumpin’ cassettes, when me and Boogie Brown would make
the trip to Willie’s on southside of Richmond every week it seemed like, I did
a lot of on-the-ground, in-the-car research to this statement I’m about to
make, but Side A of Tha Triflin’ Album might be one of the greatest sides of an
album from that whole early ‘90s era. One of those tapes that I literally wore
the head off the cassette on, and actually got a second copy, before the world
got digital.
SONG OF THE DAY: ICON.TMP
Waves of purple vapour obliterate the statues to
long dead falsebeards, still worshipped by country folk who have been trained
to believe a Wal-Mart parking lot is a hay field. Sitting in line at the
miracle mile Chik-fil-a for twenty efficient minutes is their scenic country
ride, ever so briefly letting the real world air in with power windows to
grabble their post-modern supper. The obedient wage slave curtsies, saying “it’s
my pleasure to serve you” dutifully. And these post-modern country folk who don’t
recognize their country has had the flags of an international cartel of lawless
brands planted everywhere, drive off into oblivion, taking exit Fuck Everybody
Else to hustle back to their 2-acre two-storey McPlantation home where old
glory still has a spotlight on it out front, flying just above their chosen
battle flag of lost causes which they still claim mental allegiance to despite
being as domesticated and docile as feedlot cows in their physical existence.
Continuing their practice of suckin’ on the state’s chili dog outside the tastee-freez
of reality, secure in their inherited and carefully maintained “simple”
comfort. Let the waves of purple (and orange) vapour continue to teargas their
oblivion into discomfort.
Label Labyrinth:
"you can't fight progress",
beards,
fake country,
Krupert's jukebox,
Tha New South
0VR R3TVRN T0 R4W 3SS3NC3...
Label Labyrinth:
and when I die,
back to Earth,
gambleraku,
homepix,
lifted 1441
Monday, June 8
SONG OF THE DAY: Back Then
Yesterday I walked with a protest, and being UVA
hovers over everything in Charlottesville, VA, there was a high petty bourgeoisie
factor to it, and I’ve definitely been feeling my class more than ever lately.
But I kept my mind focused on the people I care about and love who were also
walking, instead of the abundance of folks who may or may not realize their
existence’s own complicity in the inequality that pervades American existence
in 2020. Got burned out on the open mic format of sharing, because we don’t
really need white folks telling each other how using the n-word is bad at a
Black Lives Matter march. That work can be done elsewhere. So I walked back home, along the railroad
tracks, then cut past Garrett back through Belmont. Cookouts were popping at
Garrett, and a sedan was sitting there double parked, windows open, nobody
inside, blasting go-go music. “Ahh… summer in Virginia is official now” I thunk
to myself, and a couple kids were in the soccer field there playing tug of war
with a long strand of caution tape. I hope your revolution includes the poor,
and not just the people you think have obvious value in your existing way of
life. I hope your revolution has go-go music, and a fish fry or two. The
revolution still will not be televised, no matter how much some people like to
convince you we’ve progressed. We ain’t done shit yet.
TH3 MYTH0L0G13S W3 T3LL...
Label Labyrinth:
gambleraku,
homepix,
lifted 1441,
mythologies,
tree porn
Sunday, June 7
R3CR34T10N4L 3SC4P3...
Label Labyrinth:
gambleraku,
homepix,
lifted 1441,
livin' on earth no different from a cell,
mythologies
Saturday, June 6
SONG OF THE DAY: African Hustle
Right now can feel overwhelming because it’s a pretty thick barrage of images and videos of police state brutality, as well as a lot of radical information to digest. You don’t have to digest it all this weekend. 500 years is not undone by the 4th of July. But don’t do the consumer-based thing we’re all trained to do, to put it all in a box, or closet, or desktop folder, and promise to go back to later only to forget it all until we dump it out or drop it off at a thrift store. A long term hope of mine is we lose track of time too. Time fucking sucks, forcing industriousness on me, guilt as well. Much like money, it was a unit for comparing and organizing that’s been just brutally overused in all the wrong ways. I’m afraid of time. I hate time. Fuck, it’s only Saturday and I’m already fearing a specific time on Monday. Of course, I’ll be fifteen minutes late, like always.
If you’ve ever known immigrants from Africa, you might’ve heard African time, which is an even stronger version of what we know in America as black time (which like many things considered black, has a lot of crossover with southern traditions due to the heavy cultural influence on the south), where specific times can be a goal you shoot for, but not necessarily met. This challenges a lot of the shit built here around order and productivity. “Well what would people do?” You’d wait. Read a book or something if somebody hadn’t shown up yet. “Oh, so you’re time is more important than mine?” No, not at all. I’m just not there yet, so you can do something else. Or maybe I’m already there, and you’re not. No worries. I always keep notebooks and books and magazines laying around or at least one or two of these things in a backpack on me while on foot. Just sit there, and do “nothing”. This is the only doing of nothing that should be tolerated. Then get back to the barrage of radical information. In fact, you can even combine the two. YOU COULD ACTUALLY BE DOING AMAZING WORK TO CHANGE THE ENTIRE WAY OUR SOCIETY IS BUILT, all by doing “nothing” in those moments. So I think in a roundabout way I’ve somehow talked myself into doing nothing as a revolutionary act, so long as the nothing I’m doing is a conscious act of nothing, rather than the fake nothing of avoiding actually addressing things in my own life.
L4ST S3C0ND THR33-P01NT3RS 4R3...
Label Labyrinth:
basketball is my favorite sport,
gambleraku,
homepix,
lifted 1441,
the games people play
Friday, June 5
SONG OF THE DAY: Funky Worm
Dear fellow white folks – cancelling each other out publicly is crabs in a barrel mentality. That’s not to say it’s not necessary, but there should be about ten private conversations for every single public shaming you throw out there. There’s a shitload of work to be done to undo all that’s fucked up, and performative acts of social media branding ain’t that work. I don’t say this thinking I’m a beacon shining light of it either. I’ve got shit I need to be improving on, every day of my life. That’s part of what being human ought to mean though. Ain’t nobody perfect. But if you’re cancelling somebody symbolically through social media, understand that person is still going to exist with other humans in real life spaces, and ask yourself if your acts make them less of a threat or amore of a threat to others once you’ve cancelled them from your filter bubble.
Also, if you listen to this Funky Worm track, do you hear the part about “do I get paid for this?” Kick some money to a bail fund somewhere right now. Shit, we should be doing that all the damn time anyways. You know how many poor people, predominantly but not exclusively minority lose days/months/years of their lives because they can’t post bail? Then they agree to a plea for crimes they may not have done, just because it’ll get them out of jail faster due to time served? DONATE TO A GODDAMN BAIL FUND SOMEWHERE.
Label Labyrinth:
"fuck it" philosophy,
Krupert's jukebox,
letters from jail,
the police,
white people
1NT3RS3CT10NS 0F PR0GR3SS...
Label Labyrinth:
"you can't fight progress",
gambleraku,
homepix,
lifted 1441,
stupid politics
Thursday, June 4
M4RK3RS F0R TH3 N3XT M4ST3R...
Label Labyrinth:
back to Earth,
gambleraku,
homepix,
I Self Lord And Master,
lifted 1441
Wednesday, June 3
SP4C3S WH1CH 0NC3 RVL3D M4NY...
Label Labyrinth:
abandonment,
gambleraku,
homepix,
industrial fallacy,
lifted 1441
Tuesday, June 2
WH3N 4N4LYZ1NG TH3 W0RLD...
Label Labyrinth:
gambleraku,
homepix,
lifted 1441,
railroad tie tapping,
selfies
Monday, June 1
MY N4TVR3 H4S N3V3R B33N...
Label Labyrinth:
brain damage,
gambleraku,
homepix,
industrial fallacy,
lifted 1441
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