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.

Saturday, April 30

TH3Y D0N'T BV1LD M0NVM3NTS T0...


they don’t build monuments to 
those bound by being born to 
lose; but birthrights can be wrong 

Friday, April 29

SONG OF THE DAY: (Loose Booty) Is A Real Thing


On one hand, people will have you thinking nothing is real, that the complete clusterfuck clutter of “information” with an endless array of semi-factual seeming items that have the all the hallmarks of “facts” but are just random ass speculation made up by somebody with the ulterior motivation of confusing truth entirely has made it so you can’t possibly know anything any more at this point. But on the other hand, you’ll get an impassioned plea – such as this song – very precisely explaining how loose booty is a real thing. Hard to argue with, to be honest.

THR1V1NG 4T M4RG1NS 0F...


thriving at the margins of 
dark and light, finding balance 
in imperfect existence 

Thursday, April 28

SONG OF THE DAY: Night Fires


Country music back in the day was weird, because it’d be like 100 weeks of shit radio-friendly songs (still is like that), but then you’d get some weird ass Side 2 jam like this where Conway Twitty just wasn’t even fuckin’ around one bit. How the fuck do you make a song like this and not look like Conway Twitty? Impossible. Universal magnetics sneaks into even country ass music more often than folks realize.

N0 M4T3R14L S4V1NGS...


no material savings 
are worth sacrificing the 
only life you’re guaranteed 

Wednesday, April 27

SONG OF THE DAY: Heart of Gold


I know I saw Charles Bradley perform once before he died, and I think maybe twice, but I know the one time I did actually see him, not only did he tear it down during his performance, but while the Budos Band was playing, he was out in his brown leather pants and 1982 shirt, dancing like a fool. Dude just had that aura about him.
I’ve been trying to cut back on useless shit I hate, or resent, which can be difficult in a late capitalist society, where fake ass people hoard all the opportunities, and regular real life people you actually know will laud some of these fake fuckers as “authentic” and “real”. It holds me back to be worried about that shit. Just gotta let my aura shine, act the fool I am, and bring joy to myself, as well as others, and the rest will either fall in place or not even matter. Been trying to remind myself of that on a daily basis, multiple times each day.

WH3N 0N3'S T00 D33PLY ST33P3D 1N...


when one’s too deeply steeped in 
self-doubt, they tend to choose those 
who dull their natural shine 

Tuesday, April 26

Monday, April 25

SONG OF THE DAY: Driving My Life Away (slurred & blurred)


Another classic slowed down to through the slurred and blurred stylings of dj_brilliant (you have to spell it like that with the underscore or you end up referring to somebody else). On weeks where my youngest is with me, since her official address is with her mom the next county over, I have to drive like 2.5-3 hours a day, to get her to and from school or practice, and damn man, that shit gets tiring as fuck. That’s way too much time just in a fuckin’ car. So I feel this song. For more information on dj_brilliant, consult your local search bar.

41N'T N0 SH0RT4G3 0F D4RK H0L3S...


ain’t no shortage of dark holes 
to get lost in; sometimes they 
become too comfortable 

Sunday, April 24

SONG OF THE DAY: Searching


Been a lot of "searching" themed songs in my fluctuating soundtrack lately. Not sure if that's a sign or not. I mean, it's a sign, but my understanding of it is limited still, as I'm only human. Imagine thinking humans can figure everything in the universe out? What kind of egotistic asshole do you have to be to think like that?

PR4CT1C1NG L0V1NG MYS3LF...


practicing loving myself 
as revolutionary 
act against poison culture 

Saturday, April 23

Friday, April 22

TH3R3'S GR4C3 1N 1MP3RF3CT10N...


there’s grace in imperfection, 
despite the devils in our 
ears suggesting otherwise 

Thursday, April 21

W3 4R3 0NLY N3W T0 TH1S...


we are only new to this 
world once; after that, we have 
to accept our blemishes 

SONG OF THE DAY: Hifidelics Groove


Everyone should have their own groove, even if they share it with others or it's a collective or crew groove, or whatever. But there's not nearly enough grooves. People want to be owning everything, intellectal propertying things, trying to keep ideas and doing things from being free, but few grooves. More grooves in 1444.

Wednesday, April 20

SONG OF THE DAY: Angeline


I don’t really listen to electrified guitar-based music made in the past 25 years to be honest. They kinda gentrified that whole genre, but before we all knew what “gentrification” even meant. I have fond memories, being a natural born piece of shit, of degenerate rock music blasting as the background soundtrack as I made poor choices and did reckless things which culminated in horrible scars and wonderful stories and thankfully no deaths (that I’m aware of). Sometimes I wish there was rock to love, that didn’t sound so master’s degreely and certified organic, but you can’t be mad at the way the world goes, or how art changes to match the people trying to figure out how to do art in this crushing existence we done gave ourselves.

3V3N S41NTS H4V3 M4NY P4THS...


even saints have many paths, 
and behind every bend 
is a possible rebirth 

Tuesday, April 19

4S L0NG 4S 1'M ST1LL VPR1GHT...


as long as I’m still upright, 
can’t ever say my best days 
are only found behind me 

Monday, April 18

Sunday, April 17

N4V1G4T10N 0F D4RK P4THS...


navigation of dark paths 
requires random guidance from 
above, else one get too lost 

Saturday, April 16

P3RF3CT10N 41N'T P0SS1BL3...


perfection ain’t possible 
for those born with dirt on their 
soul, from one foot in the grave 

Friday, April 15

SONG OF THE DAY: I've Been Searching


searching for something resembling meaning in this mundane 
rabbithole with the metaverse I landed in 
curse-blessed with consciousness 
attempting my absolute best to just vibe 
but so many electronics cloud existence 
leaving me feeling angry and down 
and full of resentment rather than 
excitement 
are there protonic devices as well 
which would boost my natural orgones 
and aid me in not running on 
deficit dopamine with diminishing 
returns as well as a more solid 
serotonin infusion 
from time to time 
to time to time 
perhaps the time part 
is root of the problem anyways 
limited ass existence 
complicated by existential crisis 
all the god damned time 
and yet still my dumb ass 
seeks 
searching for something 
that feels halfway okay 
in a world teetering on crooked axis 
dangling precariously over an 
imagined abyss 
which like the horizon never 
arrives 
on time 

S0VTH3RN G0TH1CC H1ST0R13S...


southern gothicc histories 
cause a mind to kudzu through 
a lifetime of “if only”s 

N0N3 0F VS CH0S3 0VR L4ND1NG...


none of us chose our landing 
spots - just thrust by chance unto 
manmade world, casting our lots 

Thursday, April 14

Wednesday, April 13

W4ND3R1NG STR4NG3 4LL3YS 4ND...


wandering strange alleys and 
back roads due to nocturnal 
spirit, bound to seek darkness 

Tuesday, April 12

H4D MY D4YS 0F D3L1NQV3NT...


had my days of delinquent 
self-indulgence in attempts 
to numb myself to heart ache 

Monday, April 11

Sunday, April 10

Saturday, April 9

HVM4NS D0N'T TRVLY DR1FT...


humans don’t truly drift, 
no are we fully rootless; 
the truth always lies between 

Friday, April 8

SONG OF THE DAY: Mountain Roads


Apparently all I’ve been listening to lately is imaginary wrestling entrance music for a non-existent territory called Greater Appalachian Championship Wrestling, COMING TO THE CIVIC CENTER SATURDAY NIGHT! OUR MAIN EVENT IS A STEEL CAGE GRUDGE MATCH FOR THE GREATER APPALACHIAN HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE, AS… and then you can just let your brain run from there while the song plays. Somebody’s gonna get piledrived though.

P3RS0N4L H1ST0R13S C4N'T...


personal histories can’t 
be edited… only learned 
from; too many censure past 

Thursday, April 7

SONG OF THE DAY: Lonesome City


This is such a great song. This was my entrance music when I was wrestling in Puerto Rico as The Super Destructor, with my bright lime green mask with black star and crescent on the side of the head. Such a great time, teaming with Kareem Muhammad, helping him with the Puerto Rico Heavyweight title one time. Still great wrestling crowds back then, where if you did your job right, you might get stabbed in the parking lot. Never did get stabbed, at least not by wrestling fans, or specifically about wrestling.

TRVLY B0RN T0 L0S3 BVT T00...


truly born to lose but too 
loosely focused to notice; 
so I just keep on flowing 

Wednesday, April 6

SONG OF THE DAY: Freak Like Me


At one point in my life, I was living with an soon-to-be ex-girlfriend who had detached emotionally, way the fuck on the southside of Richmond, and I didn’t have a car, was finishing up college, so rode a 10-speed bike all over the place, crossing the Nickel Bridge so many damn times. I worked as a housepainter part-time, usually meeting the dude I worked for at Byrd Park, riding out to west end somewhere or another to work like 6 hours, then rode my bike hard as fuck to Carytown, where I was a kennel attendant at a vet there. There was an older black dude, chill as fuck, who was the other kennel attendant, in the mornings, from like 6 to the afternoon, then I held it down the second half of the day. Tight time was like until 6, but after the owners and all the other vets left, so it was two hours of vibes, just letting all the dogs out and cleaning up their shit, making sure all the cats were good. That other dude, Reggie, who always had the radio on Power 92, and I’d just leave it on that, because fuck worrying about a radio station, plus they had the 5 o’clock mix show most weekdays back then anyways. Sometimes Reggie would leave me a joint hidden under the radio in the kennel, and sometimes I’d do the same for him. Two songs used to fuck me up though back then. One was “Don’t Take It Personal” by Monica, because like I said, the woman I was living with had become disconnected as fuck, and I was miserable but stuck (a pattern in my life), and that song would get in my feels. But then this song by Adina Howard would come on, and I’d be like, “WHY THE FUCK DON’T I HAVE AN ADINA HOWARD IN MY LIFE?” That was some hard times man, sitting there in the kennel cleaning up dog shit, buzzed, knowing after I got off work I was gonna ride my bike back across the river to an emotionally cold ass house. But it also was a total vibe, so I didn’t necessarily mind it I guess. I mean, you can’t mind shit like that all that much anyways, because life is what it is, and a lot of times you don’t control all that much of it. Like you can customize the trim plenty, but you’re sorta stuck with the base model. So fuck it.

H4RN3SS1NG F4LS3 3N3RGY...


harnessing false energy 
to overrule the red light 
inside screaming exhaustion 

Tuesday, April 5

Monday, April 4

SONG OF THE DAY: Funky Virginia


This is a song about Virginia being funky, by a band or dude called Sir Guy, and this should be the official state song. Of course, “official” anything as determined by the state requires a bunch of mostly white people, mostly men, to hash it out in Richmond while wearing suits, and none of them get falafel from Aladdin’s, like ever, and most all of them are assholes because why would you be a politician if you weren’t? But even beyond that, the boundaries of a map are a fuckin’ lie too, and just because of this, and the inherent regionalistic pride that comes with a fucking map, if you rocked this song at a party just across the border in like Roxboro, unloungers would be tempted to complain. That’s the problem with the way our society is structured – politics is made by unloungers, and those philosophies become encoded as law, which means all the legal shit we have to navigate around to enjoy our lives, to the fullest extent possible. So then regular folks have that shit trickle down into their brain, because news talks about that dumb shit all the time, and cops enforce that stupid shit, and the notions of legal states just poison a regular person’s fucking brain. So then regular folks, even amongst true loungers, trying to have a good time, might be gathered hypothetically in Roxboro, which is North Carolina, but just barely across the border, and hear an old ass jam like “Funky Virginia”, and somebody might be tempted to talk down on it. That’s why the Power of Lounge is more important than ever before, because technology has enabled unloungers to just run rampant, in the opposite of wild, but coordinated engineered bullshit. One must practice the Power of Lounge as much as possible to combat all this unlounge. And today, I do that by playing “Funky Virginia” on the yard speakers, pointed down towards the river, 69 times in a row, while the clankyjangers spin and I sit there spray painting more railroad spikes, because I got a fresh batch out the 5-gallon bucket of Coke yesterday, that had been sitting on the porch, “conditioning” for a month or so.

Sunday, April 3

Saturday, April 2