SONG OF THE DAY: Digital Devils (kudzu'd)

Beware digital devils infiltrating your stream of consciousness and causing you to think about things that have no bearing on your actual happiness of existence. One day, we will regard wireless internet the same way we do tobacco smoke. Even if we don’t, because everything is built upon that tricknology foundation, whatever this is will collapse and the next thing will know not to trust it. Balance always happens, even if it leaves the spiritually imbalanced feeling at risk.

TH4T WH1CH 1S B3L0W 1S L1K3...

that which is below is like 
that which is above... mantra 
to motivate heart higher 

SONG OF THE DAY: El Chinito Enamorado (kudzu'd)

A HO scale replica of the entirety of the continental United States would be about 19 miles long, and just over 32 miles wide. This would fill up about half of Delaware, if you flipped America sideways in the HO replica. And being in an actual state, you could excavate and grade the land to match the rough topography of the continent. And the great thing is, where Delaware is in the HO scale replica, you could have another flipped sideways replica also at 1/87 scale, which would take up just over a third of a mile by about a fifth of a mile. That’s still large parking lot sized HO-square replica of the entirety of the United States. I’m not sure if you should reorient that secondary replica back to true north-south, or have it upside down. And then, you could even have a third level HO ass replica within the parking lot, that would be about 22 1/2 feet by 13 1/4 feet – a scaled version of the United States about the size of a swimming pool. And of course, if you’ve gone this far, you might as well have a fourth level 1/87 replica done by a qualified miniaturist, that would be about 3.1 inches by 1.8 inches. And all of this would make sense since Delaware was the first state, but is basically a truck stop waiting to get turned into a Buccees. We could make it an amazing attraction now, and one where you could go piss on Ohio if you feel like it. Of course symbolic Ohio would be for real Delaware, but it would still be fun to pretend I’m a giant pissing on Ohio, in the parking lot sized replica. But the greatest thing about this is, the largest first level HO scale replica would be about 19 miles long, so you could walk across America in one long day. It’d be a hard walk, and you’d have to use a bridge to cross the Mississippi, which would still over 100 feet wide (if we are able to replicate waterways with working water). If I could get across America quicker like that, and not be so eastern bound, I might piss on Arizona instead. But that’s just me.

34RTHLY L1F3 4S 4 HVM4N...

earthly life as a human 
is a test of our spirit's 
ability to survive 

JVST 4N0TH3R N4TVR4L...

just another natural 
born to loser getting loose 
while my legs still got wander 

T0M0RR0W M4K3S PR0M1S3S...

tomorrow makes promises 
it can't keep, while yesterday 
carries weight we should let go 

JVST 4N0TH3R P4SS3NG3R...

just another passenger 
upon Earth, trapped in these times 
because my dimension's third 

4LL4HV 4KB4R 41N'T 4LL...

"allahu akbar" ain't all 
that different from what folks 
already done been saying 

L0V3 4S 4 PH1L0S0PHY...

love as a philosophy 
is never on the ballot... 
just hate and fearmongering 

SONG OF THE DAY: O-o-h Child (kudzu'd)

A great scene in Boyz n the Hood is when Furious Styles cuts this song up to sing it while driving him and the young Tre around. I took over care of a stanky yellow dog that was my middle child’s, named Fleur (the dog’s name, not the child’s name, who is grown), and you know how many times I call that dog “Flurious Styles”? And nobody is around to appreciate it, because as far as I know, the cats and dog have never watched that movie. They’re usually not interested in movies, except my one cat loves pre-code movies, really of any theme. One cat is named Ponyo, so you’d think they’d love Miyazaki movies, but for the most part, my house animals find Studio Ghibli boring. I should try old black-and-white Kurosawa flicks on them, that sort of bridges the gap between pre-code classics and Miyazaki.

TH3 C3NTVR13S 4DD VP, BVT...

the centuries add up, but 
we the people still stumble 
along beneath same blue sky 

4B4ND0N3D SP4C3S 4LL0W...

abandoned spaces allow 
for feral cultivation 
of real world autonomy 

SONG OF THE DAY: Parrty Part I (kudzu'd)

Today was Election Day, I couldn’t make myself vote for either dude in the biggest election on my local ballot, so I scribbled the Write In bubble full and wrote in NONE OF THE ABOVE. I do that a lot. Feels stupid to even go vote if I do that, but I remain hopeful one day I will get to look at a ballot not filled up with assholes. But I enjoy walking from the house to the voting precinct, which is in The Waltons Mountain Museum, an old school turned into museum for the old TV show my mom used to love. There is no actual Waltons Mountain, it was a creation of the books that led to the television show. In fact, there ain’t even no Waltons around here; that wasn’t even their name. This all seems relevant most of the times I’ve had to vote since I’ve lived here, that we’re living in a false representation of reality that doesn’t look like what I just saw when I walked here, up the road. On my walk today, there were workers doing the last bits to hook the hydroelectric dam back up to the grid that is down below my house. One dude was up in the bucket truck, working away, and I could hear “Hey Joe” by Jimi Hendrix blasting up the hillside, traveling unencumbered up the power line kept clear every other summer by immigrants or out of towners with chainsaws and woodchipper truck. Last summer, I got them to dump off four truck loads of mulch. That dam got washed out during the floods of Hurricane Camille in ’69, and just been sitting there all this time. I’m glad they’re hooking it back up, but I doubt it’ll make a difference on my electric bill, what with all the data centers going up everywhere around the state. I guess they can’t manufacture that false reality as easily as they used to.
As I walked back, the sky was a wonderful blue, with a single solitary jet trail slicing the blue in half, blowing out like the top end of Philly graffiti because it had been there a minute. I looked up at the sky, same one that’s been stretched out overtop humans since before an American flag got dreamed up and even continents got all tectonic into separate land masses, and I thunk, “All of the above.” How wonderful it would be to actually have something you felt good about voting for, like that. But all we actually get is assholes.

M3T4PHYS1C4L F3NC3S...

metaphysical fences 
erected all around us, 
but love will lighten the way 

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

If the world ends tomorrow, remember that it didn’t really end, no matter what your enculturated inputs are telling you. Walk outside, sit somewhere until you hear the birds making noise. That’s the same stubborn spirit of song that your ancestors used to walk into the future when it was still the past. If the world feels like it ends tomorrow, remind yourself this ain’t nothing new. It will come to be past as well.

G0TT4 G1V3 TH3 VN1V3RS3...

gotta give the universe 
thanks for the shine it puts in 
my eyes when I'm feeling right 

JVST 4N0TH3R W34RY M4RK...

just another weary mark 
navigating false end times 
they keep manufacturing 

PR4CT1C1NG BLV3GR4SS F1NG3R...

practicing bluegrass finger 
rolls while singing thirty three 
alhamdulillahs, with twang 

TH4NKFVL T0 TH3 CR34T0R...

thankful to the creator 

for any and all magic 

I'm able to conjure up 

SONG OF THE DAY: Cry My Tears Away (kudzu'd)

I’ve been trying to shimmy dance on the kitchen linoleum a lot more lately, even if it’s a slow slide shuffle at night. Always been self conscious about dancing in front of other folks, because I got way too high one time at a young age and overthought about the ridiculousness of shaking your body around in a rhythm. But anything is weird as fuck if you overthink it. If I get to clapping and sliding, the dog seems to like it, but I think she thinks it means we’re about to go for a walk. Sometimes, I try to pick up a cat and dance with them, but generally my cats ain’t about that shit. One of ‘em will tolerate it sometimes, but mostly they just wanna get let back down and watch me anxiously from underneath the kitchen rolling island thing. Makes me sad none of these animals wanna dance. What kinda miserable compound have I built here? Anyways, if you know of good dancing animals, put 'em in the comments. I might get one or two.

K33P F4T R0LLS 0F P0STC4RD ST4MPS...

keep fat rolls of postcard stamps 
in possession at all times, 
and ain't afraid to use 'em 

SONG OF THE DAY: Mainstreet (kudzu'd)

My dad had a crazy uncle or two, as all quartz rock solid rural archetypes do, and they used to congregate on a fringe corner towards the south end of Main Street, near what used to be a pool hall, which became a video store when I was a kid, and had arcade games too, in the back, until Nintendos came out. Then they started renting video games and the back room became the adult rentals. 
I had my own crazy uncles, as all quartz rock solid rural archetypes do, and when they were coming up, they’d built a bypass around downtown, a new four-lane with two smooth asphalt lanes going both ways, and folks had measured a near perfect quarter mile from just underneath the bridge that Nat Turner Road passed over, to the end of the guardrail headed west. It was just right for illegal drag racing, back then, but they built a Wal-Mart and a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Food Lion and a Valero and a Comfort Inn and then that doubled and tripled, and downtown became obsolete and the four-lane got slow and had some stoplights thrown up. One uncle died early, as half of all quartz rock solid rural archetypes do, and the other one was briefly lacking a home base, so he’d be hanging around some of those stop light intersections.
Them stores been in decline, too. We’ve got a Big Lots where the department store was, and I think there’s a church that meets where that other grocery store used to be. The Wal-Mart is still there but it’s a sad and doomed place to be. Downtown is mostly empty, but there’s a smattering of boutique businesses that make no sense to people who lived here for more than one generation, run by folks who came from elsewhere, where they couldn’t afford to have a boutique business. They mostly get mad at us, for not spending money we don’t have to sustain their fantasies. I’d support them if I could, but I don’t often need $12 knick-knacks or $23 suppers.
They hadn’t figured out how to build a bypass around the bypass, so we all just get stuck at stoplights with the same stores they have in every other shithole nowhere to everybody else but us. Some dude who said he’s always been from here, but I’ve never seen, who wears polo shirts with his grandpa’s last name on them, is fixing up the old tobacco warehouse downtown, and turning it into a microbrewery or some shit. He was on the news from the city an hour away, talking about how they wanted a road that went around the bypass and came right to the quaint end of downtown he was doing this at. I think his wife runs the $12 knick-knack shoppe (extra letters to show you how it’s laid out inside). They was trying to get a roundabout built there, and have a historic downtown shopping district.
That’s the other end of Main Street from where my crazy great uncles hung out, and the video store was. That building is still there, too, all fucked up and rotting back into the earth. But the building had good solid bones, from before any of our time. I dream about owning it, and having a flea market there, or something. But I can’t even pay the bills I got, and it’s getting cold, and that means heating bills about to be crazy, so we gotta limp along until we hopefully see the redbuds again. And maybe something magical happens and it all gets better, and making a living don’t feel so goddamn much like somebody slowly choking you to death, with hands you can’t see, which is letting just enough oxygen in you can keep paying your bills, but not letting go enough you can do anything better with your life. But what are you gonna do? Not that much you can do, if there ain’t no oil paintings of your great grandparents nowhere. At least that’s what I tell my nephew.

K33P1NG L1F3 4FF0RD4BL3...

keeping life affordable 
by scribbling graffiti all 
over ambitious downtown 

TH3 SP0RT1NG G0DS K33P VS DRVNK...

the sporting gods keep us drunk 
on dogmatic statistics 
that add up to more nothing