SONG OF THE DAY: Egypt Egypt

Was walking out the grocery store, and a younger redneck tattooed couple with a Little Debbie ass kid in the hot rod shopping cart for kids was walking in at the same time. Being a courteous old school type, I pulled my cart aside to let the young family through, as they got to the automatic opening door a step before me. That’s just common courtesy; fuck politics. Now dig it – I’m a Turkish basketball jersey, got a mask on because covid is real but my blackberry bush beard is trying to bust out that motherfucker at all times, and my voice is still half-fucked from having had covid the past month and spending many a night hacking my damn lungs out. Young dude in the back of the family, small for an adult redneck, likely smoked too early (you hate to see it), was sporting a black shirt with white print of a smiling Willie Nelson giving the middle finger. It was dope. So as I passed, in my haggard bedraggled believing in science hillbilly voice through a mask, to the unmasked patriarch of this young and naïve family, just trying to get into the Food Lion on a Sunday evening, say, “Love your shirt, man.” Dude looks at me and goes, “Thank you, sir,” which was polite, and maybe a return on my own common decency already expressed, but goddamn if it didn’t trip me out to have a young redneck dude in a middle finger Willie Nelson shirt go “thank you, sir” to me. Made me think I might need a new bad tattoo in a highly visible place, maybe a “Smile Now Cry Later” design on my neck, but with hobo clowns instead of joker card clowns.

SONG OF THE DAY: These Things I've Come To Know

I saw seven different James McMurtrys this evening, the first one at Shady’s when I stopped to get gas. Some chump was in front of me behind a work truck in one of them new fangled Corvettes, easily the stupidest fucking fake muscle car out of that whole genre of stupid cars. But James McMurtry had him hemmed in with the work truck while he paid for his gas and got a ice cold Mountain Dew. James came out smiling, even chatted up some dude next row over before finally driving off. Got my gas and went to the Food Lion and saw four more James McMurtrys there, one of them mad dogging me, maybe because of the mask I still wear (fuck y’all, gonna wear this shit til I die at this point, fuck your feelings about masks), then another was hilariously looking for marked down chicken, just like me, and we cursed the price of existence. I knew one of the James McMurtrys, saw him while I was checking out and he came, guess ol’ boy lives in that town now, like 15 minutes from my place. Told me his girlfriend lives up near me though. Then riding home, saw two more James McMurtrys, the next to last one sitting on his porch as I drove the back roads back home to my simple assed house in this little ass town famous for the Waltons. That last James McMurtry was sitting there the other day too, vibing on the porch, and we waved the knowing wave that James McMurtrys gives each other. And then I saw the last James McMurtry, as I was backing around the dead tree with the hubcaps nailed to it in my front yard, looking back from the rear view mirror, with his ridiculous beard and amethyst crystal necklace and worn out embroidered Celtics jersey from seven lifetimes ago. I smiled at him, took the groceries inside, changed into the tiniest Nike shorts I got, and started making dinner. Spaghetti tonight.

SONG OF THE DAY: Graffiti Blues (45s on 33)

COVID in the house, and astroturfed organized chaos in the Capitol. Had to ride to the store to do a contactless pick-up at the Food Lion yesterday, same one where patriotic beards walk freely without masks every time I go in there, angrily staring at anyone who dare not be just like them. There’s only like two things the kids want to eat right now, so I’m keeping it stocked, and even though I’m negative so far, I’m likely exposed, and would prefer not to fuck anybody around me’s life up if I can avoid it. My girlfriend texted me, “Have you heard the news?” so I put on the radio, and bits and pieces of what was going on in D.C. came through. I wasn’t shocked, I think anybody who’s been paying attention knew this was coming, eventually. It’s still unsettling, because all of us got fed that American meritocracy shit growing up. Hell, that’s even what empty suit ass Joe Biden said, “this is not who we are.” Please, where the fuck are you living? Where I live, this is exactly who the fuck people have been, more and more so the past few years. Reaching across any aisles and finding common ground does not take hold as fast as propaganda mechanisms do, nor work as efficiently. People’s grandmas were all telling them antifa did the Capitol raid last night, because people’s grandmas aren’t getting their news from talking to real life people, or a local newscast.
It was all deeply dystopian, having left my sick with corona kids at home to run to the grocery store to pick up foods and drinks to keep them hydrated and fed while they ride this out, also hoping I could somehow magically and meticulously avoid getting exposed myself. Motherfuckers talking about “patriots” and a civil war, and seeing an Amanda Chase sign on the back road way home. People’s brains have been broken, and unfortunately when you severely break things – as they’ve been done in the past decade – you don’t put it all back together that quickly. Usually it takes longer to repair than it did to break, and it’s not as whole as it was beforehand either. So if we’ve had five years of rapid radicalization, we’re gonna need a decade of detox and healing. But the people who think they’re patriots don’t want none of that. So I don’t know what the fuck we do. All I’m gonna do on a personal level is keep building like I’ve been building, taking care of my family first, and my community after that as much as possible, and sowing good shit wherever I can. I can’t help all the bad shit.

SONG OF THE DAY: Why Do Everything Happen To Me

The guy that puts out the vegetables at the Food Lion in Scottsville is never wearing a mask over his mouth and nose, just sort of dangling, strapped to his chin, usually with a shit-eating grin on his face. I’m not the type to snitch to a manager, and the manager there has that redneck hip hop dude from 1991 who got a woman pregnant and is gonna do right by her the rest of his life look anyways, so he probably wouldn’t even care the guy wasn’t wearing his mask, and would just do that, “Look man, people complained. You just gotta be cool about it.” And fuckface would still be wearing his mask as a chin strap a week later.
The weird thing about our culture – if you can call it that – is how proudly stupid people have become. Even smart people. Shit everybody. If our culture is anything it’s one of self-importance, where we think we have to share our goddamn idiot thoughts on every single subject on social media. And then trending topics force us to give opinions about shit we didn’t even think about or care about otherwise. And it all gets to feel so stupid and overwhelming that when I’m trying to get through the stupid fucking Food Lion during a pandemic with rising numbers, and just grab the things I need, and I see the idiot pear-shaped redneck produce man standing there looking like a goddamn cartoon warning against electrocuting yourself from 1949, setting bags of onions out, I just wanna stomp him and the whole world into pulp. But I can’t, and don’t. I just buy my useless shit and go home, like everybody else, until the credit behind my name runs out, and I’m sleeping in the cold earth again.

W4K1NG VP 1N SM4LL T0WN STR1P...

waking up in small town strip

mall parking lot; washing up

in the Food Lion bathroom

CH3CK1NG B4NK B4L4NC3 0NL1N3...

checking bank balance online

in the parking lot, to see

if I can buy groceries

L4T3 N1GHT W1D3 C1RCL3 0F F00D...

late night wide circle of Food

Lion dumpster checks, cantaloupe

and collard greens for chickens

black panther camper used to 

be parked at the Food Lion; 

ain’t seen it in a while though

b e e t a

pickled beet eggs percolate

in sugar vinegar mix

for three weeks, then I eat them

b u b b a

he worked where I'd get gas; I
saw him drunk as fuck, buying
more mad dog at food lion