SONG OF THE DAY: I'll Keep Searching (kudzu'd)

I had planned on writing something intelligent here when I woke up this morning, but then I fissured my brain with work (the things I do to make a paycheck to allegedly “make a living”). And in the gaps in those responsibilities, I further fissured my brain by looking inside the internet, seemingly for things but more truthfully at things, most of which I didn’t need to see. In fact, that’s likely why you are here now. We (people) really fucked up somewhere along the way. Not really feeling this big rah rah America 250 bullshit, because it feels way more like we fucked up than we got it all right.

SONG OF THE DAY: Just Me and You (kudzu'd)

I love bumpin’ the slowed souldies, and wish I could build a spot where this type of vibe could be enjoyed publicly. Seems like all you can do is either the familiar or the expected. Like there’s a certain style of “funk vibes” that’s allowed. I don’t know man, everything feels so predictable, even the allegedly clever stuff, I guess because our whole society has been tag teamed in the brain by long covid and digital dementia, and all you can really do is get a bunch of drunks to have cheerful pavlovian responses triggered by dopamine spikes from their nostalgia biases being triggered. Death to ‘Merica, baby!

SONG OF THE DAY: You Bring Out The Freak In Me (kudzu'd)

When you read the actual U.S. Declaration of Independence, it lists out 27 specific grievances the colonists had against the King of England at the time. Many of them outright describe things that the Trump regime is doing now. "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." Obviously, the language is dated, but I'd say he's infracted well over half of these historical infractions that caused an American revolution. And yet, the last grievance was, "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us," which sure, he's still in on this one. But that one goes on to say, "and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions," which sounds a good bit like something I'd expect J.D. Vance to be saying on a podcast tomorrow. All this is to say that yes, things are looking bleak. But I'd say the time of talking about what is isn't constitutional is probably over, because this system was flawed from the beginning. And obviously, we now have a menagerie of half-witted authoritarian wannabes trying to do it, in the most bumbling, shoot themselves in the foot way. We are actually lucky for that, because if a next time is allowed to happen (assuming we survive this time), that authoritarian wannabe may end up be far more intelligently evil. Nonetheless, it's time for a reboot, a new constitutional congress. I'd suggest we're fine with the geographical House of Representatives, but I'd switch the Senate into representation by wealth - divide the whole population up according to net wealth, split it into 100 equal groups, and each one gets one Senator. Imagine a chamber of Congress with economic representation, and how different things would be. Plus term limits, you can repeat one time as Representative, one time as Senator (except all the Senators would move to different groups due to being a Senator, and couldn't run again for like the bottom 80% of the economic strata), and one time as President. Also there should be three Vice Presidents, from the three most popular (vote getting) political parties. And anyone who identifies as an Indian savage should be able to fight the President, one on one, no weapons, naked, in Lafayette Park on Saturday afternoons. And if that savage can pin the President's shoulders to the dirt, for three strikes of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court's gavel, then that savage becomes President, and the former President takes over the Vice President spot of his political party. The former Vice President is forced to fuck off forever. And that is the platform I am running for fake Congress on, in Old Virginia's 67th District. So be sure to write in "fuck all y'all!" this November! Because "y'all" means "all"!

SONG OF THE DAY: I Won't Love You Again

I love all songs where there’s horns that sound like summer insects, especially ones about love. I feel very disconnected from mainstream American life, with weirdly secure houses that have HVAC systems where the outside is never inside and the inside is a quarantine from nature. I like rattly windows propped open with a stick, and hearing the summer chorus of forest bugs, and being part of it all, rather than hiding from it, pretending I’m better than everything else. Humans really built some fucked up shit, didn’t we? Seems like we’ve over complicated every aspect of lounge. Oh well, fuck it. I can’t fix the world. I ain’t even fixed the leak in the roof yet. But it might not ever rain that heavy ever again.

SONG OF THE DAY: Paradise

Bambu is one of the best MCs out there in my opinion. I look forward to whatever new shit he ever drops. And if he don’t drop nothing new, I can keep enjoying the body of work he already created. It’s dudes like this that I wish got paid enough to survive capitalism more easily in our fucked up poison culture. But of course you don’t get paid for telling real shit, unless your realness is fake shit that the Think They’re Reals gobble up like candy corn in the feedlot. And honestly, I truly just appreciate Bambu for being dope as fuck. I wish all of us survived capitalism, and in fact wish the whole fuckin’ thing just got cancelled and we could have a more direct line to happiness, instead of this Rube Goldberg ass contraption called western culture pursuit of happiness if you wasn’t born rich.

SONG OF THE DAY: Making Cash Money

I love a good “making cash money” song because I am, in fact, the opposite of this vibe. I’d guess the bulk of folks throughout the times of hip hop who have bumped songs about making cash money are of the same lot in life, and it’s one of those situations where we happily manifest the opposite of reality. It’s a great release that helps you forget how crushing an economic system we live in, which is even more so now with digital tracking and credit scores and shit that wasn’t even hitting as hard when this song first came out. We really did create one fucked up way of living here in America. Anyways, I could really use a magical influx of cash money; or I could use the end of this system we currently live in. I’d be good with either one to be honest. I think my escape the crushing conditions is more individualistic – the end of this horrible system would be collective. That’d be painful too, to navigate the transitions, but there’s no reason we can’t make catchy songs for that, too, to sing around the pallet fires at night together. Or we could just keep singing how we’re making cash money around the pallet fires. That’d be wonderfully dystopian, and actually happens already, in houseless camps everywhere. What an amazing country, lol.

SONG OF THE DAY: Status Quo

Even in living in the Greater Go-Go Belt (from far south of Baltimore to about Petersburg, with rural trickles into the Piedmont of Virginia that fluctuate, occasionally even reaching North Carolina), there’s so much music that got to exist that is hard to find. So much stuff has gotten a second life due to the digital era, but a lot of it – this song for example – seem to have had a second life in Europe and beyond all the while mostly forgotten in America. Are we that superficial here in America, bouncing between next things too fast to pay attention to the last dozen things deeply enough? Maybe. But how a 10-minute long go-go tinged song called “Status Quo” complaining about Reaganomics could’ve gotten lost on me until the past year bums me out. This shit is great. Political as fuck, but not in a pretentious way like today’s online politics tends to always be, and still funky as fuck too. Where the fuck is Donald Banks now? What happened to this dude? And obviously this was such a jam that the original Kapital Sity Records release got re-released by 4th & Broadway in Europe. I miss physical media, which I guess is why I’ve gotten so into 45 collecting the past year or two. Shit just takes a weird life of its own, bouncing between homes, and will exist magically in an unplayed state for decades. There is a 45 version of this, obviously not 10 minutes long, but I ain’t found one I can afford yet. Best believe if I do that shit is going in the collection. I just hope if they chop up the song for the 45, the b-side is just full of percussion breaks from this long version, because I need that as much as anything else.

M1L1T4NT TYP3S W4V1NG FL4GS...

militant types waving flags 
so hard they lost all meaning; 
just waiting for the fire now 

SONG OF THE DAY: Chippy, Chippy

Spent another hour today fighting the push mower, as I made it do things the modern American push mower is not designed to do without falling apart, because they're mostly for looks, not function. Got me to thinking about progress, as Frank Sobotka's voice echoes in my mind, talking his shit about how we used to make things. Progress in America with regards to the fucking lawn is you used to be able to pay a neighbor kid $20 to cut your grass. Now you gotta pay some Polo shirt landscape company dude $120, so that he can maintain payments on his zero-interest if paid off in six months credit on latest piece of power equipment, and he pays some Honduran dude $20 to cut it for you. It also subsidizes two or three weeklong vacations in Rodanthe, as seen by the prominent Salt Life sticker in his work truck's back window. Both political parties support this alleged progress - only difference is one party's landscape company owner/manager is more likely to use an electric weed eater.
I hate the fetishization of riding mowers, as seen by those stupid fucking "middle class fancy" shirts, which is way too bougie for my tastes. Riding mowers are too goddamned expensive, which is why I keep pushing this push mower. And even buying them used, you have to get a good brand you know will last, and you can't tell if the good brands are actually good any more, because all of them have a cut-rate version they sell at the big box hardware stores, so your John Deere may not be a legit John Deere because it came from Lowe's and is about to fall to shit anyways, so you'd be wasting $300 on a used one. Just get another fucking push mower.
I've done a lot of class transition in my adult life... I mean, not really a lot, but I'm not as fucked as I was growing up. You know what middle class fancy is to me? My cats eat wet food. And not pate, because they hate it, but that shredded shit, in the can. Their favorite is turkey and cheese, but you can never find it because the logistics of having cat food at the grocery store has gotten complicated as fuck. There's always nine rows with like two in stock if you're lucky. Whenever the turkey and cheese shreds are there though, I load the fuck up, thinking I'll go ahead and do the 10 for $8 (which used to be 10 for $6.50 like last year, what the fuck), but then go ahead and get two more, because stupid math rules everything about my life, and the wire shelf I stack the cat food on is underneath a cabinet, and I can stack cans of wet food three high, but the stacks have to be same flavor. That's the rules (in my mind). Been noticing the upward trend of prices too, through the advanced sale mode. Wet cat food was 10 for $6.50, then they bumped it to 10 for $7, but kept it "on sale" at $6.50, to cushion you for the actual price raise. Then it was on sale for 10 for $7, but actual price got bumped to $8. Now it's just that price, not on sale, which I guess means in a couple weeks, it'll be on sale for this same price, but the "regular" price will be 10 for $9. Squeezing us blind, little by little, in the tiniest of increments, like the walls closing in an eighth of an inch a day, until one day we realize we're fucking crushed.
Anyways, fuck the United States of America. Even though it's gonna be a horribly painful shit show when it finally falls apart, I sometimes we think we need to go ahead and rip the scab off, and get it over with. We won't though, because we're all afraid of how much it's gonna bleed.

P13C3M34L S4LV4T10N BVT MY...

piecemeal salvation but my 
culture is lack of culture - 
our identities purchased 

SONG OF THE DAY: Shuckin' The Corn

I saw some banjo academic fucker did a song called the ballad of Kyle Rittenhouse and it was well-done but also so fucking stupid it made me sick. Then I looked up the guy that got killed that the right is like “sex predator/classic leftist” and it’s a guy who had tried to commit suicide twice, just got released from the hospital that day (was literally carrying a hospital bag) and ended up in the protest by accident, having been denied his meds because the pharmacy was closed due to shit going on. Dude goes and starts picking fights with guys with guns, because he was in mental health crisis and wanted to die, and of course the dumbass teenage guy whose mom drove him to the protests with an assault rifle is stupid enough to oblige. Other protesters see this, assume the dead guy is just a protester, so come running in, and another gets killed and one injured. And after all that, because of some guy with a documented criminal history but documented mental health issues as well, wandering the streets untreated, in the midst of a powder keg, featuring a lot of people looking for trouble, shit blows up. We’re really lucky four or five people aren’t killed more often in situations like this, everywhere. We are such a fucking stupid country right now, and heavily armed too, out in each other’s faces, mad about everything, not even mad for real just pretending to be mad because we wanna argue, and hope somebody starts something. We’re one big nation fucking around but yet to find out. Anyways, the dumbass bluegrass shithead who made a song about Kyle Rittenhouse is the perfect example of how academia can go too far, and also made me sad, because the entirety of Americana/newgrass/singer-songwriter shit is privileged kids cosplaying redneck, because all the real creative degenerate rednecks are just writing raps for their next mixtape while in regional jails. Actual white trash can’t afford good acoustic instruments, which means Americana music is now like American soccer, and only rich kids can even bother with it, which waters down the quality, and also makes it all boring as fuck. You can’t get enough quirky tattoos and derivative Americana merchandise from old logos and stereotypical visions of what America was at a Howard Johnsons in western North Carolina in 1966 to give yourself soul. Fuckin’ devils, in every goddamned direction. Y’all don’t even know what shuckin’ the corn means, even though you’re doing it. Quoth Raven, y’all are forevermore shuckin’ the corn.

SONG OF THE DAY: Sad Sad Songs

Wow, there are so many experts on Middle Eastern policy, and Afghanistan, and Lebanon, and really everything today. You all should learn the valuable lesson of Shutting The Fuck Up. US Imperialism and dogmatic conservative Islam neither benefit the average person struggling to survive. And if you think the late American Empire hellscape is bad here, please consider the fact we have it amazingly comfortable by Global Southern standards. So again, please practice Shutting The Fuck Up. Practice it daily, and often each day. It’s very beneficial to your environment, whether IRL or extremely online.

W3LL-P01S0N3D 3NV1R0NM3NT...

well-poisoned environment 
of downwardly spiraling 
America excites me 

SONG OF THE DAY: la pinche cumbia de la escuela eleconica monterreyLa Pinche Cumbia de la Escuela Electronica Monterrey

I am looking for a strip mall, somewhere in the south, probably North Carolina, but maybe Alabama or South Carolina, where there is a wrestling school/arena that has lucha infused activities, due to immigration pattterns of the past 30 years. Also because of this, I expect there should be a pupuseria in that strip mall, maybe just a truck, but maybe a corner restaurant. I really don't care if it's a truck, even if it's unpainted and unfinished looking. Only white people expect food trucks to be painted nicely. I would hope there's some sort of tire shop in this strip mall too, specializing in custom rim/wheel packages. Hopefully somebody rents one of the bays out to do detailing too, or does it in the parking lot. I guess building off that ideally there'd be a car wash nearby, not one where you pay people or one of those rip-off drive through ones with the LED lights, but the multiple bay cinderblock or brick jams where folks control their own cleaning destiny, by how many quarters they're willing to invest in freshness, both in spraying down the car and vaccuuming it on the far side of the car wash. It seems impossible to me that such a place doesn't exist at this point. I want to go there, and vibe, because in this imaginary rundown strip mall of the declining American empire, there's a lot of powerful vibes that are currently missing from my life. No curtido, no chrome, no shiny masks (or at least not enough), no pupusa lorocco and hurricanrana and 22-inch Rucci forgeds. Just the same stupid shit, everywhere.

H4RD T0 1M4G1N3 4LL TH3S3...

hard to imagine all these 
half-abandoned buildings once 
housed the hopes of so many 

TH3R3 1S N0 G0D-0RD41N3D T0...

there is no god-ordained to 
be found - behind a flag to 
wave or stone to push uphill 

S4T1N FL4GS W1TH S1LK FR1NG3 41N'T...

satin flags with silk fringe ain't 
for the wretched; most of us 
born half-doomed and one-third dead 

SONG OF THE DAY: Stare Directly Into The Sun

[a freestyle sonnet] 
Staring directly into the sun, 
establishing eye contact with solar flare, 
watching those who lust after gold dreams spun 
through manmade pyramid schemes pretend it's square 
to be crooked in alternative ways. 
Rays of sun in day plus moon's reflection 
at night, combined with maps the stars make blaze 
the path for me to follow; deception 
is the rule rather than exception here 
in this empire of greed where we all pretend 
want is need, while keeping our focus clear 
of seeing those who actually depend 
upon aid from others for survival; 
the wave of change needed remains tidal. 

4 RVST1NG WH1T3 L1NC0LN...

a rusting white Lincoln 
Continental - symbolic 
of American Empire 

SONG OF THE DAY: Lost You

the wailing of the unheard 
herded through autotune filters 
fed back to the consumer masses 
as a tonic of faux understanding 
of what it means to struggle 
against the rising tide 
of economic-based white American pride 
which always allows the other side 
so long as you ascribe to the right mythology 

disinformation wants to be free 
so that it can fence me in these filter bubbles 
that fuck up my real world outlook 
plus 
them with blue checks by their names 
who have consumed it all from the 
urban wailing of the disaffected to the 
rural moaning of the dissatisfied 
who mistakenly think they understand it all 
because they’ve spent their lives consuming 
all these things from the comfort of safety nets 
make judgements based on their consumption of data 
which got filtered through their bubble from the beginning 

red pills and blue checks ain’t got shit to do 
with my simple goddamned stubborn but pure heart 
don’t know shit about my 
heart still beating anxiously fast 
because it’s nothing but hills to climb 
and you never know if that cop that just passed 
is gonna but a u-turn and start asking questions 
because you’ve been dirty since the day you were born 

for your information fuck y’all fake mother fuckers
for your information fuck y’all fake mother fuckers 
heartless bastards always thinking you know shit you don’t