SONG OF THE DAY: Cumberland Gap

As a kid growing up, I called them butter beans, but somewhere along the way it became lima beans. There’s a lot of weird little things about the way I talked that got shamed out of me over the years, which I’ve realized was usually class-based shit that got projected on me from others (and felt pretty heavy). But it’s also weird because if I say “butter beans” today, it feels performative; like, I’ve lost the natural inclination to call them tasty little legumes by that name. And when I look at that as one thread, and start pulling at it, unraveling the sweater of my current existence, well, it kinda fucks me up. So I am going to fry up some chicken gizzards and eat them with butter beans tonight, and some leftover rice and mustard greens I have too. And I will set a single fried chicken gizzard and butter bean out in the back yard for the ancestors. I know they’ve been lurking lately because a lot of tricksterism has been happening, which is usually a sign I need to be listening to them better. Probably they’re mad because I talk so funny now.

SONG OF THE DAY: Chicken Heads

Now I might not be the sharpest throwing star in the ninja fannypack, but I think this song might be a metaphor for something else.

H34RT H4LF-FVLL 0F FR13D G1ZZ4RD...

heart half-full of fried gizzard 
grease, but still magically 
staggered into simple home 

SONG OF THE DAY: Going Back Home

This song features one of the greatest gimmicks in modern music history – using an electrified guitar to mimic the sound of a bunch of chickens cackling in the yard. I maintain a Heavily Researched and Highly Informed list of the Top 100 Songs of All-Time featuring this technique, although that title is misleading because it truly only covers the era of electrified guitars being played. But this song has been in the Top Five for nearly six years now, ever since the Back to the River (More Southern Soul Stories 1961-1978) Kent Soul release from late 2015. This is as close to a Spotify Wrapped as you’ll get from me.

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.

SONG OF THE DAY: Hot Pan

Man I ain't got shit to say except Nickelus F is a legend, doing it underground for years, and yet also having secret influences within the larger industry itself. "We came up on gas station cuisine… fried everything, sodas, jellybeans." I GUARANTEE YOU NICKELUS F KNOWS ABOUT THEM EAST COAST POTATO WEDGES. ONE THIGH AND A LARGE ORDER OF WEDGES, TAKE ALL THE TEXAS PETE PACKETS YOU CAN.

SONG OF THE DAY: Away Away

“Capitalism” is such a dogmatic sounding word, that I’m not sure if you’re practicing something so polysyllabic you can do it ethically. But the other day I went to my local Afghan market, and thought about how it’s the type of business I like to support. I had passed by earlier on the bus and saw a dude unloading a bunch of bags of flatbread from the trunk of his car, obviously somebody who made it themselves. That flatbread was looking good as fuck in passing so I figured after I did a couple things, I’d wander my way on foot back by the market.

When I did finally get back, there was another dude in the tight aisles, blocking my path to the half-gallon of mint ayran (a must). Really all I came in for was ayran, dates, and one of them bags of that flatbread. Dude in aisle went to check out, which is just one counter, where the dudes who work there are always giving out of date candy to kids, and an old Afghan dude is generally sitting inside within talking distance of the counter, unless it’s warm, and he might be sitting outside. Dude in front of me asks about paneer, and guy behind the counter says, “No, we only get paneer in on Wednesdays.” I’d asked about goat before and they only get that on Fridays. And obviously it looks like the flatbread bags come in on Monday. I always fuck up and forget to go by on Fridays to get goat though, which bums me out, because I bet some halal goat would recharge my depleted ass.

Once I was checking out, I asked how much the flatbread bags were. (Please understand when I say “bag” I mean large ass turkey size bag with flatbread pieces larger than a pizza.) “$6.90, but there’s ten of them in there.” I had to get that, and have been snacking on them all week long. Hungry as fuck in the middle of the evening? Rip off half a piece of flatbread, grab four or five dates, I’m good. I bought enough shit this particular time I had to use a card, but generally speaking I try to use cash there. And I’ve noticed that as I’ve used cash, usually for single serving mint ayran bottles, the price can fluctuate slightly to your benefit, as both a regular customer and a cash-paying customer.

All of this, as I walked out to catch the bus with my big bag of flatbread, made me realize this is exactly the type of business I feel good about supporting. Cash between hands (hopefully) helps cut out government embezzlement of survival wealth, and a place that is filled in its tiny location, that is content in operating at that filled and functional level, only having goat on Friday, paneer on Wednesday, and flatbread on Monday, is okay by me. We always have this notion that growth should be continual, and that you need larger stores, more franchises, everything should be available at all times. That type of growth is unnatural, and thus likely unethical, no matter how you do it. Natural world is not continuous – you can get some shit sometimes, and other shit other times. It’s not all available around the calendar, at your convenience. Fuck man, life is not convenient. It takes some work and navigation and effort. That’s how it should be. Moving from providing for your life and your family and a few others to where you feel the need to accumulate wealth and control a whole arsenal of marketplaces like that… I don’t know that I think that can ever be ethical. If you’re sitting around in some faraway place contemplating how you can improve profitability (another too many syllables word to ever be simple enough to be ethical) without actually putting your ass in a market, standing around on your feet, breaking down boxes to put in the recycling bin beside the dumpster, or sweeping anything, then I don’t know if you’re thinking with all the heart you need to be thinking with. Ever. Not even on Mondays, when your work week starts, and flatbread is coming in.

1ND3P3ND3NT GR0C3RY...

independent grocery

store with a meat counter you

can ask for more chicken feet

PL4Y1NG SCR3W3D 4ND CH0PP3D 0LD13S...

playing screwed and chopped oldies

in the park, with styrofoam

clamshell full of chicken thighs

SONG OF THE DAY: Beautiful Life

Ain’t no real blurb to be blurbing upon this track. It’s Sunday, been a chill week which was week on with my kids, but after a lot of turmoil and chaos this little shitty basement apartment starting to feel sweet, starting to feel like home. I ain’t got no money about 17 hours after every pay day, but my bills is paid (except the medical ones, and I ain’t hitting on shit on these credit cards but the minimum payment, but I’m waiting on civilization to fall for those), and it’s gonna be a warm Sunday, and though the world is focused on gathering together for the American holiday of gazing at a screen and pretending commercials are anything more than fucking commercials, we gonna go outside in this blast of warmth after the polar vortex piledrived us inside for most of the week, and just walk around under the big blue sky letting the chemtrail mist invisibly fall down upon us but we don’t care becasue it’s a beautiful life, and alhamdulillah y’all. Be practicing my dhikr to a go-go beat, and I got leftover chicken and homemade mac-n-cheese for dinner, plus some greens to cook up. Pure honeysucklin' Sunday, regardless of larger poison culture events.

SONG OF THE DAY: Red Beans & Rice (Chopped & Screwed)

I have never understood how white people love black beans so much. I mean, I love black beans too, but red beans are amazing, and probably my preference. But most official restauranting establishments that have beans are either gentry class black beans or standard Mexican joint fare of pinto beans usually refried. Where the fuck is the love for red beans? Where the fuck is the Styrofoam plate of rice with red beans and a slab of fish? Why does all our crap have to be so much the same everywhere you go? How did being alive become so fucking boring? Why the fuck are there food trucks at the alleged farmer’s market charging $12 for a plate of food from a food truck? If I have $12 to blow on a single lunch, why the fuck would I be standing at a vehicle getting food? Why do white (and white-ish behaving) people who paint pretty color schemes on a food truck think they are entitled to ask $12 for a fucking food truck item? And why aren’t there more food vans? Or food stationwagons? Or people sitting beside the road with a propane burner frying up some fish or falafel to throw onto some flat bread for my passing by ass? Why do even the progressive people seem to be wearing invisible Make America Great Again hats, just in an alternate blue color? Can we make America less fucking boring? Can we smash through existing walls to let people sneak in over there while you are building a new wall over here? Can we put a food truck by the hole in the wall? Can we stop painting our food trucks so ridiculously nice that people have to charge me $12 for a tiny ass lunch serving of something that sounds better than it actually tastes? I’m trying to give my stomach sustenance, not my fucked up psychology. Can we make street food be legitimate street food and not Moosewood Acres cul de sac food? Can we try to make American food great, for the first time, so that when you say “American food” people don’t automatically laugh and think hot dogs and heart attacks? Goddamn we are a boring fucking society in a lot of ways, so homogenized by chain restaurants and digital trends, into thinking exactly like everybody else behind the same electrified fences which are wireless and unseen.

SONG OF THE DAY: Changes

I listen to so much old school low rider oldies type shit that it’s driven my family crazy on weekends. But now family is separated so I can play ‘em all night long in the sad Millhouse Dad-esque basement apartment with the alzheimers owner next door who comes by to introduce herself three times a week, and nobody says nothing. I keep the volume not too loud though because living in apartments again for first time since my 20s got me remembering how you live underneath stoners who got the alley down to your door smelling like dank and why the fuck they always moving furniture around at 1 in the morning? Like every night?

Charles Bradley is the shit; I’ve seen him play twice, and would recommend always going to see that dude play, especially if some sick ass instrumental devilry like Budos Band is opening (who are on the same label, and also part of his backing band). I imagine it was that cross-pollination of devil instrumental funk combined with Charles Bradley on a tour bus (van) that somehow led to Black Sabbath soul covers. GIVE ME MORE, Y’ALL.

SONG OF THE DAY: The Fluid

The other evening I stopped to eat at a diner/soul food restaurant after walking behind a traveling protest through a neighborhood. I hadn’t meant to eat, but passing by Mel’s, it occurred to me if any place had chicken and gizzards in town at that time, maybe Mel’s did. They didn’t, but I got a burger and greens and mac-n-cheese anyways, and sat out front eating, listening to the dude over by me talking about what he was about to get into while his ol’ lady sat there as well. “We drinkin’ vodka tonight, she can’t handle me when I’m on that Hennessey.” She shook her head. “Yeah, I get stupid off that Hennessey.”

The protest ultimately was about racism, and had built off a string of domino events that began with the suggested removal of a confederate monument. Don’t really feel like getting into all that because the past week has been very tiring, and in fact the resurgence of energies from the week of this time of the calendar last year has also been tiring. We lived in a police state locally, in certain sectors, and it left one exhausted from hyper-awareness and fear. I lived in Richmond in the ‘90s during the height of its worst murder rates, and had hyper-awareness and fear then, but nothing like this. The fear of militarized police fucking you up is worse because you know there’s no recourse, no institution to escape to. It is the institution.

I talked my ragged dirtgod shit style, flashing them country dimples to the lady at the counter, and of course she laughed at my silly ass. Finally had my food, chowed the fuck down, and after wandering like 20 miles on foot that day, damn them greens and mac-n-cheese was replenishing as fuck. I had planned on walking home, still another mile away, but after all that, I was wiped out, so texted a friend who had said she’d give me a ride if I needed.

Sat on the bus stop bench (always sitting on bus stop benches it seems), and there was a poster for an upcoming show stapled into the tree still living here in this non-natural zone, tucked into the concrete and small businesses and not yet upgraded buildings to match the economic monstrosities built a couple blocks further west. I felt bad for the tree for a second, as I always do when I see things stapled into a tree. But also trees don’t go out like that. One of my favorite things to find in the woods wandering is when you cross an abandoned barbed wire fence that had been stapled into a tree and the tree grew around the wire, eventually just overtaking it so it looks like the wire belongs to the tree. An even more favorite aspect to that favorite is when the fence is no longer a fence so it’s just a piece of wire sticking out the tree and you realize somebody tried to put up fences somewhere along the way, but nature took back over, and fuck your fences, they’re gone now.

I want to be resilient like that, knowing the fences are there, feeling them stapled into my existence, but still being like, “fuck it” and continuing to grow and survive and in fact thrive and just overpower the fence nonetheless. Resilient like a stubborn ass tree, working fingers into the underground for water, and stretching towards the sunshine. That’s my fuckin’ jam.