SONG OF THE DAY: Hey Leroy, Your Mama's Callin' (kudzu'd)

Jimmy Castor’s first two singles released in his long recording career were this song, and “Troglodyte (Cave Man)”. I’m not sure there’s a lot of people who could top that as their first two single releases. And though his commercial success was limited (although this clip is from him performing on American Bandstand), Castor is a huge legend and source of material for hip hop. One of my dork back-to-backs I love to spin when playing slowed 45s live is this with “Hold It Now, Hit It” by the Beastie Boys, because they mimic the talking parts of “Hey Leroy” and the two fit together wonderfully beatwise. I miss DJing to be honest. I gotta try and get some gigs.

SONG OF THE DAY: What's His Name

A lot of my favorite songs from throughout music history have a sound to them reminiscent of the rhythmic combination of cicadas/peepers/frogs/insects/forest creatures making noise in the woods. It’s such a primordial rhythm, and such a symphony I got no idea what actual creatures it is making that type of sound, because likely it ain’t a single animal but a whole slew of them working in tandem. I feel bummed when dogs don’t like me, because it suggests to me I’m not doing something in life. But also when that forest symphony is popping off, and I’m moving through it (or by it, which is far more common for our unnatural human asses), whenever it stops suddenly instead of the normal build up then dramatic stop before starting back up slowly, I feel like I fucked up the rhythm. Then again, that’s a sign of needing to think more naturally, and learn how to walk within that rhythm, so that I blend it and be a part of it instead of disrupting it until it’s sure it’s not in immediate danger. And that’s also fucked up to think that I might be a danger to a natural rhythm, but that’s the reality of how we’ve separated ourselves with our perceived dominion over the Earth, whether we do it out of organized religion or stainless steel sciences. Gotta do better, by not doing so damned much.

SONG OF THE DAY: I'm In The Mood

I used to have a knockin’ boots situationship with a woman who always dimmed the lights down low and played old blues music, like every time. It actually was nice and created quite the vibe, plus her bed was small, like an old school twin bed which is great because you gotta get serious, no room to escape and dilly dally. Because of this cellular memory in my physical body though (with serotonin exclamation marks), when I hear certain old blues music, it gets me all riled up. And of course it does, because just look at this song. That was sexy ass music, designed (by divine minds not actually purposefully designing too hard with the brain) to make one inclined to do just what we was doing while we was listening to it.

a freestyle sonnet about being truly forgotten (non-politically)

Enjoying the accumulated wild style sights 
of built up sediments in forgotten spaces 
the rat race has deemed useless; left for troglodytes 
like myself, forever cruising wasted places, 

tasting the grace of man and nature still shaking 
hands, knowing that people and the land is kinfolk. 
Sitting on discarded soapstone slab, sun baking, 
listening to my uncle the river invoke 

ancient tongues from before concrete sprung from the Earth 
in shady clusters. I've got no need for progress 
cemented in the delusions of abstract worth; 
y'all putting on collective airs, which more or less 

manufactures stress which our intestines all feel... 
as a natural born loser, I know the deal. 

TH3 BRVT4L 4RCH1T3CTVR3...

the brutal architecture 
of displacing natural 
thought with chasing a clock’s face 

4SS1GN1NG 0VRS3LV3S PVRP0S3...

assigning ourselves purpose 
where none needed to exist… 
fuck it, I’ll be in the woods 

R34D 4N 4RT1CL3 0N H0W...

read an article on how 
cave paintings were three-dimensional 
when seen by the light of fire 

SONG OF THE DAY: Ritmo Sabroso

Global diaspora of various beginnings combined with digital communications has made the world smaller while also not acknowledging the digital gaps that still exist and how there are always going to be shadows for the forgotten. Been thinking on what I am as a human, accepting my status as white male in America, yet also realizing I’m not entirely like a lot of other white males. Been thinking of myself as unwhite lately, because I’m externally identified as white, most certainly, but I try my best to not perpetuate a lot of that shit with my own actions. It’s impossible to detach yourself from how others identify you, including systems built on biases which benefit you, but it’s also very possible to actively not embrace that shit, and definitely you can do the work to not perpetuate the ugly side of that.

And yet I went to a home funeral yesterday, where we stood around the grave that the family dug, and they played a couple old bluegrass songs at the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains, and there’s a cultural context to all this for me – greater Appalachian roots which came from Scottish highlands… a common theme in the eastern half of the U.S. But also I’m a product of various immigrant diasporas – one quarter Polish with a variation on “fisher” surname, a quarter Scandinavian, part German-ish as filtered through Pennsylvania mountains… but standing at home-cooked funeral, outside, old folks playing old instruments, singing old songs about finally being free, it’s all cultural at molecular and unexplainable level that’s not evil. The history of globalization and empire and dominant cultures, even within the framework of racial divisions, is one where dominant cultures consumed and suppressed even other cultures within what we now see as the same.

It will be interesting to see how this shifts in the near future, now that we have these handheld devices that educate as well as delude us, and so many cultural things are cross-pollinating each other. And yet also, we’re experiencing a vast superficial knowledge of more, while knowing deeply less. Someone once told me about the difference between knowing one square inch a mile deep, and one square mile an inch deep, and how superficial knowledge doesn’t actually allow for root knowledge, and can easily be washed away. As I helped dig a grave this past week, I thought about that, as we dug shovelful by shovelful, down through the silt, luckily not too red clay, far deeper than one normally digs, because that’s how deep you have to go for safe eternal resting space. I don’t come from high and mighty people, despite the privilege I do have, and there’s a lot of cultural pieces that were lost because of that. I knew drug culture better than people playing banjos, although there was crossover, like an old dude called Rocky Top who had drank himself out of Nashville who sat around the poker table at Tank’s house where my folks went every weekend, picking songs. But I do know piecing it together, and how to get shit done when it needs to be done, rather than planning and talking and thinking about it forever.

Humanity is no more fucked now than it’s ever been. But there’s a lot of hard work that needs to be done. Not discussed and delegated and argued and talked over and hashed out and endless circles of discourse and spirals of power hierarchies that destroy actual collective work ever getting done. There’s enough work for all of us to just get to doing in our own lives, daily. And that helps establish new cultures, new cross-pollinations that aren’t appropriation or assimilation or suppression and oppression, but actual shared physical acts of working together. The arts falls into this as well, because the arts is the fun work you do after the hard work is done. And fuck man, nobody wants to just do the hard work seven days a week without doing the fun work too. Every somber Sunday morning needs a feral Saturday night. Life needs contrast in order to not be mundane to the point of just sitting around waiting for death. It feels a lot of times like our one inch deep knowledge of the square mile of today’s existence is severely lacking, at least to me. But ain’t shit to do about it except get to work going deeper.

MY 4NKL3S 4CH3 FR0M ST4GN4NT...

my ankles ache from stagnant

existence, desiring to

cross land masses, step by step

SONG OF THE DAY: Complication #5

A weird cultural sign of patriarchy is every last man on Earth story is a last MAN on Earth story. I have all daughters (biologically speaking) which means my alpha male toxic masculine country ass has had to re-evaluate a lot of the little crap I do from that place. Anyways, we live in a glorious time of potential actual civilization catastrophe, which I guess is scary to a lot of children and even adults, because people are inclined to believe civilization is stable. I’ve tried to raise my children not to be marks for that bullshit – there is no stability, no meritocracy, and yes the world is fucked and likely to have collapse. But I also like my daughters to know it doesn’t have to be a last MAN on Earth, nor should it be. I mean if 95% of the Earth’s population died off in the next 20 years, that’d still leave like 375 million people alive. “Why not y’all?” I always ask them. And think how exciting it’d be to get to rebuild whatever is next.

Anyways, peace to Swamp Dogg, a Virginia legend. Swamp Doggs IRL historically have been tri-racial isolates that existed in the extreme geographical margins to hide from civilizations immoral ways. A majority of those 375 million who build the next phase of human life on Earth after inevitable collapse of this unsustainable model we’re currently running are going to be Swamp Doggs.

¯\(°_o)/¯
X

1NT3RN4L J1H4D B3TW33N...

internal jihad between

man with brain poisoned by false

purpose, and pure animal

manual transmission of

invisible energies,

connected through molecules

fire used to be open shared

center of activity -

no longer “necessary”

leisure class firepit strengthened

by burning haiku prayers

of index card resistance

fight-or-flight anxieties

mass triggered for amusement;

we need to feel survival

45s on 33 – #5: “Troglodyte (Cave Man)”

I recently did a lot of reading on the hominid species that existed before homo sapiens because if you don’t learn your history you’ll be doomed to repeat it. When you think about the hundreds of thousands of years and evolutionary possibilities both past and future, it makes shit like global warming not that scary. I mean, things will still exist of some sort, just not me (but I’m going to die anyways). Of course, I was just standing in the kitchen in the dark of the middle of the night eating butterscotch cookies, only barely lit by the dull green digital time showing on the stove (which some people call range). The stove time is always five minutes behind for some reason, and I’m not sure where that five minutes went, but again, when I think about future hominids twenty thousand years from now walking on an earth where even all the plastic has decomposed, that five minutes doesn’t seem so important.

Human consciousness has created god and tall buildings and split atoms but also seems to think a little too highly of itself. I think even saying we are destroying the earth is somewhat egotistic. Even bemoaning other species dying off at a rapid rate does as well, because you know most other species are probably like “yo, humans are fucked, stay away.” Unfortunate for most plants they can only grow away, which is far slower than our predatory gait. But most other animals know what’s up, pretty much all of them except dogs and cats, and dogs we’ve broke them psychologically from raw wolf nature to where they are way into us. Cats, I’m not sure there, what with all the weird Egyptian hieroglyph alien suggestions, cats may actually be performing a long con on the earth using us as their tools. The cat feces-induced schizophrenia/dementia thing might just be their shutdown mode at the end, and then they’ll live for centuries just picking off birds in the square and rectangular concrete ruins of what was once human civilization.

The cool thing is there will always be some raggedy ass humans still around, even ten thousand years from now once the earth has become a blistering heat zone, and some new hominid starting to build a new hominidic civilization, and there’s gonna be some dumbass homo sapiens staggering along the fringes, and the new hominids will be like, “lolol, what a homo sapien… look at that stupid fucker.” I hope to be that stupid fucker (through my offspring, obviously, but I’ll try to be that myself should things evolve faster than expected).

TOP TEN CLEVELAND MANGANESE PROSPECT POINTS

#1: complicated maze/navigated too quickly/under influence
#2: drunk steps hit left-right/forks plow blindly thru maelstrom/that is existence
#3: the problem lies in/thinking the maze culminates/that the maze has point
#4: just a fuckin’ maze/just fuckin’ people engaged/making gold pie right
#5: feldspar & quartzite/been telling me mineral/& stone secrecies
#6: rocks lead men astray/to leave them lost in earth maze/chasing own demise
#7: this is gold’s purpose/ - old rock carnival trick to/eliminate men
#8: rock sediments laugh/at mankind’s addiction-lust/for polished shinestones
#9: rock will still be here/lessons from planet rock give/hints for survival
#10: cleveland manganese/prospect jasper rhodonite/quarried nirvana

TOP TEN KVLT SPLLZ CAST HALF-EPIC

#1: eCoLoGiCaL/BLaCK MeTaL TRaNSCeNDeNTaL/RoMaNTiCiSM
#2: DeeP WooDS eCSTaSY/oF aNCieNT SPiRiT DiSTiLLeD/THRu oMiNouS RiFFS
#3: CiViLiZeD PRiSoNS/BuiLT BY BoTH RiGHT-HaND CHuRCH &/LeFT-HaND NaTioN-STaTe
#4: BLaCKeST DaRKNeSSeS/uNDeR-eXPLoReD DeeP WiTHiN/HuMaN SouL’S WaSTeLaND
#5: WiTHiN DeeP DaRKNeSS/iS HuMBLe aCCePTaNCe oF/MaN’S PLaCe iN NaTuRe
#6: PoST-MoDeRN SaGaS/STiLL To Be WRiTTeN iN iNK/MaDe FRoM BLooD & aSH
#7: CoNSTRuCT PoeTiC/eDiFiCe iN WoRLD LaCKiNG/NaTuRaL LaNGuaGe
#8: BeRSeRKeR BLooDLiNeS/eMBeDDeD iN DNa/oF eLDeR oaK RooTS
#9: LeaVe aLL SHiT aLoNe/iNCLuDiNG Me - LeT THiNGS Be/aS THeY’D FuCKiNG Be
#10: BeTWeeN BuSHeS We/STaReD aT THoSe ReMiNDiNG uS/oF aNoTHeR aGe

TOP TEN DIRT-GOD BODY ROCKS

#1: dirt-god earth bod burnt/by poke-prod philosophies/meritocracies
#2: dirt-god grimeface hides/behind bocephus beard built/one year at a time
#3: dirt-god chicken scratch/so-ing needles india/ink tattoo scribbles
#4: dirt-god right fist got/sharpie swords many colors/chopping surfaces
#5: dirt-god left fist holds/white trash quartz energy bless/wizard mineral
#6: dirt-god gut got fool/off pickle jar dumpster kraut/plus “for quick sale” shrooms
#7: dirt-god heart pumps thick/caveman molecule-laced blood/thru nomadic veins
#8: dirt-god mind fogged out/but stays sharp stays hacking at/external hacking
#9: dirt-god scripture carved/into white birch bark back where/fine folks is afraid
#10: dirt-god baptism/bremo bluff csx yard/milepost 69

TOP TEN PERSONAL MANTRAS WHILE CHOPPING DOWN SENSELESS CRAVING VINES WITH A KUKRI MACHETE

#1: TiP TOEiNG iN MY/MOCCASiNS MADE FROM MOONSHiNE/& BAREFOOT CALLOUS
#2: CAPiTAL JiHAD/LiME GREEN SHEMAGH TiED WiTH PRiDE/JUST LiKE HUNTiNG DEER
#3: ASSASSiNATiON/HASHiSH KUKRi MACHETE/MASTER AMAZiNG
#4: GRACE ACHiEVED THRU ACTS/OF REAL SHiT NOT ABSTRACTiON/OF $$$ TRiCKLES
#5: CHARiTY BEGiNS/iN THE HEART NO (bank) ACCT/OTHERWiZARD TRiCKS
#6: TiP TOEiNG THRU BLOOD/STAiNED STREETS iCED-OUT HEARTS FORGOT/HOW TO FEEL REAL FiRE
#7: PURCHASiNG PRE-FAB/SUPER-FiCiAL HEAT WHiCH WARMS/SURFACE BUT NOT BONES
#8: i AM OF THE FiRE/TRiBE CAVEMAN MOLECULES STiLL/BURN iNSiDE MY HEART
#9: YOUR PURCHASED SCiENCE/MOCKS CAVEMAN MOLECULE THOUGHTS/AS LESSER THAN ZERO
#10: THUS i’M TiP TOEiNG/iN MY CAVEMAN MOCCASiNS/WiTH WELL-HONED KUKRi