SONG OF THE DAY: Piece of Your Action

By the time they released Shout at the Devil, Motley Crue had mastered the faux Satanic imagery that made them metal famous, before they flipped the color scheme to be MTV famous on their next record. But nothing they ever did comes close to the raw power of Too Fast For Love. They made the perfect album for wrecking your car into a guardrail on a Wednesday night.

SONG OF THE DAY: Hell Bent For Leather

I got a tattoo in an old school tattoo shop the other day, and they were playing old metal, so heard a couple from Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, even Dio. Even though it was probably a streaming playlist, it felt appropriate. I was once a young metalhead with degenerate style unkempt longhair and a jean jacket with bona fide Motorhead back patch. Ozzy actually came on and me and my tattoo artist talked about how we didn’t know if Dio was dead or not, and I said I had meant to look it up but never did. Fuck looking things up online, to be honest. Anyways, when I first got a record player back in the day, I had a total of 5 albums, all of which were taken from my uncle’s bedroom in my grandma’s trailer, because I think he got kicked out or something? It was Kiss Double Platinum, Ozzy’s Blizzard of Ozz, and Black Sabbath’s Paranoid gatefold, but for some reason the other side of the gate fold was busted open and held a copy of Volume 4 without the cover. Not a bad first 5 albums starter pack, to be honest. Thus, I could have some opinions about metal, because a bunch came about during my formative years, but I’m also pretty old school and believe that if you have short hair and a college degree, you’re not allowed to have opinions about metal music. At all. Hard stop. Also, in case you were wondering, being a cop is like having a PhD in Dumb Fuck, so they’re definitely disqualified as well. Any metal that cops love is anti-metal in spirit. Damn, forget I said that, because that’s bordering on having an opinion. I’ll stay out the metal opinions business and instead focus on fighting cops, like my original borrowed/inherited/absconded record collection taught me.

SONG OF THE DAY: Machette

I recently realized I hadn’t bought any machetes in a long time, which worried me, although as I thunk about it, I realized I have them stashed throughout the house, to where you’re never actually more than 15 feet away from a machete (if you know where they are… which I do). But also I could get that weapon calculus down to 10 feet if I got some more. I hate our consumer capitalist bullshit society which has propped up this American Empire with extreme waste of resources, our own individual wealth, and just the entirety of the Earth to be honest. But there’s still some things you can never have too much of, like machetes, milk crates, tarps, pieces of rebar… all those basic foundations for survival during tight times or thriving during complacent periods. And you don’t need to be fancy about none of those things. You can find $200 machetes online if you want, but if you’re getting a $200 machete, you’re missing the entire point of machetes in my opinion. I mean, you don’t want a cheap machete that dulls immediately and can’t be sharpened, just like you want a decent mil tarp as well. Milk crates are milk crates for the most part, and with rebar, quarter inch isn’t as strong as half inch, but you’ll never run out of uses for quarter inch rebar. Trust me, it’s universally useful.

SONG OF THE DAY: Country Boy

This song makes me miss my dad, and think of going to Tom’s Country Store to get hot dogs for lunch with him, then sitting up in the park where he ate and read the paper every day, even though he only had a 7th grade education. I mean, he read the paper every day until he replaced it with a fifth of vodka entirely, not just partially. He also had a little blue Ford Courier pick-up that we painted a grim reaper on the hood of, based off a t-shirt of mine as a delinquent metalhead teenager. That truck was great, classic wheelbarrow truck – so tiny, with the tweeter kick cassette player, but with that grim reaper hand-painted on the hood, it was pretty sick. When I first got my license, I got to drive it to school now and then, blasting some shitty metal, grim reaper on the hood, blowing into school like the misfit I was, living River’s Edge in real life, but nobody got murdered necessarily, just ripped off. Kinda come to realize as much as I hate all those charts where you plot yourself, I’m about as Chaotic Good as it gets when I’m properly synchronized with my ultimate dirtgod raven mack ultramagnetics. I'd rather be Chaotic Good than anything else, but especially Lawful Neutral. Way too much fuckin' Lawful Neutral out here, fucking everything up with its nothingness.

R34L1ST1C 3XP3CT4T10NS...

realistic expectations 
don't appear to be common - 
chained to the impossible 

V3N33RS 4LW4YS W4RP; T0P C04TS...

veneers always warp; top coats

always end up flaking off

while weathered back into Earth

D3NY1NG VRB4N CH1LDR3N...

denying urban children

the joy of perfect swish sound,

with medieval chain nets

ST4MP1NG Y34R 0F CR34T10N...

stamping year of creation,

like it's '82 until

infinity (but it ain't)

D3C4Y N0T 3V3N N0T1C3D...

decay not even noticed

on a day-to-day basis;

but sure enough - back to Earth

F1B3RGL4SS D0N'T RVST, WH1CH S0M3...

fiberglass don't rust, which some

see as progress, but junkyards

show to be false improvement

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.

P34K 4M3R1C4N CVLTVR3...

peak American culture

is shoddy manufactured

thrills at outlandish prices

4LL L1N3D VP 1N P3RF3CT R0WS...

all lined up in perfect rows,

rushing off to work, holding

the whole facade together

SONG OF THE DAY: Porter St.

A slew of Richmond memories and thoughts on creative processes after seeing Lamb of God on the Slayer farewell tour the other night. Much love to those dudes, all of whom have been homies in one way or another throughout adult life, including now. (Shout out to Gandalf-ass looking John Campbell, by the way; when we did haiku events in Richmond regularly, took him on in a battle of the beards haiku death match once. Shit was funny.)

I got a fellowship for later this year, as an “emerging writer” at age 45, so I’m trying to manifest and imagine actually doing my creative shit as a bigger part of my life, being it’s the only thing I actually have ever enjoyed doing for work, and it’s what I’m driven to do regardless of the world that’s been situated around me. Seeing some dudes you used to play Genesis with or go to dirt track with or just get fucked up (lolol) or traded zines or sat on porches, any of that shit, who have somehow had the skill and luck (it takes both) to get to a position where they’re doing their creative side as a job, it’s inspiring. I also imagine that shit gets tiring, and is like the monkey’s paw, and is never exactly what you expected it would be. Nonetheless, it beats sitting at a desk (like I do now) or standing on a ladder all day (like I used to do) or prep work in a kitchen (like most of them did).

Richmond is a weird scene – was back then and remains so to this day. When I was younger it was a very clear case of authentic people (aka the real) and inauthentic ones (fake asses), but also obviously when you are young, you are more militant and everything is figured out in sharp contrasts you gradually lose over time, or they seem less important, or I don’t know, you just get older and give less of a fuck.

But authenticity vs. fake, real recognizing real, becomes even more layered and important in post-gentrification realities of a place, like being seen in Richmond, like being seen in Charlottesville where I now live, like being seen in NYC or DC or Chicago or Istanbul or London or Bay Area or really every fucking where there is money on this Earth. Real and fake become more sedimented, so fake shit that’s been around long enough somehow seems less fake compared to the new very fake. This track by Tim Barry (another long-time RVA peep) “Porter St.” New goes up over new over new, and where it was old and cobbled together it becomes new and fuck man I don’t even recognize Richmond any more. Southside is now called Manchester and where there was a wasteland they act like it’s always been Scott’s Addition and there are now young and seemingly progressive white people scattered like Bullets wrappers used to be. Even got my daughter at her bff’s crib one time and it was in KNOWN DANGERZONE from my time there but now it is all nice bungalows and pretty chill though I am sure in fact absolutely certain I could still go a few blocks north and there’s no way they bleached that area clean.

Where does everybody go when they are no longer wanted? I mean they were never wanted, the wretched of the earth, but they were allowed to exist mostly because they (we?) overran certain areas in sheer numbers, and made it too much themselves (ourselves?) to be bothered with. But somewhere along the way of Amerikkkan culture, those with money started to bother, and now everything feels different, in a fake way. And the fake is so layered that fake shit from a while back feels more authentic.

Tim was singer for Avail, and I had mutuals who were tight with that whole scene, but I was never really tight with the RVA punk scene, because a lot of the guys that came into town the same time I did through VCU were very fake, on that fake vs. real scale. They also were cool within that scene, and punk scene at the time tended to reward coolness more than realness, or so it seemed to me as shitty rural Virginia kid with no money. Thus, as Tim Barry’s career has redefined itself from Avail singer to singer-songwriter guy, it sometimes amuses the fuck out of me that he has songs about shitholes I know very deeply like “South Hill” because those guys always seemed like Northern Virginia kids to me, which in case you are not aware is an automatic derogatory description of an RVA person if you are from anywhere in the state south or southwest or neglected or forgotten or never seen in the first place. But I do love some Tim Barry music when it hits right. His earlier stuff hits righter than more recent stuff, for me at least, but much like the Lamb of God boys, I’m always glad to see people I know find a way to exist in a creatively fulfilling way. I hope to add my name to some such a Richmond-related fucked-up artists Wikipedia page at some point as well.

TH3 1MP3RM4N3NC3 0F M4N'S...

the impermanence of man's

industrious creations,

reclaimed through Earth chemistry

M4NVF4CTVR3D P3RF3CT10N...

manufactured perfection

slowly oxidized back to

beautifully imperfect

JJ Krupert Jan 2018 number twelve "mercyful fate"

Not sure how I feel about Vinnie Paz/Ill Bill heavy metal themed rap project. Vinnie Paz always occupies this psychic territory for me that I’m like really into it, but also highly skeptical at the same time. So for now, I have been enjoying some of the Heavy Metal Kings library, because I too am a hip hop head with dirtweed metalhead juvenile delinquency roots, but I don’t know man, I just don’t know. I might disavow this shit at any point.

Still though, sick video. Any time King Diamond and hip hop come together I will at least arbitrarily be like “oh okay cool.” We got two cats a while back, one yellow from the shelter, as requested by my fam, but I also got this little all black runt kitten because I was like “damn, ain’t nobody gonna take that fucked up little runt ass black cat with the splotchy hair and shit.” I wanted to name him King Diamond. This was nixed by my household because I am the only former metalhead there. So instead I named him Lounger, and as a kitten he slept on top of LPs in a crate and now he kills all the fuckin’ mice, which is a benefit in an old farmhouse like the one we try to call home. Anyways, he kills so much shit because he’s supposed to be named King Diamond. Also he is a cat. Cats are murderous as fuck.