SONG OF THE DAY: Le Spank (kudzu'd)

I could never roller skate regular style but I could do tricks. My favorite trick was jumping over barrels, except instead of roller skates I used a dirt bike, and we did it in the yard instead of a roller rink. But we built a tall enough stack of cinderblocks and triple layer plywood scraps that we could launch over three rusty barrels. Using back roads mathematics while drunk at age 14, we realized that we could set the middle barrel upright and use it for its rightful purpose of burning household garbage, and still likely jump that. My partner in stupidity was 9 months younger than me, so as the eldest, I had right of going first or refusal to pass along, but we all know that refusal to do such a thing was a huge red flag of deep character flaws, so of course I went first. It didn’t go well. I hit the ramp awkward, might’ve been a bit nervous, and I remember thinking, “Why didn’t we do a test run without the barrel fire going?” and that was my last conscious thought as I wobbled off the ramp and fell directly into the barrel fire. Turned out the barrel fire was actually a portal into America, which is how I ended up here. All that we know is actually the ass end of a portal opening where they burn the trash of a better place. I miss it there, but I don’t know how to get out of this shitty portal.

SONG OF THE DAY: So Low (kudzu'd)

There's piles of railroad detritus here and there along the tracks. Nice little hills of clasps and spikes and plates, and sometimes you find a great big siding of ragged old ties stacked high, and replaced rail. One time last year, I strapped 38 miles of rail to the top of my Corolla, because I'm building a 1:1 scale replica of an old small town railroad depot in the woods behind my house. I got a big DILLWYN sign too, from when they replaced that the other year, and a friend hipped me to the old one being stashed behind a building before they threw it away. You'd be surprised how much old shit they just throw away. I hope to one day build a whole town, with like 5000 residents, and a small public liberal arts college, in the woods behind my house, all with recycled things found in the trash.

SONG OF THE DAY: More Bounce to The Ounce Part 1 (kudzu'd)

A friend was sharing videos from a Myanmar field sound system, and I'm always looking at the homemade futuristic hyper DJ set-ups from Africa. It's weird how we have access to all this shit as Americans, but nobody builds a fuckin' sound system like that. I guess it's because you spend all this money, and you're afraid of your abstract wealth getting stolen, so you lock it all up in your house, rather than have a mobile giant ass sound system. I think about this a lot with regards to Roger Troutman vocals, too, because everybody will think autotune or vocoder, but nah man, he had a talkbox rigged to a keyboard. I feel complicit in this because I google how to build shit sometimes, but like my dad's friend Tank used to say about auto repair manuals, "If you need a manual, then you don't know how to do it." You can't google how to build a mobile sound system out of scraps; you just have to know how to do it, by the life you've lived. We've lost so much with our cluttered blessings of Americanness.

SONG OF THE DAY: Rap-O Clap-O

As I get older, I hate the cold weather more and more, so these last couple weeks before winter solstice when it’s dark early and cold, they feel like hell (ironically) to me. The only thing that really cuts the cold is electro funk. I’ve been tinkering with an old ham radio, a Numark CDJ I got at the thrift store, a couple old turntables, Casio synth, and a few assorted oscillator barometric pressure type doohickeys that were in the basement when I bought this place, trying to figure out a way to somehow condense electro funk into heat. I’m getting closer, but I’m afraid to leave it all hooked together while I’m not watching it, because this shit might catch on fire. I thought about running a drop cord out into the most spacious part of the yard to leave it plugged all together to see what happens, but sometimes I worry about electrical cords actually be Yakubian trick fuse lines to eventually blow myself up. You always gotta worry about shit like that, especially after having spent the whole morning reading Malachi Z. York’s Dr. York vs. The Computer earlier this week. The news has stories of all these giant data centers being built to support AI technology, and then there’s old ass he of ill repute Dr. Malachi Z. York foretelling of computers replacing sacred texts, and “Mechanized Makkah” people make pilgrimages to. Of course a lot of that particular tract is the old school “mark of the beast” computer tech type shit from the ‘90s era pre-computer conspiracy realm. It’s ironic that conspiracies actually gained traction once online become the foundation. People go to the beast to learn to be wary of the beast. But I have gotten sidetracked, because I pulled the freestyle rapping prompt “rap-o clap-o Joe Sataan style” from my gallon pickle jar full of folded up neon index cards with prompts written on them. No idea what I was thinking when past me wrote that as a writing prompt, but today me appreciated it and ran with it. But “rap-o clap-o Joe Sataan style” plus Dr. Malachi Z. York treatises in pdf form, well it’s a tough combo that the average person can’t navigate. I really need to get this electro funk heater finished though.

SONG OF THE DAY: Rollin' On

My grass is blue, and it’s not artificial turf. It’s also tall, and it got tall enough some nosy ass neighbor rode up on his riding mower and asked if I needed help, so now I can’t cut it even longer, out of stubbornness. You know that fucker runs a leaf blower? Use of a leaf blower at home is class treason if you consider yourself a redneck, in my opinion. Leaf blowers are the polo shirt of yard equipment, meaning the shitty collared shirt small business bossmen types and “friendly” sales dudes wear, not Polo brand shirts, which is pretty much exclusively worn by people who listened to hip hop a lot from 1985 through 1996 and have been poor at some point in their life, so like to feel like they’re fresh, even though let’s be honest, we’re probably not. I mean, my raggedy ass is out there sitting in knee-high blue grass, wearing a Polo rugby long sleeve with the skull and crossbones patch that I got for cheap off a antique store booth, in one of those blessed places where the antique store emporium is still a lot of junk and the vintage reseller vibes haven’t poisoned it with, “Well, now I can’t afford this shit no more”ness. Anyways, fuck leaf blowers, fuck vintage as a means of making dope shit impossible for ballin’ on a budget types to get. But thank god for shoplifters, and vandals, and mandolin players who are 6 years sober but still crazier than fuck, and thank god for all the goat-headed resistors to proper order and curation of all of society. If we can’t have nothing nice, then neither can y’all.

SONG OF THE DAY: As I Wander, I Will Ponder

It ain’t really a wasteland so much as a wasteful land, but I’m wandering it, with an 8 of Clubs on my mind, thinking about the cycles of building and destroying and how what’s old is seen as inferior because we’ve been enculturated to expect virginal consumer experiences, which ain’t realistic at all. And then instead of the better aspects of old ways being cultivated, we fetishize old consumer items, the “vintage” craze, which is a liberal bourgeoisie version of MAGA, with a hefty price tag, even though all these rare finds came from an abandoned life. We don’t need to save garments; we need to save our ways, performatively fermenting 7 flavors of spirituality without once tossing salt to protect against demons, so nothing that feels real to our heart and gut ever actually proliferates. Even if the smoke is everywhere, and it feels as if our collective trajectory is unbearable, you still gotta ponder a future, where hearts like yours can still beat along, hoping to make a peaceful pace.

SONG OF THE DAY: Scorpio (kudzu'd)

The last time I went on a wander for train tracks and used record shops, I went to one in a small town in North Carolina, but the dude running it didn’t take in store customers no more. He let me in to talk though and he had a shelf full of old 12-inch singles in the back that I saw, all faded and enticing. I stopped at an old school turned into giant junk market that I had passed too, because I figured he had to have a stack of 45s in there somewhere. The Record Gods smiled on me that day, because he did have one small shelf with a stack of like 75 or so. But in that stack I found a couple very clean copies of Yarbrough & Peoples “Don’t Stop the Music”, some clean Solar Records 45s (always a groove slowed down), and yet another scratchy but wonderful copy of Dennis Coffey’s “Scorpio”, the famous break that’s been backbeat to hip hop since the beginning of Kool Herc having parties. I’ve been meaning to sample my scratchy ass copy to send Boogie Brown to use in a beat, because in our modern digitized fake perfection realm, having a classic breakbeat looped from actual raspy ass vinyl copy from North Carolina junk store adds a missing spice to our cyber-life. There’s a reason all those old breakbeats were so popular, and I bet there’s more still hiding, maybe not in American music genres, because them old school DJs dug pretty deep. But stuff is still hiding. There’s always gems you can dig deeper for.
Anyways, I’m contemplating a drive to a big ass used record store this weekend, to take my luck with The Record Gods, and see if I’ve been living right. I feel like I have, but you never know what they have in store for you. I seem to be ruled by record stores close to me that don’t believe in The Record Gods no more, and I can’t stand those secular ass bougie colored vinyl spots. If that’s your thing, fine, enjoy your life (if you can afford it). But to me, true digging is always going beyond what’s known, and keeping it cheap as you can. Ballin’ on a budget… that’s a foundational tenet of hip hop actually, which for some reason as we get all this 50 years old hype, nobody talks about that aspect as much. Capitalism co-opted the fuck out of it, and is riding the vinyl resurgence as well right now, beating it like a sick horse to crank out seven colors of the same Taylor Swift shit. I still worship The Record Gods and bypass all that shit, and I’ll take my chances with dusty fingers in some fucked up spot a boy told me about a few months back. Also hoping The Train Gods bless me too, because probably gonna try to scribble a few dirtgods while I’m wandering.

SONG OF THE DAY: Freakin' (With You)

Retro vintage throwback flavors from the future, all our technology smooshed together and connected with the appropriate cords found on ebay, combining eras through the filter of tech limitations of the moment of whatever piece of equipment you’re happening to be working with as it trickled down to you. The Real Artists always have Real Equipment and charge you $170 for a portrait session. They were born to a comfortable bed and have never wanted for the latest metaphysical blankets to shield them from the cold nature of the Real World. And somehow these still end up being the Real Artists in the Real World, because none of it is real at all. It’s all a con, a midway game we all are living within but don’t realize, the basket with a spring on the bottom that bounces most of us into struggle and despair but some got the carnies hitting the button for ‘em from day one. So don’t get mad when you see them walking around with the life-sized Pooh bear. It was always rigged. Make art with what you have at hand, fuck ambitions of greatness or being a Real Artist. Scatter your shit everywhere, like shit, and fuck ‘em if they don’t like it.

a freestyle sonnet about walking back roads and finding old litter bottles to write poems on

Meanwhile, this shiftless prole maintains his aimless stroll 
through his whole little corner of world. Acquiring 
knowledge of each asphalt or gravel foot through sole 
after sole getting grounded in steps, admiring 

all that which tendrils around me, heart pounding thumps 
on steep inclines, which are common in these Blue Ridge 
foothills. Eyes scanning to find bottle dumps 
for diamond-dimpled wino trash, left to abridge 

the decades, left behind in the woods (like I hope 
to be one day). I got a pile of found old glass 
beside the house, to scrub, paint, and kaleidoscope 
my environment. Trash (not unlike my old ass) 

finds purpose. I walk, ignoring property rights, 
enjoying the accumulated wild style sights. 

SONG OF THE DAY: Clap Song

Internet still got wormholes galore. Got this track off a go-go comp, so I assumed everybody was from DC, forgetting from my own real life experience the go-go belt stretches down through Piedmont into North Carolina even. I thunk to myself this should be the Pied Piper of Buckingham, as in Buckingham County, Virginia – definite part of the go-go belt. Lo and behold, looking ol’ boy up online and it appears Pied Piper of Funkingham is a group based from somewhere in North Carolina, back in the go-go heyday, and released an album and single on Chocolate Cholly’s Records, suggesting they must’ve been from Gastonia area. This song is great, and then being on discogs means I’m now hoping I find some of these obscure ass 7” records from Chocolate Cholly’s Records in a junk shop somewhere. More importantly, the label is now on my radar, which is not actually radar at all but just a multiple-time concussed user of hallucinogenics heavily earlier in adulthood trying to remember awesome shit to find when digging through dusty assed storage crates of old 45s.

SONG OF THE DAY: Rump Shaker (kudzu'd)

Was walking down the road yesterday, and saw a whole ass frying pan in the ditch. The back roads of this area are well known for their historical litter, and in fact I’m always watching the sides of the road for newly appeared glass bottles of yesteryear that may have resurfaced by whatever random magic the universe uses in such matters. So that’s how I even saw the frying pan buried in a ditch, not a cast iron joint but not a small one either. Made me wonder, how the fuck do you end up being a frying pan thrown out the window of a moving vehicle? Like, what’s that whole story? It was dirty with grease so it had been used for cooking prior to getting tossed, I’m guessing. What got made? Was it horrible? Is that why it got tossed into a ditch? Or did the non-stick not non-stick no more? But even then, why did somebody drive down the road and throw it out the window? Maybe it started further in the woods and sort of meandered its way down to the ditch. They just cleared some brush along the power lines late last summer, and been doing a lot of weird infrastructure work, hauling red clay dirt from somewhere down the road to elsewhere far away. Could’ve gotten turned up in all that for all I know. But I found the frying pan in the ditch wildly interesting. Not enough to pick it up though, just left it there, so I can keep passing it and keep wondering. Wonder is important in our lives, far more important than imposed order to be honest.

SONG OF THE DAY: I'm Coming Out (kudzu'd)

Spent a chunk of the evening piecemealing some old direct drive turntables that had been in a dilapidated camper for like a decade, then in my front shed for a while. Seems like all that did was compound the lounge contained therein, because them bamas are still functional. Something to be said for solid machinery as compared to plastic parts. Just gotta get some needle cartridges and find some yard speakers to run out the back window and then I can torment the abandoned quarries with 45s at 33 speed of old disco jams like Diana Ross, blasting out into the woods like ghostly warbles from the old house up there where that one boy named me’s been living at.

VN1V3RS4L D3TR1TVS...

universal detritus… 
us human beings born from 
wild stardust (allegedly) 

4CCVMVL4T1NG W4ST3D...

accumulating wasted 
moments, burned out by what’s passed 
(trying to remain present) 

C4N'T H4VL 4W4Y H1ST0RY...

can’t haul away history 
like a broken corner lamp 
(it sits there, often ignored) 

TH3 R3MN4NTS 0F B31NG W0RN...

the remnants of being worn 
out gets piled up and ignored 
(“can’t stop won’t stop” attitude) 

R3STRVCTVR1NG R3S0VRC3S...

restructuring resources 
without a single second 
of self-reflective question 

C0NSVM3D 1D3NT1T13S - 0NC3...

consumed identities - once 
spent - stacked behind us; often 
we pretend they don’t exist 

H4VL1NG 4R0VND TH3 B4GG4G3...

hauling around the baggage 
of my own wack history, 
tryna not dump it on you 

SONG OF THE DAY: Gumbo'! 4 tha Folks, Hold On

My clankyjangers in the yard need some maintenance. I had put screw glue on the main fulcrum screw, so that they didn’t spin out of their holder. But some of the clamp screws spun their way out recently, due to high winds, and this has left the clankyjangers in disrepair. Out of five in the six in the yard, only two are fully functional, with a third at about 2/3 functionality. This is unacceptable. But also the daffodils haven’t bloomed yet, so I’m waiting to know when’s the right time to not only get these noisy industrial yard flowers cranking again, but to put up the other ten or so I’ve got all the parts laying around to do. And then when it’s windy, it’s gonna be the most obnoxious yard around (except for the guys down in the bottom who burn trash all the time and sometimes accidentally set a camper on fire and also there’s gunshots now and then). Clankyjangers are just a poor man who’s done come up’s camper fire, to be honest.