R4TH3R B3 GV1D3D T0W4RDS...

rather be guided towards 
goodness than channeled into 
indulgence of poor choices 

TH3 B1GG3ST 3RR0R 4 M4N...

the biggest error a man 
can make is repeating the 
same mistakes as done before 

TH3M TH4T D0N'T 3SC4P3 TR41N WR3CK...

them that don’t escape train wreck 
penchant can only hope to 
sit half-broken in sunshine 

SONG OF THE DAY: Poor Loser

The rise of Artisanal Poverty in American culture over the past quarter century has been strange, where the children of affluence conceal themselves in the camouflage of struggle, only to end up buying houses cheaply in “bad” neighborhoods, after years of renting in same places, driving up the “value” of those locations collectively. The first sign of successful occupation is the small business bakery, in a corner store front that had either been abandoned for a while, or was a church, or some weird shit. But now it’s a bakery, with really delicious but expensive pastries and breads, and literally nothing else. Definitely pie. The boutique pie shop is a definite staple of the Artisanal Poverty movement. Many of the denizens still dress as if they’re street urchins from Birmingham (UK) in the decades after the Industrial Revolution, but most of them are college graduates, albeit struggling in the declining American Empire, thus often required to work service industry jobs while also “building” their own small businesses through the access to wealth they always had as foundational support. They make money, but also have a lot of bills, thus they’re always “broke”, usually because they have to access forms of wealth they’d rather not more often than they’d like to. And for many of them, used to seeing the previous generations accumulate wealth rather than barely hold even or actually dip into that wealth, it feels like they are broke somehow. They try to save money, only going to the pie shop or corner pastry spot a couple times a month, rather than every Tuesday afternoon like it used to be. They share the logins for streaming services with their close circle, so that they can still watch everything important without having to pay for it directly. Eventually, the original house in an old neighborhood loses its luster because everything got “too bougie” and gentrified for them, the earliest colonizers of a bad neighborhood. So they sell it, quietly, without calling a lot of attention to the move, because profiting off a neighborhood that they directly helped gentrify breaks the Artisanal Poverty aesthetics. Keep that on the down low, but they can roll the profits into paying their parents or grandparents back a little bit of money, to keep things kosher for the next time they have to lean on that wealth that will inevitably fall to them anyways. Plus, usually they got a little extra to roll into a new truck down payment for their construction business, which also helps validate the Artisanal Poverty vibes, because it’s like they are an old country music song, except they are wealthy, and hardly rural in cultural practice, despite what their location may have ever suggested. Artisanal Poverty’s clout levels have risen immensely in recent years, due to the expansion of memes, which have co-opted skillets (aka “frying pans” to most of them), pop country music of yesteryear, and pre-suburban imagery of rural America. Most of them don’t realize pop country has never been truly rural, in many many decades, and they are worshipping a past vision of American life that never actually existed in the first place, not unlike Trump supporters, just from a contrarian position. Dolly Parton is the patron saint of Artisanal Poverty, which is no diss to Dolly, because I play my “Jolene” 45 at 33 rpm at least a couple times a month still, though to be honest the shit I go to more often than not is the first Trio record. Artisanal Poverty loves Dolly Parton, and Reba McIntire too, but never has shit to say about Emmylou Harris, ever. Very telling. But Dolly’s visual aesthetics plus progressive attitudes towards sexuality makes her the patron saint of Artisanal Poverty. So if you find yourself walking through a strange city, and you’re going through a rough-looking neighborhood, so your media-ingrained anxieties start to rise, and you’re slipping into hyper-awareness fight-or-flight mode, but all of a sudden you see a small bakery shop, for some weird reason, with Dolly Parton blasting respectfully loud inside, fear not friend, you’re not in an actual poor neighborhood. It’s just an Artisanal Poverty zone, and you’re safe (as long as you or your parents’ credit rating is good enough). Try the organic apple fritters, and lose yourself in trying to decipher all the colorful expensive tattoos’ super-clever meaning!

F0R S4K3 0F TR4NSP4R3NCY...

for sake of transparency - 
I'm a flawed person with poor 
past choices; but I'm trying 

 

SONG OF THE DAY: Summertime

Was talking with my gf before the big parade of gun dorks in Richmond, comparing and contrasting how that felt in the build-up to Charlottesville in 2017. I was talking about how it being cold as fuck was a benefit, "because it doesn't feel so good get punched in the fuckin' face in freezing weather." She suggested it never feels good to get punched in the face, but I don't know, coming from a hopeless, reckless, and self-destructive background, there's times where you just want to feel a small dose of violence, like an immunization against worst flare-ups almost, and getting hit in the fuckin' face is part of that. Summertime it don't feel so bad, if you're looking for trouble - you get into conflict, people smash on each other, everybody ideally feels a little less likely to smash on each other. I'm not sure in a world where a bunch of people have pretty frustrating and pointless existences that you can ever have an idealized utopia without shit like that. But I know I'm far more likely to be looking for a fight and hoping shit pops off in the summer than I am the winter. That's when cities with gun problems have more shootings, people are out more getting on each other's fuckin' nerves, all that.

Anyways, with climate changes and the current era being a bit warmer than historical recent eras, get ready for more people looking to punch each other in the face. If you're not about that, learn navigational skills, because you'll never stop it entirely. Warm weather ain't always about big breasts in tank tops and hypermasculine abs on full display. If life gives you lemons, everybody knows to make lemonade, but a lot of people out here ain't got no sugar to put in it.

P00R CH01C3S 1S MY M1DDL3...

"poor choices is my middle

name," I once told a woman

outside Nashville bus station

TH3 LYR1CS T0 L1TTL3 F34T'S...

the lyrics to Little Feat's

"Willin'" tattooed on inside

of my left thigh, in cursive

H1D1NG VND3R TH3 BR1DG3 'T1L...

hiding under the bridge 'til

the blue lights stop reflecting

the poor choices we all made

SONG OF THE DAY: Cali-Tex Connect

I am not afraid to listen to some really horrible music from time to time. In fact, nobody should be. Everybody acts like they're a cultural critic online, that you are curating for eternity only the most important things to be consumed (as if any of this pop culture we make is strong enough to stand the test of even a decade much less eternity), but we are not. We are people who are consuming things. If it makes you feel good, and is not poisoning you, then fine. (When you figure in the subconscious, and how much of our pop culture is poison for the subconscious, it becomes more complicated, but that is a conversation for a Tuesday morning, not a Saturday afternoon.)

SONG OF THE DAY: You Know I'm No Good

A recent classic of those afflicted by poor choices and failure demons. Some of us are just meant to embrace the wrong step, and in fact somehow turn it into an impressive swagger of reckless doom. A lot of times with famous people who do amazing shit and die quickly, there is a normie tradition of being like "gone too young" about them. But imagine if Amy Winehouse had been alive, and doing Toyota commercials or some shit. I always think of this as the Cliff Burton rule - if Cliff Burton had remained alive, it wouldn't have kept Metallica pure; he likely would've fallen under the same evil wizard spell everybody else fell under after Lars Ulrich dabbled in his father's black magic arts. Sometimes the universe knows we have done what we need to do, and also knows the weight of struggle which we squeezed our art from, and decides it's all good, time to go. Can't question that shit or assume if Amy Winehouse had not succumbed to failure demons, that she miraculously would have ended up being something other than what Amy Winehouse is. Sometimes poor choices live forever.

L1TTL3 F34T LYR1CS T4TT003D...

Little Feat lyrics tattooed

stick and poke around ankle,

"be willin'... to be movin'"

SONG OF THE DAY: Serpent's Whisper

-->

Stalley secretly became one of my favorite rappers this past year. The Tell the Truth Shame the Devil series of EPs, from which this song comes from, is fuckin’ great. I am mostly prejudiced against Ohio, in all forms, because it’s one of the most godforsaken places ever. Not really midwest, not really east, not really Appalachia (fuck you J.D. Vance), not really anything... just a big ol’ mass of kind of a bunch of different things. And yet some wonderful things have come out of Ohio, with stealth. Stalley is that classic industrial shithole rapper though, who got signed to big thangs (Mayback Music Group) but ain’t do shit really with that, and somehow ended up being way better once he was off the corporate chain. People who grew up steeped in struggle, which all rappers claim but there’s different layers to struggle – the struggle spectrum is not a binary (which is why people always play oppression olympics with each other, to prove how oppressed they are, when usually the types who play that are from the lighter end of the spectrum), but once you know that struggle deeply, to your DNA, through generations, lolol shit like “maybach music” is actually corny as fuck to your molecular make-up. So you end up getting dropped, or fucking it up by making poor choices (always poor choices), and you end up releasing a sick ass series of EPs about shaming the devil on your own Blue Collar Gang label.

This song really speaks to me, as does much of Stalley's 2018 body of work. Motherfucker is on some shit.

SONG OF THE DAY: Down Low (Chopped Not Slopped)

The process of down-lowing is either discretion or dishonesty. Sometimes discretion crosses over into dishonesty. Sometimes you’re being a dishonest asshole but think you’re just keeping it discreet. People know though. It’s not hard to be good to people, and feel good with people without traumatizing anybody. It’s really not that difficult. And yeah, you gotta be discreet, sure, because people always looking to apply their external judgments or emotional lashings on you. Fuck it though. It’s Friday, fall, feel good weather, y’all get that serotonin firing.

GR4B TH4T B4R 4ND D1S4PP34R...

"grab that bar and disappear;

no reason left to remain

right here" - poor choices refrain

TOP TEN THOUGHTS SITTING IDLE AT ONESTY POOL

public pool's final
weekend - poorly tattooed moms
factor null and void#shardhaiku #sogofu pic.twitter.com/I4hMndClAc

— raven mack the dirtgod (@rojonekku) August 18, 2018

love too be ragged
camo cargo mundo heart
love too be hopeless#shardhaiku #sogofu pic.twitter.com/TZDKWue6wR

— raven mack the dirtgod (@rojonekku) August 18, 2018

wretched-born pureheart
scribbles nonsense gibberish
by kiddie pool's splash#shardhaiku #sogofu pic.twitter.com/rusrSIoZst

— raven mack the dirtgod (@rojonekku) August 18, 2018

love too be idle
love too be unproductive
love too laze around#shardhaiku #sogofu pic.twitter.com/GJxzFNPjq2

— raven mack the dirtgod (@rojonekku) August 18, 2018

let us normalize
not doing shit; normalize
freakish wild ass ways#shardhaiku #sogofu pic.twitter.com/nlcUjDyUhS

— raven mack the dirtgod (@rojonekku) August 18, 2018

your best decision
sometimes is your poorest choice -
poor choices baby!#shardhaiku #sogofu pic.twitter.com/EX2KNZ0G3d

— raven mack the dirtgod (@rojonekku) August 18, 2018

I'm a sum result
of seven generations
of poorest choices#shardhaiku #sogofu pic.twitter.com/NuKDhIYWIO

— raven mack the dirtgod (@rojonekku) August 18, 2018

only son of an
only son - but I'm blessed with
nothing but daughters#shardhaiku #sogofu pic.twitter.com/jdQq2geBcz

— raven mack the dirtgod (@rojonekku) August 18, 2018

breaking cycles which
perpetuate false goodness -
inshallah, ya bish#shardhaiku #sogofu pic.twitter.com/AbouCQW0kU

— raven mack the dirtgod (@rojonekku) August 18, 2018

when I'm dirtgod dead,
it'll be all good, since three
dirtgoddesses stand#shardhaiku #sogofu pic.twitter.com/6lOxtUbrdB

— raven mack the dirtgod (@rojonekku) August 18, 2018

#1: public pool’s final/weekend  - poorly tattooed moms/factor null and void
#2: love too be ragged/camo cargo mundo heart/love too be hopeless
#3: wretched-born pureheart/scribbles nonsense gibberish/by kiddie pool’s splash
#4: love too be idle/love too be unproductive/love too laze around
#5: let us normalize/not doing shit; normalize/freakish wild ass ways
#6: your best decision/sometimes is you’re poorest choice -/ poor choices baby!
#7: I’m a sum result/of seven generations/of poorest choices
#8: only son of an/only son - but I’m blessed with/nothing but daughters
#9: breaking cycles which/perpetuate false goodness -/inshallah, ya bish
#10: when I’m dirtgod dead,/it’ll be all good, since three/dirtgoddesses stand

HVSTL1N' L1K3 R41NDR0PS T4TT00...

HUSTLIN' LIKE RAINDROPS tattoo,

then FREEBIRD GUITAR SOLO

tattoo, both in cursive script