SONG OF THE DAY: Sin Control (kudzu'd)

I like to draw all black old school flash art traditional tattoos on the thighs of the women in Namio Harukawa books. I keep hoping, with the long storied prison art tradition held up as a point of pride by the Chicano community, that we one day have some great imprisoned artist who discovers Harukawa’s work and is inspired by it. But they can’t even have real books in most prisons anymore. You just get a tablet with images on it, and it’s harder to contraband digital files. And I’m sure some punchable faced cyberlibertarian type would suggest I just become a Prompt Engineer and tell artificial intelligence to combine Teen Angels magazine style prison art with Harukawa’s work. But we (the real thinking artist types) know that artificial intelligence is flawed by nature, and it would just give us an anthropomorphic ’65 Impala squatting over the face of a cowboy. We have built a stupider, more expensive, and wasteful world, when all we really need to do is sit around and think up ridiculous shit, freely.

SONG OF THE DAY: Smile Now, Cry Later (kudzu'd)

I got a Smile Now, Cry Later tattoo on my back the other year, but I’m not Chicano, so didn’t do the cholo clown face theme. I got my boy Cody (Black Raven Tattoos in Stuarts Draft, VA) to draw up one with hobo clowns, more fitting for my heritage lol. It takes up a big chunk of my back that I had been saving to get a King of Hearts, for my dad I’d always thought, because I have a Jack of Diamonds that represents me. But Suicide King doesn’t truly represent my dead pops I don’t think, he’s more of a 9 of Hearts, which is his actual birth card. Jack of Diamonds is actually mine, but I didn’t know that when I got it tattooed on my body. I mean, I guess I knew, in that vague Universal way, but I didn’t consciously know it. The more you look into regular playing cards cartomancy, it gets weird. Like the two people who have caused me the most distress in my life, a 3 and 4 of Spades. Two of the people who give me the greatest joy in life are both 5 of Diamonds. My youngest sister is a Jack of Hearts, and my other sister (the middle of the three of us) is a 10 of Spades. I think about how we were that close (one day) to being a household of three Jacks. As I learn more about cartomancy, I do so from the poker perspective my pops taught me well, so shit like that is important as well. I do a 7-card spread usually, and not just the cards that are flipped are important, but the hand you’re dealt is as well. I had been doing a tent-shaped 7-card spread, but recently I’ve been playing with flipping it, into a horseshoe shape instead. Anyways, all that is to say, I didn’t put that King of Hearts suicide card on my back, because it didn’t feel right, at an intuitive level. But the Smile Now, Cry Later hobo clowns feels natural and right as rain.

SONG OF THE DAY: My 45 (7 Inches of Love) (kudzu'd)

I still find myself craving the approval of earth tone normalistic Whole Foods faux witchy white women, but I also realize that's enculturation meant to instill self-loathing in myself, not actual love. It's just grudgelust at this point, so I've learned to not try and act on it, and it makes me happier. It's not uncommon... most of us tend to sow our own failures, seeking the approval of those we already know don't want us. We're all pretty heavily steeped in wanting what doesn't make us feel fulfilled, those of us trapped in western culture, which is actually a lack of culture that channels your cultural hopes into consumption instead. You gotta buy an identity, and if you can't afford one, you feel like a piece of shit. And if you can't afford a new one now and then, whenever the old one loses its shine, you also feel like a piece of shit. Luckily I've realized my craving of normalistic witchy white women of a certain earth tone presence and that lavender mothball vaginal smell is a distraction meant to have me crash on the rocks of failure. It's the siren song of quirky conventional attractiveness, to feel like I've accomplished class transition and the granddaughters of the wizards who were slaveowners but "the good ones" have finally accepted me as worthy of their love. It took a long time to refine my love from that poisoned grudgelust though, and along the way, I'd mistakenly believe I was attracted to crazy women. But I'm not; I'm attracted to wild women, actual wild not pretend wild. I like fucking on picnic tables and watching an ass tattoo jiggle after I slap it. I also like to lay there together watching the little prisms on the windowsill make rainbows in the cobwebs at the corner of the ceiling, while softly rubbing your thighs and stomach. I'm a lover, and as a lover, lovin' only makes me stronger, in the heart muscle but that's a pretty dope muscle to be flexing and growing, without the aid of synthetics.

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: Born to Lose

Got this song title tattooed on my left shoulder, right above the peace sign that says LOVE I stuck and poked with my dad in his trailer when I was 16. That was my first tattoo… a stick and poke with my dad in our trailer (in case you needed a receipt for the “born to lose” claim).

SONG OF THE DAY: Easy Evil (kudzu'd)

“Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing until I’m done,” tattooed in cursive script on my ribcage sideways like it’s a Bible verse, which it kinda is I guess.

SONG OF THE DAY: Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll (kudzu'd)

Big fan of thick women who roller skate. Maybe it goes back to childhood and random roller derby scenes sneaking into my subconscious… I don’t know. But somebody who could skate into my life and then crush me, all while smiling and wearing sparkle tank top with a tattoo of a leprechaun smoking a joint on their shoulder… well, it’s a pleasant thing to encounter. I hope that’s how I die.

SONG OF THE DAY: En La Casa (kudzu'd)

“En la casa” is Spanish for “in the casa”. I learned that working a decade plus of construction. To be honest, it was the only job I could get at the time. You learn a lot by being trapped in dead ends. One of those weird things though, if you’ve never been trapped in dead ends or directed right into dead ends, you can’t really understand how fucked it feels. That’s why I suggest to a lot of people to practice shutting the fuck up more often. But that’s a hard skill to acquire when you’ve never been trapped in a dead end and are carefully looking for any tiny outlet to escape through. Anyways, I learned a lot of Spanish working construction. In fact, any time anything bad happens to me or like I stub my toe or something goes wrong like I didn’t win the lottery or I accidentally ran over a squirrel or the county sheriff just left after serving more papers, I still go “pinche escalera”. I’ve even got it tattooed on my leg, ironically in Old English letters.

SONG OF THE DAY: You Played On A Player

If I got finger tattoos, I’d get PLAY on one and ERRR on the other. That’s just how I’m built.

SONG OF THE DAY: Smile Now, Cry Later (kudzu'd)

Anytime I do a slowed down DJ set somewhere live, this is my closeout song, the last one I play. For one, it’s an absolute banger of a song slowed down, but it’s also the perfect “last call” song to pay up your tab, get your shit together, and get ready to go. The added cultural metaphysics of it being the old school jam that is intertwined with the comedy/tragedy mask “Smile Now, Cry Later” tattoo motif makes it even better. I wanna get one of those, but with hobo clowns instead.

0VR R04D M4P 0F 3X1ST3NC3...

our road map of existence 
etched into our flesh, by scar 
or scuff or scrape or ink stain 

SONG OF THE DAY: After Laughter

Been trying to find bootleg 45s of shit that's too expensive to actually buy on the original label release, which also is funny according to legality, because random bootlegger is seen as stealing intellectual property, whereas some old record industry dude that exploited naïve young musicians out of royalties actually owns the intellectual property, not the people who conjured up the music more often than not. So I fully support and love bootleggers, of all types – t-shirts, records, liquor, whatever man. Is there a bootleg twitter yet? Let me know in the comments. Nonetheless, in that quest for old bangers, I downloaded some “Shaolin Soul” collections which have all the shit that RZA famously sampled, and let me just say, judging solely by the records he sampled and how she was portrayed in that Wu Tang tv show (which I couldn’t get past the first season to be honest), RZA’s mom seems tight as fuck. How old is she now? Her record collection leads me to believe no matter how old she is, we could enjoy each other’s company. Anyways, this song is a fuckin’ banger. The 45 is a zillion billion dollars though, so I’ve gotta wait for a bootlegger to make an “edit” for “promo purposes only”. Also, more so than most songs, this one feels like a shoulder tattoo. I don't really know how to explain that, but it just does.

SONG OF THE DAY: Tulsa Turnaround

“If a man’s gonna eat fried chicken he’s got to be greasy” is tattooed across my shoulders in Olde English 800 letters. Ever since I was a kid, and the power went out at our house I grew up in, down in Meherrin, Virginia (the home of Roy Clark), right as that song was playing and Kenny Rogers was singing that line, so it warbled down slow and ominously – “IF A MAN’S GONNA EAT FRIED CHICKEN HE’S GOT TO BE GREEEEEAAAAAASSSsssyyyyyyyyyy” – I hear it in my mind as a warning, and yet also a proud mantra. If one loves fried chicken, they should not be ashamed of the grease on their fingers necessary towards the joy of fried chicken. Just be careful not to wipe your fingers on your Homestead Grays throwback. There’s napkins from Subway in the glove box, get you a couple of those. No, don’t use that towel, that’s my shoulder towel for walking around. Why would you think it’s okay to wipe your greasy fuckin’ fingers on my lavender shoulder towel? What the fuck?

N3VR0L0GY 0F D3S1R3...

neurology of desire 
keeps us lusting after gold 
(though the shine comes from within) 

SONG OF THE DAY: Little Hero

My first tattoo was homemade, with my dad in the living room of the trailer we lived in, just me and him, after my parents split, when I was like 15 or 16. We just called it homemade, as stick and poke (as well as mullet) weren't things said until the internet homogenized slang globally. I did a peace sign on my arm, with LOVE written above, an ahnk on my left hand forefinger, and a NO $ on my upper shoulder which never took (because I'm destined for vast riches). I've done a few other homemade tattoos over the years, and still do to be honest, just as a general rejection of tattoo snobbery, but also because sometimes you just want an extra star on your leg at 9 in the evening or you need DIRTGOD on your thigh. I have nice shop tattoos now too, plus some really dumb ones (because it's my brain thinking these things), but I have never been ashamed or wanted to cover up my fucked up, fading homemade tattoos.
A weird thing happens though, and I had it happen recently when in a room full of well-meaning self-identified progressive white men talking about some art shit, where when I find myself in certain environments, all the homemade tattoos start to throb. I used to think it was a pain years ago when I first noticed it, and it came from anxiety about well-to-do people realizing I'm a natural born piece of shit. But over the years, as I've come to trust the guiding hands of ancestors looking out for me, I realized the throb is not pain or anxiety but warning, "These are not your people" or "You are in a dangerous environment, protect yourself." And they're not dangerous physically, but culturally/systemically, dealing with people who have always had some sort of power within our society who don't even need to use physicality because they've transcended use of their body for survival. They live off the abstractions, embezzling the labor of others, either directly or through inherited or familial wealth, and thus their danger is also in the abstract realm.
In our society though, the goal is for "economic liberation" or to gain that abstract comfort so that you don't have to destroy your fuckin' body the rest of your life. Like that's the individual goal (and our society is built to mainly think about individualistic goals, not communal or collective ones, even amongst the progressive types). Any sad sack out here suffering through whatever hustle/grind/pray combination they're dealing with in our capitalistic society says they're doing it for their kids or family or future or something like that. You are sacrificing, working hard to get that bag, money before hoes... there's no shortage of euphemisms for this individualistic moral compromise.
That's why I'm thankful for my shitty homemade tattoos which ache when I find myself in the presence of too many abstract devils at once. That No $ that you can't see starts vibrating with warning, like a rattlesnake tail only I can feel saying, "Beware these snakes!" And I realize, I would much rather lounge than grind, and definitely prefer hoes way more than money. Ultimately the goal of not using your body to survive capitalism is so you can lounge around and fill your brain with serotonin. Why deny it now to chase an abstract carrot version of it you'll most likely never catch?

SONG OF THE DAY: Salam Alay

I was thinking about how full color vinyl records sort of corresponds with full color tattoos, neither of which are things that appeal to me, and feel a bit bougie. Anyways, I’ve been doing a radio show where I play 45s at 33 speed, and because of all this, and the over-fetishization of collections of records, I decided to return to an old practice I use to use, where I mark on the labels or sleeves of records I love. So every 45 I played last night, I vandalized somewhere on the 45 label or sleeve with a variation of a Dirtgod tag. Gonna keep doing this, and that way, twenty years from now, even if I’m losing my memory, I’ll know which records were the best by how fucked up they are from me scribbling all over them.

SONG OF THE DAY: Egypt Egypt

Was walking out the grocery store, and a younger redneck tattooed couple with a Little Debbie ass kid in the hot rod shopping cart for kids was walking in at the same time. Being a courteous old school type, I pulled my cart aside to let the young family through, as they got to the automatic opening door a step before me. That’s just common courtesy; fuck politics. Now dig it – I’m a Turkish basketball jersey, got a mask on because covid is real but my blackberry bush beard is trying to bust out that motherfucker at all times, and my voice is still half-fucked from having had covid the past month and spending many a night hacking my damn lungs out. Young dude in the back of the family, small for an adult redneck, likely smoked too early (you hate to see it), was sporting a black shirt with white print of a smiling Willie Nelson giving the middle finger. It was dope. So as I passed, in my haggard bedraggled believing in science hillbilly voice through a mask, to the unmasked patriarch of this young and naïve family, just trying to get into the Food Lion on a Sunday evening, say, “Love your shirt, man.” Dude looks at me and goes, “Thank you, sir,” which was polite, and maybe a return on my own common decency already expressed, but goddamn if it didn’t trip me out to have a young redneck dude in a middle finger Willie Nelson shirt go “thank you, sir” to me. Made me think I might need a new bad tattoo in a highly visible place, maybe a “Smile Now Cry Later” design on my neck, but with hobo clowns instead of joker card clowns.

4M3R1C4'S PYR4M1D...

America’s pyramid 
scam promised salvation, but 
some of us just can’t be saved 

SONG OF THE DAY: Smile (With Yo Gold)

“Smile Now Cry Later” the clown tattoos keep saying, but I can’t seem to hear them well enough to practice it. Maybe I need to get it tattooed into my own skin, with hobo clowns, to force the message into my body, making a stubborn goat-headed man finally see the light. “Smile Now Cry Later” as a mocking reminder in the mirror every morning, after spitting charcoal toothpaste into the sink, hobo clowns bastard faces reminding me that I never disappeared, and the frustrations of stuckness are unhacked weeds which grow into hawthorn bushes, prickly frustrating walls that get too high to navigate. Not enough machete swinging in my life, on neither the physical nor astral planes.

M4K3 SP0RT 0F S3LF-D3STRVCT10N...

make sport of self-destruction - 
“only the strong shall survive” 
tattooed on sun-stained shoulders