SONG OF THE DAY: H.O.O.D.

Nothing to say today, just an excuse to use ÆSTHETIC with the dope ass dipthong, which of course now has been ruined forever by Elon Musk and Grimes. Elon Musk disturbs me because he looks like a wax museum figure brought to life by robotics. Also Pops Musk ran an African mine, that’s how Elon is wealthy enough to be so goddamned progressive and know how to not only fix the fucking Earth but outer space as well. Fuck him. Now I can’t even keep using ÆSTHETIC without thinking I’m a fuckin’ Tesla truck ad. GUESS WHAT ELON MUSK? DESERT GUERRILLA FREEDOM FIGHTER TERRORISTS WILL NEVER STRAP ANTI AIRCRAFT GUNS TO YOUR PIECE OF SHIT TRUCK. And to me, honestly, that is the ultimate sign of a truck’s authenticity.

TH1N M4RG1NS B3TW33N L1F3 4ND...

thin margins between life and

death - even thinner living

further out on the margins

1NDVSTR10VS N4TVR3 1S...

industrious nature is

a programmed brain thinking; I'm

gonna sit right here all day

N4TVR3 CH0PS 4ND SCR3WS 4 FR3SH...

nature chops and screws a fresh

remix of life each spring - I

try to be more like redbuds

V3SS3LS 0F 3SC4P3 0FT3N...

vessels of escape often

abandoned along our path,

never having got nowhere

R3M1ND3RS TH4T SVFF3R1NG...

reminders that suffering

is part of being human -

we're good at building prisons

PR1M0RD14L TR4D1T10N...

primordial tradition

of million step pilgrimage

to realize evolution

P0RT4LS T0 1NF1N1TY...

portals to infinity

embedded inside rib cage;

we think with our brains too much

3SC4P1SM 1S 34SY...

escapism is easy

through internal universe

as vast as the outside world

SONG OF THE DAY: Conditioning

I am out of shape, poorly so, but so is the state of society. Should probably get my shit together in case we have to start killing each other with machetes over bags of rice.

TH3 M4J0R1TY 0F D4YS...

the majority of days

spent confining self behind

four walls slowly closing in

SONG OF THE DAY: Sexual Therapy

GET OUT THE COCONUT OIL AND CUT ON THE RED LIGHT BABY. PITCH SHIFT THIS DOWN FOUR NOTES AND PUT IT ON REPEAT, FOR AT LEAST TWENTY-TWO MINUTES. WE GONNA HAVE TO WASH THE PINK TIGER STRIPE SHEETS TOMORROW MORNING FOR SURE.

SONG OF THE DAY: Living for the City

I miss LPs. You know full-blown conceptual LPs but that were limited by the amount of space to press grooves into 12 inches of wax, but could be packaged in sleeves that sometimes opened up gatefold style, or others didn’t but might have a designed sleeve on the inside holding the album. Concepts still happen all the time, but the notion of weaving concepts into tapestry of concept for larger development of a theme is to a large extent lost. I mean, whatever, that’s how this shit works. The way you physically make the art (which in this case is digitally) changes the limitations of it. When we started having CDs, they could add bonus tracks because you could squeeze more minutes into a CD burn than an LP press.

My folks had a healthy record collection when I was young, which I guess is to be expected from young parents who smoked a lot of weed. Some albums intrigued me a lot, because of the overall weight they seemed to hold, in terms of the music as well as the packaging. Outlaw country and old school singer songwriter types were probably the bread and butter of my dad’s records he played, either drunk or hungover on weekend days. But Innervisions got constant play, especially the side with “Living for the City”. My dad famously liked to say the only time he went to New York City was riding a bus back to Virginia from having done a stint in juvie in Ohio when him and a friend stole a Cadillac to meet some girls in Michigan. He was eating in the bus stop café, and some crazy guy banged on the glass at him, trying to get him to come outside and fuck his entire life up forever. My dad detested the city, likely because it was scary. When my folks dropped me off at my dorm when I moved to Richmond to go to college, he was upset he was leaving his oldest kid and only son in the fucking city. In later years, the few times I could convince him to give me a ride to whatever shitty apartment I lived in, he never took the bypass or interstate, always straight up 360 until it turned to Hull Street, and once we got past Chesterfield almost to where Richmond city proper, he’d pull his pistol out of the glove compartment and sit it on the seat next to him, forever convinced shit was about to jump off at any point. Now to his credit, my dad was probably involved in some sketchy shit in Richmond area environs from time to time back in the day, and usually sketchy realms have the ever-present threat of attack come with that. But it tripped me out he’d just be casually riding up Hull Street to Grace, pistol at his side.

When I was a teenager, and we got one of those turntable/cassette recorder combo deals, I showed him how to plug a set of headphones into the mic slot and use it to record yourself talking, and he’d make these mixtapes all the time of him playing records and acting like he was a DJ. This was after my folks had split up and me and him lived in a trailer down the road from the house I grew up in where my mom still lived. Not much more country than that life back then, front door open whenever it was even halfway warm, for anybody passing by to stop and share a shot of Beam or bowl of homegrown. He’d make those mixtapes, and have them set up in the dual cassette recorder, playing back to back, so he wouldn’t have to change the music for ninety minutes, letting one side of each tape go, then just flip them both. And he’d always have “Living for the City” in the mix. Pretty sure I heard on more than one mixtape he made the three song combo of “Longhaired Country Boy” by Charlie Daniels Band followed by “Living for the City” and then “And When I Die” by Blood, Sweat, & Tears. You could probably sum up my dad’s philosophy on the whole fucking world in that three song combo.

I think about what he’d be like if he hadn’t died young, and was still here during this fucked up political time. It’d be so depressing to have to argue with his stubborn ass if he ended up a Trump person, which is hard to figure. He hated cops pretty badly, definitely taught me my deep distrust of the system, so he’d never be good with those blue lives matters types. But who the fuck knows man? People getting brainwashed left and right, thinking obedience to corrupt figurehead is some sort of rebellious act.

The fucked up thing is the story of “Living for the City” isn’t really any different. Michelle Alexander made a whole book about it, essentially, The New Jim Crow. It’s fucked up when you have these artistic statements about important shit, and then forty years later, ain’t shit changed. Art can point out all the problems in the world but as long as we have corrupt assholes in charge, nothing changes. Fuckers.

M0VNT41NS 4LW4YS B3CK0N1NG...

mountains always beckoning

as monastic escapes to

recalibrate with the clouds

VGL1N3SS M4D3 B34VT1FVL...

ugliness made beautiful...

that is the nature of art -

more than a commodity

C3L3ST14L GV1D4NC3 1S...

celestial guidance is

often overlooked because

too easily distracted

3XPL0S10NS 0F N3VR0N4L...

explosions of neuronal

notions - creative big bangs

inside mental universe

SONG OF THE DAY: 85 to Africa

Quarantine stay at home sorta orders got me not wandering as much, which is antithetical to raw dirtgod nature, as wanderlust makes up at least part of 7 pairs of my chromosomes. I’ve felt an unrelenting urge to scribble “dirtgod” on as many boxcars as I can lately, like more than I’ve ever felt, and I think that’s the explosion of unexpressed energy. You scribble shit in one place, and it just makes you want to scribble it in three million other ones. Let my stupid infinity eyes ride around to places the me that’s trapped inside the physical limitations of existence never will. Anyways, I think I’m going to walk 10 miles in the rain later today. That feels like the right path to take.

1'M TR4PP3D B3H1ND TH3S3 F3NC3S...

I'm trapped behind these fences,

both real and imagined (which

is real too, to be honest)

SONG OF THE DAY: Money Tree

I had a money tree once. It was pretty neat, in the spring time, when it would blossom with brand new shiny copper pennies. I’d get so excited, and have to tell the kids not to pick them, not to eat them because they’re poisonous, and to wait and let them ripen. They’d turn into dimes when you left them, and that too was so exciting, but again, you had to wait. I didn’t know how money trees were though, and the first few springs I lived with one, it’d turn to dollars almost overnight, and I’d wake up and think, “Oh wow, I’m gonna get all those dollars when I get home from work today!” I worked construction then, so usually didn’t get home until 7 or so, and by the time I got home, the birds had picked all the dollars off the money tree before I got any. After two or three years of that, I realized, I had to be ready, and I’d sit there in the evening, watching the money tree’s nickel and dime blossoms, hoping they’d turn to dollars, “trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents” literally. But the birds knew about the money trees before me, always, these predatory birds I never saw who always swooped in when the dollars blossomed and snatched it all up before I could get any. I’d wake up, and see the nickels and dimes in the morning, waiting for it all to mature. But then one morning it was all gone, maybe a couple torn overripe dollars laying on the ground for me to pick through, the trickle down from the predatory harvest, for me to try and get half a handful of that taste. I always wonder what it tastes like too, to have an actual money tree pie, not just a few rotten dollars that fall to me. I imagine it tastes wonderful, but I honestly have no idea. I’ve heard stomachs like mine can’t even handle it. I’ve tried making pie with the nickels and dimes too. It tastes okay I guess, but this can’t be what they mean. Not sweet at all, no richness, bland dreary slice of pie that fills my belly with a sort of sustenance, I guess, but I still feel hungry, and lacking, all the time.

N4TVR4L B0RN G04T-H34D3D...

natural born goat-headed

nature wants to climb highest

mountain and talk shit to clouds

M0S41C 0F G3N3T1C...

mosaic of genetic

shards, cobbled together on

American continent

1 41N'T TH3 P4SSP0RT H4V1NG...

I ain't the passport having

type; not even sure where my

birth certificate might be

3V3N 3SC4P3S F0LL0W1NG...

even escapes following

abandoned paths can be tracked

easily; rewild yourself