T00 M4NY D4YS 1 G3T T0...

too many days I get to 
feeling like a pea plant, trained 
to grow certain directions 

TH4NKFVL F0R SH3LT3R FR0M ST0RMS...

thankful for shelter from storms, 
and I know stability 
aids my children’s inner growth 

TH3 C0MF0RT 0F TH3S3 B0X3S...

the comfort of these boxes 
is entrapment which stifles 
goat heart individuals 

H0P3L3SSN3SS 0NLY T3NDR1LS...

hopelessness only tendrils 
around my guts and heart when 
I’m confined inside too long 

SONG OF THE DAY: I Will Survive (45s on 33)

Surviving and vibing in the dying empire - 
ain't no prepping for the inevitable dawn 
of next era after escaping this quagmire 
of spiritless consumption - daily daze of yawn. 
Looking forward to more localized existence, 
less western civilized belligerence about 
how right now somehow puts a progressive distance 
far past old shit... Same foolish ass humans still shout 
loudest to be most right. Meanwhile, I sit outside 
on milk crate each night watching lights which is manmade 
but also far beyond what man can attain. Pride 
in Earthly abstractions, chasing worth getting paid, 
while cosplaying god - all too much toil and trouble. 
I'd rather make a throne from smooth piece of rubble. 

4LL TH3S3 PHYS1C4L SP4C3S...

all these physical spaces 
left to rot because - like me - 
no one sees value in them 

D1G1T4L C0MMVN1TY...

digital community 
disappears when batteries 
are drained; this is metaphor 

W4LK1NG 0BL1V10VS T0...

walking oblivious to 
trespassing signs eases mind 
from barely treading water 

SONG OF THE DAY: Down In Mississippi

Honestly, sometimes I just blast blues music with all the windows open and the back door propped so that the cats can come and go without worrying me. Sometimes cats that ain't even mine come and go. Fuck it. I can understand their plight. It's some good shit in here.

0VR M0D3RN 4M3R1C4N...

our modern American 
culture feels hollow, lacking 
benefits of pilgrimage 

SONG OF THE DAY: Journeys in My Journals

Been meaning to start handwriting in journals more often, actual ink on paper inside cheap ass books I’ve got stacks of anyways. But then when I start it feels weird because I can type way faster than I write, so I bust out a typing computer, and inevitably get lost in 42 different rabbit holes over the course of the night, and end up writing about three sentences. These three actually.

B0RN H34TH3N, S0 S3RV3 MYS3LF...

born heathen, so serve myself 
from buffet of religious 
texts, trying to find some peace 

F0R B3TT3R 0R W0RS3, 4LW4YS...

for better or worse, always 
found comfort in the margins 
between the light and darkness 

SONG OF THE DAY: Godless

 

Been in need of new hip hop. Not new releases that are known, because that shit is always the same. Somehow we have this entire big ass world with hip hop having reached every far flung culture there is, and yet it’s the same little slices of shit we get served and everybody is talking about. I don’t know at this point if popular culture influences the filter bubble or the filter bubble influences pop culture – that post-digital chicken and egg dilemma. But I know if I say “tell me some new shit” nobody tells me new shit. You gotta go excavating and digging and tapping on shit outside of your filter bubble you wouldn’t expect but you might like, hoping to see the recommended shit beneath that to link a second skipped stone across the algorithms of maybe that. I want that whole fucking scene, whole genre, bubbling up somewhere like Mongolia or Malaysia or Madagascar or Montana, who the fuck knows? Shit, it might be an hour away in Carolina, but nobody heard of it yet, even though all of a sudden it's 7 new artists who have like 20 releases over the past decade. That’s what I need.

I’ve fiended through Bambu’s catalog the past few years, even though he’d been around forever. I think I might’ve remembered him from his old days as freestyle-ish rapper West Coast version during the Rawkus uprising period, but I might just be making that memory up in my own head to act like I was always down. Whiteboys into hip hop do that shit. But I do know I seen this Baton Rouge rapper Marcel P. Black play at a local hip hop festival I was part of organizing for, and I loved Marcel, so followed his ass on social medias. And as he was hyping up a bandcamp project he was about to release, he hyped up Bambu as a must-hear favorite. So I went to go hear it. That shit blew me away, whatever first album I went to. And he had a whole fuckin’ catalog. Sharpest Tool In The Shed came out last year, felt like a tease because I was fiendin’ for like a triple album, but artists ain’t artists full-time, and they’ve got jobs and families and lives and bills and the crushing immensity of living in late capitalist era America (if they’re from here). Shit was great though. I love some fuckin’ Bambu, and in the long line of rappers whose words have had thick influences on my brain thinkings, Bambu’s probably held that title belt (made of pyrite and cardboard) the past few years.

FR0M TH3 D1L4P1D4T10N...

from the dilapidation 
of this late American 
empire, beauty still blossoms 

SONG OF THE DAY: Quicksand

 

Despite all the historical racism and national geopolitics which seems somewhat Jesse Helmsesque still, Carolina is a whole vibe. It’s fucked up too, because there’s no real identifier of that whole vibe (which I’d dare say is its own culture), but it’s where the edges of New York influence and Dirty South ambiance bleed together, perhaps at the margins of both. I grew up in southside Virginia, which feels far more like Carolina than the more known geopolitical parts of Virgina (northern Virginia’s affluent DC suburbs and Hampton Roads military industrial complex of a whole bunch of lives spread wide across multiple cities). As a young delinquent, we were at first always more apt to roll up to Richmond than south, because those artificial borders create big psychic walls. But as I got older, I’ve come to see how that whole Piedmont Carolina vibe is steeped from the same sludge that I was in southside Virginia. And with the steady influx and influence of migration from further south, turning large parts into Carolina del Norte, it’s gotten even more Southern Gothicc Futurist. You might just zip through on the interstate, or skirt through the edges trying to get to Charlotte or the OBX, but if you slow down and slide in deeper, you’re gonna experience a beautiful place with a unique vibe. I love that shit, and with the weather turning warm, it’s got me daydreaming of meandering cruises through that whole area, windows down and AC running on high, at the same damn time because fuck it, blasting Morray’s “Quicksand” and trying to decide if I wanna get chicken gizzards from the gas station deli or pupusas from the back of the tienda. Can I do a gizzards/livers combo? And get two lorocco pupusas too? Damn, true and living Southern Gothicc Futurism is already here, and it’s a glorious goddamn thing.

SC4TT3R1NG 4 N4TVR4L...

scattering a natural 
born rainbow wherever the 
fuck I can in this dark world 

SONG OF THE DAY: Mentiroso Boquisaboroso (rebajada)

daydreams of digging through crusty ass boxes 
at some back roads flea market 
that's only back roads to you 
but a main thoroughfare to locals 
whom you've never seen 
all their oldies but goodies 
barely sorted into empty boxes 
and milk crates 
and scattered across cheap plastic 
banquet tables underneath 
back yard pop-ups 
the great american dirty southern 
flea market 
actual antiques and implements 
of useful life from back when shit got made 
with metal or wood but also 
a bunch of useless shit piled in 
many decades of american empire 
prevalence of having shit 
all which got left behind 
and brought here together 
in this holy trinity of the post modern 
american experience 
poverty 
necessity 
and time 
the time to wander slowly down 
aisles built mutually 
actual community 
time to dig through the shit that looks good 
or worth your while 
coming out of it all with 
a bunch of kitchen utensils 
including a fat skimmer your ex wife kept 
plus an empty kitty litter tub 
full of 45s mostly old country hits 
but also some bluegrass and gospel 
including long distant cousins 
allegedly 
according to your dead dad 
who you think of lovingly 
as you look at the glass bowls 
which is longhaired redneck slang 
for weed pipes 
the swirling colors inside the glass 
like marbles you lost in the backyard 
back in the day 
back in the far corner 
of the late american empire 
digging through displays 
of better than nothing 
at the big ass 
flea market 

S0VTHS1D3 V1RG1N14 SCRVB P1N3...

southside Virginia scrub pine - 

pulpwood existence meant for 

mulch around plantation oaks 

SONG OF THE DAY: Duro

Nigerian shit for you today. Are you here? Am I here? Why aren't I there?

DR34MS D0N'T G3T CVLT1V4T3D...

dreams don’t get cultivated 
as easily in narrow 
gardens poisoned with self-hate 

PR4CT1C1NG FR33 THR0WS 0N 4N...

practicing free throws on an 
empty court; childhood dreams of 
last second buzzer beaters 

N0B0DY N33DS R3W1R1NG...

nobody needs “rewiring” - 
sense of intelligence has 
always been artificial 

SONG OF THE DAY: Come to Mama

 

Need more feel good, less run over by life times.