C0MPVT3R C0MMVT1NG G0T...

computer commuting got 
me missing traffic clusters 
where I stare off into space 

WH4T C4M3 F1RST - TH3 G4M3C0CK 0R...

what came first - the gamecock or 
the cockfights; some of us born 
to be a goddamned problem 

N3V3R H4D N0TH1NG TH4T 1...

never had nothing that I 
couldn’t break by misusing; 
musing upon my hard ways 

N0 M4TT3R H0W H1GH W3 BV1LD...

no matter how high we build 
pedestals, celestial 
realities can’t be touched 

W4ND3R1NG H4LF-F0RG0TT3N...

wandering half-forgotten 
back roads, while solar eyes still 
keep a watch over my path 

MY 1NT3RN4L P0W3R GR1D...

my internal power grid 
requires regular recharge 
a good distance from the buzz 

H4NDS VPL1FT3D L1K3 PR4Y3R...

hands uplifted like prayer 
to protect my humane eyes 
from blindness, while the trees laugh 

R3C4L1BR4T10N 0F S3LF...

recalibration of self 
as industrial purpose 
passes me by, riverside 

SONG OF THE DAY: Country Child

I’m an old fool from the old school, who still downloads full ass albums of mp3s from random ass music blogs which still exist doing such things. I didn’t sit there spending 28 hours downloading a single Metallica mp3 back in the dark digital ages to give up having actual copies of shit, especially considering how often my kids are trying to stream a song in the car, and the song is no longer there or not downloaded to stops in the middle of our shitty cell reception region. You either got it or you don’t, fuck them fake ass clouds.

I got this one because I saw it pop up on a blog I check, and the cover met my aesthetics challenge of “does this look like a butter container design from 1974?” Then I looked up Robert Finley’s story, and dude’s an interesting fucker, definitely, so I copped it, and enjoyed it so much that he entered the realm of “if they got a bandcamp I’m gonna buy their new shit moving forward.” This song was one of my favorites, because he offers a woman that he’s not broke, got $15, and would buy her a hot dog. For some reason this reminded me of some shit my dad would say, because the small engine shop he worked at, he loved to go to Tom’s Country Store a block away and get their hot dog specials. Any time I met him for lunch, that’s what we did. At one point, he had a tiny ass Ford Courier pick-up with a grim reaper painted on the hood (that I painted actually), and he’d run up to Tom’s for hot dogs for lunch, then go eat it in the park, reading the newspaper. Later in life, when alcoholism got him too bad, he went to the liquor store instead, and would drink his Aristocrat at the park instead.

I’m first generation college graduate, not an obvious dumbass (though we all are, to one extent or another), and have exposed myself to a lot of art and creative shit. But I’m still a raggedy ass country boy to my heart, and I don’t even really understand these weird ass digital radicalized suburbanish country boys of nowadays. Nor do I relate to the petty bourgeoisie. (Yes, “petty” not “petit”.) It’s fucked up. But I can still walk in the woods and find an old bottle dump, dig ‘em out, wash ‘em up, spray paint them, and write cryptic warnings about the downfall of our ancient ways. “’Cause I’m a country boy…”

TH3 P0W3R 0F P0S1T1V3...

the power of positive 
directional energies 
push by universe unseen 

SONG OF THE DAY: Me and You

 

I was thinking about how stupid capitalism is and how streaming services switch around the shit they show so if you want to watch something you have to crack a fucking internet code to figure out if whatever of the 5 of 13 things you’re paying for has it, or you can borrow your partner’s (current or past) password for 5 of the other 8, or if it’s on one of the three streaming platforms you haven’t sexed your way into access to yet. There’s a digital campaign of some dumbass in a canoe called The Streamer where said dumbass goes to a campsite and streams a bunch of Disney shows. I keep blocking it but it keeps showing up. The concept of streaming and actual streams and rivers made me think how fucked up it would be if cool ass spots on rivers actually switched their streaming services, so like you wanted to go to this spot on the James where there was a graffiti railroad bridge and a nice swimming hole with some really amazing lounging rocks, but you mention going with your friend and they’re like, “Oh it’s too far of a drive, that spot switched to the Rappahannock River at the beginning of the month.” And then you start thinking about whether you want to drive all the fucking way to the other river, or just settle for some shit that’s not as exciting by the river you’re already at. I mean, essentially Netflix’s entire business model is built on the fact you’ll settle, because you’re already there.

Continuing the over-etymological analysis, what a thing, to “settle” for some shit you don’t really want, because it’s where you’re at. That in the context of rivers and streams and settling is even more fucked up, since I’ve been thinking about the James River basin’s initial launch of American culture at Jamestown. See how fucked up life gets when you start pulling the strings? It all comes unraveled and you have an existential crisis where you wish civilization died. It’s better just to stream fucking The Office and ignore the dystopian darkness of it, laugh at the stupid man doing stupid things, haha that’s just like my real life.

Except that’s not real life, even if you experienced it. Me and you should go to the river, the actual river, to those rocks I spoke of. They’re still there, because rivers and streams aren’t like “streaming services” and in fact THERE’S A WAR GOING ON FOR YOUR SOUL. I know a cool bottle dump I found down by the river too, the other day, walking the dog. Let’s go.

M34ND3R1NG B4CK 4ND F0RTH...

meandering back and forth 
in imperfect circular 
orbits around sense of home 

JVST 4 S1MPL3 4SS3D D1RTG0D...

just a simple assed dirtgod 
who blossomed in James River 
basin as solar stardust 

SONG OF THE DAY: Anniversary Blue Yodel (Blue Yodel #7)

Been listening to a lot more old bluegrass and blues lately. Not sure why. I have come to hate modern era hipster bluegrass. In fact, I’ve been killing newgrass musicians secretly, averaging out to about four per year for the past decade. My best year – 2016 – I got eleven, but things slowed down after experiencing the chaos of Charlottesville in August of 2017, and then my marriage fell apart. Last year, I thought I could get a lot more with the pandemic shutdown and all, like it’s easier to fly below the radar for things like that. But luckily I’m to a much better place I don’t feel like killing newgrass musicians so often. Except banjo players. Newgrass banjo players are the fucking worst, just pure suburban trash cosplaying poor white folks, full of fake soviet democratic socialist bullshit. I’ve kinda let it go with everybody else, except newgrass banjo players, who are too young, too shinefaced, not scarred enough by life to make real art, so they make performative jive art.

M4K1NG 4RT FR0M D3TR1TVS...

making art from detritus - 
bedazzling mundane life… that’s 
those southern gothicc futures 

SONG OF THE DAY: Had To Come Back Wet

It’s the fake American calendar end of summer and I ain’t even been in the ocean. Thought I might be middle class enough to go to the beach for a week this year, but the pandemic pushed all the beach houses into high demand, and the development of the last twenty years where it’s giant ass expensive beach houses made it so my simple ass who ain’t got no family other than children to go to a beach with can’t do it. Shit was booked the fuck up. Shit’s already booked the fuck up for next year. Of course all of this is a weak ass thing to complain about because going to the beach isn’t a right, but also, damn, why’s everything in society got to be priced so imbalanced so that only a certain segment of society can enjoy shit? Seen people on social media who act like they’re broke all the time who went to the beach for multiple weeks, and I know it’s family that probably paid for it – previous generations, but still, many of us don’t even come from that. And even more don’t even have a job as stable as mine. That’s what always fucks me up – my situation right now feels better than my situation has ever felt, my entire life. And I still can’t afford to do shit. Generational wealth and familial money is a highly underrated aspect to our existence, in all aspects. People should have to tell you how rich their parents and grandparents are, so you can make decisions accordingly, from everything to how much you want to hang out with them down to who the fuck needs to be venmoing somebody else for dinner. Anyways, here’s to hoping I somehow do something financially rewarding but illegal, and have a fat roll of $20s in my pocket to go rent a room on the beachfront with cash for a couple nights during the expanded global warming reduced rate time before the water gets too cold (which it doesn’t, ever, you just can’t stay in it as long).

M1NDS D0N'T RVST L1K3 M4CH1N3S D0...

minds don’t rust like machines do 
(but I do hack digital 
kudzu back regularly) 

S0VTH3RN G0TH1CC FVTVR1ST...

southern gothicc futurist 
saints can’t be manufactured; 
they’re born from civilized dirt 

SONG OF THE DAY: Mama He's Crazy (chopped and screwed)

At my patreon (which is like on Only Fans but about weird art shit not nudity), I try to chop and screw an old country classic from time to time. Support my patreon, and enjoy this reworking of The Judds most famous song, under my chopping and screwing name of DJ Honeysuckle Vines Growing Over the Abandoned Factory at the Edge of Town.

WH3N MY B0N3S 4R3 F0SS1L1Z3D...

when my bones are fossilized, 
hope my nonsense gibberish 
still fuels the fools amongst y’all 

SONG OF THE DAY: Fat Man in the Bathtub (live)

I really wanted to write something, maybe even specific to the actual song here, but then I just got sad the old K-Mart in Charlottesville didn’t converted into a flea market, with at least two African stalls, a Latin vegetable store (with a giant paleta cooler, but there’s probably going to be more than one paleta option if the flea market’s being done right), used power tools stand, phone jailbreak stall, and hopefully the flea market has turned the delivery bay by the old garden center into a used tire/secondhand rim shop of some sort. My old old iphone I use as an ipod is starting to turn into robot alien hieroglyphics all the time again because the battery swole up and I’m holding it together with binder clip and rubber bands, and I’ve got a new old iphone, version 6, but it’s locked behind an activation code for somebody, I don’t know who, and it’s pissing me off, and there’s no flea market that would handle this type of shit in an actual open and free society, but I’m trapped in this neoliberal hellscape where you can’t unlock an activation locked iphone because it might be stolen even though the model is so out of date I literally got given it by somebody who had it laying around after somebody else gave it to them. Y’all think everything’s got to be owned and wanted. Let people exist, please.

T33TH CR00K3D 4S 3V3R; B34RD...

teeth crooked as ever; beard 
more grey than not; but my eyes 
still got those wildfire embers 

S0VTH3RN G0TH1CC FVTVR1ST...

southern gothicc futurist 
horizons always threaten 
storms - keep a shoulder towel 

B0RN FR0M TW0 3N1GM4S, BVT...

born from two enigmas, but 
helped give birth to a trio 
of creative impulses