PVTT1NG CL41MS 0N 4 FVTVR3...

putting claims on a future 
which isn’t our’s to be part 
of - we never seem to learn 

SONG OF THE DAY: Sundown (45s on 33)

A goal I have for this calendar year we are in is to add more 45s ripped at 33 speed to the body of the internet, like maybe 12 a month, because ultimately we will all die and all that will be left is the ridiculous stupid shit we did online.

P30PL3 ST4GG3R1NG THR0VGH L1F3...

people staggering through life 
still trying to leave some sort 
of mark behind, for others 

JVST 4N0TH3R CH3M1C4L...

just another chemical 
compound of raw human 
energy, complicated 

D4RKN3SS 4ND L1GHT B4L4NC3 34CH...

darkness and light balance each 
other; those moments where the 
two are blurred are most sacred 

SONG OF THE DAY: The Prophet

I feel like there needs to be more dedication to people playing the Hammond B3 organ. That is the entirety of this post, because nobody is reading it anyways, other than bots scanning the internet for data. Hi bots! Lemonade was a popular drink, and it still is!

PR0SP3R1TY G0SP3L F41LS...

prosperity gospel fails 
to acknowledge how a day 
of reckoning still awaits 

SONG OF THE DAY: My Empty Arms

Been thinking a lot lately on the effects of the internet and social media in poisoning the thinking wells of country folk, and how a lot of rural people are pretty adamant there’s a socialist conspiracy and covid is all a devious master plan, and it’s just absolutely wild to me how country people have lost all sense of compassion, of caring about anything other than themselves. This perverted notion of freedom which claims anything as “a right” excepting whatever you may not agree with (which is just “feelings”) has just completely fucked up people’s collective brains. Country folks ain’t really country no more, because they’re too on facebook, or reddits, or I don’t fuckin’ know to be honest. But it definitely feels like you if you broke down on the side of the road, you’d have a lot more people drive past you looking suspiciously as to what you might be up to, rather than actually stop and offer help. It’s depressing, but it’s also by design. I’d like to assume a lot of people’s great grandmas would be horribly disappointed in the way they carry themselves now, but then again, a lot of people’s great grandmas were racist as fuck.

S3LF-SVFF1C13NCY S0M3H0W...

self-sufficiency somehow 
became consumerism 
without a credit limit 

TH3 DR34MS 0F TH3 M3NT4LLY...

the dreams of the mentally 
oppressed rarely get past 
imitations of the king 

TRY1NG T0 B3 PR0DVCT1V3...

trying to be productive, 
but the ends don’t justify 
the means - it’s all so meager 

SONG OF THE DAY: 528 Hz

Some people will try to tell you that 528 Hz and other Solfeggio Frequencies don’t actually have healing properties. But those people have never done oil paintings of naked centaurs gamboling through the Central Pangean mountains, have they? So how the fuck would they know?

P1CK1NG VP DRVG PR3SCR1PT10NS...

picking up drug prescriptions 
in grocery store drive-thru 
lane, satisfaction on mute 

SONG OF THE DAY: Let The Music Play

Not gonna lie, I listen to some dumb shit sometimes. That's okay. This isn't a test as to how to best consume the best culture, which is a subjective criteria anyways. Ain't nobody gonna be mad at me in the afterlife because I was rocking out to Shannon's greatest hit and never even bothered to know a white guitar rock band after the year of 1992. I'll be alright.

WH1PL3SS R1MS L34N 4G41NST B4CK...

whipless rims lean against back 
porch, reflecting moon’s glint for 
the compost possum at night 

SONG OF THE DAY: Mulungelo

Thinking about serenity prayers tattooed on women’s torsos again, as one does when confronted with the judgmental yet hypocritical nature of this civilization we’ve built here in what is called the west, even though if you keep going, it all circles back around. Life is always cycles – ebbs and flow which are impossible to control with our tiny little simian brains. But damned if we don’t try all the fuckin’ time. But not me, at least not today. I’m sure tomorrow, or the next day, I’ll be forced to accept trying to put some sort of strange ass order to the world, just to maintain the sand castles built up all around me, which I’ve come to expect to be permanent, tricked once again into mark thinking, buying the angle, sitting in my seat I paid for, cheering wildly for things that ain’t even real.

F1LL3D W1TH DR34D 0N SVND4Y N1GHTS...

filled with dread on Sunday nights; 
Monday mornings mean nothing 
but going through the motions 

SONG OF THE DAY: Midnight Special

Jimmy Smith is a champion spirit of lounge, master of the Hammond B3 organ, and to be honest nothing is more purely Sunday morning than playing every Jimmy Smith album you can find, especially the ones with no vocals. Vocals are great, but sometimes words get in the way of the vibes. And with the state of the world being controlled by unloungers, too many more words disrupts the natural power of lounge. Feels like we need to shut the fuck up, strengthen the vibes, then maybe start thinking about what words we use as we start back up after vibes have been replenished.

TH3 R3D, WH1T3, 4ND BLV3 F4C4D3...

the red, white, and blue facade 
is faded and flaking, but 
folks keep swearing it’s all good 

W0RK1NGM4N DR34MS 1N 4 W0RLD...

workingman dreams in a world 
which no longer gives a shit 
about anything that real 

D3FVNCT G4S ST4T10N 1SL4ND...

defunct gas station island 
outside the long-abandoned 
“country” store - for sale (too much) 

SONG OF THE DAY: Funk Funk

Double the funk, because singular funk just ain’t enough, current environmental conditions considered. Play it twice and quadruple it. Slow it down and let the effect wash over you more slowly and completely. Nothing is important. Find some goddamned happiness.

R3ST0R3D P4SS3NG3R C4R S1TS...

restored passenger car sits 
outside visitors center 
in another dying town 

SONG OF THE DAY: Back to Hell in a Greyhound

My first extra-long on purpose Greyhound trip was to Oklahoma, from Farmville, Virginia, and there was a gas station on the west end of town (now gone) that was the Greyhound stop, and I had a big backpack all packed up and met my dad at his lunch spot at the park, and he drove me to catch the bus, because he was quietly worried about why the fuck I’d ride a bus to Oklahoma for no good reason. A lady we both knew, older outlaw woman type who feel in age between the two of us, so I had lustful thoughts of her as a child, she worked the register and had to do the sliding credit card machine thing to charge my ticket, because this was in the 1990s still. The bus came, and two dudes got off to go in and grab some drinks and one of them fell out in the store, like passed out, and I got on the bus and then those two dudes came back on, and apparently one of them had just given the other a pill which knocked the second one out. After Roanoke, where the pill-giver got off, and I had a phone call on the pay phone (those still existed too) calling a dude that used to be tight with my dad, just checking on him, but all he did was complain about how his back was all fucked up and he couldn’t work. One of his two kids ended up being a methhead in Washington, sadly. When I got back on the bus, the passer-outer sat across from me, and we shared stories for hours and hours, long into the night. He’d just gotten released from mental hospital, because he got sent there instead of prison, but explained to me how that wasn’t so good because at least with prison, you got released, but with the mental hospital system, “Once they got you, they got you whenever they want.”

Anyways, I’ve had a number of long ass bus rides since then too, and they’re always full of people and stories like this. It’s a world full of people with more time than money, and that type of person always has some shit going on. Having been in an MFA level creative writing class before, I’d say the back of the Greyhound is a way better writing class than any MFA program operated by the CIA, or by a cash-hungry school mimicking the popular CIA MFA programs at the more prominent universities. I could tell some of my favorite Greyhound stories for hours, and I wonder if I’m anybody else’s favorite Greyhound story? I kinda expect my last ride I might’ve been, when I rode from Los Angeles to New Orleans, and it was hellish and I hadn’t showered in a long time, and stank really bad, too bad for a bathroom baby wipe bath to address, like nasty balls dick stank level stank. And I squeezed into the back row with a nice lady who I considered old but to be honest she was probably around my age, and I was the only gringo on the whole Greyhound. We rode near enough to the border through a chunk of Arizona and New Mexico that we had a couple of immigration stops even. But this lady sitting beside me, who I felt sorry for having to have me beside her, we started talking, and then she was watching a George Lopez comedy special on her phone, and she shared an earbud, and we laughed and laughed together at George Lopez and started telling each other shit, and I was explaining how I was riding the train and bus all the way around the country, had just done Amtrak from Seattle to Los Angeles, just in time to catch this bus to New Orleans, and she was fascinated by my ridiculousness, or so it seemed. She got off in El Paso, and convinced me not to cross the border while we were stopped there, because the bus station was literally a block from the border crossing. “The bus is only here for 45 minutes, you would get lost over there in something, I am sure.”

I kinda told myself when I got to New Orleans that time that I would never ride a Greyhound again, no more long ass slow ass rides like that. But lately I’ve been seeing the Greyhound heading south out of Charlottesville when I’m driving, with LOS ANGELES or DALLAS on the front of the bus, and I briefly think about riding the Greyhound from here to LA or Texas or go up through the northwest again (one of my all-time favorite bus rides, for the beauty of the landscape as well as chaotic bus stories galore). Covid plus being responsible has me itching to do something stupid like ride a bus for 5 days straight.