TH3 SVN W1LL R1S3 T0M0RR0W...

the sun will rise tomorrow 
whether I do or not; gots 
to make the most of each day 

SONG OF THE DAY: Lunca

It’s a storm brewing outside so the cats are dashing around crazily, wanting to go outside, but I live in front of an old quarry and I’m no fool – you let a black cat out right before a giant storm next to an abandoned quarry with old buildings, that how magical realms get unlocked that live in the thin veil between visible and metaphysical. And to be honest, it’s too early in the week for all that. I can’t be wandering off dealing with magical realms on a fuckin’ Monday.

D1RTG0DL1N3SS S0VTH3RN TH0VGHT...

dirtgodliness southern thought 
is to keep it clean as fuck 
despite ancient appearance 

SONG OF THE DAY: Woke Up This Morning

A rare moment of sleeping in this morning, with strong storms last night that made this old house rattle along with the thunder, but fell asleep with the fan in the window blowing in teasing glimpses of fall. Stayed overcast this morning long enough to cut the warming southern earth’s humid broiler oven effect to let me lay wrapped up in a top sheet, bare ass naked, chasing the cool spots in the cheap cotton, until the digital clock had four numbers, not three. Turned it face down so work ethic guilt didn’t kick in, and laid there another twenty minutes, cyber phone in the other room (on purpose), until the waves of “better do this” started crashing against my chill. But still gotta say, for the most part, it’s been a day of lounge, as the creator intended, not just on Sundays but all days. Not sure why we fucked that one up so badly. Still gotta do laundry, and cut some grass, but then again don’t really “gotta” do either, so probably won’t.

TH3Y ST1LL BV1LD PR0GR3SS, BVT 1T...

they still build progress, but it 
ain’t for all of us - just the 
high-born who can afford it 

S4Y1NG 'S4L44M' T0 MYS3LF...

saying “salaam” to myself 
while walking crooked sidewalks 
through America’s decline 

SONG OF THE DAY: I Was Framed

 

Hey man, let’s take it easy. Fuck the police, the politics, the politicians, the news, fuck people who worry about that shit so much they jump in your face about some shit that ain’t here or there. I ain’t saying let’s not do the work but saying let’s stop pretending your grandstanding is the actual work when it ain’t nothing more than another wannabe boss trying to set an agenda to outline a bunch of shit your hands will never actually touch. Systems always end up crushing folks, that’s just how it ends up being. Sledgehammers will never become dysfunctional though. Scythes either, though they do lose their edge.

T4K1NG WH4T'S 4V41L4BL3...

taking what’s available 
and making it beautiful, 
far beyond mainstream’s forced flow 

SONG OF THE DAY: Cruisin'

People with big ass cut grass yards think they’re still country, but they ain’t, with their zero turn mowers they hire a Mexican from Honduras to work half the time anyways, killing all the plantain and dandelions and buttercups, trying to make it all the same, nice and smooth and no questions ever asked, like a cop’s skull. That ain’t country; country is a frankensteined Snapper that can’t nobody but one guy who lives at a crossroads can fix, and even he wonders where the fuck you got it, even though he sold it to you (partial trade for some truck rims you had). Or better yet, country is struggling behind a “self” propelled push mower that’s had an existential crisis for at least a decade, and ain’t been self-propelled since before everything was Obama’s fault, because your yard’s too fucked, combination of hills and ruts and rocks and chunks of metal that the Snapper would just shatter into pieces (or at least the blade would) so you pick and choose your paths around the obstacles, like life itself, pushing the push mower like a fifty pound barbell that chops the earth sideways, choking out on chunks of month-long grasses, because who the fuck has time to be fucking around cutting grass unless the weather is bad, when you can’t cut it anyways? Country is finally cutting the yard in nine parts over thirteen days, and you probably should’ve already started over again, four days back, but you feel good about how that one spot looks, so you cruise up to the country store and get a big ol’ Gatorade, traditional orange or lemon lime, none of that antifreeze looking bullshit, and ride back with the windows down and air conditioning on full blast, feeling pretty damn good that none of your snooty ass neighbors are gonna judge your yard for at least 48 hours, maybe even 72.

S0VTH3RN G0TH1CC FVTVR1ST...

southern gothicc futurist 
philosophy bedazzles 
a most mundane existence 

0N D4YS WH3N TH3 SH1N3 1N MY...

on days when the shine in my 
eyes is dull, I worry that 
it might be gone forever 

TRY1NG T0 K33P 1T G0LD3N...

trying to keep it golden 
in an environment born 
to rust and wither away 

 

SONG OF THE DAY: No Home

rootlessness as metaphor
is often used by those having homes,
safety nets they can flip back on to,
family they can hit up if shit really gets deep.
it’s plenty of folks out here that’s actual rootless,
whatever home they had wasn’t safe or comfortable enough
to still be attached to, and them that they shared those spaces
with often helped make it that way,
            so
they do what they can
to carve out a life without them traditional supports
or notions of “home” that they can always fall back on.
that shit is exhausting
            absolutely fucking exhausting
to where you get mad at the sunshine for coming through the window
yet another morning, and you wish
there was a nice dry hole to fall into
for a couple weeks
not even a beach vacation
just fall into a fucking hole
cuddle up, and enjoy the quiet for a couple weeks.
rootlessness often comes with getting fucked up
because not having no home, not having nobody
who raised you to say “this is your home, whenever you need it”
and have it be a warm safe comfortable place
not having that shit will clutch your heart sometimes
by accident, not on no purpose, just grab your ass
right in the chest cavity, and you wanna ease that ache
take the edge off
            creating your own
hole to fall into, to hide out
a couple weeks, months,
            years, generations… however long
                        it takes to pretend you’re home

L34RN1NG T0 P3RF3CTLY SH00T...

learning to perfectly shoot 
threes on busted rim - born to 
lose because the game is fixed 

SONG OF THE DAY: 3 6 9

The interesting thing about a decline of an empire is it can take generations of diminishing returns and there is no cataclysmic moment of failure, just a slow decay back into the Earth, where the shine and luster of newness is slowly replaced by rust and abandonment, so slowly you may not even notice it’s already around you. I had to run to the Wal-Mart for a toaster because I don’t have one, and my youngest wanted toast in the morning when we get up earlier than fuck because she goes to school two counties over, so we take off at a godawful hour which actually isn’t that godawful, I’m just weakened by my post-modern existence and way off celestial schedules and more attuned to machines. It does eat into the day though to drive her and drop her off, not really the day itself so much as my employer’s preferred schedule for my constant availability, which now happens inside my own home, like a company house, which ironically mine is, though it was attached to a mostly defunct quarry that created multiples holes in the ground within walking distance. Found the shortest checkout line I could at the Wal-Mart once we were done, and two women in front of me, one of them had a few scattered tattoos, a surly mean-spirited look in her face, and some sort of freedom fascist adjacent shirt proclaiming proudly on the back MY RIGHTS DON’T END WHERE YOUR FEELINGS BEGIN, which is a pretty cocked and loaded statement, because it’s suggesting you know, not wanting to spread diseases or have food to eat or some shit is a feeling, whereas her ability to be as mean-spirited (and unmasked) as she wants is her god-given right, most likely protected by weaponry. The checkout lady, pretty young, was talking about how cool the shirt was, and I just did my purple masked laugh at it all, because goddamn, all these freedom fighters are out of fucking shape, and America is a pre-diabetic generation away from having both feet of the empire’s food soldiers amputated. What’s the empire gonna do then, when all these fucks have to do anything more than video game bomb brown people from a safe drone distance? We can’t actually fight. We’re a slothful soft nation of lazy fuckers who hire other people to do anything too physical. These motherfuckers act like the empire is a home owners association and we’re just gonna send everybody threatening glances to have them bow down in deference. America is fucked, very much in the obvious ways but also in ways that aren’t so obvious, because nobody is actually looking anymore.

Anyways, I listen to the country radio station with my kid because it’s mutually agreeable for the time being, but we both agree it’s not actually country, and just fuckin’ suburban propaganda for these slack-minded mean-staring marks, who consume mind-numbing news from questionable sources that give them poisoned wells of brains, which combines with the reinforcing messages of pop country drivel, and it builds a cabin of close-fisted thinking that’s chinked together with memes they get off Facebook or more likely even worse digital places at this point. That’s what’s so fucked up, is as bad as Facebook is in fucking up everybody’s brains, it’s the Wal-Mart mainstream source, and many of these people are going to whatever the digital equivalent of a strip mall gun store is that has Don’t Tread On Me decals on the front door but will absolutely call the county cops to enforce a grass cutting ordinance on your ass. America’s great red pilled mass is shitty ass subreddit at this point, but thinks it’s a bunch of pioneers who could hew a home from the wilderness, when in actuality most of these DIYer freedom fascists would be crying for Chik-Fil-A within a week. I worry about what’s gonna happen when something cuts off the power supply and has everybody’s weaponized outlooks pointed at each other for a couple weeks, or a month. What are people gonna do? I hope the internet goes out too because the detoxifying effects of not having that constant stream of poisoned information might balance out the implanted desire to dehumanize everybody who doesn’t performatively post up in the same way as you. But I don’t know. We’re fucked.

And yet also not, because once the manufactured storm dies down, same frogs gonna be peeping down in the ponds, and same cicadas gonna be making noise in the woods. The comfort of empires ebb and flow, and you’d be surprised how comfortable a shade tree is, even if you thought you needed that $80,000 truck with the air conditioned seats. which the Three Percenter who did my home inspection before I bought this company house I plan on dying in had told me his was. Always kinda made me laugh, a Three Percenter who had to have air conditioned seats in his truck, very symbolic of how we like to look like we’re something we ain’t at this point, because we’re all, as Americans, about as self-sufficient as white Cornish crosses, those big ass birds interbred so deeply to grow as fast as possible that if they aren’t just killed, their legs break under the weight of their abnormally large breasts and thighs. That’s us, at about 10 weeks into our maximum 16 week empire, so there’s a lot to go, but it’s gonna be painful, and nobody’s gonna move all that fast the whole time.

BR4ND N3W CHR0M3 R1MS BR1GHT3N1NG...

brand new chrome rims brightening 
up a hand-me-down beater - 
our performative thriving 

SVRV1V3 F1RST, TH3N THR1V3 1F 4T...

survive first, then thrive if at 
all possible - the two-step 
program of the truly doomed 

SONG OF THE DAY: Dance Till We Die

A few years back, at first, my center kid was bummed I actually listened to Lana Del Ray, because dads aren’t supposed to listen to shit their kids are listening to. Takes the edge out of it. But then they got mad at me because Lana Del Ray was a fascist, or some shit. I don’t know. It’s all too much to keep up with; I just play music and sometimes I like it but mostly I hate it, which is why I like to point out what I like on here. I don’t ever dance really, not in front of other people, because I always felt I had bad rhythm. Family members used to make fun of how I walked, because it wasn’t white enough, and then when I danced, I realized it was just flopping my body around so I got self-conscious about how my arms flopped, because that seemed to be the part of my gait that wasn’t white enough. Who the fuck knows? Now, I shuck a little dance from time to time around my kids or girlfriend, and I do elaborate spinning mambas holding the cats if a good cumbia song comes on in the middle of the day. But I ain’t dancing in front of nobody I don’t know too fucking well.

TH3 WR3TCH3D 0F TH3 34RTH F3D...

the wretched of the Earth fed 
their digital opiates, 
forgetting sun’s rise and set 

SONG OF THE DAY: At The Hotel

app free roadside motels 
surgically bypassed by interstate progress 
a couple decades back, but still 
dying on the blue highway vine, 
where you still stick a key into metal door knob 
kick open heavy metal door with low caliber dents 
and it smells like 1989 still 
doubt they got hbo max 
but you’re gonna test the bed bounce 
and one of y’all gonna leave a footprint 
in the drywall because that was the plan 
all along
in a spot like that 
but it’s all good because you paid cash 
and even if they got a cleaning lady 
who notices the damage 
you’re already 100 miles into 
the future 
drunk off 
life off 
the beaten data path 
worn as fuck 
because some folks never left it 
time to get back 
to john and jane 
dozy doeing 
happily along the edges 
of the thicc earth 

FR3SH D3NTS BL0SS0M 1N B4CK R04D...

fresh dents blossom in back road 
guard rails on nightly basis… 
flyover country dead ends 

SONG OF THE DAY: Gentched Up

Working up a long-winded intro to issue 12 of my Southern Gothicc Futurist zine about gentrification, specifically in Richmond, and ‘90s era punk rockers’ direct involvement. That’s gonna be issue 12. Just about done with an all Top Tens issue that’ll be issue 11. I send them out in pairs to supporters of my patreon, and in fact just sent out issues 9 and 10 recently (or am working on it still). You can get those, zines only, direct instead of joining the patreon, $10 by Venmo (@ravenmack23) or Cashapp ($ravenmack23). Mark it with emojis as friends, because you know. Apologies to XL Middleton for hijacking his “Gentched Up” song to sell some zines, but it’s all related, somehow. Everything’s relative. And related. So what’s up cousin?

W3'R3 4LL QV1LT1NG T0G3TH3R...

we’re all quilting together 
an existence which provides 
comfort when life becomes storms 

F0RG3T Y0VR LVST... F0R TH3 R1CH...

“forget your lust… for the rich 
man’s gold,” song lyrics warned; “all 
you need… is within your soul”