M4K1NG SVR3 BR34K1NG CYCL3S...

making sure breaking cycles 
ain’t just a false blossom during 
times of internal hardship 

P0W3R STRVCTVR3S 4LR34DY...

power structures already 
in place are closed-loop systems - 
my energy’s off-the-grid 

P0L1SH3D BY MY D4RK3ST N1GHTS...

polished by my darkest nights 
of the soul, so that I shine 
with a full dirtgod’s brilliance 

SHVT W1ND0WS P41NT3D 0V3R...

shut windows painted over, 
appearing non-derelict 
to the developer’s eyes 

TH0S3 WH0 KN0W N0T TH3 D4RKN3SS...

those who know not the darkness 
don’t seem to appreciate 
other people’s hard-fought shine 

N3GL3CT3D F33LS F4M1L14R...

neglected feels familiar - 
overlooked by progress’s 
eyes for turning a prophet 

N4TVR4L B0RN R00TL3SSN3SS...

natural born rootlessness 
perhaps coming from lack of 
comfort - born to toss and turn 

SONG OF THE DAY: Don't Worry

Timely advice from the Smith Brothers, although that word “timely” falsely suggests time is necessary and real. Wealth, time, productivity… all this shit our entire life has been built around is completely abstract and a fucking waste of a good heart that beats rhythmically without even trying.

By the way, I have not died. Just vibing, and getting caught up on my chill. Daily pics and gambleraku will resume soon enough. Don’t worry.

W3 KN0W WH3R3 W3 W4NT T0 B3...

we know where we want to be 
in our heart, but trust our brain 
to override better sense 

SONG OF THE DAY: Afrique Victime

I didn’t love this last Mdou Moctar album as much as the other ones, but it still was better than most shit I accidentally listen to. I guess they’ve blown up more now, which is good for them, but also I’m glad I got to see them in the nasty ass basement of that club in Harrisonburg with a limited crowd. That was dope. Also the night before Ramadan began a few years back at the old Strange Matter/Twisters in Richmond. Good shit. I never really dance, because I’m a goofy dancer, and super self-conscious about it, but both times I got to bouncing up and down enough it was like dancing, and I appreciate music that somehow is able to get past all my conscious anxieties and shit like that and trick me into flopping around rhythmically lol.

1 F1ND MYS3LF F33L1NG M0ST...

I find myself feeling most 
fulfilled when on long wanders… 
pilgrimages to nowhere 

SONG OF THE DAY: Tragico Destino (45s on 33)

White people seem to be up in arms about how white people might get replaced by non-white people, but to be honest, look at the accordion. White people had control of that shit forever, and then non-white people had it for like what? A couple decades? And absolutely fucked up everything a white person had done on an accordion. Now instead of working in a communal sense, and thinking, “Oh shit, who knew all my accordion needed was a horn section with a little bit of flair?” instead the type of white people being up in arms (all too often literally) about this type of shit get mad, and don’t want nobody else to play an accordion. What the fuck kinda shit is that? Who benefits from that? Just a bunch of lame ass fuckers sitting around with musical instruments they ain’t even learned nothing new on. The shit pisses me off to be honest. Loosen up a little bit, stop being afraid of every goddamned thing. Here’s a new 14 Words for y’all: Sit your stupid ass down, and listen to someone else for like twenty minutes.

G1V1NG 4BSTR4CT QV4NT1TY...

giving abstract quantity 
dominion over our heart 
has somehow left us empty 

M4T3R14L LVST F1LLS TH3...

material lust fills the 
empty spaces inside my 
brain, most likely by design 

SONG OF THE DAY: Burning Shit With Dried Up Dreams For Kindling

This is another Boogie Brown Blue Globe Beats track. Brown remains prolific as fuck. I took some news footage of a junkyard fire, with burning Cadillacs, to make a video for it. Then today I was feeling pretty shitty about everything, so I wrote a depressing fucking freestyle sonnet. For such a large world, we sure did build a system that crushes people's spirit. What the fuck? Anyways, did something different with this sonnet, with a pair of 4-line stanzas, then threw a 2-line stanza in the middle, technically rhyming knot with not, like I'm Bushwick Bill or some shit, then flexing into a different tone for the last 4-line stanza, which recognizes everybody out here struggling. This is a poem, which my mind wrote in the very moment, posted into the digital oblivion that is a blogspot in 2021, thus will never be published anywhere else, and only you and the few other eyeballs that actually read this will ever see it. Making tiny ripples in oblivion.

Dreaming of relaxation and actual rest 
without incessant testing of whether I’m bad 
or good enough to deserve to not feel compressed 
by constraints, depressed by position, wanting pad 

around the struggle to fight well-designed riptide, 
wishing for a safety net hammock as I punch 
the lottery machine, hoping my stars collide 
into big bang of that bank balance number crunch 

not still twisting my insides into anxious knots, 
trying to remember my haves more than have-nots. 

Just simple fatigue growing into exhaustion, 
definitely physical, perhaps meta- too; 
thus, listen to expressed frustrations with caution, 
as I can imagine the same is crushing you. 

TH3 HVM4N M1ND C4N B3 D4RK...

the human mind can be dark 
cavern, easy to get lost 
in; I try to keep it light 

4TT3MPT1NG T0 3L3V4T3...

attempting to elevate 
my status, but can’t deny 
destiny’s limitations 

D1D MY B3ST T0 1GN0R3 TH3...

did my best to ignore the 
psychic no trespassing signs 
nailed throughout environment 

"C4N'T H4V3 N0TH1NG N1C3" T4TT003D...

“can’t have nothing nice” tattooed 
throughout my whole psyche, in 
old english bubble letters 

SONG OF THE DAY: Done With This

Just another cabin boy on a ship of fools, waiting for the water to fill my lungs. Everything is completely obvious, yet everyone wants to get lost in the semantics of how you get around to pointing at the obvious, until we’ve talked ourselves into oblivion, the acts of the oblivious, purposefully ignorant to the facts in front of us, and I don’t even know why. So mostly I think, “fuck it,” and cosplay like my job is important enough to justify riding along until I die. Maybe we won’t hit the iceberg in my lifetime, not until my kids are older, maybe not ‘til my grandkids exist. Just another cabin boy on a ship of fools.

TH3 1M4G3S 0F 0VR S3LF...

the images of our self 
others see is only part 
of the fool reality 

F0LL0W1NG H4LF-4B4ND0N3D...

following half-abandoned 
tracks in half-forgotten spots, 
with half a mind forever 

SONG OF THE DAY: I'd Rather Be With You

Now That’s What I Call Love Songs For Big Women And The Goofy-Assed Men That Love Them, Volume 8, was always in heavy rotation around the time machine parts factory I worked at outside of Kenbridge for a couple months in the spring of 1998. We made kerfufflic coils, and I was managed by a guy who had Rudy on his name patch but everybody called him Toots, and he was chill I guess, so far as managers go, but there was a big rush in people trying to refurbish old time machines in that period before Y2K, and I definitely didn’t have the same grasp on kerfufflic coils back then that I do now, so I kinda hated that job. I mean, I’d still hate it, because all we did was making a tiny coil for old time machines, no time travel involved, in fact, it was really quite boring. I think minimum wage was still around $5, because I know they paid us $9 an hour, which was actually great money for Kenbridge back then, but I’d complain, “Sitting here making shit for a fuckin’ time machine, making $9 an hour,” and Toots would go, “Shit boy, that’s double minimum wage. You way too much college boy sometimes.”
He was probably right. College changed me. I wasn’t Southside Virginia anymore, briefly tricked into having dreams and hopes which replaced getting high at lunch (we all need our delusions). But Toots controlled the boombox, and he kept Now That’s What I Call Love Songs For Big Women And The Goofy-Assed Men That Love Them, Volume 8, bumping regularly. If you’ve ever seen me do my weird, shit-eating grin shuffle dance/creep thing, I learned that from Toots. New guy always had to sweep up at the end of the shift, which meant me the entire couple months I worked there, and Toots would just shuffle dance across the concrete factory warehouse floor with 15 minutes left in the shift, singing, “Time to sweep up, boy… time to sweep up all this shit. Time to sweep up, boy… get that push broom Raven.” That was my favorite part of the day, him dancing and singing, me pushing the thick bristled push broom forward, with a whoosh, then a lifting THUMP to quake the dirt out of it, before pulling back for another big whooshing push, all of it going to the middle, everything moving to the center, then dust panning all the day’s dirt out of existence, like none of it ever happened. We’d all stand around that last couple minutes, boombox still blasting, shooting the shit, waiting for Toots to get up and hit stop on the boombox. Clock on the wall was five minutes slower than him, but we went by Toots watch, even though he didn’t wear one that I ever saw. But he’d hit stop, and the first musical silence of the day meant we all grabbed our coats and started heading to the door. He’d be standing there waiting to lock up.
I didn’t quit officially, just stopped going, because I woke up the next day and didn’t feel like keeping down that particular dead end, hoping for a different dead end to get lost on. I was the last one out that last day I went in though, and as I walked past, and Toots moved to lock the door walking out behind me, he sang sort of so I could hear but also just as much to entertain himself, “Have a good night, motherfuckin’ college boy.”

CR00K3D T33TH TH3 SVR3ST S1GN...

crooked teeth the surest sign 
of born class, since poor folks ain’t 
expected to ever smile