SONG OF THE DAY: Searching For That Lady

Was digging through records to take with me for spinning tonight at a Cuban restaurant in town, and I was missing some 45s I’d meant to spin. I figured the Record Gods were holding out on me, so I didn’t press it. But then two whole boxes of 45s, including the ones having the key Peruvian cumbia 45s I meant to have with me, showed up behind a demolition derby trophy I got at a junk store. The Record Gods teased me, but came through.
I have a sort of chaotic method to organizing my life, which is going to become annoying as I get older and forget things more rapidly. Mostly everything is sort of sorted into levels of importance or dopeness, so I know certain boxes of 45s are top notch, some are good, others are mid but might contain gems, and some are banished to the upstairs hallway and I really should get rid of them probably (although what if my tastes change and there are hidden gems?). So nothing is alphabetized, I kind of have a hip hop 45 box and a cumbia 45 box, but other than that, it’s pure chaos method, where the cream rises to the top of the box chain, and I just go with that. That leaves me always searching, because I don’t have a perfect order where I can go, “Oh, I want to find this one particular New Horizons 45,” because it’s just in the whole mass of 45s, somewhere. And for someone who desires total control and order in their world, that’s probably difficult. But I enjoy the magic, of finding lost gems, realizing I have a clean copy of something I thought was only scratchy the last time I played the other version, and just general faith that the Record Gods know I’m acting with pure heart and will always reward me because of that. But as I’ve gotten older, in fact older than I thought I’d ever live to be, I realize I love and value magic far more than order. I don’t want instability, so basic order is nice. But having everything mapped out and predicted feels very non-magical to me, and likely ain’t my metaphysical heritage anyways. So we keep it chaotic good around here, and likely always will.

SONG OF THE DAY: Rhinestone Cowboy (kudzu'd)

Authenticity in a consumer culture is always gonna be impossible to nail down. Fake ass people who practice the same persona for long enough eventually appear to be authentic as opposed to the folks they cribbed from in the first place. Nostalgia for old fabricated bullshit starts to seem more real than the current fabricated bullshit, and it all just gets all mixed up and around in the bins of shit you’re expected to sift through to consume, that authenticity is completely lost and somewhat irrelevant.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what is a person’s culture, especially in some place like America where most of the population is not from there historically. Most of us have had most of what would be our historical culture lost in the process of assimilation to American life, and few of us speak the same language as our ancestors 4 or 5 generations back. So what is our culture now? On the surface, by design, it seems to be what we buy into, or consume. American culture, on that superficial level, is big trucks, spacious houses with engineered landscapes, giving the appearance of rural but not too far off giant clusters of box stores where we can restock our identity with convenient ease. But let’s be real, that’s not a culture so much as a lack of culture. Culture is what we practice, regularly, and yeah, it can seem like by that definition, the big trucks and suburban lifestyle is still our American culture. But culture also should have some lasting value, into the future. And just buying shit has no lasting value… it’s a constant struggle against the high and low tides of economic factors to maintain that bullshit.
I’ve been thinking of culture as what I practice, but in two directions – past and future. So whatever I practice regularly is my culture, and it reverberates as far forward into the future as I practiced it regularly into the past. That means, so like I’m learning banjo now (very early stages lol). But also, I had kin who came out the mountains to Amelia County back in the 1930s or ‘40s, who brought bluegrass music with them to Southside Virginia. So it’s in my familial history. But my dad didn’t play, nor did my grandfather (who I never met). But the folks before them did, extensively, so that practice maybe echoed forward to me, maybe not. But the more I practice it, the more I can connect with that practice, and carry it forward. Maybe. It might die because I find it too frustrating, who knows?
But also with writing haiku, I’ve practiced that super extensively, on daily basis even, for upwards of at least 20 years now. That’s an extensive practice. It’s part of my being, and everywhere in my life (and mind). As an individual, that’s part of my culture, but being I’m the first in my family to do that, it’s not really my culture… yet. But the events I’ve created, and sharing my practice with others has led others to practice it as well, and it spreads that culture of writing haiku. It moves from familial cultural activity to communal one instead. But I’ve put a lot of life into that, and I’d say it’s part of my identity, at least to others. (I remember when I got to do workshops in the old Richmond City Jail, and one time I showed up and one of the women students who was incarcerated, as we all stood on the line waiting for entry into the classroom, saw me and exclaimed, “Hey! It’s Haiku Guy!” The personal practice I had shared had become my identity to her.)
I say all this, because as a kid, there was a lot of country music spinning on the turntable. But it was mostly outlaw shit, and pop country was seen as weak and not relevant to our fucked up rural life. You never would’ve heard my pops playing John Denver or Glen Campbell. But 40  years later, as rural America is more suburbanized, and Wal-Mart Supercenters touch down every 40 miles or so across the vanishing country landscape, “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” feels nostalgic, for a simpler time. Or “Rhinestone Cowboy”, seems less like the embracing of materialistic bullshit urban culture that it did when I was a kid (under the influence of paternal thinking) and almost like a cry against that very world. But also, I’m applying the filters of time on it from today. And slowing it down (as I am wont to do) just adds that extra layer of fucked – “Where hustle’s the name of the game… and nice guys get washed away like snow in the rain.”
Now, strangely enough, a rhinestone jacketed dude strumming guitar would feel more authentic than the big truck driven to Costco to fill up on La Croix 12-packs. Except the rhinestone jacketed guy might just be the young adult sign of the Costco visitor, with a scraggly fu manchu mustache, cosplaying country in a different way than his dad. It’s impossible to tell, unless you get to know somebody, to see if what they’re showing as an identity is what they’re actually practicing as a culture. I don’t necessarily have time for that all the time, so I’ve been extending benefit of the doubt a lot more often lately (no time for drama), but also, the eyes always give it away to a certain extent. You can tell how real somebody is by looking in their eyes. I think. But I could be full of shit.

SONG OF THE DAY: Bust A Move (kudzu'd)

I have the first haiku slam of the year in a few hours, and I’m horribly disorganized and unprepared, so I don’t have time to babble some writing like I normally would for these song of the day lists that I think my sister, my girlfriend, a guy in Australia, then like a rotating cast of 2 out of 9 others will see. Nonetheless, if you are currently wavering in personal decision making, let me and this song just put a mark in the affirmative column for you to bust a move.

SONG OF THE DAY: Maskeraad

Funk is Universal, and it’s in every single human soul… if allowed to flourish. The saddest thing to see is how whole segments of society have stifled their natural funk for so long that they’re not even seen culturally able to be funky. If you’re such a person, I suggest you get a big metal barrel for burning things that you put outside, and burn that fucker at least a couple times a month, preferably when the moon is bright, although to be honest, it’s just an important to soak up the new moon vibes as well, which is counterintuitive if you’re counting on light. But fire, plus lunar reflections and stardusting your crown, these are all things that help ferment the funk back in your soul. If you do it right, you should start smelling like woodsmoke half the time. If that’s a problem, well, then you are choosing whatever path of your life requires you not to stink like woodsmoke over the the path that leads you back to a natural funky nature. So at that point, you’re making the choice to not be funky. That’s sad. No amount of progress promised by civilization is worth losing our funk.

SONG OF THE DAY: I Won't Love You Again (kudzu'd)

Been playing a lot of slowed oldies lately. Like a lot. Even drifting back into the doo wop days. That shit sounds great slowed down. Civilization is coming apart at the seams so it only makes sense we’d shift space-time and jam slowed oldies around pallet fires. Seems natural.

SONG OF THE DAY: So Low (kudzu'd)

Different pattern to this one, same rhyme scheme but I made the lines more separate. Feels a little sing songy to me, which ain’t my style, but fuck it. It’s a freestyle exercise. Also, I love this fuckin’ song slowed down so much. Carried me through some introspective moments the past few months, lol. Also, in the last line, I am using "funk" as positive funk flows in your life, not the wack ass "in a funk" type of funk. Funk is good. Funk not only soothes, it removes.

Dwelling in negative light will tarnish your soul, 
and this world will create reasons to dull your shine; 
but never let another's judgments slow your roll, 
continue feeling, even if not feeling fine. 

Systems designed to engineer order surround, 
but we all got born free DNA deep inside; 
cellular memories of fingers in the ground, 
and ancestral tendencies to cross vast divide. 

Abide by heart... brain thinking's got limitations 
(like compromised morality while chasing wealth); 
people got the same hopes regardless of stations... 
a simple life of happiness, freedom, and health. 

Unneeded complications leave us feeling drunk; 
simplifying life also amplifies the funk. 

SONG OF THE DAY: Five Minutes of Funk (kudzu'd)

There’s no greater statement in favor of The Power of Lounge than the fact that if you slow down “Five Minutes of Funk”, it becomes seven minutes of funk. Everything could be so much nicer if we just stopped hustling so damn hard.

SONG OF THE DAY: We Got To Hold Ourselves

Hey man, let's keep the vibes as light as can be while this heavy ass world seems to spin further off kilter. I don't really know what to say to nobody, because though I've had shit going on, all in all life is good. And I know a whole lot of people really getting put through the ringer right now. If you have anything resembling downtime in your life, whether it's a weekend or an afternoon or you're just magically feeling better than normal for a few hours, allow yourself the space to lounge. Just because the shitstorm eases up for a few hours doesn't mean you have to rush out and try to accomplice all the undone tasks that's been building up in your head. Let yourself lounge. We wasn't made to juggle all we juggle. We was made to sit in sunshine and feel the warmth.

SONG OF THE DAY: I Just Can't Leave You Alone (kudzu'd)

Been in a down state but I think I might have pulled out. Time will tell. It always does. But I did another freestyle sonnet.

Many folks' most perfect beats are fashioned from junk; 
funk found has deeper bass than that easily made 
with the comfort of space. And yet, I can't get drunk 
off resentment for suburb punks whose parents paid 

every step of the way. We're all born without 
picking where, and all of us gotta navigate 
the same oppressive conditions, though ain't no doubt 
from different positions. Too easy to hate, 

and get full nelsoned by woe is me misery. 
I gotta find heartfelt rhythm which keeps my feet 
in motion, seeking futuristic history 
which always begins as oral tale told with sweet 

optimism and hope... the only way to roll
dwelling in negative light will tarnish your soul. 

SONG OF THE DAY: Future Lover

It was a year ago today that I put on my finest Sergio Tacchini tracksuit and went to see Thee Sacred Souls with my girlfriend. This was a couple weeks before my 50th birthday, and I’d been looking forward to it forever, setting off celebration of reaching a decade my father and grandfather never made it to. The show was wonderful. Then I had a suicidal episode right before my birthday, and it ended up not being that celebratory at all, more like figuring out support networks I never counted on before, and accepting the limitations of age. It’s all good now, but February of last year was dodgy.
Since that time, both my youngest kids (16 and 20) have had that “Could I Call You Rose?” song play on their Spotify playlists in the car, not sure where it came from. And then Thee Sacred Souls just had one of them NPR Tiny Desk concerts last week that all the normal white people who think they’re quirky absolutely love. It’s nice to see them blow up, and in fact, even see the whole souldies movement start to gain traction with the paying public. Getting back into records and limiting myself to 45s meant that there’s a long period of no releases, from the late ‘90s through the past decade, with the exception of the souldies movement, which kept 45s alive all through that time. The vinyl resurgence never happened with this realm, because vinyl never went away, and in fact, all the major label color variations of shit has clogged up the vinyl production pipeline for those who’d been using it all along.
All part of the deal in living in a society though. This particular song was part of the Pennyrose Valentine’s Day bundle last season, with Thee Sacred Souls dropping “Future Lover” as a single while they were on US tour. I slept on it at first, but upon a few more spins, this one has snuck into my regular rotation of modern souldies classics. And if you’re a 45 connoisseur like myself, this one pairs excellently with a number of Otis Redding 45s, notably “Think About It” and “You Left The Water Running”, which both got references to the physical space of a shared house, and those opening knocks of “Future Lover” just pop right on in as you fade out the Otis, and life goes on man, it always goes on, until it don’t. And when that happens, you’re not gonna be worried about your records no more anyways.
Thankful I'm still listening to records, to be honest, after the past year. Life is shorter, no need to make it shorter, and no need not to find joy in this godawful civilization we've been doomed to live inside.

SONG OF THE DAY: Baco Walk - Part I (kudzu'd)

Old Virginia soul for an old Virginia soul, but slowed down, so that I can grow older more lackadaisically. Ain't no rush.

SONG OF THE DAY: Sacalo, Sacalo (kudzu'd)

Changing my name to Sonidero Barba de Chivo and finishing building a lithium battery powered sound system to blast slowed down 45s in abandoned rail yards throughout the south all this year. I’m dropping out. Civilization is overrated anyways.

Sunday Slowdown Chapters 11 through 14

I realized I hadn’t put the last four chapters of the Sunday Slowdown series here on my long-time bloggerspot worldwebwide page. So let’s fix that issue.

SLOW ROLLAZ (chapter 014)

Sunday Slowdown chapter 014. Sometimes you gotta slow it down and cruise with a feel good heart, no matter how hard the world tries to make you. This is the Slow Rollaz mix, old school and new school rolas, off the 45 slabs, slowed to 33. Because sometimes it takes two hours to get 15 minutes away.

DOING 35 IN A 55 (chapter 013)

We slowing it down once again, doing 35 in a 55, letting the music play, with a touch of grey to the beard. Slow living is resistance against slow death, so we're riding down the purple highways way off the mainstream interstates, and take our damn time.

DECLARATION OF G.A.S.P. (chapter 012)

Chapter 012 of the Sunday Slowdown series is a Declaration of G.A.S.P. aka Greater Appalachian Space Phunk, declaring ourselves not just hillbilly banjo pickers. We got that electro funk resistance going on because it ain't 1863 no more.

ALL PRAISE DUE TO THE RECORD GODS (chapter 011)

Chapter 011 of the Sunday Slowdown series was just spinning through records from a weekend wander through parts unknown the day before, blessed by The Record Gods, but can't share the spots for fear of unloungers taking them over. We gotta respect the Power of Lounge.

SONG OF THE DAY: Some Woman's Bedroom (kudzu'd)

Been wanting to fuck strange and perhaps crazy women, just to sabotage my life. Sometimes shit gets too stable feeling and that goes against most of my early cellular memories, so I gotta fire some chaos into the mix. Used to be when I drank or got fucked up, it brought all the chaos I’d want. But now that I’ve been sober so long, and held down a job at the same place for over a decade, there’s not a lot of random chaos in my life. You’d think this is a good thing (and it is), but it still makes you (if you’re like me) feel kinda fucked up, like something’s not to be trusted, or just don’t feel right. Do they got healthy chaos? I could use some.

SONG OF THE DAY: Superjock (kudzu'd)

Eh fuck it, this sonnet is about old records, but also human existence.

Each imperfect moment is needed part of whole, 
holistic wabi-sabi like crackles and skips 
in ancient 45, accentuating soul 
sounds with warmth of natural wear and tear, round trips 

on turning tables at times unstable, slight buzz 
of poor grounding creating ever-present hum. 
I prefer the realness of blemishes because 
perfection is fool's errand, letting self become 

sum of path traveled, again like old records, which 
passed hands over decades, picking up local dust 
and accidental scratches or physical glitch 
which can't be fixed, yet learned to live with. I have trust 

in Universe to keep fool self full of fresh funk, 
many folks' most perfect beats are fashioned from junk. 

SONG OF THE DAY: Slow Coastin

I’ve been tormented by Flee Demons lately. I’ve been afflicted with them for as long as I’ve had a conscious mind, since I was little disappearing into fields behind the ragged cinderblock house my young ass folks was renting in Rice, Virginia. Flee Demons just show up in your mind, because you can’t comprehend how to possibly fix everything that’s broken in front of you, can’t possibly begin to clean up the messes piled in every direction, even outside the doors, piled up on the porches, out in the yard. Shit man, you got piles of messes at the last three places you stayed at, in other people’s basements and attics, sitting there with bad memories you left behind for somebody else. Flee Demons are pretty common amongst a lot of folks, but you don’t really see them in popular culture. Pop culture is made for those that got the ability to sit in one place and collect experiences they bought. They don’t have to actually live them all, so they consume what others make and consider it expanding their worldview.
I’d thought I’d gotten the Flee Demons under control, silenced them with a bit of stability and a big old house in the country that leaks air but seems to love me. But then the still life you’re living has some sort of perspective shift, and all of a sudden all the angles look darker and less welcoming. The good life you thought you’d achieved slips further away, without anything actually seemingly changing. But you realize all those piles from forever ago, they’re all still there, piled up in every direction, stuff you can’t throw away but can’t fix either, don’t have the skills or strength or even the desire to figure all of it out. And then the Flee Demons start piping up again, with that siren song of somewhere elseness. I’ve been feeling it heavily, because it’s cold, and I’m tired, and I don’t feel like doing the same thing next Tuesday that I did this Tuesday, so I want to set fire to the stability and run off and start over again, enjoy a brand new puzzle where there are no piles. Fucked up thing is even if I did that, once I sat still for half a year, and started putting the new puzzle together, all those piles would show back up, sitting on the porch again, stacked up beside the couch, filling every hall closet possible.
I don’t know what to do about it. If I can’t get rid of the piles, how do I learn to live with them? Can I at least recycle some of this shit? Setting fire to it never seems to get rid of it, because the ashes are changelings and rearrange the soot back into shape, slowly over time, when you ain’t watching the fire to keep it going constantly. And nobody can be that vigilant with their scorched Earth.
So I’m just sitting here looking at these piles, and hearing the sweet song of the Flee Demons again, thinking about where the westbound line stops to let a coal pass east almost every day around the same time on the weekend, and how I could just sit there and wait to see what all is on the other end of where that train goes. Been hearing that since I was little, and sometimes I wish I’d listened to it better all these years instead of trying to make sense of the senselessness.

SONG OF THE DAY: Saturday Night Fish Fry

I got a fish fryer out in the shed, that had lived in the camper behind the old house when I was still married. I ain’t used that thing nearly enough. Might have to bust it out for my birthday next month. Winter birthdays are tough because it ain’t cookout weather, and you can’t properly celebrate a birthday unless you’re in the yard with a speaker dragged through a window somewhere blasting music. I do got a burn barrel though, which is the winter equivalent to a yard speaker I guess. Anyways, I need to fry some fish.

SONG OF THE DAY: Love Come Down (kudzu'd)

Had to practice some self-love recently, because I'm not sure if you noticed, but the world is FUCKED.

Stay focused on infinity but take it slow. 
Embrace the darkness rather than getting too lost 
in "woe is me" psychology; maintain the flow 
of energy. Stagnant patterns of thinking cost 

chances to scatter experiential phases 
into spaces where your ultimate place is. Stay 
true to heart without succumbing to brain crazes. 
Nowadays is engineered chaos meant to stray 

and lead wayward. Study the celestial maps 
overhead a couple nights a week while seeking 
answers to questions you can't speak. No one unwraps 
this gift of existence completely, so freaking 

out at times is key piece of cultivating soul; 
each imperfect moment is needed part of whole. 

Monday Night Rumble of The Discourse - Winter 2024

So if you are the type to fuck around on youtube, or care about the political discourse (or I guess, not care), then I was commanded to begin another 7-week series of The Monday Night Rumble of The Discourse for Winter 2024. Last week was Week 1 of the 7-week series. Tonight at 10 pm EST will be week 2. Plugging it here because I know everybody goes different places to see different things, and I'm a force of chaotic good who always forgets to scatter his nonsense in all four directions. This may end up being the last season because it's not clear if this stupid game is going to work on my computer anymore in two months (part of the side effects of using obsolete machinery beyond its intended lack of usage).

SONG OF THE DAY: Def Fresh Crew

You can't make a song like this in 2024, because Biz Markie is gone (may his memory be a blessing). If any tech lord tries to AI together a holograph Biz Markie, I hope they get haunted into mysterious car accident. If any tech lord reads this, please use your momey to get those 7-inch Technics tables to drop instead.

SONG OF THE DAY: I Give You Everything You Want (kudzu'd)

Freestyled this one three different ways before I felt okay with it. Alternate versions available in the multiverse.

Another inhumane day, for better or worse, 
juggling the bills while struggling to chill, mean mugging 
the world with chip-toothed dimpled grill; the universe 
sometimes feels a little bit crooked and bugging. 

It is what it is, as they say, this frustrating  
nature of living inside gridlock which divides 
and conquers weakened spirits. No time for hating... 
just showing and proving upon my short Earth rides 

around the sun. Full-blown Aquarius at heart, 
keep it light despite nefarious nature folks 
inclined to cultivate and claim's parcel and part 
of civilization since start, devilish hoax 

meant to keep people's hopes depressed and spirits low; 
stay focused on infinity but take it slow. 

SONG OF THE DAY: Going Down to the River (kudzu'd)

Been a while since I wrote one of these, since I'm doing them for the slowed down 45s I post and nothing else. I don't love this one, but I also don't hate it, but also it mostly make me wish I was sitting in the river, or at least dipping in it right quick to let the cold blast shock me to my better senses. Shit, I should've made that part of the sonnet.

To reverse negative stream of consciousness flow, 
occasionally boom baptize the flesh in fresh 
river water, to let the mind's dirt and grime go. 
No body resists immense threat of life's immesh 

amidst the tangles of physical existence... 
our nature is complicated (yet simply so). 
The tumbleweed of perceived traumas' insistence 
snarls thinking up in squiggly lines, which seems to grow 

as our dreams let go. But the river carries hope 
in constant trickle which cuts through the thickest rock. 
This superficial life becomes too hard to cope 
with, but dips in Rockfish and James maintains my cock 

surety to survive uncertain universe
another inhumane day, for better or worse. 

SONG OF THE DAY: Shady Blues

Been writing the same intro to a new zine over and over and never quite getting it to feel right. Been slogging through the fog mostly, and it never quite does feel right, but thus far I’ve gotten through the daze. Been maintaining some daily practices, and been letting a few others fall to the wayside temporarily. Been trying to envision the future I want while also tending to a present I don’t feel completely immersed in all the time. Got the mud brain, which can be a negative if you’re trying to maintain industrialized mindframe schedules, so I’ve gotta come to terms with that. But a mud brain is a blessing as well, if you use it right, because it puts you closer to the primordial essence of all things, human and other wise. So that’s what I’m trying to do, shifting the stacks of oppressive stuff around, and finding reason to set fire to enough of it that I got more room to breathe and am able to dust off cobwebs that’s been hiding out for a long minute. It’s that internal jihad of positive and negative at atomic level, that manifest into physical jihad between motion and stagnancy.

SONG OF THE DAY: The 900 Number

Time is a social construct, designed to imprison you behind anxieties over what ain't got done yet. It also increases your fear of natural mortality. You ain't got to do nothing but live. Dial my 900 number for more affirmations of fuck it like this. RIP 45 King.