SONG OF THE DAY: Shenandoah

A dude I worked with years ago got me to listening to Bill Frisell at times, and he’s perfect for a certain vibe. But it’s also very “bakery with $4 donuts” type music. I’d love to work on a remix of Bill Frisell’s greatest hits, but with a pack of Morrises and Shiffletts arguing in the background. When I finally get it off the ground, Southern Gothicc Futurist Records is gonna be the shit! Anyways, there are zero Bill Frisell releases on 8-track tape, which tells you all you need to know. (It doesn’t actually tell you all you need to know, but that felt like a nice dramatic thing to say, especially after the $5 donut comment. Except I bet they spell it “doughnut” all the way out and shit there. Yakub is a tricky bastard.)

SONG OF THE DAY: Brass Monkey

“Brass monkey” allegedly came from the colloquialism (that means “shit that old people said”), “Cold enough to freeze a brass monkey’s balls off.” An enterprising person submitted the following in their filing for a patent for a “brass monkey” in January 1987:
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to a release mechanism for releasing an object when the temperature reaches a predetermined release temperature. The release mechanism may be incorporated into a novelty "brass monkey" to "emasculate" the monkey when exposed to a predetermined temperature.
The release mechanism of the invention comprises means defining a passageway for movement of an object to be released and temperature responsive means at least partially obstructing the passageway to prevent movement of the object along the passageway before the temperature of the temperature responsive means reaches a predetermined release temperature. The temperature responsive means moves to open the passageway to allow movement of the object along the passageway when the temperature of the temperature responsive means reaches the predetermined release temperature. In a disclosed, preferred form of the invention the temperature responsive means is a bimetallic strip which is fixedly supported at one end with the opposite free end of the bimetallic strip being positioned for movement toward and away from the passageway for at least partially obstructing the passageway to prevent movement of the object along the passageway before the temperature of the bimetallic strip reaches the predetermined release temperature. The free end of the bimetallic strip moves away from the passageway to open the passageway to allow movement of the object along the passageway when the temperature of the bimetallic strip reaches the predetermined release temperature. The free end of the bimetallic strip is preferably L-shaped for contacting the object to prevent movement thereof along the passageway. A non-metallic tip formed of plastic, for example, can be provided at the free end of the bimetallic strip for contacting the object. The plastic tip can be press-fitted onto the bimetallic strip.
The passageway for movement of an object to be released is inclined with respect to the horizontal in the disclosed embodiment of the invention so that release of the object from the mechanism upon reaching the predetermined release temperature is facilitated by the force of gravity. If the object to be released is at least round in cross section, a round ball is employed in the illustrated embodiment, it is able to roll under the force of gravity down the inclined passageway past the temperature responsive means when the temperature of the temperature responsive means reaches the predetermined release temperature.
The novelty "brass monkey" incorporating the release mechanism of the invention includes a base which is provided beneath the release mechanism for receiving the object released by the release mechanism. The base is designed to produce an audible sound when struck by the balls released from the release mechanism. The base can also be provided with an electrical switch means which is actuated by the ball received by the base. The electrical switch means can be used to activate other devices.
According to a further feature of the invention means are provided for adjusting the predetermined release temperature of the release mechanism. In a preferred form of the invention, this means for adjusting comprises a support for the object to be released and means for adjusting the location of the support, and hence the object thereon, relative to the temperature responsive means.
These and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following description when taken in connection with the accompanying drawings which show, for purposes of illustration only, one embodiment in accordance with the invention.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a side view of a "brass monkey" of the invention shown partially in cross-section through the body of the monkey and illustrating the release mechanism of the invention and the accompanying base and showing two balls to be released from the body when the temperature of a bimetallic strip of the mechanism reaches a predetermined release temperature;
FIG. 2 is a top view of a portion of the release mechanism of the invention of FIG. 1 taken along the line II--II and depicting the bimetallic strip in relation to the two balls to be released from the body of the release mechanism; and
FIG. 3 is an enlarged cross sectional view of a portion of the release mechanism of the invention and illustrating two additional features of the of the invention not shown in FIG. 1 including means for adjusting the predetermined release temperature for releasing the balls from the mechanism and an L-shaped plastic tip press-fitted onto the free end of the bimetallic strip.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DISCLOSED EMBODIMENT
Referring now to the drawings, a release mechanism 1 according to the invention is shown incorporated into a novelty "brass monkey" for releasing balls 2 and 3 from a body 4 of the "brass monkey" at a predetermined release temperature through an opening or passageway 5 in the body.
More specifically, the body 4 comprises a support surface 6 and side walls 7 and 8 which define a passageway for movement of the balls 2 and 3 to be released. A temperature responsive means in the form of a bimetallic strip 9 at least partially obstructs the passageway to prevent movement of the object along the passageway 5 before the temperature of the bimetallic strip reaches a predetermined release temperature. The bimetallic strip is fixedly supported at one end in a slot 10 in the body 4 by crimping the portions of the body on either side of the slot 10 against the bimetallic strip or otherwise fastening the strip therein as by soldering, for example. The opposite free end of the bimetallic strip is positioned for movement toward and away from the passageway 5 for at least partially obstructing the passageway to prevent movement of the balls 2 and 3 along the passageway and past the strip 9 before temperature of the bimetallic strip reaches the predetermined release temperature. The bimetallic element 9 is made by welding together two strips of metal having different coefficients of expansion. For example, the two strips of metal may be invar (iron-nickel alloy) and brass. A change in temperature causes the bimetallic element or composite strip to bend an amount proportional to the temperature. Thus, when the temperature drops to a predetermined release temperature, the free end of the bimetallic strip 9 moves upwardly to the position shown in dashed lines in FIGS. 1 and 3 thereby releasing the balls 2 and 3 for movement through the opening or passageway 5 of the body 4.
Preferably, the free end of the bimetallic strip 9 is L-shaped so that the free end of the strip contacts the adjacent ball to prevent movement thereof along the passageway before the temperature of the bimetallic strip reaches the predetermined release temperature. As shown in FIG. 3 of the drawings, the L-shaped tip 11 of the bimetallic strip 9 may be formed of plastic with the tip 11 being press-fitted onto the bimetallic strip.
The support surface 6 of the body 4 which defines the passageway 5 for movement of the balls to be released is preferably inclined with respect to the horizontal. This inclination is 5° to 7° in the illustrated embodiment. With this arrangement, the force of gravity causes the balls to roll down the support surface 6 and out the opening in the bottom of the body 4 when the bimetallic strip moves away from the passageway at the predetermined release temperature.
A means 12 can be provided in the release mechanism for adjusting the predetermined release temperature as shown in FIG. 3 of the drawings. The means 12 comprises a support 6' for the balls 2 and 3 and means in the form of adjusting screws 13 and 14 for adjusting the location of the support 6' relative to the bimetallic strip. Adjustment of the screws 13 and 14 changes the spacing between the support 6' and the free end of the bimetallic strip 9. Since the amount of bending of the bimetallic strip is proportional to the temperature, changing the relative spacing between the support 6' and the free end of the bimetallic strip necessarily changes the release temperature at which the balls 2 and 3 can roll unobstructed past the free end of the bimetallic strip.
A base 15 of the novelty "brass monkey" is provided beneath the release mechanism to receive the balls released by the mechanism. Both the body 4 of the "brass monkey" and the base 15 are preferably formed of metal with the base 15 having a hollow form so as to produce an audible sound when struck by the balls released from the body 4. The balls 2 and 3 successively drop from the body 4 onto an inclined top step 16 of the base from where they progressively roll and drop through additional steps 17, 18, 19 and 20 formed on the base as shown in FIG. 1. An electrical switch 21 can be provided in the base, for example adjacent the bottom step 20 for actuation by the balls. In particular, the switch 21 is provided with a plunger located in a position where it is contacted and depressed by the ball 2 when the ball is received in the lower step 20 of the base. The electrical switch 21 can, in turn, be used to activate other devices such as a bell tone or chimes, for example. Once the balls have been dropped from the body 4 by the release mechanism, and the temperature has increased above the predetermined release temperature, the balls can be returned to the body 4 by inserting them through the bottom opening 5 in the body in which case the bimetallic strip 9 is pushed upwardly momentarily at its free end for insertion of the balls onto the support surface of the body, or the balls may be inserted in another opening, not shown, provided in the side of the body adjacent the support surface 6.
While I have shown and described only one embodiment in accordance with the present invention, it is understood that the same is not limited thereto, but is susceptible to numerous changes and modifications as known to those skilled in the art. For example, the release mechanism and base of the invention are not limited to use in a novelty "brass monkey" but could be used in other applications for releasing balls and/or a variety of other objects. For example, lightweight cylinders could be permitted to roll down the inclined support surface upon reaching a predetermined release temperature. Further, the bimetallic element in the release mechanism could be in a form other than a strip and also could be oriented so as to release an object with an increase in temperature to a predetermined release temperature instead of with a decrease in temperature to a predetermined release temperature as in the disclosed embodiment of the invention. Therefore, I do not wish to be limited to the details shown and described herein, but intend to cover all such changes and modifications as are encompassed by the scope of the appended claims.

SONG OF THE DAY: Gates of Hell

Masked Assassins always lurk around every corner, looking to chop off a true beard. True beard and fake beard discourse has always been stifled in our culture, because we live in a Great Time of Fake Beards. You see them, in fact, donning masks, and being the Secret Police lately, looking to kidnap people at work, on a “per head” bounty quota where the more they disappear people, the fatter their paycheck gets. These are fake beards, and you need not shave their face, because when they pull the balaclava down, the weakness of their bed is obvious. It is moisturized by the Yakubian propaganda they climb into through their handheld portals. A true beard is more akin to a blackberry bush, an as wild and wonderful as the worst towns in West Virginia. True beards cannot be trimmed, except by fire. This is also how a true beard’s soul is, because it is powered by heart (fire organ) and not brain (easily poisoned well of consciousness).
Thus, Masked Assassins lurk, working for the devil state, hoping to steal a true beard’s wizardly wisps of contrarian knowledge. But even if they chop it off, it’s a false victory, because the wisps have grown inward as long as they’ve grown outwards, and the visual hairs return more rapidly than a fake beard could ever hope to grow it (with all his fancy pseudo-scientific beard oil in the world). And the Masked Assassins can never chop the internal beard of a true beard. So they concentrate on poisoning more minds and growing the ranks of the false beards. But they are all weak-souled men, and they will once again scrape the false beards from their faces to appear as smooth as a baby’s ass, because they have no elderly wisdom accumulated over the generations, and desire that childlike smoothness, in both themselves and their partners. Though they appear strong right now, they are inherently weak, and a true beard will always outlive these incursions of unlounge.

SONG OF THE DAY: Don't Stop The Music (screwed & chopped)

I HAVE A DJ GIG ON JUNE 27TH, WHICH IS UNOFFICIALLY DJ SCREW DAY, AT GUAJIROS IN CHARLOTTESVILLE. I HAD BEGUN RECENTLY TO QUESTION MYSELF, AND MAYBE NOT PLAY SLOWED 45S, TO PRESENT MUSIC MORE NORMALLY, MORE LIKE A FRIDAY EVENING’S VERSION OF A SUNDAY BRUNCH CROWD WOULD LIKE. IT’S SO HARD TO GET FOLKS TO GO DO ANYTHING OUTSIDE OF THEIR DIGITAL BUBBLES, OTHER THAN GO TO WORK. AND LIKE ANYBODY PERFORMING, YOU WANT FOLKS TO ENJOY WHAT YOU DO. BUT TO BE HONEST, I CAN’T COMPROMISE THE VISION, EVEN IF NOT EVERYBODY UNDERSTANDS IT OR FEELS IT. SLOWED MUSIC IS COMMITMENT TO THE SLOWED LIFE, AND HUSTLE AND GRIND MENTALITY IS KILLING US ALL. WE ARE NOT GEARS IN A MACHINE; WE ARE BEINGS IN A BLESSED ORGANIC ASS FIELD OF CHAOS MEANT TO LACKADAISICALLY ENJOY OUR TIME. THAT TIME IS NOT MEANT TO BE A CALENDAR FULL OF PRISON BOXES, WHERE WE “KEEP APPOINTMENTS” LIKE A FUCKIN’ DOCTOR OF UNLOUNGE. TIME IS ARBITRARY, AND NO MATTER HOW MUCH OF IT YOU GET, IF YOU MAKE THE GOOD OUT OF AS MUCH OF IT AS POSSIBLE, THEN YOU DIDN’T WASTE IT. I MEAN LOOK, WE GOT A MISERABLE ASS 84 YEAR OLD WANNABE KING RIGHT NOW, WHO’S WASTED HIS LIFE IN PURSUIT OF GOLD PLATED DELUSIONS. I AM GOING TO DIG THROUGH THE IMMENSE AND EXTENSIVE STACKS, PULL OUT A FEW BOXES OF THE FUNKIEST BOOGIEFIED G-BODY ASS LITTLE RECORDS I GOT, AND COME FUCK IT UP FOR 3 HOURS. WORD IS BOND. DON’T STOP THE MUSIC.

SONG OF THE DAY: The Girls They Love Me (screwed & chopped)

Syrup & Soda is my absolute favorite DJ Screw tape. Nothing else even comes close, to be honest. He’s in such a zone on this one (Chapter 046 in the anti-chronological Screw discography), with a heavy old school set on Side A. But he’s not just playing the tracks, he’s fuckin’ it up on the tables, juggling “The Girls They Love Me” and “Love’s Gonna Get You” to his heart’s content. And even on Side B, when it gets to that west coast gangsta funk Screw tapes are more known for, he still sprinkles in a Slick Rick track, and fills out the end of the second side of the tape (remember, these were all originally 100-minute Maxell mixtapes) with “Juicy”. Just an absolute classic, and whenever somebody wants me to tell them where to start, I go to this one. Of course, who the fuck is gonna listen to a whole ass 100-minute mixtape, in the order it was originally released? You. You should at least. Most all his tapes are the Internet Archive.

SONG OF THE DAY: Runnin' The Underground (screwed & chopped)

I have been inactive on this site, but not in real life. Despite my inactivity, site stats continue to be through the roof. The internet is just a vast wasteland of bots scanning bots and creating statistics for other bots. Somewhere in there, one or two of us might actually connect, all the while they’re scooping data from our interactions to beam neurologically triggering ads straight to us wherever possible. It’s fucked.
All these systems are working very well, because they’re designed to break us. What’s happening with The Secret Police conducting masked kidnappings of working people from their jobs is no different. It’s those poisoned by the algorithm moving into action. At this point, the digital propaganda is like Lyme disease… it’s jumped the fence and moving unchecked. It’s hard to know if the tyrants in charge are controlling it or just suffering from it (or both). Either way, consent is being manufactured and the fog machines are rolling on high, and Chief Bromden was always right.
I suggest to you to create. But fuck shit up with what you create. Fuck monetizing your creations. Break shit with your creations. Stab devils in the eyeballs with your creations. It feels good actually. The moral high-grounders are beating the “non-violence is the only way” drum right now, but those people are boring. They have shitty taste in music, and put raisins in potato salad. Fuck them. They are the cousins to the devils (on the devils’ father’s side, too).
I hope you are alive. And if you are alive, even more than that, I hope you feel alive. And if you don’t, go fuck something up that is making you feel less than alive, and see if that relieves some of the pressure. Burn bridges where you can see the other side is full of shit. Be difficult to those who demand their lives be easy at everybody else’s expense. And keep it underground. Don’t get lost in aspirations or ambitions or a desire to monetize your creations. There’s a lot of tricks in this goddamn carnival, so don’t get conned too easily. Be fuckin’ difficult.

SONG OF THE DAY: straight loungerism

The Rights of Nature is the same as The Power of Lounge. Just because bighead scientist men refuse to recognize all this because they didn’t engineer it in their social laboratories doesn’t mean it ain’t real. Good human beings are getting fewer and further between, poisoned by the copper wires wirelessly connected to their stream of consciouses. And ironically, those of us who feel these things at a deep intuitive level will look at it and say, “Wild!” when it’s the exact opposite.

SONG OF THE DAY: El Cuerno de Chivo

Ah yes, the joys of country and urban mixed together, in the tale of the clip of an assault rifle resembling a goat’s horn. There’s a Chalino Sanchez multi-part documentary you can see on Vix, should you be like me and get it to watch Liga MX, and it’s pretty great. This genre of music is such a strange and beautiful one that only could have come from Mexico.

SONG OF THE DAY: Sunny Day (slowed & throwed)

It has been raining most the week, including a bit of that super heavy rain from atmospheric rivers that the surface of the Earth ain’t really known for too long (climate a changin’), so parts of roads got washed out but I’m on high ground. Still though, the roof took a testing, and wherever that leak was last year that I think was from overflowing gutters (since that seemed to fix it) is always looming overhead, and I gotta replace a couple little pieces of siding that fell off, but I stepped on one in my slides (the green and white ones) and took a nail into my foot, so when it’s nice outside, I’m mad at those pieces. And when it rains, and I worry about it, I ain’t going out there to fix it. Nonetheless, had a brief blast of sunshine, and it’ll be back this weekend, and it’s gonna be hot (all that wet baking back out the Earth) and that sticky ass humid, but I’m alive, and well. That’s all one can ask, on a daily basis, and you don’t even have to have the “well” to see tomorrow. My advice, as we trickle through our Friday afternoon on the bipolarizing Earth being managed mostly by delusional dipshits, is to take it slow. Every day is a blessing and every lazy hour is a double of that, and I pray that life is not crushing you, wherever you are out there.

SONG OF THE DAY: Country Rap Tune (screwed and chopped)

Tow Down is a wild anomaly in the world of white rappers. “Country Rap Tune” is a certified all-time banger, featuring Big Hawk and Big Pokey, and getting the screwed and chopped treatment with a voiceover from DJ Screw himself that probably done got more plays than the original album version, by a lot. The video is hilariously of the era, with Tow Down driving a little ass car painted up like the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard, and set in all the normal “I’m mixing country and rap together” locales you’d expect from that time – a farm and barn and farmer’s daughter getting tow down in the hay loft, and an overall poor dental hygience redneck chasing him with a shotgun. The whole video is basically an episode of Dukes of Hazzard, with Hawk rapping in the barn and Pokey sitting on a Boss Hogg Cadillac outside a drinking hole. Tow Down’s verse is hot, and up to snuff with the two Screwed Up Click heavyweights on this one. I still think that “I’m not Garth Brooks, but I got friends in low places,” line weekly in my head.
The wild shit is you never really heard nothing else come from Tow Down. But that first CD he had featured a slew of Houston legends. Looks like he did a little stint with his brother for a marijuana bust a decade back, but he’s still chasing those hip hop dreams, with his own record label, promoting shows, and flipping houses maybe (according to a linkedin account). But the phrase “country rap tune” ended up describing a whole genre, which after that initial wave of guys like Bubba Sparxxx and Haystak, has steadily declined into some weird ass reverse psychology rural minstrel show. And a lot of those old southern white rappers are making money off paid features, to stay semi-relevant in this country rap genre.
I find it weird, because a lot of Prolo’s releases over the years would fit this genre, before it was a genre, but I’d be embarrassed if a lot of these newer dudes ever asked me to spit on a track. I’d take that shit is a sign of my own inherent wackness. But to Tow Down’s credit, he’s not in that realm, and he’s putting out music by new Houston rappers, and keeping it multicultural (as it should be) instead of disappearing into the weird “whites only” hip hop lane some of these guys shifted into.
But the most amazing thing, to me, is back then, when this song dropped, Tow Down had his own signature hairstyle. And I’m not really even sure how to describe it. When he’s wearing a ballcap, it looks kinda like he’s got Willie Nelson braids, but in four instead of just two. But what he actually was rocking was these four super curls styled to come off his head in quadrants. It’s a wild style, even for back then. But get this… HE’S STILL GOT THAT SHIT. Except now he’s 25 years older, got a grey fox beard going on, and those four super curls are super long. It’s like a whiteboy was all of a sudden hanging out with DJ Quik and Suga Free in that imitating Michael McDonald clip.
Anyways, this song is still an all-time banger. Don’t get it twisted (like Tow Down’s hair).

SONG OF THE DAY: Danny's Song (live)

I don’t know who came up with the term “yacht rock” but I bet he’s an asshole (and I’m sure he’s a he). Whoever he is, I bet he actually gets mad about wanting to be acknowledged as the person who came up with the term “yacht rock”. I bet it’s in his social media bio, irregardless of what kind of character limit is there. (Yeah, I used “irregardless” as a word, because the type of dude who invents “yacht rock” as a term and then gets mad about people not giving him the proper credit for thinking that stupid shit up is exactly the type of guy that will explain to you how “irregardless” ain’t a word, even though when you read that shit, you knew what I meant, because that’s how words work, even if you refuse to acknowledge them being an official real people word.)

By the way, this double album got played a lot in my household growing up. I can sing the fuck out of this song any minute of any day, and when it comes on, I got a head full of memories playing with my secondhand off-brand toys while this was blasting. It's a double LP, but I can tell you from my memories, that my folks played Side A specifically way the fuck more than anything else (which this song is off of). Anyways, if I ever get married to the beech tree behind the house like I've been wanting to for a while now, this is gonna be our wedding song.

SONG OF THE DAY: Diamond in the Back (chopped and screwed)

It’s pretty simple… be thankful for what you got, and then slow it down even further. About to take a four hour ride 15 minutes away, window down, and the screwed slow jams blasting.
I considered putting the actual song title up on the heading there, but one thing I love about the chaos that has come from digitally archiving old Screw tapes is all the data ain't right. This one's been labelled the wrong thing for decades now, which might make it the right thing by now. Who am I to judge (or jury)?

SONG OF THE DAY: Time of the Preacher

Some “tugging at the roots of family” energy swirled in today, blurring the lines of spirituality and random chance of the Universe, which isn’t really blurred at all but the exact same thing, except Earthly people have perverted spirit into dogma and ruined the power of it for folks like me. Someone in Minnesota benched an old dirtgod moniker from 4 years ago which said “Dot & Tuna’s Firstborn”, and at the same time, I’m discussing the tendrils of alcoholism with my own offspring, while also receiving a poem submission for my zine from an amazing young person in West Virginia who wrote about the “synthetic exhilaration” that certain families chase, and when this young poet read her poem in West Virginia a few weeks ago, I was sitting at a table nearby, sort of MCing the affairs at that point, and she read, “And the children? Doomed from conception,” and I wanted to cry on the spot, and then wanted to cry again when I read it today in my inbox, and it’s one of those lines of poetry that is a shovel that struck the septic tank everybody forgot where it was located, and now the shit is leaking into the yard, but it had to happen. It’s been a time of the preacher since most all our stories began, but the words have been hollowed out by blank-eyed sermonizers more worried about the weight of the collection plate than helping sinners to love themselves. When one scans the environment and sees all these people who appear doomed, and feel doomed themselves, a compassionate response would never be one of condemnation (or deportation, or denial of humanity). I hate to see the patterns repeat, and the ripples of time still rippling all around me, tossing about those I love, even if I have figured out how to halfway shimmy my own ass up on this rock and feel less susceptible to them. And from your own struggles, you know how slippery and slimy the rock is trying to crawl up out the muck, and how good the momentary exhilaration of embracing the shit show can pretend to be. And you can share the possibility of climbing up on the rocks into the sunshine, but you can’t do it for nobody else. Shit, they might get up on your rock and be mad at you because it ain’t how they hoped anyways, and then they slide back down into it all, and start bouncing around inside the chaotic ripples of the doomed, and you love them, and you want to make it all better, but you can’t. You’re just a person, not a god. “Now the preachin’ is over, and the lesson’s begun.” Hopefully.

SONG OF THE DAY: Crees Que Soy Sexy?

I shall always appreciate people gyrating sexually who don’t look like HBO Max prestige TV ready characters visually. Ugly people are immensely beautiful, and not the true uglies. We all only have one body we are imprisoned inside of upon our Earthly existence, thus it is a good idea to maximize your serotonin induction. Fuck the haters (but not literally).

SONG OF THE DAY: So Real (slowed and throwed)

Been listening to a lot of DJ Screw lately. That’s just how it is sometimes.

SONG OF THE DAY: Enough Rope

I am one of those contrary ass types that thinks neither country music or Americana has a solid claim on actual rural country art. The country music industry has been so hyperpop for decades now, not to mention heavily politically reactionary. And Americana is simultaneously an opposite type of reactionary while also that weird classist “gentrified bakery in a formerly abandoned industrial part of town where brown people used to live” that I can’t stand with that all that confidently either. However, even while not feeling like either of those binaries represents a good country story, I can say without doubt, that this fuckin’ song gets it, and get to it.

SONG OF THE DAY: Overnight Scenario

I am older now, so when I hear the timetable for “Overnight Scenario”, it’s absolutely exhausting. Like, I’m gonna have to be in a crazy fired up mood just to make it til 3 at the pancake house. But we can eat quick and get to the house before 4. And a whole ‘other hour before the lights go out? What the fuck are we doing? And sure, six in the morning, hearing her start to shout is a great notion, but to be honest, can’t we just come home early, fuck, then go out to breakfast, have a couple café con leches and think about doing it again some other time? There ain’t enough energy drinks my chicken grease constrained heart can stand to be pulling this schedule off anymore.

SONG OF THE DAY: Ghetto Red Hot

There are certain sounds that perfectly encapsulate early ‘90s era hip hop and its influence on other genres, and this was also a time I lived in Richmond and tended to walk downtown with Boogie Brown on Friday afternoons to buy records at Willie’s, and downtown Richmond back then was WAY DIFFERENT. You’d have tons of people hanging out, waiting on the bus, or just kicking it downtown on Broad Street, and cars would be cruising, just BLASTING music, like ungodly levels of blast, but which still sounded crispy clear with immense thump. There’s like 3 or 4 beats that specifically just fire up those memories in my mind, to where I can smell the heaty stank of the city again, and this is one of them.

SONG OF THE DAY: Five Minutes of Funk (screwed & chopped)

I always look forward to the redbud blossoms in the spring, even though I love all the daffodils and tulips and forsythia and blackberry blossoms and phlox spreading further as well. But there’s something about the redbuds once they pop, the days are getting warmer, I can sleep with the windows open at night, and I know I survived another year. Yesterday, I went back in the woods and got a handful to eat, and need to go back out and get more today, too. Such a satisfying crispy flavor full of life and raw energy.
And inevitably, once redbuds season hit, I always think in my mind that it’s proof that Allah loved DJ Screw, because the redbuds are such a lovely purple pink shade, and since my windows are down on the car because it’s warm again, and the roads have all these redbuds showing themselves like a magical mist this time of year, brightening the sides of the human paths and edges of the woods, mystical corpus callosum bridges between nature and man, I end up also starting to bump DJ Screw mixes again. His body of work was immense in his lifetime, having made far more redbud blossoms worth of mixtapes than having lived for less than three decades would suggest. And since my ancient iMac died, killing with it over a decade of musical data, which can’t be reimported because I’ve got too much shit for an internal hard drive, and it has to travel between eras as external vagabond of audio, I’ve been revisiting them Screw tapes afresh, finding myself drawn to some stuff I’d always loved for a while now, and discovering new segments of tapes I never bumped all that much as well. One of my favorites, both old and new exploration, is the tinkering with “Five Minutes of Funk”, originally by Whodini.
One of the great things about Screw becoming so famous is all he did was make mixtapes constantly, for immediate sale, to people who bumped his shit. He did it prolifically and as regular as the sunrise. Eventually he got a shop, to avoid cops harassing him at home for the long lines, and they put out tapes as they could. When you go online, they’re laid out in “chapters” with three-digit numbers, but those aren’t in any chronological order. It’s just how they got reissued or released at the Screwed Up Records Shop, or who the fuck knows. They still keep finding some. The track data for this song on my hard drive claims it’s Leanin’ n The Leans, but that doesn’t match what shows up online now, for Chapter 219 by that name. And it’s a pretty amazing example of DJ Screw’s actual DJ skills, juggling the song, mixing and scratching, working from instrumental and vocal versions, and just generally fucking it up like only he could. Screw was an outsider artist in hip hop, just doing what he did without thinking it needed to be cataloged or categorized. So now, decades later, when the University of Houston has a DJ Screw archive, and is trying to do just that, it’s impossible work. It’s like when Han Shan aka Cold Mountain, the T’ang era poet, was discovered by a bureaucrat, so they sent folks out into the woods to gather what poems of his they could find written on stones and inside caves, and that became what we know now as Cold Mountain’s poetry. I actually emailed the archivist in charge of the Screw collection at Houston, asking her about the chronology of all the tapes, because I was thinking about trying to do that, and she said as far she knew, it hadn’t been done. Folks had rough year ideas for many of the Screw tapes, but no hard dates whatsoever, not even months.
I didn’t follow through with it, because it was more work than I cared to do. I’d rather just be riding down a back road, soaking up another spring’s redbud ambiance, and blasting Screw myself, rather than trying to dissect and analyze and categorize and pin it down further like poking a butterfly to a piece of cardboard to prove how beautiful the wings were, killing the creature in the process. Just ride with it.
And the great lesson of Screw, the great Saint of Southern Gothicc Futurism, is that by slowing it down, you extend the beauty. Five minutes of funk becomes almost nine minutes, thus we extend the goodness of our life, but slowing the fuck down, and letting the good parts ride a little extra, and letting the regular parts, and even the occasional mistakes, just pass on by without calling attention to it. Goddamn, I love me some Screw.

SONG OF THE DAY: My Thing

Just another simple old jam resurrected from the dustbins by a reissue label. I love both sides of this 45, both sound good slowed, but in the ol’ ancient mp3 phone I play in the car, “My Thing” got the heavier rotation, at regular speed.

SONG OF THE DAY: Cry My Tears Away

This is such a great song. There’s so much good modern souldies music happening nowadays, that it makes me wonder why the fuck I don’t have a ’63 Bel Air painted purple that I’m saving up for nice rims for that I just ride around in blasting shit like this, driving nowhere in particular and everywhere at once, one finger waving at strangers and doing the solemn head nod sideways arm to those I know. Wherever Raven is doing that in the multiverse, I’d like to venmo money for a tank of gas.

SONG OF THE DAY: Cumbia Pa Morirme (kudzu'd)

I was thinking back on the first older folks I encountered who had been brainwashed by too much Rush Limbaugh radio or Fox News tv, and how they were seemingly normal people who just got worse and worse as the diminished cognitive ability and disinformation seepage into their stream of consciousness made them unbearable to even casually talk to. I was thinking on this because there’s a pretty large abundance of people like this, who you can’t even discuss anything with, because if you disagree, they immediately flip on some reactionary defensive counter accusation based on the binaries they’ve been programmed with, which generally speaking have nothing to do with what I’m saying. And in all the fear and loathing about how quickly the illusion of American democracy is being destroyed, very little is being said about how many people are brainwashed by digital media sources, much less how we can ever get beyond that. And there were people pointing this out in 2016, but instead of doing anything, it’s just been left unchecked to get worse over the past decade.

A woman who used to watch my oldest when she was younger has been lost. She even took my kid to Great Britain with her daughter… that’s how much we trusted her. But she got lost to the rabbitholes and is now a Make America Healthy Again wingnut who has lost all real friends and mostly just posts to an adoring bot community on X. I saw her last fall at an opening of a play, but didn’t say hello because she had that mentally ill thousand yard star in her eyeballs, that I knew I wouldn’t be talking to the person I used to know, because that person has been altered into something else, a hollow shell of a human that still walks and talks and shits and eats and thinks it’s thinking when it’s actually just regurgitating the programming they’ve willing consumed.

I was thinking about this the other day talking with my girlfriend, too, and how bluesky can feel so demoralizing because there’s such a sense of doom, with little joy. And also how Palestinian activists, during the height of online protests, were demanding we all watch the atrocities seen in video clips, as if it was our duty to witness those horrors. There is no gauge on these things that tell us when we’ve reached our limit, that we’ve had enough. There’s no bar at the top of our screen letting us know, “Okay, you’ve consumed enough horror for the day… log off for the night.” We just keep sucking from the demoralizing tit of social media, feeling worse and worse about it all.

Today’s horror of the day is the dimwitted devils are threatening to cut the VA staff by a large chunk. Anybody who’s ever gone to a VA hospital knows it’s already a slow and tedious process, but depended upon by a lot of people. Bob was my step-grandfather, and I have fond memories of riding with him in his truck to the VA hospital off Hull Street in Richmond – over an hour drive each way, which he had to do in order to get the care he needed. He’d take me to an all you can eat cafeteria style buffet afterwards, and it was such a treat. He was a good dude, and for all intents and purposes all of our grandfather. But we just called him Bob, and he had throat cancer but the trach never healed so he had the voice box you stuck under the tongue, and he’d click it at us.

Bob and my grandmother lived in a trailer most of my life, after the first few years. The trailer was in a segregated trailer park in Farmville, Virginia, through the woods from the projects. I spent a lot of time there, and it was exciting on weekends because they had cable and I could watch World Championship Wrestling on Saturdays. Wasn’t no cable at my country house, not even possible. It didn’t exist. Even when they moved their trailer to down below my mom’s house, they got a satellite, which was much cheaper by that time, and Bob and Gramma would watch baseball. My grandma loved the Braves, but they’d watch the Cubs too… basically if baseball was on, it was in the background.

A lot of what we’re filling our time with is just that – filling our time as background. I wonder if old people could’ve just had free access to baseball all these years, would we have less brainwashed folks? They could be mad about free agent signings instead of tricked into thinking Venezuelan gangs were taking over cities.

I actually watched like 5 minutes of Fox News a few weeks back, just to see what it was bantering about. I found it shockingly hateful. It was some sort of pseudo-talk show trying to be funny, but all the jokes were cruel, and it all was just sugar coating for driving home talking points for the bullshit going on right now by the dimwitted devils. It was well produced bullshit, basically, but I imagine if I left that on in the background every night, thinking it was useful, I’d start to think like that. That’s how propaganda works. None of us are impervious to it. It’s not a free will thing the entire way, as it eventually turns into neurological manipulation. And with long covid and how much digital consumption we all have now, who knows what early dementia rates are going to look like in a decade. And of course, the act of scientific study itself is being dismantled at the same time. It’s all pretty crazy to be living through, and wondering how violent the summer is going to be, whether there’s going to be elections in 4 years, or 2 years, and if so, how many among us will still be allowed to attend the theater of voting.

I guess I say all this as a reminder that you don’t have to absorb all the seepage from the poisonous political swamp that is the United States right now. It may not do you any good to do so anyways. And I also remind you that America, the land and place, had people here and existed before the United States. And using history as a guide, it’s more likely than not going to still exist after the United States is gone. That’s likely hard for some folks to accept, because we’ve so deeply internalized this notion that the United States is a uniquely special snowflake amidst human history, that shall never be melted by the political hells known to all other people throughout time. I find myself still untangling some of those meritocracy myths lately, expecting checks and balance might still check and balance, when in actuality, like every other government or empire or nation-state throughout time, all it takes is one small group to aggressively put their thumbs on the scales to fuck it all up. The propaganda, the dehumanization of your actual neighbors, the steadfast denial of reality until the horrors swallow you personally… it’s all been seen before, many times over.

And people lived beyond it. They still had moments of joy amidst the worst times, for the most part. There are pretty horrible atrocities that have happened where it’s hard to imagine folks still finding joy in there. And I still tell myself these dimwitted devils aren’t competent enough to create that level of atrocity; they’ll just smash a bunch of shit thinking they can do it better, and make a few dollars off the upgrade, until they realize they can’t easily replicate a labyrinth of public service that took centuries to build.

I don’t really have nothing hopeful to end this on. I’m just sharing my thoughts today. All of what’s going on is hard for many people in many different ways, and to varying levels. I know of people who have lost jobs already. I also know folks struggling with their health right now, so the politics is background anxiety to life and death worries. Life remains life, and if you still got it, you gotta live it. I hope you are still able to practice finding joy in your life, and I hope that never stops. I hope you are able to share joy when possible. I know I hope I do. I want the world to be better, and feel better, because of my actions and how I am. Not worse. And I just can’t understand how people can think they make the world better through cruelty. I hope they have to answer for it at some point down the road, but that’s not my role in this universe.

SONG OF THE DAY: Cumbia de E.T. (kudzu'd)

I don’t know, I don’t really have anything clever to say, it’s a nice day and I’m trying to stop pretending to work so I can go sit outside… great day to blast cumbia rebajadas around a trash barrel fire. I hope wherever you are in life, your neighbors aren’t assholes.

SONG OF THE DAY: I'm A Hobo

Just a little Sunday hobo throwback track, because even if the world falls apart, you can hopefully still walk away and disappear. They can never cancel the right to disappear from civilization.