These Boots Was Made What For Walking

I've been listening to a lot of old David Allan Coe lately, thanks to my ace boon limey Sicknote inside the Secret Clubhouse, and the greatest song ever forever and of all-time (of the last four attention spans of my brain) is "Walkin' Bum" by David Allan Coe. First off, Buckstone County Prison is a great ass record, and has the "Mississippi Woman" and "West Virginia Man" songs I have fucking loved forever, as it's old David Allan Coe, not really full-blown country yet, kind of a weird prison degenerate redneck Jerry Lee Lewis rock-n-country on speed type thing. Penitentiary Blues is another good album (in the form of cyber-codes that play on little machines inside my house) and has the "Walkin' Bum" song, which touches on some shit I've often thought about and have used in The Back Roads Ninjitsu Manual. One time, I visited this dude I knew out in Boulder, Colorado, and he was hung-up on his hang-ups, full color ohm back tattoo and shit, but sort of missing his mountain soul (sorry bro if you happenstance upon this). I went to some park like 8 miles away from his crib and said I'd walk. He was like, "I'll give you a ride man," like I was a fool for walking. But seriously, you ride by shit, you fly by, you don't see it or even begin to see all the great stupid things that great stupid people build in their little microcosms of a life. So I walked, step by step, through Boulder's sterile streets, up into the hills, and just vibed on it all. It was fine, nothing amazing, but I got a lot more out of that trip by walking than by cruising up, looking around, then cruising back in creature comfort. This led to a big part of a chapter in the rojonekku manual where there's a trailer park of seven trailers (based on Lindy Hamlet's Trailer Park in Hampden-Sydney, VA) and the student/kids/delinquents live in the trailer park, and oftentimes are moved from one trailer to the next in a process to get into the main big house on the compound, to truly know every trailer in that park, instead of just passing them by to their one. All the toilet handle jiggles and soft spots in the plywood by the leaky door and window with no screen that you can't leave open unless you want mosquitoes on your ass and moths all around the lights. Every detail becomes reality when you are more connected to something. I think this is part of the reason I've never flown, because I'm not afraid of flying at all. It just doesn't seem right to me, and I'm not of the lot in life where I have some godawful important bullshit where I have to be a thousand miles away in ten hours. I actually don't even like riding the interstates on road trips, preferring the old main roads that are clogged with stoplights and rundown hotels and strip malls and humanity. But fuck it man, I'm from all that shit too. And you run into cool ass things sometimes, so long as it's not new-fangled suburban sprawl with the same 23 stores you see everywhere. But even there, when you get to the edge where all the Mexicans live and there's a Big Lots, you can go into the Goodwill and find you a really nice authentic alternate black shamrock Boston Celtics Paul Pierce jersey with the embroidered numbers and name and all that shit for $4. Can't get that on the interstate.
Where I grew up in life is, to this day, at least an hour away from any U.S. interstate. And this is in Virginia, albeit southside VA - the home of textile mills with plywood windows and more crabgrass than cars in the parking lot. But still, an hour from the interstate makes me proud to be away from all that bullshit. Where I live now is only like 20 minutes from the interstate, which sucks, and you can tell. My neighbors think they live in the country, but they keep their lawn cut and don't like us having chickens and tall grass and freezers on the front porch and regular country folk things like that. At least I suspect they don't like it. Most of them don't hardly talk at us that often, unless pressed, which I like to do at times. Funny thing is the family that owns most things around here are country as fuck and all have nicknames like Gook or Beetle or Stump. They're good dudes too it seems most of the time. Seems like those dudes respect us having chickens and kids playing on homemade contraptions in the back yard and extra camper trailers out back with the light on all night long during the weekend.
Lately I've been wearing bandanas like Tommy Chong did because my hair's not quite long enough for a ponytail (unless I want the front sides to fall out and dangle while the rest is pulled back and look like some coffeeshop homo poet type). Dudes have been flashing me the peace sign at times, which bugs me, and one dude at the hardware store started talking about the '60s and free love and shit. Man, I was born in '73, I'm just holding my goddamned hair back. I think when I'm not so broke, I should go to the bar in town in my Tommy Chong bandana and get good and drunk and start a fight with one of those short little stocky redneck types who walk around like they were born a Marine and usually have some sort of rockin' ass tattoo they saw on a CD cover in high school. When people make me feel like too much of a hippie, I like to assert my alpha male hyperactivity. And then usually I'll realize, "Man, you were wearing a fucking Chong bandana and a pair of overalls with a Paul Pierce authentic jersey and some robot socks-looking ass new-fangled Converse sneaks... it's confusing and you do look half a fucking dirty hippie with your beard and all." And I laugh the type of laugh I laugh to myself at the world being the butt of my continuous humor.
Seriously though, I'm pretty proud of myself. So far as I know, I'm the first person in my family to graduate college (other than my cousin, who also graduated one semester before me, but we're the only two, and she failed sixth grade and I caught up to her and she got good grades from that point on, so I obviously secretly motivated her), and I'm the first person in my family - at least that I know of in my lifetime - that has chickens. I also had goats. I'm a true Renaissance man, if during the Renaissance they got useless degrees in stupid shit that didn't help them at all in life other than put them in debt that they ignore until hopefully it all blows up and goes away, and they had animals in their back yard. I never studied Renaissance studies in college, and honestly am not even sure if I spelled it right. (I cut spell check off automatic because fuck that, always telling me the words I make up aren't for real. If I thought of it, it's for real, cybertron-approval or not.)