Hey, here's a southern anthem for you - Southern by Birth, Raven by the Grace of God, born in a shithole town to a ma dukes with 10th grade education who just turned 17 six days earlier, and to a pops with a 7th grade education but could fix any and all 2-stroke and 4-stroke engines. Ma Dukes couldn't tell grandpa she was pregnant until it was too late for him to force an abortion like evil cops on Billy Jack, and I think inherited Tom McLaughlin's natural ass-kicking nature because of that. Born full throttle, got my go-by name from a local legend street racer who died in a controversial car accident that was so tragic and legendary that his story has crossed my path multiple times in various ways as an adult. No shit, no matter how big my aura grows with the false electronic shine of modern technology, not sure it could ever get his size, which was all-natural and organic as fuck, before organic was a word that scrunched white faces pined over.
And yet I grow - stifled the drunkard, unleashed the fury, not sure of my endpoint (if there is one) but let it flow how it flows. Day-to-days try to stumble my natural swagger, like walking home drunk on cobblestone alleyways; but I remain uprighted, unblighted, and pure-lighted. Can't say my heart is pure as I was not raised in an organic environment, mad literal and cultural pesticides choked my brain even before the Dept. of Defense internet started distracting our collective consciousness with a thousand fingers pointing in a million directions, all at once. But here the fuck I am - southside Virginia's greatest T'ang Era poet, carving gambleraku into guard rails by moonlight with a cordless Dremel armed with a diamond-bit. Here the fuck I am - riding Greyhounds to take digital pics of rundown town factories before they make it illegal to do so, with a 2.2 megapixel that looks like shit but feels just right. Here the fuck I am - born from the wretched of the Earth, rural south American variety, but educated beyond my inherited faults through sheer luck, blind naivete, and student loans that I've bobbed and weaved from for 15 years now. When they call on the phone and ask for my first name, I know it's a trick - financial snakes trying to put their venom teeth into my chill. When they call me Raven, I know it's my people.
STEAL "Southern Anthem"
NEXT: An old school jam from back in the day!
6 comments:
That's what I'm fucking talkin about.
RM
every time I see those initials I hope it's who I think it is... if it is, email me or hit my mail up or something, I may be coming thru your way in the next 2 months briefly possibly and would love to meet up. also if you are who you are, hope family/life/chaos/whirlwind is spinning you well.
If it's the one from Atlanta, it's me. If not, it's some other dude with the same initials as us.
yeah different dude, though I may be coming your way as well at some point this summer, and hope to have something to pass along to you in the next few weeks as I've been writing some shit for your boy.
man, how many fucking RMs are there, and why do we all rule?
Cool, he is playing a show I am going to tomorrow night. He is planning to mix in some original stuff with the covers. Should be a good time.
you know the day of that clay/levi show in cville was the afternoon I went into the hospital and my bullshit started? me and my wife still joke about how great that show was, the show we had a date to go to and never fucking saw.
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