Thursday, June 30, 2022
Wednesday, June 29, 2022
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
AA Big Book, p. 30 ("Pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.")
Most of us have been unwilling to admit that we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from others. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somewhow, someday he will be able to control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death. We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed. We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals, usually brief, were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.
Monday, June 27, 2022
Sunday, June 26, 2022
Appalachian American Ennui: Django Django - Hail Bop, Firewater, Love's Dart (...
Appalachian American Ennui: Django Django - Hail Bop, Firewater, Love's Dart (...: Lose the box. I wince during this otherwise beautiful musical experience as I endure the beating of a goddamn box adorned with el...
Saturday, June 25, 2022
My First Parole Hearing: State of Tennessee v. [Uncle] John Paul Sexton
I hadn't been licensed long at all when my grandmother called and asked me to represent my uncle, her fifth born child, in his upcoming parole hearing at Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee. I prepped my witnesses (my mother and grandmother) and off we went. I knew enough then to quiz my uncle Johnny about his remorse, penitence. He was in prison for murdering Cotton Headrick outside of a beer joint in Roane County some years earlier. I cannot recall how long he had been in prison, but it couldn't havde been any more than about ten years at that time.
Friday, June 24, 2022
Thursday, June 23, 2022
Monday, June 20, 2022
It's Black-Eyed Susan Season (BESS)
I'm wanting to enjoy the hundreds of black-eyed Susans that have come up out back. But I can't. I'm pissed, depressed, irritated, and all to hell. But, to my enemies: "I'll work my way back out like I've done a thousand times before. And now, I have exercise in my arsenal. It has made all the difference." I'll never stop overcoming life's obstacles. I'm just built that way. So, goddamnit, I'm going to make myself photograph them and post them hereunder if it kills me. To do less would do disgrace to BESS.
Saturday, June 18, 2022
Sleeve, the Steward of the Armed Shaped Empty Space
I am Sleeve, steward of empty space. I appear to surround, to define, to encapsulate an area, into which an arm may slide easily. But what am I is what I am? Am I then defined by the space I appear to mark, by the space within my structure, or by the muscled, skin-strecthed appendage that will enter the folds? I am the sleeve, into which the arm will enter. I represent faith.
Friday, June 17, 2022
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Monday, June 13, 2022
Aldous Harding – Lawn (Official Video)
Check out how the bass just bleeds in, followed closely by the drum kit. Great background music for cleaning house.
Sunday, June 12, 2022
Aldous Harding - The Barrel (Official Video)
The little post-pause epilogue she does in her drawers at the end of the video is adorable. This is a wonderful piece of music. She does something I've never heard before. In the choruses, instead of employing vocalise, she actually repeats the term, "the barrel, the barrel, . . ." Nice.
Saturday, June 11, 2022
Friday, June 10, 2022
Thursday, June 9, 2022
My Two Favorite People With My Favorite Artist
State of Tennessee v. Ralph Sexton (Not Guilty): For Stephania
At some point around 2005, Ralph decided to partner up with a couple in connection to turning Edna Mae's into a restaurant and tavern. The couple was dominated by an overbearing woman who went by a surname that is now lost on me. However, as will become pertinent, I do know her Christian name. Gertrude. So Gertrude accused Ralph of stealing a very valuable cooler that she had on hold from a place called Little Lots in Smyrna, Tennessee in White County. He was arrested on a felony warrant, made bond, and hired yours truly to represent his interests. We prepared for a preliminary hearing and went full force into it, contesting the existence of probable cause in front of the Judge, whose name I now forget. As one would expect, Ralph was highly agitated and anxious. I had suggested that he double his dose that morning, and I'm confident he did. Still, he was a wreck. I stayed in a rental cabin at Edgar Evins State Park so I'd be practically there on the hearing date. I took my lesson and finished preparing the night before. And even before that, I had driven to Lancing in order to rehearse Ralph's proposed testimony for the upcoming hearing. In preparation, I began my direct examination in the main room of Edna Mae's which, at that time, was more of a salvage depot. We huddled up next to the woodstove and I commenced my examination: "You are Ralph Sexton, aren't you." "Yes, sir, I am." You've been charged with a felony in this matter and your plea is 'not guilty' I believe. "That's absolutely right, sir," he replied. "And Mr. Sexton, it's safe to say, is it not, that you are a man of high credibility." "I'd like to think so," he replied. "Never been convicted of a felony, have you?" "No, sir." Never lied in court?" "No I have not." "And you've never stole anything in your entire life, have you?" "Well, counsellor, yes I have!" I busted out laughing and so did my wife. It was pure honesty. Obviously I decided against asking him that in front of the Judge.
Anyway, Ralph, who was nervous, was standing in the hallway before the hearing, pacing the floor, when our female witness decided to soothe his nerves by rubbing his shoulders without first asking permission. He snapped around, "Get your god damned hand's off of me!" Hilarious.
He told me that if I used the other woman's name, "Gertrude" she'd go ape shit mad. So, as soon as I got up to cross examine Mrs. ? (I cannot recall what she went by). I said, point blank: "Isn't it true ma'am that your real name is Gertrude." She turned red as blood and reminded me and everyone in the building that her name was "Mrs. ?" and that she did not use "that" name ever!
The long and short of it was that the Judge threw the felony case out for lack of probable cause because, among other things, Gertrude turned into a malignant bitch as soon as I said her name. True story.
Hackensaw Boys Proud For Now
This song is actually a thoroughly great ballad, lyrically and musically. It should be given its proper placement by the ages: a masterpiece of Appalachian bluegrass.
A Writ About Dirt
The plural dirt seem like they're laughing because they know that everything above their vast expanse is headed their way, me included. "You don't know shit, boy. Wait 'til you're down here with us. That's when it gets interesting. Legune and radish roots crawling through your belly. Groundhogs tunnelling violently through your gut. Just you wait. You walk around on top of us, you excavate us, but it don't hurt us at all. We're so fucking old that we're indifferent to pain, but deeply in love with the rain, even though it ignites the rootwork that tickles our insides and constantly keeps us guessing. We get along though. We need each other. We feel you, but we just don't need you, boy. As you were."
Wednesday, June 8, 2022
When We Was Boys
Tuesday, June 7, 2022
Monday, June 6, 2022
I Used to Call Her Mommy
The olfaction would tease a place in me that gets little attention anymore, aside from these memories of my strange, coaly affection, and the looping echo of the pedal steel guitar rising from Cline Bunch's juke box inside the Mountain View Inn, where I learned later on about Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and pinball and nine-ball and straight pool.
This song haunts me like that Appalachian coal smoke. It worms its way down into my tender solar region, where my saltwater tears continue to be distilled in the fresh headwaters from the haunted hollows of Gobey.
When I study my creek bank of old images I can see Mary Sue hiding in the corn. I can see the hem of her homemade skirt dragging the top of the water behind the laurels as she searches the slick rocks for mudpuppies and waterdogs. She and I would flee the hollow and make our way to Chattanooga, where I would emerge and call Mary Sue my Mommy.
Sunday, June 5, 2022
Excerpt From "In the Belly of the Beast," by Jack Henry Abbott
When a man takes a position opposed to another and refuses to discuss the matter on the grounds that he feels that the truth of his position lies in a feeling in his heart that the next man does not have, he has take an anti-human stand against humanity. This is because the aim of humanity to achieve a common (social) agreement. Any fool can see this is correct, since we are social beings.
In reality, only equals can reach agreements. So long as classes are not equal, men are not equal, and there is no way I can reach any agreements with the enemies of my class -- particularly since these enemies hold the power of life or death over us. A man who "disagrees" that someone else should take his life is in no position to restrict this "disagreement" to words. If deeds will solve the "disagreement," they are as valid as words.
Sentiment is not the source of human weakness although today it is the tool of that weakness.
Human weakness lies in the fact that no one is perfect because no society is perfect. It is not the consciousness of this that pardons men from choosing sides. Only ignorance pardons.
In reality, only equals can reach agreements. So long as classes are not equal, men are not equal, and there is no way I can reach any agreements with the enemies of my class -- particularly since these enemies hold the power of life or death over us. A man who "disagrees" that someone else should take his life is in no position to restrict this "disagreement" to words. If deeds will solve the "disagreement," they are as valid as words.
Sentiment is not the source of human weakness although today it is the tool of that weakness.
Human weakness lies in the fact that no one is perfect because no society is perfect. It is not the consciousness of this that pardons men from choosing sides. Only ignorance pardons.
Crime and Punishment: Redemption
"Life had stepped into the place of theory and something quite different would work itself out in his mind." Crime and Punishment, p. 472. "But that is the beginnig of a new story -- the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new, unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story has ended." Id.
Saturday, June 4, 2022
Porno for Pyros - Pets
This is a serious song about the future of humankind. But, while I'm at it, I have to say that the electric guitar performance by Peter DiStephano is absoultely fantastic.
Friday, June 3, 2022
So be it (The Liberty of the Subterranean Shift)
Let go. I mean it. Let go. Let the currents carry you into the no one knows, into the we don't know. Don't know what you don't know and forget what you do. Even though the current will transport you in the macro sense, you will still be vested with tiny controls. Like the tiny critter attempting to navigate the corners of a swiftly running mountain branch near Looking Glass Falls Creek off 276 where, in the end the current will cause her descent to Brevard and below. But in the course of that journey, she stays afloat. She does not drown. She even exits the quick current at opportune times, takes a break, breathes in the sky, and then joins the conveyor again to god knows where, but she don't care. The wind even plays a role. It, too, is defined by its currents. The Looking Glass Creek is driven by the angles of the earth and gravity, but the wind . . . there's something else at play, like the planet spinning and the wind currents trying to keep up, exhausted at times, but always busy somewhere and sometimes right here. So be it. So be it all. Let it play with me. Let it affect me. Let it move me, even if at times it moves me to tears. Just let go. Let the hairs and sweat squeeze from my porus surface area. Offer these emanations the liberty to explore the air, and one another. Walk around the house naked. Let it be. Let it be shallow. Don't dig in. Or, if you've dug in, cultivate radishes and legunes to break up the grounds so you and I can loosen our roots and pull them up just enough to break new ground, so that they, too, can explore subterranean novelties. There's a brick buried below the water maple that needs to be adjusted. Let it move, even if just a little. A slight alteration equals work, regardless of how slight. Let it be shifted in the dirt. The liberty of the subterrannean shift awaits you, Mr. Brick. It's an adventure. It's necessary for the planets. The centuries will be pleased. Say so much for the history that should not but does shift on account of the lack of a proper accounting. That is changing, too. Real time is good time. Rewind is beautiful. Don't be afraid to rewind if you forget in order to remember and to remember with dead accuracy. So be it. So be the trees. So be the springing up of life in beltan. So be the interference that we've built up to the wind. Love the way the wind forces its way into Michigan Aveneue and blows the world around. So be the critter in the creek. I dare you. You see, we have little shards of clouds in our eyes. And that's okay.
Jane's Addiction - Then She Did
I discovered this song this morning, and it fits perfectly into my busy life. Thanks, YouTube. I mean it. They got the album cover wrong. Article 1 is that part of the U.S. Constitution that provides for the legislative branch of government, and all attendant rights and responsibilities thereto. Amendment 1. That's where the freedoms of expression, assembly, and freedom to and from religion reside.
Thursday, June 2, 2022
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Great cover of Walking on the Moon, by one of my favorite bands, the Police. This is a great song about falling in love.
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NPR did a piece called "This I Believe" a few years back. Listeners were invited to recite their core beliefs about anything...
