Tag: people of the hills

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Earth, Pink, Mothers, Love My Life Story Writings

Hillbillies

Now that I’m on my own I have been forced to assimilate more with the culture around me.

I’ve been wanting to write about hillbillies for a while but it isn’t easy. Because the culture exists on a different plane that I haven’t reached yet. It’s a long slow fall towards the center of the earth.

If I HAD to sum things up with a few symbols I’d choose beer, whiskey, marijuana, beans, potatoes, corn bread, cast iron, dune buggies, family, nature, guns and mason jars. Sound boring? Well it is. It’s a boredom that causes one part of yourself to die while another part opens up.

The best way I can describe it is this…. Imagine you have to spend the next 8 hours listening to your slowest, least talkative friend while sitting on the hillside in a forest. He is going to tell you the story of how he built his house, board by board, brick by brick. You are going to sit there and listen.

Behind you are 48 cans of beer. To your right is a gigantic pipe stuffed with marijuana. You are free to partake but you neither drink nor smoke.

The story begins. You try hard to focus. ‘This will be great. I’m learning something.’ you tell yourself. ‘Maybe one day I’ll want to build a house and this information will be useful.’ For the next forty minutes your brain strains, trying to extract nutrients from the story.

Then you reach a cracking point. A feeling of unbearable restlessness builds up inside you. You panic and reach for a beer.

As you drink the story continues. Nail, board, nail board. It’s as boring as fuck but the beer is starting to relax you. You sink down a little into the boredom. Nail beer, nail beer. Board. House. It’s boring. It’s boring. You will survive. You reach for another beer.

But another hour and you want to get the fuck out of there. Seriously? Oh my fucking God. You know what? Maybe you’ll try that marijuana. You smoke it and start to notice how the leaves sway with the story.

Your mind breaks up like clouds and the story washes all over you. Is he talking about a house or is it a parable for your life? You look at your friend. Was he always this insightful? You’ve known him for many years and only now you’re seeing him for the first time? You lie back on the ground and realize he’s lying there too. You briefly consider making love to him then remember you aren’t gay. The story continues.

Clouds nails boards. Clouds nails boards. The story is more boring than ever but the boredom becomes a brown flood washing over you. Your body is the house. Your friend is rebuilding it. You are rushing away in the brown waters. The past is sweeping over you and forgotten scenes from your life start returning to your mind. How did you forget so much? You’ve lived your life in a daze, haven’t you? Distracting yourself with mental puzzles that ultimately meant nothing.

And now you’re solid. Seeing the world with new eyes. You look at your friend and he seems more real than ever before. He is a potato and you are one too. It’s beautiful.

Another hour passes. Nail, board, hoard, woard. The panic arises again. I can’t take this! And then a thought… WE ARE FREE BEINGS!!!! “We don’t have to sit here Buddy!” you scream. “We are to free to go!” Light flashes in your friend’s eyes and he starts running to the nearby trail where his dune buggy is parked. You run behind him. Exhilaration. You climb in while he drives, going faster and faster than ever before. It feels like bliss until you crash and then you are flying.

When at last you come to, you realize your friend is lying on the ground beside you. He is still telling you the story of how he built his house. Nail, board. Nail, board. Your head hurts and so does your body. But it will be alright. You lie there and listen. It’s a pretty good story after all.

The End.

This is how life in West Virginia feels to an outsider anyway. I don’t know how it feels to insiders and probably never will since ‘Don’t ask don’t tell.’ along with ‘Keep it Nasty!’ are the two mottos of the region. I try to make sense of it all but this world is so dense, dark, compacted and gravitous I sometimes feel I’m being buried alive. I start to panic. Then I reach for my pipe.*

Hi!

But for reals its like I’m learning a new way of thinking. Less speed and more solid. I think its called patience. You just crack open a beer and observe while the people and things around you reveal their true nature.

* I don’t really have a pipe.

The other day a friend pulled out his knife to carve an X on my to go box. What’s that? I asked. Rebel Flag, he said.
A man gave me this old tackle box when I admired it.
A friend of a friend gave me this warm shirt. People are very nice here if you can be accepted but that is a long and tricky process involving nuances I don’t understand. If you are a friend of a friend though you get a free visitors pass.
I ate Thanksgiving in a bikers bar. They had Turkey, stuffing, pie and all the works that you could enjoy for free. You don’t need to be rich or successful to matter here. Only humble, hard working, down to earth & preferably related. I’m none of those.
Slippers and I have been reunited. This has stopped the nighttime panics of hyperventilating with the need to tell her I love her. Her presence is grounding and she makes me feel more at home.

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story On My Own Writings

The Heart Protector

Did you know your Heart has a friend who follows him through life with only one goal- to protect? This friend is called The Heart Protector.

When you get heart broken or betrayed The Heart Protector can sink into depression. Where did he go wrong? How did he let his friend down?

Maybe he learns something, makes sense of his mistakes & goes back to work.

Or maybe he’s not sure what he did wrong. He moves into a state of hyper vigilance to ensure this never happens again. He builds new walls thick and crusty. The Heart lives inside these walls & starts to be deprived of light.

The Heart Protector builds walls in many ways. He may become paranoid & carry a magnifying glass looking for tiny red flags. He may become cynical & tell himself Love doesn’t exist. He may even reach the point of believing that Knights & Unicorns never walked the earth.

He can make you critical. Pointing out flaws in anyone who gets close. He can make you queasy at the thought of one day walking hand and hand with someone wearing matching pajamas.

He gives you reasons to reject people before they reject you. He fills your legs with adrenaline and tells you to run. Run to the river and drown yourself. He has a million ways of protecting his friend.

Recently my Heart Protector has been too tight & its hard to sing. I can’t catch my breath. I don’t want to go out and see people. I do it anyway but a part of me stays inside. I don’t want to write songs because there’s nothing to say. And no one to hear me.

I don’t know what I am supposed to have learned from my experiences or what I did wrong. I don’t know how to not let the same thing happen again. The Heart Protector is in a state of confusion. What to do? What to do?

So like the genius I am I’ve been trying to learn songs to make other people like me. My friend Arthur plays Sweet Home Alabama with me and Country Roads take me home. We play a gig which requires carrying 500 pounds of equipment for miles with the help of a grocery cart, setting up, playing for two hours, taking it down & carrying it back home. We make about 3 dollars each. I’m a bit worried about survival.

I can only hope popularity will help me survive. I want to reflect the culture back to itself so people will like me. Confederate flags are popular here. So are guns, knives, dicks, motorcycles, alcohol, drugs and nature.

Downtown Charleston West Virginia
A West Virginia Birthday cake. Do you see those two round cakes above it? It turns out they were boob cakes and I ate a slice when offered having no idea what I was eating. I am still trying to come to terms with this.
The view from a West Virginia bar. If you combined this pic with one of a man driving 100 mph off a cliff in a motorized easy chair while high on mushrooms it would pretty much sum up the area.
Giving a redneck hello to a guy(?) in a bar. My Yankee friends always assume the people down here are close minded. They don’t understand they are weirder than fuck.
Burning a red candle in a desperate attempt to stave off the cold. The mug is resting on a tin of chewing tobacco.
I finally had to decorate my bedroom because it was feeling too much like a prison cell. The theme is Friends. I am now expecting Dinosaurs and Elephants to come into my life.
Categories
Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story On My Own Uncategorized Writings

Bracing Myself

Sometimes I think men are about changing the outer world while women are about changing on the inside to find the magic in what is.

I feel art is a feminine activity…. it lets people transform by seeing beauty in new things. To step outside the judgments which cage their perceptions. Art that simply caters to current tastes dulls the senses like being hooked up to a masturbation machine. Artists have to follow their own muse oblivious to the taste of the people.

The point is not to please nor to shock. But to deliver a fresh stream of water that people can choose to align their psyche with should they need it. The fresh input allows inner things to reconfigure and helps flush out the gunk.

It’s the same with thoughts. Fresh perspectives have value, even if you don’t happen to need that perspective at the moment. At least it will be there offering you a mental alternative should you ever get stuck in the future.

Whether songs are good or bad and perspectives right or wrong seems besides the point. They are crayons you can add to your crayon box just in case. A color you dislike now may appeal in the future.

I’m saying all this because I want to write about hillbillies and am bracing myself for the backlash. I have yet to recover my nerve from when people attacked me for writing about poor people. It doesn’t matter that I was praising poor people & pointing out that they might be fairies in disguise. In fact people seemed angry that I wasn’t describing the poor as miserable beings leading a pointless existence.

I internalized these attacks to where I became afraid to see my own experience of poverty in a magical light. I wish I could return to that lens though. It made me feel safe and uplifted.

But when autumn came I went into panic mode…. I must figure out how to make a living now or I’m going to die! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! And the more I panic the more I can’t think at all.

So I may just have to accept the possibility that I will end up living under a bridge getting stabbed to death by a mugger because so far no better plan has come to mind.

Maybe if I had the confidence to stay on my own wavelength rather than trying to be Tarzan the Dentist I could think more clearly. Maybe a possibility for how to survive would come to mind, maybe something I could actually do.

Cause the more I try to be a lumberjack the more my brain seizes and my body freezes and I can’t function at all.

All my life I’ve felt this guilt about not being a lumberjack, a gladiator, a professional boxer. I’m never hearty, tough, dirty and hard scrabble enough to please the people around me.

James was the first person to accept me as I was and that caused a lot of my psychological problems to clear up. I stopped needing to match the color of my ice cream to the color of my shoes. I could tolerate a wider range of colors, sounds and smells which let me function more normally.

But none of this happened because he was trying to change me. Its because he accepted me as I was. If I needed white ice cream topped with white sauce and white sprinkles he would help me find it until eventually I didn’t need it anymore. He always told me to trust myself and no matter how far out my preferences were he never tried to force me into conventional ways of being. Paradoxically this made me feel more at peace with conventions until I could see them as sources of comfort. Because I’d become comfortable with myself.

But now that I’m facing annihilation the panic returns that I must become someone else to survive. A gladiator. A lesbian. A mailman. A criminal. I must shut the fuck up and find something heavy to lift at once. Then I’ll be safe.

A baby walrus I found at a flea market. I listed him for sale on eBay like a damn slave. I am wondering if I can become a stuffed animals dealer.
A quilted bear I also found and listed.
A mustard package from biscuit world…. something about this color scheme really blew me away… it looks so warm and grounded yet also inviting adventure…. maybe these are the colors of the future?
I ate a plate of poison mushrooms, projectile vomited them over my whole apartment & ended up in the ER. They were jack o lantern mushrooms & I can only hope I gained some special jack o lantern powers from them.
A stone a man gave me. Is he a keeper?
Downtown Charleston WV. I like it. But I’m not certain if it likes me. I feel I don’t have any of the traits that are valued here, like being super tough and down to earth.

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs On My Own

A Star that Always Rises

Look around you now you see so many new horizons
Fallen far into a circle sky of blue.
With his body on you like a mountain falls and rises
And his mouth become the river rolling through.

But look again- there’s a star that always rises
Flying high over an ocean filled with blue.
And will you swear cause I heard them say
A day will come when he returns for you.

With the shadows falling how his hair curls like an injun
And the sweat is burning paths upon his face.
But you dread when this will end to leave you in suspension
Walking circles in a dark and foreign place.

But look again- there’s a star that always rises
Flying high over an ocean filled with blue.
And will you swear cause I heard them say
A day will come when he returns for you.

Please don’t hurt me.
Say you won’t hurt me.
Please don’t no matter what I do.

Will you say you won’t hurt me?
Never desert me?
Although I break you black and blue?

Could you climb up the hill?
Could you climb it at night?
To the air where it’s higher than stars?
That’s where you’ll find a world that’s ours.

But look again- there’s a star that always rises
Flying high over an ocean filled with blue.
And will you swear that you love me cause
A day will come when he returns for you.

A Star That Always RisesDownload
Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs Plants and the Emerald Kingdom Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies Videos

The hill was high. (Video)

A video which reminds me that I should probably trim my hair, organize my kitchen & play my guitar more carefully, but no- these things will never happen.

I don’t really believe in female instrumentalists, for starters.  I always thought I hated male instrumentalists as well, until I recently discovered David Rawlings & Stevie Ray Vaughn & both of them blew me away.  Normally, I hate listening to people play guitar. What could be more nauseating than a pointless guitar solo followed by audience applause? But these 2 guys just have something inside of them that comes out through their fingers and it touches me, I don’t know where or why.

I noticed David Rawlings also uses the same pink capo as me. That is where the similarity ends, of course, but do I care? No. I don’t aspire to be something more than I am. I think the crude & rustic will have a seat right next to the skilled & refined at God’s table.

The hill was high, I couldn’t climb
though I knew you were there.
A world of green surrounded me
it stretched out everywhere.

So I got back in my car and drove
to try and find a home.
I thought of you, the whole way through
it made me feel alone.

I thought of you and of the field
with the hill that was so high.
A temple built to something
that lives only in the sky

Everything is always high
and always far away.
I tell myself I must never stop and
I will get there someday.

Many gods and many men
have lived upon a crest.
Though the clouds pass over all of them
it is you I like the best.

All these hills and all these gods
and each man has his own.
Except for me, a tiny breeze
still searching for a home.

A tiny breeze who when she flies
is cut down by the winds.
They slice my heart and splay it
like a butterfly and then

Then I can scale these hills, but even so
my shadow looms so small
that to you it was just the same as though
I was never there at all.

Big men shadow over me
there is no other way
than to watch them with admiring eyes
through a film of gray.

For me there can be no other way for me
than to lie back on the ground
and to let the dreams wash over me
until a home is found.

A home that could be anywhere,
a home so hard to find.
Oh God, but please let it be somewhere real
not somewhere in my mind.

Someplace real, someplace strong
mountainous and grave
nothing flimsy like a butterfly
with her wings upon your leg.

Everyone has gods upon
these hills where claddows fly.
Except for me, I have only you
and only in my mind.

I reached for you, but there was no use
the world was large and green.
It stretched out wide and endlessly
like the sky within a dream.

And who am I, but a dot so small
that no one else could see
as you passed me by invisibly
your shadow touching me?

As you passed me by just like a plant
pressed flat upon the ground
just a thing too small to be cared about
when hills are all around.

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs Plants and the Emerald Kingdom Uncategorized

Old Guitar

 

I think I’d like to go away
with no one else around
That’s when it feels like the day.

I think I’d like to be alone
with no one else around
That’s when it feels like a home.

I think I’d like to flow the time
with no one there to shake away
It’s just a place in my mind.

I think I’d like to know the way that he dreams
when no one else can see the way
It’s just a float down the stream.

An important excerpt from my journal.

Talk about an old guitar
Talk about an easy way to fly
Everybody wants to go
but they won’t take the time.’

Talk about an old guitar
Talk about an easy way to feel
Everybody wants to know
but they won’t touch the real.

I think I’d like to know the way that he rings
and though I kick myself again
It’s just the way with these things.

I think I’d like to know he’s hoping inside
I see his eyes turn out towards me
But they’re lost in the ride.

Talk about an old guitar.
Talk about the crazy worlds you know
Everybody wants to climb
but it won’t stop the show.

Talk about an old guitar.
Talk about the crazy things you’ve seen
Everybody wants to go
but it won’t stop the dream.

I think I’d like to know a world that is mine
just one step beyond the ocean
Someplace you’ll never find.

I think I’d like to know a world that is green
just one step beyond the water
Someplace far from the dream.

 

Download MP3: Old Guitar

Categories
Hurricane, West Virginia Music & Songs Red, Soldiers, & Fire

Burn

 

One of my favorite parts of living in West Virginia is driving through the mountains at night listening to religious sermons on the radio. Yesterday, the sermon was about the Millennial Reign of Jesus, which begins when the Saints of Tribulation rise from the grave and begin their march up the Mountain of Olives, where Jesus will be waiting for them along with a white unicorn. On this mountain, Jesus and the saints will arm themselves and prepare for the battle ahead,  which involves casting most humans into hell (but only AFTER turning them into immortals, so that they will suffer till the end of time) and imprisoning Satan deep in Cetarez- the Mariana Trench of Hell (where he will live for the next one thousand years, until he escapes for the Final Battle.)

 

Jesus emerges from Olive Mountain as the Saints of Tribulation rise from the grave.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I’m not sure I completely agree with the preacher on what the future holds, I do like it that people’s minds are open enough to entertain such fanciful possibilities. And I like the idea that the very essence of reality could suddenly change in the blink of an eye. I tend to assume that the basic laws and shape of the universe will remain as they are- but what if they won’t? What if the people of the hills are right, and this is the seventh day of reality- the day when God rests- but soon his day of rest will end and all of hell will break loose? Although, personally, I would prefer a less violent eighth day, when Jesus returns to right every wrong and turn the earth into Teddy Bear World.

 

 

Download MP3: Burn