Julien Aklei

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.

Tags alcohol, country folk, dogs, drugs, hillbillies, marijuana, people of the hills, West Virginia

Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs Yellow, Gold, Kings, Fathers, and the Sun

Daydream

Close your eyes
Fantasize a place that’s safe and warm in your mind
A yellow world from the storm all the time

Arms. No more harm today.
Sometimes I go fly so far away.

So I’lll sit and day dream maybe
Hiding in the sun
Cold comes to remind you that he’s only having fun.

Someone deal you a heart & you play it
Because you wanted a game
But in the end it’s pain
In the end it’s pain.

Lie me down
Spill my mind to the ground
Roll over me
Show me everything I want to see.

Hands. Wander thru the day
Sometimes we go fly so far away.

So I’lll sit and day dream maybe
Hiding in the sun
Cold comes to remind you that he’s only having fun.

Someone deal you a heart & you play it
Because you wanted a game
But in the end it’s pain
In the end it’s pain.

Whisper in my ear you’re blurry now
I wanted something but dont know how
Dont know how to try.

Everyone said why do you feel this way
When he could be the man
Who changes everything
But I dont know I fly.

So I’lll sit and day dream maybe
Hiding in the sun
Cold comes to remind you that he’s only having fun.

Someone deal you a heart & you play it
Because you wanted a game
But in the end it’s pain
In the end it’s pain.

Daydream Download

Tags dreams, heart, pain, playing cards, sun, yellow

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.

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.

Tags candles, Charleston West Virginia, fire, guns, heart, heart protector, Love, people of the hills, red, West Virginia

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 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.

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.

Tags art, autumn, lumberjacks, music, people of the hills, stuffed animals, teddy bears

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 Rises Download

Tags blue, hills, Love, ocean, people of the hills, rivers, stars, The Crystal Horizon, violence, whore of babylon

Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story On My Own Writings

The Violet Box

Having lost all roots I crave the feeling of security. A taste of home. Home is partially this sense of safety in our minds released by certain colors, smells, sounds and vibrations. Probably ones that remind you of whatever brought you peace in childhood.

For me it is violets, dandelions, buttercups, green grass, clouds and skies. Lace handkerchiefs and tea sets painted with flowers. Stories about bears, knights and frogs setting out on adventures. Candies in glass dishes and cookies with pictures pressed into them.

Safety is walking with my grandmother into a restaurant where we place matching orders for a fish sandwich and glass of chocolate milk. These are brought to us by a waiter in coattails with a sprig of parsley on the side. She gives me little gifts on these outings. A tiny diamond pressed into a golden shell. We discuss scented soaps and bubble baths. Then return to her house to look through her collection of porcelain dogs. She lets me choose one to keep.

Security is sitting on the sofa with my mom as she reads me books. Animals in formal clothing risk everything for friendship. They set off across vast landscapes to chase dreams and fulfill noble ideals. She reads to me in the formal living room where everything is shiny, polish and floral. The piano sits to my left. He listens. Glen the koala bear sits on my lap. The stories go straight to his heart since he is an animal too. I am wearing clothes my mother made me and they are stitched with scenes of animals. The yellow sun is shining through the window.

Security is the heart shaped box painted with violets I kept on my dresser. Everyday I climb a chair to touch its smooth surface and then stroke the cactus who lives next to him. He grows inside a porcelain pot the shape of a cat. I talk to the cactus and fill him with a sense of love and self-worth to face the day ahead. I talk to everything around me to give them strength and encouragement. My animals, my dolls, my knights, my scented soaps. I touch them with my finger while explaining to them how special they are. How important their life is. I do this with plants, worms, and human babies as well. Sometimes it gets exhausting.

The other vibe from childhood was sports. Sports, sports, sports, competitive games & competition. Life was a competitive sport where victory was fleeting and humiliation eternal. I never resonated with this part.

But the female side was all about beauty. All my female relatives loved to decorate and shop for beautiful things. I did too. It filled me with a sense of awe. I spent a week contemplating if I should buy a tiny glass snake. I finally decided I should and took him home to place him on my Cherokee drum so he could dance while I played it. Glass, porcelain, and cotton are soothing to me. When things are clean, prim, old fashioned and expensive I feel safe.

Not that I live this way. But at least in my mind I can return to that porcelain heart box. Then a sense of optimism & power overtakes me. The world cannot change me.

Charleston, West Virginia men Music & Songs Red, Soldiers, & Fire Yellow, Gold, Kings, Fathers, and the Sun

Beautiful Man

Do you think that I could save you
If you aren’t even brave?
Do you remember when I found you
You were no more than a slave?

Driven round by two horses
Of indifference and desire.
You were laughing like a baby
You had not met the rectifier.

But every man will be tested
Every man is gonna bleed.
Line then up like horses
Bring them to their knees.

Yeah, every man gets tested
Is he a cheat a brute a liar?
And then they go back to the fire.

Look at you so tragic
A little tear drips down your face.
You’re crying now but only for yourself
And the trials you’ll have to face.

You’re figuring God is gonna skin you
He’s gonna wear you like a cape.
You’re noticing just how he laughs so hard
When the terror makes you shake.

But every man will be tested
Every man is gonna bleed.
He lines then up like horses
He brings them to their knees.

Yeah, every man gets tested
Is he a cheat a brute a liar?
And then they go back to the fire.

You know I want to love you
Your muscles and your arms.
You know the way I feel for you
I want to wear you like a charm.

But all the red is coming for you now
Down from heaven like a wave.
I’d sacrifice myself for you if I could
Beautiful man if there was a way.

But every man will be tested
Every man is gonna bleed.
Line then up like horses
Bring them to their knees.

Yeah, every man gets tested
Is he a cheat a brute a liar?
And then they go back to the fire.

Beautiful Man Download

Hey! And while you are at it please consider clicking below to send me a sweet tip! Now that I’m not married, feeding musicians is a cause close to my heart.

https://paypal.me/JulienAklei?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

Tags blood, fire, god, horses, Love, men, sex, slaves, violence

Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies Uncategorized

Fun

Post author By julien
Post date September 16, 2023
No Comments on Fun

Whistling we walk downtown
And the clouds float high above the ground
You take my hand you stand so high above me.

A black snake round a silver knife
How the cups fill up way in the sky
They hold the future why you look into me?

But when I tell you I feel touched
Then you tell me that I talk too much
And I think that maybe you are using me.

Cause you tell me that I’m fun though I’m not the one
The pain comes from a heart so black and gray
Why do you play?

You whistle there beside the door
There was someone where I was before
And a world inside your eyes I wait and see.

I fill the cup I drink it down
And I swirl and swirl when you’re around
With your hands upon me now I am free.

But when I tell you I feel crushed
Then you tell me that I think too much
And I think that maybe you are using me.

Cause you tell me that I’m fun though I’m not the one
The pain comes from a heart so black and gray
Why do you play?

Try to breath but it dont help
For the first time now I doubt myself
I don’t know which of the things I should believe.

But when I tell you I feel clutched
Then you tell that I feel too much
And I think that maybe you were using me.

Cause you tell me that I’m fun though I’m not the one
The pain comes from a heart so black and gray
Why do you play?

Fun Download

Tags black, cups, gray, heart, Love, pain, sky, snakes

Charleston, West Virginia men Music & Songs On My Own Red, Soldiers, & Fire

Care About Me

Saturday night inside a one horse town
He’s blowing in like a breeze into a tin roadhouse
The game is pretty easy when you choose them right
All you need is twenty dollars and a saturday night oh.

Cause you wanna be high oh
And you wanna feel free
But you dont care about me.

Cause when it’s easy to come you come
And when I bleed you go
That’s just the way that things are
I know.

I’m bleeding bullets like a horse put down
For the last three weeks I’ve been popping them out.
Blood in the kitchen and blood on the sheets
Blood down my neck when I walk in the streets but

It was all just a game yeah
Something fun and carefree
And you don’t care about me.

Cause when it’s easy to come you come
And when I bleed you go
That’s just the way that things are
I know.

The thing about men is when you let them win
They dance around in a circle and come back again.
But things is pretty different when someone gotta lose
Then theys putting on their shoes.

Cause men need to be high.
Men need to feel free.
And you don’t care about me.

Cause when it’s easy to come you come
And when I bleed you go
That’s just the way that things are
I know.

Care About Me Download

Tags blood, free love, horses, men

Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story On My Own Writings

A Time To Be Blue

Summer is over. I feel so sad. It was beautiful, all the green and sun melting everything down. I gave myself those three months to live as an idiotic welfare queen while adjusting to single life. Summer is all about hearts and love. I wish it could last forever.

But now comes the fall. A time for brains and being serious. Its color will be blue. I’m afraid I won’t cut it in this crisp new world. Only 9 months until the women’s shelter stops paying for my home. I need good ideas to enter my brain, but they don’t.

I haven’t crisped yet. I’m trying but the sun is still hot and yellow, melting brains down and hearts feel like fire. The sky is so blue, the EBT cupcakes so delicious. Everything green and frothy. I want to roll in the grass like a pig.

The world is a green paradise but beneath it a dark soil of fear, pain and panic. I bat it down with stress gummies & cough syrup. I say “It is what it is” when disturbing thoughts enter. This locks them in a magical box. I can’t face life head on yet. I’m not safe.

And until I get smart I won’t be safe. I need to think clearly and formulate a plan. But life is a bowl of puzzles and I can’t solve one of them. The second I use my brain I start to cry. I feel like my initial goal of becoming a millionaire this fall is not going to happen.

So I’m choosing a smaller goal. To become a good communicator and learn how to clearly express my needs and desires. To express my will. Which is hard because I’m not always sure if I have one.

When you’re a wife, you don’t need a will. Being willess is almost an asset since it gives you increased flexibility like a body with no bones. But then fate dumps you on the streets and you are expected to have a will. A will as strong as any man’s. People don’t realize wills can’t pop up overnight like a forest.

The only time I am sure of my will is when I am hungry or in extreme pain. Cause I have the will to survive. But even then speaking up on behalf of myself feels like sticking my hand in a blender. I am terrified of displeasing the people around me. This isn’t the same as wanting people to like me. I’m willing to be hated to give the people what they want. Cause sometimes they want a bad guy. They would generally prefer to keep the good guy role for themselves.

Wanting to please & wanting to live up to social expectations are two different worlds. People are rarely in the mood to admire someone. More commonly they need someone to feel superior to. This is where I excel.

I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember. Throwing myself under the bus to appease a hot spot in someone else’s psyche. If a friend needed to feel fast, I’d pretend to be slow. I’d lose contests on purpose so the other person could win. I’d perform horribly in plays so someone special in the audience could have the satisfaction of knowing I sucked. I don’t know why. Its just this feeling of terror that I can only be safe by giving people what they want.

I have my finger in the undercurrent of every dynamic. It makes me act strange because those undercurrents are intense. They are made up of things people don’t want to acknowledge. When you touch them they cause weird things to leap out of your mouth as though you are possessed. Like a touching a wire. But I need to release that underlying pressure to feel safe. If there is an undercurrent of anger I try to be the person it can be released upon. Then things feel safe again.

I don’t know how to stop doing this. So I’ll put that puzzle back in the bowl for now. And focus on the immediate task. To clearly express my needs and the desires to the extent that I am aware of them. Even when it seems certain to lead to pain and disaster. Perhaps as I express these bits of will, larger chunks of will will start drifting into my consciousness.

Every morning I’ll tell myself that as I speak up for myself, new doors open for me.