All posts by Joseph

Usual Rubbish

Coverland.

Where’s my great American songbook? I know I left it around here somewhere. What’s that you say, Marvin (my personal robot assistant)? There’s no such thing? That’s just a metaphor for everything written before nineteen sixty? Okay, gotcha.

Look at me, for chrissake. I’m turning the Hammer Mill upside down looking for something that doesn’t even exist outside of our tiny little minds. No, there is no Great American Songbook per se, though I have had “fake” books over the years – the Boston book, the Real book, the Real book with lyrics, etc., all illegal as hell. Strange thing to be declared contraband, but you had to have them …. even if you just played in a contraband. (A band that plays everything backwards, that is.) Seriously, fake books were an essential survival tool in the world of itinerant musicians.

You may well ask why I would need a compendium of old songs. And well you may. Keep asking – eventually I’ll find an answer. Yes, well … as you know, times being what they are, we need to, as the corporatists are fond of saying, diversify our revenue stream. That means selling nuts on the street corner (Marvin’s job), bilking the local vicar (Anti-Lincoln’s job), blackmailing the neighbors with anti-gravity rays (Mitch Macaphee’s job), and plunking out cover songs in the local coffeehouse / bar (ulp … my job). And like filling in for the local retail clerk, none of us are any good at our new jobs. (Particularly Marvin … he keeps over-roasting the filberts in his toaster oven.)

You guys know anything from the Real Book? No?

Not that I’m entirely new to the work. Long-time listeners of Big Green will be surprised to learn that we have, in fact, played covers in front of yawning audiences. I even have video demo tape of covers we did back in the early 1990s which I may even be imprudent enough to post someday (with some encouragement). We used to cover all sorts – Talking Heads, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, The Band, Neil Young, Taj Mahal, fuck all, you name it. What I’m doing now is more like what I did when I was 19 or 20 – folk-pop music from the 60s and 70s, which was, frankly, contemporary music when I was 19 or 20. Hard for me to believe that anyone wants to hear those songs again, but I don’t know …. maybe it’s been long enough. And I need some freaking coin in my hat, dude.

So start busking, right? Where’s my “Real Book”? I mean … someone else‘s Real Book.

Political Rants

The utility of experts.

I haven’t been following the Democratic primary contest very much on this blog, as it receives so much coverage elsewhere it seems massively redundant for me to comment on it as well. When it becomes a substantive policy discussion, however, it certainly warrants comment. When Elizabeth Warren released the explanatory document on her version of Medicare for All (M4A), it was greeted with derision by supporters of the more “moderate” candidates. Morning Joe, of course, rolled out their resident fiscal policy expert Steve Rattner, who deployed a series of charts and graphs that demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt the very thing that the recent George Mason University study made clear: health care in America is expensive.

Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.

Rattner used a pie chart to show what portions of total health care cost would be picked up by M4A, then a line graph to illustrate how much higher federal spending would be if such a plan were implemented. He was attempting to make the point that the federal government would have to spend a third again as much as it currently does, and that …. shudder …. that’s a lot! What of course neither he nor his Morning Joe colleagues mentioned was that this money is being spent by us anyway … and that the current result is more than 80 million people uninsured or under-insured, half a million medical bankruptcies a year, and assorted other disasters. In other words, the current system is a massively costly failure.

M4A, on the other hand, would cover everyone. It would eliminate much of the cost to families and individuals, and decouple health care from employment. There would be no more medical bankruptcies, and (icing on the cake) it would cost less than what we’re currently collectively spending. With the right funding plan, it would cost individuals below a certain income level less than what they’re paying now. We can disagree over how that will play out, but M4A is the only way to ensure that health care is a right, not a privilege. When I hear the middling candidates so beloved of Morning Joe complain about single payer, it reminds me that none of them ever had to deal with inadequate health coverage. I have, and it’s a massive pain in the ass. Even the so-called good plans that people supposedly love so much are massively complicated and involve all kinds of hidden expenses.

This fight for M4A won’t be easy. We need to be ready for it.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Staying afloat.

Where did I put that bucket? Is that mine you’re using? Well, give it back, damn it. Go find another one to carry your golf balls around in. Jesus H. Christmas.

Yes, greetings from the one-man bucket brigade here at the abandoned and partially submerged Cheney Hammer Mill. Perhaps you heard about all the flooding we got here in upstate New York after that Halloween storm? Well, the old water kept on rising in our neck of the woods, and it ain’t pretty. Trouble is, back when they built these old mills, they located them close to the water for a variety of reasons. Practical, yes …. back then. Now it’s a positive nuisance! The canal behind the Hammer Mill sloshed over in the first 24 hours, and we’ve been flapping around in scuba flippers ever since.

Why am I bailing this place out alone? Because everyone else, well … bailed, frankly. Can’t blame them – this sucks. They’re all off to higher ground, except for Marvin (my personal robot assistant) who has been scouring the neighborhood for discarded golf balls this past week. He’s somehow gotten into his brass skull that they have some intrinsic value. Anyway, he’s pretty much useless with respect to the flood waters. So is our resident mad scientist Mitch Macaphee, who traipsed off to Madagascar as soon as the going got a bit rough. I ask you …. what’s the use of having a mad scientist if the son of a bitch can’t control the goddamn weather? Am I right?

A bit damp for my taste. What about you?

Okay, so … the saving grace of this mill is that it’s shot full of holes by our crazy upstairs neighbors, so a lot of the water is just leaking out through the bullet holes. (And no, they’re not helping me with the flood waters. They’ve trundled off to crazytown for the weekend to see some relatives.) I’m helping it a bit with this bucket … literally the one bucket we have in the joint. Aside from the bucket we use to carry a tune around in. That’s a joke, son. You’re supposed to laugh at this juncture. Or perhaps not.

Anyhow, when the water level gets low enough in the studio, we can start working on those mixes again. Water and music don’t mix, in my experience. Aside from Yellow Submarine, Octopus’s Garden, and that Jimi Hendrix song from Electric Ladyland …. a merman I would be, or something. Help me out here. Grab a bucket, for crying out loud.