All posts by Joseph

Usual Rubbish

Year nineteen.

Seems like old times, Marvin. You know what I’m talking about, right? Well … then load up some of your old data cassettes. I have that tape backup deck sitting around here somewhere. Or did I use it for an ideas tape … ?

Ah, yes. ‘Tis the season for looking back … something I always look forward to. (Yes, I did just say that.) And this year I’m looking back on what a hack I’ve been for the last nineteen years. This is the nineteenth anniversary of this humble blog, which first made itself known under the questionable moniker “Notes From Sri Lanka” back in December of 1999. Even to call it a blog was kind of questionable – I wasn’t using WordPress or Blogger at the time, just flat html pages that I would post via Frontpage. What’s the difference, right? (Attn: web developers: pretend you didn’t hear that.)

19 years of this crap? How can you stand it?So we’re walking into the twentieth year of this phase of Big Green’s existence, and really … not much has changed since 1999 except that our releases aren’t typically on CD anymore and we’re driving smarter cars. Other than that, everything’s about the same around the Hammer Mill. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) still has a lot of his original vacuum tubes, and his various grease fittings haven’t been lubricated since those early days. The mansized tuber is still man-sized …. he hasn’t grown into some kind of gnarly behemoth. And our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee is still off his meds … at least the ones his doctor advised him to take so many years ago.

If you want to see for yourself how bloody similar everything was back then to the present day, check out our ancient posts on our “Back Pages” compendium. Fair warning: I would pile my political rants on top of the band chronicles, so you’re going to get a dose of both, though many of the topics will seem a bit obscure after so many years. It does bring back some memories, and in that respect, it’s a little astonishing how little has changed even beyond the grounds of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. Hoo boy.

Okay, back to work, people. Got to make the future happen.

Political Rants

Cop out.

Overwhelmed by all the mainstream news coverage of the COP conference in Katowice, Poland? I thought not. It’s possible that the international climate negotiations in Poland have been covered in passing by the evening news shows, etc., but I haven’t seen a single mention of them on the various talk shows, most notably on MSNBC, which is purported to be the centrist-liberal network. Their constant obsession is the Mueller probe, and while I can understand the temptation to follow such a strongly narrative-driven story, to do so to the exclusion of all other news is craven on the part of any organization that lays claim the mantle of investigative journalism.

Old King Coal.Probably the best source on what’s happening at Katowice is DemocracyNow! – Amy Goodman and her crew have been broadcasting from Poland all week, covering the activities of the American delegation. Yes, there is an official U.S. delegation, even though our lord emperor Trump the first has chosen to withdraw from the weak as dishwater (but better than nothing) Paris Accord. The delegation is headed by former Priebus aide Wells Griffith, who ran a failed campaign for congress in Alabama recently. Goodman chased Griffith around the hall at one point, asking him to comment on the administration’s hallucinogenic policies on climate change – he refused, walked faster, practically ran to get away from them. (Worth a look.)

What are they doing there? Same thing the conference is doing in Poland – making every effort to legitimize coal as a usable energy source. Recall that Trump’s EPA administrator is a coal industry lobbyist (I would add “former” to that title, but honestly, he still is). Poland’s government, too, is a big promoter of coal – that’s why they are hosting COP 24 in a building designed to look like the inside of a coal mine. Not too subtle. Though it has announced its intention to leave the Paris Accord, the U.S. government is doing all it can to steer the negotiations away from any serious effort at attacking this problem, teaming up with other bad global actors and hawking its extractive industries. It’s not all that different from Obama’s ridiculous “all of the above” policy, except that Trump’s all of the above doesn’t include renewables.

Mind you, this meeting has been going on for 24 years and we are still waiting for serious action on the greatest threat to confront us in the history of humankind. That’s why the corporate media pays no attention – they no the intention is to do nothing while looking like you’re doing something. Unacceptable.

Not Too Soon. I think Greg Grandin did a great job of remembering George H.W. Bush in all of his patrician glory in last week’s Nation. Check it out.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Inside December (2018).

It’s called snow, Marvin. The white stuff, falling from the sky? That’s not hard rain, it’s freaking snow. What the hell kind of weather station are you, anyway?

Oh, hi. Well … we’re getting into that time of year when larger mammals hibernate. That’s not how we roll, of course, but we do get a little more sedentary (if that can be imagined) as the winter months wear on. Fortunately, we have our podcast THIS IS BIG GREEN to keep us hopping this December. Here’s what we’ve packed inside this hollow tree:

Ned Trek 38: The Squire of Mara Lagos. Our new installment of Ned Trek is a takeoff on the classic Star Trek episode entitled “The Squire of Gothos” and features me doing really, really poor imitations of both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Perle turns out to be a compulsive gambler this week in a Lost in Space-style plot twist. See what you think … and feel free to play it back at 125% speed.

Put The Phone Down. Matt and I begin our yak session with a rendition of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, which maybe goes on a bit too long (we are joined by a Dalek after a few choruses). A little later on we go into dueling Sagan mode, give a nod to talking like a chimp, discuss the merits and demerits of the Ned Trek episode, and take a closer look at Matt’s various medals.

Marvin: It's 37 degrees. Me: Wrong.Song: Christmas is Over Here. I mentioned that we included some warmed-over holiday numbers in this episode – this isn’t one of them. This is just the two of us making up a ridiculous song that has never been sung before and likely will never be sung again. Ain’t that Christmas?

Song: Up North. One of Matt’s very first Christmas songs. This recording is, I think, from the late 1980s, a cassette 4-track master, and one of probably 4 versions of this song we’ve recorded over the decades. We include this one because of the ape-like backing vocals towards the end. Not to be missed.

Song: Quantum Christmas. This is an outtake from the sessions that resulted in our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas, back in 1999. We did the mix then decided to leave it off the final collection. Matt wrote this, of course, and it plays with the observer’s paradox in quantum physics as a metaphor for avoiding your relatives.

Song: Dark Christmas. Another outtake from the 2000 Years To Christmas album. It think we thought it was just too long to fit on what was already a longish album, but … there were likely other reasons as well. This kind of sounds like what we sounded like back then as a band, so give it a go.

Song: Ornament. This is another 4-track cassette recording, this from Matt’s 1990 Christmas collection (among my all-time favorites) that he gave to family and friends that year. We did a version of this for 2000 Years To Christmas that didn’t end up on the album, but I much prefer this one.

Enjoy it, folks. Now … back to tracking the weather.