All posts by Joseph

Usual Rubbish

Refried show.

Hey, Matt .. what was that joke about the wooden balls again? Oh, right. Nah … it doesn’t work very well without the visual. Scratch that.

Oh, hello. We are, of course, working on the next installment of our podcast. It’s like the freaking Forbin Project, for chrissake. Takes us months to write the sucker, record it, edit it, compose and record songs, cut it all together, upload it, then collapse in a heap. (That last part actually happens kind of quickly.) Sometimes you want to just shout, “Enough!”, throw up your hands and walk away. Mic drop! But no, my friends, no … the show must go on.

That said, well … it HAS been kind of a long time. So we dropped another installment of our Ned Trek podcast – that’s the show that is just Ned Trek and no random jabbering between me and my brother. This month’s installment is extracted from one of last year’s THIS IS BIG GREEN episodes, Ned Trek 23: Mitt’s Brain. Based on the Spock’s Brain episode of classic Star Trek, it’s full of ridiculous plot departures and snarky portrayals of neocon freak bastards. Just the kind of thing you’ve come to expect from a Big Green podcast. On top of all that, there are 6 original Big Green songs in the mix, not available in Och, these cumberbunds are a wee bit tight.stores or on any album (yet). I could tell you what time code numbers they appear at in the show, but then you would just skip the whole play or simply laugh at my presumption, so I’ll forgo that.

The songs are, well, some of my favorites from the last year or so. I’d say number one in my book is “Two Lines”, a song sung by Lt. Sulu describing his artistic angst over being limited to two-line speeches throughout the entire three-year run of classic Star Trek. The chorus commandeers some of these two-line speeches to communicate Sulu’s despair:

Captain, the controls are frozen
the helm won’t respond; we’re being pulled inside
Aye, aye, my career is broken
like a giant hand has me in its hold
Captain, the controls are frozen
manual override is completely out
Aye, sir, I’ve been trying
but my shields are down and I cannot last

Then there’s a song about a yellow submarine. Actually not – there is one Pearle song called “Send in Some Advisers” which, well … the name pretty much says it. Anywho, the show it totally refried, so enjoy it … a second time.

Political Rants

Round nine.

Just watching the ninth Democratic debate. Debate, so called, though of course there is no proposition that’s being debated aside from who should be president. I’ve been watching it for a few moments, and I have to say … it’s kind of shrill. Lots of shouting, yes. Lots of finger pointing, accusations, counter-accusations. Lots of nasty looks, back and forth. Bad hairdos. You know the drill. Hoo boy. Our elections are way too freaking long. The process goes on for two years, pretty much. The debates are not very illuminating. It’s more like political speed dating – no particular depth.

Presidential debates: Shriller in vanillaThis is a media driven process. The horse-race coverage of the primary campaigns has pretty much swallowed up MSNBC, for instance. They basically pushed Melissa Harris-Perry out the door because she didn’t particularly want to be a campaign correspondent. Hard to blame her for that. Horse-race politics coverage is basically like sports journalism. The marketing approach is practically indistinguishable from that of sporting events – same kinds of music, graphics, etc. And this debate is a bit like Pacquio vs. Bradley. Except that it’s shrill white people.

I will be honest. I support Sanders, but I am not overly concerned with who wins the nomination. I am more concerned with the movement that supports his campaign – the broad public sentiment revealed by the strength of his primary and caucus performances, not to mention the attendance at his public events. The popularity of the Sanders campaign is based on issues, not on personality, likable as Bernie may be. The fact that these issues reflect the sentiments of the upcoming generation of young people, kids who have faced substantial economic headwinds from day one, gives me some hope for the future. My primary concern is that young people see some results from progressive policies in the near term, should a Democrat win this fall. If the left fails this generation, they are likely to turn right for answers.

So, this is a kind of race, but not the kind MSNBC wants to cover. It’s a race against time with respect to climate change, with respect to economic justice, with respect to social justice. Young people can bring about a more progressive future, if they get a chance.

Oh, boy. Hillary just said some pretty awful stuff about foreign policy. Dubya Bush in drag, frankly. I’ve heard enough.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Spring is … psych!

Had the weirdest dream last night, Anti Lincoln. I dreamed I saw Joe Hill …. I mean, I dreamed there was snow all over the place, like it was mid January. Talk about unrealistic. Hey, pull up the shade … it’s kind of dark in here. What the …. WHAT?

Yeah, that snowfall took us all a little bit by surprise here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in frosty upstate New York. Somehow, after a freakishly mild winter (which I personally think was cooked up by our own Mitch Macaphee, mad science adviser), snow has returned in early April. Once again, I think Mitch might have had a hand in this. He’s got this big-ass smoke machine that shoots unnamed projectiles into the heavens – missiles loaded with I don’t know what the fuck, and lots of it. Mitch cranks it up, the sucker sputters and pops for a few minutes, then it starts snowing. Kind of. (That might be torn up fragments of Mitch’s membership agreement with the National Academy of Mad Science.)

Nice gizmo, Mitch.Okay, so let’s assume the weather has nothing to do with Mitch’s cloud bazooka. This is effed up, man! Remember now – we are squatters in this here hammer mill, see? And, well … the heat in this place is a little unreliable. Most of the winter we depend on an old wood stove in what used to be the shipping office. It’s the mansized tuber’s job to stoke the thing, and sometimes he falls down on the job a little. But most days we manage to keep the ice off the dishwater … though I don’t suppose you’re aware of how effective ice can be as a dishwashing medium. It scrapes, it emulsifies, it …. okay, I’m exaggerating. You have to look on the bright side when you’re freezing your ass off.

Winter is in extra innings. We can live with that. After all, we have spent weeks on remote planets, like Pluto, for instance.  We have traveled to the center of this here Earth. We have, I don’t know … done lots of stupid stuff. Certainly this is no stupider.

So, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and the mansized tuber are tasked with fanning the flames for another week. Good exercise, even for a robot. And an animate stump.