All posts by Joseph

Usual Rubbish

Hanky land.

What the fuck, was that a week just then? I know I’ve said this before, but time seems to be speeding up. I should ask Mitch Macaphee if the Earth is spinning any faster than a few years ago … and if HE has anything to do with it. (Always worth asking.)

Well, it’s been kind of quiet around the abandoned hammer mill for the last week. Just the sounds of quiet toil. Ah, the joys of wage slavery! Not much to report. Matt’s been out in the field, tending to his various populations of beast and bird. We’re working on the next album, punching up some of the Ned Trek numbers, albeit slowly. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is learning Swahili in his spare time (or perhaps Kinyarwanda … he can never make up his little battery-driven mind about anything.)

Besides recording, what have we been doing as a “band”, specifically? Well, if you REALLY want to know, probably the best way is to listen to the second half of our podcast THIS IS BIG GREEN – the part where Matt and I spend about an hour talking about nothing and next to nothing. For instance, our most recent episode featured the following weighty items:

  • What a way to wake upImagining Henry Kissinger trying out for the Monkees back in the late sixties, like Charles Manson did. Hanky’s Monkees, it might have been called. Or perhaps not. (This stemmed from our recollection of an earlier episode when we pondered whether or not Davy Jones might have been killed by primate poachers.)
  • Waking up and finding that not only are you in the Pleistocene era, but you are in fact Charles Nelson Riley.
  • Giving a rough-edged rendition of the Popeye theme song.
  • Way too many lame imitations of Peter Lorre (if you can imagine such a thing).
  • Once through the “Happy Anniversary” version of the William Tell Overture to mark our podcast’s 4th anniversary.

I know, it’s hard to imagine that any single podcast could contain so many wonders, but it’s true. And honestly, it’s just like hanging out with us in the Cheney Hammer Mill basement. Just as riveting.

Political Rants

Left screech-less.

Well, it was quite a week for the right. First the dramatic jailing of the county clerk in Kentucky and her equally dramatic release into the arms of Mike Huckabee and Tony Perkins (not the actor). Then there was the non-satirical version of the Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington, headlined by Ted Cruz, who was shut out at the Kentucky celebration of bigotry. Lots of posturing, quite a bit of screeching (particularly on the part of the estimable Sara Palin), and some very bizarre opinions being aired – tirades that speak of a truly distorted view of reality; noises from that airless box the reactionary right spends all of its time in.

Meeting of the minds in Washington, D.C.I think the part that’s most flabbergasting is the level of hysteria over the Iran deal. You expect to hear overheated rhetoric at an event that features Michelle Bachman and some dude from “Duck Dynasty,” but this was way the fuck over the top. Ted Cruz suggested that the Iranians, once they have acquired the nuclear weapon they so LUST after, will blow it up off the coast of the U.S. to create an electromagnetic pulse, shutting down our electrical grid and killing MILLIONS! What. the. fuck. What a fantasy! And this from a sitting Senator.

Sure, I know what you’re thinking. (Or at least I think I do.) These are the crackheads, the crazy people, the tea party faithful, waving their freak flag high. Except that these opinions are broadly held among Republicans, great and small. Just as Trump channels the inner wingnut of every member of the party faithful, the bizarre rhetoric of Palin, Cruz, Bachman and others emanate from the mouths of the GOP’s supposedly more temperate and measured spokespeople. On Thursday morning MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough launched into a rant about the Iran deal that diverged from Palin’s argument only in the style of delivery. Less screechy, but just as nuts. We’re shuddering in the shadow of Iran. Scarborough could have been channeling Cheney, except that the wreck of an ex vice president appeared on his show only days before.

Fact is, they’re all nuts. Be advised.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Inside August (or September).

Hey, presto. Pulled a fast one on you last week, didn’t we? Just when you least expect to see a new episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN, there it freaking is, plain as paper and twice as thick. As has been our practice, this featured another “musical” episode of our warped space opera Ned Trek, the only Star Trek parody that features an all-neocon crew, a Mormon captain, and a talking dressage horse as its first officer and moral compass.

What’s inside the podcast? Well, the best way to find out is to suffer through it. You can do it! Short of that drastic step, here’s a brief guide to August’s TIBG:

Ned Trek 24: Whom Gods Deploy – This episode of Ned Trek is loosely based on the third season classic Star Trek episode, Whom Gods Destroy, the one with Captain (a.k.a. Lord) Garth, the inmate who takes over the space insane asylum and plans on conquering the universe. In our version, the inmate is George W. Bush, former imperial president, who spends his days on an asylum planet painting abstract portraits …. works that appear to presage actual events, as if (dare I say it?) he possessed some kind of supernatural power, like the guy in The Lathe of Heaven, except more on the hayseed side. (Side note: W has a serious fear of horses, my brother tells me.)

Frankly, hard to parody.Song: Up On The Bridge – Another Sulu number, one that chronicles his career fall and rise with the ebb and flow of the Star Trek phenomenon.

Song: I Paint What I See – Ex-president George W. Bush explains the genesis of his muse and its relationship to his overall worldview.

Song: Naturally – Pearl’s song to his former boss and chief advisee; a lament about W’s sorry condition as a painter, not a war-starter. Country-fied.

Song: Stephanie’s Song – Mr. Stephanie croons about W’s fear of horses and all hooved creatures in this quirky waltz.

Song: Baby Bush – A Romney number, encouraging W. to reclaim his pedestal as The Decider. Shuffle swing number.

Song: Jesus Has a Known Mind – Doc delivers an awesome message from the lord in this rock-out number. Mean!

Song: Real Talking Horse – Ned’s song, with a strange early-sixties ending reminiscent of the Four Seasons, somehow.

Pointless Banter – This you have to hear. I can’t describe it other than to say that I probably said things I regret, but …. post!