Now there’s something you don’t see every day. That is, unless you’re one of those people who sees it every day. I’m just sayin’. (Oh no… I’ve become one of those people who says, “I’m just sayin’…”).
The thing I’m seeing (as opposed to the thing I’m sayin’) is this massive crack in the foundation of our beloved Hammer Mill. Never noticed it before, actually. Funny what you run across when you’re snooping around the place, looking for discarded foodstuffs (abandoned sandwiches, leftover fruit, etc.). Pretty soon you’re picking up on all of the stuff that’s been going on without your noticing it. I always thought that Mitch Macaphee’s experiments in plate tectonics might have some regrettable consequences. Now I can see that I was right. What has Mitch been working on, specifically? Funny you should ask. It’s this thing he picked up on in one of Matt’s songs, a little number called “Why Not Call It George?” The chorus goes like this:
Continental drift can be reversed
Great tumblers shift
And Pangaea can be reclaimed
After me it can be renamed
Why not call it George?
Call it George after me.
Now, I would be the first to caution people against taking song lyrics seriously. After all, look what happened with that Manson thing – and all because he was reading too much into Tommy James and the Shondells’ Crimson and Clover. (You know… “Crimson” – blood! “Clover” – on the graves of the dead! “Over and over” – MANY dead!) Well, Mitch has gone and done it again, trying to recreate the mother of all continents through some strange electromagnetic process that only HE understands. Hard to believe he is the inventor of something as, well, intellectually challenged as Marvin (my personal robot assistant). (Don’t tell Marvin I said that. Just attribute it to someone else, please – he’s very sensitive lately.)
Well, aside from scrounging and discovering mysterious faults to the center of the Earth, we’ve been 
working on a few songs… actually a sackload of songs. Not doing the lounge lizard thing any more. No sir, the next time we perform, it will be our own ridiculous tunes, not someone else’s. And we will have a powerpoint presentation handy to explain each one, so no one makes the mistake of misinterpreting them like Manson did with “Crimson and Clover” or whatever the hell song. Matt and I have been working furiously on this project, now that we know the potentially disastrous consequences that may result from mere un-footnoted performances. What the hell – we played “Why Not Call It George,” and now the Earth may be destroyed. Who knew?
So, all you would-be failed indie rock musicians out there – be careful what you sing! You may end up in SING SING! I’m just…. stoppin’.
Haiti. The story is starting to get old, I can see, even though many are still waiting for help, not getting enough food, can’t find a doctor, etc. A large part of the problem is our obsession with security. I’m afraid we’ve been an occupying power for a few too many years; it has had its effect, just as it has on the Israeli Defense Forces. We take a military approach to everything, and we trust no one. The U.N., for the most part, is in the same boat, driving around in secure vehicles even before the earthquake hit. Combine this with the general decay of our emergency management capabilities over the past decade and it’s not hard to understand why even with a significant commitment of resources, people in Haiti have been waiting a long time for a helping hand.
going to kill the “Top Taliban Leader” or “#3 Al Qaeda Leader” by remote control before we realize that these guys are almost always replaced by someone younger and more militant, and that the human cost in terms of civilians killed and wounded in these operations generates many more recruits than can ever be discouraged by martyring militant leaders? 
Oh, hi. You caught me haggling over the incalculable bounty of a bunch of bananas. Somehow, twenty years ago, I never pictured myself spending any serious time trying to convince a rogue mongoose that a twice-discarded piece of fruit belonged to me, not him. (I had no vision, no foresight.) And yet here I am, on the cobblestone street outside the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, engaged in this literally fruitless enterprise. No, my friends, I am not hungry. We of Big Green are not wanting for sustenance. We have our art to feed us, our music to fill our bellies, our powerpoint slides to use as sandwich slices, our amplifier heads to employ as toaster ovens, our… our… man, I’m hungry! 
Pavlovian response for me. Still, I don’t want the banana for snacks. We are working on concepts for the next Big Green album, and one of the many, many useless ideas involves bananas. (Only one? you may ask.) Not sure – I think Marvin (my personal robot assistant) may have come up with that one. Hire an old phonograph somewhere, he says. Get a banana, he says. Put the banana on the phonograph turntable, he says. So what do I do? I go and listen to him, that’s what. Who’s the fool here, eh? The fool robot or the fool who listens to him? Oh, well. We grab ideas wherever we can find them.
spiritual/artistic food? In truth, it’s not very satisfying. And bananas are better than what I can usually wrestle away from the local mongooses. (Mongeese?) Typically that’s a breadfruit rind or coconut shells. I mean, if I’m going to have a spartan dinner, I would prefer it not be something that has to be eaten with vise-grips. Hard times indeed. We’ve been trying to put our meager minds together on how to yank ourselves out of this pit of poverty and obscurity. (Leave us face it – we have a following like the fictional band played by Flight of the Conchords.) I don’t know. Hootenannies? Open rehearsals? Slide shows? Bake sales?