Stage props? Never really thought much of them, frankly. What the hell are we, summer stock? We’re a bleedin’ band, man! Oh, all right, all right. But just the enormous styrofoam sphinx. No pyramid. I SAID, NO PYRAMID!
Oh, sorry, my friend. Hope that wasn’t too loud. I was just trying to get my point across to Anti-Lincoln… the idea that Big Green is not a flash band with a truckload of stage props, seven costume changes, makeup, extras, pyrotechnics, fog machines, etc. Never part of that movement, frankly. No, no…. our roots go back to a simpler time, when the earth was new and the sky was darkened by flocks of cawing pterodactyls. Not that roots have a lot to do with it. Actually, our musical influences are the more pared-down groups of the 60’s and early 70’s, and plain-clothes alternative types from much later. Anti-Lincoln doesn’t think that’s visually interesting enough. He would sooner we change our names to, I don’t know, “Great Speckled Bird” or “Pilot and the Now Tones”, then don sequined capes and climb like apes on multicolored scaffolding while jumbotrons play a DVD of some Bergman movie. I, for one, think that would be a bit much. And you?
Yeah, it’s hard to keep everyone happy around here, particularly now that we’re in the planning stages of our next interplanetary tour, tentatively titled: “Destination Space: Big Green’s Galactic Tour 2009″. What’s the itinerary? Glad you asked. Nothing is written in stone, as you might well imagine. All we’ve got around the mill is pencils and pens, no chisels. What we’ve got written on paper, however, is perhaps worthy of mention. Can’t really share all the details, but what I can tell you is that, if you happen to be in the neighborhood of the planet Neptune sometime in mid-July, you may get the opportunity to see us bomb-out at yet another airless alien pub. We’re determined to book better venues this time out, but if things go the way they usually go (and, well… they usually do), we’ll probably play those other places as well. Part of the deal, friends.
Now, to be fair to Anti-Lincoln, he’s not the only one who wants to add some kind of visual element to our performances. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) even went so far as to do a sketch of a Big Green stage set – one that has an enormous planet hanging down in the middle (either that or a cantaloupe, I’m not sure which). I think he envisions some expanded performing role for himself and for the man-sized tuber. They used to be satisfied with grabbing a tuba or a banjo or a second-hand guitar and framming away on one side of the stage… now it has to be something more dramatic. I think for the tuber it’s all about that heady experience he had during his trip back to the 1860s. Or maybe it’s just aphids. (He’s been looking a bit badgered lately.)
Well, stage set or now, we’ll need to work up some kind of show. Hey, Matt – got any more songs about Lincoln? How about Kublai Khan? Yes? Exxxxcellent.
around the fringes in our system, when the margins are relatively tight. Iran has much more serious, systemic problems. Even so, the people there obviously know what to do when things go badly wrong – get out in the street. These are the people we want to bomb so badly. I hope Americans are taking a close look at those folks out in the street, putting their necks on the line. This is the enemy, folks – the “axis of evil”. Whatever Bush used to say about having no quarrel with the Iranian people, it is they who would suffer in the event of any confrontation between our countries, just as they have suffered in the past, when we overthrew Mossadeq in 1953, through the decades of rule by our ally the Shah, and under massive assault from our other ally Saddam Hussein during the 1980s. Just take a real close look.
Does this Iran election controversy have a familiar ring to it? If so, perhaps it’s because something very similar happened in Mexico in 2006, when Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ran against Filipe Calderon and most likely won the election, but was chiseled out of the presidency by Calderon (with the full support of the Bush administration, of course). To look at news coverage of Mexico today and its relationship with the United States, you would never know that there was any question surrounding Calderon’s election. Massive street protests yielded no change, no re-run of the election, no nothing. Could be that Iran’s current uprising will end the same way, despite the hopes of many. That would be sad for the many in Iran who wanted things to change, but with respect to U.S. policy, it is we who must change, whoever the president may be. We’ve invaded and occupied countries on both sides of Iran, we regularly threaten them with massive destruction, and yet we speak of them as the outlaw state. Hypocrisy, anyone?
It seems I’m too trusting. We all are here at the Cheney Hammer Mill, Big Green’s crap shack of distinction. Oh, we’ve had a lot of crap shacks through the years, from a tumbled-down house on Irving Avenue in Castleton-On-Hudson to the slightly less beat up place next door to it…. (and one or two others, if memory serves). Then of course there was the lean-to in Sri Lanka. (What happened to that? It leaned fro.) Anyway, next to all those joints, this abandoned hammer mill is the next best thing to being someplace decent. And yet, here we are… lights off, phone disconnected, water intermittent, gravity reversed (Mitch Macaphee’s been at it again)… It all comes down to one thing: frankincense. No, wait. It’s another word…. Money. Yeah, that’s it. Bleedin’ money. 
why he’s the only one with any cash around here. For chrissake, the government has dropped more than one grant on him for developing “hybrids”. The fools think Mitch is building cars; instead, he’s formulating a cyborg army in his spare time. I should have him pay the electric bill – he’s the bastard that’s using it all. One might suppose that Marvin (my personal robot assistant), built some years back by Mitch, was some kind of prototype, but not a bit of it. Marvin is pure robot; no organic components whatsoever. He’s clean, man. Ergo, he has no role in the coming reign of the cyborgs. (Not to worry, friends. This is just one of Mitch’s pipe dreams. All mad scientists must have them.)
the situation calls for, including standing out in the street and selling #3 pencils. Particularly when we specifically ask him to do this kind of thing… which, of course, we did, just as soon as he wheeled himself out of the time warp and back into the 21st century. And yes, I did say #3 pencils (we sold out of the #2’s last week). Truth be told, his take has been somewhat disappointing thus far. Perhaps he needs bigger pencils. Marvin! See if we’ve got any of the big number threes!