All posts by Joseph

Usual Rubbish

Mister nobody.

Listen carefully, tubey. These deer are very small. These deer… are far away. These, very small. These… far away! Get the idea? No? Hoo, boy. Let’s start again…

Ah, it is you, my friend. Welcome to the Cheney Hammer Mill one-room school house, here in the hinterlands (or, more properly speaking, the hinder-lands, since you can do nothing here). Just trying, in my own sorry way, to give the denser among us some semblance of an education. Why? Simple… they’re simple. And they live with creatures of quite enormous intellect. I refer not to myself, of course, nor to brother Matt or Johnny White – we’re all thick as posts compared to Big Green‘s scientific contingent. You know who I mean… your Mitch Macaphees, your Trevor James Constables… your doctors Hump. The brain guys. Stubborn as hell, they may be. One is mean as a snake (Mitch). But intellectually, they outpace us by leagues.

So here I am, trying to explain complex spatial relationships to an overgrown sweet potato. (I can hardly wait to show him two-point perspective!) Like most potatoes, the man-sized tuber has eyes, but he cannot see the difference between a porcelain miniature and an 800-pound buck. That will likely be a problem for him as he moves through the world of men. Sadly, there are other dead spots in his noggin, as well. The whole math thing is a big mystery to tubey. He can count the hairs on his tap-root up to the lower double digits, but that’s about his limit. And even with the full support of Marvin (my personal robot assistant) as a teacher’s aide, I can’t get him to recall the six major continents by name. (He calls Australia “Big Zamboola”. I mean, that’s like calling the Chrysler Building “Fred McMurray”.)

Is there anything more depressing than a cruciferous vegetable that will not learn? Of course there is. But that’s not the point here. Think of all that the man-sized tuber is missing as a result of his ignorance. Think of the ridicule and degradation he must endure from his more learned colleagues. And anti-Lincoln – what about him? He’s as dense as the rest of us. Where the hell is he going in this hyper-competitive world of ours? When society demands success, all he can offer is failure. Like the tuber, he’ll be a nothing, a nobody. (Arrogant as he is, of course, he will insist on Mister Nobody.) Hell, don’t even get me started on Big Zamboola. He isn’t even allowed on public buses, let alone elevators. (Though he can defy gravity, so that’s not as much of an issue…)

Back to the books. Damnit, Marvin – what did you do with my third grade primer? Holding up a hot plate? But it’s flammable, you imbecile! That’s it – take that open seat in the third row. Christ on a bike – we’re moving backwards.

Big Green lives at www.big-green.net. Excoriate them at your pleasure.
Political Rants

Four candles.

It’s been four years since the invasion of Iraq – four flaming candles on that bitter cake. (Make a wish!) Dubya, Cheney, and Rumsfeld’s “six days, six weeks… I doubt six months” war is now nearly old enough to attend kindergarten. How fast these little catastrophes grow up… my word! Seems like only yesterday we were stoking the furnace of martial fury, seldom very far below the surface of American life. Cheney and his “there can be no doubt” speech about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction; Bush’s yellowcake uranium scare and “mission accomplished” fan dance; Powell’s “slam-dunk” case before the U.N.; Condi Rice’s certainty about the sole utility of those bloody aluminum tubes. I can see them all scrolling by like tired old hits on a K-Tel “Sounds of the Seventies” collection. (Right up there with Billy, Don’t Be A Hero.) Now, some 48 months later, you would think by listening to our leading politicians that America’s entry into Iraq was the result of some involuntary process, like an extraordinary rendition. In the land of “the mother of all battles”, Operation Iraqi Fiefdom is surely the most motherless of all battles.

Still, these deadbeat dads and moms all seem to have their own ideas about how this little four year old should be brought up, and most of them involve having other people’s sons and daughters remain on Iraqi soil for a good long time. They are virtually all talking about some kind of “victory” and a Nixonian “peace with honor” – the peace of the grave, though invariably someone else’s grave. And as I mentioned last week, all but the most principled of congress members appear convinced that the Pentagon is incapable of withdrawing troops from a war zone in a safe and orderly fashion when so directed. If we follow this logic to its conclusion, they’re saying our troops can never leave Iraq, because to do so is just too damn dangerous. Of course, a long-term U.S. military presence doesn’t comport well with what we know of Iraqi public opinion, which overwhelmingly – something like 70 – 80% – favors our rapid departure. You’d never know it, listening to the Iraq war debate over here. I guess those Iraqis are just supposed to accept the blame for this disaster and keep their mouths shut.

We’re like a nuclear Rome, except somewhat less subtle. I heard a report on NPR about the U.S. takeover of a key bridge in Diyala province, where Sunni insurgents have held sway. There were the usual horror stories – probably true – about Al Qaeda types committing public execution and intimidating the locals. Of course, when the U.S. troops arrived, they took over a group of houses near the bridge, displacing the owners with a promise of compensation. Much of the report is taken up with an Army lieutenant telling Iraqis that, no, he didn’t have their money and that “we don’t come into town with a trunk of money to hand people cash for the things that have happened.” He was later heard impatiently turning away Iraqi soldiers who hadn’t been paid in god knows how long and who were complaining about 12 hour duty shifts with no salary, directing them to their dysfunctional government. I’ve seen similar stories over the past week or two – Iraqis being sent out into some very uncertain streets. This is how we made friends in Fallujah… and in the Mekong Delta, come to think of it. There it took us more than ten years to leave. So far, in Iraq, it’s four.

Rachel. Another grim anniversary. Four years since young Rachel Corrie was killed while doing what we all should be doing – stopping an out-of-control Israeli government from bulldozing Palestinian neighborhoods in the occupied territories (while collecting billions from us each year). Not forgotten.

luv u,

jp

Big Green lives at www.big-green.net. Excoriate them at your pleasure.
Usual Rubbish

Heapily ever after.

Is this the Boise office? It ain’t? Well then, who the hell is this, anyways? Okay, okay, get me Washington. Huh? Since when? Never mind, then… get me Lincoln. What… him too? Jeezus….

Oh, it’s you. Just try to get somebody on the phone these days! I mean, you’d think with all the portables and the VoIP and all that, it’d be easy… but nooooo. Actually, I’ve been trying to reach our rep over at Loathsome Prick Records – not the annoying PR guy who puts words in my mouth, but the A&R guy who takes money out of our pockets…. that guy. Wired up like a freaking christmas tree, he is. Never seen so many bleeding lights on something that wasn’t a tractor-trailer. (So much for the colorful asides.) Been dialing long distance all morning and so far no luck. It’s almost like they don’t want to talk to us. And no, I’m not using the royal “we”, nor is there a mouse in my pocket. When I call someone, it’s on behalf of all of us. (Particularly the crank calls.)

Why the urgency? Well… couple of things. First off, I’m hoping to extend the grace period on the delivery of our next musical “product” – the long-awaited sophomore Big Green album. We’ve been running into some post production difficulties, as you may have gathered from the last few columns. I know, I know… with Marvin (my personal robot assistant) turning the dials and the man-sized tuber sulking in the corner, how could we miss, right? Friends, it’s not as simple as that. There’s the never-ending battle with entropy, for instance. And as you well know, if the entropy doesn’t get you, then the inertia certainly will. (Maybe both will get you. Ever consider that possibility?)

Then there’s the other thing. See, we were hoping for a little advance on our next release… and everybody thought it made sense to ask for this at the same time I’m informing them that the master won’t be ready on time. Who says we’re not cost conscious? (Actually, Geet O’Reilly, our financial advisor, suggested we cut down on the long distance charges.) Anyway, we thought… well… maybe a couple of grand in small bills might be appropriate, seeing as though we’re living in an abandoned mill and haven’t had a properly cooked meal in several months (since coming off our last interstellar tour, actually). Face it, Big Green is a cheap date. Just ask Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm Inc., our former corporate label. Don’t think they spent much on us, aside from the cost of the goon squads they put on our ass. (And goons were pretty easy to get back in those days. Just ask the Indonesian military.) That was a heap of trouble.

So what the fuck, Loathsome Prick Records – let’s have a little respect, eh? We’re making the bloody album. It’s coming, like Issa’s snail climbing Mount Fuji (slowly… slowly). I’ve got a hungry robot over here, and a couple of impatient Lincolns. Send money!

Big Green lives at www.big-green.net. Excoriate them at your pleasure.