All posts by Joseph

Usual Rubbish

Next frame empty.

What is that… a bell tower of some kind? Can’t tell. My eyes are too clouded. Must be the Zenite snuff sFshzenKlyrn left for me in my jacket pocket. Next frame. A deer… in a field. Hmmmmm…

Oh, forgive me. Just clicking through a few Viewmaster wheels from long ago. I’m freaking lost on those things without the phonograph record to tell me when to change the slide. In any case, welcome back to the house of joy — a.k.a. the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in what we euphemistically (and with great license) refer to as Sri Lanka, but which is, in fact, an undisclosed location (though not the same one where you’ll find the other Cheney in all of our lives). Anyway, me (myself) and the fellows are just settling in here, getting used to our surroundings once again, breaking the same windows that our financial manager Geet O’Reilly had repaired while we were away. (She keeps doing that. So irritating.) Got to get a little air, you know, after being cooped up in a dusty space craft for nigh on to two months. Just breathe it in, friends!

Hi-de-ho, we’ve been turning our meager attention back to the second Big Green album, now in the mixing stage and nearing completion. While everyone has his/her part to play in this process, probably the most all-around useful member of our entourage has been the indefatigable Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who has obligingly offered up his services as tape operator. Sure, sure — we had the man-sized tuber twisting the dials earlier in the process, but that was before, damn it. Tubey has got other interests. Music will never come first for him… not so long as he has coin collecting and pretzel-bending to keep him occupied. (Just the other day he found a “Peace” dollar in the bottom of my shirt cupboard — which, quite coincidentally, is just where I left the fucking thing.) Someone should ‘splain to Tubey that collecting other people’s coins is just plain stealing.

Trouble is, I think the person that got him into this hobby is none other that anti-Lincoln, the nefarious doppelganger of our late Great Emancipator. Anti-Lincoln is obviously running some kind of scam here, and apparently feels that the man-sized tuber is clueless enough to play an unwitting part in it. Don’t know where he would get such an outlandish idea — why, Tubey is the sharpest root vegetable I’ve ever traversed interstellar space with. Though… apparently not sharp enough to avoid handing over his ill-gotten gains to anti-Lincoln like so much lunch money. Can’t trust anybody anymore. Next thing you know, Mitch Macaphee will be enlisting Big Zamboola as some kind of hot-air balloon for his next atmospheric experiment. Hey…. so that isn’t a strangely 3-D depiction of a rising sun in my Viewmaster! And isn’t that Marvin in the gondola?

Okay, so what the fuck — we’re not going to make a lot of progress on our album this way. For chrissake, I wish Mitch would wait until after our remix session before he sends our tape operator into the exosphere. Bloody scientific mentality!

Political Rants

Snap!

Whoa. Even the longest winning streaks run out one day, I guess. Prior to this last Tuesday, I was beginning to wonder if the Republicans could do anything that might lose them an election. It appears as though the voters have their limit after all. The Dems even took my local congressional district seat, which has been held by the GOP for more than fifty years. Who can doubt that there were more than a few bricks in the White House toilets come Wednesday morning? Rumsfeld immediately took the bullet, probably guessing that the Democrats would be satisfied with his departure and not drag him in front of a semi-hostile committee. (Good guess. Remember what they did after Clinton’s first election… yeah, that’s right — you can’t remember because there’s nothing to remember.) It’s distinctly possible, however, that foreign courts will be less forgiving. With universal jurisdiction on war crimes and ample evidence that Rumsfeld not only condemned but encouraged torture of detainees, he may need to plan his travel itinerary a bit more carefully from now on. (Tip: Ask Kissinger what travel agent he uses.)

So what does this Democratic victory mean, aside from the prospect of being able to say “Chairman Conyers” and “Chairwoman Lee”? Is this really a sea change, as some have suggested? Not likely. As I’ve mentioned here before in my usual haphazard way, working towards a Democratic resurgence in the House and Senate was a minimal political act — an attempt to shove a log into the juggernaut’s wheel-spokes (though it may be more akin to clipping a playing card to the forks of Bush’s bicycle). The Dems did not generate anything like a consistently progressive theme during the campaign (see Rahm Emmanuel); some talked a good game, while others mouthed the usual weasely platitudes that may easily be backed away from later on. It is during these first few weeks following an election when the betrayal of the voters typically takes place, and there are signs that such a process may be underway.

The air is thick with calls for bipartisan cooperation. Oh, sure — when the Republicans had total control of everything, it was “Fuck off an die, liberal Osama-huggers! We’ll make the laws ourselves and the president will spend his political capital as he sees fit.” Now that they’ve lost Congress, suddenly it’s time for everyone to come together for the good of the country. Something tells me that when the GOP wrenches control of the legislative branch back again, their attitude will be, “Well, we tried bipartisanship and it didn’t work, so fuck of and die, children of Saddam!” And the Dems will be shocked… shocked, as always. If they would only give as good as they get, just one time. Ah, well — it was a pleasure, at least, to see fuckers like George Allen, Rick Santorum, and Rich Pombo get the drubbing they so richly deserve. That, in itself, may have been worth the price of admission.

Now that that’s over, it’s back to pushing for an end to this lousy war, which is killing people in sickening numbers every day. So bug the shit out of that new congressmember, senator, etc. — no honeymoon!

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Have a sandwich.

Where did my paring knife go? Anyone seen it? It was here just a minute ago. Hey, anti-Lincoln — have you seen my knife? You were just in here a minute ago… uh-oh…..

Oh the butt-aches of living in a communal residence! Yes, yes, it is good to be back at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill — our adopted home — after so long an absence, especially given that this may have been the most irritating Big Green tour ever. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, sure, he says that every time, right? Okay, well maybe I did say it after our Journey to the Center of the Earth tour a couple of years ago. And maybe I did say it after our last tour, when we were kidnapped and held against our will on a hostile alien planet. And I grant you — I may well say it again after our next tour, whatever kind of disaster that may turn out to be. But I’m sure I’ll be just as convinced of its suck-acity then as I have been all the previous times. (Now you’re thinking, God, what a pain in the ass this fucker is! Why do I read this blog? WHY?)

Okay, so I’m not a very good mind reader. No matter — here we are, back at the mill, having extracted ourselves from the dreaded Doo-Dah parade (where Big Zamboola was a massive hit, I should tell you). The condemned sign has been torn from our front door. Reprieve from the city? Not quite. I asked Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to pull it down. It amounts to the same thing in this city. (They won’t get around to knocking this place down for another couple of years, at the very soonest. Other fish to fry.) He will be tacking up a “do not disturb” sign in its place, in hopes that this will discourage the curious (and the creditors) from trying to gain access to the mill as we turn our attention to what has become the most monumental labor of our careers — making an Irish stew without meat or potatoes. (Oh, yeah… and then there’s that album thing we’re working on. Where the hell did we leave that, anyway?)

Great day in the morning, I know it seems like Big Green has spent way too long in production. It’s nearly possible to calculate the trajectory of our latest CD project in terms of geological time. What the fuck, we started planning the sucker shortly after the release of our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas, back in 1999. Of course, there was some slap-dash songwriting after that, then we started recording the bastard in early 2003. Here it is three years later, and we’re finally to the point of mixing / mastering. Can hardly believe it. My guess is that, in a few more of your earth time units known as months, we will actually have something to show for all of this seemingly pointless activity. (No, Mitch. Not money. That’s your day job, okay?)

So, back to the console. But first the stew. Or perhaps just a sandwich. Where the devil is that knife? No, Anti-Lincoln, I can’t use a gun. Just put it away, now. Slowly…. slowly…. (Hey, out there… somebody call the cops… I’ll have Marvin take down the “do not disturb” sign again…)