All posts by Joseph

Usual Rubbish

About the ‘cano.

2000 Years to Christmas

There’s always the chance it could be legitimate. Why not? Must we always be so damn cynical? What happened to those happy-headed funsters we used to be back in 1978? Wait … we were never happy-headed funsters? Well … at least that explains what happened to them.

Once again, you catch us in the midst of a philosophical debate, an exquisitely complex conundrum that has confronted us in our COVIDian solitude. Well, perhaps I’m being too generous. Let’s just say we’re having a little difference of opinion. Nothing too weighty, you understand – after all, these are austere times, and we’re trying to be economical with our emotions (as we have little else to be economical with). Why don’t I describe the debate we’re having here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, and you can decide whether it rises to the level of a philosophical discussion? That I shall do.

As you know, when it comes to the matter of commercial success, Big Green is a smoking failure. We are so obscure, you’d think we spent the last thirty years trying to be unsuccessful (which, I suppose you could argue, we did). Nevertheless, we have resorted to various forms of representation. The first was Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, the Indonesian corporate label that nearly clapped us in irons and threw us in a dungeon somewhere in Jakarta. Then we mutinied and set up our own label, Hammermade … but of course, that’s just a name, so we’ve had to work with actual distribution companies to get our albums out where people can find them (or not find them, as the case may be). That means we use the same digital distribution networks that most acts use, though i suspect those with decent representation and name recognition realize a better return on their streaming plays, downloads, etc., than we do. Fuckers!

In any case, every week or so we get stats from our distributor, and our numbers are usually somewhere halfway down the toilet (except for around the holidays, when Pagan Christmas takes off like a rocket, thanks to our pagan listeners). Then last week, we saw higher than usual numbers on the track Volcano Man, from our second album, International House. My initial reaction was the same as my reaction to everything else: “What the hell?” Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was immediately of the opinion that the song had finally found its mythical audience – that elusive unicorn of a loyal listener cohort that has been the stuff of speculation since we first donned our Big Green hair-hats and bark suits. (Marvin’s little video screen flashed the word “eureka”.)

That's what we're talking about.

Hey … you expect robot assistants to be a little over-enthusiastic, right? But then Anti-Lincoln and Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, jumped in on Marvin’s side, so Matt and I had to disabuse them of their delusional optimism. Turns out there’s a rational explanation for everything – there’s a new song/video called Volcano Man that’s from an upcoming Will Ferrell movie entitled Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. People were obviously looking for that Volcano Man and not our Volcano Man, which is quite different, though similarly ridiculous. Marvin’s not convinced – he thinks it’s all a coincidence. Anti-Lincoln is leaning more towards a conspiracy theory, which is totally like him. Not sure about Mitch – he’s moved on to another project.

Where was I going with this? No place special. Always wanted to go there.

Political Rants

Time running out.

While you were looking over there, Donald Trump, our racist five-year-old drunken Twitter-troll of a President, pulled out of yet another arms control treaty with the Russians. Signed in 1992 by then president George H.W. Bush, the Open Skies Treaty allowed for short-notice, unarmed reconnaissance flights as a way of verifying compliance with other arms control treaties. As he always does when announcing the end of an international agreement, Trump breezily claimed that the Russians were not adhering to the treaty, and that by pulling out we will eventually end up with a new agreement that’s better than the current one.

This announcement comes in the context of:

  • Withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which removed extremely destabilizing and dangerous medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe;
  • Trump’s reluctance to renew the New START treaty next February when it expires. The accord provides for inspection of nuclear forces in by both parties, and is the final remaining pillar of the U.S.-Russian arms control regime.

This madness is another case of Trump’s key role as a rubber stamp for the most extreme elements in the right-wing political grouping that is currently running the country through him. I am certain Trump did not wake up in the middle of the night and say. “We must toss out all of our arms control agreements with Russia!” My guess is that the president’s strongest negative feeling might be reserved for New START, as that was signed by Obama in 2010, but otherwise this planet-saving series of treaties is probably of very little interest to him. Sure, there is some posing involved here, Trump trying to appear “tough”, trying to please daddy, etc., but why even bother getting into that? The man’s only ideology is himself. He is a uniquely valueless human being – the perfect vessel for a resurgent militarist right.

The administration’s rhetoric points to prompting a new arms race that will spend both China and Russia into a hole. Set aside for a moment the blatant insanity of such a policy (recall the dark days of the early 1980s) – it appears to be based on a popular misconception of what happened in the last arms race. We didn’t spend the Soviet Union into oblivion; empires decay, that’s what they do. We nearly spent ourselves into oblivion, investing trillions of dollars in the production of waste (useless military hardware) instead of putting those dollars into building a better society. Soviet military spending was pretty much flat through the 1980s. A renewed nuclear arms race puts humanity at risk, pure and simple – there’s no upside.

What is presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s position on this issue? Good question. I can’t find anything about it on his web site. For some more discussion about the lack of evidence of a Biden foreign policy, see the current episode of Strange Sound, our new podcast.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Usual Rubbish

Make good.

2000 Years to Christmas

Well, we don’t have any more guitar strings. Used the last set in early April. And those used ones on the bureau are from 1997, so they may be a little dull. How about some electrical wire? I’ve got some decent coax in the cupboard.

Oh, hello. Welcome to the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in upstate New York, adopted home of Big Green and burgeoning center of innovation. And by innovation, I mean making do with what you have at hand. Which, I know, is not the same thing, but hey …. “innovation” sounds more, uh … innovative. In any case, provisions are running a little low around here, there being a Great Depression under way. I suppose you could argue that we’ve been experiencing a kind of Great Depression for a good many years, just within the rubric of our commercially failed alt-pop group project. That said, the tumbleweeds are blowing down the dusty street in front of the hammer mill. In the distance, you can hear a banjo playing. Somewhere a dog was barking.

Okay, so … we’re out of milk. That’s one thing. Fortunately, we don’t drink milk, so the fact that we haven’t had any for six or seven years hasn’t significantly impacted our quality of life. Pork chops, same deal. (Actually, Mitch Macaphee claims to have invented some kind of faux pork substance, but I can’t vouch for its authenticity.) The real pinch, though, comes from lack of instrument accessories and supplies. We were discussing guitar strings earlier. That’s not the only thing that’s missing around this dump. Patch cords. Stomp boxes. Tubes. Other tubes. Speaker cables. Batteries. And keys, damn it … replacement keys for my dumb-ass Roland A90EX, which has missing teeth right in the freaking middle of the board.

Joe being helpful around the mill.

We were thinking about starting a GoFundMe, but given our reputation, we just assumed it would have quickly transitioned to a GoFuckYourself. Besides, passing the hat has never been a big winner for us. I remember back in our busking days, sitting around random street corners with an open guitar case set on the sidewalk, waiting for coins. Mind you, we weren’t playing any music. Fact was, we were even poorer then, so we didn’t have guitars, just guitar cases. So we would sit there and wait for people to drop some cash in the hole. In a way, we’re sitting there still. (Sometimes I get on Google Street View and wander through our old neighborhood in downtown Albany, NY just to make certain we’re not still there. That would be freaky, but not beyond the realm of possibility.)

Oh well. Little we can do for the time being, except strum rusty guitar strings, plunk on broken keys, and watch inspirational corporate TV ads that start with reverb-y piano notes and solemn voices.