Category Archives: Usual Rubbish

Usual Rubbish

Old home week arrives at the hammer mill.

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2000 Years to Christmas

Man alive, I just got done talking about Mitch Macaphee’s dick-like rocket ship, and what happens? Some billionaire flies into the exosphere in a ship that looks as much like a dick as Mitch’s. What the hell!

Okay, enough with the rocket launches. I don’t want to give the impression that we spend all of our time obsessing over the exploits of space oligarchs. That’s more the province of Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who likes his cable television very much. We sentient members of Big Green prefer more lofty pursuits, like …. I don’t know … reading things. Or putting one thing on top of the other. And then there’s walking around as you read a thing and tripping over the other two things. That happens a lot at the hammer mill.

Reaching back dimly

Then there’s reminiscing – every upstate musician’s favorite sport. I was thinking back this week to a time before Big Green. What do I dimly recall of those days? I remember rocks … rocks bubbling. The sky was darkened by flocks of pterodactyls. And I was groping around the ancient city of Albany, looking for a steady gig so that I could keep the light bulb burning (the one dangling from the hairy cord just below the ceiling).

There were a bunch of clubs around Albany back in the 80s, and when I got there in January of 1981, they were all hurting. New York had just raised the drinking age to 21 that very month, which meant most of the college students who crowded into bars on the weekend were now prohibited from doing so. In other words, the perfect time to start gigging in the Capital District.

It's old home week!

Friend of a friend of a friend

The only band I played with in Albany back in 1980-81 was the pre-Big Green group I started with my brother Matt, my SUNY New Paltz drummer friend Phil, and our guitarist friend Tim Walsh, who died some years back. After failing miserably, I went back to Albany in 1984 to play with a commercial club band. Let’s call that group PROMISE MARGARINE, or PROMISE for short.

A couple of years later, the drummer from PROMISE got his bandleader to hire me for another commercial gig in a band I’ll call CANDYASS. The keyboard player in that band was Big Green co-founder Ned Danison (I was playing bass). We started working on songs, and before anyone knew what the fuck was happening, Big Green emerged from the pastel colored ether of the eighties club scene around Albany, NY.

Love-in spoonful

As it happens, I heard from Ned this past week, and he shared a relatively recent song of his that sounds more than a bit like Big Green. It’s called Houston, We Have A Love-In. Give it a listen and shake your fist at us for being so damn awesome.

You can also hear our four-song Big Green demo, featuring Ned, on this very web site here.

Usual Rubbish

Mitch cashes in on a long shot.

2000 Years to Christmas

Look, I may not be a venture capitalist … or even a garden-variety capitalist, but this much I know: it’s not going to work. I would stake my reputation on it. And maybe even stake something valuable on it as well.

Yes, you guessed it – trouble at the mill. How is it that you can see into our very souls? Are you Kreskin? Criswell? Big Green must know … but not right away. For now, suffice to say that our squatter’s household has been turned upside-down by the raw power of unbridled ambition and simple, bald greed. I ask you – what other band has to put up with this kind of shit? (And don’t say Chefs of the Future.)

You know, I told my illustrious brother not to leave the T.V. on during the day. The reason is simple. There’s always a chance that our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, will see it and start obsessing over something, anything. Well, it happened this past Sunday, during the multiple hours of coverage they gave to Richard Branson’s space flight.

Missile envy

Now, maybe Mitch is getting a little old. And maybe he’s just getting a little more crazy. Whatever the explanation might be, he is determined to beat Branson at his own game. It is HE, Mitch insists, who first traversed interstellar space (from an Earth launch point, mind you). “Why is Branson getting all the credit?” Mitch says, his fists waving in the air.

I think what really got Mitch, though, was the knowledge that Branson is planning on charging his passengers $250K a seat. Ever see those cartoons where a character’s pupils turn into dollar signs? That’s actually what happened to Mitch. Next thing we knew, he was forging hard alloys in the shop and sticking them together.

Looks real, uh ... anatomically correct, Mitch.

Let’s do launch!

Okay, so I think Mitch is failing to consider some important factors in his competition with various space-happy billionaires. One is that he is not, in fact, a billionaire, though as a mad scientist, he can invent all the money he wants. The other is that he doesn’t get scads of free media every time he uses the can or launches a rocket shaped like his penis. I don’t think he can invent his way out of that deficit … OR CAN HE?

There is one more thing. Branson and Bezos and the other one have access to a handy launch pad for their space flights. We don’t have anything of the sort at our disposal. Unless, of course, Mitch is thinking of using the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill as a kind of mission control center, maybe launch his flights from the courtyard.

Holy shit, Mitch. We’ve got enough trouble with the codes department as it is.

Usual Rubbish

Someone put a crimp in Lincoln’s style

2000 Years to Christmas

Ring the bell tower. We don’t have one? Well, then pull the fire alarm. What? No fire alarm? Are you telling me we’ve been squatting here for twenty years and there’s no freaking fire alarm? I am depressed.

Hello and welcome to the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. I’m afraid you find us in crisis mode this week. We’ve just received a ransom message from the former King of the Catskills (or so they claim) saying that they’ve kidnapped Anti-matter Lincoln and are demanding a considerable forfeit for his safer return.

My lack of god! Will these scoundrels stop at nothing? They abduct an obvious senior citizen – Anti Lincoln is 196 if he’s a day – and cart him off like a sack of grain in hopes of squeezing riches out of his squat-mates. He went off to take his constitutional this morning (he always takes the constitution for a little walk first thing) and when he didn’t return, we knew something was up.

Crimped like a sea dog

Now, this would be bad enough if Anti-Lincoln were just being held somewhere against his will. That, sadly, is not the case. The nefarious King of the Catskills has informed us that Anti-Lincoln has been consigned to a chain gang. They’re sending him to work the butterscotch mines outside of St. Johnsville. In other words, they crimped the bastard!

Look …. I’ve seen what butterscotch mining can do to a man. That’s hard labor. Someone of Anti-Lincoln’s age and temperament won’t last a week. We’re sending Marvin (my personal robot assistant) with a jug of water and a flashlight to see if he can help. Chances are good, though, that they’ll just crimp Marvin as well and put him on the automation detail.

This could work.

Go fund my ass

What can we do? Well …. the kidnappers want crypto currency, so we were thinking maybe a fundraiser – setting up crowdfunding to bail Anti-Lincoln out. Either that or busking on the corner for bit coin. Of course, we’re terrible at raising money under any circumstances, so that seems kind of like a non-starter.

We could also try to beam him out of there using Trevor James Constable’s patented Orgone Generating Device. Of course, that would require knowing his precise location. A few feet off and we could be beaming a Lincoln-shaped column of molten butterscotch into our living room. (Something I don’t want to even contemplate.)

Wait a minute …. Anti Lincoln just walked in through the front door. And apparently he knows nothing of this kidnapping business. It’s almost as if the King of the Catskills made it all up. Sheesh …. can’t trust anyone these days.