Give me another look at that map. No, no – not the Earth map… that outer space thingy. You know… the one Mitch gave us last week. Right, right – that’s the one. Thank you.

Hiya, folks. Glad you could stop by. Gives me a chance to ‘splain something… something kind of important. (By “important”, I mean in the relative sense. Not life-changing, not even day-changing, but perhaps momentary thought-changing.) As you know, over the last few weeks, we’ve been referring to the impending release and distribution of our second album, which we’re calling Monacalucci Summer… I mean, International House. (Sorry… I was thinking about that art house film I saw a few days ago. Monacalucci, was that weird!) And, as you might imagine, our rapacious corporate label, Loathsome Prick Records, has been kibitzing a bit on the marketing. More than a bit, actually. In fact, LP has put their collective foot down… right on our necks. (This is just like the Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm days.)

Right, so… what have they done? Here’s what. They’ve insisted that we release the album to the extraterrestrial market before sending it to stores on Earth. Their reasoning is that most of our listeners are out there (in fact, most are beyond the orbit of Jupiter) and that we should appeal to our base before trying to break into what is, for us, a new and relatively untested market (Earth, or as we call it, “de Oit”). Now, we disagree with LP on this, and we said so. I don’t think I have to tell you what happened next. I do? Okay, well… I’ll just give you the part after all the guns went off. And the explosion. Right, so… after all that, we more or less… gave in. Let’s face it, friends… they’ve got us over a barrel. (No, that’s not a metaphor. They literally have us suspended over a barrel. Someone help us!)

Anywho, Gertrude Al-Kabar, LP’s Vice President of Marketing and Coercion, came up with something she calls the “Aldebaran First” plan. Here’s the skinny – we start promoting the new album on Aldebaran, and work back from there. Why Aldebaran? You mean, aside from the fact that it’s the brightest star in the constellation Taurus? According to Gertrude, the reasoning is quite simple… start with the red giants. If we do well in red giant systems, we can move on to hotter stars – yellow dwarfs, blue dwarfs, etc. Start big, end little. This is fortunate for Mitch Macaphee – he is anxious to determine whether Aldebaran’s long-period radial velocity oscillation indicates the presence of a companion of substantial mass. (Stop snickering. It could, you know.) Ah, ’tis an ill wind indeed that doesn’t blow someone some good, somewhere, sometime… somehow.

So w.t.f., as they say on their little phones (with their thumbs, no less). Looks like another interstellar tour for yours truly. Adelbaran here we come (right back where we started from).

Move that comma a few words to the left. Okay. Now how about a stroke around that casaba melon? Don’t think so? Why not? Hate melons… good reason. T’hell with it.

Oh, right… this is being recorded for posterity (or some approximation thereof). Hello, everyone. Glad you could stop by. Just lending a little guidance here – nothing pressing. We’re in the process of creating a CD cover (CD? What’s a CD, mommy?) for our new album and, well, it’s a slow, painstaking process… particularly when you don’t have certain basic conveniences, like… a designer, for instance. Now that would come in handy. As much as I’m against outsourcing, we did attempt to put this particular job in the hands of some extremely cheap, non-union surrogates in the subcontinent. Or so we supposed. (In the age of the Internet, who truly knows where anyone is? Why, I could be right here. Or over…. here! Or maybe even…… here!) Confused? Yes, so am I. Let me see if I can ‘splain you.

Okay, so we’ve got the master of our new recording, International House. And we showed it to our rapacious corporate label, Loathsome Prick (LP) Records. And they saw it, and knew it was good. And lo, there was heard in the land a low braying and a gnashing of teeth. And we were sore afraid. For it was the Vice President of Marketing, Gertrude Al-Kabar, and her razor sharp eye was trained on the cheap cover we had fashioned out of used newspapers and tacky glue recovered from a direct mail envelope. “This is an abomination!” she cried, and the other members of the management team nodded in grim agreement. And lo, our cheaply fashioned cover was tossed to the ground and spat upon, whilst foul curse-words were cast upon it, and it was laid low and forever damned.

Okay, so THAT didn’t go so well. Anyway, the LP team suggested we outsource. Gertrude gave us a lead on some firm she had encountered in her email inbox that very morning. So we followed it up, sent the proposal, and they went to work. Actually, the process went surprisingly fast. In fact, those subcontinental designers were quite intuitive. It seemed like they knew what we wanted before we even told them. Then one night last week, when Matt was up watching his Peregrine Falcons, he noticed the man-sized tuber working furiously on our one Web-connected computer terminal. This seemed odd, as… well… he doesn’t have hands, exactly. But his little root tendrils were clicking furiously across the keyboard, and it took no time for Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to determine that tubey was, in fact, the outsourced labor we’d been corresponding with. Mystery solved.

All that money and effort, for what? To enrich one of our own? What a bloody waste! Worse, since we caught on to his ruse, the tuber has not been taking direction very well. Too much vegetation, damn it. What are we, landscapers??

Where the hell is Marvin (my personal robot assistant)? Tubey? What the hell… is everyone out for a freaking curry? Right, right… I’ll just open the mail bag, then. High time too – a few more pounds and it will collapse into a black hole, and that would be the end of everything.

Okay, okay – I exaggerate. No need to worry. Got a couple of missives to open here. Let’s start with something that bears domestic franking….

Dear Big Green,

Hate to seem like a prick, but where the hell is that album you’ve been yakking about these past five years?

– Furlin McGreevey, Basinstock, Idaho

Hi, Furlin. Thanks for writing. And no worries – you’re not a prick. (If you were, you’d work for our record label.) Fact is, I sympathize with you totally. I’ve gotten so sick of waiting for Big Green to release their next album, I’ve thought about resigning as head of their fan club. (Didn’t have the heart to do it, damn it.) Fact is, we’re running out of excuses… so it looks like we’re ready to release that sucker after all.

Here’s another letter, from Amanda B. Freakowitz of Toronto…

Dear Big Green ,

Whaaaa-aaat??

Best,

Amanda

You heard right, Amanda…. that’s exactly what I said. Our long-awaited sophomore (or sophomoric) album is ready for release, bar the packaging, replicating, frisbee-tossing, etc. Tentatively titled “International House,” it contains 16 tracks of new material from yours truly and will soon be available at a pawn shop… I mean, record store near you. (And perhaps more than one pawn shop as well. It’s time I got my shoes back. These corns are killing me.)

Here’s one more letter, this from sMyrzGlorp FhZhyzllnyk of the Crab Nebula…

gyRmanTiall, Big Green….

Tuaoo dlAT,k lsdjTlbmok b-Yulandros itsat Megaphone delplehzrnyk funBanoldmental rzaphhhhuyllll.

vootie,

sMyrzGlorp

Thanks, sMyrzGlorp. Sure, the mp3s will be available online. Probably all the same places 2000 Years To Christmas can be found, but I’ll definitely keep you posted. Sounds like a bad cold you’ve got there. Better get some rest. And tell uTlksjnorbiar I said vootie.

Okay – got to run. I can hear the boys returning from the curry palace, the aroma of mutter paneer wafting up the staircase. Save a little for me, tubey – there’s a good chap.