There’s the old lumber storage shed. Then there’s that ancient grain silo – hasn’t been used for years. Oh, yeah… and that little room in the north corner of the foundry – forgot about that.

Oh, hi. Welcome to the land of a thousand compromises. (Notice that the word “promise” is embedded in “compromises” – coincidence?) What is it this time, you may ask? Well… just trying to accommodate a few visitors. Actually, more than a few – a whole herd of visitors. No, the mongooses have not returned… they’ve clearly found richer fields of breadfruit elsewhere. This has more to do with the various negotiations we have to engage in around this place to keep all of our constituencies happy. (It gets goddamn tiresome sometimes, I can tell you, but would you want to listen? Be honest!) You got to give a little to get a little, right? That’s our credo.

I know what you’re thinking. (I’m quite gifted that way, actually. Your favorite fruit is cantaloupe… and your favorite hooved creature… antelope.) What exactly is the problem with a few extra guests, right? We’ve got a whole abandoned mill to work with – surely we can find the room. Okay – first of all, we’re not talking about conventional two-legged humans, the kind that can crash on a couch or sleep in the bathtub. (As long as they don’t bathe on the couch, I’m okay.) No, no… our guests are relatives of the man-sized tuber. In an attempt to coax him out of his funk (and out from under the tool shed), we made the somewhat ill-advised promise to invite all of his living relatives over for a week or two. Now, I admit, I did not fully consider the implications of this when it left my lips. (New experience for me.)

You see, they’re all freaking plants – every last one of them. And while we’ve been able to accommodate the man-sized tuber himself (e.g. build a terrarium, provide water and fertilizer, etc.), it’s a substantial undertaking to make this place livable for dozens of his blood relatives. (When I say “blood”, I really mean something more like “sap”.) I’ve got Mitch Macaphee and Marvin (my personal robot assistant) working on the problem right now, though each has been busy with his own personal obsessions. (Yes, Marvin is still whirring and clicking about that Canadian space robot named Dextre… so much so that I can’t even get a shovel into his lazy hands.) Mitch has designed an irrigation system for the courtyard that could help get us through the next few days, but with more heat in the forecast, we can’t leave those suckers out in the sun for too long. Don’t want to think of what might become of them. (Some kind of casserole, no doubt.)

Well, back to our labors. Ever notice how neither Lincoln nor anti-Lincoln are anywhere to be found when there is real work to be done? Emancipators indeed!

Here, boy. Heeere, boy! That’s a good boy…. come on, got a little treat for you. Over here, boy. That’s right. Over…. oh, goddamn it!

Oh, hi, friends. (And I mean friends in the Facebook / MySpace sense…. in other words, total strangers.) Caught me at a bad time, actually. No, I’m not trying to coax a stray dog out from under the tool shed. It’s the man-sized tuber…. he’s gone all reclusive on us. I think it’s a “back to nature” kick of some kind. Here tubey’s been as mobile as a biped these last seven years, and he seemed quite content, really… especially since we procured that ergonomically designed go-cart for him some time back. Of course, appearances can be deceiving, and apparently (or non-apparently) our man-sized tuber has been harboring some regrets over his life with the humanoids. Pining for the fields of home, it seems. He misses his fellow tubers, and who can blame him? (They make such good companions…)

Anyway, he took his little tuber scooter out into the courtyard one morning this week and made for the front gate, getting as far as the local green grocer’s shop before we caught up with him. (Good thing he didn’t break down in front of the vegetable stands – he might have ended up the catch of the day for some hungry vegan.) Between the four of us (Matt, John, anti-Lincoln, and myself), we wheeled the tuber back into the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill and locked the gate behind us. No more escapes, we thought. Of course, we didn’t anticipate the option for internal exile… our tool shed has a door that locks from the inside, strangely enough, and the man-sized tuber took refuge inside, throwing the latch behind him. Why? Could be the dirt floor reminds him of mother. (I’m guessing. It’s probably a lot more complicated than that.)

Why didn’t we see this coming? Well, we’ve been taken up with the serial problems of Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who has been having his own personality issues, as you may recall. (There was that little tweak he had over the Canadian space robot whose name must not be spoken. Please… don’t say it!) And of course, the return of mad scientist Mitch Macaphee and his notorious ticking steamer trunk. (Turned out to be a forgotten alarm clock he’d borrowed from the Buenos Aires Hilton. Again… keep this to yourself.) So what the hell, we’ve been losing a few pounds a week in pure sweat over here – a little too preoccupied to notice the subtle mood swings of an overgrown sweet potato. My apologies, for chrissake. Next time I will have my litmus paper ready, just in case he gets a little less acidic than normal. (The tuber’s dropping acid again…. not good.)

So, yep…. a bad case of tubotosis here at the mill. Last week it was ticking bomb-a-tosis. Before that, robot-pain-in-the-ass-atosis. What’s next? CD release-atosis, I hope.

Still hear it. Try again. Nope, that didn’t work. I can still hear it. Try something else. No, no – that’s worse!

Oh, hi. Yeah, still working on mastering, but there’s this bloody tick-tick-tick that’s coming up through the floorboards or from behind the drywall (not that we have drywall) and it’s seeping into the works somehow. Sounds like a freaking metronome, and god knows we don’t use one of those. (I prefer to call it free-time rhythm, rubato, whatever.) Never realized how damned noisy this old mill was until I started trying to assemble an album within its dank, condemned brick walls. A word of advice: never master your own album! Hire some fucker. And here’s some more advice, free of charge: don’t live in a squat house (even if it was once a working hammer mill). You heard it here first. I think it’s all this squatting that’s wrecking my back. But anyway…

Our dear friend, mad scientist Mitch Macaphee, is getting settled into his old digs, up by the belfry. (Run for your life, Mitch! We don’t have a belfry!) Once we got his gear all packed away and his mad science experiments reconstructed to his satisfaction (there was the one with the bishop’s head transposed onto the body of a ginseng root…. not sure I want to know how that comes out), Mitch was ready to start ordering the help around. He started with Marvin (my personal robot assistant), which was a good choice, because that gave him the opportunity to see just how screwed around our mechanical friend’s mind had become since last Mitch saw him. I think there was a certain amount of shock involved. (Marvin isn’t properly grounded. I’ve talked to him about this a number of times.) Hopefully Mitch can work through Marvin’s serial issues. (No fruit loop jokes here – I can spell, even if you can’t.)

Got to tell you, though – this ticking is driving me mad! Maybe it’s because I’m so easily distracted. Not a natural mastering engineer, you know (not that anyone is), and I’ve been over this material a whole lot of times. Anyway, my tiny mind wanders at the smallest instigation, and before I know it another week has passed without product. Matt and John both know it’s my fault for signing on with Loathsome Prick Records – a label too cheap to pay for mastering. It’s getting so that the only one talking to me around this lousy place is Big Zamboola, and his conversation tends toward the tedious, to put the matter delicately. (Always going on about gravitation. I guess planets have kind of a rivalry going on that point – a “mine’s stronger than yours” sort of thing.) I mean, even the man-sized tuber is pissed off at me! (Not enough plant food in the watering can.) And the Lincolns prefer Booth, frankly.

So anyway – got to get back to it. Bloody ticking. Sounds strangely familiar. Not unlike the sound made by a certain variety of … of…. of…. explosive device. Mitch! We need to take one more look through that steamer trunk! And I mean NOW!