Okay… let’s put it another way. Take me away. That’s more like it. Has a pleasing finality, a sense of “closure” – that quintessentially American value. Yes, that’s it. Closure. Aaaaahhhhhhh. Multo mucho end-o-lissimo.

As some of you will recall, your Big Green fiends (I mean, friends… what a difference a letter makes!) were served last week with that loathsome object known as a writ of eviction. Seems there are forces at work in the land that want to keep the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill — our beloved squat — as abandoned as its name suggests. They also happen to have local codes and property law on their side, it appears. Not good. Not at all good to have police showing you the door… especially when they want you to walk through it, besides. (I’ve seen the freaking door, okay? Stop pushing me!) I mean, it’s one thing to throw people bodily out of the only home they’ve ever called their own…. but you don’t need to get nasty about it. Or do you….?

Got to tell you, this is all about money. Sure, sure, you’ve heard me jabber on about this before. But it’s true, I’m telling you. I’ve got it on the best authority — Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who has been hanging around the local public houses, Tonto like, listening in on other people’s conversations.  These real estate developers from Madagascar, it seems, have targeted the Cheney Hammer Mill as part of a larger parcel that will soon be converted into luxury condos and sold to… well… sold to people who can afford them. People like Mitch Macaphee. You know… the heavy wallet brigade. Silver and riches. Gold and jewels. That’s all that ever matters to the local planning ministry! They would sell their grandmother’s grave to developers, and send the same thugs harassing us now to see her exhumed and consigned to street beggary.

Do I seem bitter? Well, hey… I just spent the night in the flapjack vendor’s cart with Marvin running interference. My ass is killing me. Even more troubling is the fact that this consortium of developers will not stop with our humble hammer mill. I’ve heard mutterings that they are planning to pave over large sections of the Indian Ocean and start selling parcels to retirees and businesses. Mitch Macaphee’s eyes kind of lit up when he heard about this little scheme — I could almost see the diagrams being drafted in that big floppy brain of his. A veritable city on the sea. As if that isn’t bad enough, I can see the same kind of sparkle in Commandante Lincoln’s eyes, as well: vast new lands to conquer! A new horizon for the hoary junta. God be praised!

But hey… we’re not beaten yet. No sir, not by a long shot. This is just the opening salvo in Big Green‘s continuing battle for its wholly illegitimate home. Hey – be that as it may, it is more legitimate than that bloody flapjack stand. (And a hell of a lot roomier, too.)

Hey, I meant figuratively, damn it. That smarts! I’ve only got two legs, you know. And two arms, so go easy. Ouch! Watch it, friend…. I’ve only got one of those. Accursed gendarmes!

Oh, crikey. You heard all that then, didn’t you? Geez. Welcome back to the house of pain, a.k.a. the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, now in the process of being more abandoned than ever. That is to say, our little squatting party is being forcibly broken up by thugs from the local constabulary, hired on their off hours by building contractors who have been lusting after this piece of land for some months now. Like Colombian death squads in the night, they shed their uniforms and do their dirty work. Bastards! How the hell did Marvin (my personal robot assistant) work with these fiends? 

Yeah, so anyway — the lawyer thing didn’t pan out. Nobody wanted to take the case, even with our financial advisor Geet O’Reilly’s persistent urging, egged on by a blue-spotted Mitch Macaphee. No money in it, you see? Not a good prospect. Oh… and our little impromptu protest, reported on in these pages last week, had little or no effect, other than to light a fire under the constables, who were pounding on our door just a few mornings later with the writ of eviction tucked into their baby-blue helmets. Take it from me, this is not the sort of thing you want to wake up to. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think real fast in the morning…. so my first inclination was to try to give them the slip. That was plan C from outer space, quite frankly. (My idea, I’m afraid…)

Plan C went like this: Matt, John and I snuck out the back door of the Cheney Hammer Mill, along with the Big Zamboola, who is the only other member of our entourage that gets out of bed early. None of us has any kind of motor vehicle at this point, so we had to walk past the v-formation of heavily armed police attempting to dislodge us from our lodgings (or de-mill us from our millings, to be more precise). Perhaps it was that sixth sense all constables have that tipped them off to our presence, working our way up a side street (or perhaps it was the admittedly incongruous sight of Big Zamboola — a man-sized planetoid — bouncing up the street like one of those oversized “earth” balls).  We thought we had shaken them when I felt that big, cold hand on my shoulder. Man… I should have listened to Zamboola’s rantings for once. Usually he’s talking about sandwiches, you know  

Hokey smokes – so we’ve been served. And I don’t mean somebody has shown us their killer dance moves. I mean the constables handed us the eviction notice. So it’s on. I’d have to say Marvin’s reaction has been the most dramatic so far. Panhandling. Panhandling… on the first day of our grace period. We haven’t even been tossed out yet, and he’s working the streets. Sheesh. (Hope he picks up enough for a pizza — I’m freaking
starving.)

How ’bout that? Isn’t gravity supposed to pull instead of push? Damnedest thing. I’m floating, floating… floating… falling… FALLING!… fall… floating again… Make up your bleeding mind!

Oh, hello. And welcome back to the land of blog. Big Green blog, that is, a.k.a. Notes from Sri Lanka. This is where you come to get the latest on what the hell we’ve been doing all week… expecting what, I don’t know. You’ll have to excuse my earlier outburst — I was finally drifting off to sleep after hours of fruitless effort. Now that I’m back on Terra Firma, I can bring you up to speed as you wait breathlessly for every new detail of our pointless exploits. (Don’t worry about writing this down; the entire sequence will be chronicled in comic strip form on new boxes of Sugar Pops cereal. Look for the special Big Green display card. See your grocer for details.)

Now, now… where was I? Ah, yes. The eviction notice. The Cheney Hammer Mill has been condemned, you see. No two ways about it, our local chamber of commerce has it in for us, big time. As they are busily converting this entire island into luxury vacation flats, the “powers that be” have decided to take this opportunity to clear the decks of all squatters. Thanks to my somewhat ill-advised references to the hammer mill in this blog, our local council has long been aware of our illicit presence within its bowels (the mill’s, that is, not the council’s) and is now taking steps to see us put out on the street where they feel we belong. That means the three members of Big Green — myself, my illustrious brother Matt, and our long-time co-conspirator (and drummer) John White — plus Marvin (my personal robot assistant), his inventor Mitch Macaphee, our mutual friend Trevor James Constable, the man-sized tuber, the two Lincolns (matter and anti-matter), and Big Zamboola will be residents of various gutters and fields in a fortnight or so… unless we take drastic steps. 

What steps, you ask? Don’t ask… tell! We’re clueless over here. 

Our financial advisor, Geet O’Reilly, took a moment away from doing our taxes to suggest that we try some kind of legal intervention. “Why don’t you phone a solicitor?” she asked, and Mitch Macaphee started breaking out in blue spots. (He’s got this thing about lawyers, see.) Once we had his temperature stabilized, Matt asked Mitch to write a letter to the local Chamber of Commerce pretending to be a lawyer… he could, perhaps, invent some bogus letterhead — Macaphee, Macaphee, and Pendergast, LLC. Mitch’s spots turned green. This obviously wasn’t going to work. It was clear that we would have to take a more direct approach. No go-betweens, damn it! It was time to petition the powerful, to take our demands out into the street, to show them we weren’t going to just lie down and take it… that we were going to FIGHT! We’re going to choke that Chamber of Commerce building with protesters. Time to get down to it, friends – are you WITH ME? 

Actually, Marvin is pretty good at holding a sign. The trouble was with the man-sized tuber — he doesn’t really have hands, per se. You kind of have to stick the post of the sign in his husk, then tilt it back so it doesn’t fall on Big Zamboola from behind. Big Zamboola — there’s another problem. No hands, no husk… pretty much all mouth. We didn’t even bother with the sign in his case; we just told him what to holler. In any case, it was a pretty pathetic looking protest, particularly with all the spectacular marches that have been going on lately in the States and in France. From the windows of the mill, it looked like what it was — a straggly gathering of freaks on the steps of the Chamber building. 

Did I go? Hell, no. Neither did Matt or John. We’re back here on a rear-guard maneuver, making sure the demolition crew doesn’t sneak in during our absence. Clever, eh? Pass the nachos, Johnny… there’s a good chap!