A la post.

July 19, 2014 Joseph

Hey, it’s a nice day. Think I’ll spend it in the courtyard. Or maybe on the road to Old Forge. Or not. Any suggestions?

Kind of quiet around the Hammer Mill these days. Maybe it’s just the dog days of summer howling a little louder than usual. Everyone seems to be taking a pass on everything, regardless of how little effort may be involved. Even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) couldn’t be bothered to plug himself in to his wall recharger, complaining that it took too much energy. How does that make sense? Maybe in robot-ville, but no place else.

I’ve done some minimal work on recordings this week, pulling together one mix, tweaking another, enhancing this, pouring chocolate sauce on that. Exhausting effort, as you might imagine. Tonight brother Matt and I will work on this again, with brother Marvin and brother mansized tuber standing by to assist. As I mentioned before, we’re working on six new numbers that will appear in the next episode of Ned Trek, the Star Trek parody series we include in our now less-than-monthly podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN.

Didn't you plug yourself in, Marvin? If you’re not familiar with this … um … form of entertainment, go to our podcast home page, scroll down to some of the earlier installments, and give it a listen. Ned Trek is usually the first item in the podcast. At some point, it may acquire a life (or podcast) of its own, but for now suffice to say that it is a monthly skit based on old “classic” Star Trek episodes, starring a crew of modern day neocons headed by Captain Willard M. Romney, his first officer and talking dressage horse Mr. Ned, and others. (Oddly, there’s one hold-over from classic Star Trek – Mr. Sulu, who basically plays the one sane person in the room.) It, well, makes us laugh, if nothing else. Pretty much the reason we do anything, I suspect.

Hokay, well … I’m kind of toasty after having played a set with Puttin’ On The Ritz up in Old Forge last night, so I’ll stick a fork in this. Be free.

Political Rants

All hell.

July 19, 2014 Joseph

This is a week for the books. Two major conflicts going to hell in a handbasket at the same time; god help us. One at a time …

Palestine. The IDF ground war has begun. At least “war” is what our media in the U.S. call this, but it’s a very misleading term. This is an attack by one of the most powerful military machines in the world against an impoverished, stateless, poorly armed populace. Our television, radio, and newsprint journalists typically describe it as a conflict between Israel and Hamas, but the attack is on the Palestinian people, and it is they who suffer, with over 200 dead as of this writing. Four boys blown to bits on a beach, and Netanyahu is just getting started.

The act of telling civilians in northern Gaza to flee their homes in itself is a flagrant violation of the U.N. charter. What does our constitutional lawyer, Nobel laureate president have to say? The same three statements he always makes in these circumstances: (1) Israel has the right to defend itself; (2) No nation can tolerate having missiles targeting their cities; (3) Isn’t that “Iron Dome” defense shield we helped them build totally awesome? Here’s how to order yours.

I’m not certain, but I think (2) galls me the most. Couldn’t you say that about Palestine? They get bombs dropped on them all the time, not to mention settlements built on their land, checkpoints everywhere they go, regular killings of its citizens by a vicious foreign army of occupation, etc. What “state” would tolerate that?

Ukraine. I won’t say too much about this; only that the shooting down of the airliner is horrible beyond belief, and it’s just the sort of thing that happens when conflicts spin out of control. This story has sucked all of the air out of the room with regard to the news media. Chris Matthews on MSNBC was practically frothing at the mouth, playing tapes of Reagan excoriating the USSR on national television and saying the “Gipper” spoke for all of us back in 1983. The hell he did. At that time, his minions in Central America were eviscerating more innocents each week than were killed on KAL 007, so he can stow the high moral tone.

Hope to post next week … if our liberal friends don’t get us blown up before then.

luv u,

Usual Rubbish

Cop-out edition.

July 11, 2014 Joseph

Is that the press again? The daily press – what did you think I meant? Stupid personal robot assistant!

Okay, well, as some of you may have noticed, we posted an installment of THIS IS BIG GREEN yesterday, the July program. And if you did, in fact, notice, you would know that it’s what used to be called a “summer replacement” show, or perhaps more accurately, a summer re-run. It’s like when they ran The Prisoner as a summer replacement for the Andy Williams show back in 1968, while Andy was off to the Bahamas drinking margaritas or something of that sort. Just like that … except that The Prisoner was “good”

What are we doing instead of finishing our July show? Well, I wish I could say we were doing as Andy Williams does, but it’s not the case. I could give you a raft of explanations as to why we couldn’t finish our June show in time even for July, but then you would just laugh at me. So … here goes:

Wolves! Wolves used to wipe out whole villages until men hunted them down. Wolves learned! But they didn’t learn enough to keep them from eating our June podcast.

Colony collapse syndrome. You’ve heard of this scourge that’s been decimating bee populations around the world. Well, it’s conceivable that this may be the reason we didn’t finish our June podcast. Conceivable? Yes. True? No.

Falcon watch. There is a family of peregrine falcons nesting in a box on the side of a twenty story building in downtown Utica, and Matt has been keeping a close eye on them; in one case, climbing over a Victorian wrought iron fence and into a churchyard to retrieve a fallen chick. Unlikely reason for a late podcast? Yes. True? Well, yes.

Actually, once again, we are victims of over-ambitious production (which for us is any project that requires a modicum of effort). We are in the process of completing six original songs for the next episode of Ned Trek, as well as the episode itself, and it’s kind of time-consuming. I expect we’ll post in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, please enjoy this re-run of Ned Trek X, “A Plea for Arms”, one of my favorite Ned Treks, frankly, if only because I get to play Charlton Heston. (I’ve also thrown in our thrown-together recording of Quality Lincoln for your amusement.)

Weird ass music since 1986