Usual Rubbish

Remote podcast rundown.

We return to the ongoing saga of Big Green’s Interstellar Tour 2013-14: Cowboy Scat goes galactic.

Interstellar Tour Log: February 5, 2014
Unforgiving surface of Ceres, the alpha asteroid

After a solid week on the surface of this, well, remarkably solid asteroid (a crust of solid titanium! … or so my geologically impoverished mind/brain tells me) we’re coming to the realization that this is not so brief a layover in our Interstellar Tour 2013-14. Given this reality … and the fact that Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is insisting that I do so, I will take a few moments to share my usual dissection of our recently distributed podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN – now with more Green!

Anyway, here’s what we have for the February podcast,* posted only days ago:

Ned Trek XVI: A Mock Time
Yes, believe it or not, we are on the 16th episode of this ludicrous audio remake of several failed sixties television shows, starring Willard Mittilius Romney as Captain Romney of the Starship Free Enterprise, and his first officer, Mr. Ned the dressage horse (loosely based on Mr. Ed). This month parodies the classic Star Trek episode “Amok Time,” when Spock gets the seven year vulcan itch in the worst way imaginable. Our take involves dancing, insults, and an enormous pile of dung … so it’s not so different from the original. Enjoy! That’s an order!

Put The Phone Down
Matt and I engage in our usual random conversation about changing Matt’s name to “Oliver Remote Control”, why Andy Williams never did a special with us, and how many times worse than Neil Sedaka we truly are. We also remember Pete Seeger, friend of the planet, and discuss our plans for the Super Bowl (which Matt was planning to flush this year).

I'm being played by a talking horse, Jim!Song: Paradise
We’ve played this one on the podcast before. This is a remake of a song Matt wrote in the 90s, part of a larger, kind of slow-mo effort on our part to reclaim at least a portion of the hundreds of songs we recorded for cassette distribution back in the day.

Song: Kublai Khan
Another retread of an older number; this one with shades of Reverend Moon. Written around the same time as Paradise, actually.

That’s the show, in essence. Now … if someone could ship about a dozen box lunches to Ceres, and maybe a cylinder of fireplace matches. Just follow the gas cloud rising from the asteroid’s surface. It’s freaking cold out here.

(*Editor’s Note: those of you hunting for evidence of a January podcast, your hunt is in vain. The February TIBG installment is actually a resuscitation of our January podcast, which got lost in all that discarded wrapping paper. January’s a chaotic month for us, too!)

Political Rants

Beer hat politics.

This past week, on The Daily Show, Patrick Stewart made an appearance as the Chinese moon probe “Jade Rabbit,” complete with ludicrous spacecraft headgear. He was reading the strangely lyrical farewell message advanced by the Chinese government as having come from the probe. Now, that was funny, but I’m afraid it barely meets the level of ridiculousness attained by political pundits now deployed across all media, busily framing in this fall’s election as a bounty-in-waiting for the Republicans and basically a replay of 2010.

Punditus domesticus

Here we are, nine months from casting the first votes and it starting to sound like the election’s already over. Part of the problem is that the 24 hour news cycle has a voracious hunger for news that’s easy to report on. The horse race of political contests is a particular favorite, so election season never, ever ends. The moment 2012 was settled, the pundits were talking about 2014 and even 2016. Now the talk is constant about the upcoming mid-terms, and how historically the president’s party does particularly badly on second-term midterm elections. Nothing can ever be different. Rinse and repeat.

It’s like they’re planting this beer-hat on all of us, with blinders on either side. This is what you can expect, they say. Just drink your beer and don’t deviate from the usual course. People don’t turn out for mid-terms, they tell us over and over. People aren’t interested in politics or governance, we are reminded. Move on, people – nothing to see here.

Reactionary politics at any level relies on the non-participation of the majority of the electorate. The pundit class actively encourages this non-participation. The only defense for the rest of us is to get actively involved in the mechanism of politics. There are a million different ways of doing this, from participating on the precinct level in local party politics to working with your neighbors and broader community on specific causes. But the minimum bar for this is to vote, under any and all circumstances. Especially …. especially when they don’t want you to.

And trust me … if you are non-white and living in a now-red state, they don’t want you to. All the more reason to do it.

luv u,

jp

Podcast

THIS IS BIG GREEN: Feburary 2014

Audio


Big Green resuscitates its lost January episode with a gripping new installment of Ned Trek, two Big Green songs, impromptu harmonizing, and other mindless drivel. Great way to spend a snowy afternoon (if you don’t have a hangover).

This is Big Green – February 2014. Features: 1) Ned Trek XVI: A Mock Time; 2) Put the Phone Down: Changing our name to Oliver Remote Control; 3) Why Andy Williams never did a special with us; 4) Matt’s Andromeda period: 100x worse than Neil Sadaka; 5) Remembering Pete Seeger; 6) Song: Paradise, by Big Green; 7) Song: Kublai Khan, by Big Green; 8. Matt’s plans for Super Bowl Sunday; 9) Time for us to go

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