Usual Rubbish

Rooms to let.

Right up those stairs … watch your step, now … is the master bedroom. The one with the stagnant puddles in the middle of the floor. That’s where that drip in the living room is coming from. We’re conserving water, you see. “Big Green” has to stand for something.

Oh, hello blog post readers from around the world (and Italy, too). This may not be the best time to drop by. I’m taking a potential renter on the grand tour of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our palatial squat here in upstate New York. Times being what they are (and gigs being pretty thin on the ground just lately), we have been forced to consider the possibility of taking on tenants. Yes, I advertised in the local Pennysaver. (Someone said I should move up to the Nickelsaver, but I’m not made of money, frankly.) Gotten quite a few calls, at least by Marvin (my personal robot assistant)’s count. He’s answering the phone, which is helpful… but I’m a little tired of the voicemail routine every time I ask him something.

I know what you’re going to say … but that’s okay, go ahead and say it anyway. You know – the trope about how we’re squatters, we don’t own the property, we have no right to rent it out to others. Sure, sure – that’s easy for non-squatters to say. The way I see it, once you’ve been somewhere for a dozen years, you’ve earned the right to, I don’t know, monetize your investment of time and sweat. We’ve put a lot of time into this place, to be sure. Not so much sweat, actually – it’s falling down around our ears. But time, for sure.

That’s not all we’re monetizing around this place. We’re also renting out pages on our new Web site, http://www.big-green.net. We’re offering the services of Lincoln and Anti-Lincoln as legal advisors. (Not lawyers, mind you. They’re no longer members of the bar association, unless you count the local tavern circuit.) We’re renting out the mansized tuber as a pleasure vehicle – very popular with the kiddies. And we’ve opened our basement studio up to karaoke singers. Should generate some interesting content for our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, at the very least.

Oops, got to go. Matt’s hitting a rack tom with a stick and playing a kazoo like a duck call. And there’s no live mic nearby.

Political Rants

Born again (again).

Yes, I know. The president’s bin Laden victory lap was a bit much by Spock standards. (George W. Bush being more in the Kirk category.) But by the standards of American election year politics, it was pretty subtle. So the resulting outrage from the right was all the more laughable. Seriously – these are the people who had Dubya fly a jet fighter onto an aircraft carrier (which they had turned around to keep San Diego out of the shot), parade around in a flight suit, and then do his famously premature victory speech under an enormous “Mission Accomplished” banner. These are the people who incessantly reminded us of their greatness throughout the Bush terms, and who continue to this very day.

Luckily for them, we are Americans and, as such, are born anew each and every morning. We have no collective memory, like a nation in advanced dementia. We do not value knowledge of our own history; in fact, the very term ‘history’ carries a negative connotation. Our politicians take advantage of this, of course – who wouldn’t? – and accordingly serve up the same hash over and over again. Cutting taxes makes everything better. Check! Budget cuts lead to growth and prosperity. Check! Antagonizing and even attacking other countries will make us safer. Check! On we go.

Obviously, the Republicans do not have a corner on this franchise. The Obama administration is carrying forward a lot of their policies for them, including ludicrous destabilizing boondoggles like missile defense batteries in Eastern Europe. But just now the GOP happen to be indulging somewhat gratuitously in the not entirely unrealistic notion that we do not remember yesterday any better than the day before. Right now the conservative candidates for the GOP nomination are lining up behind Romney, as it was always certain that they would, and singing his praises. After a bruising primary fight during which Bachmann, Gingrich, Santorum, and others unsparingly and unflinchingly heaped scorn upon the Mittster, to see them now stumping on his behalf inspires a kind of cognitive dissonance that should spark our collective memory a bit. But we shall see. 

It is another new day, after all. 

luv u,

jp  

Usual Rubbish

Trifecta.

Can’t hear you. Can you turn it up? I don’t know… to eleven, or maybe thirteen. Still nothing. Play harder, faster…. oh, wait. Didn’t plug your cord into the console. Sorry. Sorrrreeeee…

Oh, hi. Hey … don’t let anybody tell you (in case anybody ever tries) that producing yourself is easy. It’s not, man, and I’ll tell you why. You are the engineer. And the guitar tech. And the arranger. You get the drinks. And the snacks. It’s bloody maddening – I even have to oil Marvin (my personal robot assistant) when he starts to squeak over there on the percussion riser. Anyway… we’re elbow deep in production on our next album. Yes, it’s a themed piece … almost a rock opera, except with a lot less coherence. It grapples with monumental themes … if you understand monumental to mean, simply, mental.

It’s been busy ’round these parts, I don’t mind saying. Busier than we’re used to, quite frankly. Recording, of course. Then there’s our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN. The frenetic pace of once a month is enough to exhaust anyone not used to exertion. Oh, and also … we released a new video of one of the many songs recorded by “cousin” Rick Perry – a little number named “Devil Romney” that was featured on the podcast a couple of episodes ago. That was exhausting. Matt did all the work, of course… but it was plain exhausting just watching him. And then that upload to YouTube really took it out of me.

We are, of course, still making plans for our upcoming trip to the moon as an advance team for the Gingrich campaign. I know what you’re going to say – he dropped out …. of the presidential race. Yes, we know that. But he’s still going to be the nominee. He said so himself, you know. I can only imagine this means he is going to be installed as King of the Moon any day now. I have, in fact, written a celebratory march to commemorate his coronation – a somewhat stilted jubilee for our bloated monarch. If I can find where I left my energy and motivation, I may just have it ready for the next podcast episode.

Until then, please help yourself to the slabs of content we’ve been flinging out in every direction like frisbees. I’ll be in the cellar, making widgets.

 

Weird ass music since 1986