Trying to overcome the rule of thumb

November 12, 2021 Joseph

Step back a little bit further – you’re out of frame. Okay, now take a step to the right. That’s it. That’s … no, that’s too far. Go back to the left. LEFT! You know, the side your left hand is on. Oh, Jesus!

Oh, hi. Well, once again I’m called upon to do something that I have zero aptitude for. Namely, that’s taking pictures of our band. We do not have an official photographer, which is a shame … because we had a professional photographer before we even had a drummer. (In fact, he sat in on one of our photo sessions as our drummer.) Then we had a drummer, but no guitar player. But I digress.

Bad self portaits

That said, I’m not averse to learning new skills. Neither am I skilled at learning a new verse. The thing is, I am singularly bad at photography. Ask anybody I’ve taken a picture of. I’m always giving them portrait orientation when they want landscape, and vice versa. (Turns out a lot of people prefer portrait – it’s more slimming.)

There’s another thing, too. I think it’s because of these damn camera phones. Back in MY day (get off my lawn!), camera’s were big, bulky things with a massive lens and hard metal shutter buttons. Now, you hold your dumb-ass phone out in front of you, accidentally pressing three or four soft-touch buttons, and next thing you know you’ve essentially butt-dialed Madagascar.

Thumbs up, baby

Then there’s my honking thumb. The sucker keeps getting in the way of the lens. I spend half an hour setting up a shot, getting all the folks together, polishing Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to a high gloss, trimming the root-mesh off of the mansized tuber’s strange protuberances, and so on. Then I take the shot …. and my MF thumb is taking up a third of the frame.

See, this is why I’m not filthy rich. If I was a shameless capitalist opportunist, I would promote this as my distinctive style, an aesthetic flourish, a unique take on the world. A little hot air can go a long way, my friends. Soon my thumb-obscured photos would hang in galleries and museums all over Europe, and I would have many imitators. But alas, like my clumsy thumb, the money-making gene skipped my generation of Perry. Them’s the breaks.

Xmas greetings ahead

Now, I know we’ve been doing nothing but repeats these past few Christmases. This year will be different …. I hope. Stay tuned. I’m thinking another nano concert is in order. Think of it as our Christmas Pageant. I’ll be the third reindeer on the left.

Political Rants

Playing (and losing) at the same old game

November 12, 2021 Joseph

There was an old saying among politicos in Albany, according to noted New York State Government scholar and CEO of WAMC public radio Alan Chartock. It went something like this: “Don’t break the other guy’s rice bowl.” (I always felt there was some element of latent racism in this saying – why a rice bowl? – but let’s set that aside for a moment.)

This is, in essence, the principle of you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. A legislator will not attack the pet project or campaign funding source of another, and therefore can rely on the same deference from their counterparts. While Chartock’s example is specific to New York politics, it applied at a national level as well, to some extent, and I think the Democratic leadership still plays by these types of rules. Trouble is, their opponents have changed, and they have not changed their tactics in response.

No Justice, No Peace

Honestly, I sometimes have to slap myself across the face to be certain I’m not having some weird, surrealistic dream. The leadership of the Republican party attempted a coup d’etat at the beginning of this year, and the Democrats are treating it like it’s some run-of-the-mill corruption issue. Let me say that again: TRUMP AND THE REPUBLICANS TRIED TO OVERTHROW THE CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT, and thus far NO PLOT LEADER HAS BEEN HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

This is not business as usual. Whatever you think of the U.S. government (and I have plenty of criticism for it), the degree to which we have an elected government is a function of the Constitution, and that was very nearly set aside. Trump was actively lobbying state governments to throw out the legitimate results of the 2020 election. He sent an army of thugs into the Capitol to stop the tabulation of the electoral vote and take revenge on the clueless vice president. Again, this is NOT the usual shit.

Proud to be an authoritarian

This all wouldn’t be so bad if it were confined to just a cabal of nutcase politicians and hangers-on. The problem we have, though, is that propaganda works very well. All of that blather about supposed fraud risks associated with mail-in voting has convinced a large number of Americans that the last election was stolen. They are not the majority, but there are enough of them to ensure that the next insurrection will be successful.

Some of these people are truly out of their minds. I mean, we’ve all heard about the Q-anon types who gathered in Dallas last week, anticipating the arrival of John F. Kennedy Jr. They are part of a broader death cult that fantasizes about overthrowing the government, installing Trump as a dictator, and executing people associated with the Democratic party, shooting them in the streets. That’s a pretty dark vision to be shared so broadly.

Who you going to call?

The thing is, the police are doing practically nothing about these people. Some of them are even threatening election officials with murder, torture, you name it, and the cops are AWOL. The FBI is making noises, but little else. They are under very little pressure from Democratic office-holders to hold people like this accountable. It’s obvious that law enforcement do not see these people as a threat. It’s up to our elected officials to change their minds about that. We need to urge them to do so, before these authoritarians act on their warped fantasies.

luv u,

*Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.*

Usual Rubbish

Dispatch from the string recycling center

November 5, 2021 Joseph

Hey … this one doesn’t have so much twang in it. No, not Tang! Twang! You know – the sound that doesn’t occur when you pluck this dead-ass string you gave me. That’s the stuff.

Yeah, hiya, folks. It’s your old pal Joe from Big Green. No, don’t get up – just relax and have another glass of lemonade. We believe in hospitality here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our longtime squat house. You’re more than welcome to stop by, take a seat, and watch us attempt to record pop music using stone knives and bear skins.

Friends of the band will know that I’ve been framming on the guitar just lately, as seen in my recent nano-concert on YouTube. I’m not a virtuoso, to put it mildly. In fact, I beat that mother like Betty Crocker, even when I’m practicing. That’s why I found myself in need of replacement strings.

The principle of scarcity

Now, with MOST bands, when someone breaks a string, someone else runs up with a fully stringed and pre-tuned spare guitar. The musician need not trouble him/herself with menial maintenance duties and can concentrate on the performance. The music deserves their FULL attention, and that is exactly what it gets.

Well, that’s not the way things work around the hammer mill. When i snap a string, I start looking for some old set I left lying around five years ago, then pirate it for a spare. We simply don’t have a running inventory of replacement strings – that would demand too much in the way of resources. And for all you macroeconomics students out there, that means strings are scarce, real scarce.

Doc takes a detour

Sure, I know what you’re thinking: we have a mad scientist at our disposal. Why not utilize his talents towards keeping our instruments in good working order? Well, aside from the fact that Mitch Macaphee never thinks of himself as part of our entourage, the fact is that he’s skipped town.

Where did he go? Way on down to Texas. He thought he’d slip into the Q-Anon subgroup rally in Dallas to see if JFK junior might be interested in underwriting some of his projects. (Yeah, I know …. I told him.) In the end, though, those Q-folks can spot a fed when they see one. Though I think what probably gave Mitch away was his decision to bring Marvin (my personal robot assistant) with him. Even in a crowd of crazy, that makes you kind of stand out.

The Macaphee bail fund

From what I understand about Texas law, it may be illegal to have an unregistered automaton. If that’s the case, Mitch might wind up in the crowbar hotel. We may have to resort to GoFundMe or the like. Might not be a bad idea. Maybe we can use part of the proceeds to buy some freaking guitar strings.

BIG GREEN