What was that? You want more? Already? No chance, Jack. I’m shutting you off. This little watering hole has dried up, my friend.
WTF, followers of Big Green’s meandering life story – since when am I the flapjack nazi, anyway? Am I not every bit the addict that my various colleagues have shown themselves to be over the last few years? I should say so. (And, in fact, I did.) Even now, as lame made-for-television-commercial emo music wafts up from the living room downstairs, I am pouring grade A Patagonian pancake batter into the frying pan, the glorious golden circles of nutrition spreading out from the stream, spattering hot butter in every direction. Total abandon, my friends – isn’t that what you expect out of your pop musicians? Total, aimless, sputtering self-abandon, yea unto self-destruction. I have embarked upon that grimly seductive road. If I’m less than generous with the fruit of my skillet, it is out of conscience, not selfishness. DON’T FOLLOW ME HERE! SAVE YOURSELVES!!!
Whew! Forgive me. Flapjacks tend to bring out the melodrama in all of us. Just last night, posi-Lincoln got a bellyful and started spouting Shakespeare – Henry VI – Part II, I believe, though I’m no scholar, as I’m sure you know. (Keeps calling himself “York” and me “Gloucester,” then galloping off amid some unintelligible utterance. Strange, strange man.) Then, of course, there’s Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who is technically immune to the effects of flapjack consumption, but who is so anxious to be included in everything that he mimics the worst of us. And damn. does he overdo it! First he insists upon taking part in Lincoln’s performance. Then, after nearly a week of pulling our spacecraft together in preparation for our trip to Mars, Marvin, overcome with imagined euphoria, took the sucker up into the airspace above the mill and crashed it into a nearby bean field. Most impressive display.
I could go on about our failings, but you probably want to save some of that for later. What really irks me, though, is that this latest binge has set us back considerably in fulfillment of our deal with our record label, Loathsome Prick, which has demanded a string of gigs on the red planet in exchange for an extension on our album release date. We’ve got a pile of repair work to do now. What we really need is some expert assistance from our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee… or perhaps a little coaxing from Trevor James 
Constable’s orgone generating device. Unfortunately, both of the more knowledgeable members of our contingent are now plowing much richer pastures in Europe and South America. Yes, friends… Mitch is in Brazil, shaking a casaba right now, most likely, while Trevor James has repaired to the south of France for some kind of bio-etheric conference. Where are they when you need them, eh? (I think I just answered that question.)
Well, more than anything else, we need one of those smart guys to repair over to the Hammer Mill and repair our damaged space vehicle. Mitch…. Trevor… if you are reading this you can find me here:
Behind this enormous stack of flapjacks
Downstairs kitchen
Cheney Hammer Mill
Little Falls, NY
So don’t say you can’t find us, ’cause you can.
madness will come as a surprise to no one, but Hersh describes a recent shift in the administration’s rationale from “counterproliferation” to “counterterrorism”, and this does raise some troubling possibilities. Their efforts to blame Iran for all of their troubles in Iraq have kicked into high gear over the past few months, and Hersh reports that they appear to believe that, with respect to public opinion, they are getting more traction with this argument than they had with the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran. (Apparently the American people are not as anxious to march lemming-like to the tune of that particular drum as they were in 2002-03.) This, of course, means that the Bush team is, once again, fixing the facts around the policy – deciding what they want to do first (e.g. bomb Iran), then working up a marketable rationale to generate public support. And the standard of proof for this particular fear-mongering is much lower than what is required for a smoking gun/mushroom cloud appeal.
So, as Edward G. Robinson said in The Ten Commandments, “Nyaah… Where’s your Moses now?” (or something like that). Don’t think regime change at home means policy change. Both parties are chock full of people who will clamor for the chance to put those bombers into action. (Our air force may be dropping plenty of bombs on Iraq, but they’re not nearly as tied down as the army and marines. And the navy still has both hands free.)
Now, let’s see… how does that song go? Hmmmm…. strike up the band, Johnny. One small step… for one bald man. Giant leap for all time. Christmas day, thank you, ma’am. I came in peace… and left my mind!
Let me ‘splain. We are under contract with Loathsome Prick, our corporate label, to release our long-anticipated (or perhaps no longer anticipated) sophomore album at some time in the next year or so. They had the option to demand the product any time after September 30, and, well, they did (the fuckers). Naturally, when we signed the contract (or, rather, had the man-sized tuber sign for us) we thought the release date would be quite a long ways off. Trouble with that long-ways-off kind of thinking is that, if you think about it too long, it gets a whole lot closer. So here we were, our album still not finished (though completely recorded), and the nice gentlemen at Loathsome Prick jumping all over our shit. What else could we do but cut yet another deal with them? This one was an agreement to play some gigs on Mars to promote the new collection. So now we’re scraping together a few sets worth of music – the usual last-minute scramble. So it goes.
floor, his brass tarnished, his sensors covered with dust, but his ramshackle arms laden with booty. Marvin had stumbled upon the old sea trunk I had brought with me years ago when we first arrived at the mill. (Seems like just yesterday.) Inside were moth-eaten reams of paper, yellow with age (though they were legal pads, so they actually started out kind of yellow). I showed them to Matt, and he nodded solemnly. Yes, yes… these were the notebooks upon which he and I had penned so many of the songs that had made us obscure back in the day. (That was a hard day.) We began flipping through the parchment-like folios, mouthing the words silently as we went along. Nice work, Marvin. Good robot.