Take five. One… two… three… quatro! No, no – stop. Wrong key, man. Totally wrong key. It’s the one around the back of the horn. You’re concentrating too much on those front keys.
Greetings and welcome to the house of dung and smog. Did I say “dung and smog”? I meant, sun and fog. Yes, the misty environs of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill on a cool Saturday morn – ah, ’tis a sight to behold. A veritable feast for the senses, particularly the olfactory. That burning smell? That’s just us burning up the tape down here in our dungeon-like studio. (Maybe I did mean smog after all…) Okay… I am playing a little fast and loose with the facts. In this digital, nonlinear age, we have abandoned tape altogether and taken up the cudgel of cutting-edge recording technology – wax cylinders! No wait, not wax. Wire. Wire recording. Wild, wild new deal in tracking songs, mate! I heard all about it from the dude on the corner – the guy with half-a-boot. On his head.
I know, I know – he doesn’t know what he’s talking a-boot, right? Well… before you go there, listen up. Format doesn’t matter, friends. We’re mastering our first album in nearly ten years – a work fully four years in the making. If we got all concerned about formats, it would probably take us another four years. (Not sure this mill will be standing then.) And whether it be wire, wax, or some other widget, we’re preparing these fifteen songs for release, come hell or high water. And those of you familiar with the recording process know, this is the point in every project where you discover how far from finished you truly are. For instance, I’m having Marvin (my personal robot assistant) add a last-minute saxophone part to one song that… well… that just needed something. Something like a robot playing a saxophone. (Always helps. Just ask Captured by Robots.)
Speaking of robots playing saxophones, I hear that plucky Mars rover is still exploring major craters on the 
red planet. Pretty stubborn little critter. I always taunt Marvin with “Opportunity’s” record on the Martian surface – a foreboding place if ever there was one, take it from me. Anyway, Marvin’s a little sensitive about my rover-based teasing, because his brass skin is susceptible to the peculiar conditions of the Martian atmosphere. In fact, the last time we were there, we spent nearly as much time buffing the corrosion out of Marvin’s skin as we did setting up and tearing down from the gigs we played on Mount Olympus (tallest known peak in the solar system). Check it out, the rover “Spirit” has been on the planet for fully 1,290 Martian days. We were just barely there for two. What do you say to that, Marvin? Huh?
Bone mean, you say? Fuck, no. I’m just trying to get a good performance out of him. Sure, he barely knows how to hold a saxophone, but that has never stopped us before. No, Marvin. Swinging the saxophone at me won’t help. Mars Rover never had to attack its master!
probably wandered off about when he heard the “so long.” As a result, the younger Bush shares his father’s love of bombing and invading other countries, but lacks George Senior’s horse-sense about picking the right fights – namely, easily winnable ones. Hence Operation Iraqi Fiefdom and, in effect, the war in Afghanistan as well, which by any reasonable standard is also a dismal failure in achieving the original stated objective (i.e. destroying al Qaeda and capturing/killing Bin Laden). So… how do you finesse such spectacular under-achievements? Well, if you’re none too subtle and you have a very low opinion of the masses, you move the goal posts. And you do it again and again. That’s certainly the modus operandi in both of these wars, but particularly in Iraq, where six month strategies stretch into 18 months with barely a word from the president on the last set of “benchmarks” left unmet.
recognize it for what it is and act accordingly? Does the dead person have to be a relative or a friend or a close neighbor for us to give a shit? Perhaps. I remain convinced that the American people have the power to stop the Iraq war if we insist upon it. It just hasn’t hit most of us yet, so we ignore it. We are so quiet about our distaste for the war that the Bush administration has actually felt bold enough to abandon the fiction that our presence in Iraq is a short-term necessity. Indeed, they have started talking in terms of a permanent military presence in that country. Now… this, of course, was manifestly obvious from the beginning, and they have been building permanent bases there for four years, but until now they’ve at least softly denied that there was an intention to stay permanently. Not anymore, apparently. Likely we’ll be presented with the mirage-like possibility of troop reductions – Petraeus’s announcement of next spring’s drawdown like it’s something new; Gate’s vague suggestion of further reductions by the end of next year.
Spread some oil on them sticks. That’s good. Now bring a bundle of straw over here. In a bunch, in a bunch! Okay…. kerosene. Where’d I put it? What? You sure that’s not Vodka? Well… take a glug and let me know. Now, who’s got a match?
It was just the look on his… his… his north-facing side (the side with the moss); I could just tell he was dissatisfied. It was an expression veritably dripping with indignation. (Though it may have been some kind of syrup, to be fair. You know how yams get this time of year – kinda juicy.) And those bloody Lincolns – posi and anti – never stop bickering over who ignored the warning signs just prior to secession and who let the rebs walk away with the first battle of Bull Run. I could knock their bearded heads together! Oh, why… why did Trevor James have to cart his orgone generating machine back to the states? Why couldn’t he send those freaks back to the 1860s, where they belong?
Loathsome Prick, has demanded a finished album out of us by the middle of November. That’s a lot of finishing, and frankly it’s not going to happen. (Just don’t say anything, okay? I’m not ready to go into the ground just yet.) Sure, we’ve got the sucker recorded – fifteen songs in the can, most of which are mixed. But we’ve got a lot of mastering to do, and we haven’t even worked out a running order. (I know, I know…. in the era of the iPod, who cares, right? I do, damn it!) Then there’s designing the package, pressing the disc, distribution… not a ten-week job, friends. And yet Matt is not taking it real hard. Just sorting his anvils, like any normal person. Won’t even join me in a game of mumbly peg. Geez.