Can’t you hear it? It’s playing the piano. It’s Ingram’s hand… it’s playing down there! The hand… Oh no, wait. It’s not Ingram’s hand. It’s actually my hand — I’m playing the piano. Fuck a duck, I always make that mistake.
Bad old movie fanatics will recall The Beast With Five Fingers, a moody horror flick featuring Peter Lorre and a one-handed piano player. Actually, my brother (and Big Green co-founder) Matt wrote one of his many Christmas songs on the theme of this ridiculous movie. I think he called it “Christmas Piece (written for one hand)”. I’ll post the file sometime, if he promises not to kill me for doing so. It’s an eight-track DTRS recording from about ten years ago, now in mothballs. Dig it up, fucker! Is that what I hear you saying? Very well, then… We’ve got a pretty deep grab bag over here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. Lots of old masters (and I don’t mean Rembrandt), including 4 track cassette recordings, scary demos, and unreleased out-takes from our last album, 2000 Years To Christmas.
Yup, it’s been seven years since our last proper album release, though we have archives stretching back to the 1980’s when we knuckleheads first started playing together. I’ve actually put Marvin (my personal robot assistant) in charge of maintaining these archives, deep in the dusty catacombs of the mill. 
My feeling is, since he’s a machine, he will feel some sympathy towards these fruits of modern technology (tapes, song files, etc.) and handle them with gentleness and sensitivity. I know he has a strong capacity for… for… what the hell was that noise? Sounded like tapes being dropped down a basement stairs. Excuse me… Marvin? Is that you? What the hell are you playing at, you tin-plated moron? Those reel-to-reel spools are irreplaceable! Get your head out of your ass! What the…? Put that torch away. I said PUT IT AWAY! No… NOOOOO!!!
Okay, that was just a bit of melodrama. Got to keep the kids entertained, know what I mean. Marvin is not one bit clumsy — he’s like a wolf on his feet. It’s the man-sized tuber who’s the clumsy clod around this joint. I warn you, never leave him with the cleaning up after dinner. Can’t tell you how many sets of second-hand china we went through because of that ham-fisted root vegetable. Nowadays we just eat on paper plates recovered from the local falafel vendor. And on those rare occasions when we do use actual dishes, I just ask Trevor James Constable to train his orgone generating device on them after dinner. (Just throw the switch and the bioplasmic etheric energy does its magic while you watch the Daily Show.) Hell, I know — it’s not tubey’s fault. His withered abdominal roots can barely hold a coffee cup, let alone a stack of stoneware platters, heavy with leavings from a four-course Mexican feast. (Clumsy fool.)
Yeah, when we finish this album (for years he’s been saying this, for years…), I’ll start sorting through some of our old recordings and post a few of the more listenable examples. Or maybe I’ll just re-do them with one hand tied behind my back. Hey — this is Big Green. Anything can happen.
There is seemingly always some anecdotal tidbit about a soldier or a mother or a small business owner or a virtuous immigrant who just happens to be seated next to the first lady. No real new information is imparted, since the previous week is choked with trial balloons sent off from the White House to preview all new policy proposals. So aside from bad television, there is no meaningful content… though that doesn’t stop the various news organizations from yammering about it for days afterward (when they’re not talking about who is and is not running for president next year).
It’s happening again. Forget all the lofty mea culpas about the press’s failures during the run-up to the Iraq war. They’re once again performing that vital function of amplifying the administration’s bogus claims about the perils we face from a third-rate power — a nation surrounded by hostile armies (and navies!); a nation under existential threat from both the U.S. and Israel (both of which have the capacity to make good on that threat); a nation that shares a long border with the chaotic clusterfuck we’ve created in Iraq. Our major news organizations should put a freaking laugh track under any administration official that accuses Iran of destabilizing Iraq or of having undue influence in a country that invaded them (with our help). Instead, such claims are treated with seriousness and are seldom subjected to the kind of scrutiny that elevates journalism above public relations. One such failure in a single decade is inexcusable; two is simply criminal.
What is this? More bickering? Jesus Christ on a bike. Can’t you guys ever just let it drop? Always putting the boot in, putting the boot in. Leave it, damn you, leave it. Do I have to come back there again? You’re distracting me from my driving!
We went out for a brief ride in the ‘wagon just yesterday, and I had to pull over at least a couple of times specifically to speak to Marvin about those bloody pins he keeps tossing in the air. (He had the best juggling coach, too… some guy named Sven. Go figure.) Not a lot of headroom in that car, as you might well imagine — this isn’t some suburban land-yacht or Mercedes SUV, friends. Anyway, it was my turn to drive and by virtue of our friend sFshzenKlyrn’s generous holiday gift (a small poke of Zenite snuff), the vehicle somehow ended up in a roadside drainage ditch. I’ve been in a number of crashes in my time; most of them involving space vehicles (or at least one space vehicle and a car of some sort), but this was among the more embarrassing incidents of its kind. For one thing, it transpired within eyeshot of the freaking mill. My comrades elected to walk the rest of the way home, singing the ridiculous round with which they had been bludgeoning me while we were still on the road. That left me to beg assistance from a passing donkey cart. I think you can imagine the ride home, station wagon in tow. Not a pretty sight.
pilot a spacecraft, but he’s no taxi driver. And don’t even ask me about the man-sized tuber. Why, his little spindly roots can’t even reach the pedals, poor fucker. Matt and John? They like to hang out the windows with their tongues flapping in the breeze. I suppose the most likely candidate for chauffeur would be Marvin, but hell — we get Marvin to do everything. I mean, that robot is entitled to a little down time, even if he is my personal robot assistant. Besides, if you put a robot in the driver’s seat, it’s like riding with Hitler. Don’t ask me why… some truths are imponderable.