Bit more to the left, Zamby. Bit more. Bit more. Nope, nope, that’s it. I said that’s it. Whoa, damn it! Whoa, you mother fucker, whoa!
Oh, hello. Didn’t see you there. Big Zamboola (or “Zamby”, as I’ve been calling him lately) was just helping me with at little household chore, to wit, moving the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill a few paces to the left. Yes, I did say household chore — Zamboola holds the house and I tell him where to plunk it. (Insert derisive laughter here.) Why move the august mill from one place to another very similar place? Well, it’s complicated, as you might expect. It’s a topic that twists and snakes around back on itself, ties itself in knots, squealing all the way, like most everything in the life of Big Green. Not sure you want to get into it on such a lovely day as this. Weather sucks where you are? Well, then — let’s have at it… or as my illustrious brother used to say, pass the fucking potatoes.
You know how most musical recordings employ a range of sound effects, some of which, say, mimic an echo or the reverberation of a primitive cave? Haven’t noticed? Oh, yes — it’s a fact. You may be surprised to learn that most of that stuff is done by sophisticated machines, powered by — are you sitting down? — a little thing 
called “computer technology”. Don’t think it will catch on, frankly, though Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is all over that shit like a cheap robot. I digress… one major drawback of this amazing aural effects technology is that it costs money, and as you know, money does not grow on trees around here. No, they don’t call us “Big Green” for the contents of our wallets, my friends. Anyway, we have long since resigned ourselves to using the old ways of recording — time-honored techniques for adding verve and dimension to our records. (For definitions of “verve” and “dimension”, check your local library or record shop.)
It may interest you to know, for instance, that the cavernous reverb on Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” was achieved by planting a speaker at one end of a Manhattan elevator shaft and a microphone at the other, so the story goes. And nearly every recording fanatic has seen photos of the big reverb chambers at Abbey Road studios. Well, okay… so what do 
you suppose we use to get the same effect, eh? Got a great big brick building here. Got one next door. What the fuck — Johnny White said, “Why the hell don’t we just bounce the sound around between ’em?” and I had no good answer for him. So we set it up, but I’ll be god-damned, the echo was just too damn short. What to do? “Well, that’s easy,” said Mitch Macaphee, “make the space between the buildings bigger… only not too much bigger.” Then what we needed was a sky hook with a whole lot of heft — that’s Big Zamboola all over. Only trouble is, his sense of direction is not all that it should be.
Yeah, well — nothing’s as easy as it seems. We may just have a little extra reverb on this record. Listen for it, friends. Maybe we’ll just call it “Generation Reverb”. I’m open to suggestions. Whoops… excuse me. Drop it, Zamby! Drop it now!
on a limb here and predict that Dubya’s dramatic conclusion will be — wait for it! — send more troops. Yes, the “surge” strategy so beloved of John McCain and Hillary Clinton. Just what the voters so clearly demanded, eh? This makes sense, I’m sure, in Bush’s tiny mind for several reasons. 1.) He’s the decider. Nobody’s going to tell him (and Cheney) what to do in Iraq, especially not a bunch of aging minders (sent by poppa Bush) whose opinions differ from the original pair of aging minders Dubya brought with him to Washington nearly six long years ago. 2.) Sending more troops makes the Democrats look bad, since they were sent to Washington to do just the opposite, and I’m sure Bush assumes they don’t have the spine to force him into withdrawal. 3.) It’s like “stay the course”… only better, so he gets to cling to his thread of consistency while looking like he’s doing something new and being “tough”, all at the same time — a win / win / win. 
One thing that is clearly indicated by the Iraq Study Group plan and the “Extension and Acceleration” (i.e. escalation) plan for which Bush now has a boner is that those at the center of power have not abandoned their core goals in Iraq, most significantly that of maintaining a long-term (perhaps permanent) military presence in that country, as well as substantial influence over its political and economic affairs. Among the ISG’s 79 recommendations (all of which the group claims must be implemented) is one that focuses on privatization of Iraq’s oil industry. Just this week the Iraqi parliament introduced legislation to allow exploration and development of petroleum resources by foreign contractors, an unprecedented move towards the kind of neoliberal economic model now being rejected in South America. I think that, once again, people are missing the central story here. The objective of the Iraq project is not to produce a democratic Iraq at peace with its neighbors as the administration suggests; it is to secure an Iraq that is amenable to U.S. military, political, and economic penetration. If that can be accomplished through the establishment of a secure democracy, it’s fine by Bush and company, but that’s by no means a requirement (see: Pakistan).
Hasta la vista, whatever that means. Let’s see you daaaaance, sucka! No? Okay, how about, put your hands together! All the girls. Now all the guys. Now just the left side of the room. Now the right! Okay, now just the one-armed Methodists with gingivitis. Great, great….
What was the outcome of Mitch’s grand experiment, you ask? The experiment that deprived us of essential personnel during one of the most critical points in the production of our new album? The experiment that necessitated gross extensions of our own menial responsibilities in and around the mill? That experiment??? Well, let me tell you. It was a success… a screaming success… if the intention was to make it rain incessantly for the past week and a half. I’m not at all sure that was the mission when the Zamboola-powered balloon left the ground, but it morphed into that somewhere just above the troposphere. And Marvin, good soldier that he is, refused to leave until the mission was accomplished. No cutting and running for him, my friend. (Also, he had no idea how to land that sucker, so that contributed to his stick-to-it-iveness. )
So now the rain is pouring in, filling up every crack and cranny in this creaky old mill, turning the streets into rivers and the rivers into moving lakes. Yesterday our replica J-2 spacecraft just floated away, its makeshift mast still crammed through the glass globe on the top of its hull. The basement is flooded, and the man-sized tuber has begun to resemble something recently yanked out of a mangrove swamp. (He’s growing knees, like a cypress tree. Very odd.) Trevor James Constable has secured some sort of floatation device for his patented orgone generating machine — god forbid that should ever get waterlogged. Why, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. Time itself might become unglued. We could find ourselves running backwards through days, months, years, even decades before that contraption dries out. Want to shed years off your face, figure, physique, etc.? Pray for rain. Beat the drum like war. ‘Nuff said.