Usual Rubbish

Point taken.

That’s it. That’s it. Keep your eyes on the horizon. Don’t look down, for pity sake. Never look down… or up, for that matter. Good man. Or should I say, good robot? Good robot.

Oh, hello. Didn’t know you were standing there behind the lintel. You caught me in the middle of talking Marvin (my personal robot assistant) out of his mechanical version of sea-sickness. He’s been up in that bloody Zamboola-powered observation balloon for the better part of two weeks now, and the constant rocking is more than even a rock band hanger-on can easily stand. Sure, I know what you’re thinking — He’s a mechanical man, isn’t he? Surely Mitch Macaphee installed some gimbals in that bloody thing! Well, Marvin was one of Mitch’s most ambitious experiments up to that point in time. He hadn’t yet gotten all the bugs out of his theories on automaton equilibrium. Long story short…. Marvin’s turning green up there, and now we’ve got to do something.

Good christ in himmel. Remember when being in this band meant playing music in some fashion? (Though some might take issue with the fashion part.) Interruptions and more bloody interruptions! I can tell you, Matt and I had a good long talk with Mitch Macaphee about commandeering our help (i.e. Marvin) in the middle of a session (i.e. waste of time), and Mitch gave us a relatively firm scientific reply (i.e. fuck off), so that was that. Next thing we know, he is working with Trevor James Constable on some kind of alchemy experiment, seemingly having lost interest in the atmospheric probe on which he had sent not only Marvin but Big Zamboola (who may be needed to assist in the remix process, like adding a little gravity here and there to the “lighter” songs). Back only a few weeks and this lousy abandoned mill is… well…. virtually abandoned again. And that’s just plain unnatural. (And you can quote me on that.)

Still, even with the loss of Marvin and the man-sized tuber (still in numismatic heaven), we’ve plodded on with our mastering sessions, doggedly putting the bits of these songs together like Mitch trying to knit toaster waffles into blocks of solid platinum. (I told him it’s never going to work. He isn’t even using the ones with Hanson on the box.) How’s it going? Well…. sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn’t. But we’re getting there. Sure, I know — you’ve heard me say that so many times before, what the hell does it mean, right? Well, let me just say this to you. Ask not what your Big Green can do for you… ask what you can do for your Big Green. Moral support — that’s what we need. Think good thoughts. Put our names in your little book of wishes. (Not your little book of fishes, thank you very much.) And hope someone… someone comes along to twiddle these bloody dials in the right direction.

If that’s going to be Marvin, I’d better get back on the line. My apologies. Marvin? Is that you hanging over the side of the gondola? Eyes on the horizon, boy!

Political Rants

Greetings.

Charles Rangel (D-NY) has again raised the subject of reinstituting the military draft as a way of ensuring that the prospect of war will be treated by the powerful and well-connected with the kind of seriousness it merits. Of course, the proposal will go nowhere, but the reaction to it is always interesting. NPR’s resident political sports commentator Cokie Roberts, for instance, pointed out that people volunteer for today’s military, that they are there because they want to be there, and that, anyway, the military doesn’t want a draft. There’s a civics lesson in this somewhere, I’m sure of it. You won’t get that from me (unqualified, for sure), but this reaction is certainly worth a closer look.

Sure, people volunteer for the military, but very often they do so on the basis of some pretty specious recruiting claims (not to mention glitzy advertising that you and I pay for). Many times they come from depressed communities where there are few options for high school graduates to get an education, start a career, or even just find a decent-paying job. As far as wanting to be there is concerned, my first question is, wanting to be where? Iraq? Doubt it. There hasn’t yet been massive desertion or near insurrection like there was in Vietnam, but then these are, again, volunteers many of whom entered the armed forces not simply because they wanted to serve their country, but because they hoped to either make a career in the military or find a career through the experience. That and the culture of the modern military makes disobedience much, much more difficult than it would be for a draftee who didn’t want to be in the service in the first place.

Finally, the question of whether or not the military wants a draft seems kind of irrelevant to me. Last time I looked, they took their orders from the elected civilian leadership and not the other way around. (They didn’t particularly want to go into Iraq either, and look where we are.) Their reluctance stems, of course, from the Vietnam experience, but what the hell — people were drafted into America’s wars long before Vietnam. Was the problem… Is the problem the draft or the fact that the war was plainly wrong and immoral and no one wanted to fight it? Seems to me it’s the latter. What really bugs people about the draft is that it puts us in a situation where we can’t get into a war unless it obviously needs to be fought — i.e. that there is no alternative.

There’s another basic moral question here; one that Cokie and crew are unlikely to address. Just because people are willing to do our fighting for us, that doesn’t mean we should feel free to sent them on some hopeless, pointless, gratuitous mission like invading and occupying Iraq. I think Rangel’s point is that general conscription would make the decision to go to war a matter of keen interest to every part of society, from penniless kids in Appalachia and south Bronx to ivy league-bound prepsters and their parents. I find it grimly amusing that people are encouraged think of the Vietnam era as a time when people didn’t support U.S. troops and that today we’re behind them all the way. Back in the sixties, if you were an 18-year-old man, you were about two inches away from being a troop yourself. You likely had good friends and/or family members in the service — maybe a cousin, an uncle, or a brother overseas — and you were watching the mails for that draft notice. It’s nothing like that today. Nowadays, people slap a magnetic ribbon on their bumper and you’d think they just came back from a freaking U.S.O. show.

What the fuck — Cheney was no anti-war protester in the sixties; just a selfish slug who was unwilling to push himself away from his Thanksgiving dinner to get shot at in Vietnam. And while people criticize sixties radicals no end, the Cheney model is the one we all follow today.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Up, up, and no way!

First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is. Got all that? Okay, now let’s do the river. First there is a river, then there is no river… etc. Right. Let’s try Shirley! First there is a Shirley, then there is no Shirley….

Hello again. Just working through my daily mediation exercises. Are you with me? Breathe in… deeply… deeply…. Now let it out, you wind bag! Great — I feel much better now. Trust me, I need something to take the edge off. My fellow denizens of the Cheney Hammer Mill are beginning to make me crazy with a “k”. (Or “krazy”.) We’re trying to finish an album here, damnit, and what does Mitch Macaphee do but send my principal engineer — Marvin (my personal robot assistant) — into the exosphere on some kind of harebrained experiment… using Big Zamboola as the hot air balloon. Now, I know that sounds totally fucked up on sooooo many different levels, so let me deal with them one at a time so that you may better understand.

First — why are we using Marvin as an engineer? That’s simple. He’s got one hell of a set of ears. That was one thing Mitch really did right in building our mechanical friend, let me tell you. That robot can hear a pin drop on the other side of the world, or a child sighing for her mother in Madagascar, or bricks being fashioned by contract laborers in a distant galaxy (oh yes, they do exist — don’t tell me they don’t). When properly calibrated, he can spot the precise frequency that is giving Matt a headache at any point in a given song, whether it’s being generated by an acoustic guitar, a sousaphone, or one of those twangy banjo-like things they play in China. Oh, such a sensitive instrument is that Marvin. In fact, I believe that’s why Mitch sent him aloft in the Zamboola-balloon (or “Zamballoon”, as we’ve taken to calling it). Some kind of research into meteorological acoustics. (I think he’s preparing for a conference. What the fuck, just ask him.)

Well, all right, so the experiment is going to last a few days, that’s what Macaphee tells me. And we’re left to twiddle our own dials, as always — no help from nobody. No Marvin, of course. No producer. We can’t even get the man-sized tuber to sit in, mainly because he’s still wrapped up in that numismatic scam that anti-Lincoln has gotten him started on. Oh, fuck… excuse me. Tubey, put that change jar down! Rare coins, my ass! All coins are rare when you’re broke! Just put it down! Jeezus, he’s gullible. And then there’s Trevor James Constable, who’s been obsessing over his orgone generating device — apparently the works have become severely gummed up… to the point where it doesn’t even attract invisible flying predators anymore. I ask you… what the hell use is an orgone generating device if it doesn’t even attract invisible flying predators? (Trevor James is only now trying to find an explanation. I’ll keep you posted.)

So there you have it — Big Green left to its own devices, our entourage having abandoned us for greener pastures and more promising avenues of cultural and intellectual inquiry. And coin collecting, let us not forget. My change jar is empty, damn it. Tubey!!!

Weird ass music since 1986