Fill in the blank. (My preference is “fuck”, but don’t let that influence you.) Always the “f” word in this group, eh? Not so unusual. A million and one uses for that storied old English term, and most of them apply to the music business. Nouns and modifiers… sometimes proper names. (Sometimes improper names.)
Anyway, greetings from the streets of Colombo, Sri Lanka — Big Green‘s new “virtual squat house”, now that we’ve been tossed out of the Cheney Hammer Mill. As always, morning finds us scrambling for shelter amongst the curbside artifacts and trash bins. Expect to see us huddled together? Not a chance – it’s every slug for himself in this band. At least that’s the way I felt about it while there was still a relatively congenial spot available to me beneath the flapjack vendor’s stand. Alas, I have been expelled from that sanctuary, as well. Bloody merchants! Now I’m trying to worm my way into my colleagues’ temporary digs. So that thing I said earlier about every man for himself? Not so. Not so.
Now, I don’t want to leave you with the impression that there has been no movement on our efforts towards reparations. As I mentioned last week, our (former) neighbor Gung-Ho may prove to be our ace in the hole, so to speak. So far we’ve had no luck trying to reach him at whatever remote location he’s been hired to invade, but we’ve got our best minds working on it. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has graciously allowed his solar batteries and internal cosmium oscillator to be linked into a makeshift 
transmitter. (Matt’s on the key now, tapping out “C-Q, C-Q”, just like pops used to. Sometimes Marvin throws in “S.O.S.” for good measure.) Trevor James Constable is using his patented orgone generating device to send distress signals out into the ethers, even though the chances of their attracting Gung-Ho’s attention are next to nil (especially if he has his helmet on). John? I don’t know… I think he and anti-Lincoln are resorting to smoke signals. Either that, or they’re burning an awful lot of Zenite snuff.
It may seem ignoble of us to be calling in for close air support. Why, you may ask, don’t we use the legal process? Why the early resort to violent methods? Well, I’m going to tell you. We Big Green ers are simple folk. We don’t go in for all that fancy legal-schmeegal mumbo-jumbo. Most of us, at least, prefer a more direct message… like blow a big hole in their land office headquarters. (My brother is a bit more attached to the intimidation 
method – have some goon lean on them, know what I mean? Only goon we’ve got is Big Zamboola, and his intimidating days are definitely over.) Not that we can count on Gung-Ho to do anything particularly rash, but hey… we can ask, right? Doesn’t hurt to ask.
There’s a time limit on this street lifestyle – I’m sure some of you know what I’m talking about. As my photos indicate, I’m getting a little scruffier every day. (You should see the man-sized tuber. Couple of days out in the rain and he starts taking root… and even the pillbox-dwellers can’t take the sight of him.) Come on, Gung Ho!
They just want to know if you’ve been talking to any hardcore terrorists, like — say — the folks at the Thomas Merton Center. It’s a matter of national security, so don’t talk about it or you’ll make Senator Jeff Sessions very very angry. Don’t even think about it — the terrorists will read your mind and take comfort in our lack of discipline. There’s nothing they can’t do, nothing! 
We know that they’ve been targeting lawful, peaceful organizing and activism. We know that they’ve been painting animal rights activists as “eco-terrorists” and the like. We know that they routinely engage in “pig-fucking” their political adversaries. What is the big picture here… the elephant in the room? Domestic spying is like a narcotic to the executive branch. Once they start using it, it’s hard to stop. Cointelpro is probably the most glaring example, but it’s not the only one. What we’re seeing may be the outlines of another massive abuse of power by an administration that’s politically on the skids, paranoid, and willing to do just about anything to advance its highly unpopular agenda. That’s not conspiracy mongering — I’m just observing that there is reason for concern. It’s similar to the detainee abuse scandal; the many disparate pieces strongly suggest a unifying policy at its base, one that reflects well established patterns of executive behavior stretching back decades. We were expected to believe that the abuses at Abu Ghraib — taken straight from the CIA torture manuals — were the work of rogue subalterns. Now we’re supposed to believe that opening our mail, listening to our phone conversations, and infiltrating our bridge clubs will make us safer, when all the while they’re failing to meet even the minimum standards for preparedness and prevention identified by the 9-11 Commission and dictated by common sense. 
They say there’s a song for every occasion, every circumstance of life. Particularly the less pleasant circumstances (though most of those are country songs). Why do you suppose that is, eh? I mean, what is it about living in a small, damp, shaded area beneath a pancake-vendor’s cart that drives a person to song? Is it the persistent smell of rancid cooking oil? The muttered oaths of disgruntled customers, waiting in vain for a decent stack of jacks? The puddle of stagnant muck that is gradually leeching into my ragged clothes? Well… it’s hard to quantify the precise sources of creative inspiration. It pains me to tell you that, though the shadow of the wrecking ball is not yet upon her, our beloved Hammer Mill is not long for this world. Damn their eyes, those Madagascarian developers…. O defilers of our humble dreams! What kind of upscale tourists or well-pensioned retirees would want to make a new start upon the ruins of this sainted mill? Okay… so perhaps I’m overstating it a little bit. The place smells like a city bus. But… and this is important … it smells better than the bottom of that malodorous pancake stand! And after a few years, I’ve became used to the draftiness, the rusted machinery, the occasional cave-ins, the crumbling brick battlements. Yea, we even started to look forward to them. After all, it’s all just part of the squatter’s lot — living the 
dream, as it were, even if it more resembles a nightmare. (What… you can think of a better way to live? I’m listening. Speak louder!) I think the hardest part is watching Marvin (my personal robot assistant) fighting against more than five years of programming that keeps sending him up to the barricaded doorway, only to be turned back again. He’s got a number of routine Mill maintenance tasks filed away in his sophisticated electronic brain, and not being able to complete them makes his circuits smoke like a chimney. (I saw Mitch Macaphee lighting a cigar on one of Marvin’s red hot relay panels just yesterday. Matt and John sometimes warm their hands over the glow when the night air gets brisk.) Hmmm… well, maybe that’s not the hardest part. The hardest part is probably listening to Anti Lincoln make his dictatorial speeches to nobody. Even his low-rent junta generals have skipped town in search of more promising digs. All right, mister anti-president — it’s been three hours. Time to clam up. Jesus, do I miss those massive hammer mill walls! What recourse for the wrongly evicted? Well… there is one possibility, slight though it is. We’ve put a call in to Gung Ho, who’s currently deployed with his mercenaries someplace explosive (and profitable, no 
doubt). I figure he might know a guy who knows a guy… who’d be willing to drop a bomb on a guy before they get the wrecking ball in position. Hey, don’t look at me like that. Last chances are last chances, right? Anyway, so far no response from the Gungster. If you happen to run into him (and live to tell the tale), have him contact us at: