Tag Archives: Admiral Gonutz

Usual Rubbish

Launch menu.


Garbage out, garbage in. That’s how that saying goes, right? Backwards? Are you sure? ‘Cause around here, it’s garbage out, garbage in.

Well, friends, in preparation for our upcoming interstellar tour – ENTER THE MIND 2010: THE ULTIMATE BIG GREEN EXPERIENCE – we have hauled most of our moth-eaten possessions out to the curb (on Admiral Gonutz’s orders). We have also begun to rack up commitments in the outer reaches of our galaxy (some “stellar” venues among them, I should add. Heh. heh. heh.). And, perhaps (but likely not) most importantly, we have identified a rent-a-spacecraft to replace our long since repossessed Jupiter 2 imitation craft. And hey, that ship, she’s a beauty…. NOT.

I should mention here that when I showed a picture of this moth-eaten craft to Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor (and the guy who makes every gizmo run), he turned a distinctly whiter shade of pale. Inside his enormous, distended brain, no doubt, flashed images of sleepless hours coaxing the skow’s antiquated engines into action as we drift closer and closer to a neutron star. (Chilling indeed!) I’m not sure into what dark alley Admiral Gonutz ventured to find this twisted piece of unspaceworthy tin, but he needn’t have bothered dragging it out. In point of fact, he had Marvin (my personal robot assistant) do the actual dragging… but if he thinks Mitch is going to work on this sucker for free, there’s something stronger than Borkum Riff stuffed into that pipe of his.

Will we actually get anywhere in this ramshackle conveyance, now that we are but days away from our departure to the great unknown? This member of Big Green is doubtful. But what the hell, we’ve done worse over the course of our spotted career. Look at some of our past tours, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Tacked-together technology, hastily arranged performances, hostile alien interlopers. What keeps us going back, you ask? (You didn’t ask? Well then, I have a question for you: Why didn’t you ask?) We don’t think about it too much, as you can tell. We just do it… get it done.

So what’s on the menu for our tour lift-off? We shall see, my friends. We… shall… see….

Usual Rubbish

Out with it.


Yeah, put it out to the curb. Don’t complain. We could live in a lousier neighborhood. At least here, we have curbs. Think about it, man. No, really…. THINK.

Oh, hi. Glad to see you were able to take the time to stop by and read my little screed. Always edifying to see what your friends in Big Green are up to, eh? Perhaps edifying is not the right word. How about, better than cleaning toilets? If so, I would have to agree. (Of course, I have a proprietary interest here, I declare.)

You caught us in the midst of a little house cleaning. As you may know, we are preparing for our upcoming interstellar tour, which we are calling ENTER THE MIND 2010 – THE ULTIMATE BIG GREEN EXPERIENCE. Actually, I just tagged that last piece on at the request of Admiral Gonutz, our tour promoter. He seems to think we have a tendency to undersell. (Personally, the fact that we’re selling at all feels like overselling to me. But I digress.) Gonutz is just full of ideas, like a freaking jelly donut. (Actually, Matt’s taken to calling him Donutz, owing to a certain fondness on his part for Cumberland Farm fried cakes, but again… I digress…) Anywho, the admiral hopes a little hype will sweeten the deal on some of these remote venues. I am unconvinced.

Another thing he’s gotten under his ludicrous headgear – he wants us to jettison all non-essential stuff. I don’t mean from the spacecraft we have yet to rent. I mean pretty much everything around this old hammer mill that doesn’t have some kind of nautical theme. [Note to Marvin (my personal robot assistant): that hideous mantle clock of yours is safe.] So we’re carrying all manner of junk out to the side of the road for eventual pickup… very eventual, since we haven’t paid our garbage collection fee in about three years. In fact, on the suggestion of Marvin, we’re even carrying my tendency to digress out to the curb, in a basket.

More than likely, there will be a few leftover discs in the castoffs, so feel free to drop by the Hammer Mill and sift through the dross for… I don’t know, more dross. I think Gonutz is trying to get us used to the idea of traveling light. Not sure he gets the electronic music equipment concept, since he mostly lives in the first quarter of the 19th century.  (Matt noticed that he ordered some oversized rowing megaphones, perhaps for sound reinforcement. Someone needs to speak to him… as long as it isn’t me.)

Junk at the curb? Sounds like a yard sale. Come on down. Tell them Gonutz sent you.

Usual Rubbish

Capital!


That thing you just said five minutes ago. Say it again. No, not that – the OTHER thing you said. The thing that wasn’t some dumb-ass comment. Whoa… calm down, Hemingway!

Sensitive artists, these rock musicians. Well, let me qualify that. I’m actually referring to the individuals, human and non-human, who hang around with rock musicians. I’m talking about your man-sized tuber, your Marvin (my personal robot assistant), your Mitch Macaphee, your Lincoln and anti-Lincoln, etc. We of Big Green proper (brother Matt, brother-in-law John, and I) have asked these hangers-on for suggestions on where we should take the next interstellar tour. Of course, this is a bit like placing 100 monkeys at 100 typewriters and hoping for Hamlet to pop out of one of the carriages. Still, you do get lucky from time to time, and just today – I swear – one of them made a suggestion that made sense. Actual sense, in a wholly non-ironic way.

What am I babbling about? I’ll get to it, I’ll get to it. (Ahem…) Mitch Macaphee spouted something that sounded like a reasonable suggestion – let’s begin the next tour on Betelgeuse, he said. (Not the exact words, but close enough. In fact, he may have been coughing up a stuffed grape leaf.) The logic behind this is obvious. Betelgeuse is enormous – many times the size of our own sun. Why not start big, right? Am I right? Okay… so maybe the logic isn’t so obvious. In any case, we’ve played in the Betelgeuse system before, and as I remember, those shapeless globs of protoplasm we found there listened better than most of our terrestrial audiences. (At least they appeared to; they were all bubbly by the end of the show.)

I’m sure you think we should find better things to do with our time than idly ponder the finer points of our tour itinerary when, in fact, it is totally out of our hands… and into the calloused paws of our promoter, Admiral Gonutz (ret.). Well, if you want to know the sad truth…. we don’t. This is the stuff that music biz is made of, friends. A little bit of playing and a whole lot of waiting around to play, as Keith Richards put it many long years ago. I personally prefer John Lennon’s response when someone asked him how he liked France, and he said something like, it was a car and a plane and a car and a room and a car and a plane. With us, it’s more like a skateboard and a rocket and an airless void and a volcano and an ocean and a steamboat and an ambulance and a mental ward.

Okay, anybody else got suggestions? Big Zamboola, perhaps? Marvin? C’mon, let’s have it, chaps!