Tag Archives: Anti-Lincoln

Political Rants

Hand washing.

2000 Years to Christmas

What happened to all the hot water? What the fuck, man. There’s no soap, and the hand towel is missing. This place!

Well, friends, like most of America, all members of the Big Green collective are ready for the onslaught of the dreaded Corona virus. That is to say, we’re as ready as anyone else around these parts. That means a lot of hand washing, and nearly as much hand-wringing. Sometimes it’s possible to combine the two, so long as you use liquid soap. It’s a little hard to wring your hands with gusto when there’s a bar of Ivory in the way. Of course, you can never be too careful. Even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is obsessively dunking his hands in the sink. And when I say “hands”, I mean rudimentary claws. He’s a robot, you see.

We’re trying not to obsess about this thing. I know that seems unAmerican, but that’s just the Big Green way. That said, I can tell you that anti-Lincoln is deeply depressed by this whole thing – much more so than anyone else in our circle of acquaintance. Is he a high-risk individual? Well … no, not for the virus. It appears that he’s despondent over the drop in the stock market. He was working with Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, on some complex variety of derivative, one built on debt value that increases as time moves backwards. (Yes, I know … that sounds impossible, but that’s why he needs Mitch.) Apparently he’s been pouring money into this financial instrument with the intention of making himself rich back in the 1860s. It’s kind of like a money portal, sending gold back in time. Wild!

Got to wash your face AND hands.

Well, that didn’t work out well for anti-Lincoln. That’s what he gets for playing the damned market. He should remember what happened to Lincoln during the panic of 1857. (Indeed he should … because I don’t. At least he was there … in a sense.) To cheer him up, I tried to interest him in the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day parade. My suggestion was that he pull together some kind of parade float. Maybe it could be shaped like a log cabin and made out of discarded government cheese. Or …. maybe something else. Now, he never showed any interest in St. Patrick’s Day, but he has always been fond of drinking, so there’s a chance he’ll drown his sorrow once the Grand Marshall strikes up the band down on main street.

Knock yourself out, anti-Lincoln! Just stay about three feet clear of everyone else in the parade, and you’ll be just fine.

Usual Rubbish

Tune down.

2000 Years to Christmas

What’s to celebrate? Well … a lot of things, Mr. anti-President. Like, I don’t know … the lack of snow? Ummmm …. mail delivery? The persistence of our life-giving sun? Okay … I got nothing.

Hey, what the hell, we appear to settling into a bit of a post-holiday funk here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted home. Like most bands of our generation, we like to get funky, and there’s not time like the post-holidays for a little funk-a-delic framming. Why not, right? Matt’s got a Fender Stratocaster for the first time in his life (sure, he’s had it for three years, but still … ). I’ve got my Korg SV-1 with funky clav sounds and something that sounds like a 70s Farfisa organ. So when it comes to post-holiday funk, we’re loaded for bear.

It’s fair to say that we don’t have a reputation as a jam band. That doesn’t mean we haven’t done it a whole lot. Big Green rehearsals were usually just jam sessions, interrupted periodically by some swearing and hand waving. Our gigs were kind of ragged back in the day, and I’m not at all sure what we would sound like live right now, on planet Earth, with its normal gravity and its oxygen-rich air. Not the same as playing on the semi-molten surface of Neptune. Nothing like the venues on Henson’s Planet. (What are those like? Well, I guess you’ll just have to ask Henson.)

Okay, our rehearsals were weird, but never THIS weird.

I guess what brought this to mind was listening back to some old live recordings we have kicking around the mill. They’re all on analog audio cassettes, so I have to plug them into Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who helpfully has a cassette deck built into his abdomen, and a couple of mini stereo speakers on either side of his oddly misshapen brass head. (He’s like a walking ’80s boombox … except for the walking part.) Anyway, we would extend cover songs to keep people dancing or milling about or doing whatever they were doing that didn’t involve chucking things at us. That typically entailed some longish guitar solo by whoever was working with us at that time – either the amazing Jeremy Shaw or the astonishing Tony “Ace” Butera, either one of whom could shred hard enough to peel the paint off the walls. (Though, in all honesty, most of the venues we played in those days didn’t have a lot of paint left on the walls.)

So … here’s to the funky jam. Kick out the jams, motherfuckers. Let me hear you say “yeah.” Now let me hear you say “Madagascar”. Now … uh … I got nothing.

Usual Rubbish

Robo-mill.

2000 Years to Christmas

Yes, I know the clothes washer is running. I was trying not to speak too loudly, but it appears to have overheard what I was saying earlier. This is a fine kettle of soup. Wait … what’s happening in the kitchen?

Arrgh. Hi, out there in web land. Hope all is well with you. Over here in Big Green – land (not to be confused with big Greenland, the island), the year is getting off to a rocky start. Nothing too surprising in our world. It gets a bit annoying having to tip toe around this place, but we have to be more careful than usual, now that Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, has finally delivered the big-ass Christmas present he warned us about late last year. We all thought he was just winding us up, but there actually was a rabbit in the hat, as it turns out, and well …. now it’s out.

Now, I know what you’re all thinking: “Joe, Joe! What did Mitch get you? What’s the present? Tell us NOW!” Just calm down children, and I’ll tell you. You’ve heard of the Internet of Things (IoT)? How about smart home technology? Well, if you haven’t, good for you … that means you’ve managed to avoid listening to National Public Radio for the last five years. Interactive houses are all around us these days, and while they are the product of other people’s inventive imaginations, that fact doesn’t preclude the possibility that someone else might re-invent that stuff for his or her own nefarious purposes. What I’m trying to tell you is, Mitch gave us a Smart Mill for Christmas this year. Yes … he wired up the Abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill so that it responds to our every command. Isn’t that something?

Well, yes, it is something. But nothing good, I assure you. For one thing, Mitch has everything set so that it hears every word you say and takes each one as some kind of command. It kind of works like this: Instead of saying some corporate-determined name like “Alexa!” or “Gladys!”, you trigger the “Smart Mill” by saying, “Cheney Hammer Mill!” And just saying “Cheney” won’t work – that will get you a hologram of the former Vice President. And trust me … nobody wants that.

Actually, we’ve had to curtail our euphemisms to a ridiculous degree … one time this week, Anti-Lincoln misplaced his keys and shouted, “Give me a break!” in frustration. Suddenly, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) came wheeling in like an automaton possessed and attempted to break the antimatter emancipator’s right arm. Fortunately Marvin lacks the strength to do such a thing, but still … he could just as easily been a competent robot, compelled to violence via wi-fi by a malevolent electronic brain hidden in the bowels of the Hammer Mill. And then there’s the song lyrics. Damn!

Suffice to say that we are not enjoying the mad science version of IoT, It’s a lot like the mad science version of everything else, frankly. The only upside I can see is that it can do mundane stuff like this: “Cheney Hammer Mill: Publish this blog post!” Zing!