Tag Archives: Anti-Lincoln

This is not the sort of thing I meant

October 22, 2021 Joseph

Okay, back it up a little further. That’s it. Little more. Little more. That’s great, stop there. I said stop. STOP, DAMN IT! Bloody hell!

Yeah, hey, everybody. Just attempting to wave a shipment of widgets into the loading dock here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. I have to say, it’s not working out very well. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) volunteered to drive the truck. Need I say more? (We’ll be needing to put a tarp over the loading dock, now that he’s punched a truck-shaped hole in the garage door.)

What kind of widgets are we receiving? Not sure. This wasn’t my gig. Actually, Anti-Lincoln had the bright idea of getting an assembly line going here in the old mill. He is from the mid 19th century, and so a hammer mill from the 1890s looks quite modern to his eyes, particularly when he’s had some of his beloved absinthe.

Unintended consequences

So, I’m pretty sure I’m partly to blame for Anti-Lincoln’s new project. I told him to do something constructive with his time. It was just an effort at mild criticism. Frankly, the guy sits around the mill sulking most of the time, wishing he were made of positrons instead of pure anti-neutrons (absolutely pure!). I got sick of his whining. And his wining. (He likes wine as much as Kavanaugh likes beer. Do YOU like beer?)

Anyway, next thing I knew, Anti-Lincoln was rebuilding the works in the assembly room. I thought little of that until the shipments started coming. Ball bearings arrived first, then aluminum brackets. Next came long spools of rattan string. God only knows how he’s paying for this stuff! But aside from that, what the hell is he building in there? WHAT HAVE I DONE?

Newton without the figs

Okay, so I have a theory. I don’t know if you remember this, but there was a popular gadget back in the 1970s called the Newtonian Demonstrator. My notion is that Anti-Lincoln is planning to corner the market on these things. It’s just a hunch, but in a way it makes sense. Brackets, ball bearings, string … what the hell else is he going to do with it?

Then, of course, there’s the question of who the customers might be. Are Newtonian Demonstrators a hot item these days? I didn’t think so, but again …. I have to consider Anti-Lincoln’s 19th Century perspective on this. Newtonian physics was really coming into its own when he was reaching adulthood in anti-matter Kentucky. It’s possible he doesn’t know that these gadgets went out with the Whole Earth Catalog.

Stopping the line

Now, as you know, Anti-Lincoln has done a lot of crazy shit in his time. And it’s likely that he’ll do a lot of crazy shit in the future. But when he set up an actual assembly line and press ganged Marvin and the man-sized tuber into pulling double shifts, he clearly went too far.

Now, I’m a pretty reasonable guy. I put up with a lot of nonsense. But when you start exploiting the living crap out of my entourage, you’re crossing a line. I pulled the plug on the assembly line and encouraged Marvin and tubey to start a job action. We shut that sucker down and started picketing our own hammer mill. That’s how serious we are, friends. STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE! Send pizzas! Anti-Lincoln is a corporate snake!

Usual Rubbish

Putting a gloss on that broken shoe

October 1, 2021 Joseph

Yep, they just keep rolling in. That’s what Mitch tells me, anyhow. We’re rich, baby, rich. Unless, of course, our mad science advisor is lying to us. For what reason? Madness has no reason, captain. But it can have a goal.

Well, THAT got weird quick. No matter. Just living the dream here in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, Big Green’s adopted home. Now that we’ve started performing again, at least in the digital space, we’re finding some small reason to celebrate. Not that we don’t have cheerful moments from time to time. We’re Big Green, after all, not Big Blue. That’s a whole different thing.

Chasing the residuals

Anyway, so we launched this nano solo concert featuring yours truly, Joe of Big Green. And, of course, we assumed that the residuals would start rolling in like oranges on a down ramp. Au contraire, mon frer! Not a farthing found its way to us, not a sausage. We shook the YouTube machine upside-down a few times, but it was no use.

Now, ordinarily this would upset any band. But Big Green is not any band, my friend. Don’t forget – we are a collectivist institution. It’s share and share alike around here. We have built a post-capitalist artist collective in the abandoned mill we call home, and we have no desire for the typical consumer comforts. When we make a sandwich, it’s big enough for five. In other words, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) doesn’t get any. But I digress.

An attempt at radical redistribution

Dennis Moore proved decades ago that redistribution of wealth is trickier than he thought. Among the members of Big Green and our extended network of cast offs, we have tried various methods of radical redistribution over the years. It comes more naturally to some than to others. Anti-Lincoln, for instance, has an innately redistributive ethos: what’s yours is mine, what’s mine is mine. At least you know where he stands!

I don’t want to suggest that we completely eschew standard currency. That’s simply not true. We accept all types of money, from dollars to lire to Aldebaran Quatloos. In fact, we see playing music for money as a form of radical wealth redistribution – exchanging something abstract and intangible for something concrete. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not particularly crazy about accepting payment in concrete. Sometimes you have to take what you can get.

Barrelling toward the future

Last week, the garbage collectors tried a kind of informal redistribution of capital. The took our recycling container and dropped it on our neighbor’s lawn. What’s more, they took the recycling container that belongs to our neighbor on the other side and dropped it on our step. I’m pretty sure this is a signal from the solid waste workers that the revolution is nigh.

Hey, when the revolution comes, we’ll all be rich. That’s right – our new leaders will insist on calling everyone Rich. (I believe it’s an homage to a fallen comrade.)

(P.S. – Don’t forget to check out our nano-concert. New posts coming this week – stay tuned.)

Usual Rubbish

Getting all the flashing lights straight

September 17, 2021 Joseph

There, that’s got it. Perfect execution. Couldn’t do another one like that if I tried. Okay, Marvin, you can hit the stop button. Wait, what? YOU DIDN’T HIT RECORD?

Hi, everybody. While this seems like the very next moment in my blog post, it’s actually several hours after wrote that intro. It takes me that long to disassemble Marvin (my personal robot assistant) piece by piece and then put him back together. And as I am not particularly mechanically inclined, I usually get something wrong on the assembly side. (Last week I somehow incorporated our toaster into his torso unit.)

Okay, so those of you who are musicians (and I know there are a few of you out there) can appreciate what we’re going through these days. Performance venues are flagging, people are afraid of going out, money is scarce – situation normal, right? Our response to this crisis is exactly what you would expect from Big Green – we pull the shades down and get back into bed. Then, first thing the next morning, we sleep until noon. Then, THEN, we go down and look for snacks. That’s how we roll.

We’ll do it live!

I was the first to suggest that we start recording live performances right here in the Cheney Hammer Mill. My bandmates met that suggestion with a resounding silence. Anti Lincoln thought it was a good idea, but he was drunk on the news that his positive-polarity counterpart had been named #1 President of all time once again by the C-SPAN Historian poll. (How that would be a positive reflection on him is another question.)

Well, when it came time to record some live takes, uh … I was the only one who showed up. Now, maybe I forgot to distribute the memo. And maybe I forgot to write the memo. And maybe it never occurred to me to send a memo around in the first place. But for whatever reason, it became clear to me that I would be the only one doing this shit. Just me and my tape opp Marvin.

Choosy mothers

Of course, the question always comes down to which songs I should try to do. It’s actually and easier question than you might think. Since I am equally unpracticed on all of our songs, it really doesn’t matter what the playlist turns out to be. So I pulled some from International House, one or two from Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, and a handful of numbers we haven’t included on any of our albums.

Next step, I put the songs in a blender and ran it on Frappe for 45 seconds. That gave them a smooth consistency they never had before, frankly …. maybe a bit too smooth. So I poured that bilge down the drain and limped back into the studio, guitar in hand, looking for trouble. Then trouble found me.

Uh, Marvin ... shouldn't you be minding the board?

Know-how? No how!

Now, as some of you know, I attempt to play many instruments. When I say many, I really just mean three – piano, bass, guitar. I am probably most technically inept at the guitar, so naturally, I chose to record most of my live numbers on six string, without accompaniment.

Why? It’s the challenge, my friend. We cannot make things too easy on ourselves. How far would mankind have gotten if we had taken that attitude. Do you think for one moment that we would be anywhere near the brink of total destruction if we had chosen to be content with the way things are? Not a chance.

Anyway, my lame attempts at covering our own damn songs should be dropping sometime soon. Stay tuned.

BIG GREEN