Tag Archives: Anti-Lincoln

Usual Rubbish

Steppin’ into Eden.


That’s not a legitimate use of member funds. Take if from me – that would be considered, I don’t know, embezzlement or something. Don’t do it. Put the money DOWN!

Whoops, sorry. I didn’t know anyone was listening in. Well, this is kind of embarrassing. Actually, I was just giving a small piece of advice to Marvin (my personal robot assistant) with regard to what is acceptable and unacceptable when one is contemplating organizing a major religion. Not that I know all that much about it, but I think I know more than Marvin does, and I think that gives me “tell you something right now” rights and privileges. Especially with a bloody robot. (Don’t tell him I said that – he’ll start sulking again.)

Um, yes, you heard me right. Marvin’s other money making schemes have all been huge disasters. So he’s decided to take the Pat Robertson route and start a back-porch religion operation. Of course, being a deductive thinker (and not terribly inventive for a robot, I must say), his idea was lifted from a favorite (of his) episode of the original Star Trek television series featuring a tribe of space hipsters (or “groovsters”) who hijacked the Enterprise to travel to a planet called “Eden.” Often considered one of the most impossibly lame and pandering segments of a generally ludicrous show, it offers some unintentionally  hilarious musical numbers in a psychedelic rock vein. I give it one thumb up and one thumb…. Whoops… lapsed into television review mode. Cancel! Cancel!

Sheesh – now who’s the robot? (I guess that still would be Marvin.) Marvin was looking for a religious movement that would be, well, sticky enough to draw some fanatical adherents even in this forgotten backwater of Central New York. Kind of a back stoop movement, if you will. Marvin would do the organizing, with a little help from anti-Lincoln, who is himself a pretty effective fanatic. (Thing is, I don’t know if he can get the space-age guitar thing just right.) I am a bit skeptical, but even so… it could kind of work. Here you have a millennial movement whose goals – hijacking a fictitious space vessel and driving it to an equally fictitious planet – can never be realized, only hoped for – worshipped, if you will. Pretty much the stuff successful religions are made of. And hell, Marvin’s got his first converts: Lincoln, Big Zamboola, and the man-sized tuber.

Now if he can just keep his claw out of the till. Always the hard part. (Just wait till he starts broadcasting!)

Usual Rubbish

Hard times.


Where the hell is that banjo? What…. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is using it again? Jesus… how’s a brother supposed to sing the blues around here?

Have to resort to non-banjo alternatives, I guess. That’s the way things go here at the Cheney Hammer Mill. You got complaints? Stand in line for the pluck string instrument. You may call it annoying mountain music. We call it aural psychotherapy. (Of course, when Marvin’s doing it, I don’t know quite what to call it. ) Be that as it may, you need some kind of relief in these troubled times, when money is as rare as …. well … rare earths. We’ve got lots of common earths. My point is… we’re freaking broke again. Join the select club of 90% of Americans, eh? Busted!

Well, if we have a middle name, it’s innovation. Big Innovation Green, that’s us. (People often associate another middle name with us… I believe it begins with an “f”). We’re constantly thinking of ways to float the overloaded boat of our miserable lives and careers. Sometimes that thinking involves a lot of bad ideas, it’s true. The vegetable stand never worked out, for instance. Not enough profit in selling discarded carrots and onions that fell off the back of the turnip truck. (Not to mention the offense that enterprise gave to our companion, the man-sized tuber.)

Speaking of bad ideas, Marvin had one. The gears were spinning hard inside that brass noggin of his. Next thing we knew, he was wheeling off to the local constabulary, resume in claw, looking for a personnel officer. You see, he’d run across an article in the local paper about how the police we’re saving up for one of those bomb-fetching robots you see on T.V. once in a while. It occurred to Marvin that he should, perhaps, apply for the position – that the amount of money they would spend on a robot could constitute a salary of sorts. That’s the story we got from Anti-Lincoln, anyway. My guess is that he sold Marvin to the cops and invented that cock and bull story to cover his own sorry ass.

I’ll tell you something, Anti-Lincoln…. you’re going to need something larger than that pathetic little lie. Thanks to you, Marvin is sniffing out explosives. Shame, Abe, shame.

Usual Rubbish

Gravitas.

The thing about sFshzenKlyrn … If you dare him to do something, he’s just liable to do it. Kind of a 14-year-old Earth kid in that way.

Second leg of our interstellar tour is now underway, and we’ve already broken some records. I mean 45s and LPs – Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, insists on bringing his cache of vintage sides with him everywhere he goes. (He’s an analog kind of guy.) That’s where the dare comes in. You know how these deep space passages can be – lots of time on our hands, watching asteroids go by. A few hours pass in silence and you start looking for something to do. That’s when anti-Lincoln dared sFshzenKlyrn to spin a record in mid air with his heat ray vision. Now, I know what you’re going to say … they are in Big Green’s entourage, and therefore, their actions are our responsibility. Well… that only makes sense on Planet Earth, my friends. Whole different ball game out yonder.

Well all right, so… whoever may ultimately be responsible, sFshzenklyrn started spinning that sucker with his various rays, turning it several notches faster than 45rpm I suppose, until it shattered into splinters. As luck would have it, the artificial gravity was off at that moment, so the shards just floated off in all directions. (I’m still finding them in the oddest places.) Now, one would think that that experience would have been enough to discourage any further attempts at the same, but if one would think that, one would most certainly be wrong. Explosions are what Anti-Lincoln lives for. They are his elixir. He must have more!

All those rare sides! Some of them broken to bits, others vaporized, some melted into caramel-like pretzels. A dismal end for Mitch’s record collection, to be sure. He didn’t take it very well. In fact, I think he’s building something special for Anti-Lincoln… something that may be the gift of a lifetime. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has a sixth sense about these things, and he’s been avoiding Mitch’s cabin like it’s a fire hole. (For all I know, it may be a fire hole. Fire in the hole!) Crikey… if we make it to Antares in one piece, I will be astounded.

B.t.w. – our next gig is on Antares, that crazy red giant in Scorpio. (Our old neighbor Gung-Ho thinks it’s a commie solar system, but that’s just his thing.) Let you know when we get there.