Tag Archives: Cowboy Scat

Usual Rubbish

Thin broth.

Hey, Lincoln. No, not you, Anti-Lincoln – I mean your positively-charged doppelganger. Lincoln … close that window, will you? It’s freaking freezing in this barn. I don’t care if you’re practicing your big speech to an imaginary multitude in the courtyard. Do it in front of an imaginary open window!

Big GreenYes, here we are … Big Green is once more ensconced in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in upstate New York, where the Buffalo never roamed and where peregrine falcons coexist with Web cams (no lie!). We have re-occupied our decrepit squat house, wresting it back from the yahoos that took possession of it while we were out on our multi-planet tour in support of Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. A triumphant return … not.  We’ve had better tours, to be sure. (And better interstellar tour buses. That recycled rocket was a real rattle trap from start to finish.)

How did we convince the Cliven Bundy wanna-be’s to lay down their weapons and let us back into our abandoned mill? The same method we always use: soup to nuts, my friends, soup to nuts. We had Marvin (my personal robot assistant) cook up a crock of Servin' it up at the mill.his signature turnip and spare-tire consumme – a staple on our interstellar extended tours – and we offered it to the nuts occupying our adopted home. They couldn’t resist, flocking out to the courtyard to partake of that rare delicacy. While those hayseeds were choking it down, we slipped passed them and locked the front door behind us.

Sure, there was some complaining, a little KA-POW, KA-BLAM! mostly for show, but they eventually mounted their battered station wagons and rode off into the sunset. As their silhouetted figures receded from view, I meant to thank them. What for? I don’t know. Giving us a reason not to have that same soup again as our “welcome home” supper. In fact, if I NEVER taste another SPOONFUL of that BLOODY TURNIP and SPARE TIRE SOUP AGAIN, it will be MUCH … TOO … SOON!

All right, then. I feel much better now. Back to the studio.

Usual Rubbish

Home base.

Wait, I didn’t hear that last bit. Are you saying that we can’t even get in the front door let alone the living quarters? What the fuck. Where is that Goldilocks Planet again? Cygnus?

Oh, hi. Well, we have made our triumphant return to planet Earth, our somewhat disapproving mother, having completed Interstellar Tour 2014 in support of our latest album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. And as any of you who travel in interstellar space know all too well, when you get back from a long journey, typically you find that everything has gone to hell in your absence. It’s a severe disincentive to traveling, I can tell you. But what’s the alternative? Hole up in a leaky hammer mill all winter? Not a chance.

Big Green’s loaner rocket touched down in Central New York around 1:00 a.m local time on Thursday, only to find that someone had changed the padlock on the gate to the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, where we have made our home for the past decade or two (because, as Frank Zappa said, all of the bands live together). Different lock, for sure – unlike the old one, this one works, and none of us had the key, so we sent Marvin (my personal robot assistant) over to the local constabulary and asked for assistance. (Marvin was promptly arrested for impersonating a robot, which seems unjust and vaguely insulting.)

A tense scene unfolds inside the hammer millOkay, turns out, someone moved into the Hammer Mill during our absence, and they don’t seem eager to relinquish their squatter’s rights in deference to our own. What’s worse is that they appear to be affiliated with that rancher out in Nevada – what’s his name again? You know – that dude that has been grazing his cattle for free on federal land, owes about a million dollars in back grazing fees, and got together a posse of sorts to take up arms and fight off the Bureau of Land Management. The folks in the mill, well … they’re kind of like the Led Zeppelin tribute band version of those Nevada militia dudes. They got the hats, they got the pickup trucks, and … crucially … they got the guns.

Just trying to negotiate entry right now without getting my hair parted by a 30-30 rifle round. That Goldilocks Planet is looking better all the time. I wonder if they have the extraterrestrial equivalent of QE2 up there.

Usual Rubbish

Claiming the veep.

Interstellar Tour Log: March 25, 2014
Out in the Ort Cloud neighborhood.

Big GreenHear that click? That was the sound of our spaceship doors locking. This Ort Cloud is a rough neighborhood, so best not to take any chances … now on the last leg of our Interstellar Tour 2014, which we undertook to boost sales of our latest album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. A dubious endeavor, to be sure, but one worth at least a thimble of sweat, and we have certainly given it that – with the exception, of course, of Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who is incapable of perspiration. (Smoke comes out of that sucker, but only when it’s very hot.)

Anyway, we’re taking a brief diversion from our tour schedule to lay claim to the recently discovered deep space object known simply as 2012 VP (or “Biden”), a dwarf planet in a very wide orbit around the sun, way out here in Ort-ville. Hey, so what the hell, we’re staking out our claim, by virtue of the Extraterrestrial Homesteaders Act of 2047, which technically hasn’t been enacted yet … unless you are a time traveler, of course. Not saying we are, but we could be … and we have known a few in our time. Trevor James Constable, for instance. But I digress.

Interstellar Tour Log: March 28, 2014
On the surface of Dwarf Planet 2012 VP.

I claim the Veep for Big GreenRocky landing. We weren’t here five minutes before someone got the idea of sending Marvin out there to plant the Big Green flag – the one friend of the band Leif Zurmuhlen made for us back in the day. Hey, well … it’s a little icy out there, so Marvin took a couple of tumbles before finding a spot flat enough to accommodate a flag on a stick. There’s no atmosphere to speak of, so we asked him to hold the free end of the flag while we snapped a picture or two. When we get those back from the pharmacy on Neptune, we’ll share them with you? (Yes, another episode of Luddites in space.)

Okay, so … this is an open invitation to come and visit us on what I’m calling Dwarf Planet BG 2014. Take that, NASA.