Tag Archives: crack in the world

Usual Rubbish

Taking the words WAY too literally.

2000 Years to Christmas

Jesus, man … another song about geoscience? Just wait until Mitch gets his hands on that. What’s the topic this time – gravitation? I guess he’s already fucked with that sufficiently. Still, I worry.

Yeah, that’s right. No one wants to see your friends in Big Green just moping around the abandoned hammer mill like a bunch of sad sacks, bickering with one another. So we make an extra effort to smile when we get visitors. And if we’re not in the mood, we get Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to do it for us. No, he doesn’t have anything like what you might call a mouth, but he’s got some grill work to show, and that will do in a pinch.

What’s the beef? Nothing serious. Just interrogating my illustrious brother Matt about the subject matter of his recent songwriting. Some of you may recall that his lyrics have spawned some trouble in the past. No, they’re not controversial or obscene in any way, but they do give Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, some bad ideas. And he tends to take our song lyrics very literally.

The Question of George

A couple of years ago it was Matt’s song “Why Not Call It George?”, the lyric for which has always sounded to me, in part, like a bulleted list of mad-man items:

Gravity can: (a) make your mind flow out from your tongue; (b) take your eyes downtown to see the nuns all bunched up on the tiles; (c) pull your lips back from your smile

(Hear it yourself: Check out our live version of the song on our YouTube channel.)

Parts of that song made Mitch think he could (dare I say it?) rule … the world! Or at least reverse continental drift and reclaim Pangaea. I got nervous when he started spending months at a time in the lab … and the ground started shaking. Not. good.

This doesn't seem like such a good idea.

Eruption Imminent!

Then there was “Volcano Man”, a track from our 2nd album, International House. Mitch started obsessing over that one as well. You know how grade school kids sometimes build those baking soda volcanoes for school projects? Well, that’s a miniature version of what we had to deal with around this dump. Of course, Mitch had to open a vent straight down to the Earth’s molten caramel center, just so that the ‘cano was authentic. He was doing it with an upside-down rocket, Crack In The World style. What a mess!

Anyhow, I’ve tried to encourage Matt to write songs about less volatile things. You know, like …. butterflies, or cobblestones, or vegetable stew. Maybe you’ve got some suggestions that don’t suck (like these do).

Usual Rubbish

Cave in.

Marvin, can you hear me? Marvin? Damn … that’s just the echo of my own voice. I was wondering why Marvin would be calling out to himself. Marvin!?

Right, so … I think we went a little too far with the archaeological dig, particularly once we got Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, and Marvin (my personal robot assistant) involved. At first it was just a lark – we took a shovel to the floor of the Cheney Hammer Mill’s sub-basement just to see what we could find. Turns out there’s a lot of dirt down there. (Little known fact: the Earth is largely composed of dirt. I suspect that’s why “earth” is a synonym of “dirt”.) Sure, we turned up our share of lost quarters, belt buckles, tie clips and fossilized coelacanths, but that was about it.

Then Mitch decided to get involved, and of course, all hell broke loose. That is to say, he used one of his patented Particle Beam Generators™ to burn a hole through the Earth’s crust, clear down to the molten nickel core, which (as you know from watching television) is in a perpetual state of raging ferment – hell fire from beneath the ground, shall we say. To understand why this may have happened, you have to understand the scientific mind. Once you get that, imagine a diseased version of that same mind and you will have some insight into Mitch’s reasoning.

Say it twice!Well now, this didn’t go over very well, but I suggested to Mitch that his Particle Beam Generator™ had essentially blown the entire archaeological enterprise by incinerating every stratum between the mill floor and the Earth’s core; hence, a thousand potential discoveries may have been irretrievably lost. His answer was to devise a crane-like device and lower someone (not him!) down into the newly-bored hole to have a look at the top layers that had been exposed. How did we decide on Marvin? Well, there’s that ten bucks I owe him … and of course, he is much better qualified for the mission than I am. So sure, we put him in a harness and lowered him down into the hole, like he was on a fishing rod.

Anyone who has seen the movie Crack in the World can picture what comes next: A big flame comes out of the hole ten minutes after Marvin took the plunge. Radio silence thus far, but no worries: it’s Marvin’s nap time right about now, so he would tend to be unresponsive anyway.

Usual Rubbish

Hold it.

There’s a valuable resource for you. And right here under our noses. We’re rich, I tell you, rich. It’s like finding a whole bag full of doubloons. Or perhaps triploons.

What am I talking about? What indeed. I’ll tell you, friend(s), we’ve been squatting in this abandoned hammer mill for more than ten years. You know what squatting that long does to your quadriceps? Seriously, we’ve been occupying the Cheney Hammer Mill before the Occupy movement ever put on its first pair of short pants. Not for any principle, you understand, other than that of having a roof over our heads. A penniless band, Big Green was in those days. Ah, but no more. Fortune has smiled upon us, once again.

So often these things happen by accident. Someone tinkering with something, blowing some time, and next thing you know, whoosh! Well, that’s what happens when you live with a mad scientist, anyway. For weeks, Mitch Macaphee has been tinkering with that orgone generating machine Trevor James Constable left behind some years back. He hooked it into one of his little ion generators and – as I said earlier – WHOOSH! Fortunate that no one was standing in front of the machine’s array at that moment. The thing was pointing down at the floor of the forge room and, well, suddenly there was a clean, round hole in the fire-brick floor.

Now, I tend toward curiosity, I must admit. But I, like you, have seen Crack In The Earth, so there was no way I was going down that hole. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) wasn’t having any of it either. (I’ve been volunteering him for way too many duties just lately.) I tried to get the mansized tuber to check it out, but no luck. Fortunately, there was no need to send anyone down there. They just started popping out of the hole. What did? Boxes. Boxes of goods from China. Valuable goods, just popping out of the hole. We’re rich, I tell you, RICH. Forget everything you know about value-chain management and global enterprise logistics. We’ve got a hole to where stuff is made. People drop the stuff in on the other end, and it comes out here. End of story.

Okay, so… we’re working on the sales component right now. Stay tuned. And while you’re tuned, check out the latest episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN, our podcast, the February edition. Two new songs by Rick Perry. Another extra by us. Corporate underwriting spots tried and botched. Something for everybody. Yeeha.