Tag Archives: hammer mill

Usual Rubbish

Off again.

Okay, so this is how the countdown went: Ten… nine… eight… seven…  Shall I go on? Are you in suspense yet? Well, okay, ’cause we’re already down to three… two…

Hold it right there. Neptune can wait. I’ve got some mail to answer. Here’s the first item:

Dear Big Green,

Couldn’t help but notice that your diet appears to have been restricted to cheese-based cracker snacks. Why is that? Are you under advisement from your physician?

Best,

Jaycorn McHammerstein.

Thanks for writing, Jaycorn. Yes, I can see where you might have gotten that misimpression about our foodstuffs. Same place other people acquire misimpressions about us – from this blog. The simple fact is, none of the snack foods I mentioned as being part of Big Green’s regular menu contain a significant amount of cheese. And doctors? We don’t need no stinking doctors! Unless they are doctors of mad science.

Here’s another one. The envelope seems a bit distressed, frankly.

Hey Big Green…

I fell down the back steps of the Cheney Hammer Mill and have been stuck in your basement for about a week and a half, living on coal dust and weeds ripped from between the security bars of the basement windows. Call the police! GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE!

Sincerely,

Mayor Clem Johnson

One more – this one appears to be from slightly farther away.

Snert….

Kalwoiuu lkjlk ffjrjt oo  issi  kak he ka wppio ldk na

eiur youa wwkke !!!!

jeooiau,

Snert.

Thanks for writing, Snert. I respect the fact that you’ve gone to the great expense of sending this letter from the Small Magellanic Cloud. Sadly, we have no reliable translator on staff, though Marvin (my personal robot assistant) does dabble a bit. Still, once we get underway with our interstellar tour, we will hand this off to one of our fans and find out just what the hell you’re talking about.

That does it. Okay, where were we? Ah yes…. Three… two… one…

Usual Rubbish

Week that was.


Here is the week that was:

Sunday evening, 6:37 p.m. – Mitch Macaphee test-fires the main engine on our ramshackle space craft; the one that will supposedly carry us to many a far-flung rock venue in the galaxy. Based on what I heard, I have my doubts about this vehicle. It took Mitch about fifteen pulls of that rip cord to get the thing smoking, and that’s about all it did… smoke. No lift. Matt just looked on and shook his head. I saw that and shook my head. Whole lot of shakin’ going on ’round here.

Monday afternoon, 12:45 p.m. – Sumptuous lunch of cheese doodles and expired raisins. Did I say sumptuous? I meant nauseating. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is practicing his galley skills. He has volunteered to be our ship’s cook. Lincoln refuses to call him “cookie” (as Marvin has asked to be called). Anti-Lincoln vehemently disagrees with that refusal. We shake our heads, yet again.

Monday night, 10:30 p.m. – Oh, great – now there’s drinking. No, not the band. (I’m on the wagon, for one, after that last tour.) I mean the man-sized tuber. He’s chugging great gobs of Miracle Grow in hopes of making himself too big to fit into his interstellar terrarium. Apparently he has come to despise that thing, as he does any object that resembles a pot. Fortunately, he’s on wheels, so no matter how large he gets, we can push him along. Or pull him behind. Do plants breathe?

Wednesday morning, 3:00 a.m. – This isn’t a legitimate entry… it’s just the name of a Simon and Garfunkel album. Pretend you didn’t read this.

Thursday afternoon, 2:45 p.m. – Fuel shipment arrives from Madagascar. (Don’t ask me. Mitch found the vendor.) Not sure how our spacecraft is supposed to run on compact alfalfa pellets. This shit looks like rabbit food to me. Mitch assures us that this will carry us from one end of the galaxy to the other. And there is much rejoicing.

Friday night, just past 7:00 p.m. – I finally find that ballpoint pen I lost last week. Was scribbling a threatening note to my creditors, and in my incandescent rage, the thing flipped out of my hand and rolled away. Oh… and we started our countdown to liftoff, by the way. I won’t tell you how far we’ve gotten.

Usual Rubbish

At the pad.


Packing the ship. And not a moment too soon, I might add. Anyone seen my slipper socks? Ah, yes. Thank you kindly. Can’t go to Neptune without those.

Well, we’ve attempted to do everything that needed to be done in preparation for our trip to the stars – readying Big Green for our upcoming interstellar tour ENTER THE MIND 2010: THE ULTIMATE BIG GREEN EXPERIENCE. We’ve dotted every “t” and crossed every “i” (or every eye, perhaps). So many details to be considered. Much of it, on this type of outing, is best left to the scientists. Questions like, “There’s no air in space. How do we breathe?” Not sure we’ve got that little detail worked out yet, but sometimes you can’t solve every problem prior to lift off. Sure, I’d like everything to be perfect and set out in a straight line. But that’s not always possible, my friends. Sometimes, good enough has to be good enough. Good enough?

Right. How do we know we’re in “Go” condition? Complicated formula. Once again, the scientists… they have to earn their keep. But to give a rough idea, I fed the question to Marvin (my personal robot assistant), and he came up with the following criteria:

  • ITEM: Sandwiches. Space is a very inhospitable environment, full of hostile creatures, obstinate club owners (same thing), and the total lack of sandwiches. That’s right – Space is chock full of no sandwiches whatsoever, so you better just pack yourself some… and pronto.   
  • ITEM: Rubber souls. No, not the Beatles album, though it’s a personal favorite. I’m talking shoes here, people. (Hence my obsession with slipper socks earlier.) There’s questionable gravity out yonder; in some venues, virtually no gravity at all. We need extra traction to keep our feet on that stage. (Can’t tell you how many horn players we’ve lost to unaccommodating footwear choices.) 
  • ITEM: Robot polish. I ask you, how is a band going to keep its brass plated robot shining like the sun if… if… HEY… HOW DID THAT GET IN THERE? MARVIN!!!

Okay, so it’s not a perfect list. As I said before, if we were to wait for things to be perfect, we would be waiting our whole lives through. So… we’re past perfect.