I forget what I’m doing here. Do I live in this dump? What is the purpose of my presence here? WHO IS GOD, ANYWAY??
Oh, sorry, you all. (What, am I southern now?) I was just having one of my difficult moments. That’s a new pastime here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. We each get all dramatic and difficult at least half a dozen times a day, preferably taking turns at it so that the ambient noise doesn’t upset the mongooses trying to sleep on the roof when the sun is hottest around midday. (Are you getting all this down?) Why would we take on such an endeavor? Well, as you know (and this is perhaps the reason why you love us), we are not tremendously successful as a band. No heap big contract. No honking piles of ready cash. No adoring fans dogging our every step. And times being what they are, we thought, well…. if we act like assholes, these things will come our way.
Well… we’ve been doing for a few weeks now, and so far… big fat nothing. Not a sausage. Maybe the magic doesn’t work after all. We had it on pretty good authority. Our cohort Anti-Lincoln hangs with some of the biggest names in the antimatter world entertainment industry – people like Anti-Frank Sinatra and Anti-Melvyn Douglas. (I meant to ask him about Anti-Ed Wood… is he … *gasp* … normal??) They apparently have mad temper tantrums all the time, and it only seems to increase their aura of 
stardom. It kind of creates a penumbra of mystery around the umbra of famousness. That’s the shit we need, friend – to be sure.
I’ve asked Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to man the parapet and watch for the moment when throngs of admirers begin approaching the gates of the Hammer Mill. He has been dispatching this duty with the usual mixture of doggedness and incompetence. Got to give him credit. With all the hassle those mongooses give him, he keeps up his vigil, no fear. Good man. Good cyborg.
Good grief, is that the time? I’ve got to get all melodramatic again. (I can hear the echoes of the man-sized tuber’s last tirade dying down, and I always go after him.) MITCH?! MITCH MACAPHEE?! WHERE’S MY GOAT CHEESE?!!
Yeah, big things are happening here at the Hammer Mill. Really big things. Like the giant garage sale Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has talked us all into participating in (and contributing to). That’s bigger than we really want it to be, frankly. For one thing, we don’t HAVE a garage. And if we DID have one, we wouldn’t sell it (we just got it in my imaginary world, for chrissake – what’s the matter with you, man?) Seriously, though, I think Marvin is selling everything we own, including all of our instruments. That’s like being up shit creek and selling your paddle in a garage sale. (In fact, it IS being up shit creek and selling the paddle… assuming some fool wants to buy it.)
Oh, damn. Didn’t mean to give you an inside look at our dissention in the ranks. Yeah, things are pretty rough around the edges in Big Green ville these days. Tempers are wearing thin… thin as the knees of our jeans. Ragged as the cuffs of our shirts. Threadbare as the ascot Lincoln still wears to dinner (even though we don’t do the ascot thing at dinner anymore – I’ve told him a dozen times!) Why, we may even resort to WORKING for a living. That may seem drastic to you, but it’s a real possibility. Don’t think we don’t have offers. (We don’t, but that’s another matter entirely.) There’s a little thing called opportunity … and a little thing called luck. One or the other of those little things may just get close enough to be considered a big thing here in the Cheney Hammer Mill.
Yeah, I’m losing track of day, time, even planet, solar system. I may even be working in base-12. (That would not be a good development, particularly with my bank balance.) Big Green and friends have been a little busy just lately – too busy, frankly, for the niceties of neighborly chats, friendly asides, opening mail, cooking dinner, and writing blog posts.
Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has zucchini to take to market – yet another one of his hare-brained business ventures. I haven’t seen the man-sized tuber in a couple of days, come to think of it – perhaps he was mistaken for a great bull zucchini. (Marvin is a little unsubtle. A zucchini would have to tell him it wasn’t a zucchini if it wanted to avoid the market stall.)