Tag Archives: interstellar tour

Out of mind.

Okay, so let me get this straight. We go to court and plead our case. The judge motions to the guy in the hood, and they take us away in chains. Got it. Any other options?

Oh, hi. Yeah, we’re working with our legal advisor – a mouthpiece named Anti-Lincoln, esq. And as you can see, he’s helping us out with our recent eviction notice. Not the first time, you understand, that we’ve been asked to vacate the premises. More than once the folks down at city hall have reminded us that this building is SUPPOSED to be vacant. Seems a waste to us, but what do we know? The abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill is abandoned for a reason, even if we don’t know what that reason is. Freaks! They didn’t even sweeten the deal with a grace period; just “Out, already!”

I know what you’re probably saying right now. You’re saying, “That Big Green,” says you, “they are totally out of their tiny minds.” And that’s where you make the big mistake: referring to our tiny minds as more than one thing. In actuality, together our brains make up one mind. That’s why we know what the other person is going to do wrong before he goes and does it wrong. We are the collective mind of Big Green. Or at least that’s what I tell the tax assessor when she comes a-knocking. Try it sometime – it totally freaks them out.

Trouble is, we are also a collective wallet. And if I were to choose with whom to share a wallet, it would not be this troop of losers and miscreants. God knows, every time I get my hands on some legal tender it evaporates into thin air, snatched up by the claw of a Marvin (my personal robot assistant) or the twig of a man-sized tuber or the spotted hand of a man named Lincoln. It’s a kleptocracy here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, or at least effectively so. No one subscribes to the notion of private property. I’m surrounded by collectivists! What’s mine is mine, what’s yours is mine – that’s their motto. And me, a mere anarcho-syndicalist. What defense hath the likes of I?

Okay, well…. I’ve run off at the mouth a bit, not even getting around to mention Big Green’s upcoming [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011. Some publicist I turned out to be. Got to stop typing so I can motion to my counsel.

Heave ho.

Hey. Did any of you guys nail a proclamation to the door? Lincoln, is this your dagger? Anyone good with a quill pen (other than Lincoln)? Hmmmm…. could be legitimate.

Okay, there’s this parchment scroll tacked to our door with a dime-store knife. And it’s got some rubbish scribbled across it about how we need to vacate the premises of our adopted home, the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, by the end of July… “or else”. No signature. But a very distinctive style of penmanship, I must say. South paw. (You can tell by the smudging of the India ink. ) Can just barely read the thing, frankly. (Or even dishonestly.) Clearest thing is the illustration of a shaking fist – kind of threatening.

I handed this to anti-Lincoln, since he tends to understand this kind of thing (ultimatums, mad grudges, and what-not). He read it upside down, looked at the back of the paper, then rolled it into a tube and tried to make trumpet sounds with it. I should know better, I admit. Though we could use a horn section. (Two Lincolns, two proclamations rolled up like a trombone – that could sound! That’s now, brother, that’s real now!) You know, I’m tired of being the adult in the room. I want to be like Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and just sit in a corner with a plastic cup of pudding watching cartoons all day. It’s raining, besides, so riding the swings is out of the question.

All right, I know. This is kind of serious. Though we’ve been evicted before. The Town Board hates us, and the mayor has it in for us for some reason. Maybe it’s because Mitch Macaphee crashed his birthday party last year. Or maybe it was the yards of that novelty $100 bill toilet paper we sent them along with our payment in lieu of taxes bill. (That was on anti-Lincoln’s advice. So much for legal counsel. I’m going to have to ask for my $100 back.)

Okay, well… I guess we’ll have to take some time out of our tireless preparations for Big Green’s [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011 and ask anti-Lincoln to look this document over a bit more closely. With his eyes, this time.

Practice makes … practice.

One…. two…. One-two-three-four! *SMASH* Wait, hold it. Tubey, you okay? Was that your last planter? Christmas. We’ve got to go to the garden store, damn it.

Oh, hiya. Geezus, you’d think being idle and ensconced in an abandoned hammer mill would offer endless opportunities to rehearse, jam, arrange, etc. Seems like every time we try to do it, something comes up. For instance, this week I’ve got custody of the mansized tuber. (Matt had him last week. Hey – that’s the terms of the adoption agreement, what do you want from me?) I guess I never realized what a handful he can be. He’s at a difficult age for tubers; you know, that time when they either become a full-fledged plant or get mashed up into some kind of traditional dish. I have to think that, for tubey, it’s going to be the former outcome, but he doesn’t seem convinced. Now he jumps at every noise. And as you might expect, rehearsal generates a lot of noises.

Okay, so when he jerks to one side at the sound of a crash cymbal, falls off his pedestal, and cracks his planter into a thousand pieces, is that my bad? Do I bear responsibility not only for the damages but for the psychological trauma, the pain and suffering, the fibrous bruising Tubey endures as a result of his own nervousness? I think not. And yet, having custody of him does imply a level of accountability. Man god damn, this will be the THIRD king-size pottery planter I’ve had to buy on my meager income in the last five days. How much is enough? I’d just like the president and some of those congressional leaders to walk a mile in my shoes – they think THEY have it tough….

Granted, we don’t have any jobs booked for Big Green’s [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t start working up some numbers. Matt’s polishing up his tiny guitar (it’s about the size of a badminton racket, perhaps smaller), John’s pounding away on some soup kettles. I’ve replaced a few broken tines in the Fender Rhodes 73. The plan is to play whatever we know as many times as we can stand it. That’s called rehearsal. If no one interrupts us, life is good. Only now…

Well, now I’m going to the plant store. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) will tag along to do the carrying. Then it’s back to work… I hope.