Tag Archives: mansized tuber

Our influencer needs some pruning.

2000 Years to Christmas

Jesus Christmas, is THAT what he’s been doing? Oh, yeah … sorry. I forgot that his pronouns are it, its, and … uh …. it. I mean, ITS pronouns, not his. Sorry, sorry. But …. is that what it’s been doing? Whoa.

Oh, hiya. Glad to see some visitors from the sane side of reality. Here in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted squat palace, it’s crazytown USA. Chock full of nuts, you might say. In here, we just page through the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (or the DSM-5, as they call it) and take turns embodying each entry to its fullest. It’s almost like the authors have been hiding in the walls, watching us through two-way mirrors. (Is that paranoia … ?)

Sure, that’s problematic. But we’ve got other things to occupy our thoughts. Like, for instance, what the hell is that mansized tuber up to now? For years it’s been like … well, like a potted plant, taking up space in the courtyard, hoping for rain. Now, suddenly, tubey (friends call him tubey) has reemerged from seclusion, firing up its social media accounts and firing off posts like a mighty oak dropping acorns. It is a site to behold.

Branching out

Lord knows that tubey has been in one or two scrapes, as any reader of this blog will surely know. But nothing like what it’s likely to run into on social media. For instance, tubey just restarted his Facebook page after a long absence, and already some loser has asked it to admin their page. Imagine the gall! (Some podcast named Strange Sound …. what the hell is that?)

I think he's right, tubey. You have to turn it on first.

Now, typically when you haven’t done a thing in a while, you get less practiced at that thing. That’s just common sense, right? Tubey, however, doesn’t subscribe to the notion of competence, let alone common sense. That’s why he’s strongly considering opening a TikTok account. Or maybe Instagram.

Master of none

There’s such a thing as spreading yourself too thin. And when you are a root vegetable, such a thing can be fatal. Fortunately for tubey, it has us to advise it. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is also happy to pitch in with his suggestions, though they’re a little hard to parse. Marvin has never mastered English … or any other language, come to think of it. Which leaves us to interpreting random squeaks. Don’t try this at home!

Let’s face it – none of us is an expert on social media. Maybe tubey will be the first in Big Green land to make it work. Or maybe he’s just nuts like the rest of us.

Unmasked at the CHENEY Hammer Mill (again).

2000 Years to Christmas

Hey, I heard the regulations have changed. So you can take the damn thing off, now. That’s right, it came down just a few days ago. Some dude in a tie said so. So this is from the suits, man. What do you mean that’s weak sauce? I’m hip, dude, I’m hip!

Oh, man … why does everything have to end up in an argument around this place? Something to do with the atmosphere here inside the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted home. It gets a little stuffy, especially in the warmer months, and that contributes to a kind of contagious psychosis. I’m not a doctor, of course, but I play one on the internet, and where I come from, this is a bad thing!

Old news is good news

Anyway, we get our news a little bit late here in this forgotten corner of the world. We’re only now hearing that the COVID regulations in New York have been relaxed, and we can start dropping the mask when we’ve gotten our vaccinations worked out. (And we did, by the way – the shots were free, so our attitude is basically gimme some of that.) How liberating, right? What a welcome relief … right?

Wrong, apparently. At least according to some of my squat mates. Several are refusing to drop the mask, for a variety of reasons. Now, I tend to discount the claims of Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and the mansized tuber, as neither one of them needed to wear a mask in the first place. (Not that disputes with them are anything new – see, for example, this post from 2007.) But when it comes to the mammalian members of our entourage, it’s a different story entirely.

You see, the thing is … all of the human members of Big Green, as well as our various hangers-on – I mean, assistants – feel that the masks generally improve our looks. I don’t disagree. We’re getting a little crusty around the edges, and unlike artisan bread, not in a particularly appetizing way. I for one have taken to drawing more attractive facial features on my masks, like a full rack of normal teeth or a mustache that isn’t dominated by gray hair.

The anti-Lincoln project

Take anti-Lincoln (please!). He needs an oversized mask to cover his festering gob. Frankly, it makes him look like an old-time bank robber. Or a railroad industry lawyer, which … well …. the actual Lincoln in fact was. Frankly, I think he and the others just don’t like the smell of the Hammer Mill in Spring. Why they don’t just say so, I don’t know. This place reeks! Say it loud!

Assault with Batteries.

2000 Years to Christmas

Look, I don’t have any space in my room for this goddamn thing. And no, it can’t go in the freaking studio – it’s cramped enough in there as it is. Christ, why do you think we’ve been playing all those Cramps covers? Tight as a tick.

Yeah, that’s right – we’re having a bit of a disagreement again here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in upstate New York, our adopted home. (When they say beloved bands have gone to a farm upstate, this is where they go, my friends.) Nothing new around here. Tempers wear thin after a Winter like this one, am I right. I said, AM I RIGHT? Damn it, this COVID shutdown is even making hermits like us feel claustrophobic. Even the mansized tuber, not exactly a social butterfly, has gotten so cagey he’s decided to resurrect his long-neglected Facebook account. And hell, if he’s just dying to do something useful, I told him he should just do all of our posts while I sit back in an abandoned easy chair and enjoy some expired cider from a bell jar glass. Life of Riley.

What are we arguing about? Here’s the beef: the international space station recently jettisoned a space pallet full of spent batteries, sending it down towards an almost certain burn-up reentry. Sounds like a bit of mundane space news, right? Well, not to Marvin (my personal robot assistant). Like the rest of us, he likes to make use of discarded bits and bobs. Come to think of it, that’s principally what Marvin is made of. And so when he heard this story, it was like he discovered the pot of gold at the end of the Van Allen belt. Marvin may be a lifeless piece of tin (don’t tell him I said so), but he’s smart enough to know that even spent batteries have a little juice in them. So he appealed to his creator, Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, and talked him into pointing his tractor beam (actually, Trevor James Constable’s abandoned orgone generating device) at the discarded space pallet so that he could drag it to earth.

Here she comes, Mitch. Steady, now ...

Okay, so Mitch cranked up the tractor beam, and the whole Mill started to shake like a leaf. Before long, we could see this bloody thing hovering over the building, emitting an unearthly glow, like an aura. Mitch somewhat expertly guided the thing into our central courtyard and landed it with a dull thud. It was hot as a toaster oven on a late-Summer Saturday morning in 1974, just after the kids had breakfast and before dad shook off his hangover enough to start hollering again. (Okay … that simile went a little sideways.) But by the end of the afternoon, Marvin was able to retrieve some of the spent nickel-hydrogen batteries and install them into his personal recharging station (which, I swear, looks like a jukebox). Now he wants me to find somewhere in the mill to stow the space pallet, but I keep telling the stupid automaton that it’s too damn big.

We need a pallet garage. One of the bigger ones. Where’s my Sharper Image catalog?