Tag Archives: Marvin

Usual Rubbish

Safe and sorry.

2000 Years to Christmas

You look like a freaking bank robber. Don’t you have anything else you can use? Try turning it inside out. Yeah, that’s it. Huh. Looks worse. Never mind, man …. it’s pointless.

Oh, hi. Just running though our safety protocols here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in upstate New York, our long-time squat house. You never know when disaster may strike. Well …. that is, you never know in advance. I mean, you know when it strikes because it hits you right in the face. Anyway, the point is, we’re finally living up to the Boy Scouts of America creed: Be prepared! Your scout leader may be an abusive POS, so by all means … be prepared! (True fact: When I was a kid, I used to mix up the Boy Scouts with the Boys Clubs of America. But that was mostly because of television advertising – I never came within ten feet of either organization.)

Right, so we are taking precautions in the Hammer Mill. The executive committee of the Big Green collective (i.e. myself, Matt, and anti-Lincoln) decided on a mandatory mask policy. This didn’t go over well with the posse, particularly (and this seems a little surprising to outsiders) anti-Lincoln himself, who vowed to fight the decree to his last breath. After we supplied him with some Kentucky bourbon, he tied a bandana around his head and tried to get it over his ample nose, but no luck. He looked like a cartoon bandito from a corn chip commercial, and of course, we laughed, even though it’s a very serious situation …. very serious indeed, young man!

What the hell is that, Lincoln?

So, yeah, we’re protecting ourselves from COVID-19, like everybody else. We’ve got group members with pre-existing conditions … like Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who tarnishes easily. But there are other dangers as well. No, I’m not talking about the landlords, though I do have my eye on them. There’s also fire. That’s right, fire. Here we were, considering a move up the Mohawk River to the abandoned Charlestown Mall, and just this past week, it burned to a cinder, sending toxic smoke into neighboring communities from Utica to Westmoreland to five other places you’ve probably never heard of. “Don the masks,” Mitch said, forgetting that there’s no one here named Don. “Marvin, the masks!” I corrected him, and Marvin started handing them out to all and sundry.

We’ll let you know when it’s safe to breathe easy. That’s right, Central New York …. you’ve got a friend.

Usual Rubbish

Summer doldrums.

2000 Years to Christmas

Hey …. turn the light off. It’s the middle of the freaking night, man. What? The sun? You mean the sun that the Earth orbits? What’s the sun doing out in the middle of the …. oh. Right. I need one of those twenty-four hour clocks.

Yeah, that’s right folks – I overslept again. I blame the season. Now, that comment would make even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) laugh up his brass sleeve, because I basically blame the season for everything. No work? Goddamn northern winters! No groceries? Stupid spring cleaning! I knew those cereal boxes would come in handy one day. No gravity? Dumbass autumn! That’s when Mitch Macaphee starts sharpening his antigravity skills in anticipation of the big mad science annual meeting in Berlin on October 17.

Here in upstate New York, it’s getting so that we only have two seasons anyway: coldish and hot. That means fewer scapegoats for our manifold failings. In any case, I blame my sleepiness on the doldrums of late summer, when that sun is beating down on the leaky roof of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, turning the third story of this heap into something like a brick oven. I always get snoozy in this weather. And the fact is, there isn’t a lot going on musically these days. COVID-19 has shut down all the clubs. Musicians are performing on Zoom and Google Hangouts, hoping for a mercy tip. It’s just a weird damn time to be alive.

Zzzz.

I was saying to Matt the other day (he couldn’t hear me, of course, because he was out passing sweet potatoes to beavers) that these days are a lot like back in the day when we first started out. There were about five places to play around where we lived, and they were all dives. He was too young to get into a bar, but we got in anyway and jammed in front of rows of punters drinking their faces off and hollering for that Dave Mason song … you know, the one that goes blah blah blah and we just disagree! Nine times out of ten we’d get stiffed at the end of the night and have to burn the effing place down …. and then there would be even fewer places to play. I’m telling you, people, violence doesn’t pay! (Unless you’re paid to do it, of course.)

What’s my point? Good question. I think it’s that, well … don’t expect us to do much until it gets colder. Then expect to hear some complaining about how freaking cold it is in here.

Usual Rubbish

Tin pan valley.

2000 Years to Christmas

This piano needs tuning. What? Yes, yes … I know it’s missing fourteen keys and there are rodents living in it, but nevertheless, the fact remains that IT STILL NEEDS TUNING. What kind of a place is this, anyway?

Oh, right … THAT kind of a place. I sometimes forget where I’m squatting. Abandoned hammer mills are notorious for having poorly maintained upright pianos. Even the ones that are fortunate enough to get converted to consignment stores or mini-malls are plagued with out-of-tune spinets and uprights. I think it’s the moisture, the rising damp, as it were. In any case, the instrument sitting in what used to be the machine shop here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill has seen better days … and not recently. I do have an old tuning hammer and have tried to wrack it up to somewhere close to concert C, but my reward has been paltry – mostly indents in my forehead from snapping piano strings. Ouch.

Time to make the magic happen ...

Why, you may ask, in this age of electronics do I need to be banging away at an old upright? Good question, nameless interlocutor! There are in fact several reasons:

Reason One: We neglected to pay our power bill. Turns out National Grid doesn’t have a great sense of humor about these things. They pulled the plug on us almost immediately. For a while we had Marvin (my personal robot assistant) chugging along on a treadmill tied to a generator, but, of course, he runs on electricity and, as such, could only generate enough electricity to walk on the treadmill. Sure, Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, could come up with some kind of perpetual energy source, but he’s away at one of his innumerable conferences. (They’re planning something, those mad scientists. I just know it.)

Reason Two: We’re freaking broke, so it’s time to make some money at this asinine undertaking. I’ve dusted off my thirty year old edition of the Songwriter’s Market and I’m going to sit here at this piano and write pop songs for the biggies. Lots of ways you can go with this songwriting game, Mack. First … change your name to Mack. Then choose a genre. You might go with love songs, or maybe religious numbers. Hell, you can start with one and then use the same tunes for the other – just change “baby, baby, baby” to “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus” or vice versa, and you’re all set. Before you know it, you’ll be looking at the birth of a regular tin pan alley in the Mohawk Valley.

Reason Three: Bored out of my gourd! This is the most boring summer ever. In these COVID-plagued days, what else is there to do but pound on distressed pianos and croon about better times? (Seriously, if you can think of shit to do around here, let us know.)