Tag Archives: Marvin

Usual Rubbish

In the hole he goes.

Let us pray. In the name of the father, the son … and in the hole he goes. That’s all I’ve got. You want some more? Some hail Marys or something? Try dial-a-prayer.

Even agnostics can find reasons to pray. Mine was on the occasion of examining the space craft that will take us on our next interstellar tour, yet to be named, tentatively slated for early this summer. To call this vehicle ramshackle is to curse it with false praise; I’m guessing this thing never got to the top of the troposphere before taking a Boeing-style nose dive. Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, says he can spruce it up a bit, but it’s going to take more than a little spruce to make that shitwagon spaceworthy. Try again, Mitch.

This enterprise has taken on a bit more urgency since the publication of that image of the Black Hole at the center of galaxy M-87. Our first thought, of course, was that this might be another stop on our tour, another venue. Forget the light-devouring, soul-crushing gravitation … it’s a black hole named Powehi, for chrissake. How could we not play there? I’m leaving it to Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to handle the booking arrangements, but whatever the paycheck may end up being, just picture the live album: The Main Event Horizon: Big Green Live from Powehi.

Hmmm... Looks promising.

Okay, now … talk me out of it. I hate, hate, hate space travel. The food is terrible. The gravity is highly inconsistent. You get stiffed by every manner of space creature, most of whom think humans are some kind of mannerless androids. (I typically make an effort to explain to them that Marvin is the only one who actually approaches that description, but often to no avail.) And yet … we keep doing it, right? What drives us on, to gig where no man has gigged before? Ambition? No, it can’t be that. I don’t think we have enough ambition between us to bend over and pick up a twenty someone dropped on the sidewalk. Wealth? Don’t even. The thrill of performance? Please!

Come to think of it, I have no idea why we tour. And maybe that’s the best reason to do it.

Usual Rubbish

Money tree.

I don’t know, man. My pressure suit is a little frayed around the elbows. I don’t even know where I left my magnetic boots. We’re probably not ready for that, but … if you insist. Jesus.

Ah, hello. Band meeting. Joe’s here, that’s all I can confirm. No one else wants to go on the record, including Marvin (my personal robot assistant), though he has appeared on at least one of our records, truth be told. (Forgive the double-entendre.) We’ve been tossing around ideas for generating a little cash, as the Big Green collective has been struggling a bit of late. The obvious remedy would be another tour, probably of the interstellar variety, but as I was saying earlier, our gear is threadbare as hell and we don’t even have a line on a spaceship rental. God knows what we would cross that trackless void in this time around.

Well, to be sure, the lure of money drives humankind to desperate means. We could probably wrangle a string of marginal gigs between Neptune and Aldebaran, though I’m not clear on how lucrative the exercise would turn out to be. The exchange rate on Quatloos is in the toilet these days. And between the two of us, I’m getting a little long in the tooth for space travel – not sure I could hold my breath long enough to get to Neptune, to say nothing of destinations beyond the Kuiper Belt. Also … we’re short a guitar player. Just saying.

Sounds like a tour

Not that playing gigs is the only way to shake the money tree. Every musician runs into this situation at various points in her/his career. What’s it going to be? Washing dishes? Done it. Carrying boxes and stocking shelves? Done that, too. Driving a cab? Well … I haven’t done that, but I came close once or twice. Then there’s Mitch’s idea. You might recall how he’s been experimenting with gravity. Well, he was musing on how to monetize his new technology, and it struck him that people pay for water, they pay for electricity, they pay for heating fuel … maybe he could get them to pay for gravity. He’s thinking about doing a market test – namely, sending gravity bills to our neighbors. If they don’t pay, he would train his anti-grav ray on their houses and claim that their service had been discontinued. That’s when the simoleons start rolling in.

Okay, well … there may be nicer ways to make a living.  Like … I don’t know … playing music, perhaps.

 

Usual Rubbish

Mailbag redux.

Well, it’s been a while since we’ve done this, but I think it’s about time we open up the old mail bag and respond to some of the cards, letters, emails, messages in bottles, skywriting, notes tied to bricks thrown through windows, etc. we’ve received over the past, what, ten years?

Full disclosure: Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was tasked some years back with screening our fan mail. I’m not sure he fully understood the parameters of that assignment. Our intention was for him to use the kind of screen that would allow some of the messages to pass through. I guess we should have been more explicit. He appears to have tossed most of them out. Robots!

The thing is dusty as hell, but (cough!) here goes . First, here’s a little message from someone with the code name “Ask” in the United Kingdom:

Aw, this was a really nice post. Spending some time and actual effort to make a superb article… but what can I say… I hesitate a lot and don’t seem to get anything done.

– Ask.

Hey, thanks for your message, “Ask”. I’m not an expert on personal efficiency, but you should get that hesitation thing looked at. You might need a new set of spark plug wires. Luckily, you have the National Health Service over in England, so that shouldn’t be too difficult to accomplish.

Here’s another one, from this side of the pond:

Hey Big Green,

When the hell are you going to get up off your sorry asses and perform somewhere? It’s been years since you had a decent gig. Why are you wasting your time, posting shit on the internet and making up fan letters? It’s just disgraceful.

– Francis McDonald, Keokuk, IA

Well, Francis, I’m glad you asked this question. I’ve been trying to think of a way to raise this issue with my bandmates, and you have helpfully teed it up for me. I’ll tell you, if you hadn’t asked about this, I might have had to invent a fan letter like yours out of thin air. Thanks for saving me the trouble. I hate work!

Okay, Marvin. You can open it up now.

I think top two reasons we never play live is that we are (a) lazy and (b) old, in that order. That said, I personally do play with other groups on occasion. After the last time I performed, late last year, I spent about two months in physical therapy. As soon as I can save up the credit for more PT visits, I’ll take another gig.

For those of you who missed Big Green’s handful of live performances back in the day, you can hear some recordings of us playing live on either our Soundcloud channel or our YouTube channel. If you hear this and want more, let us know.