Tag Archives: Mitch Macaphee

Usual Rubbish

Strange gravity.

I don’t know, man. That song seems kind of dark. Dark, but in a happy way. Yeah … that’s the way we do it around here, am I right? No … that was a rhetorical question. Never mind.

Oh, hello. It’s your old pal Bozo. I mean, Joe-zo. (That might have been my clown name if I had chosen another, slightly divergent path in life, but I digress.) Having a little band meeting here. Joe? Present. Matt? Present. Marvin (my personal robot assistant)? Present, to the extent that an automaton can ever be TRULY present, but setting philosophical questions aside … Mitch Macaphee? Not present. Actually, in truth it’s just me and Matt, and the topic is songwriting.

It goes like this. He’s got songs, I’ve got songs … all God’s children got songs. That said, they’re all based on subject matter that’s, well, a little dark. Dark matter, if you will. Now, it’s not surprising that we would use the stuff that makes up the bulk of the universe as the substance of our songs. You never lack for material.  Even so, songwriting can be a lot like pulling teeth … except the pay isn’t nearly as good. And either way you go, somebody ends up toothless. A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye. Aye aye, sir.

I don't see any dark matter. Oh ... right.Well, I’ve wandered a bit. But the point I’m trying to get to is this: we tend to write happy little songs about big nasty things. This month we appear to be back on the fascist beat again. Next month, who knows? Some other grave subject matter that can be turned into a nursery rhyme or a mambo. That’s the way it works round these parts. Those are our principles. And if you don’t like them … we have other principles. (Yes, I’m a Marxist. My favorite is Groucho, but it’s not a strong preference.)

Speaking of work, it has been nearly forever since our last THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast. I just want to assure our five listeners that, yes, we will post more episodes this fall and, yes, they will be ridiculous. It’s been a busy year, folks. I’d explain why, but I’ve got too much to do right now. Excuses, excuses, right? Sheesh.

Usual Rubbish

In the shed.

I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed. Just shut the door on the way out. And turn off the lights. Oh, right … there are no lights. Never mind.

Oh man – just try to get some privacy around this place. You’d think living in a massive old abandoned mill we wouldn’t have this kind of problem, but you’d be surprised at how small this place gets when everybody is home. Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, starts rattling his test tubes around and looking for things to detonate. Marvin (my personal assistant) does his exercise routines, rolling around the shop floor on his casters. Matt watches his birds on screens of various sizes. Anti-Lincoln reads the Gettysburg address backwards for the unpteenth time (I think he’s trying to make a point). Even the mansized tuber gets in the way. It’s mayhem!

So, hey, I’ve moved out to the potting shed in the courtyard of the Cheney Hammer Mill. It was necessary to evict the mansized tuber, since the shed’s only big enough for one of us, but he’s resourceful — I’m sure wherever he lands he’ll put down roots. Some people think I’m wood shedding out here, but it’s nothing that productive. I’m just enjoying the quietude, the solitude, the … I don’t know … darkitude. It’s like taking that vacation that I never take, to that place I’ve never been, with money I’ve never earned. Call it never never land. Or call it anything you want – it’s a freaking shed!

Get lost!Sit out here long enough and your mind starts to light on all kinds of things. Random stuff, like … why didn’t I get some handyman to fix the roof on this shed? It leaks like a sieve! Then there are thoughts of what might have been, the kind that creep around the corner when you’re sitting idle, then climb in through your ear and squat down on your brain. Why didn’t I call that handyman? Finally, you get the occasional flash of inspiration, like you’re seeing the world for the first time. Stuff like, I want to join the Space Force! or I want Marvin to join the Space Force! One or the other of those might be workable.

Right, so … if you’re looking for me, try the shed. Knock twice if I don’t owe you money.

Usual Rubbish

Porpoise in life.

I told you what I saw, Mitch. What else can I say? If you choose not to believe me, well that’s your affair. All I can tell you is that I know a primordial proto-whale when I see one, and I SAW one.

Oh, hi. As you can see, our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, and I are having a little scientific disagreement. I am making an empirical argument that primitive whale ancestors still roam the earth, whereas Mitch is advancing a kinetic argument of sorts. In other words, he threw a chair at me. Fortunately, my reflexes are still relatively sound for a man of my years and I was able to duck quickly enough to make it a near miss. Then came the brick bats. Let’s just say that I lost the argument, not so much on the merits. More on the bruises. Ouch.

I never suspected Mitch would get so worked up about the field of paleontology. He’s more of a physicist, chemist, bomb maker. You never know what he’s going to cook up next. Last week he was muttering something about somebody named “Q” he met on the internets. I think he’s been watching too many reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In any case, he’s been building armaments for some event that’s been on the horizon for some time. I know what you’re going to say … we should do something about him. Hey, look – when he shows up on the barricades with some kind of plastic bazooka, THEN call me.

There it is again. Hey, Mitch!While he’s been busy with that and Matt’s been busy with falcons, I’ve been woodshedding a bit, trying to teach my arms to play the piano again. (It’s faster than teaching your legs.) The archiving project is nearly complete, at least the part about digitizing songs from analog tapes. I still need to clean them up, sort them, etc. Some of them are pretty spare; others come with a vest and a second pair of pants. The whole nine yards, as they say. (I don’t know why they say these things.)

Oh, and we dropped an encore episode of Ned Trek at nedtrek.com. It’s episode #27, Who Mourns For Science (originally aired in Feb. 2016), which features a giant Carl Sagan. Can’t be bad, right? Give it a listen and let me know if it’s improved with age. (I know I haven’t. That’s why I think I’m seeing proto whales.)