Tag Archives: Mitch Macaphee

Usual Rubbish

Inside June.

The Show So Far: First there were two guys talking, then we saw some cartoons, then a fully dressed naval officer jumped into the North Sea, then there were more cartoons, then some guy told us about what happened so far, then …. Oh, wait … that was another show. Sorry.

As some of you may have noticed, we dropped the June 2018 installment of our podcast THIS IS BIG GREEN, which breaks a kind of long hiatus. Still, it’s 2-½ hours of stuff, including eight new songs, so hey … that took some time. We may reside in a hammer mill, but we’re not running a factory here, man. Unless you count the robots Mitch Macaphee plugs together in the basement. (He’s considering establishing an assembly line. Not sure where that’s going, exactly.)

Anywho, if you haven’t listened to it yet, here’s what to expect:

Ned Trek 37 – Return to The Carl. This ludicrous musical episode of our Star Trek parody Ned Trek is based on the classic Trek episode entitled Return to Tomorrow, which had the Enterprise crew come across a dead civilization whose only survivors concealed themselves in glowing orbs and who talked Kirk, Spock, and some random scientist into letting them use their bodies to build android bodies the space aliens could use permanently. The head alien’s name was “Sargon”. In our version, it’s Sagan. The heavy from the planet’s “other side” is played by Edward Teller – he occupies Ned’s body, then calls everybody “puny”. Silliness ensues. Featured songs include:

Light Thing. A doc song, referring to the glowing orb receptacle that held Sagan’s consciousness (as opposed to the bubble gum machine that held Teller’s). Put your childish things away.

Sagan’s Song. Just what it sounds like – a Broadway-like number sung by Carl Sagan in which he lays out his ambitious plan for making the crew of the Free Enterprise smarter than total lunkheads. (Or, failing that, teaching them better table manners.)

Risk Is Your Business. Romney song based on Kirk’s heroic monologue from the Star Trek episode we based this on, only cross-pollinated with what unconsciously approaches a Marxist critique of capitalism. Oh, and sung in a French accent. Don’t ask me why.

Congratulations. Sung by the Nixon android, this touches on the usual Nixonian tropes of resentment, bitterness, self-aggrandizement, etc. Sixties-style “na-na-na” singalong thrown in for good measure.

Here's what we got for you, folks!Teller. A literally incendiary musical rant sung in the voice of Edward Teller while in Ned’s body. Think of it as a love sonnet to the H-bomb. Super.

The Other Side. Perle sings this perky little number about all the advantages of trading with the other side, whatever side that may be.

Fat Captain. A wrenching Sulu song about how Shatner soaked up the limelight at his expense back in the day. Based on a true story or two.

Blow The Man Down. Show-ender by Sagan, mopping up after the mess made during the preceding 90 minutes of ridiculousness. A song of grateful resignation. And yes, you get to hear Carl Sagan singing “dum dum-de-doo.” You’re welcome.

Put The Phone Down. Our typical impromptu back-and-forth gab session starts with a rough rendition of “All Saints Come”, a song off of our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas. It goes downhill from there. Just give it a listen, you’ll see.

Usual Rubbish

Magma cum laude.

Some people count to ten when they’re angry. Others resort to a punching bag or maybe a mattress stood up against the wall. I’ve known people to shut themselves in a closet and scream bloody murder. But THIS … THIS is outrageous.

Remind me, next time I start a band, don’t … repeat, don’t have a mad science advisor. Sure, they can help you out in a pinch, like that time we needed to get to that gig on Neptune and our van had broken down. Or that other time when I needed a personal robot assistant. Thing is, they are so freaking mercurial. (In Mitch Macaphee’s case, I think the reason for that may be that he just spent way too much time on the planet Mercury.) And when the act out, it can have profound consequences.

I’ve never even come close to being a scientist, but when I was a kid – like most American kids – I built a plaster volcano. Pretty sure Mitch did so when he was young, only his little ‘cano burned down his elementary school and his mates had to spend the rest of the semester attending class in a cornfield. Well … Mitch is at it again, apparently THIS time setting his sites on the Big Island in Hawaii. How do I know he’s the cause of the recent eruptions? Just have a feeling, that’s all. He’s been spending an awful lot of time in that lab of his. And I’ve been hearing a lot of rumbling just lately.

I always get a little nervous when Mitch starts messing around with plate tectonics. It recalls to my mind the protagonist in Matt’s song “Why Not Call It George?” – himself a kind of mad scientist, tinkering with the inner workings of our unruly little planet:

Is that thing loaded?Continental drift can be reversed
Great tumblers shift
And Pangaea can be reclaimed
After me it can be renamed
Why not call it George?
Call it George, after me

While we don’t have a lot of tectonic activity in our neighborhood, it does get a little shaky once in a long while. And with Mitch Macaphee still pissed off about those NASA shots of Jupiter, I wouldn’t be surprised if those tremors get a little closer together. We might even wake up to aggravated volcanism, and I don’t mean the plaster variety. (Note to self: order those fireproof goulashes.)

Usual Rubbish

Big marble.

No, I haven’t seen your camera. Or your enlarger. What the hell do I look like, a custodian? For crying out loud – if I were a custodian, I would be retired by now on a decent state pension … instead of cooped up in this drafty squat house with a mad-man inventor who can’t find his freaking camera.

Oh, hello. You’ve just caught me in the middle of a small dispute with one of the members of Big Green’s retinue. As I am the very soul of discretion, I will refrain from saying which one … Mitch Macaphee. (I didn’t say it, I typed it.) Suffice it to say we have our share of disagreements, and it’s usually over stupid shit. Last week it was some old piece of quartz he had mistakenly left at the local watering hole. By the way he was carrying on, you would have thought it was the only quartz in the world. And I can assure you … there is more quartz out there … more than you ever dreamed of.

Now – this week – Mitch is cheesed off over some photographs he saw on the Internet (though why he wastes his time surfing the web is beyond me … that thing is never going to amount to anything). NASA just posted some shots of Jupiter from the Juno spacecraft that make the planet look like a giant marble or close detail of a Nice brushwork.Van Gogh painting. Mitch got a little overwrought when he saw them. He claims that they were photos he took on our last interstellar tour. He started pacing up and down the corridor, grousing about how NASA is always using his material without compensation or attribution. Then he disappeared into his laboratory.

We all hope he’s just sulking in there. I sent Marvin (my personal robot assistant) in to check on Mitch; he returned with some kind of electronic device attached to his torso. It has flashing lights and makes an odd, whirring sound. Not sure whether or not it’s having an effect on Marvin – he seems to act normally, though I did notice that he now eats corn-on-the-cob on a vertical axis. Could be a coincidence. People change, right? So, too, of robots.

Okay, well … we’re trying not to let the strange sounds emanating from Mitch’s laboratory distract us from our primary task: that of making strange sounds emanate from our recording studio.