Tag Archives: Mitch Macaphee

Usual Rubbish

Water feature.

Do you really want to go? I don’t know. It’s a pretty inhospitable place. Very hot and dry, I’m told, and almost absolutely nothing grows there … not even mold. Though that’s a good thing, sort of, right? Still … I’m less interested in Mars after having played there a few times. Not our crowd, really.

Oh, hi. Just having a momentous discussion with our mad science adviser, Mitch Macaphee, about what to do this weekend. What’s that you say? A trip to Mars is too ambitious for the sabbath? Not sure I agree. In any case, we weren’t talking about going to the planet Mars; we were debating over whether or not we should go see “The Martian”. I was complaining about the condition of our local movie theater. Arid as sandpaper in there, and the seats are twice as rough. Then there’s the foul aroma of popcorn – uuuhhl …

As you know, we’re not particularly big on movies or other forms of entertainment, frankly. Mitch likes to go to science fiction movies so that he can fact-check them, particularly the ones featuring diabolical mad scientists with ambitions to (dare I say it?) rule … the world. He gets a kick out of poking holes in the flimsiest premises imaginable. The other day, he was tearing “Planet of the Dinosaurs” apart. Before that, it was “The Creeping Terror.” Talk about straw men. And don’t get Mitch started on Lost In Space or Journey to the Bottom of the Sea. He’s up one side of Irwin Allen and down the other.

Mitch has some issues with Planet of the Dinosaurs.I guess there’s a renewed interest in the red planet since NASA recently determined that there’s evidence of flowing water on the surface – mostly ice melt in the mountains. Hell, we could have told them that. I can’t remember which interstellar tour it was, but one time we played a ski chalet on Mount Olympus. The dry ice was up to our ankles, but there was some water ice as well – mostly in our cocktails, though. Pretty cushy arrangement, but again … not our audience. And dry, very dry.

We should do another interstellar tour this winter. Got to get Mitch and his invention Marvin (my personal robot assistant) out of the mill a little more. They’re getting like shut-ins, and that can only lead to sorrow.

Usual Rubbish

Hanky land.

What the fuck, was that a week just then? I know I’ve said this before, but time seems to be speeding up. I should ask Mitch Macaphee if the Earth is spinning any faster than a few years ago … and if HE has anything to do with it. (Always worth asking.)

Well, it’s been kind of quiet around the abandoned hammer mill for the last week. Just the sounds of quiet toil. Ah, the joys of wage slavery! Not much to report. Matt’s been out in the field, tending to his various populations of beast and bird. We’re working on the next album, punching up some of the Ned Trek numbers, albeit slowly. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is learning Swahili in his spare time (or perhaps Kinyarwanda … he can never make up his little battery-driven mind about anything.)

Besides recording, what have we been doing as a “band”, specifically? Well, if you REALLY want to know, probably the best way is to listen to the second half of our podcast THIS IS BIG GREEN – the part where Matt and I spend about an hour talking about nothing and next to nothing. For instance, our most recent episode featured the following weighty items:

  • What a way to wake upImagining Henry Kissinger trying out for the Monkees back in the late sixties, like Charles Manson did. Hanky’s Monkees, it might have been called. Or perhaps not. (This stemmed from our recollection of an earlier episode when we pondered whether or not Davy Jones might have been killed by primate poachers.)
  • Waking up and finding that not only are you in the Pleistocene era, but you are in fact Charles Nelson Riley.
  • Giving a rough-edged rendition of the Popeye theme song.
  • Way too many lame imitations of Peter Lorre (if you can imagine such a thing).
  • Once through the “Happy Anniversary” version of the William Tell Overture to mark our podcast’s 4th anniversary.

I know, it’s hard to imagine that any single podcast could contain so many wonders, but it’s true. And honestly, it’s just like hanging out with us in the Cheney Hammer Mill basement. Just as riveting.

Usual Rubbish

Get yours here.

Hey … let’s stop in at the Petrified Creatures Museum. It sounds, well … very dessicated. And interesting. Perhaps. I don’t know … what do YOU want to do, Marvin (my personal robot assistant)?

Yes, we’re taking a day trip. The weather is nice, so it seemed like a good idea to leave the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill behind for a few hours. Trouble is, it’s a little hard to find entertainment that suits everyone’s eclectic tastes. Marvin is a little reluctant to give the Petrified Creatures Museum a look, perhaps because they may mistake him for one of their exhibits and NEVER LET HIM LEAVE. He was scared, even (yes) petrified. Poor creature.

What else is there to do, driving along route 20? Well … there are a lot of campgrounds. There’s an ice cream place called “Banana Dan’s”. There are some really cool mountains, if you like mountains. That should be sufficient to satisfy anyone’s taste. But here I am, in a car full of freaks – Marvin, Anti-Lincoln, Mitch Macaphee, the mansized tuber … Matt refused to go, choosing instead to mind his wildlife charges. Anti-Lincoln is pretty much against everything. Mr. freaking negative. Mansized tuber just wants to go to gardening centers. That’s where he goes to meet other plants. It’s like a nightclub, without the booze. Mitch? He’s only interested in conferences and laboratories. He just stares out the window at the passing scenery, dreaming up formulas for making the whole thing go blooey.

Look, Marvin! (meh)Well … so much for our pleasant day out. What’s next on the agenda? Not much. Just back to the hammer mill. We’ve got some music to work on. Where’s that going? I don’t know … another album, maybe. Not sure how we’ll release it, but we will make it available in some way, shape, or form. Maybe we’ll have Marvin hand deliver it to everyone in Upstate New York. Maybe we’ll sell it in the anteroom of the Petrified Creatures Museum. Maybe BOTH of those things.

One other thing we’re working on – a kind of Big Green subscription service. We’re contemplating the price being somewhere between $0 and gratis. Sign up, and we’ll send you disc copies of our first two albums (while supplies last), a digital copy of our third album, and advance digital releases as they are completed. Still ironing out the details, crunching the numbers, etc. (Very crunchy, those numbers.)