Tag Archives: Mitch Macaphee

Usual Rubbish

Zero interest.

I tried calling them this morning. What was my response? Well … have you ever shouted down an abandoned mineshaft? It sounded kind of like that. Except hollower. Less content.

Mars? Too easy, man.Oh, hi. Welcome to the land of the great ideas. I’m Joe Perry (not of Aerosmith) of Big Green, and well … I am responsible for many of the “great” ideas. Why “great” in quotes? Those are litotes, and I use those when I’m being painfully ironic. Which is to say … our great ideas are not great at all. In fact, most of our ideas are just plain STUPID. But hey, if we let THAT stop us, we probably wouldn’t get out of bed in the afternoon. (Did I say afternoon? I meant … uh … morning.)

Right, so … the latest “great” idea was Mars Zero – our answer to Mars One, the private initiative to land a group of humans on Mars by the year 2025. Our first reaction to Mars One was, hell, we’ve done that already, and dozens of times. Just read our blog, folks. But of course, people seldom do, so they don’t know the full extend of what humankind has been able to accomplish in the name of art in space. (I use the term “art” loosely enough to include things like Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, our most recent album.)

So what’s the problem with Mars Zero, our own attempt to reach the red planet (where we’ve already done several tours) in five years, rather than ten? Well, it’s the anticipated crush of inquiries. Mitch Macaphee, our mad science adviser, is absolutely terrified that a flood of emails will infest our servers and cause them to crash, vaporizing all of his malevolent code. I keep telling him there’s nothing to worry about – that this initiative, like so many previous Big Green efforts, will likely fall flat. He’s excitable, see … that’s the problem with Mitch.

Cowboy Scat on YouTube: Even as we prepare for the worst on Mars Zero, I have managed to upload ten songs from Cowboy Scat to our YouTube channel. The video content is a cheap-ass slide show – this is mostly for the listening. So if you haven’t heard the songs all the way through, here’s how to do it. (I’ll upload the rest of the album over the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned.)

Usual Rubbish

Posse comet-at-us.

Electrodes to power! Turbines to speed! Hand on the main throttle, Marvin (my personal robot assistant)! Man, that’s hard to say with any urgency.

Never hit nothin' that way.Oh, hi. Caught us in full-on crisis mode here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, as of now Planet Earth’s first line of defense against the menace of stray comets invading the inner rings of our solar system (where most of us reside). Or so it would appear. Seems like the planetary defense systems maintained by major world governments have been caught asleep at the wheel on this one, so bloody hell, it’s up to us to save Earth’s bacon. And its beans. And, of course, its life-giving stilton cheese. I could go on, but again … we’re in CRISIS mode.

You’ve no doubt heard of the dry alien comet named “Comet 67P”? The European Union has just landed a probe on its surface with the intent of drilling into it. My guess is that they’re looking for shale oil, though they vehemently deny that. Anyway, fracking or no, this has surely invoked the comets ire, as we have been reliably informed by our mad science adviser Mitch Macaphee. We had a pretty shrill Skype conversation last night during which he explained the whole thing to yours truly and my fellow Big Green denizens. Something to do with Baratold rays and a slight shift in field density. All the science, I don’t understand! But I must take Mitch’s word for it.

Anywho, the comet is good and angry. Wouldn’t you be, too, if the EU had dropped a probe on you and ordered it to drill into your face? I know I would. Damned annoying. So Comet 67P is intent on crashing into the Earth’s surface – a kind of cosmic “How do you like it?”, I guess. Our only defense against this interstellar suicide bomber? Trevor James Constable’s abandoned Orgone Generating Device. Mitch told us to point the array in the general direction of the approaching comet and crank it up to eleven. Sounds as good a method as any. That’s supposed to counteract the comet manitou and correct the space time continuum … or something. (Mitch was talking fast.)

So, look … if it works, you should be seeing our podcast drop in the next few days. If it doesn’t, well … not to put too fine a point on it, but … likely you won‘t see the podcast drop.

Usual Rubbish

Running late.

I guess my alarm clock doesn’t work. Don’t understand it. I wound it up tight as a drum sometime last year. Stupid bloody thing. Oh, well.

Yeah, maybe we WON'T fly Antares.Sometimes it actually pays to be late. I’ll give you a for instance. There was this gig on Mars we booked for next month, and we were planning to take a private rent-a-rocket up there, having lost contact with our mad science adviser Mitch Macaphee. That’s fine. Only the rocket is an Antares Orbital CRS-3. Yes, THAT Antares Orbital CRS-3. The same one that blowed up real good a couple of days ago. Oh, yes. That’s the flight you WANT to be late for.

I know what you’re going to say. It’s an orbital CRS-3, Joe, not an interplanetary CRS-3. What the hell are you doing, taking an orbital ship on an interplanetary journey of this type? Well, my friends …. I’m glad you asked that question. My answer may surprise you. In fact, the reason why we’re doing that is that, as I mentioned earlier, we no longer have our mad science adviser, so we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing. As good a reason as any. Better than most, in fact.

So, probably just as well that we didn’t take the CRS-3 to Mars. Looks like it may not have made it there in one piece. That scotches the gig, though – it was the only ride in town, now that NASA isn’t lighting candles anymore. For those of you who complain that we never perform live, I offer you this rejoinder: we would have done, except that the Antares rocket blew up. How are we supposed to perform live when that rocket blew up?

All bands have some excuse for what they do and what they don’t do. Big Green is no different. I will never say never, but most of what we do now is in the studio, stitching podcasts together, recording ludicrous songs, and asking Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to do his imitation of Joseph Cotton. Our only explanation for such sloth is, well, rocket engine issues.