Tag Archives: mitch

Usual Rubbish

Heave ho.

Hey. Did any of you guys nail a proclamation to the door? Lincoln, is this your dagger? Anyone good with a quill pen (other than Lincoln)? Hmmmm…. could be legitimate.

Okay, there’s this parchment scroll tacked to our door with a dime-store knife. And it’s got some rubbish scribbled across it about how we need to vacate the premises of our adopted home, the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, by the end of July… “or else”. No signature. But a very distinctive style of penmanship, I must say. South paw. (You can tell by the smudging of the India ink. ) Can just barely read the thing, frankly. (Or even dishonestly.) Clearest thing is the illustration of a shaking fist – kind of threatening.

I handed this to anti-Lincoln, since he tends to understand this kind of thing (ultimatums, mad grudges, and what-not). He read it upside down, looked at the back of the paper, then rolled it into a tube and tried to make trumpet sounds with it. I should know better, I admit. Though we could use a horn section. (Two Lincolns, two proclamations rolled up like a trombone – that could sound! That’s now, brother, that’s real now!) You know, I’m tired of being the adult in the room. I want to be like Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and just sit in a corner with a plastic cup of pudding watching cartoons all day. It’s raining, besides, so riding the swings is out of the question.

All right, I know. This is kind of serious. Though we’ve been evicted before. The Town Board hates us, and the mayor has it in for us for some reason. Maybe it’s because Mitch Macaphee crashed his birthday party last year. Or maybe it was the yards of that novelty $100 bill toilet paper we sent them along with our payment in lieu of taxes bill. (That was on anti-Lincoln’s advice. So much for legal counsel. I’m going to have to ask for my $100 back.)

Okay, well… I guess we’ll have to take some time out of our tireless preparations for Big Green’s [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011 and ask anti-Lincoln to look this document over a bit more closely. With his eyes, this time.

Usual Rubbish

A fungible outcome.

Okay, who’s going to Betelgeuse for the advance mission? Let’s see a show of hands. I meant now, boys, right now. Is that it? Nearly one hand. Call it none.

Man oh Manischewitz, do I have to do everything myself? (No, I wasn’t asking for a show of hands on THAT.) All I ask is a little cooperation on a deadly dangerous deep-space excursion, and I get nothing. Bunch of layabouts. Looks like I’ll have to do it myself – just me and Marvin (my personal robot assistant). Yeah, I mean you, Marvin. I know you didn’t put your hand up. What part of “my personal robot assistant” do you not understand, eh? Sheesh. I’m going to have to ask Mitch to program some obedience into that boy…. when he gets back from Mad Science-a-ganza in Sao Paolo. (Doesn’t sound hugely scientific to me, but…. my studies were in the humanities.)

Yeah, you see, Tiny Montgomery (our sometimes booking agent) has arranged a performance in the Betelgeuse system as part of Big Green’s upcoming [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011 – by “part of” I mean to say, it’s the only gig he’s booked thus far. (Tiny’s getting a slow start.) Naturally, we’re getting a little anxious about this seeming exception to Tiny’s near unbroken record of rejection by the managers of interstellar music venues from here to Andromeda. I thought it only prudent that one of us should go out there and check the venue out. And hell, everyone thought it was a GREAT idea so long as they thought I would be doing the honors. But enough about that.

I have to say, truth be known, I prefer recording and broadcasting to live performances most days of the week. That’s why Matt and I are working tirelessly (no tires needed, in fact) on our new audio podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN!, the maiden episode of which should be posted in the upcoming weeks. What’s it about? Well, my friend, it’s the whole Big Green package – talk and jive, live performances (pre recorded, of course), rare sides, reviews, a promo or two. In short, we’ll know when we get there. But one way or the other, here it comes. No, you don’t have to thank us. All part of the service.

As always, we’re just trying to get you more of what you like least about us. Hmmm… did I say that right? Hands?

Usual Rubbish

Planageddon.

I’m not sure about that, Matt. I don’t know if I want to play that song. How about “Dinos”? No? Are you sure? Okay… you suggest one. “World of Satisfaction”? Naaaah.

Oh, hello. Didn’t notice you peering through that LCD screen. As you can see, we’re working on a set list for our first engagement on Big Green’s [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011. No, that’s not a place keeper – that’s the name Tiny Montgomery suggested last week, and none of us has come up with anything better (let alone tried to, you know, insert the name). It’s always kind of a back and forth on the set lists – that’s only natural when you have hundreds of songs. Yes, literally hundreds… all wrapped up in a little box. We take turns, reaching a hand into the box. I’ll read one song title and Matt will knock it down. Then he grabs one and reads it. I’ll say he’s an asshole. Then he throws the box at me. And I’ll yell, “MOM! HE’S DOIN’ IT AGAIN!” And then we’re BOTH in trouble.

Okay, so that’s freaking childish, I know. But not to worry – we always come up with set lists in the end. Then we freaking ignore then, nine times out of ten. No, we’re not affecting an artistic temperament. It’s just that, frankly, it gets kind of dark on the stages we play on, and those lists are just plain hard to read. So we start calling tunes. If we call the same tune twice in a single night, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) issues a loud beeping sound. Chances are we will remember what that’s supposed to mean and withdraw the selection. Hey…. everybody has their process. Ours is surely no less sound than the one used by, say, My Morning Jacket.  (I can’t say, because I don’t know what they do. I’m just picking examples at random – don’t listen to me.)

I’m just noticing how often I use the epithet “freaking”. You all know what I mean. In any case, preparing for an arduous interstellar tour is no picnic, as many of you know. There are songs to rehearse, air tanks to compress, space suits to air out, missiles to hire, maps to download – no end to the punch list. (It’s actually more like a punch and kick list.) Not getting a lot of help, either. Both Lincolns are dead to the world after a night of carousing. The mansized tuber is out in the garden, communing with his little herb-garden cousins. Mitch Macaphee has taken the next two weeks off to attend a mad science conference in Brazil. I feel like the prisoner of freaking Zenda. (There’s that epithet again!)

Not to worry. We’ve been down this bumpy road before, and it’s always come out…. well … bumpy. So be it.