Tag Archives: mitch

Usual Rubbish

Down count.


Can’t see. Must wipe the sweat from my tormented brow. That’s it… that’s got it. Finished… my work here is through! And now for the final… OH, MAN-GODDAMN!

Hey, out there. How long has it been since you were last here? A week, already? I’ve spent practically that whole time trying to fix my A-90 keyboard controller. I suppose if you were to be charitable about it, you could describe me as technically challenged. And with help of the sort you get from Mitch Macaphee (Big Green‘s mad science advisor) and Marvin (my personal robot assistant), I feel like the proverbial one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. Hell, if this is a horse race, I’m the nag hopping along on one hoof.  (Hmmmm… what other colorfully rustic aphorisms can I employ here?) It’s hard enough trying to prepare for a tour under these conditions. But when you’re also dealing with the uncaring vacuum of space, it’s, well, kind of life-threatening.

Speaking of life threatening, the man-sized tuber has volunteered to cook dinner this evening. It’s not so much a new thing as the revival of an old thing, as a matter of fact. Tubey once imagined a career as a Julia Child-type television chef, cooking down-home favorites like mushroom pie and baloney sandwich casserole – you know, the kinds of dishes you grew up vomiting… I mean, relishing. (By which I mean you smothered them with relish to kill the highly repugnant flavors.) I suppose it goes without saying that Tubey never realized his dream-career, but isn’t that the case for most of us, eh? How many of you out there wanted to be space men or jet pilots or mountain climbers or steamship captains? (Only three? C’mon – it’s got to be more than just three of you!)

And while we’re on the subject of steamship captains (I feel a transition coming on), it’s only fair to warn you that Admiral Gonutz is now on the job, in the house, etc., as our interstellar tour coordinator. Has he ever coordinated an interstellar tour before? Well… that answer has to be no. But he has a lot of relevant experience. He has driven a boat. (Boats are kind of like spacecraft.) He has spent time on tropical islands (often mistaken by viewers of sixties television programs as alien planets). I think this experience will serve us well in the great beyond. The admiral has already plastered his walls with charts of terra incognita – though I think most of them are old maps of Patagonia, and I don’t mean the boutique. 

Well, got to go. I can smell dinner already. And I’ve broken yet another A-90 key, so it’s probably time to take my chances with the stew.

Usual Rubbish

Plan it.


Okay, I’ve got the case open. Sixteen screws and what do you get? The bottom of your keyboard falling out, that’s what. What’s next, Mitch? Mitch?? MITCH!!

Great. I’m working on this freaking Roland A-90 of mine – the one with the broken key(s) – and my technical advisor just wanders off. Probably getting a drink somewhere, even as I type this excoriation of him. (Trouble is, he’s even less reliable when he drinks.) Just trying to get our shit together in time for the next interstellar tour, which should begin sometime around Stardate 3425.6 … which, for those of you still on the Gregorian calendar, is approximately August 27th. Give or take. (Probably a bit more take than give.) Not sure why I chose to drop this sucker down a flight of stairs, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. (Note: On the advice of my analyst, I’ve been treating all of my accidents as intentional lately, just so that I feel more in control of my life. And damn it, it works.)

Where are those pliers? Probably in Mitch’s hip pocket. Walking toolbox, that man (in more ways than one). It will likely surprise few of you that Big Green’s performance infrastructure is in such poor repair. After all, we only book interplanetary and interstellar engagements. That means very few opportunities to travel first class. Trust me, between here and Betelgeuse, it’s coach all the way. And if there happens to be an overstuffed sofa in the freighter we stow away on, it’s couch all the way. We’re talking 247 parsecs of space travel between stops, dodging asteroids all the way. That can be kind of a bumpy ride. Hence the broken gear, the distressed travel cases, the bad hair days. (Actually, I’m having a bad hair life.)

Just look at Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and you’ll see what I mean. He may be the most sophisticated piece of equipment we take on tour with us. (I of course mean technologically sophisticated, not intellectually.) And yet close inspection will reveal an automaton held together with glue and bailing wire – a rolling, talking, gesticulating patch-job of tarnished brass and repurposed circuit boards, wanting for everything from new fasteners to replaced CAT 6 cable to the proper grade of machine oil. One would think the presence of his inventor, Mitch Macaphee, would contribute to a better state of being for old Marvin, but alas, Mitch quickly loses interest in his inventions. Look at that planet killer death ray he built last year. Back then, it was the poison apple of his eye. Now it sits in the courtyard like a motherless puppy. (Maybe some nice neighborhood mad scientist will adopt it…)

Ah, the depredations of life on the road! Well…. when no pliers are available, tweezers will do. Back to it, then.

Usual Rubbish

Keyed off.


Going to have to transpose that one as well. Try it in B-flat. That’s right, B-flat. No, no… not THAT B-flat, the one that’s between A and B. Jesus.

Oh, hi, reader. (I think you’re out there, somewhere). Just reharmonizing a thing or two before Big Green gets underway with their upcoming interstellar tour 2010 (theme not yet announced). Matter of no small necessity, actually, as I just blew out a key on my Roland A-90ex – the A below middle C, as it happens. I think it died of overuse. (We seem to play a lot in A and A minor.) But, frugal as we are, rather than replace the sucker, I’ve been working around it. Hey… we’ve got to keep our tinder dry for this tour, man. Wouldn’t want to be halfway out to Aldebaran without a spare dime in our pockets, now would we? (Would we? Could be a question for Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, who is an unaffiliated expert on interstellar economics. I myself cannot be certain. A dime COULD be worth a FORTUNE in space…)

Okay, so this is becoming kind of an annoying workaround, to tell the god’s honest truth. For instance, we might usually play “Johnny’s Gun” in A. That’s a non-starter. Key doesn’t exist, damn it, unless I have Marvin (my personal robot assistant) stand by and make the appropriate A-440 tone every time I hit the broken key. Seems less than a practical use of his time, quite frankly. Not that there is a truly appropriate use for his time. He’s a freaking robot, for chrissake. Built to serve man… and I don’t mean that in the sense of some contrived semantic turn of phrase meant to conceal the fact that he, in fact, cooks people for lunch (or perhaps supper). Not a bit of it. Marvin eats tofu and light machine oil, that’s it. Just like the rest of us.

You may wonder why it is that we take such a large complement of hangers-on along with us on these extraterrestrial tours. Well, you know the old saying, there’s safety in numbers, right? Well, that’s got nothing to do with us – we’ve never been particularly good with numbers. What I was about to say was that we need help, and lots of it. We’re not teenagers anymore, and we’ve long since lost track of our unicycles and pogo sticks. If we’re going to face multiple G’s, interplanetary turbulence, meteor showers, unexplained magnetic phenomena, irritable and unreasonable extraterrestrials with death-ray eyeballs, extremes of heat and cold, and so on, we’re bloody well not going to do it alone. That’s the bottom line, friends. We need human (and some non-human) shields and plenty of ’em.

And the first step in our self-defense strategy is learning everything in the right key. What? Oh, damn. sFshzenKlyrn broke a guitar string.  Now we can’t play in E either!