Tag Archives: mitch

Usual Rubbish

Crunchy soup.


Stir a little harder. That’s the stuff. Put some elbow-grease in it. No, goddamnit, not for real! That’s just an expression! It means…. oh, mother of pearl.

Oh, hello, cyber-surfers. You find us in one of life’s most humble pursuits: making a substandard dinner. That’s the kind we like here at the Cheney Hammer Mill – far preferable to no dinner at all. In case you hadn’t guessed, soup is on the menu this evening, and inasmuch as we cannot afford that ultra-haut cuisine canned stuff you probably enjoy, your stalwart friends in Big Green are making it from scratch. And when I say scratch, that’s no euphemism. As I mentioned before, elbow grease is a euphemism, and one that should never be an ingredient in home made soup. Though, sadly, it is now part of ours. Another reason why it’s best not to have Marvin (my personal robot assistant) help with such tasks. (He just had his elbows re-greased, as it happens.)

But hey – if you were thinking of dropping by for pot-luck supper, never fear. There are plenty of good things in this makeshift soup. What, you may ask? Well… it would be far easier to tell you what isn’t in there. There are the standard things, like potatoes, as well as more exotic items, like kiwi fruit and baobab bark. (Mmmmmm. Baobab.) I saw Johnny White dropping a few chiclets in the cauldron – that should add a little tooth. The man-sized tuber, looking for alternatives to plant products, contributed a box of nuts and bolts he found down in the basement. When I saw Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, walking through, I was sure he was just using the kitchen as a short cut. I’m told, though, that he flipped his favorite slide-rule into the mix. Accident? I think not!

Enough about dinner. What else is happening, aside from the fabrication of inedibles? Not a lot, my friends. Just keeping body and soul together, that’s the long and short of it. (We’re a little longer on the short of it, truth be told.) Started some projects, but have yet to finish any of them. We do have a song due out on a compilation CD – a fundraiser for Haiti relief – which is supposed to be out any day now. (A little late on that one.) That’s a new recording called “Only You,” one of Matt’s numbers. I’ll post a link when it finally sees the light of day. Either that or we’ll drop it into the soup and have you take a bowl home with you. Talk about rich! It’s soup you can dance to.

Well, I’ve wandered a bit. More on upcoming projects later. First, I’ve got some peeling to do.

Usual Rubbish

Book him.

The difference between falling up and falling down is merely one of direction. How’s that, Lincoln? Not pithy enough? All right, I’ll keep trying.

Oh, hi. Didn’t notice you there, peering at me from the other side of this flat screen monitor I live in. Hope all is well at home. I’m just hanging out here in the delightfully abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, having a little chat with our old friend Lincoln, who was carried here from yesteryear through the magic of Trevor James Constable’s orgone generating device a year or two back. (That’s a long way of saying hello – I know.) What are we chatting about? Funny you should ask. The usual topics that come up around here, like how many hammers were forged here, how long this place has been abandoned, and HOW THE HELL ARE WE EVER GOING TO MAKE ENOUGH MONEY TO GET A DECENT PLACE TO LIVE. (That last one’s a bit of a sore spot. Not sure if you can tell.)

Well, we’ve had a lot of ideas tossed around over the past few months. But recently it occurred to us that we are not using our own home-grown resources to their best advantage. After all, we have space creatures, a mechanical man, a giant sentient potato, and one of America’s most revered presidents (as well as his evil doppelganger) in our entourage. Why not exploit them more fully? That is why I’m working with Lincoln today. I’ve suggested that he needs to leverage his reputation as perhaps our greatest president by publishing a book of some sort – I have suggested a collection of aphorisms, something like what Yogi Berra may have published. Witticisms, as it were. Or as they are. Or as we were. (As you were!)

Hmmm. That last utterance took on a decidedly militaristic cast – my apologies. As I was saying, I and several others – though certainly NOT Marvin (my personal robot assistant) – have been tossing around possible entries for Lincoln’s upcoming work. Why does he need our help? Well, friends – he may be an excellent commander in chief, a clear-minded leader with nerves of steel, a visionary… but aside from speeches written hastily on the backs of envelopes, his writing for mass audiences leaves a bit to be desired. Far too flowery, too prolix. Goodness me, Lincoln! Take a page out of your evil twin’s playbook. Economy! For chrissake, it’s a rare thing indeed when Anti-Lincoln writes anything longer than a two-word phrase that ends in “you.” (Say what you like; at least he keeps the focus on “you.”)

So anyway. Here’s one from Mitch Macaphee. Never invent a deadly laser you wouldn’t aim at your own mother. Still nothing? Work, work, work.

Usual Rubbish

Hard feelings.

Hey, what can I tell you? I didn’t intend to piss him off, guys. Not my intention at all. Nor was it my intention to destroy the planet Jupiter. Furthest thing from my mind.

Oh, hi. Just caught me in the middle of a little band meeting. (Bret? Here. Jermaine? Here. Murray? Here.) I’m being raked over the coals by my fellow Big Green members and our various hangers on – Mitch Macaphee (our mad science adviser), Lincoln, anti-Lincoln, Marvin (my personal robot assistant), the man-sized tuber… even Big Zamboola has chimed in. What’s the “issue”, as they say? Oh, hell… it’s about our perennial sit-in guitarist from the planet Zenon, sFshzenKlyrn. He’s been a house guest here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill for the past week or so. That is to say, he was our guest, up until he departed yesterday in a bit of a Zenite huff. (How do I know? His radioactive vapor trail was tinged orange around the edges. Sure sign.)

So, why the hurried departure? Was he on his way to, I don’t know, Joseph A. Bank to get two free suits after buying one overpriced suit? No, no, nothing like that. It’s down to me, I’m afraid. One of those obscure cultural faux pas you run into when dealing with the denizens of another galaxy – kind of like showing the soles of your feet to an Iraqi. I insulted sFshzenKlyrn in some way, apparently, when I turned down his generous offer of Zenite snuff. I believe that, combined with a hand gesture I made involuntarily, is the equivalent of telling a Zenite that his specific gravity is roughly equivalent to that of Yak dung.  (For those of you who are unfamiliar with Zenite etiquette, that is considered a particularly grave insult.)

sFshzenKlyrn left in a cloud of radioactive dust. I imagined he was going straight home, using his typical method of traveling between the dimensional layers of the wobbly thing we call reality. Not so. I guess he was a little madder than he looked, because he felt the need to act out his anger. And he did this by driving straight into the planet Jupiter, causing a bit of a disturbance. (I’m told he did that one time before, some few years back. Left a bit of a red spot, as I recall.) What this has meant to the inhabitants of Jupiter I do not know, though I suspect we will hear about it the next time we go on interstellar tour. (Late this summer, I believe. Stay tuned!) It did, however, cause quite a stir back home here, with people calling it a dramatic collision, a missile, an asteroid, and so on.

Nah. Just a pissed off Zenite guitarist, that’s all. And from the ‘splosion he created, I guess his specific gravity must be quite a bit greater than that of Yak dung after all. Whoops! Sorry, sFshzenKlyrn!