Tag Archives: One Small Step

Usual Rubbish

Close quarters.

Here. Squeeze your head into this helmet, see if it fits. What? No, I’ve never seen the movie Scarface. Not all the way through, anyway. Why?

Mother of pearl. I’m surrounded by moaners. Nobody wants to wear a freaking space helmet, not even Marvin (my personal robot assistant). He’s afraid of getting “helmet hair” of all things. (His so-called “hair” is made of leftover brass fittings from what appeared to be a Victorian era lawn mower.) I keep telling these people – if we’re going to pile into that substandard missile Mitch Macaphee found for us and fly to distant solar systems, we will need at least minimal protective gear, to include a) a helmet, b) a bag of oxygen, c) some portable food, preferably sandwiches, d) THERE IS NO “D”, e) boots, non hobnail variety, and f) a bunch of other stuff that you might need for space travel on the cheap. (Look it up on the Web.)

Would that that were the worst of our problems. Fact is, Mitch’s missile is a real piece of crap, not worthy of sending a payload of trailmix into space, let alone flesh-and-blood musicians such as ourselves. I have put out some inquiries about alternative transportation. Nothing yet, I’m afraid. Beginning to think we should abandon the idea of private transportation and just sign aboard one of those interstellar budget tours. You know – you take a jitney to the moon, wait there for about six days until the big Trailways spacebus shows up. You squeeze in next to a spotty couple from Boca Raton while a morbidly obese business man in a rumpled tan business suit coughs his lungs out in the seat behind you.

Yeah. Been there, done that, haven’t you? Well… haven’t we all? Anyway, I’m a little tired, frankly. Matt and I have been working at a furious pace ever since we started that pod cast. A session a week – nearly an hour and a half of music making! Yes, I know that sounds impossibly ambitious, but… we’re motivated. We’ve started about half a dozen recordings. Our plan is to do a rough initial draft of each song, play that on the podcast, then finish tracking the song and release it later as a finished number. We’re starting with Quality Lincoln, which will be featured on the next episode, due out…. in a matter of days…. right?

Right. Yeah, I’m tired. Sandman’s beating me to death. What did I ever do to him, eh?

Usual Rubbish

Cheap ride.

Well, I guess THAT didn’t work. Spectacular failure, old man. What’s next on the agenda? Setting toast on fire? Turning gold into lead? Some other feat of science?

Oh, hello. If you detect some sarcasm in my voice, it’s no accident. I’m merely ripping on Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, whose latest experiment/get weird quick scheme was an abysmal failure. Sometimes I think old Mitch is losing his touch. Sometimes I think we of Big Green should be looking around for another mad science advisor. Not to replace Mitch, you understand, but rather to keep him company in his dotage. Maybe that would give him someone to talk to about how his time travel experiment was about as amazing as someone hiding in a closet for half an hour. No, Mitch – I’m not kidding… it was just that bad. I’ve seen grade school magic tricks that put that to shame, man.

All right, maybe I’m being a bit too hard on the guy. Frankly, I’m a little miffed at him over another matter entirely. (I think the psychologists call that “transfer” … or perhaps “coconut”… one of those two.) As you know, we’ve been searching the local bulletin boards, want ads, and health food store countertop flyers for some kind of conveyance that will reliably carry us from planet to planet on Big Green’s upcoming [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011. Naturally we asked Mitch to keep his good eye – the one that doesn’t see evil things – open for anything vaguely appropriate to the task. Would that I had bitten back those words!

I am reminded of the old saw (hack saw?), “be careful what you ask for.” Nothing truer could be said of Mitch’s spacecraft search. He was gone for a couple of days this week and came back with a largish missile in tow. (No, it wasn’t a “tow missile”, dammit.) Mitch pulls up and says, in effect, “Here’s your ride.” And I’m looking at this thing, my mouth agape. Matt’s mouth was agape as well, as was John’s. (Lincoln’s was not agape, but it was open slightly.) I mean, that missile was battered, leaking, beat to hell. I think he bought it off of Col. Gaddafi, or perhaps from rogue elements of his famous “kung fu” brigade.  It looks like a freaking SCUD that someone never bothered to drain the fuel out of. And … worse yet … we’re supposed to fly to Andromeda in that bloody thing?

No way in hell, man. No way am I getting in that lousy hunk of junk. And when I say, no way, I mean only under certain limited circumstances. (Let the record show that I’m beckoning to my counsel.)

Usual Rubbish

Out of mind.

Okay, so let me get this straight. We go to court and plead our case. The judge motions to the guy in the hood, and they take us away in chains. Got it. Any other options?

Oh, hi. Yeah, we’re working with our legal advisor – a mouthpiece named Anti-Lincoln, esq. And as you can see, he’s helping us out with our recent eviction notice. Not the first time, you understand, that we’ve been asked to vacate the premises. More than once the folks down at city hall have reminded us that this building is SUPPOSED to be vacant. Seems a waste to us, but what do we know? The abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill is abandoned for a reason, even if we don’t know what that reason is. Freaks! They didn’t even sweeten the deal with a grace period; just “Out, already!”

I know what you’re probably saying right now. You’re saying, “That Big Green,” says you, “they are totally out of their tiny minds.” And that’s where you make the big mistake: referring to our tiny minds as more than one thing. In actuality, together our brains make up one mind. That’s why we know what the other person is going to do wrong before he goes and does it wrong. We are the collective mind of Big Green. Or at least that’s what I tell the tax assessor when she comes a-knocking. Try it sometime – it totally freaks them out.

Trouble is, we are also a collective wallet. And if I were to choose with whom to share a wallet, it would not be this troop of losers and miscreants. God knows, every time I get my hands on some legal tender it evaporates into thin air, snatched up by the claw of a Marvin (my personal robot assistant) or the twig of a man-sized tuber or the spotted hand of a man named Lincoln. It’s a kleptocracy here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, or at least effectively so. No one subscribes to the notion of private property. I’m surrounded by collectivists! What’s mine is mine, what’s yours is mine – that’s their motto. And me, a mere anarcho-syndicalist. What defense hath the likes of I?

Okay, well…. I’ve run off at the mouth a bit, not even getting around to mention Big Green’s upcoming [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011. Some publicist I turned out to be. Got to stop typing so I can motion to my counsel.