Tag Archives: podcast

Usual Rubbish

Refried show.

Hey, Matt .. what was that joke about the wooden balls again? Oh, right. Nah … it doesn’t work very well without the visual. Scratch that.

Oh, hello. We are, of course, working on the next installment of our podcast. It’s like the freaking Forbin Project, for chrissake. Takes us months to write the sucker, record it, edit it, compose and record songs, cut it all together, upload it, then collapse in a heap. (That last part actually happens kind of quickly.) Sometimes you want to just shout, “Enough!”, throw up your hands and walk away. Mic drop! But no, my friends, no … the show must go on.

That said, well … it HAS been kind of a long time. So we dropped another installment of our Ned Trek podcast – that’s the show that is just Ned Trek and no random jabbering between me and my brother. This month’s installment is extracted from one of last year’s THIS IS BIG GREEN episodes, Ned Trek 23: Mitt’s Brain. Based on the Spock’s Brain episode of classic Star Trek, it’s full of ridiculous plot departures and snarky portrayals of neocon freak bastards. Just the kind of thing you’ve come to expect from a Big Green podcast. On top of all that, there are 6 original Big Green songs in the mix, not available in Och, these cumberbunds are a wee bit tight.stores or on any album (yet). I could tell you what time code numbers they appear at in the show, but then you would just skip the whole play or simply laugh at my presumption, so I’ll forgo that.

The songs are, well, some of my favorites from the last year or so. I’d say number one in my book is “Two Lines”, a song sung by Lt. Sulu describing his artistic angst over being limited to two-line speeches throughout the entire three-year run of classic Star Trek. The chorus commandeers some of these two-line speeches to communicate Sulu’s despair:

Captain, the controls are frozen
the helm won’t respond; we’re being pulled inside
Aye, aye, my career is broken
like a giant hand has me in its hold
Captain, the controls are frozen
manual override is completely out
Aye, sir, I’ve been trying
but my shields are down and I cannot last

Then there’s a song about a yellow submarine. Actually not – there is one Pearle song called “Send in Some Advisers” which, well … the name pretty much says it. Anywho, the show it totally refried, so enjoy it … a second time.

Usual Rubbish

Six or seven. (Eight?)

Jesus Christ on a bike. I told you this hard drive was full. And now there’s smoke emanating from the processor. Can’t understand it. It’s a 486, isn’t it? Sure, hot damn. Fast as one of those new-fangled horseless carriages.

Oh, hello. Just grappling with some minor technical difficulties. You know, little stuff like gear that was obsolete in the last century, now over-burdened with production content, bowing deeply under the weight of yet another project, bursting at the seams. Just the kind of thing we’re likely to run into here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, Big Green’s adopted squat house. Things can always be worse. We could have opted to do something else with this space, like start a church or something, but that doesn’t always turn out that well. (See Word of Life Church, Chadwicks, NY … up the road a piece.) Music it is.

Sure, I know … it’s been three years since the release of our last album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. And while we haven’t completed a new album, we have recorded the equivalent of about three albums worth of new material over these last few years. It’s all stuff cut into our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, so you may have heard it (or not). Bunch of songs, some of them sung by a pantomime horse. Who wouldn’t want to listen to that? So there’s little doubt in my mind that at some point we will package some or all of Eight songs? Really??these into an album of sorts and toss it out on the street for passers-by to happen upon and drop into their MP3 players.

Now you may ask, what kind of an economic model is that? Well, friends – we are a creative collective, built on an anarcho-syndicalist theoretical foundation, but with neo-socialist flavor notes that put us more into the worker-owned enterprise category. At least that’s how I describe it while hopping around on one foot. (I do that when someone is shooting at me for talking like a goddamn commie. This IS upstate New York, after all.) We’re giving a whole new meaning to “dance band”: We hit the first chord, and Yosemite Sam pulls his six-gun out and shouts “Dance, varmint!”

So, yes … we will assemble a new album by and by, assuming I can find a big enough technological bucket to carry it around in. Stay tuned!

Usual Rubbish

Inside the February podcast.

Rain, snow, freeze, thaw … this freaking winter is a climatic yo-yo, full stop. The walls of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill are buckling under the strain of expanding and contracting water. Fun fact: water gets fatter when it freezes. Maybe it needs to add a few extra layers to keep warm – I don’t know. What the hell am I, a hydrologist? (The only genuine hydrologist I ever knew talked like Elmer Fudd. Think about THAT for a minute.)

Okay, so I’m wrapped in some old burlap, sitting in a distressed easy (or not-so-easy) chair, trying to weather the … well … weather against which the crumbling masonry of the mill offers little resistance. Sounds like a good time to give you folks a rundown on our recently-posted February installment of THIS IS BIG GREEN, our podcast. Imagine me opening the front cover of a well-worn volume, illuminated by the warm glow of a nearby fireplace … ahem …

Ned Trek 27 – Who Mourns for Science? – Goodness me, is it 27 episodes already? (Matt will remind me at this point that the first few were test shots; blanks, essentially.) This installment is based on the classic Star Trek 2nd season episode, Who Mourns for Adonis? Instead of the Greek god Apollo, however, the Free Enterprise crew are taken captive by a reanimated Carl Sagan, who compels them to sit through general science lectures. Chaos ensues, as it always does. (Sometimes it sues, too … chaos is very litigious.) Special guest appearance by the ghost of Strom Thurmond, who talks a distressed Doc Coburn into remaining on the show for the sake of all of those crackers out there (an ironic twist on Dr. King’s reported efforts to encourage Nichelle Nichols to continue in her role as Lt. Uhura). Episode is introduced by Clinton adviser Dr. Henry Kissinger.

Howdy, kids!Put The Phone Down – Matt and I start out with a song about a leprechaun, then go south from there, believe it or not. We talk about Scalia, song poem anthologies, and Matt’s experiences in the field.

Song: Kublai Khan – A Matt number from back in the day, re-recorded a couple of years ago. I leave it to him to explain the lyric, though if you listen carefully you will notice some allusions to the creation myth of Reverend Moon.

Song: Quality Lincoln – Our Lincoln suite, this version of which was recorded specifically for the podcast back in 2011. Still half-baked, but a fair representation of this collaborative effort between my brother and me.

Song: All I Want (live version) – This is another Matt/Joe collaboration from decades ago. This version was rendered in impromptu fashion as we recorded our “Put The Phone Down” conversation. The song loosely follows the ego-tale of Sylvester Stallone in Rambo, his insane shoot-up-Vietnam movie – here’s a sample lyric:

With three arrows strapped to my back,
I’ll defeat their combined armed forces
And with those same three arrows I’ll save those guys
And bring them back in movies
Then I’ll make those commies sift through their bones
And send back all the white ones
All I want is what they want
I want everyone to love me

Anyway, that’s February. Now let’s learn about wunoff. I mean, runoff.