Tag Archives: podcast

Usual Rubbish

Anudder home.

Where did I put my html tags? I thought I packed them with my socks, but they don’t appear to be in there. WFT, man…. getting a new home is always such a pain.

No, friends. We have not abandoned the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. That would be something you might expect from the department of redundancy department (of redundancy). We have, however, abandoned our old web site and moved into a new one, designed by, I don’t know, professional web designers… as opposed to my sorry ass, who threw together our last site with Front Page and some tweezers … not to mention some cracked old photo manipulation software. Yeah, that’s right. Do I have to draw you a picture? (Actually… that would have been better than what came out of that software.)

Anywho… out with the old, in with the new. We’ve been using WordPress for Hammermill Days (and, earlier, Notes from Sri Lanka) for over five years, and so we thought, hey, why not build the whole freaking site using the same software? It actually works, you can edit it from anywhere using a Web browser…. How easy is that? Too easy! That’s what Mitch Macaphee says. Being a mad scientist, he thinks things should be hard … at least as hard as building Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was. Sure, he built Marvin out of spare parts and bric-a-brac he had lying about his lab, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. Building a sentient being never is, my friends.

Now, the cynical and suspicious-minded amongst you (and you all know who you are) will imagine that this web site face lift is all about our supreme ambition to become special assistants to inevitable president-elect and future king of the moon Newt Gingrich; that we somehow abandoned and discarded our illin’, aging old web site for a shiny, sexy younger one, like … well, like … something some politician did once. That is a dirty lie. Fact is, we have already been invited by Newt Gingrich – future president and current Lincoln in his own mind – to advise him on interplanetary relations including, most specifically, his plans for our nearest neighbor in space. In point of fact, we will be a bit like the late Richard Holbrook, who was given the Af-Pak portfolio. (We will be in charge of the Moon, Mars, and Saturn, so it might be called the LunaMaSa portfolio, in media culture shorthand-speak.)

So anyway… welcome to Big Green’s new home on the Web. Take a look around. Kick the tires. Leave comments. Move in to one of the pages and order expensive dinners. Glad to have yuh.  

 

Usual Rubbish

Poditis.

Hey, turn off the water when you’re done in there, okay? Hello? Mitch, is that you? Matt? Lincoln? Where the hell is everybody?

Oh, right…. they’ve gone to a clambake. Or so they said, anyway. I think they just want to get the hell out of this drafty old Hammer Mill, and who can blame them? Not I, my friends. Still … someone has to mind the store. Perhaps you suppose that Marvin (my personal robot assistant) could handle such a simple task as guarding the mill, but no… much too complicated for his tiny mind. No, it takes real intellect, acumen, and chutzpah to keep this abandoned mill running up to par. And it there’s one man under this roof who can…. hey … did I leave the front door open? MARVIN?!

Okay, well… we all need help, right? That’s what bands are all about. Otherwise hapless musicians, huddling together to ward off the elements, keeping the home fires burning. Personally, I think they’re all irked at me for being such a jerk during our last podcast. (Matt was being a jerk, too, but he’s probably joining them in their shunning of me just to be ironic. Freaking hipsters!) The reason I think that is, well, we did act like jerks. That’s what people expect, okay? Here’s some of what they’re probably complaining about in the March episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN:

Derisive Tributes – As we often do when a prominent primate passes away, we paid tribute to Davy Jones of the Monkees and Andrew Breitbart of the Internets and, well, we were perhaps a little less than sufficiently pious. As Matt said, I went so far as to turn it into a “big joke”. Like making repeated mention of rejected would-be Monkees Charles Manson and Steven Stills. Stop using words that hurt! Listen for yourself, reader, and judge.

Questionable Remembrances – At least one anecdote was shared – I won’t say by whom (Matt) – about someone being arrested at a Jethro Tull concert in 1979. That could have been anybody, right? But then we had to go and talk about Matt’s dentist and how she shares a name with an infamous character from classic Star Trek. That got us into quoting lines from the show and, well…. all the evil that proceeds from that.

Looney Music – The Cousin Rick Perry songs, all first drafts, were a little weirder than usual this time around, with a kind of seventies lounge pop number, a shanty like diddy, and robot rock about Romney and Santorum. Add that to some pretty awful banjo and kazoo improvisation, and you’ve got yourself a podcast.

So…. as I said, friends, listen and judge. Personally, I think my Mill-mates all have poditis. That’s probably because they had to listen to the freaking thing while we were recording it and about five times thereafter. Who can blame them?

Usual Rubbish

Lunar new year.

Hey, what the…? Did I sign off on that? Are you sure? Well, I guess you would know better than I. Wouldn’t you? RRRrrrrr….

Face it, we’ve got bad quality control here at the Cheney Hammer Mill. Was a time that not a single hammer went out of here with unsightly flashing or a splinter out of place in their ironwood handles. Not so with Big Green, it pains me to say. We are not perfect – ADMIT IT TO YOURSELF. It’s just because we’ve got irons in so many fires. Too many spoons in the stew. Eleven toes on each foot. I don’t know – you pick the metaphor. I’ve got work to do.

Nah, see… Marvin (my personal robot assistant) posted our March episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN, our podcast, before I had had a chance to listen to it. We could be saying ANYTHING, for chrissake. If we had reputations or integrity, we could lose either (or both). There are some advantages to general slovenliness and moral degeneration, but I’ve only just thought of one of them, so…. there can’t be too many. Anyway, it’s out there, warts and all – another wide ranging discussion between Matt and I, discussing everything from the death of Davy Jones and Andrew Breitbart, to Star Trek mythology, to things too obscure to describe in print. Freakish, that’s all I can say. Plus three more songs from Rick Perry – a 70s-pop lament tentatively called “Rick: The Searchable Name”; a doggerel called “Really Rick Perry”, and a primitive rock number entitled, simply, “Santorum”.

Okay, well … that’s done. Now, to our new commission – that of spearheading the efforts of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in his efforts to conquer and rule the moon. He got our names from George W. Bush, no doubt. We have been in the dubya rolodex ever since he went on tour with us back in 2000, which led to our taking on an advisory position in the early (pre-9/11) Bush White House. (We were in charge of his Space Commission, based on our long history in…. well…. space.) Hey… nothing succeeds like success. Except perhaps failure, in our case. Anywho, the first thing Newt has asked us to do – aside from grease the diplomatic wheels with any people found on the moon – is to write a national anthem for our nearest neighbor in space. One that duly celebrates his initiative, his genius, and (he also says) his modesty.

So, well…. Matt and I have to get to work on this. Perhaps John can work up some pedal steel parts. We’ve got stuff to do, Marvin – don’t bother me with trifles! (Unless they’re the tasty dessert kind.)