Tag Archives: podcast

Usual Rubbish

Back to ground.

Okay, then. Is that a wrap? What? It’s already the holiday season? What happened to freaking October? Okay, then… so it’s a Christmas wrap. Satisfied?

Oh, hi. Yeah, I know. After ten weeks on the road, tempers wear a little thin. What, you got a PROBLEM with that? (Sorry. I’ll start again.) Post Thanksgiving slump. This shipboard life is not for me; nor, apparently, is it for anyone else on board. Speaking of bored … this business of bobbing around the solar system is bloody tiresome. I don’t know how sFshzenKlyrn stands it, year after year, millennium after millennium. It’s just as well that he’s a transcendental etheric life form that ignores all boundaries between space, time, and whatever. (Especially the whatever. The man simply cannot take anything seriously.)

And then there’s Marvin (my personal robot assistant). He’s bouncing around this tin can like… like a robot in a tin can. Of course, he always gets antsy this time of year, when the big robotics convention is taking place back on Earth. He is constantly checking the Web for updates, seeing if any big strides have been made. Always has to be in the vanguard, our Marvin. Get used to it, man – one day, time leaves all of us behind. It’s freaking inevitable. In fact, it’s the great hairy screaming inevitable that is our universe. Who cares if some table-top tractor can solve equations faster than you do? You still can…. well…. lift very heavy things…

And then there’s the marigolds, the marigolds. What? Sorry… there  are no marigolds. Oxygen is running a little thin in this rattletrap we call a spacecraft. We’re somewhere between Jupiter and five miles away from Jupiter, running low on fuel, supplies, and what-not. Ever run out of what-not on an interstellar voyage? You do NOT want to know how awful that can be.

So anyway… it’s back to Earth for us, or the Earth that will be left when we return – an Earth wracked by climate change, war, illness, poverty, and rapacious corporate greed. Home sweet freaking home, just in time to do our annual Christmas Special podcast. Stay tuned!

Usual Rubbish

Seasoning.

Season’s greetings to you all. And we of Big Green say hello as well, whatever the so-called “season” may have to say. (Who ever heard of a talking season?)

Just writing whilest we’re having a little Thanksgiving layover on Titan, moon of Saturn, mother of all Tofurky. (Yes, this is where it comes from.) Taking a little break from the feasting, conversing, and pontificating (Anti-Lincoln is back on his Mexican-American War soapbox again), so this is a good time to open the mail, it seems. Most of our inquiries appear to be about our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, so let’s start with this:

Dear Big Green:

On your podcast, I heard you read a bogus letter asking why so many of your songs are about war. You, of course, never answered the question to anyone’s satisfaction. I now challenge you to do this thing. What is with the war kick?

Sincerely,

Gen. Douglas MacArthur (deceased)

Well, General – thanks for listening to our podcast, first of all. Why do we write about war? I don’t know. Why do we write about Christmas? Sure, we’re not soldiers, but then we’re not practicing Christians, so neither makes sense. I guess you could say we’re just ranging around for material, grabbing anything that doesn’t run away screaming. (And some things that do.) Sometimes we ask Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to name themes for us using his autonomic radomizer. We’re that desperate, dude.

Here’s another:

Dear Big Green:

I’ve listened to your previously unreleased songs. They sound, well, half-baked. Is that intentional, or are you just too damn lazy to finish them?

Best,

Phil Specter (deceased)

Hey, Phil – it’s a fair question. Yeah, the previously unreleased songs on the podcast are, in fact, literally half-baked. They are first drafts, if you will (or even if you won’t), of recordings for our next collection of material. We’re planning to track the better ones and release them under separate cover. These initial recordings are basically Matt and I playing the songs like we do as a two-man band, with a basic rhythm track, guitar, keys, vocals. That’s it. No wall of sound yet. We’re working on the sheet rock right now, man. Patience!

Whoa, is that the time? Back to the Tofurky fest for me. Cheers.

Usual Rubbish

Over the river (of nitrogen)

A little colder than I expected for this time of year. Minus 254 degrees Kelvin. Crikey – better put on another pair of socks.

Yes, friends – Big Green is spending another traditional family holiday a long, long way from home. It’s Thanksgiving on Neptune, and I have to say, this holiday doesn’t mean much to folks up here. The casinos are filled with punters, and I don’t think they’re shipping them in from Saturn. It’s just another day to these creatures. And as we enter the final (turkey) leg of our [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011, we have another succession of bizarre events to greet us. Here is the week that was:

11.14.2011 – Took up residence in the Neptune Hyatt resort. A bit seedy if you ask me. I think they stole the name, actually – everything’s bootlegged up here. Even our albums. Hell, we’re giving them away on Neptune and they still bootleg them. I think it’s for the sheer joy of doing it. There is, I imagine, a certain satisfaction in sticking it to the man. My only question is… when did we become “the man”?

11.15.2011 – Hit the stage at 0400 hours Neptune time. Gravity was a little uneven this afternoon. Little known fact about the Neptunians – they’ve discovered the secret to gravitational force. Their scientists have been messing with it for years now, and I have to say that the results appear mixed at best. As far as anyone can tell, they’ve only managed to make gravity more like the weather. So our feet left the stage as we ran through “Just Five Seconds” and “I Hate Your Face”, but it wasn’t from exhilaration. Damned scientists!

11.17.2011 – With the holiday season approaching, it seems like a good time to get some shopping done out here in the outer solar system, where most of the big outlet stores are located these days. (Ever wonder what happened to STARS? You guessed it.) So we took the day off, rummaging through bins, riding escalators, hiring forklifts to check out what that big box on the top shelf might contain, etc.  Marvin (my personal robot assistant) set his sensors to savings.  Just like the old days, Steve. (Steve? I must be running low on oxygen.)

Took a little time out to post Episode 4 of our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, featuring rambling conversation with Matt Perry, another song from cousin Rick, an explanation of Grandfather’s War, a “first draft” new recording of I Hate Your Face with accompanying commentary, and other unexplainable phenomena.  Let us know what you think. We’ll be finishing our shopping.