Tag Archives: Put The Phone Down

Podcast

THIS IS BIG GREEN: February 2018

Audio

Big Green vaults forward into the new year a month late with a new episode of Ned Trek, plus five Big Green songs, some verbal exchanges between brothers, and more sloppy impromptu performances. Avaunt!

This is Big Green – February 2018. Features: 1) Ned Trek 36: Grope in the Fold; 2) Put the phone down: Talk of dramatic courtroom drama; 3) Home of Wedding and big party Kielbasa; 4) Song: Two Lines, by Big Green; 5) Backstage fisticuffs with BJCB; 6) Tim Walsh’s guitar style; 7) Song: Silent as a Stone, by Big Green; 8) Song: It Should’ve Been Me, by Big Green; 9) Song: Don’t Tell Rick, by Big Green; 10) News from the farm; 11) Song: Slipping and Sliding, performed by Big Green; 12) Time to go.

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Usual Rubbish

Inside November. (Again.)

Man, is that the wind? Sounds like a freaking freight train. There goes the good weather. It was a nice couple of days, but hey …. all good things must end. (Hey Marvin … got any more platitudes I can borrow? Thanks, man.)

Well, it’s November in upstate New York. Things start slowing down a little bit around these parts. That’s partly why we had time to finish another episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN and post it this past week. Haven’t heard it yet? Well, this is what you have to look forward to:

Ned Trek 34 – Shitty and a Bit of a Stretch. Another Ned Trek non-musical episode, this one loosely based on the classic Star Trek script “City on the Edge of Forever,” originally written by famed sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison. Captain Willard, Mr. Ned, Mr. Perle, and the Nixon android all leap into Earth’s history in an attempt to stop a crazed Doc Coburn from changing the past and foreclosing on the future. Will they succeed? Well … robo Nixon does start a home for wayward clowns. That could make all the difference.

Put The Phone Down. Matt and I go into a wide-ranging discussion about Nixon’s happiest days, Seb Gorka’s descent back into internet racist rants, our somewhat spotty memories of the 1970s Eric Idle / Neil Innes parody of Beatle history called The Rutles, a look inside how Matt works on stuff, and a review of the television we used to watch with our parents back in the 1960s and 70s. Some impromptu singing and swanning about on various instruments.

Posted!Christmas Songs. We did a short block of Big Green Christmas songs by way of a little preview of the holidays to come. These include:

  • Christmas Green, a Willard song from one of our early Ned Trek episodes;
  • Jit Jaguar’s Christmas, a relatively recent recording of a quirky, older number we’ve played on the podcast before;
  • Horrible People, a Ned song from a few years ago, featuring the ubiquitous 40s guys on backup vocals;
  • Christmas Presence, a recent re-recording of one of Matt’s several takes on A Christmas Carol (this song appeared on his amazing 1994 Christmas cassette collection);
  • Make that Christmas Shine, another Willard song from that early Ned Trek Christmas special (the one with Santorum’s Christmas planet).

That’s about it for November. We have some more new stuff coming for the Holiday show, which will appear sometime around the holidays (hopefully).

Usual Rubbish

Inside November.

Drat. Scuttled by a solar flare. That was a serious oversight on the part of that person we put in charge of planning our interstellar tour. Who was that again? Let’s see …. oh, right. It was me. Well … no ice cream for me tonight.

Okay, well … looks like we’re having the interstellar version of a rainy-day schedule today, but instead of coloring books and tunafish sandwiches, let’s break open the November episode of our THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast and see what’s crawling around inside.

Ned Trek 30: “The Deadly Queers”. This thirtieth episode of our Star Trek parody is based on the classic episode “The Deadly Years“, in which the Enterprise command crew is affected by radiation that quickly turns them all into raving geezers. In our version, radiation causes the Free Enterprise crew to become progressively more gay – a fate worse than death for our hyper-conservative, free market, confederate flag-waving heroes. There’s a lot of tasteless swanning about and gay sex references that none of us are proud of, but hey …. satire. Extra special appearances by Senators Lindsay Graham, Roy (aka “Roy-toy”) Blunt, and Bernie Sanders.

Songs: Embedded in Ned Trek 30 are seven new Big Green songs. These, as always, are rough mixes of recordings that will, in some version, appear on a future album or albums yet to be determined. Here’s what we’ve got:

Tinkerbell Neocon – Medium tempo guitar-driven rock duet sung by Perle and Doc Coburn. This one gets stuck in my head, quite frankly, so beware!

Seven songs?Fairy Dust – Another dirge by Sulu (the one original cast member that is somehow part of this “next degeneration” version of Star Trek). Very moody little number.

Oklahoma Mo – A slightly gay Doc Coburn nod to his cow town oil-patch upbringing.

Space Fandango – Romney song that should have been a tango (and may still be one day), all about Stephanie O (the captain’s Don Ho). Ummm … hilarious.

Let Me Go – The android Nixon does this over-the-top sixties rock ballad about needing to go to the can. I don’t think we’re breaking new ground here, but it’s certainly the first song I’ve ever done that places having to take a piss in the context of mid 20th century presidential history.

Potato Salad – Ned song with kind of a sixties vibe. No, it doesn’t make any sense, even in the context of this ridiculous and borderline offensive episode of Ned Trek, but here it is anyhow.

Spanking Machine – Pop song, sung by Willard, that harkens back to his boarding school days.

Put The Phone Down: Matt and I kvetch about the Trump election, rail at a useless media and an even more useless Democratic party, and look ahead in dread at what outrages lie before us. Laugh a minute.