Tag Archives: Songs in the Key of Rick

Usual Rubbish

Inside October.

I think time may be stretching, or rather, elongating. I don’t know the correct term – get a physicist on the phone. Or call our mad science adviser Mitch Macaphee – he may have the answer. All I know is that July turned into August, September turned into October, and so on. I can feel the holidays crawling up my ass.

How did I end up on this crapfest?In any case, you may have noticed that the October installment of our THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast has been posted, sent out to ipods and other devices, RSS’ed around the globe, and played on somebody’s smartphone somewhere. Better late than never, I always say … but then, I am one of the people producing the podcast, so from another perspective, late may not be better than never. Be that as it may, here is a look under the hood of this latest audio crapfest:

Ned Trek 20: The Shamesters of Quadzillion. In this, the lastest episode of our ongoing bizarre-ass Star Trek parody, Captain Willard Mittilius Romney and his senior officers are captured and held prisoner on the planet Quadzillion, where they are compelled by the resident oligarchs to compete in the political media arena with other mindless also-rans. Guest stars include Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Chief Justice John Roberts, Sheldon Adelson, Charles Koch, and Foster Friess. (Classic Star Trek fan reference: Gamesters of Triskelion)

Song: The Bishop. This is a selection from our 2008 album International House. Matt wrote, arranged, and I believe even mixed this track. A mostly acoustic number with some nice-ish choral parts.

Put the Phone Down. Our conversation this month has a number of minor themes, probably the most prominent of which is a virtual visit from former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who is apparently hawking his new book so broadly it even got onto our lousy podcast. Matt excoriates me for my technical ineptitude, then talks about his encounter with Egbert Bagg. Kissinger joins us for a song.

Song: North Camp Pasture. One of my songs from our most recent album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. This one is about Rick’s hunting camp, which used to bear a remarkably offensive racist name before that became politically inconvenient for the ambitious Rick and his kin. More broadly about the legacy of racism, Jim Crow, in modern American life.

Usual Rubbish

Slumming.

Sure, it’s the middle of summer, the doldrums, as it were, and more often than not my feet are dangling off the end of a plank in the courtyard as I sit, hose in hand, splashing water on the dandelions. Hey, weeds have to drink too, you know.

Here comes another oneNot much getting done here in Big Green land. I think you’ve probably guessed as much. Personally, I think productivity is very overrated. All it means to me is more work for less compensation – how can THAT be a good thing?

Still in all, I did take the time yesterday to catalog all of the songs Matt and I (though mostly Matt) have written for our respective Ned Trek characters over the year or so since we finished Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. I have to admit to being a bit surprised … there were fully 25 songs on that list, including one or two asinine fragments. I had no freaking clue! (Of course, that’s evident to anyone who has listened to more than one or two of these Ned Trek numbers.)

I’ve got to hand it to brother Matt. Who the hell ELSE am I going to hand it to? No, really … the man is a songwriting machine. Back in the old days, say, 1980-95, he would crank songs out at an alarming rate sometimes. I reached the point in the 2000’s when I thought, with all the other stuff he has going on – his various naturalist duties, for instance, as chronicled in his very excellent blog, Tales from the Wild, that he wouldn’t find time to write songs. But what the hell – he writes them out on the trail, records them on his phone, patches them together. He’s a ma-ma-machine, I tell you!

Me, my process is the same as it’s ever been. I start singing in the shower, and when my wife comes in and hits me with a brick, I lapse into a dream state that produces, more often than not, useable song ideas. What I do from that point forward depends on how ambitious I’m feeling. Back to the doldrums … often that means, I do nothing at all.

Still, it’s a good alliance, Big Green, a creative collective that is surely not in it for the money (for there is none) or the fame (for there never was) or the glory (for there is no such thing). Just for the hell of it. Yay.

Usual Rubbish

Thin broth.

Hey, Lincoln. No, not you, Anti-Lincoln – I mean your positively-charged doppelganger. Lincoln … close that window, will you? It’s freaking freezing in this barn. I don’t care if you’re practicing your big speech to an imaginary multitude in the courtyard. Do it in front of an imaginary open window!

Big GreenYes, here we are … Big Green is once more ensconced in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in upstate New York, where the Buffalo never roamed and where peregrine falcons coexist with Web cams (no lie!). We have re-occupied our decrepit squat house, wresting it back from the yahoos that took possession of it while we were out on our multi-planet tour in support of Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. A triumphant return … not.  We’ve had better tours, to be sure. (And better interstellar tour buses. That recycled rocket was a real rattle trap from start to finish.)

How did we convince the Cliven Bundy wanna-be’s to lay down their weapons and let us back into our abandoned mill? The same method we always use: soup to nuts, my friends, soup to nuts. We had Marvin (my personal robot assistant) cook up a crock of Servin' it up at the mill.his signature turnip and spare-tire consumme – a staple on our interstellar extended tours – and we offered it to the nuts occupying our adopted home. They couldn’t resist, flocking out to the courtyard to partake of that rare delicacy. While those hayseeds were choking it down, we slipped passed them and locked the front door behind us.

Sure, there was some complaining, a little KA-POW, KA-BLAM! mostly for show, but they eventually mounted their battered station wagons and rode off into the sunset. As their silhouetted figures receded from view, I meant to thank them. What for? I don’t know. Giving us a reason not to have that same soup again as our “welcome home” supper. In fact, if I NEVER taste another SPOONFUL of that BLOODY TURNIP and SPARE TIRE SOUP AGAIN, it will be MUCH … TOO … SOON!

All right, then. I feel much better now. Back to the studio.