Tag Archives: summer

Summer projects.

2000 Years to Christmas

Gardening? God, no. I don’t know the first thing about it. And no, I’m not going to build you another gazebo. The first one burned down, fell over, and was washed into the sewer. Not doing that again, dude.

Yeah, I know – it’s not quite summer yet. Still, we’re trying to get our summer projects all lined up … mostly because there’s very little else to do around the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, particularly during this COVID-19 isolation time. Nothing happening, so we make lists of things that might happen. That makes sense, right? Anyway, I don’t think I have to tell you what Matt’s summer project is. Here’s a hint: it starts with an F and ends with an “alcon”. It flies around and lives on the side of tall buildings. It … oh, damn it, see for yourself! (Utica Falcon Project site) THAT’S my brother’s summer, people, and good on him.

The rest of us, well … mostly at loose ends. Antimatter Lincoln is dreaming of his revenge, though the dream is a bit murky, as I still don’t know who he wants revenge against. (He just says he swore he’d “keel” him, whatever that means. Some nautical reference, perhaps.) Mitch Macaphee plans to spend the summer packing up all of his experiments on Proxima B, now that it’s been discovered by non-evil Earth scientists. He was hoping to keep this big, rocky Earth-like planet under wraps, I think. Seriously, the dude would steal the Moon if he thought he could get away with it. (Actually, he claims to steal it every month, bit by bit, until it’s completely gone. Cute trick.)

Is this Proxima b or Proxima c? I always get them mixed up.

What about Marvin (my personal robot assistant)? Funny you should ask. You see, Marvin is an automaton, a service cyborg. He has no agency, you see. You simply program Marvin to do a certain thing, and off he goes. Sometimes, yes, he gets it wrong. (Actually, the “sometimes” is more indicative of how often he gets things right, but that’s another story.) If we programmed him to ride in circles all summer, that’s what he would do … though he wouldn’t be at all pleased. And me? I’m trying to resist gravity, but not so hard as to fly off into space. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) I’m also recording some older songs that never got onto any of our projects. We’ll see how it goes at the end of the summer – if they don’t suck, I’ll post them. If they suck …. yeah, I’ll probably post them anyway. You guys know me better than I know myself.

So, recording, archiving, bird-watching, revenge … we’ve got it all here at the hammer mill. This is going to be some summer.

Project zero.

Someone’s knocking at the front gate – I can hear them. Anti Lincoln, can you see who it is? No, of course you can’t see them from down here in the basement. I meant go up stairs and take a look. Jesus …. how did you EVER serve as president? (Actually, I think I may now know the answer.)

Well, I spent this week counting the number of balls I’ve dropped since the start of the summer. And I don’t mean ping pong balls. No, I’m talking about projects started and never finished, plans laid but not implemented, sandwiches assembled but not eaten, sentences commenced but never …. what was I saying? Oh yeah. I never finish anything, and this summer is no exception, folks.

First there was the archive project. I will admit, I did get further on this one than any of the others. I’ve resurrected about 200 songs, by my rough count, all recorded in the eighties and early to mid nineties. I have the files … I haven’t done anything with them, but I HAVE them. And possession is nine tenths of the law. It’s also about ten tenths of this project. No, I haven’t abandoned it, but I did need a break from archive land, just as Matt has needed some extra time to go chasing falcons around (see the Utica Peregrine Falcon project site at http://www.big-green.net/falcon).

Think you can shake a tambourine?Then there’s the interstellar tour idea we were kicking around. What happened to that? Well, apparently someone kicked it into next week, figuratively speaking. I’m not ruling it out, but no one aside from Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and his inventor, our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee has any inclination towards doing the fucker. And frankly, neither one of them can play an instrument (though Mitch can use instruments in his work … and Marvin sometimes makes a noise like a fire whistle). That’s not the kind of band I can bring to Neptune! Those crystalline ice creatures would laugh us out of orbit, and THEN where would we be.

Okay, so archives all but abandoned, check. Tour forgotten, check. What’s left? Project zero? Let’s get to work then. But first … answer the freaking door!

Summer’s end.

Here comes the sun … and there it goes, right over the back of the mill. Must be autumn. This place is like freaking Stonehenge – you can set your watch to the movement of the shadows.

Well, the season passing doesn’t mean much around here. I’ll be honest: we of Big Green never went in for summer activities in a big way, so the warm months are just about keeping out of the sun and wearing open newspapers on your head like a tent. Unless you’re Matt, of course, who wears a hat and spends half of his life out amongst the wild critters, rain or shine, snow or hail, you name it. The rest of us? We all busy ourselves with indoor activities, like bending pretzels and juggling priceless objets d’art. (That last one we don’t do a real lot. Like, well … never.)

It’s hard to keep track of what our entourage is doing in any given season. Some are more active than others. Anti-Lincoln, for instance, had and idea for a discount retail business. He was going to plant it right next door to Dollar General and call the store Quarter Colonel. His business plan was to undercut the competition – everything in Dollar General is a buck; everything in Quarter Colonel would be a quarter. The cash registers were ringing in his Four score and seven blue light specials agohead like the bells of St. Mary. I know Lincoln had a reputation, perhaps apocryphal, of being a humble, frugal man of simple tastes, so true to form, his anti-matter self is the exact opposite. He’s going to OWN north central Little Falls, NY …. OWN IT!

Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has been busy these waning weeks of summer. He’s mostly been checking his way through my to-do list. Hey … don’t look at me like that. What would YOU do if YOU had a personal robot assistant? At least I’m not sending him out to some local small business to earn money for my ass. Though he was working for a time at a five and dime. (His boss was Mr. Magee). I don’t think I have to tell you how that turned out.

So, bring on the fall, people. We’ve got a pack of songs ready to record. Let’s track this mother! Ya-ho, ta-ho.