Tag Archives: This Is Big Green

Usual Rubbish

Where’s my show?

Okay, so … where is that script again? Not written yet? Jesus. That useless scriptwriter. Why the hell do we use him, anyway? I should just do it myself. What’s that? Oh … I am the scriptwriter this month? Right. Never mind.

Well, if you’re wondering where this month’s episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN is, um … apparently, I haven’t written it yet. Actually, in point of fact, I haven’t finished writing it yet. Why? Funny story, actually. We’ve been a little busy this past month, what with the arrival of Spring and the advent of extreme weather, out of control vulcanism, and occasional lapses in gravity. No, wait … that’s what’s happening on my favorite sci-fi show. I meant to say, with the discovery of a new element and the isolation of the Higgs … Ooops, that’s what’s happening in the physics research lab. What’s really keeping me from that script is … well …

You know what happens, right? You have something to do, and two months to do it. And you think, hell … I don’t have to start right away. I have stacks of time, right? A week passes, then two … before you know it, the deadline is looming and you’ve done NOTHING. Okay, to be fair … I shouldn’t say YOU when I mean ME. There’s no dressing it up, I’m afraid. I am a lazy freak, shiftless as the day is long. When I think of my serial failings, oooooh, it makes me so MAD!

Not how I roll.Right. Glad I got THAT out of my system. Actually, I have done a draft of the next Ned Trek episode. I’ve submitted it to my copy editor – Matt Perry. I’m HIS copy editor. We edit each other’s work, cutting bits out, adding stuff in, until we’re left with god knows what. That’s why our episodes seem kind of, well, thrown together. That’s the creative process at work, my friends. The chaos goes in before the name goes on.

Then there’s the songs that go with the show. We’re still in production, after a fashion. Our sessions are brief and frenzied, but occasionally productive. Matt yanks out a guitar and starts strumming. I pound on the piano. The wheels turn slowly, but they turn … so keep your eyes peeled.

Usual Rubbish

Dang me.

Here we are. Another late Spring arrives in the middle of freaking nowhere. Birds are singing, grass is growing, the underemployed ice cream vendor is driving a superannuated truck up your street, playing “Pop goes the weasel” (or 4 bars of it). Life is good.

I don’t know if you’ve ever lived in an abandoned Hammer Mill in upstate New York over the course of the coldest winter anybody can remember. I mean, damn! We were frozen solid, stuck in the ice for five whole months. The bill collectors had to come after us with ice picks. Visitors from Neptune had to go home half way through their stay – THAT’S how cold it was. (How cold was it? Well … )

So hey … when a little warm weather comes this way, it’s a big deal. Everyone is starting to get into their temperate habits. The mansized tuber has been arranging flower pots. Before you ask, no … he does not have a green thumb. They are both “suburban titanium”. He just plays with clay pots – stacks ’em, shuffles ’em, smashes ’em sometimes. Then there’s Marvin (my personal assistant) and his croquet set. You wouldn’t think he had the agility, but then he exclusively plays against people from the 1910s.

Marvin, croquetI saw anti-Lincoln crawling out of the local public house. At least he’s got a hobby. Fact of the matter is, I admire anti-Lincoln for having the ambition to get off of his doppelganger ass and venture out into the night. I and my fellow core Big Green members (or member) haven’t been near a nightclub in, well, years, particularly when you’re talking about terrestrial venues. No, it’s not because we are impossible to work with, or that we draw the wrong kind of crowd. That’s all true, of course, but the main reason we don’t show up in the local clubs is … well .. lack of ambition, motivation, you name it.

So, dang me. We all observe the arrival of summer in our own ways, some lamer than others.

Podcast Plug. Hey, want to hear Matt and me talk about Al Jolson? Or perhaps our most ludicrous episode of Ned Trek (our Star Trek parody) yet? Give our latest installment of THIS IS BIG GREEN, our podcast. Then tell me about it @BigGreenJoe.

Usual Rubbish

Inside April.

Jesus, that’s god-awful. Turn that shit down, man! What the hell are you listening to, anyway? Some kind of reality show reruns? Oh …. it’s our podcast. Nevermind.

Okay, so we have this podcast, see? And it kind of sucks, see? But we’re proud of it anyway, so that naturally leads me to want to tell you all about the latest episode, hot off the presses here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. Let’s take a look under the hood, shall we?

Item the First: Ned Trek XXIII – Doo-Dah Dancing – This episode of our post-modern satirical space opera (a bizarre-ass mashup of classic Star Trek, Mr. Ed, and the 2012 Presidential election) is loosely based on the 3rd season classic ST episode entitled “Turnabout Intruder”, in which Captain Kirk’s body is taken over by an ex-girlfriend/scientist – typical season 3 ridiculousness, and perhaps the most asinine episode ever. In this distorted version of that degraded reality, Captain Willard Mittilius Romney is forced to exchange consciousness with a one-time dance partner with ambitions to, dare she say it, take over the Free Enterprise and rule … the universe! Special appearances by Peter Lorre and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, among others.

That's freaking childish.Song: Aw Shoot, by Big Green – This song is from our 2013 album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. It’s a funky little number, somewhat reminiscent of the theme music from a bad 80’s foreign sci-fi film whose name I won’t mention. Scandinavian accents are kind of a giveaway.

Put the Phone Down – Matt and I discuss a range of issues touching on matters of vital importance to the future of humankind … NOT. Mostly some bad singing, talk of racist friends of the family, insults heaped upon the memory of Al Jolson, and so on.

Song: Poor Dick, by Big Green – Another selection from Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. This one tells a tale of Rick Perry taking desperate measures to save his pal Dick Cheney by procuring a replacement heart for the ailing Vice President, taking care not to pick one that pumped life-giving blood through the veins of a socialist. Rick finds the perfect donor: Breitbart! Hilarity ensues. Only song I know that uses “aveoli” in a rhyme scheme.