Tag Archives: This Is Big Green

Usual Rubbish

Bloody script.

Where are my thumbs? Without my thumbs, I can’t type. Or at the very least, make spaces between what I type. Wait … did I say that? Is someone speaking?

You can start pulling your weight any time.Sorry. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m hip deep in finishing the script for our next episode of Ned Trek, as featured on the THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast. And though I write for a living, writing has always been a teeth-pulling process for me, resulting in sleepless nights, even more sleepless days, and other trepidations too numerous to … to enumerate. Am I making sense? (Possibly not.)

I know what you’re going to say. (Either that or lack of sleep is causing me to hear voices in my head.) Why the hell am I concentrating on a script for a stupid, knock-off podcast horse ballad instead of spending my time working on new songs, producing an album, preparing for another interstellar tour, etc.? My response? Meh. No man can say. I do it because I do it. And because Matt tells me to, which should be enough for anyone. (Or not.)

I would parcel this work out to Marvin (my personal robot assistant), but he really does not have any thumbs, so typing is merely an impossibility for him. Otherwise, he is amply qualified to churn out the kind of poorly constructed melodrama / farce you have come to expect from yours truly. Maybe I ask to little of him. Maybe I shouldn’t let him hang about all day, talking to the electronic stapler, getting machine oil on my vegetables, and so on. Maybe it’s just time he PULLED HIS WEIGHT AROUND HERE. (This is how we communicate with one another. It’s cheaper than texting.)

Anyhow, I expect I’ll see Matt for another recording session this week, then return to my keyboard for another tortuous night of scriptwriting. Oh, the pain of creation! Where is my bourbon, my absinthe, my pain killers, my … I don’t know. I like cat videos. WHERE ARE MY CAT VIDEOS?

Usual Rubbish

Plan ahead.

Is that where I left it? Oh, Jesus. Well … I’ll have to pick up another one, then. It’ll be long gone by now. Bloody inconvenient.

Work harder, not smokier.Oh, hi. Yep, I left my hand-carved walking stick at the bakery again. Second time this month. Last time, some old guy walked off with it … and yes, he was older than ME. Not exactly an heirloom, you understand. It’s actually just a branch that fell off the poplar tree in back of the Cheney Hammer Mill, by the canal. I cut some bits off of it, peeled back some of the bark, and voila! Cheap crutch.

Not that I need a walking stick. Fact is, I’ve been trying to stay close to the Mill as we plan our next interstellar tour. Nothing particularly ambitious, you understand – just a couple of the major star clusters, maybe a jaunt out to Aldebaran. (Matt’s not real crazy about that last one. The gravity’s a little strong for his taste.) I’ve asked Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to crunch some numbers on possible itineraries that might result in, I don’t know, a few extra shekels in our pockets. There’s some smoke coming out of his head, so he must be working on it. Good man.

Where’s the next episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN? Still in development, my friend. These things take time, particularly when you’ve got as full a plate like yours truly. Suffice to say that I am straining myself to the limit simply taking these few moments to write this post. Our production manager, the mansized tuber, is literally hitting me over the head for that script. Yes, tubey – I’m working on it! (Pssst … Don’t tell him I’m not.) It should be another extravaganza, perhaps unprecedented in its sheer stupidity. But don’t take my word for it …. Take …. someone else’s. Not sure where I was going with that.

Well, better get back to work. I’m typing, Tubey! Can’t you hear me typing??!

Usual Rubbish

Rainy day schedule.

Okay, kids. Line up for lunch. No, we’re not going outside. Rainy day schedule today. Break out the coloring books and the tunafish sandwiches.

I got my process, man. Or somethin.

If you’re anything like me, that was your favorite kind of lunch hour in grade school. No going out on the playground and putting up your dukes against whatever red neck wanted a piece of you that particular day. Why the reverie? Not sure. I guess all that rain beating down on the roof of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill has made me think of some of the other sprawling, musty barns I’ve inhabited for years at a time. Other squat houses, apartments, schools, lean-to’s … hell, submarines, even. Don’t knock it! It can rain all it wants, and no leaks (unless you opt for the screen door).

What’s up this week? Just toiling away in the vineyards of Big Green-ville, scratching out weird new numbers, honking noisily into microphones, tapping away at Ned Trek scripts. Mostly just making stuff up on the fly – that’s what we’re best at. And when I say “best”, I mean “not worst”. Even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) gets into the spirit of honest creative toil once in a while, running his internal adding machine until spools of tickertape unravel from his nether regions. It’s a marvelous … or, rather, Marvin-lous sight to behold.

Some people (mostly derelicts along the curb outside the hammer mill) have asked if we’re working on a new album. I have no answer to that. Matt and I just work, and then one day maybe an album appears. It’s a kind of alchemy. I’ve described the process on this blog before, so I won’t bore you with the details of our songwriting and recording methods. Suffice to say that it looks more random that it is, and yet still, it is fundamentally random … and random-mentally fun. That latter part is what’s important.

I’ll keep you posted on our projects. Just enjoy your sandwiches … and try to color within the lines. There’s a good chap.