I’m not sure about that, Matt. I don’t know if I want to play that song. How about “Dinos”? No? Are you sure? Okay… you suggest one. “World of Satisfaction”? Naaaah.
Oh, hello. Didn’t notice you peering through that LCD screen. As you can see, we’re working on a set list for our first engagement on Big Green’s [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011. No, that’s not a place keeper – that’s the name Tiny Montgomery suggested last week, and none of us has come up with anything better (let alone tried to, you know, insert the name). It’s always kind of a back and forth on the set lists – that’s only natural when you have hundreds of songs. Yes, literally hundreds… all wrapped up in a little box. We take turns, reaching a hand into the box. I’ll read one song title and Matt will knock it down. Then he grabs one and reads it. I’ll say he’s an asshole. Then he throws the box at me. And I’ll yell, “MOM! HE’S DOIN’ IT AGAIN!” And then we’re BOTH in trouble.
Okay, so that’s freaking childish, I know. But not to worry – we always come up with set lists in the end. 
Then we freaking ignore then, nine times out of ten. No, we’re not affecting an artistic temperament. It’s just that, frankly, it gets kind of dark on the stages we play on, and those lists are just plain hard to read. So we start calling tunes. If we call the same tune twice in a single night, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) issues a loud beeping sound. Chances are we will remember what that’s supposed to mean and withdraw the selection. Hey…. everybody has their process. Ours is surely no less sound than the one used by, say, My Morning Jacket. (I can’t say, because I don’t know what they do. I’m just picking examples at random – don’t listen to me.)
I’m just noticing how often I use the epithet “freaking”. You all know what I mean. In any case, preparing for an arduous interstellar tour is no picnic, as many of you know. There are songs to rehearse, air tanks to compress, space suits to air out, missiles to hire, maps to download – no end to the punch list. (It’s actually more like a punch and kick list.) Not getting a lot of help, either. Both Lincolns are dead to the world after a night of carousing. The mansized tuber is out in the garden, communing with his little herb-garden cousins. Mitch Macaphee has taken the next two weeks off to attend a mad science conference in Brazil. I feel like the prisoner of freaking Zenda. (There’s that epithet again!)
Not to worry. We’ve been down this bumpy road before, and it’s always come out…. well … bumpy. So be it.
Well, summer is upon us, friends. No, not summer by the calendar, but rather summer by the sweat of the brow. Or so it goes in the northern climes of the northern hemisphere, on that land mass known as “North America”, just below the mighty lake Ontario, maker of much snow in the darker months – a kind of ice goddess, if you will. (Hell, even if you won’t.) It doesn’t take much to raise the temperature in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill – all that brick, you know, baking in the direct sunlight, no trees to protect us. It’s like spending a night in the box. Sure wish you stop trying to help me, Captain.
Just keeping it real here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, as you might expect. During these hard times, it’s the same story everywhere, right? Making the ends meet in the middle. We’ve got the ends, but frankly… no middle. And if the ends justify the means, which they almost NEVER do, well then… um…. okay, I lost my train of thought. But no matter. We are doing what we do, and being what we be. That’s what Big Green is all about. That’s why we’re aboard her. RISK… RISK IS OUR BUSINESS. (Oh, Jesus… now I’m quoting Star Trek lines. Someone call the doctor! And make sure he IS a doctor, and not a mechanic. D’oh!)
very afraid of robots.] Actually, Marvin has decided to hang up the bomb-sniffing robot gig, which is just as well. I think he’s focusing more on show business now. I saw him trying a “Renegade Robot from Mars” outfit on the other day. (Circus is in town, I hear.)