Tag Archives: Ned Trek

Podcast

THIS IS BIG GREEN: December 2015

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Big Green disintegrates into uncontrollable celebratory joy with a special edition of Ned Trek: A Very Neddy Christmas, four new recordings, and crackhead conversation. Fa-la-freaking-la.

This is Big Green – December 2015. Features: 1) Ned Trek 26: A Very Neddy Christmas, loosely based on Dicken’s A Christmas Carol; 2) Song: Christmas Past, by Big Green; 3) Song: McBridy, by Big Green; 4) Song: Romney in Reserve; 5) Song: 40s Guy Christmas; 6) Put the Phone Down: Everything is Peachy Fine (song for George Washington Carver); 7) Corn in my hands; 8. The Beavers’ Christmas Tree; 9) Smiling Jack Washington; 10) Cruz vs Rubio: the relative merits; 11) Secretary of State Keema; 12) We’ll have to cancel Christmas; 13) Talking entirely in quotes; 14) Time for us to go.

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Usual Rubbish

Distant demi-world.

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What the hell, Mitch. That’s just a little speck. No way that’s big enough for us to play on. No way in frozen hell.

Ned Trek, the podcast
Ned Trek, The Podcast

When astronomers stumble upon some new deep space option, like that dwarf planet recently detected some three times more distant than Pluto is to the Sun, they think, “eureka!” To us, it’s just another potential gig. We’re that proverbial hammer, always looking for a nail. Appropriate metaphor for a band that lives in an abandoned hammer mill.

I know, I know … all the planetoid-huggers out there are going to accuse Big Green of being money-hungry, selfish twits. Not true. We are crazy motherfucker selfish twits, in point of fact, and when we see another ice world out there, we can hardly wait to pile into some poorly designed space craft and slip the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of our cold hard money god. So, yeah … on second thought, I guess we are money hungry selfish twits as well. It’s the crazy motherfucker part that kept me from seeing it. (I see now … )

Nice place.How can we be sure there are music fans on XZ9-Marvin 14? (Note: Before I get flooded with angry messages from disgruntled astrophysicists who have never had an opportunity to name a planet, consider this a planetoid pseudonym just for the purposes of this conversation.) It’s what Mitch Macaphee, our mad science adviser, calls the fourth principle of astrophysical convenience: Any planet or planetoid large enough to land on has to be home to some kind of sentient life form, preferably one that speaks English. (The third principle is about breathable air.)

Now, why on earth (or in space) would we name a planetoid after Marvin (my personal robot assistant). Well, let’s just say that Marvin has been name-checked as our advance man on this endeavor. That is to say, Mitch has plans to send him up in whatever spaceship is handy and point the nosecone towards that icy little spec in deep space. Then it’s drive forward until you hit pay dirt. Or pay ice. Same thing. Marvin has done this sort of work for us before, and there’s not a thing for him to worry about … except that it’s EXTREMELY DANGEROUS and that none of us is willing to go in his stead.

Hey, what are personal robot assistants for? We’re setting him up with a fax machine so that we can get first hand accounts, retro style. Should be interesting.

Podcast

THIS IS BIG GREEN: October 2015

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Big Green welcomes another autumn with a new episode of Ned Trek, four Big Green songs, and a lot of bad imitations of famous people. This is a thing.

This is Big Green – October 2015. Features: 1) Ned Trek 25: Not the Children One, Please!; 2) Song: Johnny Got His Gun, by Big Green; 3) Put the Phone Down: Kissinger drops by; 4) Journey to See the Bottom; 5) Joe’s last communion; 6) Matt and the monkey bread;  7) Reagan’s plants and trees; 8) Song: It Should’ve Been Me, by Big Green; 9) Song: Enter the Mind, by Big Green; 10) Syria, seriously; 11) Song: Why Not Call It George? by Big Green; 12) Time for us to go.

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Usual Rubbish

Inside August (or September).

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Hey, presto. Pulled a fast one on you last week, didn’t we? Just when you least expect to see a new episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN, there it freaking is, plain as paper and twice as thick. As has been our practice, this featured another “musical” episode of our warped space opera Ned Trek, the only Star Trek parody that features an all-neocon crew, a Mormon captain, and a talking dressage horse as its first officer and moral compass.

What’s inside the podcast? Well, the best way to find out is to suffer through it. You can do it! Short of that drastic step, here’s a brief guide to August’s TIBG:

Ned Trek 24: Whom Gods Deploy – This episode of Ned Trek is loosely based on the third season classic Star Trek episode, Whom Gods Destroy, the one with Captain (a.k.a. Lord) Garth, the inmate who takes over the space insane asylum and plans on conquering the universe. In our version, the inmate is George W. Bush, former imperial president, who spends his days on an asylum planet painting abstract portraits …. works that appear to presage actual events, as if (dare I say it?) he possessed some kind of supernatural power, like the guy in The Lathe of Heaven, except more on the hayseed side. (Side note: W has a serious fear of horses, my brother tells me.)

Frankly, hard to parody.Song: Up On The Bridge – Another Sulu number, one that chronicles his career fall and rise with the ebb and flow of the Star Trek phenomenon.

Song: I Paint What I See – Ex-president George W. Bush explains the genesis of his muse and its relationship to his overall worldview.

Song: Naturally – Pearl’s song to his former boss and chief advisee; a lament about W’s sorry condition as a painter, not a war-starter. Country-fied.

Song: Stephanie’s Song – Mr. Stephanie croons about W’s fear of horses and all hooved creatures in this quirky waltz.

Song: Baby Bush – A Romney number, encouraging W. to reclaim his pedestal as The Decider. Shuffle swing number.

Song: Jesus Has a Known Mind – Doc delivers an awesome message from the lord in this rock-out number. Mean!

Song: Real Talking Horse – Ned’s song, with a strange early-sixties ending reminiscent of the Four Seasons, somehow.

Pointless Banter – This you have to hear. I can’t describe it other than to say that I probably said things I regret, but …. post!

Podcast

THIS IS BIG GREEN: August 2015

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Big Green celebrates four years of pointless podcasting with a spanking new episode of Ned Trek, seven new songs, and various exultations of joy. Four more years!

This is Big Green – August 2015. Features: 1) Ned Trek 24: Whom Gods Deploy; featuring six new Big Green songs: 2) Song: Up On The Bridge, by Big Green; 3) Song: I Paint What I See, by Big Green; 4) Song: Naturally, by Big Green; 5) Song: Stephanie’s Song, by Big Green; 6) Song: Baby Bush, by Big Green; 7) Song: Jesus Has a Known Mind, by Big Green; 8) Song: Real Talking Horse, by Big Green; 10) Put the Phone Down: Cheap Limburger blues; 11) Playground in their minds; 12) Charles Nelson Riley remembered; 13) Popeye theme; 14) Happy Anniversary singalong; 15) Looking back a bit; 16) Time to go.

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Podcast

THIS IS BIG GREEN: July 2015

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Big Green takes a pass on new production and celebrates the dog days with an encore episode of Ned Trek, rambling conversation about their next album, and random imitations of famous people. Woof.

This is Big Green – July 2015. Features: 1) Ned Trek 13: The Wrath of Carl (encore presentation); 2) Song: Savin’ Myself for America, by Big Green; 3) Put the Phone Down: Rambling discussion of what to put in our next album; 4) Time to go.

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Usual Rubbish

Losing wheels.

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Are you sure it’s July? Absolutely sure? How is that even possible? All right, Jesus. Where did the freaking Spring go? No, no … not THAT spring. I meant the SEASON spring! God almighty.

Yes, here we are … three months after posting the last episode of our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, and we’re still short of posting the next episode. Sure, it’s summer, but this is about wading in the water at the nearest beach resort. God, no! This is about the wheels coming off. This is about a leak in the hull. This is about a seized engine, smoke drifting lazily skyward from its molten husk. (Do engines have husks? Well .. ours does.) This is about production delays that are not voluntary, but ultimately necessary.

Brother Matt is our show editor. I think it’s common knowledge that he has been caught up with fledgling Peregrine Falcons for the past three months in particular. Aside from that, his computer imploded, taking many of his work files with it. Not a good circumstance, as you can well understand. I mean, think about it – how the hell are you supposed to complete a Star Trek parody like Ned Trek without the requisite ship sounds, particularly when it’s an audio podcast? The audience has few enough cues to work with, in that there are no visuals and we are lousy actors. (Though strangely that last bit doesn’t stop us from trying to get our point across.)

Sheesh. When things go wrong ... I know what some of you are probably thinking. I know because Mitch Macaphee has built a special mind-reading device that reveals the inner thoughts of anyone who so much as glances at this blog post. So … I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING … and aside from all of that stuff about Donald Trump’s white baseball cap, I totally agree with you. That said, some of you probably assume that the reason we do Ned Trek is just to provide a vehicle for distributing new songs. There’s some truth to that. We are not tremendously introspective here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, to be honest – a lot of the time, we’re just running on enzymes. Knee-jerk creatives, that’s us.

So hey … don’t give up on THIS IS BIG GREEN. We will be posting someday soon. In the meantime, amuse yourself with classic episodes of Ned Trek at www.nedtrek.com. Lotta laughs there.

Usual Rubbish

Ned-scapades.

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Step one: fill the little box with letters. It’s a letter box! Step two, check your work on step one. Step three: press “publish” and watch the blue smoke come out. You are now a “blogger”, Charlie! All you need now are decipherable opinions.

Well, here we are at the mill, still waiting for the next episode of our Podcast THIS IS BIG GREEN to roll off the back of a truck. Late again. Must be short on key ingredient this month. Actually, as I pointed out last week, the main ingredient is work on our parts, which is rare indeed. A jem of great price … that price being the sweat off of our collective brows. Work, work, work … that’s what a podcast is all about. The internet is a slave-driver! Small wonder we chose to outsource its production to some nameless third world country. Working through a social media broker, we have been assured of a good and reliable product, voiced by people who sound exactly like Matt and I, their Indonesian accents just barely detectable … (Oh, what a giveaway!)

Looking forward to hearing how they handle the Ned Trek episode. This one was a challenge – another musical, no less. There are six … maybe seven songs included in the script, all brand new production. Those poor folks in Jakarta have their work cut out for them. (And yes, I’m sure you’ve guessed that our “brokers” are actually our old corporate label, Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, also known as Hegephonic. They’ve likely got sweatshops on four continents toiling 24/7 to pump out this episode.)

That's the stuff.What have we been doing with all of our free time? Thought you might want to know. Actually, Matt’s been chasing Peregrine falcons around downtown Utica, like the very good fellow he is.  (You can check on his efforts – and even contribute to them, if you like – on the Utica Peregrine Falcon site.) My efforts have been of a more pedestrian nature, actually. I spent the last few weeks working on our new Ned Trek site, posting a few episodes extracted from our podcast, and making it look as ridiculous as possible. Here it is, mobile-ready and set to roll: www.nedtrek.com

So … yeah, that happened. What’s up with you? Let me know. You know how I worry.

Usual Rubbish

Song mill.

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What the hell. Is that the number of songs? Are you freaking kidding me? Just looking at it is freaking exhausting. All those parts! What the …. !

Forgot that.Oh, hello. I’m pretending to just notice you, there on the other side of this transparent screen that separates us. Hoo-boy, well … you’ve caught us in the middle of an analysis of our song inventory. Little hard to keep close track of this stuff. We just write ’em, track ’em, and stack ’em. Never take the time to count them, for chrissake. Before you know it, they’re cluttering up the closets, over-stuffing all of the dresser drawers, spilling out into the hallway, and god knows what. Bloody nuisance!

So, on Matt’s insistence (slave driver!), we’ve taken to inventorying them, starting with the most recent examples and working backward. What’s first? Well, our Ned Trek songs, of course. Stacks of them. Our February episode of Ned Trek included no less than six new songs, including a number by Mr. Sulu himself: “Two Lines”. It’s a kind of Sulu-esque lament about the crappy little speeches he was given in the original Star Trek series, typically … well … two lines long. Appropriately, the chorus is made up of two-line parts George Takei uttered at various points in his tenure as navigator on the Enterprise:

Captain, the controls are frozen
the helm won’t respond; we’re being pulled inside
Aye, aye, my career is broken
like a giant hand has me in its hold

Captain, the controls are frozen
manual override is completely out
Aye, sir, I’ve been trying
but my shields are down and I cannot last

That’s about the size of it. So there’s maybe forty of these now recorded and mixed. We’ve got another six in the oven for the next episode of Ned Trek. One of the more productive periods of songwriting in Big Green history, not that quantity is any substitute for quality. Still, we like to think that, in counting them, we are at least handling the quantity part of the issue. Or maybe we’ve just got way too much time on our hands.

Usual Rubbish

Where’s my show?

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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.