Tag Archives: Nazis

Fascist songbook.

Sure, you’ve played that one before. You remember. It’s the one about the fascists dropping over for Christmas. Don’t remember? Go back and look, dude!

Hiya. As you know, we’re still shut up in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, working diligently on the next episode of our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN. And when I say “next”, I mean the next couple of episodes, each of which is in a different state of non-completion. This is all about Ned Trek, of course … that time-consuming mashup of space opera crossed with horse-based comedy and political satire.  If I recall correctly, we dreamed that concept up on the planet Neptune, but don’t quote me. Matt probably pulled it out of Uranus. Either way.

So … the most proximate of the “next” episodes is being edited and finished as we speak (are we speaking?). The second “next” episode hasn’t been recorded (or even completely written) yet, but that one’s a musical, so we’ve been working on songs that will go into the episode. That installment of Ned Trek will be based on the Nazi episode of Star Trek, so pretty much all of the songs are about fascists, past and present. That’s right, folks …. around the studio lately it’s been Nazi this and Nazi that. We’re calling the fuckers out, people, and in the most ridiculous ways. Word.

Okay, how about a song about that?Not that we haven’t cultivated that particular field before, you understand. It’s just that we’re digging in a bit this year. It’s partly due to the specific Star Trek episode we’re mocking, but hey, let’s face it … there are a lot of neo-fascists taking power just lately, including the clownish variety we have here in the states (to say nothing of the right-wing brown shirt organizations we deal with at the street level these days), so these songs aren’t exactly historical documents, per se. We’re jamming on current affairs, people. Ripped from the headlines, as it were.  It’s enough to make Marvin (my personal robot assistant) blow a fuse or two. Just so long as he doesn’t grow a little mustache.

I know … we’re on a slow roll here in Big Green land, but we will get back to posting podcasts in the weeks ahead, honest. Look for a new episode soonish …. now with more Nazis.

The king’s speech.

How did you spend that prime time hour this past Tuesday night? I will admit to watching the entire Trump address to a Joint Session of Congress, and I have to say … it’s evident he hired a speechwriter sometime over the past six weeks. His inaugural was a patchwork hodgepodge of paranoid tropes and random utterances, crudely constructed by the likes of Miller and Bannon with some input, most likely, form Trump’s demon spawn. Wednesday’s speech was full of craven ideas and scapegoating, but it was comparatively well-crafted. Someone massaged the prose a bit, inserted some lofty rhetoric and clever turns of phrase. I think that accounts in large measure for the “tone” difference TV commentators have been crowing about ever since.

Maytag Repairman-in-ChiefAnd the substance of the king’s speech? Nauseating, in my humble opinion. The truly low points for me were the jingoistic celebration of the widow of that Navy Seal killed in that botched Yemen raid, the announcement of a special Homeland Security office tracking victims of immigrant crimes, the promise to raise the already bloated military budget by 10% … I could go on. Of those three, the first one was strange in that Trump had previously (that day, I believe) thrown his generals under the bus for that failed mission, on Fox News. (Plus, the Navy Seal’s father is hopping mad about it, and rightfully so.) But point to a war widow, and politicians will always stand up and cheer. It’s their way of channeling our relief that we are no longer called upon to fight wars or to pay for them up front. Cynical in the extreme.

That extended riff on the victims of immigrant crime was particularly disturbing. They are setting up an office (with the acronym VOICE, no less) to do something like what Der Sturmer used to do to German Jews – namely, front page any violent crimes committed by individuals in that group as a means of stoking outrage against the entire group. It’s an effective tactic, and the Trump bots are embracing it wholeheartedly. (I got into some mini-Twitter wars with a couple of them after the speech.) It’s up to us to push back on this and to encourage our representatives to do the same.

Let’s face it – it’s going to be a long, long four years. Perhaps even longer. So we need to start building now.

luv u,

jp