Fill in the blank. (My preference is “fuck”, but don’t let that influence you.) Always the “f” word in this group, eh? Not so unusual. A million and one uses for that storied old English term, and most of them apply to the music business. Nouns and modifiers… sometimes proper names. (Sometimes improper names.)
Anyway, greetings from the streets of Colombo, Sri Lanka — Big Green‘s new “virtual squat house”, now that we’ve been tossed out of the Cheney Hammer Mill. As always, morning finds us scrambling for shelter amongst the curbside artifacts and trash bins. Expect to see us huddled together? Not a chance – it’s every slug for himself in this band. At least that’s the way I felt about it while there was still a relatively congenial spot available to me beneath the flapjack vendor’s stand. Alas, I have been expelled from that sanctuary, as well. Bloody merchants! Now I’m trying to worm my way into my colleagues’ temporary digs. So that thing I said earlier about every man for himself? Not so. Not so.
Now, I don’t want to leave you with the impression that there has been no movement on our efforts towards reparations. As I mentioned last week, our (former) neighbor Gung-Ho may prove to be our ace in the hole, so to speak. So far we’ve had no luck trying to reach him at whatever remote location he’s been hired to invade, but we’ve got our best minds working on it. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has graciously allowed his solar batteries and internal cosmium oscillator to be linked into a makeshift 
transmitter. (Matt’s on the key now, tapping out “C-Q, C-Q”, just like pops used to. Sometimes Marvin throws in “S.O.S.” for good measure.) Trevor James Constable is using his patented orgone generating device to send distress signals out into the ethers, even though the chances of their attracting Gung-Ho’s attention are next to nil (especially if he has his helmet on). John? I don’t know… I think he and anti-Lincoln are resorting to smoke signals. Either that, or they’re burning an awful lot of Zenite snuff.
It may seem ignoble of us to be calling in for close air support. Why, you may ask, don’t we use the legal process? Why the early resort to violent methods? Well, I’m going to tell you. We Big Green ers are simple folk. We don’t go in for all that fancy legal-schmeegal mumbo-jumbo. Most of us, at least, prefer a more direct message… like blow a big hole in their land office headquarters. (My brother is a bit more attached to the intimidation 
method – have some goon lean on them, know what I mean? Only goon we’ve got is Big Zamboola, and his intimidating days are definitely over.) Not that we can count on Gung-Ho to do anything particularly rash, but hey… we can ask, right? Doesn’t hurt to ask.
There’s a time limit on this street lifestyle – I’m sure some of you know what I’m talking about. As my photos indicate, I’m getting a little scruffier every day. (You should see the man-sized tuber. Couple of days out in the rain and he starts taking root… and even the pillbox-dwellers can’t take the sight of him.) Come on, Gung Ho!
