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Joe Perry is co-founder of the band Big Green and brother to Matt Perry, other co-founder of Big Green. Shall I go on?
Political Rants

Go, Dick.

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This is going to be brief. My back is a disaster area today, and that’s no Jonathan Harris imitation.

I was listening to President Obama speaking at the NATO summit this past week, talking about ending the Afghan War “responsibly”. And I had this impulse to say, “Thanks, Nixon!” Back in the day, old Dick was winding down his war, so to speak, standing up a colonial army (the ARVN – south Vietnamese army) and always talking about “peace with honor” after nearly a decade of mindless slaughter. They were fighting “terrorists” as well – just look at Life magazine or some other news publication from the late 1960s and you’ll see that that was one of the terms they used to describe the Viet Cong (NLF). Not so different.

Except that it was actually more brutal, as brutal and ugly as the Afghan war has been and continues to be. Vietnam and more generally Indochina was almost totally destroyed during the American war there, particularly from 1962 forward. People are still being killed by that war, by virtue of tons of unexploded ordinance, Agent Orange hotspots all over the south, and more. I don’t want to minimize that fact. For every drone strike Obama launches, there were likely 1,000 sorties over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia dropping high explosives, napalm, and cluster bombs by the ton. The fact that this likely would not be tolerated today speaks to a gradual increase in our collective humanity. If anything constrains our leaders, it’s that.

Still, even within these constraints, we can do a lot of damage. The drone strikes are a very easy option for the administration. It’s a political winner, since American lives are not put in jeopardy, and it has the vague perception of accuracy going for it, though our targets have very little to say on the subject (because they are, of course, dead). It is a very corrosive weapon, though, on both legal and moral grounds, and it is likely causing a great deal more hatred of the United States than could be propagated by the likes of those we are targeting. Like Nixon’s (and LBJ’s) Vietnam war, it is approached as a project of eliminating the “bad guys” so that there will be fewer of them. That, of course, does not work and never will. Aside from being wrong, it is strategically stupid, and it is putting us in greater danger with every attack.

Still, the alternative to our little Nixon is Reagan on steroids – a Romney administration following a neocon-powered foreign policy, with multiple additional wars on tap. That being the case, well… Nixon’s the one.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Freakenstein.

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I know. I shouldn’t have interrupted him with my petty complaints. He’s a mad scientist, not a T.V. and stereo repair man. My bad, totally. Dude.

Oh, yes… that’s right. We are not the only ones reading this. Sorry out there in the blogosphere. Big Green is in the midst of a band meeting of sorts. No, we don’t typically do these. Like most groups, we all live together in our funky (i.e. “groovy”) musician bachelor pad, with the retro sixties modular furniture and gooseneck lamps of the type you might find in Darrin Stevens’ house (assuming he actually had a house and not just a set that is, in essence, a house sawed in half). My point is…. um … (yes… it was a house sawed in half, perhaps by some kind of witchcraft, or … craft services….) Damn it!

Okay, I’ll stay on point. We’re meeting about that thing, that bloodthirsty killer. No, not “The Thing”, as in the sci-fi movie “The Thing”. I mean the thing that Mitch Macaphee created in his spare time. He was working on it last week when I tried to pull him off so he could fix our monitor power amp. Simple work for a genius, right? I mean, he freaking invented Marvin (my personal robot assistant) using spare parts, bailing wire, etc.  Well, he had some more spare parts and, as I said, some spare time, and …. well … he invented some kind of killin’ machine.

What is it called? You may well ask. After all, how else are you going to avoid it, right? Mitch isn’t really good at names. I mean, we call it Freakenstein, but that’s just because we’re not really good at names either. Only Mitch can control it; only he can call it back. But Mitch is like the stereotypical insurance salesman of mad scientists. Once he sells a policy, you never hear from him again. That’s the way Mitch works. He builds something, sets it loose on an unsuspecting public, and then forgets about it. On to the next thing. And if it goes on a mad rampage, well… that’s as it may be.   

How can you protect yourself? Well… I asked Mitch, and the only thing that will ward Freakenstein off is that helmet Mr. Spock wears – you know the one. You saw it in the Montgomery Ward Christmas catalog every year, right? Well…. should’ve asked Santa for it back in 1967, because that’s the thing that scares the fertilizer out of Freakenstein.  

 Okay…. band meeting over. I move to adjourn. Anyone second? Freakenstein seconds. Meeting is adj….   FREAKENSTEIN?!?

Political Rants

Old wine, new bottle.

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The Bush administration is over (for the most part), right? Well, not so fast. Yes, they started two disastrous wars, killing enough people to make Milosevic and Suharto blush. Yes, they shook the empire to its foundations, so much so that they spent the last two years of their tenure under the watchful eye of an imperial overseer (Robert Gates). Yes, their ludicrously ham-fisted foreign policy – coupled with monumental domestic blunders – resulted in the near-total collapse of the American economy, bringing on the first proper depression since the 1930s. But none of that means they shouldn’t be put back in charge again, right?

I think I felt the earth tremble just then. Yeah, nobody wants that … really. And yet there is a very real possibility that many of the same people who ran Bush’s foreign policy – including the most extreme of the neoconservative cadre – could have their sweaty, blood-stained hands back on the levers of imperial power this coming January. The cabal advising Mitt Romney is basically a reunion tour of the nasty little group that started the Iraq war. Ari Berman ticked through their ranks in The Nation this past week. Heading up that group is John Bolton, who could very well end up Secretary of State, but he also has an ear cocked towards Dan Senor (Bush’s former coalition provisional authority spokesperson), Eric Edelman, Cofer Black, Robert Kagan, and many other once and continuing fans of the horrendous Iraq enterprise.

Did they learn anything from their disasters? Not really. The Iraq war is still a good thing, in their estimation. But more than that – it’s important to bear one thing in mind about this crew. They are basically successors to the Reagan team on foreign policy, like Reagan: the next generation (or de-generation). They’ve been back in power once since then, and it was, if anything, worse than Reagan. Every time they come back, they are worse than before. If you thought W’s eight years were hellish, just wait.

Don’t say you’re only concerned with economics. My friend, this is economics.  The Afghan and Iraq wars blew massive holes in the federal budget and are still bleeding us dry ten years later. Romney wants to keep the Afghan deployment going and would undoubtedly get us stuck somewhere else as well. Moreover, he is planning something like a 20% increase in Pentagon spending. That will mean bleeding domestic programs even further, which will take the air out of the U.S. economy (as austerity always does – see last week.)

Elections have consequences. 1980, 2000, and 2004 showed us that. Keep that in mind as you ponder the value of your franchise (and I don’t mean the fast-food restaurants you own).

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Sing it loud.

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Blowout. Another switch gone. Our gear is in the toilet, my friend. Aging, threadbare … disgusting. Oh, well.

Yep, we’ve got technical difficulties. Nothing new. Last week it was Marvin (my personal robot assistant) that went on the blink. No, I mean literally – he wouldn’t stop blinking. I think it’s all that time he spent taking phone calls when our voicemail broke down. Poor tin bastard. Then there goes another diode, and here we are on a tight budget, just like the rest of America. (Even Mitch, his creator, is too busy to tend to him.) Mother of pearl. Still, I suppose we can do without a power amp. We can just pretend we have active speakers instead of passive, and the power of imagination will carry the day. As it always does. The end.

Right, well…. we’re not typically given to wishful thinking here at Big Green. No, we are practical mofo’s, not those flighty kinda imagineering mofo’s you read about in the Sunday paper.  Fact is, we’re recording an album and we need to freaking hear the bastard – we all admit that. To deny it would be just plain silly.

What’s the album about? Glad you asked. Give a listen to the last episode of our podcast THIS IS BIG GREEN, wherein I believe we give a rough explanation of the project. I believe we do – don’t quote me on that. It’s probably somewhere between our seventeen apologies for the previous month’s episode and our airing of cousin Rick Perry’s latest song, “Come Back Mean”, which features the immortal lyric:

Kick me a dog
Go scour the neighborhood
Bring me the best kickin’ dog you can find
Go get me Planned Parenthood

Old Rick is singing from the heart right there. (Though it does sound eerily reminiscent of another organ slightly to the south.)

Yes, so… we’re taking all of cousin Rick’s songs, polishing them up a little bit, and placing them on a long playing record (a.k.a. a bunch of MP3s) where they can be downloaded by the likes of you. What you’re hearing on the podcast are “first drafts” – rough mixes of basic tracks. What you will hear on the final album (working title: “Cowboy Scat”) will be finished pieces (of something), which in many cases may sound…. substantially like the podcast versions …. but (and this is important) not necessarily!

Okay, well… I’ve wandered a bit. Nothing new there. Ooops. And there goes the light switch. Technology!

Political Rants

Austeritarianism.

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The international consensus on forced austerity was soundly rejected this past week in both Greece and France. That’s what happens when you let people speak their minds – they sometimes opt for inconvenient solutions. As much as I love Jon Stewart, even he got this one wrong – the Greeks are not political confusniks addicted to cradle-to-grave government benefits. Their financial train wreck is as much a function of wealth privilege over there as it is over here. When they went to the polls this past weekend, they chose the parties that opposed the Euro zone plan, both on the left and the right. That’s not surprising; the bailout basically benefits that country’s financial sector, at the cost of Greek workers. There have always been political groupings on the extreme left and right in Greece, so everyone went for the candidates who (a.) opposed the bailout and (b.) aligned with them politically, generally speaking.

The bankruptcy of what Greek and French voters rejected couldn’t be more obvious. Greece has gone through several cycles of austerity-driven budget cuts, massive layoffs, rate hikes, etc., and the result has been the same. Step 1: You cut budgets, you throw government workers out on the street, and there’s less money in the economy. Step 2: Lower aggregate earnings and consumer spending means less revenue into the government, which in turn widens the budget deficit. Step 3: The Eurozone demands more cuts.  Step 4:  see Step 1. Mix and repeat. Can you say “death spiral”? This is, in essence, what is happening in England and in the United States in slightly less dramatic fashion, though on a much grander scale since their economies are so much larger than Greece’s.

So… the people have spoken. And the markets are reacting. Not real fond of democracy, the investment community. It involves way too much uncertainty. The fact is, they are grappling with many of the same problems that are plaguing us. We had an overinflated housing market, blown up even further by derivatives speculation, then when the whole house of cards came crashing down, our deeply deregulated banking system left some of our largest financial institutions almost fatally exposed. Their crisis was in part precipitated by ours, but because they have a monetary union and not a political union, it seems like 20-odd different crises rather than one big conglomerated one. And just as austerity is lengthening the depression (yes, depression – ask Krugman) over here, it will bring only misery to the continent as well.

This system is obviously broken. Cutting spending may serve other political ends, but it will not fix the problem.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Rooms to let.

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Right up those stairs … watch your step, now … is the master bedroom. The one with the stagnant puddles in the middle of the floor. That’s where that drip in the living room is coming from. We’re conserving water, you see. “Big Green” has to stand for something.

Oh, hello blog post readers from around the world (and Italy, too). This may not be the best time to drop by. I’m taking a potential renter on the grand tour of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our palatial squat here in upstate New York. Times being what they are (and gigs being pretty thin on the ground just lately), we have been forced to consider the possibility of taking on tenants. Yes, I advertised in the local Pennysaver. (Someone said I should move up to the Nickelsaver, but I’m not made of money, frankly.) Gotten quite a few calls, at least by Marvin (my personal robot assistant)’s count. He’s answering the phone, which is helpful… but I’m a little tired of the voicemail routine every time I ask him something.

I know what you’re going to say … but that’s okay, go ahead and say it anyway. You know – the trope about how we’re squatters, we don’t own the property, we have no right to rent it out to others. Sure, sure – that’s easy for non-squatters to say. The way I see it, once you’ve been somewhere for a dozen years, you’ve earned the right to, I don’t know, monetize your investment of time and sweat. We’ve put a lot of time into this place, to be sure. Not so much sweat, actually – it’s falling down around our ears. But time, for sure.

That’s not all we’re monetizing around this place. We’re also renting out pages on our new Web site, http://www.big-green.net. We’re offering the services of Lincoln and Anti-Lincoln as legal advisors. (Not lawyers, mind you. They’re no longer members of the bar association, unless you count the local tavern circuit.) We’re renting out the mansized tuber as a pleasure vehicle – very popular with the kiddies. And we’ve opened our basement studio up to karaoke singers. Should generate some interesting content for our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, at the very least.

Oops, got to go. Matt’s hitting a rack tom with a stick and playing a kazoo like a duck call. And there’s no live mic nearby.

Political Rants

Born again (again).

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Yes, I know. The president’s bin Laden victory lap was a bit much by Spock standards. (George W. Bush being more in the Kirk category.) But by the standards of American election year politics, it was pretty subtle. So the resulting outrage from the right was all the more laughable. Seriously – these are the people who had Dubya fly a jet fighter onto an aircraft carrier (which they had turned around to keep San Diego out of the shot), parade around in a flight suit, and then do his famously premature victory speech under an enormous “Mission Accomplished” banner. These are the people who incessantly reminded us of their greatness throughout the Bush terms, and who continue to this very day.

Luckily for them, we are Americans and, as such, are born anew each and every morning. We have no collective memory, like a nation in advanced dementia. We do not value knowledge of our own history; in fact, the very term ‘history’ carries a negative connotation. Our politicians take advantage of this, of course – who wouldn’t? – and accordingly serve up the same hash over and over again. Cutting taxes makes everything better. Check! Budget cuts lead to growth and prosperity. Check! Antagonizing and even attacking other countries will make us safer. Check! On we go.

Obviously, the Republicans do not have a corner on this franchise. The Obama administration is carrying forward a lot of their policies for them, including ludicrous destabilizing boondoggles like missile defense batteries in Eastern Europe. But just now the GOP happen to be indulging somewhat gratuitously in the not entirely unrealistic notion that we do not remember yesterday any better than the day before. Right now the conservative candidates for the GOP nomination are lining up behind Romney, as it was always certain that they would, and singing his praises. After a bruising primary fight during which Bachmann, Gingrich, Santorum, and others unsparingly and unflinchingly heaped scorn upon the Mittster, to see them now stumping on his behalf inspires a kind of cognitive dissonance that should spark our collective memory a bit. But we shall see. 

It is another new day, after all. 

luv u,

jp  

Usual Rubbish

Trifecta.

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Can’t hear you. Can you turn it up? I don’t know… to eleven, or maybe thirteen. Still nothing. Play harder, faster…. oh, wait. Didn’t plug your cord into the console. Sorry. Sorrrreeeee…

Oh, hi. Hey … don’t let anybody tell you (in case anybody ever tries) that producing yourself is easy. It’s not, man, and I’ll tell you why. You are the engineer. And the guitar tech. And the arranger. You get the drinks. And the snacks. It’s bloody maddening – I even have to oil Marvin (my personal robot assistant) when he starts to squeak over there on the percussion riser. Anyway… we’re elbow deep in production on our next album. Yes, it’s a themed piece … almost a rock opera, except with a lot less coherence. It grapples with monumental themes … if you understand monumental to mean, simply, mental.

It’s been busy ’round these parts, I don’t mind saying. Busier than we’re used to, quite frankly. Recording, of course. Then there’s our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN. The frenetic pace of once a month is enough to exhaust anyone not used to exertion. Oh, and also … we released a new video of one of the many songs recorded by “cousin” Rick Perry – a little number named “Devil Romney” that was featured on the podcast a couple of episodes ago. That was exhausting. Matt did all the work, of course… but it was plain exhausting just watching him. And then that upload to YouTube really took it out of me.

We are, of course, still making plans for our upcoming trip to the moon as an advance team for the Gingrich campaign. I know what you’re going to say – he dropped out …. of the presidential race. Yes, we know that. But he’s still going to be the nominee. He said so himself, you know. I can only imagine this means he is going to be installed as King of the Moon any day now. I have, in fact, written a celebratory march to commemorate his coronation – a somewhat stilted jubilee for our bloated monarch. If I can find where I left my energy and motivation, I may just have it ready for the next podcast episode.

Until then, please help yourself to the slabs of content we’ve been flinging out in every direction like frisbees. I’ll be in the cellar, making widgets.

 

Political Rants

News jam.

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Lots going on, my friend. I’m just going to blow through a few stories and see what comes out on the other end.

Missile Envy. I’m thinking they should declare April international missile month, since we started with North Korea’s failed launch of their three-stage Galaxy-3 rocket, which they claimed was intended to send a satellite into orbit, and we’ve closed out the month with shots in India and Pakistan both. The first incident, of course, had officials, politicians, and commentators practically foaming at the mouth with both outrage and derision, plus plenty of snark when the thing broke into pieces (like many of our early missiles did). There would be consequences! they intoned righteously, joining in near universal condemnation and promises of further isolation.

Jump forward about a week. India launches its AGNI-V A5 ICBM, what is indisputably a ballistic missile. Their officials brag that it is capable of carrying nuclear warheads and that it can reach Beijing or Shanghai – two major cities in a nation India fought a war with in 1962.  The reaction over here? Crickets. Serious crickets. Ho-hum. Boys will be boys. Now this week, Pakistan (which has fought three wars with India) launches their latest ballistic missile. Here is the report from the Daily News:

The United States declined to criticise Pakistan too for test-firing a nuclear-capable missile less than a week after India tested a long range missile, but considered it “most important” that Islamabad had informed New Delhi beforehand.

Once again – a collective yawn. So let me get this straight… when the nation that got annihilated (by our bombs) back in the 1950s launches a satellite, it’s a huge problem. But when two nuclear-power allies launch openly offensive ballistic missiles and brag about their destructive capabilities … that’s okay. Got it.

Gingrich Wins. Actually not, but the way he talks about it, it’s hard to tell. I’m going to miss the Newtster, frankly. He brought a certain element of unpredictability to a pretty bland late primary season, once the more entertaining contenders dropped out and it was left to Old Bland Willard and Rick (Man-On-Dog) St. Bore-em.  That mouth – there’s always something dropping out of it. Though the convention is still months away, so there still may be an opportunity for him to inject a little more color into a very drab coronation.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

What the frank.

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Frank, dropped it again. Gosh darn the blankety-heck. What the bacon-and-eggs is the matter with this motor-trucking washing machine? Cheese and crackers!

Oh, yeah… it’s that time of the week again. Time for all of you out there in cyberspace to peek inside the mad vortex of Big Green’s life here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. Sorry about all of that salty language a moment ago. Our clothes washing device (enormously handy invention) is no longer operating properly, causing frustration, even something akin to anger and resentment. Strange, we humans. I do hope my outburst didn’t cause you any consternation. If needed, counseling is available on Big Green’s counseling page.

Okay, so… as you can see, I have been remanded to sensitivity training. I’m having to edit my language (What the frank! Who in hades do these rubber chuckers think they are?) and regularly evince concern over the effect my words and actions may be having on those who experience them. You see, ever since Matt and I started our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN (the April episode has just been posted, btw ), we’ve had to be a bit more mindful of the things that fall randomly out of our mouths when a microphone is placed in front of us. I, for one, have said some hurtful things … things I have had cause to regret. Oh, yes … words that hurt.

What precisely? Well…. listen to the March podcast and you’ll get an idea. For instance, typically we pay our respects to fallen celebrities. Last month it was Davy Jones of the Monkees and Andrew Breitbart of the Interwebs. As Matt pointed out on the air, I was a little less than sufficiently solemn about our remembrance. (I believe I went so far as to suggest Davy may have been taken by primate poachers, which was wrong … just wrong.) This month’s episode is no improvement, and I’m sure I’ll be apologizing when May rolls around. Thank god this isn’t a weekly show! I’ve already said things I regret since posting it. There isn’t enough sensitivity training in the universe for the likes of me.

Fortunately, we have Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to monitor our transgressions. It takes a robot, they say. Or a village. Same deal.