It’s not use – that guitar string just isn’t long enough. We could tie two or three of them together. Or maybe a banjo string…. they’re kind of stretchy, aren’t they?
Yeah, it’s us again. Big Green, standing at the rim of another hole to the center of the Earth. Damn, this gets tiresome sometimes. We’re not complicated people, you know… aside from that psychology thing. All we want to do is hang out at our abandoned hammer mill, make a little music, watch the stars from the rooftops, bend pretzels on alternate Thursdays, and shoot arrows through the persistent space/time warp in the washroom that Mitch created so many months ago. It’s the simple things that give the most pleasure, is it not? (No, really… I want to know. It is the simple things, isn’t it?) And yet we are perpetually faced with these complications, these Gordian knots, these Rubic Cubes, these Junior Jumbles, these Uncle Art’s Funland spot-the-differences cartoons, these…
Okay, right… well, this little problem we have may not be as difficult as one Uncle Art can typically dish up, but it’s a poser, that’s for sure. You see, Mitch has been building this complex system of tunnels to various destinations on the globe (some actually on the surface of the globe, but – and this is important – NOT ALL). Of course, a project this ambitious requires rigorous testing to ensure the safety of the patrons Mitch hopes to eventually charge MUCHO DINERO for the privilege of riding his trans-Earth trolley through the planet’s chewy center.
Who’s doing the testing? Well, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) volunteered (after Mitch worked on his self-preservation programming a bit). Then, of course, we had to send the man-sized tuber in after Marvin when Marvin somehow got himself lost in the bowels of the Earth. (What the hell… it’s a freaking GLOBE, right? Go in ANY direction and you will find the surface!) Now we’re trying to throw them both a line. They seem to have commandeered a ledge down there somewhere. That’s where the guitar strings came in. (What can I tell you? We’ve never been all that resourceful. )
I’m de-stringing the banjo as we speak. Hold on tubey! Here comes something like a rope…
melodramatic posing to blog. We’ve moved beyond that phase entirely. (No money dropped like rain from the sky, so that obviously wasn’t working.) Besides, we were all getting sick of hearing one another. And as you might suspect, the Cheney Hammer Mill is like an enormous cave. Why, it’s the Howe Caverns of the northern half of central New York. (Well, that’s a slight exaggeration. Maybe the Petrified Creatures Museum of Little Falls.) Don’t tell Marvin (my personal robot assistant) that I suggested anything of the sort. He’ll start emoting again!
There are other things as well. Mitch has had another brainstorm. Here’s how it happened. You know how everyone is complaining about the cost of travel these days. Fuel costs! Baggage fees! It’s enough to drive a painfully normal person (or a T.V. journalist) nearly mad with anger. Well, Mitch has a solution. You see, it seems the diameter of the Earth is a shorter distance than the circumference. And if you tunnel straight through the Earth’s crust, you can get places a hell of a lot faster. W.t.f. – China is only 8,000 some odd miles away, and it’s all straight down. All you need is a parachute for the very end (and something clever to say to that “America’s Energy Companies” lady riding past you in that glass elevator). Only trouble is… all these holes in the ‘Oit is going to make the old girl whistle as she spins.
Oh, sorry, you all. (What, am I southern now?) I was just having one of my difficult moments. That’s a new pastime here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. We each get all dramatic and difficult at least half a dozen times a day, preferably taking turns at it so that the ambient noise doesn’t upset the mongooses trying to sleep on the roof when the sun is hottest around midday. (Are you getting all this down?) Why would we take on such an endeavor? Well, as you know (and this is perhaps the reason why you love us), we are not tremendously successful as a band. No heap big contract. No honking piles of ready cash. No adoring fans dogging our every step. And times being what they are, we thought, well…. if we act like assholes, these things will come our way.
stardom. It kind of creates a penumbra of mystery around the umbra of famousness. That’s the shit we need, friend – to be sure.
Yeah, big things are happening here at the Hammer Mill. Really big things. Like the giant garage sale Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has talked us all into participating in (and contributing to). That’s bigger than we really want it to be, frankly. For one thing, we don’t HAVE a garage. And if we DID have one, we wouldn’t sell it (we just got it in my imaginary world, for chrissake – what’s the matter with you, man?) Seriously, though, I think Marvin is selling everything we own, including all of our instruments. That’s like being up shit creek and selling your paddle in a garage sale. (In fact, it IS being up shit creek and selling the paddle… assuming some fool wants to buy it.)
Oh, damn. Didn’t mean to give you an inside look at our dissention in the ranks. Yeah, things are pretty rough around the edges in Big Green ville these days. Tempers are wearing thin… thin as the knees of our jeans. Ragged as the cuffs of our shirts. Threadbare as the ascot Lincoln still wears to dinner (even though we don’t do the ascot thing at dinner anymore – I’ve told him a dozen times!) Why, we may even resort to WORKING for a living. That may seem drastic to you, but it’s a real possibility. Don’t think we don’t have offers. (We don’t, but that’s another matter entirely.) There’s a little thing called opportunity … and a little thing called luck. One or the other of those little things may just get close enough to be considered a big thing here in the Cheney Hammer Mill.
Yeah, I’m losing track of day, time, even planet, solar system. I may even be working in base-12. (That would not be a good development, particularly with my bank balance.) Big Green and friends have been a little busy just lately – too busy, frankly, for the niceties of neighborly chats, friendly asides, opening mail, cooking dinner, and writing blog posts.
Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has zucchini to take to market – yet another one of his hare-brained business ventures. I haven’t seen the man-sized tuber in a couple of days, come to think of it – perhaps he was mistaken for a great bull zucchini. (Marvin is a little unsubtle. A zucchini would have to tell him it wasn’t a zucchini if it wanted to avoid the market stall.)
Oh, yes… the blog. As you can see, I’m at loose ends here. Just killing a little time between sessions. Matt put down a vocal the other day. (I wish he’d stop putting me down, man. I’m trying my BEST!) Next it’s my turn, but first Marvin (my personal robot assistant) needs to go in there and clean up the tracks a bit, do a little of his magic. (What kind of magic? Can’t say. It’s magic, damnit!) So while I’m just sitting here, I’m filling out crosswords, completing puzzlers, and… well… opening our overinflated mailbag. Some of these things have been sitting in there for six months or better. (I think I spy a christmas present…. from 1970…)
Okay, m’Lord, you see… “George” is a fictional character – a mad scientist, like Mitch Macaphee (who is, sadly, real). Not everyone in our songs is for real, okay? Sometimes we make up unlikely personages, like “Jane” or “Abraham Lincoln”, and sometimes we borrow them from other authors, like “Tarzan” and “Edward Teller”. And regarding the reclamation of Pangea, no worries… that will take some time, he-he-he…. sometime indeed…
What’s been happening around these parts? Let’s see, now. A thing or two. We’ve got a crack in the earth going, as you know. Straight down to the chewy center. Less said about that the better, frankly. After all, we’re still officially squatters here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, and if the actual owners of this renowned property had any idea of the shape it’s in (let alone the fact that there is a major crack in the Earth’s crust contained within), they would see us evicted, convicted, etc. Then there’s those mongooses again – you remember them, don’t you? We had some problems with mongooses some years back, taking over our beloved lean-to, then invading the mill and trying on our galoshes while we were gone. Very pesky fellows indeed. Well, they’re back. C’est la vie. (I think it’s all the greasy cooking the man-sized tuber has been doing. More on that later.)
What about the man-sized tuber? Well, he’s given up politics. (It’s just too damn cynical for him.) He relinquished his post at the head of the town board and has decided to do cooking lessons out the back door of the mill. At first, he tried to keep us out of the loop on this, thinking we would want a cut of the profits. But you can’t keep us in the dark for more than a month or two, particularly when something is happening right under our noses. And I mean literally. The tuber has but one cooking implement, and that’s a frying pan. So whatever he’s showing people, it usually involves open flame, the pan, a gob of butter, and a whole lot of smoke. If he burns it to a crisp, he just cracks an egg over it and calls it done.
No, it’s not my brain. It’s my list of songs. Sixty five songs and counting. Shoo-wee, right? That’s enough songs to fuel the enormous asbestos-clad boiler of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill for a hundred years. (Well, that may be a slight exaggeration.) What was it I heard Lincoln (or anti-Lincoln) saying the other day? Oh, yeah. “A chicken’ll make you a meal… or it’ll lay enough eggs for a thousand breakfasts. A lamb – that’s about two weeks worth of mutton. Or you can have warm wool coats from now until doomsday…” That Lincoln- just brimming with frontier wisdom. (Actually, I think he borrowed that from Royal Dano in one of his more nefarious incarnations on The Big Valley, Lincoln’s favorite T.V. drama.)
Sure, there’s that. Then there are the songs that are complete and yet still in the can, never released commercially. Mostly these are recordings that have no proper album to call home. They are made in the usual Big Green way – lay out a polymer disc, slather it full of mastic, add music and apply pressure… much pressure. Then toss. Well… we tossed them a little too far, perhaps, and no one has had the energy to go and pick them up. Those will likely see the light of day at some point, though I don’t know exactly when. (Let me consult with my fellow nut cases and get back to you.)
What was that sound I heard, coming from down below? Some kind of tectonic activity? A passing subway car? Or could it be….. a tuber in distress?
random, stupid detail about people’s personal lives of interest to no one other than themselves. We are certainly guilty of that. Yeah, I know the standard jibe. Big Green is all yak and very little music, right? Well…. right enough. Too much talking, not enough music – got it. And it’s been almost a year and a half since our last release, International House. So what the hell – time to get off our sorry butts and start strumming, pounding, screeching again.
them AND play them live. And what the hell – let’s do a powerpoint, besides. Matt and I have been knocking our heads together, and we’ve started laying down some tracks with Marvin (when he’s available) recording reference drums until John White returns from his extended trip to Madagascar. (Where do you rent a gas car in Madagascar?) The virtual reels are rolling… that’s what that freaking noise is.
Down and down and down we go, round and round and round we go… Ah, I forgot what comes next. Oh yeah – it’s either “ker-splash!” or “crunch!”
Dropping him into the crevice is like dropping a potato down a well. In fact, I don’t know why I’m using a simile – it IS dropping a potato down a well, waiting to hear the splash. I know what you’re thinking, but just remember… the man-sized tuber did nothing but oppress us as mayor of our little town, and so he owes us, in our estimation. (No, I don’t have a mouse in my pocket. I’m referring to the entire Big Green entourage.)
some ‘splainin’ to do, as Tom Coburn said to Justice Sotamayor. Take, for instance, this little number by Matt called “Edward Teller”: