NOTES FROM SRI LANKA.

(April '01)

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4/1/2001

Hey, fool...

Hmmm. Talking to myself again. Who else will listen? 

Well, I can't say that things have been going a great deal better, because they haven't. In fact, if anything, they're even more complicated than when last I spoke with you. How, you ask? Well, for one thing, when John finished our new high-rise addition, you would think that would be the end of it, right? Wrong! He just kept right on going, until there was a second building right next door to the first. Hey....I realize it's just his way of keeping off the flapjacks, but one 19th century skyscraper is quite enough to maintain, thank you very much. If John doesn't stop soon, we'll have to sell our lean-to back in dear old Colombo just to cover our property taxes.

And then there's sFshzenKlyrn (or "the homewrecker," as he's known downstairs). His rocky recovery from flapjack-ism did more than simply send him hurtling down through the earth's crust--it made him big. Really big. Bigger than any of us want him to be, if you get my meaning. (Apparently, this is what one should expect to happen  when the titanic forces of the inner earth interact with his somewhat volatile Zenite physique. Who knew?)  Not that there's anything wrong with being seven stories tall, per se...except that the neighbors are starting to get on our case a little bit. In fact, now we have to keep sFshzenKlyrn between the "twin towers" so that he won't inadvertently step on any more cars. 

What's even more annoying is all the phone calls we've been getting about sFshzenKlyrn's enormous Telecaster, which is now the second largest such instrument in the known universe. (Horath, the lead guitarist for Mortadella, has a slightly larger "signature" model.) People from all over the world have made offers on this axe, which is roughly the dimensions of a city bus. And since sFshzenKlyrn can't come to the phone just yet, I'm the one who has to explain to Robert Fripp, Eric Clapton, "The Edge," "The Nuge," and other guitar heroes that (a.) the thing is just too big to ship, (b.) it doesn't have a case, and (c.) it's literally bonded to sFshzenKlyrn's hands by atomic forces too powerful to be overcome by human technology. In short....it's not for sale!

Dealing with disgruntled guitar collectors is bad enough. But jilted lovers and abandoned children? None of us had any idea sFshzenKlyrn was such a rake! When our fellow shelter dweller Margaret Anderson took a shine to the boy from Zenon, we thought it might be just one of those things. But now the giant sFshzenKlyrn has been slapped with a suit for damages relating to the break-up of the Anderson clan. It seems sFshzenKlyrn rebuffed Margaret's attentions and ran off with Jim Anderson, leaving Margaret with the care of the kids. When sFshzenKlyrn returned from the earth's crust--big as a battleship, no less--Jim took a powder (we think he's sleeping on Ward Cleaver's sofa). Now we've got lawyers crawling all over the premises, writs in hand. It's not pretty. 

Man, I'll tell you. If whoever wrote that calumnious tract about us ("What you should know about BIG GREEN and why") got her/his hands on this story, the Dubya administration would be forced to disavow all knowledge of us. We might even be deported back to Sri Lanka, just so that Dubya could credibly claim that (a.) he'd never heard of us, and (b.) he'd never heard of that funny-sounding place we come from. So, try to keep it quiet out there, okay? 

That's Rich. Don't look now, but representatives of the hemisphere's wealthiest investors and the world's largest corporations are planning to gather in Quebec City this month to lay some important groundwork for the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas -- a hemispheric investors' rights agreement that will affect the lives of 650 million people and codify control over some $9 trillion dollars in wealth. Similar to NAFTA and the recently-defeated (or at least deflated) Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), this agreement will, in effect, raise the status of corporate rights so that they supercede the rights and prerogatives of nations. The intent is to enable capital to flow across borders, unhindered by "local" (i.e. national) labor, market, or environmental restrictions.

This is what we need, right? Sure it is! Ask any tycoon. After all, we live in a nation where the richest 1% own 38% of the country's wealth...where the richest 10% own more than 70% of the wealth...and where the bottom 40% own about 0.2% of that sweet American pie. Of course, that's before Dubya's mega tax cut, an enormous portion of which will flow to the folks at the top. So hey...these folks need mo' better investment opportunities. Let's get it on!

For you dissenters out there, check out the protest web portal http://www.stopftaa.org/, which offers links to local anti-FTAA resources, information, and more. Then go north...or at least write your congressional representatives and tell them you won't stand for this, no how. 

I'm off. Duty calls. 

luv u,

jp

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4/8/2001

Tout alors!

No, I'm not speaking French, damn it. I'm sneezing. Why do I sneeze in French, you ask? Never mind that now. Don't you understand? We've been sacked! 

All right, I'll start at the beginning. I'm sure that you--like all of us--thought sFshzenKlyrn would eventually get over his flapjack-induced stupor and shrink back down to normal size, right? Wrong. He hasn't gotten one bit smaller. In fact, he's grown...and he's still growing! 

By mid-week, old sFshzenKlyrn was getting a little too big to keep, frankly. While he was six and seven stories tall, we could keep him out from underfoot (or overfoot, I should say) of the neighbors. When he reached the ten-story mark, however, it became simply impossible. sFshzenKlyrn has always been an energetic cloud of elemental gases, and staying between our recently-completed twin tower buildings made him fidgety. Well, when a ten-story mass of heavy metals twitches in the wrong direction, it can have enormous consequences. Like sending one of our expensive new buildings crashing to the ground. 

Fortunately, for the most part, we escaped injury. The brim of Matt's trademark hat was slightly crumpled on impact. John's trademark sunglasses sustained some minor damage on one side. And, of course, in the process of extricating myself from a pile of building materials, I managed to scrape my trademark left ankle. Then (like a fool) I decided to spend that night in the rubble of my penthouse suite and woke up with this blasted cold. Tout alors!

Excuse me. Well, back to the story. While we were trying to make the best of this minor mishap, hoping the loss of one 19th Century tower would have a positive impact on our property taxes, the mailman arrived with bad news -- namely, our pink slips! It seems a minor scandal had been brewing around the flapjack incident, unbeknownst to us, and sFshzenKlyrn's enormous size was causing consternation amongst the administration's key supporters in Congress. And despite Donny Rumsfeld's last-ditch efforts to fold sFshzenKlyrn into his national missile proposal, Jesse Helms and Tom DeLay demanded our dismissal before "sFshzenKlyrn-gate" could grow large enough to engulf the fledgling Dubya Administration. 

So here we are--homeless, jobless, and 12,000 miles away from home, with a Zenite guitarist the size of Mount Rainier to keep fed. Not to mention a bill for $7.4 million to cover the costs incurred by John during the construction of the Big Green "Twin Towers" -- all on account at Home Depot. And still I'm bombarded by offers on sFshzenKlyrn's guitar, the latest from Peter Frampton. I'm telling all of you for the last bloody time -- it's NOT FOR SALE! And when I say NOT FOR SALE, I mean that this handsomely-finished jumbo collector's edition Telecaster (hand-signed by sFshzenKlyrn of Zenon himself) can be had for a certain price...say...$7.5 million, minimum bid....takers? Anyone? Hello? 

Talkin' Mean. Well, let's see. The Bush II Administration is just shy of 3 months old, and already we've got a.) the Koreas  b.) Russia  c.) the E.U., and now d.) China pissed off at us. Not to mention Japan, who's less than pleased with the handling of our sub fleet, vital to the protection of the FREE WORLD from....from........from.......never mind who from. And I'm only counting the countries the U.S. affects to care about. Sub-Saharan Africa and other southern global poverty zones are real happy about Dubya's cut-off of aid to women's health clinics (not that US aid is all that generous in these cases, proportionate to the size of its economy). But hell -- who cares what they think, right? 

Since it is fundamentally unacceptable for the United States to apologize for anything its military does, one can only guess where the spy plane "crisis" will lead, let alone the general collapse of U.S. diplomacy throughout the world. I think a pretty safe bet would be....Missile Defense! This is the sort of situation Dubya's handlers dream of -- a "hostile world" they can exploit to whip up public sentiment into enough of a frenzy so that, down the road, major military expenditures will be seen as necessary, or at least be overlooked by the public that pays for them. A little "Red" meat for the cavemen in Congress...a little extra grease for the boys at TRW...another long-term social program for the Pentagon. All is right with the world.

Actually, I think the Pentagon is overlooking a tremendous strategic opportunity. They should build the Osprey...and give it to our "potential adversaries". It's an excellent anti-personnel weapon, so long as the intended victims are in the crew cabin.

See you soon, goon.

luv u,

jp

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4/15/2001

Happy "earth mother goddess" day.

Of course, we of the Big Green persuasion have our own way of celebrating pagan holidays. This year, we're spending Easter on a leaky scow drifting in the general direction of the subcontinent -- homeward bound, you might say, after our recent dismissal from the bosom of the Dubya administration. The (p)resident's Select Commission on Extra-Terrestrial Phenomena has been totally reorganized and placed under the aegis of the Pentagon, where it is supposed to attain some level of military discipline. Our names have been struck from the register, and all references to Big Green have been expunged from the internal records of Bush administration. (Can you say "disgrace"?)

I have to admit, the sFshzenKlyrn thing was a little hard for even the Defense Department to ignore. By Friday, our Zenite guitarist had grown so large that he could be seen from space. When he showed up on-screen at Donny Rumsfeld's press briefing about the (heroic) return of the (heroic) air surveillance crew from their (heroic) detention in (despicable) China,* I knew that this would be the end of any opportunity for us to reconcile our position with Dubya. The momentary image (viewed by millions) of an enormous X-Commission member toppling buildings in downtown Chevy Chase proved to be a substantial embarrassment for the administration. Luckily, sFshzenKlyrn was only on the screen for a few moments, during which time the Defense Department Press Corps was easily distracted with paper cut-outs of F-22's and free samples of popular breakfast cereals. Let's hear it for those quick-thinking boys in Psy-Ops!

[* NOTE: THIS SENTENCE HAS BEEN CLEARED FOR RELEASE BY THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT]

Lord knows, we had to employ some of those clever Psy-Ops techniques in convincing big sFshzenKlyrn to get out of town. His plasma-gaseous form makes him impervious to conventional attack, of course, so he can wreck an entire city simply by strolling through it, and all the Pentagon's tanks and planes would be helpless to stop him. It was pretty much down to us to keep him from flattening Washington...but how? Then Matt thought of creating a large placard emblazoned with images of all of sFshzenKlyrn's favorite things, mounting it on the roof of a city bus, and driving it toward the harbor. Tempted to the point of salivation by Del-Monte canned string-beans, Tareyton cigarettes, and sweet corn dripping with butter, our enormous extra-terrestrial cohort took the bait and lurched after the retreating bus, following it into the hold of the long-decommissioned freighter that now carries us ever closer to our lean-to in Sri Lanka. 

How did we finance all of this, having been drummed out of the official Washington chow line? Well...it's taken some creative accounting. We did actually manage to sell sFshzenKlyrn's guitar to a relatively high-bidder (one who has asked to remain nameless...though why Jeff Beck would be averse to a little publicity, I don't know). That provided half of the funding necessary to bring us home. The other half was raised by John, who found a clever way to capitalize on his recent architectural and engineering achievements in constructing the now-defunct Big Green towers. With the help of an associate at the GPO, he printed up over 150,000 souvenir postcards, which sold like flap...er, hotcakes amongst our fans outside the asteroid belt. (That'll hold them until we get a new album together.)

As we bob drearily along on this Easter Sunday, I take solace in the fact that, though we have lost our commission, we have gained our freedom. He who owns little is little owned, so it has been said. And by the time we get back to our lean-to, we're going to be as "little-owned" as it's possible to be. 

Big News. Did anyone hear the story about the Air Force surveillance crew that made an emergency landing on Hainan island and was detained for ten days or so? Thought you might have. This incident has presented some fairly challenging PR problems for the new/old administration. Though it does follow some very familiar patterns. First, keep the rhetoric firm but controlled. (No one wants to seem like Jimmy Carter during the Iran hostage crisis, so Bush must be seen to be going on vacation, relaxed and affable, though focused, etc.) Then after routine diplomacy secures their inevitable release, pull out all the stops. Go to tape "B" -- the heroic return of the "hostages," circa inauguration day 1981, or POW return day 1973. 

One would think this "crisis" would present pretty thin gruel for the corporate press to exploit in demonstration of their slavish devotion to the commissars in Washington and the economic power centers they represent. But they often have very little to work with. Recall Reagan's (heroic) 1983 invasion of Grenada--a microscopic nation portrayed by the administration and the media as posing some imminent threat to the United States. Or the chilling specter of Osama Bin Laden in 1998, his shadow cast menacingly across all we hold dear as the image of his sinister face is superimposed over the globe by graphic artists at NBC (home of commentator and bona-fide terrorist paymaster Oliver North). 

These and other equally ludicrous instances provide ample precedent for this week's spectacle, promoted as a "Valiant Homecoming" by one aptly-termed "organ" of the press. From such fables spring bountiful budget priorities...just watch. 

Bless you, my children. (Take it easy out there...)

luv,

jp 

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4/22/2001

Now that we're all just a little older....

So how's everything with you, eh? I almost never ask anymore, wrapped up as I am in our multifarious foibles. What joyous news do you bring with you on this Earth Day? Are all your neighbors dutifully soaking their lawns with carcinogenic pesticides? Getting enough arsenic in your drinking water? Is the planet hot enough for you yet? Inquiring band members want to know! Email your comments to earthday@biggreenhits.com and I'll post as many as I can find room for.

What's new in the land of Big Green? You know the drill, if you've been reading this column. Drummed out of Dubya's administration over our super-sized Zenite comrade named sFshzenKlyrn and the consternation he caused in the evil city of Washington. Discharged and deported back to our adopted homeland in disgrace. And at this writing, Big Green is bobbing along in the remains of a decommissioned garbage scow, hoping to stay afloat until we get within swimming distance of our beloved lean-to on the outskirts of Colombo.  

Of course, we're not navigating our way back by ourselves. Landlubbers like us -- lord no! No, no...Donny Rumsfeld's Navy pals fixed us up with a proper crew. I can't tell you their names, because that information is classified. I am at liberty to tell you that they seem competent enough. The mate is a mighty sailing man. The skipper seems brave and sure. So we three passengers set sail that day for a Sri Lankan tour...a Sri Lankan toooooour....

Well, the weather started getting rough....(okay, I'll stop.) Where we first ran into some trouble was when the Pentagon decided we couldn't use the freighter that we had lured sFshzenKlyrn into last week (it had already been promised to the Cheneys) and stuck us with this garbage scow. That was bad enough, but then a little mishap occurred while we were transferring our enormous friend from ship to ship. Rumsfeld and the boys engaged a helicopter squadron to carry sFshzenKlyrn over to the "new" ship, hanging from a series of cables. Unfortunately, they were in a bit of a hurry and rather unceremoniously dropped the 10-story, 700-ton Zenite guitarist onto the cargo deck. And as you can see from the photo, we're riding a little low in the water just now.   

Whereas this would be considered a hazard to navigation under the best of circumstances, it is proving particularly hazardous on this voyage because of the unorthodox route we're following. It seems our erstwhile commander has chosen to plot a course back to Sri Lanka via the Hudson River. And since the "S.S. Recycling Bin" is now virtually a submarine, we seem to be scraping up a good bit of PCB-laden sediment from the river bed. That can spoil your whole day. 

Luckily, help is near at hand. Thanks to the ample resources of the Washington corps of corporate lobbyists, we have on board with us a public relations representative from General Electric, the folks who so generously enriched the Hudson with complex elements, making it the longest chemistry set in the world. Our GE Rep. brought along some examples of the sophisticated equipment Hudson Valley residents will be using to remove any contaminants that may have worked their way into their living room carpets. She assures us that we're perfectly safe, so long as we change the bag regularly. (I hope those suckers are waterproof -- my cabin is knee-deep in sludge!)

Trade Off. Another trade summit convenes, this time in Quebec City, and thanks to the efforts of thousands of dedicated folks out on the streets, the corporate representatives (presidents, government ministers, etc.) inside have been denied the level of secrecy necessary to produce a satisfactory result. As always, the corporate-owned and operated media present the issue as one of "Free Trade" (or the forces of "Freedom")  versus "Protectionism" (or the "Flat-Earthers," or "Luddites," or whatever). But that's never been the issue, as the protesters and most of the people involved in resistance have long recognized.

Put simply, NAFTA, the FTAA, and other similar agreements are really all about investor's rights and the ability of multinational corporations to overcome environmental, labor, and health and safety laws in the various countries in which they do business. Through extra-legal trade dispute tribunals, businesses can demand compensation from governments (local, state, provincial, national, whatever) for projected profits lost as a result of complying with applicable laws protecting workers, drinking water, and so forth. Such compensation has been granted repeatedly over the last decade under Nafta's Chapter 11 provisions, not that you'd read about it in your local newspaper. FTAA means more of the same. 

For more on all this, stop by http://www.stopftaa.org/ and check out some of the linked resources. See you later... I've got some bailing to do.

luv u,

jp 

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4/29/2001

Hello again...

Greetings from the somewhat waterlogged world of Big Green, the original dis-corporate (and most decidedly un-nautical) rock group. Talk about a rough passage! And I don't mean that stretch of hall between the officer's mess and the "head". I'll tell you, we've ridden to the outer planets in leaky, hand-me-down spacecraft before...but none so compromised as the ocean-going vessel that carried us back to the subcontinent following our ill-fated sojourn in official Washington. 

Troubles were many aboard the decommissioned garbage scow S.S. Recycling Bin, but none so vexing as that of the 700-ton solidified Zenite guitarist (a.k.a. sFshzenKlyrn) that was dropped onto our cargo deck. Fortunately, sFshzenKlyrn's natural recuperative powers took hold before his enormous mass could send us to the bottom; he began to shrink back to his normal size a few hours after coming aboard and was soon restored to his loveable, gregarious, gaseous form, eating us out of house and home and demanding his signature guitar back. Once  sFshzenKlyrn had shed nearly 700 tons of ugly fat, the Recycling Bin started riding a little higher in the water. Only Matt was required at the bailing station round-the-clock from that time forward. Now only hip-deep in seawater, it seemed like a month or two before we were within sight of the familiar lighthouse that marked the entrance to our home harbor. Dry socks and pocket sandwiches beckoned from Sri Lanka's welcoming shoreline.   

Which reminds me...does anyone out there know a good cure for athlete's foot? sFshzenKlyrn claims to have a sure-fire treatment he picked up from the boys in Mortadella, but it involves plasma-thermal alloy baths at temperatures in excess of 1200 degrees kelvin. (It's hard to get across to these extraterrestrials the concept of flesh and sinew -- they generally don't believe life on earth is even possible!) Anyway, send your safe "cures" to jperry@biggreenhits.com. Huuuuurrrrrry!

How was our reception at our home port? Well, I can't say they weren't expecting us. Indeed, they seemed prepared for every contingency, as the accompanying aerial photograph illustrates. (The U.S. military generously donated one of its 17 million surveillance planes to supply us with a pre-docking photographic intelligence estimate.) As you can see, the harbor is fairly bristling with defensive weaponry. Note also the arrival by separate transport of a cache of instant flapjack mix--a kind of floating methadone clinic for those of us hooked on the real high-grade flour-and-egg-batter stuff. Why, they even had a cherry picker all ready for pulling sFshzenKlyrn out of the hold, though of course that wasn't necessary. Thoughtful, our adopted countrymen.  

Once we had off-loaded all of our provisions (including several hundred microwave tostadas sFshzenKlyrn insisted on bringing with us, despite their long-past expiration dates), we were given transport inland to our beloved lean-to, which looked a bit ragged around the edges after several months of neglect and abandonment. Though not total abandonment. In fact, John and I nearly dropped sFshzenKlyrn's tostadas when we discovered a clan of mongoose living inside. And unlike the folks at the harbor, they weren't at all happy to see us. 

Rather than beginning title negotiations with our mongoose squatters at that moment, we asked the taxi driver to carry us to the nearest accommodations he could think of, which turned out to be the Comfort Suites Adobe Townhouse Estates several miles outside of town. Sure, it's a bit disappointing to spend your first night back home at a cheap motel. But it beats Washington, I can tell you. After what we've been through, I would spend a thousand nights in this dingy roadside rest sooner than return to Dubya's adopted hometown.  At least the sheets get changed once a week, whether they need it or not. Free ice, too...at the end of the hall. And they don't charge extra for extraterrestrials. 

Dubya's One (Or Two) China Policy. Well, which is it? Foreign Policy unencumbered by the thought process...or Dubya just getting his lines a little wrong, maybe reading from the strategy rationale instead of the script? Whichever the case (probably the latter), Dubya has capped his brilliant scuttling of US-China relations with an encouraging pledge to defend Taiwan with American force, using whatever means necessary. Though there was some semi-frantic backpedaling after his "Good Morning America" announcement, this does -- once again -- seem to indicate his administration's desire to deploy "National Missile Defense" on a forward-based strategy; that is, along the Taiwan strait. Good news for Lockheed Martin and TRW. Bad news for anyone in the far east (and around the world) who stands to suffer from a renewed arms race and heightened military tensions -- namely, the rest of humanity. 

I'm tempted to start taking bets on which area of foreign policy will be the next to be cocked-up by this bizarre cabal of warmed-over cold war relics, headed by a hero of the Texas Air Guard lost weekend club. Not that things weren't pretty well fucked already by the arrogant Clinton crowd, whose support for American-dominated corporate globalization could hardly have been more absolute.  But like Labor and Likud in Israel, the two major US political parties agree on all the fundamentals...one is just a little less varnished about their barbarity than the other. 

I think I hear room service. They've finally brought sFshzenKlyrn's combination plate (though it's probably one taco short...). See you next week. Don't fly over Peru. 

luv u,

jp 

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