NOTES FROM SRI LANKA.
(July '02)
Click here to return to Table of Contents.
7/7/02
Aloooooo!
Did I say things were getting better? Well, paint the sand yellow again! Just when you think you've got it all worked out, that's when things fall apart. (I seem to recall that back around the turn of the last century, the Newtonian scientific community felt confident that they had solved virtually all of the mysteries of the physical universe...except for that irregularity in the orbit of Mercury...But I digress.)
No,
I'm not talking about a major paradigm shift in the way we view our world. I'm
just grousing (again) about the fact that we're getting screwed by our label
(yet again) on the details of a tour only they stand to profit from. Remember
how I told you they left deep space transportation out of their budget? Now I
know why. They weren't planning an "Interplanetary" tour for us after
all. Either through some bureaucratic fuck-up or through sheer malevolence, they
want us to go on an "Inner-planetary" tour -- a kind of 
Journey to the
Center of the Earth misadventure that will have us performing for troglodytes and other
scaly denizens of the dark and dangerous world that lies beneath us.
That's why there's no spaceship for Big Green
this summer. We're talkin' downtown!
The only upside to this (aside from retracing the footsteps of James Mason and Pat Boone) is that Matt can test out his continental drift theory -- you know, the one he so blisteringly articulated in his song, "Why Not Call It George?"...perhaps the closest thing to a thrash number we've ever done.
Continental drift can be reversed,
great tumblers shift
and Pangea can be reclaimed.
After me it can be renamed.
Why
not call it George?
Call it George after me.
One of these days I'll post the low-fi recording we made of this song so you can understand the tectonic principles involved. (Maybe by then I'll understand them, too.)
Naturally,
I'm protesting this absurd change in plan, but as is usually the case, we
probably don't have a legal leg to stand on. Our contract with Hegemonic
Records & Worm Farm, Inc., (signed at gunpoint) obliges us to go pretty
much wherever they want us to go to promote our recordings. Sure -- some
bands get to play all over Europe (and Italy, too), some in Japan...while we're
expected to do a tour of the Earth's molten nickel core. (Hmmmmm. Does
gravity stop at the center of the Earth? Is there a big hunka Tootsie Roll in
there?) And the only support we get on this is a labyrinthine trip planner that
takes us from a vent on Mt. St. 
Helens, down through the crust to some bottle
club in the mantle, then to a string of gigs across inner Earth, a couple of
nights at the core, and up and out through Krakatoa. Then -- and only
then -- we might get a passage to Zenon to promote our new LIVE EP (that's if we
do really well with the trogs). I'll bet Belle and Sebastian never has to
deal with this shit.
It's
manifestly obvious to me that Hegemonic is trying to bury us. Mitch
Macaphee agrees. Everyone else thinks I'm full of it, though. In fact, they've
even gotten Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and the boys to drop what
they're doing over at the lean-to construction site and start digging a
shortcut to that mantle gig. Luckily, Marvin has no sense of proportion. He
appears to think the Earth is about 50 feet wide and shaped like a football.
That's the only explanation I can find for the peculiar victory dance he treated
us to when he finished digging a 15-foot hole with a 30-foot jog in a westerly
direction. sFshzenKlyrn, for his own part, has converted one of Gung-Ho's bombed
out Humvees into a burrowing vehicle, but he can't even get half of it into the
pathetic hole Marvin and his fellow construction bots dug. (They got a little 
encouragement from the guy in Midnight Oil, but that's about it.)
In other news...we should be posting the MP3's of our LIVE recordings at all the usual places on the web by the end of this month. Though our next album project still awaits reconstruction of our beloved lean-to, I have been working on demos in the butler's pantry of the Cheney Hammer Mill. The minute I have something listenable, I'll let you know where to find it. (I've had Marvin playing drums on a couple of numbers. John's been off in his own cloistered chamber, banging the paint off the walls in preparation for our upcoming engagements. Bless him and his little baseball bats.)
Say What? It amazes me that, with all that is fucked up in this great nation of ours, people can spend enormous amounts of time haggling over the stupid Pledge of Allegiance. And yet, every time I turn around, someone else is making their "principled" position known. (They've even got me talking about it!)
There
is a serious logical disconnect in the suggestion that any "pledge"
schoolchildren are expected to recite by rote containing obvious reference to
"God" does not constitute establishment of religion. Of course
it bloody does! But, worse than that, it's a ludicrous loyalty oath to both
"God" and 
country -- something that should be considered highly
unpatriotic in a society that values free thought and expression. It is also
propagated as part of a kind of political programming, much like verses of the
Koran are taught in the most obscurantist madrassas. Public schools use
all the usual devices (intimidation, peer pressure, etc.) to get kids to
regurgitate this bit of prose over and over again, even before they know what
"pledge" or "allegiance" or "indivisible" mean.
Every schoolkid knows this. Why don't the talking heads bring it up? (And I don't
mean David Byrne).
My advice to smart parents and schoolkids of all ages -- abstain from reciting it. Remain seated. Loyalty oaths and flag waving are signs of creeping fascism. You're preserving the best principles of American democracy when you take a stand against them. (Parental advisory: it won't be easy...but it can be fun.)
Afghan
Wedding Gift. U.S. air strikes killed more than 40 Afghans and injured about
120 this week, including some 25 family members in a wedding party. From
our government, there were the usual expressions of "regret" and
lamentations over this "tragic" event, always taking care to keep to
neutral language, never accepting blame or responsibility. My guess is that more
than 15 or 20 Afghan civilians need to be killed at one time in order for our
media to pay any attention. Aside from these incidents, there has been as little
inquiry into civilian casualties in Afghanistan as there has 
been
regarding Palestinian deaths during Israel's spring pogrom in the occupied
territories.
So the "war" grinds on, destroying the lives of people who don't matter, spreading to every corner of the world where there is interest on the part of U.S.-based corporations -- like the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, where military operations appear solely to support good old fashioned oil lust. Or China, where there are markets to be had...for Poppy Bush and brother Neil. (Dubya will drink to that one anytime.)
luv u,
jp
Click here to return to Table of Contents.
7/14/02
G'day,
Forgive me for affecting the bogus Aussie accent, mate, but I thought it might just come in handy should we take a wrong turn somewhere in the Earth's crust and come up in Queensland. Stranger things have happened, for sure.
Well,
this promises to be one of the most challenging tours we've ever undertaken.
It's more than simply a matter of drawing audiences, fly-like, to our
performances (always as challenge, even under the best of circumstances); this
"inner-planetary" journey-to-the-chewy-center tour involves whole
branches of science with which we've only the most tenuous association. Geology,
for one. The sum total of my geological experience consists of a few dozen hours
of mis-identifying feldspar as granite in a particularly tedious afternoon lab
class back at S.U. in the late 
70's.
And the rest of our party? Well, Mitch has got a smattering. But all in all,
their geological knowledge is so pathetically wanting that they named me
chief geologist!
Then
there's the vexing discipline of cartography -- another area of scientific
knowledge we're a little weak on. We've selected sFshzenKlyrn
to be our official navigator/mapmaker on this tour, which is why I'm
anticipating ending up in the Australian wilderness somewhere. I mean, sFshzenKlyrn
knows interstellar space like the back of his starboard anterior pod, but when
it comes to subterranean navigation, our Zenite friend couldn't find his
posterior protuberance with both anterior pods. He seems to think you can
draw a straight line between any two points in the Earth's interior and follow
it without allowing for small obstacles like feldspar intrusions, magma, lost
civilizations, aquifers, gas layers, etc. That worries me...a little. So does
his converted Humvee/burrowing machine. Not for nothing, but it's a little
cramped inside the cockpit of that thing. Not exactly the Partridge Family
bus...nor 
the blue GMC
city coach Brad Terry used to drive. (Hey...I'm not asking for much, okay? Just
a few creature comforts and an air-bubble to call my own.)
Our corporate label -- Hegemonic Records & Worm Farm, Inc. -- has been a fat lot of help. Matt, John, and I co-signed a formal letter of complaint to them about our transportation arrangements (or lack of same) during this subterranean homesick tour. We demanded that they provide some portion of what will be required to bring us from place to place down there. For the next three days, we grit our teeth and jumped at the slightest sound, expecting an air strike from the Indonesian air force wing Hegemonic keeps on retainer. Then yesterday we got our answer in the form of an oblong package. I was going to have Marvin (my personal robot assistant) don a hazmat suit and inspect it, but John ripped it open first, groaning at what he saw. Shovels. They sent us four standard garden shovels. And a half-used can of shaving cream. (This last item was in lieu of an on-board stylist, I suspect.)
I
enlisted Marvin to draft a stinging letter of rebuke in response to this obvious
put-down, and to send it off post-haste. Marvin popped and hummed for a minute,
then teetered off to what I assumed was his usual berth in the butler's pantry
of the Cheney Hammer Mill. Some hours later, 
Mitch
Macaphee told me he saw Marvin in a nearby village, negotiating with a used auto
dealer over a 1979 Buick Century...Mitch said it was green. I thought for a
moment. Rebuke. Green Buick. It could happen.
Anyway, we're expecting proofs back on our latest celebrity product endorsement packaging deal, not to mention finals on our LIVE from Neptune EP sleeve. Maybe there'll be some way for us to work a green Buick into all of this, I don't know. Marvin can be a remarkable putz, but I hate to disappoint him. And frankly, that Buick is probably more comfortable inside than sFshzenKlyrn's converted Earth-drilling Humvee.
In
Truth, No Consequences. It's a good thing irony is dead, as Gary Trudeau
once observed. The image of Dubya lecturing a roomful of executives on corporate
responsibility would be almost too much to handle otherwise. After being hoisted
into the White House atop a mountain of corporate cash, populating his cabinet
with questionable figures from the board rooms of his favorite industries,
offering big contributors as yet undisclosed access to the regulatory systems
that govern their money-making activities, ludicrously denying what is obviously
his closest 
relationship
in the corporate world (to say nothing of his own personal history as a
"businessman"), letting energy and other major sectors off the hook on
taxes, toxic clean-up, environmental regulations, etc., etc., etc....This is
mister responsibility? Even Wall Street could see what a joke that was,
taking a nose dive the very next day.
Not that his standards are that much lower than those of his political allies and principal opponents. The differences are minor, mostly driven by tactical considerations as to how many voters, unions, elderly people, etc., one can risk pissing off at any given time. Still, this rich-man-son-of-a-rich-man, president-son-of-a-president, who owes his considerable political fortunes to sweetheart deals and preferential treatment stretching back to his admission to Yale on a C average...this guy, Georgie FastTrack, is going to clean up corporate America? Get Kenny boy on the phone -- I got a hot one for him. (Maybe this is part of Mr. Lay's latest cartoon pirate scam -- he can codename this one "Millennium Falcon.")
Give
'Em What They Want. Well, the Bush crew lined up in front of Congress this
week, making the case for a new, over funded Department of 
Homeland
Security, designed to make us all a whole lot safer in the same way Missile
Defense surely will (i.e. not at all). Aside from the fact that this is the
crack team that let 9/11 slip by them, they represent a greater threat than
anything they're planning to shield us from.
Old Donny "The Hand" Rumsfeld, for instance, is busily making the world safe for a new generation of nuclear weapons, even while the last generation (thanks to him and Dubya) will soon be sitting in storage by the thousands -- poorly guarded storage in Russia, where there will be plenty of opportunities for fissionable materials to disappear. Then there's the domestic front, where soon truckloads and trainloads of spent nuclear fuel will be wending its way through the main streets of America, bound for fault-ridden Yucca Mountain. I, for one, can hardly wait.
Nuclear terrorism? It's public policy. Until we start saying no.
luv u,
jp
Click here to return to Table of Contents.
7/21/02
Ahoy-o,
Man, it's hot! The walls of the Cheney Hammer Mill are beaded with condensation, largely because the ancient air conditioning unit we used to keep this place livable is now on the junk pile. As a result, I can't even lift a forkful of halvah without breaking into a sweat. This is unbearable.
Marvin
(my personal robot assistant) is doing his part by putting my Converse®
All-Stars® on ice every morning about an hour before I pour myself out of bed.
Helpful? Sure it is. But what we could really use is a 
spanking new air
conditioning unit from Carrier® or Lennox®. (Why the trademark mania, you may
ask? Well... we're still fishing for underwriters for our upcoming tour, that's
what.) John and Mitch Macaphee have resorted to the somewhat less comforting
contrivance of an electric fan. Matt just pulls his hat down tighter and puts a
single elderberry between each of his fingers. It's supposed to make the sun go
away. (Up to now, it only seems to work at night.)
Such
broiling heat only further complicates our efforts to prepare for what promises
to be the most bizarre tour we've ever undertaken (and I do mean
undertaken). The "Inner-Planetary" trip to the Earth's core our label Hegemonic
Records & Worm Farm, Inc., has foisted upon us presents a whole series
of difficulties we've never encountered before. Transport is one. Communications
is another -- how are we to call home from 500 miles beneath the Earth's
surface? Our friend and colleague Trevor James Constable has been working on
that particular problem, and has proposed a 2 stage system that would
necessitate access to an unobstructed vent shaft (up through a volcano, perhaps)
at the top of which he would rig some sort of speaker/phone gear. We would
simply holler up the shaft and the 
voice-activated microphone on the rim of the
'cano would convey our cries through an open watts line to the nearest phone
switch. The challenge, clearly, is in getting sound back down from the
speakerphone to the Earth's core. Trevor James suggests a flown array of those
trapezoidal Eastern Acoustic® cabinets -- maybe about 30 of them -- powered by
Crown® Microtech® power amps (there I go again).
I don't want to leave you with the impression that we have scored absolutely no celebrity corporate product endorsements whatsoever. There is, of course, the chance of a Puffa Puffa Rice® concession. We're also working on getting ourselves onto other cereal boxes -- perhaps putting our LIVE EP as a cut out on the back panel. Hey, it worked for Bobby Sherman®, okay? Why not us? Do we really have to land a co-star slot on Here Come The Brides®? Does this really have to be 1969®?
Ironically,
it is Marvin who has done the best in this regard. His prominent participation
in recent editions of Notes From Sri Lanka
have brought him a flood of offers. Perhaps the most attractive of these came
from a certain well-known manufacturer of sno-cone machines (whose name I will 
withhold pending receipt of Marvin's endorsement check). I think certain
military contractors may want him for their brochures, as well. We shall see. If
it happens, expect to see a significant up tick in half-track sales.
Pronto.
It
would figure that all this should happen just as our LIVE From Neptune EP is
being prepared for shipment to the great beyond (which is right where it
belongs, if you ask the critics). We plan to upload MP3 versions of the songs to
our usual listening posts -- amazon.com, mp3.com, soundclick.com, to name three
-- so terrestrial followers of Big Green may
have a listen. That should happen quite soon...before we start digging our 
way
towards the mantle. While we wait for sFshzenKlyrn,
our chief cartographer, to pick just the right spot to start burrowing (he's
checking out basements as we speak), there'll be plenty of time to rip that MP3
for y'all (p'shaw). I'll drop you a link when it happens.
The
Chimp Is Watching. This week saw Dubya making an appearance up around our
old stomping ground, at Fort Drum in upstate New York, home of the 10th Mountain
Division of the U.S. Army®. Is it me, or does he just go from military
installation to military installation? Talk about captive audiences! I can't
imagine it's too comforting for those soldiers to know that the
commander-in-thief's popularity ratings are dipping into the low 60's, according
to John Zogby's latest numbers. That
typically means war. And war would likely mean a full scale invasion of Iraq,
over the objections of nearly all our allies and the Iraqi dissident exile
community, who would be expected to run the remnants of the "ended"
state. (Hey, we didn't listen to the Taliban's opposition...why should we pay
Saddam's 
opponents any
heed?) Prediction -- if those approval ratings hit 55% or lower, the bombs will
start to fall -- you heard it here first.
It somehow still appalls me to consider the depths of cynicism that drives such policy. But then this is the administration that has clamped down on the timely release of documents from the Reagan/Bush I era...the coterie that would turn our meter readers into spies for the state. Like their fanatically religious core constituency, these suckers will stop at nothing to make this not only a more closed society, but one laboring under a constant state of siege. It's all about security -- job security for those governing us, as it has proven to be for many governments, regardless of their ideological stripe. But it only works because ordinary people reward politicians with their approval every time they attack some official enemy.
Honestly,
this TIPS program -- encouraging domestic espionage on the part of utility
workers, tradesmen, etc. -- is probably the most ludicrously reactionary idea
Dubya and the boys have come up with since the Office for Strategic Influence at
the Pentagon. Question: does everyone want their National Grid® meter
reader to be checking for suspicious activities on his or her way down to the
basement? Isn't that a formula for a lot more 
frivolous
arrests (a la Jose Padilla) where they haul you in front of a military tribunal
because you're engaging in "loose talk" or some other Ashcroft-era
transgression? Isn't this an easy way for people to settle old scores or harass
those they don't like (a la Phoenix Program) with the government's eager
assistance? Does this make anyone feel more secure?
Speaking of security, it is a little laughable to see Dubya shaking hands with a sea of Fort Drum soldiers while his secret service men eye the crowd suspiciously. What...do they think he's in danger? He's surrounded by our Army! Hell, if it weren't for military absentee ballots, he might not even have the highly questionable claim to the presidency he now enjoys. So, loosen up, George! Regale the troops with stories of your own military service -- you know, as part of the dreaded "double martini" brigade of the Texas Air National Guard, keeping those lone star highways clear of Vietcong using the same skillful driving techniques that earned him a citation on the road to Kennebunkport some years later. Show 'em your stuff, Shrub!
luv u,
jp
Click here to return to Table of Contents.
7/28/02
Hello, again...
Those of you who have been following this column for the last 2-1/2 years are probably expecting me to jump right into some tirade of complaint about our various misfortunes, misdeeds, etc. I can only say this to you: You will not be disappointed.
Having
said that...it's been another dog day week here at the Cheney Hammer Mill; so
much so that Matt elected at one point to open the fire hydrant in the courtyard
to refresh our various hangers on with some greenish water the municipal
authorities pump out of nearby mangrove swamps (It's a good goddamn thing algae
doesn't burn, or we'd have no fire control in this neighborhood at all). You
should have seen the lot of them jumping through the spray, squealing and having
a great time. Mitch Macaphee was there as well, with his goggles, snorkel, and
flippers. Even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) joined in for a while, until
his joints began to stiffen from corrosion.
As
the others continued their stereotypical summertime fun, Marvin stood frozen in
their midst, muttering "oil...can...oil...can..." in a strangulated 
voice
only sFshzenKlyrn could make out with his
ultra-sensitive Zenite hearing. A few squirts of WD-40 and old Marvin was right
as rain (or lack of rain, in his case). Mitch Macaphee is working on a
waterproof polyglycoat finish for our erstwhile robot friend even as we speak.
Science marches on!
This
high-spirited frolic provided a welcome departure from the tedious business of
reconciling Hegemonic Records & Worm Farm, Inc.'s
"inner-planetary" tour plans with objective reality (if there is any
such thing). Our sinister corporate label has left a great deal of the
logistical details to us, perhaps owing to the distraction of an unfolding
equities scandal at the highest levels of their organization. (Apparently Hegemonic's management team was inspired by Enron's top brass to extort money
from California by manipulating the emerging market for derivatives based on
available sunlight. Hegemonic put their money on the cloudy side of the deal,
then allegedly set a series of forest fires to cloud things up when the calls
started coming in.) At any rate, the tour is about 
the
last thing on their minds right now...unless they're trading futures over
whether we survive it or not (the world's just one big juicy casino to them).
Our journey into the bowels of the Earth promises to be physically demanding and hazardous in the extreme. As such, our resident health expert Trevor James Constable has insisted that we undergo a complete medical examination. I grit my teeth at this suggestion -- that meant blood work, and I always despised having blood drawn. Not because of the needles, you understand. Rather, it's the staff at the local lab...they're verbally abusive to me. The nurse who actually does the deed insults me bitterly every time I go there, and this time was no exception. Sure enough, I walked into the little consulting room, rolled up my sleeve, and as the woman prepared to slip that little metal tap into my vein, she muttered the same withering epithet she delivers each time I get tested.
"Okay....little
prick," she said almost cheerfully, then stuck me with the needle. I kid
you not!
By the way (speaking of little pricks), Marvin's endorsement contract with the Sno-Cone manufacturer came through this week. Once we scraped the rust off of him, he was ready for his celebrity photo shoot, complete with ermine-lined director's chair, solid silver service, and canapés made from lark's vomit. Maybe it's time for Marvin to get some blood drawn -- that'll take him down a notch or two.
The Smell Of Success. It's been a week like many others in the Middle East -- one characterized by Sharon doing what Sharon does best: killing people indiscriminately and scuttling peace efforts. Right up the bastard's alley, that's the first thought I had when I received news of the 2000-lb laser-guided gravity bomb the Israeli military dropped on a densely populated residential Gaza neighborhood, destroying 15 lives, including the Hamas military leader they were targeting, his bodyguard, and more than a dozen non-combatants -- some of whom were young children -- who had the misfortune of living in the tightly packed group of buildings.
Sharon's
initial comment said it best -- it was "one of [Israel's] biggest
successes." First of all, there was the usual collection of Palestinian
corpses that Sharon has been so adept at producing since the days of his
infamous Qibya raid and before. Second, Hamas' threatened moratorium on civilian
attacks was effectively obliterated, the danger of peace once again safely
averted as it was in January. Of course, Sharon also has a history of using
violence to avoid negotiations -- one he has shared with his political
colleagues in both Likud and Labor. The 1982 invasion of Lebanon is perhaps the
most heinous example. Probably every little interactive history of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict (including the one on the Washington Post's
website) repeats the specious tale of how Lebanon was invaded to stop
cross-border attacks by Palestinians. This was, of course, the line used broadly
in the U.S. at the time, which is where the money comes from. People in Israel
have always known that it was done to prevent having the PLO as a negotiating
partner -- a growing possibility then, as cross-border attacks had been stopped
and objections to meaningful political participation for Palestinians were
becoming increasingly tenuous. (Even the New York Times -- staunch ally
of militant Israel -- has quietly conceded the above to be true, albeit 20 years
after the fact.)
Hmmm.
Using violence for political ends. Is this not the operative definition of
terrorism used by Bush & Co.? How could this gruesome attack in Gaza be
described in any other way? Even if you consider assassination a legitimate way
to deal with the Hamas leader (which I don't), dropping a ton of high explosives
on row houses with the intention of "taking out" one person hidden
amongst scores is worse than imprecise -- it's a cowardly, deliberate criminal
act conceived and executed by people who have no regard for human life...worse
than suicide bombers, in my book, in part because it will inevitably lead to more
suicide bombings, as 
Sharon
and company surely know.
Forget the bleating of Israeli government flaks, expressing their "regret" over the murder of children. To them I say: You are responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions, and this attack should land Sharon in the Hague where he belongs.
Of course, you're much more likely to see him in the winner's circle at the annual Earnest Hemingway look-alike key lime pie-eating contest in Key Largo. When you're a mass murderer, it helps to have influential friends.
For the full case on Sharon, check out: http://www.humanityonhold.com/sharon/massacres.html