NOTES FROM SRI LANKA.

(March '03)

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3/02/03

Hey, now...

Fondest regards from this drafty old barn we know as the Cheney Hammer Mill, our very own undisclosed location. How are you this time around, anyway? Everything going okay? No bladder trouble or embezzlement of pension savings by fixed-benefit plan managers? Good. No near-Earth encounters by large celestial bodies set on a path of almost certain destruction on a titanic scale? That's good. No herds of flying manatees emanating from a previously undiscovered aperture just north of your boss's navel? Good, good.

It's funny how quickly things fall back into their normal pattern after a tour. Everybody has pretty much picked up where they left off before our departure. Mitch Macaphee is attending his mad scientist symposium out in dear old Oslo town. Trevor James Constable has repaired to his native California to resume his scientific inquiry into the hidden properties of invisible flying predators. sFshzenKlyrn has toddled off to one of his favorite corners of the night sky -- the middle star in Orion's belt, where he can do his well documented impersonation of an unknown planet (look for his smiling visage in an upcoming issue of the journal Science). All is as it was.

It seems I spoke a bit too soon last week about there being no welcome back party for us, the core members of Big Green. There was, in fact, an impromptu soiree hosted by our neighbor Gung Ho and some of the galley slaves who work over at the headquarters for our web site, BigGreenHits.com. Nothing fancy, you understand -- our rough-hewn neighbor broke out some C-rations and a few canteens of whiskey, while our chief web designer Gertrude Mani-Wong put the contents of a few dozen half-eaten packets of dry roasted peanuts into an abandoned hubcap. Someone broke open a roll of toilet paper and draped it over the rafters and across the doorways like party streamers. A coffee-stained boom box played worn cassettes of A-Ha and other Scandinavian bands of the mid eighties. Yep -- they pulled out all the stops.

But it hasn't been all party and high times. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) started his police robot career this week with a fresh coat of rubbing compound applied to his exterior and a hardy "What's all this, then?" stored on his audio chip. His first assignment? Deliver a written ultimatum to a fellow who had locked himself into the local blintz factory and threatened to replace the potato filler with window putty. Marvin's effort met with mixed success -- he was able to deliver the message to the would-be terrorist, but got his audio unit plugged up with putty for his trouble. He did, however, come away with a nice plate of potato blintzes for the constable in charge of the operation -- officer Bandyopadhyay -- who seemed satisfied that Marvin had performed with efficiency and valor, and who stuck a little blue star on Marvin's forehead. Good show!

Meanwhile, we continued our preparations for our upcoming recording project, sorting through a list of song candidates as long as Rip Van Winkle's beard. Matt's been up in the cupola of the Cheney Hammer Mill cranking out new numbers like hammers on the old assembly line, just locked away up there with that wacky muse of his. My composition process is a bit different, of course, as I've mentioned in previous columns -- more like pounding away at a rock pile at San Quentin. A chip here, a chip there, and ten years later you're done. What the fuck...we've got scores of songs we've never committed to disk...so it's likely this next collection will be both new and not-so-new material; we shall see. (Marvin wants to do some rhythm parts...we'll see about that, too. Maybe Mitch Macaphee can program him to be a flashing metronome.) 

Meanwhile, I hear our nefarious old ex-pilot Urich Von Braun is attempting to capitalize on his brief association with us by putting out an album on the Hegemonic Records & Worm Farm, Inc.  label billed as "the nefarious ex-pilot of Big Green."  Urich can't play a note on any instrument, but he's not letting that get in the way. Reportedly he's been toting a digital recorder down to the local music store and taping hours of mullet-bearing customers framming on new guitars, basses, etc. He plans to title the release Just Smokin'. Fucker. (Wish I'd thought of that...) 

As Seen On TV. You've got to hand it to them; the major organs (quite so) of the corporate media and good old PBS/NPR are way out in front on this legless war on Iraq. Well...not so much so as to put themselves in danger, you understand (that's for other people's children), but definitely doing their bit for the fatherland, devoting more and more time to stories about post-Saddam Iraq, making the conflict seem not only inevitable, but somehow irrelevant, as if we needn't bother considering it at all because, dammit, it's going to happen, and that means (in our tiny little minds) that it already has happened. So the war is, like, old news. In an era dominated by "reality" television, this is the level of unreality with which the networks approach this very important matter -- one that will determine the fate of tens of thousands of people and establish a dangerously weak standard for going to war in the future.

We are treated to the spectacle of meaningless Pentagon briefings (so congenial as to seem like a cocktail party), nearly incoherent and wholly unsupported blather coming from any number of talking heads, and supposedly "seasoned" Middle East correspondents passing along the administration's PR lines and calling it news. I was appalled (though not surprised) to hear the Times's Judy Miller on PBS referring to the Kurds in Turkey as terrorists in an effort to make Turkey's proposed wartime occupation of northern Iraq seem more congenial. Why not remind the folks at home about the scorched earth campaign against Kurdish villages in Turkey during the 1990s that left tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands refugees, carried out with U.S.-supplied arms and treasure? While they're at it, they might talk a bit more about the total collapse of Powell's UN presentation on Feb. 5th, which is still obliquely referred to as a rationale for war...even though its content has been shot so full of holes that the Secretary has resorted to characterizing the French and Russians as "afraid" to go to war. 

It's a bit like the election 2000 debacle, in which the Bush team assumed the mantle of "default" winner, even while the votes were being recounted. Or the impeachment crusade against butterball Bill Clinton, wherein eight years of "inspections" into his political/financial history turned up zippo, so they resorted to some tawdry affair as a last resort. Is it incumbent upon the press to point out obvious absurdity? Has it dawned on any of them that there isn't anything like a pretext for war against Iraq? While they've been digging around for the scent of a Saddam-Al Qaeda link, have any of the networks looked into the history of congenial relations between elements of the current administration and Saddam in the past...or between our government and Saddam-like butchers in Algeria, Turkmenistan, Colombia, etc., etc.? 

The major media are masters at making the past invisible, irrelevant. And now, with the support of Dubya and the boys, they're trying to make the present disappear, as well.

luv u,

jp

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3/09/03

A-tennnnnnn-hut!

Never too late for a little military discipline around the old Cheney Hammer Mill. We run a tight ship. Everybody's tight round these parts. I blame cheap liquor and easy money, the scourge of many a pop group. (Though I did manage to kick the ciggies a few years back, so my ignominious descent into total physical degradation has been somewhat delayed.)

It's been raining here in Sri Lanka this week, pouring through our roof in buckets, filling the wheel-tracks in our unpaved courtyard, running like a river through the streets of our little village. We've taken this opportunity to hammer out a few more songs and respond to some of the mail that came in during our long absence. Matt and sFshzenKlyrn get a mountain of letters, postcards, and packages, while John and I need only contend with a few thin handfuls -- mostly complaints about our hairstyles or the kind of foot powder we use. (Actually, Big Green doesn't officially endorse any brand of foot powder, but we're certainly open to any reasonable proposals.) 

For his part, Matt is working on a kind of "batch response" system that enables him to do five reply messages at once using several of those manual tracing machines all linked together. Why not use a computer, you may ask? Well, where's the sport in that? Besides, Matt's a bit of a Luddite anyway (though he does use a global positioning device to help him set up his life-size chess board out in the garden.)

We did get a note from our old friend and advisor Dr. Hump, who sends his greetings from his new research facility in Bologna. Some of you may recall the important role the good doctor played in our earlier interstellar tours. Much like our erstwhile companions Mitch Macaphee and Trevor James Constable, Dr. Hump provided the scientific underpinning for the seemingly impossible feats we were expected to perform through the course or our deep-space itinerary. What's more, his efforts came at great personal cost to himself, both in terms of the interruption of his important research into human biology and the inconvenience of traveling with his peculiar disability (i.e. no body). In my reply to Dr. Hump's missive, I invited him to participate in our next interstellar tour, mentioning that this time around, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) can be his arms and legs. I'm sure his brain will bubble at the prospect. 

Speaking of Marvin...he's really been cutting himself quite a figure in the local constabulary as police robot. Here I was thinking that -- in a sleepy little community like ours -- Marvin would spend days on end in some police storage locker or over at the Dunkin' Dosai, sipping chi with the lads. No, sir -- he's seeing some action. Just the other day they sent him on a surveillance run inside an apartment building notorious for flapjack-related violence and lawlessness. Yesterday he was inspecting vehicles at a police checkpoint, looking for expired stickers and suspicious looking cargo. Today he's at the annual charity carnival, spinning the big wheel of chance and handing out kewpie dolls to lucky patrons. If Marvin keeps up like this, they'll put a statue of him in front of city hall (or maybe just have him stand on a cement pedestal during his off hours and look heroic). 

Unfortunately, his success has meant that I've been going without a personal assistant for a good part of the day. Now I'm forced to write things down, carry things from place to place, and even open doors for myself -- a level of activity I'm thoroughly unused to. This is particularly annoying since we're in pre-production for our next album, and I could use all the help I can get. Unless Marvin's work schedule slows down a tick, I may have to ask Mitch Macaphee to build me another mechanical mensch. (Maybe one that can play the Sousaphone or make coffee...)

Perhaps when this rain stops I can spend a bit more time slamming on this new recording, instead of emptying buckets. Leaky old mill! Can't wait until that lean-to is rebuilt (again). 

Georgie One Note. It's easy to see why this president has his underlings do most of the talking for him -- his grasp of the policies advanced by his own administration is even more tenuous than that of his beloved predecessor, the sainted Ronald Reagan. Dubya's first prime time press conference in some stretch of months saw him repeating a very limited stable of phrases over and over and over...mostly in a macabre-sounding petulant schoolboy voice that made you think he was planning on sending us all to the cornfield if we did not agree with him "unconditionally." The strangulated little voice weaved through freakish circumlocutions of rhetoric, clumsily tying together prepared speech fragments that bore no obvious logical relationship to one another, as Ari, Condoleeza Rice (the person, not the oil tanker), and other handlers nodded encouragingly from stage right. 

It was, in fact, a very tightly controlled affair. The boy appeared to have talking points on his rostrum, as well as a list of questioners (at one point  when calling the next journalist's name, he even quipped that it was "scripted," to general laughter). Were questions submitted in advance? No story on that. The responses relied heavily on "lines of the day," with a bit of his usual freestyle gibberish salted in. Like when Dubya referred to South Korean president Roh as "president No" (was he thinking Doctor No?), a gaffe helpfully corrected in the remarkably incomplete New York Times web-posted transcript (whole questions and responses missing!). Then there was his somewhat peculiar vision of what true disarmament looks like:

"It really would have taken a handful to [sic] inspectors to determine whether he was disarming. They could have showed up at a parking lot and he could have brought his weapons and destroyed them."

Of course, he also repeated Powell's wholly unsupported allegations about the Al Qaeda connection, the as-yet invisible "poison network," the "poison plant in northeastern Iraq" that turned out to be anything but (none of which found its way into the Times transcript). In all, the performance just adds weight to the contention that these guys are blowing smoke, big time. There's no concrete evidence of significant terror links, no concrete evidence of banned weapons, nothing. Yet they continue to ladle out the lies, assuming that no one's going to check into it. So Powell can rattle on (as he did earlier this week) about defector Iraqi General Hussein Kamal's deposition back in 1995, and give the impression that Kamal said the Iraqis were hiding WMD's, when in fact, Kamal said the precise opposite:

"I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons -- biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed." 

(For the full transcript, find the link in Alex Cockburn's column at Counterpunch.org) 

One can imagine that, over in Britain, "Fat" Tony Blair has his own methods for propagandizing his people (aside from merely plagiarizing school papers)...though judging by their polling numbers, he might consider just lying through his teeth a bit more, like our leaders do.  

luv u,

jp

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3/16/03

Ho-man,

Is it that time of the week again? Zounds! Time is just reeling by here at the Cheney Hammer Mill as we make our preparations for...well, for whatever lies ahead. It's kind of hard to prepare for something when you don't know what it's going to be, but there you have it. Our contingency plan is to take every imaginable precaution, short of painting the windows with furniture varnish. (Someone did that during Governor Ridge's last "Code Orange.") You can never be too careful...and I say that with the utmost caution. 

Of course, this hulking monstrosity we live in is just temporary digs for us Big Green-ites, as many of you know (perhaps even all five of you). We took up residence at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill when our lean-to was invaded by renegade mongooses and our militant neighbor Gung-Ho had to "destroy the lean-to in order to save it," so to speak. Since that time, we have made several abortive attempts to rebuild our domicile, the most recent of which was interrupted by last Fall's subterranean "Inner-Planetary" tour and by the discovery of substantial cheese-food deposits on the property. Now that all of that is behind us (we hope), it's time to start re-rebuilding again...time for us to stop living out of a suitcase in this cavernous squat house and bring it all back home. None too soon for me, friends. 

Not that the reconstruction of our beloved lean-to means abandoning the Hammer Mill entirely...hell, that would mean sacrificing whatever squatter's rights we have accrued up to this point. (What a waste!) No sir -- we've staked our claim and we're sticking to it, even if we have to press Marvin (my personal robot assistant) into service as a night watchman to keep the mongooses and other usurpers out. Lord knows, since I started writing about it, people from every corner of the globe have been clamoring for a piece of this quality real estate. I've told you about the pirates...they still show up once in a while, hoping for some opportunity to commandeer the mill, then sullenly wandering off (they may be fierce on the high seas, but terra firma just seems to confuse the hell out of them). Then there's other rock bands -- ambitious young minstrels pressing their way past our elaborate security system (duct tape across the door at night), convinced that possession of this shabby location holds the secret to our success. Hah! They'll never know the secret. Neeevveeeerrrrrr! 

Sorry. Where was I? Oh, yes. They'll neeeever know the seeeeecret, hahahahahahahahaaaaa! All right, I'm done. No...really. 

Just a word more about Marvin's new career as a police robot. And that word is JEEZUZ! I mean, we're all happy for him, naturally enough...but, well, it's like living with a cop, for christ's sake. You can't pull out the flapjacks anytime you feel the hankering, and poor old sFshzenKlyrn (when he's between Hubble-Stumping binges) has to keep the Zenite snuff poked away in his dresser drawer. You see, in as much as Marvin's a robot and all that, he never really stops doing his job. The other day I was admiring some of the pirate treasure we've been living off for the last few months....just flipping through a few tens and twenties, none of which has had even minimal duties paid on it, okay? So I'm looking at this cash and I feel a tap on my shoulder. And it's Marvin. And I'm freaking nicked! My own personal robot assistant serves me...me... with a summons for tax evasion! 

That's why we've got to get that lean-to build pronto...so I can extricate myself from the steely gaze of this mechanical enforcer. When he finally blows this job, that's it....no more careers!

What would Jesus bomb? I am loath to bring an element of spiritualism into my weekly rant, but they're forcing me into it...those television preachers. What the hell kind of "Christian" can support this ludicrous war? I watched part of a discussion on Larry King Live between five clergymen of different Christian denominations, and I believe the "whip count" (as our smirking-chimp-in-chief recently put it) on the war was 3-to-2 in favor. Now granted, one of the pro-war preachers was Bob Jones (not his real name) of the famously racist Bob Jones University, and those opposed consisted of a Roman Catholic priest and an African American Baptist -- no surprises there. The amazing part was that the pro-war holy men argued that the president and his team know what they're doing (even if it's not obvious), that this should be good enough for everybody, and that Jesus would have had no problem with that position. They spent a good amount of time dredging through the bible for oblique verses that might be construed to substantiate this...which seems to me a bit like using those biblical maps to find your way to Amman. 

Okay, I'm no expert on Christianity, but it doesn't take a theologian to tell you that this biblical Jesus guy didn't exactly defer to the authorities of his day on moral or political issues (which back then were very much the same thing). If he had, he would have told his followers to stay home and await instructions from on high. Sure, we may not know why Herod does the things he does, but he's a pious man and has our best interests at heart. That's what Bob Jones might have said to the multitude. In the new testament you have not a bad illustration of the Bush plan for post-annihilation Iraq -- the world's sole superpower (Rome) occupying a middle eastern nation with a corrupt and despotic leadership. I wonder how Governor Tommy Franks would handle a disruptive element like Jesus? Anything like the way the Israelis handle Ta'ayush? My guess is that news of the execution would never make the evening news.

Who knows, maybe Bush will follow his buddy Franklin Graham's advice and drop the big one on the "enemies of America." That sounds like the Jesus thing to do. It might even have the inspiring ancillary effect of bringing about the Armageddon-like conflict that the mullahs of the Christian right openly hunger for. After all, everyone who doesn't believe as they do is wrong and should expect to be damned for all time. Isn't that the Bush Administration's foreign policy doctrine in a nutshell? You're either good or evil, God or Satan, wid' us or agin' us. Talk about fundamentalism!

Though I suppose sham religion provides the kind of symbolic oversimplification Dubya needs to obscure the fact that this war is totally groundless and without justification. They've got poison factories that don't exist, a Niger-Iraq uranium deal based on clumsily forged documents, a "fine" British Intelligence dossier culled from a plagiarized student paper, defector testimony that says the opposite of what Powell claims it says (Iraqi WMD's were destroyed in the early 90s), phantom "mobile" bioweapons labs, killer drones held together with duct tape and balsa wood.... These fuckers need religion, because empiricism just isn't working. 

Keep your heads down.

luv u,

jp

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3/22/03

Lookout below!

Hey, I'm back. Welcome to the first wartime "broadcast" of Notes From Sri Lanka. Though you can't see me while I'm typing these lines, take my word for it -- I'm wearing my uniform. (Well, the tunic anyway. I'm not wearing pants.) A little later in the column I'll be reading from some Pentagon press releases like all good journalists do. But that doesn't mean we can't have a little zany madcap hijinx in the meantime with that goofy gang of Big Green funsters. (And if this ain't a mean time, I don't know what is...)

Oh, just one other thing -- I'm informed by Governor Ridge that some of this column may be censored for national security reasons, now that we're at code orange again. Like if I have to take a CENSORED in the middle of writing this, or if my CENSORED  spells the magic word "Idaho" with the four remaining letters and CENSORED  around three o'clock. I don't think it'll necessarily be a problem, though, since this column is usually fairly incomprehensible anyway. 

Great googly-moogly, I was examining our pirate treasure chest the other day and noticed that the cache of doubloons had reached an alarmingly low level -- just two slats from the bottom. We've been spending a bit freely, it seems. Outfitting the mock Jupiter 2 for our last interstellar tour, hiring the crew to start working on our lean-to, buying Marvin (my personal robot assistant) new police uniforms...it all adds up. Then of course there's CENSORED  -- that always costs a bundle, as you well know. It turns out, too, that John, Matt, and I have separately been doling out gold coins to those vagabond pirates -- they'll hit me at the front door, hit John over at the car pool, and hit Matt as they pass his composer's cupola on their way out. Pretty soon they'll be able to just buy the CENSORED  Hammer Mill instead of simply hoping to take it over. 

Not a problem, though. We've got a new marketing initiative. It's smart, timely, and based on solid empirical research. It's our own portable Homeland Security Kit -- we're calling it the Liberty Shield Fun-Pak on our info-mercial -- and it contains everything you need to ward off terrorist attacks, for the low, low price of just $19.95 (plus shipping, handling, and war tax)...about the same as you would pay for a full tank of CENSORED . In the Fun-Pak you will find: one (1) plastic weasel mask with elastic band fastener; one (1) gag arrow-through-the-head like Steve Martin used to wear; and one (1) "Zon" protector suit, which is simply a 60s era spaceman jumpsuit made of cheap metallic fabric. 

Here's the iron-clad theory behind the Fun-Pak that will send it flying off the shelves. First, the weasel mask minimizes your chance of falling victim to terrorism, since weasels are statistically the least likely mammal to be targeted by terrorist organizations (according to Dr. Hump's figures). Second, the arrow-through-the-head novelty prop will signal any would-be assailant that you have already been neutralized and that they should seek another target of opportunity. Third, the "Zon" protector suit -- though useless at stopping projectiles, poison gasses, radiation, or other deadly force -- gives the wearer an illusion of invincibility, which is (after all) the whole point of the Endless War on Terror from the public's point of view. That adds up to a morale boost greater than you can get from twenty rolls of duct tape. Why, I feel safer just telling you about it!

Lacking anyone more qualified, we chose Marvin as our "spokes model." Actually, there isn't a lot of "spokes" involved for the infomercial where he's concerned, and that's a good thing. Still, I think it helps the sales job to have a law enforcement professional endorse the product, what with the war on and all. What's more, the kit is so cheap to assemble , it's practically pure profit. We just order the parts in bulk from the local novelty store and stick 'em in a box. (Marvin does the assembly work in his spare time. I'm pretty sure he's getting it straight...though with that plastic weasel mask still strapped on his face, he looks as clueless as president CENSORED .)

Anyway, this should do the trick to refill the coffers that pay the contractors that build the lean-to that houses the studio that records the album that Big Green is making. Let's just hope Governor Ridge keeps us at code orange long enough to CENSORED  before we CENSORED  the CENSORED , because that would be very bad. So whatever you do, don't CENSORED . And that's your final warning. 

Shock and Law. So it's war...what a surprise. Hey, junior got tired of waiting...what do you want? After months of being told that we were under threat of devastating attack from an Iraq bristling with weapons of mass destruction, Dubya finally came clean. This isn't a "pre-emptive" war (i.e. imminent threat) after all, but rather a "preventive" war -- battling capabilities and intentions that don't exist....yet. So rather than face ignominious defeat of the Bush/Blair war resolution at the Security Council, Dubya decided to drop the disarmament pretense and do what he had always planned to do -- roll in and knock Iraq over like a poorly-lit 7-11. Dubya delivered his ludicrous, made-to-be-turned-down 48-hour ultimatum, then started the war ("on my order") almost immediately after its expiration...keeping the attack more or less on the schedule they had established for it in recent weeks. 

This is clearly a criminal enterprise -- a blatant violation of the UN Charter and an abrogation of the letter and the spirit of the relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq. There is nothing in UNSC 1441 about "regime change" or the automatic use of force. The fact is, 1441 was about disarmament, a goal that saw significant progress under the UNMOVIC and IAEA inspection efforts, much to the obvious frustration of the Bush team. Official U.S. policy since 1991 has been regime change -- this has undermined the cause of disarmament and provided the opportunity for confrontation at numerous points along the way. The two goals are totally incompatible, and Bush's single-minded pursuit of regime change under the guise of disarmament is the stuff of war crimes tribunals. 

Of course, because might makes right in our little world, you won't see Dubya in the dock at the Hague any time soon. Meanwhile, America's corporate press has strapped on their designer flak jackets and knifed in all that hot-dog 3-D animation they got from uncle Rummy, so we can watch a clean, high-tech, bloodless war on our big-screen TV's, punctuated by fireworks over Baghdad. You can see the press do their usual slathering over Rumsfeld. (I think they want a date with the guy. Maybe daddy will give him the keys to the stealth bomber this Saturday...) Meanwhile, over on CBC, it's like the US turned inside-out, with major Canadian political figures expressing concern over Iraqi casualties and press analysts citing reports by FAIR, running clips of Norman Solomon (!) criticizing U.S. coverage of the war... on national TV! Watching that gives you a sense of how politically isolated this administration (and its press cheerleaders) have made the U.S.  With the exception of a few corrupt national governments, virtually every nation is against this stupid, criminal war...and with good reason. 

Here in the States, opposition is stronger than the media would have you believe. In my nearly dead hometown of Utica, NY, a candlelight vigil drew 200 of us last Sunday -- a big turnout for here. (And plenty of people were honking their assent as they drove by.) That's up from a circle of maybe a dozen committed peace activists huddled in the Unitarian Church 3 or 4 years ago. So, hey -- don't abandon all hope. That's what progress looks like, friends. 

Keep an eye on Robert Fisk's dispatches from Baghdad in The Independent. And don't fly over the Vincennes.   

luv u,

jp

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3/29/03

Enter...

Greetings from our recondite corner of the "civilized" world. Here's hoping all is well with you and yours and them and theirs. Don't want to leave anyone out, you know -- we're all equal opportunity well-wishers here in Big Green land...and Lord knows there's plenty of good will to go 'round even in these dark days. No need for rationing so long as we keep our surgically altered chins up high. Yeah. 

Well, our ten-minute infomercial promoting the "Liberty Shield Fun-Pak" ran on most of these CBS stations last week. The consumer response? Somewhat underwhelming. A total of nearly two sales...call it one. (I believe the Pentagon would term our progress "remarkable.") Not much to show for the substantial investment we made, not only in television time and production, but in all those plastic weasel masks, joke arrows-through-the-head, and "Zon" protector suits. All that has nearly emptied our pirate coffers. What's worse, the nearly two (call it one) Fun-Pak(s) we were able to sell was purchased by Marvin (my personal robot assistant) in a moment of weakness, using money from (you guessed it) our dwindling pirate treasure. I guess he found his own appeal irresistible, in as much as he was our on-camera spokes-bot. 

As you know, this is not the windfall we had hoped for...and now we're faced with rebuilding our beloved six-bedroom split-level lean-to on a substantially reduced budget -- a questionable project, to be sure. And our next album will have to toe the line financially, as well. Cancel the London Philharmonic. I guess we'll have to get somebody a little cheaper than Michael Flatley to dance in our video. I hear groaning from the next room...Sorry, guys. We can't afford "Lord of the Dance"... We'll be lucky if we can hire "Serf of the Dance" this time around. (I guess we could try to get Dick Dale on board and make this a proper serf album...except that we can't afford him, either. Dang!) 

About all we've got is a boatload of new songs, including some two dozen candidates that Matt has hammered out in his garret between spotting birds and swigging whiskey from a big brown jug marked XXX. (Actually, I just made up that part about the whiskey to add to Matt's élan as a major songwriter in the psychedelic post-wave mambo-tronic school. He's really more the clearheaded, thoughtful type that shows up at candlelight vigils and plants trees by the thousand...like in the courtyard of the Cheney Hammer Mill and on the steps leading up to my bedroom!) I, of course, have my more modest satchel of half-baked song ideas conjured up under the influence of whatever was hitting me over the head at that particular moment in time. Then there's our backlog of numbers still waiting for proper treatment in the studio. What the mix will be, I can't tell you yet. Something old, something new, something rejected by 2LiveCrew...we'll patch it together. 

Because we've pauperized ourselves, we're naturally looking for any plausible way to raise cash...any fragment of our lives here at the Hammer Mill that may be considered negotiable. (John has suggested selling Marvin, but that's just him blowing off a little steam. We would never sell Marvin into slavery -- that would be unethical, immoral, and totally nasty. And any offer below 250,000 rupees would be considered an insult.) We're considering putting together a disc of previously unreleased material culled from the various recording projects Big Green has undertaken over the years -- a kind of stop-gap release until we get the new album ready. Hey -- desperate times call for desperate measures. And we can't all live on Marvin's salary for too long, particularly now that they have him directing traffic (owing to departmental cut backs -- like I said, desperate times...).

So, yeah -- the Liberty Shield Fun-Pak was a stupid idea after all. Who knew? From now on, we stick to tried and true methods of generating revenue...like finding pirate treasure and mining cheesefood. Stuff you can rely on. 

Love Mail. I thought I'd devote a portion of my weekly rant to some of the "mail" we've been getting lately. Hell, it's been a while. This sweet little missive came to us from an anonymous fan in cyberspace, arriving under the subject line "Cry a little more":

Quit your crying you liberal pussy. If Clinton had done any of the things you are crying about, you would be praising him for protecting the American way. If we followed your way of doing things, this country would not exist much longer, although you would probably like that. Then again do you think you could write this kind of trash in Iraq? Of course not. So enjoy the continue to enjoy the freedom you have by bashing the people who are protecting it.

-- MPrune33

Hoo-boy, well...I guess old "MPrune33" has got my number. Busted! Lord knows I was Big Bill Clinton's number one fan while he was cutting welfare recipients off at the knees and bombing pharmaceutical plants in the Sudan -- just check My Back Pages (1999-2000) for ample confirmation. And I guess if your definition of "conservative" includes those crack-heads in Washington who are spending us $400 billion in the hole this year alone while screaming for massive additional tax cuts for the rich, you can probably call me a "liberal pussy"...or even a "palm tree," for that matter. And hey...so my eyes fill up every time I touch my computer keyboard. So I have issues. Does that make me a chicken-shit? What do you say, anonymous-guy? (Sniff...)

Victory Delayed. Our friends at the Black Commentator web site had it right -- this is like the "Outer Limits." You know, "we are in control of your television set." The war party is driving the bus, well and truly so. And where we're headed, nobody knows. 

It feels like the Vietnam War compressed into eight days, as if time were collapsing in on itself like a neutron star. We've gone from the enormous hubris of superpower Thursday (last) to somehow unexpected guerilla resistance, to a losing battle for hearts and minds, to terror bombing and controversy, to growing antiwar demonstrations, to prospects for a wider conflict....all within a week's time! Now our leaders casually talk about a campaign that will last months after half a year of trial balloons psyching us up for a fast collapse of Baghdad and an easy triumph for our scrawny-ass warrior king. Of course, we're not supposed to remember what they said even five minutes ago -- like the "lower" animals in Orwell's Animal Farm. We're just supposed to stand at attention and "support the troops" by cheering them on into pointless battles in Mesopotamia. 

Who gets the administration quote of the week? Is it Dubya, talking about how he could name "ally after ally after ally"? (Just don't ask him to find them on the map...especially the ones that,  like Palau, have no military.) Is it Powell, defending his record at the UN Security Council and claiming (on NPR) not to understand why people thought their abandoned second resolution would mean peace? (Now, who the hell thought that?) No, I think the prize really has to go to Secretary of War/Provisional Secretary of State Rumsfeld (pronounced "Rump-smelled"), who angrily reminded the Iraqis of their obligations under the Geneva Conventions. (Thanks for the tip, Guantanamo Joe.)   

I'll tell you...it just doesn't get any better than this. 

luv u,

jp

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