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Joe Perry is co-founder of the band Big Green and brother to Matt Perry, other co-founder of Big Green. Shall I go on?
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This Is Big Green: March Fiendraiser 2013

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Big Green shakes the tree of perpetual folly with three previously unreleased tracks, a new episode of Ned Trek, and shameless kvetching. Give generously.

Features:

1) Ned Trek VIII: The Corn of Ozark Five;
2) Put the phone down: Matt and Joe shake the tin cup for freedom;
3) Happy birthday, universe;
4) Departures and arrivals: Chavez, Achebe, Pearle, and others;
5) Song: Quality Lincoln (lame live version), by Big Green;
6) Song: Come Back Home (demo version), by Big Green;
7) More bogus fundraising;
8) Song: Round Up (demo version), by Big Green;
9) Conversations at the seed store;
10) Song: The Milkman Lives, by Big Green;
11) Over and …over

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Usual Rubbish

Enterprise, come in.

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What next, man?What is this again? Beeswax. Do you have to keep it in my bedroom? We’ve got an entire abandoned 19th century mill here – there’s plenty of space in the forge room. Marvin??

Oh, hello. Didn’t see you there on the other side of that iPhone screen. Thanks for dropping by Big Green’s near totally useless blog, now more than ten years in the making! (Slogan: Blogging pointlessly since 1999.) You caught me in the middle of a small dispute with the help. No, we are not effete artists with domestics swarming all over the place, attending to our every whim. Certainly not! Our domestic workforce consists of a handful of surly operators, including:

  • Marvin (my personal robot assistant) – Created by a mad scientist and one-time scrap metal dealer, Marvin helps around the mill with lifting fairly heavy things, moving those things from one place to another, and …. and lifting other fairly heavy things.
  • Mansized tuber – Talk about growing your own! Matt harvested this oversized sentient sweet potato back in the old days, when we were in the witness protection program and pretended to be living in Sri Lanka. Anyhow, the mansized tuber isn’t really much of a help at all, but he does give me something to blog about once in a while, and that amounts to a particular kind of heavy lifting.
  • Lincoln – Storied 16th president of the United States, saved the Union, ended organized chattel slavery, and became the greatest president Hollywood has ever seen. Rescued from the awful past via Trevor James Constable’s Orgone Generating Machine, which created a time portal through which Lincoln and his evil doppelganger passed and …. well …. search the blog for details; it’s complicated. Anyhow, he helps around the house with light cleaning, some cooking, occasional legal counsel. Probably the best natured of the bunch.
  • Anti-Lincoln – Surly opposite doppelganger of the above. (See above for creation myth or just follow the tag anti-Lincoln.) He burns things when it gets cold outside. Sometimes he’ll throw something edible into the fire.

That’s the list of what might be termed domestics. Everyone else around here is an associate, or hanger-on, or I don’t know what. It’s a squat house, for crying out loud. And now Marvin has gotten it into his head to sell lip balm or something. He managed to trade some bricks from one of the outbuildings in exchange for a couple of barrels of beeswax. Entrepreneurs! They’ll be the death of all of us!

Sorry. He gets a little over enthusiastic sometimes, that’s all.

Political Rants

Guns and poses.

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Rumor has it that the assault weapons ban is all but dead. There’s a surprise. It has, after all, been more than a stretch of weeks since the Newtown CT children’s massacre, so all of the will has drained out of our ever-reliable legislators. The rabid voices of reaction have once again gained the foreground and are pulling out all of the stops to keep open their option on tactical nuclear arms … or whatever military weapon system will next be successfully marketed to bullet-headed Americans. We knew we had a problem after Newtown, but I don’t think we realized just how deep that problem is.

Repeat offenderAssault weapons, high-capacity ammunition magazines, and a lack of regulatory oversight over who can purchase a gun and who can’t – these are all crucial components of this national crisis. But they are not the core of the problem. Our problem is far broader than our persistent gun lust – it is the easy resort to violence for which we Americans are best known. This takes many forms, from the epidemic of domestic abuse to retail gang violence in Chicago and other cities. We fetishize anger and violence, honor it, respect it. And we have little trust for our neighbors and the people beyond our immediate circles of acquaintance.

My home region was struck by gun violence over the past week and a half – the kind that gets you into the national headlines for a day or two. Some older guy, out of work, out of money, grabbed a shotgun and started shooting people seemingly at random in a barber shop and a car wash he frequented. He was eventually shot by the police, but not before he killed several, sent others to the hospital, and blew away a police dog. No, he didn’t have an assault rifle … but that right up the street from where he committed his heinous acts is a major manufacturing plant that produces AR-15 style rifles, including Bushmasters like the one the Newtown shooter used.

This guy’s simple solution was to kill at random, and plants like Remington Arms feed the national addiction to violence. Put those two pieces together and you have a recipe for the types of atrocities we see all too often in this country.

Next week: Iraq, ten years later.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Mixing business.

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What time is it again? Morning already? Christ on a bike. If I don’t start getting some sleep, you’ll have to take over the bailing duties.

The voice of reasonOoops. Sorry. Didn’t realize I was typing this into a blog post (or that anyone was looking at me from the imaginary wall-side of my three-walled room). We were in the process of working out chore assignments here in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill on this cold March morning in upstate New York, home of … well, abandoned factories … and crack-head shooters … and nervous deer. Come visit anytime!

The thing is, we are working diligently on the mixing of our next album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick – an odd, patchy collection of songs from a forgotten musical about Cousin (Governor) Rick Perry (the score for which, legend has it, was lost over the side of a pleasure craft on Lake Tahoe back in the seventies. True story). This painstaking work can sometimes last one, maybe two hours at a stretch, over an unrelenting schedule of nearly one evening per week, pushing late into the early evening hours. It’s as much as a person can do to keep body and soul together in this pressure cooker. Stop the madness!

All right, I have pulled myself together. (Phew!) Why are we keeping such a punishing schedule? Well, blame our corporate label, Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc. (a.k.a. Hegephonic Records). They will stop at nothing. First they send the Indonesian military after us. (That’s usually last for most people.) Then they take the unprecedented step of reprogramming Marvin (my personal robot assistant) into some kind of robotic taskmaster. Every time I freaking turn around now, Marvin’s giving me the dagger eyes and running a tape loop of John Cameron Swayze saying, “Did you do it yet? Did you do it yet?” (Strangely, Marvin also offers us Camel cigarettes, as if Hegemonic implanted some Swayze DNA in his hard drive.)

How to do all this without sleep? I should ask our mad science adviser, Mitch Macaphee, who hasn’t slept in years. (Hell, if I’d done half of what he’s done just during our relatively brief acquaintance, I’d never sleep again.)

Political Rants

Short memory

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North Korea has unilaterally withdrawn from its 1953 ceasefire agreement with South Korea, cutting the emergency hotline between the two halves of this divided peninsula. The move has been roundly condemned as provocative and an indication of increasing cravenness on the part of third-generation great leader Kim Jong Un, whose government recently tested a nuclear device. As reported on NPR and other major news networks, this behavior is portrayed as almost innate, not rooted in anything other than blind aggression and dogmatic fealty to the North’s longstanding cult of personality and garrison state mentality.

All they know of us.
All they know of us.

Now, it is true that the North Korean state is an ossified, garrison state, very oppressive – a dungeon, even. I can’t defend it. But they didn’t arrive at this state of affairs without prompting. There is one thing they want: a non-aggression treaty with the United States. Because the war of 1950-53 was fought with the U.S. more than with South Korea, and that was a war of genocidal proportions, particularly for the North. The U.S. unleashed everything short of nuclear weapons on the North during that period, until no standing structures remained north of the 38th parallel. This after years of oppressive U.S. occupation of the southern half of Korea, which itself followed more than three decades of Japanese occupation.

When North Koreans talk about destruction, they know the meaning of the word. It is not an abstraction for them. After all, they share Poland’s great misfortune of being geographically located between two great powers, frequently at odds. Worse yet, they became ground zero of a growing cold war that was never hotter than it was during that three year period in the Korean peninsula. If they have nuclear weapons, it’s because they don’t want to be attacked. And if they take exception to the annual mock-invasion of the north conducted by Washington and Seoul, it is because they have a deep memory of the devastation of sixty years ago.

In America, we haven’t forgotten the Korean War so much as simply never known it in the first place, except for the dwindling number of veterans who fought there. It’s high time we stopped acting like an aggrieved empire and found a way to settle this conflict … before it explodes again.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

This just in.

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Getting some feedback on our recent episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN, the monthly podcast we wrap together with gaffer tape and bailing wire (whatever the hell THAT is), stuffing it full of discarded hammer components left lying around from a previous era here at the Cheney Hammer Mill. It’s a smart podcast … about as smart as a box full of hammer heads. Yep, yep … we’ve got at least one brain between us. And then there’s Marvin (my personal robot assistant). He has an ELECTRONIC brain.

Okay, where was I? Ah, yes. Feedback. What has it been like? Kind of a whistling, whining sound that drops in and out. I think I left the speakers on while we were recording. Annoying, but tolerable. I suppose you were thinking by feedback I meant audience reactions to the podcast. Oh, no … that’s not what I had in mind at all. I couldn’t possibly post those comments here. The FCC would jump all over my shit. (And likely they’ll complain about that last sentence, as well.)

What can be said, right? Some may have taken offense at the latest episode of Ned Trek, featuring Willard Mitt Romney and his talking dressage horse Mr. Ned. Others may have objected to the blank verse I quoted from the poet Google YouTube (the automated video transcription bard), to wit:

uh,
about that system work so if you can see the slow-speed and very moment
antiquated castle green too
this is reviewing
uh… or it’s it’s mean-spirited
means german personal assistant
stats apparently to
little it’s little bit please
know the other night
the other side of the form of walnut

Not half bad … not that I’m an expert at this sort of thing. Maybe we’ve just reached an age when verse is not all that dissimilar from randomly generated word combinations. Auto poetry … what a concept!

So anyway … we may start writing some songs this way. Start with raw lyrics, read them into a video camera, post the video to YouTube and generate the transcript. Then re-record it as a song. It would sound! (Ask your father where that comes from.) The pop music equivalent of re-fried beans or twice baked potatoes.

Keep those cards and letters coming!

Political Rants

Crock tears.

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Rumor has it they used to wait until the person they despise was cold in the ground before excoriating them. Now, not so much. So Hugo Chavez, elected president of Venezuela three times (four if you count the recall) is called a “strong man” and “steadfast ally of dictators” who “showered the poor with social programs”. Rest in peace, anyone?

Chavez
Rest in peace.

I’m not surprised to hear this kind of claptrap on NPR news (known around my house as “Empire News”), particularly since their point man on Latin America – Juan Forero – is an abysmal reporter, incessantly critical of Chavez while giving a remarkably easy ride to Colombia (the last report I heard from him on Colombia, within the last six months or so, made no mention of human rights violations, intimidation, ongoing repression). He characterizes Chavez’s complaints against American imperialism as if U.S. economic and political domination of Latin America were some drug-induced hallucination by frenzied Bolivarian revolutionaries.

Forero’s principle complaints against Chavez, aside from his efforts to buy his people’s love with “showers” of social benefits, were that:

  • Chavez supported FARC, the guerrilla group operating in Colombia, according to the Colombian government (now there‘s a reliable source) and “interviews with former Colombian guerrillas” – or interrogations, perhaps?
  • Chavez had nasty friends, like Iran and Syria (and Bahrain? And Saudi? Oh, right … those are our friends.)
  • He called people names. (That never, ever happens here.)

NPR is not alone in this. It’s pretty much everywhere, even on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show (Maddow described Chavez as “clownish” I believe). NBC seems hyper-focuses on Venezuela’s oil, what’s going to happen to it, why that makes the country so important, etc. I think embedded in that rhetoric is the root of all this animus towards Chavez. Yes, he had some dictatorial tendencies, but he was certainly not a dictator. They despise him because he wouldn’t play the IMF game; because he was independent of Washington, unlike previous Venezuelan regimes. As with Cuba and Haiti, they hate him because he took Venezuela away from them. It’s got nothing to do with “democracy” and everything to do with empire and money.

If no one else will say it, I will. Rest in peace. Best of luck, Venezuelans … there’s trouble ahead.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Casting bread upon the whatever.

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Hey howdee, everybody! It’s your old friend Joe of Big Green. Yeee-haw, have we got an amazing blog post for you this week. Shit boy howdy. (Did I say “howdy” yet?)

"Cousin" Rick
"Cousin" Rick

My apologies. I’m just practicing up for the promotional tour we’ll be embarking upon to plug our new album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, a collection of songs written by, for, of, and around our dear cousin, Rick Perry, governor of Texas, author of all we hold dear, inventor of the syrup gin, holder of the three-cards (in 3-card Monte … don’t know where I’m going with that). Rumor has it that the album is a recreated soundtrack from a musical that was lost over the side of a pleasure craft on Lake Tahoe in 1978. Someone apparently went back in time for that particular Nevada vacation. Rumor has it, anyway.

Okay, so … we’re practicing, to be sure. What else? Well, we posted the February episode of our ludicrous podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, just this past week. What kind of trouble did we get ourselves into? That’s a tall order, my friend. Just download the sucker and find out. It’s about 100 minutes of pure audio ecstasy, prepared for pod by yours truly and my somewhat more complicated brother, Matt Perry esq. Here are some highlights:

Ned Trek VII: The Last Moon of Frutoonius – the latest episode in the continuing saga of Willard Mitt Romney, commander of the starship Free Enterprise, and his talking dressage horse / first officer, Mr. Ned. This month, Willard, Ned, and Doc Coburn lock horns with rogue operator Newt Gingrich and his strange, other-worldly (or other-moonly) alien fifth wife.

Songs – We spin “Asteroid” from our album, International House, in celebration of our recent near-miss (or in the words of the immortal George Carlin, “near-hit”) by a large asteroid. We also play a lost demo from that same project, a song called “Say You Will” that never made it on to the finished album. Lastly, we play “Beautiful Grid”, a recording from about 1991 or so produced by Bob Acquaviva of Mere Mortals fame, featuring Tony (Ace) Butera on guitar – this is off our “President’s Brain is Missing” EP.

….and several butchers aprons. Got to get back to it. Time’s a-wasting. Enjoy!

Political Rants

Another bag of it.

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A couple of quick swipes on the political front this week. No time to ‘splain, man … just too damn busy.

Sequester. Well, it’s here. Big surprise. Note to the President: Never tell yourself they’ll never do something THAT stupid … because they always will. I know, the sequester was a collective enterprise, strongly supported by Boehner and passed into law by his knuckle-dragging caucus. But thinking that there is some precedent this group will not break is living in a fantasy world. Wake up, people!

Another screaming success for Boehner.

Syria. Secretary Kerry is pledging additional non-lethal support to the Syrian opposition. It’s hard to know how best to approach this crisis, but I know this much – whenever we get deeply involved somewhere, particularly in that region of the world, the result is not good. (What’s the opposite of good again? Ah, yes.) No good answers here, but I know that the motives behind whatever policy we advance in Syria are not likely to benefit the Syrian people, nor the people of the region. We are obsessed with the notion of Iranian domination of the Middle East – a sentiment echoed by our principal allies in the neighborhood. Any sympathy for the opposition, I’m sure, is driven more by the desire to deny Teheran and ally and to quash what they see as a conduit to Hezbollah. However, if they think the opposition in power in Damascus would mean harmony with Israel, they should think again. The most determined fighters in their midst are Sunni jihadist-types. Just saying.

Chavez. Venezuela’s president is in a pitched battle with cancer, and I can hear some chortling around the edges. He gets very little sympathy here in El Norte. It bears remembering though that he is the first Venezuelan leader in my lifetime that has ever done anything for the poor in that country. That’s why they love him, and that’s why he deserves our sympathy and moral support. I tend to judge a person by his/her enemies as much as by his/her faults and virtues. Chavez has definitely got the right enemies. Get well soon, big mister.

luv u,

jp

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This is Big Green: Asteroid Flyover 2013

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Big Green celebrates the near destruction of all we hold dear with a veritable potlatch of music, nonsensical antics, and pointless babble. Be ready to duck.

This is Big Green – Asteroid Flyover – Feb. 2013

Features:

1) Ned Trek VII: The Last Moon of Frutoonius; 2) Put the phone down: Talk of asteroids and meteors; 3) Song: Asteroid, by Big Green; 4) The poetry of automatic closed-captioning; 5) Song: Say You Will (demo version), by Big Green; 6) News from Spring Farm: the Beaver colony; 7) Song: Beautiful Grid, by Big Green; 8) Talk of sequester; 9) Shotgun exit

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