All posts by Joe

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?

Robo-pontiff?

February 22, 2013 Joe Leave a comment

Don’t mind me, or the deafening clatter you hear. That’s just the sound of me working on our next episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN, the podcast we hammer together every month or so. Why hammer it, you say? W.t.f. – we live in a hammer mill, for Pete’s sake. (Jesus, I’ve been doing that lame Romney imitation way too long.)

I suppose if you listen regularly to our podcast, it probably seems like not a lot of work goes into creating it – that it’s sort of slapped together randomly, like a salami sandwich made by someone who’s got a five minute lunch break. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yea, we take pains in building each episode, agonizing over every detail, every nuance. We spend weeks drafting the scripts. (Oh yes, even our random-sounding conversations are completely scripted.) Then it’s another week nailing down the timing, the miscues, the poor pronunciation, the stupidity. (We spend an entire day on inanity. Why? Because it’s worth it.)

Now, as you know, Big Green is a decidedly low-tech operation. We don’t have fancy cameras, microphones, or any of that new-fangled electricity. (Okay, well … yeah, that we have.) Our studio is primitive beyond redemption, and we are forced to record the spoken bits of the podcast without the aid of standard teleprompters. The best we can do is key the entire script into Marvin (my personal robot assistant), store it in his electronic brain, and ask him to display it on his anterior video monitor. Sure, we have to squint to read it, but it’s better than rattling a piece of paper in front of live mics.

The trouble with this method is that there are unintended consequences. Like this month, we talked about the Pope retiring. Once the lines from that script got into Marvin’s tiny brain, it started percolating through his various logic circuits, and the next thing we knew he was trying pointy hats on for size. He seems to have convinced himself that he’s in the running to replace Pope Benedict. (I think the idea appeals to his creator, Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, who would very much like to be the power behind the pontiff.)

Would you like to see Marvin as the next pope? Let us know. Send us your thoughts and we’ll read them on the next episode.

Political Rants

Samesville.

February 22, 2013 Joe Leave a comment

Back again, right? Every couple of months or so we are faced with a manufactured fiscal crisis. Again, this is by design, not by necessity. The Republican party – particularly the hard core of yargle-bargle types known as the “tea party” – has long pursued the practice of enormous deficit spending while they hold the White House and austerity when they are in the opposition. This time around, it’s austerity with a vengeance. Sure, the president signed on to this sequester deal, but it was in response to another manufactured fiscal crisis, brought on by the newly-installed G.O.P. Congress in 2011. In other words, if it wasn’t the sequester, it would be the debt ceiling, or the budget, or some key appropriations bill – anything to jam up the works.

There is nothing surprising about this. Grover Norquist, patron saint of the cheapskates (and clearly someone who did not like eating his peas when he was 4), articulated it quite clearly when he said, in effect, when Democrats are in power, force them to rule like Republicans. Parse out the irony (as mentioned earlier, Republicans are much more generous with presidents of their own party) and you can see the sense in what they’re doing. Of course, it goes beyond that. I think most Republicans are smart enough to know that the kinds of cuts they’re advocating will result in a second recession. That works to their political benefit. Winning is paramount to them, even (and perhaps especially) when they lose. If they can discredit a Democratic president, so much the better.

The Democrats are enablers of this continuing train wreck. They were handed the reins in 2009, and instead of meeting the financial crisis with a response of an appropriate magnitude, they allowed conservatives to talk them down to a small-bore strategy that simply was not sufficient to pull us out. The stimulus worked to the extent that it was designed to work; when the money ran out, so did the steam. Now we are in what Krugman rightly calls a depression – an economy that is not shrinking, but not really gaining ground either – and all Washington can talk about is cutting the freaking deficit. The problem is unemployment, not short-term debt. Fix one, and the other will take care of itself. Want to solve long-term debt? Stop maintaining health insurance as the province of private profit-making industry; expand Medicare and you will make it solvent.

How do you get these people to do the right thing? To borrow a phrase from V.S. Naipaul, a million mutinies now. Tell your representative and your senators that you want them to invest in the economy, not starve it.

luv u,

Usual Rubbish

Stuff and … things.

February 16, 2013 Joe Leave a comment

Lots to say, nothing to think. Not usually a great combination … but it’s a positive boon when it comes to podcasting.

Enemy ears are listening — Hey... who knew?

So, how are you then? Well, I trust. Hope the foot trouble is better. That’s right, friends, we’re turning over a new leaf here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. From now on, Big Green is going to be all about people. Good old retail public relations. Connecting with the folks – that’s us, Jack. (See? We even call you by your first name, providing your first name is “Jack”.) I’ve found that holing ourselves up in our basement studio mixing songs and swearing at each other is no way to run a rodeo, let alone a pop music combo. Neither is failing to settle our account with the local feed store, or dropping a box of tacks in the middle of main street. Verily I say unto you – none of these things redounds to the benefit of our public image.

Anywho, we’re tuning over a new leaf … a Big, Green leaf. We’re extending the hand of friendship to all and sundry. (Whoops … I’m sorry, that’s Awl and Sundree, the law firm that’s handling our squatter’s rights claim, pro bono, of course.) Part of that whole thing I’m yakking about is our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, now in it’s second big year. Every month, a fresh new assault on the ears and sensibilities. That’s how we connect with John Q. Public and Nancy K. Everybody, not to mention Rover T. Dog and Sprinkles A. Cat. Nobody is left out, nobody!

Fact is, that’s kind of a problem, too, I’m told. Why is that? Well, I’m gonna tell you. Our anti-terrorism adviser and former lean-to neighbor Gung-Ho has warned that not only “friendlies” are listening to our podcast each month. No, it’s not just mom and pop and the kids, and maybe grandpa out there in the kitchen, brewing the crystal meth. Because of our connected world, Gung-Ho tells us, America’s enemies may be listening as well. They may be writing down everything we say and using it as a weapon against us. Chilling thoughts indeed.

As we record this month’s podcast this week, we will remain vigilant, per Gung-Ho’s timely admonition. I should hate to think that we might inadvertently lend assistance to the “Axis of Evil.”

Political Rants

The way we are.

February 16, 2013 Joe Leave a comment

The sequester deadline is getting closer, but – unsurprisingly – we are no closer to cutting a deal to avoid draconian cuts to a full range of programs. In all honesty, if it weren’t for the domestic and veteran-support programs that would fall under that senseless cleaver, it might not be such a bad thing in that the Defense budget would finally see some reductions. Of course, as every close observer of national politics knows all too well, cuts to the DOD turn normally conservative – even Randian – Republicans into hysterical Keynesians, warning of the dire employment consequences if the Pentagon budget were slashed. There’s some truth to that … which is why it sounds so strange coming out of Republicans’ mouths. But anyway…

It’s worth repeating Robert Pollin’s observation here that Pentagon spending is not the best way to create jobs. $1 million spent on defense creates roughly a dozen jobs. Spend that same money on education and you’re up into the mid twenties. So if the Republicans are simply looking for ways to generate employment through public spending, there are plenty of ways to accomplish that. Personally, I think their only concern – aside from winning elections – is for the welfare of the well-off. It’s really all they ever talk about, if you listen carefully to what they say.

It shows in what they do, too. Since 2010, they have raised my income taxes in a major way twice – twice! In 2011 they scotched the “Making Work Pay” tax credit, which was worth about $800 to couples. This past year, they ended the payroll tax holiday; refused to budge on that, too, in favor of extended breaks for people making $250,000 to $400,000 a year. W.T.F., Boehner, McConnell – what happened to your Norquistian anti-tax pledges? Oh, that’s right – I’m not rich, so it doesn’t apply to me.

Hey, nitz! Boehner! You want to fuel job growth through increased consumption? Here’s an easy way to do it. Raise taxes on the freaking rich, cut them on the poor and working class, and raise the minimum wage to at least $9 with indexing, as Obama proposed. When working people get money, it goes right back into the economy. We spend it like water … not because we’re profligate, but because we have to. Give more money to the rich, they’ll just sit on it, like they’re doing now.

Little piece of advice for you, Jack. No charge. Happy freaking Valentine’s day.

luv u,

Usual Rubbish

Cheer up.

February 9, 2013 Joe Leave a comment

Get out of my room, Marvin (my personal robot assistant). You too, tubey. I’m having one of my captain sunshine days, as you can tell. In fact, I’m rear-admiral motherfucking sunshine today, mister.

This means war — In a bit of a mood today.

Oh, fuck…. I mean, fudge. Didn’t know you were listening in. Sorry you had to hear that outburst. Nerves are getting a little frayed around the hammer mill just lately. What the hell, I’ve been sleeping in an abandoned hammer-stock storage silo for the last 10 years, springs poking out of my mattress like in those old cartoons, the windows leaky and cracked, the mortar crumbling to dust between ancient bricks. Not to put too fine a point on it – this place is a DUMP. Now I know why they abandoned the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill.

What’s that? They condemned the place? What the hell, Marvin … you had that in your memory banks all this time? Weren’t you just dying to tell me at some point before this? Irrelevant?!? I’ve obviously got to talk to your inventor about upgrading your relevance sensor. To say nothing of your gaydar. The freaking boy scouts should hire your ass. (Damn, there I go again! Sorry, people of Earth.)

I’ve got a case of what’s called Dyspepsia Engineeris, an affliction that usually strikes individuals in the middle of a large music post-production process. Mixing an album consumes every ounce of your creativity, and hell … I’ve only got two ounces to begin with. Needless to say, we haven’t been producing new material, just finishing what’s already in the can. We have, however, dug up some old, previously unreleased stuff that we can play on our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN, in the spaces where we might ordinarily have published new production. We’ll pour some of that in before it posts, I promise you. And one day, one day, we will return to making music (as opposed to merely mixing it).

Well … now that I’ve chased all of my friends away, I guess I can get back to … to … mixing. Arrgh.

Political Rants

Truth about King-Father.

February 9, 2013 Joe Leave a comment

My local newspaper (and I’m sure just about everyone else’s as well) contained a minuscule item on the cremation of the body of Norodom Sihanouk, whom the paper described as being revered by his people as the “King-Father” of Cambodia. An AP story by Denis Gray was the source of this tiny item tucked away inside the Utica OD, which opened as follows:

Cambodians bade goodbye Monday with tears, chanting and fireworks to former King Norodom Sihanouk, their revered “King-Father” who led them through half a century of political tumult that took them into the abyss of genocidal Khmer Rouge rule and back out again. Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians thronged the capital for the elaborate royal cremation of the maddeningly mercurial leader whose charm often overshadowed missteps that to most of his countrymen have faded away in a fog of nostalgia for a simpler time.

Bombing Cambodia — Our gift to Sihanouk's subjects

While Gray’s story went into a bit more detail, this was most of what my newspaper carried. However, neither the original piece nor the excerpt bothered to mention the U.S. role in the catastrophe that destroyed Sihanouk’s country in the late 1960s and 1970s. Indeed, reading this, you’d think that their many troubles were the result of a bungling if “charming” monarch who misled his people into genocide. Gray’s piece gives only one vague hint of U.S. influence at any point, mentioning in passing that Sihanouk sided with the Khmer Rouge in opposition to “U.S.-backed government” in the early 1970s.

Talk about burying the lead! That “U.S.-backed government” was a coup regime headed by Lon Nol which we brought to power in the midst of an ever-widening war in Cambodia. Of course, we invaded Cambodia in 1970 – a fact that you’d be hard-pressed to find evidence of on a Google search, apart from a story on the World Socialist Web site. We bombed the living shit out of it from about 1969 until Lon Nol was overthrown in 1975. Then came the reign of terror, as well as countless deaths from starvation, exhaustion, and the usual outcomes of genocidal war. To read these stories, it’s as if before the Khmer Rouge arrived, Cambodia was a nation of happy, smiling people, no complaints whatsoever.

Naturally, I don’t expect them to get all of this into a 3-inch column item. But they could get a piece of the truth in there, couldn’t they?

luv u,

Usual Rubbish

Pop goes it.

February 1, 2013 Joe Leave a comment

Lift the needle. Right about … there. That’s good. Now let’s do the next one. Excellent. We will soon have my entire LP collection transferred to 8-track cartridges, at long last.

Eight tracks — A little timely advice for Marvin

Oh, hello. Just catching up on some housekeeping. You know how it is, especially when you’re living the dream here in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. Time gets away from you, and you end up neglecting all that stuff you meant to do, had to do, were legally obligated to do, etc. I’m only just now getting around to filing my tax returns for 1983. I think my extension may have run out, but I’m not sure. There’s a stack of letters from the IRS I’ve yet to open….

Right, so I’m falling behind. I think we all are here in Big Green land. Fact is, cousin Rick Perry has a song by that name on our upcoming album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. It goes something like this….

I’m fallin’ behind, I’m fallin’ behind
T’ain’t never lost before
Always won when I tried
I tell them just what they want to hear
Just as sure as God made corn subsidies
No abortions, no exceptions
We’ll nail scripture to the trees.

Oh, I love Jesus more than any man ever dared
to love another man!
And I remember what he said in the sermon on the mount
Well, some of it.

…And so on. Now I know that some long-time listeners of Big Green (and there are at least two or three of you out there) will see this and think, What the fuck are they doing? I thought these guys did pop music. This is just irony-soaked cowboy ballads! Well, that’s not exactly right, my friends. You see, Cowboy Scat is a collection of songs from a lost musical about the political trajectory of dear cousin Rick, each number performed by a different group (so the creation myth goes). Some of them are cowpoke groups, some rock, some pop, some weird German 80’s disco, some … well, you get the idea. And you’ll get it even more when we finish mixing the sucker and finally release it into the wild.

Which reminds me. When I do the budget for this release, I have to make sure to include a line for transfer to 8-track. Don’t want to leave any listeners out, no matter what decade they live in.

Political Rants

On accountability.

February 1, 2013 Joe Leave a comment

I suppose I’m old enough to grumble about stuff I can’t control. And right now I’m irritated enough to take a personal swipe at some of the old white men running the country from their comfy chairs in the United States Congress. But rather than sound like John McCain, I’m going to limit myself to saying that the Senate confirmation hearing for Chuck Hagel was pretty disgraceful for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the simple fact that the man was being criticized for the high points in his career – the stuff he got right, for chrissake. The Republicans on the panel hate their old colleague because he’s not bug-fuck nuts enough.

See, this is what happens when you don’t hold people accountable. If someone had paid some kind of price for driving us into the Iraq war, maybe John McCain and others wouldn’t feel so confident about grilling Hagel on a marginal point like the “surge” strategy. Republican House Caucus (Visual Approximation) Even by their reading of it as being an indisputable success (which killed about 1,200 Americans, b.t.w.), it could only possibly be seen as a minor corrective to one of the most heinous strategic blunders in the history of the American empire, as well as a major international crime of aggression that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and massive displacement. If Hagel was against the “surge”, it’s only because their war had gone so badly and that they had proven themselves incapable of managing the conflict.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not a huge fan of Hagel. He did the right thing by being outspoken about the war in the middle of the last decade, and I respected him greatly for it. But he will no doubt be a reliable steward of the imperial project, just as Obama has proven himself to be. People have short memories – not so very long ago, when Bush II was in his prime, American power was shaken to its very foundation by their insane foreign policy gambles. McCain himself was right on board with it all. It has taken years to emerge from the hole they dug us into, and yet because they haven’t been held accountable, they behave as though they were right all along. Again … disgraceful.

So, who’s more bug-fuck nuts, McCain or the yargle-bargle caucus in the House? The answer may surprise you.

luv u,

Uncategorized

This is Big Green: Hangover Edition 2013

Audio January 27, 2013 Joe Leave a comment

This Is Big Green: January 2013

Big Green shares the agony of the morning after with another installment of Ned Trek, space travel’s only talking horse, plus three Big Green songs and some assorted groaning. Cheers.

This is Big Green – Hangover Edition 2013. Features: 1) Song: Volcano Man, by Big Green; 2) Ned Trek VI: The further adventures of Romney’s talking horse; 3) Song: Johnny’s Gun (demo version), by Big Green; 4) Put the phone down: Our sucky science fiction future, and other topics; 5) Song: Oh, Larry, by Big Green; 6) Turn it down, the radio; 7) Talk of language; 8) Ignominious implosion.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Usual Rubbish

Lookout. Below.

January 25, 2013 Joe Leave a comment

Okay, now where was I? Wait, don’t tell me. I was complaining about…. something…. No, not the song “Something”. I rather fancy that. Something to do with Web servers.

No matter. Here we are, back to the blog. What’s happening at the mill? Lots. Working on the January podcast, now days behind schedule. Later every month, right? That’s the natural course of business here in Big Green – land. Still…. our first installment of THIS IS BIG GREEN should be worth the wait, if you like weird, asinine, and abysmally non-commercial media content. True hallmarks of the TIBG brand.

Smell something burning? Neither do I. But (and this is the point) we bloody well should, and here’s why … Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is supposed to be thinking up a viable creation myth for our upcoming collection of songs attributed to and written in tribute to cousin Rick Perry, governor of Texas. The album – Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick – is such a monumental event in our lives, it fairly demands a creation myth of its very own. As such, we handed that task off to Marvin, and by rights the smoke should be pouring out of his brass visor as we speak.

It is not, my friends. What can I tell you? So look, we’ll just have to cook it up ourselves, I guess, without the help of robotian inspiration. We’re thinking something along the lines of “The Creeping Terror”. Cowboy Scat is all that remains of an epic musical written about the arc of cousin Rick’s political career. Only on the eve of its production, the script was lost over the side of a pleasure craft on Lake Tahoe. Such a tragedy!

Okay, well … we can flesh that out a bit. Give us time. Maybe Marvin can work with …. on second thought, maybe not. Scratch that, friends.

Official site of the band Big Green