Okay, who’s going to Betelgeuse for the advance mission? Let’s see a show of hands. I meant now, boys, right now. Is that it? Nearly one hand. Call it none.
Man oh Manischewitz, do I have to do everything myself? (No, I wasn’t asking for a show of hands on THAT.) All I ask is a little cooperation on a deadly dangerous deep-space excursion, and I get nothing. Bunch of layabouts. Looks like I’ll have to do it myself – just me and Marvin (my personal robot assistant). Yeah, I mean you, Marvin. I know you didn’t put your hand up. What part of “my personal robot assistant” do you not understand, eh? Sheesh. I’m going to have to ask Mitch to program some obedience into that boy…. when he gets back from Mad Science-a-ganza in Sao Paolo. (Doesn’t sound hugely scientific to me, but…. my studies were in the humanities.)
Yeah, you see, Tiny Montgomery (our sometimes booking agent) has arranged a performance in the Betelgeuse system as part of Big Green’s upcoming [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011 – by “part of” I mean to say, it’s the only gig he’s booked thus far. (Tiny’s getting a slow start.) Naturally, we’re getting a little anxious about this seeming exception to Tiny’s near unbroken record of rejection by the managers of interstellar music venues from here to Andromeda. I thought it only prudent that one of us should go out there and check the venue out. And hell, everyone 
thought it was a GREAT idea so long as they thought I would be doing the honors. But enough about that.
I have to say, truth be known, I prefer recording and broadcasting to live performances most days of the week. That’s why Matt and I are working tirelessly (no tires needed, in fact) on our new audio podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN!, the maiden episode of which should be posted in the upcoming weeks. What’s it about? Well, my friend, it’s the whole Big Green package – talk and jive, live performances (pre recorded, of course), rare sides, reviews, a promo or two. In short, we’ll know when we get there. But one way or the other, here it comes. No, you don’t have to thank us. All part of the service.
As always, we’re just trying to get you more of what you like least about us. Hmmm… did I say that right? Hands?
The two things, of course, have nothing to do with one another in the real world. Raising the debt ceiling is merely addressing financial commitments that have already been agreed upon. It is something the Republicans have gladly passed many times before under their own presidents, as well as under Democrats. They have seized upon it because it offers an opportunity to, in effect, put the entire nation up against a wall until we give up on the idea of not spending our elderly years in penury. (That’s sooooo 1960’s of us.) The Republicans see an opportunity here to realize what they could never accomplish during George W. Bush’s tenure – privatization of Medicare, pirating Social Security, and locking in massive tax cuts from now until perdition. And they sense, perhaps correctly, that the Democrats don’t have enough fight in them to stop it.
Oh, hello. Didn’t notice you peering through that LCD screen. As you can see, we’re working on a set list for our first engagement on Big Green’s [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011. No, that’s not a place keeper – that’s the name Tiny Montgomery suggested last week, and none of us has come up with anything better (let alone tried to, you know, insert the name). It’s always kind of a back and forth on the set lists – that’s only natural when you have hundreds of songs. Yes, literally hundreds… all wrapped up in a little box. We take turns, reaching a hand into the box. I’ll read one song title and Matt will knock it down. Then he grabs one and reads it. I’ll say he’s an asshole. Then he throws the box at me. And I’ll yell, “MOM! HE’S DOIN’ IT AGAIN!” And then we’re BOTH in trouble.
World War II, flattening its dissidents, outlasting its main rivals … until we managed to elect a man so incompetent he could, to borrow a phrase, destroy the empire merely by strolling through it. I’m sure to the nation’s imperial board of trustees, George W. seemed a relatively safe bet, particularly with such seemingly reliable minders as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld keeping an eye on the store. That miscalculation is proving very costly. Just as our attack on Vietnam bled us dry (to say nothing of what it did to the Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians), this past decade of war – coupled with an amazingly irresponsible policy of deep war-time tax cuts – has helped to hobble our economy, perhaps beyond recovery.
We’ve just lost Tiny Montgomery again. His carrier just dropped the call. By “carrier,” I mean the phone line tap he rigged up outside of his six-room lean-to in Madagascar. (That’s how he makes all of his calls, apparently.) Tiny’s been helping us pull together our next interstellar tour. He sent through the itinerary by primitive fax, and man… it’s scary as hell. Perhaps it’s a communications issue. You know – hard to get ahold of the better venues, especially when you’re using the modern equivalent of soupcans and string to make your calls. I get that. Tiny has his issues, and we have ours… and mothers, this itinerary is one of ’em.
leader that al Qaeda had ever known. This was a victory for all who have served since 9/11. One soldier summed it up well. “The message,” he said, “is we don’t forget. You will be held accountable, no matter how long it takes.”
Oh, hi. Yeah, just grappling with our communications issues, once again. Everything in Big Green’s world is held together with duct tape and baling wire… but then you knew that. What you didn’t know is that we’ve got a mom and pop drugstore up the street from us that has what may be the world’s last coin operated pay phone. That’s right… and it’s bloody handy, now that Verizon has pulled the plug on us. (Damnable message unit charges!) So, yeah… we can call mom, talk to our label, harass our booking agent, order strings, all with a pocket full of change. It’s like freaking magic. Who needs the twenty first century? We’re harnessing the technology of yesteryear. (Or yestercentury.)
First of all, what’s this “we” about? Got a mouse in your pocket? Second… cut taxes? Again? So much for fiscal responsibility. These guys have exactly one idea. No, wait – two: Reduce regulation. (See BP, above.) That will “speed up this pace of government” as we approach the cliff.
Oh, hi. Just trying to recall some ancient lyrics from The Band, off the Cahoots album. Not their best work, but still worthy of a listen. I don’t know what brought that to mind aside from this nagging desire to, I don’t know, go out into the park across from my house and take a few swigs of red eye. Why? Just because it’s time for something completely different. Though something completely different might be standing out there with a tray full of cocktail sized vegetable samosas and a big vat of apricot chutney. Hang the whiskey. (Never sat very well with me anyway. That’s more a drummer kind of thing. Fits very nicely just under the drum throne.)
I think, personally, that he missed an opportunity to make a point here: namely, that we all have private lives – that we all do things that are not illegal but that we prefer not to make known to the entire world. What Weiner was confessing in front of the ubiquitous blue curtain of shame is probably slightly less compromising than the secret online activities of most of the people in that room. He’s a sexting addict. There is a growing population of middle-aged people who are fans of sexting. It’s not an obsession I share (not at my data rates – every time I get a freaking text weather alert it costs me 30 cents… and I get a lot of alerts) but I may be in the minority. What Breitbart and his minions have done is just “out” the guy, not because they have some overriding conviction about fidelity and niceness, but because they disagree with him politically on a range of other issues, and Weiner has always been outspoken.