This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. Leave the mill immediately. Proceed to the exits marked “exit”. We apologize for the absence of standard, lighted exit signs – crayon on cereal box will have to do.

Oh, hello. Sorry for the confusion – just affecting a temporary evacuation of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. Actually, it’s more complicated than it sounds. The place isn’t actually abandoned in the sense of being vacant – just abandoned by its owners. We, the members and various hangers-on of Big Green, actually live there, and therefore must be told to leave the building when a) a natural or fire-related disaster strikes, b) the land agent arrives to chuck us out, or c) Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, builds a more-dangerous-than-usual monster with which to amuse himself. (You know… just the usual things homeowners fret about day in and day out.) And we are faced with one of those exigencies today. See if you can guess which one. Go ahead… I’ll just hum a little tune while you mull it over…

Oh, Dinos had a good time on the trolley,

Dinos had a good time at the fair!

Dinos had a holiday ’til the skies turned mean and gray

Their underbellies went a gushing jelly and they died in searing pain!

All set? Good. No, it wasn’t number two, though that’s the one everybody picks. And no, I’m sorry little Jennifer, it wasn’t number one either… though part of this building is always on fire, we just don’t pay it any attention. (Why encourage the gods of fire?) Nope, I’m afraid it’s number three – little Mitch Macaphee, the Papa Geppetto of robots, cyborgs, and monstrosities. As you recall, he recently fashioned a Frankenstein’s monster out of solid granite, then made the son of a bitch ambulatory. So that now when the smoke alarm goes off at 3:00 a.m., it isn’t just Anti-Lincoln lighting up one of his acrid stogies… it’s Frankenstone lighting up the man-sized tuber. WTF anyway!

Well, sure… that would be bad enough, right? And you’d think that Mitch would have learned his lesson and put his portable life force animation device back into mothballs, right? Not so. Nothing succeeds like success, as they say, especially in the land of mad scientists. I mean, what would the guy say to his colleagues at the next convention if all he had to show for his efforts over the preceding months was one… just one! … monster carved out of stone? Embarrassing, to be sure. Also, between you and me, I think old Mitch has a problem meeting new friends. Now, making friends is something he’s real good at. And he just keeps making more and more all the time. And some of them are proving a bit inconvenient, setting things on fire, spreading hazardous materials around the mill, etc. Hence our current dilemma (noxious gases – some of them, evidently, are trying to poison our asses, to borrow a line from Flight of the Conchords).

So, what to do? Well, first on the list – EVACUATE!!

Lesson one: if you find yourself staked out in an abandoned hammer mill with your bandmates, never… never let your resident mad scientist work unattended. Negative consequences will be had.

What do I mean, specifically? Just try it and find out! Yes, you aspiring bands out there… get yourself a mill and a madman, shake vigorously, and wait until it starts to fizz. Then you will have your answer. In our case, we didn’t even need the vigorous shaking. Our resident mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, sort of shakes himself up. You may recall that last week he had taken up a new hobby – sculpting. We of Big Green thought little of this… our cohorts are always trying new things, starting new trends, discovering new interests. (Like the man-sized tuber and his harmonica playing. Or John and his anti-matter bicycle collection. Or me and my cucumber sandwich juggling.) But soon we noticed some disturbing signs that Mitch was perhaps taking his new thing (or “thang“) a little too far.

Sure, this sort of thing is bound to happen with a creative mind, right? Our Mitch is always throwing something together. Marvin (my personal robot assistant), after all, is one of his greatest inventions (and, not coincidentally, one of the greatest pains in my ass). Trouble is, unlike other idle hobbies and casual interests, what Mitch creates tends to have a mind of its own. That’s why I became a bit concerned when he chipped his Frankenstone sculpture free of its moorings. My colleagues tried to reassure me. “Relax, Joe,” they would say, “Mitch obviously prefers freestanding three-dimensional art.” This surprised me. (Not because of what they were telling me, but because they had not addressed me with my usual nickname “fucker.”) So I tried to put my concerns out of mind.

Then sometime last week, don’t recall which night exactly, I heard something clomping around downstairs. I assumed it was anti-Lincoln looking for his goat cheese, as usual, kicking up a fuss because someone had walked off with it yet again. (Sometimes I think there’s a bit of the pirate in that old man.) But the footfalls were heavier than that. Sounded like they were breaking through the floorboards. Shortly thereafter, I saw a sinister shadow in the hall. Totally unrelated to the stomping, as it happens. (Just a bit of water damage on the drywall – nothing to get worked up about.) Nonetheless, those steps were strange, unnerving. And when I rose the next morning, the Frankenstone statue was gone. That’s right – GONE! Just a faint trail of stone dust leading out into the hall.

Yeah, you’re right – I should talk to Mitch Macaphee about this. But he’s been busy, and I’ve been busy. Just haven’t had time to deal with it, in all honesty. That Frankenstone statue – I’m sure it’ll turn up. And if not, we’ll just have Mitch sculpt a private investigator.

Look at that. Chip off the old block, eh, Mitch? You should be proud, very proud. You are? Good, good. (Arrogant sonofabitch…)

Whoops. Didn’t know I was typing my thoughts as well as my spoken words – very careless of me. Do me a kindness and overlook that last remark… I’m just not in a very good state of mind right now vis-a-vis Mitch Macaphee, our resident mad scientist. Truth be known, he’s not arrogant. The son of a bitch part is fairly accurate, but I wouldn’t call him arrogant. Stubborn, perhaps. Okay, okay – obstinate. But not arrogant. And I am trying to hold my tongue around him, as it took a good long time to convince him to return to the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. Wouldn’t want to be responsible for sending him packing once again. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) would never let me hear the end of it. (A devoted son, it seems.)

Why am I annoyed at Mitch? Well…. I’m told I’m being unfair. After all, it was he who ultimately shifted the man-sized tuber’s thousands of relatives out of the mill and back into the fields where they belong. That’s right, friends – the potato head family is gone, gone, gone. And it was Mitch who came up with the solution. Foolishly simple, really. He just phoned up our mutual friend Trevor James Constable and asked him to focus the full strength of his patented orgone generating machine towards the Hammer Mill. Let me tell you, that got a rise out of those little suckers. They started rolling out the door the minute Trevor James flipped the switch. Of course, there were some side effects. My fillings, for instance, began emitting easy listening music. Also, the fireplace implements took on an unearthly glow. But it was well worth the trouble.

What about the man-sized tuber? I’ll tell you, after all these weeks, he’s had his fill of relatives. Couldn’t wait for them to leave, quite frankly. (Quite a switch from the mopey Melvin routine that got us into this mess in the first place.) The only real downside here is that Mitch is insufferably pleased with himself for having solved this thing so quickly, so elegantly, so…. so enough, already! Even I’m singing his praises. The fact is, he doesn’t react very well to success. Now he thinks he can do anything. He’s inserted himself into my mixing and mastering sessions (which at least gives me someone else to blame for the positively geological pace of this project). He’s taken up cooking (using the same tools he uses to work with micro-organisms… uuuhhhlllll….). And, even worse, Mitch now thinks he can sculpt figures out of living rock. He chipped a crude Frankenstein’s monster out of the side of a cliff – looks ridiculous. Today I saw him looking discerningly at one of the mill’s courtyard wall – the one that makes up the north side of my room!

Okay, so that’s why I’m irked. I know, it’s petty. I’ll drop it soon enough. Though… between keystrokes, I can hear this vague chipping sound… like someone hammering a chisel into … bricks…

There was a lot of noise this week about Iran once again, this in the wake of an IAEA report that raises questions about some aspects of their nuclear program. The occasion prompted appearances on evening news shows of all manner of expert, so long as they share the view that Iran should never, ever be allowed to possess nuclear technology. One “expert” opined that such an eventuality would set off an arms race in the Middle East, prompting Saudi Arabia to get the bomb and so on. Not sure how closely he’s been paying attention to his area of expertise, but that train left the station decades ago. Israel has a substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons which, though undeclared, has inspired nuclear development programs in Iraq, perhaps Syria, and yes, Iran, if not elsewhere. That is the elephant in the room – the massive destructive power in the hands of a state that has recently and repeatedly attacked its neighbors, and that regularly threatens Iran with air strikes.

This cannot be spoken of, for some reason, at least not in the United States. Somehow when it comes to Israeli foreign policy, we are more Catholic than the Pope, unable to engage in anything close to the kind of lively debate you’re likely to hear in Israel itself. Here, all we can talk about is how Amadinejad purportedly wants to destroy Israel. (That’s a McCain stump speech staple, for sure.) Thing is, they don’t have the ability to carry that out, even if they wished to do so (which I doubt). Whereas Israel, on the other hand, can most certainly obliterate Iran’s major population centers, and perhaps the entire country, in a very short period of time. Their threats carry a certain verisimilitude, as do ours. (Recall that our military is well ensconced in the region, with theater nuclear weapons undoubtedly well within reach.) Is anyone really wondering why Iran might want the bomb?

It’s the “D” word, friends – deterrent. Our leaders try to suggest that it is inoperative in the post 9/11 world, but I don’t think so. Between states, the principle still applies. Iran’s leaders have the rudimentary intelligence it takes to see which countries get attacked by the sole remaining superpower and which ones get negotiated with. They don’t even need to look beyond the very exclusive club Dubya Bush himself established – the Axis of Evil – for their answer. Nuclear armed Korea, with batteries of conventional artillery massed in preparation for a retaliatory strike on Seoul, was able to cut a deal – no invasion was seriously contemplated. Non-nuclear Iraq, on the other hand, which had abandoned its early-stage atomic weapons program in the early 90s, was attacked, invaded, destroyed, occupied, and buried in corpses. What Bush claimed would be a beacon of freedom in the Middle East is, in fact, a national catastrophe no one will ever wish to emulate. So what lesson should the Iranians – third of three in the Axis – take away from this? Get the bomb… and fast.

One thing seems certain, at least – if Iran is attacked in the coming months, it probably won’t be by Olmert… unless the launch codes are buried somewhere in a suitcase stuffed with cash.

luv u,

jp

Want to see me make a donut disappear. Ala-kazam! (*Gulp*) Ta-daaaa! Okay, now… watch me do a half-moon. Presto-change-o! (*Gulp*) Where’d it go? Where’d it go? Next…

Oh, hello. (urp.) Glad you could surf by. I suppose you might be asking yourself, What the fuck is he doing now? Well, friends…. “what the fuck” indeed. The things I have to do to keep people on board with this pointless venture of ours! (Yes, yes… we keep losing people to other unrelated pointless gestures – it’s very discouraging.) You may recall that sometime last week, in our despair over the water table having been depleted by the man-sized tuber’s thirsty relatives, we began digging makeshift wells in the cobblestone courtyard of the Cheney Hammer Mill. And, having run into some (predictable) difficulties with that endeavor, we resolved to employ some kind of hacked-together magic to make our well-holes – this seeming a more immediate course of action than waiting seven years for Mitch Macaphee to get off his lazy ass and invent a stone-piercing neutron laser.

With me so far? Okay, then. So I sent Marvin (my personal robot assistant) over to the local public library in search of some standard volumes on magical spells and incantations. He was gone several thirsty hours, only to return with some lame-ass tome they must have ordered through the mail in 1973 from a publisher’s over-stock house somewhere in New Jersey. (This I know from nothing.) I mean, it was full of pointy hats and al-a-kazams and hey-prestos… the kind of stuff that would embarrass a sit-com pre-teenager. Just plain sad. We were thinking the real dark arts stuff… you know. Beads and flammable powders, all that. Still, I was getting too thirsty to think clearly, so I actually started messing around with some of the spells in the book. I borrowed a few strands of spaghetti to use as a wand, a rolled-up newspaper for a sorcerer’s hat, and went to work. What happened next was shocking, just shocking….

Did I say “shocking”? Perhaps that was too strong a word. Let’s go with mildly surprising. The lame-ass magical spells did nothing to further our well-digging enterprise. (Nothing except earn me the derision of my peers… particularly anti-Lincoln, who’s a hard-nosed little bastard.) What did happen, though, was that I had drawn the collective attention of all of tubey’s relatives. Picture a thousand potatoes in a room, and all eyes on you. Kind of unnerving, actually… but they were being mildly entertained. And that meant less water being drawn off of our somewhat piffling little water table. Within an hour or so, the taps were working again and we could even switch on the humidifier in tubey’s terrarium. (His skin gets scaly during the summer months – that’s why I keep a peeler handy.) Talk about the law of unintended consequences! (Did that ever make it out of committee?) This situation was so twisted, it came out straight.

Trouble is, now they just want magic all the time, and my little bag of tricks is empty. Ergo, I’m resorting to cheap sideshow deceptions. (Which will likely be the theme of our next tour… not bad… not bad… )

Okay, boys – let’s dig a bit deeper. Matt, it’s your turn with the post-holer. Marvin (my personal robot assistant), you’ve got the pick axe this time. I’ll occupy myself with this dime novel. (KLANG!) Oowwww!!!

Dissent in the ranks. Happens every time you try to get some work out of this crew. Though telling Matt to dig is kind of like bossing your boss around. (He euphemistically directed me to engage in autosex with myself. I, of course, refused.) Still, you would think Marvin, at least, would do what I ask, and yet he’s worse than most of the others, tossing his tools into the drainage ditch, muttering to himself in that robotian way of his. He’s still surly over the space robot Dextre thing – another obsession that, thus far, Mitch Macaphee has been unable to program out of the poor boy. For his own part (and don’t ask which part I’m referring to), Mitch has been keeping far away from the work zone as well. Not that I would expect him to use those magnificently skilled hands of his for something as crude as digging for drinking water. (Yes, drinking water! Talk about basics.)

Okay, so why are we digging for water, here in the somewhat distressed urban paradise known as post-industrial upstate New York? Well, it’s those damnable tubers I was telling you about before. Our entertainment was not up to their high standards, apparently – not enough musicality, I’m told – so they began taking on more and more precious water. Pretty soon our well was dry, and in light of the fact that we have been cut off from municipal water supplies ever since we started squatting here (I think it’s some kind of sanction, but would have to consult with a lawyer to be certain), this was becoming a problem. I mean, no showers. No coffee, tea, etc. No water for the garden. Getting a little sticky around here, I can tell you. So, faced with the unattractive alternative of either paying our water bill or learning to drink air, we grabbed mining implements and started heading south…. way south… assuming you think of skyward as “north” (as I do).

How has our luck been thus far? Um, not so good. This is a bit like hard rock mining – first you get through the tarmac, then through the ancient cobblestones, perhaps a layer or two of loose shale, and then you get to something really impenetrable – bedrock, perhaps. Don’t know – I’m not a geologist (though I play one on T.V.), but it seems to me that the water table around here is made of freaking granite. (Three or four water-chairs and we’ve got ourselves a dining room set.) Like on every occasion when we need scientific advice of some kind, we consulted Mitch Macaphee on the matter, but he was of little value. You see, his solutions always tend towards the mad-scientist bag of tricks. You know – blow a hole in it with a high-powered neutron laser, or harness the power of Rigelian lava ants… that sort of thing. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but what the hell… these things take time, and I’m freaking thirsty, man!

So what are we resorting to? Something more instantaneous – magical spells. Kind of like a virtual divining rod. Powders and liquids to conjure with. Ala-kazam!

Avast, me hardies! Full astern. Hoist the mizzen-mast. Lower the, I don’t know… gang plank. Do something nautical, for chrissake. We’ve got some timbers to shiver.

Sound like Treasure Island to you? Hah – if so, you’ve got a bad memory. Here in Big Green land, we don’t know jack about literature. (We don’t even know “Jack” about Jack and Jill, quite frankly. Feverishly undereducated lot.) And still we try, oh we try… as needs must. Just attempting to entertain the natives, and they’re getting restless, my friends – restless as a slice of capicola on Super Bowl Sunday. That’s right… the man-sized tuber’s various and assorted relatives are still amongst us – putting down roots, you might say – and they have a healthy appetite for musicals. (Especially ones that feature pirates.) In as much as they now find themselves in a cultural backwater, they must satisfy themselves with our feeble attempts at melodrama. So we’re putting on a little production I call “Pirates of the Upper Mohawk Valley”. Essentially a collection of ad-libs and made up songs that would only entertain a roomful of root vegetables. Perfect!

Why do we bother with such elaborate efforts? Well, it has to do with resource allocation. Oh, yes – we’re thinking conservation here, folks. You see, studies show that root vegetables use considerably less water when they’re being entertained. (What studies? I don’t freaking know – ask Mitch, he’s the scientist!) And we ourselves found that, after a solid ten days of these couch potatoes laying about the mill, the local water table had dropped at least 14 inches. (In as much as it’s only about two feet deep to begin with, we obviously had to do something fast.) So it was on with the pirate hats, the peg legs, the eye-patches, the shoulder parrots, and up with the Jolly Roger. (Or the “Jolly Roget,” if you want another word for it.)

I’m not certain about this, but I think Marvin (my personal robot assistant) probably makes the most ridiculous pirate I have ever seen. Sure, Lincoln looks stupid. Sure, the tri-corner hat doesn’t fit John for shit. Sure, Matt refuses to wear horizontal stripes. But Marvin? He never does anything half way. And I really think he should, sometimes. I mean, these are root vegetables, for chrissake. They can’t tell a pirate from a palindrome. (What the hell – even tubey thinks “Long John Silver” spelled backwards is still “Long John Silver”.) Why would Marvin ever think he has to put on the whole nine yards? Just a little nod in the buccaneer direction would be enough to satisfy even the most discriminating of these yams. (Come on, Marvin. You’re making a total ass of yourself, honestly.)

Anyway, that’s the good news. The bad news is, no… the album isn’t ready yet. Still in the oven, my friends. But nearly… quite nearly… All will be revealed. Arrrrrrrrrrr….

No I can’t get the phone. Can’t you see I’ve got my hands full? It’s a shovel, you idiot – what do you think? I’ve been using it all morning. And I don’t know the first thing about kneecap replacement surgery, so bugger off.

Oh, I’m sorry. Didn’t know anyone was reading this blog at [INSERT CURRENT TIME HERE]. Just fending off requests from the various minions at large here in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, where Big Green resides. It happens that I’m a bit indisposed at the moment, shoveling up another cubic yard of dirt to make way for the spreading tendrils of the man-sized tuber’s many relatives. They’ve become something like permanent residents here over the past week. You know the drill – shirt-tail relative drops by for a couple of days, unpacks the suitcase, and next thing you know, you’ve got a lifer. That’s right, friends – tubey’s kin are putting down roots. (In this case, literally.) So naturally, those of us who have arms and legs are press-ganged into accommodating them. Just a slave, that’s all. Crying shame.

Why do we agree to this indignity (and what may, to some, seem like the final indignity)? Well, remember – we invited all these groundlings over to cheer tubey up and out of the deep funk he’d fallen into, pining for the fields of his youth. It would hardly do to let the fellow down again, especially now, in front of all his fellow tubers. Yeah, it’s inconvenient. Yeah, I’m getting sick of hauling fertilizer over from the local ag supply store (at great personal expense, I might add) and pressing it around the roots of some oddly misshapen mega-yam. Yeah, there’s a limit – but we haven’t reached it yet. At least I haven’t. (The Lincolns reached theirs a long time ago. I think anti-Lincoln would sooner debate Hillary Clinton than raise another shovel of topsoil for tubey’s relatives.) So on with the work assignment. One hand tied behind our back. No Lincolns. No Mitch. No Marvin (my personal robot assistant).

I know what you’re thinking. Marvin’s a machine, right? Why not program him to do the digging. Well, there are machines and then there are machines. Marvin’s the latter. Not big on programming, generally. Also, he’s being press-ganged by his inventor, Mitch Macaphee, to assist in one or two little experiments the esteemed scientist has taken on during his sojourn chez Big Green. What’s he working on? Don’t ask. No really, you don’t want to know. Okay, okay, I’ll tell you about one. It’s a zombie thing. Yes, Mitch is a mad scientist, so this comes up once in a while. Turn your back for a day or two and he’s resurrecting Frankenstein’s monster. The thing with him is, he gets all the hard stuff right (giving it life, for instance) but skimps on the details. Like his latest zombie creation has been stumbling around for just a few days or so and it already needs a knee replacement. Couldn’t he see that coming? (He borrowed the body parts from a carpet installer. I mean, even I could guess the knees would be history.)

So what the hell – how is a guy supposed to turn enough soil to keep the tuber family happy when he’s got these half-baked zombies to deal with? Enough to drive you to the drink.

There’s the old lumber storage shed. Then there’s that ancient grain silo – hasn’t been used for years. Oh, yeah… and that little room in the north corner of the foundry – forgot about that.

Oh, hi. Welcome to the land of a thousand compromises. (Notice that the word “promise” is embedded in “compromises” – coincidence?) What is it this time, you may ask? Well… just trying to accommodate a few visitors. Actually, more than a few – a whole herd of visitors. No, the mongooses have not returned… they’ve clearly found richer fields of breadfruit elsewhere. This has more to do with the various negotiations we have to engage in around this place to keep all of our constituencies happy. (It gets goddamn tiresome sometimes, I can tell you, but would you want to listen? Be honest!) You got to give a little to get a little, right? That’s our credo.

I know what you’re thinking. (I’m quite gifted that way, actually. Your favorite fruit is cantaloupe… and your favorite hooved creature… antelope.) What exactly is the problem with a few extra guests, right? We’ve got a whole abandoned mill to work with – surely we can find the room. Okay – first of all, we’re not talking about conventional two-legged humans, the kind that can crash on a couch or sleep in the bathtub. (As long as they don’t bathe on the couch, I’m okay.) No, no… our guests are relatives of the man-sized tuber. In an attempt to coax him out of his funk (and out from under the tool shed), we made the somewhat ill-advised promise to invite all of his living relatives over for a week or two. Now, I admit, I did not fully consider the implications of this when it left my lips. (New experience for me.)

You see, they’re all freaking plants – every last one of them. And while we’ve been able to accommodate the man-sized tuber himself (e.g. build a terrarium, provide water and fertilizer, etc.), it’s a substantial undertaking to make this place livable for dozens of his blood relatives. (When I say “blood”, I really mean something more like “sap”.) I’ve got Mitch Macaphee and Marvin (my personal robot assistant) working on the problem right now, though each has been busy with his own personal obsessions. (Yes, Marvin is still whirring and clicking about that Canadian space robot named Dextre… so much so that I can’t even get a shovel into his lazy hands.) Mitch has designed an irrigation system for the courtyard that could help get us through the next few days, but with more heat in the forecast, we can’t leave those suckers out in the sun for too long. Don’t want to think of what might become of them. (Some kind of casserole, no doubt.)

Well, back to our labors. Ever notice how neither Lincoln nor anti-Lincoln are anywhere to be found when there is real work to be done? Emancipators indeed!

Here, boy. Heeere, boy! That’s a good boy…. come on, got a little treat for you. Over here, boy. That’s right. Over…. oh, goddamn it!

Oh, hi, friends. (And I mean friends in the Facebook / MySpace sense…. in other words, total strangers.) Caught me at a bad time, actually. No, I’m not trying to coax a stray dog out from under the tool shed. It’s the man-sized tuber…. he’s gone all reclusive on us. I think it’s a “back to nature” kick of some kind. Here tubey’s been as mobile as a biped these last seven years, and he seemed quite content, really… especially since we procured that ergonomically designed go-cart for him some time back. Of course, appearances can be deceiving, and apparently (or non-apparently) our man-sized tuber has been harboring some regrets over his life with the humanoids. Pining for the fields of home, it seems. He misses his fellow tubers, and who can blame him? (They make such good companions…)

Anyway, he took his little tuber scooter out into the courtyard one morning this week and made for the front gate, getting as far as the local green grocer’s shop before we caught up with him. (Good thing he didn’t break down in front of the vegetable stands – he might have ended up the catch of the day for some hungry vegan.) Between the four of us (Matt, John, anti-Lincoln, and myself), we wheeled the tuber back into the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill and locked the gate behind us. No more escapes, we thought. Of course, we didn’t anticipate the option for internal exile… our tool shed has a door that locks from the inside, strangely enough, and the man-sized tuber took refuge inside, throwing the latch behind him. Why? Could be the dirt floor reminds him of mother. (I’m guessing. It’s probably a lot more complicated than that.)

Why didn’t we see this coming? Well, we’ve been taken up with the serial problems of Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who has been having his own personality issues, as you may recall. (There was that little tweak he had over the Canadian space robot whose name must not be spoken. Please… don’t say it!) And of course, the return of mad scientist Mitch Macaphee and his notorious ticking steamer trunk. (Turned out to be a forgotten alarm clock he’d borrowed from the Buenos Aires Hilton. Again… keep this to yourself.) So what the hell, we’ve been losing a few pounds a week in pure sweat over here – a little too preoccupied to notice the subtle mood swings of an overgrown sweet potato. My apologies, for chrissake. Next time I will have my litmus paper ready, just in case he gets a little less acidic than normal. (The tuber’s dropping acid again…. not good.)

So, yep…. a bad case of tubotosis here at the mill. Last week it was ticking bomb-a-tosis. Before that, robot-pain-in-the-ass-atosis. What’s next? CD release-atosis, I hope.