Take five. One… two… three… quatro! No, no – stop. Wrong key, man. Totally wrong key. It’s the one around the back of the horn. You’re concentrating too much on those front keys.

Greetings and welcome to the house of dung and smog. Did I say “dung and smog”? I meant, sun and fog. Yes, the misty environs of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill on a cool Saturday morn – ah, ’tis a sight to behold. A veritable feast for the senses, particularly the olfactory. That burning smell? That’s just us burning up the tape down here in our dungeon-like studio. (Maybe I did mean smog after all…) Okay… I am playing a little fast and loose with the facts. In this digital, nonlinear age, we have abandoned tape altogether and taken up the cudgel of cutting-edge recording technology – wax cylinders! No wait, not wax. Wire. Wire recording. Wild, wild new deal in tracking songs, mate! I heard all about it from the dude on the corner – the guy with half-a-boot. On his head.

I know, I know – he doesn’t know what he’s talking a-boot, right? Well… before you go there, listen up. Format doesn’t matter, friends. We’re mastering our first album in nearly ten years – a work fully four years in the making. If we got all concerned about formats, it would probably take us another four years. (Not sure this mill will be standing then.) And whether it be wire, wax, or some other widget, we’re preparing these fifteen songs for release, come hell or high water. And those of you familiar with the recording process know, this is the point in every project where you discover how far from finished you truly are. For instance, I’m having Marvin (my personal robot assistant) add a last-minute saxophone part to one song that… well… that just needed something. Something like a robot playing a saxophone. (Always helps. Just ask Captured by Robots.)

Speaking of robots playing saxophones, I hear that plucky Mars rover is still exploring major craters on the red planet. Pretty stubborn little critter. I always taunt Marvin with “Opportunity’s” record on the Martian surface – a foreboding place if ever there was one, take it from me. Anyway, Marvin’s a little sensitive about my rover-based teasing, because his brass skin is susceptible to the peculiar conditions of the Martian atmosphere. In fact, the last time we were there, we spent nearly as much time buffing the corrosion out of Marvin’s skin as we did setting up and tearing down from the gigs we played on Mount Olympus (tallest known peak in the solar system). Check it out, the rover “Spirit” has been on the planet for fully 1,290 Martian days. We were just barely there for two. What do you say to that, Marvin? Huh?

Bone mean, you say? Fuck, no. I’m just trying to get a good performance out of him. Sure, he barely knows how to hold a saxophone, but that has never stopped us before. No, Marvin. Swinging the saxophone at me won’t help. Mars Rover never had to attack its master!

Spread some oil on them sticks. That’s good. Now bring a bundle of straw over here. In a bunch, in a bunch! Okay…. kerosene. Where’d I put it? What? You sure that’s not Vodka? Well… take a glug and let me know. Now, who’s got a match?

Yikes – didn’t know you were logged on. Again, I apologize. Keeping this place in order is a 24/7 kind of job, as you might well imagine. Yes, friends – the Cheney Hammer Mill may be a decrepit, broken down, fetid old ruin with rising damp and water snakes in the basement, but it’s home and every once in a while you need to start a bonfire in the courtyard to let the place know you still care. Oh, you may laugh. You may laugh! But we have our traditions here in Big Green. One of them is making Marvin (my personal robot assistant) do all the heavy work. (Of course, that’s more a habit than a tradition.) More to the point, another of our traditions is that of setting bonfires on alternate Saturdays during the growing season when the moon is in crescent phase. I admit it doesn’t happen all that often, but then neither do the Olympics. So what of it?

Sounding plaintive, am I? You should hear my cohorts. Hardly a moment passes without giving rise to a new gripe. Earlier this week, it was the man-sized tuber, kicking up a fuss over his terrarium being a bit too snug. And when I say “kicking up a fuss,” I don’t mean literally, of course. Tubey has no feet, as you know, only roots, and he moves rather slowly. It was just the look on his… his… his north-facing side (the side with the moss); I could just tell he was dissatisfied. It was an expression veritably dripping with indignation. (Though it may have been some kind of syrup, to be fair. You know how yams get this time of year – kinda juicy.) And those bloody Lincolns – posi and anti – never stop bickering over who ignored the warning signs just prior to secession and who let the rebs walk away with the first battle of Bull Run. I could knock their bearded heads together! Oh, why… why did Trevor James have to cart his orgone generating machine back to the states? Why couldn’t he send those freaks back to the 1860s, where they belong?

The only one not complaining is brother Matthus, and frankly he has the most to complain about. After all, our entirely grisly and unreasonable corporate label, Loathsome Prick, has demanded a finished album out of us by the middle of November. That’s a lot of finishing, and frankly it’s not going to happen. (Just don’t say anything, okay? I’m not ready to go into the ground just yet.) Sure, we’ve got the sucker recorded – fifteen songs in the can, most of which are mixed. But we’ve got a lot of mastering to do, and we haven’t even worked out a running order. (I know, I know…. in the era of the iPod, who cares, right? I do, damn it!) Then there’s designing the package, pressing the disc, distribution… not a ten-week job, friends. And yet Matt is not taking it real hard. Just sorting his anvils, like any normal person. Won’t even join me in a game of mumbly peg. Geez.

Ouch! Now I know why he doesn’t want to join me. Because I don’t know how to play mumbly peg. Our old pirate friend, Admiral Gonutz showed me the ropes a few years ago, but I’ve lost the knack. So it’s bonfire time, friends. Light ’em if you got ’em. And bring a bucket.

That spot. I dropped acid there over a year ago. No, no – not L.S.D. … hydrochloric acid, and I wasn’t using “dropped” as a euphemism for “ingested,” I literally dropped it. Didn’t the man-sized tuber clean it up? Strange….

Oh, there you are. Thank you for joining us once again at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill – ground zero for the Big Green experience in all of its glorious cognitive dissonance. So good of you to drop by every week for the latest installment in our little notebook of horrors. Pretty mundane horrors, I will allow, this being the world we all know it is, but horrors none the less, and very much our own. Last week, as you may recall, we were at the point of being waterboarded into a binding contract regarding the distribution of our upcoming CD release (still in the mixing/mastering stage), the working title of which is WORKING TITLE. Big Green‘s current corporate label, Loathsome Prick records, had grown a little impatient with our interminable production delays and, well, decided to apply a little pressure in the shape of a gang of kidnapping goons.

Did it do the trick? Well, let me tell you – those suits at Loathsome Prick are obviously not real familiar with the history of this band. Those of your who’ve been with us since back in the day know that we’ve faced down intimidation by hired thugs, mongooses, extraterrestrials, morlocks, mutant space aliens, hostile Neptunian metal fans, and a host of other nasties. Big Green laughs in the face of death, sneers at danger, and gives blackmail the finger. That’s the long answer. The short answer is, well, yes… it did work. Hey – I couldn’t let Marvin (my personal robot assistant) suffer! They insisted on waterboarding him first and, well, he hasn’t been detailed in a few weeks, so his water resistance is less than what it should be. I won’t draw you a picture, but the proceedings were quite unsavory. So we signed. What the fuck, right?

Well, anyway…. once the paper was signed, we at least had the opportunity to settle back into our digs, restoring some order (or familiar disorder) to the hovel we had been forced to abandon some weeks back by a cadre of lawn-obsessed extraterrestrial invaders. The man-sized tuber made his way back to his climate-controlled terrarium; the two Lincolns took up residence in opposite wings of the mill; John returned to his virtual aviation console; Matt to his anvil collection… and so on. I retired to the kitchen for a swipe at the cooking sherry, taking that opportunity to thumb through the document we had just signed. (No easy task, since my thumbs were still sore from the interrogation sessions. There ought to be a law against that sort of thing.) As Trevor James Constable always told me, it’s a good idea to read documents you sign because, well, they may have something written on them. Sound advice.

That’s when I noticed that the date for our next CD was moved up to November 14. Those mothers at Loathsome Prick! (They sounded like such a nice bunch of folks…) Crikey, we’re only in our fifth year of production on this thing. You can’t put inspiration on an assembly line! (Or can you….?)

Okay, now where does the signature go? Ah, yes – the line which is dotted. Okay, okay. Right, now… where is that dotted line? Sure, sure… on the contract, sure…

Oh, hi blog-o-files (or perhaps merely ultra-patient Big Green-o-files). You’re probably thinking you may have stumbled in on some kind of trade negotiation, perhaps the latest upgrade of NAFTA. Not so, though it is coercive, expropriative, and downright nasty, so I can understand the confusion. Yes, indeed… after several days (or was it weeks?) in the back of some grimy delivery van, bound and gagged by belligerent strangers, we arrived at our destination. T’was a strange and lifeless place, cold as the grave, its chalky brick facade crumbling beneath the groaning burden of decades of neglect and abandonment. This was the grim place our captors had intended for us to see when our blindfolds were removed.

The abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill – just as I pictured it!

I know what you’re thinking. What the hell are the chances that these brigands and ne’er-do-wells would have chosen for their hideout the same condemned hole we had occupied illegally for the last five or six years? Good question. Hard to calculate those odds. Even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is totally stumped. Still, there’s no need to strain your brain or burn out your pocket slide-rule – these pirates of the open road had known about our residence at the Cheney Hammer Mill, and had deliberately brought us back there. Now I can hear you saying, “For what PUR-pose!?!” (That is you talking, isn’t it?) Well, my friends, the answer to that is both simple… and complex…

Actually, it’s really just simple. (Forgive me. Can’t resist a little cheap drama.) These rough fellows are merely representatives from our (relatively) new corporate label, Loathsome Prick records. It seems we never quite got around to formalizing our relationship with LP, so the company hired some strong-arms to pressure… ahem… negotiate with us on the terms of how we will divide the proceeds from the interstellar sales of our upcoming album, [Marvin: insert album name here before we go to press, there’s a good lad]. This is a bit technical, but we had agreed on a release date of [Just stick any date in here – we can back away from it later – thanks, jp], assuming the mastering and publishing processes went according to schedule. Only catch is, they kind of want to keep all of the money. Sure, I know – that’s their starting position, but they’ve presented it after tying us to waterboards. Not sure I like where this is headed.

Best we can do at this point is stall on the signing. I have asked Marvin to send transmissions to his inventor, Mitch Macaphee, in hopes that he will drop his six-month martini in Montserrat and fly in to our rescue. Until then, we’ll just play dumb. And hold our breaths….

Mmmbbgh. fffmmmprphhh dblffffmmmbfff. mmfmnfb! Okay, okay… so I’ll stop dictating. Awfully hard to make yourself understood with a sweaty bandana tied over your gob. Must… reach…. ENTER… key…. nnghh….

There! New paragraph. Hello again, Big Green aficionados, and welcome to another installment of Hammer Mill Days, that mentally fractured, unspeakably pointless journal of our travels from nowhere to nowhere fast. As many of you may recall, we were in the process of hitchhiking our way across the placid countryside of upstate New York, towards our adopted homestead a.k.a. the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, when the lot of us were cruelly abducted, bound, gagged, and stuffed into the back of a panel van. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I think we’re traveling in the right direction… and we’re making pretty good time. Now… that ENTER key again… nnnghh… (click!)

Yes! As you can well imagine, this has been a bit of a morale-buster, what with our mixing project awaiting us and a production schedule that loses more ground by the hour. (And our corporate label, Loathsome Prick Records, is not known for its patience.) But what the hell can you do, right? So with the assistance of Marvin (my personal robot assistant), I’ll take advantage of this unplanned sojourn to answer a few cyber-grams from our avid readers. Ready, Marvin? Ready?? Oh, right…. they put a bucket over his head. Well… here’s the first note, anyway…

dear big green,

your lame-ass blog never seems to go anywhere but down. i can see why you changed the freaking name. why don’t you fuckers shut the fuck up and play some fucking music before i fucking step all over your shit.

– m. f. friendly, Boise, Idaho

Thanks for that message, m.f. We couldn’t agree more! Fact is, we would far sooner be making music than doing what we’re doing now. Only trouble is, we appear to be caught in some kind of pernicious space-time vortex that turns all joy into soul-crushing angst. Drop by and visit some time – there’s always room for more!

Next message….

Our Warmest Greetings!!! Incomparable proposition for you Dear Clients!!! Only these 5 days for your byers incredible rebates!!! On all pharma you need!!! Fill in your life with colors of merriment!!!

Sincerely Yours,

On-line association of druggists

Hey, “On-line”… Seriously, now – this is the fourteenth time you’ve written us this week. Give somebody else a chance to ask something, will you? I mean, it’s not fair to all the other Big Green fans… like Felix Richter and Ola Dooley. They’ve been writing too.

Okay, we seem to be pulling over to a truck stop of some kind, so maybe one more message – this one from Guy Incab, no known address….

Dear Big Green….

Keep it down back there or I’ll break your fucking heads.

Best wishes,

guy in cab

Uh, right. Thanks, guy. Well, I guess that’s probably enough typing for now…. don’t want to make the driver nervous. Oh, and if you get anywhere within shouting distance of my mom’s house, tell her Matt and I said mmmpfhfwrrrgwabflllrmmmm!!!!

Sittin’ in a railway station, got a ticket for my destina-shun. Oooooooh. Ah yes, that brings me back. Back to all those lame gigs I played as a twenty something. Damn that sucked!

Well, hello, my friends, and welcome to the Big Green saga on the Web, now in its… let’s see… eighth year? Good god, man – that’s nearly old enough to type. I could practically put this blog to work in an electronics factory in Nogales. (What’s Spanish for, “One more electrocution and you’re fired”??) The least it could do is key itself in. Work, work, work, that’s all I ever do. That and sleep. And run from dinosaurs. Dinosaurs! That’s right – the nauseating circumstances of our most recent posting. It seems the saying is true… that one about music soothing the savage beast. (Though it is taking some license to refer to that Dino song as “music”, still… the principle applies.) We found that singing the Dino song was just comforting (or perhaps confusing) enough to keep the Creature of the Barge Canal from swallowing us whole. (Or perhaps the shrimp – or was it crab? – salad hadn’t agreed with him. More likely the hapless lieutenant he washed it down with was what caused any gastric distress…)

Anyway, keeping ourselves from becoming the soup du jour was hardly enough – we had to work our way back home somehow. While Matt continued the serenade, I asked for ideas from the group. Nothing. Well… Matt had one, but he was singing. Then Marvin (my personal robot assistant) piped up – not verbally, you understand, but through the use of a handy chalk board. The means of our return home was right before us, and we hadn’t seen it. That freaking dinosaur – we could hitch the half-eaten cruise ship to its ass and have it drag the sucker forward. Marvin could wheel along the tow-path, playing a greeting-card chip recording of the hypnotic song, leading the dinosaur like the pied piper. Hey… not half bad for a constabulary school drop-out.

Well…. it didn’t work so well. I know you’re as shocked and amazed as I was. It seemed like such a good idea. Turns out Marvin couldn’t get the song quite right – it was too tinny, and that creature of the deep has very selective hearing. And the thing about lashing the ship to its back? Yeah, well… that was just… kind of… dumb. So, what the fuck, with no better ideas at hand, we made our way to shore, humming the Dino melody all the way so as not to seem like attractive morsels in the somewhat stagnant water of the canal. (Though I hear it’s great for kayaking! And waterskiiing!!) Once on the banks, we ran as best we could (with our sea-legs) up an embankment to State Route 5. Then it was thumbs out. Not the first time, friends. Not by a long shot. Sure, I know what you’re going to say…. Hitchhiking is dangerous, Joe. You could get mugged… or abducted. Think of young Marvin and the poor defenseless tuber…. Right, right… I’ve heard it before. I just want to live MY life the way I WANT TO. And NO, I’m NOT going to do my homework! And YOU CAN’T MAKE MEEEEEE…..!!!

Whoops, sorry. Don’t know where that came from. (Issues.) Well we did get a ride. And as much as I hate to admit it, it was kind of dangerous. Tied up, gagged, and thrown into the back of a van kind of dangerous, to be more specific. Okay, you were right. Just pay the ransom, please. I’m keying this blog on my cell phone, and it’s taken me the better part of a week to do it…

If this is prehistory, what the hell was yesterday? And if the universe is infinite, where the hell does it end? And if God is both infallible and omnipotent, how come s/he can’t make mistakes?

Questions, questions, questions! Oh, how you vex me with your endless inquisitiveness! What was that? I was asking those questions? I? Hmmm… I do remember muttering something a few moments ago, and my utterances did end in an upward lilt. So perhaps you’re right – I guess I am the inquisitor, not the inquisitee. (Inquisitee?) My apologies. I’m a bit disoriented, I admit. Driven from my home by a titanic battle of extraterrestrials. Shot into space and dropped into an inhospitable ocean whose evil currents deposited us onto the shore of a strange and foreboding land. Lashed to an oar like a galley slave (hard work, few breaks, but you meet some very interesting people), then winning my freedom at enormous personal cost… only to face the wrath of a gorgon-like creature from the deep. What kind of a week have I had? Don’t ask!

Okay, okay… I didn’t face all this alone. Naturally, I was joined in my misadventures by fellow Big Green-ers, Matt Perry and John White, plus Marvin (my personal robot assistant), the man-sized tuber of our acquaintance, Big Zamboola, and the two Lincolns (posi- and anti-), who split up with us on the mysterious island of Manna-hat-a-hun. Last week, we were being pursued by a large, loch-dwelling denizen of the deep – in essence, the Creature of the Barge Canal – which had barged (so to speak) into the riverboat’s on-deck buffet and helped itself to a generous serving of shrimp salad with a side of officer of the day. Believing we were next on the menu, we opted for below-decks, from whence we had emerged, in hopes that our giant pursuer would be unable to follow.

The thing about Diplodocus-like critters is that they have kind of a long neck… a real long neck. And if they want to follow you through a bulkhead, down a long flight of stairs, and into several cabins, well, they can kind of do just that. What to do? We panicked, quite frankly. My eyes started rolling back in my head. Marvin’s gears started squeaking rather loudly, and smoke came out of his audio sensors. Before we all had the chance to fall over backwards, Matt came forth with a rendition of Big Green’s Dino song:

Dinos had a good time on the trolley!

Dinos had a good time at the fair!

Dinos had a holiday, ’til the sky turned mean and gray

Their underbellies went a-gushin’ jelly and they died in searing pain!

… and so on and so forth. Well… the giant sea creature – Diplodocus, I believe – started swaying back and forth in time with the music. It was a trance like state, brought on by the singing of this ludicrous little number Matt and I pulled out of our asses in about five minutes some years back. Damnedest thing.

What happened next? Matt kept singing. When he got tired, I took over. Then it was Marvin’s turn. Then John. Sheesh. It’s going to be a long trip back to the mill.

Settle down, now. That’s right. Keep calm. (Zamboola – grab the net!) That’s right, nobody’s gonna’ harm you. (Not that net, you idiot… the fishing net!) Nice monster….

Whoops, sorry. Didn’t mean to ignore you. Just kind of got our hands full over here in Big Green-land. (No, not Greenland…. Big Green land. Just a turn of phrase – let it pass, let it pass). Not that we’re incapable of coping, lord no. Why, we’ve got some truly unique talent to work with over here. Hell, Big Zamboola himself is an entire planet of wisdom, substantially reduced in size, but still… And Marvin (my personal robot assistant) holds all the knowledge of the ages within his somewhat threadbare memory banks. (It would be helpful if he would just let a little of it out once in a long while, but there you have it.) So sure, we can handle just about anything. Though if any of you have any experience working with giant sea creatures – particularly the more belligerent varieties – please do chime in.

Right – so, as some of you will recall, we were steaming along the N.Y. state Barge Canal, heading westward towards the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill at a respectable four knots (respectable, that is, if you are fighting gale force winds… which we were knot… I mean, not), when we elected to cast off our bonds (we were informal galley slaves, or “temps” as they’re sometimes called) and storm our way to the command deck to confront our captors. It was then that we were faced with… well, I can only describe it as a large, snake-like object. Oh, foul it was, with a… ahem… I mean, this fucker was easily fifty feet high, and it was all neck. And, unlike the rest of us, it probably never had to settle for the low-hanging fruit. In spite of that fact, it seemed jolly well interested in our little vessel… or something therein. So the monster loomed above us. And it looked very, very hungry.

Hell of a time for them to open the luncheon buffet! What is it with these gaming cruises, anyway? Can’t they just let people eat when they want to (i.e. when they run out of money at the baccarat table)? Lord no! So what the hell, some bastard rings a bell and the folks start lining up. Then that sea creature, mannerless lout that he (or she) is, cuts ahead in line and starts scooping up all of the crab salad. This drew the attention of the ship’s executive officer, who inserted himself between the comestibles and the sea monster, demanding that the beast find another source of sustenance. To give credit where credit is due, that critter did alter its dining plan, helping itself to the hapless lieutenant. (You need to be careful what you ask for.)

It may or may not surprise you to learn that people are a lot like potato chips. Once you eat one, it’s hard to stop. Ask any sea monster. Just ask them quickly, and don’t wait for an answer. Got to go. I just can’t type and run (and scream) at the same time.

Above us it loomed, its great bulk blocking the early afternoon sun. Oh, foul it was, with a stench that recalled many a dormitory morning back at S.U.N.Y. New Paltz (Gaige Hall). Queasy…. so queasy…

Oh, Jeebus…. my mistake, friends, sorry. I didn’t know I was posting that last bit. Just getting a bit ahead of myself, that’s all – some of my contemporaneous impressions during the strange events that befell us this week, as we made our way westward along the N.Y. State Barge Canal (successor to the Erie Canal) towards the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted home (squat house). Some of you (or perhaps all of you) may remember our decision to surreptitiously board a riverboat, which had obligingly docked near the spot where we had made our precipitous exit from the Thruway. Not the wisest decision, as it turned out. Ever seen Ben-Hur? Not the chariot race – the part where the guy is counting cadence below decks with a big drum. Well, we were surprised to find that fucker still in action. (OSHA needs to take a closer look at these riverboats, damn it.)

Okay, so anyway… row, row, row, goes the galley; boom, boom, boom goes the drum. After a couple of days of this, we’re getting a little, well, tired. So I encourage Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to sneak upstairs during his bathroom break (not entirely necessary in his case, anyway… Marvin’s leaks all involve machine oil) and have a look around. Well, he came back with a couple of interesting discoveries. First, the ship appears to have an engine and a great paddle wheel… which suggests to my mind that they’re making us row purely out of meanness and nastiness, and not for any locomotive purposes. Second, there’s gambling going on up there at practically all hours of the day and night. So this barge turned out to be one of those riverboat casinos (either that, or the captain has a bit of an issue with certain compulsive behaviors). On top of that, Marvin was, quite frankly, sent away with a bee in his ear by the captain’s imperious wife. There was only one thing for it – mutiny!

On Big Zamboola’s signal (a slight northward shift in his primary magnetic field – subtle, yes, but noticeable), we all dropped our oars and marched up the stairs, deaf to the belligerent calls of our overseer, with the intent of confronting our captain. I felt the spray from the canal as we broke through the bulkhead doors and climbed up on deck for the first time in four days. It was then that we saw it. Oh, foul it was, with a stench that recalled…. oh, right, you’ve heard that bit. We saw what looked like an enormous garden hose stretching straight up into the sky. Closer to the water, you could see the outlines of some kind of Diplodocus-like body. No doubt about it – this was the real thing. The lock 17 monster. I’d heard legends, but never… never did I suppose they were true.

So, I don’t know, what do you say to an enormous prehistoric creature as it towers over you with something akin to hunger in its eyes? There’s only one thing you can say, and friends… its starts with *GULP*

Low bridge, everybody down. Low bridge, ’cause our driver is a clown! Man, don’t you just love those old work songs! Just the thing to take the ache out of my sorry ass.

Oh, yes… greetings from your friends in Big Green; keepers of the flame of slovenliness, protectors of the weak-minded, masters of procrastination, and the one and only cereal that comes in the shape of animals. (Yes, we’re Crispy Critters, all right.) When last you saw us, we were chugging along the New York State Thruway on foot, pulling disdainful glances (and more than one determined scowl) from those who wear the state’s uniform and carry the state’s water. (Yes, our state has water, too.) Admittedly, we must have made quite a sight, pacing down the center of that august and still-not-paid-for thoroughfare, making our way somewhat nervously over the Schoharie Bridge where several travelers lost their lives some years back (subject of Matt’s song Just Five Seconds, a recording of which I will post at some point in the not so distant future). Hell, if we were to let fear stop us from doing what we need to do, we would have stopped doing anything meaningful years and years ago. So….wait a minute… maybe we are a-feared after all!

Well, heck… that’s a revelation. Anyway… yes, we were conspicuous as hell trooping down the Thruway, and, yes, we got kicked off by the Thruway Authority, the State Police, and some engineers from the DMV who thought Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was some kind of automated road surveying device or a white-stripe painter or something. (Actually, if you dip his casters in paint, he can do a passable job of the latter function. Regarding the former… I just don’t know.) We were unceremoniously dumped off onto the public roads in an area of upstate New York with which none of us are terribly familiar — somewhere near the Auriesville Shrine, I believe. Not a red cent between us. No credit cards. No luncheon vouchers. And hell, Big Zamboola hadn’t eaten a single thing since that last cup of overpriced tea down on the island of Manna-hatt-a-hun. (Don’t travel with a hungry planet. Just. Don’t.)

Well, geez-Louise, or as Mitch Macaphee’s grandmother used to say, “fuck a duck, Gertrude,” how the hell do you get over land with a motley band if you don’t have conveyance? (Perhaps with a séance?) We puzzled over this for quite a while before fortune smiled down upon us (as it always does) and placed the means of transport within our grasp. The Barge Canal! (formerly known as the Erie Canal, eighth wonder of the world… back when there were probably only about seven wonders). We made our way to the nearest marina and negotiated passage on a somewhat tired looking riverboat. (That’s right, that’s right… we didn’t have any money, so the negotiation mainly involved sneaking on board while the crew was below deck drinking their wages. Don’t look at me like that…. I’m freaking sensitive, okay?) It’s not the kind of barge you would expect to see on this superannuated waterway, but…. it’ll do, and it’s headed in the right direction.

Before you ask, let me just disclose that, yes, we did get caught and were compelled to renegotiate the price of our passage from “free – stowaway” to “free – galley slave”. Didn’t know those paddle-wheels were driven by brute force, eh? Well… now you know. Just remember – poor Zamboola doesn’t even have arms!