Empty again, eh? Throw another bucket down there. Was that a ker-plunk I heard just then? No? Okay, okay. Dry as a bone, I guess. Saints preserve us… not that they have any reason to. What the hell — we’re not saints…
Pardon my mental meandering. We’re just working our way through another one of those “issues” (or what honest people call “pains in the ass”) that crop up from time to time when you’re squatting in an abandoned hammer mill. Don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure. Actually, it’s not that different from sleeping out in the road. Cold all winter, hot all summer. Every spring, a river runs through it. And now, because of the freak weather, we can’t find the water table. Now, before you ask how anyone could build a table out of water, let me just pre-empt you by saying that I do, in fact, mean the aquifer we draw upon for our sustenance. No, we haven’t paid the water bill — that takes money (or as Democratic fundraising consultant Chris Lehane puts it, “munnee”), something that is in short supply ’round this manor, squire.
We started dropping the bucket down our community well yesterday when Marvin (my personal robot assistant) dumped the last of our drinking water onto the mixing console. (Yes, Marvin is still having “issues”, even with his newly installed framistat. Lately he’s taken to wearing silly hats, but just don’t get me started on that subject…) All that came up was air. Not that air is unimportant — quite the contrary. I’ll tell you, if we were on Titan or Kaztropharius 137b, we would KILL for that air. No sir, there ain’t hardly a terrestrial rock band that understands the value of air better than we do. It’s just that, here on earth, we have no practical use for an air well. We expect water from the ground, damn it. We get no water, we get no where — simple as that. Little known fact: Big Green is more than 60% water. So, in essence, it’s as if one of us — John, say — were made of rock. Something to think about.
There have been a number of different views on how to satisfy our water needs — one view per squatter, in point of fact. Some have been a bit more aggressive in their thinking than others. Anti-Lincoln thought that we should take a three-pronged strategy that goes something like this:
- Invade the neighboring row house
- Kill neighbors
- Steal precious water
- Do primitive victory dance with punching fist motion (which he helpfully demonstrated)
Got that? Personally, I didn’t think much of that idea. (Neither did the local constables, who now have an APB out on our anti-matter emancipator friend.) Of course, that’s not the only suggestion that’s been turned in. The man-sized tuber, for instance, suggested we all send down tap roots to the aquifer. So, okay… what we need now is a solution that is somewhere between those two poles. Anyone? I’m getting thirsty over here…
Flashlight. Anti-static wrist band. Screwdriver. Vise-grips. Oscillator. Got everything… except the part we’re installing. Mitch!
All right. What is the bone of contention this week? Well, we’re back to maintenance on Marvin (my personal robot assistant). Mitch Macaphee, Marvin’s inventor, is still nominally on strike over our failure to, well, pay him for his efforts on our behalf. Ergo, we are forced to perform routine and extraordinary repairs on our automatonic cohort without adequate counsel from Marvin’s designer. Well, the shit has definitely hit the fan on this little dispute — Marvin is having serious issues (i.e. problems). I mentioned the thing about watering our mixing desk. Just lately, he’s taken to repointing the bricks on the north side of the mill. This wouldn’t be a problem, except that he thinks “repointing” means ripping the bricks out and filing them into spike-like objects with his atomic hand. Clearly, it was time to operate. 
notebook on the construction of Marvin. It was a little yellowed and dog-eared, but still readable. We paged through the sucker by candlelight, making rough sketches of his diagrams, then studying them at our leisure between mixing sessions. Even a blind man could see that Marvin was suffering from a dysfunctional framastatic conversion unit — it was right there in front of us! So we booked the conference room upstairs (no reservations necessary, since it’s abandoned like the rest of this dump) and prepared to open Marvin up like a pull-tab can of pacific salmon. (Actually, that’s sort of what he looks like inside. Strange. Very strange…) 
There are headaches and then there are headaches. Some just come and go. Some move in with you and stay for weeks, months, years… The kind with legs and a mouth. You know what I’m talking about. Pour me another drink, mate.
I have to say, Mitch has been the biggest headache, pain in the ass, whatever extremity you prefer. Last week it was experiments with the weather — he invented something called the “thunder-quake” which has ruined our fence-mending efforts with the local constabulary (that and his dreaded “hurricanado”). Now he’s “on strike”, which means he refuses to maintain Marvin (my personal robot assistant) until we pony up some cash, luncheon vouchers, whatever. This is not good, because (as you know) we lean on Marvin to do just about everything around here so that we can maintain our slovenly musician-like lifestyles. When Marvin starts clunking in a serious way, his many chores fall to the next person on the duty list. And when I say “person”, I mean to include large, oddly misshapen root vegetables. That’s not a good thing. He’s got strong roots, that man-sized tuber, and a lot of pride to go with it. But as domestic help, he leaves much to be desired.
Don’t think our relationship with Mitch Macaphee is pure friendship — not at all. We have a service contract with him. Mitch is paid to find scientifically valid solutions to a variety of problems around the mill. Not that he always manages to find solutions. But what the hell — he built Marvin from bits and bobs lying around his laboratory. Only he can keep that man of tin on his rails. So when Marvin starts to cant a bit to the left, or his programming goes haywire and he starts watering the mixing console as if it were a fichus tree, I haven’t the slightest notion how to straighten the boy out. And though it pains me to give Mitch money for something he should gladly do for free… the tuber could never tell the difference between a fichus and a Soundcraft. It just ain’t in him.
After all that baking, this is what you come up with? Doesn’t even look edible. I’m telling you, I’ve never heard of an artichoke pie. That’s just plain deees-gusting. (Last night it was artichoke sorbet. Uuuulllgghh….)
on our mechanical friend? Wasn’t it me who said, let’s just be glad for our time together? (No, wait — that last one was Diana Ross. Sorry.) Right, right… but that was weeks ago. Marvin should be able to handle cooking. Mitch has programmed him with the latest recipes from Wolfgang Puck and Chef Guillame. Can we help it if the sauce gets ruined somewhere in the transcription process? Am I to be blamed for everything that goes wrong around here, huh? HUH?
It may well be true that Marvin can burn this coarse material in his ion reactor, but it certainly doesn’t constitute “food” to the rest of us. Christ in himmel, it’s not even a savory artichoke pie! It’s got brown freaking sugar in it. This robot is trying to make me spew in the worst way. (Though John White and Trevor James Constable seem to enjoy what they term the pie’s “delicate flavor.” I think it’s the result of food poisoning.) Oh, doctor!
Bad old movie fanatics will recall The Beast With Five Fingers, a moody horror flick featuring Peter Lorre and a one-handed piano player. Actually, my brother (and Big Green co-founder) Matt wrote one of his many Christmas songs on the theme of this ridiculous movie. I think he called it “Christmas Piece (written for one hand)”. I’ll post the file sometime, if he promises not to kill me for doing so. It’s an eight-track DTRS recording from about ten years ago, now in mothballs. Dig it up, fucker! Is that what I hear you saying? Very well, then… We’ve got a pretty deep grab bag over here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. Lots of old masters (and I don’t mean Rembrandt), including 4 track cassette recordings, scary demos, and unreleased out-takes from our last album, 
My feeling is, since he’s a machine, he will feel some sympathy towards these fruits of modern technology (tapes, song files, etc.) and handle them with gentleness and sensitivity. I know he has a strong capacity for… for… what the hell was that noise? Sounded like tapes being dropped down a basement stairs. Excuse me… Marvin? Is that you? What the hell are you playing at, you tin-plated moron? Those reel-to-reel spools are irreplaceable! Get your head out of your ass! What the…? Put that torch away. I said PUT IT AWAY! No… NOOOOO!!!
Okay, that was just a bit of melodrama. Got to keep the kids entertained, know what I mean. Marvin is not one bit clumsy — he’s like a wolf on his feet. It’s the man-sized tuber who’s the clumsy clod around this joint. I warn you, never leave him with the cleaning up after dinner. Can’t tell you how many sets of second-hand china we went through because of that ham-fisted root vegetable. Nowadays we just eat on paper plates recovered from the local falafel vendor. And on those rare occasions when we do use actual dishes, I just ask Trevor James Constable to train his orgone generating device on them after dinner. (Just throw the switch and the bioplasmic etheric energy does its magic while you watch the Daily Show.) Hell, I know — it’s not tubey’s fault. His withered abdominal roots can barely hold a coffee cup, let alone a stack of stoneware platters, heavy with leavings from a four-course Mexican feast. (Clumsy fool.)
What is this? More bickering? Jesus Christ on a bike. Can’t you guys ever just let it drop? Always putting the boot in, putting the boot in. Leave it, damn you, leave it. Do I have to come back there again? You’re distracting me from my driving!
We went out for a brief ride in the ‘wagon just yesterday, and I had to pull over at least a couple of times specifically to speak to Marvin about those bloody pins he keeps tossing in the air. (He had the best juggling coach, too… some guy named Sven. Go figure.) Not a lot of headroom in that car, as you might well imagine — this isn’t some suburban land-yacht or Mercedes SUV, friends. Anyway, it was my turn to drive and by virtue of our friend sFshzenKlyrn’s generous holiday gift (a small poke of Zenite snuff), the vehicle somehow ended up in a roadside drainage ditch. I’ve been in a number of crashes in my time; most of them involving space vehicles (or at least one space vehicle and a car of some sort), but this was among the more embarrassing incidents of its kind. For one thing, it transpired within eyeshot of the freaking mill. My comrades elected to walk the rest of the way home, singing the ridiculous round with which they had been bludgeoning me while we were still on the road. That left me to beg assistance from a passing donkey cart. I think you can imagine the ride home, station wagon in tow. Not a pretty sight.
pilot a spacecraft, but he’s no taxi driver. And don’t even ask me about the man-sized tuber. Why, his little spindly roots can’t even reach the pedals, poor fucker. Matt and John? They like to hang out the windows with their tongues flapping in the breeze. I suppose the most likely candidate for chauffeur would be Marvin, but hell — we get Marvin to do everything. I mean, that robot is entitled to a little down time, even if he is my personal robot assistant. Besides, if you put a robot in the driver’s seat, it’s like riding with Hitler. Don’t ask me why… some truths are imponderable.
Play it again, Marvin (my personal robot assistant). Hmmm… doesn’t quite have the right ring to it. Add a bit more ring. Brass ring is okay; gold is even better. That’s right — a GOLDEN RING. Don’t say we’re not worth it.
Yes, yes… we are broke again. Break out the violins. (Hmmm… violins. We could use more violins on that track.) Right, well, you’ve certainly heard me complain about money before. I’d be the first to admit that we have a kind of chronic problem in that area. It’s like that old Italian proverb — money she’s-a hard to hold onto. Okay… that particular proverb is only moments old, in actuality. But it’s true, nonetheless. Sure, we live in an abandoned hammer mill in the middle of nowhere, paying no rent, no property taxes, no utilities, no nothin’. We’re off the grid, man. How do we keep the lights on? Innovation. One week it’s plugging into Marvin’s ion generator. The next week it might be running an extension cord from Trevor James Constable’s orgone generating machine. What will it be next week? Only next week can say (and it’s not talking).
giving a single thought to what everything costs. Isn’t that what you expect of us? I mean, you don’t want a bunch of bean counters serving up your music, do you? Of course not! You expect us to be clueless about finances; to drink away the profits and smoke away the savings; to burn through the night’s take before the night has even begun. Not only that, but you want us to be lazy, shiftless, self-destructive, and random in every endeavor. And the last thing we want to do is disappoint you.
Ah, hello. Wasn’t aware there was anyone within eyeshot of our little corner on the Web. One never knows, does one? Caught us all in the middle of an experiment, or as our Italian scientist friend Dr. Hump calls it, an experimento. (My Italian is a little rusty.) Actually, the experiment is being conducted not only by the good doctor, but also on the good doctor. Does that sound unethical? I certainly hope so, or your moral compass is way out of alignment. Better get that sucker looked at, little fella. But I digress… As I’ve mentioned earlier in these pages, we’ve been on a bit of a science kick here at the Cheney Hammer Mill. I’m not just talking about the esoteric stuff, like “how much does the moon weigh?” I’m talking practical, too, as in, “how do you keep the rain out of my bedroom?” The science of roofing, as it were.
procedure… though the actual bull work is being done with great precision by Marvin (my personal robot assistant). Why Marvin? Well, Mitch Macaphee did not want to get directly involved — something to do with professional ethics, I believe — so he asked his invention to serve as a stand-in. (Mitch took the trouble to program the requisite skills into Marvin before the procedure began. Good thinking. Good thinking.)
psychological powers, he can be of enormous help in marketing whatever finished product comes out of the other end of our endless recording / mastering sessions. The way I figure it, the good doctor can project an irresistible impulse into millions of people the world over to buy or download our album. Oh, then the money will come rolling in like hay bales in September. By that time, of course, we will need telekinesis just to get the CDs into the shops, as none of us will have the energy to do it ourselves (and, of course, our distributors have long since abandoned us). Good things come to those who wait… and to those who are particularly receptive to telekinetic suggestion. Pass it along, will you? There’s a good chap.
Yeah, that’s right — I’m complaining again. So what’s new, right? Hey… you lock yourself into an abandoned hammer mill with an assortment of mad scientists, musicians, automatons, root vegetables, and extraterrestrials, and see where your head ends up. (On a pike, quite possibly.) You’ll be glad to know I’ve given up on the idea of pressing our own CD’s. (Too depressing.) But the spirit of scientific experimentation (sans animals) lives on here at the Cheney Hammer Mill. Unfortunately, where Mitch Macaphee is concerned, this usually involves some kind of explosion, whether intentional or not. Actually, most times not. It’s just that when you haphazardly drop a little of the blue liquid from beaker C into the 60 ml of yellow liquid in test tube 9, you may get a new kind of hair gel… or you may get a big kaboom (which can give you a new “do” just as quickly).
musician, it goes with the territory. Don’t believe me? Talk to Marvin (my personal robot assistant). He’s got that kind of honest, open face that people tend to trust. What’s more, he’s hip, fly, keen, blah-zono, and can really talk to the young. Where was I going with this? Ah yes — he knows the scientific / technological hazards of the rock industry because he himself is the product of an experiment… a creature of Mitch Macaphee, a.k.a. Mr. Explosion.
device and using it as a slide projector. Next thing we know, the son of a bitch lights a bonfire in the street right in front of the freaking mill, and starts handing out hotdogs and marshmallows on a stick. You would think that such irresponsible behavior as this might only draw the attention of the local fire brigade, but in fact, there were some gawkers. I’m a bit ashamed to say that Marvin was prominent among them (though, in all fairness, he was only there for the marshmallows). Suffice to say it took several hours to clear the sidewalk and drag the orgone generating device back into its cubby hole.
Put it all in one stack. That’s right. Now step down hard. Harder. Harder still. Good, good. Nope, that’s too hard. Too hard, damnit! I said too fucking… oh, what the hell’s the use?
My apologies. Back to our story. What was I trying to accomplish, exactly? Well, as you know, we denizens of the Big Green franchise are pretty much left to our own devices when it comes to producing, publishing, and distributing our wares. Crikey, we have to make all our own noises, play our own horn parts, bang the drum (slowly), mix our own bloody songs, press our own CD’s, design our own labels… even build our own customers, like Marvin (my personal robot assistant) who owns all of our albums. (Okay, so there’s only one so far. There’ll be others!) That’s what makes us, well… different. Is that the word I’m looking for? Or is it… stupid? Has a more familiar ring. Anyway, we are the DTY band, for sure, and that requires a broad range of skills with which we have only a passing acquaintance, at best. And as one of the primary decision makers in the group (I’m the decider!), I’m tasked with training foot soldiers like the man-sized tuber (though, technically, he’s a root soldier).
Yup, last week it was moving the mill around to find the best reverb chamber effect. This week, we’ve been working on our process for pressing our own CD’s. Pretty simple process, from what I understand. Here’s how it works: you take the “music”, which is essentially a physically intangible entity, shape it into a ball, place it on a blank compact disc, and press down just as hard as you can until the two objects become one. Foolishly simple, right? So here’s the question — why the hell can’t the man-sized tuber do it? I keep handing him disc after disc, and he applies his mighty bulk, to no avail. The disc remains blank, lifeless, empty… like a vacant house on a deserted street in a forgotten country… (sounds like home to me). Perhaps I’m being too hard on the tuber. Perhaps I’m not shaping the intangible ball of music in exactly the right manner. (It’s actually harder than it sounds… not the music, but the technique… or as Matt would say, “techy neeky”.)