Usual Rubbish

And having writ, the hand moves to Jersey

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Get Music Here

Yes, that’s a whole different approach. I never thought of doing it that way. Yes, very innovative – thank you for the suggestion. Of course I’ll give you credit. I’ll write it in the sky if you insist. You insist? Hoo boy.

Lesson number one for you young songwriters out there: never take advice on your craft from a robot. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has been putting his two cents in a lot lately, and frankly, it’s worth every penny. We’ve been trying to pull together some new songs for our next project (another word for “album”), and he’s suggesting to me that I should start every song on kazoo.

It’s all about process. Sometimes.

Now, everyone has his/her process. We’ve discussed ours on this very blog. Some songwriters have a favorite instrument, some a favorite room. Some like to start with the music, then the lyric, others the opposite, and some a random mix. Marvin obviously prefers the kazoo. I think it’s fair to say that my brother Matt did at one point in his career. The thing is, Marvin doesn’t need a kazoo to make a kazoo-like sound. He’s got a sound generator that can imitate everything from a Blue Whale to a mosquito. (You should hear his 1993 Buick Regal. It’s spot on!)

My process? Well, mostly it’s not doing anything. But when I do write songs, I typically start with a blank piece of paper. The paper stays blank for a few weeks, until I awake from a nightmare at 2 a.m. and start scribbling randomly. The next morning, I will puzzle over the illegible nonsense I scrawled out the night before, then ball up the paper and chuck it in the trash. That’s usually when I pick up a guitar. Don’t try this at home!

Those instruments!

Some of you might think that it’s better to write songs on an instrument you know. I am living proof that that’s not necessary. The fact is, I don’t know any instruments all that well. Sure, I’m on a first-name basis with a guitar or two, and my piano is a childhood friend, but that doesn’t count for much. Like many songwriters, I reach for the closest instrument in the room and start noodling. (Pro tip: If I stumble on something good, it usually means it’s been used before.)

Worried about plagiarism? Remember what Woody Guthrie said:

“I never waste my high priced time by asking or even wondering in the least whether I’ve heard my tune in whole or in part before. There are ten million ways of changing any tune around to make it sound like my own.“

Yeah, I’ll take some of that. You might also want to remember what Tom Lehrer said:

Plagiarize
Let no one else’s work evade your eyes
Remember why the good lord made your eyes
So don’t shade your eyes
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize

I can't play this bloody thing!

A case of projection

Is this a roundabout way of saying that we have an album project in the works? Well, dear reader, that would be telling! After all, we have about a hundred Ned Trek songs in the can, waiting to be released in some form, including about seven or eight that have never seen the light of day. And then there’s all that new material from Matt (a.k.a. the songwriting machine of Central New York).

Damn it, man … we have so many irons in the fire, there’s nothing left to do the ironing with. Now we have to throw all those wrinkled clothes in the fire with ’em.

Political Rants

The war dog that didn’t bark in the night

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I’ve heard a few stories this week about mission creep in the U.S. led response to Russia’s Ukraine invasion. Frankly, it would surprise me if there wasn’t any. This is something empires do, and the United States has done it multiple times in not at all subtle ways. Libya is probably the most glaring recent example of this. First we’re going to save the people of Benghazi; then, well, we’re going to act as the Libyan rebels’ air force. That’s when you get people back home saying, did we sign up for this?

Well, now we have members of congress going around saying that this is a proxy war against Russia, which speaks to the intention behind the policy. Granted, Seth Moulton was the source, but still – he probably hears a lot from the national security establishment on this. Trouble is, there’s a proxy only on one side – ours. This is not like Syria. Russia has a direct interest in this war, not a supporting role. Given what we’re hearing about intelligence sharing, it’s kind of a miracle that we’re all still here.

Unannounced, unmolested visitors

But intelligence sharing is not the only thing going on behind the scenes. There must be a substantial amount of de-confliction taking place, or even relatively high level conversations. The reason I think this is that Russia has the capability to strike anywhere in Ukraine by air, via either planes or medium range ground-to-ground missiles. And yet, when American dignitaries – congress members, cabinet officials, the first lady – show up in Kviv, there are no Russian strikes. Coincidence? I think not.

This cannot be chalked up to not knowing about the trips. Russia hits these cities at random, at will. But when important people from the U.S. are in town, the missiles stop. This is not a coincidence. It’s evidence of some rudimentary rationality on the part of Russian leadership – they don’t want World War III. Frankly, there are a lot of things they could be doing militarily that they haven’t opted for. That’s not cause for praise, of course – if someone with a gun stabs you to death, it doesn’t mean you should praise them for not shooting you. But in this case, it means that things can, indeed, get a lot worse.

Going over the top

All that said, there remains a better than strong chance that this Ukraine conflict will result in a broader war, and perhaps nuclear escalation. The pieces are all in place to make that happen. It seems clear, based on recent reporting, that the Biden administration has been sharing targeting information with the Ukrainians that has contributed to bringing about the deaths of numerous Russian generals. If it’s being reported, it was certainly known already to the Russian leadership. Now the whole world knows, and they have egg on their face.

In recent days, the Russians have been zeroing in on Ukraine’s supply lines from the West. They hit Odessa as part of this campaign, reportedly. We know there are American and European operatives working in Ukraine. How long before some of these people are hit, captured, killed? If the Ukrainians continue to succeed on the battlefield with our weapons, how long before Russia strikes at the source of these weapons, if only obliquely? It might turn out to be a light tap on the arm, but that might be all that’s needed.

What doesn’t help is American politicians spouting off about turning this into another Afghanistan, as Seth Moulton was kind of saying on Fox the other day. I expect this idiocy from Republicans … but Democrats should know better, somewhat.

Damn the ICBMS – full speed ahead!

I got into a Twitter skirmish with a Congressional candidate a couple of weeks ago over the topic of Ukraine. He is an independent, and he was advocating removing Putin from power. I asked him how he proposed to do this, and after some hedging he said through military action. When I pointed out that this would likely lead to World War III, he basically accused me of not caring about the suffering of Ukrainians, and called me a “coward” because I was not willing risk nuclear war to advance his regime change policy.

The thing that’s truly frightening about this is that other people – progressives, even – seem to think this makes sense. This is the problem with having a massive military that can project power all around the globe at will. We use it too much – like Russia, only worse – and get used to the idea of it being a solution to all problems, when it, in fact, solves none.

If we try to pull an Iraq or a Libya on Russia, it’s game over. That’s the reality, like it or not.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Usual Rubbish

The fate of Ned Trek: A Mystery

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Get Music Here

Where is it? Well, I can’t tell you. I was looking at it. I was looking right at it, and then it just wasn’t there! Stupid Internets!

Ever have one of those days when you keep losing track of things? Yeah, well I’m having one of those weeks. First I couldn’t find my shoes. Then my bag of marbles went missing. (That’s right – I lost my marbles.) Next it was my reading glasses. I couldn’t even look for those because my distance glasses were missing too, and I can’t see my reading glasses without my distance glasses. And then there was the bank deposit, but never mind – you can read about that in the papers.

These are all trifles when you come down to it. The big thing that’s missing is a web site. The Ned Trek web site, that is – it disappeared without a trace last week. Of course, so did last week. I mean, last week is gone for good, right? And sadly, it has taken Ned Trek with it.

Home for wayward clowns

Some of you may know Ned Trek as an occasional segment on our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN. We would gab a bit, maybe play a stupid song or two, then play an episode of Ned Trek and call it a night. Of course, the show was buried in a lot of even more inane nonsense, and we felt that people needed an easier path to the oasis that is Ned Trek. After all, some might only want to hear bad imitations of vaguely famous people and a seasoned naturalist imitating a sit-com horse from the nineteen sixties. (There ARE people like that, you know.)

With that in mind, we built a separate site for Ned Trek. (Here’s the cached version of the site on the Wayback Machine.) There we just posted the shows, gave a little explainer about the premise, etc., and put up some ridiculous pictures that drove people mad. Every other episode of Ned Trek was a musical, so we had a separate WordPress post category for those. It was a whole thing, and it got tens and tens of visitors until …. well, until earlier this year.

Who the hell would ever hack THIS masterpiece?

Things that go boom

You’ve heard the not-so-old saying, “boom goes the dynamite”, right? Well, this is a case of boom goes the web site. I went there one day, nothing better to do, and I got the white screen of death. I tried all the patented WordPress hacks to resurrect it, but it was no good. But I think the real issue is …. what the hell happened? Did we get hacked by Captured by Robots or someone?

Maybe it was Desilu, in retaliation for lifting their show concept. Or maybe it was Desilu in retaliation for murdering their show concept. Fortunately, the show files are still there, so we set up a temporary page until we can figure out what the hell is going on. (Did I hear Trump just now?) Then there was that one-armed man spotted leaving the scene. We’ve got to find him before Richards does! (Damn it. Now I’m mixing up my bad sixties television shows.)

Calling all engineers

Hey … if you’re an engineer (i.e. not someone who drives a train) and you know something about WordPress, do me a favor. Call up WordPress central and tell them that their bloody platform just dumped years worth of pointless activity … I mean, backbreaking work. We demand restitution!

Political Rants

The best way to make your vote count

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I know this is not a week when people want to hear about lost elections, but somebody has to say it. This is such an elementary point, I don’t understand why there’s so much resistance to it, but elections have consequences. I feel the urge to tell my leftist friends that (a) I’m further left than they are, (b) the revolution is not just around the corner, and (c) voting strategically doesn’t take anything away from organizing.

This week the Supreme Court gave us their best reason yet to use voting as a political strategy. We are looking at a 5-4 reversal of Roe v. Wade, a decision that will cause enormous hardship for millions of working class and poor women across the country. That five-vote majority could not be arrived at without the appointment of Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh to the court. If a Democratic president had filled even just two of those seats, it’s doubtful that Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health would have even made it to the court in the first place.

Not our first rodeo

The sad fact is, because of flaccid support for flaccid Democratic candidates over the past twenty years, we have missed multiple opportunities to flip the Supreme Court over to the centrist-liberal side. There were several points at which a Democratic senate majority and/or Democratic president could have taken advantage of serendipitous vacancies, but alas, they simply were not there. The Republicans have managed to be in the right place at the right time in each instance.

It happened in the Reagan years, but without delving back into the stone age, the first instance I’m thinking of is 2005, right after Bush’s reelection, when Chief Justice Rehnquist died of thyroid cancer. If Kerry had won in 2004, Rehnquist would not have been replaced with Roberts. Neither would Sandra Day O’Connor have been replaced with Alito that same year. Then, of course, there was 2016, when Scalia dropped dead. Much as I couldn’t stand Clinton, she would not have appointed Gorsuch to replace him. And if we had held the Senate in 2014, confirmation of Obama’s nominee would have been assured.

Harm reduction 101

There are plenty of fair complaints on the left regarding how Biden has handled things, how the Democratic House and Senate have used their majorities, etc. But the principle obstacle to better policy is the lack of a firm majority in the Senate. That’s the reason why the Child Tax Credit was not renewed, even though it had cut child poverty in half. That was a wildly successful program that missed renewal by a whisker – really just one vote short in the Senate.

How do you fix that problem? Elect more progressive Democrats. Failing that, elect more Democrats who will at least support core policies, like reducing or ending child poverty, protecting a woman’s bodily sovereignty, and so on. It’s one of those necessary but not sufficient measures. Voting for Democrats will not solve our most serious problems by itself. It will keep things from turning into the dumpster fire we’re seeing now.

Do it for the downtrodden

Hey, I know … it sucks to have to support a lousy candidate. You work like hell in the primaries to get somebody decent on the ballot, and then end up with some watery moderate like Biden. Bad enough, but you know what’s worse? Republicans. And it may not affect you directly, if you’re well situated economically, but for working class and poor people, there is a significant difference between the parties.

So mark your ballot, then march. You can spend the whole year doing the latter. The former will just take you a few minutes.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Usual Rubbish

Stages in the ascent (or descent) of Big Green

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Get Music Here

You know, when I was a boy, my pappy said to me …. what’s that? How the hell did you know that? Oh, right. He’s your pappy, too. Easy to forget little details like that when you get to be MY age. Get off my lawn!

Yikes, well … welcome to geezerville … I mean, the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted squat house. It is, after all, just a rest stop in the long journey that is our story. Not exactly the best appointed rest stop on the Thruway, mind you – there’s no Cinnabon, no Chick Fillet. There’s no 1960s style automat where you can grab a soggy hours-old tuna sandwich if you’re in a hurry. But I digress.

Phase one: the first phase

Sure, we go way back. Big Green’s founding was a scattershot affair, spread over several decades. We count our age in geologic time, as our official story will attest, but as far as start dates are concerned, we’re probably talking 1979. That’s the first year Matt and I played in a band together. Sure, we sucked, but give us a chance! We had only just grown our guitar hands, our pump organ feet, our harmonica teeth. (Ever seen harmonica teeth? Trick question – most harp players don’t have teeth.)

I mean, if you want a more compelling genesis story, look elsewhere. (Genesis, perhaps.) The fact is, we picked up our cheap guitars, went to some cheap venues, and started playing our cheap repertoire. Matt and I did some duo gigs, but we mostly played as a four-piece, with our first drummer Mark K (no last name – YOU know who you are!) and our first lead guitarist, Tim Walsh. So there was pounding and there was twanging, but no screeching quite yet. Big Green was still in the protozoan stage.

Phase two: the one that came after one

As was my habit, I took a year off, this time in New Paltz, NY, living in the worst dorm on campus at the SUNY college there. Across the hall from me lived our soon-to-be second drummer, Phil Ross, who’s still playing gigs, last I heard. Phil and I used to sit in his room and listen to his truly impressive LP collection – lots of old Dylan sides, Phil Ochs, etc., and some new stuff by this Elvis Costello dude. Phil and I shared an apartment for a semester, then a house outside of Albany, NY, along with my other bandmates, Matt and Tim, and my partner at the time, Ellen.

Phases of Big Green
Phases two, three, and three and a half of Big Green

So, the nameless band that one might call proto-Big Green went under a variety of monikers, from Slapstick to Mearth to Duck and Cover. We played some gigs around Albany, did some recording, then kind of ran out of gas as a band. That’s when Matt dug into writing in a big way. (Fun fact: his song Sweet Treason is partly about our year in Castleton-On-Hudson. See if you can guess which part!)

Phase three: a name and a phase

What came after that? Well, Tim and Phil went off to do other stuff, and Matt and I teamed up with Ned Danison (author of A Name and A Face) and a bunch of random drummers – and eventually John White, our forever drummer – to put together the band that would be called Big Green. So it was musical drummers for a while, then musical guitarists for a longer while, but ultimately we landed in an abandoned hammer mill and started telling you this long, shaggy-dog story of failure and hardship.

You know the rest. Five or six more phases, and we’re here. Any questions?

Political Rants

Putting power back in its place

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Labor has been on the back foot for decades now. I am old enough to remember the Reagan turn – even the Carter and Nixon administrations, frankly. The serious move towards neoliberal economics got rolling under Carter, who was fond of deregulation and austerity. He also started a steady increase in military spending towards the end of his term – a trend that Reagan accelerated in the years that followed.

Those were not good years for workers. Firing the PATCO air traffic controllers was just a start. The union movement in the United States continued to lose ground throughout the 1980s and 1990s, when Clinton took the baton from Reagan/Bush and more fully implemented the vision of corporatism and a general attack on the rights of working people. There were a few glimmers of light in the darkness – the UPS strike in 1997, the anti globalization movement around the same time. But Thatcher’s contention that there was no alternative to capitalism continued to prevail. Until it didn’t.

Learning from teachers

We are now in the midst of a resurgence of labor organizing the likes of which we haven’t seen for decades. You could see evidence of it in some of the activism rooted in Occupy Wall Street, as well as the movement around Bernie Sanders’ campaigns. But what’s happening today is the product of a lot of hard work on the part of organizers across the country. One of the first and most dramatic examples of this was the start of the teacher’s strikes in 2018.

Now, I don’t think there are many professions in the United States that are more roundly abused than teachers. In most public school districts, they are given inadequate resources, paid poorly, and expected to compensate for all of society’s failings. When teachers rose up in 2018, including in districts that were not unionized, it put the neoliberals on notice. Even now, with the pitched attack against teaching children about race, sexual orientation, or anything salient in American history, teachers are still successfully challenging their bosses. There’s a lesson in that for all of us.

New economy, new tactics

Like many people, I first heard about Christian Smalls during the first months of COVID, when Amazon fired him for demanding that they take action to protect their workers. Over the almost two years that followed, he and his colleagues organized independently of any major unions and won. What they’ve done should serve as a blueprint for organizers across the country. That behemoth of a company drastically underestimated Smalls and his co-workers – not surprising. One of the oldest stories in the world.

Then there are the Starbucks workers. I heard some of these young people interviewed on Michael Moore’s Rumble podcast, and I was impressed not only with their energy and enthusiasm but by their deep understanding of the power relationship between workers and owners. This is more than inspiring, though. This movement is a promising sign of things to come, driven by a generation that has seen a lot of financial hardship over the last two decades.

Shake them upside-down

So what can we do? Support labor organizing in your area and nationwide, in whatever way you can. Push for a more favorable legal and regulatory environment in which people can exercise their fundamental rights as workers. And, last but not least, compel a reluctant Democratic party to change the tax laws so that billionaires cannot even exist. Call it the “shake them upside-down” law.

Finally … something to feel good about. Let’s build on it.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Usual Rubbish

Eric the Half a Song. Sing it with me!

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Get Music Here

Should we do another Big Green album? I don’t know … why not? Have you got any songs? Oh, good. I’ve got some, too. How many do you have? Sixty? That’s pretty good. I’ve got half. No, not half of sixty …. half of one. Song.

Well, one of us came prepared. In the past, that was what made the difference – that one person who was ready for anything. Every great band has someone who’s ready to lead, even when the going gets tough. Even shit-bum bands like us have their point person. You know – that guy who gets you up in the morning for rehearsal on a Saturday after a three-day bender. Yeah, we got rid of that jerk-ass. Who needs him?

Holding up standards

Now, I know Big Green has what may be termed a reputation. Some say we hold ourselves to a very low standard of behavior. Others say that we’re a bunch of lazy vagabonds whose only virtue is that of anonymity and ignominious failure. To this last criticism I can only say, that is not one virtue … it is clearly two. Before you condemn, my friend, learn to count. It is not hard, and it will pay you dividends long into the future.

That’s a roundabout way of saying that we don’t do stuff right. It’s hard to maintain a standard when you even maintain your abandoned hammer mill. If our standard as a band is to put out an album every five, ten, sometimes thirteen years, we should be able to meet it. That at least gives us a little time to compose, to rehearse, to record, to take five years off for an extended nature walk, and so on. But even this is becoming too high a bar to clear.

Birdman strikes again

We have about as many strikes against us as any band ever thought of having. For one thing, we’re old. I’m pushing a thousand, I’m pretty sure. We also have broken down equipment and a total lack of recording skills beyond just the basics. (“Record” button is red. Got it!) And our personnel is constantly changing. Sometimes antimatter Lincoln has to sit in on guitar, and we occasionally rope Marvin (my personal robot assistant) into banging on those drums.

How many songs you got, Joe? Hey, back off, man.

The one strike we don’t have against us is material. Got lots of tunes, thanks to my illustrious brother Matt, a.k.a. bird man, a.k.a. the songwriting machine of the great north country. Since the last recordings we did for Ned Trek (mostly Matt’s songs) three years ago, he has written by his own count about fifty or sixty more. I think that might be enough for an album. The man is prolific. I’m pretty sure he wrote three or four songs in the time it took me to type that.

Some people think the hardest part of making an album is thinking of the name. Common misconception. The hardest part for us is deciding which of Matt’s 47 songs we should leave off the album. And THEN having to name it.

Holding up my end

But what the hell am I doing, standing here and yakking? I should be writing songs, damn it. If I start now, I might have thirty or forty in the hopper by … I don’t know … the year 2525. Hey … that’s an idea for a song! In the year 2525 …

Political Rants

Fallout from the “Strategic Partnership”

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Back in September, months before this Ukraine catastrophe got underway, the White House released a Joint Statement on the US-Ukraine Strategic Partnership. I don’t recall hearing about this in the news media at the time. This past week, Noam Chomsky raised it in an interview with Jeremy Scahill for the Intercept – that’s why I know about it. The administration wasn’t trying to hide the ball on this. That we’re committing ourselves to an alliance with Ukraine is such a mundane fact at this point, it basically just fades into the background.

As we wade deeper into this Russia/Ukraine morass, we need to better understand the implications of this policy. There is no question but that Russia is responsible for the current conflict – their decision to invade is dead wrong and a serious crime against peace in general and Ukraine in particular. Nevertheless, the current discourse on American corporate media portrays Russia as a nation uniquely bent on fulfilling imperial ambitions. But Russia is not alone in this regard.

Reviving the New American Century

The American-led military alliance in Europe already includes a brace of former Soviet republics and vassal states. Now, partly in response to Russia’s invasion, more nominally neutral states are lining up to join NATO. With regard to Ukraine, here’s some relevant language from that September joint statement:

The United States supports Ukraine’s right to decide its own future foreign policy course free from outside interference, including with respect to Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO.

Chomsky likens this to Mexico joining a military alliance with China. His point is that, while Mexico and Ukraine are sovereign nations with the right to determine their future, they are, in fact, not free to pursue this kind of relationship. That is the cost of being the neighbor of a major power. If we were truly concerned with the well-being of the Ukrainian people, we would have helped them work out a modus vivendi with Russia, since that is the geographic – geopolitical reality they live with.

Instead, we focus on our own priorities with respect to Ukraine. We want our new American Century back. And we are willing to fight the Russians to the last Ukrainian in order to achieve that goal.

Good news for some

As the old saying goes, it’s an ill wind indeed that doesn’t blow someone some good. For the weapons manufacturers, military contractors, and fossil fuel companies, the wind is just right. The war in Ukraine may be the best thing that’s happened to them in decades. It has short-circuited any impulse to put some government muscle behind transitioning out of oil and gas. The Biden administration was reluctant to do so in the first place, and now they have the political imperative not to.

Arguably, this is a large part of what the conflict is all about. Best of the Left has had a couple of shows about the origins of the conflict and the interests of fossil fuel multinationals. Ukraine has significant reserves of natural gas. The prospect of western countries developing these reserves and selling them to Russia’s current customers in Europe is likely one of the Putin government’s obsessions, whatever they may say in public. Money to be made, as always.

Then there’s the push to build the infrastructure for liquified natural gas (LNG) in the United States. This means storage facilities, port facilities – a massive construction enterprise that will represent billions in investment in a system that contributes mightily to climate change. The Ukraine war is fueling that effort, as well.

Time is short

I know I’ve written about this conflict a lot recently. And I know there’s a lot else going on in the world. But Ukraine is setting in motion a very destructive cycle in the global economy, and we need to encourage our government to push for a settlement before it’s too late.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Uncategorized

Write in the middle of it all

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Get Music Here

Okay, so, what rhymes with Klondike? No, that’s two words. I’m looking for one, man. Why am I so exacting? Well, let me tell you, fool … you don’t get to where I got without applying a little exactitude in all the right places. Take it from Mr. Nobody. You heard it here first!

Well, hello, cybernauts, and welcome to the home of Big Green. We’ve been around so long, we seem like a square. Ain’t that the way with popular music groups … particularly the ones that aren’t so popular. Why, we’ve been making noises under the name Big Green since Matt wore skinny ties and I rolled my jacket sleeves up to the elbow. Yes, we lived in the eighties. It wasn’t easy, kids, no matter what they tell you. There were no hover crafts, no jet packs – none of the things you young’uns are used to these days.

Putting the tune in cartoons

Like most bands, our biggest challenge is developing new material. Mind you, we stand on a mountain of older songs, thanks largely to the relentless songwriting machine known as the right honorable Matthew Perry, esq. He has an enormous catalog of numbers covering a range of topics, from bad t.v. shows to disease to space Nazis. (No, not THOSE space Nazis … other ones.) Why, we could spend the rest of our lives making decent recordings of songs that he demoed in a rush thirty years ago, and never run out of material.

But man was not meant for that! One must never rest upon one’s laurels, even if you’ve been ceremoniously presented with a laurel and hardy handshake. No, sir – music is about the new, the now, the WOW. Ask any cartoon character on Saturday morning television. Did the Archies play old songs? Did Josey and the Pussycats hash out retreads of other people’s material? Of course they didn’t. If they had, they would have been laughed out of the cartooniverse. I think we can all take a lesson from that.

Scraping around for subject matter

Right, so as you probably know, we resort to some unorthodox methods of songwriting, particularly when under time pressure. Sometimes I go for plucking random words out of a dictionary. Matt prefers old cookbooks, but hell, they’re all the same words, just in different orders. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Joe! Why don’t you wait until you hear from a major record label before you start writing? Just sit with your pen at the ready, until the phone rings with that eight figure offer.” That was it, wasn’t it? Just call me Kreskin. Or Criswell. Even though I’m not.

See? I'm not Criswell. How much more proof do you need?

Hey man – we don’t sit around the hammer mill waiting for someone to make us work. Hell, we’ve been sitting around this place for years, and nothing remotely like that has ever happened. Not sure where I was going with that, but anyway … we have always been self starters. I like to think that we work circles around other bands when it comes to living in a hammer mill. Top that, Captured by Robots!

Anything we can do

You know how the song goes, right? Anything we can do, you can do better … or something like that. Well, fuck that song. I’m getting out my scratch pad and freestyling some song lyrics. It’s that or do the dishes. Decisions, decisions.

Political Rants

Thine is the power and the story

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As of this writing, the Saudis and Yemen have pulled together a tentative truce for Ramadan. As Ryan Grim reports in Deconstructed, the podcast by The Intercept, it’s essentially the first one in seven years of brutal war that has left almost 400,000 Yemenis dead. It’s quite possible that, by the time you read this, the Saudis will have resumed their merciless campaign of destruction, but I, for one, hope not.

There is truly nothing so invisible as a war promoted by your own government. In Russia, they need to make it a crime to refer to the war in Ukraine as a “war”. Over here, that’s not necessary. There are other ways to manipulate public opinion in a formal republic; as Orwell wrote, educated, thoughtful people understand that there are some things it simply would not do to say. No need for brute force – just a compliant professional/managerial class eager to get ahead.

Hidden in plain sight

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is being covered like practically no other conflict in my lifetime. That is a good thing. I just wish they would cover all wars, including the ones we start, with the same dedication to detail. I think the principle at work here is largely that of proximity to power. Ukrainians are culturally close to white Americans. Their attacker is an official enemy, a rival power. Those two factors, broadly speaking, drive the coverage.

Yemen is the opposite. The victims are not like “us” (i.e. white, christian, western people). They are being attacked by official allies – Saudi Arabia, UAE – with our help. They are friends with an official enemy (Iran). Those factors keep them off of the front pages. There are many horrific stories that can be told about the Yemen war, and we Americans have heard almost none of them. On the other hand, I have heard wrenching stories of suffering from Ukraine on a daily basis, many of them multiple times. This is not an accident – it is a reflection of power.

The limits of compassion

We are encouraged to empathize with our enemies’ victims. In the case of Afghanistan, the official argument for twenty years of war was partly built on concern for the fate of women and girls. That was during the war. Now that the war is over, however, we apparently couldn’t care less. The country is on the brink of starvation. They have been frozen out of the banking system and have no access to their own reserves. Even international aid organizations cannot operate effectively in Afghanistan under the current sanction regimes.

You will notice, also, that Afghanistan is not in the news all that much. That was the case during most of the 20-year American war. It only hit the headlines when Biden pulled out last year, and now it’s gone again. The news splash was mostly an expression of the war party in America (Republicans and Democrats) who were against withdrawing American troops from the country. Indeed, it was hard to find voices in favor of the withdrawal at the time.

Like a compass needle

I’ve said this about NPR in the past, but it’s basically true of all major media: they know where power resides in this country, and that is their true north star. Their compass needle will always point that way, regardless of the consequences.

luv u,

jp

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