Watch me now – Work, work! (Aw, shake it up, baby!) Work, work! (Yeah, you drive me crazy!) Work, work! (Got a little bit of soul, now!)

Yeah, that’s me… and yes, I’m doing a cover by The Contours, circa 1962. Got to keep the lights on somehow. If it takes encouraging a bunch of over-swilled woodchucks to do the “Mashed Potato”, so be it. And in case some of you feel as though I’m being less than charitable or disrespecting my fellow upstate New Yorkers, think (or feel) again – I am playing for actual woodchucks, and they’ve been drinking hard cider all night. Tell you something right now – if you think human beings have a corner on inebriation, you’ve never played the Chuck House (seven blocks south of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill). I sincerely encourage you not to. You know how human drunks have a tendency to throw bottles? Well, here at the Chuck House, hard cider is served in little wooden kegs. That’s probably all I need to tell you about that. (INCOMING!)

This is the kind of place we try to stay out of, frankly. Not real hot on original numbers. The patrons prefer early 60s rock and rockabilly, and if you don’t give it to them, best be on your way. Hey – you’ve got to scrape a few semolians together somehow, right? And these days, between Big Green interstellar (or even terrestrial) tours, I’ll take what I can get. Can you blame me? I’m tired of eating out of discarded pizza boxes and running my finger around the inside of empty soup cans. No more fighting the mongooses for bits of breadfruit (those bits that they don’t want) or pulling the bark off of baobab trees to see if there are any tender grubs to be had. (Not that I would EAT them, you understand. No, no… I train them to hunt for vegetables. Painstaking work.)

You should know that I am not the only one resorting to extreme measure to make ends meet in these hard, hard times. We’re all finding ways to make a little extra on the side. Matt, for instance, is giving bird and wildlife tours. How can he stand all those grandmothers and boy scouts,  you ask? Well…. he doesn’t run into any. The fact is, he’s bringing wild birds and animals around on tours, showing them the local points of interest. They can’t pay very much, it’s true – a desiccated pine cone is all he made yesterday – but it’s a job, and someone has to do it. The two Lincolns are doing a mutt and jeff routine down in the village square in hopes of garnering a few tips. So far, no luck… though some passers-by have offered unsolicited advice to the two… valuable tips like “Get a life!” and “Where did you losers come from?” and, of course, “Come back here! You’re supposed to pay for those kaiser rolls!” (I get that last one a lot.)

The only guy around here who doesn’t worry about making money is Mitch. He makes as much as he needs. Though his fives are not nearly as well-rendered as his tens and twenties. (Work on the ink a bit there, boy.)