Tag Archives: hammer mill

Exodus.

May 17, 2014 Joe Leave a comment

Lincoln has returned to the 1860s via the Orgone Generating Device intertemporal portal, and best of luck to him. Hope he doesn’t run into any dental problems while he’s back there. Whiskey and pliers, that’s what he’ll have to look forward to in that grisly century.

Well, that kind of solves his problem. What about the rest of us in the Big Green collective? A kind of dwindling party, it seems. Lincoln is back in Washington (though his evil doppelganger Anti-Lincoln remains). Washington is presumably back in Lincoln (Nebraska). Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, is still on an extended tour of resort hotels, attending mad science conferences and watching the sun set on five continents with a glass of bourbon in one hand and a Cuban cigar in the other. Now that our interstellar tour is over, our occasional guitarist sFshzenKlyrn has returned to his home planet of Zenon in the Small Megellanic Cloud.

Let’s see … what else is in the news? Oh, yeah … the mansized tuber has decided at long last to take root in the courtyard. He’s pushing twenty now, and feels it’s high time for him to settle down and start a garden. Hard to argue with a root vegetable. We’ll see how long THAT lasts. Christ on a bike, about the only ones around here I can count on are my brother Matt and Marvin (my personal robot assistant), though I caught the latter thumbing through the want ads the other day. It seems there are more opportunities out there for personal robot assistants than there were just a few years ago. I may have to start PAYING him, for chrissake.

The bottom line is that, with all of these departures and major life decisions going on, it’s getting pretty quiet around this big old barn of a place. We’ve talked about finding someplace smaller to squat, maybe opt for another three-room lean-to of the kind we occupied back in our Sri Lanka days. So long as it’s big enough to produce a podcast in, we’re good.

Usual Rubbish

What’s next.

May 9, 2014 Joe Leave a comment

How about a bicycle tour around Scandinavia? They don’t have any big hills there, do they? Oh. Okay, well … how about Holland? Right. Too many stoned drivers. So I guess, by your logic, Colorado is the worst of all possible worlds for bike tours.

Yeah, well … Lincoln didn’t think that last comment was too funny, and apparently now he’s determined to jump back into the past, where (arguably) he belongs … even though in much of the past, he’s dead. So I guess he’s saying he’d rather be dead than spend another summer with Big Green. That’s just plain sad, you know? I’m sure plenty of less revered ex presidents would be more than glad to spend the summer with us, rather than in some poorly defined version of America’s past. But Lincoln does not count himself among that number.

So, it looks like pretty soon we’ll be going down to the cobweb-choked basement of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted home, and dusting off Trevor James Constable’s orgone generating device – the only piece of technological instrumentation capable of putting Lincoln back where he belongs. I’m a little nervous about doing this in Mitch Macaphee’s absence. He is, after all, our mad science advisor, and I hesitate to engage in the fraught discipline of mad science without his counsel. But … my president has called upon me, and I must respond.

Have you stopped laughing yet? Good. I’ll continue.

Part of the issue here is that we’re just not sure what to do with ourselves, man. What the hell is next for Big Green? The bike tour idea was suggested by Marvin (my personal robot assistant), so that means we arrived at it almost entirely at random. I’m not sure who told us this (perhaps our first manager, way back in the day), but I’m pretty sure we’ve established that it’s not a good idea to make major life decisions through any process that resembles random selection. We need to put on our thinking caps.

Caps on? Great. Think, Big Green, think. Get me your ideas by midnight Thursday. Or not. I’m easy.

Usual Rubbish

Thin broth.

April 25, 2014 Joe Leave a comment

Hey, Lincoln. No, not you, Anti-Lincoln – I mean your positively-charged doppelganger. Lincoln … close that window, will you? It’s freaking freezing in this barn. I don’t care if you’re practicing your big speech to an imaginary multitude in the courtyard. Do it in front of an imaginary open window!

Yes, here we are … Big Green is once more ensconced in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in upstate New York, where the Buffalo never roamed and where peregrine falcons coexist with Web cams (no lie!). We have re-occupied our decrepit squat house, wresting it back from the yahoos that took possession of it while we were out on our multi-planet tour in support of Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. A triumphant return … not. We’ve had better tours, to be sure. (And better interstellar tour buses. That recycled rocket was a real rattle trap from start to finish.)

How did we convince the Cliven Bundy wanna-be’s to lay down their weapons and let us back into our abandoned mill? The same method we always use: soup to nuts, my friends, soup to nuts. We had Marvin (my personal robot assistant) cook up a crock of Servin' it up at the mill. his signature turnip and spare-tire consumme – a staple on our interstellar extended tours – and we offered it to the nuts occupying our adopted home. They couldn’t resist, flocking out to the courtyard to partake of that rare delicacy. While those hayseeds were choking it down, we slipped passed them and locked the front door behind us.

Sure, there was some complaining, a little KA-POW, KA-BLAM! mostly for show, but they eventually mounted their battered station wagons and rode off into the sunset. As their silhouetted figures receded from view, I meant to thank them. What for? I don’t know. Giving us a reason not to have that same soup again as our “welcome home” supper. In fact, if I NEVER taste another SPOONFUL of that BLOODY TURNIP and SPARE TIRE SOUP AGAIN, it will be MUCH … TOO … SOON!

All right, then. I feel much better now. Back to the studio.

Usual Rubbish

Home base.

April 18, 2014 Joe Leave a comment

Wait, I didn’t hear that last bit. Are you saying that we can’t even get in the front door let alone the living quarters? What the fuck. Where is that Goldilocks Planet again? Cygnus?

Oh, hi. Well, we have made our triumphant return to planet Earth, our somewhat disapproving mother, having completed Interstellar Tour 2014 in support of our latest album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. And as any of you who travel in interstellar space know all too well, when you get back from a long journey, typically you find that everything has gone to hell in your absence. It’s a severe disincentive to traveling, I can tell you. But what’s the alternative? Hole up in a leaky hammer mill all winter? Not a chance.

Big Green’s loaner rocket touched down in Central New York around 1:00 a.m local time on Thursday, only to find that someone had changed the padlock on the gate to the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, where we have made our home for the past decade or two (because, as Frank Zappa said, all of the bands live together). Different lock, for sure – unlike the old one, this one works, and none of us had the key, so we sent Marvin (my personal robot assistant) over to the local constabulary and asked for assistance. (Marvin was promptly arrested for impersonating a robot, which seems unjust and vaguely insulting.)

Okay, turns out, someone moved into the Hammer Mill during our absence, and they don’t seem eager to relinquish their squatter’s rights in deference to our own. What’s worse is that they appear to be affiliated with that rancher out in Nevada – what’s his name again? You know – that dude that has been grazing his cattle for free on federal land, owes about a million dollars in back grazing fees, and got together a posse of sorts to take up arms and fight off the Bureau of Land Management. The folks in the mill, well … they’re kind of like the Led Zeppelin tribute band version of those Nevada militia dudes. They got the hats, they got the pickup trucks, and … crucially … they got the guns.

Just trying to negotiate entry right now without getting my hair parted by a 30-30 rifle round. That Goldilocks Planet is looking better all the time. I wonder if they have the extraterrestrial equivalent of QE2 up there.

Uncategorized

Dwarfed ambitions.

April 11, 2014 Joe Leave a comment

Interstellar Tour Log: April 10, 2014
On the surface of Dwarf Planet 2012 VP.

That’s it. I am officially declaring our Interstellar Tour over and done with. I’m sick of these stupid slug lines reminding people where the hell we are all the time. Also, we’ve simply run out of places to play here on Dwarf Planet 2012 VP. That’s likely because, aside from a few street-corner fried plantain vendors, there is virtually no commerce here. This planetoid is devoid of performance venues. We actually set up and jammed in a nearby crater just on the off chance that random extraterrestrials would happen upon us. Nothing. Not a sausage. This is just like back home.

Ah, home. The sainted abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. It’s leaky roof, its moldy basement, its crumbling walls, its heaps of abandoned hammer parts and random knobs of discarded pig iron that I keep tripping over even after having squatted there for more than a decade. I miss that dump, and I’m not alone in that sentiment. Hell, even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) looked a little misty yesterday as he scrolled through photos of the mill on his laptop. Lincoln seems like a man without a rostrum. The mansized tuber, well … he’s a plant. Don’t expect a lot of overt sentiment out of him.

So, yeah, after months in space, we are ready to take the long trip home, back from the Ort Cloud, back from hastily named space rocks that are hard to classify. Before we go, though, we want to leave a stake in the ground here on Dwarf Planet 2012 VP. My thought is, well, let’s name the sucker after ourselves. Let’s claim it for Big Green, well and truly. We could be subtle about it and just shift the name to 2012 BG. Or we could go all-out and call it Big Greenland (though I was reserving that for a future theme park). We’ve got friends at NASA … I’m guessing this is do-able. (And yes, we have to ask for permission, since we need telemetric data from the space agency to find our way back to the mill.)

Homeward bound, chaps!

Usual Rubbish

Inside the April podcast.

April 4, 2014 Joe Leave a comment

Interstellar Tour Log: April 3, 2014
On the surface of Dwarf Planet 2012 VP.

Still out here in Ort Cloud land, taking a bit of a break before heading back home to see what condition the Cheney Hammer Mill is in since our departure some ten weeks ago. (Lawn probably needs cutting.) While I’m reclining in a hammock, waiting for Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to deliver my next High Ball on a silver tray, this seems like a good time to tick through some of the highlights on our brand new March …. I mean, April THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast. Or is it March? Well … no matter.

Anywho, here it is:

Ned Trek XVII – The Romney Syndrome
It looks so real Who would have guessed that we would have made it to the 17th episode of this monthly audio mash-up of classic Star Trek, Mr. Edd, and the 2012 Republican National Convention? Not I. Even so, this episode (introduced as always by Lee Majors) is a riff on the classic series episode, the Paradise Syndrome – Captain Romney bumps his head in a stone outhouse on an alien world, loses his memory, and goes all native CEO on the cigar-store Native American stereotypes who inhabit this television paradise. Oh, and the Nixon android has a zero-gravity tryst with an automated mining vessel. (You … kind of have to listen to it. )

This month’s Ned Trek features no less than six new Big Green songs, written to move the ponderous plot along. They include:

My Masterpiece
Richard Pearle’s neocon ode to the merits of his greatest work, the Iraq war.

Space is the Devil
Chief Engineer Welsh sings this sea chanty to caution Mr. Ned against engaging the warp drive engines. A stunning performance. (I’m still stunned. Bring me another high ball!)

I Place You First
This is the sick little song a love-struck Nixon android sings to the Halliburton mining vessel before he, well … docks with it. Androids will be androids.

This Horse’s Sense
Mr. Ned laments the stupidity of his human comrades in his signature style.

Happy and Peaceful Here
Romney’s song about finding his way through his idyllic life on the surface of Nobodelcarus, where he has become Chief Financial Officer in his amnesiac state.

Lies from the Pit of Hell
Doc Coburn’s rocker about his personal hero, Congressman Paul Broun of Georgia (and of the Middle Ages).

That’s the show. Hope you enjoy it as much as I’m enjoying this hammock.

Usual Rubbish

Ison the prize.

December 7, 2013 Joe Leave a comment

Okay, well, THAT didn’t go so well, did it? Right. Don’t panic. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three … arrrrrgghhh.

Is Smith frying yet? It’s been a couple of weeks, so I don’t know if you recall our harebrained plan to get to the various extraterrestrial venues in our interstellar tour to support Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick (selling quite briskly on Aldebaran, I hear). Right, well… we have that rent-a-wreck rocket (or “wreck-it”) that will get us part of the way to Aldebaran and points west-southwest, but it doesn’t quite have the horsepower to escape our solar system. If we tried, at this time of year, we would get caught in the gravitational pull of the sun. Then the only pleasure we’d get out of this trip would be to watch Smith fry…

Okay, I’ve wandered a bit. Fact is, the only solution we could think up in the absence of our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee is to launch ourselves into extended orbit around the Earth and hitch a ride on the comet ISON when it emerged from its close encounter with the sun. We would, I don’t know, throw a grappling hook onto it as it passed and it would pull us clear of the solar system, at which time the low-rent engines in the rent-a-wreck-it could handle getting us to the next star system. Simple, right?

Not so right. Only trouble with this plan was … it could never work. Aside from that, it was sound. So we took off last week, using the Cheney Hammer Mill courtyard as a makeshift launch pad, and spent a good bit of fuel climbing up into extended orbit around the Earth ( or the “Oyt”, if you’re from East Chootica ), Marvin (my personal robot assistant) at the controls. Steady hand, indeed.

Now, 3 out of 5 astrophysicists supposed that ISON would make it around the sun in one piece. Wouldn’t you know that the other two had it right? So we’re hovering at the rendezvous point, and around the left side of the sun comes this charred looking ice chunk, tumbling along, no bigger than the average medicine ball. Try getting a grappling hook into THAT sucker.

Okay, so… NOW what do we do? Any astrophysicists out there? Methods for counteracting the sun’s gravity? Email them to us ASAP. Like, I don’t know, yesterday, perhaps.

Usual Rubbish

Geek to me.

October 18, 2013 Joe Leave a comment

Connect blue wire (A) to terminal (3). Check. Connect yellow wire (F) to terminal (48c). Check. Hit boot switch, but first, insert index fingers (K) and (M) into ears (7) and (8). Hmmm…. okay.

Oh, hi. Caught me in the middle of something, as usual. Always some task to perform here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted squat-house in lovely upstate New York. As you may recall from previous posts (or not), we are preparing for an upcoming interstellar tour to support extraterrestrial sales of our new album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. Fact is, we make most of our money on units sold outside the bounds of the known solar system. (The rest we make on Neptune and some of the smaller, rockier moons of Saturn.)

Anyhow, as you might suspect, we will be needing some means of transportation for ourselves, our hangers-on, our instruments and gear, our provisions, etc. We have an old 1954 GMC City Coach (or we at least have access to it in the junk yard across the street), but it’s seen better days and probably isn’t up to a journey of 1,000 light years across the trackless void of space. (The windows haven’t been caulked in a couple of decades, so I doubt it’s space-worthy.) We used to simply “rent” spacecraft from other fictional narratives, like Lost in Space or Here Come The Brides, but that option is walled off by lack of funds. Our mad science adviser Mitch Macaphee is still in Madagascar, enjoying the sun, so we’re left to our own devices.

The one on the left Right, so … using Mitch’s credit card, I ordered a do-it-yourself space ship from Heathkit. (Yes, I know … they no longer exist. I had to go through Mitch’s time portal to place the order.) So here I am, perhaps the most technically challenged member of Big Green, a man without a smart phone (I still use that brick phone my dad lent me in 1989), assembling a deluxe interstellar space cruiser stick by stick, armed only with a soldering gun and a pair of superannuated pliers.

No need to back away. I haven’t gotten to the volatile rare earths part yet. Stay tuned.

Usual Rubbish

Planning for launch.

September 28, 2013 Joe Leave a comment

I say let’s start rehearsing on Wednesdays. You can’t? Why the hell not? That’s your LUNCH day? Oh, right. Forgot about that.

Just trying to pull together some Big Green rehearsals in advance of our anticipated interstellar tour to promote our new album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. Of course, I’m running into the usual scheduling conflicts. I keep forgetting how people arrange their time. Anti-Lincoln (who sometimes shakes a tambourine backwards for us), for instance, has what can only be described as a singular meal schedule: Instead of the usual three meals a day, he eats breakfast all day Sunday, lunch all day Wednesday, and dinner all day Friday. Hey – I don’t judge. If it works for him, that’s great.

This does get to be like being a traffic cop, though. And what usually ends up happening is that Matt and I get together and just run through some songs, or make up new ones, or record an episode of Ned Trek for our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN. In other words, blow a lot of time on nothing in particular. But that’s how we roll.

What about the tour? Well … details are still in the works. I asked Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to look at the feasibility of just Stop smoking, already. doing an interplanetary tour within our own solar system as opposed to traveling into deep space and incurring some substantial logistical costs (not least of which are those damned tollbooths between here and Aldebaran – I’m almost certain they’re a scam!). He whirred and flashed and squeaked for about three hours, then emitted a slip of paper that bore a recipe for potato soup written in Mandarin. I beckoned to my translator.

Upshot of this is, we have reached out to some of the tour promoters we’ve used in previous outings. I know what you’re going to say – those tours were disastrous failures and a threat to both life and limb and intergalactic peace and security, right? Point taken. This time will be different. Because everybody knows that when you do the same thing over and over again, eventually you get a different result. Right? (Sure I heard that somewhere…)

Usual Rubbish

Freak all.

September 14, 2013 Joe Leave a comment

You’ll have to excuse me. I’m on the phone with Frigidaire. My dehumidifier has been recalled. Oh, the humanity! You know, if I had a pet manatee, I would consider naming him Hugh. Hugh Manatee. How’s your day going?

It’s a little quiet around the Hammer Mill today, now that the dehumidifier has been unplugged. Dank, musty old place. Sometimes I think we’re frittering our lives away in this ruin. But then, there are worse ways to go. And I’m rather fond of fritters, myself, particularly apple fritters with a dusting of cinnamon. Mmmmm, boy.

What’s new in Big Green land? Well, sales of our new album Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick are breaking all previous records. What records specifically? Well… it’s at the top of all “least popular” top ten lists. Sales are reaching nearly one unit, call it none. Could have something to do with our marketing strategy. I told Marvin (my personal robot assistant) that tossing a copy of the album out into the street and hoping patrons chance upon it was probably not the most effective approach. But hell, what do I know?

Fact is, folks … we make music and other related sounds. If we had been born to be salespeople, God would have given us briefcases and Rolex watches. And smartphones, so we would have something to do while we drive. He (and I’m sure any big boss god would have to be a dude) would also have endowed us with the irresistible drive to make hay, to spin gold, to generate wealth in immense quantities by any means necessary. Like, say, manufacturing cheap dehumidifiers with virtual slave labor in China and marketing it under hollowed-out brands like Frigidaire in the United States. Or writing, producing, and releasing mucho commercial music.

But God in his infinite wisdom put Richard Nixon on this earth …. I mean, saw fit not package us with the “batteries” of ambition included. Hey … Freak all. That’s what I say. How about you?

Official site of the band Big Green