Give me that back door religion, give me that back door religion, give me that back door religion, it’s good enough for me!
That’s the song we’re singing here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, now that Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has been plying his new trade as preacher, flock-leader, and chief financial officer of the local diocese of the Space Hippie Sect. Yes, it’s a religion he made up using bits and pieces from Hulu reruns he watches in his ample spare time (contrary to common belief, robots are slothful creatures generally, their servos idle nearly 65% of the time). Turns out it was time well wasted, as the converts have been trudging in, eyes glazed, arms extended in front of them, hungry for spiritual guidance. Didn’t know Marvin was so good at getting money out of people. Must be new programming… for somebody.
How do we of Big Green feel about floating our household on donations to a church hastily invented by a renegade robot? Well, not bad, actually, times being what they are. It’s always good to see a small business owner succeed, and if Marvin isn’t that, I don’t know what he is. And even though the church gatherings involve a good deal of tuneless singing and electric space-banjo playing, they pay for the lights, the heat, the occasional pizza. Life is good. At least until the police arrive. (Note to police: If you read this blog regularly, please be advised that this is “satire” and therefore 
constitutionally protected speech, not a Web-based confession of ill deeds. Nor is this claim a lame effort to keep you from breaking up this great little scam we’ve got going….. um… in the satire.)
Okay, so maybe it’s not completely on the up and up. At least it beats the down and down… hands down. Why, even Mitch Macaphee seems to think Marvin’s on to something, and he rarely admits to any interest in money or valuables, unless they can be easily converted into experimental subjects. (A true scientist, our Mitch.) And face it, we’ve sold our integrity a whole lot more cheaply than this in days past. Those of you who have followed us since… well… three weeks ago know that this is true.
Well, off to another revival meeting. Trouble is – when the faithful decide it’s time to go to Eden, what then? ROAD TRIP!
Whoops, sorry. I didn’t know anyone was listening in. Well, this is kind of embarrassing. Actually, I was just giving a small piece of advice to Marvin (my personal robot assistant) with regard to what is acceptable and unacceptable when one is contemplating organizing a major religion. Not that I know all that much about it, but I think I know more than Marvin does, and I think that gives me “tell you something right now” rights and privileges. Especially with a bloody robot. (Don’t tell him I said that – he’ll start sulking again.)
Sheesh – now who’s the robot? (I guess that still would be Marvin.) Marvin was looking for a religious movement that would be, well, sticky enough to draw some fanatical adherents even in this forgotten backwater of Central New York. Kind of a back stoop movement, if you will. Marvin would do the organizing, with a little help from anti-Lincoln, who is himself a pretty effective fanatic. (Thing is, I don’t know if he can get the space-age guitar thing just right.) I am a bit skeptical, but even so… it could kind of work. Here you have a millennial movement whose goals – hijacking a fictitious space vessel and driving it to an equally fictitious planet – can never be realized, only hoped for – worshipped, if you will. Pretty much the stuff successful religions are made of. And hell, Marvin’s got his first converts: Lincoln, Big Zamboola, and the man-sized tuber.
Just keeping it real here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, as you might expect. During these hard times, it’s the same story everywhere, right? Making the ends meet in the middle. We’ve got the ends, but frankly… no middle. And if the ends justify the means, which they almost NEVER do, well then… um…. okay, I lost my train of thought. But no matter. We are doing what we do, and being what we be. That’s what Big Green is all about. That’s why we’re aboard her. RISK… RISK IS OUR BUSINESS. (Oh, Jesus… now I’m quoting Star Trek lines. Someone call the doctor! And make sure he IS a doctor, and not a mechanic. D’oh!)
very afraid of robots.] Actually, Marvin has decided to hang up the bomb-sniffing robot gig, which is just as well. I think he’s focusing more on show business now. I saw him trying a “Renegade Robot from Mars” outfit on the other day. (Circus is in town, I hear.)
Oh, hi. Just having a word with Big Green’s mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, professor of interstellar astro-geology ….and explosives, apparently. (He’s got tenure at the school of hard knocks.) It’s endearing to see a proud father try to help his son. In saying so, I don’t mean to suggest that what Mitch is engaged in right now in any way resembles that wholesome impulse. No, no… that would require some modicum of sanity. I’m afraid Mitch is both attempting to help his creation, Marvin (my personal robot assistant), and blow his ass to kingdom come. Unintentionally, perhaps, but nevertheless… this is what he is attempting.
Anyway, Mitch thinks Marvin should be moving a bit faster in his training. So he’s begun to devise little problems for him to solve right here at home. One such problem – an explosive device of frightening magnitude – was planted in a broom closet just downstairs from my bedroom. Marvin defused it, fortunately… though I think it was a lucky break, frankly. (He stepped on it while sweeping out the hall and apparently pulled the ignition wire loose.) Next it was dynamite in the oven – enough to blow a massive hole in the side of our beloved abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. This is what prompted Mitch’s reverie about the Coliseum. (He thinks we could turn the mill into a tourist destination if it looked more like ruins.)
See, here’s the problem with trying something new – you just don’t know how the hell to do it. I keep telling my colleagues this all of the time, but do they listen? No. Oh no, Joe, they tell me, I know just what I’m doing. And besides, bungee jumping off the Eiger doesn’t seem all that challenging to me, at least from the comfort of my easy chair. You try to help a brother out, and that’s what you get – a load of attitude, special delivery. I am depressed.
constabulary. Such an honor. NOT!
Have to resort to non-banjo alternatives, I guess. That’s the way things go here at the Cheney Hammer Mill. You got complaints? Stand in line for the pluck string instrument. You may call it annoying mountain music. We call it aural psychotherapy. (Of course, when Marvin’s doing it, I don’t know quite what to call it. ) Be that as it may, you need some kind of relief in these troubled times, when money is as rare as …. well … rare earths. We’ve got lots of common earths. My point is… we’re freaking broke again. Join the select club of 90% of Americans, eh? Busted!
turnip truck. (Not to mention the offense that enterprise gave to our companion, the man-sized tuber.)
It is winter in the northeast, after all. (This just in.) And Big Green, being made up of at least 40% sentient life forms, 35% mammalians, tends to be a tad sensitive to the extreme cold. We experience this on our space voyages, of course. Deadly cold in outer space! Just go there and see for yourself. (Bring a jacket… and some oxygen.) It’s a real problem for our friends and spokesvegetable, the mansized tuber, whose sap has a decidedly higher freezing point than our own human blood. That means he needs to stay close to the fire… but not TOO close. It’s a delicate balance for tubey, let me tell you.
How am I wasting my time? Well… usually it’s my job to waste OTHER people’s time. But this week, bored, I opted to do a little video New Year’s greeting for all you folks out there. Just a brief tour of the Cheney Hammer Mill basement, a little look inside our “creative process” – what it looks like when we’re making the sausage we call “music” – and so on. I have posted same for your edification on our YouTube site and other internet haunts bearing our likenesses. Marvin was of some help, though…. his attention was divided, as per usual.
All right. We’ve been out on tour for a while, but not that bloody long. Certainly not long enough to forget where we came from. And yet here we are, trying to work out which abandoned mill belongs to us (and when I say “belong,” I mean that in the broadest sense imaginable… broad enough to encompass loose associations). Trouble is, so many mills have closed down around here even since our departure some weeks ago that it’s hard to sort it all out. Seems a lot of people are getting into the abandoned mill trade. It’s a buyers’ market, so to speak… or a squatters’ market, actually.
rocks and trees, smashing car windows, and so on. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was called into action – we got him to clasp the anchor in his prehensile claws and wheel it along the ground as smoothly as possible while we, one by one, climbed down to safety. (if you can call life on Earth “safe”).
Yes, we’re still bobbing our way home at sub-standard speed in our partially-disabled rent-a-spacewreck. Our ENTER THE MIND: THE ULTIMATE BIG GREEN EXPERIENCE interstellar tour now shrinking in the rearview mirror, we have managed to limp as far as the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, where we are now dodging larger than average planetoids, popcorn-like fragments, and other assorted celestial debris (including some familiar looking stuff I last saw in the crawlspace above my old garage from seventeen rentals ago…. always wondered what became of that).
Why Hammermill Days? Well, when we started this blog back in 1999, it was actually called “Notes from Sri Lanka” – check our deep archive and you’ll see. We changed it to Hammermill Days a few years ago. As you know, every band needs a back story. You know the deal – raised by wolves, dropped by martians, etc. Frankly, we didn’t have an actual personal history, so we invented one, using the old (and now long-since demolished) Cheney Hammer Mill (in Little Falls, NY) as our mythical home. (Because all bands live together, right?) The rest is obvious (or is that oblivious?).
Hold it right there. Neptune can wait. I’ve got some mail to answer. Here’s the first item: