Cold as hell in here. Haven’t you got that fire going yet? Put some of that kindling around the bottom and let’s see if that catches. Okay, okay – nice. Hey … why does that kindling have an F-hole. MARVIN!!
Hello, friends. Well, winter is upon us again. This is the time of year when Big Green most deeply regrets squatting in an abandoned hammer mill. (Sounds like a good album name: Big Green most deeply regrets …. or not.) Squatters don’t get energy hookups. They just flat out ignore us, man. It’s like we’re not even here …. which is good if they’re the cops, but not so much if they’re delivering pizzas. (If cops start carrying pizzas, we’re all in trouble.)
The ghost of El Kabong
Okay, so we rely on Marvin (my personal robot) for many things. This week, it’s tending the fire. So I told him to go get some kindling wood so he could get the damn fireplace started. He came back with an odd but acceptable assortment of maple, rosewood, and birch fragments. I thought, “Hey, what the hell – maybe he’s not such a fuck up.”
Well, now I have to eat my epithets. I had pictured Marvin rooting through the neighborhood, picking up discarded pieces of wood. Turns out, he just made his way into our rehearsal space, smashed up some of our instruments like El Kabong, and brought the remains in to be incinerated. Okay, so … let me say that again. My robot assistant smashed an old guitar and a violin so he could have kindling for a fire.
For the greater good
Hell, you know, this reminds me of a song. It’s called Greater Good, one of them there Big Green songs from the 1980s. I played a live version of it on our podcast THIS IS BIG GREEN a couple of years ago. Anyhow, there’s part of the lyric that goes something like this:
There’s something lurking there behind your eyes
It sees in me perfect stock for kindling wood
It’s sentimental for those bad old days
when sinners were murdered for the greater good
It wants to burn me for the greater good
Ironically, I think the guitar Marvin smashed up may have been the one I wrote that song on. Somehow he was trying to make the metaphor come true. That’s not something I strongly recommend when it comes to rock songs. Such a practice could make life even more confusing than it is now, and damn it, life is confusing enough!
What is the plan, man?
While we’re trying to keep warm over here in upstate New York, I imagine you are making plans for your holiday revelries. We are doing the same, in our own fashion, bit by bit. I’m still planning a holiday nano concert – just you wait and see. Marvin is looking forward to his annual gift of light machine oil. Mansized tuber is hoping for some more plant food. Lincoln, well …. reinstatement, perhaps, in true Trumpian fashion.
Got interesting yuletide plans? Share them with us on Facebook, Twitter, whatever. Get them to me early enough, and I’ll write a lame song about one of them, chosen randomly. Because that’s the way we roll.