Tag Archives: Marvin

Usual Rubbish

Last one out.

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Try moving it to the other side of the tail fin. No, not that one! The dorsal tail fin! Okay, now hit it with a hammer a few times. Nothing? Hmmm …. how about if we light it on fire. Sometimes that helps.

Oh, damn. I didn’t realize I was typing this all into our blog. (I think that’s called auto-typing.) Well, as you can tell, Big Green is working furiously to get our rented Plywood 9000 space rocket ready for launch before the election on Tuesday, when all hell is likely to break loose. At least, that’s what the little voices in my head tell me. There are times when you feel compelled to stay and fight the good fight, and then there are those other times when you … well … decide to take a rented rocketship to another planet. That’s a hasty decision, I know, but again … those persistent little voices!

Seriously, I am looking forward to a perhaps non-remunerative jaunt out to the Kuiper belt if only to free ourselves from the pressures of terrestrial life. You have no idea how much maintenance an abandoned Hammer Mill requires. If you’re wondering why we haven’t put out a new episode of our podcast THIS IS BIG GREEN in nearly two months, there’s part of your answer, my friend. At least on planet KIC 8462852 we might find time to finish a project here and there. And my guess is that Marvin (my personal robot assistant) won’t have to worry about being apprehended by Trump’s ICE deportation force. (He has nightmares about that stuff.)

Is that really where the fin goes on this thing?Sure, we’ve had our head down with music production just lately. Matt and I are working on 7 songs for release on the next episode of Ned Trek, the Star Trek political parody that comprises the core of our TIBG podcast. You might say, 7 songs! That’s practically a freaking album, man! Why don’t you just put out another album, freak!? Well, first of all …. don’t call me “album freak”. I don’t deserve that. After all, we haven’t put out an album in three years. (And our LAST album was Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, so technically we haven’t put out a sane album in eight years.) What was I saying again?

Right. Spacecraft maintenance can make your mind wander. Check back a little later this week when I don’t have a monkey wrench in my fist. (That’s what I’m doing wrong! I need a rocket wrench!)

Usual Rubbish

Serious gravity.

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Well, maybe a larger booster rocket would help. Or some tightly wound springs. Then there’s the lever option, like a catapult – give me a lever large enough and I will move the world, that sort of thing. No? Okay, never mind.

Oh, hi. Yes, we’re grappling with the same conundrums that so vexed our predecessors in flight – how to defeat that old devil gravity. It’s a little hard to imagine being able to reach planet KIC 8462852 without finding some way to break the surly bonds of Earth, whatever that means. Sure, it would be easier for Big Green to just give in and start doing terrestrial tour dates, packing ourselves into a multi-colored school bus and teetering down the road to Springfield and Lodi and East Aurora (unless we get stuck in Lodi … again …), but that would be an abandonment of all we hold dear. And in all frankness, gravity would still be vexing us! (Especially after a particularly long night.)

The other day, a big semi backed up to the front gate of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill (our adopted home) and dropped an enormous cardboard box with Mitch’s name scrawled on the side. We had Marvin (my personal robot assistant) haul the thing into the courtyard as a precautionary measure – it was ticking and smelled vaguely of sulfur, so I certainly didn’t want to touch the sucker. Well, it turns out that the box contained our ride to the Khyber Belt: the promised Plywood 9000 space rocket we rented from SpaceY, some assembly required. It’s here, it’s here!

So that's it, then, is it?Mitch Macaphee retreated into his lab and began tinkering with the thing, and just yesterday morning I awoke to the sight of a nosecone peaking over the courtyard wall. He managed to piece the thing together, but there were apparently a few parts missing. Engines, for one. (Or more precisely, for four, since there are supposed to be four of them.) Being a mad scientist, Mitch took this as a kind of challenge. Whereas any sane person would just phone the company and tell them to send the missing parts, he started adapting some odd pieces of technology he had lying around his workbench. There was that anti-gravity device he tinkered with a few years ago, for instance.  Then there’s that big blow-dryer he invented.

So, I don’t know. Maybe a big catapult is more practical. If you have random thoughts on advanced interplanetary propulsion, please send them here.

Usual Rubbish

Water cooler to Mars.

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Look, Mitch … you don’t have to solve every problem with explosions. I know that cuts against the grain a bit, but at least try …. TRY not to dial it up to eleven every time you feel slighted. Thank you! Good day, sir!

Jesus Christ on a bike. If you want anything done around here, you have to talk until you’re green in the face. (That’s probably how we ended up with the name Big Green, but I digress.) As I mentioned in passing last week, we are contemplating a little trip out into the nether regions of the solar system – not the most desirable area, it’s true, but you have to book where they’ll have you, right? Isn’t that the first lesson of the music trade? Or maybe the second. The first is, play on, no matter what happens. Even if they set your banjo on fire, keep plucking. Then comes the bit about bookings. With me?

Okay, so our plan was to fly out to KIC 8462852 with a brief stop at the as yet undiscovered Dwarf Planet at the edge of our solar system (and perhaps the hidden giant world lurking just beyond). We think we have a line on a spacecraft from the cheap-ass carrier SpaceY, who will lease us a Plywood 9000 rocket … kind of an interstellar panel van, if you will. Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, has been handling the negotiations. He has also been running some tests on the surface of Mars to see if this might be a good time to try out his patented new gravitational field hyper drive module. The thing looks like a water cooler, in all honesty. Only thing is, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is the only one among us who can drink out of it safely.

I don't know, Marvin. He looks kind of sullen.Here’s the rub. The European space probe Schiaparelli appeared to have crashed during its attempt to land on Mars this past week. I think the truth is, Mitch may have taken it down. They were getting a little too close to his clandestine operation on the red planet, and he didn’t want to take the chance of being discovered. I keep telling him it’s inappropriate to break things, but the man is a child … one who plays with killer technologies, no less. He won’t ‘fess up, but this happens a bit too often to be an accident.

God damn it, if we’re going to fly out of here on a Plywood 9000 space probe, I want to be on the right side of the European Space Agency. Unless we intend on doing a tour of continental jails.

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Big rock, little rock.

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Going to Little Rock? But Big Green doesn’t have any fans in Arkansas … at least as far as I know. In fact, we don’t have any fans south of the Mason Dixon line. Not since Cowboy Scat, anyway. What? Oh, okay …. never mind.

Cheese and crackers, I thought we were going way on down south, but apparently we’re going in a very different direction. Out towards KIC 8462852 with a brief stop at the as yet undiscovered Dwarf Planet at the edge of our solar system, and perhaps the undiscovered mystery giant planet as well. So at least our destinations are clear. That’s the easy part. The not-so-easy part? Finding an agent who books that far out in the sticks, so to speak. (Actually, it’s beyond the sticks and into the rocks.) We usually book ourselves in instances such as these, but times being what they are, it’s helpful to have your interstellar ducks in a row before striking out into deep space.

Speaking of ducks, we need to line up reliable transport as well. And yes, I did use the qualifier “reliable” by intention: we tried the other kind of transportation and it didn’t work out so well. This time we’re going with a professional vendor, like SpaceX. Of course, we can’t AFFORD SpaceX because we’re a band full of broke-ass mo-fo’s, so we’ll have to opt for the next best thing. And that, my friends, is a company called SpaceY. (Pronounced “space why?”) It’s the cheap seat version, by an order of magnitude.

Getting there is the issue.So whereas SpaceX has the famed “Falcon 9” rocket with the patented “Dragon” spacecraft, SpaceY offers the not-so-well-known “Plywood 9000” rocket powering its nearly designed (and no, that’s not a typo: it hasn’t been designed yet) “Malaysian Tapir 9000” spacecraft. (They seem to like the number 9000. That would explain their requested down payment.) I know what you’re thinking …. this doesn’t sound like it meets the reliability standard I set forward in the previous paragraph. My only rejoinder to that is, well … that was more than a paragraph ago. Are you going to hold me to EVERYTHING I’ve said in the past? How about gurgling noises I made as an infant – do you plan to hit me with those, too?

Well anyway. Our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee is going to take me and Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to the SpaceY showroom next week so that we can do a walk through and, perhaps, a test drive. He gave me a life insurance policy to sign as well. Such a thoughtful man!

Usual Rubbish

Shooting stars.

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Mitch, I’ll be frank … I don’t think this is a good idea. I know it’s the middle of the night and most likely no one can see us, but that contraption makes a lot of noise and … well … never mind.

Oh, hi. Yeah, I’m trying to talk our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee off of the ledge again. This time I mean it literally – he’s up on top of the Cheney Hammer Mill, all worked up in a lather about the recent news from deep space. Did you hear about it? Well, in case you haven’t, the space probe Rosetta has crashed into Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko after having gathered data about what that cosmic snow cone is made of.

This kind of news always sets Mitch off – he’s apparently got a hand in every celestial body from here to Andromeda, I’m gradually discovering. He’s a bit like Heath on the Big Valley. Every time a stranger comes to town, it turns out that Heath had “sworn to keel him” at some point. (I always wondered why brother Jarrod, being a lawyer, never demanded that Heath write up a list of everyone he ever swore to keel … I mean, kill.)

Aim high, Mitch.Anywho, Mitch’s overheated response to the comet collision news was tantamount to a declaration of war. He brought Trevor James Constable’s patented orgone generating device out of mothballs, tinkered with it for a few hours, then – with the help of Marvin (my personal robot assistant) – hauled the pile of junk up to the roof of the mill and pointed its multi-pronged array at the heavens. He borrowed one of our longer extension cords, fired the orgone generating machine up, and started muttering to himself. “Yes, yes …” he said maniacally. “It won’t be long now.” (I’m leaving out the twisted little cackle he interjected between phrases as I do not wish to frighten the children.)

I’m not clear on what Mitch hopes to accomplish here. The orgone generating device, after all, does little other than its core functions of opening time portals and attracting invisible flying predators. In short, it’s a poor choice if you’re planning on shooting stars.

Usual Rubbish

Dronetastic.

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Wait a minute. Here they come again! Everybody DOWN! Damn it. Okay, that was just a pizza delivery to the neighbors. You can all stand up again.

Oh, hi. Kind of caught us at a bad time, actually. We are in the midst of a coordinated drone attack. No, not the military kind they use overseas. These are domestic drones of the kind you can buy at the corner store. As you may have heard, there are now hundreds of thousands of these suckers. The skies are black with them. One flock covers three whole states, and when they move … oh, it’s like THUNDER! (No, wait … that was the buffalo, as described by a space archeologist on Star Trek. Sorry.)

Now, when I say “attack”, I don’t exactly mean they are targeting us. It’s just that there are so freaking many of these things, it starts to feel like an assault after a while. The pizza delivery joint down the street is using one. So is the florist. And last week our nasty neighbors bought one for their fourteen year old, and the first thing the little sucker did with it was drop a water balloon on the man-sized tuber. (Actually, he rather likes that in as much a there hasn’t been a lot of rain lately … but that’s not the point!)

Whoa, Tubey ... heads up.The ones that really annoy me are those mosquito-sized drones. I don’t even know how they manage to engineer a flying machine that tiny. Where do they find bicycle parts small enough to make that thing fly? They somehow even designed them so that they can replicate themselves by dropping little developmental nodules into standing water, which later hatch and …. hey … or maybe those are just mosquitoes. Okay, um … forget that last bit.

I should put out notice to our neighbors that their new-found obsession with drone technology is a bit like whacking a hornet’s nest with a stick. They need to be reminded that we have a mad scientist in residence by the name of Mitch Macaphee. He hasn’t taken much notice of the flying machines thus far, buried as he is in his laboratory. But I think it’s just a matter of time, frankly. And yes, he is the designer of Marvin (my personal robot assistant), but don’t let that fool you. Not all of his inventions are non-threatening lumps of useless technology. (Sorry, Marvin.)

Usual Rubbish

Millsville.

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Sometimes if you’re up early enough in the morning, you can see the first rays of the sun breaking over the ruins of the abandoned mill next door. I think they made broom handles there or something. Now it’s just some disheveled wreck that the sun rises over. Hey …. been there.

Yes, friends, it’s been many, many suns and even more moons since I started this blog about Big Green. We now have posts that stretch back nearly as far as those rays of sunlight. A rich body of balderdash, and it’s getting balder all the time. Sometimes you forget where this all began – in some crappy dive on the west end of the city, the walls smelling of beer, dog crap on the stage, and a bartender who hates your ass. A lot of music careers start that way. Ours, on the other hand, was never anything else. (Yes, we are like most bands – spectacularly unsuccessful and damn proud of it.)

So we took to the hammer mill and started hammering out recordings. That was in the nineties. Since then, we’ve put out three albums and a bunch of songs on the podcast. Christ on a bike – I think we’re up to more than 50 songs since releasing Cowboy Scat in 2013. (Time for another album, right?) We’re still recording on an old Roland platform, trying to transition to Uh, I don't think so, Marivn.something more appropriate to the century we’re living in. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has suggested we start recording on cylinders or wire. Damn it, it’s been done, Marvin! Come up with something new, like, I don’t know … recording on bricks.

Some five years ago we started the podcast, and it is still sputtering along, though getting slower … slow like the two thousand year-old man. Fact is, we’re thinking about launching another podcast that would be devoted exclusively to bloviating – something we could get out a bit more regularly. And if it ends up half as popular as THIS IS BIG GREEN, we could nearly double our listenership.  Fan… tastic.

So, on we go. We’re in production for another podcast episode, doing the songs right now. (Damn, they’re strange.)

Usual Rubbish

New thing.

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What’s this summer been about? I’ve got nothing. What’s happening in your world, mansized tuber? Finally taking root, are we? At least someone accomplished something this summer.

Look at me, talking to a plant. What is this world coming to? Though I suppose a lot of people talk to their plants. Though that kind of makes it sound like the mansized tuber is my property, and he is most certainly not. He is totally his own plant, a sovereign creature of the universe, a law unto himself … a … an oversized sweet potato riding around on a dolly. At least up until recently. The tuber planted himself in the courtyard, so you could say it’s “goodbye, dolly!” for him.

So, it has been an uneventful summer, to say the least. I’m not sorry to see it go. Probably the high point was when Mitch practically self-immolated over the news that his planet orbiting Proxima Centauri had been discovered. That broke us out of our stupor for a few days, at least. Just recently he was getting a little hot under the collar about the news that scientists were planning to send out a spacecraft to do some soil collecting on an asteroid Mitch took some interest in. Given his expression, I refrained from asking for details. I know that look. It’s usually followed by a sickeningly bright flash and some deep rumbling. (We just replaced the windows in that side of the hammer mill, for chrissake.)

Makin' it rain, Marvin?Marvin (my personal robot assistant) tends to get a little busier in the Autumn months. I think he may have volunteered for one of the political campaigns, actually. He seems to be taking an awful lot of phone calls just lately, and one of our friendlier neighbors (i.e. the guy without the pitchfork) told me Marvin was handing out flyers in the town square. (Fun fact about this little burg: the town square is round. So why don’t the cars have square wheels? Riddle me THAT, Batman.)

What are we planning for the Fall? Glad you asked. In fact, this conversation would be just perfect if I had an answer for you. You know Big Green well enough to know that we never plan anything. We’re rebels, we’re loners, we’re iconoclasts. And in addition to that, we’re … broke. So, maybe that means work. A new thing ’round these parts.

Usual Rubbish

Funky town.

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Did somebody borrow my amp yesterday? If so, I pity them. That thing is a piece of shit. Next time, borrow and amp from someone who knows something about shopping. I myself am a bit out of practice.

Yeah, we of Big Green are back in the broke period, scrounging around for a few extra dollars, sharing leftovers, and hiding from the mailman. Good thing they don’t have bailiffs in this century, because those mothers would be at the door of the Cheney Hammer Mill right now, pounding away, court papers in their sweaty hands. What’s the problem? Simple – we owe. We owe back taxes, we owe for the grocery bill, we owe for the electric bill, and we owe something to pretty much everybody in this funky ass town.

I know what you’re going to say. (I suspect you knew I was going to say that. WHY DO WE EVEN BOTHER TALKING?) You were probably going to ask, why don’t you guys just knuckle down and earn the money to support your lazy asses? Good question. There are as many answers to that as there are losers living in this hammer mill. You see, we follow the squatter’s code: when the bailiffs are closing in on you, hunker down and pretend you’re furniture. If you can imitate a side table long enough, you’ll never have to pay your bills. News you can use, my friends.

Hey, at least you're not on fire.That said, we do have uses for our time. Matt is chasing birds around most of the week, though he does show up regularly to continue our glacial-pace production on the next collection of songs. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has been taking an automaton sabbatical these last couple of weeks. (His battery pack has been removed and put on a deep charger. We may end up having to jump start him like a ’95 Buick LeSabre.) Mitch Macaphee has taken off to check on his property in orbit around Proxima Centauri (Proxima b) – he’s gotten very jumpy now that the astronomers have stumbled onto that little piece of celestial real estate. Not sure what he’s been doing up there.

So … just another week in funky town. I may have another “Wayback Wednesday” in me to close out the summer – wait and see.

Usual Rubbish

Boat trip!

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Got everything packed? Good, good. Don’t forget the picnic (pronounced pick-a-nick) basket. Then there’s the water supply, or at least that machine Mitch invented that makes water from thin air using something that looks like a spark plug. (I think the Robinsons used it on Lost In Space, right alongside the clothes washer that folded garments and wrapped them in plastic.)

Well, it’s been a long summer, and we have done absolutely NOTHING that can be considered recreational. Yes, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) rolled over to the hardware store once or twice to pick up some machine oil and batteries. Yes, the mansized tuber struck up a friendship with some ornamental plant outside the 7-11. Yes, Mitch Macaphee went to half a dozen mad science conferences, one held in an abandoned cement plant on the north end of town. (I told him to have it here, that one abandoned mill is just as good as another, but he wasn’t having any of that.) Still, none of this can be considered recreational in a summery kind of way. (You could say that none of them amounts to summery execution, but I really wouldn’t say that if I were you.)

So, what was it going to be? Road trip? Nah. Did that last summer. Sickening, frankly. How about a boat trip? We have the Erie Canal running practically right alongside our abandoned hammer mill. All we need is a cheap gondola and a couple of oars, then it’s off to wherever that canal goes. East or west, I reckon. Just like Life on the Mississippi, except less crackery. And no Mississippi. No?

That looks like fun, kidsYou see, THIS is why we never go on vacation. We can never freaking decide what we want to do or where we want to go. The only time we travel is when we’re on interstellar tour (or when we time travel, which is disorienting, frankly, and I have discouraged Mitch from dragging us along through the time/space portal he keeps in his office). It’s like we’re just visitors on this, our home planet. Though come to think of it, the weather has been ungodly hot just lately. And Louisiana is under water. And California is on fire. Maybe this ISN’T our home planet. It does seem kind of inhospitable. Hmmm…

Okay, well … boat trip it is. Pull the gondola up to the jetty … whatever any of those words mean.