Marvin (my personal robot assistant), didn’t I tell you to pick those Legos up about three hours ago? Can’t you do anything without being told twelve times?! Are you even awake?! MARVIN!!
Christ on a bike. Sloth has reached a new level of intensity here at the hammer mill, and it’s no surprise. We have been cooped up in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill for the better part of three years (the worse part, too … I remember those awful days…), not a hand’s turn of work. Sure, we produced and released an album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, and have dutifully (and pitilessly) posted our podcast THIS IS BIG GREEN every month, on the month (or quite nearly). But gainful employ? Naught, my friend. Goose egg.
Arguably, it goes against human nature (and personal robot assistant nature, presumably) to be idle for so long. I’ve seen signs of restlessness, to be sure. Not from anti-Lincoln, of course, who spends most of his day in the forge room, swilling cheap rum that he got from god-knows-where. But his positive doppelganger, Lincoln, tries to keep busy in imaginative though annoying ways. (I keep telling him, I can’t afford a big fat car – it’s just not in the game plan. But just try telling Lincoln not to sell you something.)
Marvin is always coming up with pass-times, as well as hair-brained schemes for making money. But I think he’s hit a wall, and it’s understandable. Even his inventor, Mitch Macaphee, our mad science adviser, has wandered off to richer pastures, taking advantage of some time-share property he invented in Madagascar. (Something about hanging gardens … though I’m not sure about what stage of insanity he was in when he told me about it.) So Marvin sits and rusts a little every day, his battery running down. He needs a change of scene, and so do the rest of us.
That’s why I have started making inquiries about doing an interplanetary tour to support extraterrestrial sales of Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. (Spoiler alert: Terrestrial sales have been abysmal.) Stay tuned for details. Big Green out.
What is it? My wristwatch of course. I thought I left it in the local watering hole, but it’s here, in my sock drawer – it’s here! Now if I could just find my socks. (Note to self: check the watch drawer.) Oh, right… and a box came. Not by itself, you understand. A truck dropped it off. It was a biggish box, but not too big. A box full of discs. Not chock full, exactly – what I mean to say is that there were discs in the box. Discs called Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick.
Wait, I heard something. That beeping noise. Did you hear it? Go out and take a look, will you? I’ll just sit here and finish this cardboard sandwich. What? That’s the microwave beeping? Turn it off, then. There’s a good chap.
Well, once again, you are encountering me in the midst of some level of astonishment. Seems like I spend half of my life sore amazed and the other half just plain sore. (I am definitely in the sore second half.) Anyway, never mind my poor self control – these are indeed heady days here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in now waterlogged upstate New York. There’s so much shit hitting this fan, it’s hard to see your face through the fertilizer. Or something.
Some have told us that we should have called the label Hammermaid, like Milkmaid condensed milk. We don’t listen to some people, particularly if they are Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who has a particular liking for condensed milk products because they remind him of motor oil. In any case, we don’t take a lot of pains over trifles like imprints and logos, because in all honesty, that’s not what we’re about. We are the original discorporate rock band. We say no to corporate hegemony. We’re off the grid, man. (Aside from all that stuff involving money, paying for things, etc.)
I was just thinking back to the bad old days in the 1970s when television was king and the internets were just a twinkle in DARPA’s eyes. On about five million occasions – maybe slightly more than that – I can remember watching an ad for 120 Classical Masterpieces introduced by the well-known character actor John Williams (not the classical guitarist … nor the composer of the Lost In Space theme song). Now that we are on the verge of releasing our third and perhaps silliest album ever, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, I only wish we had a marketing powerhouse behind us like John Williams. Or even Guy Williams. (Except that he‘s dead too!)
What would I do with all that brain power? Well, for one thing, I would get our next album out a bit quicker. Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick seems to be in perpetual becoming mode. I know you’re sick of it, I’m sick of it, Matt’s had it up to here, the president has started complaining, the ambassador from Madagascar has issued a protest against Big Green – suffice to say, no one is happy. Hey, well … we’re working as fast as we can. It takes a while to bake all those discs, especially without a convection oven like the big, famous groups have. And then hand painting all those covers. Jesus!