No, I’m not interested. No, really … not interested at all. And no, I’m not holding out for a better deal. I really just don’t want any part of it, okay? So just drop it. I said NO. (Jesus!)
Oh, hello out there. I was just having a little conversation with one of my esteemed colleagues. And he was getting a little uh-steamed, if you catch my meaning. Okay, full disclosure, it was our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, inventor of Marvin (my personal robot assistant), veteran of many deep space excursions, and the man who broke the space warp. (It was just warped before he got a hold of it, and now the damn thing is busted, thanks to his carelessness.)
What’s all the commotion? Funny you should ask. Perhaps you have some mad scientists in your life as well, or maybe a conventional scientist – someone who works in chemistry or physics, for instance. Well, if so, you know that people of science are frequently tempted by large corporations to use their great skills for some money-making venture, proffered on the promise that the professor will get his or her beak wet in a serious way. Mitch is no exception to that rule. And he’s just gotten an offer that has him seeing dollar signs everywhere.
Personally, I think this is a scam. Mitch is talking about some joint Russian – Luxembourgian venture to mine minerals in outer space. He has a contact familiar with the deal who can get him in on the ground floor, particularly since he has experience with monetizing outer space through the application of advanced technologies used by extractive industry. Turns out that on all of those interstellar tours, when we thought Mitch was asleep in his cot, he was drilling for corbomite of cosmonium or some other precious earth that he would later unload on the galactic commodities market. Who knew? I always thought he traveled with us because he liked our music, or just enjoyed being a member of our posse. But no … it was filthy lucre leading him on, crawling in through his ear and squatting down on his brain.
Thing is, Mitch needs to talk others into investing in the venture. That’s what makes me think it’s a scam. That and the outer space part. Again …. not interested. But by the look on Mitch’s face, this ain’t over.
But more than anything else, we are thankful to you, our listeners and readers. (That includes all you little Russian bots – I see you!) And that’s why we have chosen to express our gratitude by posting a warmed-over installment of Ned Trek entitled 
Then there’s the interstellar tour idea we were kicking around. What happened to that? Well, apparently someone kicked it into next week, figuratively speaking. I’m not ruling it out, but no one aside from Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and his inventor, our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee has any inclination towards doing the fucker. And frankly, neither one of them can play an instrument (though Mitch can use instruments in his work … and Marvin sometimes makes a noise like a fire whistle). That’s not the kind of band I can bring to Neptune! Those crystalline ice creatures would laugh us out of orbit, and THEN where would we be.
It had occurred to a few of us that we should take the opportunity of this asteroid fly-by to gather some important data on this mysterious visitor from deep space – data that could provide answers to vital questions like, “what color is it?” and “is there a Starbucks there yet?” How would we go about this? Well, we have Marvin (my personal robot assistant). And we have Mitch Macaphee’s model volcano. If we put one in to the other at the right moment, there’s a moderate chance that item A (Marvin) could reach escape velocity and, maybe, navigate his way to the asteroid. And when I say “moderate”, I mean a degree of probability that is, perhaps, calculable if and only if we were willing to make the effort to calculate it. And, well … we’re not. So, Marvin? GET IN THAT VOLCANO!
Oh, damn … that’s right. Mitch is off to Sao Paolo to attend the bi-annual convention of the International Society for the Purveyors of Mad Science (or ISPMS). I believe they’re giving him some sort of badge this year. (Not sure what it’s for, but it suspiciously glows in the dark.) In any case, we can’t rely on Mitch to keep the capitalist wolf pack at bay here at our besieged hammer mill squat house. We could have Marvin (my personal robot assistant) go out there and try to reason with the developers, but that would just make them laugh and point. We could coax Anti-Lincoln (perhaps with the promise of bourbon) to give one of his famous presidential addresses from the mill’s parapet, but again … pointing and laughing would ensue. (He’s not good.)
Okay, so … when you’re on vacation, you end up doing a bunch of stuff you don’t ordinarily have time for. For me, that usually involves surfing the web, and in my idle wanderings a stumbled across another Big Green. No, I don’t mean another BAND called Big Green – lord knows, there are at least one or two of those. This is a nutrition advocacy organization that works out of Detroit. Which means they are actually doing something USEFUL with our name, which is more than I can say for us. They’re helping to feed people; we’re wasting time with stuff like this. Case closed.
muttering something about a “planet buster” last week. Sometimes that’s just idle rambling, but you can never be too sure. Look at what happened to the planet Zorchon. (Yeah, that’s right – there IS no planet Zorchon, sure …. not NOW.)
Everyone into the pool
Right now we’re kind of winging it, I admit … though that’s a bit more considered a state than we’re usually in during recording sessions. I boot up the new system, punch a few keys, then start playing whatever instrument is called for – piano, sousaphone, kazoo, triangle, whatever – and realize a few moments later that nothing has been captured. Rinse and repeat. I need a team of scientists! And I don’t mean mad scientists – we’re all set on that score. If we were to ask Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, to reconfigure our studio, we would end up with something on the order of what Magic Alex threw together for the Beatles back in the Apple Records days, i.e., a decorative, non-functional studio full of flashing lights with a speaker for every track and other non sequitur features.
When you are effectively a pop duo … and I think Matt and I constitute the duo part, at least … you need to rely on others sometimes to do some of the heavy lifting. Marvin can do some stuff. I’ve gotten Antimatter Lincoln to shake a tambourine more than once – that’s about his speed. The man-sized tuber is pretty good at holding things up, like a table. These are all things we would otherwise have to do ourselves, so it’s not like I’m ungrateful. But man … a shred of musical ability would come in handy right about now.