Tag Archives: mitch

Yo mama.

Okay, so what are we inventing this week? Ten gallon sippy cups? Anti gravity yo-yos? It’s worth asking.

I hate to be the one always checking up on our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee. For one thing, the hazmat suit doesn’t fit me very well. And I can’t speak very clearly through that portable blast shield, particularly with the welder’s mask on. Suffice to say that you enter his lab at your own risk, so we only do it when absolutely necessary. Very often I will send Marvin (my personal robot assistant) in with a note clutched in one of his claws.

Not that Marvin is expendable, you understand. It’s just that he has wheels and can roll backwards. If I sent Anti-Lincoln or the mansized tuber in there, they could end up on melba toast with a caper in their eye. (That’s the caper.)

Fact is, the only reason I’m venturing into Mitch’s wing of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our now-permanent squat house, is that the neighbors have been complaining. You know what I’m hearing about, right? Loud noises in the nights. Mad cackling. Subtle but noticeable shifts in gravitation. Midnight sunshine and black skies at noon. All those little things that tend to put the retired plumber next door in a bad humor. We don’t want to hear from the authorities, of course. We might get the Ammon Bundy treatment, after all. That is … they will ignore us until we pull guns on them more than twice or three times. (Since we’re white, we would probably get the Bundy mulligan, so to speak.)

You know what to do, Marvin.Mitch has been in poor humor since they found his coveted dark planet beyond the orbit of Neptune. He had been clinging to the vain hope that it would remain the undiscovered country for another generation, at least … plenty of time to convert it into a black hole or neutron star. In any case, now he’s drowning his sorrows in experimental work, and it’s got all of us on edge. Hard to work on music when the laws of physics are collapsing all around you. Last Monday morning, for instance, he temporarily suspended the third dimension within the immediate boundaries of our hammer mill. It was like being a ColorForms character for the day – very distressing!

Okay, well … I’m going in there. If you don’t hear from me soon, send Marvin in.

Blame us.

Hmmm. I thought Mitch was looking a little depressed. Are you sure that’s the reason? Wow. Who knew?

Oh, hi. Christ on a bike, sometimes living in this abandoned hammer mill is like working in a clinic for the chronically depressed. What a bunch of moody Melvins! Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has been giving us all the silent treatment for about a week. My brother keeps saying he needs a charge-up, but that’s just making apologies for the fucker. (Stop defending him!) Every time there’s a new episode of “Mercy Street”, old Anti-Lincoln goes all pear-shaped, starts drinking and cursing at us like we’re General Grant or General Sherman (with our inimitable bow-ties snapping). Insufferable.

And then there’s Mitch Macaphee, our mad science adviser. Though to be fair, his depression is usually rooted in mad science. Anyway, his smile turned upside-down earlier this week, and we had to start rooting around for the cause. (You don’t want to allow Mitch’s moods to fester … that’s when he starts getting really creative in the lab.) At first I thought it may have been about that North Korean A-bomb test, but that wasn’t it. Then I saw the story about the astrophysicist who claimed that there was evidence of a massive ninth planet way beyond the orbit of Neptune, and I knew I had found the cause. Busted!

Frankly, Mitch, it looks kind of ominous.Yeah, we’ve known about that planet for years. Mitch discovered it on one of our interstellar tours, and he was so thrilled at his own cleverness that he resolved to keep it secret from humanity until he could find some practical use for it. It is, in scientific terms, a big motherfucker, with enough mass to line up all the other planets in our puny solar system like billiard balls. (I think that played into Mitch’s plan for the dark world beyond Neptune. He dreamed of racking them all up like nineball and running the table, as if he was the Minnesota Fats of interplanetary collision.)

Okay, so now we need a cover story. Here goes: just call the new planet “Blameus”. Legend has it that this dark world is responsible for all of our sorrows. That should focus people’s attention a bit … at least until Mitch can work out his next shot. (Okay, so I’m an enabler. Just a little harmless fun.)

King of the F-ups.

What the hell. Did I get that wrong, too? Jesus Christ on a bike. Just make a freaking list, okay. And no, I’m not making a special effort to be polite today – that’s just the way I talk … every day.

Oh, hello. Didn’t know you were reading what I appear to be typing in my sleep. Yes, just spending a day exploring my human failings, which appear to be depressingly similar to those of other humans. No, I didn’t think of myself as somehow elevated above the herd. It’s just that I can SEE all of them, whereas I can’t see MY ass unless I’m looking in a mirror. And there are no unbroken mirrors in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. (That should come as no surprise.)

What was I “effing up”, as they say? Well … a couple of things. Last night I left Trevor James Constable’s orgone generating machine running at full tilt. Mitch Macaphee says it came up as a blip on his stellar infrarometer, whatever the hell that is. I apparently  created an anomaly in the space-time continuum that nearly achieved the mass displacement value of the planet Neptune. This hole in the fabric of space might have swallowed the Earth whole had it been allowed to continue. (It’s the kind of anomaly that might do its grocery shopping in the Whole Earth Catalog, if you know what I mean.)

Oh, hell. Did I do that?Okay, so THAT disaster was averted. No doubt there will be other threats to mankind caused by carelessness and listlessness, but they won’t happen on my watch. Maybe on Mitch’s watch. (He’s got one hell of a watch.) But then I had to go and make a pancake breakfast for everyone. We were out of baking powder, but I went ahead and made them anyway, just to show all those snobby cooks that I won’t be ruled by protocol. I have my pride, you know. My pride and a bunch of inedible flapjacks.

Well, you know what they say – stick to what you know. If you’re going to fuck something up, it’s best that you put your whole heart and soul into it. It’s like playing that sour note in the middle of a solo. Just hammer that sucker again and again – hit it like you mean it. That’s the stuff. Now … have some pancakes. (No, really … get them out of my sight.)

Roam for the holidays.

I’m not a big fan of zero gravity typing. It’s kind of hard to keep your fingers on the keys, frankly. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) – can you take dictation? There’s a good chap.

Ned Trek, the podcastOkay, well … as you may have surmised, we of Big Green are in transit this week. Our brief stint on GJ 1132b, the newly discovered world parked on the very edge of human knowledge was not hugely memorable. Thinly attended, let’s say. Sure, we set up our gear and cranked through a few of our better known numbers. The venue was a cave. And I don’t mean that it had bad acoustics, though it did; I mean it was literally a cave on a frozen world, populated by ethereal beings whose very existence is a matter of disputed mad science. (Mitch Macaphee tells me that they are real, but then he talks to elves and fairies, so it’s hard to be certain.)

Okay, so BIG GREEN’S CAPER BEYOND THE KUIPER (BELT) is kind of a bust. No surprises there. We played that one sorry gig, wearing our pressure suits, then pulled up stakes and headed off into the eternal night of deep space, pointed in the general direction of Earth – at least, something that looks like Earth. Lots of time to kill on these interstellar voyages. We actually took that opportunity to work on this year’s Christmas podcast – another holiday extravaganza, filled with music, mirth, and mangled impersonations of famous people. (Acting would be a lot easier if we could … act.)

I'm bored.I’m here in what passes for my cabin in this rented spacecraft, editing the audio play we recorded a few days ago. We’ve also recorded a few songs, as is our tradition, to accompany the hack-job melodrama we’ll be posting in the coming weeks, so those will take some finishing. Work, work, work. I thought this trip was going to be something of a getaway, a chance of rest and relaxation, a hiatus in our otherwise hectic existence of hammer-mill squatting. Fat chance.

Well, there‘s a festive note. Don’t mind me. I always get a little grumpy at 40% light velocity. Call it motion sickness.

Ice ball diary.

Break out the ice cube tray. I need to warm my hands up over it. Yeah, that’s better. It’s all relative, my friends.

Ned Trek, the podcastWell, here we are, out on GJ 1132b on the first and final leg of our Fall 2015 Tour, entitled BIG GREEN’S CAPER BEYOND THE KUIPER (BELT), brought to by Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc. (Slogan: If it says Hegemonic, you know it’s for keeps.) Hey, nobody told us it would be this freaking cold out here, way beyond the limits of our solar system. That’s probably because nobody asked. In any case, we’re here on this frozen piece of real estate, some 39 light years from Earth, trying to chip a performance venue out of the rock-solid CO2, and having very little success I’m sorry to tell you.

How is the tour going? Well … let me put it this way. Have you seen the movie “The Martian”, by any chance? How about “Marooned”? If not, the essential point is this: never rent a spacecraft from a dodgy neighbor of Mitch Macaphee. (If that ever comes up, take if from me and refuse! REFUSE, I tell you!) Yeah, the sucker’s ion drive leaves a great deal to be desired. That is to say, it’s very existence was just a desire on the part of the ship’s owner. The actual propulsion unit runs on cottage cheese and ketchup, and we appear to be fresh out of those commodities. (And to paraphrase Warren Oats, there are no 7/11’s out yonder.)

Think warm thoughts.Not to put too fine a point on it, we are going to have to Mad Science the shit out of this thing. Mitch Macaphee is working overtime (as much as 3 hours a day) trying to adapt Marvin (my personal robot assistant)’s solar power unit to the ship’s main drive. It is by no means a walk in the park for old Mitch. Good thing we brought some decent gin with us. (Though we left the rummy back at the mill.)

I’m not sure why the creator of the universe bothered to conceive of this shriveled little world. It’s basically just a rock in space, orbiting a random star, spinning out its eons in total obscurity. Sounds a bit like us, actually. Maybe we should name this place after ourselves. Or just call it Preplanus – I don’t think that’s being used anymore.

Off with us.

Glad that’s over. Anything I hate, it’s packing over a holiday weekend. But we’re under way at last, back into the welcoming arms of deep, deep space. GJ 1132b, here we come!
Ned Trek, the podcast
I suppose I should spare you the details of the last week – the rush job of putting this expeditionary gig together, the foibles regarding our interplanetary transportation, etc. (Just try booking a four-engine ion drive spacecraft on the weekend before Thanksgiving. Freaking impossible!) As you may recall from last week’s post (particularly if you have nothing better to do with your life than to read this useless blog), Big Green has decided to pay a call on our newest neighbor in space – the recently discovered dwarf planet GJ 1132b – and see if we can discover some gainful employment there; namely, a one night stand for a terrestrial band.

Okay, so we dubbed this BIG GREEN’S CAPER BEYOND THE KUIPER (BELT), which is literally true, as GJ 1132b is out there, man, really out there. We had to name the gig in order to get some support from our corporate label, Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc. (whose indie imprint is named Hegephonic), still run by Indonesian military thugs. They’ve got deep pockets, though, and they and our mad science adviser Mitch Macaphee go way back, so he was able to connive … I mean, convince them into ponying up some of their ill gotten gains to fund this reckless foray into parts unknown. Mitch is just that good.

So that's it, is it?The transport was a major problem, though. All of our previous rides were unavailable. Mitch had inadvertently vaporized our last spacecraft during the course of an experiment (one he was conducting on behalf of those same Generals from Jakarta he was conniving this past week). GJ 1132b is 39 light years away, so we needed something with a little heft. It couldn’t be one of those sub-compact crafts you take to Mars and back, right? There was a good deal of head scratching over that issue, until finally Mitch remembered an old colleague who had built an interstellar spacecraft for his own amusement at some point, then just parked it in his garage next to his Land Rover. Hobbyists!

Anywho, Mitch sent Marvin (my personal robot assistant) over to pick it up. Big mistake – Marvin got lost on the way home, so we lost a couple of solar days, delaying our launch until Thanksgiving. Let them eat space! See you on GJ 1132b!

Parts and parcels.

What is this … another carton? This one’s from Madagascar, no less. What the hell. Does it rattle when it shakes? Does it roll? If when it shakes it both rattles and rolls, it might be Jerry Lee Lewis.

For the life of me, I don’t know who’s ordering all of these packages. They just show up at the door of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill (Big Green’s longtime squat-house) and subsequently disappear. At first I thought it might be Mitch Macaphee, but he has long since abandoned the notion of ordering goods from various merchants. He just invents whatever he needs, which is a handy skill to have. (Perhaps the handiest!) Then I thought maybe anti-Lincoln was behind all of this mail order, since some of the boxes came from Urban Outfitters. (He’s taken to a more cosmopolitan wardrobe of late. Very smart.)

I know, I know – I tend to get a little suspicious, living in a condemned post-industrial hulk like I do. A few months here and you start to see conspiracies around every corner. What are those mice talking about? Do the crows in the courtyard wish me well or ill? Perhaps it is THEY who are ordering stuff from Crate and Barrel. Maybe they need crates and barrels for something, I don’t know. Idle minds, right?

A bit too far, Marvin. Just saying.Someone’s handing me a note. It reads, “You idiot. It’s probably Marvin (your personal robot assistant). Mitch Macaphee just made him wi-fi compatible.” Oh, right. So Marvin doesn’t even need a smart phone to buy a bunch of useless junk on credit. All he needs is the credit. Fortunately, he doesn’t have … doesn’t have … hey … where’s my wallet? MARVIN!!

Okay, Marvin has been using this magnetic lock gizmo ever since he saw one on Lost In Space reruns. My guess is that he’s down in his basement room, frozen like a statue in his magnetic lock, placing orders over wi-fi without even lifting a finger. And the boxes that come are probably piling up around him like a fortress – a fortress of consumer joy! Doesn’t that remind you of Christmas?

Anyway, if I’m in the pokey the next time I post, it will be that mindless robot’s fault. See if he’ll let you use my credit card to bail me out.

Pluto did it.

They say that Pluto is a big surprise. That may be true for most people, even rocket scientists, but not for the interstellar collective known as Big Green. Ha, ha!

I mean, that stuff about surface features suggesting frozen bodies of methane – um, we knew that. What the hell, you don’t even have to GO to Pluto to know that much. All you need is Mitch Macaphee’s trans-dimensional light-enhancement planetometer. He showed me the gizmo just this past weekend. It looks strangely like that old oscillator we picked up at a garage sale. I guess he probably hollowed it out and filled it with some of that mad science technology. Now it flashes on and off like a … uh … like a flashy thing.

Well, Mitch can tell a lot about distant, frozen planets just by looking at those little lights go on and off. When I tell him about NASA’s revelations, he just rolls his eyes, then mouths the word “NASA” while he makes a face. I know, you probably think he’s still sore over the fact that the agency rejected him when he applied as a teenager, but I think he almost has to be more mature than that. How would he get through the day if he obsessed over every little slight? Such an attitude would have turned him into a deeply bitter, paranoid wreck of a man. Which, of course … um … he is. So that thing I just said … strike that.

Cold, eh? I knew that. We’re thinking about stopping over to Pluto for a brief engagement, maybe four or five shows, back to back. Which sounds shorter than it is. See, if we play consecutive days, it will take something like a month, because each Plutonian day is worth more than 6 Earth days. (See … Mitch told me that, too. HE knows all aBOUT Pluto.) We’re going to try out a few of our Ned Trek songs and see if the Plutonians start throwing frozen methane at us. (Not much more to put your hands on out there, frankly.)

Well, be that as it may. We’re posting a new, old episode of Ned Trek. That’s my news.

Just whistle.

I’m sorry – that’s as soft as a piano will go. The very word “piano” means soft, for chrissake. (Sure, piano is short for pianoforte, which means “soft – loud/strong”, implying dynamics, but that’s beside the point!) Just get some freaking earplugs already!

Neighbors. I guess you have to have them, even when you’re living in an abandoned hammer mill. I like to think that we make every effort to be good neighbors. I like to think it because, well, it isn’t true, and thinking things that aren’t true is something of a hobby of mine. Actually, we are crappy neighbors – up until all hours of the night, banging on noisy instruments, tooting on sousaphones, launching rockets, creating energy dampening fields that affect entire continents (note: those last two are down to our mad science adviser, Mitch Macaphee).

Our neighbor to the north, a guy named Wilson, has been leaving subtle hints that we are making too much noise. Today, for instance, there was a scroll of parchment posted to our front door with a railroad spike. (Apparently Wilson used to work for New York Central or Amtrak or something.) The parchment had two words scrawled on it in a shaky hand: “TOO LOUD”. I brought it to Anti-Lincoln (who has become our de facto legal adviser, being the only individual amongst us to have attended law school in some centrury) so that he might determine the full implications of this writ. He scanned it with a look of consternation, then offered in his characteristically reedy alto voice, “Yep. Somebody writ it.” Not sure where we’d be without him. (Someplace more permanent, perhaps.)

Well? What does it mean?In spite of what our neighbors think (or demand), making music is an intrinsically noisy business. We are working on an album, for chrissake. That means take after take, recording rhythm parts, experimenting with sound – painstaking work that generates a lot of ambient sound, despite Mitch Macaphee’s efforts to soundproof our makeshift studio. His latest attempt involved having Marvin (my personal robot assistant) hold up sheets of foam core, one in each claw. Did it work? Your answer is nailed to our front door.

Well, we’ll plow on in any case. That’s what we do. If we didn’t do that, we’d have to do something else. And then I just don’t know what we would do. (Got all that?)

Pit stop.

Where did you put the GPS? I don’t know this neighborhood very well. Okay, well … pull out that AAA map and unfold it. Yes, I’ll wait. Jesus.

This ride SUCKSWell, you caught Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and I on a little automotive tour of the greater Little Falls, NY area. All it takes is some kind of vehicle – in this case, Mitch Macaphee’s 1968 Chevy Nova – and a little curiosity. Sure, the muffler just fell off (again) and I can see the road going by under my feet, but these are minor inconveniences. Spring is here, people – it’s time to start living the life. Let’s get our sorry asses out of that drafty old hammer mill and fill our nostrils with the scent of new life. Or … not. Up to you.

Sometimes the best of intentions, as you know, lead one astray. It reminds me of a song Matt Perry wrote many moons ago – still applies today, though.

Good intentions, I’ve all these good intentions
My good intentions won’t row the boat ashore
Good intentions, you know I’m good intentioned
Still I watched the world, I watched the world crash to the floor
and I just watched.

Well, I think there’s a lesson in that for all of us. What is it? I don’t freaking know. What am I, Kreskin? Anyway … my one-robot tour of greater Little Falls, NY, is something of a bust. That’s just as well. I should be back at the mill, toiling away at the next couple of episodes of our podcast, as well as all the associated songs. We appear to be up to seven new songs for the June podcast – that, I believe, is a new record. (Perhaps literally … if by “record” you mean “album”). I’ve got a lot of parts to put down, but somehow I can’t move.

Oldest story in the book, right? As soon as you have responsibility thrust upon you, you go looking for the exits. Fortunately, they are easy to find in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. There are a lot of missing doors and windows; it’s like living in a king size Swiss cheese.  But have faith – we have recorded Ned Trek 23, it has been sent to our non-union editors in Madagascar, and we expect to post the finished project sometime in the nearish future.

All right, I’m off. Marvin’s got the map out again.