Hmmm… I know I left that lying around here somewhere. Ah, here it is. Not sure where I’m going without this little number.

No, it’s not my brain. It’s my list of songs. Sixty five songs and counting. Shoo-wee, right? That’s enough songs to fuel the enormous asbestos-clad boiler of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill for a hundred years. (Well, that may be a slight exaggeration.) What was it I heard Lincoln (or anti-Lincoln) saying the other day? Oh, yeah. “A chicken’ll make you a meal… or it’ll lay enough eggs for a thousand breakfasts. A lamb - that’s about two weeks worth of mutton. Or you can have warm wool coats from now until doomsday…” That Lincoln- just brimming with frontier wisdom. (Actually, I think he borrowed that from Royal Dano in one of his more nefarious incarnations on The Big Valley, Lincoln’s favorite T.V. drama.)

Where was I again? Oh, right. The songs. Yeah, we have an enormous backlog of songs, some never recorded, many represented by the most rudimentary demos. Lot more Christmas material, true. Fact is, our first album - 2000 Years To Christmas - was just as selection of numbers from a vast body of ludicrous Christmas songs, mostly penned by that keee-razy brother of mine. Probably about fifty of those in total, though only about a dozen have made it onto our record/perform list as of yet. Intriguing, no? (No? Hmmmm. Is that your final answer? Want a life line?)

Sure, there’s that. Then there are the songs that are complete and yet still in the can, never released commercially. Mostly these are recordings that have no proper album to call home. They are made in the usual Big Green way - lay out a polymer disc, slather it full of mastic, add music and apply pressure… much pressure. Then toss. Well… we tossed them a little too far, perhaps, and no one has had the energy to go and pick them up. Those will likely see the light of day at some point, though I don’t know exactly when. (Let me consult with my fellow nut cases and get back to you.)

Speaking of nut cases and music, an old friend of mine shared a champion little number with us the other day. Enjoy, campers!

Short takes again. Damn, I’m lazy! Lie down, dog, you are tired.

Bread heel. We’re always told that it’s better to settle for half a loaf than no bread at all. Well, that may work for bread. I’m not so sure about anything else. I mean, if you need a car, and you ask your spouse to go out and find one for you, and s/he comes back with one axle, a steering wheel, three tires, and a seized engine, you still are not going anywhere. Same deal, it seems to me, with health care. For all the cautionary comments about “not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good,” we really do not have a whole car here, so far as I can see. For one thing, they stripped out the most popular provisions, namely, the public option and Medicare expansion - features that would benefit people immediately, save money, and make for a much more reasonable system.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m for single payer, always have been, always will be. It’s the only thing that makes sense in an enormous, complex society such as ours, contrary to what many have tried to suggest (i.e. that our nation’s complexity somehow makes a Medicare for all type system impractical - it most assuredly doesn’t). But if they can pass an insurance reform bill that provides access to a Medicare-like option (or Medicare itself) to anyone who can’t get decent coverage in the private market, that’s a good first step. Why the hell can’t people have that choice?

Well, let me tell you why. Because too many people would opt for it. That doesn’t work for the money-drenched cretins that the insurance companies have sent to Washington to represent us. I’m afraid I have to include my own congressman, Michael Arcuri, in that number. He has thrown up his hands on health care, and while I wouldn’t blame him for not supporting the Senate bill, he should join with progressives in trying to pass some reasonable version that has a strong public option. They put the scare into him, and the insurance lobby is buying lots of T.V. time in our market telling people to call Arcuri and have him vote against the bill (which, ironically, he has already said he will do).  Don’t just sit there and vote no, Mike - pull together with some of your colleagues and make it better.

Did I say short takes? Maybe I was thinking “shortcakes” - am getting a bit hungry, as well as tired. Oh, well… Here’s my pitch. Call your congressmember and senators and tell them to support a strong public option if they’re going to support the health bill. There were plenty of people who supported it last year when 60 votes were needed in the Senate - they should be able to get 51 now, if people find their spines.

Work the phones. I’m going to bed, damnit.

luv u,

jp

Holy hell. Is that thing on again? Well then, what’s that little red light for? And the countdown box…. Twenty-five, twenty-four, twenty-three….

Oh well. While we’re trying to figure out what’s going on there… What’s been happening here at the mill? Usual stuff. Keeping the roof on, as they say, and the fridge stocked with lunchables. (Or, at least, snackables.) You have to be versatile to please the mix of tastes we have around this joint. Take Lincoln (please). Now, he’s a fan of chicken fricassee. Of course, being a vegetarian, I won’t have anything to do with the stuff, but that doesn’t stop him. He keeps putting it on the shoplifting… I mean, the shopping list. And I keep coming back with tofu. (He’s no happier now than he was in 1863.)

But it takes more than food to make a life. We’ve been working on the next album, as you know. Quite a process. Some of you have been on the inside of our album construction activities, some not. For those of you who haven’t witnessed this first-hand, here’s a little peek inside our methodology. We start with a big boatload of songs. This time, it’s a mishmash of about 60 or 70 numbers that we’ve done demos for at one point or another. Now you may wonder how, with so many possibilities, we could possibly arrive at a decision on the final project list. There are a number of things Big Green considers… and they include:

• Specific Gravity - This is a no-brainer. If the specific gravity of a song is too heavy, we try making an alloy by blending it with some more light-hearted material. Failing that, we scrap the sucker. Perhaps the constituent parts will come in handy (they sometimes go into making a first-rate pedal bike). 
• Stock Value - Something that relates back to what I was talking about before, with the chicken fricassee. Before we consider recording a song, we put the lyrics in a pot of water and simmer it for six hours. If it produces a broth that can be used in pilaf or gravy, it’s a keeper.
• Particularness - I don’t know if I can explain this. I’m looking for some word in particular… mmm, can’t think of it. Oh well… it will come to me.

These and 37 other parameters give us all the data we need to make an informed choice. That’s why we say… the quality goes in before… oh wait. That’s someone else. What do we say? (It’ll come to me….)

Was listening to NPR the other morning, much to my annoyance (no, I’m NOT going to contribute anything, thank you very much!) and I heard a story about a former high official of the Siad Barre regime in Somalia facing possible war crimes prosecution in the United States (where he now resides). Some of his torture victims now live in the U.S. as well, and would like to get some justice. Fair enough. While the correspondent took the time to describe how heinous that regime was, she neglected to mention the fact that our government had sent them something like $1 billion over the Carter, Reagan, and Bush I years. Small detail.

Also heard reports about Radovan Karadzic’s trial for war crimes. I have to admit, the first thing that came to mind was the happy accident of Dick Cheney’s having been born in the United States. What a pity that Karadzic hadn’t started the Iraq war instead of killing tens of thousands of Bosnians! He would be enjoying his comfortable retirement right now, perhaps even bragging about his war crimes on network television, instead of standing in the dock at The Hague. Same deal with that Somalian intelligence chief. Perhaps his adopted homeland will offer him some kind of legal protection, since (clearly) torture is not considered a serious, prosecutable crime here… so long as it is practiced on those we dislike.

Perhaps it’s unfair of me to single out NPR. I just guess I’m getting annoyed with hearing Jim DeMint, Judd Gregg, or some other “conservative” leading light every time I tune in. On Thursday I got to hear from a Democrat…. Bart Stupak. Who’s running Washington again? (Oh, yes. On Wednesday, during the “Political Junkie” segment of “Talk of the Nation”, there was an extended conversation with Mitt Romney, a.k.a. Guy Smiley, a.k.a. Bush redux.) Meanwhile, the daughter of our own Karadzic is reviving McCarthyism with a web commercial attacking what she terms “The Al Qaeda Seven” in the Obama justice department. So not only does the war criminal brag of his guilt in plain sight, but his spawn is somehow treated as possessed of some expertise by virtue of her father’s ill deeds.

How green with envy old Radovan must be.

luv u,

jp

What was that sound I heard, coming from down below? Some kind of tectonic activity? A passing subway car? Or could it be…..  a tuber in distress?

Tubey and Marvin (my personal robot assistant) are still exploring the inner bowels of the Oit. I would post images they’ve sent via their cell phones, but you would hardly believe your own eyes if you saw them. Crikey, there’s a lot going on down there - much more than when we did that Jules Verne-like tour to the center of the Earth a few years ago. Amazing… but then, there’s a lot of space below us, if you think about it. (Even if you don’t think about it. ) So take my word for it. Don’t go there. Just don’t. It’s hot. It’s mean. It’s just plain dangerous.

So, what does this have to do with you? Well, not much. That’s the nature of the internets as we know them. A lot of random, stupid detail about people’s personal lives of interest to no one other than themselves. We are certainly guilty of that. Yeah, I know the standard jibe. Big Green is all yak and very little music, right? Well…. right enough.  Too much talking, not enough music - got it. And it’s been almost a year and a half since our last release, International House. So what the hell - time to get off our sorry butts and start strumming, pounding, screeching again.

Well, if that’s what you’re thinking, I’ve got some good news. (Well… let’s say some not bad news, anyway.) It so happens that we are working on a little project, way down yonder. We’ve got an enormous backlog of ludicrous songs that have yet to be properly recorded. So here’s the plan - record them AND play them live. And what the hell - let’s do a powerpoint, besides. Matt and I have been knocking our heads together, and we’ve started laying down some tracks with Marvin (when he’s available) recording reference drums until John White returns from his extended trip to Madagascar. (Where do you rent a gas car in Madagascar?) The virtual reels are rolling… that’s what that freaking noise is.

Oh well. Much to do (and less to say) around these parts.

More short takes. I’m beat to a pulp this week, quite frankly. My brain is still working, though… I just don’t have a lot of endurance.

Health care summit. Why bother, right? When are the republicans ever going to agree to anything that even resembles comprehensive health insurance reform? Never. Rebuild the entire thing to suit them, and they’ll still vote against it purely for spite. The problem here is, of course, the democrats themselves, who can’t seem to recognize when they’ve got something that’s both popular and worth defending. I’m referring to the public option, Medicare expansion, and other measures denounced as “socialism” by the other side (and conservative dems) but which the general public is strongly in favor of. The reason why people aren’t fired up about the current plan is that they stripped those measures out to please conservatives. Obama - congress - get a clue! Pass something that will make a real positive difference in people’s lives quickly, and they will support you.

Seriously, these people are like that kid in school who wanted everybody to like him/her, and the more s/he tried to make that happen, the more s/he was hated. Where the GOP is concerned… stop trying!

War news. The latest Afghan campaign continues unabated. I’ve heard the Taliban being accused of using civilians as human shields. Just a couple of weeks ago, though, the U.S. and local Afghan government leaders were encouraging people to stay in Marjah so that there would be someone to govern when they had taken over; and there have been reports of refugees being blocked from exiting by our military.  Numerous civilians have been killed in what quickly became a war zone. How is this different?

Extreme Prejudice. When it was revealed that several Mossad agents essentially stole someone else’s identity and murdered a Hamas official in a hotel in Dubai, most of the major news organizations commented on how “sloppy” the operation was. This was a hit, for chrissake - an assassination, no better than the mafia whacking someone they don’t like, and yet the focus is on style, not substance, and what political repercussions this may have for Israel. Are these the questions they ask when Palestinians, Lebanese, or Iranians kill someone THEY don’t like?

Full of questions today. If you’ve got answers, share ‘em.

luv u,

jp

Down and down and down we go, round and round and round we go… Ah, I forgot what comes next. Oh yeah - it’s either “ker-splash!” or “crunch!”

Hi, friends. If you’re just tuning in (or browsing over), we’re working on a little under ground expedition. That crevice that opened up in the foundation of the Cheney Hammer Mill (our adopted home) apparently goes down to the core of our humble planet, and we’ve taken it upon ourselves to determine just how goddamned deep that actually is. First we sent Marvin (my personal robot assistant) down there, with less than his full cooperation (we had Big Zamboola give him a shove of encouragement). Our latest foray is actually tasked with finding out what happened to Marvin. This consists of the man-sized tuber with a flashlight and a web cam attached to his… well… head (or anterior protuberance, whichever you prefer).

Dropping him into the crevice is like dropping a potato down a well. In fact, I don’t know why I’m using a simile - it IS dropping a potato down a well, waiting to hear the splash. I know what you’re thinking, but just remember… the man-sized tuber did nothing but oppress us as mayor of our little town, and so he owes us, in our estimation. (No, I don’t have a mouse in my pocket. I’m referring to the entire Big Green entourage.)

There are better ways to spend our time, to be sure, and we’ve been trying to find them (blindfolded, with oven mitts on both hands). Like managing to record, rehearse, etc. - and yes, we’ve been doing both, between our little house projects. Still working on that live project concentrating on audio-visual explanations of all of our songs. This came out of playing, listening, and realizing that, w.t.f., we’ve got some ’splainin’ to do, as Tom Coburn said to Justice Sotamayor. Take, for instance, this little number by Matt called “Edward Teller”:

You’re Edward Teller
Direct your lampshade to number fun
Those hidden equations are all pleasures to solve
Bless your huge genius
Now we all thank the son of a bitch

He’s tapped out our life support
And all he wanted was some swell friends
Threadbare daddy

Now, whereas some of us consider that entirely self-explanatory, others may wonder - rightfully - whether or not we have some mental issues. That’s not in question. (We DO.) We just want people to get the most out of our music, and that can’t be bad. (Or…. can it?)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to join Mitch Macaphee in hauling that tuber out of the hole. More later…

Kind of unfocused this week with all that’s going on, so I’m going to resort once again to brief rants on various topics. Bear with me, friends - I promise to keep the lid of my head on.

The Commission. I understand Congress’s reluctance to deal with difficult issues like raising taxes, cutting popular programs, etc. That is, however, the main reason why they have been sent to Washington D.C. - to decide where the money for the federal government comes from and where it goes. If they are unable to grapple with these issues, they might consider applying for jobs at the corporations that paid for their campaigns. What  irks me about the deficit reduction commission, aside from the participation of paleocons like Alan Simpson, is that they are not directly accountable to the electorate. Even more than that, commissions are usually mustered to do particularly dirty work, like cutting or privatizing Social Security to save a few bucks.

Let’s look at this for what it is. The last administration recklessly cut taxes on rich people, not once but twice, and invaded no less than two countries. We can argue about whether or not Afghanistan should have happened (I think not), but Iraq was and remains a total, utter waste of lives and resources. The hole in our national finances is largely due to these elements, and if someone recommends we pay for criminal negligence such as this by cutting benefits to elderly people of limited means, that’s a non-starter.

Death and Texas. Jesus christmas. No one likes paying taxes, or going to the dentist, or taking exams, or eating their Maypo (well…. almost nobody), but this software executive in Texas who flew his plane into an IRS building should have taken an anger management seminar or something stronger.

Number Two. Our partners in war, the Pakistani intelligence services and military, have captured the Taliban’s second in command. I imagine someone will take his place, right? Whatever intelligence value he may offer, he certainly can’t tell us what we most urgently need to know - namely, what the hell are we trying to accomplish in Afghanistan and when the hell, with 8 years of war and counting, are we going to get out? Seems as though we’ve made the Afghans pay quite enough for 9/11, an attack planned by non-state actors whose initial funding in the 1980s came from us. And with all the civilian casualties we’re causing on both sides of the border, I imagine they’ll have no trouble filling that number 2 spot.

luv u,

jp

Anybody got a plumb line? You know - a weight on a string? Come on, people - let’s get resourceful here. Jeezus. How about a tape measure with an eggplant tied to the end?

Oh, hi out there in TV land. Just attempting to plumb the depths of what has become a rather large rend in the garment of our adoptive home, the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill here in upstate New York. We’re just getting a preliminary read here, but I’d say this sucker goes down pretty far. Maybe to the center of the Earth (or, to use the term New York-based geoscientists commonly employ, the “oit”). In fact, I have some pretty good evidence that this crack goes straight through the nougat to the chewy center of our lively little planet. What evidence, you ask? The first-hand kind… as in robot hand… as in Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who volunteered to, well, dive down there and take a look.

Now, when I say he volunteered, I mean so in the technical sense. In other words, I called in a technician - Marvin’s creator, Mitch Macaphee - and asked him to program into Marvin the willingness to volunteer for such a dangerous task, which Mitch did in a trice. No problem for an experience mad scientist. There were a few glitches, of course - in essence, Marvin’s mouth was saying “I volunteer” but his legs were pedaling in the other direction. (Those magnetic-drive casters produce some torque, let me tell you.) That aside, we managed to get a rope around him, strap a flashlight to his forehead, put a cell phone in his claw, and lower him down into the abyss. Fortunately, Marvin’s eyes double as web cams, so we were able to see the underground landscape unfold before him - fascinating journey, as that Australian interior designer might say in a totally different context. Care for a Foster’s? (Product placement - hey, got to keep the lights on somehow, right?)

Think this is an idle interest? Think again. I will admit to some ignorance as to what we might find fifty, seventy-five, or even one hundred miles below us. But as far as I’m concerned, anything down there belongs to US. That’s right… a pie-slice shaped vector of earth stretching from the perimeter of the hammer mill down to the core of this planet - a colossal spike of mineral wealth - belongs to us, at least as far as our new legal advisor Anti-Lincoln can tell. Yes, I know what you’re going to say… why, WHY would we consult someone as untrustworthy and disreputable as anti-Lincoln, the literal antithesis of our most revered president? A man with no scruples, no ethics… what kind of a lawyer could he possibly be? OUR kind.

So, lookit. You know how there’s gold in them there hills? Well, the real fortune is right under your nose. About 50 miles or more. Start digging!

News organizations, film-makers, and journalists in general have a maddening tendency to personalize everything and render the most complex issues into extended personal anecdotes. It’s a method for storytelling tried and true, and it’s obviously one that generates sales since it is so prevalent in the mainstream media. This sometimes manifests itself in the form of stories that focus on a reporter’s experience rather than whatever that reporter is witnessing. (Gary Trudeau has offered an extreme example of this with his journalist character Roland Hedley and his perpetually inane Twitter feed.) There’s also the phenomenon of framing complex historical events as being largely the product of one person’s efforts. Probably the best example of this would be Reagan purportedly bringing down the Berlin Wall through the awesome power of speech. And there’s “Charlie Wilson’s War”, the namesake of which - former Texas representative Charlie Wilson - just passed away this week.

This is nothing new. I suppose it just irked me when I heard a story about Wilson on NPR’s Morning Edition this week. And though it’s appropriate that they would do some kind of memorial of the guy, it just seems bizarre that, in the context of all that is happening in Afghanistan right now, they would be talking about the long pre-history of the current conflict with the guy who played Wilson in a movie (Tom Hanks). It’s possible that NPR has plumbed the depths of our involvement in Afghanistan on other occasions, but I certainly haven’t heard them do it, and I listen quite a bit. Not as easy a story to tell, for sure, but probably well worth the broadcast time. No offense to the relatives of Mr. Wilson, but listeners would be better served to hear about that than about the late Congressman’s exploits with Russian supermodels.

Whatever his role may have been in providing fuel to the Afghan war effort during the 1980s, this was not the work of one man, any more than the fall of the Berlin Wall was the result of one speech. This ongoing crisis was many, many years in the making, beginning in earnest with the Carter administration and the decision to begin backing the fundamentalist factions within Afghanistan because it was felt that they would prove a longer-term, more pernicious problem for the Soviets than any secularist elements. Money began flowing on a larger scale in the Reagan years as the CIA embarked on what was up to that time the largest operation in their history, conducted in cooperation with the Pakistani ISI and the Saudis. Fanatical fighters were recruited all over the Muslim world, including most notably Osama bin Laden and his cohorts. So we all had a piece of this one, and now it’s got a piece of us.

Like most wars, this is a lot bigger than any biopic.

luv u,

jp