Sign off.

Okay, now where does the signature go? Ah, yes - the line which is dotted. Okay, okay. Right, now... where is that dotted line? Sure, sure... on the contract, sure...

Oh, hi blog-o-files (or perhaps merely ultra-patient Big Green-o-files). You're probably thinking you may have stumbled in on some kind of trade negotiation, perhaps the latest upgrade of NAFTA. Not so, though it is coercive, expropriative, and downright nasty, so I can understand the confusion. Yes, indeed... after several days (or was it weeks?) in the back of some grimy delivery van, bound and gagged by belligerent strangers, we arrived at our destination. T'was a strange and lifeless place, cold as the grave, its chalky brick facade crumbling beneath the groaning burden of decades of neglect and abandonment. This was the grim place our captors had intended for us to see when our blindfolds were removed.

The abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill - just as I pictured it!

I know what you're thinking. What the hell are the chances that these brigands and ne'er-do-wells would have chosen for their hideout the same condemned hole we had occupied illegally for the last five or six years? Good question. Hard to calculate those odds. Even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is totally stumped. Still, there's no need to strain your brain or burn out your pocket slide-rule - these pirates of the open road had known about our residence at the Cheney Hammer Mill, and had deliberately brought us back there. Now I can hear you saying, "For what PUR-pose!?!" (That is you talking, isn't it?) Well, my friends, the answer to that is both simple... and complex...

Actually, it's really just simple. (Forgive me. Can't resist a little cheap drama.) These rough fellows are merely representatives from our (relatively) new corporate label, Loathsome Prick records. It seems we never quite got around to formalizing our relationship with LP, so the company hired some strong-arms to pressure... ahem... negotiate with us on the terms of how we will divide the proceeds from the interstellar sales of our upcoming album, [Marvin: insert album name here before we go to press, there's a good lad]. This is a bit technical, but we had agreed on a release date of [Just stick any date in here - we can back away from it later - thanks, jp], assuming the mastering and publishing processes went according to schedule. Only catch is, they kind of want to keep all of the money. Sure, I know - that's their starting position, but they've presented it after tying us to waterboards. Not sure I like where this is headed.

Best we can do at this point is stall on the signing. I have asked Marvin to send transmissions to his inventor, Mitch Macaphee, in hopes that he will drop his six-month martini in Montserrat and fly in to our rescue. Until then, we'll just play dumb. And hold our breaths....