Hoodniks.

Here comes Big Green, like a bat out of hell, someone gets in our way, someone don't feel so well! Hey, what's the problem, Lincoln? You depraved on account a' you're deprived?

Oh, hi, friends. Didn't know you were looking in just then. (We always seem to get caught by surprise... probably shouldn't live our lives on the Internets so much.) No, we're not working up some numbers for a West Side Story revival of some kind. Not a bit of it. Just feeling a little like outsiders, that's all. Our own village government has turned against us, our own man-sized tuber has made monkeys of us, and our own abandoned hammer mill is getting draftier by the day. (The fire brigade broke a few windows when they were here... Mayor's orders.) Ergo, we're spending more time out on the mean streets, or at least, in the mean courtyard. (Cobblestones make a lumpy mattress, friends - word to the wise.) With the cold weather coming on, it's almost like we've been exiled to Siberia, except that the snacks are a bit better. And no nasty guards. Then there's the being kept there for the rest of your life. Actually... it's a lot easier than Siberia, so scratch that last observation.

What was I saying again? Oh, yeah. Having friends in high places is turning out to be less than a benefit for us. I'm beginning to understand why. The man-sized tuber, apparently, is taking advice from anti-matter Lincoln, about as mean-spirited a piece of work as you can imagine. Imagine for a moment the ambition of a President Lincoln, matched with the guile of a Richard III. Got that in your sights? Okay, well... discard it. Anti-Lincoln is much, much worse than that. Was it not HE who worked his way back through time to seize control of the Lincoln administration from his more virtuous doppelganger? Was it not HE who made common cause with the South American-style junta leaders who took over the Cheney Hammer Mill a couple of strange years ago? Was it not HE who stole my tofurkey sandwich earlier today and tossed it out into the street when he surmised its vegan character? Such calumny! Curse him! CURSE HIM!!!

Anyway, that's what has put us on the wrong side of the law - an oversized root vegetable taking the counsel of an anti-matter great emancipator. Sure, it's complicated - LIFE is complicated. So what's new? Now when we rehearse, we have to sneak into the public library and kick some teenager out of one of the study carrels... then hope nobody notices the awful sound of our craft. Hell, there are times when we actually all have to go into different public libraries and SKYPE each other just to squeeze another rehearsal in. (The last terminal I used smelled like urine and aftershave... and if you want to know WHICH one, well... I'm just not talking to you anymore.) It's gotten to the point where only Matt and I show up at these "rehearsals", and we don't even know what we're rehearsing for. Perhaps it's a concert. Perhaps it's a riverboat cruise. So many possibilities.

My apologies. Living out in this courtyard is making me goofy with a capital stupid.