Revival.

Looks pretty moribund to me. Did you kick the tires? Here – take the ignition key and give it a few cranks. Nothing? Right. This will be harder than I thought.

Hey, hello. Welcome to the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in central New York state, an out-of-the-way corner of an out-of-the-way place if ever there was one. (And there was one.) Still in the midst of an archive summer – not that much of a novelty around this place. Seems like every summer I find myself diving through boxes and bins of old tapes, moth-eaten notebooks, forgotten scraps of paper, and old biscuit tins filled with souvenirs of a bygone age. You know what they say about idle hands. Don’t you? Hell, I don’t know what they say. I was hoping you’d tell me. Something like, idle hands build false … idols. Who knows?

Actually, it was Marvin (my personal robot assistant) who reminded me that we haven’t posted an episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN, our podcast, in over seven months. Something of an oversight, I’d say. Like most musicians in these pandemic times, I chalk it up to COVID-19, but that’s not really the reason. You know the story, right? Just too much other shit to do. Anyway, Marvin has talked me into reviving the podcast, and not a moment too soon. The RSS feed was getting too rusty to send anything over. If we’d waited another month, it would have seized up entirely. We have blown the whole impulse stack trying to start it up again. Sure, we could have mixed the matter and antimatter cold, but it’s never been done. How’s that for a reason?

As some of you know, I have, in fact, started yet another podcast – it’s called Strange Sound, and it’s a long-running political rant … something like the audio version of my, well … political rants. Anyway, that soaked up some of my time and energy. Of course, there’s ongoing maintenance of the hammer mill. Not that I actually do any of it, but it is something that’s happening, and it does take time. (Just not mine.) Then there are local relationships to keep up. You can’t overstate the importance of this – If we don’t work our butts off to mollify our neighbors, they’re likely to come after us with pruning hooks. Have you ever been pruned by an angry neighbor? One time is enough, believe me. Finally, the hammer mill’s roof is in terrible shape, and I have to spend practically every rainy day changing the buckets under the leaks. It feels like bailing out the titanic sometimes, only with less cheesy music.

Well, we’ll see if anything comes charging down that RSS feed. (Keep your ears open.)