Hammer Mill Days

Take five. One... two... three... quatro! No, no - stop. Wrong key, man. Totally wrong key. It's the one around the back of the horn. You're concentrating too much on those front keys. Greetings and welcome to the house of dung and smog. Did I say "dung and smog"? I meant, sun and fog. Yes, the misty environs of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill on a cool Saturday morn - ah, 'tis a sight to behold. A veritable feast for the senses, particularly the olfactory. That burning smell? That's just us burning up the tape down here in our dungeon-like studio. (Maybe I did mean smog after all...) Okay... I am playing a little fast and loose with the facts. In this digital, nonlinear age, we have abandoned tape altogether and taken up the cudgel of cutting-edge recording technology - wax cylinders! No wait, not wax. Wire . Wire recording. Wild, wild new deal in tracking songs, mate! I heard all about it from the dude on the corner - the guy with half-a-boot. On his he...

Dubya Bush likely received a valuable political lesson from his father, but may have been only half listening. "War will make you popular," I can imagine the old man saying, "...so long as it's short and successful." Junior probably wandered off about when he heard the "so long." As a result, the younger Bush shares his father's love of bombing and invading other countries, but lacks George Senior's horse-sense about picking the right fights - namely, easily winnable ones. Hence Operation Iraqi Fiefdom and, in effect, the war in Afghanistan as well, which by any reasonable standard is also a dismal failure in achieving the original stated objective (i.e. destroying al Qaeda and capturing/killing Bin Laden). So... how do you finesse such spectacular under-achievements? Well, if you're none too subtle and you have a very low opinion of the masses, you move the goal posts. And you do it again and again. That's certainly the modus operandi ...