Hammer Mill Days

I think we need more compression on the mids. No, more than that - I can still hear my voice. What do you mean I'm paranoid? Does everybody think that?? Whoops - didn't think anyone was listening. (See... I'm not paranoid!) That's right, I'm here at my lonely console, cloth-eared, putting the finishing touches on Big Green's new album. (Not so new anymore, actually, but.... don't say that to the vultures at our corporate label.) Just twiddling a knob here and there, virtually speaking. Pressing the "good" button, as it were. Then it's just a question of running order, album art, and.... oh yeah, a name. What the hell should we call the freaking thing, anyway? That's usually the easy part. I mean, Matt can think of album names all day long. (I just follow him around with a bucket.) Trouble is, around this place, you can't even hear yourself think . Vas is loss ? The place sounds like a bloody machine shop, that's vas... I mean, wh...

Well, it took another visit from Cheney to get the bottom to fall out of Iraq yet again. The man hasn't lost his touch, to be sure. All kidding aside, it became a good deal more difficult this week for the administration, pro-war congresspeople, and the corporate media to act as though things are going swimmingly over there and that "life is returning to normal for ordinary Iraqis," as John McCain suggested during his surprise (is there any other kind for prominent Americans?) visit. The escalation in violence was pretty strongly telegraphed by all the rhetoric about Iranian interference in the shape of arms and support for extremists (or "Al Qaeda", as McCain bizarrely claimed on more than one occasion recently - you know you're in trouble when Joe Lieberman has to step in to correct your reactionary fulminations). No doubt our trusty veep was giving Baghdad's leaders a pep talk before they commenced their attack on what is likely the largest organized...