Hammer Mill Days

What time is it? Say what ? Can't be that yet, can it? Seems like we just got up... and now it's night fall. Oh, right. Small planet. Fast rotation. Got it. Trouble with being on the road is you never know what town you're waking up in. Or what planet. That's bad enough when you have a set itinerary, but with Big Green ... mother of pearl! Even when you've got your wits about you, it's hard to figure out where the hell you're playing. Like this little planetoid Urich our pilot drove us into. It's not on any astronomical charts. It's as yet undiscovered and unacknowledged by the scientific community. So, when we walk out on stage to do a few numbers, what the hell do we shout out to the crowd of hideously misshapen extraterrestrial concert-goers? "Helllooooooooo....... whatever!" Got any suggestions? Let us know, damn it. It's disorienting, and I'm about as disorientated as anyone needs to be. (Except maybe the man-sized tuber... on

Another segment of suggestions for president-elect Obama as he completes what feels like the longest presidential transition ever. Before I get into that, however, I will briefly join the chorus of people sounding off on Illinois governor Blagojevich and his jaw-dropping, bald-faced, kleptocratic frenzy to fill Obama's senate seat with the ass of the highest bidder. I think of myself as a fairly jaded individual, generally speaking, having trawled through the sludge of American politics most of my life on one level or another (never a very elevated one)... and yet somehow that transcript of Blagojevich saying "this thing is [fucking] golden" struck me as, well, appalling and depressing, even as it made me laugh. Just the sheer mind-numbing greed of it made me think, as Keith Olbermann said the other day, of Zero Mostel in the original movie "The Producers" ... "Oh! I want that money !!" Holy shit. Anyway, back to another Illinois politician of note, a