Hammer Mill Days

Yeah, we been workin' on a song list, goin' down, down, down, workin' on a song list - whoop! - writin' the set down. Nah, Big Green's not doing oldies - no sweat, man. Been there, done that. Besides, if you try to pull that off in the Crab Nebula, they'll cook you for dinner. Literally. (Ask sFshzenKlyrn , he'll tell you. That is one brutal venue, even for an etheric, transcendental creature with no fixed hairstyle.) Just making a point there, my friends. We've been slaving over this song list for the last week, in case you're interested in what we've been up to (and haven't been checking the mansizedtuber's twitter feed ). You may think that's about the easiest job in the world, but I warn you.... I WARN YOU.... it's not anything like easy. In fact, it's a lot harder than ... well, than that easy stuff. And there's a whole bunch of reasons why.... not least of which is the stark reality that we have to hole up in the C...

Right now, as I write these lines, MSNBC is probably in its fourth hour of coverage on the death of Michael Jackson, with many more to come. So much for "The Place for Politics". I will admit to be a frequent viewer of Olbermann and Maddow - often enjoy watching them, in fact - but that network operates on a definition of politics that is nearly indistinguishable from that of personality and celebrity. So much of the discussion is about individuals, about style, about posture more than policy. Incidents like Jackson's death put it in harsh relief. They'll be on this for days, turning it like a roast on a rotisserie... and they won't be alone in that. It's just the type of narrative our pop culture loves best: the mega-star, staggeringly popular yet strangely isolated, follows a long downward trajectory into a very public disintegration, then dies under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Elvis all over again. That and the myth of the young crash-and-burn star (...