Hammer Mill Days

Did you call room service? Well, I sure as hell didn't. And what is this glorp, anyway? It looks like it's... it's.... IT'S ALIVE! Greetings from Titan, a dry alien moon orbiting the planet Saturn. We're taking a little break out here on what's described as "The Riviera of the Gas Giants" in all the travel brochures (my ass!) as we wait for the start of a second string of performances on Jupiter. I have to say, the accommodations are less than what we were encouraged to believe. For one thing, the hotel has no oxygen - it's bring your own here on Titan. That's probably because of the methane atmosphere - indeed, on this godforsaken rock they use bottled oxygen for blow torches. Freaky turnaround, dude. And the waterskiing! Not at all like the promotional DVD! They were showing black sand beaches and azure blue waters, and what do we find on the actual, non-promotional Titan? Liquid methane pools. Aromatic, to say the least. I am depressed. Stil...

I'll admit to being of an age that enables my most vivid memories of Senator Edward Kennedy to be those of his 1980 presidential campaign. I suppose that is because presidential politics tends to focus the mind, particularly during times of upheaval and uncertainty, which 1980 most certainly was. My late brother Mark, who passed away late that same year, took a keen interest in the campaign - he'd been a strong Kennedy supporter from his youngest days and particularly so with Robert Kennedy's 1968 run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mark, Matt (my Big Green compatriot) and I supported the younger Kennedy against Carter for many of the same reasons I have had for backing the more left-leaning candidates in that party since working on the McGovern campaign as a pre-teenager. But there was also that Kennedy symbolism, the notion that they represented in the minds of so many a kind of liberal ideal and inside-the-system activism strong enough to attract people who m...