Hammer Mill Days

The trouble with doing liner notes is that, damn it, there aren't any liners nowadays. Nothing to put the notes on. Are you getting all this? Great. Just dictating my thoughts to Marvin (my personal robot assistant). What else are PRA's for anyway if not taking dictation? I had a dictating machine once, but it went off one cay and started an authoritarian government in the Philippines ... so now I've got Marvin. Sounds like a foot disease. (Don't tell Marvin I said that. Gratefully, he's not programmed to read blogs.) What am I dictating to said personal robot assistant? Just incidental liner notes on our upcoming album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. Yes, I know, this is billed to be an album by Cousin Rick Perry, for Cousin Rick Perry, featuring Cousin Rick Perry. That is all true. But it is also the next Big Green album, and damn it, it needs liner notes like carter needs liver pills. (Ask your grandfather, kid.) This is a complicated task, so it is t...

You've heard enough about the debate, I know. Now hear it from me. I will dispense with my usual grouse about these not being actual debates - no proposition advanced or opposed, no rules of order, etc. Let us concede that they are essentially dueling press conferences. The salient fact is, I tuned in to watch a debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney, and neither of those two men showed up. Obama was taciturn and seemingly unaware that he was in front of a national television audience of 68 million, his head featured in an inset box practically the whole ninety minutes. (I felt like yelling, "He's over there, Barry! Stop doing your homework!") And Romney. Has a man ever run farther or faster from his own proposals? Can conservatives truly celebrate the candidate they saw on Wednesday night? Just a few small points: Romney: "I don’t want to cut our commitment to education" Okay, aside from funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, I ...