Hammer Mill Days

I'm sure I'm not the first to make this observation, but I'll say it anyway. There's something compelling about Capella (the Goat star). What it compels us to do is another thing entirely. Booked into another series of club dates on the fourth stone out from Capella, my Big Green colleagues and I have tried to make the best of it. It hasn't been easy. For one thing, the locals here are not very fond of country music, and since our latest album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick , is largely made up of mock-country numbers, that puts a damper on things. We've had to reach deep down into the song bag to keep these rock-like creatures happy. (And by that crack I don't simply mean that they like rock music. I mean, they are themselves animate rocks, with stony arms and legs and eyes like geodes. But yes, unsurprisingly, they prefer rock music.) We asked sFshzenKlyrn , our perennial sit-in guitarist, to remove his cowboy hat for the duration (he tries hi...

After an eight-year coma, Ariel Sharon died this past week. I say good for him. I am glad that he's gone, and I say that without malice. No one deserves what he went through as a result of that stroke, not even a heartless killer. And I regret to say that that is exactly what he was, despite the graveside accolades. Starting with the Qibya massacre in 1953, when troops led by Sharon killed almost 70 Palestinians, as well as destroying 45 homes and a mosque, Sharon made it his business to make the Arab inhabitants of Israel/Palestine miserable, homeless, or dead. He earned his title "The Bulldozer" after the 1967 war when he pacified Gaza by destroying thousands of homes. While Sharon is hailed as a hero of the 1973 war - a war resulting from the stalemate policy encouraged by super-genius Henry Kissinger - he is probably best remembered for his role in the murderous 1982 invasion of Lebanon, in the midst of that country's civil war, culminating in the massacre of Pa...