Hammer Mill Days

Man, it's so hot in here. Marvin, can you turn up the air conditioning? Oh, right ... our air conditioning is a broken skylight. Sigh. Okay ... break another skylight, then. Use my forty-foot pole ... the one I use to keep my distance from things (and people) I don't like. Yes, friends ... it is the end of summer, past the dog days. August is coughing up blood, writhing in the blistering sun. (Look on the bright side, brother.) Not much going on around the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, as you might have suspected. I laid down a piano part on perhaps one of the most ludicrous recordings I've ever played on. I saw some bluejays in the courtyard. What else happened? Not mucho. Whoever said being a musician is tantamount to perpetual unemployment was on to something. (Hey ... I think that was me.) You can see why we often opt for these less-than-optimal interstellar tours, in lieu of the more profitable terrestrial variety. Pretty simple, really ... crappy work is better th

A private autopsy commissioned by the Brown family showed that Michael Brown, 18, was shot six times by Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson, Missouri police department. Two of those shots were to the young man's head. The Ferguson police department has released details about Michael Brown's personal history, as well as (evidently) the news that Wilson had been taken to the hospital after killing Brown. No details on the extent of his injuries, but evidently they weren't anywhere near as serious as those he inflicted on that young man for the crime of walking down the street. It comes as no surprise that Fox News and other gutter press outlets have latched onto this little tidbit about Wilson. That's their form of "race card" journalism, playing to the more than sixty percent of white Americans who feel there is no racial component to this killing. But just as a thought experiment, let's suppose for a moment that Wilson got slugged a few times by Brown