Hammer Mill Days

Never mind, Lincoln, I’ll get it. Hello? Yes, this is the Cheney Hammer Mill. Who is this? Hello? HELLO? IT’S COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE! Actually, that’s probably not true. I just like to get the pot boiling a little bit before I start typing in earnest. Yes, like so many of you, we at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill get an unending stream of fundraising and advertising scam calls, each and every day. I’ll tell you, it’s hard to get about the work of an unemployed pop band if you’re getting interrupted every twenty-five minutes by a furiously ringing telephone. There are things that Big Green must not do to remain Big Green – these telemarketers are trying to take that away from us, and I won’t have it, do you understand? I know what some of you are thinking right now. “Joe,” you’re thinking (and by the way, thank you for calling me by my given name) “Why don’t you just get an answering machine?” Good question, nameless interloper. The fact is, we already h...

Not all politics is local, but a lot of what people actually experience about politics is. I say this as someone who has spent much of my life being represented in city hall, Albany, and Washington by people who do not even remotely reflect my views. Such is the lot of a leftist in upstate New York, right? Still, when it came to some major issues, like acid rain or aid to the Nicaraguan “Contra” terror army, there was some alignment between myself and our longtime Congressmember, Sherwood Boehlert, an old-style Republican who represented our district for about 24 years. Boehlert was perhaps the most liberal member of the GOP caucus in the House towards the end of his tenure, and he was replaced by a Democrat who was almost indistinguishable from him ideologically. I had come by that point to think of my hometown as Centerville – the town in the middle. And that held true for a short while thereafter – Democrat Michael Arcuri was replaced by Republican Richard Hanna in ...