Hammer Mill Days

  No, man … I think it starts like this. Or maybe it’s a little slower than that. But it’s in E for sure. What? It’s in A? Are you sure? Damn …. You know, I’ve never been very good at total recall. I don’t think my time at the Cheney Hammer Mill has improved my memory, either. So, what the hell am I talking about? Well … I’m gonna tell you. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and I have been pulling out the old numbers. No, I don’t mean numerals in Old English script. No, I don’t mean stale joints. I mean songs, damn it! Sorry. That came out a little stronger than I meant it to be. Suffice to say that we’ve decided to take a few hours to dust off some items from our back catalog. It’s a catalogue of mostly Matt’s songs, as he is the more prolific writer, by far, but regardless of authorship, there’s a lot of shit in there. (And by “in there” I mean in a recondite side room of the hammer mill where they used to keep the machine tools.) Invisible chestnu...

Quite a week in the history of American empire. I listened to the commentary unfold this week as the 40-year war in Afghanistan drew to a close and I was reminded of, well, 40 years ago. Around that time I read a collection of essays by Noam Chomsky unwrapping the reams of commentary that followed the end of another seemingly endless American war, the one in Vietnam. A lot of what he was writing about is just as true today as it was in the mid to late 1970s. The collection was called Towards a New Cold War and I should probably re-read it. I suspect it would prove a useful guide to the dreck I am hearing on a daily basis from the mainstream media – specifically, in my case, from the panel on Morning Joe . That show is as close to the center of the imperial enterprise as any media property. They should rename it “The Blob Speaks” or something along those lines. Bungling efforts to do good One of the narratives that emerged from the disaster that was the Vietnam...