Hammer Mill Days

What was that? You want more? Already ? No chance, Jack. I'm shutting you off. This little watering hole has dried up, my friend. WTF, followers of Big Green's meandering life story - since when am I the flapjack nazi, anyway? Am I not every bit the addict that my various colleagues have shown themselves to be over the last few years? I should say so. (And, in fact, I did.) Even now, as lame made-for-television-commercial emo music wafts up from the living room downstairs, I am pouring grade A Patagonian pancake batter into the frying pan, the glorious golden circles of nutrition spreading out from the stream, spattering hot butter in every direction. Total abandon, my friends - isn't that what you expect out of your pop musicians? Total, aimless, sputtering self-abandon, yea unto self-destruction. I have embarked upon that grimly seductive road. If I'm less than generous with the fruit of my skillet, it is out of conscience, not selfishness. DON'T FOLLOW ME HERE! ...

Sy Hersh just published a story in The New Yorker on the Bush White House's evolving plans to attack Iran . I imagine the fact that they are contemplating such madness will come as a surprise to no one, but Hersh describes a recent shift in the administration's rationale from "counterproliferation" to "counterterrorism", and this does raise some troubling possibilities. Their efforts to blame Iran for all of their troubles in Iraq have kicked into high gear over the past few months, and Hersh reports that they appear to believe that, with respect to public opinion, they are getting more traction with this argument than they had with the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran. (Apparently the American people are not as anxious to march lemming-like to the tune of that particular drum as they were in 2002-03.) This, of course, means that the Bush team is, once again, fixing the facts around the policy - deciding what they want to do first (e.g. bomb Iran), then work...

Now, let's see... how does that song go? Hmmmm.... strike up the band, Johnny. One small step... for one bald man. Giant leap for all time. Christmas day, thank you, ma'am. I came in peace... and left my mind! That's an oldy. Oh, yes... Christmas 1996 - I remember it well. As soon as we get our thumbs out of our asses on this seemingly endless project, I'm going to trawl through the archives and dust off some of those recordings that have never before seen the light of day. Prepare to be amazed. (Did I say "amazed"? I meant "annoyed." Or perhaps "nauseated".) But before you get to thinking that I'm distracting you from our current lethargy with vague promises of archival releases somewhere down the road, let me assure you that your good friends in Big Green are looking over these old songs for some very, very good reasons. And no, I don't mean nostalgia for a past equally obscure as our present. No, no.... better reasons than that...

If the aim this week was to put Iran in the crosshairs, the Bush administration barely needed to lift a finger, it seems. People were climbing over one another to denounce president Ahmadinejad and none so much as those who invited him to speak at Morningside campus. Is it possible that his invitation was the result of some kind of clerical error? Perhaps they meant to invite some other president - someone committed to democracy, the rule of law, and the whims of the Bush clan, like "president" Pervez Musharraf. Whatever the case may be, Columbia was ground zero in the clash of civilizations for a few hours, with Ahmadinejad being decried as the "Hitler of the Middle East". (Hmmm... that has a familiar ring to it.) Hell, over there, you can hardly take a bath without six or seven Hitlers jumping in with you. I guess the standard for Hitlerianism has lapsed somewhat over the past few years. Used to be you had to, you know, invade someone. Now it's just saying a ...

Are you ready to rumble ? Not yet? Okay then. Just asking. Don't get upset, now. Put that down. I said PUT THAT DOWN! Do it or someone's going to get hurt. No. NO. NOOOOOOOO!!! Ahem. Well, we won't post any more of that exchange, as it may be upsetting to young children. (This is a FAMILY blog, friends. Fuck yes.) Welcome back to the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, where band members are listless, robots are corroding, and plant creatures are setting down new roots as we speak. (The man-sized tuber has abandoned his terrarium for a patch of ground in the courtyard. Seems he's getting in touch with his inner gingko tree.) Yes, your friends and colleagues in Big Green have taken refuge in the same safe harbor, seeking shelter from the storm beneath the same perforated roof that has offered us a modicum of protection over the past seven years. No, it hasn't fallen in yet. And we have hopes that that will never, ever happen. (Well.... "never, ever" is a very l...

Well, it didn't take long for the latest Iraq fantasy to start falling apart. The so-called "Anbar Awakening", trumpeted by General David Petraeus as such an amazing success, is every bit the fraud you might have expected by this point. It took some intrepid reporting by people like Big Noise Films (featured on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! ) to get a closer look at what is actually happening in that unhappy province, and it isn't pretty. But then, ethnic cleansing never is. It seems some of the enlightened tribal leaders with whom we are now "allied" led an effort to drive more than 14,000 Shi'ite families out of Anbar and into some pretty miserable looking shantytowns on the outskirts of Baghdad - maybe 130,000 people in all expelled from their homes by the very people we're glad-handing. Did our people know of this? A little hard to imagine they didn't, since in one of the communities featured in the Big Noise report, the U.S. military grou...

Take five. One... two... three... quatro! No, no - stop. Wrong key, man. Totally wrong key. It's the one around the back of the horn. You're concentrating too much on those front keys. Greetings and welcome to the house of dung and smog. Did I say "dung and smog"? I meant, sun and fog. Yes, the misty environs of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill on a cool Saturday morn - ah, 'tis a sight to behold. A veritable feast for the senses, particularly the olfactory. That burning smell? That's just us burning up the tape down here in our dungeon-like studio. (Maybe I did mean smog after all...) Okay... I am playing a little fast and loose with the facts. In this digital, nonlinear age, we have abandoned tape altogether and taken up the cudgel of cutting-edge recording technology - wax cylinders! No wait, not wax. Wire . Wire recording. Wild, wild new deal in tracking songs, mate! I heard all about it from the dude on the corner - the guy with half-a-boot. On his he...