Hammer Mill Days

Try reversing the cabin pressure. That's right - send it all out into the void of space. Oh, wait... we probably need the oxygen, don't we. Scratch that. I said SCRATCH IT! NOOOOOO....!! Oh, hi. Wow, THIS is embarrassing. Didn't know anyone was listening/reading. I was just having a heated word with our navigator, the man-sized tuber. (Yes, that's right - we have a plant for a navigator.) Got a little technical issue that needs some attention, that's all. Wouldn't want you to think that Big Green is hard on the help - no, sir... we treat them like KINGS. Emperors, really... especially the cruciferous ones like Tubey. He needs a little extra consideration, given his mobility problems. (Though the cart has helped these past few years, I must admit.) Don't want to sound like I'm hyper-critical, but occasionally tempers wear a little thin in the vacuum of space, especially when you have some kind of deadly space virus loose in your vehicle, and the only thi...

I suppose on some level I must be an optimist because I can't seem to dispel the notion that something good might come out of the health care debate, even when confronted with such a hopeless legislative clusterfuck as the Baucus bill. Maybe it's our recent experience with the topic of global warming that nudges me in that direction. Think of it - a few short years ago our leaders were disputing the science of climate change with some confidence. Now that skepticism is the province of the tin hat patrol and the policy debate is over how much (or how little) to do about the problem. Too little, too late? We did lose precious years during the Clinton and Bush administrations (particularly the latter) when fundamental changes might have been set in motion, but were stonewalled. Those changes will come harder now, and perhaps to insufficient effect. Nonetheless, there was a kind of sea change in 2007 and I suppose something like that could happen with health care in America. If we ...

Be the king of the clones you can, you can have a mother ship up in space. Drop me off at Atlantis, man. Look there - red Mars has a face! Oh, hi, folks. Just reciting a few of Matt's lyrics in advance of the next performance. Perhaps you recognize the song - a little number called "Volcano Man" from our last album, International House . (You don't? Well... perhaps you haven't gotten round to picking up a copy. If so, you are proudly walking with the majority.) Actually, it's quite apropos of our current circumstances. We have, in effect, lifted off from the bizarro planet Earth (that home of many time zones) thanks to Ben Franklin's electrical advice, and we have made our way back through the equally strange time wormhole to present-day Neptune, which offers volcanoes very similar to those found in Matt's strange, strange song. Seems to me this would be the ideal place to film the video for "Volcano Man" (about time we got started on that li...

Has it really been eight years since we started this phase of the Afghanistan catastrophe? I can hardly believe it. Even so, those dark days of late 2001 are beginning to seem like a long time ago now. It was a difficult time, to be sure, on so many different levels - a nation still reeling from the 9/11 attacks, lashing out at one utterly destroyed by decades of warfare, much of it stoked by our government (with the cooperation of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia). We are now told that the place is being overrun by religious fanatics - the Taliban - who want to bring the place back to the 13th century. From where it stands now, that wouldn't be a very long trip. The Soviets pounded the living piss out of the place, to be sure, but we made a very conscious decision to fund and support hyper religious elements within Afghan society as the core of that nation's resistance efforts - some say before direct intervention by the Soviet military, and certainly thereafter. Our relationship wit...

No, no, Lincoln. You need to pull harder on the string. Hold it up, like this... see? That's right. That's... wrong! The storm cloud is to the east, man, to the east! Hoo, man... You got me at a bad time. Just here with the Big Green posse on this bizarro version of the planet Earth - one on which different historical periods co-exist like folks at a multicultural retreat. Our traveling companion, Abe Lincoln (or is it anti-Lincoln? They both tagged along and I'm having trouble telling them apart), is trying to work out how to fly a kite. He got the idea from fellow prominent historical figure Benjamin Franklin, who arrived on board the Lusitania to participate in a little recreational kite-play here on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. I'm encouraging Lincoln to take in a little slack on that kite line, and he's just not getting it. Ben Franklin has offered a few helpful tips, but he keeps getting distracted by his Blackberry. (Guy just can't put it down, for ch...

A new study published in the American Journal of Public Health provided us with a useful portrait of the true cost of our current health care system. The study found that uninsured Americans have a 40% higher risk of death than those who have health insurance. Based on current levels of uninsured - somewhere around 45 million people - they estimate the annual death toll of our profit-focused system at around 45,000 lives lost. Lack of insurance is now one of the most deadly medical conditions in this country, ahead of kidney disease in the number killed. That is to say nothing of the number sickened, disabled, and bankrupted in addition - many of the last category, I'm certain, immediate kin to the dead. I would imagine this would be shocking news anywhere else in the world. Here, it merits perhaps a brief reference on the evening news... then it's time to move on. Yep, 45,000 dead from lack of health insurance. Man, that's a lot of bodies, Ken! Up next, here's Brad wit...

No WPIX? That's odd. Okay, then. Try WRVO in upstate New York. Nothing? Well.... that may not mean anything. Still.... you'd think there'd at least be static. Hello, friends of Big Green . Now, I'd like to be able to tell you that we managed to break out of the strange inter-temporal space warp we zagged our way into a couple of weeks ago. (Has it been a couple of weeks? Bobbing through a time warp, I tend to lose track of time.) And I'd like to be able to tell you that we flew our way over to Neptune for a string of highly successful and lucrative - yes, LUCRATIVE - performances to adoring crowds of seven-legged leviathans from the nether reaches of our solar system. I mean, what band wouldn't like to be able to tell you that? (Can't think of a single one.) Alas, it was not the case. Yes, we did emerge from the time warp... but apparently not in the right place at all. (I just hope sFszhenKlyrn is having a good time in our absence, playing those cushy gig...