Hammer Mill Days

Here in the situation room, no one speaks in muted tones. Everything is shouting, all the time, shouting. Oh, the noise! Can't we all just get along? Oh, hi, you-all. Hope everything is well back on Earth. We will see you there soon, I trust, as we appear to be heading in that general direction, assuming Mitch Macaphee's navigational skills have not gone seriously downhill in the last month or so. (We walk by faith, not sight.) Rolling to the end of another outer-limits tour - this one a bit more ad hoc than previous outings, apropos of the severe economic recession back home. Couldn't even afford to brand this tour, and that typically doesn't cost much more than a couple of beers at the local pub. (We quaff them until somebody emits a decent idea... or something a bit less savory.) As you know, Big Green always operates on the cheap, but this time was the worst yet. As someone who's used to dry Soy Slice sandwiches, it took some time getting used to sandwiches mad...

Don't know if you have credit cards with major TARP-rescued banks. I certainly do, and this week I received a notice from one of them telling me that they were summarily changing the terms of my credit agreement. In essence, they said they were raising the interest rate on my card to 23%. Yes, that's right - 23% on a balance well below my credit limit, on a card I've had for at least a decade without missing a payment. You don't seem surprised. Perhaps they've done the same to you... and, in fact, they are doing the same to everyone, as far as I know. It seems CitiGroup, the recipient of $45 billion in publicly funded bailout dollars, has settled on a business model that empties the pockets of American taxpayers a second time. Charging 23% and more on credit in an economic environment such as this, when people are losing their jobs, their homes, their shoes , for chrissake... and when institutions like Citi are drawing money from the Federal Reserve lending window a...

There it is again. Hear it? That creaking noise. Yeah, yeah... that one. Is that your astronaut couch or one of the main support beams holding this clunker together. Don't be in a hurry to answer that. Oh, hi, Web-based readers, listeners, and curiosity seekers. It's your old pal Big Green , out here in deep space, fresh off a thrashing series of gigs on Kaztropharius 137b - one of the few places in the known universe where our music gets played, bought, and reviewed - and headed in the general direction of home. Yes, we've had it for the time being. After all, the holidays are coming, daylight savings time has ended (spend all that saved-up daylight yet?), and darkness is falling across the northern hemisphere of our tattered planet. It's at this time of year, more than any other, that the sojourner's thoughts turn to hearth and home, and certainly we of Big Green are no exceptions. Many's the time I've repaired backstage (what the hell, you can hardly re...

Well, I don't know if any of you were following it, but my neighboring Congressional District - New York's 23rd - just experienced a national political dogfight reminiscent of the one we were treated to three years ago. In some ways, it was worse, actually. You may know the story. Long time Republican Congressman John McHugh was tapped by Obama to be Army Secretary, opening up a special election to replace him. Instead of being in essence a regional race for a national office, this became a clusterfuck grudge match between two wings of the Republican Party - the moderate-conservative and the lunatic-conservative. And the actual fighting took place not so much between office holders in the G.O.P., but among retirees, resignees, also-rans, and professional bloviators like Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, Newt Gingrich, George Pataki, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Army, and so on. The G.O.P.'s-nominated candidate was apparently not conservative enough to please these... these.... objects, so...

One day you're up, the next you're down. As true in outer space as it is back on terra firma. Take it from one who knows. (Or from Juan, who knows... because he knows, too.) Just found our way over to Kaztropharius 137b in hopes of finding some Big Green fans. (Seems like that quest takes us farther and farther with each passing year.) Not a lot of love to be had in the Great Magellanic Cloud, but the Kaztropharians are reasonably congenial ... if a bit super-sized. Jesus christmas, what an enormous crowd of revelers we had that first night! It was like being in the outer-space version of Gulliver's Travels, not the Lilliput journey but that other one. (No, not the horse people. The other, other one... with the big people.) While giants tend to make me a little nervous, most of my colleagues seemed unperturbed. Mitch Macaphee just worked on various science projects, off in a corner some where. The man-sized tuber practiced his saxophone backstage - a bit distracting, bu...

A lot of explosions are taking place in the imperial hinterlands these days. No matter how optimistic you might be, it's a little hard to convince oneself that things are moving in anything like a positive direction. Of course, we live in an era when people point to Iraq as if it were some kind of success story. The truth is, that country is simply blowing up a bit more slowly than it was a couple of years ago. I suppose you could say that the success of counterinsurgency strategy was to help bring a full-scale fratricidal war down to 2003-04 levels of killing. That is a bit like an arsonist taking credit for helping to put out a house fire he himself started - one that resulted in multiple fatalities. (Note to our "leaders": Don't expect a good citizenship award any time soon... aside from the Nobel prize.) I must admit, I find the "the surge worked" crowd more than a little nauseating - most of them were in favor of this disastrous war in the first place. ...

Got another pencil? This one's a little scratchy. You know - dull. And there ain't no pencil sharpener on this here space ship. Hmmm.... could be a lyric. Got to write that down... if I just had a PENCIL. Oh, hiya. You've come upon us in mid-passage, once again. We're meandering our way into deep, deep space, heading for some place a bit more congenial to the particular brand of music we've dedicated ourselves to. (What brand is that? Not sure how to answer you. Try my brand.) Having left Neptune under something of a cloud, Big Green is setting its sites on the mysterious deep space object known as Kaztropharius 137b , where we had a substantial following a few tours back. (You know... way back in, what, 2003 or 2002? Can't rightly recall. Do a Google search on Kaztropharius and then tell me .) Now, I don't think I have to tell you that Kaztropharius 137b is quite a long ways away from here. It's actually close to Zenon, the home planet of our sit-in...