Hammer Mill Days

Garbage out, garbage in. That's how that saying goes, right? Backwards? Are you sure? 'Cause around here, it's garbage out, garbage in. Well, friends, in preparation for our upcoming interstellar tour - ENTER THE MIND 2010: THE ULTIMATE BIG GREEN EXPERIENCE - we have hauled most of our moth-eaten possessions out to the curb (on Admiral Gonutz's orders). We have also begun to rack up commitments in the outer reaches of our galaxy (some "stellar" venues among them, I should add. Heh. heh. heh.). And, perhaps (but likely not) most importantly, we have identified a rent-a-spacecraft to replace our long since repossessed Jupiter 2 imitation craft. And hey, that ship, she's a beauty.... NOT. I should mention here that when I showed a picture of this moth-eaten craft to Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor (and the guy who makes every gizmo run), he turned a distinctly whiter shade of pale. Inside his enormous, distended brain, no doubt, flashed images of slee...

How are we our own worst enemy? So many ways, it seems. 9/11 - much referenced by conservative politicians - can be seen as an example of extremists using our own flawed technology and screwed up national infrastructure against us. (And with national assets like the Minerals Management Service and a toothless Securities and Exchange Commission, we hardly need Al Qaeda... As Richard Pryor might have put it, we're kicking our own ass.) Here are, it seems to me, a few obvious ways we facilitate those we are supposedly fighting: The "Ground Zero Mosque" Controversy. This is an unexpected bonanza for jihadi recruitment. It validates much of the propaganda about an America at war with Islam. It demonstrates the depth of our political pathology and our willingness to scapegoat more than 1 billion people because of the actions of a handful of criminally insane zealots. And it does so at the worst possible time, when expectations in the Islamic world are already being deflated b...

Yeah, put it out to the curb. Don't complain. We could live in a lousier neighborhood. At least here, we have curbs. Think about it, man. No, really.... THINK. Oh, hi. Glad to see you were able to take the time to stop by and read my little screed. Always edifying to see what your friends in Big Green are up to, eh? Perhaps edifying is not the right word. How about, better than cleaning toilets? If so, I would have to agree. (Of course, I have a proprietary interest here, I declare.) You caught us in the midst of a little house cleaning. As you may know, we are preparing for our upcoming interstellar tour, which we are calling ENTER THE MIND 2010 - THE ULTIMATE BIG GREEN EXPERIENCE. Actually, I just tagged that last piece on at the request of Admiral Gonutz, our tour promoter. He seems to think we have a tendency to undersell. (Personally, the fact that we're selling at all feels like overselling to me. But I digress.) Gonutz is just full of ideas, like a freaking jelly donut....

Would that the late Boris Karloff were still with us. Someone might be able to convince him to do a reworking of the "Monster Mash" that would fit the lunatic rantings of right-wing blogger Pam Geller: They did the mosque! (They did the monster mosque!) Yes, Geller referred to the proposed Muslim community center two blocks from the World Trade Center as the "monster mosque." But it's far too easy to simply heap opprobrium upon pathetic paranoid freaks like her. No, it's the established right-wing media and much of our political class that has kept this ball in the air for the past week. Such a remarkable nation we live in - one in which people crow about our constitutional freedoms and yet run hysterically from them whenever they are put to the test. Political figures from every corner of the country have been climbing over each other to denounce the "mosque" as inappropriate, insensitive, unacceptable, "sacrilege" (Charles Krauthammer),...

That thing you just said five minutes ago. Say it again. No, not that - the OTHER thing you said. The thing that wasn't some dumb-ass comment. Whoa... calm down, Hemingway! Sensitive artists, these rock musicians. Well, let me qualify that. I'm actually referring to the individuals, human and non-human, who hang around with rock musicians. I'm talking about your man-sized tuber, your Marvin (my personal robot assistant), your Mitch Macaphee, your Lincoln and anti-Lincoln, etc. We of Big Green proper (brother Matt, brother-in-law John, and I) have asked these hangers-on for suggestions on where we should take the next interstellar tour. Of course, this is a bit like placing 100 monkeys at 100 typewriters and hoping for Hamlet to pop out of one of the carriages. Still, you do get lucky from time to time, and just today - I swear - one of them made a suggestion that made sense. Actual sense, in a wholly non-ironic way. What am I babbling about? I'll get to it, I'll g...

Back to short takes. (Did somebody say shortcake?) Credibility gulf. If BP is to be taken at its word, oil is no longer spewing into the Gulf of Mexico by the millions of gallons. The only thing spewing right now, it seems, is the torrent of P.R. from the company responsible, as well as a copious amount of whining from the industry. The echoes of this have even my local Congressional district. Now, I've had my complaints about our Congressman, Mike Arcuri, and some of the positions he's taken. But just a look at his G.O.P. opponent is enough to disabuse me of any notion of sitting on my hands this November. Arcuri's rival, Richard Hanna, was criticizing Arcuri for supporting Obama's flaccid 6-month ban on deepwater drilling, saying the oil exploration companies will pull out and go somewhere else. This basically parrots the line from the Petroleum Institute, whose spokescreep I heard on NPR this morning. Think about it for half a second. When we open leasing on all tha...

Can't see. Must wipe the sweat from my tormented brow. That's it... that's got it. Finished... my work here is through! And now for the final... OH, MAN-GODDAMN! Hey, out there. How long has it been since you were last here? A week, already? I've spent practically that whole time trying to fix my A-90 keyboard controller. I suppose if you were to be charitable about it, you could describe me as technically challenged. And with help of the sort you get from Mitch Macaphee ( Big Green 's mad science advisor) and Marvin (my personal robot assistant), I feel like the proverbial one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. Hell, if this is a horse race, I'm the nag hopping along on one hoof. (Hmmmm... what other colorfully rustic aphorisms can I employ here?) It's hard enough trying to prepare for a tour under these conditions. But when you're also dealing with the uncaring vacuum of space, it's, well, kind of life-threatening. Speaking of life threatening,...