Hammer Mill Days

There are not filling stations out yonder. Just ask Warren Oates. If you can't find him, seek out another character actor and ask him or her. You may be surprised by their answer. (Or not.) Here's what happened on the "road" this week: 10.15.2011 - Pulled into Neptune, was feeling 'bout half-past dead. Our rent-a-ship has been sputtering, so we brought it into a Neptunian garage for service. The cost? Full proceeds from our three performances on Neptune, plus 9% excise tax. (Looks like Herman Cain is having an impact up here, as well. The craters tell the tale.) sFshzenKlyrn practically melted his Telecaster on the fourth song (Why Not Call It George?), then settled down for a succulent Neptunian roast. (Roasted crater peat. This is important: Neptunian is not ... repeat, not ... one of the great cuisines.) 10.17.2011 - Strange how Polaris looks like downtown Rochester. Could be worse. We set up on a suspended platform - one of those anti-gravity jobs you see ...

I'm not a big fan of the notion that people in custody should be abused, beaten, or killed. Once you have them restrained, if circumstances warrant it, that should be enough. Seeing Gaddafi beaten and bloodied, then expired with a bullet hole in his head was kind of sickening, frankly. Sure, he was an autocratic asshole. But he was also defeated and in custody. If the Libyans are starting their brave new future with extrajudicial killings, it doesn't sound too promising. But then, I suppose, that would put them in the same league as their sponsors ... particularly, us. It's been said that the Libya intervention is Iraq done the Obama way. Today kind of underlines that notion a bit. We didn't get all arrogant about it or act unilaterally. We pushed through a UN resolution - something Bush couldn't have had and probably wouldn't have wanted, since his administration was actively trying to sideline the UN. Obama is a true imperial internationalist, and the product ...

Good evening, Mr. Phelps. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to read this blog entry from top to bottom without falling over backwards. This blog will self-destruct in ten seconds. Good luck, Jim! Don't mind that first paragraph. I sometimes rent my blog space out to sixties television shows. Has something to do with the space-time vortex through which we ordinarily travel when on these interstellar tours. Don't ask me to explain - I'm not an actual scientist. And unlike some of my blog renters, I don't even play one on television. Anyway, here's a rundown of how Big Green's [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011 is going so far, ripped straight from the pages of my log book. 10.08.2011 - Negotiated our way through the asteroid belt. We needed to lighten our load somewhat, so we tossed a few things overboard, like Marvin (my personal assistant)'s Lowery organ he borrowed from our one-time promoter and second keyboard player, Tiny Montgome...

Can't call me a cynic quite yet. The Occupy Wall Street movement seems a very positive development to my jaundiced eye. Hell, there were reportedly 400 people at the rally in Utica. When we brought out more than 200 for the big demo on the eve of the Iraq war, that seemed amazing for a place like this. 400 is practically unheard of. There is a strong undercurrent of resentment about the financial crisis and the fact that virtually none of the large institutions that caused the meltdown have been held to account, just as no executive in any of those firms has faced the threat of prosecution. Nay, they have continued to receive obscene bonuses, showboating their excess as if to flaunt their immunity from the restrictions of either the law or the marketplace. Like Dick Cheney bragging about his support for torture, they seem to be daring us to do something - anything - about their transgressions. You can't touch me, they laugh. Well.... maybe we can. There seems to be an overwhelm...

Better take this slow, Mitch. Those suckers look sharp, real sharp. Sharp as a ... a very sharp thing. Got a thesaurus? No, it's not a creature from the Cretaceous. It's a book with.... oh never mind. Well here we are, on the first leg (or arm, perhaps) of Big Green's much anticipated (by us) [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011 - an aimless romp through the chewy center of the galaxy and from one end of our voluminous songbook to the other. Oh yes, we're going from A to Z on this one. That was something we settled on in the rehearsal cellar, mainly because we couldn't decide what the hell to play. So Matt pulls out this massive loose-leaf tome of songs from hell, arranged alphabetically, and we started paging through. From All Saints Come to You're Dripping ... it's a veritable cornucopian magnum opus of Big Green numbers from back in the day. Our set lists are the stuff of nightmares, frankly. (And who's this Frank Lee you keep speaking of?) ...

The Pew Research Center released a study this week examining attitudes about the ongoing wars, one of which is celebrating a grim little birthday this week. The war in Afghanistan is turning ten, and showing no signs of letting up. Yet the study shows that maybe a third of the American public is actually following the wars. For most people, it's like a reality show that has lost its luster; there is really no more profound an investment in the enterprise than that. This is, some have pointed out, the longest continuous conflict the U.S. has ever been involved in, and certainly (I suspect) the most serious war "we've" ever fought that didn't involve some kind of conscription. Less than one percent of Americans have fought in these wars, and none of them have paid any higher taxes to underwrite them. It's hard to imagine how a war this difficult to justify could last a decade or more on the backs of anything other than an all-volunteer force. If there'd been...

Electrodes to power. Turbines to speed. Vector diagrams to light board. Finger fins to the driver behind. Quarter to three in the afternoon. What am I saying? Doesn't matter, really. We're getting close to the departure date on Big Green's [INSERT NAME HERE] Interstellar Tour 2011 , our hotly-anticipated romp through the musical hinterlands of outer space, with planned stops in the Jovian system (Jupiter for you space travel novices), Betelgeuse, Kaztropharius 137b , Sirius, and the planet Zenon in the Small Magellanic Cloud, home base of our sometime-guitarist, sFshzenKlyrn . Yes, I know - last time we stopped there we took a few lumps, but they've since healed up, and hey - never let it be said that we let experience stand in the way of a good lapse in judgment. Still got it, baby. Anyhow, we're just running through our confusing array of pre-launch checklists. Can't be too careful these days, particularly when your vehicle has such a spotted past as the one ...