Hammer Mill Days

Right up those stairs ... watch your step, now ... is the master bedroom. The one with the stagnant puddles in the middle of the floor. That's where that drip in the living room is coming from. We're conserving water, you see. "Big Green" has to stand for some thing. Oh, hello blog post readers from around the world (and Italy, too). This may not be the best time to drop by. I'm taking a potential renter on the grand tour of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our palatial squat here in upstate New York. Times being what they are (and gigs being pretty thin on the ground just lately), we have been forced to consider the possibility of taking on tenants. Yes, I advertised in the local Pennysaver. (Someone said I should move up to the Nickelsaver, but I'm not made of money, frankly.) Gotten quite a few calls, at least by Marvin (my personal robot assistant)'s count. He's answering the phone, which is helpful... but I'm a little tired of the voicemail...

Yes, I know. The president's bin Laden victory lap was a bit much by Spock standards. (George W. Bush being more in the Kirk category.) But by the standards of American election year politics, it was pretty subtle. So the resulting outrage from the right was all the more laughable. Seriously - these are the people who had Dubya fly a jet fighter onto an aircraft carrier (which they had turned around to keep San Diego out of the shot), parade around in a flight suit, and then do his famously premature victory speech under an enormous "Mission Accomplished" banner. These are the people who incessantly reminded us of their greatness throughout the Bush terms, and who continue to this very day. Luckily for them, we are Americans and, as such, are born anew each and every morning. We have no collective memory, like a nation in advanced dementia. We do not value knowledge of our own history; in fact, the very term 'history' carries a negative connotation. Our politici...

Can't hear you. Can you turn it up? I don't know... to eleven, or maybe thirteen. Still nothing. Play harder, faster.... oh, wait. Didn't plug your cord into the console. Sorry. Sorrrreeeee... Oh, hi. Hey ... don't let anybody tell you (in case anybody ever tries) that producing yourself is easy. It's not, man, and I'll tell you why. You are the engineer. And the guitar tech. And the arranger. You get the drinks. And the snacks. It's bloody maddening - I even have to oil Marvin (my personal robot assistant) when he starts to squeak over there on the percussion riser. Anyway... we're elbow deep in production on our next album. Yes, it's a themed piece ... almost a rock opera, except with a lot less coherence. It grapples with monumental themes ... if you understand monumental to mean, simply, mental. It's been busy 'round these parts, I don't mind saying. Busier than we're used to, quite frankly. Recording, of course. Then there...

Lots going on, my friend. I'm just going to blow through a few stories and see what comes out on the other end. Missile Envy. I'm thinking they should declare April international missile month, since we started with North Korea's failed launch of their three-stage Galaxy-3 rocket, which they claimed was intended to send a satellite into orbit, and we've closed out the month with shots in India and Pakistan both. The first incident, of course, had officials, politicians, and commentators practically foaming at the mouth with both outrage and derision, plus plenty of snark when the thing broke into pieces (like many of our early missiles did). There would be consequences! they intoned righteously, joining in near universal condemnation and promises of further isolation. Jump forward about a week. India launches its AGNI-V A5 ICBM, what is indisputably a ballistic missile. Their officials brag that it is capable of carrying nuclear warheads and that it can reach Beij...

Frank, dropped it again. Gosh darn the blankety-heck. What the bacon-and-eggs is the matter with this motor-trucking washing machine? Cheese and crackers! Oh, yeah... it's that time of the week again. Time for all of you out there in cyberspace to peek inside the mad vortex of Big Green's life here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. Sorry about all of that salty language a moment ago. Our clothes washing device (enormously handy invention) is no longer operating properly, causing frustration, even something akin to anger and resentment. Strange, we humans. I do hope my outburst didn't cause you any consternation. If needed, counseling is available on Big Green's counseling page. Okay, so... as you can see, I have been remanded to sensitivity training. I'm having to edit my language (What the frank! Who in hades do these rubber chuckers think they are?) and regularly evince concern over the effect my words and actions may be having on those who experience them....

There isn't much I can say about the presidential race except ... it's going to happen, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. Much has been said about the general lack of enthusiasm about both major candidates. It seems we Americans always find ourselves in this situation. Certainly, we focus too much on famous people (i.e. politicians) and not enough on what is really important (i.e. politics). I supported Obama in 2008, but not because I loved him. Rather, it was because McCain would have been an unmitigated disaster - a point he has proven every time he's opened his mouth over the last three years. With respect to the presidency, voting is a zero-sum game. If you lose, the other wins. And the other, my friends, gets worse every time around. In all honesty, the Republican party is more virulent and destructive every time they return to power. It's hard to imagine an administration more regressive and destructive than that of George W. Bush, but judging by Ro...

Where did I put my html tags? I thought I packed them with my socks, but they don't appear to be in there. WFT, man.... getting a new home is always such a pain. No, friends. We have not abandoned the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. That would be something you might expect from the department of redundancy department (of redundancy). We have, however, abandoned our old web site and moved into a new one, designed by, I don't know, professional web designers... as opposed to my sorry ass, who threw together our last site with Front Page and some tweezers ... not to mention some cracked old photo manipulation software. Yeah, that's right. Do I have to draw you a picture? (Actually... that would have been better than what came out of that software.) Anywho... out with the old, in with the new. We've been using Wordpress for Hammermill Days (and, earlier, Notes from Sri Lanka) for over five years, and so we thought, hey, why not build the whole freaking site using the same sof...