Hammer Mill Days

Barack Obama is a decidedly small-bore president. This is by no means a revelation to anyone. I voted for the guy in 2008 because the notion of a McCain presidency (and a Palin vice-presidency) scared the bejesus out of me, and rightfully so. (I remain convinced that denying him the presidency saved us about 14 wars.) I voted for him again in 2012 to deny the Republicans the joy of having all three branches of government. But that's about all I've gotten out of it. He's a very cautious man, a very conventional man, and not at all inclined to take bold steps. Sure, he's Simon the Likeable. I think of it as the liberal equivalent of conservatives seeing W. Bush as someone they would like to have a beer with. Obama has an appealing persona to people like me, mostly because he's the first president in my lifetime that shares our experience. Of course, those considerations are an empty category, politically speaking. It doesn't matter at all whether or not I "...

Holy mother of pearl. My throat is in shreds. Just got done with a 23-page script for the next episode of Ned Trek, a now-regular feature on our podcast, THIS IS BIG GREEN . Spoiler alert: I do the voice of Reagan. Well.... All that yakking can make a man sore tired. And tomorrow I play the 47th in a 194-part series known as the reunion gigs of Puttin' on the Ritz, a band of many, many strange people (and I am one). But that is not what you're here for, to be sure. No, no, I'm sure you're anxious for me to conclude my three-part explanation of the 21 songs contained on Big Green's new album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick . It's like waiting for the next episode of Downton Abbey or Breaking Bad ... except that those things are, well, good-ish. Anywho, here's the splainin' ... and then, to bed, damnit. Santorum From Behind - Sounds obscene, I know, but it's necessary, believe me. Now that he's out of the race, Rick is just trying ...

Here we are again, man. Week is almost over and, what the hell, time to get back on the blog again. Get right back up on that bronco! as Lee Majors would say. Yee-haw ... and the rest of it. So, where was I? Oh, yeah. I was offering explanations for all of those 7 million songs on our new album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick , now appearing on iTunes, Spotify, etc., etc. I believe I left off with "Awesome Hair". Oh, Governor Scott's got a glowin' dome. Governor McDonnell's got some slop on his top. And so on. Here's some more 'splainin'.... Evening Crab Nebula - A resurrected song from Matt's holiday mix tapes past, re-worked and repurposed to tell part of "cousin" Rick's wacky election story. Picture a high-paid, low-I.Q. consultant, giving Rick his best advice while standing on one foot. He's singing this freaking song. Falling Behind - The news is not good, Rick. Not good at all, man. Look at the polls. Dropping...

I'm not going to focus hard on one topic this week, friends. At least I don't think I will. I never know until I get down to the third paragraph, so we'll see. Snowden. Was asylum for Edward Snowden worth canceling a summit about? The administration says that is not the only reason, but there can be little doubt it was a (if not the) deciding factor. Our own senator in New York, Schumer, used some pretty incendiary language about Russia, saying they had "stabbed us in the back", which is way over the top for him. This is not a place we want to go. Best remind ourselves that the Russia we have today is the one we worked toward building yesterday. Putin is the beneficiary of a strong presidency established by Yeltsin in the 90s with our enthusiastic support (back when we had them privatizing state assets for pennies on the dollar and creating what was then the most dramatic demographic self-implosion in many decades). Remember how he shot the Russian Parliament...

Lots going on these days. New podcast, new album, new burnish on Marvin (my personal robot assistant) ... everything is new around the hammer mill these days. This might be a good time to talk about our new album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick ... namely, what's on it, what complex themes, tortured melodies, and convoluted stories are behind each track. Isn't that the era we live in? The age of the "back story", where every reality show has interview sequences in which the stars talk about how they feel about the bogus melodramatic scene they were just in? Yeah, well ... we're not doing that. Here's a little run down of the tracks, until I run out of breath. (There's twenty-one of them, for pity's sake!) Fed Up - This is the opening manifesto, the raison d'etre for Cousin Rick Perry's political ambitions, in which Rick lays out his grievances with the federal government, creeping socialism, intrusive gravity, and what-not. Styl...

Bradley Manning is guilty, per his military proceeding. That's the way it's going to be. The government did not manage to pin the "aiding the enemy" charge on him, but because we live in the era of massive prosecutorial over-charging, he was convicted on about 20 other counts. It's likely that, on top of abusive pre-trial detention amounting to at least psychological torture (and probably physical torture as well - exposure to extreme temperature, sleep deprivation, etc.) Manning will be treated to decades in prison for the crime he committed; that dastardly crime for which there can be no excuses given, no quarter offered. "Justice" has been served. What was the crime again? Oh, yes. Exposing the sprawling criminality of our foreign policy, namely the Iraq war and the Afghan war, plus releasing a raft of diplomatic cables relating to prosecution of the global war on tactics ... I mean, terror. Heinous indeed. Perhaps someone needs to remind me again w...

It's here, it's here! Great gob in Heflin, it's here! What's that? No, of course I'm not talking about the royal offspring, recently delivered of the Duke and Duchess of whatever-the-hell. Something far more important. What is it? My wristwatch of course. I thought I left it in the local watering hole, but it's here, in my sock drawer - it's here! Now if I could just find my socks. (Note to self: check the watch drawer.) Oh, right... and a box came. Not by itself, you understand. A truck dropped it off. It was a biggish box, but not too big. A box full of discs. Not chock full, exactly - what I mean to say is that there were discs in the box. Discs called Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick . Yes, that's right - it's Big Green's third studio album, released after a hiatus of no less than five years (we released International House in 2008). It's certainly the longest album we've ever made - fully twenty-one tracks, 78 minutes of mu...