Hammer Mill Days

I don't know, man. That song seems kind of dark. Dark, but in a happy way. Yeah ... that's the way we do it around here, am I right? No ... that was a rhetorical question. Never mind. Oh, hello. It's your old pal Bozo. I mean, Joe-zo. (That might have been my clown name if I had chosen another, slightly divergent path in life, but I digress.) Having a little band meeting here. Joe? Present. Matt? Present. Marvin (my personal robot assistant)? Present, to the extent that an automaton can ever be TRULY present, but setting philosophical questions aside ... Mitch Macaphee? Not present. Actually, in truth it's just me and Matt, and the topic is songwriting. It goes like this. He's got songs, I've got songs ... all God's children got songs. That said, they're all based on subject matter that's, well, a little dark. Dark matter, if you will. Now, it's not surprising that we would use the stuff that makes up the bulk of the universe as the substance...

When you think about the Kavanaugh nomination, you really need to step back and see the full picture. Sure, stopping the nomination is crucial, and it's perhaps fortunate that he planted the seeds of his own self-destruction decades ago, long before his tenure as a hyperpolitical operative in the Republican Party. (Honestly, the guy is like the Zelig of American conservatism, working on the Star investigation, researching Vince Foster, participating in the "Brooks Brothers Riot" during the Florida recount, and on from there.) But if his nomination fails, they will attempt to fill the slot quite quickly with a much more boring, just as reactionary judge capable of serving multiple decades on the Supreme Court. So ... why not just withdraw this troubled judge? My guess is that they're clinging to this one because Kavanaugh has proven to be such a reliable operative, and because he has a freakishly expansive view of executive power and privilege. (He apparently develop...

Huh. Never saw THAT one before. Do that again, Anti Lincoln. Wow. Are you sure that was developed in the 1850s? It looks a little post modern to me. Ah, readers. Greetings. Here's a handy tip: You know you have waaaay too much time on your hands when you spend a perfectly good afternoon listening to the antimatter 16th president explain that po-mo was invented by General McClellan. For chrissake ... everybody knows it didn't emerge until the later on in the Grant administration. I'll tell you, in Anti Lincoln's tiny mind, history is a total confidence game. If he were the actual Great Emancipator (or Posi-Lincoln, as it were), he would understand the importance of history. Posi-Lincoln loved history more than chicken fricassee. (And he loved chicken fricassee.) We're still in songwriting mode over here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in upstate New York. Every day I pick up my superannuated acoustic guitar and start strumming the five chords I learned as a ...

I come from the land of second chances, so the current Kavanaugh saga has a distinctly familiar ring to it. Mind you, I have not benefited from the level of privilege that Judge K has enjoyed his whole life through, but close enough. I grew up in what was described once as a "rock-ribbed Republican" town in upstate New York, virtually all white residents, lots of professionals and rich folk as well as middle class, borderline working class. It's the kind of place where you have to fuck up pretty badly before it affects you in any serious way. Underage drinking, drug use, and other low-level criminality were widespread. Arrests were not unheard of, but rare, and the impact of these brushes with the law were almost never life-changing. Right down the street, in the heart of the city, people of color face a far different reality. Their opportunities for advancement are severely constrained, and when something goes wrong, it's either life-changing or life-ending. I thin...

Let's see .... how does the barre system go again? Oh, right. It's freaking impossible. Forgot that part. Back to the banjo chords then. I wonder how good songwriters handle questions like this. Yes, if you haven't already guessed, I'm attempting to write some songs this week. Well, I should say one song, but that's being somewhat generous. I can't let Matt carry the entire burden of composing for Big Green. What kind of brother would that make me? I'll tell you what kind. My kind, that's what. Just STAY OUT OF IT. Anyway ... that's why I'm handling this guitar. Notice I didn't say "playing". That's a bridge too far ... and this song of mine doesn't even have a bridge. Frankly, I don't see how Matt does it. He dreams up these songs, harmonizes them in about twenty minutes down in the basement of the Cheney Hammer Mill, then tracks the suckers. Me? I get some lame idea, knock it around in my head for a couple of d...

It was primary week (again) here in New York , where our political leaders see fit to have more than one primary per election season and place one of them bizarrely on a Thursday. Seems like a good time to do some short takes on the stuff and nonsense that has been dominating our news this past week. Where to begin? Super Storm. Hurricane Florence is bearing down on the east coast of the U.S., and is his wont, the President's first comments centered on, well, himself and the amazing job he did when Hurricane Maria battered Puerto Rico last year. He is flatly denying the veracity of the revised casualty figures that put the death toll from Maria above that of Katrina, saying that the higher numbers were made up by Democrats to make him look bad. I'm betting George W. Bush looks at this with envy and wonders why he never thought of just totally and persistently making shit up about New Orleans. Fear. Woodward's book has been all over the airwaves this past week. In ma...

Music is a universal language and love is the key. Or maybe SOUND is the key. Love is the lock. No, wait ... love is the music, language is the universe, and Francis Scott is the key. That sounds right-ish. Well, we're coming up on a little anniversary here at Big Green village, housed in the historic abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in historic upstate New York. (A lot of history up here. Did you know that this area is as old as any other area on Earth?) What's the anniversary, you ask? Thank you for asking. It's actually the tenth anniversary of the release of our second album, International House , which we released back in fall of 2008. My goodness ... has it been that long? Well, I guess it has. It also happens to be the fifth anniversary of the release of our third album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick . And in case that isn't nearly amazing enough, next year will be the 20th anniversary of the release of our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas . Okay, so ...