Hammer Mill Days

Hmmm. Try shift-F7. No good? Okay, wait. Isn’t there a big red button somewhere that gets you out of this shit? No? Huh. I must be thinking of the clothes washer. Oh, yeah … hi. Well, as you might have guessed, your friends in Big Green are struggling to make ends meet, like most bands these days. It’s not easy. Frankly, it’s downright discouraging sometimes. This week, we spent at least three days trying to get the ends to meet, only to discover that the metaphor apparently doesn’t involve bringing ends together into a kind of loop, but, well … something quite different, it seems. There goes another three days! We spend time like company scrip at a Massey coal mine. (Which reminds me …. sixteen tons!) Okay, so, a lot of bands are now doing digital performances in order to comply with social distancing guidelines related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some are passing the digital hat, and that’s all good … very much like the sound of that. This whole thing has prompted...

Bernie’s out. I guess it’s no surprise. There really wasn’t a reasonable electoral path forward to the Democratic nomination after the crushing defeats on Super Tuesday and in subsequent contests in Michigan, etc. While there are still many voters yet to be heard from, the mainstream Democratic party has coalesced around their preferred standard-bearer, the somewhat limp-minded former vice president, whose halting commentaries from a foot or two in front of an IKEA backdrop are barely making a ripple, even in MSNBC land. I almost never hear from Biden until his watery opinions are being criticized by left commentators. What the hell kind of communication shop are they running there? Is this a presidential campaign or a race for dog catcher? Just this past Tuesday, as Wisconsin voters were queuing up to vote in the midst of a pandemic, thanks to their state Republican party, the most Biden could manage to say about this disaster was that the science should decide whether ...

Well, Mitch’s idea went bust, and now he’s amongst the legions of unemployed. Turns out the Cheney Hammer Mill doesn’t meet the standards necessary to be designated a medical waste repository. This place doesn’t even make an adequate garbage can. Cheese and crackers. So, here we are. Always wondered what it was like to be a band back in the Great Depression. Now it’s starting to look like the good old days. Anti-Lincoln, of course, remembers the panic of 1857, when he lost all that money he had dumped into railroad stocks. (His posi-tronic doppelganger, the actual Lincoln, came up as a railroad lawyer, which is why the two never saw eye to eye.) Then there was the post-war recession of 1865-67, when Anti-Lincoln lost his shirt again. (He found it in 1870. Turns out it was dropped into his neighbor’s laundry bin by mistake. He always blames the Jacobins for that, but then … he blames them for every thing.) With the social distancing requirements in place, we obviousl...

Check out our new podcast, Strange Sound. The COVID-19 crisis is a major disaster in several respects. First, it’s a health disaster of the first order, one that is going to cost many thousands of people their lives over the coming weeks and months. That would be more than bad enough on its own. But it’s also an economic catastrophe for individuals, families, businesses, and organizations all over the country. This aspect, too, will be the undoing of many of its victims. It’s hard to imagine how people on the edge are going to get through these next few months. It’s just as hard to imagine that small businesses won’t fold by the million as the economic shutdown, by necessity, continues. This crisis has the potential, as many have said, to reshape our economy and our society in fundamental ways, and not clearly for the better. Take the response (or “CARES”) package passed by Congress and signed into law by the moron-in-chief. David Dayen has laid this out in detail ...

Ten thousand dollars? Dude, no one in this hammer mill has got that kind of money. At least … not that I’m aware of. Maybe Mitch is holding out on us. (He could be a counterfeiter, actually.) Oh, hi. Just caught me in the middle of a little negotiation. I’m trying to work out the terms on a major purchase. What kind of purchase? Well, I’ll give you three guesses. No, not a PA system. No, not a hippie van with 3-D painted plaster sunflowers sticking out all over the place. Give up? I’m trying to buy a can of soup. Yes, one can of soup. Not the greatest soup in the universe, you understand … just your basic, run-of-the-mill lentil soup, the kind mother used to make … when she made cheap-ass canned soup. Now, I know your next question is going to be something like, “But, Joe … why in the world would a can of soup cost ten thousand dollars?” Well, friends, I’m glad you asked. You see, it turns out to be true that it’s an ill wind indeed that doesn’t blow someone some goo...

Sometimes I think my head is going to explode. Every get that way? It sometimes happens over stupid shit, like earlier this week when the MS Office install stopped working on my two-year-old PC, and Bill Gates’ automated tech support tried to trick me into buying a subscription to Office 365 rather than just reinstalling my Office 2016 once-and-done version. Hate when that happens, don’t you? That’s not what really made my head explode this week. The true culprit was our ridiculous political culture – you know, the one that whines incessantly about how expensive Medicare For All will be (i.e. trillions of dollars less than what we’re spending now) but then turns around and drops two trillion dollars on saving Trump’s political bacon (they wanted to spend six trillion). Suddenly, all this money appeared out of nowhere. And like the financial crisis, Congress’s piece is just the down payment. As David Dayen explained on Majority Report this past week, the $425 bil...

I think I saw them coming up the road, just past the post office. Did you see them, too? No? Maybe I’m imagining things. Or …. maybe you’re gaslighting me! WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO HIDE! SPEAK! Oh … hello, readers. We were just, um … going over the household accounts. Seems the electric bill is overdue again. Just like last month … and the 120 months before that. (Maybe that’s why the lights are off.) Okay, I will own up to the fact that we are getting a little squirrel-y here in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, now that we’ve been ordered to shelter in place. Actually, the order doesn’t apply to us because, well … we’re not supposed to be living here, but what the law doesn’t know won’t hurt it. Still, in these plague times, it’s best to heed the warnings of public health officials. We’re masking up, donning the rubber gloves, and eating out of an autoclave. Now, I’m not super fond of hoarders. That said, one of our number, and I’m not saying who ( ahem … anti-Li...