Hammer Mill Days

  Uh, Anti-Lincoln …. Abe … I was going to have a word with you. Actually, several of us were planning on, well, maybe starting a conversation about, well … it’s kind of awkward. How can I put this delicately? Ah, yes. – got it. You’re a stoned-out, drunken loser-ass mofo. Can we talk? Yes, that’s right, friends. It’s time for another intervention, this one directed at the Great Un-Emancipator, Antimatter Lincoln, who’s been with us since the day he stumbled out of whatever alternate universe he comes from via Trevor James Constable’s patented orgone generating machine. Seems like so long ago now, doesn’t it? Well, some things never change … and one of those things is Anti-Lincoln’s propensity toward inebriating and intoxicating substances, including (but not limited to) hard liquor, malt beverages, chicken fricassee (with cognac sauce), morphine, hooch, devil’s weed, and marijuana. Oh, yes … it’s time for another little talk with the tall guy. We though...

The president of the United States is not going to give this up. The party that made him president is not going to stop supporting him in his delusions. All you T.V. pundits and mainstream media commentators waiting with baited breath for Republican lawmakers to “pivot” or “come to their senses” or “admit in public what they acknowledge in private”, save your breath. Donald Trump is the chosen leader of the Republican Party – chosen because he encapsulates all that they stand for: celebration of greed, white aggrievement, authoritarianism, and destroying the useful parts of government (i.e. the parts that help people in some way). They can no more abandon him than a snake’s body can slither free of its head. And while they haven’t tried this blatantly in the past to steal an election by ignoring or invalidating millions of ballots that have already been counted and certified, they have always demonstrated their potential for doing so. Let me be clear. As I have said in...

  Did you hear that just then? That faint sound of bells ringing in the distance? That can only mean one thing …. the elementary school up the road is having a fire drill again. Third one this week. Oh … and of course, it’s December again, the month of joy and celebration. Which means, in this year of our lord 2020 (which happens to be the year of YOUR lord 2020 as well), we are fast approaching the first anniversary of the twentieth anniversary of the release of our first LP, 2000 Years To Christmas , a space odyssey … I mean, an album by Big Green. Now when I say “LP”, I mean “CD”, actually, because we never pressed vinyl on any of our records. That’s for the heavy wallet brigade, my friends, though we have considered converting Marvin (my personal robot assistant) into some kind of record-cutting machine. (For the record, he’s not keen on the idea.) Yeah, so here we are, a year later, still flogging the thing. And why not, right? Our first album is 21 ye...

We’ve entered a presidential transition, sort of. Sure, one candidate is crying foul and trying to foment a coup d’etat in the most ham-fisted way imaginable, but inasmuch as our short-attention-span culture has already all but normalized this insane behavior, we can consider ourselves well into the process of transition. And no, I don’t mean the the current president is transitioning to some new identity. I mean that he is in the process of being replaced by his general election opponent, who won the November election kind of hands down, despite all the noise. Given that Biden is busily appointing members of his executive team – some okay, others pretty bad – this seems like a good time to make our policy preferences known to the President-Elect. Everyone’s getting their two cents in, whether it comes in the form of suggesting new policy directions or pushing potential nominees forward. I personally think people on the left should pick an issue or two and start shouti...

  Everyone assembled? Good. What’s that? Marvin, you’re not assembled yet? Okay, hold everything, people. Where’s Marvin’s quick-start manual? Oh, hello, everyone. Well, the holidays are upon us once again – a very special time in the world of Big Green, I can tell you. It has been said that we know how to celebrate Christmas like no other alt-rock band in history. Now, I don’t know who said that exactly and how they would know, but that’s what I’ve been told, and I’m sticking to my story. In any case, it’s undeniably true that few rock bands have started their recording careers with ostensible Christmas albums, and that we are among that very intimate club of unfortunates. What we haven’t done, of course, is release a Thanksgiving collection, but I don’t think we’re alone there. And I’m not counting albums that were released around Thanksgiving … not the same damn thing at all! Okay, well … not sure where I was going with that. Let’s just say that, here in the ...

This is the first week there was a general acknowledgement that Joe Biden is president-elect of the United States, and like a dam breaking, the news cycle was flooded with announcements of his cabinet picks. In a cleverly stage-designed event, Biden appeared with Harris and the beginnings of his “national security” team, inclusive of foreign policy. His nominee for Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, caused some serious crowing of approval on Morning Joe with the story of his Holocaust survivor uncle, who escaped from a Nazi death march and ran across an American tank, from which emerged an African-American soldier. “This is who we are,” Blinken said, referring to the image of America as a liberator and a light unto the darkness of a troubled world yearning to breathe free. What Blinken’s story didn’t include was an acknowledgement that, in all likelihood, the Black soldier was part of a segregated unit, as mixed race units were barred in the U.S. military throughout...

  Well, then, where the hell is it? I left it right here. Jesus mother of pearl, everything grows legs around here, the moment you turn your back. I’m living in a den of thieves! An abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill full of thieves! Oh, hi. Just getting down to our yearly inventory of band equipment; a kind of rejuvenating exercise that keeps us prepped for any performance or recording opportunities that may come our way at random. Are we getting offers? Well …. not as such. in fact, big fat nothing. That phone hasn’t rung in weeks. Sure, that may be down to the fact that I unplugged it from the wall, but hell …. all that was calling us was creditors, looking for cash. Stupid creditors! They should have known better than to lend money to us. We’re just not trustworthy. (Especially that man-sized tuber. He has deep roots in the Genovese crime family. Um … actually, we’re only certain that he has deep roots – it was our assumption that they at some point touch somethi...