Hammer Mill Days

  Take a look out the window and let me know what you see. What? What do you mean you don’t see anything? Did you open your eyes first? Okay. It’s just that you’ve made that mistake before, but …. let it pass. Hey, greetings from the great north country! As you may have noticed, particularly if you live in the northeastern United States, we’ve gotten a little bit of snow this week. In fact, it appears to be up to the second story of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted squat-house. That would be fine, of course, except that … well … we have to come and go occasionally, to get provisions, to frequent the local tavern (I’m talking Anti-Lincoln here), to mail parcels, etc. All of that vital, life-giving activity has been brought to a halt in the wake of a fearsome nor’easter that isn’t fit for Christmas, New Years, nor Easter. (That’s why they call it a nor … uh … never mind.) Yes, winter is here with a vengeance. I think it’s pissed at us for the previous...

Anyone who’s been reading this blog and listening to my podcast Strange Sound for any length of time knows that I’m a sometimes harsh critic of the institutional Democratic party. That same anyone would be aware that I am even more critical of the Republican party. The reason for this is fairly simple: whereas the Democratic party has some individuals within it – albeit a minority – who are principled progressives who want to make a difference in people’s lives, the Republican party is now literally a death cult that wants to cut rich people’s taxes. This week we exceeded 300,000 Americans dead from COVID-19, and you would barely know it by listening to GOP lawmakers or their idiotic president. (And yes, he is their president, lock, stock, and cracker barrel. I’m of the opinion that Trump is the purest expression of Republican values – selfishness, ignorance, bigotry, and self-aggrandizement.) I know both parties have a lot to answer for, but frankly, Republican poli...

  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 ...