I think that planter goes over here. No, no… not there. Just behind the divider, where no one can see it. That’s right – perfect. Now… where to place the emerald city?

Yes, friends… this is Hammermill Days, the blog chronicling Big Green’s bizarre existence. You haven’t stumbled onto some daycare center message board. I’m just doing a little compassionate backfill for one of our number who does not respond well to his responsibilities. I’m speaking of our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, who cannot take it upon himself to devote a few stray hours to the upbringing of his invention, Marvin (my personal robot assistant). Oh, the trials of surrogate fatherhood! Now I’m left with filling in for an absentee mad scientist. This is awful – I’ve forgotten all the rituals, the nostrums, the pat-on-the-head kind of shit. And, well… Marvin is so damn needy.  Something in his programming, I think. He craves approval almost as much as he needs 3-in-1 oil. In spite of this, I made the mistake of recommending an amateur theatrical debut for our mechanical friend. (I’m not good.) 

Okay, so… Marvin is going to be in the local school production of the Wizard of Oz (in three acts); he’s appearing as the tin man, of course (no costume needed), and he’s freaking scared to death. Why? I don’t know. Stage fright. Some kind of computer virus. What am I, psychic? I told you, I’m no good at this parent or guardian thing. I can’t even keep track of my pet rock, let alone a full-grown robot. Sweet mother of pearl, why can’t Mitch take some responsibility? He’s just obsessed with his work, that’s why. And that’s enough to scare the paint off the walls, quite frankly. I’ve told you about the anti gravity experiments. That’s small potatoes, friend, very small. Listen… you didn’t hear it from me, but old Mitch has been working his bony fingers to the marrow cooking up this global warming phenomenon everyone is talking about. I suppose you thought it was the result of tailpipe emissions and coal-fired power plants, eh? Well…. think again.

Mitch started getting interested in climate change a few years back. Think of this as a kind of mea culpa, actually. You see, we threw together a little number we call “The Dino Song”, which goes a bit like this:

Dinos had a good time on the trolley!
Dinos had a good day at the fair!
Dinos had a holiday ’til the sky turned mean and gray
Their underbellies went a-gushing jelly and they died in searing pain!

That jolly little number became a particular favorite of Mitch’s, not because of its musical or poetic merits (or lack of same) but because of the subject matter. Hmmmmm, he thought (yes, he sometime generates visible thought bubbles), If the sky turned mean and gray then, why not now? Which was followed by an utterance along the lines of BWAA-HA-HA-HA-HA!! … which I believe is the Pashto term for “this is good.” Anyway, that’s when he got to work.

Hey… sometimes a man can’t be a good parent because he expends all his goodness elsewhere. In Mitch’s case, it’s a little different. So that last observation, well… just forget it.

Here comes Big Green, like a bat out of hell, someone gets in our way, someone don’t feel so well!  Hey, what’s the problem, Lincoln? You depraved on account a’ you’re deprived?

Oh, hi, friends. Didn’t know you were looking in just then. (We always seem to get caught by surprise… probably shouldn’t live our lives on the Internets so much.) No, we’re not working up some numbers for a West Side Story revival of some kind. Not a bit of it. Just feeling a little like outsiders, that’s all. Our own village government has turned against us, our own man-sized tuber has made monkeys of us, and our own abandoned hammer mill is getting draftier by the day. (The fire brigade broke a few windows when they were here… Mayor’s orders.) Ergo, we’re spending more time out on the mean streets, or at least, in the mean courtyard. (Cobblestones make a lumpy mattress, friends – word to the wise.) With the cold weather coming on, it’s almost like we’ve been exiled to Siberia, except that the snacks are a bit better. And no nasty guards. Then there’s the being kept there for the rest of your life. Actually… it’s a lot easier than Siberia, so scratch that last observation.

What was I saying again? Oh, yeah. Having friends in high places is turning out to be less than a benefit for us. I’m beginning to understand why. The man-sized tuber, apparently, is taking advice from anti-matter Lincoln, about as mean-spirited a piece of work as you can imagine. Imagine for a moment the ambition of a President Lincoln, matched with the guile of a Richard III. Got that in your sights? Okay, well… discard it. Anti-Lincoln is much, much worse than that. Was it not HE who worked his way back through time to seize control of the Lincoln administration from his more virtuous doppelganger? Was it not HE who made common cause with the South American-style junta leaders who took over the Cheney Hammer Mill a couple of strange years ago? Was it not HE who stole my tofurkey sandwich earlier today and tossed it out into the street when he surmised its vegan character? Such calumny! Curse him! CURSE HIM!!! 

Anyway, that’s what has put us on the wrong side of the law – an oversized root vegetable taking the counsel of an anti-matter great emancipator. Sure, it’s complicated – LIFE is complicated. So what’s new? Now when we rehearse, we have to sneak into the public library and kick some teenager out of one of the study carrels… then hope nobody notices the awful sound of our craft. Hell, there are times when we actually all have to go into different public libraries and SKYPE each other just to squeeze another rehearsal in. (The last terminal I used smelled like urine and aftershave… and if you want to know WHICH one, well… I’m just not talking to you anymore.) It’s gotten to the point where only Matt and I show up at these “rehearsals”, and we don’t even know what we’re rehearsing for. Perhaps it’s a concert. Perhaps it’s a riverboat cruise. So many possibilities. 

My apologies. Living out in this courtyard is making me goofy with a capital stupid.

I confess I haven’t been watching the confirmation hearings of judge Sotomayor for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, nor listening to them. It’s been a lot easier to avoid doing so than it was ducking the coverage of Michael Jackson’s death and its aftermath, quite frankly. Apparently our news outlets don’t consider this “newsy” enough. In any case, what I’ve heard and seen have been snippets of interrogations by Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama… I think the “R” stands for “Racist”) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina, a.k.a. “McCain’s brain”), also a bit from Dr. Coburn (R-Oklahoma). Certainly on that side of the partisan divide, the Judiciary committee comes off as a kind of cracker-town. And because the Democrats are, on the whole, utterly spineless and all-too-willing to fold on matters of principle, it is very often the core “values” of these southern conservative senators that end up carrying the most weight.

Sure, they won’t get their way- most likely- on the Sotomayor nomination, but that’s to be expected. They are in the minority, the presidency is no longer in their hands, so as Jon Stewart has so aptly put it, “it’s supposed to taste like a shit taco.” The problem is more with the timidity of the other party. Leave us face it – Sotomayor, distinguished jurist that she is, is not exactly a leftist version of Justice Scalia. Even with a virtually filibuster-proof majority, a Democratic president would never dare make that dramatic an appointment. Frankly, if Obama had named someone like, I don’t know, Jonathan Turley, he would have gotten howls of protest from the Republicans… exactly what he’s gotten with the appointment of a relative centrist, in the mold of Justice Souter (whom Sotomayor would be replacing). It’s the same dynamic as with proposing a single-payer health care system instead of some market-driven hybrid destined to fail – they’re going to call you a socialist anyway, so why not go for the gold?

Still, even though we’ve reached the point in American political culture where in order to be considered for nomination to the Supreme Court a judge must declare his/her love for gun ownership, disavow any position on abortion, and practically dance on Emmett Till’s grave, the Republicans are finding a great deal to complain about with this nominee. It’s frankly laughable to hear Jeff Sessions – who considered the voting rights act a “piece of intrusive legislation” and who had no problem with the KKK until some were caught smoking dope – and Lindsey Graham raising the banner against discrimination. Have they taken a look at their own panel? Are there a whole lot of black and Latino members of the Judiciary Committee? The Senate itself? Any chance that “reverse racism” is going to whittle away at their advantage in that august body? They need to calm down a bit. Though I suspect this is more about positioning the G.O.P. as a defender of Joe Six-pack (a.k.a. white working guys) than any genuine concern about the nominee. (See: Pat Buchanan)

Fact is, these guys are fine with non-white judges… so long as they behave exactly like southern white guys.

luv u,

jp