Tag Archives: hammer mill

Usual Rubbish

Honest, Abe?

No, no. Not that hat. That’s a porkpie hat. Don’t you know anything? The great emancipator would never have worn a hat like that. Not unless he played the saxophone. (Did he play the saxophone? Best ask.)

Oh, right…. I’m keying this into the internets, not merely speaking to some disembodied listener. What was I thinking? Right, well…. as busy as things get here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in beautiful upstate New York, we never seem to stop finding other things to do with our time. Last week Marvin (my personal robot assistant) discovered numismatics … with a little encouragement from his creator, Mitch Macaphee, who was really attempting to program a penchant for petty larceny into his brass hide. Not one of Mitch’s proudest moments, convincing Marvin that lifting stray coins out of people’s pockets is how coin collecting works. (That mad science grant from the Cato Institute must not have come through.)

Anyway, there was that. Then there was the new Steven Spielberg movie about Lincoln, starring Daniel Day Lincoln. That naturally perked up more than a few ears around this hammer mill, let me tell you … four ears in particular: the ones on Lincoln and his anti-matter doppelganger, Anti-Lincoln, both still acting as historical figures in residence with Big Green. Well, naturally enough, Lincoln (the positive one) took issue with some of the historical details in the new film. “I never said that!” I could hear him exclaim as he watched his pirated copy. “And that crap about vampires – none of that ever happened!” (I  think he got his hands on the wrong DVD, frankly, but… it’s not my place to say anything.)

Anti-Lincoln, on the other hand, was strangely pensive about the whole matter. I thought for sure, with his irrepressible temper, that he would blow sky high, rail at the heavens, demanding justice and revenge. Nothing of the sort. He’s been doing a Lincoln Memorial imitation now for the last three days. I just can’t get a rise out of him. I’ll tell you, nature abhors a vacuum, so it may not surprise you that some of the other denizens and hangers-on we have around the hammer mill are getting into the Lincoln act, trying to channel Anti-Lincoln’s stifled rage. Mansized tuber is one, though he can’t get the hat quite right. And don’t even ask about Marvin’s dime store beard.

Well, we’ll work it all out, I’m certain. Now … back to the podcast hellscape.

Usual Rubbish

Songageddon.

Are you all right? You sure? Good, good. Yeah, we’re okay. Head above water, you know. Always a good thing.

Oh, sorry. I was just on the phone with Mitch Macaphee, our mad science adviser, who wisely chose this week to travel to Madagascar for a conference on … I don’t know, monster-making best practices, something like that. Good time to leave, what with the hurricane and all that. Up here at the Cheney Hammer Mill, we implemented our disaster preparedness plan. Basically that involves closing the windows, drawing the curtains, and blocking our ears. Occasionally someone lights a candle. (When it comes to disasters, we’re not good.)

Fortunately, the gods of rock and water were smiling down upon us this past Monday-Tuesday. That monster storm took an extreme left hook and missed us clean, somehow. Not that you could tell that was the case by looking at this Hammer Mill. It appears as though it’s been through hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes and pestilence. (Some would argue we qualify as pestilence, but what do they know? Them and their stinking badges.) One could hardly imagine how this place would handle high winds and higher water, and here we are on the banks of the mighty Mohawk River, just waiting to get clobbered.

We didn’t have anything like a hurricane party. Still working on our new album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. Matt and I have been mixing for the most part over the last few weeks, but this week we worked on a new Rick song, possibly the closer for the album. To my count, that makes about 47 Rick Perry songs written and recorded over the past year. (That may be a little high, but then…. so are you, most likely. That’s right – I’m looking at YOU, stoner!) If you want to do your own unofficial census, just play back some of our podcast episodes from the last year. We’ve been posting rough drafts since last September or so – half-recorded songs, to be embellished later. Why do this? Input! We want to hear from you. (That’s right, stoner … I’m talking to you…)

Hope you got through the storm in one piece. I’d better get back to Mitch. Don’t want to keep him on hold too long, or he might invent something dangerous.

Usual Rubbish

The month that was.

Wait, shhh… Did you hear that sound? Yeah, that sound. That’s the sound of another podcast being posted. Praise be.

What’s in the program this month? Well…. pretty much anything we could find lying about the Hammer Mill. Bits and bobs, as they say. Is it lame? You be the judge! My lips are sealed on the quality issue. But I will talk about what’s in the bulging box that is THIS IS BIG GREEN – OCTOBERCAST 2012. An hour and twenty of sheer audio madness, featuring:

Mr. Ned, Romney’s Talking Horse – Episode 3: Ned Trek. The most ambitious in the Mr. Ned series yet, Romney’s famous talking dressage horse takes Willard on a journey through a space/time wormhole to an alternative dimension of television mediocrity. Yes, Mitt is made commander of the starship Free Enterprise, and he and his crew of neocons take on an extraterrestrial threat that only a cash-starved special effects department could conjure. Hi-jinx ensue. (Special guest appearance by former president Richard Nixon.)

Song: Paradise. This is a rough mix (basically faders up) of a recording we started a few months ago as part of a long project focused on resurrecting some of our older songs that were never properly recorded or released. Paradise is a song ripped from Matt’s back pages. Not sure what it’s about – you’d have to ask him – but it’s got elements of archeology in it, which is something that has shown up in some of his other songs, like Primitive, Christmas with the Australopithecus, and others. Probably watched too many Dr. Leakey T.V. specials back in the ’70s, that’s my guess.

Song: Kublai Khan. Another Matt song from about the same period. Actually, this one is  loosely themed on the live and exploits of Sun Myung Moon, late founder of the Unification Church and owner of the Washington Times.  Given that our podcast is typically focused on this sort (i.e. dead people), I can hardly believe that we neglected to mention the salient fact that Dr. Moon passed away. Next episode!

That’s about all for this month. Give it a listen, and then send your complaints to:

Mitt Romney
Governor of Sucktopia
Richy Richland, New Hamphire.