Going to have to transpose that one as well. Try it in B-flat. That’s right, B-flat. No, no… not THAT B-flat, the one that’s between A and B. Jesus.

Oh, hi, reader. (I think you’re out there, somewhere). Just reharmonizing a thing or two before Big Green gets underway with their upcoming interstellar tour 2010 (theme not yet announced). Matter of no small necessity, actually, as I just blew out a key on my Roland A-90ex - the A below middle C, as it happens. I think it died of overuse. (We seem to play a lot in A and A minor.) But, frugal as we are, rather than replace the sucker, I’ve been working around it. Hey… we’ve got to keep our tinder dry for this tour, man. Wouldn’t want to be halfway out to Aldebaran without a spare dime in our pockets, now would we? (Would we? Could be a question for Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, who is an unaffiliated expert on interstellar economics. I myself cannot be certain. A dime COULD be worth a FORTUNE in space…)

Okay, so this is becoming kind of an annoying workaround, to tell the god’s honest truth. For instance, we might usually play “Johnny’s Gun” in A. That’s a non-starter. Key doesn’t exist, damn it, unless I have Marvin (my personal robot assistant) stand by and make the appropriate A-440 tone every time I hit the broken key. Seems less than a practical use of his time, quite frankly. Not that there is a truly appropriate use for his time. He’s a freaking robot, for chrissake. Built to serve man… and I don’t mean that in the sense of some contrived semantic turn of phrase meant to conceal the fact that he, in fact, cooks people for lunch (or perhaps supper). Not a bit of it. Marvin eats tofu and light machine oil, that’s it. Just like the rest of us.

You may wonder why it is that we take such a large complement of hangers-on along with us on these extraterrestrial tours. Well, you know the old saying, there’s safety in numbers, right? Well, that’s got nothing to do with us - we’ve never been particularly good with numbers. What I was about to say was that we need help, and lots of it. We’re not teenagers anymore, and we’ve long since lost track of our unicycles and pogo sticks. If we’re going to face multiple G’s, interplanetary turbulence, meteor showers, unexplained magnetic phenomena, irritable and unreasonable extraterrestrials with death-ray eyeballs, extremes of heat and cold, and so on, we’re bloody well not going to do it alone. That’s the bottom line, friends. We need human (and some non-human) shields and plenty of ‘em.

And the first step in our self-defense strategy is learning everything in the right key. What? Oh, damn. sFshzenKlyrn broke a guitar string.  Now we can’t play in E either!

This whole business about Shirley Sherrod, the Agriculture Department staffer from Georgia -  this is an extremely ugly picture, and we’ve seen it before. What’s more, we’re likely to see it again before long.

There’s been enough commentary on this to fill a supertanker, so I’ll just make a few brief observations. What this event tells me most superficially is something I already knew - that the Obama administration is unbelievably pusillanimous. Christ almighty, sometimes these guys make Bill Clinton seem like Hercules (… and he wasn’t). They may be the only people outside of hard-core tea party types that appear to believe everything they hear on Fox news. More likely, though, they are so focused on projecting this image of post-racial America that they respond in knee-jerk fashion to any claim of reverse racism, no matter how unfounded. Combine that with their tendency to throw left-leaning staffers, like Van Jones, overboard at the first sign of trouble (unlike the Geithners and Salazars of the world), and you’ve got a White House that allows Roger Ailes to make their personnel decisions for them. Now there’s a real formula for success.

My main question here is, who is behind this? We’ve heard the names of the idiotic right-wing blogger and the various Fox news spokesmorons. But where did that clip come from originally? Who, exactly, is trying to promote racial resentment among whites? No question but that right-wing elements of the Republican party are exploiting this sort of thing all the time. They have their sources. So… who looked at this video, made the precise edit that would create the erroneous inflammatory impression, then sent it along to the clown-like Breitbart?

One thing we would do well to remember - racism remains a strong undercurrent in American life, and so long as it does, there will be those who will use it to their political advantage. With a black man in the White House - one with an overtly African name - there will always be suspicions on the part of crypto-racists that black people are taking over, pressing their momentary advantage, marginalizing good, upstanding white Christian Americans. That’s why we’re hearing all these ludicrous stories about the “New Black Panthers” - i.e. two dudes standing outside a polling station in a majority black district. That’s why we get Breitbart, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Beck, and Hannity screaming about reverse racism. Even when it’s ultimately demonstrated as bogus, the impression remains with those whose prejudices need only the mildest validation.

Shall we overcome? We shall see.

luv u,

jp

What the hell. I thought I put that sucker out to the curb. Is that the same one, or another, identical one? Hey… same to you, Lincoln! Jeezus. Why are you so bad tempered?

Man, I’ll tell you - tempers run short here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in the middle of July. All this heat… it’s driving us mad! Those of us who weren’t mad to begin with, that is.  (Strangely, it kind of drives Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, sane.) I’m just trying to clear out the clutter a little bit, and I threw out a beam of wood. I mean literally, I threw it out the window in hopes the trash collectors would pick it up. Next thing I know, it’s back in the freaking hallway. I guess Lincoln (or perhaps anti-Lincoln… I keep mixing them up because the heat makes them switch personalities) has grown attached to that particular fallen roof beam, or was perhaps planning to whittle it into something more attractive. Don’t know for sure, but he appears to have taken the heat. Calm down, Mr. President!

Well, now, I know in these dark, dark days, you probably have your own troubles to consider, so let me get straight to the point here. I will just offer you my Big Green report and go merrily along my way, so that you may return to whatever it was you were doing before you stumbled upon this rambling account. (What was I saying? Ah, yes…) It seems your friends in Big Green are preparing for yet another glorious interstellar tour, taking in the inner (and out the outer) planets, swinging on a star, etc. Just working up the itinerary while I type these words. Yes, I’m a multi-tasker from way back. Would you believe I’m also cleaning my oven? (Check your 60s - 70s vintage t.v. ads for that reference.) That’s to say nothing of what I’m simultaneously doing in other dimensions and the various parallel universes. Boggles the mind, quite simply.

Still, as many of you probably know, the main consideration with these tours is logistics. I don’t know if you’ve followed our previous outings, but typically we run into some kind of technical or manpower-related difficulties at some point in the proceedings, then mayhem ensues. That’s been the pattern. Why, you ask? Well, it could be because we’re just plain unlucky. Or maybe because we’re getting a little old and codger-like. But I think the most convincing explanation is that we rely too much on frail human faculties to carry us from solar system to solar system. We need more automation. And watching all that footage of those BP robots working furiously on that spill in the Gulf, I’m reminded that robots - excluding for a moment Marvin (my personal robot assistant) - are an under-utilized resource in this operation.

Perhaps we need an automated vehicle this time, eh? What do you think, Lincoln? What? Do you even know what that gesture means? Here we go… damned heat!

This continuing deadlock on unemployment benefits is really getting up my nose. Looks like some of our representatives - certainly a lot of Republicans - seem to think that people prefer being unemployed and that somehow giving them the minimal aid that unemployment offers is an incentive for remaining that way.

Not surprising. They, after all, most unapologetically represent purist free enterprise extremism, at least as it relates to ordinary people, workers, the poor, etc. (It’s a different story with respect to corporate America, but more on that later.) Capitalism works best for the ownership class when there’s a massive surplus of workers - that’s just basic economics. It depresses wages, it keeps the rabble in line, and it makes certain that the best talent is always available. Anyone who has ever worked through a recession knows what I’m talking about. Raises become rare or non-existent; bonuses dry up. Always the same excuse, too - the bad economy. And yet the boss seems to be doing really well. Buys him/herself a new car, lives the good life, seems well-fed enough. Built into this dynamic is the knowledge that jobs are scarce, and that you can be replaced any day. It’s a businessman’s paradise, I tell you. Bosses’ nirvana.

So, hey - unemployment insurance payments make people less desperate. That will never do. And subsidizing the ludicrously expensive (and aptly named) COBRA health insurance program - which costs an unemployed couple upwards of $800 a month to maintain - would spoil the market for insurers. Hell, that would be like the “public option” - unfair competition for United Health Care or BlueCross. Not to worry, boys. Old John Boehner, John Kyl, and the crew will save your bacon. Again.

I don’t want to let the Democrats off the hook here. If they were so committed to working class and poor families in this country, they’d push a lot harder than they are now. There’s no “fire in the belly” with the vast majority of them, and that’s because in large measure they answer to the same paymasters. Oh, yes. They’ve passed the thing called “Wall Street Reform” - a watered-down package of mild adjustments that won’t deeply upset any investment banker. It’s better than nothing, but only if we insist that it does not stop there.

I know … it’s amazing that, after working to win a contentious election like 2008, we still have to fight for every inch. Best get used to the idea. Elections matter… but only if you’re willing to fight every moment between them.

luv u,

jp

Is Jupiter off? It’s not? That doesn’t sound like such a good idea, Admiral. In light of recent events, you know what I mean? You don’t? Well…. I’ve got some ’splainin’ to do.

Hey, there. Just starting to plan out our trip to the outer limits. No, not the sixties television show - that was a piece of broadcast entertainment, not a place you can actually go to. I mean the outer limits of the space-time continuum, already - that dark pocket of nothingness where all of the demand for Big Green performances floats in a vacuum like a cork in a bathtub. We must pursue that cork, my friends, for it beckons. The cork beckons! Behold, the cork! Death to Moby Dick! Right, well…. be that as it may. (I’ve been hanging around with anti-Lincoln a bit too much lately - he sometimes doest this extended riff on Captain Ahab and, well, he’s kind of convincing with that beard of his.) We must follow the demand, whatever cliff it may lead us off of.

So, yeah… we’re going over the possibilities for our upcoming interstellar tour. I’m having to cross a few stops off of our list right at the get-go, as it happens. Jupiter is one. If you read this blog with any regularity, you’ll know why. And if you’ve been a bit irregular lately, well… it’s all because of sFshzenKlyrn. (Not your irregularity; our avoidance of planet Jupiter, for pity’s sake. Can’t blame everything on the man from Zenon.) He caused that minor explosion on the Jovian surface some weeks back. Now, when I say minor, I mean by Jupiter standards. Remember - it’s one big-ass mo-fo of a planet. “Minor” on Jupiter is the size of the entire planet Earth back where you come from. So, yeah… in light of that, perhaps even a minor infraction is enough to keep us away. (Like light-years away.)

Assisting us in this tiresome duty is our old friend, Rear Admiral Gonutz (ret.), formerly of the Naval Reserve. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) looked him up at our request when we realize that this was a job several magnitudes too subtle for the mind of the man-sized tuber, who has been filling in as our road manager. (He basically occupied roughly the same volume of space as a road manager might; other than that, not much.) As some of you might remember, Gonutz is not shy. He believes in aggressive touring - musical “shock and awe”, as it were, at least in terms of the itinerary. I personally think he is insisting on Jupiter because he’s fond of the club scene, but that’s just a suspicion. (I’m chock bloody full of suspicions.) Proud man.

Well… we shall see how this will go over, especially with sFshzenKlyrn slinging his trademark telecaster. Hey, Admiral - are we bringing those clear plastic riot shields with us this time?

Just a few short takes this week. I’ve got a splitter of a headache - one of those neck and shoulder jobs. So my concentration is a bit compromised, but here goes.

Again-and-againistan. That Rolling Stone reporter who wrote the recent article on Gen. McChrystal has drawn a lot of criticism from various mainstream corporate press mavens. No surprise there. They are so obsessed with covering the ball-game stories - the ins and outs of policy making, careers, and personalities - that they neglect to examine these stupid wars that have been dragging on year after year. How closely have any of them scrutinized the rationale behind this policy?

Why the hell are we in Afghanistan? Our leaders say it’s to disrupt and destroy Al Qaeda so that they cannot plan new attacks on us. But to the extent that people like Osama Bin Laden are involved in operational planning for global terror attacks, all he and his pals need is a room (or a cave, but I suspect a room) big enough for a white board. Can anyone claim that we have denied him that in nearly nine years of war? Did our drones stop the Times Square bomber? (Fact is, they helped push him over the edge.) Where’s the story on that, kids?

No settlement. Despite Netanyahu’s fence-mending visit to the White House, there is no light at the end of the Israel/Palestine tunnel. His government is still strangling Gaza, still encroaching on more and more of the West Bank (in spite of the so-called settlement “freeze”, which is so conditional as to be meaningless). Old Bibi, like so many Israeli leaders, is beholden to the Frankenstein-like settlement movement that is a political lynchpin of his ruling coalition. Even if he wanted to close the settlements, he couldn’t (and trust me, he doesn’t want to). So the suffering goes on, and we keep underwriting it.

Gusher that keeps on giving. It’s been more than 70 days since BP blew a hole in the Earth, and the hemorrhaging continues. Do you sense a pattern here? Crises that never seem to end. This is a bad one. And yet, we shouldn’t pretend as though all of this oil, gas, and dispersant is spewing into a pristine Gulf ecosystem. According to the Coast Guard, millions of gallons of oil routinely spill into the Gulf every year - something like an Exxon Valdez size spill every three or four years for the past decade. Big as this blowout is, our problem is bigger than that. Let’s make the solution bigger, too. 

That’s all I’ve got. Bed time.

luv u,

jp

Stir a little harder. That’s the stuff. Put some elbow-grease in it. No, goddamnit, not for real! That’s just an expression! It means…. oh, mother of pearl.

Oh, hello, cyber-surfers. You find us in one of life’s most humble pursuits: making a substandard dinner. That’s the kind we like here at the Cheney Hammer Mill - far preferable to no dinner at all. In case you hadn’t guessed, soup is on the menu this evening, and inasmuch as we cannot afford that ultra-haut cuisine canned stuff you probably enjoy, your stalwart friends in Big Green are making it from scratch. And when I say scratch, that’s no euphemism. As I mentioned before, elbow grease is a euphemism, and one that should never be an ingredient in home made soup. Though, sadly, it is now part of ours. Another reason why it’s best not to have Marvin (my personal robot assistant) help with such tasks. (He just had his elbows re-greased, as it happens.)

But hey - if you were thinking of dropping by for pot-luck supper, never fear. There are plenty of good things in this makeshift soup. What, you may ask? Well… it would be far easier to tell you what isn’t in there. There are the standard things, like potatoes, as well as more exotic items, like kiwi fruit and baobab bark. (Mmmmmm. Baobab.) I saw Johnny White dropping a few chiclets in the cauldron - that should add a little tooth. The man-sized tuber, looking for alternatives to plant products, contributed a box of nuts and bolts he found down in the basement. When I saw Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, walking through, I was sure he was just using the kitchen as a short cut. I’m told, though, that he flipped his favorite slide-rule into the mix. Accident? I think not!

Enough about dinner. What else is happening, aside from the fabrication of inedibles? Not a lot, my friends. Just keeping body and soul together, that’s the long and short of it. (We’re a little longer on the short of it, truth be told.) Started some projects, but have yet to finish any of them. We do have a song due out on a compilation CD - a fundraiser for Haiti relief - which is supposed to be out any day now. (A little late on that one.) That’s a new recording called “Only You,” one of Matt’s numbers. I’ll post a link when it finally sees the light of day. Either that or we’ll drop it into the soup and have you take a bowl home with you. Talk about rich! It’s soup you can dance to.

Well, I’ve wandered a bit. More on upcoming projects later. First, I’ve got some peeling to do.

Me thinkst the Democratic party has missed a real opportunity here to show the American people how committed they are to the well-being of working and poor families, their supposed constituency. Extension of unemployment benefits have been stopped yet again by the Republicans (joined by some particularly execrable Democrats), whose threat of a filibuster is enough to weaken the knees of the ruling party. As I’ve mentioned before, the filibuster is never actually joined, just threatened, and in the gentleman’s club that is the U.S. Senate, that is enough for the majority to stand down. So having fallen short of their 60-vote supermajority, the majority has declared the holiday weekend to be underway. That’s for Congress, not for the millions of unemployed. How’s that for solidarity?

Hey, Harry Reid - time to take the gloves off. If the Republicans threaten a filibuster over benefits for the long-term unemployed, hold them to it. Make them stand there, hour after hour, day after day, through the bloody holiday weekend, defending their obstructionism and showing the entire country how little they care about those on the losing side of our economy. What a great opportunity for you to demonstrate that your pro-working stiff rhetoric isn’t just a lot of hot air. (Unless, of course, it is.) There would be those who call you partisan, divisive, etc. Let them! They say that anyway. Slug it out on behalf of workers, both poor and middle class, and you’ll end up with something a lot more valuable than a weekend barbecue.

Besides, the Republicans are always complaining that their ideas never get a fair hearing. So let’s hear ‘em. Trouble is, we’ve heard them all before. Cut taxes. Cut spending. Expand the military. Balance the budget. Invade another country. Anything new there? For chrissake, their “idea man” is Paul Ryan (a.k.a. Eddie Munster), and he’s just dedicated to rescuscitating Bush’s plan to eviscerate Social Security and Medicare. I overheard him on “Morning Joe” the other day saying that Keynesiansim doesn’t work. Well, Paul… yeah it does. Of course, you haven’t tried it yet - your party convinced the Dems to strip most of the infrastructure spending out of the stimulus before voting against it.  Think Keynesian spending is ineffective? Try cutting the defense budget or the prison industrial complex and see what happens. For something that “doesn’t work”, it sure has a lot of defenders.

Hey, look… I come from a community that would barely be breathing if it weren’t for government spending. If our local Republicans think money from Washington or Albany is a bad thing, I’ve yet to hear about it.

I encourage you to remind your congressperson and senators that the jobless still need help… and they shouldn’t be made to wait until Congress’s 2 week vacation is over.

luv u,

jp

The difference between falling up and falling down is merely one of direction. How’s that, Lincoln? Not pithy enough? All right, I’ll keep trying.

Oh, hi. Didn’t notice you there, peering at me from the other side of this flat screen monitor I live in. Hope all is well at home. I’m just hanging out here in the delightfully abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, having a little chat with our old friend Lincoln, who was carried here from yesteryear through the magic of Trevor James Constable’s orgone generating device a year or two back. (That’s a long way of saying hello - I know.) What are we chatting about? Funny you should ask. The usual topics that come up around here, like how many hammers were forged here, how long this place has been abandoned, and HOW THE HELL ARE WE EVER GOING TO MAKE ENOUGH MONEY TO GET A DECENT PLACE TO LIVE. (That last one’s a bit of a sore spot. Not sure if you can tell.)

Well, we’ve had a lot of ideas tossed around over the past few months. But recently it occurred to us that we are not using our own home-grown resources to their best advantage. After all, we have space creatures, a mechanical man, a giant sentient potato, and one of America’s most revered presidents (as well as his evil doppelganger) in our entourage. Why not exploit them more fully? That is why I’m working with Lincoln today. I’ve suggested that he needs to leverage his reputation as perhaps our greatest president by publishing a book of some sort - I have suggested a collection of aphorisms, something like what Yogi Berra may have published. Witticisms, as it were. Or as they are. Or as we were. (As you were!)

Hmmm. That last utterance took on a decidedly militaristic cast - my apologies. As I was saying, I and several others - though certainly NOT Marvin (my personal robot assistant) - have been tossing around possible entries for Lincoln’s upcoming work. Why does he need our help? Well, friends - he may be an excellent commander in chief, a clear-minded leader with nerves of steel, a visionary… but aside from speeches written hastily on the backs of envelopes, his writing for mass audiences leaves a bit to be desired. Far too flowery, too prolix. Goodness me, Lincoln! Take a page out of your evil twin’s playbook. Economy! For chrissake, it’s a rare thing indeed when Anti-Lincoln writes anything longer than a two-word phrase that ends in “you.” (Say what you like; at least he keeps the focus on “you.”)

So anyway. Here’s one from Mitch Macaphee. Never invent a deadly laser you wouldn’t aim at your own mother. Still nothing? Work, work, work.

Big story this week about Afghanistan. In fact, a remarkably big story. Unfortunately, it was overshadowed by that flap over the ambitious general, McChrystal, who I can only think must have been very tired of his posting. (What the hell - not enough detainees to abuse, like in Iraq?) Far more interesting than this tawdry act of insubordination was the release of a congressional report confirming Aram Roston’s story in The Nation some months ago that detailed how our military resupply operations are actually generating a revenue stream for the Taliban, through bribery (the basic system of exchange in Afghanistan). Forget about the personalities involved here. We are, in essence, arming both sides. Shouldn’t this be of greater concern? Hello?

Most of the reporting on Afghanistan - the Rolling Stone article included - includes a kind of embedded imperial perspective. There’s an underlying assumption that we should be in Afghanistan, that there is some legitimacy to our enterprise there, and that it’s largely a matter of getting it right. This attitude is a formula for remaining in that country for the rest of any of our lives (particularly with respect to anyone who is sent to fight there). Unfortunately, our foreign policy is driven by domestic politics and the need for leaders to act “tough” and project an image of American exceptionalism. That is what makes generals like McChrystal so attractive to our leaders and the mass media that fawn on them (until they say the wrong thing).

Some talking heads have expressed gratification that McChrystal’s criticisms were mostly about personalities, not the actual strategy. This is good news? So what we’re doing over there is right, or “working” even? Here’s the strategy we need, in three words: Get. Out. Now. Not sure how ambitious a general you need to implement that one. As George McGovern once said, the best way of doing that is to put the troops onto trucks and head for the border.

Job Security. I see that the Senate has blocked any action on unemployment benefits and extended medical insurance to those millions without work. Once again, the tyranny of the minority is somehow keeping us from doing the right thing. What will it take to get the Democratic leadership to face off with the GOP on their perpetual filibuster strategy? Are we going to simply accept that it takes 60 votes in the already undemocratic senate to pass anything? What the fuck - people are hurting, damn it. Time to call your congressmember and Senators and tell them to push this through even if it means depriving Ben Nelson of his hair hat.

luv u,

jp