September 21, 2017

"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

Said the psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1966, and I'm thinking about it today, while still laughing at the viral video of Lawrence O'Donnell yelling "Stop the hammering!" I just embedded the O'Donnell video in the previous post and — because in the post before that we were talking about phallic symbols — the great commenter Laslo Spatula said "A Hammer is not quite a phallic symbol."

Is a hammer a phallic symbol? In Bob Dylan's song about nuclear war, "A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall," there's the line:
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’...
Blood coming out of their wherever (to paraphrase Trump).

And then there's the hammer Pete Seeger wrote about:



Surely, Mary Travers was not wishing for a penis. "It's the hammer of justice," the lyrics tell us. Is it the hammer in the hammer and sickle, the "Communist symbol that was conceived during the Russian Revolution.... the hammer stood for industrial laborers and the sickle for the peasantry; combined they stood for the worker-peasant alliance for socialism"?

The hammer and sickle is not to be confused with the arm and hammer, "a symbol consisting of a muscular arm holding a hammer."
Used in ancient times as a symbol of the god Vulcan, it came to be known as a symbol of industry, for example blacksmithing and gold-beating. It has been used a symbol by many different kinds of organizations, including banks, local government, Freemasons, and socialist political parties. It has been used in heraldry, appearing in the Coat of arms of Birmingham and Seal of Wisconsin....
Wisconsin! There's also the best baking soda in the world:



And there's the arm and hammer sticking out of Goldbeater's House in London, described by Charles Dickens in "A Tale of Two Cities."

Hammers are important in mythology:
Mjölnir, the magic hammer of Thor. It was invulnerable and when thrown it would return to the user's hand. (Norse mythology)
Ukonvasara (also Ukonkirves), the symbol and magical weapon of the Finnish thunder god Ukko, and was similar to Thor's Mjölnir. (Finnish mythology)
Uchide no kozuchi, a legendary Japanese "magic hammer" which can "tap out" anything wished for. In popular belief, magic wooden hammer is a standard item held in the hand of the iconic deity Daikoku-ten. (Japanese folklore)
Hammer of Hephaestus, the hammer of the Greek smith-god Hephaestus which was used to make the Greek gods weapons.... (Greek mythology)
But let's talk about the "law of the hammer" — AKA "the law of the instrument" — which is the cognitive bias Professor Maslow was talking about in the famous quote that is the post title. The Wikipedia article on the subject explores the topic and traces the concept back to an old English expression "a Birmingham screwdriver" — which is not a screwdriver but a hammer — a hammer that is used for everything (including getting screws to go in).

If we take up the challenge to see the hammer as a phallic symbol, the law of the hammer becomes the temptation, if all you have is a phallus to treat everything as if it were a vagina:
Trump: Look at you, you are a pussy....
Trump was talking to a man, Billy Bush.
Trump: You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

Bush: Whatever you want.

Trump: Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.

136 comments:

Crimso said...

But the hammer and sickle can be associated with the Armand Hammer.

tcrosse said...

Not to forget the Malleus Maleficarum.

Michael K said...

Armand Hammer was also a an important supporter of the Soviet Union.

an opposing position has been put forward by author Edward Jay Epstein. Epstein in his book Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer puts forward the claim that it was Armand Hammer rather than his father who performed the abortion and his father Julius assumed the blame.[10] Epstein's claims come from interview comments made by Bettye Murphy who had been Armand's mistress.[16] According to Murphy and Epstein's account the legal strategy was that Julius did not deny that an abortion had been performed, but insisted that it had been medically necessary, and that a licensed doctor rather than a medical student would be more convincing in presenting that argument.[17] Epstein's take on events remains controversial and a minority position.[according to whom?]

After Julius was imprisoned he sent Armand Hammer to the Soviet Union to look after the affairs of his company Allied Drug and Chemical.[10] Hammer would travel back and forth from the Soviet Union for the next 10 years.[10]

When his father was sentenced to prison Hammer and his brothers took Allied Drug, the family business, to new heights, reselling equipment they had bought at depressed prices at the end of World War I. According to Hammer, his first business success was in 1919, manufacturing and selling a ginger extract which legally contained high levels of alcohol. This was extremely popular during prohibition, and the company had $1 million in sales that year.


A very interesting life and a long association with the USSR.

Epstein's books are usually right about these things.

rehajm said...

Sexual tension GIFs with Armie Hammer.

Darrell said...

"And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.”

Precedes your quote. . .
Makes it an observation, not a confession.

James Graham said...

"But the hammer and sickle can be associated with the Armand Hammer."

Indeed.

His Hammer galleries in Manhattan were founded to sell art seized from the bourgeoisie by the Soviets.

His father's membership card in CPUSA was numbered 001.

robinintn said...

And there's Armand Hammer, he of Occidental Petroleum, whose communist father Julius sent him to live in the Soviet Union as a child. Russia!

Unknown said...


The Ross McManus version of "If I Had a Hammer" is the winner here.

He's Elvis Costello's dad, which is instantly obvious upon viewing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK3xJ2nyHiI

robinintn said...

And the smarter commenters beat me to it.

pdug said...

Ross McManus 'if I had a hammer' 1963

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK3xJ2nyHiI

Laslo Spatula said...

Stop. Hammer Time.

I am Laslo.

Etienne said...

If a hammer is a knocker though, it is feminine gender (well, I guess trans-gender now also)...

Francisco D said...

I can't remember if it was Peter or Paul who was the pedophile.

He grabbed little boys by their hammers.

Codebanger said...

"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

...but if you have a nail, everything becomes a hammer.

Skippy Tisdale said...

There is also Armand Hammer, an American business manager and owner, most closely associated with Occidental Petroleum, a company he ran from 1957 until his death, though he was known as well for his art collection, his philanthropy, and for his close ties to the Soviet Union.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_Hammer

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Glen Filthie said...

A-house, you're clearly a cack obsessed dirty old woman! Shame on you - and prolly your good for nothing husband too, I suspect.

Also I want Lazlo Spatula punished. That guy has a serious attitude problem with just about EVERYTHING. :)

Otto said...

How about the $500 hammer.

MacMacConnell said...

Another wealthy man with ties to the Soviet Union was Fred Koch, father of the Koch brothers. Fred Koch a MIT trained engineer invented a more efficient way to process oil, all the giant oil companies sued him over the patent. He couldn't work anywhere in the USA or afford the legal cost. So he went to Russia working in the Soviet oil fields and refineries, financing his court case, which he finally won in the Supreme Court.
What he witnessed in the Soviet Union turned him in to a strident anti-communist, which beget the Fred Koch Foundation, later named the Cato Institute.

IgnatzEsq said...

If I had a hammer, I'd wake up my neighbors, hammerin' out a rhythm -Devo.

Roughcoat said...

Re the O'Donnell and O'Reilly meltdown mashup:

Now the media in their literature
They treat us very badly
And when they draw our caricature
They depict us rather sadly
With crooked limbs and villainous face
They thus depict the Irish race
We think it is a sad disgrace
And we say so in old Ireland.

Refrain:
Do me justice, treat me fair
And I won’t be discontented
And I won’t be laughed at anywhere
But highly represented

tim in vermont said...

Seems like you can't spit without bumping on the recoil into another powerful Democrat getting rich off the Russians. So you bring up Armand Hammer and the Russians

https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/05/21/the-greening-of-gores-bank-account/#183e660f39d6

Big Mike said...

@Otto, obviously you're not familiar with the Federal Acquisition Rules (FAR). It's almost impossible to sell anything to the government for less than a thousand dollars except for very large bulk purchases. Think you can sell something to the government without hiring an expensive lawyer? Have I got news for you!

mezzrow said...

"Can't touch this"

Dammit Lazlo. You're always there first.

Paddy O said...

Don't forget Leonard Nimoy's inspiring version.

Which oddly enough was the first version of this song I heard.

Paddy O said...

Armie Hammer has been in the news recently, which is pretty surprising.

khematite said...

And for Dylan, "The wind howls like a hammer."

Meade said...

"I can't remember if it was Peter or Paul who was the pedophile."

Peter Yarrow.

From Wikipedia: He has since apologized for the incident: "It was an era of real indiscretion and mistakes by categorically male performers. I was one of them. I got nailed. I was wrong. I'm sorry for it."

D 2 said...

God help me, cant help but note the tags for this post, in order: Dickens, Dylan, Spatula.

Needs one more name after Dickens - I dont know, Freud? gb Shaw? Joyce?

BarrySanders20 said...

John Henry died with his hammer in his hand

Roughcoat said...

"It was an era of real indiscretion and mistakes by categorically male performers.

What the hell does that mean?

traditionalguy said...

The Hammer is also what makes metal into tools, or into other metals, which is the magic of the Smith thought to require secret spells.

Today we call that Chemistry, and it still seems like magic results. The Bessemer Process converting metals also converted the bucolic Lehigh Valley in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania into a steel making center and thence the ship building center of the world, for a season.

wendybar said...

Bill Clinton did more than grabbing...but he's a Democrat so blame the women

Stoutcat said...

And then there's Captain Hammer and his... hammer.

Earnest Prole said...

You could have a steam train
If you'd just lay down your tracks
You could have an aeroplane flying
If you bring your blue sky back

All you do is call me
I'll be anything you need

You could have a big dipper
Going up and down, all around the bends
You could have a bumper car, bumping
This amusement never ends

I want to be your sledgehammer
Why don't you call my name
Oh, let me be your sledgehammer
This will be my testimony

Dave Begley said...

Sometimes a hammer is just a hammer.

Owen said...

A memorable expression in my household was, "If it doesn't fit, get a bigger hammer."

I guess guys just like to force things. Sad!

wildswan said...

Just remember,
Jael
Had a Hammer
And a Nail.

Infinite Monkeys said...

"A Hammer is not quite a phallic symbol."

That's not what Captain Hammer said.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

I still find it amazing that Trump triumphed despite the pussy hoo-ha. Something like that would have sent McCain or Romney into a fetal crouch.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

I'm surprised Ann missed Maxwell's Silver Hammer.

A cheerful Beatles ditty about a psychotic murderer!

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Paddy O., Armie Hammer played Illya Kuryakin in the remake of "The Man from UNCLE." Rather ironic when you consider his grandpa's ties to the USSR.

He is a very handsome man.

Wince said...

Presumably available through the Althouse Amazon portal at one time...

XXX Jack's Hammer Penis Pump With Cockring, Massaging

Wince said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wince said...

"I don't even know what this is. This sort of thing ain't my bag, baby ."

Bilwick said...

When Pete Seeger was singing about a hammer, he was probably envisioning it with a sickle. If you catch my drift.

Larry J said...

My father was a carpenter. In the hands of skilled tradesmen like him, a hammer is a tool used to build homes, schools, businesses, churches, and the rest of civilization. In the hands of a thug, a hammer is a weapon for murder and destruction. The hammer never changes, just the intentions of the person wielding it.

peacelovewoodstock said...

Urban dictionary:

Thor's Hammer
When a man’s penis is only able to be lifted by a hot enough woman. If a woman of insufficient hotness attempts to entice the hammer, it will remain flaccid. Usually used when the standard of attractiveness is exceptionally high.

Hey man, check out Takamatsu! Hot Right? No reaction?! What, are you packin’ Thor's Hammer down there or something?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Thor%27s%20Hammer

Nonapod said...

I got to use a nail gun for the first time in my life about a year ago when I was helping to build a diffusing wall for a home recording studio. It was this neat Li-on battery powered propane cartridge driven thing from Paslode (maining it was completely cordless and air compressorless). After using it for a few hours I never want to go back to hammers for anything but quick one-off tasks.

Michael K said...

" After using it for a few hours I never want to go back to hammers for anything but quick one-off tasks."

I had several sizes of nail guns that used one little compressor. I gave them to my son but they are nice.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Baseball bats seem far more obviously phallic to me.

Paddy O said...

exiled, he was good in that movie, I thought.

BarrySanders20 said...

What the hell are we fighting for?
Just surrender and it won't hurt at all
You just got time to say your prayers
While you're waiting for the hammer to—hammer to fall.

Queen - Hammer To Fall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwUm8RhIQYA

Titus said...

I love Armie Hammer's name.

Big Mike said...

War hammers like Mjölnir made sense back when most armor was in the form of chain mail. Chain mail might stop a sword thrust, but not a sternum-crushing blow from a hammer.

walter said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
vanderleun said...

Dear Ann,
Just step away from the bong.
Thanking you in advance,
G.

Nonapod said...

@John Tuffnell: Freddie Mercury was/is the greatest voice in the History of Rock & Roll, imo.

@Big Mike: Yeah, until plate mail become more common. Then of course that technology was then made obsolete by the arquebus

Laslo Spatula said...

"@John Tuffnell: Freddie Mercury was/is the greatest voice in the History of Rock & Roll, imo. "

One note short, perhaps.

In the song "Bohemian Rhapsody" the highest note is not hit by Mercury, but by the drummer.

"Roger Taylor tops the final chord with a falsetto B♭ in the fifth octave."

Taylor was also in love with his car.

I am Laslo.

Ralph L said...

Surely, Mary Travers was not wishing for a penis.

Judging from the way she looked in late middle age, I would dispute this.

There's a saying: beat to fit, paint to match.

gadfly said...

Two years before Maslow's “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail," Abe Kaplan wrote in his book "The Conduct of Inquiry:"

In addition to the social pressures from the scientific community there is also at work a very human trait of individual scientist. I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding. It comes as no particular surprise to discover that a scientist formulates problems in a way which requires for their solution just those techniques in which he himself is especially skilled. ~Abraham Kaplan, "The Conduct of Inquiry" (1964), p.28

So I am not good with a hammer so I'll sing:

If I had a hammer
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening
All over this land
I'd hammer out danger
I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out love between
My brothers and my sisters
All over this land


Owen said...

Big Mike: fascinating note about war-hammers defeating chain mail. The endless move-countermove.

All: it is pretty amazing how quickly how much useful ;or at any rate funny)
Information accrues on these threads. Love it.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Don't forget Ferdinand Fegoot!

walter said...

Blogger Laslo Spatula said...
In the song "Bohemian Rhapsody" the highest note is not hit by Mercury, but by the drummer.
--
But Merc was doing the squeezing.

Bill Crawford said...

Hey John Tuffnell - I got a chill when you said, "John Henry died...." as he is a commentator here who lives in Puerto Rico, just hit again by a hurricane. Then I read the rest of your post....

Tim said...

when I was younger I thought Armand Hammer was a baking soda magnate.

walter said...

vanderleun,
This...

Nonapod said...

@Lalso - Yeah everyone in Queen had great voices. Roger Taylor had great range. Apparently he fronted his own side project called "The Cross". Brian May has a pretty decent voice as well. He sang some leads in "Who wants to live Forever".

As for male vocal range, Boston's Brad Delp hit some high notes, like the high E6 on "Piece of Mind".

tcrosse said...

Speaking of Hammer, how about this ?
90 Second History of Hammer Films

Gabriel said...

@Ann: In Bob Dylan's song about nuclear war, "A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,"

Reads to me like it's about revolution, not nuclear war. In that reading, the men's hammers are bleeding because they killed their managers...

While some have suggested that the refrain of the song refers to nuclear fallout, Dylan disputes that this was a specific reference. In a radio interview with Studs Terkel in 1963, Dylan said:

"No, it's not atomic rain, it's just a hard rain. It isn't the fallout rain. I mean some sort of end that's just gotta happen ... In the last verse, when I say, 'the pellets of poison are flooding the waters,' that means all the lies that people get told on their radios and in their newspapers."

traditionalguy said...

When Trump drops the hammer, Ryan and McConnell are the hardest hammered.

Bilwick said...

When I first read the "everything starts to look like a nail" quote, it was being used as a metaphor for "liberals" and socialists getting a hard-on for the power of the State and then getting addicted to wielding the Mailed Fist against anyone they felt needed a good pounding (or, as it were, fisting).

Clyde said...

Re: Hammers a-bleedin': Probably the most notable image of a bloody hammer recently was in the Starz original series American Gods, the adaptation of the novel by Neal Gaiman. That particular hammer belongs to the Slavic god Czernobog.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

In the exchange between Bush and Trump, are you suggesting that Trump is using pussy to mean a phallus? That's a great reading. It moves Trump off misogyny and onto something else entirely.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

No one has yet mentioned Grond, the "Hammer of the Underworld" in Tolkien's "Silmarillion," later resurrected as the name for the battering ram in "The Lord of the Rings."

J. Farmer said...

And now to take a turn for the darker side. Every time I hear the word "hammer" (however innocuously), it brings me back to a video called "3 Guys, 1 Hammer." Being involved in a lot of professional juvenile forensic psychology programs and organizations at the time, the story was a cause célèbre within the field. Between June and July 2007, two 19-year-old Ukrainians, Igor Suprunyuk and Viktor Sayenko, murdered 21 people. They used cell phone cameras to record several of the murders and one was leaked on the Internet. It recorded the murder of 48-year-old Sergei Yatzenko. It was late 2008 or early 2009, I was in my late 20's, and I foolishly decided to watch the video from the shock site that was hosting it. It replaced Daniel Pearl's execution as the most brutally vile thing I have ever seen occur in real life. Try as I might, I have never been able to successfully scrub the images from my memory.

jimbino said...

Regarding a [hammer used for] gold-beating.: the hammer used for gold/silver/copper beating would likely have been more like a spoon, since they are too malleable to use a proper hammer.

"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." was clearly written by an erudite person, in this case, Abraham Maslow, who has mastered the use of the subjunctive mood, unlike Grab-em-by-the-pussy Trump and the Amerikan hordes, who would write and say "...as if it was a nail."

"You are judged by the words you use" and, fortunately, we still have the subjunctive mood, the plural they and the plural media and data to help us tell the men from the boys when it comes to erudition.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

If we take up the challenge to see the hammer as a phallic symbol, the law of the hammer becomes the temptation, if all you have is a phallus to treat everything as if it were a vagina...

Not true. The penis is a multi-purpose tool. When you're a guy, the world is your urinal.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

jimbino said...

...we still have... the plural they... to help us tell the men from the boys...

...but apparently not the boys from the girls.

Big Mike said...

@Nonapod, the war hammers carried by Henry V's archers at Agincourt had a blunt hammer head on one side and a long, thick, nasty spike on the other end that was quite capable of piercing plate armor. It was called a bec du corbin (crow's beak). Not long ago archeologists dug up a mass grave near the Towton battlefield (1461) and some of the deceased had head wounds matching the point of a bec du corbin.

As Owen wrote: move and countermove.

Anonymous said...

Not all the weapons of the Greek gods were made by Hephaistos. Zeus's thunderbolts were made for him by the original three cyclopes (the big ones of whom Polyphemos was just a cheap knockoff)—Brontes, Steropes, and Arges—after Zeus promised to free them from Tartaros. They seem to have put their own power into their work, as they embody respectively thunder, lightning, and brightness. They also made the bows of Apollo and Artemis, the helm of Hades, and the trident of Poseidon.

johns said...

Fields: " I'm tendin' bar one time down the lower east-side in New York. A tough paloma comes in there by the name of Chicago Molly. I cautioned her: 'none of your peccadilloes in here'. There was some hot lunch on the bar comprising succotach, philadelphia cream cheese and asparagus with mayonaisse. She dips her mitt down into this melange - I'm yawning at the time - and she hits me right in the mug with it. I jumps over the bar and knocks her down...You were there the night I knocked Chicago Molly down weren't you?"


Bartender: " You knocked her down? I was the one that knocked her down".


Fields: "Oh yeah ,yes. That's right. He knocked her down. But I was the one start kicking her! So I starts kicking her in the midriff. D'you ever kick a woman in the midriff that had a pair of corsets on?"


Customer: "No, I just can't recall any such incident".


Fields: "Well I almost broke my great toe. Never had such a painful experience".


Customer: "Did she ever come back?"


Bartender:"I'll say she came back. She came back a week later and beat the both of us up".


Fields: "Yeah but she had another woman with her. Elderly lady with grey hair.

Quaestor said...

I am so jealous of Laslo.

A spatula is not quite a phallic symbol either. And what about this? How many hard-working loyal provider husbands have come home from an innocent stint of getting hammered with the boys only to get nailed with a rolling pin. A thoughtful wife could paddle the errant spouse with her spatula and risk cracking his skull with her phallic symbol.

I am also concerned how Armand Hammer made it through life constantly being confused with baking powder.

walter said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
David said...

"Surely, Mary Travers was not wishing for a penis."

Not one for herself to keep at least.

Quaestor said...

"How about the $500 hammer?"

And the $10,000 toilet seat.

It appears that no such super-expensive crapper ever existed, though a hammer made of some kind of exotic alloy could every easily cost $500. Back in the late 1960's a defector called Yuri Nosenko told the CIA that the KBG and the GRU were very interested in public reports from the Office of Management and Budget, which they used to help evaluate the success or failure of American R&D programs, including top secret projects whose existence could be surmised from subtle hints, here and there in publications like Aviation Week and Space Technology. The blockheads at 60 Minutes thought they were on to another searingly important scandal when in reality they had fallen for a deception intended to hide the R&D budget of the Stealth program.

Crimso said...

When Paul Anka fucking moves, he slices like a fucking hammer. So there's that...

walter said...

Billy Bush got the hammer from his wife.

traditionalguy said...

Before metallurgy, all the hammers were war clubs made of wood. And then then some cheater tied a rock on the end.

But the best war clubs are still all tough wood with a knot on the end. Old Hickory was an example of an American war club personified.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

But the best war clubs are still all tough wood with a knot on the end.

Untill some Scot decided to use one to hit balls..

buwaya said...

"But the best war clubs are still all tough wood with a knot on the end. "

Not always - this was a war club used as the primary Maori weapon. A quite sophisticated multifunctional design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buvGKf2nBWs

On wonders about all the specialized or unique weapons of this sort, made of perishable materials, that have certainly existed throughout human prehistory, and left not a trace.

Heywood Rice said...

Is there any evidence that Trump was consciously referring to the Elton John song "Rocket Man"?

Heywood Rice said...

Rocket Man by Elton John was released in 1972 and the term "steely eyed missile man" came into common use after the 1969 Apollo 12 mission:

The term steely-eyed missile man is a complementary term rooted in NASA's Apollo history when flight controller John Aaron's quick thinking saved the Apollo 12 mission from disaster. It refers to an engineer or astronaut who quickly devises an ingenious solution to a tough problem while under extreme pressure.

Although it was originally a complimentary phrase it's mostly used sarcastically today as "steely eyed rocket man".

buwaya said...

"Although it was originally a complimentary phrase it's mostly used sarcastically today as "steely eyed rocket man".

?

Not in my experience. Who uses it sarcastically?

gg6 said...


When, lord, oh when, will we have had enough of all this "phallic" garbage?
:-(

rcocean said...

From Wikipedia: He has since apologized for the incident: "It was an era of real indiscretion and mistakes by categorically male performers. I was one of them. I got nailed. I was wrong. I'm sorry for it."


Its amazing how forgiving the Left is toward child rape. Whether its Roman Polanski or Peter yarrow. Note: Its not just American Liberals. It seems there's some Dead BBC talk show (a lefty of course)host in England that raped a 100 underage girls, but the Labour types don't really care too much.

And I love Peter's language. What the fuck does "categorically male performers"
mean? Does that differ from "Male performers". And hey, Peter was just doing what EVERYONE was doing, y'know fucking little girls, only he got caught. So, sorry about that, folks!

Heywood Rice said...

Who uses it sarcastically?

Check the google

rcocean said...

That phony Fuck Jimmy Carter pardoned him, doesn't surprise me.

buwaya said...

So its a few idiot journalists/memers slagging people whom they aren't fit to shine the shoes of?

rcocean said...

When I first heard Crazy Larry O'Donnell aka "Mr. Creepy Liar" talk about Hammers, I thought someone would make a mashup of "If I had a hammer" and crazy O'Donnell Hammer tape.

But I think everyone who remembers "If I had Hammer" is over 45 and doesn't know squat about "Mashups".

rcocean said...

Here's the clip of O"Donnell attacking a Decorated Vietnam Vet:

Creepy Liar.

The Left wing schmo that ran MSNBC loved it so much, he gave O'Donnell a talk show.

dustbunny said...

Does anyone read Mickey Spillane anymore? His detective was named Mike Hammer. The LA County museum houses the spectacular Armand Hammer Collection and I think there is a separate Hammer Museum at UCLA. The guy knew his stuff.

tim in vermont said...

"Is there any evidence that Trump was consciously referring to the Elton John song "Rocket Man""

Lol. You probably should aak yourself if maybe you... What's the point.

buwaya said...

" I think there is a separate Hammer Museum at UCLA"

Yes there is. My daughter had summer jobs there while away at college.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Mickey Spillane ended his days in Murrells Inlet, the Seafood Capital of South Carolina. Don't think there's a museum, but he was a much appreciated resident:

http://www.scnow.com/news/local/article_cef1edd9-74da-5c0d-b05e-c80cc2119805.html

Wince said...

Titus said...
I love Armie Hammer's name.

"You guys enjoy your salads."

lonetown said...

Let's not forget, Charles "the Hammer" Martel, Charles "the Hammer" Krauthammer, and Edward I, the hammer of the Scots (and not in a good way).

Gojuplyr831@gmail.com said...

A whole damn thread about hammers and no one - no one - even mentions Fred "Hammer" Williamson? I am seriously disappointed in all of you.

southcentralpa said...

Wow, surprised I'm the first to mention Bill Murray in "Scrooged" screaming "Will ... you ... please ... stop ... the goddam hammering."

(And no, the best version of "If I Had a Hammer" was Leonard Nimoy...)

Churchy LaFemme: said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfP-TyQhJjc

madAsHell said...



Yeah, I was riding the bus from Rodeo drive to Santa Monica, and thought why is there a museum full of hammers.
Call-by-value versus call-by-reference.

Meade said...

Kyle Schwarber just hammered a curveball for a home run. Hammered it.

Crimso said...

Yeah, but Schwarber's no Hammerin' Hank.

In spite of the omissions (was that a Jan Hammer song?), I think we've hammered out a pretty good thread so far.

tim in vermont said...

I remember hearing somebody ask Dylan in an interview if "Hard Rain" was about nuclear war, he said "No man! It'a about a hard rain!" Ya gotta love artists.

Francisco D said...

Thanks Meade. It was Peter Yarrow. I'm glad he apologized after getting nailed. It makes all the difference in the leftist world.

Another random thought was that Armand Hammer had a bought and paid for stooge in Congress. He was the senior Democrat senator from Tennessee- Albert Gore, Sr.

traditionalguy said...

Hammerers have their own speech idioms, such as, "Wham,bam,thank you mam." So I suspect there is mysogony in the back swing.

William said...

If you had a long, cigar shaped wind chime, could you describe it as a phallic cymbal.

William said...

How does patent or copyright law work in Valhalla? That Finnish guy, Ukko, sounds like he's infringing on Thor's turf. Lots of luck being a superhero with a name like Ukko.

walter said...

Obama's getting hammered about his museum/shrine/presidential center.

Henry said...

Is a hammer a phallic symbol?

Does a hammer have a head?

A ball-peen hammer has a head and a peen.

A claw-hammer has a head and a claw.

If you want to go extra phallic, go with the ball-peen:

The ball face of the hammer can also be used to make gaskets for mating surfaces.

Henry said...

Gadfly quoted: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.

Makes one wonder if Paul McCartney read that quote. In light of Maxwell's silver....

Henry said...

Ringo Starr: ""The worst session ever was 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer.' It was the worst track we ever had to record. It went on for fucking weeks. I thought it was mad."

Henry said...

Falling a little short of the full Shatner is Steve Martin.

walter said...

That's funny about Maxwell's. I guess polishing a turd is a long process.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Harry Turtledove elaborately staged a scene in his Thessalonica so that he could deliver the line "Bang, bang Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon his head". I hope he was amused.

As for myself, I like the song. (And the difficulty of getting a good take is not really related to song quality one way or the other).

Churchy LaFemme: said...

And how have we gotten so far without mentioning this guy?

Rusty said...

Meade said...
"Kyle Schwarber just hammered a curveball for a home run. Hammered it."

Just to hammer home the point. Ritmo is usually hammered when he posts here.

Meade said...

Rusty nailed it.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

walter said...

Obama's getting hammered about his museum/shrine/presidential center.

He probably should have skipped the minarets.

Curious George said...

"Meade said...
Kyle Schwarber just hammered a curveball for a home run. Hammered it."

Meh, that's nothing compared to some of his dinger. KB hammerred one though in extra innings, but the biggest hit of the night was Baez' two out two strike single to tie it up in the 9th.

Huge win for Cubs.

Caligula said...

"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

Yes, that's just what I thought as I drove through yet another of WISDOT's five-in-a-row roundabouts: someone must figure if they're sometimes good for something then they must always be good for everything!

What could go wrong-wrong-wrong-wrong-wrong, WISDOT DOT DOT DOT DOT ?????

Bob Boyd said...

I just conducted an experiment to determine whether a hammer is a phallic symbol or not.
I put my hammer with the head between my legs and the handle sticking out in front of me and stood there waiting for my wife to walk into the room. She came in, saw me looking at her expectantly, glanced down, saw the hammer, cocked her head and furrowed her brow, started to say something, changed her mind, shook her head, sighed, then went on about her business.
Based on these results I believe we can say definitively that a hammer is indeed a phallic symbol.

Meade said...

" then went on about her business."

TMI. (Wink, wink, nod, nod.)

Will Cate said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Will Cate said...

You forgot Hammer of the Gods - Led Zeppelin

LordSomber said...

Can't touch this.