Travel plan.

Good morning, sunshine. Stop that blinking - just rub the sleep right out of your eyes and get back to work, you shiftless mo-fo. If you want me, I'll be... in the top bunk... just up the stairs... zzzzzzz...

Yes, exchanges like that take place regularly here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, where your friends in the Big Green collective are now warehousing themselves. When we're not discussing anarcho-syndicalist theory, we're making onion dip using sour cream and that cheap-shelf powdered soup mix. (You know, the kind with the crispy onion bits... mmmm, boy!) Then there are the 6-hour meditation sessions over a ceremonial plate of Ramen noodles. (The one who doesn't fall asleep gets to eat the noodles. If you stay awake two sessions in a row, you can even boil them before you eat 'em.) So don't think we're an undisciplined gang of louts over here - we know how to keep the rabble amongst us in line, yessir. (It's sorting out the rabble from the worthy that gets me confused.... so confused!)

When we are not testing ourselves physically, mentally, or spiritually, we are... well... dealing with the day-to-day pressures of life at the top. Did I say "the top"? I meant the other end. Always get those two mixed up. Oh, sure, we're not exactly a hit factory here on the terrestrial music scene, however much applause we garner on other planets (and asteroids... don't forget asteroids). But then you know that - that's why you're here. (You are here, aren't you? AREN'T YOU???) You don't want the kind of pop band that plays stadiums and makes millions and shows up on your favorite television shows and on the boxes of your favorite toaster waffles. You love Big Green because you want a band that lets a man sized tuber help with the mixing console... one that lets the robot assistant drive the spacecraft every once in a while. That's because, well, you're special. (And I'm not pandering, so don't look at me like that.)

Speaking of which... as you may recall, we did, in fact, let Marvin (my personal robot assistant) drive the spacecraft last week. And as a reward for our broad-mindedness, he crashed the son of a bitch. (To be fair, Marvin was just trying to get into the spirit of our flapjack-fueled saturnalia, so he shouldn't be saddled with all of the blame. Fucker.) In the absence of our scientific contingent, we undertook the task of repairing the vehicle, desperately trying to keep to the looming tour schedule our corporate paymasters at Loathsome Prick records recently handed down. But, of course, we had never assembled a spacecraft before... we had no guide for putting the pieces back together. (That sounds vaguely familiar to me.) And I have to say, it looked a little different before Marvin crashed it into the courtyard. Just possible we did something wrong, but.... ain't no tellin' until we hit that thruster control. (Insert dramatic tension here. Okay, that's enough.)

Anyway, another week will tell the story. The countdown to Mars (or Armageddon) has begun. T-minus one six days and counting. Now it's six days, eleven hours, fifty-nine minutes and fifty-eight seconds. Now it's.....

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

R.I.P., uber rich lady atop killer empire

Image
When the queen of England died last week, I felt bad for the 96-year-old human being that she was, a lady about the age of my late mother. I take no joy in the death of anyone, even people I’m not crazy about, so all due condolences to her family who, I hear, are planning a quiet little funeral. Did I say little? I meant large … in fact, six billion pounds worth of funeral. Such is the institution of the British monarchy – still crazy after all these years. No, I’m not a fan of “The Royals”. I watched The Crown on Netflix or whatever, and it was mildly entertaining in a slightly nuanced gossipy kind of way. (They went way too easy on Thatcher and made Robert Kennedy look like a cheap wing man for his wife-beating brother the President.) But generally I avoid T.V. dramas about royalty mostly because it bores the living piss out of me. Then there’s that small matter of imperialism , but let’s try to keep our thoughts positive, eh, what? They’re changing the guard at T
Read more

Pulling the plug is never as easy as it looks

Image
I don’t know. I’m effing sick of this. Are you effing sick of this, too? You are ? Wow … okay. For how many years? Damn …. why didn’t you say so? I was just doing this to keep YOU happy! Well, you learn something new every day. Or at least every week. Except last week – I was kind of too busy to learn anything. It gets like that sometimes. Anyway, let’s just agree to say that you learn something new every little once in a while. Maybe every time Sylvie brings you some water. Like in the Leadbelly Song . But I digress. What the this is The “this” we’re kvetching about is this thing called blogging. We’ve been doing it for twenty years, and somehow – seemingly unnoticed by us – the world has kind of moved on. Now everything is social media, social media, etc. A few still blog, outside of the corporate shills, but it’s not really a thing anymore, and well … that’s a shame. Still, blogging has its place. I just don’t know whether or not its place is here, exactly.
Read more

Riding Grievance all the way to armageddon

Image
Biden recently announced another $1.1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan , this on the heels of Nancy Pelosi’s bizarre-ass junket to the island / breakaway province. This, I think, is called tripling down, based mostly on a calculation common to most U.S. politicians that provoking China is a political winner, regardless of context. That may be true, but only if you’re cravenly pursuing popularity with no thought of human consequence. While that may sound particularly like Donald Trump, it also sounds like pretty much every other modern president. We live in a time, once again, when criticism of American foreign policy is characterized as either foolishly alarmist or callously dismissive towards the victims of our official adversaries. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been called out for not being sufficiently critical of either China or Russia. It’s not enough to say that the leadership of both states is arbitrary and rapacious. You need to cheer on the weapons as
Read more