Belt stars.


What the hell is this, Mitch? How could we be lost again? We're using the freaking map. We're following all the dotted lines. Is that not Rigel? It's not? Mother of pearl....


Oh, yeah... hi, friends. Having another little problem here with the navigation. Nothing new. We were making the passage from Aldebaran to Orion and Mitch is getting a little confused on which star is which. I keep telling him, you need to follow the arrow back from Mintaka, not forward to Sirius! (I'm like, be serious, and he's like, Sirius? Are you saying I'm a star? And I'm like...) So, of course, we overshoot Orion's belt by about a light-year, so we have to double back. Then Mitch gets Betelgeuse confused with Rigel, like he's looking at the whole freaking constellation upside-down. (Actually, the map was upside-down, so it wasn't entirely his fault.) And we're hunting in vain for the third companion (Rigel III) when, of course, there weren't any orbiting Betelgeuse. (I told him the freaking star was too red, but did he believe me? Huh?)


See, the problem is, our first gig was on that third Rigel companion (also known as "planet" in common parlance). We were running late, owing to our antiquated second-hand transportation, and the Betelgeuse diversion (hmmm... sounds like a blockbuster film starring, I don't know, Doug Woodstock) cost us precious hours of bobbing pointlessly in space, listening to tuneless whistling emanating from Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who has taken to heart the acknowledgement we afforded him in the liner notes of our new album, International House, as recognition for the minor role he played in its creation. (Woof... what a sentence!) It seems Marvin fancies himself a jazz whistler now, on the order of Maine's legendary Brad Terry, be-bop whistler and clarinetist (not in that order)... except that Marvin's whistle sounds more like quitting time at the paper mill. (As I heard Taj Mahal say once in response to audience participation, "Strong... but wrong.")


Okay, so we spent a couple of days cooped up with the interstellar version of Captain "Wrongway" Peachfuzz and a tone-deaf robot with delusions of grandeur. Kind of a morale-killer, frankly. So by the time we spotted the bleak horizon of Rigel III, we weren't in much of a mood for performing. Still - we're troopers, okay? Never let it be said that Big Green isn't professional enough to overcome a little hardship and put on a good show. (Never let it be said... even if it IS true.) Lord, no... we slammed that crowd with rousing versions of cuts from the new album, as well as old favorites from 2000 Years To Christmas, such as Holiday, Pagan Christmas, and Merry Christmas, Tarzan. Damnedest thing - these folks have heard this stuff! They must get PaganFM! out here! Then we played singing saw solo, blew off some M80s, and set the atmosphere on fire. What fun.


Right, well... if we had done that last bit, we certainly wouldn't be invited back. Even the M80s would get us in trouble on Rigel III. But it hardly matters - so long as Mitch is driving, we'll never find our way back there anyway.

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