Off again.

Be the king of the clones you can, you can have a mother ship up in space. Drop me off at Atlantis, man. Look there - red Mars has a face!

Oh, hi, folks. Just reciting a few of Matt's lyrics in advance of the next performance. Perhaps you recognize the song - a little number called "Volcano Man" from our last album, International House. (You don't? Well... perhaps you haven't gotten round to picking up a copy. If so, you are proudly walking with the majority.) Actually, it's quite apropos of our current circumstances. We have, in effect, lifted off from the bizarro planet Earth (that home of many time zones) thanks to Ben Franklin's electrical advice, and we have made our way back through the equally strange time wormhole to present-day Neptune, which offers volcanoes very similar to those found in Matt's strange, strange song. Seems to me this would be the ideal place to film the video for "Volcano Man" (about time we got started on that little project). Not sure I packed the 16mm film camera this time out, but I understand Mitch Macaphee's cell phone has decent optics. And there's that little Web cam built in to Marvin (my personal robot assistant), though that's in kind of a compromising location, frankly. But I digress.

Well, it seems we arrived on Neptune none too soon. In fact, you could say we got here three weeks late. And if you did say such a thing, you would be absolutely right... from the point of view of the promoters who arranged our performances here. I can tell you, when we finally walked through the door, those fuckers were red as a beet and spitting blue fireballs. Of course, being Neptunians, this is natural for them. But don't think they weren't annoyed. I couldn't help but notice how often they were tapping little text messages into their Neptunian PDA's. For all I know they've been tweeting to the entire outer solar system what a flaming bunch assholes that Big Green is, and of course they would be well within their rights to do so. I think part of their ire is due to the fact that our sit-in guitarist sFshzenKlyrn has been here entertaining them for the past three weeks. That reportedly consisted of a three-week guitar solo. Yes... one solo.

Now, I won't say it was a bad solo. But three weeks, man! What could have possessed the man from Zenon to do such an extended shred? Well, my friends, it's really quite simple. sFshzenKlyrn is an etheric creature whose existence transcends time and space, already. He has total control over where and when he is doing anything, and how long that anything might take. It's like shifting an automatic transmission car into overdrive - he just starts to fram and whoosh - for him it's seconds later when he's packing up his axe; for you, it's two weeks from Thursday. Mitch Macaphee, our mad science adviser, tells me that on sFshzenKlyrn's home planet (Zenon), every day is everybody's birthday... because, well... it just is. That's why sFshzenKlyrn is always celebrating like a swabby on his first night back from sea. (Not that I know what that's like. And anyone who can tell you what it's like has probably never experienced it.)

Still, it's kind of an odd way of warming up an audience. And I have to admit, they don't look all that happy. Maybe we should come in with "Quality Lincoln". Hmmmmm....