All posts by Joseph

Usual Rubbish

Twelve planets?

Let’s see… five from twenty-seven is twenty-two. Carry the nine. Multiply by the square root of Chicago. Now check your work. Wait for it, wait for it… okay. Pencils down!

Jeezuz. Just try to get a straight answer around here! I even get prevarication with math questions, for chrissake. Let me tell you, friends – this is one disgruntled shipload of bandmates, and it isn’t just because we spent the better part of the last week clearing unexploded ordinance from the minefields of Borax 19, a grisly little world locked in mortal combat with its near-space neighbor, the planet Calgon (not to be confused with the laundry detergent). No, sir… we’ve just come to a very disturbing realization, thanks to the Univac-like brain of Marvin (my personal robot assistant). It’s just a good goddamn thing we insisted on taking him along with us on this tour. (Actually, he insisted, but what the hell… the effect is the same).

Anyway, here’s what we’ve worked out in mid-voyage. It seems our agent-of-the-week, former president Lincoln, signed us up for one of these package promotional tours where we agree to play every planet in the solar system for a single, flat fee. Old “honest” Abe was real proud of himself on this one – we actually stood to make some money on the deal (unlike every other venue he’s booked so far). Of course, while we were away, slogging through insufferable engagements in some of the galaxy’s most undesirable backwaters, the Earthbound science community decided to reclassify several asteroid-like bodies as planets.So now, instead of playing nine planets for X level of remuneration, we’re going to have to perform on twelve planets for the same bloody money. That’s like getting docked 25% before you even show up. (We haven’t even had the chance to suck yet!)

Okay, so ask me if we’ve groused at Lincoln yet today? Now ask me again. Answer? Stand back from the monitor for a moment, this may be a little loud. FUCKER!!!!! Ahem… I feel much better, now. Yes, we’ve had a few words with the ex-president. Suffice to say we have provided his tour management career ambitions with complimentary tickets to Ford’s Theatre. (Can you say “useless?” Very good.) As a consequence of this monumental blunder, I have asked all hands to work out a formula by which we might actually come out of this 12-planet marathon with more than a few cents in our pockets.

So far, Mitch Macaphee’s formula is way out in front — we create holographic images of ourselves and project same onto several stages at one time. Same Big Green, same boss tunes, same ludicrous side-kicks… only a whole lot thinner. Like maybe one zillionth of a micron thick. (Hey, you know what they say… you can never be too thin.)

Anyway, this is how our vaunted GET ME THE HELL OUTA HERE Tour 2006 will conclude — with a relentless march to the sea, a la Sherman. Who was, of course, the commanding general of Lincoln’s army. Whose wife was Mary Todd Lincoln. Whose middle name is also the first name of Todd Rundgren. Who must surely have something in common with Kevin Bacon. Blast you, Lincoln!

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Killing hope.

The cease fire in Lebanon appears to be holding at this moment, thank God. Just a Goddamned shame it couldn’t have been called a month ago before well over a thousand people were killed in Lebanon (Robert Fisk reports the number at around 1,300 as some of the collapsed buildings hit by the IDF are excavated) and more than 140 in Israel. Did I say “couldn’t”? It’s really more a case of “wouldn’t”. Bush, Cheney, and pals were anxious to see the birth of their “new Middle East,” after all, so many more hundreds of men, women, and children had to die needlessly, many more had to be grievously wounded, lose their homes and livelihoods, etc., before the administration and the Israeli government chose to accept virtually the same terms as they could have had shortly after the conflict began. It looks as though Olmert and Peretz had had enough, realizing that victory does not come easy in southern Lebanon even with vastly superior military technology and a strategy that involves massive civilian casualties and collective punishment. Well, it was gripping while it lasted, eh, fellows?

So what does this new Middle East look like? Well, let’s see. From the wreckage of Lebanon, Hezbollah has emerged as a world-class fighting organization, able to hold off one of the most sophisticated military machines in the world — a feat which has earned them the admiration of virtually the entire Arab world, including sectarian communities in their own country who were their sworn enemies not so long ago. The craven Bush administration, apparently high on the latest round of strategic Kool-Aid being ladled out by the likes of Iran-Contra felon Elliott Abrams, was expecting Christian, Sunni, and Druze Lebanese to turn on the Shi’a community as a result of Israel’s savage attacks on their country. Perhaps they were stoked up by memories of last year’s “Cedar Revolution” and the ejection of Syrian troops from Lebanon. If so, they severely miscalculated… yet again. Hezbollah may receive arms and support from Iran and Syria, but it is an indigenous force with its loyalties fixed firmly in the soil of southern Lebanon. You don’t fight that fiercely for something that isn’t yours. So this entire exercise simply entrenched Hezbollah more deeply in Lebanon’s political and cultural life, enhanced their reputation as a resistance movement, and demonstrated that the concept of mutual assured destruction now applies to local, non-nuclear conflicts between Israel and its immediate neighbors.

This brings us back the the “vision” thing, as pappy Bush used to say. What is Lebanon’s role in America’s grand strategy? Pretty simple. Disarm the one force capable of deterring a neighboring power that has attacked invaded their country half a dozen times in the last 25 years. Let Western capital roll over their economy. And keep their mouths shut. That was the plan for Iraq, as well — in fact, that’s the goal for every nation in what’s referred to as the “developing world”. The model is to have formal democratic institutions in the sense that there will be elections every few years. But all the key decisions regarding the ownership and distribution of national resources, public services, and trade and investment policy, will be made by bankers and investors in the “developed” world. This is what Bush calls “freedom” — for the impoverished majorities in these countries, it means abandoning hope of a better life and resigning oneself to penury in a global consensus built to benefit multinational corporations. It’s the “freedom” you find in Guatemala and Nicaragua.

My guess is, that’s part of what makes people fight so damned hard. They can see where this is headed.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

No kill I.

There once was a planet named Borax, a land of all head and no thorax…. That’s all I’ve got so far. What do you think, stuffed chef? Is it lacking a certain, well, goodness? How about you, plastic ficus tree?

Man oh Manischewitz, I have never seen a place as uptight as this hideous little orb! A big cowboy howdee of thanks to honest Abe Lincoln for booking us into this hell hole. Not for nothing, as they say in the vernacular, but from the moment we crash-landed into their luxurious nightclub, the people who hired us have been… well… more than a little hostile, if you want to know the truth. As I mentioned in my previous entry, we were held at scrootch-gun point as we descended from the wreckage of our space vehicle. A fine how do you do! We were then marched off to a reception area that look suspiciously like the local drunk tank. Ever spent a night in an 11 by 14 foot cell with several disgruntled band members and a drunken Boraxian? Well… just don’t.

The next morning, we were brought before the local magistrate and ordered to explain ourselves. Unfortunately for us, the Boraxians look uncannily like our companion, the man-sized tuber, (except that they have two antenae on their heads with a little purple spark that shoots between them). This meant, of course, that they insisted on addressing all of their comments to tubey, who (as you know) is not fully checked out on the lingua franca of the galaxy. Even sFshzenKlyrn couldn’t get a decent hearing in that courtroom (and he’s such a cosmopolitan fellow of infinite jest and undeniable charm… cretins!). So there we were, standing like statues as the Boraxians babbled incoherently at our mute vegetable companion. This was not going well.

As luck would have it, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) as able to act as the man-sized tuber’s “translator,” so we could feed Marvin lines and attempt to steer the proceedings to our favor. How did it turn out? Man, I’ll tell you – magistrates get very touchy during war time. We were stuck not only with damages on the luxury night club, but also a stint of community service… which in this war-torn world meant mostly digging trenches and removing unexploded ordinance dropped the night before. Hey, what can I tell you? They treated us like immigrant labor, giving us the jobs they least wanted to do. None of those tuber-like Boraxians were lining up to yank 500 pounders out of the ground, believe you me. (When I told Mitch Macaphee about the verdict, he turned green as a Martian.) Worse luck, our performance was cancelled, so we were forced to work off the damages with pick and shovel.

So what the fuck. Do any of you know what the code number 76-OX9-NL stands for on a laser guided missile? I know it means turn the cylinder either one click to the left or three click to the right, but I don’t remember which. Mitch! Come on and take a look at this thing, will you? I’ll just finish this trench. Pharaoh… Let my people gooooooo!!!