I know, I know. I shouldn’t-a dunit. But I dunit. They left me no alternative. Do I suck? Maybe. But at least you know where I stand. (Am I standing? Feels like sitting…)

Howdy, friends. Expect you recall last week’s tiresome debacle and the intolerable acts of our extraterrestrial overlords, as they came to occupy our humble city hall. Who could forget the arrogance of a certain Gizmandiar? A gentleman he is not. (Neither gentle, nor man… nor any other species I’ve ever come across.) I am not being ungenerous. Consider, if you will, the bill of particulars with regard to said Gizmandiar. He and his minions hath:

1. deliberately and wantonly, with malice aforethought, driven us from our ancestral (relax – that’s just the paint color) home and consigned us to a life of enhanced beggary (that’s like the beggary we enjoyed previously, only with 65% more cat’s pee);
2. issued the intolerable and wholly despicable decree known as “Special Order 14-2007” which directs us, on pain of prosecution, to “refrain from employing any foul, obscene, or abusive language commonly known as ‘swearing,'” thereby foreclosing our most immediate (and highly satisfying) remedy to item #1 (dag nab it!);
3. taken the foul and underhanded step of using his considerable resources to purchase our corporate record label (Loathsome Prick Records), subsequently employing that organization as yet another tool in our ongoing persecution (which is to say, well beyond the level of persecution we had experienced previously simply by being associated with Loathsome Prick Records);
4. heinously and relentlessly transformed the distressed brick courtyard of our beloved abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill into a carpet-like monoculture of lawn grass, later applying the same pernicious ground cover to other public and private spaces throughout our community.

Need I go on? I think not. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is pointing frantically to his watch, so… How do you battle a well-heeled cadre of space aliens who have taken over your town and evicted you from your squat house? Fight fire with fire, my friends. Oh, yes… Gizmandiar and company are not the only space aliens in the universe. And we of Big Green can name one space alien of long acquaintance who could easily mop the floor with these interlocutors, these usurpers, these…. gall-dangit, I wish I could fricking swear!!!

Ahem…. that space alien is, of course, sFshzenKlyrn, our occasional sit-in guitarist from the planet Zenon, located in the small Magellanic Cloud, quite a long ways from here. Didn’t want to do it, but with all that’s at stake, I put a call in to sFshzenKlyrn and asked for assistance. Are there risks? Oh, yes. Great risks. Remember what happened a few years back when our Zenite friend had a few too many flapjacks. (Suffice to say, they had to add a whole new chapter to Lost New York in the last edition.)

So, yeah… I know I may have acted rashly. But I think we can control the unpredictable force of nature that is sFshzenKlyrn this time. Or not….

Why, I’ll moiduhlize ’em! Dose lousy no-good s.o.b.’s! What duh “f” do those “a” holes think they’re doin’, handed us this pile of “s”? Dey got no “effin” principles, dat’s what.

What’s up with all this? Don’t ask! You insist? Rrrrrr…. okay, then. But you asked for it, friend. First of all, welcome once again to the general vicinity of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, where we have availed ourselves of those alleys not already occupied by creatures significantly more fierce than ourselves. (Mice? They tolerate us. Rats? We surrender. Simple rules of the unforgiving streets.) Dislocated and made homeless by that extraterrestrial usurper, Mayor Gizmandiar (formerly of the planet we know as “New Earth”), we have applied every legal remedy we can think of to reclaim our squat house. And all it has earned us is a gag order… and a bitter betrayal. Oh, yes…. betrayal!

First, the gag order. Actually, it’s not your usual variety. It’s more like a judicial parental filter, the “v” chip, if you will, of legal proscriptions. The local magistrate (also an extraterrestrial now, by the way… I think that was a case of transubstantiation, but I would need Mitch Macaphee here to confirm that) has ordered us to refrain from any “foul, profane, or abusive language that might ordinarily be considered ‘swearing’ or ‘speaking obscenely'”, an addendum to his writ helpfully listing words and phrases covered by the gag order. They include:

f**k

c**k

c**ksucker

*sshole

m*th*rf**k*r

sh*t

f**k*ng sh*t

f**k*ng c**k

g*dd*mn s*nuvab*tch

…and a few others I’d frankly never heard before. Well, as you can imagine, this has left us with very, very few options in normal conversation. I mean, how am I to properly communicate to Marvin (my personal robot assistant) exactly how fast I want him to perform some menial task, eh? How the heck am I supposed to compel that freaking man-sized tuber to get his butt out of my easy chair if I can’t use foul or abusive language. This is freaking killing me!

Okay, now as if that wasn’t bad enough, we have just learned that sometime over the course of the last few days, whilst we were seeking warmth in cellar window-wells and sifting through garbage for sustenance, Gizmandiar and his fellow lawn-obsessed space aliens got together enough scratch to buy out our corporate label, Loathsome Pr*ck Records. Under their new management, they have (of course) refused to intervene on our behalf and are now threatening to cancel our distribution deal if we don’t swear our allegiance to Gizmandiar. J*sus effin’ Christmas!

So, yeah… the ne’er-do-wells at our label have, in essence, sold us up the river (or down the alley) in exchange for gold bullion and stock options. Who woulda’ thunk it? Loathsome Pr*ck always seemed such a pleasant sort of company. Such is life. It may be necessary to take drastic measures. Next week: the sh*t hits the fan.

Whirl, whirl, twist and twirl… jump around like a flying squirrel. You pull my beard, I’ll pull your’n. Pick him up and hit ‘im in the head. Hit ‘im again, that critter ain’t dead!

Dang! (I mean, damn!) You learn the weirdest little songs living in the alley. With this heat, everybody’s got their windows open, and the fragrant tendrils of sweet country music waft out into the night and accost your unprotected eardrums. Right now I’m hearing some kind of a twangy ho-down emanating from about three stories up. Probably high time I show my appreciation – Oy! Oy! Toin it down, duh radio! That’s better. (At least I feel better about it – the freaking music is still there…)

Yes, well… if you guessed that the alien-mayor Gizmandiar has succeeded thus far in keeping us out of our adopted home (squat house) the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, then you are indeed correct. Matt, John, Marvin (my personal robot assistant), Mitch Macaphee (Marvin’s personal inventor), Trevor James Constable (keeper of the patented orgone generating device, as seen on T.V.), the man-sized tuber (no parenthetical comment can do him justice), Big Zamboola (former planet), Lincoln (our famous president), and anti-Lincoln (his evil twin) have all been released into the wild, there to do what nature commands. In my case, that’s sleeping in this alley. ‘Cause that’s the kind of fella that I am. (I’m biding my time….)

Others in our party – let’s face it – are more ambitious than me and the man-sized tuber (who’s in the next alley over). Mitch Macaphee is, after all, a man of relative means; a veritable Tarzan of mad science, swinging by vine from international conference to research fellowship to faculty posting. Right now he’s off to Madagascar on some kind of government research initiative (reinventing Lysol, I believe is what he said). In any case, Mitch has options. So has Trevor James, who spent a week in solidarity with us before lighting off to his ranch in California where comfort and plenty await. (Who can blame him, right? I said, am I right?? Is this bloody thing on?)

My apologies. You get cranky out in the alley – I’m sure I don’t have to explain. Anyway – that leaves us with Marvin, the two Lincolns, Big Zamboola, and of course, the tuber… none of whom has anywhere better to go (trust me on this). And as you know, Marvin has little choice, since he is an automated servo mechanism programmed to respond to my voice commands, however imperfectly. I have instructed him to negotiate our return to the Mill and, if necessary, to raise the money for any fines levied against our account. So far no progress – in fact, he’s been sputtering and clanging in the same spot since I issued that command about a week ago. (Personally, I doubt he’s even started the assignment….) Bloody servo mechanisms! When do I get a proper robot? And where’s my jet pack!

Yes, Marvin may be malfunctioning. And his repair man is – wait for it – Mitch Macaphee, now a temporary resident of distant Madagascar. Crikey – don’t tell me I’ll have to send the Lincolns to do our negotiating! Last time they agreed on something, the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter. (Not the diplomatic type…)