None so far, anyway. Fear? I laugh in its face. Danger? Mere amusement. Calamity? She and I are old friends. (I call her Jane.) Certain doom? I spit in your face, you flimsy cardboard sideshow attraction…. What was that? Did you hear a noise?

Welcome back to the traveling sideshow that is Big Green‘s GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE SUMMER TOUR 2006 – a welcome departure from the trials of a tiresome planet Earth, to say the least. I can only speak for our tiny corner of that accursed globe, but even so, there are troubles-a-plenty down there. If you are reading from some extraterrestrial locale, heed this piece of advice – stay away from the one called Earth! Stay AWAY!!! Misfortune awaits you there – just ask Big Zamboola, who was once a planet himself and found it necessary to abandon his own personal gravitational field in order to accommodate the demands of the demonic planet Earth. Christ, you can’t even get a decent egg salad on rye down there without someone shorting you on the half-sour pickle. (Last time, I got a freaking dill spear… out of a jar! Barbarians!)

Okay… enough of my tirade. You’ve come to hear happy news, and I shall not disappoint you. For those of you who were wondering (and I’m sure there are at least one or two), I did ultimately relent and allow Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to take the helm of our J2 space RV and guide us to the mysterious planet Kaztropharius 137b where the vast majority of our records are sold. Good thing, too. It turned out that our witless wandering was being remotely guided by nefarious critters from a nearby dead star (the one known as “Dead Star 14”), who were attempting to steer us into a black hole (or what sFshzenKlyrn would call, “a fun, fun carnival ride!”) I guess until you’ve been crushed to a wafer-thin singularity, you can never know how purely FUN it is. (Try this at home, kids.) Luckily, trusty (or is it “rusty”?) Marvin took the reins and pulled us away from the icy grip of fate just in time. Man-o-man, what a ride.

We were greeted on Kaztropharius 137b with the usual enthusiasm. All the denizens of that mysterious, murky world were flashing their little blue lights at us. This is what passes for applause here, and it can be a bit disconcerting from the prospect of a climate-controlled stage. In fact, the flashing became so furious at one point that Matt nearly dropped his bass guitar and the man-sized tuber (who was doubling as a conga stand) started breaking out in strange blisters. There may be radiological factor involved here, I’m not certain. (Note to self: schedule visit to health clinic upon return home…. assuming they’re still accepting no-pays.) The only one who was unaffected was — of course – sFshzenKlyrn, to whom the laws of physics do not in any serious way apply. (Some of you may remember the time, a few years back, when he grew to be ten stories tall. Now there’s a guy who refuses to obey the laws of physics.)

Things went pretty well, though, I must confess. Only headache is the lack of confirmation on our upcoming jobs in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Kind of want to have a signed contract before we cross the void, know what I mean? Poor old Lincoln has been sitting by that FAX machine for the last two weeks, waiting, waiting, waiting for word to come buzzing through. A man of great patience, our man Abe. (My guess is that anti-Lincoln pulled the plug on the FAX machine, but don’t quote me on that.   

No, no… don’t run. I won’t go there. Just humming quietly to myself. World of my own. Did I hear a whistle just then? Passing bobolink, perhaps? Perhaps not. Did I say something? Did you?

So much for twenty questions. (Always hated that game!) Well, here we are in deep, deep shit… I mean, space, trying to feel our way from solar system to solar system without the benefit of anything even resembling a trained spacecraft pilot. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) keeps insisting that he knows how to drive this thing, but quite honestly… I can’t understand a word he’s saying, and unless he makes himself a bit clearer, I simply cannot risk putting all of our lives in his “hands” (actually claws, but you get me). Mitch Macaphee, our chief science advisor, claims to have a master’s license, and he has actually piloted us through this “middle passage” between solar systems before, but…. well…. he’s having a bit of a bender this week. Got his hands on some Neptunian schnapps during our showcase on Uranus and, well… the rest is history (or should I say nausea). Anyway, not a chance of letting him have the tiller. 

Of course, that leaves us quite literally rudderless. I mean, I don’t know how to fly this thing. And much as I have every confidence in Trevor James Constable as an expert in etheric or bioplasmic energy, piloting interstellar RV’s is a little beyond his ken. And sFshzenKlyrn… don’t even get me started on him. The last time we let our Zenite guitarist take the reins, he took us on a scrape ’round the galaxy none of us are likely to forget. (As a pan-dimensional being of no fixed shoe size, sFshzenKlyrn regards conventional scientific devices like space ships as nothing more than cheap carnival rides.) So ultimately I’ve resorted to just snapping a little toggle switch on our control console that’s marked “Auto Pilot”. (Actually, it has an engraved plate that reads “Hatch Light”, but that’s crossed out and “Auto Pilot” is written over it in crayon.) Up to now, we haven’t crashed into anything… but then I don’t think we’re any closer to Kaztropharius 137b, either. It’s probably too soon in our meanderings to ask Big Zamboola if he knows how to drive this thing. (After him, it’s the man-sized tuber.  

How have our gigs gone so far? Glad you asked. This is interesting, actually. The Neptune jobs were actually quite well attended, though because of the poisonous atmosphere, we were unable to really connect with the crowd… or even see them through the vapors. So how did I know anyone was out there? Could see the glowing ends of their fancy panatela cigars, that’s how. The rest was just simple arithmetic. (Big favorite up there on Neptune, those stogies – if you ever want to make friends there, just flick your little oxygen lighter and fire one of those babies up. They’ll treat you like their old uncle scaly.) The showcase thing on Uranus didn’t go so hot, frankly. I told you about Mitch’s little… well… issue. Then the stage, for Christ’s sake, was made of molten nickel. (We have a stipulation written into our standard contract that magma-based performance surfaces are not acceptable – John White insisted on that, and with good reason!) To top it all off, it turned out that the representative from Loathsome Prick Records was a real… well… loathsome prick. Who woulda thunk it? (You woulda? Hmmmmm….)   

So we’re essentially two for three on this GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE SUMMER TOUR 2006. Not too shabby. That is, if you don’t count the fact that we’re drifting aimlessly at this particular juncture. At least now posi-Lincoln has an opportunity to catch up with some of those club owners, and he has been working the wireless relentlessly since we executed our trans-stellar injection. I think he’s hoping to get us into the Hard Rock Cafe on Polaris, but don’t hold your breath. (Hmmm… Maybe we should give Marvin a crack at that astrogator….   

Is that a southern moon or a northern one? Little hard to tell from this perspective. Everything is relative, relatively speaking. I even have relatives in my band. Matt Perry – my brother. Little known fact. Oh, and John White… brother-in-law. Kazow – now you know. 

Okay, so anyway. Big Green has embarked on its very special GET ME THE HELL OUTA HERE Tour 2006, after much discussion of logistical considerations, much debate, much…  too much… pain in the ass nattering over every detail, our great space cruiser finally lifted off, hours behind schedule. Like 400 hours. (That’s actually days behind schedule, but we’ll call it hours.) Well, like I said, there was a lot of preliminary bullshit. Ship’s manifests to manifest. An entire complement to compliment. Orders to be put in order…. I’m telling you, these things take time. The important thing is, we sailed off into the heavens with all of us on board, and just minutes behind the arrival of the bailiffs at the door of the semi-deconstructed Cheney Hammer Mill. (Close shave!)

Many people have asked (don’t ask how many… just trust me) about the spacecraft we use (I’m telling you, it’s more than a few people… lots of people, okay?) when we go on these interstellar tours — how does it work, what are its origins, etc.? Well, for those of you who are just dying to know (and you know who you are), we drive a reconstituted stunt model for the original Jupiter 2 spacecraft used in the Lost In Space television series of the 1960s. No, it doesn’t run on “deutronium” fuel, as that ridiculous show suggested, any more than Dick Nixon ran on cottage cheese and ketchup (beyond a certain point). Thanks to the efforts of our chief science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, the phony J-2 is propelled by an eludium positron star-drive with a maximum range of 7500 light years between refuelings. Now that’s economy. Don’t know how it works exactly, but when it’s idling it sounds like this:

….Pocketa Pocketa Pocketa Pocketa Pocketa Pocketa Pocketa Pocketa Pocketa Pocketa Pocketa….

Yeah, I know. Mitch says they all do that. It gets us where we need to go, that’s the point. 

But there are more reasons for using the J-2 than mere economy. Frankly, it’s jolly comfortable – like an RV in space. What’s more, it’s supremely robot-friendly. What with Marvin (my personal robot assistant) as an important member of our contingent (as far as the cyborgs of the galaxy are concerned), this is a prime consideration. The J-2 has a customized magnetic “lock” pedestal built for automatons – old Marvin just steps in there, throws a switch, and he can stand through 40 g’s of forward thrust without pegging a single dial. (That’s how a robot spells comfort, my friend.) The man-sized tuber has his customized terrarium on the lower deck, and even Big Zamboola finds plenty of room to bounce around in the engine room / power core area. What the hell, we’ve got a crew that defies simple definition, if you catch my meaning. Not just any interstellar craft will accommodate them all. 

Anyway, so here’s the plan: We arrive on Neptune this weekend for a couple of pick-up performances, booked at the last minute by Posi-Lincoln, followed by a showcase on Uranus sponsored by Loathsome Prick Records, then it’s off to Kaztropharius 137b for our triumphant return. By that time, hopefully, we will know where the hell else we’re going. (Keep watching that FAX machine, Lincoln – those signed contracts should be coming through any time now!)