Usual Rubbish

New frontier.

Interstellar Tour Log: February 25, 2014
Between Neptune and Pluto, or thereabouts

Big Green“Steve Lawrence”, Matt says. My reply: “Jennifer Lawrence.” Lincoln’s turn: “Jennifer Hudson.” Everyone looks at anti-Lincoln, who scratches his temple thoughtfully. “You lost two points on that one, Abe,” he says with a smirk.

Right, well … you have to occupy your time somehow in deep space, and rather than doing something productive, we’re playing Name-Chain. Yeah, it’s really fun. You name a famous person, and the player to your right has to name another one with the same first or last name, and around it goes. Lincoln got penalized because if you name someone of the same sex, you lose two points. Then you all multiply your score by the square root of corn meal and, well … it gets complicated after that.

Did we play on Jupiter last week? Well, the less said about that the better. Not sure what happened, but whatever it was it left a big red spot. Not exactly what we had in mind for our interstellar tour in support of Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. Hell, nobody on Jupiter had even heard of Rick Perry.

Interstellar Tour Log: February 27, 2014
Near Pluto, I think. (That’s the yellow dog with no clothes, right? Yeah … near Pluto.)

Uh, how bout Uncle Milty?Well, the good news for our Interstellar Tour is that we’ve got a whole boatload of possibilities for new venues. NASA just discovered 715 new planets, and scientists say that the law of averages dictates at least 3% of them must have indie music venues. Even better, our sit-in guitarist from Zenon, sFshzenKlyrn, has been to at least half of these newbie planetoids, and has established relationships with the relevant booking agents. He’s out ahead of us now, greasing the wheels a bit. I was hoping he’d take Marvin (my personal robot assistant) with him, but alas … sFshzenKlyrn flies without a spaceship and Marvin gets vertigo easily. Useless bag of bolts.

Did I just say that out loud? Whoops. Let’s see…. “Al Franken” …. “Franken Beans” ….

Political Rants

Crapucopea.

Not sure what to concentrate on this week for my rant, so I’ll break it up into bits.

Ukraine drama. I have heard endless reports on NPR and NBC about the Russian flag being raised above the Crimean capital and how much this is becoming like the bad old days of the Cold War. Much, too, has been made of Russian military exercises near the border of Ukraine, termed by the media as “provocative” – a word they no doubt borrowed from McCain or some other favored pol. Just rewind to their last reports about Korea and our planned military exercises there – did they use the same modifier? Didn’t think so. Not provocative in any wayThat potentially catastrophic confrontation-in-waiting apparently can withstand mock-invasions of North Korea and simulated bombing runs without being “provocative”. So, why are the Russian exercises any worse? If there’s a return to Cold War mentality, it’s on the part of our corporate media. (Most of our politicians have never left that particular ideological space.)

Arizona anti-gay bill. This notion of religious freedom, based on the dodgy concept of “who would Jesus refuse to serve,” is obviously based on a very skewed interpretation of Christian values – namely, tolerate no one different from you. That Jan Brewer vetoed it is no surprise. Why did it take her several days? Because the attention of the nation was on her for that stretch of time, and she was happy to bask in it – an art form the senior senator from her state has perfected over his decades in office.

Jobs and health. I’ve heard a number of reports about the CBO estimate of potential job losses related to the Affordable Care Act. These are mainly attributed to people who work specifically for a job related health care benefit choosing to opt out of the workforce. One economist / commentator I heard this morning suggested this might be a drag on the economy. But what, after all, is the economy? Is it metrics on productivity … or is it how well individuals are doing? When someone leaves a job they really don’t want, doesn’t that open a position for someone else? Should we really be chaining people to work and holding them hostage for the sake of health insurance coverage?

I think not.

luv u,

jp

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Next stop: who knows?

Interstellar Tour Log: February 19, 2014
An unnamed rock garden in deep space, somewhere east of Jupiter

Big GreenWell, once again, we were sold a bill of goods. I think we’ve got some canned peas in there, maybe a little hard tack, some burlap sacking material (in case we have sack races), a jar of peppermints for the children, and an oil lamp. Who knew there was a general store on Ceres?

Aside from that, though, we were given bad advice. That Mr. Nerim character wasn’t telling us the truth at all. Apparently, hydrofracking is not utterly harmless. My evidence? Ceres, the alpha asteroid – the big brass buckle in the asteroid belt – is now a little smaller than it was when we arrived. Fact is, part of the asteroid was blown to bits and hurled into deep space. And as luck would have it, it was the part that we were camping out on.

So when old Nerim pushed the plunger on his cartoon-TNT detonator rig, it sent that side of Ceres (and our sorry asses) on a journey of undetermined length and destination, our battered rent-a-spaceship floating in a swarm of asteroid fragments, some the size of a house. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is beginning to regret having accompanied us on our Interstellar Tour in support of Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. His rationality processor must be working properly.

Oh yes, one more thing …  YAAAAHH!

Interstellar Tour Log: February 21, 2014
Orbit of Jupiter, gas giant

Let's check it out, man. (You first.)Well, after several days of drifting aimlessly, we appear to have settled into orbit around Jupiter, the bull moose of the outer solar system. Our sit-in guitarist from the planet Zenon, sFhzenKlyrn, has volunteered to visit the surface of the gas giant to see if there are any performance opportunities, since we’re in the neighborhood. I’d go myself, but alas, I require oxygen and Earthlike temperatures, to say nothing of solid ground. Sure, we’ve played the Great Red Spot before, but that was back in the day. (It’s probably a gas station now, like most of the clubs we played back then.)

Weird ass music since 1986