Oxygen supply? Go! Inert substances containers? Check! Highly explosive fuel cells? Gotcha – right over there, on top of that stack of souvenir cigarette lighters.
Well, I shudder to say it… because it usually ends up not being true… but I really think we’re ready to lift off this time. We’ve got the ship all loaded up. We’ve got anti-Lincoln bailed out of jail and sober as a cowbird. We’ve got our maps unfolded and our compasses oriented true north. We’ve got our tent-pitchin’ gear, our bottles of sterno, our pots and pans, our paper plates. Then there are a stack of pic-a-nic baskets, just in case Yogi drops by. Actually, Mitch Macaphee had ordered Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to load up a couple of cases of Spaghetti and meatballs, but my illustrious brother – no big fan of Chef Boyardee objected. And around here, what Matt says goes. (Unless he complains about my Rice A Roni. Then, fuck ‘im. )
Hey, you know what it’s like any time you go on a long trip. What to take, what to leave behind, right? Well, it’s no 
different here in Big Green land. I swear, if we had room in our rented, randomly-ventilated spacecraft, we’d take the whole freaking Cheney Hammer Mill with us, lock, stock, and hammer. That would just be indulging our worst impulses, though, and lawd knows, we never, ever, EVER do that. (If I could get anti-Lincoln away from his Jack Daniels long enough, he’d tell you himself.) So we take essentials and as many hangers-on as we can squeeze into the somewhat limited cabin space our interstellar ride affords. This time around, we’ve got a fairly lean passenger list, given the state of the economy and such. (No one can afford to leave their hovel for six weeks… it’s just an economic reality.) But I’d say we have a quorum.
Who’s going? Well, the three Big Green band members, of course. John, Matt, and… and… who’s the other guy? Then there’s our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, and his invention, Marvin. (We need Mitch to keep us on course to perdition.) I sent out 
invitations to Trevor James Constable and several other tag-alongs from previous tours, but most of those returned unopened, postage due. (Are stamps still 34 cents or did they go up?) Big Zamboola will be staying behind to keep an eye on the mill…. that’s just a practical consideration (he takes up a bit of space). The man-sized tuber has agreed to come along as well, not that he has a whole lot to say about it. We just load him into the terrarium and he’s ready to fly. (I think that’s what they used to call getting “crimped” back in the day.) Of course, we made the mistake of having everyone sign ship’s articles this time out, so now John has taken to calling himself admiral and the rest of us midshipmen. I think we need to talk.
Hey, but all in all, we’re ready to launch. Countdown has begun. Look out Jupiter – we’re going to turn that great red spot green. Just watch us!
things you do is fill out paperwork designating a health care proxy, establishing medical directives (i.e. resuscitate or not), and so on. Basically routine stuff that the hospital needs to know when a loved one is receiving care and may not be able to speak for him/her self at a crucial juncture. Pretty scary, eh? What…. aren’t you scared of that? Because that’s what Sara Palin (a.k.a. the Wassila brain trust), John Boehner (pronounced “boner”), Chuck Grassley (a.k.a. his own grandmother), Newt Gingrich (a.k.a. Captain Yesteryear) and others are trying to make you afraid of: a routine consultation that proposed health care legislation might end up providing coverage for. Not some new federal power to cull the herd. Just funding for the kind of meeting people have with their doctors all the freaking time. Be afraid!
When I see the air time allotted to the immensely ill-informed protesters at various Congressional town hall meetings, I feel grateful that we live in a nation that allows a voice to dissent… until I recall that, in the run-up to both the Afghan and the Iraq wars, very very few voices of articulate dissent were allowed on the airwaves, and almost as few have been heard from since… even though, in the case of Iraq particularly, the claims of the anti-war movement have been borne out to an extent that no one would have thought possible six years ago. Seems that only those dissenters who are aligned with major corporate interests can expect to be heard from loudly and clearly. Not that they seem all that appreciative. Hell, here they are at a public forum that allows private citizens to comment, participate, and even debate political leaders, and they act as though they’re being squelched, even though they are, in fact, squelching the opinions of those who disagree with them.
Oh, hiya. Didn’t hear you log on. (Usually, I’m pretty good at that.) I was just engaging in a little scientific debate with our mad, mad science adviser, Dr. Mitch Macaphee, Ph.D., D.M.S.A. (that last one stands for “Diplomate of the Mad Science Academy”, and august body located in Madagascar), who claims that our weight ratios are all askew for lift off. You see, this is the problem with mad geniuses… they get this crazy idea, and it may be a really, really good idea in crazy town, but here in NORMAL-ville, it’s bug fuck nuts, okay? I mean, I happen to know (from watching repeats of Lost in Space over and over again) that the Jupiter 2 space vehicle is very weight sensitive. If our cargo is off by even just a few ounces, we could go spiraling off into deep space, rudderless and alone, waiting for bored television writers to scribble us back to civilization. This was the fate of the Robinsons, as many of you know, on more than one occasion. This will NOT be the fate of Big Green … yet again.
doing it, Hump!) And though no one else seems to give a shit, I am trying my damnedest to keep it from happening again. And yet here I have Mitch trying to convince me that weight doesn’t matter, because in an alternate universe that he’s visited recently, there exists an equal and opposite counterbalance to every object in our universe. Ergo, according to Mitch, nothing weighs anything, if you think of the two universes as part of a single, infinitely massive (or not) thing. And I’m like, w.t.f., Mitch… you can go ahead and kiss the equal and opposite doppelganger of my ass in that other universe.
Lincoln.) Downright dangerous, in fact. After all, our nefarious corporate label, Loathsome Prick Records, has chosen to send us on a swing through the terrifying Kuiper comet belt just beyond the orbit of Neptune. I think Matt spoke for all of us when he said, “WHAT THE FUCK? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” He may have understated the matter slightly. The Kuiper belt is not known for particularly good indie-rock venues, though there are one or two annual events that are relatively well-attended, I’m told. (Not sure who… or what… typically attends them, but no matter.) A whole lot of frozen ammonia out there…. which piques Anti-Lincoln’s interest.