Good morning, sunshine. Stop that blinking – just rub the sleep right out of your eyes and get back to work, you shiftless mo-fo. If you want me, I’ll be… in the top bunk… just up the stairs… zzzzzzz…
Yes, exchanges like that take place regularly here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, where your friends in the Big Green collective are now warehousing themselves. When we’re not discussing anarcho-syndicalist theory, we’re making onion dip using sour cream and that cheap-shelf powdered soup mix. (You know, the kind with the crispy onion bits… mmmm, boy!) Then there are the 6-hour meditation sessions over a ceremonial plate of Ramen noodles. (The one who doesn’t fall asleep gets to eat the noodles. If you stay awake two sessions in a row, you can even boil them before you eat ’em.) So don’t think we’re an undisciplined gang of louts over here – we know how to keep the rabble amongst us in line, yessir. (It’s sorting out the rabble from the worthy that gets me confused…. so confused!)
When we are not testing ourselves physically, mentally, or spiritually, we are… well… 
dealing with the day-to-day pressures of life at the top. Did I say “the top”? I meant the other end. Always get those two mixed up. Oh, sure, we’re not exactly a hit factory here on the terrestrial music scene, however much applause we garner on other planets (and asteroids… don’t forget asteroids). But then you know that – that’s why you’re here. (You are here, aren’t you? AREN’T YOU???) You don’t want the kind of pop band that plays stadiums and makes millions and shows up on your favorite television shows and on the boxes of your favorite toaster waffles. You love Big Green because you want a band that lets a man sized tuber help with the mixing console… one that lets the robot assistant drive the spacecraft every once in a while. That’s because, well, you’re special. (And I’m not pandering, so don’t look at me like that.)
Speaking of which… as you may recall, we did, in fact, let Marvin (my personal robot assistant) drive the spacecraft last week. And as a reward for our broad-mindedness, he crashed the son of a bitch. (To be fair, Marvin was just trying to get into the spirit of our flapjack-fueled saturnalia, so he shouldn’t be saddled with all of the blame. Fucker.) In the absence of our scientific contingent, we undertook the task of repairing the vehicle, desperately trying 
to keep to the looming tour schedule our corporate paymasters at Loathsome Prick records recently handed down. But, of course, we had never assembled a spacecraft before… we had no guide for putting the pieces back together. (That sounds vaguely familiar to me.) And I have to say, it looked a little different before Marvin crashed it into the courtyard. Just possible we did something wrong, but…. ain’t no tellin’ until we hit that thruster control. (Insert dramatic tension here. Okay, that’s enough.)
Anyway, another week will tell the story. The countdown to Mars (or Armageddon) has begun. T-minus one six days and counting. Now it’s six days, eleven hours, fifty-nine minutes and fifty-eight seconds. Now it’s…..
1.5 million Armenians were put to death. To speak of it in Turkey now is enough to get you in trouble with the law, much as it is problematic for Turkish Kurds to converse in their native tongue or make culturally significant apparel choices. (Irony alert: back in 1915, the Turks employed Kurds to do some of the killing of Armenians.) The Bush administration and many G.O.P. congressmen have raised the alarm that such a declaration at this time will threaten the safety of our troops in Iraq… not that safety appears to be anything like a central concern, since they were the ones who sent them over there in the first place. Still, they suggest (with uncharacteristic accuracy) that the Turks will be pissed off about this resolution and that it may result in interrupted supply lines via Iraq’s all-important northern frontier. Representatives of the Turkish government have pointed out that, because their country is a democracy, they will have to respond to the will of the people if there is a broad public outcry.
My own guess (for what it’s worth) is that if there were a serious dust-up between Turkey and Iraq’s Kurds, Washington would throw the Kurds over the side as great powers have for many decades. In any case, it does strike me as painfully ironic that Congress is calling the Turks out for the Armenian genocide of 1915 when they cannot bring themselves to stop the killing spree that our own country is engaged in right now in Iraq. It’s not as if the numbers of people killed are all that different – if the Johns Hopkins study is as close to the truth as many think it is, the total may be around a million by now. So our cry of anguish for murdered Armenian families rings a little hollow, frankly. For fuck’s sake, we can’t even own up to the millions killed during our savage attack on Indochina back in the 60s and 70s, when perhaps seven times as much explosives were dropped on that sorry region as on every nation combined during World War II. Have we a moral leg to stand on here? 
What was that? You want more? Already? No chance, Jack. I’m shutting you off. This little watering hole has dried up, my friend.
Whew! Forgive me. Flapjacks tend to bring out the melodrama in all of us. Just last night, posi-Lincoln got a bellyful and started spouting Shakespeare – Henry VI – Part II, I believe, though I’m no scholar, as I’m sure you know. (Keeps calling himself “York” and me “Gloucester,” then galloping off amid some unintelligible utterance. Strange, strange man.) Then, of course, there’s Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who is technically immune to the effects of flapjack consumption, but who is so anxious to be included in everything that he mimics the worst of us. And damn. does he overdo it! First he insists upon taking part in Lincoln’s performance. Then, after nearly a week of pulling our spacecraft together in preparation for our trip to Mars, Marvin, overcome with imagined euphoria, took the sucker up into the airspace above the mill and crashed it into a nearby bean field. Most impressive display.
Constable’s orgone generating device. Unfortunately, both of the more knowledgeable members of our contingent are now plowing much richer pastures in Europe and South America. Yes, friends… Mitch is in Brazil, shaking a casaba right now, most likely, while Trevor James has repaired to the south of France for some kind of bio-etheric conference. Where are they when you need them, eh? (I think I just answered that question.)