Tag Archives: interstellar tour

Usual Rubbish

Inside the April podcast.

Interstellar Tour Log: April 3, 2014
On the surface of Dwarf Planet 2012 VP.

Still out here in Ort Cloud land, taking a bit of a break before heading back home to see what condition the Cheney Hammer Mill is in since our departure some ten weeks ago. (Lawn probably needs cutting.) While I’m reclining in a hammock, waiting for Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to deliver my next High Ball on a silver tray, this seems like a good time to tick through some of the highlights on our brand new March …. I mean, April THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast. Or is it March? Well … no matter.

Anywho, here it is:

Ned Trek XVII – The Romney Syndrome
It looks so realWho would have guessed that we would have made it to the 17th episode of this monthly audio mash-up of classic Star Trek, Mr. Edd, and the 2012 Republican National Convention? Not I. Even so, this episode (introduced as always by Lee Majors) is a riff on the classic series episode, the Paradise Syndrome – Captain Romney bumps his head in a stone outhouse on an alien world, loses his memory, and goes all native CEO on the cigar-store Native American stereotypes who inhabit this television paradise. Oh, and the Nixon android has a zero-gravity tryst with an automated mining vessel.  (You … kind of have to listen to it. )

This month’s Ned Trek features no less than six new Big Green songs, written to move the ponderous plot along. They include:

My Masterpiece
Richard Pearle’s neocon ode to the merits of his greatest work, the Iraq war.

Space is the Devil
Chief Engineer Welsh sings this sea chanty to caution Mr. Ned against engaging the warp drive engines. A stunning performance. (I’m still stunned. Bring me another high ball!)

I Place You First
This is the sick little song a love-struck Nixon android sings to the Halliburton mining vessel before he, well … docks with it. Androids will be androids.

This Horse’s Sense
Mr. Ned laments the stupidity of his human comrades in his signature style.

Happy and Peaceful Here
Romney’s song about finding his way through his idyllic life on the surface of Nobodelcarus, where he has become Chief Financial Officer in his amnesiac state.

Lies from the Pit of Hell
Doc Coburn’s rocker about his personal hero, Congressman Paul Broun of Georgia (and of the Middle Ages).

That’s the show. Hope you enjoy it as much as I’m enjoying this hammock.

Usual Rubbish

Claiming the veep.

Interstellar Tour Log: March 25, 2014
Out in the Ort Cloud neighborhood.

Big GreenHear that click? That was the sound of our spaceship doors locking. This Ort Cloud is a rough neighborhood, so best not to take any chances … now on the last leg of our Interstellar Tour 2014, which we undertook to boost sales of our latest album, Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. A dubious endeavor, to be sure, but one worth at least a thimble of sweat, and we have certainly given it that – with the exception, of course, of Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who is incapable of perspiration. (Smoke comes out of that sucker, but only when it’s very hot.)

Anyway, we’re taking a brief diversion from our tour schedule to lay claim to the recently discovered deep space object known simply as 2012 VP (or “Biden”), a dwarf planet in a very wide orbit around the sun, way out here in Ort-ville. Hey, so what the hell, we’re staking out our claim, by virtue of the Extraterrestrial Homesteaders Act of 2047, which technically hasn’t been enacted yet … unless you are a time traveler, of course. Not saying we are, but we could be … and we have known a few in our time. Trevor James Constable, for instance. But I digress.

Interstellar Tour Log: March 28, 2014
On the surface of Dwarf Planet 2012 VP.

I claim the Veep for Big GreenRocky landing. We weren’t here five minutes before someone got the idea of sending Marvin out there to plant the Big Green flag – the one friend of the band Leif Zurmuhlen made for us back in the day. Hey, well … it’s a little icy out there, so Marvin took a couple of tumbles before finding a spot flat enough to accommodate a flag on a stick. There’s no atmosphere to speak of, so we asked him to hold the free end of the flag while we snapped a picture or two. When we get those back from the pharmacy on Neptune, we’ll share them with you? (Yes, another episode of Luddites in space.)

Okay, so … this is an open invitation to come and visit us on what I’m calling Dwarf Planet BG 2014. Take that, NASA.

Usual Rubbish

Sickening.

Interstellar Tour Log: March 18, 2014
Planet #74 in NASA list. Near Aldebaran.

Yes, Big Green is still out here, on our massive Interstellar Tour in support of Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick, still picking our way through the dross of NASA’s list of 715 planets yet to be explored, blah blah blah. Not the best time to leave your mad science adviser back on Earth. I sure hope Mitch Macaphee is enjoying his time on the beaches of Madagascar or wherever that mad science conference is being held. Frankly, we could use his help.

Need thisThe fact that most of these strange worlds have been featured in American movies and television shows from the 1950s and 60s is little help when you’re trying to determine the precise composition (and toxicity level) of a greenish atmosphere. Sure, you can have that kind of trouble back home, in South Carolina or West Virginia … but at least down there you have your pick of mad scientists. Up here, we’ve got Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and his converted wall barometer.

This planet is one of the ones the Robinsons of Lost in Space fame visited. Not quite sure which, since they all looked essentially the same. (One was called Preplanis, I think, right? But then that one blew up.) In any case, no one to perform for … not even a giant talking chicken. Moving on …

Interstellar Tour Log: March 20, 2014
Planet #526 in NASA list. Edge of the Milky Way Galaxy

Big GreenHuh. Thought I just saw Neil DeGrasse Tyson fly by in a strange looking spacecraft. Can’t be. Anyway, we may be at the end of the road here, my friends. Everyone is sick of this tour, including Marvin, the mansized tuber (who’s just been sulking in his terrarium all day long), both Lincolns, and even sFshzenKlyrn, who has more than once taken advantage of his ability to skip between dimensions and simply vanished from sight for hours at a time. It’s a little unnerving when you’re onstage in front of a crowd of tiny robots from the planet Industro and you nod to your guitarist to take a solo, and he’s in another freaking dimension. (Perhaps the Fifth Dimension, in which case he would have to learn some harmony parts pronto.)

Great googly-moogly, as they say in the vernacular. We’re sick of this shit. Next stop, terra firma … I think.