Tag Archives: interstellar tour

Usual Rubbish

Money tree.

I don’t know, man. My pressure suit is a little frayed around the elbows. I don’t even know where I left my magnetic boots. We’re probably not ready for that, but … if you insist. Jesus.

Ah, hello. Band meeting. Joe’s here, that’s all I can confirm. No one else wants to go on the record, including Marvin (my personal robot assistant), though he has appeared on at least one of our records, truth be told. (Forgive the double-entendre.) We’ve been tossing around ideas for generating a little cash, as the Big Green collective has been struggling a bit of late. The obvious remedy would be another tour, probably of the interstellar variety, but as I was saying earlier, our gear is threadbare as hell and we don’t even have a line on a spaceship rental. God knows what we would cross that trackless void in this time around.

Well, to be sure, the lure of money drives humankind to desperate means. We could probably wrangle a string of marginal gigs between Neptune and Aldebaran, though I’m not clear on how lucrative the exercise would turn out to be. The exchange rate on Quatloos is in the toilet these days. And between the two of us, I’m getting a little long in the tooth for space travel – not sure I could hold my breath long enough to get to Neptune, to say nothing of destinations beyond the Kuiper Belt. Also … we’re short a guitar player. Just saying.

Sounds like a tour

Not that playing gigs is the only way to shake the money tree. Every musician runs into this situation at various points in her/his career. What’s it going to be? Washing dishes? Done it. Carrying boxes and stocking shelves? Done that, too. Driving a cab? Well … I haven’t done that, but I came close once or twice. Then there’s Mitch’s idea. You might recall how he’s been experimenting with gravity. Well, he was musing on how to monetize his new technology, and it struck him that people pay for water, they pay for electricity, they pay for heating fuel … maybe he could get them to pay for gravity. He’s thinking about doing a market test – namely, sending gravity bills to our neighbors. If they don’t pay, he would train his anti-grav ray on their houses and claim that their service had been discontinued. That’s when the simoleons start rolling in.

Okay, well … there may be nicer ways to make a living.  Like … I don’t know … playing music, perhaps.

 

Usual Rubbish

Next up.

No, I’m not interested. No, really … not interested at all. And no, I’m not holding out for a better deal. I really just don’t want any part of it, okay? So just drop it. I said NO. (Jesus!)

Oh, hello out there. I was just having a little conversation with one of my esteemed colleagues. And he was getting a little uh-steamed, if you catch my meaning. Okay, full disclosure, it was our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, inventor of Marvin (my personal robot assistant), veteran of many deep space excursions, and the man who broke the space warp. (It was just warped before he got a hold of it, and now the damn thing is busted, thanks to his carelessness.)

What’s all the commotion? Funny you should ask. Perhaps you have some mad scientists in your life as well, or maybe a conventional scientist – someone who works in chemistry or physics, for instance. Well, if so, you know that people of science are frequently tempted by large corporations to use their great skills for some money-making venture, proffered on the promise that the professor will get his or her beak wet in a serious way. Mitch is no exception to that rule. And he’s just gotten an offer that has him seeing dollar signs everywhere.

Sounds dodgy, Mitch.

Personally, I think this is a scam. Mitch is talking about some joint Russian – Luxembourgian venture to mine minerals in outer space. He has a contact familiar with the deal who can get him in on the ground floor, particularly since he has experience with monetizing outer space through the application of advanced technologies used by extractive industry. Turns out that on all of those interstellar tours, when we thought Mitch was asleep in his cot, he was drilling for corbomite of cosmonium or some other precious earth that he would later unload on the galactic commodities market. Who knew? I always thought he traveled with us because he liked our music, or just enjoyed being a member of our posse. But no … it was filthy lucre leading him on, crawling in through his ear and squatting down on his brain.

Thing is, Mitch needs to talk others into investing in the venture. That’s what makes me think it’s a scam. That and the outer space part. Again …. not interested. But by the look on Mitch’s face, this ain’t over.

Usual Rubbish

Looking back.

Are you sure that happened in 2007? I’m pretty sure it was in 2006, but if you say so, I guess I’m wrong. The years all fold into one another, don’t they? I was just saying that last year, and … well … there you have it,

Oh, hi. Just playing a little game of total recall here with Marvin (my personal robot assistant). Now, of course, he can’t say much aside from a few metallic squeaking sounds, but he can give me tickertape readouts like any good electronic brain from the middle of the last century. We’re trying to recall when our first subterranean tour happened. Hell, I don’t know why I don’t just look at our old blog pages instead of relying on Marvin’s Commodore-era processor. (Except that when I wrote those blog posts back in the day, it was on a computer almost as primitive as him.)

Did we actually do this at some point? 'Fraid so.I suppose more than a few of you have noticed that we don’t do a lot of tours anymore. Maybe the occasional day trip to a distant asteroid once in a blue moon (not to mention the gig we did on that blue moon once), that sort of thing. We have become more sedentary over the passing years, and one glance at those old blog posts confirm it. God knows, back in THOSE days we were sailing off to distant solar systems at the drop of a hat, teaming up with extraterrestrial guitarists (like sFshzenKlyrn of the planet Zenon, a real shredder), braving all manner of threat and hostile conditions. Heady times indeed!

Well, that was then. Now we hang around the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, wandering our way into our makeshift studio a few times a week to record songs or podcasts or what have you. Some would say we have given up. Others would say we’re a bunch of useless assholes who don’t deserve the time of day. Still others might argue that our dietary preferences are an abomination and run counter to the laws of god and man. Who am I to say that any of them are wrong? Busted!

We’re about looking forward, not backward. That’s the only way I can keep myself from walking into walls. I’m a practical man, some might say.